#i did get some messages in me ol inbox saying that i could just leave off 'i own but havent played' entirely

[haveyouplayedthisgame]

Portal 2

[almadelsur]

no love allowed | j.m

Summary: Just some good ol’ angst based off the song No Love Allowed by Rihanna

Warnings: Angst, heartbreak, mentions of a breakdown, reader gets dumped, cursing.

A/N: Hey guys !! So I’ve decided to repost all of my obx content from my old account onto my new writing account, as i have now reopened my obx inbox and am writing for a few characters again!! Unfortunately due to deleting my old posts, my taglists have also been deleted and i can’t remember every account that wanted to be part of it soooooo just drop me a message if you would like me to add you to my new taglist! Hope you enjoy !! :)

911 it's a critical emergency Better run run run come and charge him with the 143 Told me his world was mine. Such a beautiful lie. Now he's done done done and this love is no more for me

JJ Maybank had been labeled a criminal at an alarmingly young age. Robbery, assault, breaking and entering, destruction of property even unlawful possession and firing of a firearm. JJ had done it all. But never did you think ‘Murder’ would be a part of that list. Throughout the entire life span of your relationship you’d ignored the prevalent warnings from everyone you’d encountered. You couldn’t count the number of times you’d rolled your eyes or scoffed everytime you’d heard your lovers name being followed by the words ‘criminal’ and ‘break you heart’. Because no matter how much the boy added to his criminal resume you just could not bring yourself to accept the title, how were you to see the dishonesty and malice of a felon behind those wide ocean eyes as he sold you a dream of desire and devotion? Maybe you wouldn’t have gotten yourself to where you did if you had only opened your eyes and seen him for what he truly was. Because by the time you finally did it was too late. He’d already won.

Hand inna the air as he waves me goodbye He said he care but no tears in his eyes And ask me if I'm alright N**** is you blind

His words conked you in the head so hard that you stumbled backwards, leaving you dizzy and disoriented.

“We can still be friends though right?” The casual tone in his voice drove the blade deeper in your heart. You just could not comprehend how someone could look at you with so much love and adoration one day and then with complete insignificance the next. He may have been a criminal but you were strong. He used to say it was of the things he admired most about you. It took everything within you to look up at the cause of your demise and offer him a nod.

“Mhm” you spoke through gritted teeth, you knew you’d break at any given second and under no circumstance did you want JJ to be there when you did.

“I knew you’d understand” he stepped forwards towards you and pulled you into his arms. No. Fuck no. You held your breath, knowing that his scent dancing around your nose would send you over the edge, you didn’t bother to hug back. One, two, three and he pulled away. As the proximity of his body to yours got further and further so did your sense of self. Who even were you without JJ?

As he began walking down your front steps your body started trembling, in the span of 20 minutes your whole world had been flipped upside down leaving you in a cruel reality you didn’t even recognize.

“Are you alright?” He called over to you so nonchalantly as he hopped on his bike ready to leave you behind in the dust. You figured that after a year together he’d know you a little better than this, but maybe his sight and ability to recognize you, left along with the love he had claimed he had felt for you.

You nodded once more, unable to speak, knowing that if you did the current state of affairs would be dragged out much longer than you wanted.

“Okay well I’ll see you around? Y’know like when we’ve both healed or something?” He waved at you goodbye and disappeared down the winding road. When we’ve both healed. How could he look at you without a single trace of sadness in his eyes and say that he needed to heal. Heal from what?

As soon as you closed the door behind you, you gave up the act. Everything you knew to be true came crumbling down, the inability to differentiate between reality and fabrication causing your head to spin and breath to heave. The flood of tears pouring down your face made it hard to see so to prevent any further injury you opted out for perching down right on the spot you were and ride out the tsunami. You stayed in that same spot long enough to greet and bid farewell to the moon as it came and went signalling the start of the rest of your days without JJ’s affections.

Like a bullet your love me hit me to core I was flying til you knocked me to the floor And it's so foolish how you keep me wanting more.

“Trust me I have a plan” JJ paced back and forth through the creaking chateau.

“JJ in the entire time that you’ve known her, has she ever been shackled to anyone? Trust me bro she’s a lone wolf” John B threw his head back against the pull out sofa, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t amused by all of this. The infamous heart breaker JJ Maybank had fallen to the equally infamous heart breaker Y/N Y/L/N. He could see the way you looked at JJ and knew that the feelings were reciprocated, but it was 8pm on a Sunday, the power had yet again completely shut down and so he’d decided to entertain himself through teasing JJ in the candle lit chateau.

“Okay JB im gonna need a little more support from you here dude” and so JJ began rambling, focused on letting his bottled feelings out so that maybe just maybe the heavy feeling in his chest would lift and he’d be able to breathe again.

“Because I’m kind of freaking out here. One moment Y/N is my just best friend, the one who’d give me bandaids when I’d play too rough in the playground and- and listen to my ridiculous theories and laugh at my stupid jokes but then- and then I blink a couple of times and suddenly she’s” he paused to shrug and gesture with his hands in a meaningless pattern “she’s Y/N, this crazy beautiful clever goddess, who’s actually funny like smart funny and who doesn’t stand for anyone’s shit and breaks all these hearts cause she, and I quote, ‘rides solo’ but we all know it’s because no ones good enough for her yet she still hangs out with us and loves us and I just- I just wish she didn’t just love me because I love her but I’m also in love with her and I just I don’t know man she’s the only person who doesn’t make me feel like a worthless piece of shit” JJ was heaving, he had been way too caught up delivering his word vomit to notice your entrance into the chateau, by the time his rant was over you just stood behind him with your heart full and tears in your eyes. John B had spotted you but figured it was about time you’d heard what JJ had to say.

“Well it’s a little hard to not feel offended by that final part but uh” John B motioned his head towards you awkwardly. JJ turned around quickly and his eyes widened as soon as he met yours.

“No no no no noo” he rushed over to you with a manic look in his eyes. “How long have you been there? You weren’t supposed to hear that!! I was gonna tell you. I had a plan-“

“JJ-“ you interrupted with a whisper knowing his habit of rambling when nervous.

“No you don’t understand, I had this plan and I was going to take you on the HMS pogue tomorrow cause I know you like it on Mondays cause it’s the coldest day of the week and you like how the fog settles over the sky and blurs the sunset and you always say how beautiful it is and I was going to turn to you and tell you how beautiful you are and then tell you how I felt and now it’s all ruined”

By now tears had begun streaming down your face as you looked at your best friend, you couldn’t believe the immense beauty that radiated off him so as you placed your hands on each of his cheeks you couldn’t wait any longer, leaning over and connecting your lips in a soft, tender kiss.

The kiss was short yet you knew as soon as you pulled away that you’d never get enough of the sensation. Your eyes connected with his again and the feeling of pure adoration shot through you straight to your heart of hearts, coiling itself around and settling, making a home for itself there.

“I’m in love with you too JJ” you knew then that you belonged to him, you swore you’d do anything for the blonde, you’d even die for him.

And soon enough, you did.

I'm screaming murderer, how could you murder us I call it murder

It had been a month since your breakup, you had decided to spend your days on the mainland to avoid seeing JJ or pretty much anyone who would remind you of him. You weren’t yourself. Not anymore. You’d not only pulled away from JJ, you had pulled yourself away from everyone and anyone who’d you’d ever considered to have loved or had loved you. You had felt slightly guilty at the start when your worried friends would call you at least 30 times a day, leaving each call and message unanswered. After all how could you love anybody when your heart had been brutally ripped out of your being. After a while though they must have realised that no matter how painful the reality of the situation was, their attempts were futile, you weren’t going to come back. Not the you they knew anyway. JJ had murdered that version of you, leaving this void of a person only finding satisfaction in inflicting heartbreak.

You’d returned to the island for the summer solstice kegger, the longest day of the year was always the most legendary and you knew there would be a surge of poor naive tourons for you to play with. A part of you knew that it would be a mistake going back, you had not only lost your inamorato, you had lost your best friends as well. You’d lost your family.

It only took five minutes into arriving the kegger for you to be proved right. Kie had spotted you from a mile away and instantly ran over to you, unsure wether her brain was playing tricks on her.

“Y/N?!” Her eyes were wide as you turned to her. Fuck. Instantly a wave of guilt washed over you, stronger than the waves you had surfed during surges, what felt like a lifetime ago. As she pulled you into her arms desperately, you knew you had to get out of there, you didn’t want the feelings that you had spent countless hours trying to surpress to come rushing back.

“We were all so worried about you!! JJ told us what happened and then you just disappeared and-“ you cut her off by shrugging her arms off of you at the mention of his name. You knew that if you stayed even a second longer you’d break all over again, and if you saw him? You’d probably drop dead on the spot from the eflux of emotion.

You just rolled your eyes and scoffed “Just leave me alone Kiara” turning around and walking away from her, leaving her behind like JJ had done to you. You knew you had to be harsh, had to hurt her to ensure that she wouldn’t chase after you.

As you walked home you tried to alleviate the guilt by repeating the same mantra in your head that you had begun to live by.

No love allowed.

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Correspondence, Chapter 04

Pairing: HotchReid

Summary:  An AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email referred from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. They know nothing about each other, but they don't really mind.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (eventually)

Chapter CW/notes: Action-y in that there is offscreen violence and peril, injuries, talk of surgery and symptoms/effects of medical grade narcotics (morphine), more on that big ol’ age difference. Side notes: Agent Anderson of the L.A. field office has no relation to Agent Anderson of Quantico, VA, because Agent Anderson of the BAU is a national treasure. (I’m considering going back and renaming the OC, but as of right now this is the last we hear of him for a while). And I know no one really pays attention to them, but the time stamps on the texts match the time zone of the scene setting. Set in season 6, self beta’d.

Word Count: 8893

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link

--

Chapter 04

--

Late September 2010

--

Spencer Reid wakes up to the early grey morning two weeks later, a perpetual haze shrouding his room long before his alarm was supposed to rouse him. He reaches blindly, blearing eyed and checks his phone for what feels like the hundredth time, only to find no messages waiting for him. A terrible, horrid feeling has been clawing at his chest and throat the longer it gets -- the more time that passes -- and he still hasn’t heard from Hotch. 

They’ve been messaging each other near constantly for months now, and it only seemed to get more intense after that fateful talk at the beginning of September. Where Hotch finally revealed he’d thought Spencer was much older than him, and not the other way around. Spencer had set him straight, as much as he could, and even that had been nerve-wracking to say the least. The two men were crossing into a territory neither really wanted to put a label on, and Spencer was both afraid of it and excited by it. Of what it could mean, and how long it could last, but he’d thought he’d had time to figure out a solution to his inadvertent secrecy.

Then, Hotch began working a case in Delaware two days ago. 

It seemed like a textbook unsub; maybe a little aggressive with anti-establishment overtones, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Nothing the BAU hasn’t seen before. They’d been closing in on the suspect, no location yet but some prospects that needed checking out, and the last Spencer had heard from Hotch…

It had been lunchtime for him, and midafternoon for the older man. The exchange hadn’t been anything of consequence, just their usual, easy correspondence. Hotch was going to check out that lead they’d spoken of, Spencer had a budget meeting as soon as he was done eating in the middle of his office hours, and they had a plan to play chess online that night. Hotch is still terrible at it, but he keeps coming back no matter how thoroughly Spencer wipes the floor with him. Now, sometimes they just forget about the game entirely after the first few minutes. It makes him smile each and every time, soft and fond and lighting a warmth inside him Spencer has… never felt before. 

Then Hotch hadn’t messaged him the rest of the night.

Hadn’t shown up online to play chess.

Hadn’t texted him goodnight, or even sent him an update on the case. 

Nothing in their conversations warranted such ostracization, and although Spencer has been ‘ghosted’ before (as his doctoral students would say) he knows Hotch would never do that. Not after everything, the history they’ve built the past months -- leaving nothing but the dread to sink in and spread like a stain.

All night, he imagines the worst.

By morning, he all but expects it.

--

[]9/22, 18:59[] Are you alright? Did something happen with the case?

[]9/22, 19:10[] If you were that scared of losing at chess, I can also beat you at online poker instead.

[]9/22, 19:30[] I’d suggest scrabble but that’s honestly not fair to you.

[]9/22, 21:55[] Hotch? 

[]9/22, 22:30[] I’m assuming that lead panned out, and you caught your unsub and are neck deep in interrogation.

[]9/22, 22:36[] I don’t want to imagine anything else, so that’s what I will picture.

[]9/23, 00:06[] Hotch please answer me. 

[]9/23, 05:32[] Please be okay.

--

Spencer arrives at Caltech looking a little more of a mess than usual. More than most are used to seeing him, at least, and it causes a few second glances from students he passes and other faculty -- but he really can’t find it in himself to care, this morning. His unruly curls, getting longer again, falling into his face and over his ears, are frizzy in their unkemptness. Bags under his eyes, normal, but he’s settled for glasses instead of his contacts. He has a spare pair in his desk, he’ll have to change them before class. His glasses somehow always make him look even younger. A mystery that boggles the mind, because once he had grown into his face a few years ago (around 26 or 27, close enough he had worried he would forever be cursed with a ‘baby face’) Spencer had thought he would finally be getting away from that. 

And yet, square jaw and ‘grandpa’ glasses and thin frame towering just over six feet did nothing in the slightest to aid him. Certainly not stopping a man outside the campus coffee shop from shouting “Watch where you’re going, kid!” as he near barrels over him on the sidewalk. Not his sweater vest or half suits, attire straight out of a 1940’s noir film (he’d even sported a vintage inspired undercut with his waves combed over for a while there, too. Way too much upkeep, as nice as it looked). Nothing makes him any more grown up in the eyes of the unsuspecting world, than he’d been without his five doctorates and board of director’s seat. No matter what he tried, it seems.

This has been a subliminal thing for years, something Spencer always said didn’t bother him in the slightest. And for a long time he didn’t care one way or the other, he just kept getting more degrees. All his life Spencer has been ‘too young’, always been ‘kid’ or ‘sport’ or ‘tiger’, even when running quantum physics equations in his head. And it didn’t matter. Not with his credentials and accomplishments and everything he now has to his name.

Until Hotch.

Now, Spencer cares.

Notices, even through his haze of worry and sleeplessness, how on the street it’s “Watch it, kid!” and fifteen yards later it’s “Good morning, Dr. Reid” as he steps into the Physics building where everyone knows him on sight. Knows him, and what he’s capable of. 

What if when Hotch met him all he saw was… another kid? 

If they ever met.

“Whoa, rough night Dr. Reid?” 

“Yes, you could say that,” he mumbles out as he signs in and scans his ID card, taking the stack of mail that the desk attendant hands him. But stops before he gets too far from the desk, backtracking. “Hey, have you watched the news this morning? Did anything show up about New England or Delaware?”

“Not that I saw, Dr. Reid,” she says in confusion, looking up from where she had been texting on her phone. “Just a whole lot of coverage on the shitshow at capital hill, as usual. Oh, and more depressing reports about the earthquake clean-up in New Zealand.” 

Of course, why would there be a news story about a killer in Delaware here in California. He’d have to look up everything online himself. 

“Thanks anyway, Carla.”

“No problem, Dr. Reid.”

-

Spencer spends way too long online that morning, searching for anything about the case Hotch and his team are working. He usually prefers paper copies of news media, at first barely knowing where to begin, but he falls into a wormhole of news outlets and local Delaware station websites, reading the thousands of webpages faster than he can scroll and click through them. But he can’t find anything pointing to a disturbance related to the case. There's nothing about a raid, or a shooting, or even an arrest -- which could all just be a part of the ongoing media blackout -- but it also does nothing to stop him from panicking. Spencer gives up after an hour, and diverts to other resources. Ones with a direct line to Hotch. 

With a drafted email pulled up to Ms. Penelope Garcia, the BAU's personal tech analyst, he ponders how to... even word this without it sounding too personal. Too much like he and Hotch have more than just a working relationship.

Because they do. They have... something.

Something that gives him fluttering sensations in his stomach, makes him check his phone constantly, and react to even the slightest chime similar to his text tone. Makes him smile when he sees Hotch's name on his notifications, in his email inbox, makes him message the man in the middle of the day at the most random thoughts. Just because he wants to make him laugh.

[]8/21, 15:36[] You're going to get me in trouble.

[]8/21, 15:38[] You didn’t laugh in front of your team, did you? The scandal.

[]8/21, 15:42[] I'm at a crime scene. There's a dead body in front of me.

[]8/21, 15:43[] Then why are you checking your phone?

[]8/21, 15:45[] You know why.

But that’s not something that is shared with the rest of the team, he’s sure. So he should be careful how he words his email, lest Ms. Garcia realize that Spencer isn’t asking purely as a colleague. 

Surely they know he has friends, though?

Chewing his lip, Spencer types out a brief email asking if Agent Hotchner is feeling well since he missed an appointment the night before and hasn’t been returning his calls. It’s a phrase he’s used often, so it comes naturally to Spencer as he types it out, and he realizes… he hasn’t called. He’s sent a dozen text messages, but not a phone call. Never a phone call. That was against the rules, the unspoken ones that always kept this friendship easy and free-flowing and evolving into something more.

But this feels like the closest to an emergency they’ve ever encountered before.  

He looks to his phone beside him on his desk, and tries to fight back the dueling forms of panic clawing at his chest. Listed in bullet points behind his eyes. Panic that Hotch might not answer, panic what that means for the man he’s been… becoming more and more inclined to than any other person he’s met in so long. Panic if he does answer, breaking that barrier of written words to spoken, and the opportunity to hear Hotch’s voice. But he would also hear Spencer’s, and then there would be no hiding just how… how young he really is. He still didn’t have a plan for that, wracking his overworked brain day and night for a way to incorporate the information into a conversation that wouldn’t stop everything in its tracks. 

But his phone is in his hand before he can stop himself, Hotch’s contact pulled up and his thumb hovering over the phone number with baited breath. 

Was he really going to do this?

He presses the touch screen and can hear the line connecting, the dial tone ring even before he gets the phone up to his ear and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings a fourth time -- before clicking over to voicemail. And Spencer’s hyper-fast thought processes fail him as he realizes far too late that he’s going to hear Hotch’s voice for the first time, anyway. Frozen in a panic, unsure if he wants to or if that had been something he wanted them to do together that the seconds slip by like water through his fingers and suddenly it’s too late.

“You’ve reached the voicemail box of -- (703)-567-8790 -- this caller is not available. Please leave a message after the tone--”

It’s an automated, female voice that rattles off the numbers and generic call back message, and Spencer hangs up before it can begin recording him. Exhaling a shaky breath, relief a flash flood on his nerves that nothing had been ruined between him and Hotch thanks to an ill-timed phone call. 

He keeps the momentum going without much thought, and adjusts his email to Ms. Garcia before sending it. 

It feels so understated, and yet over dramatic the more he thinks about it. The more he reads it.

.

Please let me know of his well-being.

.

God, no wonder Hotch thought he was in his 60’s. 

But Spencer has to keep the façade up, for now, not give away anything he doesn’t want to just because the emotional part of his brain is running rampant over the rational one. There are… many explanations as to why Hotch isn’t answering him. His gut feeling aside, he doesn’t need to be panicking like this. The world is still turning, he still has work to do, so Spencer tries to gather himself into some semblance of order and preps to talk to his doctoral students within the hour.

--

His morning routine progresses as usual, as if nothing at all is wrong with the world. Dr. Reid has his mandatory round up with his doctoral candidates going over thesis and dissertation parameters, class lecture schedules, updates, the works. Like morning announcements, but he requires them all to be there and to listen, and they all show up. Everyone knows of Spencer’s eidetic memory. He will certainly not forget a single date or schedule change, and he expects his students to not forget as well. 

But this morning Spencer is fully distracted, his mind elsewhere, somewhere in the state of Delaware with an agent who may or may not be in danger. Because Spencer cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. It almost seems more like a fact than a feeling. The juxtaposition of his daily routine and this unfounded worry throws him entirely off kilter, and all of his students seem to know right away. 

Then, his distraction reaches its peak when his email pings, right in the middle of his department announcements. A response from Ms. Garcia of Quantico, VA flashing across his laptop screen. Spencer’s eyes skim the preview sentence in the pop-up box, and his voice trails off as his mind… whirls. 

.

Dr. Reid, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know when Hotch will be available again. There was an incident, and he’s still in surg-

.

Surgery.

Surgery.

That vice-like grip of worry that has taken hold of him since last night tightens further, to the point Spencer can’t breathe. Hotch is in surgery, Hotch is hurt, and if he hasn’t been answering his phone since last night -- or even late yesterday afternoon -- it was not a minor thing.

Hotch is hurt. 

She doesn’t know when he will be--

If he will be --

“Dr. Reid? Are you okay?”

“I--” he’s still looking at the email pop-up box, and is clicking on it before he can stop himself. Immediately disconnecting his laptop from the projector as his email loads there. It takes him a fraction of a second to read the email. “I’m sorry, an emergency just came up. Kimmy, finish reading off the schedule for me?” He doesn’t even wait until she answers him, just picks up his laptop and retreats to his office as fast as his long legs will carry him.

.

--surgery and we’re still waiting on word. I know you 2 talk on the reg so I’ll keep you posted. 

Fret not, genius professor, our fearless leader has been through much worse than this.

.

