#i hope its obvious but in case not in order its

[regina-chelicerata]

Some art I did for Fields of Asphodel from @chrysanthemumgames 🥺

I was the anon that asked for descriptions that one time, I tried to follow them but if i forgot and did some bits wrong I promise it wasnt on purpose ^-^. I referenced the official colour palettes for the colours, but I used the markers I had on hand + some layering to try and get as close as I could

Drawn in my sketchbook, then scanned and printed to colour with markers, and then scanned again to add the background digitally :)

i have 1 more art for FoA to post later

[riaki]

ur highschool bully gojo was chefs kiss 💋 what do u think about them going to the same college and taking the same classes?? and the reader sitting next/talking to some other guy and satoru gets jealous?? arwahhhshdhshshs so many possibilities, i hope u continue writing it!!

hi nonnie !! thank you so much :) this is ur official part 2 ! i was struggling to think up some possibilities but this helped a lot :oo | read part 1 here ! -> cw: swearing, jealousy, i let it get fic length oops

(former) highschoolbully!gojo on the brain again… like. when you end up seeing him again however many months later, and you can tell that he’s changed. it’s not like its immediately obvious to anyone who doesn’t really know him like you (used to); but he’s a little softer-spoken and his smiles seem nine times more genuine. it’s not a hundred percent; the kind that really lights up his face instead of just barely falling short of his stark blue eyes, but it's something.

of course, you have nothing to base it off of, because when you do inevitably see him again it's the very definition of meet ugly.

college is a new frontier, but its also a clean slate. its your first time going into something so new without your old bestfriend at your side, but some faint flickering thought reminds you that it might be better that way. but the universe is against you from the very first day, when youre gettin yourself some coffee from the same chain you did the morning of that fateful presentation so many moons ago. you're too busy thinking to yourself what kind of strange parting ritual it is to relive your trauma to notice the lanky, white-haired boy who hits his head on the chiming bell over the doorway. people are giggling around you n sighing dreamily but youre too deep in the music pumping through your headphones to notice and your eyes are glued to the class schedule on your phone, trying to ensure you dont get lost on the first day when—

you blink and your ass is flat on the dirty floor of the coffee shop, and the first thing you register is that your stomach is soaked and burning. you'd spilled your coffee. it takes you a moment to realize, but when you do you're pissed. so you quickly get to your feet, trying to reign in what little of your ego you have left to give the offender who bumped into you a piece of your mind as you look up, then..

how unlucky do you have to be?

just like that, satoru's slid himself back into your life, after ramming through its locked gates. you forget that he always forgets the point of keys, both when it comes to his apartment (which you still have the spare key of in case of emergencies), and the door to your heart. to rub salt in the wound, the only thing that's stained with your coffee order are his shoes, which look like they cost three weeks of your old job salary, but it's all over your shirt. of course it is. because why not? make it look like you tripped and fell into a patch of mud on your way to the lecture hall and tack on an unwelcome reunion with your ex-bestfriend.

to you, it's like the cloud of gloom from your highschool youth has resettled over your head like a swarm of gnats on a dreary, hot summer day. the stars always seem to skew and misalign themselves for you. but for satoru, the stars have handed him one of those huge swirly lollipops that you only ever see being paraded about by toddlers. he recovers almost instantly, trading the burn on his feet and the way it sours your expression like he's just squirted pure citric acid into your throat for a pleasant burn of his own on his cheeks. but it's whatever. girls seem to like it when he blushes, for some reason. he won't question it, if it works on the only one he cares about.

he holds his hand out, ready to help you out like the good samaritan he's become— and it's like a real burn to his heart this time when you ignore it and stand up on your own, refusing to look up and meet his pleading gaze. might as well have taken an iron stoker right out of the fire and jabbed him with it. but he's gojo satoru! he won't be defeated by this one mere, maybe very significant reunion. he's got stamina.

so he offers to buy you a new drink, feels his heart sink when you shake your head (can't even spare a little 'no' in his direction), and talks enough for the both of you when you leave the dingy little store make your way down to campus and the lecture building. you clearly don't want to see him, but he ignores that in exchange to notice the way you shiver every so often. the previously searing-hot coffee that stains your shirt turns cold fast, and moisture n wind don't mix well. he wishes he could offer you some of his own warm coffee, no doubt sickeningly sweet, but he has some sensitivity now, apparently. so, in a brash moment, he decides to take his blazer off and drape it over your shoulders instead.

when you cross the threshold between city and campus, you expect him to yank it off your back and be on his merry way. but he keeps walking next to you, so you walk a little faster, and you absolutely loathe the cheeky little grin that curves the corners of his lips up to show a glint of teeth when he effortlessly keeps up. you curse his long legs when you find yourself winded, but at least you can lose him when you get there.

or, that's what you think. once again, your constellations break themselves to rebuild anew for satoru. you're about to call him a stalker when he follows you all the way to your classroom with that smirk that's growing exponentially until— oh, no.

your phone that's been on the schedule up until now desperately scrolls to the roster— and there it is. he's in your class. needless to say, not another word goes between you as you stomp in and take a seat. luckily for you, you've already corresponded with your roommate's brother (who's annoyingly cute, satoru notices) and agreed to sit next to each other. satoru takes the seat right above you and never stops kicking his freakishly long legs against the wood the entire time.

so yeah, it's obvious he's not a saint; he still has that undoable ego and he's cocky as fuck (as you have the misfortune of finding out when he quickly bullies your professor), but there's a certain familiarity in that no matter how ugly it might appear to others. and if you asked (which he really, really hopes you will someday), he doesn't hang around douchebags who use kids' foreheads for ashtrays and treat girls like they're candy from a glittery pez dispenser. and at least he's switched harassment targets. even though he has an overwhelming sense of superiority over others and never has his lips together for more than five seconds, and even though he has this hellish habit of clicking his pen whenever he's not talking (or when someone else is), it seems like he's changed.

and over time, you gradually find yourself warming up to him. the spunkiness that used to get on your nerves ceaselessly becomes an object of endearment, and you don't really mind the way he never seems to stop moving anymore. it's a nice sort of distraction in the lifeless still of the lecture hall, albeit the pen clicking still drives you near insanity. you notice he always does it obnoxiously and quickly when you're talking to your roommate's brother, but you ignore it.

and for satoru? he hates that he can kinda sorta really tell that you're the only one who can read him like he's a damn book, cus you slowly start to soften up in the nostalgia of his presence like cold playdough between warm fingers that tell you he may have finally caught you again after letting you slip the first time. and he notices it. this time, he's determined not to let you be the one that got away again. but youre really giving him a shit time outta it with the way you constantly entertain the guy who always has his breath in your face.

yeah, he's got a cute face that's sunkissed by freckles. yeah, his hair looks like he models for shampoo companies. and fuck, he has a nice voice. but what of it? satoru's the one with the mesmerizing blue irises and the cloudy white hair your professor wishes he had instead of sad little wisps of old age. still, as chilly days turn into frigid weeks, he gets the perfect backseat angle of the growing relationship between the two of you. the boy's kinda dumb so you copy off of satoru’s work when you need to (he has to hide the 1-0 scoreboard between him and the guy on a sticky note from you when you take his notes), but said guy’s always buying you stuff and lending you erasers and laughing when you flick the shavings at the annoying girl who never stops whispering in the front of the room.

satoru tries to act unbothered, and he almost convinces everyone. including himself. but the angry, burning knot in his chest that's entirely different from coffee stains suggests something more. that should be him at your side. him, making balls of paper with rude scribbles and silly doodles to throw at the people he knows you don't like. him, surprising you with little gifts and the cheap trinkets he knows you adore so much instead of all the luxury things he could afford. there's no way this punk could possibly measure up to him, right? but at least you and satoru are well on your way to becoming friends again. not as close as you used to be, but it's something. substantial. and he's learned to be patient in the time you've been gone.

but he'd be lying through his teeth if he said he wasn't tired of it. he’s endlessly plagued with thoughts of increasing intensity— first, it starts out with just you. only you. the way he likes it. the way he likes your face, and your pretty eyes and your gorgeous lips and your soft hair and your figure and the complimenting clothes you wear. but it takes a turn; thoughts turn into dreams that turn into fantasies and he's lying when he says he doesn't enjoy them when he accidentally lets it slip during a group study session— and it’s all fine— but then, that guy appears. the brat who seems to sit a centimeter closer to you with each coming day. not only does he haunt satoru in real life, he’s tormenting his dreams, too. tainting the image of beautiful you.

needless to say, satoru starts to wake up with his hands gripping his damp pillow like he's choking it, acutely aware of the sweat sliding down his neck and over his chest as he stares up at the ceiling, listening to the dorm's air conditioner run and thinking of what it'd be like for dreams (the ones where he replaces the boy) to become reality.

it's a buildup. and soon, he reaches the apex; it's like a rollercoaster, that stomach-twisting moment when you reach the top of the rail that points to the steep descent downward. but this time, he hopes it's a thrill he gets instead of the usual falling fright; the one he got when he realized he’d slipped between your fingers in highschool.

and satoru finally comes to a grinding halt at the top of the ride one breezy fall day when he decides he wants you back in his life after you smile brightly at him and wave goodbye for the day. he’s tired of you having one foot in and one foot out of his heart; he wants, needs more. he always has, he realizes.

so he’s thinking about you and how to approach the feelings he’s realized during those long lectures, and one morning he comes up with some semblance of a plan when he’s high on the sugar from the fruit tea you bought him that morning. and he hopes that, by the end of it, he'll leave your apartment with your hand in his currently empty one, chilled with the remnants of cold condensation from the bottle.

