#i also have no clue where this is in the timeline. fuck it we ball.

[vict7r]

SHE  TURNS  WHEN  HE  ENTERS  THE  KITCHEN,  big  eyes  flicking  over  the  other  for  just  a  moment  before  she  goes  back  to  what  she  was  doing.  the  smell  of  eggs  and  toast  and  –  oh,  she  should  probably  say  something,  shouldn't  she?

❛  thank  you  for  letting  me  sleep  here  last  night.  ❜  the  'it  was  embarrassing'  is  implied,  because  padme  would  rather  die  than  admit  she'd  curled  up  next  to  him  and  asked  to  sleep  there  because  her  nightmare  was  so  bad  she  cried.  soaked  the  gravel  that  crunched  under  her  shoes  and  everything,  she  was  so  scared,  ❛  you  need  to  eat  breakfast,  though.  you  haven't  been  and  it's  worrying  me.  ❜  padme's  voice  is  delicate  as  she  flips  the  eggs,  not  looking  up  –  she's  better  at  being  stern  with  him  when  she  doesn't  have  to  look  up  at  him.

[r0ttente3th]

hey if anyone wants the Who Killed Markiplier and a bit of Wilford Motherluvin Warfstache lore, heres all of it! (that i know of!)

WHO KILLED MARKIPLIER + WILFORD MOTHERLUVIN WARFSTACHE SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

have fun!! also please have watched WKM and maybe WMLW before reading

so damien, mark, and will have been friends since they were young. there is a woman named celine in all of this, who is damiens twin sister. mark dates celine because he loves her, but she cheats on him with will. so mark of course is beyond fucking angry at will, even though it was actively celines choice to cheat on him. so mark invites them all over for a dinner, all of them being damien, will, abe the detective (not an ego), anddd i think thats it?? other than us, the viewer, the district attorney, who happens to look a LOT like damien. mark dies. will doesnt care too much because he understands mark was angry at him, and damien gets upset with will because yknow, their friend just died and hes kinda nonchalant. so with abe, we start to try and find clues of who killed markiplier, of which will is always a bit suspicious. All the sudden, celine knocks on the door, and lets everyone know that something is happening that involves black/ evil magic.

everyones kinda like, woah, huh? and she just kinda, forces everyone to do some stuff? she does something with a crystal ball in a room, upon another character (forget his name) says "hey, ive prepped for this, we gotta get out of here or youll all die". damien says no, goes in to try and help his sister, and will and abe fight because will is sus. will accidentally shoots abe through the heart, and while we're trying to wrestle the gun away from him, he shoots us, and we canonically die. we wake up in a black void, where damien and celine are there. they explain to us that actor mark has actively possessed damiens body (through the crystal ball thing celine i did i guess??) and has the ability to basically warp time and space, and create his own personal timeline in a way. but before we "died", damien had an encounter with mark (where he learned this info, celine already knew and was trying to protect him ig), and this is where actor mark tells him "im going to make my own story, the one where shit goes my way, but every story needs a villain" and he actively pushes damien to be said villain. anyways, we meet in the void, get informed, and celine tells us she can do something (i cant remember), but whatever happens, whatever she does, results in all three of us, damien, celine, and us, repossessing the district attorneys body. but considering i think it involves black magic, damien, or the body, now known as darkipier, has dark powers as well and is a little bit goofy! anyways, dark decides to be actors villain, but in the way he doesnt want him to be.

Darks entire personality to me is ironic because his main goal is to literally be as fucking annoying as possible, fuck up all of actors storylines and basically just be a pain in his fucking ass throughout the stories he creates

anyways, we wake up to will sitting on a nearby bench, clutching damiens little staff (because he had one), and we can see hes yknow..... fucking shocked! is beyond happy that we arent dead, and proceeds to be delusional, think its all just some funny sick joke, and stumbles off screen calling for damien. and this is where it gets kinda complicated??? so, think of like, each of marks videos as well,,, a video, or a comic book! actor can create videos of his own, and proceed to crawl into the white space of the comic books. dark and wilford (who becomes wilford after the WKM incident, william J barnum quite literally no longer exists) can also do that. each character has their own story, which is obviously written! but william was pushed out of his character because he ran into a scenario that wasnt scripted for him, which is where he becomes wilford warfstache. so what he does, is he spends years hopping into other peoples storylnies, trying to break them out of character because hes the only one who is truly aware. and then "wilford motherloving warfstache happens", where abe comes back (because he wasnt supposed to die), and is actively hunting him down because he killed us, the district attorney.

all he remembers is, the stuff that his character needs to know. he doesnt know where hes been ig, hes just the classic detective noir character. he knows hes hunting down warf, doesnt need to know the specifics bc his CHARACTER already knows it. but, he encounters warfstache! manages to capture him, which im presuming wasnt meant to happen, because this is where he realizes: 'wait.. i dont know anything about where youve been, i dont know any of the specifics, i dont actually have all the places youve supposedly been'. and warfstache manages to break him out of character. abe ofc is freaking the fuck out because that technically means none of this is real, and none of it makes sense. so warf technically presses pause on abes youtube video, and says 'hey, you need to destress, lets have some fun before you have to go back to your story'. because in a sense, wills story already ended, so warf has to create his own story line. he has no destined future. so they dance and have fun because inevitably, abe will have to resume his own story, and warf is gonna be left alone with nobody bc nobody is sentient! which is why hes constantly trying to fuck shit up too! breaks in suddenly in the middle of videos, causes havoc, because hes trying to create a scenario that breaks the person out of their character, so theyre aware like him. anyways, he inevitably starts to go insane and desperate, which is why hes known for 'haha shooty shooty bang bang!' because hes just, kinda fucked in the head i think. anyways we havent had a continuation in awhile really, but thats where they all kinda are atm!!

have fun!!

[dbittz]

Mortal Komabt 1 Story/Theme Thoughts (Spoilers)

Mortal Kombat 1 released recently. I haven't played it cause I don't have a PS5, but I want to be apart of it so I've watched gameplay and I know how the story unfolds. I have a lot of thoughts about everything but if there is one thing I want to say/express is that while I love a lot of what happens with this game and the "reboot" aspect of it all, part of me feels that they dropped the ball in a way at the end. I'll try to explain as we go and I think the biggest clue or upset is the tagline and ultimately how the story unfolds.

"It's in our Blood". That is the big tagline for the MK1. What I got from this and what they initially showed is that no matter what changes Liu Kang made to restart the universe and make it better, it wouldn't work. That humans/creatures/characters at their core are violent or that combat is an essential part of life. I see this type of theme or tagline and I'm like "Yes! Let's roll with it." I was really excited to see these Iconic characters in the "perfect" world Liu Kang made when he restarted it at the end of MK 11, only for it to all fall apart because no matter what changes Liu Kang made, each character had a core aspect of their personality that brings them back to the character we know them as. Thus, the cycle/events would repeat themselves.

An example I would love to see this with is Shang Tsung. We know him to be a bad guy. He's always been a bad guy. It would be interesting to see how someone would go about making him not a bad guy. How would they change his life? Would they take his powers away? Give him a good life where he didn't need anything else? How would he fall? How would he become a villain again? Is it circumstance? Or is there a fundamental part of Shang Tsung that will always bring him back to the villain we know? It's in his blood. That is the story I would've loved to follow with him Shang and the rest of the MK characters.

Instead, SPOILERS, the story we get is that, Liu Kang is the villain and he has no one to blame but himself for setting up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi to be bad guys. Why? He made their lives fucking miserable. Sure, I get it. The two fucked up a lot of shit and are responsible for some problems, but instead of trying to fix their lives and make them good, Liu Kang tries to make their lives "mundane". Sure he could've done that, but what did he do? He made Shang Tsung a snake oil salesman who would get beaten up when it's discovered his product doesn't work while we learn from the story that Quan Chi worked in the mines. Heck, Havik was a slave who was treated poorly by the rulers of OrderRealm. Like no wonder he wanted to rebel against the governing class. Given the situations these characters were put in, it's no wonder they jumped at a chance for power, to be who they see themselves as.

Now, you could say this is in line with the theme of "It's in our blood" and I see it. No matter what Liu Kang did to restart the world, it ultimately would be one of conflict, kombat, where people are mistreated, evil returns and good must fight back. We find out that there had been a War in Outworld. Jarrod is dead again, like the guy just can't live happily with his wife and daughter(s). But part of me feels like Liu Kang could've tried a little harder to make the universe a better place before it feel apart.

Maybe I'm just upset they did the multiple timelines things that intersected where all the events unfold because evil Shang Tsung from MK 11 manipulated MK 1 Shang Tsung. Lol. Like, in a way it's cool because it takes in account the multiple endings from MK 11, but it also feels like such a cop out.

Overall, the story for MK 1 is a lot of fun. The new origins for everyone and everything were fun to see and experience. And in a way it was fun to see that despite the changes, these characters are still who they are. That they held on to the core aspects of their character, for better and worse. The new changes were also good, like Baraka actually having a character/personality instead of just being a goon. lol

[starry-blue-echoes]

OOOOOOOOOO THAT COULD BE REALLY FUN 👀👀👀👀👀👀

So if I'm doing the math correctly, that would mean the following:

Jodio and Kei are in Steel Ball Run

Johnny and Dragona are in Jojolion

Gappy and Nicholas are in Jojolands

with Kei, I'd imagine she's So Fucking Confused. She has no idea what's happening or where she is or why the FUCK it's the 1800s but she hates it so much. Her one comfort is that she at least has her Stand which...... well, it's something at least. She really doesn't like the new parents she's been saddled with, especially in comparison to how good and kind of a mother Holly had been, but she does grow to have a soft spot for Johnny

Horse riding ends up honestly being her way of Coping. She has no idea how to get back to her own timeline or even what brought her here to begin with, so unless she makes a breakthrough somewhere she's going to be stuck here. Horse riding is the closest thing she has to riding a motorcycle, and isn't looked down on by George. Granted she had a good deal more leeway with him than Johnny did, but she wanted to stay in his good graces as much as possible until she could safely leave without leaving Johnny behind. Him getting shot makes things a bit harder, but The Steel Ball Race is essentially freedom on a silver platter which is why she enters

so of course, when Johnny starts acting real different a week or so before the race begins she notices almost immediately. It doesn't take too long to figure out whatever brought Jodio here was the same thing that brought her which gets her to not kill him, but things are still really tense and uncomfortable between the two. They do reach an agreement which essentially boils down to Let's Keep Up Appearances So I Won't Hurt You. When Gyro ends up added to the mix he gets so confused by Jodio's references and way of speaking, but things get even MORE insane when the corpse parts get involved

Johnny also has no clue what's happening when he wakes up. He just. Woke up in some dirt completely naked with working legs and no memory of how the heck he got there. Blissfully he still has Tusk, but...... yeah he's Really Freaking Confused. He's thankful to Yasuho for helping him, but he's still a bit prickly and defensive because Yeah What The Fuck Is Going On

I'll admit...... I'm not fully sure how he and Dragona end up realising the other is from another time period as well. Dragona wouldn't try to stop him from looking into Holly since they wouldn't be aware of their relation, so maybe something happens with Smooth Operators? I'm not sure, I'm honestly drawing a blank

and while we don't know a whole lot about Part 9, a Gappy Nicholas team up is going to be i n t e r e s t i n g, because we have an amnesiac who's still kinda figuring out the specifics of his moral compass and a Regular Guy from the 1800s, both of whom have Absolutely No Idea What's Happening. And honestly, if they don't play their cards right, Gappy's lack of memory about anything might come to light and cause some....... Interesting issues to deal with

I hope I don't sound rude with this question! But I was wondering...

With the completion of Parts 7 and 8, would Gappy and Johnny be in the Star Swap too?

Sorry! I hope I didn't sound rude!

don't worry, you don't sound rude at all :D

and the reason I've been hesitant to do much for them in Star Swap is because of Jodio. To be fair, this was probably going to be inevitable since being an odd number of Jojo's, some swapping was going to get complicated, and while Jojolands is definitely going to take some time to "fill out" so to speak, I'm hesitant to fully exclude Jodio from the AU

so my plan (for now at least) is for there to be two versions of this part of the AU. One where Johnny and Gappy swap, and another where Johnny, Gappy and Jodio swap in some way which I haven't fully decided yet

[phoenixyfriend]

When Obi-Wan gets to AotC, there's also about two dozen Anakin clones on-site. They're all girls because... IDK Anakin is trans. They have a hive mind and are developmentally a few years younger than Anakin himself.

It's incredibly unsettling to Obi-Wan.

It's almost definitely a "fuck with Anakin's already fragile mental health" ploy by Palpatine, along with a "what if Jedi Black Widows, for me, a Sith Lord. Wouldn't that be neat? That would be neat."

Anakin is torn between "this freaks me out" and "GANG OF BABY SISTERS LET'S GOOOOOOO."

(I just finished reading Like Real People Do by glimmerglanger, so this is definitely inspired by that and the obligatory 'lay back in bed and daydream variations on plot points of that fic you just really enjoyed,' and also a little by Same Heart, Same Blood by loosingletters.)

They're physically like 14-16 on average, and Anakin's vibrating out of his skin with a million conflicting emotions, but when he tells Padme she's just like "oh, you have a handmaiden gang!"

I told this to @willowcrowned and she suggested:

Once Anakin decides to repress the part of him that’s weirded out and just regard them as baby sisters he gets. A little strange about it The first time one of them dies he may or may not slaughter every person he can [in response to Padme's comment] Anakin starts worrying that he needs to get them cool matching outfits

I also chatted about it with @firebirdeternal and they said:

Gang of Unsettling Smol Siblings is exactly the Karma that Anakin deserves

Do you think the Clones have a kind of Collective Name that they use at first that eventually just kind of morphs into a new last name? Skysisters or something? Like Palpatine was trying to be clever and name them like the Nightsisters.

I initially went with "functionally one person" hive-mind but I'm torn.

I think maybe they're BASICALLY one person on Kamino but drift into Separate Consciousness once they're far enough apart physically that their minds don't blend from proximity anymore.

Then they start Dating (like half of them are dating Fett clones because they grew up with these dudes, it's like childhood friends romance), and Anakin loses his mind about Protecting Them and They're Too Young.

Padme: You're nineteen and we just got married, they can date. Anakin: THEY'RE EIGHT. Padme: And the Fett clones are ten and dying for us in the field. Get them rights before you panic about their love lives.

Firebird:

it could be worse, one of them could imprint on Obi-Wan. "Anakin I promise I won't yell at you for the next five stupid things you do if you can figure out a way to stop this baby from having a crush on me" (I like the idea of Obi-wan bargaining not with "I won't be mad at you ever" because they Both Know That's Not True, and instead haggling with specific allowances. Like he's handing out Stupidity Coupons)

Please imagine Mace and Obi-Wan's personal responses to the idea of suddenly having to deal with not one, not two, but OVER TWENTY SKYWALKERS.

Plo is delighted to take one off their hands.

So is Yoda.

Willow:

Mace is like. okay suicide isn’t the Jedi way but on the other hand. i physically cannot deal with this Yoda: a skywalker, you say? one who is tall enough to reach the top shelf, you say? such a skywalker, bring me

Anakin would be given at least one because fuck you, suffer with us, but he's still a padawan so Ugh, fine, no.

I want to say one stays on Coruscant to hang out with the Guard, and ends up half-adopted by Padme. She keeps dressing up the Aniclone left with her in handmaiden outfits and sending selfies to Anakin.

"Hanging out with the little SiL!"

Anakin has so many issues about WHEN his genetic material was acquired.

And there's some confusion from the Fett clones about how much of a hive mind is normal for Jedi. They are confused that the answer is basically none, and "this is WHY nobody clones a Jedi"

ONE OF THEM STEALS BOBA FROM THE ARENA ON GEONOSIS.

Firebird:

"I have followed in our progenitor's footsteps and acquired a sibling." holds up a struggling Boba "He bites."

Willow:

Ooooo okay so if they have a sort of hive mind then they probably don’t have names other than their designations on Kamino right BUT When they SEPARATE The one that picks Boba up on Geonosis gets a name specifically for that. Okay what if the one Padmé picks up gets some variant on ‘pretty’ because she’s always being dressed up BELLE Maybe Yoda’s Ani has a name that means thief? Because obviously Yoda is using Anakin to steal sweets

So, to make the timeline work...

I don't think anyone would give Anakin one of his sisters until after he's knighted at least.

So obviously when they're doing initial placements none of the sisters go to him or Obi-Wan.

Once he's knighted, of course they're already all placed with someone, and Anakin instead gets Ahsoka. He loves Ahsoka. She is also a little sister. He said so.

At some point afterwards, one of the sisters is left without a place because the Master that was in charge of her died in the field battle.

That sister then gets placed with Obi-Wan, because he's already mostly-successfully raised one Skywalker, so he can do it again.

Anakin gets to hang out with her basically all the time.

Ahsoka is very very jealous of this girl stealing Anakin's attention.

Anakin is oblivious to the rivalry.

He asks Barriss to look after them while he's discussing Adult War Things with Luminara and Obi-Wan, and Barriss gets an eye into This Mess, which is quickly colored by Ahsoka growing a puppy crush on the lovely Miss Offee herself.

Firebird:

Ahsoka: Ah yes, my nemesis. Anisister: Ah yes, my new older sister whom I want to impress so bad.

"I will impress her by being Stoic and Competent" "Oh my god she must think she's so much better than me what a bitch"

Anakin is oblivious to most things to be fair Anakin: Laser focused precision fighting machine who can read the tiniest body movements and predict your moves seconds in advance, who also cannot understand even the most basic social nuance. I was originally writing this as to Dunk on Anakin but then I made myself sad, because none of those things are really his fault.

So you know that post about like, Sasuke and Brooding, specifically in the context of "Brooding" as it's used to refer to Nesting Chickens? Grouchy and protective and sitting on a tennis ball trying to hatch it because they're just. "These are my Babies." Anakin Broods. Baby sisters. Must protecc. "I'm actually fine and extremely deadly in combat." "MUST PROTECT."

Bad Guy: [catches Ahsoka in a Trap] Aniclone: Must rescue sister! Aniclone: [fights, is not winning fight, gets ouched] Ahsoka tearing her way out of Trap: I lived bitch. Also: stay the fuck away from her. [murders so hard]

Ahsoka catches the Protective Older Sib feels by the traditional method: "Hey, only I'm allowed to be mean to them."

Willow:

Oh Anakin has no clue what’s going on. He walks in on Ahsoka glaring at the Ani and is like!!! Little sisters!!! Bonding!!! When Ahsoka was about three seconds away from tossing her out of the airlock. Ahsoka mistakenly assumes that Barriss has a crush on the Ani, and gets even MORE jealous.

Obi-Wan is like oh god. I can’t take care of an Anakin going through puberty again. He’s great with periods and other stuff because he read about a billion books. He is TERRIBLE with everything else, as he was the first time.

Barriss is like???? YOU'RE BOTH CHILDREN, PLEASE CALM DOWN, I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN DATING ANYONE, LET ALONE SOMEONE YOUR AGE.

IDK how old Obi-Wan's Aniclone is, probably physically the same age as Ahsoka?

Per @atagotiak on discord:

Also something something, similarities btw Anakin and Obi-Wan where like. "Am I a parent? That seems uncomfortable, I'm too young to be a dad to a kid this age, I mean I'm cool with being a mentor/caretaker but..."

Obi-Wan can't even sidestep parenthood this time.

"Is Anakin basically your dad?" "Uhhhhhh" [Muffled discussion] "So Obi-Wan is your dad." "Okay!" "WAIT NO I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS"

Ahsoka: She's stealing my brother, that BITCH. Obi-Wan's Aniclone: new sister new sister new sister gotta make a good impression

Firebird:

I feel like the Sister Squad would make very effective interstellar espionage agents Even like, kind of by accident. They just get encouraged to branch out in their interests and figure out what they want to do with their lives and end up all over the dang place, and since they're all pretty dang competent they tend to gravitate towards Important Positions wherever they end up. Except for one sister who just retires to raise Space Sheep.

I like that in this AU Palpatine is just like "I will create an army of Loyal Murderers who will obey my every whim and also be a big psychological lever on my Other Pet Murderer," and then they all just Baby Duckling imprint on the first Jedi to be nice to them instead and he has to just be like "Wait no not like that."

AND one of them Steals Boba

I want Obi-Wan's Aniclone to start dating Fives. All the sisters judge her for it, because he's a Goof. A very competent, ARC Trooper goof! But a goof.

Not as goofy as Anakin, though.

Firebird:

Who expects a clone of Anakin Skywalker to not make questionable lifelong romantic choices impulsively?

[shurisneakers]

shut in [4]

Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)

Warnings: cursing, threats

Word count: 3.7k

A/N: greetings everyone!! how are we all doing? i have nothing to say here tbh so anyway stan sam wilson being a lil shit whenever possible. 

i also appreciate feedback so if you would like to, please consider dropping me an ask or comment ly guys!! also if you want to be on the taglist, it’s mentioned at the bottom of the chapter.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Alright, thank you.”

You hung up the call, trudging back to the house, discarding the battery along the way.

The air had a chill to it and there was an occasional breeze that went past, rustling leaves providing an eerily comforting background score. The temperature tended to rise as the day went on but nights were especially cold due to the abundance of trees. 

Even though the stress of the situation you were in constantly consumed all your waking thoughts, you still found the time to appreciate how beautiful your surroundings were. 

The last few days were barely memorable. Sam and you tended to stay out of each other's way unless your meal time coincided or you watched the local news together. The schedule had worked out favourably.

He wasn’t very hard to live with.

Most of the time.

His commentary and small jokes were never-ending but were not as unwelcome as you initially thought. It brought some much needed light into your otherwise dreary day. When it came to figuring out how to do laundry due to your now extended stay or whose turn it was to do it, things got a bit messy but were resolved quickly.

He used to disappear often for hours on end. You never concerned yourself with going after him to find out where he went, figuring that unless he was hatching a plot that led to your demise, he was entitled to his own privacy. He’d return a while later, calmer than when he left.

It was fine. Nothing to write home about. Neither of you were dead yet.

“What are you doing on the bed?” You were reconsidering your last thought when you walked into the bedroom to resume your self-interrupted sleep, only to find him face down on the sheets. “It’s my day today.”

“Just give me some time. I’ll be out of here soon enough.” His voice was muffled as he spoke into the sheets.

“You can take all the time you need tomorrow when it’s your turn.” You swatted at his legs, earning a grunt of chagrin from him.

“Go eat some soup and maybe you’ll calm down,” he fired back, unmoving.

“Today’s not soup day. Which you would know if you paid attention to our schedule. That we made. Together. The same schedule which says it’s my turn today.”

He groaned, shoving his face deeper into the pillow. “My back’s killing me. Just give me a few.”

“Why, what’d you do?” you asked curiously, letting go of his leg.

“Combat training. Took a few beatings, fucked up my spine.”

“Does it hurt a lot?”

“It comes and goes.” Sam finally rolled onto his back, giving you a view of his face. His bone structure was amazing, even from quite possibly the ugliest angle you could have over him. “You should’ve seen the other guy.”

You just stared at him as he linked his arms behind his neck, elevating his head to look at you. He had a small stubble that was starting to grow longer. You wondered if he would shave it. He looked good regardless.

“How’s your beloved?”

“Huh?”

“The person you keep sneaking around to talk to on the phone. I’m not your dad, y’know. You can talk to them inside the house, ‘m not gonna ground you,” he quipped, a small, teasing smile on his face.

“He’s not my lover. Just... an acquaintance.” You felt the awkwardness starting to set in after you trailed off. “Anyway since you’re awake, we need to talk.”

“‘Bout what?”

“What happened that day. We’ve been avoiding it but we need to figure out what went wrong. Or at least a clue.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed, wincing as he sat up straight. “How do you want to do it?”

“Just talk me through how you got put on this mission and what exactly happened that day, I guess.” You took a place on the bed, leaning backward on your hand for support.

He nodded, delaying for a second to collect his thoughts before beginning.

“So basically-”

The sun was particularly relentless that day.  

The ringing bell above the door of his favourite coffee shop was a welcoming sound. The barista smiled at him in greeting, asking if he wanted his usual to go.

His park bench was empty as it always was. Sam liked to think of it as a small gift from the universe; the fact that it was perpetually unoccupied.

He liked to sit there and watch people’s day go by. His iced coffee-

“I don’t really require that much detail.”

“Patience. I’m getting there.”

It was arguably one of the most peaceful days he had had in awhile, and he was hoping to keep the streak going. Nothing seemed like it would phase him, not even the phone ringing, drawing his attention away from the scene in front of him. Caller ID didn’t trace who it was.

“Hello?”

“Wilson.”

Sam gripped the cup so hard he thought it might spill over onto his jeans.

“I told you not to call me, Ransone.”

“But honey we had such a good time last night,” he faux cooed, “You know I have needs-”

“I’m not getting involved in your stupid organisation, Vincent. I told you I’m done,” Sam broke in, not wanting to waste time listening to his stupid dramatics.

“Listen here, Wilson.” The swift change in his tone was looming, threatening. “You’re done when I say you’re done-”

“Wanna bet?” Sam took a sip of his coffee. “I thought we made it clear in Detroit that we’re done. Honey.”

He added the last part out of pure spite just to get a rise out of him. Much to his glee it seemed to work as Ransone let out a deep exhale before continuing.

“That was before we found out there’s a mole in my gang. I want you to kill him.”

“This is way below my pay grade. Have one of your interns do it. Your shitty murder warehouse hasn’t seen much action in a while.”

“This is Pierce we’re talking about. If he’s working for another organisation, his ass is going to be so guarded, these kids couldn’t wouldn’t even get past the gate. Besides, you know my murder warehouse is for special guests only-”

“Man, it must suck real hard to be you right now,” Sam didn’t wait for him to complete his sentence. He finished the last bit of the drink he had left, gathering his things before standing up. “Find someone else. I’m out.”

“You might want to reconsider that. We found him.”

He stopped in his tracks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam said steadily, grip on the phone tightening.

“I think you do, though. Had us fooled for a while there, thinking he’s dead. A little more research, some cash into the right pockets and boom! There he is, clear as day.”

Sam felt a chill go up his spine.

“He doesn’t know we know. We’re just keeping an eye on him for now.”

“If you even fucking think of touching him-” his fists were balled up, struggling to keep his anger from rising.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t.” Ransone laughed. “I’ll just have one of my interns do it.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Ransone. It’s not somethi-”

“Do this hit and I’ll leave him alone,” Ransone interjected. “You’ve worked so hard to pull him from our radar, Sammy. It would be a shame if it all went to waste.”

Sam’s jaw clenched. Suddenly the day didn’t seem as bright as it was a few minutes ago.

“I’ll text you the details. You tend to leave me on read so I thought I’d make it more fun. Do you want the confetti with the message or the lasers-”

Sam just hung up the call, feet firmly rooted in his spot. He had no idea what he was going to do.

The notification of a new text alerted him. Pierce’s address along with the exact timeline of when he’d be home.

It was across the country. If he botched the mission on purpose, Ransone wouldn't be able to find him for a few days at least, much less reach him. He could go on the run-

‘Do it or he dies.’

His train of thought was interrupted by a picture that made his blood boil.

Especially when it exploded with the stupid confetti effect.

“Okay, basically he threatened you with something to go do the hit.” You didn’t ask him what exactly he was threatening him with and Sam didn’t really elaborate.

“Yeah. Didn’t leave me with much of a choice. He’s batshit fuckin’ crazy anyway, I knew he’d do whatever he felt like.”

“So you ended up going.”

Pierce didn’t seem to get many visitors. Not that anyone could be blamed, this guy was one of the biggest pieces of shit Sam had had the misfortune of meeting.

Over the two days he had staked out in front of the mansion to find out if this guy had as much security as Ransone had boasted of, Sam had come to the conclusive truth that no, he very much did not. He had a standard home security system which was lacklustre compared to the rest of the house.

Maybe he just assumed that being a senior member of the mob would garner some fear to his name. Dumbass.

He found the tall shrubbery surrounding the property to be out of the line of sight of the camera, and climbing it wasn't very hard. He landed softly on the manicured lawn, adjusting his gloves and checking his surroundings before pulling his gun that was secured in the waistband of his pants.

He removed the safety, keeping it close to him as he stalked through the front yard.

The red car parked at the side earned an eye roll from him. If he had one, there was no doubt there’d be more. He just had to find a basement or garage.

Walking around the house, he kept close to the wall, searching for any opening to the basement.

It didn’t take long before he found a set of stairs to the exterior entrance of the basement. He checked to see if anyone was around before making his way down them. The lock was unsurprisingly easy to pick.

The basement was mostly dark save for a few strategic lights placed to highlight the magnificence of his several race cars. The man was moved slower than the second coming of Jesus. The cars just seemed like an overcompensation.

The switchboard was not difficult to find. He pulled open the cover, glancing at the switches before turning all of them off, plunging the whole basement into darkness. If his security system was as outdated as Pierce was, it would have turned off along with the rest of the house.

“Oh, that’s why the cameras weren't working when I showed up.” Bits that seemed amiss were beginning to place itself together the more his story progressed. “I assume you entered the house through the window on the side?”

“Sure did.”

Your guess was right. He’s the reason why it was ajar by the time you arrived.

As soon as he entered he had his gun raised. Scanning the room as he went past, his senses were dialed up to eleven. If he was really under the protection of Serpentine, they were doing a terrible job. He had gotten in completely unscathed.

As he made his way deeper into the house, the sound of some movie playing became louder. But he had cut off the power supply to the house.

His eyebrows pulled together tightly into a frown, he made his way down the hall towards the sound. No one was in the dining or living room he canvassed.

Finally, Pierce’s silhouette became clearer. He appeared to just be sitting there idly while a smaller screen played in front of him. It wasn’t a TV, just an iPad.

If Pierce was asleep it would just make the job easier. Gun raised, Sam made his way into the room silently.

Pierce was still. Sam raised the gun, taking a step closer.

A floorboard creaked.

He immediately cringed, shoulders tensed as he came to an immediate stop. It seemed like forever as he waited for Pierce to wake up, to brandish a gun and try and defend himself.

He didn’t.

Taking a step to the side, Sam moved diagonally. Each one was slow. Ready for any sudden movements from his end.

He finally stopped in front of Pierce.

A bullet hole in his forehead. Eyes open. Chest still.

He was dead.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Sam breathed out, lowering his gun. Pierce’s glassy eyes stared blankly ahead. He didn’t look like had been dead for too long.

A soft thud in another room made his head snap up. It was in the same direction from where he came.

He silently moved backwards to the corner of the room, hoping that the darkness was enough of a disguise as he saw someone stalking down the hallway.

“And that’s when you come in. Thought you were comin’ back to make sure he was dead.”

“I had just got there. Saw that everything was off, and just assumed it was a power outage.”

“What about you? How’d you end up there?” Sam had his legs crossed, leaning forward to listen to you.

“Ransone told me that there was a spy who was sending information out for nearly two years. Needed him gone and he wasn’t sure if his other agent would show up-” you mentioned to him- “I guess that’s you. Told me I had an opening at 8pm. When I got there, the CCTV was off. Found the window open so I just used that.”

You were replaying your memory, step by step to remember what exactly you had seen. 

“Heard the movie playing, found no one when I went down the hall. I saw the car keys on the island, which came in handy later. Entered the room, pushed his head with the gun and he just slumped over like a damn rag doll. That’s when you made your grand entrance.”

“Got one chance to make an impression. Had to make sure I looked cool, emergin’ from the shadows and whatnot.”

“It doesn’t make sense though.”

“Ouch. Thought it was pretty legit, actu-”

“No, no-” you waved him off. “Not your entrance. The henchmen thing.”

He paused, mulling over what you said. “If he was working for Serpentine, he would have been more careful. Why did they show up after he’s dead?”

“I don’t think they work for Serpentine. If Pierce was giving them information, they wouldn’t kill him.” You had good reason to be confident about that. You thought you did, from previous assessments.

“Unless they were scared that he’d switch again,” Sam suggested. You looked up from your fidgeting fingers to him. “Didn’t want any of their secrets going back to Ransone. They got to him before we did.”

“Why’d they shoot at us then? If they killed him and left, why’d they wait for us to show up? Why did they try to kill us?”

“I think we’re ignoring the important thing here,” he paused. You looked at him expectantly, prodding him on. “How did they know we were coming? They should have killed him and disappeared but they expected us.”

You tilted your head. “Are you saying-”

“There might be more.”

“Pierce might not have been the only one,” you finished. “There are more spies.”

“Tipped ‘em off. Told them we were going to be there.”

“And killing us was just to poke Ransone with a stick,” you murmured, eyes downcast, fidgeting with your fingers again. “But that just seems random. It doesn’t make sense.”

“None of this makes sense, sweetheart.” Sam scoffed, leaning back again.

“We’re missing something. There’s something wrong.” You looked at him. “If it’s just a random attack, why did they release our face to the whole fuckin’ country? Why are they specifically targeting us?”

“Finishing what they started. Covering all their tracks from that day. If we’re not dead, we’re a liability.”

“What if it’s not Serpentine at all? What if it’s another gang?”

“Serpentine has the most motive.”

“We don’t know that.”

He looked at you incredulously. “I think there’s substantial evidence to suggest they fuckin’ hate us. Besides, they’d want me dead specifically.”

“Why?” you inquired, eyes narrowing.

He opened his mouth like he was going to explain but closed it a second later, leaving you guessing.

“Fine, but it doesn’t mean they’re the only ones who do.” You made a point to ask him later or at least conduct your own research into it. 

“Okay,” he said, shifting to lean on his elbows, “who else could it be? If Pierce was working for Serpentine and Ransone found out, sends someone to kill him, it’s essentially an attack on one of their own members. I’d say that's a pretty good motive.”