She’s using informal speech patterns, which she has never done before. It bleeds her nervousness, and worries Spencer even more. Teetering on the edge of panic. Ms. Garcia also revealed she knows he and Hotch talk, but surprisingly that doesn’t have the effect he thought it would on his already rattled nerves. Instead, any and all reservations fall away as he types out a response much in the same way he and Hotch had started their friendship all those months ago.

.

Please, is there anything you are allowed to tell me about the case or his condition? We --

.

Spencer pauses, bites his lip as he considers crossing this boundary into the uncomfortable unknown, and then thinks about Hotch on a hospital operating table three thousand miles away.

“Screw it,” he mutters and continues to type.

.

--We’ve become good friends and I’m very worried.

.

The reply is almost immediate.

.

That makes 2 of us, boy wonder, but I’m already hacked into the hospital records database and Prentiss is in the waiting room for any immediate actions.

I’m sending you the case files and the incident report from last night. Maybe you can see some shiz we can’t b/c the bossman is tough but he’s been in surgery a long time. 

.

Of course, whatever he can do to help. Spencer’s heavy heart-beat triples in his chest as pulls up the files and immediately prints them out so he can read through them faster. Utilizing anything and everything he can do to aid the BAU team, and whatever Hotch has gotten himself into. But then, his mind sticks on something from the email. Boy Wonder. It stalls his hands mid-movement.

Ms. Garcia knows how young he is.

She must have done a background check on him, that would make sense since he’s been consulting so much lately. But why would Garcia know his age, and not Hotch? Wouldn’t she send the files to him directly? Had Hotch really known, all along?

Or did she do it on her own, and not tell him? Assuming her boss already knew everything about him. It’s too many questions and possibilities and they are interfering with what’s most important right now. Best to get it out of the way, no time to be indirect about it.

.

Ms. Garcia, did you update my dossier with the bureau after you ran my background check?

.

If you’re referring to why Hotch seems to think you’re rocking the senior discount at restaurants and not still getting carded for beer, then no I didn’t update it. I’m very anti-gov files having every detail of our lives in them, that’s what   I’m for, and I figured there was a reason he didn’t know. Your secret is safe with me, sugar bean.

.

Spencer hadn’t meant for it to be a secret at all, it just happened that way. 

The real reason is Agent Anderson of the LA field office is a dick, with a bully streak he never outgrew after high school, and didn’t bother filling out a full file on him the first time Spencer consulted for the FBI. Then, he couldn’t be bothered to update it when his consultations became more than a one time thing.

But that was all in the past now, and Spencer can’t even be upset about it. Because now he has Hotch.

.

Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I’ll let you know my findings soon.

.

He skims the file quickly, pulling information out at lightning speed. It appears a very straight-forward case. As straight-forward as a murderous sociopath can be, anyway. Very anti-establishment, like he and Hotch had discussed the previous day, aiming for specified targets that devolved to anyone in a uniform. Anyone who appears too official, or labels as official. 

It’s easy to see, now, why the unsub attacked Hotch instead of running from him. He practically served himself up on a silver platter. But there’s something about the kills that’s bothering Spencer. The knife wounds, bludgeoning, even the gunshots during the first murders when the unsub still hesitated -- it’s all overkill. Rage. Every single target has died from massive internal bleeding, M.E. reports all label the knife wounds and beatings as the cause. But the amount of blood left over, measured during autopsy, doesn’t add up. They bled too much. No wounds indicating intentional bleeding occurred, and the tox screens are all clean. 

Except, every victim’s hospital records show elevated potassium rates. Spencer’s hands, skimming down each and every page quick as they can, stop on a dime as his gaze zero in on the information. 

“Oh, God,” Spencer whispers, quiet and horrified. “--Hotch.”

There’s no time for email.

He picks up his phone, goes to an older email that has full contact details in the footer, and dials Ms. Garcia’s direct line in Quantico.

“Speak, and behold greatness.”

“Ms. Garcia, it’s Dr. Reid,” Spencer says, and his tone and quickened speech patterns gives way to his panic.

“Dr-- Dr.  Reid?” 

“Yes, quick there’s no time. Do you have Hotch’s hospital records in front of you still?” 

“Yes,” Garcia says, her voice a musical thing even in it’s breathless reaction to his heightened state of haste. “Updated every two minutes.”

“Is his potassium elevated?”

Some quick typing of keys that move faster than even he could ever hope to type. “...Yes.”

God. “Okay, okay I need you to call the hospital right now,” Spencer says in a spiel that all sounds like one word. “Whatever you have to do, he needs Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate as soon as possible, to counteract the chemical imbalance or he’s going to go into kidney failure and bleed out.” 

There’s more typing going on and Ms. Garcia’s breathing has gone a little labored.

“Alright, alright I’m getting patched through. What else can you tell me?”

“I think he’s been dosed with something called an XG Compound, either Eastman or Zhao I have to look up the specific components and chemist. But they are a series of banned, experimental military-grade drugs that suffer effects of thinning the blood, that’s why they can’t stop the bleeding around his stab wounds and old scar tissue.” Hotch’s old wounds from Foyet would only exacerbate the condition, once it reached the kidney failure stage, but up until then the intrusions of hardened tissue is the only reason his abdominal cavity hasn’t been flooded with blood and drowned out his other organs. 

“Okay, okay I’m through, I’m keeping you on the line. Stand by-- ” then she clicks over and he’s left with a pulsating silence. Nothing remaining but continuing his work, and hoping he’d called in time. Hoping that Hotch will be alright.

--

Spencer is digging through his floor to ceiling bookshelves for the biology book on airborne pathogens given to him by a visiting Professor two years ago and he is hating himself for never cracking it in that moment. It’s nearly the last book he gets a hand on, because of course it is, and he makes it a third of the way through the book before Garcia is back on the line. The phone on the floor beside him and just barely within reach. 

“You literal genius, I could kiss you,” Garcia tells him in what can only be overstated relief, and Spencer snatches up his phone with a very undignified scramble. “They’ve had to do two transfusions on him and are prepping a third, but you were right he’s been dosed with that XG compound.”

“He’s going to be okay?” Spencer asks, still cross-legged on his office floor surrounded by books and holding his phone to his ear like a lifeline.

“Yes, yes my dear he’s going to be alright. They think. He’s not out of the woods yet and the surgery is still going on, but he -- he would have died within the next hour if you hadn’t found out what was wrong.”

Spencer’s heart is in his throat, her words doing the exact opposite of reassuring him. Hotch had been that close to dying, to being forever out of reach, because Spencer had been too scared to pick up the phone. 

“I should have called sooner,” he says, so quiet even someone in the room wouldn’t have heard him correctly. “I knew something was wrong.”

“Oh no, sugar don’t think like that. You just saved his life,” she pauses, like she wants to say something else, but diverts to an adjacent topic. “How did you know?”

“Autopsy reports. There wasn’t enough blood left in the bodies, they bled out too quickly. Then I saw the elevated Potassium,” he murmurs it all, rattled off without really thinking about it.

“And you just… knew all of that, without looking anything up?”

“That’s basically what I do. The only reason anyone calls me,” Spencer laughs but it holds no humor. “I know too much, make connections, and drink too much coffee.” 

“You drink and know things, oh God I hope you get that reference because you’re getting a coffee mug.”

Spencer laughs a little, despite the situation, and feels… lighter, somehow, even with the worry still plaguing him. Caught up in his chest like a bad cold. 

“I’m reading this textbook on airborne pathogens, I have a hunch, and I’ll send you anything I find that can help with the case,” Spencer continues, his voice not so heavy for a moment. “Just… tell me when he’s out of surgery? Keep me posted?”

“Of course, honey, you’ll be my first message,” Ms. Garcia assures him, but then she pauses again -- and he almost hangs up because it feels too anticipatory. “You should tell him, B.T.Dubs.”

Spencer hesitates more than is probably necessary.

“... I don’t know what good that will do,” he admits, quiet and unsure. “I’m not -- I’m not ready for this to be over.”

“You’re not that young, honey. Does he know you like him?”

“Mmhmm,” Spencer makes a nervous, affirmative sound. “And… he likes me, or who he thinks I am.”

“Don’t write him off just yet, Doc, let him speak for himself when he wakes up,”  Ms. Garcia all but scolds him, in as gentle a way as possible and Spencer appreciates that, at least. 

“--I’ll think about it.” 

--

Not long after Spencer finds what he’s looking for: military grade poisons that were banned for causing adverse effects, listed and categorized by chemist and agency. It is the Eastman compound, originated during the first invasion of Afghanistan. Their unsub has prolonged exposure, Spencer is sure, and that will narrow down the suspect pool immensely.

After he sends the information to Ms. Garcia, Spencer looks to his phone once more, where there is a block of text all from him himself in his correspondence with Hotch. Begging him to be alright, to answer him, and now that he knows that the man has a fighting chance -- or as much of one as he will be able to have, with where advanced medicine resides in the current conjecture of time -- there really isn’t much he can do now. But hope. And wait. And pray.

Except Spencer doesn’t believe in prayer, or God, or anything that might hear him. The only thing he really believes in is science, and facts, and none of that is very helpful to him right now. Except maybe the coincidental balance of the universe, in a theoretical physics sense, and unexplained phenomenon that have an equal and spatial balance to it. Anything with the descriptor ‘unexplained’ always draws him in like a moth to flame, and he knows he can typically find a semblance of comfort in the way his brain constantly connects dots and far off specks of information that not everyone can see at first glance. Constellations in the sky. But only when he has someone to tell it to, that even pretends to listen for a moment, and for a long while now… Hotch has been that someone. Hotch always listens to him.

Before he knows it, he’s typing into the text box once more --

[]9/23, 11:10[] You’re in surgery still, but Ms. Garcia has confirmed the treatments are working and they are able to actually repair the damage instead of treading water like they have been the past ten hours. I’ve had her personally in contact with the doctors and surgical staff, and all they’ve been able to tell us is to let them work and just pray for you.

[]9/23, 11:13[] Which is such an odd thing; men of science telling people to pray like the outcome of a surgery isn’t in their hands, but some theoretical astronomical entity. I know it’s probably just a ‘bedside-manner’ tactic, but it doesn’t help me in the slightest so it just irks me instead.

[]9/23, 11:15[] I don’t believe in prayer -- a shock, I’m sure -- but I do believe in the phenomenon of universal affirmation. It’s an interesting trend in history and spans cultures where if someone has something awaiting them, to live for, even if they are unaware of it… they will fight harder to cling to life. 

[]9/23, 11:18[] But I also know you will fight tooth and nail for Jack, and for your team that you treat like family, and maybe even me. I’d like to hope I’m included in that, and no amount of books or IQ points can make me think of something to contribute to help you keep fighting.

[]9/23, 11:19[] Just please keep fighting. Come back. And if I come up with something to entice you… I’ll let you know.

It eases a lot of the tension in his chest, talking to Hotch like this -- even if he’s just talking at him, in a place where he might never know what Spencer has had to say. But he can hope. Hope that Hotch will wake up and have thirty missed messages and see they are all from Spencer and it will make him smile. 

Spencer would give anything to see him smile, and he allows himself to hope that one day... he might get to. 

He might as well, while he’s sitting there hopelessly hoping for things beyond his control. 

Come back to me.

Spencer almost types it out, can see it in the text window though he hasn’t pressed a single letter, and closes his phone before he can. Pressing it to his mouth and closing his eyes and just… 

Hoping.

--

The hours roll over into the afternoon, and there’s still no word. 

Spencer has spent the majority of the day messaging Ms. Garcia, who has had no information beyond trivial updates here and there and Spencer has read more about surgical procedures and practices than he has in his entire life. Even raided the biology department’s library, surrounding himself with the comfort of books and files and filled his head with the soothing monotony of medical terms and safety protocols. 

But once noon has come and gone he finds himself staring into the bookshelves across from where he sits on the floor, among stacks of textbooks, with an epiphany trying to make itself known to him. Despite his every attempt to ignore it. 

His phone is back in his hand, there’s an email correspondence from Ms. Garcia that only briefly says Still nothing. And that makes up Spencer’s mind. 

[]9/23, 12:49[] I’ve thought of something.

What he types next makes it hard to breathe, his heart lodged in his throat, and it all comes flowing out of him much like before. His fingers keep moving, his emotional part of his brain steam-rolls over the rational one, and then he’s done and he’s tacked on six extra messages and Spencer has to put his phone away before he rereads it beyond what is deemed healthy or sane. 

Because he’s done what he could, and all he can do is believe that will be enough to… subliminally keep Hotch fighting. The day is only half over, and Spencer feels like he hasn’t slept in a week. 

It would be hours before he got the message that would send relief through his spine like a shot of Novocain. Just three words from Ms. Garcia, sent in haste in a text instead of an email.

{}9/23, 14:58{} He’s in recovery.

--

Hotch wakes up just barely the first time, the room spinning and hit with that familiar smell of anesthesia he can always taste as it fills his senses, before he slips back under. 

The second time is to a small pencil light being flashed in his eyes, staccato movements meant to test his pupil reactions, and an older woman in nurse’s scrubs saying his name and calling to him. He hums an affirmative, even though he isn’t fully returned to a working state of mind. Instinct, more than clarity.

“Welcome back, Agent Hotchner.”

“About damn time,” he hears Prentiss say from somewhere across the room. Probably leaning the wall, if that faux drone is anything to go by. The nurse gives her a look but his agent isn’t even fazed by it, as far as Hotch can see. It takes him a moment for his eyes to adjust that far. But he knows the look well enough he doesn’t actually have to see it. 

“Where is everyone? Is anyone else hurt?” Hotch can feel the words form on his tongue, droned out in a haze, his mind slowly coming back to him. 

“Good to see you, too, boss,” Prentiss says in mild exacerbation, coming up to the side of his bed but not taking a seat. She must have been waiting a long time, her whole stance jittery just like after long flights on cases. “Everyone is fine, you’re the only one that got into a knife fight with an unsub who’s into biological warfare.” Hotch blinks at her, trying to make her words make sense without asking it of her. He remembers going to a warehouse to follow a lead, but not much else after that. It’s coming back too slowly to keep up with her. Prentiss just sighs, and repeats herself. “Everyone is fine.” 

She regales him with a play by play, his own memories appearing like raindrops on a windshield to accompany her commentary. Slowly beginning to form a picture of what had happened. He’d been stabbed before, more than he cares to think about, and he’s been dosed with military-grade drugs before as well -- but never both at the same time. No wonder he feels like he’s been hit by a truck.

“You’re lucky to be alive, honestly,” she points out, hip resting against the plastic side panels of his hospital bed. 

“Yeah, I’m gathering that.”

“And your phone has been blowing up like crazy.” 

Hotch is finally able to sit up enough and see straight without his vision swimming, to find that his agent does indeed have his cell phone in her hands. 

“What?”

“Yeah, eight missed calls and three voicemails, and--” she squints at the screen before looking at him in astonished confusion, “eighty-seven missed text messages, from a whole bunch of people. I’m not reading through all of them. I didn’t know you were that popular.” 

“I’m the Unit Chief, popularity has nothing to do with it,” Hotch deadpans, more himself. Wanting to reach for his phone but his arms are still dealing with pins and needles sensations, sluggish to lift and his fingers uncooperative. “Who called me eight times?”

“Let’s see,” she unlocks his phone -- somehow, god damn it Prentiss -- and scrolls through his notifications. “Two calls from Jessica, one from me, three from Strauss (Jesus), one from Dr. Reid, and one from Garcia. It doesn’t say who the voicemails are from.”

Hotch suddenly feels much more alert, his heart rate monitor picking up but he does his best not to draw attention to it, instead looking up at Prentiss as carefully guarded as he ever is. 

“Dr. Reid called?” he tries to keep his voice even, and unaffected, but the aftereffects of the drugs in his system leave a little more hitch in his voice than he would have liked. 

“Yeah, he’s been talking to Garcia,” Prentiss says without much comment, still scrolling through his phone and making Hotch a little more than nervous. “Busted the case wide open, and saved your life while he was at it. We never would have known you were dosed with something if he hadn’t figured it out. Think you owe that old man a fruit basket.”

“Can I have my phone back?” 

“Don’t think you’re supposed to have it,” she says without looking up, still scrolling through his notifications. “Lots of junk e-mail…”

“One of those voicemails is probably Jack, I should call and let them know I’m alright,” Hotch tries to reason with her.

“He and Jess are already on their way up, they’ll land in an hour,” Prentiss tells him, but looks over her shoulder for that nurse as she makes to hand Hotch his phone anyway. Still hesitant despite her predilections to breaking every rule she can get away with.

“I still want it back,” Hotch insists, regretting saying it as soon as he does.

It catches Prentiss’ attention a little too sharply. “...why?” But at Hotch’s steady stare and solid silence, unwavering like he hadn’t just been in surgery for hours on end, she finally relents and hands it over, still giving him a suspicious look. 

“It’s important,” he finally admits, when she doesn’t stop staring for a good couple of minutes. Those perfectly shaped eyebrows raise near to her hairline, the profiler in her connecting more dots than should be humanly possible. 

A small smile teases her lips, though not fully forming there. “Now I wish I’d read them.” 

Hotch just gives her a reprimanding look of his own, but it’s short lived.

“Thank you, for staying.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Prentiss assures him, her smile going softer. “I’ll leave you to your mystery woman.” A beat, another raised eyebrow. “Person.” A knowing look, but then she exits and Hotch is able to look at his phone at his own discretion. 

- 

Hotch goes through the text messages with a brief glance; there’s so many of them. Other agents and agencies, his team in a group chat Garcia had started, Jessica left fifteen before someone got a hold of her, and Jack’s school sending reminders about soccer and parent teacher conferences. 

But 39 are from Spencer, and his heart constricts in his chest at the worry he must have caused the man. Aches next to the scars on his chest and the blood that doesn’t belong to him in his veins. And somewhere in the recesses of his mind, it’s coupled with a torturous feeling of longing. Even subtle jealousy, because even half drugged out of his mind Hotch hadn’t missed the precise word choices Prentiss used. Garcia has been talking to Spencer -- talking. 

Garcia got to hear him.

She talked to Spencer, when he still hadn’t, because of some unspoken rule Hotch isn’t even sure when they decided upon. He still knew so little about the man, and Spencer’s voice could tell him so much with just a few words. He could fill volumes with what he would learn from just a single message --

Without much further thought, Hotch pulls up his voice mail. Listens to the automated voices and the three messages there. None are from Spencer, although his heart had beat a little harder in anticipation -- enough his heart monitor beeped audibly next to him. Embarrassing as that was, like a lovestruck teenager. He’d glared at it and centered his breathing until his heart rate slowed back down, not wanting to alert the nurses station. Two of the voicemails are from Jessica’s phone, one of her worried out of her mind, and the other of Jack telling him they are coming to see him and he hopes he feels better soon. Just listening to his son speak more strongly than his aunt had or anyone else should in his situation, telling his daddy he loves him while the sounds of a commercial airline filter through the background, makes Hotch want to smile and sob all at once.

The last voicemail is from Garcia, telling him a similar story to what Prentiss had earlier, but with a bit more detail on her end. How ‘Dr. Reid’ called her out of the blue, because there had been no time for his usual emails, and gave them the information that saved his life. He’d been working the case diligently, ever since, and was checking up on him a lot. More than a lot. ‘Let him know you’re okay, when you wake up and get this. The poor guy is worried sick, and my updates only give him so much comfort.’

Spencer had actually called Garcia, when he hasn’t physically spoken to anyone in Quantico the entire time he’s consulted for them, just to save a few precious seconds to relay what he’d found. He’d even broken their rule, probably before hand, and called Hotch -- just to make sure he was okay. Hadn’t stopped working to help, the moment he found out he wasn’t.

It’s a strange thought, that if not for Spencer -- Hotch would be dead. That Jack would be flying up here for a very different reason. 

Hotch switches over to the text messages with a lump in his throat. Not at all prepared, emotionally, but needing to know.

The 39 messages start from the night before, when they were supposed to have had their usual online chess date. They range from playful banter, teasing edged in worry, and escalate to panic as the night wears on. Anxious worry bleeding through the single sentences, building and building until that lump in his throat feels like it might block off all air soon. 

Please be okay.

God, that alone starts to set a tone -- and reveals something Hotch hadn’t expected to find. Those three words give way to his speech pathology training, and all indicate that Spencer is… very likely younger than he’d originally thought. Some of Hotch’s assumptions might be close, even the teasing ones he’d only said because he’d been sure they were wrong. The other man is obviously beyond worried about him, as well. Petrified, despite knowing the risks of his job. They had become so close the past few months, were most definitely past the flirting stage and into something so tentative and wonderful Hotch can barely believe it some days. But they had never talked about this, about the possibility that Hotch might walk into a situation one day and not walk back out of it. 

Spencer’s messages soon give way to him just… talking at Hotch. Relaying what was happening, philosophical rants meant to ease his own mind and Hotch finds himself smiling softly at the man’s constant stream of thought, lectures at genius levels that he still feels so compelled to share with Hotch. Because they are that close. They really, truly, are -- and it brightens the fluttering feeling in his chest all the more. How Spencer is trying, subliminally, to draw Hotch back to the light. Three thousand miles away.

Please come back.

Hotch hears it loud and clear, the come back to me. Even unwritten. And it makes his heart skip a beat, aching as it does.

Then…

[]9/23, 15:49[] I’ve thought of something.

[]9/23, 15:52[] I’m 29.