soon enough, satoru finds himself extinguishing his nerves and raising a tense fist to knock on the door with nothing but the clothes on his back and a flimsy plan to ask you out on a midterm study sesh and maybe even a date, but he stops when he realizes it’s slightly ajar. a brief thought of what look might be on your face when he surprises you crosses his mind, so he lets himself in quietly, because he knows every single floorboard that creaks like the back of his palm from his childhood. he’s hit with a wave of warmth and an achingly familiar scent that twists at his heart, and your apartment is cozy and safe and it screams you and he thinks he catches sight of his jacket slung across the back of the couch in your living room, but he’s not sure so he takes a step forward and—

he’s greeted with the sight of that stupid guy with the nice hair and the freckles, and it makes his heart drop. but even worse, he’s kissing you and his arms are winding around your waist but you’re kissing him back with a slight hesitation that’s blinded to satoru by his shock and the fingers he thought would end up in his own tonight card through the boy’s hair and your lips glisten with the strawberry-kiwi flavored gloss he watched the boy give you a few days back and his world is turning red and he feels like his throat is constricting and he can’t breathe—

and he doesn’t even realize you’ve parted lips and you’re calling his name through the newfound tightness of his chest and the painful ringing in his ears thats even louder than any silence of a lecture hall, or the void that should’ve been filled with your voice during the time you were apart. but now satoru realizes he’d take that any fucking chance to have that again because it’s so much better than what he’s stuck with now. having you, but not really having you, because you’re there but you’re someone else’s and you’re not his and he isn’t yours. the best thing he could ever hope for was for you to own an article of his clothing and a piece of his shattered heart, broken into a million fragments. some cruel voice in his buzzing head reminds him to change the scoreboard to 0-100.

and he could buy you cheap hot coffee or earn your smiles from scrunched up paper balls or even hear your laugh with crude jokes, but there’s no point when he realizes he can’t buy you with caffeine or earn you with hitting the back of people’s heads with his bio notes or have you and your laugh all to himself anymore.

it’s almost pathetic, the way satoru’s voice cracks and changes. the look of unadulterated concern on the face of the boy who stole your lips just adds fuel to the fire.

“gojo? what are you doing here— hey, are you okay? you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

he noticed you’d stopped calling him satoru a few weeks back. he should’ve seen it coming.

“huh? oh, yeah. i’m good. i think you’re the one hallucinating.”

he’d never told a bigger lie in his life.

satoru had left after excusing himself for intruding. how very unlike him to be so polite, you think.

so in the end, he leaves your apartment with something in his hand, after all. but it's not your own— just his blazer that you’d given back to him before he stepped out the door, taunting him with the faint scent of coffee and lingering perfume. his hope was foolish, so it seems. it’s too bad, he thinks. if it were him, he would’ve sandwiched you against your counter while he kissed. but it wasn’t. apparently, it was your turn for your stars to align at the price of his.

and so, gojo satoru, the boy force-turned man with a chipped ego and a completely broken heart, loses you again.

bonus bonus.. part 2….

[jubshead]

𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐎'𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮

Paring: Detective O’Connor (hallucinating Agatha) x Reader

Summary: When your mother gets out of town, you grudgingly accept to take care of the town’s lunatic.

A/N: So this is dedicated to this anon, it’s VERY different from what I have written for Agatha so far, but I hope you like anyway!

This isn’t beta read and english isn’t my native language, so bear with me.

Warnings: Mental instability, face slapping, bondage, dubious consent, dildo, teasing/edging

Word count: 3k

Date: Nov 25, 2024

Comments are always welcome and if you don’t wish to be identified, my ask is open!

Masterlist

Tag list: @yourbasicqueerie @harknessshi @hannah-0730 @diorrxckstar @lady-darkswan3 @neverfindmegone @imorynn @its-chickenwing-450 @seaoflittlefires @anyasivy

─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽��☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ───────

Wanda’s spell had changed Westview. 

Aside from the obvious altered psychological state of the citizens, the town's sense of community had blossomed and the shared trauma had brought them together. The witch's magic had left a lasting scar and people were empathetic for anyone affected by it. 

Agnes O’Connor, or whatever her name was. 

She’s been a good neighbor for the past three years, slightly nosy, but clearly under some sort of mental control. Lately, though, she’s been acting differently. Your mother is one of the people who’s been lending a helping hand. Buying her groceries, visiting to make sure she is eating and bathing, and despite the odd conversation, she has been fine on her own.

Not that your mother would listen. She is invested in being some sort of babysitter and drag you along. You’ve managed to stray from the role, but, when your mother left town for business, you had promised to take care of the town's loony. 

The day's warmth gives way to a chilly breeze, the settling sun makes an orange hue in the sky and you try to balance the grocery bag while opening the wood door. Unfortunately for you, the neighborhood has a barter system and today is your family's turn to make sure everything is in order. 

Walking in, you take a minute to look around, the place is beautiful and dark, everything matches and you wonder what is Agatha’s doing and what is somebody else’s. You had never stepped foot in the house and it impressed you. 

Locking the door behind you and navigating to the kitchen, you set the bag down on the counter and call out. 

“Agnes? My mother asked me to bring you some groceries.” 

Silence follows your statement.  

“Hello?” You say louder.

Fuck. What if she had run away? 

Taking a deep breath, you decide to inspect the house before freaking out. Walking back to the entryway, you glance up the stairs and back into the living room. The place appears to be empty and you strain your ears in an attempt to hear any kind of noise. The house seems uninhabited and you conclude that upstairs is the next place to look for her.

“Hello? Anyone home?” You shout uncertainty, taking a step.

Your head is full of worry as you walk up the stairs. You’ve never seen Agnes after her psychotic breakdown, you don’t know what to expect. People from the neighborhood had said she was harmless, but you had no way of knowing. Either way, even if that were the case, it wouldn’t look good for you if you somehow lost her. 

The wooden floor creaks beneath your feet and darkness engulfs the hallway. Taking a quick peek at the open doors, you face up the end of the corridor, the place you assume it's the bedroom. Guiding yourself with the moonlight streaming in through the open window, you carefully enter the space. The curtain moves with the wind and you relax a friction, there is clearly no one here. 

As scared as you are, you barely have time to process the thought of Agnes' disappearance before feeling an impact against your back. Falling into the bed, you try calming your racing heart and, scared, you quickly turn around to see the back of a figure as it walks and settles into an armchair, turning on the lampshade beside her. 

Squinting your eyes against the yellow light that consumes the room, you take her in. Her legs are spread open, she wears a long sleeved shirt with a boner joke saying: “Bohoner family reunion. Pitch a tent.”, black sweatpants finish the look while her hair is pulled down in a ponytail. Her face is stern and she looks like a complete lunatic. 

“Sit up.” She commands. 

Afraid of an unpredictable reaction, you do as she says. 

The cushion feels soft under your thighs as you settle in the mattress. She ranks her eyes over your figure before leaning back, arms crossed over her chest. There’s some kind of hose head in her hip. 

“I’m curious. What compelled you to break into the home of a decorated detective?”

“What?” You blurt out immediately.

“I’m not playing games, little girl. You better answer me.” 

You fridge under her gaze, trying to understand the mental episode she’s having. Your mother mentioned that Agnes was having some sort of hallucination, but you never guessed this. Does she think she is some kind of cop?

She places her elbows on her knees and leans forward, waiting for your response.

“I- My mother asked me to bring you some groceries.” You explain carefully.

“Don't lie to me.” Narrowing her eyes, she stands up and searches for something in her drawer. “You won’t like the results.”

You glance at the door and prepare to make an escape. Barely having time to place your foot down and run, you feel a hand on your shoulder pushing you down and making you freeze when you sense her breath ghosting against your temples. 

“You better not try that. I’m assuming you don’t want to spend the night in the tank.” A glimpse of her hands makes you shake your head, she’s carrying a rope and a silver tape. 

“Good.” She stands in front of you and grabs your chin to look up at her. “Now, what were you after?”

You look around for something that might help you in this situation. “I was just bringing you groceries…” You whisper. 

“Don’t play dumb.” Her hands squeeze your cheeks harshly. 

God, this is the craziest talk you’ve ever had. 

“Look Agnes, you might be a little confused. How about I put you to bed and let you get some sleep?” You grab her wrist, trying to loosen her grip. 

She slaps you across the face, hard enough to leave a sting behind. 

She leans in close and says. “Do you think you have the right to touch me?”

The hit leaves you angry enough to turn and shout. “YOU ARE NOT A DETECTIVE.” 

Maybe it’s time to put her in a mental institution. 

She scoffs and grabs the rope at her side. “Do you know what we used to do to mouthy things like you back at the academy?” 

Your eyes widen and you stay rooted in place, running crosses your mind once again, but you push it aside, it would be worse if she tackled you to the ground. They do say crazy people have more strength than usual. 

She stretches the cord out in front of you and smirks, seizing your arms and tying them in front of you. Maybe it would be better if you played into her fantasy. 

“I’m sorry, Detective O’Conner.” Your entire demeanor changes and you beg. “Please, it was just a prank, my friends put me to it.” 

She has a side smile and doesn't look into your face, completely focused on her task. 

“Oh, now you are being cooperative. Scared?” 

Indeed, you are.

She crouches and levels her eyes with yours, searching your face for something that she doesn’t seem to find. 

“I don’t believe you and I’m not letting you go until I’ve got a satisfying answer.” 

She harshly pulls the knot in your wrists and looks pleased when it doesn’t come loose. Pacing around the room and looking at your bound form, you see the engines turning in her head as you feel trapped in a lion’s cage. 

Suddenly, she grabs you by the shoulder and pushes you backwards. You crash into the mattress and panic, you definitely shouldn’t have played into her delusion, the thoughts of escaping brushes your mind and you curse yourself for not doing it sooner. 

She takes hold of your binded arms and places them over your head as she climbs on top of you. Her knee is placed between your legs and you put your heels on the edge of the bed, pushing yourself up in a vain attempt to avoid the pressure. 

“This is what happens when you poke the bear, little girl.” She breathes in your face.

“Agnes, look-”

“IT’S DETECTIVE O’CONNOR TO YOU.” You wince at her scream. 

“Detective O’connor…” You try out and continue when she doesn’t react. “There’s no need for violence, we are both adults, I’m sure we can settle this.” You attempt to reason with her. 

She laughs at your statement, one of her hands grabs your neck and lightly squeezes. 

“I won’t accept any form of disrespect. You’ll be an example for your friends.” 

Yeah, okay. Maybe that was a bad excuse.  