“I don’t know. Hydra doesn’t like us either. There’s Ten Rings too. But Serpentine just doesn’t work out.”

“How are you sure?” he asked. “You a spy for them too?”

You rolled your eyes at him as he raised his eyebrow. “It doesn’t make sense. What if we’re missing something? Did we go through everything?”

“I just went through my entire story down to the most irrelevant details. Twice. Nothing’s missing on my end.” He pushed himself off the bed, taking a long stretch before looking back at you.

“I think we should do it again. Just to make sure.” You rotated your torso to look at him. “We can figure it out-”

“You’re going to lose your mind if you keep at this any longer for today. Take a break.”

“I can’t take this lightly. Everyone’s out there looking for us and there is no one we can trust-”

“And going through our stories for the third time today is going to solve that how?” He had his hands crossed over his chest like a stern parent.

“I’m sorry but our faces are probably plastered in every damn police precinct in the country,” you snapped, “And I think that us remembering something some stupid detail might actually help rather than, I don’t know, taking naps and eating sandwiches. So no, I’m not going to drop it. Because I actually want to get out of here.”

You didn’t mean to sound so angry with him. He had told you everything twice already and patiently answered questions that you had. You didn’t think he was lying. You had no way of knowing but you hoped that some sort of allegiance was being formed between you both.

There was silence for a minute, leaving enough time for the guilt to creep in when he didn’t fire back. It’s what you expected.

“I’m not asking you to drop it. I’m saying take a break,” he said calmly. “You’re thinkin’ enough for the both of us anyway.”

You let out a small exhale, forcing the edge to retreat from your voice.

“I’ll be back in a while.” With that he turned around and left the room. A few minutes later you heard the backdoor open and shut.

Great.

You massaged your throbbing temples, eyes closed. He was right. Your mind wasn’t clear and you had been at this for hours. You wouldn’t be able to think critically.

Or at all.

You dropped back on the bed, grabbing a pillow and pressing it to your face. The coolness of the fabric felt nice.

You just let out a sigh, turning to your side to hopefully get some sleep.

_____

You woke up what seemed like hours later to a dark room.

It took your eyes a while to adjust stepping out into the hallway illuminated by the light in the kitchen.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice rang out. “Made you a sandwich.”

You rubbed your eyes groggily, looking where he was pointing. Sure enough, there was a sandwich on the table. He sat at the seat adjacent to it.

“Thank you.” You contemplated sitting next to him for dinner. It would be a first.

In the end you just grabbed your plate, giving him a half smile before making your way to the couch. You settled on sitting on the floor instead, leaning your back against the foot of the sofa.

The TV was already halfway through playing Megamind so you just let it continue, mindlessly chewing on the bread. As far as peanut butter sandwiches go, it wasn’t all that bad.

“Wilson,” you called out sheepishly, eyes not leaving the movie. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It wasn’t right.”

“It’s okay.”

How he let go of it so easily was beyond you. The sandwich was surprising too, but you took it, not wanting to change his mind. He couldn’t have poisoned it. You had checked his stuff.

You sat in silence for the rest of the movie. Your mind kept slipping in and out of thought but it was a comfortable atmosphere you found yourself in.

After the credits started rolling, you went to leave your plate in the sink. Sam brushed past you, grabbing the blanket at the foot of the couch, launching himself onto the cushions.

“What are you doing?” you asked, puzzled as he snuggled in.

“Going to sleep?” He tilted his head to look at you.

“Use the bed.”

“It’s your turn today.”

“Your back’s fucked up. I’ll take the couch.”

He didn’t budge.

“Go on.” You mentioned to the room with a shrug of your shoulder.

“You’re not going to let me argue, are you?”

You pressed your lips into a straight line to hide a smile, shaking your head lightly.

“Well, okay.” He let out a small noise as he got up. “Guess I’m sleeping business class tonight.”

Sam walked past you, careful not to bump into you. You swapped places with him, making your way to the couch, readjusting the blanket that was haphazardly left there.  

“Y/N.” You peered at him from the corner of your eye, only to fully turn when you caught his gaze. “I appreciate it.”

You just nodded, tossing the blanket over yourself as he switched off the light.

Next part

[swiftgronmasterpost]

GRYLES!!!

Rebuilding the Gryles Timeline expertly crafted here because I’m always afraid of broken links and people going private and losing data.

Not only is there a ton of great evidence that these guys were dating such as Harry leaving Nick’s place in the morning wearing the same clothes as he’d worn the night before, I’ve also got a friend who works in the UK music industry and she did tell me these guys did date.  Nick is 100% out as gay so it really does all add up.

Gryles very obviously takes place during Haylor, debunking Harry as the 1989 muse, and if it’s not Harry you do have to wonder... who with green eyes and an obsession with Alice and Wonderland was heavily featured in Taylor’s life and then disappeared before 1989 - a breakup album about someone with green eyes who seems to relate to Alice in Wonderland drops?

You get it.

Anyway here’s Gryles:

This is a little game I like to call "let's talk about Nick/Harry dates and how they line up with Harry leaving and entering the country".

06. February 5th 2012 - Harry and Nick go to a Super Bowl party together.

One Direction in Sweden February 12th - 14th. (Came home by train on the 14th.)

07. February 14, 2012 - VALENTINE'S DAY!

08. February 18, 2012 - Stella McCartney Fashion show with Nick's mom.

09. February 21, 2012 - Brit Awards!

10. February 22, 2012 - They attend a party together. (Nick might have been DJing?)

11. February 23, 2012 - Harry spotted leaving Nick Grimshaw's flat in the same outfit he was wearing the night before.

The morning of February 23rd One Direction flies to the US for their tour and doesn't return to the UK until April 24th, 2012.

This trip is supposedly where Haylor 1.0 happens.  Harry supposedly meets Taylor at the KCA’s on March 31 and they fall for one another.  Taylor supposedly goes to NYC to be with Harry (even though she spends the whole time with Dianna) during the first week of April.  Then they supposedly enter into a long distance relationship that is broken up because Harry was seen out with another girl.

All the while the last thing Harry does before he leaves the UK is spend the night with Nick and then the first thing he does is goes back to him.

Yeah, I’m not buying Haylor 1.0 it seems pretty clear to me that Taylor wanted to pin I Knew You Were Trouble on Harry as a big pop anthem to support her transition to pop.  I think it’s even possible they faked Harry being spotted out with that girl or perhaps he and Nick had some kind of agreement.  I’m not saying Gryles was always exclusive (they may have been), but regardless I don’t see Red era Taylor being cool enough to share her boyfriend with a man.

12. April 25, 2012 - Nick and Harry out together the morning after he returned.

Harry also calls into Nick's radio show on the 25th and confirms that the first thing he did upon returning on the 24th was meet up with Nick and Matt Fincham for drinks so one can theorize he probably crashed w/ Nick that night.

Harry goes to LA by himself on May 1st and returns to the UK on the 5th.

May 5th, 2012 - Harry out with Annie Mac and Nick. (Thanks to my anon for clueing me into this little gem of information.)

13. May 7th, 2012 - Harry and Nick out with friends

One Direction goes to Sweden from May 10th to May 16th.

14. May 17, 2012 - The Sun reports Harry driving Nick to work.

Also out shopping together

15. May 19, 2012 - Nick posts a picture to his instragram from the Kanye West/Jay Z show at the O2.

Who cares right? So he went to see a show. But then.

Hey guess what happened the very next day? One Direction flew to Boston on May 20th, 2012 to start their summer tour in the U.S. They're gone from the 20th to July 3rd.

16. July 5, 2012 - Nick and Harry attend the launch of Tinie Tempah's shoes line.

There's some downtime and vacation time here where Harry disappears for a week while Louis is France w/ Eleanor, Niall goes to Spain, Liam and Danielle are on vacation, etc and then One Direction goes back to work July 11th recording and doing photo shoots.

17. July 19, 2012 - Harry goes out with Nick and Aimee and tweets this.

18. August 10, 2012 - Harry attends Nick's 28th birthday party at La Bodega Negra.

Pregaming before the party!

Outside La Bodega Negra

19. August 11, 2012 - Primrose Hill picnic

20. August 20, 2012 - One Direction visit Nick at BBCR1 to announce their headlining of the BBC Radio 1 Teen Choice Awards.

21. August 25, 2012 -

Nick and Harry go to lunch. (Would also like to point out that they are switching places and that Harry is going to the driver's side of Nick's car :333)

and then to Reading Festival

then Nick accompanies Harry to Liam's party at Funky Buddha

and then they leave together and go see Rita Ora at G.A.Y.

22. August 26, 2012 - The morning after, Nick tweets a shot of his hangover breakfast from Harry's Range Rover (Nick owns a Mercedes).

then a lunch date with several people

They spend this entire day together and this is the day the pics of them in the grocery store  are taken where Nick buys Harry a banana, etc

and then Harry drops Nick off for his nighttime show and picks him up again to take him to/stay with him while Nick DJs at Wonderland nightclub.

(Although, lbr. Given what we learn from Nick's final nighttime show about how often Harry hung around the studio, he probably never left.)

Wonderland! (the only time that fucking song has any bearing on Harry and he’s off being a MLM king)

23. August 28, 2012 - Leaving Nick's flat

spotted in the studio w/ Nick at BBCR1

24. August 30, 2012 - Harry films the Breakfast Show advert for Nick's #Team Grimmy commercial and then they go to Mahiki Club that night.

25. August 31, 2012 - Harry goes with Nick to his DJ gig at Paradise

and then to karaoke afterward

The lo and behold One Direction flies to Florida the very next day to film their Pepsi commercial. They're gone until September 11th.

on September 6, 2012 Taylor has Sushi with Ed and Harry in LA supposedly signaling the start of Haylor 2.0 as if Harry is not fully boyfriends with Nick.

26. September 12, 2012 - Nick's final nighttime show. (this was a gif of them being cute and playing around but I was too lazy to bring it over, you get it they’re touchy, flirty, and playful):

Nick and Aimee go on vacation together from the 14th to the 18th.

27. September 18, 2012 - This dude says he spotted Harry Styles waiting in arrivals at the airport while waiting for his sister's flight to arrive insinuating perhaps Harry was traveling with Nick and Aimee:

28. September 20, 2012 - iTunes Festival where One Direction was interviewed by Nick and Annie Mac

29. Harry calls into Nick's first Breakfast Show on September 25, 2012. Then they meet up after to see Perks of Being a Wallflower together. I can't find the tweets from the ladies who saw them there, but Nick and Emma Watson confirm later that Harry was indeed there.

30. September 29, 2012 - Spotted at Waitrose together and then the following morning Nick regales his listeners with the tale of a Spinach pie he made for a ~friend~.

31. October 5th (or 6th?), 2012 - Preparation for Ladz FM

But also on October 5th, Taylor is on Nick’s show:

32. October 6, 2012 - Ladz FM

Supposedly on this show Nick gives Harry hell for Taylor, the Haylor timeline I like puts it this way:

“One Direction and Harry make an appearance on Nick’s show the following day, and they talk about Taylor on-air for 4 minutes straight. Nick teases Harry by saying “Ol’ Swiftyyyy” over and over again when she is brought up in the conversation.” Yup that’s right, Nick was giving his own boyfriend shit about his fake girlfriend 😭😭😭 this is why I fuck w Nick’s energy.

then they went for lunch in notting hill (no Taylor? why not Harry aren’t you so happy to be back with her and in love w her?)

33. October 7, 2012 - BBC Teen Choice Awards

One Direction doing promotion for the new album.

Paris - October 11, 2012

Ireland - October 12, 2012

Manchester - October 16, 2012

Leeds - October 17, 2012

34. October 19, 2012 - Lunch in London

October 31 - One Direction in Spain

Early November One Direction goes to the US for Ellen, X Factor USA, and The Today Show. After The Today Show Harry flies to LA while the rest of One Direction goes back to London. Harry writes a song with the lead singer of Snow Patrol and rumors start flying about him hooking up with Taylor Swift.

Harry arrives back in London on November 16, 2012.

35. November 16, 2012 - Children in Need benefit concert

November 30th One Direction goes back to the U.S. for one off shows and MSG show. Haylor happens.

Harry returns to London on December 8th via Taylor's private jet and plays the Jingle Ball with the rest of One Direction. Harry and Taylor tour the UK together until December 15th when Taylor leaves for France.  Meanwhile Dianna heads out on a mystery 14 hour long flight on December 14th.

36. December 16, 2012 - Roast Dinner!

One Direction returns to the U.S. for the X Factor USA finale. Harry stays in the U.S. and goes on a ski vacation with Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez.

He returns to the UK on December 24th.

37. December 25, 2012 - Late night Christmas leftovers. (Yes they’re spending Christmas together, that’s boyfriend behavior!)

Harry and Nick both leave London on the 29th (Nick for Puerto Rico and Harry for NYC) Harry spends New Years with Taylor and Nick spends New Years with Pixie, Aimee, and the rest of the hipster crew. Harry and Taylor then fly to Gorda British Virgin Islands where they are supposed to vacation until the 7th. Taylor leaves on the 4th and Harry goes to Necker Island alone. Tabloids say Harry and Taylor have broken up.

And that’s it for Haylor!

Harry arrives back in the UK on January 8th

38. January 8, 2013 - Sushi lunch date! (tweet confirming nick was also there.)

and harry with the girl who tweeted it.

39. January 10, 2013 - Tinie Tempah's GQ dinner.

The party was for people on the British GQ best dressed list (Nick was on it. Harry was not.)

Jessie J puts a picture of the table cards from her table on instagram. Harry doesn't have one which, you know. I'll just be here imagining him as Nick's + 1.

One Direction fly to Ghana on the 12th or 13th and return on the 15th. On the 16th Harry calls into Grimmy’s show to talk about how Fincham DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A MEMBER OF ONE DIRECTION. Finchy asks Harry when he’s back and Harry says “in a couple of days”. (Small side note here that I don’t think Finchy and Harry are at the level of friends where they keep track of one another’s schedules so the only way Finchy could have known that Harry was heading back out of town to Japan that very day is if Nick told him.)

One Direction in Japan from January 16th to the 20th.

I'm not going to count this as a time they were together because I have no hard evidence, but the night of January 20th Harry was spotted in a grocery store buying wine and Annie Mac mentions on her show that Nick ditched coming over for dinner that evening to have a friend round to his house instead. We assume it was Harry, but w/o actual proof I don't want to say it concretely.

40. January 21, 2013 - Baking for Radio 1! (Tweet confirming the friend was Harry.)

Nick tells this story the morning of the 22nd about how he forgot he had to bake, so he got up from bed, went to the store for supplies, and forgot eggs. So, he texted his friend who was coming over to bring eggs and then Nick baked while his friend yelled at him to add more butter.

41. January 22, 2013 - Watching Great British Bake Off

Do what you will with this one. Obviously there is not definite way to tell if this is Harry or not, but given the evidence of the amount of time they spend together that has been laid forth thus far, I feel comfortable saying those are indeed Harry's legs.

42. January 31, 2013 - Out for Harry's birthday at La Bodega Negra (the same place they celebrated Nick's birthday.)

Nick also went to Groucho Club afterward with Harry and mentioned on his show this morning that he hadn't slept at all. (He was still wearing the same outfit.)

43. February 1, 2013 - Aimee tweets about being in the car with Nick en route to play Laser Quest. (Can't imagine who they might be playing with.)

Nick tweeted this :)

Never

Getting

Over

This

February 19, 2013 - PreBrit Awards Dinner Hosted by Nick!

THEIR SMILEY LITTLE FACES. :3

Legit SHARING A TAXI ON THE WAY HOME

2/20/13 - At the Brit Awards together!

Leaving an after party!

taking a cab to Nick's house so Nick can change for work

hands hands hands

At Nick's flat

 2/21/13 - On The Breakfast show the morning after the Brits!

Harry on The Breakfast Show!

2/23/2013 - Nick attends One Direction's first show at the O2 in London

THE DROUGHT IS OVER!!!

8/21/2013 - Nick interviews Harry, Zayn, and Liam for TBS

Then Nick and Harry hook up later for dinner.

September 12, 2013

Harry gets off the plane from LAX, gets on the tube and meets Nick at an Elton John concert

Harry and Nick's dad at the concert, posted to Nick's instagram.

September 13, 2013

This person says they saw nick and Harry at Apartment 58 (members only club) together

https://twitter.com/LightbownL/status/378610145271771136

But, Sadie Frost also posted a picture of her and Nick getting ready to go out for LFW with no mention of Harry, so the tweet could be false facts.

But then! September 14, 2013

Sadie posts this picture of Nick sleeping on her sofa

Followed by this picture of Harry posing with her daughter

And then Nick and Harry went to Henry Hollands show at LFW together

Then to a pub with Gemma, Kelly Osborn and others

Then to dinner with James Corden and his wife

September 15, 2013

September 17, 2013 - Fashion Show East in London

November 9, 2013 - Breakfast with Anne and Robin at the Wolseley.

So Anne tweeted this in the morning. You can see the Wolseley logo at the top of the plate.

Then this girl got a pic with Harry at the Wolseley during his breakfast with Anne and Robin.

and she confirmed that Nick was eating with them https://twitter.com/alexandra_imper/status/400204985222193152

Then off to Selfridges to shop!

At Alexa Chung's birthday party!

November 10, 2013 - Ladz instagram and Aimee Phillips birthday party!

LADZ VIDEO!

November 30, 2013

Harry playing with Puppy at Nick's house.

Poppy Delevingne's hen party!

Leaving Groucho club.

December 1, 2013

Primrose Hill lighting ceremony!

Nick with Daisy Lowe and his dad!

Then this girl met Nick

https://twitter.com/rpcheald/status/407224559687852032/photo/1

and saw Harry

https://twitter.com/rpcheald/status/407209332858552320

Class of '92 movie premiere

Nick and his dad on the red carpet

Harry meeting Beckham!

December 4, 2013 - London Fashion Awards

February 17, 2014 - Taking a random taxi ride?????

and leaving Nick's flat

March 29, 2014

Sleepover at Harry's house!

Nick posted this on instagram

http://instagram.com/p/mHpTBdPJyt/

At the time we weren't sure it was Harry's drive but...

https://twitter.com/cuppanarryx/status/481310537817399296/photo/1

Hiya, doggie.

Also Nick's tweet from the morning after just because.

https://twitter.com/grimmers/status/449814322399940609

May 24, 2014 - Radio 1's Big Weekend

May 28, 2014 - Barry's BC London

And link to post about the other tweets x

June 8, 2014

Nick attends One Directions show at Wembley Stadium.

June 12, 2014

Harry at Nick driving around London in a Ferrari.

and another tweet about the Ferarri sighting.

https://twitter.com/ItsJustMikey/status/477133631602065408

Then later that evening Harry went to Nick's for his World Cup barbecue and fans took pics with Harry outside Nick's house.

[erazonpo3]

Lost Legends

Okay so I read Lost Legends: The Rise of Flynn Rider and general thoughts? It was cute and fun, and I have gripes here and there but I can still recommend it. I don't want to compare it to WOWM because it's like apples and oranges but Lost Legends wins points for me by actually acknowledging the TTS storyline and characters, even though it's kinda brief and not quite as... entertaining.

And before I go into the in-depth spoiler review I'll jot down a few thoughts here: there's a lot to be said about tie-in media and 'canon', but where I think it becomes contentious is where two pieces contradict each other, and whether those contradictions necessitate a canonical hierarchy or cancel something out completely. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because while LL borrows TTS lore it also contradicts it? which is. ironic.

but i'll get into that. Spoilers ahead

Basic Summary of The Plot

Our story starts at the Dark Kingdom, with a short prologue. It's all stuff we already know from the series: King Edmund tries to grab the moonstone, his wife dies, Eugene gets sent away for his own safety. What's funny is that Ms Queen still doesn't get a name, but her Lady in Waiting/Handmaiden gets a name (Maeve), and it's Maeve who really drops the ball on dropping Eugene off at an orphanage instead of raising him as Prince Horace. Go girl give us nothing

And from here the LL timeline begins, as Eugene and Arnie are now twelve year olds (I think?) in an orphanage in Corona. Which is the first contradiction to 'canon' but shelve that thought for now. Eugene and Arnie are good little boys but they're getting too old to keep hanging around and the orphanage needs money for the evil Tax Man, so they decide they'll go off into the world and send some money back when they're rich off their famous adventuring. What happens instead is that The Baron's circus rolls into town (yes that Baron) and Eugene and Arnie decide to try their luck signing up for that gig.

To prove themselves to the Baron, Flynn and Lance have to perform a hazing ritual a heist. The heist is literally just to buy a key from the Weasel but it plays out as this huge dramatic thing with a guard chase which is eternally funny to me because two kids walk into a bar, buy a key and then leave, and it's treated like fucking ocean's eleven. The Stabbingtons try to betray them (those guys are here too) but Flynn and Lance outsmart them, beginning a rivalry for the ages. Also, the pub thugs are all part of the Baron's circus crew. Don't think about it too much.

Anyway, as this has all been going down, Eugene is really interested in getting to talk to this guy with a tattoo of (what we as the audience know is) the brotherhood symbol, which Eugene recognises from the note left with him as a baby. He wants to talk to this dude in the hopes he'll get a clue about who his parents are, but this dude keeps eluding him. He also hasn't had a chance to tell Lance about this yet, so when Lance finds out about it he assumes Eugene only tried to rope him into the circus so he could find his parents and ditch him. Cue an ongoing silent treatment.

Eugene eventually does talk to this guy and he learns that the Brotherhood symbol is from the Dark Kingdom but the Dark Kingdom is gone so he shouldn't bother looking for it. Bummer. And now the Baron is planning a huge heist of the reward money for the Lost Princess' return, and Eugene is getting cold feet. He's been okay with a little bit of thievery so far but this feels like too much for him, and he's not okay with pulling it off but Lance still won't talk to him.

As the plan unfolds, Lance and Eugene reconcile and then they work together to betray the Baron and return the stolen treasure that they stole back to the King and Queen. They get caught by the Baron, escape, then get caught by the guards, but it's okay because they're presented to the King and Queen and when Eugene explains that they felt really sorry about it and promise not to do it again they're let go. And so the story ends on a high note.

My Thots™

Okay so here are the thoughts

Canon Compliance?

The obvious takeaway here is that this story offers you a beautiful pie in the form of the characters you know and love and the established lore, then shoves the pie in your face with things like "Eugene already knows the Dark Kingdom and the Moonstone exist but he never brings this up" and "Eugene betrays the Baron in a very significant way but somehow they'll make up and he and Stalyan will get engaged". Which means that if the integrity of the series is important to you, you'll probably just mentally cross out Eugene knowing about the Brohood/DK/Moonstone.

And imo that's fine! My own approach to this story is a kind of general 'if it works it works, if it doesn't I'll leave it' thing to work my own headcanons around. Because there's a lot of fun things to pluck from, like a new ex-Brotherhood member and other characters that could pop up from Eugene's past and other worldbuilding details.

The Story

The story was pretty short and obviously very tailored towards a younger audience, but it still felt kind of... slow? Mostly because nothing particularly exciting is happening until the big heist and even that feels pretty underwhelming. And of course I don't expect a story like this to be particularly complex and can appreciate its simplicity, but I felt like if it had been longer there could have been more twists to keep things interesting.

For example, the Baron is set up as a character not unlike Gothel, who lavishes praise upon the boys and goes on about how they're 'family' but is obviously just manipulating them and would throw them to the wolves in a heartbeat. Eugene underestimates just how criminal the Baron is, but at no point in the story does the doubt we have in the Baron's sincerity ever amount to anything- Eugene only turns against him because he has a morality crisis, which I'll get to in a minute.

Misc. Thoughts

Okay so one thing I thought was really cute was that each chapter has a little 'quote' from a Flynnigan Rider book, and I wrote them all down so if you've read this far and want me to post those separately lemme know. Anyway I just thought it was a very cute touch.

An honourable mention goes to every time Stalyan shows up, she doesn't really do anything in the story yet still is somehow the only character holding the brain cell. Rapunzel gets an indirect cameo by Lance and Eugene stumbling upon her tower and going "Whoa that's Crazy. Anyway. " which is amazing, and Cassandra even gets a little mention by the Captain! And to answer the question nobody asked, there's a chameleon running around Corona because she's an escapee from the circus, and Pascal's mom's name is Amélie!

Characters - okay really just Eugene

Eugene/Flynn is the title character of the book and we get the story exclusively from his POV, so there isn't a lot to say about Lance. On the one hand while I can acknowledge that this is a story about Flynn, not Lance, there's a few choices that feel like a missed opportunity at best given that this book really was an opportunity to explore Lance's character in a way the series never really does.

And it feels extra egregious when the plot demands conflict between Eugene and Lance, because while the emotion between them is engaging when it's happening, at other times it just feels like a convenient way to shove Lance offscreen again. (As a side note, as contrived as the conflict is these are also two twelve year old boys so. Can't blame em too much).

Also, Eugene coming up with the name "Lance Strongbow" on Lance's behalf while he's unconscious is one of those backstory things I'm not going to be acknowledging, thank you.

The Robin Hood Dilemma

Something I touched on after reading What Once Was Mine is that Eugene's characterisation prior to the movie isn't something writers seem to really like... dealing with. And it kind of makes sense that the author received a lot of characterisation notes from Chris Sonnenburg, because little Flynn does feel very similar to the Eugene we know; only the Eugene we know is an adult man who has since grown out of his Flynn Rider persona. But the Flynn Rider persona he needed to grow out of isn't something that ought to be cast aside entirely!! Stop being cowards!!

Taking a step back, the whole premise of the book is kind of a paradox- because Eugene needs to become Flynn Rider before he can learn to embrace his authentic self, but Flynn Rider isn't hero material, he isn't a good guy, he's not the right protagonist for a story for kids. So what we get isn't Flynn Rider, it's really just Eugene trying on a new name. That works for the beginning of the story, because he is just Eugene trying on a new name, but he doesn't grow into it.

At the beginning of the story, Eugene is an orphan in a poor but still functional orphanage run by a kind old lady, and he is surrounded by nice little boys. Eugene is motivated to leave and get a job by a desire to send funds back to the orphanage, and when he joins the Baron's circus he's taken aback to learn he's among thieves. Here's where I thought: okay, this might get interesting. We might be getting a G-rated 'angel falls from heaven' story about Eugene being morally corrupted by the Baron, of learning that the world outside is tough and he needs to look out for himself first and foremost-

but no. The Baron shares his plan to steal the reward money for the Lost Princess, because all the people he's surrounded himself with are already criminals who don't give a shit, but Eugene thinks that this is going too far! What about that poor lost princess who people need an incentive to search for? (he's like, projecting about his own parent issues which is fair, but still). And so the story ends with Eugene turning on the Baron to return the money to the "right" people (aka the king and queen of a kingdom?? okay) but he takes a single golden egg for himself so he can send it to the orphanage.

Which is all sweet and nice but. He still has to become Flynn Rider, asshole extraordinaire. He still has to lose his morals to the point where he'd take an inexperienced young woman to a pub that he, in this book, recognises is a dangerous place in the hopes that he can ditch her. He still has to go and become a wanted thief and rejoin the Baron and then ditch Stalyan on their wedding night.

The reason I'm going on about this so much is that the appeal of Eugene to me is that he is this good guy who wants to be a better person for the people he loves, but that means recognising that he has behaviour he needs to change, and his development is meaningful for that. Watering him down to a righteous Robin Hood hero does him a disservice.

The Real Villain Was Capitalism All Along

I will not elaborate nor should I

[rickgression]

SEASON 2, EPISODE 5 - GET SCHWIFTY

I've been rewatching the show for my own reasons (fic research!) and S2EP5 (Get Schwifty) feels a bit different given what we learned in S5EP8 (Rickternal Friendshine of the Spotless Mort). Just some general thoughts about it, searching for evidence or overlaps.

"What's that? Who's that baby?" -- Morty

Morty seeing the baby version of himself being held by younger Rick. This implies Bird Person's Rick met (a version of) Morty as a baby, which may not be the Morty we know nor the one that Bird Person is speaking to.

This is further evidence that Rick returned to a family that was abandoned by Rick for twenty years, and that he potentially lost his original family. That was suggested by Memory Rick, who may have been younger -- but as a Memory, his knowledge would probably include a little more loose information, not an exact day or time.

Because for BP's Rick to have held Morty, he'd have to have at least had Beth and Beth would have had to have had Summer. So that sort of suggests that if Beth died, it would have been post-Morty.

"Morty, suppose you could retrieve your family from Earth but had to abandon Rick. I could give your loved ones shelter on Birdworld, even jobs, possibly as worm ranchers. How often do you think you might look up at the stars and wonder what might have been had you just put your faith in Rick?" -- Bird Person

Is this Bird Person speaking from experience? It wouldn't surprise me if he thought back on his choice to stay in his universe and fight rather than going to a world where the war with the Galactic Federation never even happened.

Unrelated to BP and Morty, there's also this conversation that I think relates to Rick and his family in general. Not directly, but as a thematic mirror to what Rick's been going through in the series.

"We've been waiting 16 years for our daughter to respect us, but the key is, it has to be our daughter, not this person she's become." -- Beth

I feel like this is a reflection of one of the show's core concepts; the fact that Rick can go between universes and everything and nothing matters, being attached to your actions and your true timeline contrasts with the infinite possibilities.

(I firmly believe that Rick has gotten to the point where his actions are his own and that he has to own his mistakes because that's what makes him who he is. If he started jumping between worlds on a whim because things got messy, he'd stop being himself and be some wish fulfilment detached from any true reality... And that's a weirdly dehumanizing thought, as we are our consequences as much as we are our actions.)

I do think this all builds up the case that the Rick we know isn't the 'original' Rick, of when we met him,. He's likely a Rick who lost his family sometime after Beth had Morty, then skirted around the universe self-soothing and coping. Then something triggered his return to his family, just in a different universe.

I think his universe goggles are part of that -- small side note, Rick asks Morty to wear a backpack when he's using the goggles, but doesn't make the others wear the backpack when they're browsing in S1E8 -- so I think the backpack helps the search by INCLUDING that person into his search, like adding additional terms in a Google search. Rick could have left that Morty in the Cronenberg universe but made sure to take him. So he could have saved himself and left Morty in that Cronenberg universe, but didn't.

(Also weird because he just... abandons Beth, Jerry and Summer without even trying to bring them along, so clue what the fuck to do with that.)

This harkens back to S1E8 where Rick gives them goggles to be able to see alternate versions of themselves -- he had to have MADE those goggles, likely to see where he'd want to move to originally, then as the backup in Rick Potion #9/the C-137 universe jump.

Rick: [walking to the cupboard] Hey, do we have any wafer cookies? [grabs cookie box. eats cookies and starts walking away] Mm! [stops and looks back at Jerry, Summer and Beth] Oh, boy. Looks like you guys have been checking out alternate lives and realizing you don't have it as good, huh? That's too bad. You know, me and Morty are having a blast, We just discovered a show called "Ball Fondlers". I mean, I don't want to rub it in or anything, but you guys clearly backed the wrong conceptual horse. [eats another cookie, walking offscreen]

Additional note, whenever we see wafer cookies are mentioned, we get Rick backstory. Or it feels that way at least. But the nod towards backing the 'wrong conceptual horse' gives me the impression that Rick has done that himself, plenty of times. There's no way he didn't check in on other versions of himself, or seek out other versions of his family just to keep tabs.

[sazc94]

Pietro and Bunny

HELLO

Here is my second entry for the wonderful @msmarvelwrites 2k Challenge.

This a spin-off from my Bucky fic: The three times Bucky broke your heart. Part 1 linked Here.

It follows the same timeline and explores the relationship of Pietro and Reader (Bunny) More.

Words 6034

Themes. Angst, Suggestions of smut. But mostly lots and lots of fluff. 18+ Because of the smut suggestions.

This has two parts and I will upload part 2 tomorrow.

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰, 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲?"

Pietro thought you were pretty cool. He thought you and Bucky made a great couple. He enjoyed hanging out with you when you would all hang out as a group. Pietro wasn’t one for girlfriends. Sure he’d had a few semi-serious flings and would occasionally bring a date to the parties after a game and loved how you would instantly make anyone feel welcome. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he started to think of you as more than a friend. It was sometime during his senior year.

At first, he pushed the idea out of his head. You were Bucky’s girl Y/N! You were the cute shy girl Bucky had brought out of her shell, who was still deep down that adorable musical theatre-loving dork. However, when Bucky started getting defensive around him and Sam about who he was texting, Pietro stopped feeling so bad about liking you of course Pietro would never do anything to jeopardize your relationship with Bucky and his friendships with either of you, but he couldn’t help but feel a tang of jealousy towards Bucky.

2010

“Look at Bucky, can’t go 5 minutes without texting his little cheerleader,” Sam said walking up behind Pietro. Bucky was too engrossed in his phone to pay any attention to the pair of them. Pietro smirked.

“Sam, watch this” Pietro said, before breezing over to Bucky and pulling his phone out of his hands. Bucky instantly shot up trying to grab the phone from Pietro, however, he was too quick throwing the phone to Sam.

“Dear Doll, I love you so much and all thought I only saw you this morning, I am already missing you” Pietro sang in a teasing manner.

“Come on guy’s give it back” Bucky grunted. Sam and Pietro kept throwing the phone between them. Suddenly Sam stopped laughing.

“Hey Buck, who’s Nat and why is she asking if you’re going to be around this summer?” Sam asked his eyebrow shooting up. Bucky’s façade faltered for a second. His usual bright blue eyes deepening with an unfamiliar expression. Pietro’s interest was also piqued, he may have wanted you for himself but that didn’t mean he wanted to see you get hurt.