Hotch doesn’t understand, at first. But then it hits him.

Years.  

29 years. 

Spencer is 29 years old. Proven, further, by the following messages sent after that.

[]9/23, 15:56[] I’m a certified child prodigy, on a registry and everything. I graduated high school at just twelve years old, and had my first Ph.D. by 15. Youngest in CalTech history.

29.

Jesus Christ, no wonder he hadn’t wanted to tell Hotch his age. 29 is… far younger than he expected. 

When Spencer was born, Hotch was getting his driver’s license. 16 years difference in age…

He keeps reading, despite the numb aftermath of a bomb going off inside his head, trying to process it and also hear the younger man out.

Younger. Spencer is 16 years younger than Hotch, and he finds himself scrubbing at his face to try and wake himself up further as he reads what Spencer sent.

[]9/23, 15:57[] I turn 30 at the end of October, and I was trying to wait until then to tell you. 

[]9/23, 16:00[] I’ve noticed a prominent dynamic shift in perception, between listing my age as in my 20’s and ‘almost 30’. It’s a numerical allusion our brains can’t help. You hear 29, you think 21. It happens with decades, too, once someone is outside the familial range of 10 years. +/- either side.

[]9/23, 16:02[] An age gap doesn’t sound as bad when I’m 30. That’s why I wanted to wait, just a little while longer, but if that universal affirmation phenomenon actually works for us -- I don’t mind dealing with the consequences.

[]9/23, 16:03[] Just please come back. 

[]9/23, 16:07[] Please be okay.

[]9/23, 16:10[] I miss you.

His heart is about to be ripped to shreds. 

Hotch feels terrible, because Spencer is right. 29 sounds so young, and it keeps repeating in his head over and over. But 29 isn’t the same as 21, he isn’t some college student still stumbling around trying to figure out his life. He has five Ph.D.’s, runs three departments at one of the best universities in the country, is consulted by the FBI and Homeland Security and very obviously has a reputation he upholds to the highest regard. Hotch had guessed Spencer was 32 not so long ago, what was the big difference between that and his actual age? From what little Spencer just shared of his life story, he’s never gotten to be a kid, so who was Hotch to consider him one? What gave him the right to be floored by this, did it actually change what he thought of Spencer? How he felt about him only moments prior to reading that?

I miss you.   Come back.   Please be okay.

I’m 29.

It could be the recent flirtation with death, the anesthesia or the morphine, even the gratitude that Hotch will get to see his son again and not leave him without both his parents -- there’s so many reasons for him to take pause as he considers the messages in front of him. 

But it feels a lot like the months of talking, and the countless late nights spent together, that pile up and up in his chest. A rising pressure that reminds Hotch that he and Spencer have something, and it’s not a normal, regular situation for either of them. Something that precedent, and everything Hotch has ever been told to hold to standard, doesn’t seem to fit. He and Spencer don’t seem to fit, when looked at afar or even on paper -- but they do. They really do. It was never supposed to be something that could be this easy, or normal in any capacity.

But what about their lives ever was?

[]9/23, 18:26[] I’m so sorry I worried you.

[]9/23, 18:26[] I miss you, too.

[]9/23, 18:27[] If I stop answering you, the nurse took my phone away. I hate hospitals.

[]9/23, 18:29[] Hotch, you scared me to death.

[]9/23, 18:30[] I know, I’m sorry.

[]9/23, 18:31[] From what I heard, you saved my life.

[]9/23, 18:33[] I don’t even know how to begin thanking you for that.

[]9/23, 18:36[] Just get better.

[]9/23, 18:38[] Which means resting, don’t glare at your nurses too much. They’re there to help you.

There’s a long stretch of a pause in their correspondence, which picks up so smooth and easy it’s as if they had never stopped. Like the last few days hadn’t happened at all. But they had, they were both looking at the messages to prove that. He does take pause, maybe more than he should, and Hotch knows miles away Spencer is just as nervous. Staring at his phone.

-

Hotch isn’t wrong. Spencer let out such an exclamation of relief at Hotch’s name on his notifications he about sobbed with it. He never cries, hasn’t in years -- but his eyes sting with relief and worry and… an emotion he doesn’t want to name.

[]9/23, 18:44[] What day is your birthday?

[]9/23, 18:45[] October 28th.

[]9/23, 18:45[] Same week as mine. November 2nd.

Hotch pauses, again, considers his next response… and 3,000 miles away Spencer can barely blink as he stares at his phone with mounting dread. 

[]9/23, 18:49[] I understand why you didn’t want to tell me. It’s alright.

[]9/23, 18:51[] Am I correct in assuming you’ve never been in a relationship with this much of an age gap?

It takes Hotch a moment to even gather the courage to type that out and send it. Knows it sounds almost too formal, for them, but Hotch also knows that he and Spencer are balanced on the edge of a knife, here, and… no matter what the outcome, everything is about to change between them.

Spencer licks his lips in nervousness, reading the line over and over although he has no need to. It feels like a tipping point, and he’s still… terrified this will be his last conversation with Hotch outside of case work. Ever. 

[]9/23, 18:55[] Never. 

[]9/23, 18:57[] I haven’t had many relationships at all. My peer groups have always been older than me, and people my own age never understood me enough to be interested. So it’s just something I was used to, going without.

[]9/23, 18:59[] This has been… the closest thing to what I’ve been told is normal that I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never had the chance to have something like this with someone, or connect in this way. I gave up, for a long while there.

[]9/23, 19:01[] I’ve been in a similar situation before, on an intellectual spectrum.

[]9/23, 19:03[] I’ve never--

Hotch pauses, again, putting his thoughts in order. Weighing it all, before taking that final leap. Spencer waiting with baited breath, all the more. 

But Hotch doesn’t regret what he sends. Not one bit.

[]9/23, 19:03[] I’ve never dated anyone younger than me like this, before, so we’ll both be on a learning curve.

[]9/23, 19:03[] But we will figure it out. Together.

Spencer’s breath catches, and he can’t seem to release it again. He can’t believe what he’s reading. What Hotch has sent him. 

He said ‘dated’.

He thought they were dating. Spencer isn’t quite sure he can trust his own eyes, despite the words being there in stark black and white on his phone screen.

[]9/23, 19:06[] Dating?

Hotch smiles, because he just knows -- from that single word text -- that Spencer has sent it not in admonishment or anything negative of the sort. But in hope. Confident that he recognizes the nuance in Spencer's voice even without ever having heard it, Hotch just knows, and it makes warmth blossom anew in his chest. Sends his heart rate monitor skittering across the machine all over again.

[]9/23, 19:08[] Hate to be the one to tell you, but all of those late nights where we talked for hours instead of playing chess? Those were dates.

Spencer has his hand over his mouth, still in disbelief that he hadn’t… fucked this up beyond repair. That his age hadn’t been the deal breaker he’d feared so vehemently for months now. That everything is still as it was, age difference and life-threatening situation, aside.

They were dating. All this time.

[]9/23, 19:10[] I should have worn nicer clothes.

Hotch laughs at his phone at the same time Spencer laughs at his own, having reread what he’d sent. 

3,000 miles away, and their quiet laughter coincides perfectly. 

[]9/23, 19:11[] Our next one I’m sure I’ll be in a hospital gown, so I think you’re in the clear.

[]9/23, 19:12[] Sounds like you’re making plans, already. 

[]9/23, 19:12[] You still need rest.

[]9/23, 19:14[] Well, I have to thank you somehow. And, I saw something about poker instead of chess? I’m actually not bad at poker.

[]9/23, 19:15[] … you remember I’m from Vegas, right?

[]9/23, 19:16[] We’ll play for fake money.

[]9/23, 19:18[] No such thing.

[]9/23, 19:19[] I do play for favors, though.

[]9/23, 19:19[] Oh? 

Hotch feels a wild, youthful thing unfurl in his chest as he types away. Mischievous, almost, in a way he only gets when he and Spencer are hours deep into conversations in the middle of the night. But it’s broad daylight, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling too wide. Getting lost in the thrill of it all. In the officiality of it, now, and another curtain unveiled between them.

[]9/23, 19:20[] Did you have something in mind?

Spencer has to be blushing seven shades of red, right about now, and he hides his face from his phone for a moment before he realizes how ridiculous that is -- Hotch can’t see him. He can stop messaging the man any time he wants to.

Except he doesn’t want to.

[]9/23, 19:24[] I’ll get back to you.

Hotch can’t help it as he grins at his phone. A wry, suggestive thing, but he manages to school it before a passing nurse can see him -- how his eyes are alight with possibility. With elation, just from talking to the younger man that had seemed to capture a part of him he thought wasn’t available to anyone any more, and types out one last -- slightly more flirtatious subtext to put a cap on their conversation. To indicate he’s awaiting more, always wanting a little more of Dr. Spencer Reid.

He can blame it on the morphine, later. 

[]9/23, 19:25[] Looking forward to it.

--

(tbc...)

--

Tagged List:  @spencehotchner @ssa-sarahsunshine @gothamapologist @reidology @marsjareau @dragon-snaps-fandom​ @emmyraebird @just-an-emo-rat​​​ @aaron-hotchner187 @dk18077 @more-heid-pls @fakin-it-til-i-make-it @merpancake

[kirishwima]

hello! if it’s okay, can you please write some head cannons on the RFA members comforting a sad/crying MC because someone at her school said something racist to her? This happened to me in class and I’m feeling a bit upset and would like some cheer up! T-T

awe i saw this in my inbox and had to get to it as soon as possible. Anon I’ll gladly fight these students for you! That’s not only immature but also shows just how stupid these people are, please don’t ever bear any mind to them.

Here’s RFA ready to cheer you up!!

YOOSUNG:

* He opened the messenger while in his last class of the day, tired and just looking forward to getting home to rest

* Yet the conversation going on in the chat made his plans do a complete 180-MC was talking with Zen about what happened at school today, quoting the horrible things some other students said to her

* Yoosung was furious. What was wrong with these people?! Who gave them the right to make fun of others like that, especially a person as wonderful as MC?

* He grabbed his stuff and left the class in a hurry, ignoring his teachers’ questions of where he was going. Instead he opened up his phone and called Seven, immediatly telling him what was going on, asking if he can help dig up who these students were.

* Whilst waiting for Seven to do his magic, he called MC next, the fatigue in her voice breaking his heart. He told her exactly what he thought about those people, and before she could interrupt him, he told her exactly what he thought about her-how he considered her to be the most wonderful person he’s ever met, how her kindness and patience helped him get out of the dark place he was in, how in his eyes she could never be anything less than perfect.

* Hearing her voice break as she tried to reply made him wince, tears filling his own eyes. 

* “MC, I’m coming over right now. I’m bringing chips and video games and we’re playing and I’m not leaving until I see you smile!”

* He spent the day with MC, making sure she’s better before leaving, and once Seven found the students that made fun of her-he wasted no time in giving them a piece of his mind, along with the hacking of their social media thanks to Seven, turning all of them into Winne The Pooh furry art fans.

ZEN:

* He’s on the phone with MC during a break with rehearsals, asking her how her day’s been, when she tells him what happened.

* When he hears her cry he freezes, eyes wide. She was crying?! These idiots with empty freaking heads made her cry?! He’d fight every single one of them, no questions asked.

* He would push the thought away in the meantime, focused on making MC feel better.

* “Darling, you shouldn’t give such people the light of day. They’re clearly in over their heads, and have zero common sense. How could anyone ever say anything rude to you? You’re a godess! A literal angel! These idiots know nothing, and they don’t deserve to even glance your way.”

* If she keeps crying, then Zen’s protective mood is ON. He’ll leave the rehearsals early to go to MC’s place, bringing with him his favorite type of face masks and a carton of MC’s favorite ice cream, spending the evening pampering her and talking about everything and anything.

* He won’t forget about these people that dared comment on MC like that though. He’ll get their names. And when he finally sees them face to face, he’ll absoloutely punch each and every one of them. 

* No one messes with Zen or his loved ones. N o. O n e

JAEHEE:

* She’d met up with MC for a cup of coffee after her classes ended, and was shocked to see her near tears, her bottom lip trembling as she tried to hold back her sobs.

* Jaehee immediatly ran to her, grabbing her gingerly by the shoulders as she looked her up and down for any signs of injuries that could cause this pained look on her face.

* “MC, oh no, what happened? Did someone hurt you?”

* MC told her all about what happened, about what these people said to her-and Jaehee’s blood was boiling. If this were an anime, you’d be able to see the menacing aura gathering around her, flames shooting out of her eyes in fury.

* Lo and behold, as they’d met near MC’s school, the person that made that racist comment was walking past nonchalantly, not even noticing the two girls across the sidewalk.

* Jahee realised this must be the person as MC tensed as she saw them, eyes wide. Jaheee confirmed it with MC, and with a decisive nod, she let go of her, walking across the street and towards that person.

* She tapped them on the back so they’d turn to face her, and after politely asking who they were to confirm their identity, she smiled her usual buisness smile and threw a mean kick to their shins, letting them drop to the ground with an anguished cry.

* As confident as ever, she turned and walked back to MC, bringing a hand around her shoulders as she led her into the cafe. “Now, let’s go get a nice cup of coffee and some delicious desserts. With a little bit of sugar and spice you’ll forget all about today’s incident, and I’ll remind you of your true infinite value every time you even try to remember it” Jahee said, this time with a sweet, sincere smile. 

* Don’t mess with Baehee is the moral of this story folks

JUMIN:

* He was at work when Jaehee knocked on his office door, telling him he should probably take a look at the messenger-MC was clearly upset, but refusing to tell anyone the reason why, and if someone’d be able to pry it out of her, it’d be Jumin.

* Shocked, he immediatly called MC, hearing the sniffling and her soft sobs as she answered the phone.

* “Tell me what happened. Now.” he commanded, his tone more grave than MC ever heard it be before. With a gulp she told him exactly what went on, and he listened patiently, nodding to himself as she finished.

* “Give me their name MC.” He left no room for arguement, and so MC did, confused as to why.

* At that, Jumin’s voice softened, his tone back to the lovely friendly one MC was so used to. 

* “Thank you. Now, need I remind you of your worth? You are as dear to me as Elizabeth the 3d MC, you are the kindest and most pleasant person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and no immoral fool could ever change that with their ignorant comments. You’re wonderful, and I’d never say this lightly.”

* He’ll stay on the phone with MC for as long as it takes for her to feel better, working through paperwork in the meantime, and even skyping MC if she wants so that they can hang out even virtually. He’ll be there for her until she’s better, and will refuse to hang up until he can get a genuine smile out of her.

* And as for the person that hurt her...well, pay no mind to them. They’ll be sure to keep their distance from now on.

SEVEN:

* He’s always texting MC while she’s in class, being the big ol’ rebel he is, and this day was no exception-he was trolling with her in the messenger, when she went radio silent for a while.

* He sent her a private message in the RFA app, asking if everything was okay. 

* Knowing there’s no way to hide from Seven of all people, MC told him the truth, explaining the racist comment this person made.

* Seven was shocked. What sort of trash-loving idiot would ever dare to insult MC in any way shape or form? Do they have no common sense? Do they not realise there’s no person nicer and sweeter than MC?

* His revenge plot begins instantly. No fool will be left unpunished.

* “Have no fear, your angel 707 is here! All I need is a name my princess, and as your hero of justice, I’ll seek out vengeance for your honour!”

* MC was confused. After more consistent pestering and teasing from Seven, she gave him simply the first name of the person that made that comment, not knowing just how much power a name can hold for a hacker such as Seven.

* He kept sending her memes and jokes throughout the day, until he called her late in the evening when he knew she’d be out of class.

* He joked around with her on the phone for a while as he typed away at his computer, when he halted in his movements, his tone far more serious.

* “You know their opinions and comments about you mean nothing right? I mean-of course you have to know it. You’re the greatest person I know, and you’re really really dear to me and-I don’t just go around saying that lightly you know! Your positive energy is infectious, and you should never, ever let one simple idiot bring it down, ever!”

* He stayed on the phone with her for longer, and before hanging up, he simply said “Oh, by the way, you might want to check your social media.”

* Confused, MC opened her facebook’s homepage-and realised what had happened.

* Seven had hacked into this person’s page, and created a bot that’d constantly post the entire script of the Bee Movie from their account every 2 minutes, repeatedly, non-stop, for at least 3 hours now.

* When would it stop? Well, never. Not even if they deactivated their accounts and got wiped off the face of the earth, not if Seven had something to say about it.

* Don’t mess with cats and hackers, the saying goes, but Seven added a twist to it; don’t mess with cats, hackers, and MC!

-send me mystic messenger headcanons/prompts for the characters to react to!-

[thehomierobbstark]

Let’s Talk About Sex: Intermission II

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Intermission I Chapter 3

Pairing: Erik Killmonger x Reader [#TeamErikDon’tDateWhiteChicks]

Prompt: Aight, so iOKnoW bout yall but… I got some mad ‘fears’ about sex 😂😂😂. I got so many questions, so many horrible imaginations, so many embarrassing ass scenarios I’ve thought of in my head about what might happen when I finally do the do. Basically, ya girl been thankin (thinking) too much, and I done fucked around and thought up this shit.

A/N: A longggg time ago a lovely anon came in my inbox spitting an idea, and my ass finally got around to making it happen.  It’s a lil modified, but I hope y’all still enjoy it nonetheless.  Thank you anon for your brilliance!!

Warnings: At the bottom 👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿.

This is for all my lil cute ass black gorditas out there rockin back fat, belly rolls and thick ass thighs that touch!!  x Reader is always gon be black, chubby, and sassy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sigh, twirling the forkful of salad around in your fingers as you stare off into space, lost in thought.  Ranch dressing drips off a piece of lettuce onto your tupperware lid, splattering a little onto the table, but you don’t even notice, your mind entirely somewhere else.

“Hello?”

The voice of your best friend, Nichelle, filters through to your brain, and you irritatedly bring your mind back to the present, unhappy to be interrupted.

“Huh?”

“Damn girl! You was zoned tf out! What the hell you thinking about that got your ass stuck like that!?” She interrogates you, her eyes squinted in suspicion.  While you normally wouldn’t have wasted anytime telling her about one of the many sex daydreams you regularly found yourself having, the one between you, Erik, and a certain little razor wasn’t one you were willing to share this time.

This one was your own naughty little secret, made even more special by the fact that this time it was an actual memory rather than a fantasy.

Clearing your throat, you wave her off.

“Nothing girl, just thinking about work,” you lie, popping the salad into your mouth and chewing.

“…Uh huh.” She grunts, not buying it. “All I know is, don’t nobody ever catch me thinking bout work with a smile on my face and biting my lip. You must got some bomb ass benefits girl,” Picking up her own fork she eats a mouthful of pasta, shaking her head at you.

Your nostrils flare and you bring your hand to your mouth to keep food from flying out of it as you snort, laughing from being caught.  You didn’t even realize your face was out here exposing you like that.

“Mind your business, bitch,” you tell her after swallowing, reaching over to grab your tea and take a sip.

“I’m just sayin, if you gone be out here reliving your sexcapades you can at least try not to eyefuck the table while you do it.” She shrugs her shoulders, and you’re grateful this time there wasn’t anything in your mouth because you immediately giggle at her statement.

“Shut the hell up Chelle, damn.” You whisper as your eyes shift around the small outdoor cafe to make sure no one else overheard. “Besides, don’t you have your own man and kinky sex dreams you should be thinking about? Stop being so damn nosy.” You fuss at her, angling your fork before stabbing into her pasta and stealing some.

“Girl I would except that nigga not here” Her head falls back and she grumbles, her face sulking.  “He’s in Georgia at some stupid work ‘thing’, which means I don’t get any dick until next Friday. That’s why I gotta live vicariously through you bitch! Now pleaseee, tell me something, I’m dying over here.”

She gives you a sad puppydog look, poking out her lips at you.

You roll your eyes. “Girl you know that shit don’t work on me.  Why don’t you just FaceTime Brian and tell him you’re horny? Isn’t phone sex y’all’s thing?” You take some more pasta, savoring the delicious Cheesecake Factory takeout.

Blowing a raspberry, she leans her head on her fist.  “We had to stop doing that after he answered the phone with his mom in the car.”

“Wait, WHA-“

“It’s a long story, don’t worry about it. Anyway,” She waves her hand as if waving the cringey memory away. “How have you and Erik been?  I know y’all probably been fucking nonstop since you got your tests back, huh? Ol bowlegged ass,” she eyes you coyly with a knowing smirk that says ‘I know what y’all been doing’.

You chuckle yet again at your hilarious friend, so thankful for her ability to always keep you laughing.

“Actually, we haven’t been fucking, thank you very much. My broke ass lungs made sure of that.”  You tell her the story of how you almost choked and died from seeing Erik’s dick, and when she finally stopped cackling at you she grabbed your hand, patting the back of it.

“Oh you poor, poor bitch,” Her face turned down into a faux look of pity.  “You might as well reserve your burial plot now because from the looks of it your ass not gonna survive him dicking you down.”

You snatch your hand from hers, glaring at her.

“I mean let’s be honest here,” she continues, ignoring you, “your ass talk a lot of shit, so you’re mad trippin if you don’t think he won’t obliterate your walls given the first opportunity.”

You pick up your phone, opening your messages while you let her words go in one ear and out the other. It was bad enough you had to live with the knowledge that the mere sight of seeing Erik naked had you hyperventilating, you didn’t need to think of what other ridiculous responses your body would have once he actually started putting use to it.