Her eyes focus on something behind you and she reaches for it. You completely freeze when the corner of your eye catches the sight of a purple dildo held by her. Something inside you stirs.

“You better lick it up, little girl. This is going inside you.” 

“WHA-” Your scream is cut off when she shoves the hard object down your throat.

The stiffness settles uncomfortably on your windpipe, making you gag and cough against it, only stopping when she takes pity on you and draws it out of your mouth. 

“Do you want me to shove it in right now?” She’s a jerk and lets out a smug grin when you shake your head.

“No, no, no!” You say hastily. “I can do it.” 

Seeing your willingness, she places the sex toy against your lips, letting you set the pace for yourself. You take a tentative lick and she raises an eyebrow at you. 

This whole situation makes you dizzy. Agnes’s weight is on top of you and you slowly engulf the dildo, licking and coaxing in your saliva. She looks deep into your eyes and holds your tied hands firmly, pushing your propped heels with her feet and making you moan around the object when her thigh presses harder against your core.

Your body is reacting in the opposite direction, the panic settled into a trembelling flutter in your abdomen, the idea of being fucked by her seems more appelling as the time goes by and you wonder how much you really need to lube the dildo with your arousal pooling in your undearwear. 

“Yes, that’s it.” She says encouragingly. 

She sets a rhythm, leisurely pulling in and out as her lips form a sadistic smile, seemingly taking joy in your predicament as you slowly relax into the mattress, accepting your fate. Her blown pupils draw a groan out of your mouth and you feel drool dripping down your chin. 

She leans down and nuzzles your neck, before popping the dildo out of your mouth and eyeing it. 

“Good girl.” She praises and you grind against her thigh. 

Smiling, she takes away your only form of relief, straddling your waist and placing the purple object sideways in her mouth. The image distracts you enough and gives her time ,with her newly free hands, to grab the remains of the rope and tie your bound hands against the headboard. 

She eyes your pitiful position and lets out a breathy laugh, before grabbing your shirt and ripping it in half. Your eyes widen at the action and you suddenly remember that despite the pleasure running through you, you’re still very much in danger.

Ranking her eyes down your figure, she slides the wet dildo down your collarbones and over your covered breast, before reaching your navel. You look up at her with a pleading face, you could no longer tell if it was whether for her to continue or let you go.

“Ag-Detective, please.” You beg and the nickname brings a smirk to her face.

Thrusting your hips up, you try in a vague attempt to smooth your aching core, she grabs your waist and presses her body weight harder against you. Getting close to your face, she ‘tsks’.

“Nah, nah. This is supposed to be a lesson.” Her hand moves up and painfully gropes your breast, pinching your nipple and making you let out a groan. 

She rolls off of you and for a second, you think she’s going to leave you there, bound and unsatisfied, completely lost in the situation. That is, until you feel her harshly pull your pants out, along with your panties, humming as she looks down at your barely covered self.  

Spreading your legs, she settles between them and grabs the back of your things, pushing them up until your knees meet your front. Your open position gives her access to your core and she looks at it, grinning and running her finger through your wetness. 

“It appears someone has a cop kink.” Even in your condition, you have to hold in your laugh. 

She’s still talking nonsense. 

The discarded dildo appears in her hand once more and you bite your bottom lip in anticipation, she looks into your eyes as she slowly drags it between your folds and circles your clit, teasing you. Torture seems to be part of her enjoyment, you trash and buck into her hand, but the only thing she does is grip your hips to prevent your movement. 

She runs the object down your thigh and you feel how wet it is, mixing with the previous stickiness in there and driving you mad as it gets further away from your entrance. Stopping your needy motions, you let out a whine from the provocation before suddenly throwing your head back as she slams into you. 

It stretches you and she doesn’t give you time to process the intrusions before she starts to move. She pounds hard, seemingly trying to draw out your pleasure as fast as she can and by the amount of arousal you feel bubbling under your skin, she’s succeeding. 

You moan loudly, your shoulders ache from the uncomfortable position and your wrist burns from the material of the rope. Your body shakes with the force of her thrusting and your breasts bounce inside your bra. 

“Ag- Please… I can’t.” Meaningless words spill out of your mouth. 

She laughs and places one of your legs on her shoulder, going deeper and hitting a spot that makes your vision go white. 

“Tell me what you were looking for.” Her face closes off and somehow she becomes more aggressive with her movement. 

“Wha-” There isn’t a single thought crossing your mind. 

“Why did you come into my house? Tell me right now or I’ll stop.” 

“NO.” You shout and throw your head back at the frustration. “I already told you.”

“I don’t want to hear any bullshit excuse.” Her movement slows down and you circle your legs around her to prevent her detachment.

“I don’t know what you want me to say!” You tell her, your mind is muffled with arousal and you feel your climax getting away from you.

“‘Tell me the truth.” She almost screams and stops completely. 

“Fuck!” You exclaim, unfulfilled . 

Your thoughts can barely connect, your head is spinning and you try to find a justification that will satisfy her enough.

“I WANTED YOU.” You shout out. “I wanted to get your attention.” 

You finally settle into an excuse and it seems to please her when she gives you a shit-eating grin, thrusting back into you.

The fading orgasm returns with vengeance, your back arches away from the bed and your entire body tenses up. The purple object pounds harder and harder into you, hitting the right spot every time and making you sob. Your legs tighten around her and your heel digs into her back. The headboard hits the wall and you faintly hear the sound as your mind is overrun with pleasure. 

“Detective- I need…” You blur out, the statement being cut off by a groan.

“I know what you need, baby.” Her voice is hoarse, you open your eyes to look down and are greeted by ragged breathing, hair out of place and an open mouth as she takes in your pleasure. 

Her free hand comes up to circle your outer lips and you groan, frustrated by the endless teasing. Her finger meets your clit and her other hand adjusts the dildo to keep up the pace with the new attachment. 

You close your hands around the rope holding them, throwing your head back as your body meets her thrusts and you grind up against her finger, searching for the edge. All the breath in your body rushes out at once when you reach it, stiffening and trembling against her body. Your hard nipples brush against the material of your bra and your nails dig into the skin of your palm. You go completely rigid and mute before slumping down onto the bed. 

Your fingers teak at the aftershocks, you feel Agatha slipping the dildo out of you and her face enters your blurred vision. 

“Did you learn your lesson?” She asks seriously, her face closed off again. 

You nod vigorously, still bound and helpless, you couldn’t tell what she would do next. 

“Good.”  She says and reaches up, untying the thick rope from your wrists and adding. “Stay where you are, I’m going to get a wipe.” 

Puzzlement fills your mind and you rub your red skin, maybe this would be the perfect time to run, even with your shirt torn and naked half self, but you doubted your jelly legs would take you far. Besides, her mood had changed, she seemed softer and you weren't sure if the change of temperament was her mental health acting up or if she was calmer because of your early answer. 

There’s not a lot of time to think when you hear her coming back from the bathroom, towel in hand. Your breath is caught in your throat and you watch her every move, paralyzed. She settles herself on the bed, in front of you, before looking into your eyes and asking. 

“May I?”

You open yourself for her once more, she’s already fucked you stupid, there’s no need to be ashamed. 

Her knuckles run up your calf and stop in your knee, her other hand placing the white wet material against your thigh and wiping the stickiness in it. You shudder when she brushes your core and wonder if you are catching her insanity by thinking of doing this again. 

“I’m glad I didn’t have to use my gun on you.” She lets out a relieved laugh and points with her head at the nightstand behind you.

You turn around and are greeted by a hose head.  

[emswritingsstuff]

Home at Last (Daryl Dixon x Fem! Reader)

another request from @caseylicious !! i love your daryl ideas so much!! hope you enjoy!! 🫶🫶

Summary: After being left on the roof with Merle, you're separated from Daryl.

WC: 2.7k

--

“Merle was a danger to himself and everyone else, your husband did the right thing.” Andrea looked over at Lori, she just looked up at Rick and nodded, still looking unsure about the whole situation. “What about (Y/N)? I mean she definitely doesn’t deserve to be left with him.” Dale inquired. Glenn shook his head and held it in his hands, just dreading the conversation they were going to have with Daryl. “It's not our fault she wanted to stay; she wasn’t listening to us. What more could we have done,” Rick said matter of factly. Head nods and sighs were a sign of mutual agreement with Rick. They all knew you, but they also knew Daryl. 

It was clear to everyone that you and the Dixons were a package deal. Daryl and you were together for a while before everything had started. Making Merle practically your brother at that point, meaning you weren’t just going to sit around and let a random cop handcuff him. You did agree Merle was out of line but keeping him tied down the roof was not the move. Determined to make them let him go, you stayed with him. Without a second thought too. But that plan failed, as they did actually leave you. Ironically, without a second thought. But they all knew once the news got to Daryl, Hell would certainly break loose within the camp. 

The morning sun casted over the camp, everyone doing the daily routine with their chores. Shane had just brought in the water when screams were heard, the children screamed. Everyone ran to action seeing a walker had made its way onto the camp, eating a deer with a bunch of arrows in it. After disabling the walker, rustling was heard in the bushes, all of them breathing in sighs of relief when it was revealed to be Daryl. But the sighs of relief turned into stressful breathing when they realized what they were about to have to explain to him. 

Daryl was ranting on about the loss of venison, shooting the brain, and whatever else as he marched his way back into the camp. Everyone was keeping their distance from him, not wanting to get too close in case he exploded. Daryl had started yelling for you and Merle, completely unaware of what he was about to find out. 

“Daryl, I need to talk to you about them,” Shane spoke. Daryl looked at Shane with a questionable look, not so sure about what Shane was about to tell him. “Something happened on the run-” 

“They dead?” Daryl looked more tense now, ready to take his anger out on whoever got you both killed. The more Shane and Rick spoke, the more angry Daryl grew. FInding out they had stupidly left you both there threw him off the tiny edge he was standing on. 

“Lemme process this, ya handcuffed my brother to a roof? And left him and my girl there?” The anger was obvious, he was pacing around Rick. Nothing could be said in that moment to make him feel better. 