“Oh, she’s just a friend of Jane’s. I met her at that party after our game in Green Bay last year she’s a cheerleader like Jane and Y/N. Natasha and her boyfriend Clint will be in town the summer and she wants to introduce us apparently her boyfriend was impressed with how we played” Bucky said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal. After that incident, Bucky was on his phone around the football team less and started talking about how much he loved you and couldn’t wait to spend some quality time with you in the summer.

November 2011

By the time graduation rolled around Pietro had put any thoughts about the pair of you out of his mind, chalking it up to wanting a relationship as opposed to you. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. You came along to his graduation ceremony. Well, it was for everyone. Pietro, Sam, Wanda, Jane, and Carol. Bucky came along too. Late. But you were there with Peter Parker who was a freshman, he had talent, but he seemed to prefer being behind a camera as opposed to on the field.

The whole gang hung around the field and bleachers after the ceremony. Goofing off and enjoying the last time the group would all be together like this for a while. Peter took photos of you all. Pietro’s favourite was one where he and Sam had picked you up whilst you were in the middle of talking to Carol and Wanda. The laughter that came out of your mouth as you squealed and shouted for the two footballers to put you down made his heart flutter.

Okay so maybe he wasn’t as over you as he told himself he was. Now he could understand what that Taylor Swift was banging on about in that song of hers.

Have you ever thought just maybe?

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Bucky’s girl,” he said grinning at you. For some stupid reason, probably because Pietro didn’t know what to do with his hands, he ruffled your hair like you were 5 again. He couldn’t help but notice you wince at the old pet name. He mentally kicked himself. Why had he called you that?!

Graduation was the last time he saw you for over a year. Unlike Bucky, Pietro had actually been away at a football camp when Bucky had cheated on you. He didn’t know what had happened. Only knew you two had broken up. Wanda was fiercely protective of her friendship with you and didn’t want to betray you by admitting to those that didn’t know that Bucky had cheated on you. He wasn’t going to lie; he was saddened when you didn’t stay in touch with him after he graduated. But after he started his first year at the University of Michigan, he didn’t have much time to worry about it. He was a Line Backer having secured a football scholarship after college scouts came to see Sam and a few others play, Pietro had caught the eye of the scout from the University of Michigan, all though he was a great player, Pietro didn’t want to play professionally like many of the guys on the team. He was studying Business and Economics.

Since about the age of 15, he and Wanda had always planned on going into business together. Between parties, flirting with the pretty cheerleaders and sorority girls and his studies you became a distant memory to Pietro. That was until one November game in his second year.

The Wolverines were playing the Wisconsin Badgers. Boy did they suck. Not that Pietro minded it allowed him the opportunity to watch the cheerleaders, he knew a few of the girls on the team from various parties, he hadn’t paid much attention to the new girls on the squad. Then out of the corner of his eye, he spotted someone who looked familiar to him. Could it be Y/N? Wanda had mentioned something about you getting a scholarship at Uni for your cheerleading, but he’d been in the middle of a game of Mario Kart with Sam at the time.

He tried to rack his brain’s but then the ball came towards him. He smiled to himself. Showtime Pietro. The game was an easy win. Whilst his teammates cheered Pietro made his way to the side-lines, desperate to know if the girl he’d seen earlier was you. His heart skipped a beat when he heard your familiar laugh. He couldn’t believe it. Pietro came jogging up towards you determined to chat.

“It’s just Y/N” or you can call me cutie you said winking at Pietro, he chuckled.

“How about I just call you tomorrow?” he retorted, you felt yourself blush. Pietro may come across as confident but inside he was shaking with nerves. Was he really doing this? What if you said no? You shrugged before pulling out a sharpie from your bag, you wrote down your number on his arm. He cocked his head puzzled.

“I changed it last year after Bucky wouldn’t stop blowing it up with apology texts,” you said simply wrongly presuming Pietro knew what had gone down. Before Pietro could respond you ran off to join the rest of your squad and headed for the changing room. He couldn’t help but smile to himself as your laughter rang in his ears whilst you walked off the pitch.

“Pietro! What’s good? How’d your game go tonight?” Sam asked. He sounded buzzed and Pietro could hear the faint sounds of a party in the background. Excellent he thought to himself. Sam was buzzed enough to have loose lips but not drunk enough to be of no use and if he was lucky Sam might not even remember half the conversation.

Pietro got back to his apartment, he had zero clues about what had gone on with you and Bucky. It was obvious due to your remark about him blowing up your phone with apology texts that he’d done something. He weighed up his options. Wanda or Sam? Wanda was his twin, and he knew deep down if he pulled the twin card she would tell him, but then if nothing came of this, he would be opening a can of worms with his sister over nothing.

Then there was Sam, he was still pretty close with Bucky and liked to chat a lot. But ultimately, he was like a brother to Pietro, and he trusted Sam to keep his mouth shut. Taking a deep breath and raking his hand through his Silver-blonde hair he picked up his phone and dialled Sam.

“So Sam you’ll never guess who I ran into cheering on the side-lines of the game!?” Pietro tried to sound breezy and cool like it was no big deal, despite the fact he was about to ask his friends ex out on a date.

“ I ran into Y/N. You know Bucky’s girl?” Pietro carried on forcing his voice to sound light. Sam choked on his drink down the other end of the line.

“I wouldn’t let her hear you call her that. That boy broke her damn heart, the fool” Sam said, there was an edge to his voice that Pietro almost missed.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Pietro asked genuinely curious.

“Well remember that little party your sister threw that last week of summer whilst you were away at football camp with some of your new teammates?” Sam asked. He didn’t wait for Pietro to respond before he continued.

“Well, Jane brought her friend Nat along” Sam continued. Pietro took a sharp intake of breath. No, Bucky wouldn’t have been stupid enough to kiss her at a party with your mutual friends, would he?

“Well turns out that Clint guy Bucky talked about wasn’t her boyfriend he was just a really good friend. But by the time we found that out Jane realised both Bucky and this Nat chick hadn’t been seen for at least a good 15, 20 minutes. So, she went to go find Nat. Only to walk in on them fucking. Oh yeah, it was on your bed bro”, Sam finished his story like it was no big deal. Other than the telling disdain in his voice.

Pietro stood stunned. No wonder you had winced at the use of your old nickname. Pietro’s heart broke for you at that moment. He vowed at that moment that no matter what happened between you both, he would do everything in his power to ensure you never had to feel heartbreak like that again.

Pietro will never forget that first date with you. He had come up with some lame excuse of showing you the best-hidden beauty spots of the campus. Not that there were any, he just wanted an excuse to spend some time with you. He wore jeans and a jumper with his beat-up converse.

All though it didn’t look like he had put much effort into his outfit he had spent a good hour agonising over it. In the end, he settled for a faded blue jumper hoping it would make his eyes and hair pop. He met you by the school library and the sun was shining, it was still a chilly November mid-morning.

You had turned up with your hair tied up in a messy bun a few stray pieces framing your cheeks, you had opted for a sweater dress. He remembered because it was loose and comfy but sinched inwards in all the right places. It was a silvery colour almost the same shade his hair was. Pietro swore you took his breath away.

Winter Break 2011

“And that right there is where the fraternity pledges had to stand and sing, I’m a little teapot every time someone put 10$ in the bucket. I didn’t truly understand the strange British Nursery Song or whatever it was, but I did like watching the pledges get embarrassed every time they had to sing when the cute cheerleaders walked past. So, I put 40 Bucks in the bucket when I knew the 3rd Years would be heading to practise” Pietro said pointing to the school statue.

You had nearly fallen over laughing at his story. Pietro noticed how you scrunched your nose up when you laughed. Like a rabbit. No like a Bunny. When Pietro walked you back to your dorm, he wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss you, but when you let him hold your hand, he decided at that moment he would regret it more if he didn’t take the plunge.

The moment he knew he was yours and you were his was at a party, he’d taken you on lots of hot chocolate dates, he knew you didn’t like coffee because it tasted bitter to you and that coca was nice, but you preferred the sweet comfort of a creamy hot chocolate.

It was at a party being held by the Ice Hockey team to celebrate their latest string of wins. You didn’t come to parties often preferring the comfort of a book and a cosy night in, but you always tried to attend parties after the football matches. You walked in wearing a red top and black skinny jeans.

The top wasn’t super low cut, but it hinted at your cleavage, you’d left your hair down for a change in loose curls. You’d recently gotten your hair dyed a deep chocolate brown and it brought out your eyes. Pietro nearly lost his damn mind when his Ice-blue eyes met your chocolate brown eyes after he’d drank all of you in. He excused himself from the conversation he was having with Scott Summers and co making his way over to you.

“Bunny, you look good enough to eat,” Pietro said dipping his head down to meet your lips, your lips were always so warm and welcoming a stark comparison to his cool lips.

“Bunny?” You replied scrunching your nose up. This was the first time Pietro had called you a pet name, you felt your heart somersault.

Pietro was messaging his sister on the drive home. He could tell you had something on your mind, but he knew better than to push you.

“So,” you began.

“What’s up Bunny?” Pietro asked snapping his eyes up from his phone.

“Well, I just thought now might be a good time to talk, we’re clearly going to run into a lot of our old friends, and there’s no way Wanda won’t know something is going on here, and I, I saw your lock screen,” you said. Well yeah Pietro thought, was he meant to be keeping you guys a secret? He didn’t want to, and he had just assumed you were a couple. You did couple type things, watching movies together curled up, holding hands when you guys were out together.

“So you were wondering what we are?” Pietro’s couldn’t hide the amusement in his voice. God, you were adorable. He watched your demeanour change and felt a pang of guilt, the determination in your eyes as you tried to not show that you felt embarrassed.

“Hey Bunny, look at me” Pietro grabbed your hand, wanting you to know how much he truly meant the next few words.

“We are a couple. I’m sorry you felt the need to ask, but I adore you, so we are a thing,” he said stroking circles on the back of your hand. You smiled and nodded to yourself. Pietro held on to your hand stroking circles the rest of the traffic. He couldn’t wait to tell Wanda she was wrong about him never getting serious with anyone.

“Hey Wanda, have you got a second?” Pietro and Wanda were heading out to meet up with you and the rest of the old school gang who had made it home for the Winter Break in the local coffee shop.

“Sure brother, what’s up?” she asked shrugging on her red jacket and lacing up her boots.

“So, you know that girl I told you I was seeing?” Pietro asked, you two hadn’t said if you were going to tell people or just let them figure it out, but he at least wanted to give his twin a heads up. Wanda straightened her brown hair falling behind her ears. She impatiently cocked an eyebrow waiting for her twin to continue. They were going to be late at this rate.

“Well, you know her. In Fact, you’re good friends” Pietro continued sucking in his breath.

“If you mean to tell me you’re dating Y/N, I already know brother”, Pietro froze. “I’m happy for you, but if you break her heart like that James did, I will not hesitate to kill you and hide the body” she continued.

“How did you know?” Pietro couldn’t help but ask, you guys hadn’t been a secret, but you hadn’t exactly announced it to the world either.

“I’m good at reading people Pietro” Wanda shrugged before heading out the door.

“You sly dog,” Sam said chuckling. Just then Peter turned up. Sam’s comment hadn’t escaped you, so you simply shot Pietro a quizzical look, one of your eyebrows arched. Pietro gently shook his head. He’d tell you about the phone call later.

It was great hanging out with the old gang, shame about Carol, and Jane being unable to make it back. Bucky was dating that Natasha chick and hadn’t come home from the holidays. Evidently, this wasn’t a surprise to Sam or Wanda. Pietro however was a bit taken back. That was until he heard how his sister had almost killed Bucky when she had run into him last summer. Carol had had to restrain her. Pietro couldn’t lie he was kind of bummed to miss it.

Pietro and Wanda didn’t celebrate Christmas, but they did celebrate being around people they loved and as the four of you sat around waiting for Peter Parker to make an appearance, he couldn’t help but feel his heart swell. You hadn’t even reacted to the mentions of Bucky. The way your brown eyes lit up when you teased Sam about his poor season or crinkled your nose when Wanda complimented your new hair, made Pietro come completely undone. Not being able to restrain himself anymore he leant in and kissed you, a slow soft kiss. The taste of your gingerbread cookie and peppermint hot chocolate lingering on your lips. When Pietro pulled away, he shot Sam a wink, and you promptly turned crimson. Sam just sat there gawking. Pietro watched as Sam tried to piece together his hazy memory from that phone call.

2012

Pietro absolutely adored the photo you had gotten him for Christmas, displaying it on his bedside table proudly. He had brought you a stuffed bunny for Christmas, cheesy but it made you beam at him.

“A Bunny for my Bunny” Pietro said shooting you his signature grin. Your heart constricted; it was an adorable soft fluffy powder blue bunny.

After winter break things got crazy busy. The year also seemed to rush by, between keeping on top, your rehearsals for the play. Pietro’s football practises, football matches, nationals for your cheerleading competition. It felt like you had barely any time to breathe. Pietro always looked forward to football games, not because he loved playing which he did, no it was because when you were cheering your face lit up, you always had his number painted on your cheek. Your brown hair always pulled up in a high ponytail, accentuating your big beautiful brown eyes that always looked for Pietro’s ice-blue eyes on the field. Mostly he loved the looks of jealousy he would get from the other team when players would be checking you out. Pietro would always come over for a kiss for good luck when he wasn’t on the field. You always giggled about how Mr cool; the confident cocky big-time football player was such a dork around you. Pietro was fast, sometimes your eyes couldn’t quite make out his movements, all you would see was a flash of his silver-blonde hair that peeked out under his helmet. You had started calling him Quicksilver, originally as a joke but it had stuck.

“So, move in with me for the summer,” he had said, his heart pounding in his chest. It wasn’t a big deal really but the thought of waking up to you every day for the summer made him practically giddy. Pietro continued to stroke circles on your bare legs. He was watching Grease, but he wasn’t absorbing what was being said.

Pietro loved every single second he got to spend with you, but mostly he loved the summer. College football season had finished, school was winding down and it meant he got to sit in those quiet moments with you. Pietro had no plans to go home for the Summer.

Pietro adored you more than he was willing to admit, hell he loved you which is why he was always never going to push you for anything more than you were comfortable with. He was content just kissing you, steamy make-out sessions. He just liked being close to you breathing in your scent, in the winter you always smelt like Vanilla and crushed Rose Petals. In the summer you changed your body spray, and he hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint the smell, but you smelt like Peaches, sunscreen, and sunshine. Okay, maybe not sunshine but he felt the warmth of your presence every time you were together. Pietro knew you were stressing about summer accommodation so he couldn’t help but offer up his place.

“Okay, I’ll move in for the summer,” you said. You picked up the remote and pressed pause on the DVD Pietro had been so focused on trying to play it cool he hadn’t even heard you the first time you spoke. When you started undressing, Pietro didn’t know where to look. Sure, you’d spent nights together, but Pietro always left you to get changed in his room whilst he went to brush his teeth. His eyes couldn’t help but wander over your body as you walked into your bedroom. Pietro inwardly groaned and felt himself harden. Trying to take his mind off what he had just witnessed he pulled out his phone. That’s when you appeared in the door frame, wearing nothing but his football jersey, when it lifted to show the skin of your bare stomach Pietro nearly lost his damn mind.

“Well, are you coming or not handsome?” Pietro grinned throwing his phone on the sofa and closing the gap between you in seconds, picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder. Pietro was certain that if he didn’t get his way with you right that second, he would combust.

Winter Break 2012

“You love her, don’t you?” Wanda asked Pietro. You were finishing up tech rehearsals, so Wanda and Pietro were enjoying some sibling bonding by cooking Paprikash. Wanda’s eyes narrowed at Pietro who was avoiding eye contact with his sister. He could feel his sisters warm blue eyes boring into him. Eventually, Pietro stopped washing up and turned to face his sister. Wiping his hands on a tea towel he finally lifted his eyes to meet Wanda’s.

“Yes, of course, I do but that’s not a secret, so what are you actually asking Wanda?” Pietro raked a hand through his silver-blonde hair.

“It's obvious you two love each other Pietro, dearly. But you’re in love with her, you would hang the stars for that girl, and when are you going to admit it? You visibly had a thing for her back in high school and you have healed the damage done by James Barnes. So why don’t you let your guard down and tell her how you truly feel?” Wanda asked. Pietro stood there dumbfounded. Had it genuinely been that obvious to people he had liked you back in high school when you were Bucky’s girl? As if reading Pietro’s mind Wanda answered his question.

“You may have fooled everyone else Pietro, but not me” Wanda returned to her cooking and that was the last of the conversation.

“Are you sure your mum doesn’t mind me staying with you guys for winter break?” you asked twiddling your hair nervously. Pietro chuckled lifting your small suitcase into his car.

“Come on then quicksilver, let’s get going before the traffic builds up,” you said shooting him a grin your worries disappearing.

“Yes Bunny, she wouldn’t hear of you staying here alone. Besides, Wanda would rip my arms off if I even thought about coming home without you” he said pressing a kiss to your temple. Pietro had refused to let you drive saying it was his turn as you had driven last year. You still looked unsure tugging at the selves of your red jumper dress as you walked round to the front of his car. Your brown hair fell in loose waves, still slightly damp from your last-minute shower.

Pietro sensed something else was bothering you but didn’t push it. Instead, he hopped up on the bonnet of his car and pulled you between his legs. Pressing his forehead to yours, he uttered a silent promise that his mum would love you and that that the rest of the old gang would be happy for you both like they had all sworn they were. You looked up at him through your big doe eyes and pecked a gentle kiss on his nose.

“So, who did you say was coming tonight again?” you asked. You were standing in Wanda’s room whilst you both got ready for the small hang out Pietro and Wanda were hosting. Pietro had gone out to pick up Sam and Peter Parker and this girl he was bringing, Gwen. Pietro of course had been right about his mum loving you, you’d spent the last four days feeling welcome, included and at home. Wanda and Pietro’s mum had enveloped you into a big hug the moment she met you.

“Sam, Jane, Peter and his girlfriend Gwen. Carol’s coming, I think she said she was bringing her girlfriend. Now put this on” Wanda said handing you a low cut, slim-fitting black sweater dress. You rolled your eyes at Wanda; you were quite happy wearing one of Pietro’s oversized sweaters and your jeans, but you knew better than to argue with her. Just then you heard the door shut.

“It will be great to have so many of the old group back together,” Sam said shrugging off his jacket as he followed Pietro down to the converted basement.

“How are things between you and Y/N?” Sam asked.

“Sam, they’re pretty amazing,” Pietro said, a slight blush forming in his cheeks.

“Okay, that’s good to hear. Did you know Bucky’s in town for the holidays? I text him saying he should come along tonight; I hope that’s okay?” Sam asked. Pietro shrugged, he hadn’t spoken to Bucky since Bucky’s graduation and even then, that had been by phone. It wasn’t that Pietro actively avoided speaking with Bucky, it’s just that Pietro didn’t have anything to say to Bucky.

The pair of you had spoken in great detail about everything that went down between Bucky and yourself last year after winter break, and Pietro could see you still carried the scars from what he had done to when he cheated on yourself. Just then Wanda and you made your way downstairs into the basement. Pietro felt himself harden when he got a good look at what you were wearing. It was going to be a long night whilst Pietro thought the urge to take you upstairs and fuck you senseless. As if reading her brothers thoughts Wanda smirked to herself, a job well done, maybe now her brother would grow some balls and finally tell you exactly how he felt.

“Bunny, you look. Just wow” Pietro said. Sam rolled his eyes, you giggled before walking over to give Pietro a gentle kiss on the lips. You wrapped your arms around him hugging him close before you felt his hardened member. You cocked an eyebrow at him, but Pietro shook his head brushing your hair behind your ears before giving you another gentle kiss.

After about two hours, everyone had relaxed, caught up and were just chilling. Sam hadn’t heard from Bucky, so Pietro hadn’t thought anything more about it, no sense bringing it up to you if he didn’t show.

Sam had also gotten up nudging Pietro, swearing he would beat him next time. Pietro chuckled, that’s when Sam nudged him.

“You sly bastard Parker” Sam practically shouted. The three of them were playing Mario Kart whilst Taylor Swift played in the background, all though he’d never admit to anyone, including no, especially you. Taylor Swift had grown on him over the past year. Mostly because he loved the way you lit up when you sang along to her in the car.

Pietro was so engrossed in his game with the boys he barely registered you getting up off the sofa next to him. Whilst Sam had been busy yelling at Peter for using Banana peels, Pietro had overtaken Sam in the race. Once the game finished Pietro noticed you weren’t next to him. Feeling empty without you snuggled next to him he got up and stretched. He figured you were probably talking to the girls or something.

“Uh, Pietro, you might want to go save your girl from an awkward encounter with her ex” Sam looked pained. He was realising the error of his ways by inviting Bucky along. Pietro just shot him a puzzled look before following Sam’s line of sight. Pietro sucked a breath in.

“Sam, I swear to god if she ends up in tears tonight because of you, I will not hesitate to punch you in the face,” Pietro said before walking off to the fridge where you and Bucky stood.

“Yeah, schools fine thanks Bucky,” you said politely. Pietro’s heart was beating loudly in his chest, he had no concerns about how secure your relationship was, he just wanted to save you from any unnecessary heartbreak when it came to James “Bucky” Barnes.

December 2012 – August 2014

“Hey Bunny,” he said kissing the corner of your head before wrapping his arms around you.

“Hey Buck, long time no see!” Pietro said. Bucky stood frozen for a few seconds processing what he had just witnessed.

“Hey, Pietro Yeah. It's been a hot minute, so you two are a couple? You guys look cute congrats. Oh man, wow is that Peter over there? I barely recognise him I’m going to go say hey. Catch you guys later!” Bucky said practically running over to Peter. You turned around and kissed Pietro.

“Come on Quicksilver, let’s see if I can beat you at Mario Kart,” you said pulling him over to the sofa. Pietro instantly felt himself relax, glad to see that you hadn’t been impacted by Bucky’s sudden appearance. He grinned at you as he let you drag him behind you,

“What?” you said chuckling at his goofy grin.

“I’m just so fucking in love with you Y/N,” he said. Your heart skipped a few beats. Sure, you had both said I love you, but the way Pietro’s ice-blue eye’s shone at you, the way he had phrased it as being in love with you, made your heart squeeze, butterflies erupt in your stomach and all those other cliché metaphors.

“Pietro, I am going to rock you fucking world tonight, because I feel the exact same way”, you whispered in his ear. Pietro’s eyes bulged out of his head. He lent down and gave you a hungry kiss, sending electricity coursing through your body. When you finally broke free from the kiss Pietro, caught sight of Bucky glowering in the corner of the room ignoring whatever it was Peter was wittering on about.

Winter break came and went. Your second year at Uni whizzed past. Pietro even joined you and your family for your annual summer vacation in Miami, your grandparents were getting on a bit, so you decided to skip the summer production of Hairspray. Pietro joined you for two summers of family vacations in Miami. Your Grandma took a liking to him.

“Pietro, so good to see you again,” she said hugging him. “If I was 55 years younger”, she said shooting Pietro a wink. Pietro chuckled and stuck his tongue out at you.

“See I told you that she loved me the most out of all of you,” he said. You rolled your eyes. Pietro was right your grandma did have a soft spot for him. Who could blame her? Pietro was a true gentleman and his muscles stretched out any shirt he wore. His floppy silver-blonde hair and his goody grin. You were truly a lucky girl. He was going to break your grandma’s heart as much as yours when you two ended things this summer.

Saying goodbye to you was going to be one of the hardest things he ever had to do. The pair of you had spent the last week of summer in Florida with Wanda and her boyfriend James also known as Vision. Tomorrow you would both be getting on separate planes and going your separate ways. You were dancing around in the sea not a care in the world.

Pietro loved the way you were in the summer, the stresses of school melted away. You burned easily so your skin always had a very faint sun-kissed glow to it, but the way you were with your family. That was when you truly glowed. The way you blushed when your parents would talk about how proud they were of you. You were an only child, so your cousins were the closest thing to siblings you had.

And boy did your two male cousins pick on you. Teasing you about being smart, your relationship with Pietro. The way you would roll your eyes at them. Pietro’s heart squeezed with adoration when he watched you huddled in the kitchen with your grandma. Oblivious to the fact he was watching your brow would furrow in concentration as your grandma bossed you about in the kitchen whilst the pair of you cooked up some delicious treats.

“You know brother if you asked her to do long distance and wait for you, she would”, Wanda said sitting down next to Pietro. Wanda’s red hair almost looked like fire in the setting sun. Pietro sighed and shook his head.

“I know, but it’s not right or fair on her. She has plans of her own and we will be busy setting up your fashion label in NYC” he said, raking a hand through his hair.

“Besides, She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers. She deserves to enjoy her last year, her heart is in Michigan, where her mum and dad are.” Pietro sighed. Just then you came bounding over. Your black bikini just about covering all it needed too. You plopped down on the blanket beside Pietro, your brown hair trying to escape its messy bun. You rested your head in Pietro’s lap. You giggled as he gently bopped your nose. Swallowing down the ache in your chest.

The pair of you stood wrapped in each other’s embrace at the airport, the rest of the world shut out. Pietro breathing in your familiar scent one last time. He didn’t need to hear you to know you were crying. It was taking everything in him not to cry too.

“Be good Bunny, don’t cause too much mischief with Loki and stay in touch. I love you my little Bunny” he said wiping the tears from your eyes. You couldn’t say anything, so you just held him tight and cried. When you finally broke the embrace and Pietro boarded. He wiped away the few tears that had escaped his eyes.

[welcometothemxdhouse]

Lectures (pt.3)

I know this took a while i’ve just restarted uni after a year off so it has kinda been chaos. Originally i was only going to make this a three part small fic but i’m actually kinda enjoying thinking about how i’m going to develop Frederick in a timeline outside of the tv show. I want to try and keep his personality as close as possible, and i know there is a dark side to that which i may explore, but mostly this is just me wanting to give him a hug. 

Also just a mention; all the words in italics are like internal thoughts.

This is gender neutral except one line which indicates that reader is female. I wanted to write the line because it is important to me but there was no way for me to make it gender neutral-i’m sorry, i hope you can easily skip over it.

Warnings: Actual smut this time lmao. Nothing crazy just basically oral (male receiving). Also mention of an age-gap/student-professor relationship.

Taglist: @feedthemadness-sweetie​ @prurientpuddlejumper @jonesy201​ @madamsnape921​ @charlottegrice 

Three weeks had been and gone before you were alone with Doctor Chilton again. It was excruciating watching him peacock around the lecture hall twice a week as if nothing had happened-as if you didn't fall asleep every night with the thought of his lips on yours and his hands on your thighs. 

You were snapped out of your daydream by the sounds of annoyed groans, disappointed sighs and an exam paper being dropped on your desk. You looked up just enough to spot the grade written in black ink before dropping your head down into your hands. Fuck, you thought, i’ve really gotta work on that. Before you even had time to consider dropping out for the 100th time this semester, the stern voice of your professor muttered what you’d been hoping to hear for almost a month,

“See me in my office after class.”

It wasn’t a question but a demand and fuck if it didn’t shoot electricity straight to your core. You knew there was a possibility he really did just want to talk about the exam but considering the reactions of everyone around you and the way Doctor Chilton was currently giving them a collective telling-off about how “nobody takes the class seriously” and “no one was proving themselves intelligent enough to be in this class”, you assumed he wanted to see you privately for a different reason. 

You began to pack your things and followed your best friend out of the hall. Ever since you told them about what happened between you and Doctor Chilton they had stopped being so mean to him with everyone else, unfortunately right now they were clearly too angry to care.

“I worked my ASS off for that exam and what? He just decides i’m too dumb to take his class because I misunderstood one question? Which, by the way, was phrased shitty anyway”, you interrupted them by grabbing their arm and dragging them to a halt, “WHAT?” they snapped in response.

“Chilton wants to speak to me about the exam.” you replied. Your friend stopped and stared at you for a second, the smirk rising on their face matching the blush rising on yours. 

“The exam, huh?” 

“Yes. The exam” 

They freed their arm from your grasp and condescendingly patted you on the cheek before turning on their heels and walking away,

“Have fun!” they shouted from down the corridor. Well...at least they stopped being angry for two seconds.

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

You found yourself, once again, in the corridor outside your professor’s office, only this time the awkwardness of the first meeting was gone. Assuming he wouldn’t have returned from the lecture hall yet you leant against the wall and began mindlessly scrolling on your phone. Your thoughts began to wander to the last time you had been here:

You had just begun to reach down and unbuckle his belt when the sound of a heavy knock on the office door made Doctor Chilton practically jump out of his skin.

Suddenly you became aware of a presence in front of you. You looked up quickly, assuming it was Frederick trying to pull you from your daydreams for the second time today but instead locked eyes with a guy you recognised from one of your classes.

“Hey?” you muttered, trying to wrack your brains for any memory of his name.

“Hi”, he replied, meeting your stare so intently you felt yourself shift uncomfortably on the spot, “I saw you stood here all alone so I assumed you’d want some company”

The actual audacity of men, you laughed to yourself, where the fuck do they get it? 

“I’m good, but thanks anyway.”

He lifted himself off the opposite wall and stepped closer to you, crowding you so close that you subconsciously squeezed your knuckles and held your breath for what was to come.

“If you are going to make out, please do it somewhere other than outside my office.” 

You whipped your head around to see Doctor Chilton standing next to you both nonchalantly, leaning on his cane with one hand and unlocking the door with his other. When he raised his eyes to meet yours you threw him your best ‘i am two seconds away from kicking this guy in the balls’ face before said guy turned his attention back to you,

“Apologies Professor”, he smiled to himself, “you know my name Y/N, message me.” 

You watched the almost-stranger leave before turning back around to meet Doctor Chilton with a sigh,

“I actually don’t know his name.” You whispered, just loud enough for Frederick to hear and you smiled to yourself as he let out a small laugh in return. 

Frederick signalled for you to enter his office first and then closed the door behind the both of you. He paused as if he was debating what to say to you before settling on a quiet,

“Are you okay?”

You wondered briefly if he was normally this gentlemanly. If this is what the real Frederick Chilton was like then his strict, obnoxious image was not doing him any favours. You decided you liked this version better.

“Yeah i’m okay. Not to get all feminist on you but it’s nothing every girl isn’t used to.” you paused and dropped your head to look awkwardly at your shoes, “i guess that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with though.”

A painfully long silence followed and you wondered, just like last time, if you’d put him off with your stupid comments. You were just about to apologise when his voice, softer than usual, mumbled

“You can leave if you want, Y/N. I’m not a monster, i’m not going to force you to be here.” 

You almost gave yourself whiplash with how quickly you moved to reassure him. You stepped closer to him and rested a hand on his cheek, relishing in the feeling of his stubble scratching your palm as he tilted his head to lean into your touch.

“I want to be here, Doctor Chilton.”

“You can call me Frederick while we’re alone, Y/N”

You reached up on your toes and tentatively pressed a kiss to his lips.

“Okay, Frederick.”

You moved to pull away until Frederick grabbed both sides of your face and pulled you back to him, moaning softly as you lightly bit his bottom lip after a few seconds to deepen the kiss. His hands moved to circle your waist as he walked you back towards the door, reaching behind him and twisting the lock. As soon as you heard the click in the door you detached yourself from Frederick and smiled as you heard him whine quietly at the sudden loss of contact. You grabbed his hand and lead him to his desk, pulling the chair out from behind it and pushing him down to sit. As soon as his legs hit the chair you saw his body stiffen and his eyes began darting around the room, looking anywhere that wasn’t at you. Your stomach twisted in a knot as a million worries passed through your mind within seconds. 

“Frederick...? What’s wrong?”

“I just...”, he flicked his eyes back to you and away again, “I don’t do this often.”

Your breath hitched as you realised what the issue was. He was nervous. This handsome, smart, sexy professor was nervous about having sex with you. Damn this man and his adorableness. If your time alone with Frederick so far had taught you anything it was how easy it was to forget this man was your senior by a substantial amount of years. You momentarily wondered what happened in the course of his life to make him have to cover this shy, awkward, sweet personality with the one that makes everyone hate him. You must be so lonely, Frederick Chilton. You walked over to the desk and perched on the edge, the irony not lost on you later that all three of your first encounters began with you on one of his desks. You leant forward and traced his jaw with your index finger,

“If you don’t want this, we can stop.”

“No i do want this, i want you.” He paused again, “i made you wait three weeks...i don’t want to disappoint you.”

He hardly had time to finish his sentence before you surged forward and captured his lips again. The height difference between the desk and the chair meant his neck was exposed to you above his collar as he reached up to match the energy of the kiss. You dipped your head and trailed open-mouthed kisses down his neck and across his jawline, the whimpers and groans that slipped out of his mouth made shock-after-shock fire down to your core. Watching “Professor Chilton” outside of this office would never have given you a clue that he would be as submissive as he seemed to be now. You made a mental note to explore that later on if this ever happened again. Oh this is definitely going to happen again. As you moved off the desk Frederick’s hands instinctively went to rest on your thighs like the last time you were in this position. You, however, had other ideas. You shuffled to your feet then rapidly dropped to your knees. Frederick’s eyes widened and you heard his breath catch in his throat as he realised what you were doing.

“Fuck Y/N” he groaned, looking down and almost coming in his pants at the sight of you with your dishevelled hair and kiss-swollen lips reaching to unbuckle his belt.

“Is this okay...” ,you asked, stilling your hands and peering up from under your lashes, “sir?”