She continues roasting you as you click on a new message from Erik, seeing a link to a video attached.  A message accompanies it.

Put in your headphones before you watch.

You fish your earbuds out of your purse, completely ignoring your friend now.  Clicking them into the audio plug, you put the buds in your ears before clicking on the link.

The video starts with a view of Erik sitting at what looks like his home office desk, clad in a red T-shirt and a pair of black sweats.  The top of his face is cut off, but you can tell its him by the signature keloids sprinkled over his arms and the telltale smirk on his face displaying his gold fronts, letting you know he was up to no good.

“Hi baby, I miss you today,” the audio plays, and you hear his smooth voice bleed into your ears, sounding so sensual.  You almost forget that it’s a video and respond back, wanting to talk to him and tell him you miss him too.

“I can’t wait till you get home, but I wanted to show you something first before you got here.”

He pushes himself away from the desk, rolling back in his chair, and you’re able to see more of his lap now that it’s uncovered.  Lifting his shirt, he takes the bottom of it and tucks it between his teeth, giving you a peep of his uncovered chest and the long thin gold chain hanging under his shirt.

Leaning a little bit closer, your eyes focus on his belly button, thinking you see something odd there when he takes both his hands and pushes his sweats down, revealing his gorgeous, thick cock standing at full attention, the head of which stops just below his navel.

Your mouth drops and your eyes grow wide, completely entranced by the view of your man stripping down for you.  You watch as he takes one of his hands and grabs his heavy member, beginning a slow stroke from the base to the tip, twisting his wrist over the head.  

You feel a slow wetness start to leak from your pussy, and you shift your legs in your seat, not wanting it to seep past your panties.  

Erik continues pumping himself, taking in a ragged breath and speaking to you again.

“You see what you got me doing, princess?” He groans as his hand reaches its peak again, picking up the pace as he continues pleasuring himself.  “I can’t wait till you get home so Daddy can teach you how to touch him. I just need your hands on me babygirl,” He sucks in a breath, moaning as his head falls back. “And that mouth. Fuckkk…”

You lick your lips and swallow as spit fills your mouth, desperately wishing you could climb through the screen and into his lap right now.

Your fingers feel the side of your phone, looking for the volume button to turn it up when you hear something behind you.

“DAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNN!!!!!” Nichelle’s loud ass voice scares the shit out of you and you drop your phone, you earbuds snapping unplugged as it clatters to the ground, and the sounds of Erik moaning at top volume fill the outside patio.

You scramble to pick it up, grateful that other than you two and another single patron in the corner, nobody was really around to hear it.  Flipping your phone to silent, you exhale a deep breath before turning your burning gaze to your friend.

“What the hell!! You scared the fuck out of me! Why is your ass behind me anyway?!” you yell at her, your heart still beating out of your chest.

“You were ignoring me hoe! But more importantly, why didn’t you tell me his dick looked like that?” She points back at your phone screen at the paused video.

You press the home button, exiting out of the video player and dropping your phone in your bag. You growl as you start packing your stuff up, dumping your unfinished lunch into your lunch bag.

“I swear Niche, if you were anyone else I’d be cursing your ass out right now, you’re lucky its you.”  

She stops you and pulls you into a hug, one you grumbly accept as she apologizes.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you, I promise, but your face looked so shocked I wanted to see what you were looking at.”

You couldn’t totally be upset about that, given that had it been any other time you’d have probably showed her whatever it was that had your eyes bugging out of your head. Too bad this time it ended up being a home video of Erik.

You shake her off, pushing her away.  “Yeah yeah whatever. I’m going home, I’mma see you later.”  You grab your stuff, leaning over to kiss Nichelle on the cheek before heading out.

“Where you going? You just gonna leave me here?” She calls after you.

“Did you not see the same video I did? I’m going HOME.” You yell back at her over your shoulder, laughing loudly.

“Try not to choke!” She calls after you, cheering you on as you rush yourself to the car.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warnings: Baby Smut

[lesbian-octoling]

Hey guys, Xeno drama ((you know, about the banner and hate and whatnot)) below the cut if you don’t wanna see it!!! 

@mrkamabo--co Hello! I don’t know if you’re ever going to see this, but. It’s here.

First of all, yes, it’s me! lesbian-octoling, rhi-draws-things, whatever you wanna call me. I’m making this because I’ve heard through a friend of mine that I trust that you are a relatively good person, and while I don’t agree with everything you’ve done, I figured i might as well try to clear things up between us.

First off-

I’m sorry.

This is a 100% genuine, formal apology. I am sorry your medical issues are acting up, I understand completely. I had and almost identical use (albeit with chemical imbalances making me throw up, instead of breathing/heart issues, but both caused by stress), so I get it.

I’m not here to stress you further. In fact, I’m here to try and resolve the issue. I don’t want you to feel the way you do, and I don’t want to start more drama. I should know, i’ve been receiving nasty shit for a while. If you don’t want to read this- that’s okay! Don’t stress yourself, dude.

I just feel like this is important, because we never actually talked- and lack of communication often leads to violence.

But there are a few thing I wanted to address- first and foremost, the ‘xeno free zone’ banner, and the tags.

#‘you’re a coward cuz u wanna draw them with t^ddy’#i don’t do that in the first place lmao#and if you’re going to say:#'its actually scientifically accurate!’#nope it really isn’t #why?#why would squids/octopi evolve to have digigrades/muzzles/claws on their hands?#why would they look like goats with their eyes and muzzles?#they would have flat fish face!#have squid/octo hat heads!#like the third stage in their canon evolution!#exaggerate that if you want scientifically accurate squidlings/octolings/inklings!#otherwise.. yall just makin them into furries tbh#note: i have a surplus of fursonas#k peace

Ah, I hope you don’t mind me going off a bit, but I did want to say things!!!

Muzzles: Inkling beaks, IRL, are very long! they just look flat because.. well, squids are long! But if you put that into something shaped like a human head, they need a bit more room to stretch out.

Claws: they’re not actually claws, they’re hooks! Just like real deep-sea squids have hooks made of chitin that can retract back into their tentacles, which is why i made them like that. As you can see when they go back into heir squid forms, their arms and legs ARE just evolved tentacles!

Here’s a cool example of the hooks, as compared to some of my squid hands:

‘goat noses’: This is because… it’s not a nose! A real squid breathes through it’s siphon, which is one, large hole. That’s why their nose is like that- it’s not two nostrils, it’s one hole, but flattened down so it’s not just a big ol’ hole in their face. If it was, things might get into it, like dirt or bugs or.. i dunno.

Digigrades: admittedly, this is just because it’s fun, and theres no reason they shouldn’t. Any other similarities to cats is just… coincidental, really, as cats and squids have a lot of similarities (liking the sun, chasing lights, etc).

Eyes: Actually, this was a mistake. When i FIRST started getting into splatoon i was like ‘wait squids have horizontal pupils right’ and only found out later that no.. that’s octopi! But oh well, it was a bit late, eh? live and learn.

I’m not saying its fully scientifically accurate- hell, course it’s not! But its more biologically accurate than having them being made of ink. Mostly, I just think it’s fun, cus I’m a budding biologist and I think it’s cool to explore these concepts.

Ok! Thats all I gotta say. I just wanted a chance to explain myself, s’all! As for the banner itself… while it may have been joking in nature, I do think it was a bit rude. Kinda like swinging a bat at a hornet’s nest, yeah..? Like you said- “but yknow tumblr be tumblr, and i honestly expected This™”… you gotta watch out what you say sometimes. You could’ve made it more obvious that you were joking- putting ‘XENO FREE ZONE’ with bit red X’s and ‘feel free to reblog :)’ just has.. a very mean tone to it, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, regardless of your intentions. It really didn’t sound like a joke, to a lot of people, including me.

Though, maybe, we’re all just a bit wary- I’ve been receiving asks telling me to- quite literally- kill myself, multiple times, over this. I also know several friends who have gotten the same messages (a few of which don't even draw xeno, but simply because they are my friends). I think me (and other xeno artists, though I cannot speak for them) have a right to be wary, when we’re so used to being bashed. A lot of people are scared, and it doesn’t make what some people said right, I’m just… telling you why that massive backlash happened.

And by ‘massive backlash’…. if I’m being honest- and I don’t mean to make it sound trivial- a lot of the responses to those posts weren’t truly mean. Some people sent a clown meme, a lot of people responded with ‘why are you hating us, were just having fun’. A few were pretty mean, yes, but I could count them on one hand. These were light hearted in nature, and nothing like some of the truly nasty things that could’ve been said. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve received in my inbox…

I think a lot of this could’ve been avoided if your post right after had simply been an apology. Instead of playing the victim card, simply say ‘ah, that last post was a joke- i sincerely apologize, and I might’ve worded it poorly’. That’s it. And it could have been avoided if you said, in the tags ‘this is a joke post don't take it seriously’. But instead, you went on the criticize xeno aspects. Not saying you’re wrong, but pointing out why so many people took it the wrong way.

But.. the main thing I wanted to address was this post.

I.. can’t say I’m in the right, but I can’t say you are, either. I probably shouldn’t have made that post- but it was meant more as an off-hand joke. I didn’t mention you at all, as I didn’t want anyone to hate on you. It’s more of a running joke for my blog of ‘sexy tartar’, which is why it was funny enough that I brought it up.

#can’t feel safe#when i put an opinion out there#its easy.. to ignore a post yknow…? It’s also easy not to make a joke like that. Again- maybe you intended it as a joke, but it’s like one of those shitty april fools pranks where you tell somebody something bad happened. We got scared. Doesn’t make it right of us, but it doesn’t make it right of you, either.

But the ONLY thing I’m truly angry about- if you saying that ‘you, a minor, don’t feel safe because you’re being shat on by an adult’. The reason this makes me mad is because… I’m 18. Barely. And you’re 17. I’m… not even a full year older than you. I’m still in high school. The way you worded it made it sound like i’m a 32 year old getting off on sending hate to a 13 year old- and that’s not even close to the case. That is not cool, dude.

Anyway. Sorry about that, though I hope you can see why I’m.. unhappy with the wording. I’m trying to solve things here, not make them worse, ha…

And.. yes, I did block you. But not so you wouldn’t find out. You can still see my blog; i know this. I blocked you because I’ve been getting hate anons for the past few weeks, and I can’t be too careful with who I block. I’m tired of people telling me im ‘ruining the fandom’, so I tend to block at leisure, or when I have suspicion. And a big ‘ANTI XENO’ banner is reasonable suspicion, yes…?

Again, I apologize for that post, but i was not doing to to spite you, just because I found it funny. I didn’t contribute to the spreading of hate to you in any way- I am very anti-hate messaging, and very pro ‘block and ignore if you don’t like them’. Which is.. what I was trying to do, but I didn’t want to leave us on that sour note. I did not encourage anyone to ridicule you on your post, or send you any sort of messages and asks.The only people I complained to were my girlfriend and a select few close friends, who i KNOW would not participate in any sort of hate spreading.

I’m not asking you to be friends with me. I’m simply trying to clear off any misconceptions- I’m fully welcome to hearing what you have to say back. But…

All in all, I think the gist of what im trying to say is that we all made mistakes, and we should both own up to them. I’m very sorry about your heart condition- I sincerely, 100% hope you get better. And I’m hoping that by talking it out, we can clear things up and not let it stew..? I know that sometimes these things tend to eat at me until I fix them, and that is all I’m trying to do.

I’ve unblocked you for as long as it takes for us to resolve this issue, if you would like to move to DMs, or to discord. Either works. Or.. don’t respond at all, if you don’t want.

Have a nice night, and I hope you feel better!

[secrecykept]

@lachalaine 

Just a random, self-indulgent kinda thing of Kav and Mags in the Chesh/Jackie verse!

-----

The moment he sat down on his office chair and relaxed into it, but before he could even take a breath to center his mind and plan for the day ahead…his phone rang.

How typical.

He huffed as he snapped up the device, answering it with his usual disregard for manners.

“What.”

A laugh came through the line and drew forth a sigh from him.

“Mags,” he said, already raising his free hand to rub his temple in anticipation of the headache the woman was likely to bring him.

‘Mags’ as she was known, was many things. A fox. A witch. A great talent. A massive flirt. A morally questionable person. And she was key to a goldmine of information, she was his inside woman.

But mostly she was a giant pain in his ass.

“That’s me, Mr Alpha, Sir~!” She mocked the part of serious soldier, and he could just imagine her lazy salute. “Lieutenant Mags, reporting for duty.”

There was a pause and thoughtful hum from her before she added, “Or more like, doing my duty and reporting I guess.”

Kav rolled his eyes and inwardly asked the universe for patience. “…Uh huh. Well, go on then. Report.”

“How come you never give me a report, huh? I wanna know what’s going on with you.”

“Because you already know everything and I’m the Alpha, I don’t report to anyone.”

“That’s so boring though! Can’t you gimme any good details? I worry about you sometimes, y’big lug.”

He was almost, deep down, touched by her concern, but that fleeting feeling evaporated as she continued.

“I know you haven’t had sex in like, foreverrrrrr. I bet I could find someone real good for you-“

The predicted headache settled in the front of his skull and began to pound on it. His voice held a rough edge as he spoke. “That’s enough, Mags. Report.”

He heard her sigh before her voice came again, “Well…at five I went for a run, then I watered my plants, then I sharpened my knives, or maybe that was before but anyway, then I –“

He clenched his jaw and forced himself to release it, his breath huffing against the receiver. “Stop messing around already.”

“Alright, alright, grumpypants…” she said rather petulantly, sounding as if she might be pouting at the growl she’d been given, but he knew she’d be restraining herself from laughing. She went on, “Target One, also known as codename ‘He Can Hammer Me Like A Nail Anytime’ has been spending every chance he can get at the human’s house. He sneaks away for work and all, but it seems like it’s super rare that he’d ever miss spending the night with her. From what I can tell, she still has absolutely no clue that he’s a shifter.”

“Good…make sure it stays that way.” He frowned and adjusted his hold on the phone as he leaned back in his chair. “How the hell hasn’t she been suspicious yet…Does she really think he’s just a normal leopard?”

Mags hummed noncommittedly, the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “Maybe she just really loves big cats, and this is just a dream come true for her lonely, cat-loving soul, so she doesn’t think about it. But don’t worry too much, she’s pretty cool and they’re sweet together.”

He tapped his fingers on his desk and ignored the way his nails wanted to sharpen into claws. There were too many things that could go wrong. There were too many things that he didn’t know.

His hand shifted over to the closed laptop sitting on the desk and he tugged it a little closer, cracking it open and jabbing the power button. Might as well get some of the day’s work started.

“Yeah, well it won’t be sweet when SIAP kick down her door and fuck with her memories. And it won’t be sweet when he gets punished for being a security risk.”

“Hey now, chill out there, big kitty,” Mags soothed, “That’s what you’ve got me for. We’re not gonna let that happen.”

He scoffed and took a moment to punch in his password. “So who is she? What’s she like, huh? Must be something pretty special if he’s barely leaving her side.”

“Well, let’s see…She’s definitely not one of us, as far as I can tell there’s nothing like us in her family line. Her name is Jacqueline Dulcet, but she goes by Jackie. She’s half French. Lived in LA as a little kid, but they moved to the Philippines when she was six. Moved again when she was twelve. Went to an all-girls academy where she was a bit of a loner and struggled with the work for a while, according to records. Looks like she was some kinda sick for a while and then things picked up and she made a friend. Became a cheerleader during college…I wonder if she’s still all flexible. Do you reckon she’ll do a cheer for me sometime?”

He rolled his eyes and opened up a news site, skimming the headlines. “Stay focused.”

“Well, whatever. Anyway. She got a boring ol’ business degree when she was twenty but did the smart thing and made a much more fun career for herself with music! Though I gotta say there seems to be a weird dark patch in her life that I’ll have to try digging through later…but anyway, she’s a popular DJ! Even has a good little set up in her house for making her music, I’m itching to break in and have a look at all that pretty stuff.”

“Dark patch, huh?” He frowned, eyes drifting from the screen for a moment.

“She’s a pretty thing herself, did I mention that? A bit shorter than me but just as sexy.”

“What dark patch?”

“ – wonder if she’s straight. I wonder if she’d think I’m hot too. Maybe -”

That’s it, he thought. He’d lost her. Once Mags started on that train of thought, she was impossible to change track, there was nothing to do but accept he wouldn’t get an answer yet. It had happened so many times before, and often he suspected that she acted this way to avoid revealing what she knew, that perhaps she was waiting until she had a deeper knowledge before telling him, because she knew how impulsive he could be.

Honestly, just hearing that this ‘Jackie’ had a murky past at any point was enough to make him want to keep his brother as far away from her as possible, to go there right now and drag Chesh from the place. And maybe Mags regretted the mention of it, but it was better that he had even a little warning that there might be trouble ahead later.

He gave a simple annoyed grunt in response to her continued ramblings, and that seemed to be all she needed to keep going on her own tangent.

“- She’s got the most magic hair. It’s all purple and bits of pink and blue, and man, it must be a bitch to maintain, I admire her dedication to it, that’s for sure. Oh, and she’s a Sagittarius, and you know what that means.”

“No idea.”

“It means she’s a hot little adventurer! A fun time to be sure. Highly compatible with a wonderful Aries like myself, just so y’know. Good for our little Leo Chesh too. Damn, they’d be one hot couple, she is fiiiiiiiine.”

“You’d better stop drooling over her,” he warned dryly, “Sounds like you’re gonna fall for her too.”

“Good one, Kavi-cakes, but just you wait until you see her. I’m sending a detailed file to you now. Check it out.”

Beneath his annoyance and skepticism, curiosity began to bud and poke through. He opened his emails, and as soon as the new message (subject line: Look at this pretty lady!!) appeared in his inbox, he clicked into it and opened the attached document.

A series of images loaded in a banner at the top of the page, a gallery featuring a young woman (and occasionally a leopard accompanying her).

“Damn...” It slipped out before he could stop it.

She really was a pretty thing. She really did have magic looking hair. She really –

He hung up on the laugh in his ear and rubbed his face. 

Damn women.

After a steadying breath, he pulled his eyes back to the images on display and studied them. She seemed relaxed and happy in most of the pictures, especially those featuring her leopard companion too.

For some reason, Chesh had gotten attached to this woman, likely without even thinking about what might happen if things went wrong, while the woman herself may prove to be just as dangerous to him.

And all Kav could do was monitor the situation…

Or maybe not.

Once again, he snapped up his phone. Within a moment, he dialled.

“Mags. Get Chesh to come meet me.”

It was time to try talking some sense into him…

[crayrate-blog]

Reverse Lookup CA

Web dating has turned into a very well known approach to meet individuals, and has in reality brought a ton of forlorn people together. In any case, only one out of every odd date turns out like an eHarmony promotion. So in recognition of Valentine's Day, we counseled perusers, companions, a couple of specialists, and various destinations (quite Craigslist Personals) to accumulate the most entertaining, weirdest, and most horrendous web based dating stories we could discover. Desolate individuals, broken hearts, false cases, dashed desires, doctored photographs, bailouts, and no-shows– it's everything part of the internet dating knowledge, and we uncovered a tad bit of everything.

"Beth" from Portland, Oregon, posted this note at a web based dating website:

Web based dating can deliver a portion of the most noticeably awful dates ever. The last person I went out with brought a sock puppet– a sock puppet– on our date and attempted to converse with me with it. To be charming, I think. Be that as it may, it cracked me out. Truly. Perhaps I'm out-dated, however no sock manikins, please.The old mid-date vanishing act has taken on an entirely different utility in the period of Internet dating. Display An originates from "Jill" in the San Francisco Bay Area, who posted the accompanying on Craigslist:

I get an advertisement from a person generally my age who has a hot bicycle, and a few pics demonstrating he's genuinely appealing. We email forward and backward a bit, he says he's certainly searching for a similar thing, lastly we consent to meet at a bistro. The main thing I perceived was the bicycle. He took after his pics the manner in which Stuart Little looks like Mickey Mouse. His teeth were dark, totally sickening, and he had a blister adjacent to one side eye. He must be 10 to 15 years more seasoned than me… . That, yet I got the unmistakable impression that he by and by knew where a couple of bodies were covered.

I couldn't resist. I expanded. At that point I couldn't take a gander at him by any means. I flipped the pages of the magazine I had gotten instance of absent and looked at him occasionally, considering how the [expletive removed] was I going to remove myself from this. So he says he will get an espresso. Also, heads inside. That was his first oversight. Leaving my espresso and magazine, and scarcely setting aside effort to grab up my satchel, I put my mobile phone to my ear like I had recently gotten a crisis call and truly pulled ass down the road to my vehicle before he returned out. Karma says I am going to pay for that. Fine.

Caroline Presno, dating master and creator of Profiling Your Date: A Smart Woman's Guide to Evaluating a Man, says online daters are now and then seen as powerless to meet individuals as it was done in the good 'ol days, as are some way or another "harmed merchandise." She relates this model:

An alluring, 30-year-old female instructor was truly anticipating her first gathering with a lawyer she had been messaging for some time. Be that as it may, on the date, before the server even brought the water, the person stated, "So how about we get down to it, what's up with you?"Jayne Hitchcock, Reverse Lookup CA  a cybercrime master from York, Maine, reveals to us she's currently connected with to a kindred she met on True.com while doing research for her book, Net Crimes and Misdemeanors. Be that as it may, she says, she needed to kiss a couple of frogs before at last discovering her ruler.