“If it makes anything better, I chained the door shut so geeks couldn’t get them,” point proven right there. Right as Daryl went to throw a punch, Shane put him in a headlock, pinning him to the ground. “Chokeholds illegal,” he mumbled as he caught his breath still in the group. Rick crouched down to Daryl’s level and told him how it is. That it just had to happen in order for the group to be saved, but he wasn’t buying it. 

Just like how they knew how much he meant to you, they knew how much you meant to him. You were the rational part of him, the part of him that kept him level headed, the part of him they all missed right now. But it was their fault you were gone, at least to him. He had started to break down, just enough to where it was noticeable. 

Rick had made the plan to go out with Daryl and Glenn to retrieve you and Merle, but also the guns. T-Dog soon made the choice to tag along as well. Though, Daryl knew everyone just wanted the guns and could give less of shit about the people he cared about. A nervous gut feeling hit Daryl, he didn’t want to show it, but he was scared shitless. If neither of you were there, he didn’t know what he would do. 

Daryl was getting antsy with Rick and T-Dog taking their sweet ass time getting into the truck. He was pacing again, nervous habit, just needed to see you were okay. Merle could defend himself, he knew that. You could as well, he taught you to, but he couldn’t let go of you no matter what. His leg was bouncing like crazy, the eventual drive feeling like it was taking forever. T-Dog looked at Daryl, just watching him. The tension was high, and he wanted to try and ease the air. 

“So, you and (Y/N), how’d that happen,” Daryl shot him a glare. T-Dog looked away, regretting what he had said instantly. Bringing his rag to his face, Daryl wiped it off and proceeded to speak. “None of yer business, just needa know you messed up leavin’ her there,” Daryl's eyes darted down at his hands not even wanting to engage in anymore conversations. 

Once finally getting to the department store, Daryl hauled his ass through it. Getting to the roof faster than everybody else. Getting the door open, the bright light threw him off. As soon as his eyes adjusted, he was devastated. It was empty.

Blood was all over the floor, Merle’s hand was on the ground and both of you were nowhere to be seen. The only thing of yours left behind being a necklace, intentionally placed where it would be seen. It was a sign that you were alive, but also a sign you were gone. Like you wanted to leave something of you for him. He lost you, he fucking lost you. 

Ever since that day on the rooftop, he swore to himself that he would look for you. No matter what, he looked. Tracking anything he could, any sign of you, just anything. The group had tried to convince him you were gone, to make him stop risking himself out there. Which never worked, he didn’t believe for a second you were dead. When on the road after the farm, he still looked. Going into the woods constantly, claiming to hunt, but in reality just putting up a front so he wouldn’t get chewed out for still looking for you. 

Daryl didn’t want to admit it. He really didn’t want to admit it, but he was starting to lose faith in ever finding you again. As the days went on, the tracks were growing cold. The faith he had rapidly dying with it. “She’ll turn up, she’s like you,” looking beside him, Glenn had snuck up on him. He didn’t blame Glenn for the rooftop, Hell, he couldn’t blame anyone for it. Daryl just shook his head and put it down. Glenn spoke up again, just trying to make him feel better. 

“She’s stubborn, should’ve seen her that day. Thought she was going to kill Rick herself for Merle.” Glenn giggled to himself, Daryl just huffing. Not an angry huff though, it was something more lighthearted. The idea of you defending Merle was amusing. “Her ass was probably more pissed at Merle than anythin’” Daryl had gotten used to thinking back on memories with you. Merle and you had never gotten along, ironically it's what he liked about you. Never scared to put him in his place. In return, Merle gave Daryl his approval about you, which was really unneeded in Daryl’s opinion. 

Unfortunately for him, once the group got to the prison so much was happening that he didn’t have time to look. He felt horrible about it, surely feeling like the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth. Everything that had happened became a blur, trying to keep the prison up, the multiple losses, the birth of Judith, just so much going on he could barely keep track. The thing that brought him back to reality was the ambush on Woodbury, and the reunion with his brother. 

But still no you, still nothing. He had to hold back the tears the minute he found out Merle hadn’t seen you in ages. Apparently you had run off when you Merle got with the Governor. When the brothers branched off from the main group, Daryl was silent. Part of him was mad at Merle for letting you go, but the other part was dealing with the fact you were gone. Probably for good. 

Walking through the woods, Merle was talking his ass off. Just saying shit and Daryl couldn’t care to listen to any of it. “Lighten’ up brother! The Dixons are back!” He roughly pat Daryl on the back. Daryl was quick to grumble and shrug off Merle's sorry attempt at making a joke. “Now, what's wrong Darlina? Gotten soft?” Daryl stopped and let Merle keep on walking. It took a minute for Merle to realize he stopped, which made him stop too and look back at his brother. 

“Why’d ya let her go.” Daryl's words were harsh but quiet. Just enough to wipe the smirk off Merle’s face. Stepping up to Daryl, Merle was trying to intimidate him. But Daryl wasn’t going to budge, he was never going to let himself do that. Not with Merle. “I didn’t let her go, the bitch got scared. Didn’t trust the Governor, chose to fend for herself. Like the dumbass she is,” Merle was quickly cut off with a swift punch in his face. Getting knocked on his ass by Daryl. 

He crouched down to Merle’s level and got in his face. “Speak about ‘er like tha’ again, I’ll kill ya next time.” Daryl jerked forward to imitate a punch which caused Merle to flinch. Scoffing, Daryl moved forward through the woods. Just those few interactions made him realize staying with Merle was a mistake, he needed to get back to the family that cared about him and that he cared about. 

It had felt like ages since they had seen anything other than the woods, when it was actually a few hours. When Daryl had spotted a small shed, he was grateful. Maybe there was something in there that could be useful. Daryl whistled to get Merle’s attention and make him see what he saw. Inching closer and closer to the shed door, crossbow at the ready but no finger on the trigger. If something was in there he could act quickly, but he didn’t want to be irrational. 

Throwing open the door, there was nothing there. Putting down the bow, he breathed a sigh of relief and looked some more. There were signs of life but nothing that alarmed him. Water bottles were scattered around, some still filled. Jackpot. Snatching them up Daryl put them with their other belongings. If the person living there showed up, he’d give them back no problem. But finders keepers for now. 

The brothers decided mutually that they were going to camp for the night in that spot, just creating a small campfire outside the shed before turning in. The night dragged on, heavy tension filled air filled the brothers atmosphere. Merle had walked off to look for “food”, leaving Daryl by himself. Just him and his thoughts. He had found himself sitting around the fire just staring at it. The memories came flooding back to him, he just missed you so much. He hates himself for not continuing to look for you. He’ll never forgive himself for giving up, but more could he really do. 

As if the universe was giving him a sign, he heard twigs snap in the distance. His head snapped in the direction of the sound, instantly on edge about the whole ordeal. Standing up slowly he equipped his crossbow but before he could raise it up, an arm wrapped around his neck bringing him down. This wasn’t a walker, this was a person. And a pretty strong one at that. 

Making quick work of getting out of the chokehold he separated himself and the attacker in question. A bandanna was wrapped around their face to cover it, they were wearing a heavy jacket with a hood up. Daryl could barely make out who this person even was, which made it all the more weird when the attacker said his name. Quietly of course, but he heard it. Trying to figure out what was happening he was lost in his thoughts. He never even saw the attacker charge at him again. 

Standing his ground he fought them off as best as he could, just trying to figure out how this person knew who he was. Pushing down harshly, the attacker fell on their back almost knocked out. Daryl took this as his moment to get rid of the disguise the attacker had on, and almost broke when he took the bandanna off. 

It was you, it was really you. He could barely believe it himself. 

Daryl stepped backwards and fell to his knees. Hurting you was something he never once wanted to do, and he just did that. He was defending himself, sure, and you attacked him. Guilt started to weigh on him, causing him to go crazy a bit. The whole situation didn’t feel real, which was a shared feeling. You weren’t in your right state of mind, he knew that. But Daryl was focused on the tears and the emotions he was feeling that he didn’t notice you get up and pounce on him again, successfully pinning him to the ground.

He was trying to explain himself, trying so hard to make you see reality. It surprised him how strong you had gotten after all this time, fighting so hard against your strength. “You’re not real. If you were, you would’ve found me sooner,” you said holding a knife up to his throat. Having him in such a bad position. Daryl acted quick and knocked the knife out of your hands and flipped you over so that he was now holding you down. His strong arm was across your chest and his legs held down yours. 

Tears streamed down his face as you thrashed against him, begging to be let go. Daryl could barely speak, hating to see you like this and him being the reason for it. “I tried, I looked everyday, I never wanted to give up. Please, it’s me.” Daryl’s head fell with his hair covering his face. A few more hits flew from you, definitely going to leave marks, but did not care. He needed you back. 

Surprisingly for him, the thrashing stopped. Just to make sure it wasn’t a fake out, he didn’t look up. But once he did look, he saw your face was softened. Moving his arm off your chest, he freed you a bit. Still weary on if you were in a better space or not. Your arm snaked up from your side where it was held down, taking the necklace Daryl had on in your hands.

“It's my necklace. It is you. You looked for me..” Your voice was breaking and soft, like the regret had set in. He had always kept the necklace tucked under his shirt so it wouldn’t get caught on anything and risk losing it, must've slipped out during the fight. Wiping his face, Daryl looked in your eyes, “Course I looked, never wanted to lose ya.” He eased up and stood up off of you, helping you up in the process. The minute you were up and stable, his strong arms were around you, this time in a loving embrace. 

Tears were falling like they never had before, the both of you just living in the moment in each other's arms. “They left me,” you silently whispered, voice breaking even more., Daryl just shushed you softly and put his hand in your hair. “I know, but now I got ya. Never leavin’ ya again.”

--

btw if anyone has s1-s2 daryl request pls, send them i love him

[paleprincessturtle]

i heard you’re taking requests for harvey specter and angst with him would be so good !!!! i just finished reading the sorrow of tomorrow and you write him so well like i can’t wait for the next part, your writing is awesome. so i was wondering if you could write some sort of angst with a happy ending with him, like maybe they get into an argument and harvey being harvey says something to take it too far but they make up later somehow. just a suggestion, u don’t need to write it if you don’t want to!!