The moan that came out of Frederick as you simultaneously brushed your hand over the bulge in his trousers was positively abhuman and shit it was hot. You undid the button and zipper on his trousers before pulling them down just enough to lift his dick out of his underwear. If you weren’t dripping before then you certainly were now. You had no idea how he could ever be worried about disappointing you with a dick the size of his - your jaw was practically aching just looking at it. With no hesitation you settled back on your heels and began kitten-licking the tip before licking a stripe along the underside of his dick and taking him into your mouth. Frederick grunted and moaned above you as you took him deeper with every dip of your head, eventually gagging slightly when he hit the back of your throat. The sound of that alone made Frederick grasp the back of your hair with both hands and pull you off him in a panic,

“If you keep doing that i’m gonna..” he stuttered, embarrassed. When you looked up at him he was so flustered it was almost sweet. You wrapped one hand back around his dick and reached around to place your other hand on top of his on the back of your head.

“Come for me, sir” 

You tapped the hand on the back of your head as a signal for him to push your head back down and you took him in your mouth again, bobbing up and down with even more ferocity, scraping your teeth lightly along his veins a few times. You felt his dick throb against your tongue and you moaned, hoping the vibrations would be what he needed to push him over the edge.

“Shit Y/N i’m...” and with one last bob of your head you felt his come hit the back of your throat and you instinctively swallowed.

You pulled off Frederick with a obscene ‘popping’ noise before meeting his eyes and licking your lips, making sure he knew you’d taken every last drop. You buttoned up his trousers and raised yourself to perch back on the desk-you wanted to revel in the scene in front of you for a second. Frederick was a mess. He was breathing heavy and beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead. His hair was sticking up in every direction and his hands had settled to rest on his thighs as he tried, unsuccessfully, to stop them from shaking. He wasn’t lying, he really doesn’t do this often.

“What is the saying? Take a picture, it will last longer?” he snarled, clearly off-put by your staring.

“Maybe one day i will.” You smiled as you hopped off the desk and nudged his legs open with your knee so you could stand between them. You bent down and pressed a heavy kiss to his lips before walking towards the door.

“See you soon, Frederick”.

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Spitting Venom (Supernatural x Criminal Minds)

Word Count: ~10,300 yikes

Warnings: Non-explicit violence, nothing more than you’d see on either show. More cursing though. Don’t even try to tell me Emily Prentiss doesn’t swear like a sailor. 

A/N: This is for @stunudo​ and her “Lie To Me” Challenge! My prompt was the Modest Mouse song “Spitting Venom.” Thanks to @fookinghelljensensthighs​ for reading and exclaiming and also just loving Sam and Spencer with me. 

This is part of the “Coffee & Psychopaths” series. It follows the events of Quitting, but you don’t need to read that to understand anything that happens here.  

This centers around (and steals dialogue from) the events of “Slash Fiction” (SPN) and “Proof” (CM). In order to smoosh the timelines together right, I had to do some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, so don’t think about it too hard. You should be able to tell from context clues, but for reference, the flashbacks (in order of appearance) correspond to “Shut Up, Dr Phil” (SPN) / “It Takes A Village” (CM), “To Hell... And Back” (CM), “My Bloody Valentine” (SPN), “Amplification” (CM), “With Friends Like These” (CM) / “Unforgiven” (SPN), “Appointment In Samarra” (SPN), and “Memoriam” (CM). Seriously, wibbly-wobbly. So much canon juggling. Just go with it. 

“Just for the record, the weather today is partly suspicious with chances of betrayal.” 

― Chuck Palahniuk

-

“Strap in, folks, we’ve got a weird one,” Garcia says cheerily, handing Spencer a paper folder as everybody else opens their tablets. 

“I thought the Winchesters were dead,” Hotch says. 

“That is part of the aforementioned weird, yes. Okay, for those of you who weren’t paying attention four years ago…” 

Spencer opens his file, and Garcia’s words stop making sense, because that’s Sam in the mugshot. 

His first instinct is to shout, This is a mistake. 

Spencer’s stomach churns. He’s cold all over. 

This feeling (betrayal, his brain supplies helpfully) is becoming a little too familiar, lately. 

Garcia is showing a video: a bank, a group of people scared and screaming, two men opening fire. That’s Sam. His expression is stone-cold, maybe even satisfied, as he empties the clip into the crowd. 

That’s Sam. 

Garcia’s talking about M.O. now, or the total lack of a consistent one, and Spencer can’t listen. He forces his features into the bland, neutral expression that has made people underestimate him for years, and he takes slow breaths, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. 

“Spence?” he hears, and when he looks around the table he realizes that it wasn’t the first time somebody said his name. They’re all staring. 

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks, brow furrowed. 

“I’m fine,” Spencer insists, with a shrug. 

“No you’re not, I know that face. Are you feeling okay?” Emily prods, and Spencer hates her for a moment, hates that she can still read him. 

He tries to force a smile, but it feels stiff on his face. 

“I know him,” Spencer blurts out. “Sam. Sam Winchester. He’s… he was my friend. Or I thought he was.” 

There’s a moment of stunned silence all around the table. Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling a pen idly, instead of looking any of them in the eyes. 

“Reid,” Hotch says quietly. 

“We met at a… meeting,” Spencer says. He looks up at Hotch to make sure he understands, and Hotch nods. “About two years ago. He was only here for a couple weeks. We got along, though. We… he left. We kept in touch.” 

“When did you last speak to him?” Hotch asks, frowning. 

Spencer swallows around the lump in his throat. It’s taking his best effort to maintain his mask of composure. 

“It was eight days ago.”

Hotch nods. “I’m assuming he’s already using a new number, but just in case, we’ll need you to give Garcia any contact information you have.” 

Spencer tries to smile. “Of course.” 

Emily asks, “And he didn’t say anything that would…” 

“That would, what, tip me off that he was planning a massive murder spree?” Spencer says. His voice cracks.  

“Anything that might be helpful,” Morgan interjects diplomatically. “Locations, names.” 

Spencer shakes his head. “No, it was… we didn’t talk about that sort of thing. It was random, mostly. When something was on my mind that I couldn’t… couldn’t talk to you about, or - when I couldn’t sleep. But there wasn’t much small talk.” 

“And you never suspected?” Garcia asks, wide-eyed. 

“Do you really think that if I suspected -”  

“We know that if there were any hints, you would’ve seen them. Nobody is suggesting that you should’ve known,” Hotch says firmly. 

“I should’ve, though,” Spencer insists, with a hysterical edge in his voice. “There were so many things that he just… avoided talking about. He looked familiar, even! I kept wondering where I recognized him from!” 

“Enough, kid,” Rossi interrupts. “Getting angry at yourself doesn’t help anybody. It was before you joined the Bureau, there was no reason for you to remember his face.” 

“This is a good thing, right?” Emily points out. “The better you know him, the easier it’s going to be for us to catch him.” 

“Apparently I didn’t know him, though,” Spencer says hoarsely. “I didn’t know him at all.” 

“Are you going to be able to work this case objectively?” Hotch asks. “We’ll all understand if you want to sit this one out.” 

Spencer stares at him helplessly. He’s not sure he knows the answer to that question.

“I remember Gideon talking about the Winchester case,” Rossi muses. “Couldn’t make head or tail of it, no apparent connection between victims, witnesses who kept changing their stories…” 

“Your insight will undoubtedly be useful,” Hotch adds quietly. 

Spencer grits his teeth, shock turning quickly to anger. 

“I want to find him,” he says. He wants to know. He wants to hear the confession. 

Hotch gives him one more steely, appraising look before nodding. 

“Very well. Let’s talk victimology.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

September 2011 (eight days earlier) 

“I don’t understand how she could do that,” Spencer says bitterly. “If I saw one of my friends hurting like that, and I knew something that would stop them hurting…” 

“Shit,” Sam mutters. “I’m sorry.” 

“Did they not trust me to keep the secret? Did they not think I could handle it? We’re a team. We’re not supposed to keep things from each other. Not important things, not like that.” 

“Yeah, I hear you.” 

Sam leans against the kitchen counter, watching Dean through the window. Baby’s hood is open and Dean’s wrestling with something inside, and Sam wonders, for the thousandth time, whether he’s imagining the wariness in Dean’s face whenever they talk these days. He can’t shake the feeling there’s something Dean’s not saying. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer says quietly, and his voice cracks on the last word.  

“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do, except give it time.”

“I hate that answer,” Spencer says flatly, and Sam laughs. 

“Yeah. But… I think hearing the truth is the hard part, sometimes. Or saying it. Right? It hurts like hell, and it’s going to hurt for a while, but now that it’s all out in the open… now it’ll start getting better. It has to.”  

“I guess.” 

“She thought she was doing the right thing,” Sam repeats. “Do you really think she’d do that, if she didn’t feel like she had a choice?” 

Spencer sighs in a rush of static. “No,” he says begrudgingly. “But I think she had a choice. And now it’s my choice whether to trust her or not.” 

“You’ll get there.” 

“How do you know?” 

“A very smart man once told me that’s what friends do,” Sam says wryly. “They trust each other.” 

“Quoting me back to me doesn’t seem fair,” Spencer grumbles. 

“Doesn’t make it wrong,” Sam retorts with a grin. 

Sam watches Dean slam the hood shut, and he wonders why his brother has such a hard time trusting him. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Are you kidding me right now?” Dean snaps, and the sneer in his voice makes Sam feel all of six years old again. 

“No, Dean, I’m not kidding,” Sam says stubbornly. He leans against the doorframe and watches Dean pace back and forth, like a wild animal on a too-short leash in the tiny living room of Rufus’s cabin. 

“Dead or alive, Sam. We’re wanted dead or alive. You try to talk to a Fed, which one d’you think it’ll be? They’ll have you pumped full of bullets before you can blink.” 

“He’s got a point, Sam,” Bobby says quietly. 

Sam rubs his eyes, feeling a headache building. “I trust him.” 

“Yeah? Well, I don’t,” Dean retorts. “Who the hell is this guy, anyway? When’d you make a friend I don’t know about?”

“Is that what this is about?” Sam asks bitterly. “You’re pissed there’s something about me that you don’t get to control?” 

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t have a great track record here,” Dean spits, and Sam’s throat clogs with anger even before Dean says, “Whenever you’ve made a friend on your own, how’s that gone for you, huh? Meg, Ruby, Amy… two demons, a monster, and now a fucking Fed?” 

Sam balls his hands into fists to fight the urge to start swinging. “Why can’t you just trust me? You don’t know Frank, either.” 

“I trust Bobby,” Dean says. The I don’t trust you goes unspoken. 

Sam clenches his jaw, breathing until he knows he can talk without shouting. 

“Just go, then, Dean,” he says, quiet and venomous. “Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I’m going to call Spencer.” 

Dean’s frozen for a moment, stone-faced. Then he whirls around and heads for the door. “Fine. I’ll check in when I get to Frank’s.” 

Sam sits down on the couch, resting his head in his hands for a moment. He hears the dim rumble of the engine starting outside. 

“I’m gonna use the landline, if that’s okay,” Sam says quietly. 

“I sure hope you’re right about this, boy,” Bobby growls. 

“So do I.” 

He finds Spencer’s number on the worn slip of paper in his wallet, written down with the five or so others that he doesn’t want to lose, and holds his breath as he dials. He has a feeling Spencer might not pick up on the first try, if he picks up at all. For all he knows, Spencer’s on the job already, in Colorado with his team looking for clues that aren’t there. 

He closes his eyes and thinks, please, and then Spencer picks up.

“Hi, Sam.” His voice is icy. 

“Hey,” Sam says. There’s a long, weighted pause before he continues, “It’s not me.” 

“You’re kidding me, right?” It’s clipped and robotic and forceful. 

“No, look, I - it’s not me, okay? That’s why I’m calling. I’ll turn myself in.” Another weighted pause. Sam clears his throat. “Not to the police, ‘cause I’m pretty sure they’ll shoot me on sight, but. To you. It’s hard to explain, but I’m innocent, it’s someone else pretending to be me, so if you can get to Montana -” 

“Montana?” Spencer interrupts incredulously. 

“Montana,” Sam repeats. He hesitates. “I figured you’d be tracking the call, I used a landline to make it easy for you.” 

“She’s working on it,” Spencer admits begrudgingly. 

Sam feels a twist of guilt, wondering how Spencer’s coworkers are reacting to this… even worse than Dean, probably. 

He hears a faint female voice in the background, too quiet to make out more than, “...not sure how, but…” 

“Fine, then,” Spencer says quietly. “Montana.” 

“Wherever you want, okay? I - I won’t put up a fight. Just…” Sam can’t help but laugh. “Don’t let them shoot me, okay?” 

There’s a crackle of static as Spencer sighs. “We’ll call you with details when we land.”

A voice in the back of his head that sounds like Dean is shouting, this is a terrible idea. 

Sam ignores it. 

“I trust you,” he says. “And Spencer?” 

“Mmhmm?” 

“Thanks for picking up.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

May 2010

Spencer feels like he’s choking on the thick stink in the air. He looks around the packed dirt yard of the farmhouse and can’t find any relief; he’s surrounded by ugly raw grief, and he can’t stand it. Emily is consoling the crying girl. Hotch is talking to the locals, tying up loose ends. Morgan is staring numbly at the rows and rows of muddy shoes on the ground.  

He knows he’s not the only one dealing with the weight of what they saw today. He should find Penelope, give her a hug, face this together, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Sharing this would make it a little too real.  

Maybe it’s all the practice he’s had at being alone; his first instinct is to hide, when things start to get overwhelming, and to maintain a certain level of clinical detachment until he can make sense of what he’s feeling. He can dissect his own feelings. When his friends are hurting, though… that’s a different story. When he sees his friends hurting, he hurts too, hurts in a way that chokes him, hurts in a way that crowds everything else out, and all he wants to do is fix it. Even when it’s not something that can be fixed. It’s illogical. 

Love doesn’t leave any room for logic, he’s learning. 

He slips away, into the barn. 

Dust motes and chaff drift in the scattered beams of light that cut through the empty space, swirling around him as he climbs the ladder to the dark drafty loft. Spencer sits down on the floor in front of the wall of drawings. He hugs his knees to his chest and looks, committing the clumsy crayon strokes to memory, because it doesn’t seem right to let all those empty shoes live on without also remembering this: bright color, crushing loneliness, constant fear. 

The loneliness is too much, after a few minutes. He pulls out his phone and closes his eyes. 

“Hey, Sam,” he says. His voice cracks and wobbles. 

“Hey. What’s up?” 

“I’m just not having a great day,” Spencer says, aiming for casual, falling short. 

“You wanna talk about it?” 

“Not really,” Spencer says. His voice is thin and scratchy and small in the darkness of the barn, lost immediately in the blanketing silence. 

Sam hesitates, and Spencer waits, hoping he’ll understand. 

“If you could have one object from a fictional universe, what would you want? Has to fit in your pocket.”

Spencer lets out a grateful little huff of a sigh. “Obviously the -” 

“TARDIS doesn’t count,” Sam interrupts, laughing. “It has to be portable in its normal everyday form, not just temporarily shrinkable.” 

“Sonic screwdriver, then. Obviously.” 

“Right? That’s what I said.” 

“What else would there be?” 

“Dean would go with a lightsaber,” Sam says, and Spencer can practically hear him rolling his eyes. 

It’s the first time Spencer’s really smiled all day. “Based on what you’ve told me about your brother, that doesn’t actually surprise me.” 

“Yeah. That’s Dean…” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

There’s a dial tone. Spencer closes his phone and tries to breathe. 

“Do you believe him?” Hotch asks quietly. 

Spencer looks down at his hands, twirling his pen again, feeling claustrophobic with all their concerned gazes pinning him in place. There’s too much going on in his head, too many things trapped and buzzing inside him with nowhere to go, and he wants to start running but all he can do is shrug. 

“I don’t know,” he says, voice strained. 

“Even if he is telling the truth, there are parts of this case that just don’t make any sense,” Morgan says. 

JJ adds, “If it’s a ruse, it’s a bizarre one.” 

“Gut feeling, kid,” Rossi says softly. “Are we walking into a trap?” 

Spencer wants to scream. Instead he says, “I don’t think he’d hurt me, but…” 

“If you trust him, that’s good enough for us,” Emily says fiercely. 

Spencer can’t help it; he looks at JJ before staring stubbornly down at the table again. The words burn on their way out: “This wouldn’t be the first time I trusted the wrong person, though.” 

“We need to make sure we’re prepared for all eventualities, but I think it’s worth the risk,” Hotch says. “We can discuss it more on the jet. Wheels up in thirty.” 

Spencer refuses to meet any of their eyes as he gathers up his folder and his bag. He gets out of the conference room before anyone can try to talk to him. His cheeks are burning, and his hands are shaking, and he’s already jittery but he really needs coffee; beyond that singular thought, his brain is stuck between stations, all white noise and useless static. 

The coffee pot in the break room is empty. He’s glad; it’s good to have something to do with his hands, a ritual, a tiny piece of his life that he can still count on. Filter, measure grounds, fresh water… 

“Spence.” It’s JJ, of course, and Spencer’s first petulant instinct is to ignore her. “Spence. Look, we gotta talk about this.” 

“About what? The fact that one of the few people I still trusted turns out to be a serial killer?” Spencer says sharply. “It’s becoming a pattern, me trusting the wrong people. I’m getting used to it.” 

“You know what I mean.” Her voice is low and soothing, like she’s talking to a victim’s family. 

“I don't want to talk about it.” 

“I get it, okay?” she says, still in that calm, professional voice. Spencer wishes she’d scream instead. He wants to scream. “You're disappointed with the way we handled Emily.”

He breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, focusing on the steady drip of coffee into the pot. 

“Listen, I have a lot going on, all right?” he says coolly. 

“You know what I think it is?” He doesn’t look at her, but she continues anyway: “You're mad that Hotch and I controlled our micro-expressions at the hospital and you weren't able to detect our deception.” 

It hurts. Her words bite down somewhere deep, venomous needle-sharp fangs that sink in and sting, and the toxic ache spreads through his system before he can take a breath. 

“You think it's about my profiling skills?” he spits back. “Jennifer, listen, the only reason you were able to manage my perceptions is because I trusted you. I came to your house for ten weeks in a row crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth.” 

Her expression is hurt, confused, and she says quietly, “I couldn't.” 

“You couldn't? Or you wouldn't?” he snaps. 

“No, I couldn't,” she insists. Her eyes are brimming with tears now, and Spencer feels a sick rush of satisfaction. 

He knows it’s cruel, but he lashes out anyway: “What if I started taking Dilaudid again? Would you have let me?” 

She recoils. “You didn't.” 

“Yeah, but I thought about it.” It’s petty and it’s unfair and it’s vicious, and he doesn’t care, not even a little bit. 

It stuns her into silence for a moment, and he turns to pour coffee into his travel cup, hands shaking so badly he almost spills. 

“Spence,” she whispers. “I'm sorry.” 

He whirls on her, almost shouts: “It's too late, all right?” 

“Reid,” she says, but he’s already brushing past her, and he doesn’t stop. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

February 2010 

He’ll never forget the look on Dean’s face. He knows it a little too well, by now: disappointment, disgust. I expected better. This isn’t who I raised you to be. You’re not the person I thought you were. 

“You know I couldn’t have gotten out of that bathroom on my own,” Sam says. “You know I wouldn’t have - I wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.”  

Dean doesn’t trust him, though. He’s not sure Dean will ever trust him again. 

Sam lets Dean lock him in the panic room. He doesn’t protest; he goes without complaint, head down, like a dog with its tail between its legs as it waits for a kick that never comes. Detox will hurt. It always does. He feels like he deserves that, though. 

Dean almost says something, before he closes the door. The words catch on his lips and die on his throat, and he just shakes his head as he slides the deadbolts into place. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, but Dean’s already walking away, and the hallucinations are already creeping in around the edges of his vision: his mother sighing sadly, his younger self shaking his head in contempt. 

Sam sits down, curls up, and looks around at the bare walls and the locked door. The floor is cold under him, and he can already feel the chill sinking into his skin, down to his bones. He leans back against the wall and tries to breathe through the panic. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, over and over again, but he’s not really sure who he’s talking to any more. 

The hallucinations fade. The bloodstains won’t, not really. Dean will see those forever. 

He can barely look at Sam when he finally unlocks the door. 

Sam’s still itchy and wired, that night, even though the worst of it is over. Dean’s not even trying to pretend he’s doing anything other than keeping watch outside. He’s sitting in the hallway with a bottle of whiskey for company. Sam can’t leave, and he sure as hell can’t sleep, so he calls Spencer, and he doesn’t realize until it starts ringing that it’s two in the morning. 

“Hi, Sam,” Spencer says, staticky and distant. 

“Hey.” 

“You okay?” 

Sam sighs, stammers, stops, tries to start again. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Not really,” he manages. There’s another long pause before he can admit, “I fucked up. I keep fucking up.” 

“Oh,” Spencer says softly. “Okay.” 

Sam exhales. “I didn’t mean to.” 

“I know. I believe you.”

“You’re the only one who does.” 

“I trust you,” Spencer says. It’s so matter-of-fact, so easy, and it’s been a long time since someone trusted Sam like that. He didn’t realize how much he missed it. 

“Why?” Sam asks. He tries to laugh, but it comes out wet and choked. 

“That’s what friends do, right?” 

Sam takes a deep, shaky breath and swallows down the lump in his throat, trying not to wonder if Dean’s still standing guard outside his door.  

“Thanks for picking up,” Sam says, barely a whisper. 

“Any time.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

They cuff his hands behind the back of the uncomfortable metal chair. Sam didn’t expect anything less, but he still hates it. They had the entire team except for Spencer there to take him in, and that was a few too many guns trained on him for comfort, but he’s alone now. It’s cold, and the walls are blank, and he shivers. 

He’s spent too much of his life locked in cages of one sort or another. 

When Spencer finally opens the door, Sam can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, even as his stomach twists with nerves. He’d worried they would insist on sending someone else in. 

“Hey, Spencer,” he says quietly. 

Spencer doesn’t answer. He avoids eye contact as he sits down, settling in with his posture stiff and his hands clasped on the table in front of him. He looks like a different person from the one Sam first met; the jittery, fidgety, chattering Spencer is gone, and there’s an actual Fed in his place. Even when he meets Sam’s eyes, his expression doesn’t give anything away. He’s ice-cold and completely closed-off. 

Sam tries to breathe. 

“Where’s Dean?” Spencer asks bluntly. 

“He’s at a friend’s, trying to figure out how to clear our names.” 

“Why isn’t he here with you?” 

“He didn’t think this was a good idea,” Sam says. “We haven’t had great experiences with law enforcement, but… him even more than me. I trust you. He doesn’t.” 

Spencer’s eyes narrow. “You trust me.” 

Sam shrugs helplessly. “That’s what friends do, right?” 

Spencer’s face goes stormy immediately, and he leans closer, glaring at Sam with startling intensity. “Let’s get one thing straight. You and I are not friends. You’re a murderer, and the only reason I’m here is that I want to see what you look like when you’re telling the truth… because apparently you’ve been lying to me since we met.” 

It’s not unexpected, but it still hurts. Sam hesitates for a moment before saying softly, “I’m not a murderer, and I haven’t been lying to you.” 

“There’s video.” 

“It’s not me.” 

Spencer stares at him incredulously. “All that stuff you never wanted to talk about. All those times you talked about… being scared of yourself, worrying what you could do. What was that, then?” 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Sam says. He feels exhausted, suddenly. 

“You’ve never even told me what you do for a living!” 

“I can’t.” 

“How am I supposed to believe you?” Spencer asks. He’s starting to lose his composure, an agitated edge creeping into his voice. 

“Look, remember when you called me, and told me you might be dying?” 

“How is that relevant?” Spencer hisses. 

“I figured it out, afterward. Anthrax. Right?” 

“How did you…” 

“And you told me that you couldn’t give me details, and the details weren’t important anyway.” 

“That’s right.” 

“And I accepted that, because I trust you, and I trust that if you’re not telling me something, it’s for a damn good reason,” Sam says determinedly. “They tried to keep it out of the news, but later, once I knew you were okay, I did some digging, and I figured it out. Why didn’t you alert the public?” 

Spencer looks utterly baffled. “Because people would panic. There’d be mass hysteria.” 

“There you go. It’s the same thing.” 

“It’s not the same thing at all,” Spencer exclaims. “I work for the federal government!” 

“Look, I know you, okay?” Sam says desperately. “I know that your job is to notice the details that don’t make sense. Even when something seems obvious, you and your team pay attention, and you make sure everything fits, and you figure out the truth, not just whatever bullshit explanation seems easiest.” 

Spencer nods slowly. 

“That’s why you’re here, and that’s why your team didn’t shoot me on sight,” Sam continues. “And I know you’re good at your job, so I know you’ve noticed that there are things about this case that don’t add up. Okay? Why would I be here talking to you, if I was guilty? Did you ask yourself how I got to Montana so quickly? Did you talk to any of the witnesses from the old cases? Diana Ballard? Rebecca Warren? Did you try to profile us? Find any similarities in m.o. between all those murders? No. None of it made any sense then, and none of it makes any sense now. You know why? Because it wasn’t us,” he finishes.  

“Sam. Maybe there are details from the old cases that don’t make sense, but…” Spencer trails off, shaking his head, like he doesn’t even know where to start. Then he stops himself, sets his jaw, refocuses, and when he looks at Sam again, there’s nothing but pure clear anger in his face. “Look me in the eye, right now, and tell me you’ve never killed anyone.” 

Sam instinctively goes to tuck his hair behind his ears, but the cuffs cut the movement short. Spencer sees it. His face falls, bitter and disappointed. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he mutters. 

“I’ve never killed anything that didn’t deserve it,” Sam insists. 

“Any thing? Really? Or any person?” Spencer asks. Sam doesn’t answer, and Spencer continues, rushing, like he can’t stop the words from coming out: “Do you know how many times I’ve heard a serial killer say that? Everybody thinks they have a reason, Sam, whether angels told him the guy was guilty, or… Satan was possessing them, or… a talking dog told them the meaning of life.” 

Sam lets out a borderline hysterical laugh, and Spencer just stares like he’s completely crazy. Sam can’t blame him. He’s starting to feel crazy. 

“Okay, here, look,” he says, in a sudden burst of inspiration. “Go through the old case files, look at the dates. Every one, I guarantee you, people were dying before we got to town. There’s gotta be a way to prove it, right? The murders started happening before we got there. Everything you’ve told me about Penelope, I bet she can do it, easy.” 

“What, so now you’re telling me you’re some sort of vigilante?” Spencer half-shouts. 

“Not exactly, no.” Sam’s starting to run out of ideas. 

The door opens abruptly, and a stern-faced agent says, “Reid. A word?” 

Spencer gives Sam one last look before he gets up. It’s a familiar expression: disgust, disappointment, you’re not the person I thought you were. Then he turns his back, and the door slams shut behind him. Sam can hear the click of the lock. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

April 2010 

He writes to her every day, pages and pages of words. He hopes she realizes that they all boil down to “I love you,” because right now, he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Hi, Mom, this is Spencer,” he says, “I just… I just really want you to know that I love you. And -” when he blinks away tears he can practically see her, her smile swimmy through the salt water, same as it looked when he was small and crying over a scraped knee, and if he keeps thinking like that he’ll never make it through this message. He pauses, gulps for air, steadies himself. “I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son.” 

She hasn’t taken care of him since he was small. Right now, though, he feels small and scared, and all he wants is for his mom to tell him that she loves him, and that it’s going to be alright. 

“Reid?” Penelope whispers, and then he hears Dr. Kimura, and he doesn’t get to be a child right now; there’s nobody there to take care of him. 

“I gotta go,” he says, and hangs up before Garcia can ask questions. 

“Doctor Reid?” 

“You look nice,” he jokes, with a watery laugh, and she smiles. “How are the patients doing?” 

“Let’s worry about you,” she says smoothly. 

Spencer forces a smile and shakes his head. “I actually… I feel fine.” It’s one of the most obvious lies he’s ever told. 

“If you feel any pain, I could give you something,” she offers. 

“No, I’d rather not take any pain medication.” His hands are shaking, but at least his voice sounds strong. 

She looks concerned. “We can at least make you feel more comfortable.” 

“I am comfortable, and I don’t want to take any narcotics,” he says fiercely. It’s not easy to say the words, but he feels better once he does; he feels proud. 

There’s someone else he needs to call, Spencer realizes. 

“Tell me how I can help,” Dr. Kimura says, and Spencer nods. First things first: if the poison is here, so is the antidote. 

“I think the cure for this strain is in here somewhere,” he says, ignoring the way his chest aches.  

“Well, shall I start here?” 

“Yes, just… I just need a moment.” 

Spencer looks down at his phone. He could call Garcia, again, have her save the message as a contingency plan, but he’s not sure he could handle her questions right now, and he can trust Sam not to push for details; he’s always been good about that. 

“Hey, Spencer.” 

“Hey, so, I can’t explain, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it out of this,” he says, stumbling over the words. “Don’t interrupt, I can’t - I just wanted to say thank you. In case I don’t get to say it again. Recovery was… I don’t… you helped. Thanks for always picking up the phone when I needed you.” 

“Right back at you,” Sam says quietly. 

It’s getting harder to breathe, and the panicked hammering of his heartbeat isn’t helping. 

“Thanks,” he says again, and closes the phone without saying goodbye. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“Reid, you need to calm down,” Hotch says, as soon as the lock clicks behind them. 

“I know,” Spencer says, rubbing his eyes, agitated. “There’s just… there’s so much that doesn’t make sense.” 

“It’s more than that.” Hotch gives him one of those piercing glares he’s so good at. “You’re allowing your anger with JJ to cloud what you’re seeing in Sam.” 

Spencer can’t really argue with that. He just nods. 

“When this is over, I want you to take a couple days,” Hotch says. “You need some time to process.” 

Spencer’s instinct is to argue, but one look at Hotch’s face tells him it’s pointless. He nods again, reluctantly. 

“Garcia is checking into the pattern that he talked about,” Hotch says, as he leads Spencer back into the observation room. “She may be able to pin the Winchesters’ locations at the times of the original murders. JJ’s talking to old witnesses. There has to be something Henricksen missed.” 

Emily, Morgan, and Rossi are clustered in the small, spare room, watching Sam through the one-way glass. Emily cuts herself off mid-sentence as Spencer and Hotch walk in. 

“You okay, kid?” Morgan asks again, looking at Spencer like he’s a bomb about to go off, and Spencer tries to smile for him. 

“All my time in the Bureau, I’ve never seen a case that made less sense,” Rossi comments. 

They all look at Sam, who’s frowning down at the table, deep in thought. 

Spencer clears his throat and asks, “Do you believe him?” 

“I believe that he’s telling part of the truth,” Hotch says. “It’s what he’s not saying that concerns me.” 

Inside the interrogation room, Sam starts, eyes wide, and looks from the door to the one-way mirror. 

“Hey,” he barks. “Hey, I know you’re listening! It’s St. Louis. I figured out the pattern, and they’re going to St. Louis next.” He tugs at the cuffs, clearly agitated. “Come on. Can anybody hear me?” 

“He’s genuinely distressed,” Emily says, frowning.

“If it’s a delusion, it’s a complex one,” Morgan adds. 

The door swings open, and JJ starts talking before any of them can ask: “That was Diana Ballard. She swears up and down that it’s all a big misunderstanding, but she’s not clear on any of the details; she just said that she’d trust the Winchesters with her life. Rebecca Warren said the same. There was someone impersonating the Winchesters, back then, and she swears up and down that someone’s got it out for them now.” 

“How did Henricksen not have that statement in his file?” Morgan asks. 

“Maybe Sam’s right, as much as I hate to admit it,” Emily says. “Maybe this is a case of agents just wanting the easy explanation.” 

“You guys are gonna want to see this,” Penelope interrupts, hurrying through the door as fast as her hot pink heels will allow, holding out her tablet. 

“Another one?” JJ asks. 

“Unfortunately, yes, and it’s a doozy. This just came in from -” 

“St. Louis,” Hotch fills in grimly. 

“How did you know?” Penelope asks, but she presses play without waiting for an answer, and they all cluster together to watch the grainy cell phone footage: Sam, leaning in close, giving the camera a smug smile before he opens fire. 

“Is that really…” Spencer says numbly, looking from the screen to the window, where Sam is tapping his foot, impatient, undeniably solid and real. 

“It’s real,” she confirms. “And to top it off, I found a call that the local brass dismissed, but I just talked to him a couple minutes ago and it sounds like the genuine article. A guy thinks he saw the older Winchester just a couple hours after Sam originally called us. He was at a gas station in, you guessed it, Montana.” 

There’s a stunned pause, while everybody tries to digest that news, until Emily breaks the silence with a succinct, “What in the ever-loving fuck is happening.” 

“I’m going to talk to Sam,” Hotch says. 

Spencer’s acutely aware of everyones’ eyes on him again as he moves closer to the window. His reflection in the glass looks masklike and composed, but he doesn’t feel anything of the sort. 

He’s kind of starting to believe Sam. That’s his first instinct, at least. Something deep in his gut is telling him to trust, but it’s being strangled by the suspicion and twisted fear that have been poisoning him slowly since Emily came back. Now that it’s in his system, Spencer’s not sure how to flush it out; it’s just in him now, like some sort of chronic infection. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

March 2011

“I hate how often we see it,” Spencer says quietly. “It’s the first thing everybody thought of, with this kid, even though it wasn’t just schizophrenia, but… what’s the difference, between him and my mom?” 

“Your mom has you,” Sam points out. He can hear the murmur of Dean and Bobby’s voices downstairs, constant and comforting. 

“The headaches haven’t stopped.” 

Sam grimaces. “No answers, still?” 

“They all say there’s nothing wrong with me, physically.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “That’s… kinda harder, isn’t it?” 

“I hate not knowing,” Spencer fumes. “I hate that there’s no test for it. Even if it was a positive diagnosis, I’d rather have that, you know? I mean, that’d be awful, obviously, but… ” 

“At least you’d know,” Sam finishes. “Yeah.” 

“It’s like my brain may or may not be a ticking bomb. No way of knowing what’s hiding up there,” Spencer bites out, with a warped attempt at a laugh. 