On some internet dating locales, Hitchcock says, if a part needs to express fascination for another part in the wake of perusing their profile, yet without heading off to the outrageous of sending them an email, they can send an electronic "wink." "I was immersed with winks and messages in my True inbox," Hitchcock says. "I am dead serious when I state 'immersed.' Over 2000 individuals saw my profile. Of those, at any rate half were winks." Usually, however, what the winks really mean is: "I saw your image and I believe you're hot, yet I'm too apathetic to even think about reading your profile and it costs me nothing to simply give you a wink in case you think my thinning up top head is hot, or that no doubt about it."

You'd figure the obscurity of online communication would make it simpler for folks to put on a show of being smooth and in charge. Be that as it may, the inverse is frequently the situation. That equivalent namelessness appears to give a few men a permit to be impolite degenerates. "One person came directly out in the headline of his message and let me realize he needed to meet me and do 'awful things' to me," Hitchcock reports. "Another guaranteed he was a genuine cowhand in New Mexico and needed to have intercourse with me without any protection on his pony. Oy."

From Russia With LoveLoneliness can be abused, as some desolate hearts in the United States have discovered. The Web website of the U.S. international safe haven in Moscow has some a word of wisdom for Americans who think they've met their online match in Russia, and keep running into inconvenience. From the Q&A page, here are two of the issues that can manifest in such intercontinental sentiments.

The individual I'm writing to says that s/he needs $1,000.00 to appear for "stash cash" or the carrier won't let him/her get onto the plane. Is this valid?

(The Embassy reacts that this minx from Minsk isn't required to "appear" one penny to travel.)

I think I have been misled. I have sent this individual $2,000.00 and now I discover his/her visa is a phony. How would I recover my cash?

("Intense ****," the Embassy answers, essentially.)

For some long-lasting Internet daters, the names, actualities, faces, and interests of responders to their profiles start to run together. What's more, the constrained innovativeness of many dating-site individuals doesn't improve the situation. "John" from Chicago posted this "Open Letter to Match.com Girls":

Stop. Simply stop. You're irritating me. Above all else, your screen name. Quit placing "cheeky" into your screen name. Quit placing "citygirl" into your screen name. While enlisting, in the event that you endeavored to utilize "cubfan" as your screen name and it returned revealing to you that you'd need to make due with "cubfan57836," that ought to have been your first piece of information that you have picked a disgustingly predictable name. You are not sufficiently astute to consider something great, along these lines you ought not hope to be combined with somebody who is. Talking about Cub fans, quit saying you adore sports and that you "demonstration simply like a guy."And the equivalent is valid for the men. From Jayne Hitchcock: "I began to trim the rundown somewhere near erasing those with eyebrow-raising or out and out tragic screen names, for example, minor departure from 'loverboy,' 'mr. sentimental,' 'desolate person,' 'forlorn one,' 'kiss me,' 'genuine romance MD,' 'huggy bear,' 'party man,' 'hot upndown,' etc.– I am not making these up– and titles, for example, 'Hello there Beautiful,' 'Goodness!' 'Greetings Baby Pretty,' 'Hi, cutie,' and 'Me wink; you answer.'"

The Onion's Online Dating Tips offer this recommendation: Set yourself separated by picking an enlightening client name like SocialRetard342, CuteFaceFatAss, or RohypnolLarry.

"Sarah" from New York likewise come down her online dates to a couple of particular sorts. Here's one from her Craigslist post:

No. 6: Mr. EZ-Pass (Key Phrase: "I'm only a bounce, skip, and a hop far from New York City.") He persuaded me that the separation would not be an issue, that he went to the city regularly, so I said OK with certain reservations. Getting together for date #1 was an Act of Congress; he continued endlessly about the train plans. At that point he counterbalanced on date #2. He persuaded that he lived somewhere close in Jersey like Hoboken; turns out he was in Jersey okay… the piece of Jersey that is close to the Pennsylvania border.People all things considered, sizes, and financial foundations are searching for adoration on the web. Here's a post-date story from "mysterious" at Internetdatingtales.com:

I am 40 to 50 pounds overweight, yet I spoke the truth about it. This man was 5-feet-9 and said something most likely around 300 pounds. Be that as it may, alright, my concept of a bit [overweight] and his concept of a bit may fluctuate. So I wave at him and over he comes. I felt awful that I had sat outside, in light of the fact that despite the fact that it was a gentle day and there was an umbrella, he was before long perspiring like a jackass. Furthermore, the appeal, mind, and silliness he had on the telephone was … gone.

He muttered and squirmed, however continued seeing me like I was a glass of water and he was on the last part of a long stroll through the desert. So I did it. I am so embarrassed about myself, however all things considered, what else would I be able to do? I was certain each other arranged meeting had briskly dumped him. What's more, I realized he was a decent person, just not the person for me. I purposely embarked to sicken him. I began to chuckle excessively uproarious at the unfunny things he said. And after that, and I can scarcely type this, I really put my deliver my armpit, hauled it out, and sniffed it.

Shouldn't something be said about me? Here's my own (really my just) fascinating internet dating background. I was in school. In another city, Chicago, desolate, and cold. Her name was Bonnie, and her image on Nerve.com looked charming, even dainty. After a couple of talkative email notes, we set up a gathering at an elitist lager joint in Lincoln Park. I arrived first, sat at the bar, and requested a lager. Those minutes prior to your date shows up are priceless– my brain begun hustling a bit, I could nearly hear a low drum roll. Furthermore, there she was– she strolled in, sat down, requested a brew. The tattoo on her neck wasn't noticeable in her online picture. She looked somewhat unpleasant around the edges, Bonnie did. Intense, really. She was about my tallness or somewhat taller, and she was built– and I don't mean implicit a girly way, I mean she appeared as though she could seat press about twice my weight.

She requested another brew. What's more, one more and again. Her cool, disconnected mentality before long turned riotous and forceful. She lapped me a few times brew astute, and didn't appear to see, while peppering me with inquiries concerning past connections.

After around a hour I'd seen and sufficiently heard. When I easily asked off, asserting an investigation assemble meeting, she just took a gander at me blankly– at that point, I thought, a little menacingly. "Gracious, so you will get up and leave now, huh," she said.

[solastia]

The Intruder

ONE SHOT

Pairing: Namjoon X Reader

Word Count:  3,359

Genre & Warnings: Fluff & Smut, but not like, super crazy smut. Good ‘ole Missionary. But it’s sweet. 

Notes: SURPRISE! I needed something fluffy in my life. I wrote this fairly quickly, so I’ll go back and edit later. 

“It’s only going to be for the weekend, Namjoon. You’re making a huge fuss out of nothing.” 

Namjoon leaned against the counter with his head cradled in his hands, pouting as he watched you pack your small bag. He’d been like this all day, listing at least a hundred reasons why he thought you shouldn’t go. 

“Baby, I only have a couple more weeks before we have to leave again. Pleaseeeee....” You just stare at him, shaking your head in disbelief. 

“You’re such a whiny baby. Why your fans think you’re so,“Daddy” is beyond me. I promised Mom I’d go home for the weekend. I promised her a month ago, and she’s been calling to remind me twice a week. I have to go. I’ll be back Monday afternoon, and I’ll be all yours for two whole weeks before you have to leave again. You’ll be so sick of me that you’ll ask to leave earlier. I promise.” You peck him on the cheek as you pass by, and set your bag by the door. 

You watch amused as he sighs loudly and makes his way over to you to say goodbye. He backs you into the door and kisses you hard, trying to grind his obvious arousal into your stomach. 

“No way. I know what you’re doing, and we already did that twice today. Your delay tactics will no longer work. A kiss and a hug are all you’re allowed, mister.” 

You pull him down for a kiss and push him back away with a laugh when he once again tries to deepen it. 

“I love you, Joonie. I’ll call you when I get there, Ok?” 

“Love you too. Drive safe.” He replied, with a loud, overly dramatic sigh. 

You wave and shut the door on the once more pouting face.

The moment you enter your parent's house, you are bombarded by relatives, many of whom you have no memory of. It was your parents 30th anniversary, so everyone was making a huge deal of it, and the house was filled. They are all insisting on talking to you and sharing stories of when you were a toddler. Of course, the most common questions were about if you were dating and when you were getting married. You wished you could tell them all about your fantastic boyfriend, but you valued his privacy, which is why you didn’t let him tag along to this in the first place. The last thing he needed was for the twenty-something cousins that were here to hound him and spread gossip online. The best you could do was vaguely mention that, yes, you were dating. 

Finally, the night was coming to an end, and the guests were starting to leave. You suddenly realized that you hadn’t called or texted Namjoon to let him know you’d gotten here safely. You knew he’d probably sent you a million nagging texts about it, but you’d left your phone in your room at your Mother’s insistence. She wanted you to “mingle and not have your eyes attached to the screen.” You mumble that you are heading to the restroom and manage to wrench yourself away from the latest relative going on about the time she helped potty train you. 

You run up the stairs to your old childhood room and pick up your phone from your nightstand. As you’d suspected, Namjoon had called five times and left at least thirteen texts over the course of the seven hours you’d been gone. The first couple were cute. Just reminding you to let him know you got there OK and that he missed you already. These were followed by increasingly more worried sounding messages, hoping you were OK and wondering if you were mad at him. The last message had been sent a little over an hour ago, saying if you didn’t respond in the next twenty minutes, what happened next was your fault. 

You really didn’t like the sound of that. 

You quickly call him, but he doesn’t answer. You try twice more, only to be sent to the inbox again. So you decide to text. You tell him that you are sorry, that your Mom wanted a cell phone free zone and you weren’t able to get away. 

No answer. 

You send another text, asking if he’d eaten and telling him how much you loved him and would totally make this up to him on Monday. 

Half an hour goes by with no response. He must REALLY be mad at you. 

You sigh and decide there’s nothing else you can do for now. Hopefully, he’ll be done pouting in the morning. He usually liked to sit and talk things out whenever you argued, or if he was upset by something, but for now, there’s nothing else you can do but go to bed and hope for the best. 

You were having a beautiful dream. Namjoon had taken you to a picnic. You were sitting under the giant tree along the river that Namjoon always referred to as “Our Tree.” There was a lovely breeze, good food, and you were propped against his chest while he read to you.  As far as dreams go, this one ranked in your top three. The other two also featured him. One was a bit too racy to tell anyone else about, and the other...well, let’s just say there’s a white dress in it. You lean back and enjoy the dream, marveling that it was so detailed you could hear his voice perfectly next to your ear, and feel the rumbles in his chest against your back. 

And then the knocking sounds started. 

It was constant, and wouldn’t go away. You wanted to stay in the dream, but the knocking kept disturbing you. You felt yourself lose your grip on the dream, and it floated away as your eyes opened. You angrily stared at the ceiling as you tried to force yourself back asleep and hopefully back into that dream. 

Then you heard it again. In real life this time. 

Someone was knocking on your window. 

Biting your lip, you debate the wisdom of actually going to look out. If this were a horror movie, you know that would be a stupid move. You’d open the second story window, they’d pull you out, and let you fall. Then chop up whatever didn’t break. That would be a dumb thing to do.

The knocking started up again. 

With a sigh, you got out of the bed and shuffled to your closet. You still had your old softball bat in there and figured that would be better than nothing. Best case scenario, it was just the wind moving the tree branches too close to your window. Worse case, you’d have to clobber some intruder. At least it’s a polite intruder who knocked first. 

You creep to your window, bat in hand, and whip the curtains aside. It’s still too dark to see anything, but you swear you see a shadowy figure hanging onto the tree. You take a deep breath, grip the bat hard, and unlock the window. You swing the panes open and hold up the bat as you peer outside. 

“Finally.” the intruder says in an irritated, soft tone. 

You squeal and swing the bat as a long leg makes its way into your bedroom. 

“Baby, what the hell?!” He yells, grabbing the bat before you could hit him. 

“Namjoon? What are you doing? I thought you were a robber or something! I could have hurt you!” You drop the bat onto the floor, helping the rest of your boyfriend make its way through the window. 

“youdidntcallandipanickedandimissedyou.” He mumbles rapidly. 

You blink and stare, trying to process the situation in your still somewhat sleep-addled mind. Your boyfriend drove all the way out to the country, climbed up a tree to your second story bedroom...because he missed you.

“Joonie. Did you come all the way here because I didn’t call? I’m sorry. I didn’t have a chance earlier, but I did before I went to bed. You didn’t answer.” 

“I was driving. It’s not safe to drive and talk on the phone.” He was still sitting on the edge of your window pane, mumbling, and pouting. 

“I missed you too, Namjoon.”

He was so cute, and SUCH a big baby. You started to grin at him, and when he realized he wasn’t in trouble, he perked up and started silently exploring your room. He wandered around, picking up random objects and looking at them, staring at the pictures scattered. He found a picture of you with a date at a high school dance, and look over his shoulder at you with a raised eyebrow, before calmly throwing it in your trash bin. You silently laugh and remind yourself to take that out, and tape over your dates face at least. You looked good in it. You gesture to the light switch on the wall, and he shakes his head no, continuing his exploration with just the light of the moon. 

He’s finally made the full circle until he’s standing in front of your twin sized bed. If he actually plans on sleeping in here, he’s going to have to sleep on the floor to be somewhat comfortable. The bed was probably half his size in length, and there was no way the two of you would fit unless you slept on top of him and he let the bottom half of his legs dangle. 

When you saw the look on his face though, you knew it wasn’t the sleeping arrangements he was thinking about. 

“Joonie, no. My parents are literally down the hall. My Grandma is directly below us. There’s no way.”

He looked at you in surprise. “Are you saying you never brought any of your little boyfriends in here? Like, the dude in the trash?” 

You snort at him. “Of course not. I would never have gotten away with it. I have the worst luck. And, FYI, the dude in the trash has been gay since, like, preschool.” 

“Humph, well, I say this sounds like a great idea. I’ve missed you, and you’ve had experience trying to keep quiet when I sneak you into the dorms.” 

“And that never ends well, because towards the end it’s always, “Fuck it, baby, let em hear.” You roughly impersonate his deep growl, and he laughs.  

Namjoon picks you up by your waist and tosses you onto the bed, before crawling up on top of you and burying his face in your neck. He inhales loudly, slightly tickling you. 

“I really did miss you.” He whispers into your neck. “We were gone so long that time. I mean, the tour was fun, just so long. And we’ll have to leave again soon. Even though it’s not for long, we’ll have the come back right after that, then promotions start all over again. I just want to stay as close to you as long as I can. As close as I can get...” He adds the last part with a groan, and he lifts himself up and raises your nightshirt up past your breasts. 

You realize you’d left the window open when you felt the night air touch your exposed body, however, as his gaze raked over you, you forgot the cold. It always amazed you how he could look at you like it was the first time, every time, even though you’d been together for over a year now. 

You could tell by the way he was looking at you, that this was not going to be one of the times where he drew everything out and spent hours teasing you. 

Namjoon looks into your eyes for a moment, smiling softly, before he leans down and kisses you tenderly. He pulls away and throws off all of his clothes, not taking his stare away from you. You watch in awe as his nude body is finally revealed, the moonlight making this somehow more mysterious than usual. 

He leans back over you, his hand snaking down to your core, a pleased smile growing on his face when he found you already wet. 

“Remember to be quiet, Y/N. We don’t want to wake up Grandma.” He quietly teases, his fingers slowly stroking you. 

“Joonie, please don’t mention my Grandmother during sex.” You complain with a soft groan. You feel him laughing, his shoulders shaking as he positions himself over you. 

He places his forehead on yours, kissing you hard as he slides into you. He moans against your lips as he sheathes himself entirely, and you wind your legs around his back. He rocks into you slowly, the both of you paying attention to the amount of squeaking the little bed was making. 

You were trying so hard to keep quiet, but he felt so good. So thick and so deep in you. The little moans that snuck out of you just spurred him on, and he started to move faster. You throw your hands behind you to brace yourself against the wall, Namjoon’s pounding now enough to make you hit your head if you weren’t careful. He’s kissing everything he can reach; Your neck, face, lips, occasionally leaning his head down to suck a nipple into his mouth. You bite your lips, chewing on them to try to keep quiet. Namjoon reaches a hand down and rubs your clit, watching your face to see how close you were. You could tell he was close himself, with the sweating dripping down his face and his hips pounding furiously into you. 

He leans his face down and kisses you softly, mumbling “I love you.” You want to answer, but you feel the tension rising until, finally, you climax, turning your head into your pillow to quiet yourself. Namjoon groans as your walls tighten around him, and you feel as he empties himself into you. 

Namjoon drops himself on top of you, knowing you like the weight of him there, at least for a few minutes. You kiss his sweaty neck, and you both whisper sweet nonsense to each other as you catch your breath. 

“See,” he whispers, tickling your nose with the end of a lock of hair he’d started playing with. “No one heard a thing.” You giggle and open your mouth to say something cheeky about how loud he was when you heard it. 

A squeak? From...the bed? 

“What was that sound?” You ask, pushing Namjoon’s chest away so you could look over the edge. Maybe it was a mouse or something. You were never here, but you knew your Mom kept everything clean still. 

You heard it again. Only this time it was more of a clicking or creaking. 

You look at Namjoon in confusion, who is staring hard at the bed. His face suddenly looks horrified when you move, and another creaking sound is emitted. 

“Wait, don’t move, I think we...shi....” He was cut off when with one loud cracking sound, the bed you’d used until you were eighteen years old suddenly fell to pieces underneath the two of you. Namjoon tries to pull you closer and wrap you in a sheet as you both crash to the floor with a loud thud. You both manage to sit up against a wall, looking over each other for wounds. Finding nothing, you lean back against the wall and stare at the remnants of your bed. The frame was broken in at least three places, bars sticking out, springs scattered across the room. Your poor bed was deceased. 

“I know they call you the God of destruction and all that, but what did my poor bed ever do to you?” You tease him, laughing at his poor, resigned face. The smile on your face gradually slips away, however, as you realize there’s a new sound. Someone is running through the hallway. You barely manage to cover yourself adequately before your bedroom door is flung open and the light is turned on. 

The faces of your parents are filled with panic, no doubt having heard the sound of the bed crashing and thought someone was breaking in. You watch in horror as their eyes scan the room, taking in the broken bed before their eyes settle on the two of you. You see the panic slowly die out of their gazes, only to be replaced by confusion and disbelief. You can just imagine what they are thinking as they take in the sight of their daughter and the boyfriend that they’d only met once before, sitting there covered in nothing but a sheet. 

“Um, hey Mom, Dad. So, Namjoon came to visit, YAY. Um, yeah, the bed...was old? And, uh....we were trying to sleep...when just...CRASH! Ya know?” You were rambling anything that came to your head, panicking when your father’s gaze hardened and was focused on Namjoon. Your Mom had stopped looking at the two of you, patting your father on the shoulder, and blushing. 

“Is everyone unhurt?” She asked, trying to back your Dad back to the door. 

“Yup, we’re good. It’s all good. Everyone’s good. I’ll...uh...replace the bed later.” You mumble. Please leave, please leaavvvee...

“What’s going on in here?” 

Crap.

“Grandma, go back to bed. Everything’s fine. Just the old bed decided to retire.” You joke, hoping she’ll take the hint and go back to her room. 

Instead, she peeks her head in, quickly takes stock of the situation, and leans against the side of the door with a grin. 

“Oh, is this the boy you’ve been seeing? He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he? Can’t say I blame you. Good to see I can expect great grandbabies soon. You kids go to bed.” She ushers your parents out of the room, your dad spearing Namjoon with one last look that promised a talk later, and closes the door behind them. 

The two of you stare at each other, then fall back with a groan, making a little nest with the blankets on the floor. 

“That was humiliating. Embarrassing. I’m never going to get dad’s face out of my head.” You whine, only to look over at him in annoyance when you finally register that he’s laughing. 

“YAH! What is so funny, mister? You broke my bed and scarred my parents for life.” Namjoon pulls you closer to him and pecks your forehead. 

“Hey, at least your Grandma seems to like me.” 

“Ugg. You do realize my Dad is probably going to have a very uncomfortable talk with you tomorrow? I highly suggest running now while you have a chance.” 

“Why? What’s the worst he could do? Tell me to marry you? I’d already planned on that.”

“What?” You sit up and look at him, all sprawled out on the floor, resting his head on his arms. He looked utterly calm now. 

“Check my pants.” He responds with a soft smile. 

You look around for his jeans, finding them in a far corner. You wrap the sheet tighter around you and go pick them up, finding a lump in one of the pockets. You swallow hard, feeling like this was a dream. You reach in and pull out a box. 

A little black box. 

You pull back the lid and look at the ring nestled inside. It’s gorgeous. You turn and look at the man sitting there so smugly, and start to cry. 

“Really?” You sob, feeling ridiculous that you’re crying, but unable to help it. 

He holds out his arms, and you go and cuddle into them, still staring at the box. He wraps his hands around your waist and pulls you closer, kissing the side of your head. 

“Really. I love you. This was supposed to be more romantic, but I guess this is as good a time as any. Marry me?” He asks, and you nod yes, kissing him desperately. 

“Hey, at least now we can just tell them we were celebrating.” He chuckles, and you giggle as he slides on the ring, kissing your hand once it’s in place. 

“Congratulations!” Says a voice muffled by the door. 