Thank you so much for the kind words and the request! Hope you enjoy this one 😊 And bear with me, this is a looooong one. I seriously got carried away writing this.

GETAWAY HOUSE

She marched towards Harvey's office, her face red with anger. "Mike, get out," she ordered a visibly surprised Mike. "But we are in the middle of..." she lifted her hand, "in the middle of a meeting, I know. But please, get out. I need to speak with Harvey." She looked at Harvey, and the two stared at each other. Mike left the room after realizing the obvious tension in the room and not wanting to stand in the way of a woman who looked like she might breathe fire.

She looked over her shoulder until she was sure that Mike had closed the door. "I will give you a good 5 minutes to explain why the hell is Pharma Pro insisting on settling," she folded both arms in front of her. Harvey didn't even look at her. He looked busy writing something on a paper in front of him. "You tell me, they're your client," Harvey gave her a quick glance before he looked back down at the paper. "Don't give me that shit, Harvey. They received a memo. It was signed "Specter" on the memo. I never signed my name like that on a memo. The only Specter who knows this case is you." Harvey put down his pen and said, "You are another Specter who not only knows but is handling this case." She gaped. "Harvey, I have to spend my morning explaining why there is a memo under my surname that they have to settle after just yesterday I told them to go to court." Harvey watched her for a few seconds. She looked pissed, and most of all, there was betrayal in the eyes he loved the most. "Yes, it was me." She took a sharp breath and sat in front of him. "Why?" she asked quietly, her eyes glued to the black desk in front of her. "You won't win in court," Harvey said simply. She heard no trace of guilt or remorse in the voice she knew very well. "You don't trust me?" Her voice was just above a whisper. She was on the verge of crying. The thought of her own husband not trusting her judgment in her own case... And he had to interfere. Basically, embarrassing her in front of her biggest client. "We just got this firm back on its feet, and I am the new managing partner. If you lose Pharma Pro, it won't look good on us. I don't trust your call, so I had to step up," Harvey said as his voice softened at the sight of his wife, who looked like she was about to burst into tears. Harvey knew she had been through a lot to be where she was right now, but not once did Harvey ever see her cry, at least not over some work. "But you could've come to me and discussed it with me. You are my husband, yes. But I will never overrule you here in the office." Harvey scoffed. "If we discuss this, you will still proceed to court." She pulled her hand out of Harvey's grasp. "Yes! Because they are my client, and I know them better than you." She stood so fast that she almost knocked over the chair she was sitting on. Harvey looked up at her wife, seething with anger. Harvey's jaw tightened. "You think you would still sign with Pharma Pro if it weren't for my last name being yours?" She gasped as both her hands flew to cover her mouth. She grabbed the edge of the chair; she felt like Harvey had just slapped her. The second the words got out of his mouth, he knew it was a total mistake. "Sunny, I..." she interrupted him by lifting her hand. She took a deep breath and tried so hard to compose herself. "You know what, Harvey? I thought I would bring this secret to the grave, but three months before we got married, I got a senior partner offer from Skadden. Skadden, Harvey. Not just any firm. Skadden. No, I wasn't using your name then. I turned them down because I love this firm. And the thought of working side by side with my husband was so heavenly back then. The thought of how we could always support each other..." She trailed off, her voice shaking. "I turned that offer down even though I knew Jessica wouldn't mind. And you know what they said after I turned them down? They said the offer will firmly stand if I want to take it in the future. But again, Harvey, I think you know me better than whoever it was at Skadden. And no, it wasn't your name that got me to sign Pharma Pro. I slept with Russell Whitmore. Is that the truth you want to hear?" Her words cut through Harvey, even though he knew she was lying. She stormed out of his office as he tried to catch up with her. He grabbed his arm, and she sharply looked back at him and said, "Don't you fucking dare follow me, Harvey." Harvey stood there, frozen in place, as he saw his wife fade away from view.

It was 15 minutes before midnight. Harvey stood at the doorway to Mike's office. Harvey didn't go after his wife earlier today. But when he (most definitely on purpose) walked past his wife's office, he found it empty. And it wasn't even 5. "Are you just going to stand there, Harvey? You creep me out," Mike said as he flipped over a file. Harvey snapped out of it. "I want to ask if you know where my wife is," Harvey asked carefully. "I don't know, Harvey. She's your wife," Mike shrugged. "Didn't Rachel tell you if she was with her?" Mike finally looked at Harvey. Mike has to admit that Harvey looked very stressed. "Again. I don't know, Harvey. Maybe if you stopped being a certified douchebag, you would know the whereabouts of your wife." Mike looked sharply at Harvey, whose shoulders slumped at Mike's answer. As much as Mike wanted to help Harvey out, it wasn't his place. "I took it you heard about the fight?" Mike let out a sarcastic laugh. "Donna saw your wife crying in the toilet. Donna told Rachel, and Rachel told me. In the process of Rachel telling me, Louis heard. Yeah, everyone knew. And before you asked, yes, everyone sided with your wife." Harvey let out a defeated sigh as he rubbed his forehead. "Give her time, Harvey." Harvey nodded at Mike's advice before going back to his office.

Harvey was deep in thought, listening to his father's record while nursing a glass of whisky. "I very much don't want to see your face, but Gretchen already went home, and I need you to sign this fast." Harvey closed his eyes at the voice of Louis. The last thing he needs now is Louis chewing on his ass. "What is it, Louis?" Harvey turned away from the window as he walked to his desk. Louis didn't say a thing; he just pointed at the document he brought. Harvey nodded as he sat down and started skimming the document. "If I didn't promise your wife I wouldn't beat the shit out of you, I would've beaten the shit out of you," Louis said quickly, his face red. Harvey looked up slowly at Louis for the sudden outburst. "When she got married to you, she asked me to walk her down the aisle. We aren't even related, but she chose to come to me. She is like a ..." Louis choked on his own words. "She is like a daughter to me. And what you said to her, Harvey... And if you don't make this right, I swear to God, Harvey, I will make your life a living hell. I would gladly be her attorney if she chose to divorce." Harvey nodded as he handed Louis the document.

Harvey got home just a little after 3. After he made sure that his wife wasn't home, he chose not to be home at any cost. But at the same time, he longed to be home. Harvey poured himself another glass of whisky. He watched the fire as he laughed to himself. His wife would've scolded him if she knew he poured himself yet another glass of whisky at this hour. But his wife wasn't here, and his heart heaved. He checked his phone. Nothing. He left him 7 voicemails and more than 10 texts; all of them sat cold. Then he realized that he hadn't seen Donna all day in the office today. He quickly grabbed his phone and called Donna. She didn't pick up, considering the time, but he tried again. "Harvey, if the firm isn't on fire, I would hang up right now," came Donna's hoarse voice at the other line. "Donna, I'm sorry; please don't hang up. Is my wife there?" Harvey asked, a glimmer of hope apparent in his voice. Silent. "Donna?" Another silent. Harvey checked his phone just in case the phone abruptly ended. "She is here." Harvey sighed in relief. "Okay, I'm going there now," Harvey said as he stood up. "Harvey, no," Donna said firmly. "No?" Harvey stopped in his tracks. "Give her time, Harvey. You really hurt her." Harvey's turned to stay silent. "Harvey, remember how many times she got to cut you some slacks? How many times has she stood by your side, no matter what? How many times did she get back to you after you hurt her and you only gave her a simple apology? How many times, Harvey?" Harvey bit his lip, forcing him to hold a sob. "Will she come back, Donna? I'll give her all the time in the world; just tell me, Donna. Will she come back?" Donna closed her eyes as she heard the hoarseness of Harvey's voice. "I don't know, Harvey. I don't know," Donna said truthfully.

Harvey didn't sleep that night. He got back to the office early in the morning. He saw Donna, who smiled curtly at him. He didn't expect to see his wife in her office when he walked past her office. She wasn't there. But to Harvey's surprise, there she was. Sat gracefully in the conference room, holding a meeting with Pharma Pro's execs. He caught her eye. Before he got the chance to smile at her, she turned her focus back to Russel Whitmore, the CEO of Pharma Pro. Harvey sighed and headed to the elevator. He himself had a meeting to attend.

Harvey got back to the office around 5. When he passed her wife's office, he saw her there. Her back faced him. A few folders opened in front of her. As much as Harvey wanted to go in and hold her, he knew he had to give her some time. He got to his office and fired up his laptop.

A few hours later, Harvey almost lost his mind. His wife was just a few offices away, yet he couldn't do anything. He brought some papers and stood up to leave his office. He prayed so hard so that her wife would still be in her office. An office before his wife's, Harvey stopped himself. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. He couldn't remember the last time he was this nervous. He was nervous when his wife told him that he should talk to Louis for her hand in marriage. They were close. Really close. She was so close that she considered Louis her own family. Since she had no immediate family. But this is different. He felt like his marriage was on the edge. And it was all because of him. He took another deep breath and finally knocked on his wife's door before opening the door. Harvey sighed a breath of relief. His wife was still there, buried in a lot of files. "Hey," Harvey said softly as he entered her office. "Hey," she answered shortly, not knowing what to do. She wanted to yell at Harvey and slap him. But dear God, the look on his face. She knew he hadn't slept. "Can I?" Harvey referred to the chair across from her. She only nodded. "I've been making this whole speech since last night about what I would say when we met. But seeing your face..." Harvey stopped himself. His hand itched to touch his wife. "I took you for granted. And I'm sorry, I really am." His wife looked at him stoically. "Here," Harvey showed her the papers he brought with him.

"A house in.. Hamptons? This is your way of saying sorry? Oh yeah, right. I couldn't afford a house in the Hamptons since I'm a low-degree lawyer." She scoffed, and Harvey shook his head. "Remember the second day of our honeymoon?" Harvey asked. How could she forget? They stayed in a beautiful villa in Como.