Sam can’t help but think of his flashback: coming back to reality with Dean pale and wide-eyed above him, the disorientation of feeling the solid floor under his back, the way his skin still burned. It felt so real. 

He pushes those thoughts away. 

“Like you can’t even trust yourself,” Sam says softly. 

“Exactly.” Spencer’s voice is small and thin, and he sounds very young, suddenly. “My mom’s counting on me. What if… if something happened - I don’t know who would take care of her. Of us.” 

“Your family,” Sam says, without hesitating. 

“My team? Yeah, I… I guess so.” 

“Your family,” Sam repeats. “Even if you can’t trust yourself, you’ll be able to trust your family.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sam’s heart leaps at the sound of the door opening again.

“They’re going to St. Louis,” he says, all in a rush, before the stern-faced agent from earlier can even sit down. The guy doesn’t bat an eye, just sits down calmly, pinning Sam with a stare that could strip paint. 

“Sam, I’m Supervisory Special  Agent Aaron Hotchner.” Sam’s heard Spencer talk about “Hotch,” and it all makes sense now. “What makes you think St Louis is next?” 

“They’re retracing our steps,” Sam answers. “Dean and I, when we started working together. They’re hitting each town we stopped in. Jericho, Black Water Ridge, Manitoc. St. Louis is next.” 

Sam holds his breath, hoping he won’t be pressed on his definition of working. He can see the moment Hotch comes to a decision with an infinitesimal nod. 

“We’re too late,” he says. “We just got the news.” 

“Shit,” Sam can’t help but mutter, and he tugs instinctively at the handcuffs, frustrated, done with sitting still. 

“This means you’re innocent,” Hotch points out, clearly watching Sam’s reaction. 

Sam can’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, but I already knew that. It’s… Iowa next, then. Ankeny, Iowa.” 

“Very well,” Hotch says flatly, giving Sam a critical, evaluating look. “It’s very clear that you’re not what we thought you were, and you may be able to help us end this. Are you still interested in accompanying us?” 

“Yes,” Sam replies impatiently. 

“First, I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me the truth about what’s going on here,” Hotch says, in such a low, dangerous voice that Sam’s almost intimidated. “Otherwise, if one of my agents gets hurt because you withheld information, or if there’s even a hint that you’re leading us into a trap, I will shoot you without hesitation. Do I make myself clear?” 

Jesus. But if the FBI can help him get to Iowa in time, with enough firepower to put a dent in the Leviathans, this’ll all be worth it. 

Sam leans forward, as much as his cuffs will allow, meeting Hotch’s impenetrable glare with a determined stare of his own. 

“Look, I could tell you more, but you’re not going to believe some of it until you see for yourself,” he snaps. “So as far as I’m concerned, the only truth that matters is this: people are dying, and we both want to put a stop to it. Now, are you going to waste time asking for irrelevant details, or are you going to choose to trust me?”  

Hotch holds his gaze for a moment before nodding tersely. “Let’s get going, then. I’ll go get the keys.”

He gets up and Sam grimaces at his retreating back, twisting his wrist uncomfortably to get the bobby pin at the right angle. Then the cuffs fall to the ground with a metallic clatter, and Hotch looks back at him in disbelief. Sam smiles at him, equal parts sheepish and smug. 

“I told you, full cooperation,” he explains, and Hotch shakes his head like he might just be a tiny bit impressed. 

The rest of the team is waiting out in the hallway, some looking skeptical (tall, dark, handsome, eyebrows; Morgan, if Sam's guessing right), others nervous (pink pom-poms in her hair; that’ll be Penelope), but almost all with some degree of confusion written across their faces. Sam can’t exactly blame them. Spencer’s staring at his shoes, avoiding eye contact. 

They’re a very clean, professional-looking bunch, and it’s making Sam incredibly uncomfortable, even aside from the obvious awkwardness inherent in the situation. 

“I’m Sam,” he blurts out, and then winces. “Um. You knew that.” 

“Yep,” Penelope squeaks. “This is weird.”  

“Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, David Rossi,” Hotch says brusquely, pointing to each in turn. “Jennfer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and you know Spencer. There’ll be time to talk more on the jet. Everyone, grab your things, meet outside in five.” He’s already pulling out a cell phone and striding away as the team scatters, and Sam feels sort of windswept in his wake; the guy’s intense.

Sam and Spencer are alone in the hallway. Sam’s stomach twists. This is familiar. This is another person he’s let down, and the bitter voice in the back of his head whispering you fucked up again is familiar too. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam blurts out. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but… I’m sorry.” 

Spencer looks up at him with a quizzical frown, head tilted. “I was going to apologize to you.” 

Sam blinks. “Why?” 

Spencer presses his lips together in a funny little grimace. Sam had forgotten that face, the weird things he does with his mouth when he’s not sure what to say.

“For not trusting you.” His voice is scratchy and uneven and honest, now that there isn’t any anger keeping it strong and sure. “I wanted to believe that you… that it couldn’t be you. When I saw the first video, that was my instinct. But my instincts haven’t been great, lately.” 

Sam shakes his head. “No, you have nothing to apologize for.” 

“I think maybe I don’t trust myself right now?” Spencer barrels on. “But there’s video, and... I trust Hotch. If Hotch believes you... yeah. I’m sorry.” 

Sam’s not used to being forgiven so easily. It takes him a moment to remember how to speak. 

“You gave me a chance,” he says. “Most people wouldn’t have even picked up the phone. And there’s still… I still haven’t told you everything, why would you -”

“There are a lot of things going on that I don’t understand, and I want answers, don’t get me wrong.” Spencer looks frustrated for a moment. “But… knowing that you’re not a murderer goes a long way. The details can wait.” 

“When I start sharing details is when most people start running in the opposite direction,” Sam admits. 

“I think that’s sort of a universal human experience,” Spencer offers. He looks like he’s trying not to laugh, now. “Or at least, the fear is. Nobody likes telling the full truth. It’s uncomfortable at best, painful at worst.” 

Sam huffs out a laugh and swipes a hand over his face. “Yeah, okay. Got me there.” 

“I’ll trust that you’re not lying if you trust that I won’t run,” Spencer says, and he’s not smiling now. He’s dead serious, determined, maybe a little scared. 

“Okay,” Sam says hoarsely. “Deal.” 

There’s an awkward moment where they both just look at each other, but then Spencer jerks his head in the direction of the front doors. “C’mon, we should go.” 

Sam nods and lets him lead the way. “Should we - do you know where my phone is? I need to call my brother.” 

“Garcia will have it.”

They walk out into the bullpen, where the team is bustling around, collecting their things, and Sam’s reminded again of how much they’re risking on his word. It’s overwhelming. His throat feels too tight. 

“So, that handcuff thing,” says Rossi, tossing his bag over his shoulder and falling into step next to Sam. 

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I can teach you. It’s just a bobby pin.” 

“Might help next time I get kidnapped,” Spencer says, with alarming nonchalance. 

“Would’ve come in handy a few times during college,” Rossi comments. 

“You mean as a party trick?” Spencer asks him. 

“Yeah. Sure, kid. A party trick.” 

“...oh.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

November 2010 

“Spencer?” 

“I… is that you?” Spencer asks, so shocked he feels dizzy. It’s been six months. 

Spencer’s first thought had been, ‘Weird, that's the second “just in case” call in a month,’ when he got the voicemail. He’d almost laughed.  

Spencer had called Sam from the hospital, though, after the anthrax thing, when the antidote worked and he woke up. 

Sam never called. Spencer assumed he never woke up. 

“It’s me,” Sam says. “I’m so sorry, I -” 

“What happened?” 

“I was… sick,” Sam stammers. “Really… really sick. I’m sorry.” 

Spencer has to pause for a moment to digest that. His head is spinning. 

“What -” he starts, but he cuts himself off. He has some idea of what kind of sickness might cause someone to go away for six months, and it’s not physical. “Oh,” he says softly. 

“Sorry,” Sam says again. He sounds miserable. 

“No, don’t apologize,” Spencer protests. “You shouldn’t - it’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay. I thought…” 

“Yeah.” 

All Spencer can say is, “I’m really glad you’re alive.” 

“Me too,” Sam says quietly. 

Spencer’s been wanting to talk to him for six months, but now he can’t think of anything to say. Eventually he just goes with the first thing that comes into his head: “You missed some really good episodes of Doctor Who.” 

Sam laughs. “Yeah, I’ve got some catching up to do.” 

Spencer closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe. He’s never been so happy to be wrong. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Emily says flatly, as Spencer brandishes the Super Soaker in her direction. “Of all the stupid fucking ideas.” 

“Yup,” he says, popping the p and maybe kinda enjoying the way her eyes have gone all buggy. In a low voice, he adds, “Play along, remember?” 

She casts a glance over to where Sam is busying himself with the rest of the water guns and a box of Borax. “As long as he doesn’t try to take my fucking Glock.” 

“Nobody is taking your Glock, Emily,” Spencer says dryly. She shakes her head and goes over to join Morgan, Hotch, and JJ, who have already been outfitted and are standing at the other side of the parking lot. Garcia is sneakily taking a picture of them. 

Admittedly, when Sam insisted that they make an emergency stop between the airstrip and the police precinct, Spencer wasn’t expecting Toys R Us, but he was also pretty gobsmacked when Sam started talking about monsters. He’d waited until they were in the jet to do so, which was probably a smart move. This isn’t the first time they’ve played along with a delusion in order to get answers, but it’s definitely the strangest. 

Funniest, also. Spencer hopes Garcia got a lot of pictures. 

Sam will definitely be headed to an institution, when all of this is over, and Spencer’s having trouble processing that, but… well, it’s not like Spencer’s unfamiliar with that sort of facility. Spencer’s just glad Sam’s not a murderer, and he’s ready to get Dean, arrest whoever’s framing them, and get some answers. He can deal with the rest later; there’s only so much he can handle right now. 

It’s been a weird day. 

“Okay, we’re ready,” Sam announces, passing the last Super Soaker to Spencer. “Bobby didn’t know where they’re keeping Dean, but I’m guessing the cells. I’ll lead the way. Don’t trust anyone, we have to assume the local cops are Leviathans, at this point. Stick together, don’t let them touch you. Clear?” 

“And I’ll be right here with the emergency radio,” Garcia chimes in cheerily. “Thank God.” 

Sam tucks his own water gun into the back of his jeans, hefting the fire axe he’d somehow stolen from the cockpit of the jet without anyone noticing. “Let’s go,” he says authoritatively. 

“We’re right behind you,” JJ says, in her warmest, most soothing “placate the crazy man” voice.

Sam leads them around the corner and through the front door of the station, easing the door open without a sound, and they follow, entering the oddly quiet precinct quickly and efficiently. 

Spencer can see his teammates starting to draw their real weapons; luckily, Sam’s too focused on what’s in front of him to notice what everyone is doing behind him. Spencer hooks a finger on the Super Soaker and lets it dangle from his left hand, drawing his gun with his right, and most of the team is doing the same, for the sake of appearances. Emily and Morgan just set their water guns on the floor. 

“Dean?” Sam calls out. 

“Sammy!” 

Dean walks jauntily out into the bullpen like it’s a very normal thing to find a team of federal agents aiming their guns at him, but he does a double take, disconcerted, frowning for a moment at all the neon plastic toys on display. Then he recovers and turns a wide grin on Sam, who’s hanging back, wary. 

“You brought backup,” Dean says, laughing. “Good, I’m hungry. I’m very glad you made it.” 

“You’re not Dean,” Sam says, low and certain. 

“No, I am not,” the man says, almost gleeful. “Close enough, though! I have all his memories, and I wanted to chat for a moment, before I eat you. I like my meat a little bitter.” 

“What the almighty shitfire,” Emily breathes, but neither Sam or Dean pay any attention to her. Spencer has a hysterical urge to laugh, but he swallows it, heart pounding, not daring to look away from the insanity that’s unfolding in front of them. 

“Dean thinks you’re nuts, you know.” The man’s eyes flick behind Sam, taking in the team fanned out behind him. “So do your new friends.” 

Sam reaches behind his back to grab the handle of his water gun, but he holds it out of sight, still. Spencer keeps his finger firmly on the trigger of his real gun.

“Where’s my brother?” Sam snaps. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll get to the point.” He’s wearing a smug, nasty smile, and this isn’t going the way Spencer expected at all. “Dean killed Amy.”

Sam seems frozen, completely paralyzed. 

“There it is,” the man who isn’t Dean says, laughing. “Now I can eat you.” 

Sam draws his water gun so quickly it’s just a blur of neon orange, and then the man (thing, Spencer corrects himself frantically) is smoking. He’s smoking and sizzling wherever the water touches, and he’s screaming, looking just as stunned as Spencer feels in the split-second before Sam swings the fire axe and chops off his head with one powerful blow. 

There’s a moment where everything seems to slow down, like Spencer’s moving underwater, as he takes in the black goo pouring from the stump where the creature’s head used to be. 

“What in the almighty motherfucking shitfire,” Emily says again, into the momentary silence. 

“More incoming,” Sam snaps. “Heads up.” 

Then everything speeds up, too fast for Spencer to process, and it all blurs together: he’s holstering his gun, spraying water at something that’s wearing Sam’s face, as someone screams. Glass shatters, somewhere. Out of the corner of his eye Spencer sees Morgan pulling the station’s fire axe out of its case, whirling around without hesitation in a spray of black goo, and he keeps getting caught in the water pistol jets but it’s better than all those goddamn teeth, what the hell, in the massive mouth that just appeared, so he shoots, what, how, and then - 

And then it’s over as suddenly as it began. 

It’s over. 

Spencer’s heart is racing. He’s surrounded by puddles of water and puddles of oozing black, Morgan’s clutching an axe like it’s a life raft, and everyone is okay. Spencer looks around frantically, double-checking, but everyone is okay; they’re still standing, at least, although JJ, greenish-pale, looks like she’s seconds away from keeling over in shock. 

“Back here, Sammy!” comes a muffled voice from the back of the station. Sam casually wipes the blade of his axe on the side of his pants, expression unreadable. Spencer watches him clench his jaw and take a deep breath. 

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Rossi mumbles. 

Sam’s face is blank as he looks around, taking in the mess and the team. 

“I told you so,” he says mildly. Then he steps over the headless remains of a monster and goes to get his brother. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

November 2009

He doesn’t bother trying to go back to sleep after the second nightmare. He goes outside instead, sits on the curb in the parking lot, looks up. The stars are barely visible with the Vegas light pollution, but it still helps to be outside. He can breathe a little easier. 

There’s this tightly-knotted mess of rage in his chest, sitting on his ribcage like a tumor, poisoning him slowly. 

It’s almost four in the morning, and he has no idea where Sam might be, or what time it is there. He takes out his phone anyway and fires off a text. 

You awake? 

The phone rings less than a minute later. 

“What’s up?” Sam asks. He doesn’t sound like he was sleeping. 

“I’m in Vegas,” Spencer says softly, and then realizes that doesn’t mean anything to Sam. “It’s where I grew up.” 

“Win big on the slot machines?” 

“I guess. I won two thousand dollars today, actually. I… I gave it to a prostitute,” Spencer admits. He adds hastily, “Not for sex.” 

Sam laughs. “Right.” 

There’s a moment of silence. Spencer could make small talk, now; he could pretend he called for no reason in particular. Sam wouldn’t believe him, but he wouldn’t question it, either. 

He takes a deep breath and spits the words out fast, before he can regret letting them loose. “Apparently my dad lived really close by my entire life, even after he left my mom and me. I didn’t know. He never told me.”

“Shit,” Sam says. 

“He was keeping tabs on me my whole life,” he says. His voice gives him away, breaking and rasping, and it hurts to keep forcing the words out. “He read all my articles, my dissertation, everything I ever had published. My friends seem to think I should be happy about that.” 

“That’s bull,” Sam says firmly. 

“Why wasn’t it enough?” Spencer whispers. He’s been holding that question in all day, and it’s been choking him. 

His lower lip is wobbling. He’s glad Sam can’t see him. This is the sort of honesty that’s much easier from a distance; Sam might hang up right now, but at least Spencer won’t have to watch him walk away. 

“Do you think they know?” Sam asks. “How badly they messed us up, I mean.” 

“Do you think they care?” It comes out more bitter than he intended. Spencer makes a face and looks down at his feet in their mismatched socks. “I think that’s the important part. If he cared, I could probably forgive him, but… I don’t think he does. Not really.” 

“Yeah.” 

Spencer takes a breath. The anger is gone now. He doesn’t like how hollow he feels in its wake, but he does feel lighter. He feels better. 

“Thanks for listening,” he says. “It helps.”

There’s a long pause, and Spencer thinks maybe he should hang up, now, try to rest even if he can’t sleep. 

“Want to hear a joke?” Sam asks. “I tried to tell Dean, but... I don’t think he got it.” 

“Sure.” 

“How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” 

“How many?” 

“Two. One to change the light bulb and one to to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness.” 

Spencer laughs, grinning up at the stars. “That’s good. I’m gonna steal that.” 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Sam sighs as he closes the door of the precinct behind himself. They’re not totally done with cleanup, but all Hotch’s wild-eyed muttering about paperwork is starting to make him anxious. 

Also, every time he looks at Dean, he feels sick. 

He sits down on the bench that’s out front, under a little awning. The sky is dark with clouds, and the air is thick, threatening rain, so humid it seems hard to breathe… but maybe that’s the shock setting in. 

He barely gets a minute of peace before Dean comes out to find him. 

“Hey,” Dean says cheerfully. “Ready to go? I’m starving, and I don’t want to be here when that bunch starts asking questions. Pretty cool, though, having an in with the FBI. Definitely makes life easier, bein’ dead again.”

He’s standing there on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, grinning like it’s just another day. Sam’s chest hurts. 

“Don’t,” he says quietly. 

“What’s up?” Dean asks, frowning. 

“You killed Amy,” Sam says, and he watches Dean’s face as he realizes, the way he shifts his weight uncomfortably. 

“Listen, Sam...” he says.

“No, you know what, don’t,” Sam spits. He knows the drill. Dean thought he was doing the right thing, he made a choice, he had to take responsibility if Sam couldn’t. Sam looks at his feet and says, “I don’t think I can be around you right now.” 

“So… what, you -” 

“You should go,” Sam says. He looks up and searches Dean’s face for some sign of guilt, remorse, empathy, but Dean just looks resigned. Sam wishes he would just start screaming, or throw a punch so Sam could hit him back. It’s not fair that Sam’s the only one in pain right now. 

“Okay, Sam,” Dean says, and he turns to go. Sam watches him walk away. 

He’s not sure how long he sits on the bench, watching people pass. The sky is getting darker by the minute. 

Spencer doesn’t announce his presence when he comes outside, just sits on the bench next to Sam and waits quietly. 

“He killed my friend,” Sam mumbles, without looking at him. “She was a monster, but she didn’t… she didn’t mean to. She didn’t want to hurt anybody.” 

“Let me guess, he thought he was doing the right thing?” Spencer says wryly. 

The lack of pity in his voice makes it easier for Sam to keep talking, and sarcasm feels better than grief. “Shocking, right?” he says. There’s a low rumble of thunder overhead, and they both look up at the sky. “I didn’t have many friends, but… I liked her.” The grief seems to be creeping in whether he wants it or not. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Thanks.” Sam’s throat feels tight. “He’s my brother, I just… I’ve fucked up in the past, I know I have. But I always feel like I have to earn his forgiveness. It feels like I’m always asking him to give me another chance, to trust me again, and… and he still doesn’t really look at me the same way. Then he pulls something like this, and I know, one way or the other, he just doesn’t trust me. He thinks it’s okay to lie to me, because I don’t deserve the truth.” 

Spencer doesn’t say anything, just makes an unhappy, understanding sort of sound. The first fat raindrops start to fall on the concrete in front of them, and they’re both quiet for a moment. 

Sam smiles in spite of himself, remembering. “She changed her name, since I met her. Her name was always Amy, but she changed her last name to Pond.” 

“Cool,” Spencer says. 

“Yeah. I mean, no, she wasn’t cool, neither of us were, but… yeah.” 

Sam can breathe a little easier, now. 

“What are you going to do?” Spencer asks. 

Sam looks sideways at him and sees the way his mouth is twitching. “Don’t.” 

“Nothing you can do, is what I seem to remember you saying,” Spencer says innocently. “Give it time. Right? Does that make you feel any better?” 

Sam laughs, burying his face in his hands. “That was fucking useless advice. Fuck, don’t ever listen to me.” He wipes his eyes. “This just sucks.” 

“Yeah, it really does,” Spencer agrees. It’s pouring steadily now, rain streaming off the sides of their little awning. “Apparently Hotch thinks I should run away from my problems for a little while, give myself time to process, so I’ve been ordered to take a couple days off.” 

“JJ, still?” 

“Yeah. I think maybe he’s right. But… I was going to rent a car and drive back to DC, instead of taking the jet. Make a couple detours. Get some space. Give it time. You could come, if you want.” 

Sam turns to him, surprised, but Spencer looks sincere; he’s giving Sam one of his trademark anxious not-quite-smiles. 

“I was just going to hotwire a car,” Sam blurts out, and then winces. “That might be a better idea.” 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” 

“I guess you probably have some questions,” Sam says reluctantly. 

Spencer grins. “Harder for me to run away if we’re in a moving vehicle, right?” 

Sam laughs, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Yeah, guess so.” 

“After today, I’m not actually sure I want to know all the details,” Spencer says, wrinkling his nose. “But I do have some questions.” 

“Anything you want to know,” Sam promises. “The truth. I promise. I should’ve… I should’ve told you sooner.” 

Spencer shrugs. “No, I’m pretty sure you were right, I would’ve run away screaming.” 

Sam laughs and rolls his eyes, and they sit there in silence for a moment, watching the rain start to slow. The clouds are already starting to blow over. 

-

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.” 

― Mark Twain

-

You can now read about the road trip right here!

[welllpthisishappening]

But Once a Year (2/5)

This is a trick.

It has to be. Something Pan planned, or some nonsense only possible in Neverland, because one second Emma’s sitting outside the Echo Caves and wondering how exactly things could possibly get worse, and then the world decides to take her up on the challenge. She’s not where she was. Or when she was, either.

And the future isn’t entirely what Emma expects it to be, but that might not be entirely horrible and Christmas with a husband and a family that quite clearly loves her is only kind of messing with her head. God bless us, every one.

————

Rating: T Word Count: 9.1K which is also more than I remember writing. Which should probably be the subheadline of my life.  AN: Guys! All of you! Collectively! Separately! Thank you so much for your genuinely incredible response to this story that took on a life of its own. It’s very nice! You’re all very nice! More exclamation points! This time around we’ve got; a very discombobulated timeline, bedtime stories, peak!dad David, peak!dad Killian and f e e l i n g s. 

Also on Ao3 if that’s your jam || Or you can start from the start

————

“How did you figure it out?” He lifts his eyebrow. Only one, and exactly the same way he does in whatever part of time the real Killian Jones is lingering in, but the thought of this Killian Jones not being entirely real makes Emma’s stomach knot. Several times over. She can’t stop staring at his eyebrow. It’s off-putting. And the complete opposite of that. “Out?” Killian echoes. “Not when?” “No, no I figured you knew pretty much from the get, but—” Emma shrugs. Tries very hard not to fall off the kitchen counter. Which might actually be made of granite. 

God, maybe they’re legitimately rich. 

She can’t imagine what the mortgage on a house like this is. 

She can’t imagine there are actually mortgages in Storybrooke. 

“Were you thinking about going to get your sword? Because it seems shitty to challenge an unarmed person to a fight.” The eyebrow gets higher. Arch'ier. Pointier, even. “As you’ve already pointed out today, I am a pirate. And that’s not really an answer to my question.” “Or mine,” Emma challenges. “Are you not a pirate anymore, then?” “You know you’d make a rather atrocious spy, darling.” Sneering is decidedly juvenile and the only thing Emma is capable of doing in the moment. “You are dancing around any answer and—” “—Well, if you’re a time traveling, abysmal spy then it seems wrong to provide you with any more information than what you’ve already gleaned from your day here, doesn’t it?”

She deflates. 

Shoulders sag and exhaustion creeps up the wholly unnatural and very uncomfortable curve of Emma’s spine, fear tickling the back of her mind because Killian hasn’t actually made a single move towards the basement, but she’s only passably sure of where the basement is and the specific sort of glint in his eyes makes her even more confident that he wouldn’t mind brandishing his sword at her. 

Literally in this instance. 

“I’m not sure it’s time travel,” she mumbles, staring at a floor that is questionably clean if it does in fact belong to her. Maybe Killian cleans. “Fascinating.” “I’m not the bad guy here.” “Because I am?”

Her shoulders can’t sink any lower. They try all the same, shamed by the hitch in his breath and the tilt of his head, angled to make his hair drift across his brows and eyes that are as distracting as ever and far too easy to get swept up in and—

Emma swallows. 

Exhales. She doesn’t remember when she decided to hold her breath. 

“I don’t know,” she admits softly, barely able to move her lips and no one remembered to turn the Christmas tree off. Lights reflect off the ridiculous number of windows in the wall, painting streaks of color on paint that isn’t blue and shouldn’t remind anyone of a ball gown Emma knows she hasn’t worn yet, but it’s pretty all the same and she wonders why she wound up here. At this point. This moment. 

Killian might not be breathing either. 

“What do you know, then?” 

Emma bites her lip. Hard. “That one second I was somewhere else, and then I was—” Shaking her head does not help what is undoubtedly a migraine blooming behind her left eye, but she hasn’t fallen off the counter yet and she imagines victories are going to be few and far between, so it seems fair to cling to them as they pass by. Six of her knuckles crack when she grips the kitchen counter. “Waking up, and you were telling me we had to go get paint, and people were bowing to me.” “They don’t do that where you’re from.” “Not a question.” “No,” Killian agrees, which is a very strange way of doing that, “more like a documented point. You haven’t tried to attack anyone yet, though. So I suppose that’s at least one marker on the positive column.” “I’m not going to attack anyone!” Eyes flashing at the crack in Emma’s voice, Killian’s neck all but snaps as he glances over his shoulder. Towards a staircase, and she hasn’t spent too much time upstairs yet, but those same stairs are as empty as they were sixteen seconds earlier and the force of Killian’s exhale ruffles the ends of his hair. 

“If you wouldn’t mind being just a touch quieter,” he all but growls at her, spinning back around with far more grace than Emma thinks is entirely fair, “I’d really appreciate it. Takes her forever to fall asleep.” “Hope, you mean? Don’t I, well—don’t we or…” “I’d suggest you stop talking.”

“And you’re still avoiding my questions,” Emma accuses through clenched teeth. That only hurts her jaw. And the rest of her, really. She’s so tired, she can’t believe she’s still forming coherent sentences. Counting that as another marker in the positive column is probably a dick move. 

And the standoff that ensues over the next twenty-seven and two-thirds seconds is something in the realm of ridiculous. Clenching her jaw tight enough to crush a variety of diamonds, Emma resolutely refuses to blink, and Killian’s an ass, apparently, so he simply stares right back, while his shoulders heave on every inhale. 

She doesn’t know what to say. Has no idea what string of words will convince this relative stranger, who still feels like someone who could potentially be hers in an overwhelming sort of way, that she’s not a threat and wouldn’t do anything to hurt that kid upstairs. Not when that kid did her own bit of staring at Emma all evening, like she was the sun and the moon, and a variety of constellations and—

Killian drags a hand over his face. Leaves red streaks in his wake, twisting the skin on his cheeks and the stubble there doesn’t move because it can’t, but Emma’s admittedly starting to teeter again. In more ways than one, really. 

The crinkles around his eyes are deeper. As if he’s used to laughing and smiling, and Hope had clung to him on their walk home. 

There’s that word again. 

Doing something silly to Emma’s heart. 

“I know you’re not going to attack anyone,” he sighs, “although I don’t really know if you’re in a position to demand I tell you anything, either.”

“What if we call it a request?” His lips twitch, fighting off the smile Emma can see tugging at his mouth and it’s definitely wrong to find any confidence in that. Charming a guy who’s already married and procreating with a different version of her shouldn’t be regarded as another victory. 

She’s going to do it anyway. 

“Tell me who you are, then.” “I’m—” Grunting hurts Emma’s throat, both of her elbows threatening to damage her ribs when she flails her hands. “I’m me. Just—” “—Not mine?” “Oh, that’s decidedly possessive.” Humming, Killian’s nod is barely that. More like a quick jerk of his chin and swipe of his tongue across the front of his teeth. She’s got to stop staring at his mouth. “Aye, it might be. I am having some difficulty wrapping my head around this, though. So you’ll have to forgive me.” Emma scoffs. Nearly laughs, really — which is as surprising as it is nice, and nothing about this can be nice. On principle. Her body doesn’t seem to care, and her heart certainly cares even less, and it’s still a struggle to rationalize this version of Killian with the one she left, but there are far more similarities than her brain is able to process quite yet and that same dark and distant part is very quick to point out she’d like to. 

No matter where she might be sitting.

If she’d let herself. 

“You can feel my magic?”

Killian nods. “Usually.” “What does that mean? It doesn’t always work?” “I—” Gritting his teeth only shows off how frustratingly straight there are, and at some point she’s going to ask about that. Pirates don’t get braces, after all. “I’d rather not disrupt all of time by telling you things you don’t already know.” “I don’t know anything,” Emma argues, trying very hard not to scream the words. And only sort of succeeding. 

“Did you fall into a portal?” “Are you fucking with me?” Killian glares at her again. “I’d advise very strongly that you answer the question, Swan.”

“Or what? You’ll legitimately go get your basement sword? Why do you keep your sword in the basement, anyway? Aren’t there—I mean, a monster a week in Storybrooke, right?” His goddamn fucking tongue is going to be the death of her. Sooner or later, Emma is positive. Shifting and poking at the side of his cheek, and she can hear the gears again, trying to place the few clues she’s given him with a life he’s already lived and it is absurd that she even thought the word clues. 

“Not in quite some time,” he admits, and Emma’s mind leaps. Back to conversations and knights and realm-borders. She needs a map. Or Regina, God help her. “That’s not the point, though. It’s—” Another head shake and hair movement, and pinching the bridge of his nose only makes it ten-thousand times easier to see the ring on his finger.

There are a lot of Christmas lights in this house. 

“You’re not someone else,” Killian finishes softly. 

“Disappointing, I know.” His head moves so quickly it’s hardly more than a semi-dark blur of hair and slightly pained eyes. Both of which make Emma very glad for her spot on the counter. If she had been standing, she would have fallen over. In a rather undignified heap. 

“No,” Killian exhales as the magnets make a glorious return. He crowds into her space before she’s entirely ready for it. Although that also suggests Emma would ever be ready for the way his face has twisted and how ridiculously warm he continues to be, the hand that’s already resting on her knee threatening to burn straight through her jeans. “Strange,” he adds, clenching his fingers when Emma flinches, “and possibly a little terrifying, since—” “—Your Emma has disappeared entirely.” He grins. It’s disarming, and inching closer to the kind of flirting they’d been dancing around before and Emma’s got to get off this dancing metaphor kick. She’s not a good dancer, anyway.  “No portal, right?” “No portal,” she confirms. “And I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t a very lucid dream, so.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. 

She realizes that about halfway through the sentence. Any hint of camaraderie or déjà vu-based flirting disappears from Killian’s face and immediately shifts into the same brand of pain that came when she called him Hook. 

Biting her lip is really Emma’s only option.

“You don’t think this is real,” he whispers, another statement she doesn’t feel the need to point out. Shrugging, Emma’s vocal chords fail her again, and the step Killian takes away from her resembles a rather large chasm. 

Grand Canyon-esque. 

“We’re back to things I don’t know,” Emma says, “but um—do we have other kids? Aside from Hope, I mean? I—” Heat rises in her cheeks, the weight of the compliment threatening to burst out of her both foreign and necessary and Killian doesn’t do anything. Well, he lifts his eyebrows again, but that’s something like second nature to him and Emma refuses to count it and his fingers find the back of his hair. 

Huh. 

“Henry,” he replies.

“And you’re counting Henry? As—” Her tongue is really going to become a problem, if it’s going to remain this size in her mouth. “As your kid too?”

Strictly speaking, Emma’s not sure she actually wants an answer. Can only imagine what her emotions will do if she hears the confirmation that’s quite obviously pressing behind the seams of Killian’s mouth, but that confirmation might also prove several thousand things that have been at war in her for far longer than she’d ever be willing to admit, and he nods once. 

“In all the ways that matter,” Killian says. “And Neal is…” Shaking his head, all Emma gets is another smirk as soon as she huffs out her frustration, but the frustration is also kind of lacking when it feels like her whole body is running on overdrive and there’s no way he could fake the emotion behind those words. Even in a dream-like state. She’s not creative enough to come up with that particular voice inflection. 

“How’d you know?” she presses. “Honestly?” “Aside from your rather startling inability to act like yourself?” “Yeah. Aside from that.”

Stairs creak behind them, a not-quite ominous warning that this conversation has lasted longer than it should and there’s a kid of indeterminate age demanding to be put back to bed just out of sight. Emma should figure out how old her kid is. 

Hopefully that won’t ruin the space-time continuum, either. 

“You’ve got this lovely habit of calling me babe,” Killian drawls, leaning close enough that Emma swears she can smell him. Wishful thinking, maybe. “And I can’t remember the last time you called me Hook.”

He flashes her another grin — reminiscent of a man who is not this one, and then he’s gone, scooping up the kid and muttering promises against her hair, and Emma never knows how long she spends sitting on the kitchen counter. 

She does creep, eventually. 