“GO TO BED GRANDMA!” 

[thesearebobsthoughts]

March 19, 2020

Do you remember what it was like before? I find it increasingly difficult, which is stunning, jaw agape, that sort of thing. There was a time before COVID-19 became the entire world, before it infected everything. Last week, even. Sort of. I can dimly recall watching some game on ESPN or TNT, wondering if it might be the last one for a while. Still going about routine tasks and checking tasks off various lists. Still worrying about all manner of things now somehow long forgotten. My mother. My blessed mother, reseraching like a fiend, as she does with every known malady. The articles and the shared messages dredged up from her own personal corner of the internet mounting in my inbox. Actually, no. Two weeks ago. Yes, two weeks ago is enough time travel to approximate normaiity. 

I wrote a story about the ridiculous bumbling basketball team I’ve rooted for since I was a small child. Back then, I cheered with all my heart, and wept when the large men I liked were traded away even though I could barely comprehend what was transpiring on the court. That story seemed important. It was published on the night of March 3, 15 days ago. Or a lifetime ago. I wrote it, quickly, in the offices of The Daily Beast, right after interviewing another ex-Knicks for a different article about his thriving marijuana concern. That too, will be published at some point and I’ll do all the dumb online “look at me!” gesticulating to hopefully garner some attention, or at perhaps give those that need it a brief respite from the constant deluge of casual and brutal horrors that keep washing over us, again and again. I liked the basketball player-turned-weed-merchant mini-profile. It feels like a relic from an ancient, long-since-gone civilization. 

I want, as best I can, to document what’s going on. To remember this moment, these days, this time, when (If?) we can let them go. So a knockoff Luke O’Neil Hell World blog. One that I won’t share with anyone. For now. 

I am scared. Saying it out loud (or in this case, writing it) is a way, I guess, to give myself permission to feel scared. I check my temperature and scan myself for any symptoms hour by hour, minute by minute. But here, too, I’m having trouble remembering how my body felt prior to... I guess Friday was when it hit home. When the narcisstic racist finally screwed on his best Taking Things Seriously face and put a brief stop to the cavalcade of lies. (For a hot minute, the man stemmed incessant airing of grievances on Monday—a cease-fire long enough to give blinkered cable news pundits a chance to applaud him for hurdling this still pathetically low bar. The bullshit and the refusal to accept any responsiblity picked right back up during Thursday’s presser, natch. 

But the point of writing this, if there is one, is to record what’s happening day-by-day or at least give myself a task that feels like a mental breath mint. A distraction. Something. So yes, then. Where was I? Right. I don’t think I’ve got it. I may have it. There’s a cramp in my right leg and so I quickly Googled “muscle cramps + coronavirus” and “fatigue + coronavirus” and “[anything else that was jangling around in my head] + coronavirus” and sure as shit, yeah. Maybe. Any one could be a symptom. Maybe not. Maybe this is all just pinging my latent hypochondria in the worst way possible and the worst time imaginable. My throat is dry and I was dehydrated yesterday. Also symptoms found on various lists and handy charts, none of which do squat unless you can get a hospital bed, and even then. But anyway, tired. Low fever. No real cough yet. My neighbor’s hacking has been rattling through the wall we share like clockwork for the past three days. She’s convinced that she’s fine, somehow. I was too scared to ask. To really delve into where this sense of confidence comes from. Like Heisenberg’s g-d principle, I can’t tell whether all the checking of my temp and double-checking of my overall physical state is making me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise or if they’re just real. 

And the anxiety. Panic attacks. Not nearly as bad as the ones which crippled me, which sent me scurrying into school and home bathrooms, too terrified to move. Feeling, if I can accurately recall, like I was prone on the ground at the bottom of a foxhole with quasi-futuristic fighter jets blasting away overhead. Not at me, but certainly quite near to me, and somehow as long as I remained clenched in a fetal ball, my eye glued shut, not moving, ever still, I could generate a gossamer-thin bubble that would protect me from the barrage. So not that bad. But still, frightened of the unknown, of what’s still to come. Which may have led to the intermittent tightness of breath. Not difficulty breathing nor shortness of breath, mind you. A knot in my stomach that [checking] still hasn’t gone away this morning, after a night of fitful, intermittent sleep, no real apetite (!), and a window that cracked (nice passive tense, asshole) two days ago and is letting in gusts of cool air. Yesterday, I was terrified of someone entering the building who’d infect me. Today, I worry about poisoning him. 

I thought about the people waking up Thursday morning only to be inundadated by the viral video of celebrities belting out Lennon’s worst song—the one with the line about a world without possessions. The famous faces did so while standing in front of delightful fireplaces and manicured gardens, smiling, full of hope. Ha ha. How funny. Let’s all laugh and point at the tone-deaf beautiful people, all of whom can get tested without getting entangled in miles of bureaucratic red tape or ever having to devote one iota of worry over spending five figures on treatment. Singing. Well-intentioned, probably, like the wealthy pro athletes who are skipping ahead in the testing line. 

Remember when we could just dunk on a gaggle of silly actors/jocks for fun rather than it serving a necessary safety valve for the scores of too-online people cooped up in their homes? 

That was a full-time job for some people. Hell, if I’m being brutally honest, it was to a lesser degree my job. Dredging up some awfulness from the dreck canals of Online, raising it high in the air and harrumping, “look at this crap!” I can’t even ditch the ambient waves of anxiety enough to do the best version of that job—real reporting. lol. 

As I bang the keys this AM, I’m still tired. Partly I think because I kept waking up evvery two hours or so late last night, watching the celebs belt out a jaunty tune and whatnot, never really setttling into a decent stretch of good ol’ REM sleep. But then again, symptoms. They’re flitting about my every waking thought and all I want to do is get Karen on her flight so she doesn’t reconsider, or insist that she has to stay and take care of me. Not that I know for sure, and (for the moment) this doesn’t feel like a severe case, if it is one at all. Just a pile of clanging neurosis leaving me with the overpowering sensation that something has gone terribly wrong. 

For the moment I need to keep all this (mostly) to myself. Until Karen’s flight lands in Canada and she can fire off a job memo. Tomorrow, then. Or maybe when (if?) the symptoms abate enough that I can blurt this all out without freaking out mom. It’s now Thursday night. Seems like I’m not breathing as deeply as I was earlier in the day. I can’t tell, though, and it’s maddening. What’s that line from The Cocktail Party? Oh right:

I must tell you that I should really like to think there's something wrong with me. Because, if there isn't, then there's something wrong with the world itself, and that's much more frightening! 

[the-record-columns]

Jan. 29, 2020: Columns

Coke is it!

By KEN WELBORN

Record Editor

Early this week, when I stopped by Wilkes Steel and Recycling to check on my friend, Bert Hall, who would I find in the office but the long ago retired Frank Day.

As always, the subject of Coca-Cola comes up because of his connection with McNeil family, who, for many years, ran the local Coca-Cola bottling company.

And, anyone who collects anything is bound to have something with Coca-Cola on it.

They have the Coke name on everything from calendars to coo coo clocks. I mean, really: glasses, coolers, store signs of all descriptions, thermometers, trays, napkins, lunch boxes, hats, visors, fans, blotters, post cards, toy trucks and vans, mirrors, ice picks, bottle openers of all types and styles, knives, ashtrays, matches, cigarette lighters, radios, coasters, menu boards, door pulls/pushers, checkerboards, grocery carts, domino’s, Frisbees, jewelry, every possible article of clothing, aprons, watches, belts, coin purses, light fixtures, and clocks — just to begin the list.

And, of course, Coca-Cola has always “owned” Santa.

Well, while I have nothing that begins to approach the Coca-Cola collection of someone like Jerry Dameron, I do have a few good pieces, and, today I am going to talk about a few I have tripped and fallen into. As many of you who read this column know, from the early 1900’s till the 1980’s, we had our own Coca-Cola bottling company right here in North Wilkesboro, like I mentioned earlier, owned and operated by the McNeil family.

Well, a while back, a man came through and sold me a Coca-Cola crate for 24 bottles. An aside, the books that list Coca-Cola memorabilia refer to almost all holders of drinks as “crates,” however, to a kid from Hinshaw Street, they will always be “pop crates” to me. So, why would I buy this particular pop crate, knowing that in our Museum on Main one of most anything is sufficient. Well, this one has “North Wilkesboro, NC” stamped into the wood on each end and is painted to match.

I am sure there are more of these North Wilkesboro pop crates out there, but I have yet to see one. When I asked Dick McNeil, the man who ran the bottling company when I was working for Paul Cashion at WWWC Radio and later for myself at Thursday Magazine (predecessor to The Record), he said that the national Coca-Cola company had uncounted thousands of pop crates he could buy for next to nothing each. To get the North Wilkesboro name stamped and painted on some of them meant stopping the production line and doing this specialty item and therefore they cost much more — so these were never bought in great quantity. And, speaking of Dick, he was kind enough to let me have a beautiful Fresca sign from the 1960’s — I think — and it is a beauty.

And, lastly today, another pop crate.

Some time back, I went to Lynchburg, Va., to see my daughter, Jordan, and Jason Hammer. These trips are always a treat, and this one was no exception. In addition to seeing a great play, “Loan Me a Tenor,” we had the chance to scrounge around through a few antique haunts. Of the places we stopped, by far my favorite was Rick’s Antique Store in Forest, Va. That little town’s other claim to fame is being the site of Thomas Jefferson’s summer home.

However, Rick’s store, and Rick Lindsay himself, clearly trumped (no pun) Jefferson on this day. I cannot begin to tell you about the cool things Rick had on display, particularly impressive was the array of gas pumps and signs that were everywhere. The store itself was an old, white two-story clapboard affair that was older than Methuselah. Rick, who wasn’t that old, but had clearly been to the rodeo before was an absolute delight to speak with. Knowledgeable and friendly, you just wanted to stay all day.

And then there was the pop crate.

Yes, I have seen a gazillion of them — of every kind and description — I thought. But, there at Rick’s Antiques, nestled on a high shelf amongst the oil cans and porcelain signs, was a wooden, six-pack pop crate that held large glass bottles of Coca-Cola. By the time they came out with the large bottles, the only holders I can remember were red plastic. As I was standing there with my mouth hanging open, thinking I had never seen one of this kind of pop crate, Rick chimed in: “You know, I had never seen one of those, till I bought that one.”

Well, I bought it. Bottles and all. Wrapped it in towels for the trip home and have been showing it off ever since. And I know that one day, somebody is going to tell me where I can find all of these pop crates I could ever want — but they haven’t yet. Not a living breathing soul has laid claim to having ever seen one like this one — not even Bucky Luttrell.

Not even Jerry Dameron.

So there you go!

 Truth, justice and the American way

By HEATHER DEAN

Record Reporter

(Editor’s note: This is in response to the reaction Heather Dean has received since the hearing prompted by the affidavit she filed challenging the legitimacy, due to misinformation about whether or not former Wilkes School Board candidate Marty Roberts was eligible to run. A hearing by Wilkes Board of Elections, held on Friday, Jan. 3, ruled that Roberts was not eligible to run for office. Roberts has since withdrawn his candidacy.)

 The online harassment over taking on a non-citizen trying to run for office in Wilkes has died down a bit, which is nice, since I was called everything but "Christ the Savior."

There are a few rumors going around that I still have need to address personally with some people, but I was never called "wrong" either, so that's vindication enough for me. However, the perfect strangers walking up to me at other events, meetings, emails, messages, thanking me has not ceased. I came in Monday morning to find this in my inbox from a lady I don’t know, stating: "You're amazing! I might not have to leave this God-forsaken county after all. Going to take out one of those good ol' boys one at a time!"

Two weeks ago I had a bartender thank me for "standing up for Wilkes County, and running off that fake, that make the rest of our party look crazy" and many around me, also of the same party as the person I filed the affidavit against, concurred and I even got an "atta boy" slap on the back from an old farmer.

At three different events I covered last week, people I didn't know came up and told me they were proud of me for doing what was right, and wished more people would do so.

A person that was in attendance at the hearing said that I was a perfect example of “grace under pressure,” was impressed at how “professional, knowledgeable, prepared, and well spoken” I was as I testified, especially when the defendant’s lawyer started trying to intimidate me with his line of questioning, and I didn't “flinch.”

One who works closely with those in the legal professions told me I was brave to come in without legal counsel-not that it had been necessary, but not that I needed it either, because they had heard from others I did “as good job as any lawyer would have regardless.”

Several in the religious community have lamented to me this is why people are turning away from the church, because of the hypocrisy of a few.

Veterans have thanked me for going into "ground zero" and defending what they fought for.

I don't say these things to prove to the naysayers that I was right. I don't have to justify my want of defending the state constitution. I say this because it's the anonymous people that make the difference. I got lambasted on the stand because I wouldn't reveal my anonymous source. The truth is, I have no idea who the person is that came forward with the info.

Just like the others above, I don't know them personally, but they know me from my work in the community, and this person knew I could be trusted to do what was right. Also, as I stated in the hearing, this person was afraid to file it themselves because of the backlash they and their family would receive as they had ties with the defendant in the community.

The anonymous make the difference because you never know who is paying attention, and that's today's perspective on why we need to walk our talk, whether its our personal or religious beliefs, be kind and love everyone regardless of their differences, and above other things, stand up for justice, even if it’s just in a small little town where you think no one pays attention to you.

Just for the record, I love my hometown.

 Profaning the holy sites

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Peace in the Middle East has been historically elusive because Arab hatred of Israel and the Jews is as deep and wide as the universe itself.  It’s almost on par with the maniacal hatred the Democrats and the liberal media have for U.S. President Donald Trump. 

Earlier this month the world held its collective breath as the U.S. and Iran seemed on the brink of a major conflict.  President Trump gave the green light for a targeted, deadly drone attack against an Iranian military commander who was a known terrorist mastermind. Iran threatened retaliation and promised the United  States would pay a heavy price.  In response, President Trump warned that if even one American, or American asset, were to suffer harm by Iran, then America would attack Iranian cultural sites. This sent the world into a rage.  President Trump was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion of everything from violating international treaties to committing war crimes.  Threatening to attack an Iranian cultural site was akin to setting off an atomic bomb yet Israel’s cultural and religious sites are physically attacked and desecrated almost daily.  It’s a mystery that the world remains silent.  

Such widespread hatred for the Jews can only be explained in a spiritual sense. Arabs and Jews are both descendants of Abraham.  The Arabs are from Abraham’s son Ishmael born to him of a bondwoman (slave).   The Jews came through Abraham’s promised son, Isaac, born of his wife Sarah.  G-d separated to Himself both a land and a people.  The land became known as Israel and the people, being from Judah, became known as Jews. G-d promised His blessings upon Isaac and his descendants but G-d also said He would make Ishmael into a great nation but added that he (Ishmael) would be “like a wild jackass, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen,” which includes the Jews.

The physical land known as Canaan became the land of Israel and it changed hands and boundary lines time and again over the course of history.  Many of Israel’s cultural and religious sites are on land currently occupied and governed by the Palestinians.

In the city of Hebron, which today is located in Palestinian territory, is the cave Abraham purchased as a burial place for his wife, Sarah.  Tradition holds that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Leah are also buried in that cave.

Rachel’s Tomb lies on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem which is under Palestinian control. It is described in Hebrew writings as, “The building with the dome and olive tree.” This became a Jewish symbol, appearing in drawings, on postage stamps, photographs, artworks and depicted on the covers of Jewish holy books. However, today the little domed structure has been encased in a giant concrete block surrounded by gun positions and guard towers and covered with camouflage netting. Whoever visits the tomb today would find it hard to recognize as the place engraved on Jewish hearts and memories. It has been obscured and desecrated and is not a safe place. Jews can only reach it in bulletproof vehicles under military supervision.

Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus has been attacked on many occasions. It has been set ablaze and desecrated having been used as a trash dump and urinal but this sort of treatment is not unique to Joseph’s Tomb. Desecrating Jewish holy sites is a widespread Palestinian practice.  

The historic “Shalom al Israel” synagogue in Jericho has also been attacked. Holy books and archeologically significant relics have been burned, and the synagogue’s ancient mosaic has been damaged.

Hundreds of incidents have been recorded (though not necessarily reported) in which Palestinians from Bethlehem and surrounding Palestinian camps and villages have thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails, and have even shot at Jewish worshippers, pilgrims and Israeli soldiers attempting to visit the synagogue and other Jewish holy sites located on Palestinian occupied land.  Is this behavior not worthy to be condemned and punished? 

Even today it is often dangerous for Jews to visit the graves of their loved ones buried in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. Entire sections have been desecrated and the headstones of Jewish graves shattered.  Some of the headstones have even been carried off and used by Arabs and Palestinians as paving stones or in construction of animal shelters or other dwellings. 

The Palestinians use their real or fictitious religious interests to make political capital for their national campaign against Israel and the Jews and the world seems to nod in their favor.  Plain and simple, this is wrong.  Palestinians have not merely threatened to profane Jewish holy sites, they have physically done so in the most egregious of ways.  All this, and more, and yet the world takes no notice.  President Trump merely threatens to attack Iranian Muslim sites and suddenly he is a war criminal with a price tag on his head.

The Palestinians have proven that they cannot be trusted to preserve and protect Jewish cultural or religious sites.  It makes no sense that the profane should be charged with safeguarding the holy.  It’s not right but it is the modern way because the world has fallen too far to the left. 

What’s in a Decade?

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

It seems like there is a lot of noise in the world today.

We are in the beginnings of a new decade. We have never had a 2020 before. It has a nice ring to it; maybe that’s because Barbara Walters burned it into the minds of millions of Americans, including myself, on the ABC News Magazine show with the same name.

In 1978, the show’s rocky start smoothed out nicely when veteran newsman Hugh Downs joined the show as host.  

Walters joined the show in 1979 and then in 1984 she became and remained the joint co-host with Downs for 15 years.

The thing that so many remember is how she would welcome viewers with, “I’m Barbara Walters and this is 2020.” If you were watching TV for New Year Celebrations 2020, clips of Barbara Walters and those impersonating her iconic delivery of “Welcome to 2020” were plentiful. It was clever and perfect for the moment.

We all have memory triggers. Whatever the reason, for me hearing those words repeated over and over on TV and on social media set into motion a flurry of memories and thoughts about the idea that we are starting not just a new year, but a new decade. After a few days of processing everything floating around in my head, I started to commit to paper these thoughts. Thinking about 12 months is one thing but thinking and planning for 120 months - Ten Years - is another thing all together.

Our TV show, Life In The Carolinas, has started its 11th year of broadcast. In December that seemed like a long time, but reflecting on it now, that’s just a little over a decade.

But then again, a decade can be significant. Take the Roaring 20’s.

They were roaring because they needed to be. Coming out of a world war was not an easy time and we, as the land of the free and home of the brave, needed to do something to bring about as much prosperity and happiness as possible. It was a time of Jazz music, automobiles, bathtub gin and bootleggers. It was a time of political and social change. There was not prosperity for everyone, but the opportunities to prosper were much greater than the decade before.

The big takeaway for me is that it needed to happen, and it did. Many may argue about what was or was not good about it, but at least there was something new to argue about.

It was a decade to remember for sure. Even to this day I enjoy my visits to the Jazz Room in Charlotte. I like to close my eyes, take in the moment and reflect on the people and music of our past that still stirs our emotions and thus our actions.

Bluegrass and Mountain music hits me the same way. It’s a celebration of evolving history.

And sometimes it’s not a specific decade that’s significant, but an event that occurs throughout, like the Carolinas tradition of the National Hollerin Contest in Spivey Corners.

It started in 1969 and the first titled champion was Leonard Emanuel. Every year after the first it was his standard that everyone strived to meet and beat. The contest received national and international attention and lasted for 47 years before the event was retired.

I will always remember that segment, I had my first and only hollerin lesson on camera, I decided to remain the storyteller and not join the competition. But for the people who participated for almost five decades it was the highlight of the year.

I’m not sure what decade thinkers are called but is seems as if I have joined the ranks. I’m starting to like it a lot.

[stylessemantics]

A Final Goodbye

This blog is turning one year old! And to celebrate it, I will be closing stylessemantics.tumblr.com! So this is my goodbye letter!

If you’re reading this, my blog is officially one year old (is it July 10th already?) Yes future me, it is! And here is why, if you even care. If you don’t then well... I can’t really blame you.

If you don’t want to read all the way to the end: Monday July 10th will be the last day I’ll be around, until exactly 11:59pm. Happy reading!

And if you’re reading this it also means you’ve clicked to read more! Thank you.

So stylessemantics is a year old. Wow. Time flies. I would know because if you’re reading this it means I’m stepping off. 

I guess I should start at the beginning?

Stylessemantics was always a one year project to me. Or at least that’s how it started. I thought I could do this to sort of improve my writing skills, to try something new, to meet new people, to do something fun. And it was! I mean I don’t know if my writing got any better, to me it got a lot worse, or maybe that was just my mind getting worse. IDK.