"We should buy a villa here," she said as she climbed on top of Harvey. Both of them were in bed, with the vast view of Lake Como at their disposal. Nothing was between them but a thin layer of white sheet. She propped herself up; they were face-to-face. "And why is that?" Harvey asked, smirking at his wife. "So whenever we are tired, we can always come here and get away from the world." Harvey marveled at the look of wonder in his wife's eyes. "In here, it's just us. You," she kissed his lips, "and me." Harvey caressed his wife's bare back. "You do realize we are in Italy, right?" She giggled at the fact that they were indeed a 10-hour flight away from home. "Then at the Hamptons! It wasn't far," she said excitedly. "I don't need a getaway house. I have my wife and my job all in one place; I wouldn't need anything else." She wanted to argue, but Harvey turned them over as she squealed.

"I told you I don't need a getaway house. I don't need to be away from all this," Harvey said as he gestured to whatever was around them. "But all this without you? The stress of this place has led me astray from you. I hurt you. If I could do anything to even just lessen the pain I caused you, I would do it. I won't waste another word saying how much I'm sorry, but I will make it up to you." Harvey took his wife's hands in his, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. "If you let me, I will take you to our new house." Harvey's voice was laced with questions. "I know it is not Como. And we can always cancel this house if you don't want it. We could go there, and you can pick it yourself," Harvey rambled. Harvey stood up and moved his chair next to hers. "Please come with me. Let me fix this for us." Harvey put his hand on her cheek as she leaned into his warm hand. "Harvey, it's only Tuesday. I have my week full," she said, shaking her head. "If you agree, we can just leave first thing in the morning. I've cleared everything with Louis and Donna. Rachel and Mike will take on your clients. Just say yes," he said, closing the gap between them. His lips hovered over hers. She closed her eyes. "I'm still mad at you," she whispered. "I know, but let me prove to you that I want to be better; I'll make it up to you. Please, Sunny. This is my last chance, I swear to you. I love you more than life," he said, running his thumb across her lips. "I will drop everything here if that's what you nee..." Harvey didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Harvey closed his eyes as he felt his wife's lips on his. He wanted to cry, for he thought he would never be this close again with his wife. He held his wife close. She broke the kiss, their foreheads touched. "Take me home, Harvey."

MASTERLIST

[saltymongoose]

ok i have a request: phobos with a shy player who hides behind him to avoid talking to people. extra bonus points if they also tend to get overstimulated and will just hang out in his office because they know nobody will disturb them

Of course! Here you go Anon, Happy New Year! <3

Phobos' Reaction to a Shy!Player

(TW: Yandere, Obsessive Behavior, Referenced Violence)

The moment you first show some signs of extreme shyness, Phobos’ concern is obvious. The sight of you ducking behind him when two of his agents passed by made him wonder if they'd committed the sin of scaring you in some way.

He’ll ask you about it in a soft manner, ever polite and gentlemanly. “Have my men done anything to make you wary, Your Grace? I assure you, I’ll punish them appropriately for their transgression, whatever it might be."

(Perhaps he was a little too convinced that they did something. But the Director couldn’t stand for anyone or anything making you too scared to be there at the Nexus’ headquarters, too scared to be near him. Plus, he couldn’t stand it if these nobodies made his organization look bad to you. Not when all of this was for your favor.)

You wave your hands and try to assuage his concern, explaining that you were just a bit overwhelmed by others’ attention and that his personnel weren’t at fault for anything. (Luckily for them.) The Director merely hummed in response, but you could tell he was put at ease by the way his hand fell from the pommel of the sword at his side.

After that, however, Phobos learns to appreciate your shyness each time it rears its head. The way it causes you to go to him for comfort is something he can’t help but adore, not only because it serves him with that attention from you he so craves, but also because it shows just how much you trust him.

Really, it’s enough to make him swoon. Witnessing his God showing so much faith in him and his capabilities, seeing how you go to him and him alone for comfort—it's far more than any simple vessel of yours could hope for.

Phobos will do his best to ensure that you never regret your choice, and he’ll be infinitely welcoming and understanding whenever you feel the need to escape from others’ attention.

He’ll place himself between you and anyone else who enters your vicinity, acting as a barrier should you not want to spend your time mingling with his lessers. (Besides, he really doesn’t think that they deserve an inkling of your attention anyway, even if they are his underlings.)

If you do decide to socialize, he’ll try to keep you close regardless. He figures it would be best to do so in case anyone tries to get too comfortable around you or dares to upset you.

Needless to say, the workers of the Nexus Core are never truly at ease whenever they’re around you; it’s impossible to be. Not when their Director is leering in their direction like he’s a second away from violently lunging at them. And they honestly believe Phobos enjoys the discomfort they feel around him. (And they’d be right.)

On the off chance that Phobos cannot accompany you, he’ll have one of his officers do it instead (likely a Tower Guard or another one of his more powerful units). They’ll be under strict orders concerning their treatment of you, of course.

Phobos absolutely loves it when you hide away in his office to get some proper peace and quiet. Just being able to look up from his work and see you lazing about on the seat closest to his or reading a book he’s gifted you makes him feel all the more warm in your presence. Perhaps it’s the joy of being in your sphere, or simply the gratefulness he has that you chose him and his place as your getaway, but the butterflies in his chest can’t seem to die down when you’re so close.

He’ll encourage you to stay more often and for longer each time you drop by. Phobos will also use a myriad of reasons to try to convince you if you hesitate; whether it be his need for your tactical knowledge or him “accidentally” ordering someone to bring your favorite snacks/drink to his office before you even entered. Either way, you’ll find yourself having some obligation to spend more time with him. Not like you mind it that much; Phobos is surprisingly good company (to you, at least), and it stops you from having to mingle with others when you don’t wish to.

Overall, Phobos is surprisingly soft and doting when faced with your shyness - even affectionate (and clingy) at times. However, that's to be expected; it's a side only you could ever bring out of him, after all. For the Director of the Nexus Core, treating you any different would be a crime worthy of the worst consequences imaginable.

[pthalogreenwriter]

Trouville Limerence - Chapter 1

A/n: This is going to be the slowest of burns that I have ever written in my life. If I'm missing any tags, comment what they are and I'll add them!

Wc: 4.1k

Summary: Hitman/Assassin!Gojo x Reader where he's very Yandere but doesn't want to kill you, he is genuinely obsessed with you.

Important background info for readers: Kaisen: A company that hires enhanced people as individual contractors, paying them through the funding of personal clients and the government, to kill the worst people in society (those that are pedophiles, killers, beaters of women and children, and so on.) All enhanced contractors have super strength, immense speed and reflexes, immense endurance, great tactical strength, enhanced senses. (Rules: no women or children.)

Warning: gore, descriptions of unaliving someone else (tumblr its fake), Gojo being annoying

Satoru Gojo woke up that Friday to the same alarm he woke up to everyday. 

He sat up and slapped his hand down on the clock, promising he would get himself a new one that wasn’t as loud as the one on his nightstand. Gojo was a light sleeper after all, he had to be now that he was in charge of Megumi Fushiguro. 

Fushiguro. It’s been two years since Toji went missing on an assignment and was never heard from again. He dropped Megumi off at Gojo’s in case it took the whole night to get the job done. Turns out, Toji was never able to finish it. 

So Gojo took Megumi in for his friend without question and now years later, he was taking the kid to school, which he didn’t mind at all. Being guardian of Megumi kept him in check. Small mundane things like buying groceries, cleaning up, and schedules became important to Gojo now that he was responsible for someone else’s life. 

Before Fushiguro, Gojo lived the life he wanted to. Working in the day, partying and getting fucked up at night. He brought anyone he wanted home, getting off on anonymity more than the actual person. He was satisfied with the life, no complaints.

And then when Fushiguro came into his life, it changed. No more hookups, he couldn’t just order in anymore since it was unhealthy, and he had to trade in his motorcycle for an actual car. Despite that, he had Megumi. Yeah, the kid was stoic and was always annoyed by him, but Gojo quickly learned that he was like that with everyone, so he wasn’t offended. If anything, Gojo was satisfied that Megumi treated him like everyone else because that way, he knew the kid was comfortable. Yes, he was satisfied with this life too. No complaints.

Except, there was a small one. 

Satoru Gojo was just satisfied. He wasn’t happy. He hasn’t been in a long time.

It was 7:05am when Gojo sighed and decided to get up from his bed, finally waking up Fushiguro even though the kid beat him to the punch everyday like clockwork. He doesn’t know if it was his heightened senses or the food, but Gojo can smell the breakfast aromas coming from the kitchen. He can only hope that Fushiguro saved some for him.

Gojo went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth before going to the kitchen and laughing to himself once he saw Megumi. Although not related, Fushiguro picked up some habits of Gojo before he could stop himself. It started when They would both eat before deciding to get dressed, not wanting to get food on their day clothes. Soon, Megumi started wearing sweatpants to bed when he saw Gojo wake up with different ones all the time, finding them rather comfy himself. The only regret he has with them is that once in a while, both Gojo and Megumi would wake up with matching pants. This annoyed Fushiguro while always amusing the guardian for obvious reasons. This morning was that once in a while.

“Good morning Megumi! How’d you sleep?” It wouldn’t matter what time it was, Gojo always had a better tone than Fushiguro.

A grunt in reply came from Megumi with a “Your food is on the counter.”

Gojo looked and there it was, sitting on the black counter of the kitchen. He grabbed his plate and utensils, thanking Fushiguro by rubbing the top of his head and annoying him further. Gojo continued standing, lower back leaning on the counter while they both ate in silence. Fushiguro’s version of quality time.

Once finished, Gojo washed their dishes and they both continued on with their morning routine. While Fushiguro showered, Gojo picked his standard button up and black slacks for work. Then he did his morning check of the place. 

Prior to Megumi, Gojo was comfortable sleeping with only one lock on the door. He had no deadbolts, windows were open while he slept, and knives were hidden everywhere. He could have taken on anyone who wanted to try it, he knew that. But with someone else under his roof, let alone a child, Gojo knew that if there was a possibility of someone breaking in, then there was a possibility of Megumi getting hurt. And with his line of work, Satoru couldn’t take that chance. 

Gojo killed for a living. He was the murderer of killers, and he loved it. The training he endured as a teen was not what he initially wanted, but he made the best of it. He had no idea at the time what the training would do for him, until one day he decided to actually give “working hard” a try. He became faster, stronger, and smarter when he learned how to hone in on his senses and abilities. 