Curiosity gets the better of Emma the longer she sits there, waiting without much hope for Killian to return. He’s not going to. She knows that. There’s only so many times he can come back, and this is a totally different thing than it was before, but it's also a perfect segue to the other reason she hopes off the counter. Her overall discomfort. Literally, and metaphorically. Marble, it seems, is a very fancy stone and good for the kitchen counters some alt-version of her eventually owns, but it also starts to dig into the back of her knees and those knees are bent kind of weird and in the grand scheme of where she wants to look again, inching up the stairs to peer through the barely closed door of Hope’s room is a much more appealing prospect than a basement that apparently houses weapons. 

So, Emma doesn’t spend too long thinking of the pros and cons, or how she should really be creeping towards the room of someone who might understand magic and why she’s here. Instead, she winces slightly on the creaky step halfway up the staircase and does her best to stay in the shadows, but these shadows aren’t quite as terrifying as they were in the realm she’s only just recently teleported from and that probably doesn’t mean a whole lot. 

He’s reading her a story. 

Captain Hook, terror of several storybook seas and probably a few Emma isn’t aware of, just to drive home the confusion point, sits propped up against a mess of pillows with his sock-covered feet stretched out in front of him, and curls pushed up against his side, a book balanced precariously on one thigh and she really would make the world’s worst spy. She hadn’t noticed the empty brace at the end of his arm. 

That’s never happened before. 

Honestly, she wasn’t even entirely sure it was possible, which is total asshole territory and maybe she’ll just collapse. Right here in the hallway. The carpet looks almost plush, so it might not be the worst move. 

And trying to memorize the look of it only feels like a half-dick'ish move, if only because the lack of a hook does sort of confirm the overall safety of this place, and Emma figures that outweighs whatever scene she’s interrupting. Or trying not to, as it were. 

Knotted scars line his skin, some of them looking older than others and that makes a few more of Emma’s internal organs flip. Something that feels a bit like anger rises in the back of her throat, an unexpected emotion that isn’t really directed at anyone except the people who caused those scars and that pain and he looks comfortable. 

Now, at least. 

Even slouched as he is against pillow cases that are far too frilly and remind Emma far too much of her mother. She keeps documenting. Lets her eyes trace over every inch of Killian — the way his fingers fluttering mindlessly against Hope’s back, brushing away strands of hair with the kind of ease that makes it clear this is a regular occurrence. His shoulders aren’t as taut as they were in the kitchen, but his head lolls towards the side more than once as fatigue starts to color his gaze. 

The story has princesses in it. Well, one princess. On a rather expansive adventure, if Emma’s actually keeping up with the plot. Dropped into a place she’s unfamiliar with, the princess in question naturally has a dashing love interest — although his name is Charles, so...maybe not all that dashing — and they get into several more adventures. Which include, but apparently are not limited to; taverns, a ridiculous amount of flirting, interactions with pirates, kissing as a distraction, the last of which endlessly entertains Hope, and the overall force of the little girl’s laugh makes Emma’s breath hitch, but then there’s more to the story and of course there’s a ball. More royalty, too. Obstacles are faced, only to be immediately overcome and Emma’s smile happens without any thought to the overall inappropriate nature of it. 

“And,” Killian says, shaking his head until his nose grazes Hope’s hair, “the exceptionally dashing prince took on the guards single-handedly, telling the princess to go and get the treasure they’d been looking for. While—” “—’Feating all of them, right?” Hope exclaims. As much as it’s possible to exclaim while also sounding half asleep. 

“In dramatic fashion. There was quite a lot of spinning involved. Made his jacket look all the more impressive. Fluttering tails and whatnot.”

Eyes flicker towards Emma’s garbage hiding spot, and she’s still not breathing correctly, so the odds aren’t very good he heard her, but she’s wondered more than once if he doesn’t just have a sixth sense when it comes to her and possibly them, and she pulls her lips behind her teeth. 

“What happened after that?” 

Most of Hope’s question comes out as a singular word, Killian’s soft laugh both indulgent and decidedly parental and he kisses her once before muttering, “Nuh uh, you’ve already gotten more story than you should, and you’ve got to get some rest.” “But I—”

Shaking his head once is all it takes for silence to descend on the room, although it does come with a slight pout and that’s—weird, it’s weird. Watching her own facial expressions reflect back to her from a kid she didn’t know existed a few hours earlier is more than enough to send Emma reeling. Wobbly knees shake underneath her, retreating in just enough time to not look totally suspicious as Killian mumbles something else and closes the door behind him, and she might have been right about the eye thing. 

They practically fly towards her. 

And the wall that was far closer than Emma anticipated. Hitting her head on it hurts more than it usually would, she imagines. 

“Truly,” he says, “an absolutely Gods awful spy.” “Was that supposed to be plural? On the Gods, I mean?” Tilting his head is the only response Emma gets, and she can’t blame him for that. For anything, really. “Does that happen a lot? The, uh—the stories.”

Silence. 

Relatively speaking. There’s the distinct sound of disgruntled kid on the other side of the other side of the door, what Emma figures are four flailing limbs as it appears Hope is determined to beat her half a dozen pillows into submission. 

Little sea monster makes a bit more sense now. 

“I do that too.”

Fatigue disappears. To make room for the invisible two-by-four that settles between Killian’s shoulder blades, shifting them until his spine is ramrod straight and he’s staring at Emma like that was the most obvious statement in the history of the world. 

“I’m well aware,” he says, but his voice drops, gruffer than it’s been all day. She’s going to bite both her lips in half. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s—makes sense, I guess. I, um—” No one actually told her to take her boots off, but Emma might have assumed, and the carpet does feel soft. Through her socks, at least. While she tries to dig a hole into the ground with her toe. So she can fall into it. “Seemed like a popular story.” “Aye, it is. Big fan of sword fights.”

“Ah, well, when they’re full of dashing princes who wouldn’t be?”

It’s another thoughtless sentence. One that makes Killian’s tongue shift and then his mouth shift and Emma only stares at that for a few seconds before her eyes drop to his arm and his wrist and—

He twists his arm. Behind his back. 

Her inability to dig a hole with her foot is genuinely disappointing. 

“A question for the ages,” he says. “What are the other ones, then?” “Excuse me?” “I cannot keep telling you how badly you mask your expressions. It seems redundant. So while I also can’t imagine getting too much information will be good, you’ve obviously got questions. As do I, if we’re being honest.” “Are we being honest?”

The lack of sword belt — or actual pants — makes it all the more absurd when he leans forward, thumb hooking into the top of the sleepwear he’s got on, and Emma’s fairly proud of her ability to not linger on that particular thing. Less so in her ability to temper the butterflies in her stomach as soon as Killian leans forward. 

Directly into her space. 

He must radiate heat. 

“I’ve never been anything except entirely honest with you, love,” Killian says, and there’s no way to doubt those words or that voice and Emma hasn’t. Ever, actually. 

“Yeah, that’s true.”

“Eventually you really do believe it.” Blood hits her tongue — sharp and absolutely disgusting, threatening to make her retch in the middle of the hallway. Only marginally better than her hole idea. By some miracle, sent from an apparently merciful God, Emma manages to take a deep breath, jutting her chin out and meeting Killian’s almost cautious gaze with a determination of her own. 

The kind that sends magic shooting down her arms, and directly into the tips of her fingers. His eyes widen. 

“That’s never been the problem. It’s—” They’ve got to stop cutting themselves off. Sentences that hang without end will torment Emma for the foreseeable future, but the muscles in her neck are going to seize up if she doesn’t twist them, and Killian’s fingers tense at his side when her hair moves. Like he wants to brush it away from her face. “Where’d the tree come from?” “Anton.”

“No.” “Swan, we just proclaimed honesty and now you’re—” “—Don’t know if it was a proclamation,” Emma grumbles, but Doc did call her your highness before so maybe she wields that kind of power now. Killian’s lips tilt up. 

Finding something else to stare at should be number one on the list of things Emma needs to be doing. Desperately. 

“Aye, that usually requires your mother’s seal anyway.”

“My mom? Why would...isn’t Regina mayor of this town?”

Exhaling through his teeth is oddly attractive. “Not as such, no.” “Huh.” “That’s about the right reaction. But to get back to your original question—” Emma sticks her tongue out, Killian’s laugh soaring out of him. Directly into her. It feels that way, at least. Warmth blooms between her ribs, another pulse of magic she resolutely ignores in favor of watching his shoulders shake and his eyes crinkle and it would be very easy. All of it. Is, currently. If she’s being honest with herself.  

That’s a problem.  

“You’re a picture of maturity,” Killian murmurs. 

“Well, depending on who you ask, I either got tugged through time, or I’m being tormented in my dreams and—what?” His eyes have gone very thin. “Tormented, is it?” “That was a shitty choice of words.” Humming, Killian’s eyes move anywhere but Emma’s face, and the regret in her gut is like a black hole and dying star and several other space-based puns she does not understand at all. All she knows is what a mess this is becoming, and she’s been a mess for as long as she can remember so that’s all the excuse she needs, hands moving on a mix of want and instinct that she’ll let herself over analyze later. 

He doesn’t flinch. 

For another moment, it feels like he’s going to do something drastic. Parting his lips, Emma hears his exhale, the quick flick of his tongue making her toes curl and her fingers tighten, and she wants to run. That’s her schtick. She can’t. She’s rooted to the spot and this carpet, and there’s nowhere to go really. 

Getting back to Neverland already seems impossible. 

“He’s very happy here,” Killian says, and it takes her a second to realize they’re talking about a giant again. “Has been for years. Grows all sorts of stuff, and you didn’t see the Christmas tree your parents have, but it’s ridiculously massive. Apparently there’s some sort of giant-type gene that helps with that.”

“Well, yeah of course.”

Whatever sound he makes isn’t the laugh Emma selfishly wants it to be, but the air that finds her cheek is warm and his left arm isn’t behind his back anymore. “You can take the bed.”

“What?” “We do have a bed, love.” “Yeah, but—” “—Very gallant of me, I know,” Killian quips, stepping away from Emma and the moment and she can’t believe the moment included talk of a giant growing Christmas trees. Somehow that’s almost comforting. “But it���ll be fine, and well if you’re going to talk to Regina tomorrow—” “—You think I should talk to Regina?” “Don’t you?” Nodding hurts. Standing hurts. The whole thing’s ridiculously melodramatic. “Probably,” Emma admits. “Um, but...maybe on my own?”

She’ll never admit to wanting an objection — this isn’t her life, or her Killian, but it also feels wrong to claim any Killian, and this constant flipping between emotions is going to snap her skull in half. “Whatever you think is best,” he says. “Two doors down on the left.”

“Ok, thanks.”

Nodding again, Killian gives her a barely-there smile before moving back towards the stairs he only sort of rushes down. That one step creaks again. 

Sleeping doesn’t happen. 

Emma didn’t think it would, but it’s disappointing and frustrating all the same. Her muscles ache, practically begging her for unconsciousness, but every time she closes her eyes all she can see is Killian’s face and the space between them and she’s got to get back to Neverland. 

Soon. 

Emma’s got to fix this. 

No one’s at Regina’s house. 

Waiting until everyone left her own house is something of a massive copout, and using that particular possessive makes Emma feel like a liar, but she couldn't bring herself to get off the bed until the front door slammed shut and she wasted quite a lot of time sitting on the mattress. 

Also very comfortable, despite the distinct lack of sleep it witnessed. 

So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when no one answers Emma’s rather pointed knocks. Or the few kicks she levels at Regina’s front door, just to be sure. All that does is make the wreath hanging out front wobble precariously. “God, fucking—” Snowflakes land on Emma’s face when she tilts her head up, as if the gods she’s challenging are responding. She’s still a little caught on the polytheistic. “Alright, alright, where would she go?”

“Emma?” Spinning, she doesn’t wobble at all — a testament to Regina’s salting regiment for her front steps, and the blonde twenty-something with impressively thick glasses who called her name far too easily grins far too quickly. “What are you doing out here?”

There’s no hint of confusion to her question. At least not in regards to who Emma is. She’s obviously surprised to find her standing there, though, and nothing about her is familiar. 

“I’m looking for Regina. Do you know where she might be?”

“Yeah, of course. She went into the office early this morning, said she had to deal with the knights situation and magic acting up and—” “—Magic is acting up?”

“Didn’t Uncle David tell you?”

“No,” Emma shakes her head, already moving because there are only so many offices in this town and it’s got to be the same one. It isn’t until she makes it back to Main Street that her mind catches up with titles, but then the woman is jogging up the stairs of town hall and swinging open doors and Emma’s jaw drops. 

At the “Regina Mills, Queen of the Combined Realms” etched in glass in front of her. 

“You coming?” this nameless person asks, jerking her head towards the office and at least the wallpaper is the same. Emma gives a jerky nod, willing herself to step forward, but it’s shaky going at best and Regina is on the phone. 

The buzzing in her ears makes it difficult to hear the conversation, but Emma picks up the gist. Magic, and knights and the sound of her dad’s vaguely frantic tone, while Regina sighs at regular intervals, rolling her eyes occasionally as well. 

“Aunt Gina,” the woman hisses, slumping into the closest chair. Sliding a small handful of bills across her desk, Regina widens her eyes meaningfully, not bothering to cover the receiver before she mutters—

“Only what was on the list, ok? Henry’s stuff is already taken care of, don’t let Doc try and swindle you.”

She gives a crisp salute, Emma’s mind practically tripping over itself because that’s like a slap to her entire being and the sanity she’s only just clinging to at this point. “I’ll sic Killian on him, if he even tries,” she promises, leaning across the desk to kiss Regina’s cheek before breezing out of the office with a quick “see you later, Emma.”

Emma doesn’t move. 

And Regina hangs up on David. 

“Well,” she says, somehow dragging the word out until it sounds like those royal decrees Killian was talking about, “here you are, then.” “Should practice your surprised face.”

Gasping as dramatically as possible, Regina widens her eyes and jerks back, making her chair squeak on its wheels. Her hand flies to her chest, and the necklace that hangs over her shirt. It looks a bit like an arrow. “How was that?” “My dad called you.” “Probably two seconds after you left the farm. So,” she props her chin on her palm, “time travel, is it? You fall in another portal?”

Blinking as quickly as she is makes it difficult for Emma to stumble into the chair only recently vacated by that girl, but she manages somehow. And doesn’t twist anything in the process. Victories, she’s claiming all of them. “How many time-altering portals are there?” “Only one that I’m aware of, but you also didn’t answer my question and I don’t think you can alter something that hasn’t happened for you yet.” “Because this is the future.”

“Frankly?” “You’re going to do it either way,” Emma grumbles, Regina’s sneer not quite as challenging as she expects it to be. 

“Nothing is ever set in stone, not really. Which is why you can appear here. We're...a possibility for you at this point. So, no—I’m not sure you can destroy yourself with knowing. With staying, for sure, but—” “—Wait, what?”

Regina’s fingers flutter against her cheek. “When did you come from?

“Not here.” “Obviously.”

Slumping further into the chair, Emma’s knees nearly slam into her chest. It’s definitely an arrow around Regina’s neck. “Neverland,” she says, “we’d just left the Echo Caves and you’d gone off with Gold somewhere.” “Rumor has it you met Ariel.” “Is that seriously who that was?” Regina nods. Emma exhales. Loudly. “Ok, ok, well—” Recounting the rest isn’t as hard as she expects it to be, details flowing out of Emma like some other water joke she’s not willing to make and Regina doesn’t interrupt. Occasionally her hand drifts back towards the necklace, but Emma chooses to ignore that as well and her mouth is only sort of dry by the time she’s done. 

And then Regina purses her lips. 

Which speaks volumes, without actually saying words. She says words too. “A giant plant. That crawled out of the ground and—” “—Ok, I never once said it was giant, just that it exploded out of the ground.” “It’s not much better.” “Killian can feel my magic here.” “Yuh huh.”

Lifting both her hands in what Emma can only hope is obvious frustration and soon-to-be-resolved confusion, Regina doesn’t look all that impressed. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Emma demands. “Is that a normal thing? I—as far as I know he can’t in Neverland.” “Well, normal is in the eye of the beholder, really, but have you ever actually asked the captain if he can feel your magic?” “Why would I—did you just call him captain? Are you and Killian friends now?” Clicking her tongue, Regina makes a noise that’s neither confirmation nor objection. “I’m not supposed to be here. This isn’t—none of this is real.” “Ah, that’s actually a little rude.” “How did this happen, then?” Another noise. More guttural that time, and Emma hopes it hurts the inside of Regina’s throat. She’s feeling a little vindictive. No one’s explained the Unified Realms concept to her yet, that’s why. “I’ve got several working theories, some people who would know far more about Neverland’s vegetation and what its capable of than I would, and the deep-burning desire to know whether or not you told Killian about the plant.”

The gods are clearly feeling particularly charitable to Emma right now. All things considered, she feels like she deserves that. 

And she doesn’t fall out of the chair. 

“Do you think he remembers this? If I disappeared in Neverland, but he still married me here...God, that’s weird to say.” “Is it, though?’ Regina challenges, scrunching her nose like this is a conversation they can have.

“Why are you also being so goddamn weird?” “Time travels a funny thing. Lots of twists and turns, and potential pitfalls. And I’m not being weird, this is who I am now.” “Huh.” “Make it sound less like an insult next time,” Regina advises. “But I do think you’re right, you need to leave this part of the timeline. It’ll fall apart otherwise.” “You say so calmly.” “I’m almost very confident in your abilities.” “Almost,” Emma echoes, fully prepared for the snark-filled grin that gets her. Flames flicker between Regina’s fluttering fingers, not the first time that’s happened, but it usually only happens in times of particularly high stress and for as even-keeled as the so-called queen is acting, Emma knows at least part of it is a facade. “What happened with the knights? Also, shouldn’t knights from Camelot be under Arthur’s rule?” “That’s a whole other story. One your husband could recount much better than me.” “He’s not my husband.” “Not yet, I suppose.” Grimacing makes it harder to pull a breath in, but Emma’s butterflies make a triumphant return and the coffee maker was still on when she got downstairs. That might not be the coincidence she wants it to be. “The knights,” Emma demands, “what’s their deal?” “Nefarious, it seems. Which isn’t usually how they operate, and is wholly against the law.” “Of your kingdom?” Maybe Regina and Killian are friends. She’s much better at arching her eyebrow now. “Something like that. Anyway, the knights are here, without the proper paperwork, because they claim magic has been acting strangely in Camelot. And they’ve tracked it to our forest. What that magic is doing that’s so strange appears to be some sort of state secret, but Snow’s got a bird on it, so maybe we’ll find out eventually.” “That keeps happening.” “The fleeting nature of a bird’s attention span?”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Is she not Mary Margaret, anymore?”

The flames disappear, Regina sitting up a little straighter like they’ve finally delved into the serious part of this conversation, and whatever’s churning in Emma’s gut is a bit like regret. “Not in the way you’re thinking.” “How am I thinking about it, then?” “As someone who still hasn’t found Henry in Neverland yet.” “Sounds like we do.” “Not something you ever should have doubted.” “I don’t,” Emma says, only kind of a lie because she still can’t really shake her worry and her fear has always been such a strong part of her; the concept of letting that go is as terrifying as anything else. The coffee had been good that morning. “Why this spot? I mean—if I was going to get tugged to any point in my timeline, Christmas in Storybrooke seems a little out of left field, don’t you think?”

Regina considers that for a moment, drumming her still-flameless fingers on her vaguely imposing desk. “Honestly? Seems like a test.” “Of what?” “You, obviously.” “Speaking English, Your Highness.” “Majesty,” Regina corrects, sliding away from the desk so she can stand up and rest her palms on it and Emma’s eyes nearly roll into the back of her head. “And you’re being obtuse on purpose. I understand, but it’s—well, it’s only going to get more annoying, for both of us. The point is, games were part of Neverland. Tricks and sleight of hand, making you believe something that wasn’t there because that belief fueled the place. Belief’s even stronger for you, Emma. Because of what you are, and what you’ve done. Or will do, I guess.” “No pressure.” “Some, but—you’re distracting me. That’s still an unconfirmed theory.” “What is the point, then?” “The point,” Regina repeats archly, “is that pulling you out of Neverland, away from a place that made you feel like the Lost Girl you believe you are, turns this into something of a Utopia. Home, and safety. When’s the last time you celebrated Christmas?” “Never?” “See, everything you’ve ever wanted all tied up and—” “—I don’t want to be married to Hook.”

Disbelief colors every inch of Regina’s face, the sound of her laugh far more evil than she’s been all morning. “You’re an awful liar, Emma Swan. No matter what you do, and all you’ve ever been able to do is make eyes at the pirate.” “I don’t make eyes.” “Don’t worry, he does too. Even now, which is romantic if you like that sort of thing.” “The point, Regina.”

She grins. “You’re being offered a choice. Here, or there. Past or possible future. It’s a dangerous option, Emma, and one you can’t give into, no matter how much you might want.”

Finding her dad is far easier than Regina. 

Emma’s feet drift down the path towards the farm, boots squelching in the snow, but none of the moisture gets to her socks and the screen door opens before she can think about knocking. 

“Would have been offended if you had,” David says, pulling her against his chest and answering a question she didn’t have a chance to ask. It’s the hand that does it though. Cupping the back of Emma’s head, there’s something inherently safe about the whole thing, her cheek scrunched and her eyes stinging with more unshed tears and the first whimper she lets out is so goddamn depressing she can’t believe it came from her. 

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” David chants. Over and over, pressing the promise into her hair and her temple, the bridge of her nose once Emma finally lifts her head, and the slight jut of her chin because she’s nothing if not consistently stubborn and falling apart feels like failure. 

“C’mon, we’re going to sit down,” David continues, already directing Emma back into the hallway. And through the hallway. Past more pictures, and this couch looks even more comfortable than the one she’d woken up on, and she’d been right about her mother’s taste in pillows. An excess of frill. 

“Was I that obvious that you had to immediately call Regina yesterday?" David shrugs, lifting his arm in unspoken invitation. Emma slings her legs over his when she moves, the flannel now under her cheek oddly comforting. As is the kiss she feels pressed to the crown of her head. “A little,” he chuckles, “but mostly it was Killian’s blatant freakout.” “He wasn’t freaking out. At least not here.” “He was. Not loudly, maybe. But obviously. And you looked at Hope like you’d never seen her. That also kind of freaked out your mom.” “How old is she?”

Emma doesn’t bother being anymore specific. She knows she doesn’t have to — not when her dad’s arm tightens around her shoulders, and she wishes she’d come here first, if only to help keep her balanced on the precarious edge of lingering sanity, and she’s got absolutely no idea where Killian went. She should ask about that too. “Four.” “Shit. That’s—shit.” Another chuckle and second kiss, and David has to shift slightly to make sure Emma’s elbow doesn’t impale his side. “Reasonable response, really. Anything else?” “About a million and two things,” Emma admits, with enough acid in her voice to do permanent damage to the atmosphere. Making science-jokes is apparently a coping device now. “Regina thinks it’s a test. Of whether or not I really will leave, when given some sort of idyllic future.” “Well you’re not a selfish asshole, so I’m sure you’ll do what you have to.” “Kinda blunt, Dad.”

It’s not the first time she’s used that word — but titles have been thrown around in enough conversations already, and Emma’s really very wobbly on her metaphorical cliff and she wants something. Solid and dependable and she refuses to acknowledge how Killian might be both. Is definitely both. 

In any version of this life. 

“Kinda,” David agrees, “but the knights showed up when you did, and I don’t know if that’s a coincidence. There have been reports coming into the station, too. Stuff feeling out of whack across the realms—” “—How many realms are there, exactly? Is Regina in charge of all of them?”

“There was something of an election.” “For a queen?” “We’re a very progressive united coalition.”

“And you’re what? Prince of that?” David makes a contrary noise, and it takes longer than Emma expects to detail the hierarchy of this realm, but she understands why her mom would need to make royal decrees now and why people keep bowing to her and— “So that makes Killian a prince,” Emma says, pleasantly surprised to realize she does not in fact die when her heart explodes. Or when she realizes that some parts of that bedtime story may actually be based in reality. 

She kind of wants to see him spin in the middle of a sword fight. 

“Tell him that,” David suggests. “I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.” “Makes me think he won’t.” “Sometimes people bow to him, just to see what he’ll do.” “Challenge them to a duel?” “Nah, that’d mean he has to get his sword and that’s a whole thing. Plus, he’s got stuff to do in the station and there’s a fair bit of sailing involved.” “He keeps his ship?” Emma asks, sharper than she intends because something’s fluttering at the back of her brain and it’s big and important and she’s got absolutely no idea why. “And did you just say station?” David hums. “Doesn’t like wearing the badge though. Which I think is an affront to the position of deputy, but—” She nearly hits his chin. Jerking her head up, Emma’s eyes widen quickly enough that they also water and her dad might be the asshole here because he doesn’t do anything except smile knowingly at her. “You’re happy here, Emma,” he says, “after everything. And there’s a lot of everything, but it ends eventually. Gets the happily ever after it deserves, that both of you deserve. Although he’s a merciless cheat in Monopoly, drives me nuts every Christmas.”

It’s not a laugh. Not really. Sagging forward, air flies out of Emma’s lungs and her very dry lips, and that second thing is because she keeps breathing out her mouth, and trying to piece together a puzzle she wasn’t all that interested in finishing before. Now it’s all she wants, desperate to see what the picture is, and it’s probably very pretty. 

A covered bridge, or an oceanscape or something. Thomas Kinkaid, maybe. And part of her hears the warning, knows all too well that she’s already failing the test, but the rest of her absolutely does not care. 

“Are you really here, or is that some kind of trick my mind came up with because you’re actually stuck in Neverland?” David kisses her nose. “Here. And for the time being, so are you. Which means you can sleep.”

“Mind reading isn't one of your talents, as far as I knew.” “I get better at it,” he promises, tugging an exceptionally soft blanket off the back of the couch and Emma doesn’t put up much of a fight before resting her head on his shoulder and promptly falling asleep. 

There are lights on in half a dozen windows when David’s new — at least as far as Emma’s concerned — truck comes to a stop in front of her absolutely massive house, and she’s got to get out. Easier said than done, particularly with trembling fingers and obviously fluttering curtains in that one bay window, and it takes no less than four tries for her to undo her seatbelt,

“It’s going to be fine” David says again, “no matter what happens.” “Even with magic being weird?” “We’re not sure that’s entirely your fault.”

Scoffing, Emma tries very hard to believe that. No one’s updated them on the location of the bird. She kind of hates this bird. Possibly all birds, really. “Sure it’s not. So, what—I’m just supposed to go back into this stupidly large mansion and—” “—Wouldn’t all mansions be large?” David interrupts. “By default?” “Did we rob a bank to pay for this?” “You’d have to ask Killian, but I don’t think so.” “He says I call him babe.”

Wincing, Emma belatedly realizes this is probably not a conversation she should be having with her father, but she hasn’t really seen her mother and she wants to talk about it to Regina even less, and she obviously can’t bring it up to Killian when she’s avoiding him so much and—

A door slams. Footsteps rush towards them, voices on the breeze and the snowflakes that have kept falling all day because it’s New England and as far as Emma knows it’s required to snow in New England on Christmas. Or in the days leading up. 

David nods towards the door she should have opened five minutes ago. 

And it takes her about one sharp inhale, two eyes that very nearly fall out of her head, and that maternal-type adrenaline she’s starting to get used to, for Emma to tumble out of the truck, sprint the few feet between them and practically launch herself into Henry’s waiting arms. Arms that are much more adult than she’s familiar with. 

Although that does also make it easier for him to tighten them around Emma’s middle, and she supposes time-traveling beggars cannot be choosers. “Hey,” Henry breathes, mostly into her hair. Wind whips around them, only kind of unnatural and a little magical and the door opens again. Emma doesn’t look up. Seeing Killian standing there, with his feet crossed at the ankles, she’s sure, will only drive her closer to a line she’s not all that willing to cross. Yet. Or ever. 

No, definitely ever. 

Everyone calling him Killian is nice. Exceptionally, so. 

“Killian said it was bad, but…” Trailing off, Henry pulls back and Emma’s crying again. Like a total, entirely incompetent ass. She’s got so many questions still. Her arms tighten, a fresh round of terror rattling around her soul, or some other ridiculous sentiment, and Henry doesn’t argue. He kisses the top of her hair too. 

He’s much taller than her now. 

“Did Killian talk to you?”

“Mom,” Henry sighs, “c’mon—even when I was a kid, that shouldn’t have surprised you.” It doesn’t, not really. But there’s a grown man in her arms, and snow flying around them, and Henry’s barked “not now, Lu” causes another kid to scamper back up the porch. Towards Killian and his ridiculous grey-streaked hair, and he picks her up without looking away from Emma. 

He’s looking at Emma. 

Still, or always, or whatever. 

“Don’t ask what kind of favors he had to pull in to get us here,” Henry adds, “but he said you’d need it, and it might help and Ella definitely wanted to leave, even if she won’t admit to it, so—”

“Stop telling lies, Henry Mills,” another voice calls from behind Killian, and Emma’s going to pass out. For a variety of reasons, least of all her lack of caloric intake today. 

Henry clicks his tongue. A family trait, apparently. “It’s not a lie, she didn’t even really want to go, but Lu gets a ridiculous present haul, so we had to and—” Several puzzle pieces fly into place. Helped along by Lu’s rather loud screech of “papa” directly into Killian’s ear, and Emma is glad she hasn’t eaten. Throwing up on Henry’s shoes is not the festive reunion it should be. “I’m really here,” Henry adds, reading Emma’s mind. Or her face. “No matter what you think might have happened in Neverland, it didn’t. I’m here, and you’re here and Killian made food, so you should probably eat.” She’d been right about the puzzle, it is a pretty picture. One that doesn’t belong to her, entirely. But pretty all the same. Desirable, maybe. 

That’s a dangerous line of thinking. 

“Hook can cook? Ignore that rhyme, please.” Henry grins, marching them back towards the house as David yells something about getting Snow from school and then there are smells and kids and that goddamn Christmas tree. And it takes Emma a few moments she thinks she deserves to realize—

“How did Henry know I’d come from Neverland?” she asks Killian, standing in the middle of the kitchen. He’s stirring something. She’ll think about that for at least two hours. 

“I told him.” “How did you know?” Leveling her with an incredulous stare, Emma once again fails at the whole no blushing thing, and they own a stand mixer. Only adults own stand mixers. “How many times should I request you give me more credit before that also becomes redundant?” “This is probably good enough.” “Generous of you, and it wasn’t very hard. Although I am still trying to pinpoint when it was, exactly. Quite a lot happened in Neverland.” “Looking awfully smug about that.” He shakes his head, offering her the spoon and there’s sauce there. Delicious sauce. This must happen a lot. “Hard to do that when you can’t look at me straight on, but—” “—Echo Caves,” Emma says, rushing to interrupt him. Killian’s eyebrows jump. 

“Huh.” “Regina doesn’t think telling me things will affect anything.” “Huh.” “Nothing to add to that?” Silence. More relative, at least. The TV is on, and a pillow fort is apparently being engineered in the living room, and everyone was very quick to leave the pair of them alone. With the sauce. “Thank you, though.”

“For?” “Getting Henry here, whatever favors you had to call in. I—well, Dad told me some of the stuff, and it’s...nice.” His lips disappear when he presses them together. Emma’s still staring, it seems. “Part of the deal, I think.” “Of?” “You really want me to answer that?” “Probably not,” Emma exhales, “but—still. It’s nice, and I...well, I appreciate it.”

“That’s not something you have to thank me for, love. Now, c’mon, I know you haven’t eaten and there are some ravenous kids out there who will mutiny if we don’t get them spaghetti soon.”

Emma nods, not able to say anything else because nice is suddenly a vast understatement, and she eats a second bowl of mostly sauce, and she never really knows how she gets back into bed, only that she fell asleep under the pillow fort with Killian’s shoulder close to hers. 

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Forty-One) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Kidnapping. Mentions of death, torture, sexual assault, panic attack, PTSD-- everything Criminal Minds. Talk of sex, BDSM, Dom/sub relationship, etc.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 13327

Timeline: A week and a half after part forty.

Hotch and I had just gotten back from a day out in town and on the beach. I was exhausted, and, frankly, I wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to head back to the condo early so that I could lay down for a bit. As I went into our condo, Hotch went to the concierge to talk to them about something. I didn’t hesitate to hurry past the kitchen, storm through the bedroom, and head straight into the bathroom. I sighed when the door locked behind me. Hotch had been asking a million reasons in the car, and I was running out of excuses. If he would’ve looked into the CVS bag in my hand… There wasn’t much time to ponder everything and do this before Hotch would get back. So, I started racing to get it over with.

I reached into the brown paper bag, searching around the bottle of TUMS and Motrin I had to buy to make sure Hotch didn’t get suspicious. And then I found it. I sighed with relief as I pulled the small box out and let the bag fall to the ground. Eyeing the bathroom door, as if he would kick it down at any minute for some reason, I pulled the test from the small box. I stared at it for a second. It felt like a damn movie moment. You know, when the camera looks down on the test, a slow zoom in shot, and then there’s an upward angle shot of the woman’s reaction. I hadn’t even taken the fucking test yet, and I already felt like I was that woman.

“Fuck it,” I whispered, sitting down to take the test according to the instructions.

When I was done, I set the test down on the counter as I washed my hands. I only had maybe a few more minutes before Hotch would get back. I prayed that he wouldn’t return before I knew the results. Either way it could go, I was going to be relieved. Hotch and I always talked about this, and we made a decision after New York that we were ready. So, if it were positive, I knew that we were going to be the best parents ever. I mean… Jack was a trial run for me, I supposed, and Hotch was awesome with him. We could do this. And if it were negative, Hotch never had to know that I was concerned, and we’d actually get to sit down and talk about this again. I didn’t want this to be out of the blue for him. I didn’t want it to smack him in the face just after we got married. It hadn’t even been nine days since the wedding. He could still bail out of all of this if he wanted to. If he found out that I were pregnant and he suddenly realized that he wasn’t actually ready to be with me and start to a family with me, then he could go. That was what I was terrified of.