On the road, stylessemantics turned into so much more. I would be away for a day and I’d miss it so much. I wanted to come back. It became a little safe haven where I could be me, or try to be a better version of me, and possibly failed as well, and where I had something interesting going on for once. Now I don’t want this to be a very sad letter but you guys know me, I’m the sour-patch of every party. (maybe that’s why i never get invited to any hmmm)

All jokes aside this year has been a rollercoaster in every sense of the word. (guys we got solo harry can you believe that? I still can’t) At some point I found myself thinking “I could keep stylessemantics, this doesn’t have to be a one year thing, it doesn’t have to be an experiment” and let me tell you those days were pretty much eternal. I was on a high pretty much all the time. I was so in love with tumblr. Don’t take this the wrong way, I still love it to bits and it’s turned into something kind of vital to me. But the good days didn’t last. If they had; you wouldn’t be reading this now. 

So yeah, I thought about saving all my works of fiction and taking the whole blog down and well I didn’t plan well enough to make stylessemantics a sideblog that i could just password protect and secretly keep. So it was final: stylessemantics was going to be deleted. And I was okay with that for the longest time. I never thought I would be so shit at keeping promises that I’d have 15+ requests in my inbox back from 2016, still unwritten. And with an 8 chapter fic still stuck on chapter 6. And with 700 promises to AU’s and things I wanted to write. It’s safe to say those promises were made on the days I thought I would keep stylessemantics. But as of today (sunday, july 9th, 2017) it’s been a bad bad bad day. I’ve been dancing around the delete blog for the longest time but I decided that was a bit unfair.

Now I don’t think I’m anything interesting for anyone to be reading this (if you are, wow, makes me wanna reconsider staying lol) so i know a lot of people are going to like this without even reading what’s going on, but I still thought “hey I’ve made some friends... and only 3 of them know that stylessemantics was probably going to die in July” so it was a bit unfair to just up and leave. So at least there’s a letter, right?

Anyways, I guess there’s no real explanation as to why stylessemantics was a 1 year thing for me, why did i decide that and why my mind wandered between making it a 2 (3,4,5 who knows how many) year thing or not. There’s no explanation really, so I can’t fully give you one, but what I can say is that I’m insanely grateful for the good days this big ol’ blog gave me. And by that I mean you reading this. No matter what, stylessemantics was something important to me, and it changed me even if it was just a bit. So for that I’ll be forever thankful. And I say this a lot but I want you to know I mean it. All the time. 

I don’t deserve it. Call it my depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, self-love issues, whatever one of those I have (aka all) but I feel very undeserving of such a loving community. I never got a single hate comment and to be honest I was scared and tiptoeing around everything too much to get any but oh well, I’m going to act like that’s just y’all being nice to my fragile mind. For my poor mind’s sake lol.

Now I did say that 3 of my friends knew about this thing, and well they all talked me through sad days where I wanted to just erase this blog from existence and helped me get to a final decision. Stylessemantics won’t be deleted. I’m much too attached to little pieces of paper and old photos and whatever to not be extremely attached to this blog and conversations I’ve had in it and stuff like that. And I know myself well enough to know I’ll regret deleting. (i deleted my first instagram 2 weeks into college and I’m still sour about it...) I’ll regret not having at least screenshots of beautiful messages and nice song lyrics that being on tumblr have inspired and other wonderful things. That plus the fact that I’m still not 100% sure if I want to leave stylessemantics for good (can you cound how many times I’ve written stylessemantics? wow I have to stop) or not, well... The decision is that this blog won’t be deleted. It won’t be deactivated. (if i could close it without losing my tumblr url and account that would be grand, but I can’t cause this is a main blog. Iv didn’t think this through back in 2016) 

This blog will still be here. Saved. Untouched. With its open inbox, open submit page and open messenger. With its masterlist still up, and with its pretty rose quartz and serenity blue theme. The only difference is that this is going to be the last post on it. I won’t be here. There will be no one responding. And maybe, one day, I’ll stumble upon something weird that will remind me of this and I’ll think “do I want to continue stylessemantics?” and maybe I’ll come back peeping my little eye emoji.

I want to make a promise that I’ll come and post the reminder of BIM and the Marcel fic and all of those requests I never got to fill. But we’ve been at this for a year. I’m simply the worst person when it comes to writing and keeping my writing promises (i was gonna say I’m the worst at keeping promises in general but even with my below-7th-level-of-hell-self-esteem and lower-than-minus-70-degrees-self-love, I can say I DO keep all my promises, just not the writing ones. whooops.)

Some promises I will keep tho:

I’ll still love every single one of you.

I’ll still be around tumblr on another account (winkwink) so I’m still reading my mutual’s works and supporting my peeps. If you spot me, come say hi, but don’t ask me to write or bring back this blog.

I’ll always be undeserving of every single ounce of love or attention I receive here or on any other blog I move to, for the remainder of my days on this earth.

I will try to better myself and my writing. (and seek professional help for my issues. Finger’s crossed)

i will try to have something new to post if I ever come back (fanfic related)

I will always love Harry.

stylessemantics will most likely be back, even if it’s just to say happy new year, or wish my own self a happy birthday (that’s sad, forget that one)

I’ll come post a selfie when I graduate college, I swear.

I’ll be around until the end of the day (July 10th) and then I’ll post this again and it will be the finishing line of this blog.

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/copywriting/are-your-free-trial-emails-making-you-look-desperate-heres-how-to-fix-that/

Are Your Free Trial Emails Making You Look Desperate? Here’s How to Fix That

A SaaS free trial starts like any relationship – full of hope, dreams and possibilities.

Your prospect starts a trial and gladly opens your welcome email.

She wonders what marvellous, mind-reading revelations she’ll find in your onboarding sequence. (“Please let this be the product that gets me!”)

But then… she takes a moment or two away from you. Other commitments take priority. Although she likes your product, she’s forgetting about you – she’s not sure you’re The One. Plus, her friend just started seeing this other SaaS product, and she’s all “It’s sooooo beautiful” and why should she get a beautiful UI? Suddenly your “rich with utility” app isn’t quite so appealing. I mean, it’s a nice product, but it doesn’t make her eyes all

.

She’s losing interest in you.

She hopes you’ll just kinda go away. In a week or two, communication will cease. It’ll be like you never even met.

But you’re not gonna let her go so easily. After all, she was into you, like, two weeks ago. Maybe she just needs to hear from you more. So you start:

Internet-stalking her with retargeting ads Pushing messages at her friends and social network followers Sending her passive-aggressive don’t-leave-me emails like this:

Desperate, right?

The two of you only saw each other briefly. What’s all this “fall in love” talk?

The 2 Act-of-Desperation Mistakes SaaS Teams Are Making with Free Trial Emails

SaaS teams believe a trial signup equals a storybook romance.

They want to solve your problems and encourage you to date them take the right step to grow your business. SaaS businesses aim to win your love and affection by giving giving giving giving. Because giving is good, right? Users like it. They keep saying they like it.

Nobody stays with you because you’re a big ol’ giver. Yet SaaS teams do all this giving. And 90% of their trial users dump them.

Without a word of explanation. Just… dumped. 

After working with dozens of startups on their email copy, here’s what I’ve identified as the core of what SaaS marketers are getting wrong.

1. Interest ≠ Infatuation

For some reason, SaaS teams are counting on the idea that a new user went into a sealed room with their free trial for 15, 30 or 60 days, and in that time they fell madly in love with the product. 

If The Bachelor taught us anything, it’s that even a sealed room can’t create love.

Except real life is not a sealed room.

The reality is your free-trial user signs up for a trial… and then heads back into a massive, endlessly explorable digital and physical world, filled with rock-climbing classes and sangria-on-patios and deadlines and Facebook and existing processes and people and shiny distractions and shitty distractions. Within minutes of signing up for a free trial, everyone but the most insanely passionate trial users (who require almost no work to convert anyway) will go off and do something else. That’s a problem.

2. And the solution isn’t in your data

Startups look to the data! Growth-stage businesses look to the data! Everyone looks to the data!

But when you do, you don’t find answers. You find that your funnel is, depressingly, more of an inverted pyramid than a wide-mouthed funnel. Your cohort analyses are… sad. All the data sliced all the ways leaves SaaS marketers like you scratching ye olde head, wondering what’s wrong and how to fix what’s wrong.

Because here’s the thing: your trial users are interested.

But here’s the problem: SaaS companies have yet to crack the nut on how to convert interest into 1) activation, 2) revenue and 3) retention.

And while you could try other things, emails are your least expensive and most reliable option. I’ve seen them in action. And the fixes are simple enough that you should address your emails immediately.

So here’s how to make your free trial emails turn interest into infatuation into income.

First: Accept that your free trial emails, as they are today, are almost certainly chasing away money

When I first started consulting, I considered using a CRM to keep track of my leads. So I signed up for a free trial of Pipedrive to see what it could offer me vs. using email.

And the welcome email wasn’t the best I’ve ever received, but I was hopeful Pipedrive could help me organize who was in my client pipeline.

(Sidenote: Pipedrive is just an example. Nothing but love for their team!)

Check out the welcome email they sent me:

The webinar sounded good.

Was it actually good? I dunno – I didn’t end up going to it.

Life got in the way. Plus, I couldn’t get Pipedrive to work with my inbox without upgrading to a paid plan. So before I knew it, I hadn’t learned a thing about Pipedrive, I hadn’t started using it, and my free trial was ending. As my free trial came to a close, they sent me the email I mentioned above. Here it is again:

Let me pause for a moment to scratch the surface of the problems with that email:

Can we get a name in there? You know my name. I used it to create my account. You should use it to talk with me. That’s your opening line? Really? “This is just to remind you.” Ugh. Q: “Want to continue with Pipedrive?” A: Nope. Only using voice at the bitter end of the email…

So, sure, something like 50,000 people are in love with Pipedrive. Those folks converted in spite of that email. Congrats to Pipedrive.

But because you and I care a great deal about converting more trial users, let’s work on writing a better email.

And let’s start by stepping back a bit…

Behind the scenes of selling software (before the cloud)

Before the Internet, you had 2 ways to buy software.

If you were a consumer, it came in an unwieldy box from an electronics superstore like Circuit City (RIP!). Not much salesmanship there. If you were a corporation, you had a designated sales person who got you to sign a multi-year contract. Meaning an individual could assess a company’s particular situation and use various tactics to get the sale.

Then web-hosted apps became a thing. And companies realized they could make more money if they charged customers on a subscription basis. Now users could access apps anywhere, as long as there was a browser and an Internet connection. Meaning companies could cut down on the costs associated with packaging and commissions to retail stores. And take home at least 60% of the gross margins. The venture capitalists showed up in droves.

But even before the cloud and free trials, the practice of giving away software for free has always been very popular. The only difference is the delivery mechanism. Remember the days of AOL CDs in your mailbox?

Seriously, how much did AOL spend on direct mail?

The marketing strategy for software has stayed constant, unfortunately. And here it is:

Hook users with a free sample, with the hope they like it so much they buy the full version.

Drug dealers have a similar marketing strategy. There’s just one difference. Drug dealers don’t hope you’ll like their product. They know.

The SaaS marketer’s strategy is filled with hope.

Hope is what you defer to when you can’t science the shit out of something. Hope is what you defer to when you don’t know what you’re doing. Hope kills businesses, ends sales, frustrates marketers – and frustrates prospects. Hope isn’t for closers. Yet it’s at the core of your acquisition strategy.

SaaS marketing isn’t hope marketing – those free trial emails have gotta close the sale

Consultant Alan Weiss describes four reasons someone might NOT buy your product:

No need – “It’s a neat tool, but it’s not necessary for what I’m trying to accomplish.” No money – “I can’t afford it because I’m a startup” or “I have too many other financial commitments more pressing than yours.” No urgency – “This problem you’re solving for me is necessary, but it’s not my top priority right now.” No trust – “I don’t believe you have my best interests in mind.”

No need, no money, no urgency – what’s the 4th reason people don’t buy? via @copyhackersClick To Tweet

Weiss is talking about winning six-figure management consulting contracts, but he claims it works for any product or service you’re selling. And he admits to flying halfway across the world to close a deal if it means overcoming one of these objections. Few SaaS startups are in a place to fly eight time zones over just to close a deal. I mean, you’re selling an app for $25/month.

Instead of frequent flyer miles to solve your conversion problems, you’ve got basically 2 things: a name and an email address. You’ve gotta work with those 2 resources – and not much more.

So here’s a killer opportunity you may not be leveraging as much as you could.

It’s the Trial Ending email, and here’s how you can make it rock.

Here are 3 easy steps to close better with your free-trial-ending emails

To persuade trial users to pay for your SaaS product, you should use the trial-ending emails to:

Emphasize what the user will miss out on by not upgrading to paid. Contrast the outcomes of upgrading vs. not upgrading. Provide a single call-to-action.

Here’s what I mean…

1: Emphasize what the user will miss out on by not upgrading to paid

There’s nothing that motivates people more than telling someone what they’ll miss out on. In psychology, it’s called loss aversion.

So ask yourself:

What will users miss out on if they don’t upgrade to a paid plan?

To give you a few ideas, think of the key features in your product. But instead of naming them off in the email, turn them into benefits that change the way the user was doing something before.

The benefits of the feature should outweigh the cost of the product. And be painful enough that a user has to stop and think, “Will I miss out if I don’t grab my credit card?”

To demonstrate, let’s look at this email promoting Sumo Pro. Although a cart abandonment email, Sumo does a good job of telling me what I’ll lose if I don’t buy Sumo Pro soon.

Notice how Sumo stacks the benefits of upgrading to the Pro plan. They could have just said I’ll miss out on the heat map features. Instead, they point out that without Pro, I won’t know how engaged visitors are on my website.

And if a prospect is using their website as a way to capture leads…they’re likely to believe Sumo is THE solution to their conversion problems.

Plus, there’s nothing like a 10% discount to entice on-the-fence users to sign up in the next 24 hours. Not necessary, but it’s something extra for the user to lose out on.

2: Contrast the outcomes of upgrading vs not upgrading

Mid-century ad executive Rosser Reeves (creator of the value prop!) was finishing up lunch in Central Park with a friend. They came across a homeless man sitting on a bench with a sign. The sign read:

“I am blind.”

Reeves bet his friend that he could make the homeless fellow more money by changing the words on his sign. With his revisions, the sign now read:

“It is springtime, and I am blind.”

The result? The homeless man’s panhandling success increased and Reeves won his bet.

But why?

Sometimes missing out on benefits isn’t enough. It might be a proven fact that your product’s feature has helped others. But sometimes it’s not enough to persuade the skeptical trial user. So you need to change their mindset. You need to illustrate what would happen to the user if they choose to pay for your product… and how life would be if they didn’t.

It wasn’t enough for prospects to know that the homeless man was blind. After all, only a few of them dropped coins into his bowl.

But because Reeves mentioned springtime, prospects suddenly realized the homeless man couldn’t see the blue skies, the sunshine and blooming flowers in Central Park. And for that reason, they were compelled to give him money when they would have ignored him.

Here’s how to use contrast in your trial-ending email

To apply this in your trial ending email, consider how your product can transform your user’s outlook on business… or how terrible their life would be without your product.

Or in the words of Aaron Orendorff, ask yourself one of the following questions:

What heaven will this email deliver my subscriber unto?

OR

What hell will this email save my subscriber from?

For example, here’s a trial ending email from Honeybadger, an error monitoring service for Ruby apps.

It’s cool that Honeybadger logged 220 error notices. But think about why engineering teams bother with error monitoring in the first place.

Plus, reminding the user that they now have to pay to track bugs? Come on. There’s so much hell this app could save a user from! Though the majority of software errors are a nuisance, there are ones that are downright catastrophic.

 Let’s look at the version I rewrote below.

Any software developer worth a damn would do their best to avoid writing buggy software. Plus, an unscheduled meeting with high-level managers to discuss how your work caused weekend profits to plummet? If that’s not your idea of hell, I don’t know what is.

3: Provide a single call-to-action to upgrade

What’s the next step a user needs to take to upgrade from trial to paid?

Dan Pink calls this an off-ramp. You may recall Pink’s study of a college food drive: explicit directions prompted more donations from groups of individuals who had never donated to a food drive than groups of people who had a history of giving.

Translation? You can convince the most resistant people to do something if you make it clear what it is that you want them to do.

You can convince the most resistant people to do X if you make it clear HOW to do X, via…Click To Tweet

Mulesoft’s trial-ending email doesn’t make it clear what I should do next. Take a look:

Problems:

My trial is over. If I wanted to watch a webinar, I should have seen it before this email. Now you want me to read a case study? I have to talk to a human being to extend my free trial? Pass…

Compare this with DocuSign’s email, where it’s obvious what they want me to do: Upgrade my account.

And they do an excellent job of reminding the user what they’ll miss out on, which is making it easy for others to do business with them.

Think about the number of steps your prospect has to go through to convert / actually pay for your SaaS. If you add six links to your email asking the user to do different things, they’re going to get confused. And maybe start to wonder if paying for the product is the right thing to do. And while gaining Likes on Facebook or Follows on Twitter might be a nice-to-have… your goal is to move that trial user into a paying customer – so don’t lose sight of that.

Two Ways To Get a Response From Passive Trial Users

What about those trial users who don’t convert even after you’ve optimized your trial-ending email copy?

Keep in mind that these non-converters have already spent time interacting with your app in some way. They have an opinion. If you’ve written the most persuasive trial ending email and they STILL haven’t converted, send them a trial expired email.

Here are two ways to go about it:

Ask for advice. Get them to do something (that doesn’t require money)

Lemme show you now.

1: Ask for advice

If you never ask, you’ll never know what keeps your prospect from buying, and you’ll never figure out their level of interest.

According to Robert Cialdini, if you ask a person for advice on what you could do better, it puts them in:

“A merging state of mind, stimulating a linking of one’s own identity with another party.”

Translation: If you can get a person to think about the ways they would improve their business, it creates a bond. The bond may not result in becoming a paying customer, but you could possibly win them over by other means.

When free trial users finish up with Autopilot, Autopilot initiates a customer feedback survey that is explicit about how long it takes to complete: 60 seconds.

Thanks to this study, Autopilot found out:

“27% of our expired trialists don’t buy because they’re still evaluating their options. Us asking both nudges them back into the product and gives us insight into conversion barriers. It’s a win-win.”

A 60-second survey might not solve your business problems, but it can give you the motivation to undertake more in-depth customer research. If you want a technique for that, take a look at the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework.

2: Get them to do something (that doesn’t require money)

So what if they didn’t buy right now? It doesn’t mean they will never buy it. There are plenty of no-cost ways for them to engage with you, too. Neil Patel suggests other forms of action, like reading a blog post or replying to an email.

The call-to-action doesn’t always need to be Upgrade Now. But it’s important to get the prospect to commit to taking smaller steps that could lead to an eventual purchase.

Ruben from Bidsketch does this by sending blog content to his free trial users who don’t end up converting:

Bidsketch might not be the proposal software solution for you right now, but they want you to become a better entrepreneur. So go on, read their blog post on emotional intelligence. The more you read from them, the more you might grow to like them – and people ultimately do business with people (and businesses) they like.

How to fix your 90% free trial failure rate

You could have all the ad money in the world and still trying to figure out your trial-to-paying conversion rate – when all you may need to do is rewrite your trial ending emails.

It’s a no-brainer task that you can knock out within a few hours of reading this. To recap, here’s what to add to your writing to-do list…

In your trial-ending email, be sure to:

Emphasize the benefits the user would miss out on. Contrast the outcomes. Provide a single call-to-action.

For your trial-expired email, you can:

Ask them for advice. Get them to do something else (that doesn’t require money).

And keep this in mind: If users sign up for your trial, there is a little part of them that wants to make your product work.

So choose your (email) words wisely. Because it could be the thing keeping your SaaS product from turning interest to infatuation to income.

~Sophia

The post Are Your Free Trial Emails Making You Look Desperate? Here’s How to Fix That appeared first on Copywriting for startups and marketers.

Read more: copyhackers.com

[rockin-llama]

92 (I think it was 92???)

tagged by @fxvixen​ ayyyyye pretty ladayyy

rules: fuck the rules (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

LAST…

[1] drink: water

[2] phone call: this solicitor that won’t leave me alone. Really, I need to get on a do-not-call list

[3] text message: “xo”from my Mom

[4] song you listened to: “Waving Through a Window”

[5] time you cried: ummm, maybe a few nights ago while reading? I don’t really keep track, I get emotional over books.

HAVE YOU EVER…

[6] dated someone twice: as in, date the same person twice (no) or date two or more people (yes)?

[7] been cheated on: yes

[8] kissed someone and regretted it: not really. There was this really drunk kiss with my half-aunts husbands nephew. Which even though that’s far enough away from being incest it still weirded me out when I sobered up. Plus I can’t remember his name for the life of me.

[9] lost someone special: yeee

[10] been depressed: ah, haha, hahaha

[11] gotten drunk and thrown up: gotten drunk, yes. Never to the point of throwing up though. I’ve felt pretty sick the next day though.

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS:

[12] Blue. Like, a deep blue. Not so dark that it looks black, but, like, deeeep.

[13] I’ve always liked dark greens, but they don’t really look too good on me.

[14] Rolanberry Red

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU…

[15] made new friends: yep

[16] fallen out of love: not really

[17] laughed until you cried: oh yeah

[18] found out someone was talking about you? Bitch, who wouldn’t talk about me.

[19] met someone who changed you: maybe??

[20] found out who your true friends are: What constitutes as a “true friend”? I’ve always been perplexed by that notion. A friend is a friend. I just talk about different things with different people.