Satoru excelled at it all, much better than his classmates, with the exception of Suguro Geto. They trained together and when time came, they killed together. All the murderers, pedophiles, and beaters were at their mercy as much as they wanted. It was the thrill of a lifetime to make memories with his best friend while they were at the top of the food chain. Gojo was more than satisfied. Not happy, but close.

And when Toji went missing, Gojo worked on bigger cases that paid more to have more time at home with Megumi. Again, Gojo didn’t care. He would rather take care of him than some freak family he rarely heard Toji talk about. They didn’t even care enough to fight for him in court. 

But Gojo would. He would fight for Fushiguro any day. Now that he had him, he actually had a reason now to give a fuck about himself and someone else. 

Yet, that wasn’t what he was missing, judging by the constant empty pit in his chest. 

He was thinking about this feeling again when he was checking the windows and doors. Gojo didn’t keep knives hidden everywhere because he didn’t think Fushiguro was ready for that conversation yet but he was still glad to feel the ones he had strapped above the living room window and under the right side of the couch. Feeling those in his morning and night checks always helped him relax a little bit and continue on. 

Once Fushiguro left the bathroom, Gojo got ready himself. They were out of the house by their usual time, 8am. Megumi needed to get to his school by 8:30am but lately preferred getting there 15 minutes early to hang with his new friend, Yuji. Gojo was surprised when he first asked, but he was glad that Megumi actually looked forward to talking to someone.

Gojo got to the Kaisen building a little before 9am, like always. Parking his car in the building garage, he took a long deep breath before getting out. 

Yeah Gojo loved his job. Getting paid in millions to kill people worse than him was the dream, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. He toyed with the idea of becoming a regular cop but he knew it would never be possible. The justice system always failed and he preferred the idea of Kaisen fixing the government’s mistakes. Besides, killing was just too much fun.

Satoru Gojo would’ve been the same as the lives he’s ended if he didn’t have his own moral compass. He resented the idea of harming women and children. There was no joy or need to harm them in this life so why do others have that urge? 

It doesn’t matter.

Gojo never listened to their reasoning or pleas. Instead, it made it more fun when they begged him to live. As if he would ever let them. He took his time with his case subjects, just like they would with their victims. Only difference was that he could get away with it. If Gojo ever saw their name on a black file, they never had a chance. 

He wouldn’t always kill the same either. Depending on what they did, Gojo would use different ways to end their lives. Stabbing, burning, if he’s bored, he’ll take them to the woods to hunt them. His personal favorite was by his own hands, beating them to death. 

The only thing each of his kills had in common, was the way he made them look into his eyes as he felt the life leave their bodies. Gojo almost got off on it, if he was that kind of person. But to feel them die in his hands while they looked at him as if he was the monster was the closest he ever got to feeling like a God. 

Gojo took the elevator up to the near top of the building where his office was. He shared the floor with other contractors like Geto and Kento Nanami, men he was glad he could call friends. Both had watched Fushiguro when Gojo had to finish an assignment outside of work hours, helping him as when they all helped Toji. 

Reaching the floor his office was on, the first person that Gojo talked to in the building was Kiyotaka Ijichi. 

Ijichi was leaving Geto’s office when he saw Gojo exit the elevator and mentally prepared himself for the interaction with the contractor. He didn’t hate him, if anything Ijichi was also on the small list that’s trusted to watch Fushigurl on a long day. No, Gojo was just a pain in the ass. 

“Satoru, you were the next person I was going to see.” 

“Awww, did you miss me Ijichi?” Gojo looked at his friend in the suit with a sly smile as his sunglasses slipped a centimeter down the bridge of his nose. 

They entered Gojo’s office, similar to the other large offices on the floor - white walls and ash gray furniture. The desk, couch, and 2 chairs all faced the west side of the room where a TV was hanging on the wall, next to the door of the bathroom. Instead of a back wall, it was large full sized window panes and door, leading out to a black balcony. If you looked close enough, you could see the dust starting to form everywhere but the desk. That’s how much Gojo actually used the office. 

Ijichi wasted no time in his reply, “Actually, no. I’m here about your current case.”

The black folder sat closed on Gojo’s desk as if it was never opened, but he had read it all. Inside the folder, there were pictures of victims, faces and genitals mutilated with what they now know to be a scalpel. Women, early teens to mid 40s, all with exotic colors dyed in their hair as highlights. This was how he chose them.

Depending on the time, the killer would go for women in low or middle class society. The time meaning if he felt like taking a risk or not. Tonight, he was taking a different risk. 

“Well, months after the acquittal and constant surveillance, we can definitely say for sure that Mahito is the Seam Sinner.” This was the name the public came up with after the first two murders. “He waited for it to die down and didn’t go anywhere other than his med-school classes, ordering everything to his place. Until a few days ago, he got bored and we got lucky.” Ijichi paused himself on the update, realizing his mistake. “Although, the girl didn’t.”

Gojo’s usual playful energy escaped from the room at that moment. His expression turned flat, knowing what was to come. Another black file that was in Ijichi’s hand was then placed in front of him. Gojo didn’t notice it until now. 

He opened the folder. Like the others, the girl’s hair was dyed with highlights, this time they were red. Her face and body were cut up with a familiar pattern, shaped like stitches and seams. There was no DNA of his, only pools of her blood around her body, showing that she died of massive blood loss. Pictures of him leaving the abandoned building where her body was later found followed. 

After letting Gojo examine the pictures and reports from Kaisen and the police, Ijichi continued on. “Once her body was found, he didn’t want to wait. Maybe he is on some sort of kill high but last night we found him bringing plastic sheeting and rope he got delivered to his place to another building. He may still already have the scalpel that he’s been using to go at it again tonight.”

The contractor hummed in his seat while he pushed his hands in his pocket and dipped his head. He thought in silence for a moment, confirming what he came up with before. He already knew how he was going to handle Mahito.

“Okay, sounds like a plan.” He wanted to mess with Ijichi one more time before he left the office and said no more. 

The suited man stood in front of the grey desk in silence waiting for Gojo to say something else. No answer.

A minute passed before Gojo collected both folders and tried to give them to his friend. He wouldn’t take them.

Satoru pouted before giving in, his goofy mannerisms coming back like a switch. He was a killer, but silly at heart. He groaned as if this was his second time explaining what he wanted to do. “Keep your men on him for the next twenty-four hours. I have to pick up Megumi from school, but I’ll see him if Geto can watch him tonight. I’ll check him out after lunch but bring me the building address on a sticky note by then. He’ll be gone by the morning. And only him.”

Ijichi was content with that answer yet didn’t leave the room. He wanted to know how Fushiguro was doing, after all, he was close with Tojii too when he was here.

Gojo looked at him from his computer and laughed a bit. “Megumi’s doing well. Don’t worry, he’s doing better in school than I ever did. He’s even made friends.” He saw the surprised look on Ijichi’s face and corrected himself. “Or other kids made friends with him.”

Kiyotaka was finally happy with the exchange of information and left the office without another word. Gojo shrugged on and continued his day with his own thoughts on the Mahito case.

He was acquitted after circumstantial evidence, unreliable witnesses, and no murder weapon was presented at trial. After a while, the body count leaked, pressuring the government to try and close the case as quickly as possible, but ended up letting a guilty man walk free. Kaizen kept tabs on him from the first moment his name popped up in the suspect pool. So did Gojo.

He was looking forward to this moment, not caring to admit it or not. He thought a lot about what he would do if it was Mahito, not having a good feeling about him from the start. By lunch, Gojo didn’t care much to think about how he would kill him, knowing no matter what way he chose, Mojito was going to die while looking into his eyes. 

Once he thought it was a good time, Gojo left the office (with the sticky note) to wait for Geto, driving to lunch together to meet with Nanami. Updating each other on their upcoming weekend plans, Geto agreed to watch Fushiguro that night. He sometimes thought the kid liked to have him around when Gojo was busy. Probably because he didn’t bother him like the way his guardian did on a daily basis. 

The place Nanami chose was quiet in order not to overwhelm any of them. When Gojo and Geto walked in, Nanami had already ordered food for them. He couldn’t wait if he ever wanted to keep to his schedule, yet he never minded having lunch with the pair. 

While they spoke and ate, all three men avoided the topic of work. They all agreed before Toji left that if they wanted to hang out with Megumi, they had to learn to not talk about their cases outside of the office and to have regular conversations. It helped them normalize their lives in a way, not everyone in the world was like them nor saw the things they did. It wasn’t difficult for any of them, but Gojo did have something that he thought was going to be odd to talk about. 

The empty feeling in the pit of his heart hadn’t gone away and he didn’t know what was wrong. He’s felt it before and the pit only grew more hollow as the days passed by. Day after day, the same routine. 

Looking at Nanami’s watch across the table, Gojo had to say something before his friends left. They were going to drive back to the office together while Gojo would surveillance Mahito and pick up Megumi later. 

“Do you guys ever get bored?” He didn’t have a better way to put the feeling into words. 

Both Geto and Nanami looked at him but Geto was the first to speak, “Of you? Of course.”

Satoru nudged his friend in the ribs with his elbow before replying in the same manner, “You could never get tired of me Suguru.”

Nanami across the table looked at the time and sat back finishing his drink. He had a few more minutes, “Bored of what?”

Gojo and Geto were still exchanging elbows when they heard Nanami’s question. Gojo stopped to focus, letting Geto get the last elbow in. 

“Of this, everything. The same routine day in and out. Its starting to get exhausting.” Not only exhausting, but the rut in his chest and head was starting to bum him out. He found it rather annoying. 

“...does this have to do with Fushiguro?” Nanami was almost hesitant to ask the question, afraid to hear his friend’s answer. He had hopes that Gojo would mature with Megumi in his guard and he saw this happen since the child started living with him. But that didn’t mean Gojo couldn’t just one day feel like he wasn’t up for it anymore.