The cold water suddenly knocked me out of my train of thought. I turned off the faucet and looked down at the test. My heart sank in my chest. Well, there it was. There was the answer. Hotch couldn’t know. At least not yet.

“Baby?!” I heard Hotch call from the front door.

I panicked and hid the test and box under the trashcan liner in the trash bin next to the toilet. Hotch’s footsteps shook the condo slightly as he neared the bedroom. To make sure he wouldn’t think that anything was wrong, I flushed the toilet again so that he could hear it, I turned the sink on for a moment to make it sound like I was washing my hands, and then I unlocked the door. Hotch was standing just outside. I giggled nervously as we ran into each other.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m still just not feeling well.”

He put his head up on my forehead to feel for a temperature. I didn’t feel warm, of course, so he didn’t seem that worried. “It might just be a stomach bug.”

I nodded, though his words made me die inside slightly. “Yeah, a stomach bug.”

“Why don’t you lay down for a bit, and I’ll go to the restaurant down the path to pick up dinner?” he offered quietly. I leaned forward, pressing my face into his chest. He draped his arms over my shoulders to hug me lightly, and he kissed the top of my head. “It’s just down the path, I’ll be back before you know it.”

When we first got to the condo, we found a cute, little beach side restaurant for tourists. They had fish, burgers, chicken fingers, cocktails, everything you would expect from a place where its target audience was families on vacation. We liked it because it was just down the path behind our condo, and we could take food to go to either bring up to the condo or to take down to the water to eat dinner while watching the sunset. It was easy and it was close, and since I “wasn’t feeling well”, I could just get fries off the kids menu or something. It was a good idea. It was also a good excuse to get Hotch out of my hair for a little while longer while I considered what to do with the test. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t know that I took it. He’d only get mad if he found out that I took it and didn’t tell him.

So, I told him that getting dinner from there was a good idea, and that I’d just take something light. He asked if I wanted a soda to help settle my stomach, and I told him I’d just take a water. He mentally took note of everything I wanted as he separated himself from out hug. I looked up at him with a forced smile. He stared at me, trying to get a read n what was going on, but with how I was dodging it all by telling him that I was just feeling sick, he couldn’t see past the ruse. He was good at profiling, and he had proven that he knew how to profile me, but I wasn’t going to let him get this one so easy.

“Okay,” he finally gave in, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I nodded. “I love you.”

He kissed my forehead. “I love you, too.”

He started pulling away from me, and suddenly I started feeling guilty. I wanted to wait until he would come back to tell him, but… We promised that we would never keep secrets from each other. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t keep to that promise? I always gave Hotch shit for not being honest with me at all times, so I should’ve told him as soon as I found out—especially with something like this. He had every right to know. I couldn’t be a hypocrite when it came to the promise we made, even more so since we shared our vows a week and a half ago. I owed this to him.

“Wait, Aaron—” I stepped to grab his hand. He stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder. “We have to talk about something.”

He looked at me and smiled slightly. “Okay. We can. Just lay down for a bit first, alright?” He squeezed my hand and started walking away. “We’ll talk while we eat.”

I didn’t reach out for him this time. He had a point that we could wait just a few more minutes to discuss it, even though he had no clue what it was that I wanted to discuss with him. At least now he knew that I wasn’t keeping it from him, and that I was eager to tell him the truth. Honestly, as terrified as I was, I still wanted to tell him. I originally thought I wanted to wait to admit it because I was fearful that he’d be scared off, but as he started walking away from me, I felt a desperate urge to tell him while he held me in his arms. He was going to be happy. I knew that now. He was the one who brought it up again in New York. He was the one who admitted he wanted to have kids with me. When I was finally going to get to tell him, I could already predict that he was going to scoop me into his arms, kiss me a thousand times, whisper to me how much he loved me, and we were going to happy. It was all going to be okay. So, I let him go.

We exchanged one last glance as he closed the sliding glass door behind him. I watched for a few extra moments as he started walking down the path towards the beach. Suddenly, my head started aching. I sighed and went to grab the CVS bag from the bathroom. Well, at least I was smart enough to buy some Motrin while I was there.

I stood at the bathroom counter as I twisted off the top of the bottle, turned it on its side in my hands, and started shaking it slightly to sift out one pill. I sighed again as I headed to the kitchen to grab a glass from one of the cupboards. I turned to the sink and started filling the glass up. That was when I felt something odd touch my back. I turned off the sink and spun around on my heels, expecting to see Hotch there as if he had come back for his wallet or something, but what I found instead terrified me.

I set my glass down on the counter and tried dashing for the bedroom where my gun was, but the man who was standing right in front of me grabbed me and pinned me against the counter before I could even take a step. I groaned and tried to kick his balls, but he dodged. That was when I saw another man approach us from the bedroom. I looked over to see that the man holding me had come through the front door of the condo, and the man approaching us came from the unlocked patio door that Hotch left through. I cursed myself for not locking it behind him.

I tried kicking the man again while trashing in his hold, but he lifted his gun and pressed the front of it to my temple. I froze in place. My eyes widened in horror and my body went numb. Finally, without me thrashing around, I could stop long enough to get a look at the men and the situation I was in. Both of the men in the condo with me were wearing black ballistic masks, black hoodies, black cargo pants, black boots—black everything. At first glance, I could tell that they had come prepared. Unfortunately for me, this didn’t seem like a wrong time, wrong place scenario. These men knew how and when to enter the condo, and they knew exactly how to detain me. The first man had come in, snuck up on me, grabbed me, and pinned me to make sure I couldn’t fight back. The second Unsub was blocking my way to the bedroom, so even if I managed to get out of the first man’s hold, I wasn’t going to get a chance to grab my gun.

I cringed at the thought and tried fighting again. The man holding me slapped me to get me to stop moving. “Stop fucking moving,” he demanded gruffly.

As my cheek burned from the hit, I looked back up at him. His eyes were a light blue, but that was all I could see. With his hood pulled up and black leather gloves covering his hands, I couldn’t decipher anything else about him.

“Turn around,” he ordered me. He grabbed my biceps and spun me around so that I was facing the sink again. One of his arms reached out past my head and he pointed at the window past the dining room. “See your husband down on the beach?” I followed where his finger was pointing to see Hotch standing at the restaurant, looking down at his phone as he waited for our food. I shivered. “See the man standing behind him?” My gaze shifted a few inches to the man he was referring to. He wasn’t wearing the same black ensemble the two Unsubs with me were wearing, but he certainly looked out of place with his long pants, boots, and t-shirt. Most people down there were wearing bathing suits and sandals— Hotch included.

“Give us a wave, Gene,” the second Unsub said. I looked over at him quickly. He was talking into a burner phone.

“Look,” the first Unsub said, grabbing my cheeks roughly to turn my face back towards the window. My heart sank in my chest. The man standing just behind Hotch looked up at us and gave a small wave. When he was done, the Unsub let go of my face. “If you try to scream or run, we’ll tell Gene to kill your husband.”

If they gave that kind of order, there were nearly twenty different witnesses there to identify Gene. But what good would that be to me by then? If I did anything these guys didn’t like, I would lose Hotch forever. It wouldn’t matter if they were caught or not… Without Hotch, I… And then I thought about the baby. They could kill Hotch, but they still wouldn’t let me go. If I tried anything, they could hurt me and my baby, and I couldn’t do that… I… My options were limited before, but now there was nothing I could do but see how this would all play out. My best chance was getting a profile on these guys by playing their game while hoping that Hotch could help me before they could kill me—or if Hotch couldn’t help me before then, hopefully I could find a way out. I had been prepared for something like this. We learned a thousand different ways at the Academy to get out of hostage situations. If I just kept my cool, I’d be fine. Our baby would be fine. That was all that mattered now.

So, I gave in.

----

With every milestone hour of kidnappings that passed, I was getting progressively more worried. It started with the first hour, then eight hours, ten hours, twelve, twenty-four… When they didn’t kill me at twenty-four hours, I realized that there was something bigger at play. There was a reason they weren’t killing me. There was a reason that they hadn’t even laid a hand on me since tying me to that damn wooden chair in the middle of the room.

When they first took me, they threw me into the trunk of their car with a bag over my head, nothing else. So. Amateurs. At first, I tried fiddling with the trunk to get out. But then I stopped. I realized that even if I got it open, with how fast we were going, if I tried to roll out, I’d probably just end up killing myself and the baby. Then I considered just getting the attention of the car behind me, but if the men who took me found out I wasn’t playing by their rules, they were going to kill Hotch. So, I waited. I waited to see if there was a better opportunity at the second location they were taking me to.

The bag was still over my head as we parked and they pulled me out of the car. Since they didn’t exactly give me time to put on shoes before leading me out of the condo, I could feel the wet dirt beneath my feet. It was cold and raining, and I could hear animals all around, and the flutter of leaves in tall trees surrounding us. We were in the jungle, that much I knew. Where or how far, I didn’t know. We had been driving for long, none of their turns or paths made sense. And then we stepped into a wooden cabin. They sat me on a chair and started tying me to it.

While silence hung in the air and all I could see was darkness, I took a moment to reflect on everything. Victimology, the crime scene, the Unsubs’ behavior—everything. So two of them came into the condo first. One behind me, another waiting to appear in the bedroom to my left. They planned that they would catch me off guard, block off all of my exits, then use Hotch as extra leverage. That proved that they definitely knew who we were. Planning for Hotch’s exit and predictable move to head down to the restaurant took planning. They had likely been watching us for days. They wanted to know when the perfect time to strike was, and they wanted to know the best way to go about it. Well, they certainly succeeded.

Before leaving, they made me dump the glass of water I just poured and put it back in the cupboard. Next, they had me take off my wedding ring. I was reluctant to do so, and tried to tell them that there were more valuable things in the condo for them to steal, but they were adamant. As I continued to refuse, the first Unsub cocked his gun against my head as a warning. I had no choice but to take off my ring, then place it on the counter, like they asked. I didn’t understand that until later. They made me grab my purse, and while we were in the car, I could hear that they were buying a plane ticket on my phone using my account. They were trying to make it look like I ran. They thought that they could make this all disappear if they just convinced Hotch that I left him. But I would never have done that. Not after just getting married… Not after just finding out that we… Shit. He didn’t know.

Finally, when they had me tied down, they took off the bag over my head, and I could get a good look at the three of them. None of them were wearing masks now. That was the main reason for my concern of not making it past twenty-four hours. Usually, when Unsubs revealed their identities to their victims, it meant that they were going to kill them. That was why I was so surprised when I made it through the second day, too, and started getting worried that something larger was at play. But I was getting ahead of myself and the profile I was building.

They tore the bag off my head and stared at me. I looked around the cabin to see that it was being used as a storage space of some kind because there were plastic and carboard boxes everywhere but where I was sitting and where they were standing. It was close quarters, sure, but there was still space for them to talk somewhat privately in the corner. They didn’t take the opportunity, though. They left, and they didn’t come back for a few hours.

When they did return, they had soup for me. Gene was the one to spoon feed me since they weren’t going to risk untying me. It was then that I asked why they were doing this. I wanted to know why me, why on my honeymoon, and what they were going to do to me. Were they going to torture me? Probably not. They would’ve started doing that hours ago if they were sadists. Were they going to rape me? Gene and the second Unsub seemed too submissive to do something like that, but the first Unsub hadn’t even looked at me once since taking me, which was… interesting. Were they going to kill me? Again, with every hour that passed with me unharmed only raised more questions because they clearly weren’t too keen on the idea of murdering me—at least, as far as I could tell.

Gene didn’t answer me, though. He stayed silent until I finished my soup, at which point he left the cabin again. I didn’t see any of them again until the morning. All of them still refused to look at me or come near me. Even the first Unsub, whom I had originally profiled as the potential dominant of the group—seemed scared of me. I mean, not of or by me, but of looking or touching me for other, unknown reasons. That was when I started to put together that the three of them weren’t the only ones included in all of this. Someone with a dominant personality had to be pulling their strings. They seemed so confident at first, probably because someone gave them a script and a plan, but now that they had me, they didn’t know what to do. It was possible that they had further orders, but I couldn’t be sure. If they had orders to torture or rape me, I was going to be very shocked if they tried. Killing me was probably worse than those two orders, too. If someone said: “Hey, go kidnap this person. Here’s how to do it, step by step—” it was somewhat easy for peer pressure to sneak in and convince people to say sure. But once the reality of their situation started settling in, I could tell that they looked like a group of headless chicken.

They only fed me for lunch, then left for that second day. That was all. None of them looked at me, touched me, said anything to me— Nada. They would whisper in the corner quietly about what to do next or what to do with me, but each of them seemed too scared to say anything. They were clueless cowards. For them, that wasn’t good news; but for me, that was great news. It meant that getting out of there was going to be… somewhat easy.

On the third day, though, that was when things started getting interesting. They all came storming in, and I was convinced that they were finally going to do something to me. I closed my eyes and thought to myself that I was sorry I never got to tell Hotch the truth. I was sorry that he had to lose someone he loved again. After Haley, I promised him that nothing bad would happen… But this… If Foyet killing Haley hadn’t broken him—which I knew it did, of course—then this was going to absolutely kill him. Mostly, I was sorry that I couldn’t be there to pick up the pieces. I was sorry that he wouldn’t have someone there to hold him as he cried and mourned. That was supposed to be my job. I made a vow to him that I would always protect him mentally and physically, and I failed. I let him down because I wasn’t fast enough to find a way out. I couldn’t find a way back to him. And I was just… sorry.

But then they shocked me. The second Unsub pulled a phone from his pocket as Gene untied me. No matter how sorry I was, no matter how desperate I was to get out of there, I still didn’t see my chance. If I was stupid, I could’ve made a run for it immediately, but they would have caught me, and they would’ve told whoever was really in charge of this, and they were going to go kill Hotch. I couldn’t do that. So, I had to keep looking for my potential opening.

“You have one minute to call him. You’re going to tell him that you’ve left the island and that you’re not coming back. You’re going to act like everything’s alright and insist that he shouldn’t go looking for you. Got it?”

I nodded, “Yeah,” and I took the phone.

The phone was a burner, and it was an old flip phone— similar to the one Hotch used up until I finally bought him a damn iPhone. The call would be coming from an unknown, blocked number, and Hotch probably had no idea that I was taken. If there was any chance that Hotch had told the team yet, or was in contact with Garcia at all, it still wouldn’t matter. A phone like this wouldn’t be easy to trace, which was probably the point. Even Garcia, in all her glory, would need time to trace it— just like she did with Foyet when he took Sam’s phone all that time ago. These guys were smart to pick a phone like this and to give me a time limit they knew wouldn’t be achievable for tracing.

I watched them standing around me while I dialed Hotch’s number. With my eyes still racing between them, I lifted the phone to my ear and listened to the dial tones. Like I said, it was an unknown number calling Hotch; and even though he always picked up his phone, no matter what, he was probably staring at his screen while considering who the hell would be calling him.

The call picked up. “Hello?”

My right arm slid over my stomach as I heard his voice for the first time in, what felt like, forever. He sounded nervous, uneasy about something— probably the fact that I had left him on our honeymoon without so much as a goodbye. There was so much I wanted to tell him, like how much I loved him, and that I wasn’t okay, and that… that I had the best surprise for him. I wanted to tell him how to find me, but how the hell was I supposed to do that when I didn’t even know where I was? I had to try, though. I had to do my best. The Unsubs asked me to present myself as calm, but this was all so out of character for me, and this call would prove it to Hotch. So, if the team wasn’t already with him, then they would be soon, meaning there would be a team of the best agents the FBI had out looking for me. Even if I left a code as complicated as the Zodiac Killer’s, they would solve it. These idiots wouldn’t know that there was anything wrong about my behavior or words if I just played it smart and played it in a way that would catch Hotch’s attention.

I had one chance to make this message work. One chance and that was all. There was no room for error, and there certainly wasn’t any chance I could flat out tell him everything I wanted. My options were limited, so I just had to take a deep breath, find my cool, gather my thoughts, and do this as smoothly as possible.

“Hey, baby…” I said as bravely as I could.

Hotch gasped on the other side when he heard that it was me. “Y/N, where are you?”

“Sweetie, I need you to just listen. Tell me everything's going okay at work, first.”

“What? Y/N, just tell me where you are! We’ve been trying to find you—”

“I’m fine, Aaron. Listen—”

“Y/N—”

“Listen.” I took in a deep breath and looked at the masked men sitting around me. “Hey, do you remember the Mill Creek Killer case? Everyone’s been talking about it recently. Reid said that there’s something important we missed there, so I’ve gone to check it out. Everyone at work should keep doing what they’re doing.”

“Stop this, Y/N. Right now. What’s going on with you?”

“I love you, Hotch. I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

I hung up the phone before he could say anything. Now all I had to do was just pray that he knew what I meant and that someone— probably Reid— could understand what the hell I meant. If they didn’t put it together, I was going to die before I could tell Hotch the truth and say goodbye.

----

HOTCH’S POV

I grabbed my wallet from the dresser before sliding my sneakers on. My phone was still in my hand, and there was no way in hell I was going to let it out of my sight after what just happened. Out of fucking nowhere, Y/N called me, and they were acting like everything was totally fine and that I shouldn’t be worried about them. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? Continue lounging around on the beach while drinking sunset drinks? Fuck that. They wouldn’t have left randomly, and they wouldn’t have made a call like that in a million years.

I replayed their words over and over in my head as I drove to the station on the other side of the island. They had dodged my questions, but they seemed calm, but their words were far from anything normal. Why did they talk about work when we were supposed to be on vacation, and we hadn’t been in contact with the team at all since leaving? Not to mention that they never called me ‘sweetie’. It was always baby, Aaron, Hotch, Agent Hotchner— if they were being playful—or Sir— if the time called for it. But never, ever ‘sweetie’.

Something was wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was yet. Hopefully, the team would be able to figure it out. They had been at the station since I called them in after Y/N initially went missing. I knew from the moment I came back to the condo that evening that something happened, but without my team to give an outside perspective, I wouldn’t have been able to start piecing the puzzle together. They searched the condo as though it were any normal crime scene, but just like me, they found nothing out of the absolute ordinary— like blood or signs of a struggle. Besides the missing usual signs of a kidnapped person, the only clues and evidence we had was their wedding ring and their clothes. That was it. Someone spent a great deal of time trying to make it look like they left of their own volition, but I knew better.

While I tried to spend every second at the station with the team in order to run through any possible leads, there was nothing. And after two days of not sleeping, Rossi sent me back to the condo to try and rest. Despite tossing and turning in an empty bed all night, I finally fell asleep when I thought about how this was probably all just a big misunderstanding and they would be in my arms when I would wake up. That hope was what helped me sleep peacefully, but when there was no one to hold and kiss in the morning, I knew that I had to race back to the station to help again, and that was when I got the call.

At the police station, I found the team sitting in the main office, talking with the lead detective on the case. He was a good man who had immediately gone out to the condo when I first called the police to tell them something happened. Originally, no one was going to look into it because it hadn’t yet been twenty-four hours since Y/N went missing, but when I told them that we were FBI agents on vacation, they send Detective Akina to help me out while my team got on the jet for a thirteen hour trip. He knew that if I thought that something was wrong, then something really must have happened. He probably saw a thousand different cases just like this of tourists going missing on the island, and he could’ve dismissed me and my worry, but he didn’t. He was extremely helpful, and for that, I was eternally grateful.

“Hotch, you have to see this. Y/N bought a plane ticket last night for the mainland.” JJ hurried over with a piece of paper in hand.

“Where to?” I asked.

“Texas.”

 I snatched the document from her and started skimming. That didn’t make any sense. On the phone, Y/N told me that they had gone back to St. Louis to handle something with the Mill Creek Killer investigation— which I knew was total bullshit because there was nothing to about that case since we put him behind bars for good over a year ago. But this ticket for Texas just further proved that something was amiss. Why did they tell me they were dealing with a case from St. Louis if they bought a plane ticket for Texas, of all places?

“Did they check in for the flight?” I asked JJ.

She nodded. “Someone with their name did, at least. Maybe they really did just leave, Hotch. What’s so bad about that? Maybe they got called away on a case or something—”

I glared at her before shoving the page back into her hands. There was no way in hell that the team actually believed that Y/N would leave like this, right? It was so out of character for Y/N to just up and leave without telling me. They would never leave me and Jack. Yeah, they were reckless, and they liked to do things their way, but that didn’t include running away from our honeymoon after leaving their ring. Haley had done that when she was finally done and decided to leave me. Why would Y/N marry me if they were just going to run off? Easy answer, they didn’t fucking run off— just like I said.

What was the point of calling the team to Maui if they weren’t going to listen and be helpful? When I called to tell them that Y/N was missing, they all asked me why I thought so. I built the case file myself the second I knew that Y/N was gone, and I sent it to them, and they came down to Hawai’i as fast as they could. But why go to all that trouble if they weren’t going to believe me?

They saw the evidence at the condo themselves. Why would Y/N leave the island without their things? It made no sense. It was a set up crime scene and no one would fucking listen!

“Reid, have you talked to Y/N about the Mill Creek Killer investigation recently?”

Spencer looked up at me with pure confusion. “No. Why?”

I cursed under my breath as I walked to the board room. The whole team, fascinated with curiosity, followed me through the office. I walked up to the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and started writing everything Y/N said on the phone. Everyone took their seats around the table as I transcribed every word exactly as it was said to me. When I was done, I tossed the marker on the table and sat down with the rest of the team. I sighed and rubbed my palms over my face to take a breather.

“Hotch, what is this?” Morgan questioned.

I looked up at all of them, “Y/N called as I was about to come in this morning.”

“What? They called?”

“That’s everything they said to me. Every time I tried to ask them a question, they dodged it. It was like they were adamant on saying these exact words and that’s all.”

“Maybe it was a script, if they really were taken,” Morgan shrugged.

If they were taken? Did Morgan doubt me, too? Did he doubt that I knew Y/N well enough to know that they wouldn’t have just disappeared without a trace just to call me randomly a few days later? Morgan was Y/N’s best friend, and he always bragged about how he knew when something was wrong with them—yet he was doubting this now. Something was wrong. The signs were all there. Their things were still in the condo when I came back, their ring was on the counter, their things were still in the bedroom. They wouldn’t have left those things, and they certainly wouldn’t be talking about the Mill Creek Killer case again. That was so long ago. What was the point? All I remembered from that case was how we talked about maybe having kids one day and that the Hollow Man held them at gunpoint. What did that have to do with any of this?

“Wait,” Reid said, standing up. “They said this exactly? No paraphrasing or guessing on your end?”

“They said it exactly like that. They sounded calm, collected, eloquent. They didn’t sound panicked or distressed in any way.”

“But they don’t usually talk like that,” he said, approaching the board. “These sentences sound so short and purposeful. If they had left to go somewhere, they would have used more words to try to explain themselves— they would use full sentences, in fact. And the subject is all over the place. They say hello to you, but then talk about the team, then the Mill Creek Miller, the team again.” He picked up the marker I threw and started circling letters on the board. “The best way to get out a secret message when you’re being watched is to hide it in your words. If you’re under stress, it can be too hard to do something less obvious and more complicated, so people tend to do the first code they can think of, which also happens to be one of the most popular.” He was circling the first letter of every sentence. “H. S. T. I. L. L. H. E. R. E. I. I. I. Cross out these because the first one was introductory and the last three were goodbye, and you end up with—”

“Still here,” Rossi finished. “They’re still on the island. That’s good. It means we can shut down transportation off of the island, which makes our search easier.”

“Actually, the island is approximately 727.2 square miles, and only about 70% of the island is inhabited. Most of what isn’t overrun by locals and tourists alike is just acres of uncharted forest. They could be anywhere out there,” Spencer stated. “And even if you wanted to shut down all transportation, the fishermen still need to leave the island every day in order to sustain the island and the economy. Not to mention that there are thousands of tourists here and hundreds of homeless people who are likely not in the system. While it seems like an easy task,” he chuckled to himself, “it’s probably close to imposs—”

“Reid,” Morgan warned.

Spencer stopped and looked over to me to see the look on my face, a mix of anger and disappointment, and he apologized for not having better news.

Emily shifted in her seat to get a better look at the board. “Why bring up this Mill Creek Killer case? What significance is there to it?”

They all looked to me for answers, even though I didn’t have any. I figured that it was probably just the first case they thought of, but the team was right… Y/N wouldn’t have mentioned that specifically unless something was going on. I had to revisit every memory of that trip. It started with the plane ride, how they wouldn’t stop toying with me, so I finally had to give in and punish them. Same thing in the car ride from the airport to the police station. We worked that entire case together, and for the most part, they seemed concerned about the concept of us having kids and if it was realistic for us. I had snapped at them when they asked about it because I was scared that we would come to a conclusion I wouldn’t like— and even though I apologized later with the intention of telling them that I wanted to have kids with them one day, they had already doubled back from the idea and insisted that it wasn’t realistic for us, even though I could see that it broke their heart to say it. After that, they were the one who got the Mill Creek Killer to confess, and they were the one who the Hollow Man took hostage in the precinct. That was everything. I didn’t understand how that could possibly have to do with them missing now. What could that tell us about where they were? Who took them? Why did they take them?

“Hotch,” Emily spoke up after I explained everything, “was Y/N avoiding raw fish while you guys were here together?”

I shrugged and nodded. “Why?”

She sucked in a breath. “Have you guys been… trying?”

I froze. No, we hadn’t been trying, but it wasn’t like we were actively doing everything we could to avoid it. There was a thrill that came from not using any immediate contraceptives, but I thought that they had been taking birth control. We weren’t trying, but… it was possible. They had brought up the Mill Creek Killer case because that was our huge discussion about kids. In fact, it was the only time we genuinely talked about having kids.

“Pregnant women aren’t supposed to eat raw fish,” Emily continued. “You’re in Hawai’i, the holy grail of fresh fish, and there’s only one reason you wouldn’t eat sushi every chance you get. If the one thing you can vividly remember about the case is talking about kids, and they weren’t eating raw fish, and they weren’t feeling well the night they disappeared…” she trailed off to let me come to the conclusion myself.

“Oh, my god…” I covered my shocked expression with my hand.

“It’s not the time to panic, Hotch,” JJ said as calmly as she could.

Morgan leaned forward in his seat and started writing notes. “So, we know that they’re on the island still. We know that whoever took them made them buy a plane ticket to make it look like they left, but they hadn’t packed any bags to make it look realistic. Whoever took them made them leave their ring. There was no forced entry in the condo and no sign of a struggle. So how did this happen? How did someone take them?”

“They could have let someone into the house,” Rossi offered. “Maybe it was someone dressed as a housekeeper or a resort employee, or maybe even someone posing as a lost tourist.”

“Y/N would have gone to the door with their gun, though,” I said, my mind still focused on the concept of them possibly being pregnant. “Even if someone looked innocent, they would have had their weapon nearby, just in case. They’ve been overly cautious since Foyet.”

“So, Y/N must have been caught by surprise. Maybe the door was unlocked, the Unsub snuck right in, and took Y/N before you could get back from the beach,” Emily said.

“Why leave the ring, then?” JJ questioned. “If the Unsub was in a rush to get out of there, he wouldn’t have spent time leaving evidence. And there weren’t any drag marks on the floors or scuff marks on the walls. If Y/N were knocked unconscious so that the Unsub could take them, they would have either been dragged or carried out, but there was no sign of either.”

“They went willingly,” I said, sitting up straight finally. “Y/N left those because it made the Unsub believe that they were helping him make it look like they ran off, but it was really telling me that something was very wrong.”

“Y/N’s a trained FBI agent, though. They don’t need a gun to take down an Unsub, even if they were caught by surprise. They would have fought like hell to get away. So why didn’t they?”

 “If...” I swallowed hard at my next thought “If what Emily is saying ends up being true, then they did it to protect…” I hid my face again.

What a mess. There was so much going on, and it was clear that Y/N hadn’t even told me half of it yet. We came here to get away from this madness, but it somehow followed us. Why? Why couldn’t we just get a break? They told me the night they went missing that they had something important to tell me, and I said that we could wait to discuss it once I would come back. The restaurant was just down the path, on the beach— I could see the condo, I could see our bedroom, I could have seen them if I just looked up from my phone. Now they were gone and there was a possibility that…

Honestly, I just wanted to throw up. I wanted to go to bed and suddenly wake up from this nightmare. I wanted to roll over to see that Y/N was still there, safe and happy, and that this had never happened. That I didn’t let them down. But that wasn’t the truth, right? It was all just an unreasonable dream. This was happening, and I had let them down.

“Can you guys give us a minute?” Rossi asked the others. They all silently nodded, taking their files and notes with them before leaving the room. Rossi stood from his chair and took the empty one beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Y/N’s tough and smart. They’re going to be fine.”

“This shouldn’t have happened,” I murmured.

“You’re right. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did.”

 “It shouldn’t have to be like this for us all the time, Dave. We deserve to be happy, right?” I looked up at him with red eyes. “When do we get to stop looking over our shoulders and just live?”

Rossi shook his head slightly, “You don’t.”

I didn’t know what I had expected. In our line of work, this was always a possibility. I learned that lesson with Foyet. Anyone could get to us if they really wanted to. But I thought that we could afford to let our guards down just once and be who we wanted to be. We didn’t have to worry about work, Jack, or anything else. We could just… be for two weeks. We earned that much, didn’t we? They deserved every ounce of happiness considering how much shit we had been dragged through. I felt like I needed to do more for them, to be worthy of having them, and I failed in every way.

“Maybe Gideon had the right idea about all of this. He got out when he just kept getting knocked down. How many more punches do we have to take before it’s enough?”

“Maybe he did have the right idea,” Rossi nodded, “but what good is it going to do if you’re just sitting around here, thinking about what could have been done differently? Right now, you need to focus on solving this case. It’s any other case. What would you do?”

Start at the very beginning. If it were any other case, we would start with what happened at the crime scene, look at victimology, find a motive and M.O. for the Unsub, profile the Unsub, then get one step ahead of him so that we could catch him. Step one was to review everything that happened leading up to Y/N’s disappearance. Rossi sat with me as we went through that entire day together. He took notes in his little notebook as I spoke, just to see if he could catch anything out of the ordinary or to have me expand on if he had any questions.

“That morning, Y/N and I woke up later than we intended, but we’re on vacation, so that was kind of expected. We had missed our chance to go get pineapple pancakes at a nearby diner that’s famous on the island, so we decided to just get lunch at a restaurant in Lahaina. We drove about fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant, then after eating, we went down to the beach to walk around for the day. They weren’t feeling well, so we decided to head back to the condo. On the way, they said that they wanted to stop at CVS for TUMS, so I waited in the car while they went in…”

My heart stopped. They didn’t get TUMS… Or maybe they did, but— My mouth felt unbearably dry. How could I not know? I should have realized that something was wrong when they told me to stay in the car. I should have been more insistent on me going in with them since they weren’t feeling well, and since they were… My head was spinning and the ringing that had been gone for so long was starting to come back. They always grounded me and helped to stop these feelings of worry whenever it would come about. They were always so good with helping me when my ears were bad and I could hardly hear them. More than anything, I wished that they were there with me at that moment, holding my face in their hands as they tried to calm me down.

“Hotch,” Rossi brought me back to reality with another squeeze of my shoulder, “what happened after you two got back to the condo?”

I took in a deep breath as I tried to piece together the rest of the memories. “They went inside while I went to go talk to the concierge about getting more towels since we were planning on going on a night swim. When I got back, they were coming out of the bathroom…” Jesus, I thought that they just weren’t feeling well, I didn’t think anything of it. How could I have been so fucking blind? All of the signs were right there. And my eyes shot wide as I looked up at Rossi, “We have to check the trash—” I made a move to stand up, but Rossi held me down.

We had torn the whole condo apart, but I never thought to check the trash in the bathroom, because… well… why would I? But now I had to know if we were right about Y/N. If they really did go to CVS for a pregnancy test, then it would have been left in the trash in the bathroom. If there wasn’t anything in there, though, then we had to start from square one about our Mill Creek Killer theory. It could be our first lead, but I needed to know for sure— Rossi just had to let me go.

“Aaron, I get it. I do. But you need to keep talking to me about that day, and I’ll send Emily and Morgan to search the condo again.”

“I need to see it for myself—”

“And you will. I promise. Right now, though, just keep walking me through everything you remember. You’re doing great, alright? Don’t lose focus. What happened after they came out of the bathroom?”

I settled in my seat, realizing that Dave was right. I just needed to… breathe. “They told me that they had something important to tell me, but I told them that I wanted to pick up our dinner from the restaurant on the beach before they would close, even though we weren’t hungry yet. I figured that we could put it in the fridge, and we could have it whenever we wanted.” I should have just shut my mouth and listened to what they wanted to tell me. Why did I care more about getting dinner that we weren’t even going to eat over listening to my wife? Fuck. I was such an idiot. “I left through the backdoor and walked down the path to the beach. I ordered what we liked to get from there, and while I was waiting for the food, I was on my phone, texting Jessica about how Jack was doing. She told me that he got an A+ on his history test that Y/N had been helping him study for.” They were so good with kids. They had proved to me every single day since meeting Jack that they were going to be a great parent, and I was so ready to have a kid with them, there were no words to even describe. But I never thought that it would all happen like this. “When I got the food, I went back to the condo, and I went to the kitchen to set the food down. When I turned into the kitchen, I saw their ring and necklace sitting there.”

“You guys didn’t fight at all that day?” he asked me plainly. I scrunched my brows together in confusion, then glared at him when I realized what he had asked me. He raised his hands up defensively, “I have to ask, Hotch. If there’s any way they actually did leave, we need to figure out why. If there was no reason, then, yeah, we’re looking for a missing person.”