[21] kissed someone on your facebook list: Bet y’all’d like to know who ;) (that was me channeling inner middle-school Marina)

GENERAL…

[22] how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: Now, this is something that I have to pick over. “in real life”. Like, if I have you on facebook I’m considering you as a part of my life (does that make sense??) And a lot of my facebook friends I have met through playing online games. So, no, I haven’t met them in real life (yet, someday I will take a massive road trip) but I consider us friends outside of playing games. So my answer is yes, all of my facebook friends I know in real life.

[23] do you have any pets: Jellicle (Jelli for short) is my kitty cat at my parents house. Unfortunately I can’t have free-roaming pets in the house I’m renting so I only have a beta fish, Hemingay, a bonsai tree (Groot 2.0, the first one was stolen off my porch), and a philodendron named Phil.

[24] do you want to change your name: Nada

[25] what did you do for your last birthday: uh, pretty sure I was playing video-games

[26] what time did you wake up: 10ish

[27] what were you doing at midnight last night: reading

[28] name something you cannot wait for: to move to the mountains and have a horde of huskies

[29] when was the last time you saw your mother: about 4 days ago

[30] what is one thing you wish you could change about your life: I wish i had a little more motivation??

[31] what are you listening to right now: my fan running in the background

[32] have you ever talked to a person named tom: yes, I know a lot of toms. What the fuck is up with this question?

[33] something that is getting on your nerves: people who don’t hit “reply all” in a group email. For real peeps, we’re all seniors in college. You should know this by now.

[34] most visited website: uhhhh, I’m honestly not sure. Tumblr is definitely up there, but even though I hardly ever post stuff I open facebook out of habit.

[35] elementary: what about elementary? Are you asking what school I attended? Who my teachers were? If I ever pulled the fire alarm? WEll, I didn’t pull the fire alarm, but I did like to flood the bathroom sinks and report to the teacher that “someone clogged the sinks again”. I was a weird child.

[37] college: comme ci, comme ca. I’m pretty much only taking online classes this semester.

[38] hair colour:  so up until I was around 12 my hair was white blonde. When i hit puberty though it slowly started changing color. I now have light brown hair, but in the summer it has blonde highlights.

[39] long or short hair: shoooooooort. I have an undercut that leads to one side being shaved.

[40] do you have a crush on someone: ehh. I’m attracted to a lot of people but i’m not interested in starting a relationship at this point in my life.

[41] what do you like about yourself? So it’s very cliche, but I fucking love my eyes. They range from green to gray to blue. And I have abnormally large pupils so they really accent them. People in high school just assumed I was high all the time.

[42] piercings: dude, guys, peeps, I love piercings. And I am majorly attracted to people with piercings. I have my double lobes done and an industrial bar on my left ear. If I didn’t bite my lips so much I would consider getting a lip ring because I fucking love them.

[43] blood type: AB- , yeah, I’m one of those people

[44] nickname: Mina/ Mina Bina, Rina, MooMoo (thanks Final Fantasy)

[45] relationship status: pining for dogs

[46] zodiac sign: virgo

[47] pronouns: she/her

[48] fav tv show: hmmmm, D. Gray-Man (does that count as a tv show? I don’t watch tv)

[49] tattoos: I have so many tattoo plans. I want the fuckign white tree of Gondor on my back.

[50] right or left handed: right, but I eat properly with my fork in my left hand.

FIRST…

[51] surgery: I had seven stitches in my chin when I was seven years old. Buuuuuut, I’m having major surgery this summer to reduce the size of my boobs. It’s gonna be a grand ol’ time. (hellooooo pretty bras)

[52] piercing: first lobes when I was 7

[53] best friend: I mean, I always call Staci my best friend. And we’ve known each other for our entire lives.

[54] sport: Technically I played soccer in kindergarten, but I wasn’t good at it.

[55] vacation: there’s pictures of toddler-me running naked towards the ocean in Florida with my mom chasing after me with my swimsuit.

[56] pair of trainers: oh fuck if i know, they were most likely blue and from JCpenney’s

RIGHT NOW…

[57] eating: cough drops

[58] drinking: coffee (I know, it’s a disgusting mix with cough drops)

[59] i’m about to: pretend the college didn’t just call me to pay my bill, lol too bad my voicemail inbox is full  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[60] listening to: “Wildfire” - Keston Cobblers Club (it’s incredibly catchy, I strongly recommend)

[61] waiting for: the day I live in the mountains with dogs.

[62] want: for me to decide what I want for dinner

[63] get married: I guess I’d like to be married someday. But I often like to disappear and just be by myself, so, someone very understanding and able to give space would be needed.

[64] career: right now I work full-time as a Kitchen and Transportation Manager at a daycare. It’s amazing. So, I’m basically a fancy lunch-lady. But i’m also a full-time student. One day I will be a famous author and able to support myself through writing (hah_)

WHICH IS BETTER…

[65] hugs or kisses: So I really love hugs. Probably because you don’t get judged by hugging people platonically. And i’m always cold, so body contact is a major thumbsup imo. Buuuuut, I do also like kissing. But kissing kind of involves a hug (at least, most of the time?) In short, hugs are better just because they’re involved in both.

[66] lips or eyes: eyes

[67] shorter or taller: I like my fruity drinks tall, but since I am also a fan of a Manhattan I’m used to short cups as well.

[68] older or younger: I like how many of these questions aren’t even questions, they’re just assuming you know what they’re asking. And I’m a little peeved that I know exactly what the assumption is. idc

[70] nice arms or nice stomach: I like necks. Like, damn, especially since chokers are back in fashion now allllll of my attention is drawn to the neck.

[71] sensitive or loud: are you insinuating that loud people can’t be sensitive?

[72] hook up or relationship: neither here nor there

[73] troublemaker or hesitant: ???

HAVE YOU EVER…

[74] kissed a stranger? kinda

[75] drank hard liquor? yeeeeees (see earlier comment about Manhattans)

[76] lost glasses/contact lenses? kinda? I misplace my glasses all the time when I’m cooking

[77] turned someone down: yes

[78] sex on first date? ehh, there’s a lot of “depends” that can go into this

[79] broken someone’s heart? *shrugs*

[80] had your own heart broken? *shrugs* you’re assuming I have a heart to begin with

[81] been arrested? ;) ... no

[82] cried when someone died? yes

[83] fallen for a friend: muahahaha

DO YOU BELIEVE IN…

[84] yourself? yeah, most of the time

[85] miracles? I’m not a firm believer in praying your worries away, so if that’s the type of miracle you’re asking my answer is “no”. However there have been some major moments of coincidence. I’m putting my money on aliens getting bored.

[86] love at first sight? Does my cat count? I saw her and knew immediately that I wanted to adopt her.

[87] santa claus? only if I can live in the North Pole

[88] kiss on the first date? yeeeee, most likely

[89] angels? Coming from a scientific point of view, I know for certain that the probability of humans being the only advanced race out there is practically nil. Therefore, I have no right to say whether or not angels exist somewhere. I know my late-grandma always did, she prayed to them every morning.

OTHER…

[90] current best friend’s name: Staci! I said it earlier, probably, but I’ve been working on this for a few days and don’t feel like scrolling all the way up.

[91] eye color: I thiiiink I also said this. But blue, gray, greenish

[92] favorite movie: Princess Mononoke

i’m tagging No one! Ha!

[mycelsiaflorist-blog]

Small Business Saturday: Meet the Floret Team

A few of my favorite thingsI’m asked all the time, “Erin, how do you do it all?”  And the answer is:  I don’t. There is no way I could do it all myself. But, boy, did I sure try for many years…and I came close to quitting more times than I’d like to admit.  

As I shared in a Design Sponge essay earlier this year, I used to think I should do it all, and that letting others help was a sign of weakness. I wasn’t that I didn’t want to relinquish control, it was actually that I was afraid for anyone to see what a mess my life really was. And while my inbox overflowed with hundreds of unanswered emails, my office was a total disaster and my work-life balance was insanely out of whack, I continued to try and do it all myself for far too long.

It was only after I took a huge leap of faith and hired Jill part time to tackle some of the things that were falling through the cracks, that Floret really started to soar. Since then, I’ve worked really hard to open myself up and let others bring their magical gifts into my life. Over the past few years we’ve built a fantastic team of folks who work both on and off the farm to support our little flower business.  In honor of Small Business Saturday, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to the amazing folks that I’m proud to call teammates, friends and part of the Floret family.  I can’t imagine how I ever did life without  them!

I asked each of them to share a little bit about themselves and their role here at Floret. If you’re a small business owner and you’re still going it alone, I hope this post will inspire you to at least consider getting some much needed help. I can’t even begin to describe how dramatically my life has changed (for the better) with the addition of each of these incredible souls. It can be hard to feel like you deserve to be supported, but the truth is, you really do.

Since I try never to ask the team to do things I haven’t done, I’ll start us off:

Erin Benzakein

Role at Floret:  I handle the majority of our marketing and social media. I also do a ton of writing and product creation and work with our amazing team to bring all of our big ideas to life. I also lead workshops, plan out the fields and greenhouses, harvest, and fill in wherever I’m needed when we’re short staffed.

Best part of the job: I have a few favorites! I love trialling all of the varieties for our seed company, especially sweet peas. I absolutely love growing every variety in a specific flower group and then observing each one individually, comparing them to one another and recording their special traits.

I love writing and creating new things with Jill. Whenever we have a big project that we’re diving into, we huddle around my dining room table, get out the whiteboard, the Post It notes and plan until our brains hurt. Once there’s a road map in place, we start writing. She sets the outline, then I fill in the blanks, and then we lob it back and forth (sometimes 15 times!) until we get it just right. I’m sure it sounds crazy, but it’s such a thrilling process because with each pass the idea becomes clearer and more real.

Lastly, I love capturing the magic of the flowers. After everyone has gone home for the day, I usually head to the field and harvest whatever is at its best. Then I haul out all of my funky old backdrops and make a big ole mess in the yard. When magic hour hits (the hour before sunset) Chris and I run for the field and frantically try and capture the magic before the light fades. It’s kind of stressful and crazy, but when we get “the shot” it’s completely exhilarating.

Favorite flower memory: Growing up I spent part of every summer in the country with my great grandparents. During the long hot days my Grammie would tell me tales of her flower garden back on their farm in Nevada. She’d always send me outside with scissors to pick a bouquet for her bedside table. While it was nothing like her old garden, there were always a few treasures to be had if you dug around long enough. Leggy snapdragons, a few hybrid tea roses and always a rainbow of sweet peas scrambling up posts by her backdoor. If I close my eyes I can still smell them.

Favorite place to find inspiration: When it comes to business inspiration, Marie Forleo is hands down the best source I’ve ever come across. I look forward to her newsletter every week and have taken both of her online courses multiple times. When it comes to personal growth inspiration, my Mom is certainly my biggest source. She always has some incredible quote that she’s just read, or some amazing heartfelt wisdom to share, or a special way of taking even the worst situation and finding the gold in it. Her nickname for me is “Champ” and whenever I’m feeling down, or discouraged she says,” Champ, you gotta get off the ropes. Keep your head in the game. You can do it!” Without her I would certainly be lost.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: My Farmer-Florist tool belt. Seriously, it changed my life! Now I never lose my phone, my jeans no longer have holes in the back pockets, and I can always find a pen or Sharpie when I need it. Sounds silly, but it really was a game changer for me.

Chris Benzakein

Role at Floret: I take most of the photos, oversee the shipping end of the shop, run the farm with the help of Jill, Marlee and Erin, handle repairs and maintenance and fill in the cracks wherever needed.

Best part of the job: Seeing our ideas and creations materialize. Witnessing the unique and powerful connections between people and flowers.

Favorite flower memory:  My grandmother grew hundreds of gladiolas at her Wisconsin garden every summer. She would pick them and always make the church arrangements. I remember her being the happiest in her garden, especially when she had a handful of flowers.

Favorite place to find inspiration: I love listening to books on tape when I do deliveries. I often listen to war stories and am inspired by the courage and tenacity that it takes to overcome such intense struggles.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: I love my Canon 6D and Mark III cameras for helping tell the story of Floret. On the farm, my favorite tools are my Kubota tractor and my Leatherman knife. I use both every day.

Jill Jorgensen

Years at Floret:  I was the first florist to buy flowers from the farm when Erin was just starting out, over 8 years ago. I had a flower emergency and left a rambling message on her answering machine and the tape ran out! She kindly returned my call and we became flower friends. I’ve worked for Floret in an “official” capacity for 3 years. Prior to that I always worked traditional 8-5 jobs, but helped Erin grow Floret on the evenings and weekends, lending my creative writing skills and being a sounding board. It was a long time dream to work with her and her amazing family.

Role at Floret: It’s a beautiful mixed bag! Everyone calls me the “switchboard operator.” I help triage the work load, coordinate our workshops, and communicate with vendors. I also help Erin take smaller bites so her plate isn’t as full and break down daunting projects into achievable component parts so we can divide and conquer. I spend a lot of time at the Benzakein dining room table with Post It’s and white boards, and lots of strong coffee.

Best part of the job: How much space do I have? There are too many “best parts” to count and very often I find myself thinking, I can’t believe I get paid to do this. I take a great amount of pride in the quality of our workshops and their evolution from the smallest seed of an idea. I love communicating with really enthusiastic, supportive people via email, and then sometimes I get to meet them in person which is always really fun – lots of hugs and squeals. I love having magical Floret flowers in my house, but I love giving them away even more. I love meeting people that also get so excited about flowers (like garden roses!) that they nearly hyperventilate. I could go on forever. See, too many bests.

Favorite flower memory: My grandpa George was a pretty amazing home gardener. He’d grow a lot of things in big, galvanized trash cans with holes in the bottom and line them on the warmest spots of their great big house. All fall and winter he’d layer them with maple leaves to make what he called “black gold.” I have a great picture of him standing in front of his prized dinner plate dahlias and Sweet 100 tomatoes on long ropey vines. I can still hear him lovingly say, “Jill, look at my damn tomatoes!”

Favorite place to find inspiration: I live about 30 miles north of the farm and work remotely for most of the week. When I drive south to work, there is a stretch of I-5 that drops like a chute into the Skagit Valley and the hills open up to this vast expanse of farm land swaddled by the Cascade Mountains. I always feel my tension release, my shoulders relax and I breathe deeper, and I’m instantly filled with appreciation and gratitude.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: In my own garden, I feel lost without a Hori Hori knife at the ready. I spend more time behind the computer though. My swivel chair, lightning fast laser printer and the Justin Bieber Pandora station make me feel like I’m handling some serious lady business.

Susan Studer King

Years at Floret:  Wow, I guess it is going on three years now!  

Role at Floret:  I work remotely from Ohio to help pull together text and information for Floret newsletters, blog posts, story pitches, website pages, workshop materials or any other miscellaneous tasks that come my way.

Best part of the job:  I love working with Erin and the rest of the team to develop resources to support flower lovers, especially fellow farmer-florists.  Getting emails or reading comments from people who have been helped by something that I had a hand in pulling together is super satisfying.  I don’t think I’ve ever loved a job as much as this one.

Favorite flower memory:  Definitely my wedding flowers! I asked my mom to grow and design them many, many years before we started our own farmer-florist business. Every time I smell a stargazer lily, I’m transported back to that July day in 2000.

Favorite place to find inspiration: The farm where I grew up. I love exploring the windbreak with my mom and scouting for shrubs and plants for use in our design work. Plus, the barns and the attic of the farmhouse are great to explore and hold vast troves of  “treasures” (what some people might call junk) that are fun to re-purpose.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: Fabric scissors. In our design studio, there is only one pair that works well at cutting the pretty ribbon finishes for handheld bouquets and we always seem to be fighting for it.

Marlee Powell

Years at Floret: I stumbled into the Floret family in the summer of 2014.

Role at Floret: My job duties at vancouver florist are ever changing. I started as just part time harvesting help, then into full time harvester and farm hand. With the expansion of Floret as a company, I am now in charge of shipping and seed packing. I work remotely about 30-40% of the time in the fall and winter months. During spring and summer I am the point person for all of our workshops to keep everyone on track. I’m the bearer of bad news, such as FIVE MINUTES LEFT! But I say it and mean it with the utmost love!

Best part of the job: The best part of my job is seeing the joy we bring to people. That makes me feel like the hours I spend putting my heart (and back) into digging thousands of dahlias is so worth it. The simple act of sharing flowers, or even photos of flowers, has the ability to transport people out of their own world, even for a short time. Another “best part” is that I feel a part of a second little family. Being able to combine work, family and balance in my life is so important and brings so much joy to my life.

Favorite flower memory: My favorite flower memory had to be around 12 years old and my little sister was 5. My Mom home schooled us and we found a project in a book called “How to grow your own flower tee pee.” Oh man, I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was to try this! The three of us worked so hard building our tee pee and then added rows of corn, carrots, and lined the 20 x 50 foot plot with sunflowers.Sadly everything grew EXCEPT my tee pee. But those sunflowers — I had never seen such a thing. I didn’t even know they could get that big! My sister and I would run thru them and hide in our little jungle land playing in the dirt.

Favorite place to find inspiration: I do CrossFit as exercise, a sport, and something to have fun and enjoy my community through. I actually find a lot of personal inspiration with CrossFit and how it brings people together and lifts them up through fitness.I also find a lot of inspiration through pictures. I especially love the January image on Floret’s 2017 wall calendar shot by Chris. That photo of our green houses in the morning frost is so real to me. I feel the cold in my bones when I look at it. I love that a photo can make you feel very specific feelings.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: Favorite tool has to be my Farmer-Florist tool belt! That baby makes me feel powerful and like some kind of flower pirate. Not to mention it’s HIGHLY functional. You can keep so many goodies in there! Snips, phone, rubber bands, chocolate bar, maybe some gummies…lots of things. And the tape machine is a close second. Thanks to you all, that thing is getting a workout!

Jill Powell (aka) “Angel Jill”

Years at Floret: 5 years

Role at Floret: I sow seeds, plant, weed, keep things clean, flip greenhouses (pull out spent flowers and replant), set up drip irrigation, get everything ready for workshops and help in the shop if needed.

Best part of the job: All of it. There’s always something different to do. Depending on the season it could be seed sowing, planting, weeding.

Favorite flower memory: The first summer I worked here we filled the entire truck with freshly harvested blue statice.

Favorite place to find inspiration:  Working across from Erin because I realize I can go even faster than I thought ; )

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: The pallet forks on the tractor, the battery operated compost tea sprayer, the electric stapler and the Japanese weeding hoe.

Meg Almanza

Years at Floret: Almost two years now.

Role at Floret: I help manage the house, keep things clean and organized. At the workshops I help set up and breakdown the events, plus handle the food and hosting guests. I also work with Erin to tackle big projects like reworking spaces for maximum efficiency, setting up systems within the business, and keeping inventory organized and accounted for.

Best part of the job: I love contributing to the ongoing success of Floret and assisting Erin with the home and the business. I get the most out of my job when I am making someone else happy and I strive to do that every chance I get.

Favorite flower memory: I never had an appreciation for flowers until I came to work at Floret. But after seeing them growing at the farm and the sheer magnitude of their beauty, they’ve taken over my soul. Seeing the way that people react to the beauty of them at the workshops is overwhelming. My biggest joy is when Erin sends me home with buckets of leftover flowers. I fiddle around putting them together in little arrangements and put them all around my house. They make me smile when I get up in the morning.

Favorite place to find inspiration:  I love to go junking, “lookie looing” around and finding special things for people in my life to make them feel good.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio:  My wagon cart! I can haul all kinds of stuff and it helps me save time when I running back and forth. It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing a whole lot of stuff in a short amount of time. Erika Stephens

Years at Floret: Two years.

Role at Floret: I help with the Floret workshops and have helped with weddings.

Best part of the job: I love to see the students as they come into the barn, feeling held and welcomed. The flowers. I love to watch people open themselves a bit more as they are given new concepts relating to their farms, businesses and their lives as a whole.

Favorite flower memory: Helping my grandmother Astrid cut and hang to dry roses for wreathes she would make. I loved to be close to her and the smell of the roses. I don’t know if it was actually the roses that smelled or she was wearing tea rose perfume. Doesn’t matter, I loved it all the same.

Favorite place to find inspiration:  I love to look at Andy Goldsworthy’s photographs and the concept that his art is ephemeral and a large part of the reason he chooses to photograph his pieces, so that they become “everlasting.”

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: My Grundens rain overalls and Bogg boots. Close second, the flower snips.

Nina Foster

Years at Floret:  I have been with Floret from the start! Erin and I met when our girls went to kindergarten together. We were each other’s first flower friend. While our kids played, we talked about our dreams and visions over coffee, seed catalogs, and Martha Stewart Living!

Role at Floret: I now live in Vermont and fly back to act as the hostess for the workshops. My job is to make sure all the attendees are comfortable. I am a total mama bear to all.

Best part of the job: The best part of my job is meeting new flower friends, and getting to be part of their experience at Floret. It’s a beautiful thing to witness people following their hopes and dreams.

Favorite flower memory: My older sister Gray, taking me hunting for trilliums and fairies in early spring in the forests in Vermont. Those trilliums were pure magic.

Favorite place to find inspiration: When in Washington, my favorite place for inspiration would be Rosario Beach and Erin’s roses! In Vermont, I have trails in the forests I walk daily. Nature has always been my biggest inspiration.

Favorite tool on the farm or studio: I’d have to say my Floret tool belt is my favorite tool on the farm and in studio. It holds everything!  

Readmore: A few of my favorite things