“They are missing! What the fuck is so hard for everyone to understand here?!” I slammed my palm against the table and stood so that I could pace while thinking.

Dave sighed and scratched his beard. “Because there is absolutely no evidence to prove that someone took them, Hotch. You have to understand that we’re doing all that we can.”

“You’re not doing enough!” I snapped. “Someone took my wife, and we’re sitting in here, asking ourselves if they really did just up and leave during our honeymoon? What kind of sense does that make, Rossi?”

“Well, my second wife did it,” he chuckled to himself. I glared at him again. His smile disappeared in an instant. “Fine. Fine, Hotch. Someone took them. We’ve gone through the day and we haven’t found anything suspicious. What’s next?”

“Victimology.”

“Good. Why would someone take them here and not back at home?”

Trafficking wasn’t exactly popular on the islands because of how hard it was to transport people off the island, but kidnappings, rapes, and murders were more common, I guess. If this were any other case, we were supposed to look at the victim, profile them, and find out what in that profile attracted the Unsub. So who was Y/N? They were gorgeous. They were perfect. They were smart, funny, annoying when they wanted to be… They were driven, brave, passionate, capable, caring, sociable, witty, genuine, intuitive. They weren’t an easy target. After everything they had been through between their traumatic high school experience, losing Elle, nearly losing me a thousand times, and taking care of Jack after Haley died, they learned a lot about how to take care of themselves. If someone took them, they went for a reason. They weren’t lured away by a dumb ruse or held at gunpoint and forced to get into a van, because they would have seen through the first option and they would have won any fight they were in if it came down to the second option.

“There’s more than one Unsub,” I gasped. Rossi raised a brow. “Think about it. In the Academy, we all learn how to disarm an Unsub, even if you’re being held at gun or knife point. The only times I have ever seen them not disarm someone was when the Hollow Man took them hostage in a precinct full of other potential victims. They didn’t want to upset the Unsub, so they did what they were told. With Matloff, it was the same thing, but in a courthouse, and they didn’t do anything after leaving the building because they realized that Matloff wasn’t going to kill them. There is always a reason as to why they never disarmed someone before. But they were all alone. Even if they are pregnant, they wouldn’t have been afraid to grab the guy and throw him across the place if they wanted to. If someone came up right behind them, catching them off guard, and there were other Unsubs that were there to outnumber them, then they wouldn’t have fought because they knew it was pointless.”

“That’s a huge conclusion to jump to without any evidence, Aaron.”

“I know, I know,” I insisted, sitting back down eagerly. “But I know them. It’s the only way this could have happened.”

“So, let’s say you’re right. A group of Unsubs corral them and tell them ‘Come with us or we shoot you’, but why?”

“They’re attractive,” I shrugged. “Maybe someone saw us on the beach.”

“And they just so happened to kidnap an FBI agent? What are the odds of that when, like Reid said, there are thousands of other tourists walking around in swimsuits?”

He was right. There was a piece missing. FBI agents normally didn’t go missing for a thousand different reasons, most of them including the street smarts we were taught at the Academy and throughout the job, and self-defense tactics. Y/N was targeted specifically because the Unsubs knew who they were. This was planned. Someone knew we were coming here, and they knew exactly how and when to take Y/N. This was really fucking bad—worse than I had initially thought. Unfortunately, the “good:” news was that if this was a coordinated attack on us specifically, it meant that whoever took Y/N wasn’t going to kill them yet. That gave us some time to work.

----

READER’S POV

These fucking morons were over their heads. The longer they had me, the easier it was for me to notice all of their mistakes. They really had no idea what it was they were doing. First, they made the mistake of letting me call Hotch, and now, they were making the repetitive mistake of leaving me alone, giving me time to work on the knots that were holding my wrists together behind the chair I was in. They thought that they were smart cookies, I could tell, because they had used a very specific type of Boy Scout’s knots to tie me to the chair. Only problem was, this was part of basic training in the FBI. We learned how to undo knots like those while tied exactly like that just for these situations. Besides that, however, if I hadn’t gone to the Academy at all, I would have learned how to undo them from all of my years in the BDSM scene.

Being a submissive was easy because the Doms were responsible for using all of the complicated knots to tie me up, and I just had to play along. However, I wasn’t at all naïve to the fact that as a submissive, it was my job to make sure that I was safe and that my Dom always knew my limits so that nothing bad ever happened. In order to ensure my own safety, I learned long before I joined the Academy how to perform and undo all kinds of knots. It just made life easier. But I knew that I would never, ever tell Hotch that I knew how to get out of all of his knots because it would simply break him—and actually probably challenge him to get a little creative, which would have been bad news for me.

But that was all besides the point. These knots keeping me to the chair was literally amateur hour. If I hadn’t been continuously interrupted by Gene or one of the other men coming in to check on me every so often, and not on any specific timeline, then I would have been out of there by then; but I had to play it cool and hold my work together when they were watching me. If they found out what I was doing, they would likely kill me just to ensure I wouldn’t get away. So, I played the long game.

And then they came in around dinner time, I think. The only way I could tell was when they opened the door and I saw that it was getting dark outside, but they hadn’t brought me any food yet, which meant that it wasn’t getting too late yet. That was a relief. If another day were going to pass, I was going to die. It was honestly now or never. I knew that I had to get out of there soon, but the only problem was that they were now discussing what to do with me again while standing in the corner, huddled up in a way that Gene could still look over in my direction every time I shuffled around.

When I felt one of the final knots finally start to give out, I paused to assess the room. What was going to happen next? Well, the obvious answer was that I was outnumbered, which meant that I had to catch them off guard by acting quickly. If I made an initial dash for the door, they would kill me before I could even step foot outside, and I didn’t doubt that for a second. Two of them had holsters strapped to their belts. Only two. The other one had his gun simply buried into the back of his waistband. He was also the one who had a knife in his sock. Seemed dangerous, but to each their own, I supposed.

And then the rope released my wrists enough for my to gently slide out of them. I gulped. Just as the rope nearly slipped off my wrists, Gene looked over, making me catch it at the very last second. I looked away from him. All I could do was pray that he didn’t realize what had just happened, because if he had any clue, he would come over to investigate, and I’d be absolutely fucked at that point. He didn’t seem to notice. Thankfully.

I groaned and hunched forward slightly. “Fuck…” I cursed under my breath. “Fuck…” I kept groaning until they stopped talking because I had caught their attention. “Help… Please…”

One of the Unsubs started approaching. Thankfully, it was the one who had his gun in his waistband and knife in his sock. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He kicked my ankle to encourage me to look up at him.

“My stomach.”

He squinted. “What?”

“Food…”

He glanced over his shoulder to check with his partners to see what they thought about this whole situation. When he wasn’t paying attention, I dropped the rope, and I quickly reached down to snatch the knife from his sock before he could even turn to face me again. As I leapt to my feet, I immediately grabbed his exposed gun with my free hand while stabbing his chest again and again. He started to fall to the ground. Just before he could fall out of my reach, I saw the other two reaching for their guns strapped into their holsters, and I was completely out in the open, a perfect target for them to hit. So, I grabbed the closest Unsub, holding him up in front of me as a human shield. That bought me enough time to limp over to the wooden boxes for cover. The second I was safe, I dropped the dead Unsub.

I pressed my back against the boxes and sighed. Okay, step one complete. I didn’t die. Wonderful. Now, the tough part. Since I had caught the first Unsub off guard, it was easy to kill him, but now that the other two were aware that I was free, armed, and dangerous; they likely already had their weapons out, too, and they were just waiting to shoot me. Again, it was another waiting game. Another long waiting game of figuring out when the best opportunity to make my move would come about.

I listened. I waited. Every single breath, step, and movement they made seemed to echo throughout the entire cabin, letting me know exactly where they were. Gene was the closest. Telling by his height, weight, and stride, I could tell that he was the one approaching on my left, he was certainly closer. Another few steps, and I’d have him. So, I kept waiting. They were splitting up in attempt to give Gene back up and also to attack me from different sides. It wasn’t going to work if they didn’t attack simultaneously, though. I could use that to my advantage.

And then he was just within reach.

Gathering up all of my courage, I took a moment before ducking down and around the box, swiping at Gene’s feet until he was falling backwards, his gun leaving his hands before he could aim and press his finger down on the trigger. I beat him to it. I aimed up against his chin and fired. Before the other Unsub could figure out where I had moved to and what had happened, I leaned around the box and shot the outside of his left thigh, and then I shot his shoulder. Gene was dead, along with the first Unsub, but I had saved this last one on purpose.

I raced over to him and kicked his gun away, ensuring that he couldn’t regain his strength long enough to shoot me when I wasn’t looking. Just in case, I also shot his foot. I didn’t want him to be able to run away. I needed him alive because when the team would show up, they would be able to handle him.

The team.

“Phone,” I demanded, almost weakly. “Phone…” I fell onto my knees straddling his chest, pulling him up by his collar to make him look at me. “Where’s the satellite phone?” When he didn’t answer me, I pressed my thumb against the wound in his shoulder. He cried out. “Where is it?!”

“Gene had it!” he exclaimed, trying to crawl away from my touch.

I stood and stumbled somewhat on my way back over to Gene, barely catching myself with my palms on the ground. Gene’s cold, dead eyes were staring up at the ceiling as I leaned over him to search his body for the burner phone they had used to make me call Hotch. When I patted down his front and couldn’t find it, I moved to roll him over, but he was… heavy. I groaned as I put all of my strength into it. Jack would’ve been so disappointed in me since he thought that I was literally Wonder Woman considering how “strong” our Superman hugs were. But that was when I found it. It was buried in the back right pocket of Gene’s pants, and it was a miracle that he hadn’t crushed it as he fell to the ground after I shot him. I’d take the miracle.

My hands were shaking as I dialed the first number I could think of. The one person who could truly help me in my current predicament… I couldn’t wait to be out of there… Within an instant, she picked up. “Garcia? It’s Y/N.”

“Y/N? Oh— Oh, my god— You’re alright! You’re okay! I—”

“Garcia, I need you to listen to me. I don’t know where I am, so I need you to trace this call right now.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” I heard her tapping away on her keyboard. “You’re okay… Thank god you’re okay…”

“Two of the Unsub are dead. I shot one in the shoulder, thigh, and foot. We need two ambulances. One for him and one for me.” I cringed as my head ached. “Connect me to Hotch, please.”

“Right— right… You’re okay,” she cheered slightly. “You’re okay—”

“Garcia.”

“I know, I know.”

The phone started ringing again for the shortest moment before I heard Hotch pick up. “Y/N?” he asked, desperate to know if it was really me calling again.

“I’m here. I’m fine. Garcia’s figuring out where I am right now—”

“I’ve got it!” Garcia cheered. “I’m sending it to your phones right now,” she told Hotch.

Before I could say anything, Hotch said, “I’m coming, baby. I love you so much.”

My hand fisted around the fabric of my shirt over my stomach as I felt myself let out a breath of relief. I missed his voice so much— I missed all of him, of course… but I missed how soothing his voice could be, and I missed how his words never failed to warm my heart and bring me comfort. I was so ready to just hold him in my arms again and have him tell me a thousand times that he loved me. That reassurance was the only thing keeping me upright as I felt my head spin again.

“Garcia, how close are the ambulances?” I asked quietly.

She hesitated. “You’re so deep in the jungle… it’ll probably take them at least thirty-five minutes.”

“Aaron?” I asked him for an ETA.

“We’re coming as fast as we can,” he insisted. 

That wasn’t an answer, though, so I waited silently for him to budge and give me a time. An ambulance was going to have a hard time driving around the island to get where I was. The narrow roads were unforgiving and didn’t allow wiggle room for the cars that needed to move out of the way to let it pass. Not to mention that we probably weren’t near any main road. They might have to take some of the trip by foot, which was going to be a hassle and a half. Hotch and the team, though, they were probably in smaller cars, easier to maneuver, easier to take off roading, if need be. Even if they couldn’t get all the way into the jungle with the cars they were in, they could get much closer, then take the rest of it by foot.

Hotch noted my silence, still waiting for a real answer while keeping all of that in mind. “At least twenty minutes,” he admitted regretfully.

I sat down in the chair that they had tied me to in the middle of the room so that I had a clear view of the Unsub writhing in pain on the ground. “I’ll be waiting.”

----

As always, Morgan kicked the front door of the cabin down, even though there was no threat. Even though it made me jump and yelp in shock, I was honestly glad to just see that the team was still doing what they always did. Morgan moved into the cabin first, Hotch right after him, then Emily, Reid, Rossi, and JJ. Emily and Morgan went to clear the room, even after they saw me sitting on the chair in the middle with the spotlight over me. Reid and JJ immediately saw the wounded Unsub on the ground and went to make sure that he wouldn't bleed out before the medics could arrive. Rossi stayed in the doorway, standing just behind Hotch, who seemed frozen in place.

Hotch had lowered his weapon the second he had run into the cabin and stepped to the side so that the rest of the team could pour in, but he didn’t move after that. His eyes were on mine, and I was thinking about how I needed him to come to me or I’d fall over if I tried to run up to him. I could see that he was just paralyzed by shock and distraught. I wasn’t bashed up or hurt in any way, but I definitely looked like shit, and he was probably just grateful to find me alive.

Rossi gave Hotch a slight nudge forward, giving Hotch the courage he needed to approach me slowly. He slowly broke down the closer he got to me, overwhelmed by a million different feelings. Knowing Hotch and how he dealt with these kinds of things, he was probably blaming himself, telling himself that he somehow failed me, that he should have done more to prevent this or to find me sooner. He was probably beating himself up about all of this even though none of it was his fault.

Hotch collapsed to his knees in front of me. I leaned forward, meeting him halfway as he hid his face against my stomach. I tangled my fingers in his hair and kissed the top of his head. He shook as he hugged my legs and I tried not to cry. He was always the strong one, but after everything we had been through, one thing after another, he was fragile and always likely to break. I needed to stay strong for him so that he wouldn’t fall apart all over again.

Eagerly, he sat up straight in order to get a good look at me. “Mill Creek?” he asked with worried eyes.

I nodded and smiled lightly. “It was the only way I could think of telling you without telling them.”

“You did so good, baby.” He grabbed my face and kissed me gently. “I love you so much.” His left hand fell to my stomach and stayed there as he held me. “Why did they do this?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I left one of them alive to ask him…” I pointed to the Unsub who was still squirming on the floor as Reid tried to stop his bleeding until the EMTs could show up. 

Hotch frowned as he looked over at the man who took me, begging for help, pleading for his own life, ignoring all the harm he had done over the past few days. Hotch kissed me again before pushing himself to his feet and storming over to the Unsub. He pushed Reid out of the way and grabbed the man by his shirt so that he could ask the one question all of us had been dying to know the answer to: “Why?”

The Unsub looked up at Hotch and kept crying from the pain of his wounds and because he had been caught. Hotch demanded an answer again, and the Unsub gave in. “The Reaper!” he screamed. “We did it for the Reaper!”

Hotch punched the Unsub in the nose, “George Foyet’s dead!” He punched again, and I recalled how Hotch beat Foyet’s face in with the same anger pulsing through his veins.

The Unsub begged for Hotch’s mercy and said that he would give answers in return. Hotch stopped hitting the man, taking the offer he was given. “There’s a website where he’s been posting his last wishes. He wants people to continue his work… If you prove yourself to him, you get access to all of his final wishes and tasks. Killing her was one of them.”

Hotch punched him again, “Foyet’s dead!” He kept repeating it like that was going to change anything. “He can’t be giving you these tasks from the grave.”

“Someone’s posting them for him, then! All I know is that we were told to kill Y/N. They told us where you guys would be, when to take her, and how to do it. That’s all I know. Please,” he cried. “Please… I don’t know anything else.” Hotch landed another punch, though.

“Hotch, stop it,” Morgan demanded, pulling him off of the Unsub.

Hotch shook off Morgan’s grip and he hurried back over to me. He brushed his fingers through my hair. “Did they…” He didn’t know how to ask, but I knew what he meant. We had seen a thousand different cases just like this, and we knew what horrible things people were capable of. I had already become a victim once before; he didn’t want it to happen again.

I shook my head. “They didn’t touch me.” They were cowards who were in over their heads. They had been waiting around for one of them to gain the courage to hurt me, but by the time they realized that they didn’t know what they were doing, I had enough. “I’m fine.”

He screwed his eyes shut as he sat up on his knees and pecked my lips before pulling me into a tight embrace. “I love you…” he cried into my hair.

I nuzzled my face in the crook of his neck, taking in his scent, the feeling of his scratchy 5 o’clock shadow against my cheek, the warmth of his arms around me, and the way he said he loved me into my ear. There were moments where I thought that I would never get this again. I thought that it would be the end, that we wouldn’t get to see each other one last time… I had feared the worst, thinking that I would be gone, and he would find me like he found Haley, and he would blame himself. But now I was in his arms, both of us crying, both of us thinking about how lucky I was to be safe, and how we were going to have a little baby Hotchner soon.

“Hotch,” Rossi whispered calmly, “the ambulance made it.”

We parted just in time to see the flashing red and blue lights outside. Hotch nodded a thank you to Rossi before he slowly helped me up onto my feet. “You okay?” he asked me. I nodded. “Okay.” We started limping out of the cabin together, meeting the paramedics just outside. They took me from Hotch’s arms so that they could load me onto a stretcher that they rolled into the ambulance.

“JJ,” I said when I saw her pass by the ambulance they were setting me in. She looked at me. “Will you ride with me?”

She furrowed her brows. “Me?”

The two of us hadn’t been getting along since New York nearly two years ago. She had unfortunately not been supportive of mine and Hotch’s decision to get married and have kids—even though those plans had obviously been postponed afterwards for a multitude of reasons. But now… She was the only one who understood. She was the only one on the team who understood what was happening to me, and she was the only one who knew the lengths I went to and would go to in order to protect my child now. For some reason, that brought me comfort. After everything I just went through, I surprised even myself by asking her to ride with me and Hotch, not Morgan. She still seemed to know, though. So, she nodded an acceptance to the invitation.

Hotch climbed into the ambulance first, then helped JJ in. When they were both settled on the benches next to me, the paramedic riding in the back with us closed the door then signaled for his partner to start driving through the jungle.

Hotch grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles. His eyes were still pouting, but he had at least stopped crying long enough to try and smile at me behind my hand. JJ seemed to be smiling at us, too. We didn’t despise each other anymore like we had back after New York. A lot had happened since then which encouraged us to at least get along long enough to forget all of our problems. Now, we were just impartial. In that ambulance, though, I could tell that she finally saw the truth about me and Hotch. Emily called it during the wedding, but I saw it finally it in her face that she knew.

“Aaron…” I muttered. “Are you okay with this?”

He cocked a brow at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Are you happy that we’re… you know… having a baby?”

His face softened. “Are you kidding?” When I shook my head, he pouted his eyes and squeezed my hand as tight as he could. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. But I am so excited.” He leaned down to kiss me. “Are you okay with it?”

I nodded and smiled against him.

“I love you.”

My smile against his lips widened as a tear ran down my cheek. “I love you, too.”

----

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22​  @oceaneblu​ @brithedemonspawn​ @absolutemarveltrash​ @bshelley322​ @rousethemouse​ @sunshinepower17​ @weexinling​ @pettttyyyc​ @anniegaltw

[daisycraft]

good evening, and welcome to my ted talk where i theorize the existence of a species that is the overworld-equivalent to piglins

The Wild West fucked me up, as it did to all of us as a collective, and it opened my eyes to our favourite series of piggy characters: Sir Billiam from the Masquerade, sheriff Sherman Thompson from the Wild West, and Technoblade from the Dream SMP. 

The following, past the Keep Reading, is my theory on how the three of them are related without being.. y’know.. related.

I’ve a theory that nether piglins had evolved from hoglins in the same way that humans did from primates. On the other side of the dimensional-door, there is a species of pigman that had done the same with overworld pigs. Such an evolution would explain the physical similarities between piglins and hoglins, and would likely have similar results for their overworld counterparts. (For the sake of this post, I’ll be referring to the nether creature with Piglin, and the overworld creature with Pigman.) This creates a species on the same level as both humans and piglins, one of which I believe that Billiam, Sherman, and Techno are all a part of.

There’s two significant things that make me think that this is a species instead of them being descendants/ancestors of one another or being the same person entirely. The two of which are overlapping existence and aging.

   During the introduction to the stream, Karl had confirmed that the Masquerade and the Wild West occurred within the same few months and are practically side-by-side in the timeline. This image confirmed that further:

[Picture I.D: A screenshot of sheriff Sherman Thompson outside of the jail. There is a Wanted poster on his left, printed with the image of Sir Billiam. Beneath his image, it says “Dead or Alive.” End I.D.]

Billiam and Sherman are in the same lifespan as one another. Not only that, but Billiam is significantly younger, and Sherman is significantly older: a detail I will bring up later. Such a thing would be incredibly difficult for someone like Sherman to fake: a poor man with scarring and tusks would be unable to pose himself as a younger, richer pigman. This does leave the possibility of Billiam and Techno being the same person, but that still wouldn’t explain Sherman, unless we get into theories that Karl isn’t the only time traveller. But I digress.

   Although none of their ages have been canonically confirmed, you can put together pieces through context clues and facts stated in the dialogue and/or their appearances. You can tell that Sherman is an older man, not only by the fact that he’s retiring, but also by his having of tusks, scars, and what seems to be a rusty or scrap-metal crown. Just by the fact that he was retiring within a week of the Tale, it places Sherman in the pigman-equivalent of being 60-70 years old. Billiam and Techno seem to be around the same age, younger and much more similar in appearance without their tusks grown in yet and lacking major scars or injuries.

Bonus: I have a small little connection between piglins and the pigmen that we have here. Both species, nether and overworld alike, find the display of value and wealth very important.    In piglins, they will wear armour and wield their best weapons to assert a sort of strength and power hierarchy within their herd (or maybe sounder?). We see this similarly with all three pigmen. Billiam flaunts his riches, holding banquets and balls and even stealing to acquire more. Techno wears monarch-style clothing even if he himself isn’t a monarch and is appalled by them, bragging to others about how well-off he is. Even Sherman, a poor sheriff in a poor town, wears a rusty crown and earrings likely made of scrap metal or copper to further assert himself as the leader of the town.

   Yeah, that’s about it for my piglin-pigman theory. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[ohblushes]

one thing i both love & get frustrated by in tf is how well jonny schools his emotions, combined with patrick's emotional state affecting how much he's able to focus on jon's facial expressions. it really puts us in pat's head, and makes for a really good read, but then there are times that i'd kill to know what jonny's thinking. (particularly, "When I can't help it anymore, I kneel by my bed and I. I think about you" & "I can always sign with a different team" but honestly just all of cpt 9)

ahh thank you!! man i have such a thing for like... jonny flipping his shit on the inside because patrick is touching him, but keeping it pulled together because he doesn’t want to spook patrick or overwhelm him in early stages of their relationship.

i probably don’t need to say this, but i’m also really into the idea of jonny kind of... drawing answers out of patrick? coaxing him into engaging in the way jonny wants. but i also needed a way to show that patrick was in subspace without realizing it from his own POV and that speech cadence ended up working out pretty well.

and some thoughts on chapter 9 since it is a slow lazy morning as i await my covid test results (eta omg i’m so sorry this turned into a monster and i did not intend that):

And Patrick had hoped that maybe he'd get to play on Jonny's line, even for a little while, especially as long as Jonny didn't take his spot as scoring leader. Jonny was brilliant, a two-way player, someone who could go to the boards in a way Patrick couldn't. He was also kind of—Patrick shouldn't have been looking at him like that, because it wouldn't help his career, but—

"Close your hand. Good. Now open it again. Good, baby, you're so good."

Jonny was… really cute. Even gangly, even gawky and baby-faced; Patrick wasn't supposed to notice dominants, but he couldn't help but notice Jonny. Not that he figured Jonny would pay much attention to him, at least not until they were out on the ice and Patrick made him pay attention.

i had this flashback in mind for the opening of this chapter, but i realized i needed a way to ground it in what had just happened with patrick safewording, and make it clear right off the bat that jonny came after him. (of course jonny came after him!!) also i kind of think at that age that patrick had already been subjected to several well-meaning but probably harmful talks on how he wasn’t supposed to notice or pay attention to doms Like That, he was supposed to act like he wasn’t a sub and play the game first. 

anyway! this whole situation from jonny’s perspective is MUCH WORSE than it is from patrick’s. i have in the back of my head that jonny had training as... a therapeutic dom, is maybe the best way to put it? like he knows how to deal with subdrop and subshock, but it’s an entirely different situation to see the love of his life on the floor curled up against a cabinet and to all appearances catatonic. so he starts trying to slowly bring patrick out of it, but the whole time he’s trying to deal with the idea that he might’ve been the one to cause this, and on top of that it seems severe enough that he’s wondering if patrick needs to go to a hospital.

...and succeeding only in spilling all of his crap onto the floor. He'd huffed at himself and dropped the bag to start collecting everything, but by then Jonny was there, crouched down on one knee as he picked up Patrick's gloves."Oh," Patrick had probably said, and then, "Thank you," and Jonny had grinned at him and climbed back to his feet.

lol baby jonny meets baby patrick and immediately goes down on one knee, i couldn’t help myself.

Patrick staggers, backs up, and manages to get the kitchen island between himself and Jonny. He has to hang on to the counter the whole way; his limbs feel numb, but there's something he has to do, he has to, he has to fit those pieces back together. 

jonny’s in triage mode at this point, and it’s taking everything he has to basically not... lunge for patrick, because he has a pretty realistic fear that patrick’s not going to be able to stay on his feet. but he also thinks that patrick safeworded because jonny screwed up and there’s no way he’s going to try to lay hands on patrick until he is absolutely sure patrick’s okay with it.

And then he remembers what he was supposed to say: "Thanks for, you know, coming to check on me."

"Jesus, Patrick, you don't have to thank me for that—"

"Anway," Patrick says, "I think we probably shouldn't. We shouldn't sleep together anymore, that's enough times to prove I'm just space-resistant, maybe, maybe you should ask the sub at the juice bar out?"

in the moment most of this flies right by jonny but the next day his brain is probably like: what the fuuuuuuuuuck. and he’s already kind of a ball of rage over the way he suspects patrick has been treated, but finding out that patrick thinks jonny deserves to be thanked for something as simple as checking on him when he’s dropping this hard makes him incandescently furious.

and then there’s the moment with the shoe drops about the sub at the juice bar, but i already wrote that part!

"Patrick. How long have you been in love with me?"

this is not how jonny intended this conversation to go but he’s running on fumes and struggling himself and he needs some way to slow patrick’s roll, so this is what comes out. because he was already pretty sure, but now he’s absolutely sure, he has all the pieces he needs to understand not only what patrick was hiding but why.

"Since we were rookies?" A pause. "Before?"

He can't talk, there's a sob caught in his throat, but Jonny must understand what he's seeing. "Jesus," he says, shocked. "Fuck. I had no idea. This whole fucking time, and I didn't have a clue."

jonny DID NOT SEE THIS COMING. he’d been trying to piece together a timeline under the assumption that patrick hadn’t been in this as long as he had, that there must’ve been some point in the last few months or years when patrick tipped over the edge. 

and again, if he were thinking clearly, he never would’ve approached their big conversation like this - where patrick’s basically left hanging for the five or ten minutes they take to work through everything. 

"I know you have no reason to believe me," he says, "but I can be professional. I'll back whatever narrative you tell the team."

"God," says Jonny, who sounds not shocked but sick. "You really can hide it that well."

this is the point where it really all starts to click for jonny. jonny is aware that he is not the best at hiding how he feels and that he lights up when he talks about patrick, but he always figures that can pass for fondness. he knows that patrick plays things closer to his chest, but that he’s able to hide this well really does make jonny sick. 

"Because people would speculate about why I would ever fuck you," Jonny says, like he's finally starting to understand.

this appalls jonny - not just the idea that patrick thinks he’s a bad sub, but that he thinks jonny would be ashamed to be with him. that idea popped up under the cover of their roleplay in chapter 5 but jonny’s really starting to understand how much shit patrick has internalized.

"Right. So, uh, if that doesn't—I'd rather not have to find a way out of my contract, but if you still don't want… if it isn't working by the time that's up, I can always sign with a different team."

and this is when jonny really starts to get not that patrick’s in love with him but how deeply patrick’s in love with him, because he knows with absolutely certainty that patrick would fight tooth and nail to stay with the hawks, that he’s sure of his place on the team and knows he’s a fucking cornerstone and loves being in chicago. that he’d sacrifice his place merely for jonny’s comfort is a level of devotion jonny thought only he was capable of.

"How do you know you freak out when someone tries to humiliate you or hit you or fucking share you?"

"I've tried, okay," Patrick says, and all his fight drains out of him as quickly as it funneled in. He's so tired, he just wants Jonny to leave so he can lie down and rest. "I've tried. I swear I'm not talking out of my ass."

what’s maybe the worst to jonny here is that patrick has actively sought to put himself in situations that he knows he won’t like. also the idea that any of patrick’s doms would be okay with watching someone else touch patrick is totally unthinkable to jonny, but he knows that’s him projecting lol. 

(i wanted to make it really clear that this wasn’t a universal monogamy-above-all thing, just that what 1988 want in a relationship with each other. polycules are pretty common in this universe! but jonny and patrick are possessive in a way that precludes that rather than possessive in a way that encourages it.)

"No," Jonny snaps back, "you don't get it. You've been stuck in this shitty fucking environment from the time you were seven years old where people make you feel like you're broken for being a sub, and you end up dating assholes because you think you don't deserve—no, because it doesn't even occur to you that you deserve better, that you're worth more than that!"

this is what is hopefully mic drop #1 of 2. patrick didn’t just happen into a series of relationships where his needs weren’t considered, he (probably) subconsciously selected partners based on what he thought his desirability and “goodness” as a sub were. his emotional logic was that if he wanted more, there was something wrong with him; that if he was unfulfilled or treated poorly, he was because he deserved to be unfulfilled and treated poorly; and that if his doms where unhappy with his behavior, especially in the bedroom, it was because he wasn’t much of a sub at all. 

jonny gets that. patrick doesn’t, because emotional logic != real logic.

"You dropped," Jonny says. "You know that was beyond normal subdrop, right? You were almost catatonic, you shouldn't even be on your feet right now."

patrick does not have it together lol

"Fuck, that's what you meant by 'freaked out' this whole time," Jonny says. He inhales shakily and drags his hand over his face. "That time in your bathroom, you almost went into subshock just because I told you no."

patrick really does not have it together lol

jonny’s heartbroken. he thought he was handling patrick as gently as he needed to be handled (and he absolutely was), but now he’s stuck thinking about how close he was to this point, and how much patrick downplays how things affect him.

"Let me get this straight," Jonny says. "You have multiple times been deliberately pushed past your limits to the point of having panic attacks and my number is your safeword because the thought of me is the one thing that makes you feel protected enough to get home so you can drop in private?"

"A couple of people have asked about… about it," Patrick starts, "but I tell them that I would've gone with eighty-eight, except that's kind of arrogant even for me, so nineteen because—my birthday. If you're worried, I don't think anyone's connected it to you, I promise."

"I'm not even close to worried about that."

this is not the good cover that patrick thinks it is. meanwhile jonny is just... heartbroken that patrick misunderstands his point so badly, and he’s having his own faulty emotional logic here where even though there’s no way he could have known that patrick was clinging to jonny to get him through bad experiences, he feels like he should’ve been there for patrick. that’s something they definitely talk through in the future. jonny’s so hard on himself!!

"I thought I hurt you, I couldn't stop… I couldn't stop thinking about your hands."

"No," Patrick says.

"Or that I said something that made you feel unsafe, that hurt you so badly you had to get away from me—"

and then we get jonny dropping. i wanted a moment like this from the beginning for a couple of reasons. top drop doesn’t pop up enough in fic! and dom headspace is just as real and can be just as vulnerable as sub headspace - there’s that same level of heightened emotional engagement even though they’re on different sides of the power exchange. plus, even though the bulk of trust fall is about jonny taking care of patrick, their relationship ultimately has a very equal give and take, and patrick is just as much jonny’s emotional guardian as jonny is his. i tried to give that a little focus in chapter 6, too. but jonny getting to shake apart like this in patrick’s arms means a lot to him.

He tells Patrick that he's good, so Patrick says, "You're so good." And Jonny holds him, so Patrick burrows his face against Jonny's jaw and says into his throat, "You didn't hurt me." And Jonny reassures him, so Patrick says, "I trust you," and he says it again, and he says it over and over until Jonny's heart rate starts to calm. 

jonny also looks back on this with fondness, not only because patrick tells him what he needs to hear and not only because knowing that patrick trusts him is everything he ever wanted out of life, but also because it reveals that patrick has started to internalize everything jonny has told him.

"I'm in love with you," Patrick says. "I've been in love with you for a really, really long time."

Jonny smiles and presses a kiss to Patrick's palm. "I know," he says. "It just took me a really, really long time to figure it out." And he sounds okay with it, like he doesn't mind, like Patrick hasn't ruined anything. No, he doesn't sound okay; he sounds happy.

possibly jonny has never been this happy in his life?????

okay and i’m cutting myself off before this gets any more excessive BUT

"It was for you." Patrick leans back a little further, lets Jonny take even more of his weight. "When I can't help it anymore, I kneel by my bed and I. I think about you. Sometimes I tie my legs together," he adds, because it seems like Jonny might like that. "I try not to do—not very often, because it always makes me feel bad, but maybe… maybe it isn't bad?"

this makes jonny sad

but it’s also a little bit boner-inducing, and some echo of nineteen-year-old jonny is nutting so hard over this revelation