The lean man shook his head immediately, “No, nothing. Things are fine with Megumi.” He paused in thought before giving his friends (and himself) an honest answer. “It's the things in between. There’s always the same next thing to do. I think Megumi felt the same before the start of the school year, until he became friends with that Itadori kid.”

Kento Nanami and Suguru Geto both stayed silent after hearing their friend’s confession. Truth be told, they didn’t know what to say to Satoru. Both men had the freedom and time availability to live the life they wanted, do the things they would want to do if they were in his headspace. But they listened and were sensible, they knew Satoru would only come to them for this.

After another moment, Geto raised his eyebrows in realization and exchanged a look with Nanami, the blonde man knitting his brows in confusion. Geto was signing the check for their lunch when he gave his thoughts, “Maybe you need to find a friend too.”

Nanami shook his head at the idea while Gojo shot his head to the brunette. He thought of this before but he didn’t think it was a good idea to add something, or someone, to his and Fushiguro’s schedule.

When Gojo said nothing, Geto kept going. “I’m not saying get married and tell them what you do. You don’t want to scare them. But maybe you should find someone for those in between moments, someone to look forward to until the next time.” 

“And if I am bored with them too?” That was rhetorical, they all knew Gojo could get someone if he wanted to, only thing was that he never did. Fushiguro was his first priority and he couldn’t bring just anyone home. The idea of bringing a stranger home made Gojo shift in his seat.

It was like Kento could read his mind when he spoke, “It may not be practical to find a person because you’re…bored, but it is reasonable. In time, Fushiguro will start middle school and will want to be with his friends more. By that time, you may need to find something to busy your time with as well. I agree with Suguru, but start slow. Be careful with bringing someone into a child’s life.”

If Geto and Gojo didn’t know who Nanami was, they would think that it was rude or weird that he looked at his watch a lot. Though, they knew he was only being precise and when he arose from his seat unannounced, they weren’t surprised either. 

The three of them walked out the restaurant to the work cars that were parked next to each other. Gojo stayed silent the whole walk. It was a short moment but still it worried Geto, making him want to help his friend further.

“How about this? I will pick up Megumi today so you can go to a bar or something. When was the last time you went out?” He leaned against the passenger side of the black car, Nanami silently groaning from impatience. 

“Going to a bar by myself to pick someone up sounds like the worst idea I could do.” Gojo preferred clubs to bars before he had Fushiguro in his custody. Yet, he never really missed it or had an urge to go. I’ll live.

Geto got in the car with Nanami putting their windows down to finish the conversation. Before they pulled away with no bid of goodbye, Geto secured his offer, “Either way, I will pick up Megumi from school so you can have time to yourself until tomorrow. You should be able to think of something to do with yourself by then.”

As Gojo got in the car and drove, he thought about what his friends said. He couldn’t really imagine getting involved with someone right now, or ever really. It didn’t seem right to bring anyone in his life with the amount of danger he faces, or the amount of danger he makes others face. 

What if I tell them what I do and they think I’m a monster? That would suck.

What if I bring someone home and they hurt Megumi? Poor kid already lost his dad, and I can’t let him get hurt again.

On the way to Mahito’s, Gojo kept his windows in his own car down to distract him from these thoughts and the dullness growing in his gut. He started thinking about his afternoon work plans when he pulled to a stop at a pedestrian walk, focusing on his mental to do list.

Park 2 streets away. His studio is crammed low on the street so I’ll pick the same shop from last time. The girl at the counter likes me so she’ll let me stay as long as I need. Mahito will leave for class at 14:00, taking the-

Satoru stopped thinking. He couldn’t at all. It was like he didn’t have power over anything in his body except smell. It was a smell that made him stop everything. 

The light was still red and Gojo’s demeanor changed. His body stiffened, eyes going wide behind the sunglasses and head turning from one place to another to try and locate where it was coming from. The ambrosial smell was fresh and crisp, yet soft. But to Gojo, it was strong, so strong that it seemed to clear his sinuses. 

Water hyacinths? No that’s not it.

His nose flared with every inhale he took through his nose. It was addictive and he couldn’t get enough of it. He needed more. 

Lilies and mint? Where is it coming from?

His grip on the wheel tightened as he turned his attention to the people on the pedestrian walk. He inhaled through his mouth, wanting the smell to be deep inside his lungs, to imbed inside his capillaries and blood vessels, spreading throughout his body. 

Lotus. Eucalyptus. A hint of baby wipes, soft clean cotton.

It was as if once his mind realized what it smelled like, it led him to you.

The sight of you was breathtaking. Gojo ended up replaying this moment in his head everyday for the rest of his life. The way you scurried across the white lines before the light could turn green made the corner of his lips turn up. You seemed in a rush, and it was the cutest thing he’s ever seen. He saw you rushing through the crowd of people in the street, your cheeks becoming flushed and a thin layer of sweat grew on your body. He could smell that too. 

You were long past the crosswalk when a car behind Gojo beeped at him. The light was green. 

Mahito can fucking wait.

[nikoruistyping]

Better Hold Your Breathe || Spencer Reid

Spencer Reid x Fem!reader​

Summary: You had hoped to have a nice normal morning but its nothing but normal at the BAU and next thing you know you end up locked in the Evidence Room with none other than Spencer Reid, your coworker and crush. As time passes Spencer starts to have a panic attack and there was only one thing you could think of to help stop it...

TW: Fluff, Coworkers to Lovers Relationship, Kissing, Playful Banter, Jealous Spencer, Derek calling you Babygirl as a joke, Depictions of a Panic Attack due to Claustrophobia

Word Count: 2.5K?

A/N: This fic is my annual bday present for my best friend so happy bday my queen and I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I did making it for you. I hope your MGG thirst is quenched with this one even though its not really a smutty piece since I ended up changing my plot/idea last minute because I wasnt happy with my writing at all and I’m rusty so I’m sorry if its not as good as my other pieces. THIS IS ALSO MY FIRST CRIMINAL MINDS/SPENCER FIC SO SORRY IF HE SOUNDS A BIT OUT OF CHARACTER I TRIED YALL. BEFORE ANY ONE COMMENTS AND COMES FOR ME YES THIS WAS INSPIRED BY THE STILES & LYDIA KISS FROM TEEN WOLF 3x11 SO SHUT UP I KNOW!

Coffee holder in hand you used your hip to push the glass double doors to the BAU open. You had purposely gone to the coffee shop early that morning so that you could order not only yourself a cup but to also get one for Spencer, who also happened to be the one guy in the BAU that you had the biggest crush on ever since the first day you joined. By some miracle you had remembered his order by heart and it was stupid that you were remembering such little things about him but that's what you do when you really like someone that much right? You tried to convince yourself that watching him make his coffee step by step every morning in the kitchen wasn't creepy at all but next thing you knew you were taking notes about what milk he used and how many sugars he would put inside his cup.

You shook your head at the silly thought and happily you walked over to your desk with the biggest smile on your face ready to take on the rest of the day. Penelope took notice from across the room as she walked in at the same time as you and she lightly nudged your shoulder.

"Well someone looks extra chipper this morning." She commented pushing up her pink colored glasses.

"Aren't I always happy every time I walk into work?" You question raising your eyebrow at her.

"Usually you are but I'm guessing that it has to do with the fact that you bought two coffees...I'm pretty sure that's not all for you." She says with a sly smirk on her lips since she is clearly the best hacker in the BAU there is, but your crush on Spencer was blatantly obvious that she didn't need to hack into brain to know that information.

"Bold of you to assume that Penelope." You say trying to look away but you weren't always the best at hiding your feelings.

"Oh come on, you know I'm right and I'm pretty sure that coffee is for a special someone that we all know you have the biggest crush on." She says with a small roll of her eyes at how it was pointless for you to deny it at this point.

"Fine! Fine...I did get him a coffee but it's just a coffee and that's it, nothing more I promise." You say as you lie to not only yourself but to Penelope who wasn't believing a word that you were saying at all but she just gave you a look of disbelief as she saw Derek across the room and waved hello to him.

"Whatever you say Y/N. Just promise me that eventually you will make a move or else I'll do it for you." She said with a nudge to your shoulder again which just made you chuckle at her declaration.

"I pinky promise, you happy now Penelope?" You say a bit reluctantly.

"Much better. I'll see you in ten minutes in the meeting room, Hotch gave us a new case so I have to prepare." She says as she parts ways with you and heads to her office as you make your way to your desk which of course happened to be right across from Spencer's and it was extremely hard to focus all day looking at his pretty face twenty four seven.

You were surprised to see another coffee cup on your desk with a little sticky note attached to the lid and it instantly made you smile. The closer you got you set down the holder and looked across to Spencer’s desk but he was nowhere in sight. You carefully took the sticky note off the lid and started to read it to yourself.

Y/N,

Hope I got the order right and enjoy.

- Spencer Reid aka Your Favorite Desk Neighbor

His little note made you smile from ear to ear and you could help but pick up the cup and take a small sip. To your surprise he really did get your order right, you hadn't expected him to be so observant but then again he would have a job if that was the case right?

As you look up you see Spencer walking in your direction and when your eyes met his you tried your best to keep your composure and waved to him, his footsteps getting closer until he seemed to park himself right in front of your desk.

"Morning Spence. I-Um...thanks for the coffee that's really thoughtful of you." You admit taking another sip as you glanced over his beautiful facial features.

"Morning Y/N," His reply a controlled stutter, barely keeping it together while you inched closer to where he was leaning against the desk.

He accepted the pipping hot cup you bought him with a whispered thank you. You were excited to see his reaction and you had your fingers crossed that you remembered every detail of his order.

"Did I get it right?" You asked with an eager attitude and smile on your face while you tried to hide behind your coffee cup.

"Surprisingly enough you-" His words were interrupted by Derek coming up from behind and shaking his shoulders playfully.

"Good Morning you two," He said greeting us as he looked at all the coffee cups on your desk and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Looks like you two decided to throw a coffee party and not invite anyone. I'm taking this as compensation." He says with a laugh and grabbing the cup of coffee you had bought for yourself.

"I-I'll allow that but you owe me next time Derek." You say taking a sip and gritting your teeth a bit in anger but not letting it get the best of you.

"Fine I'll get you one next time babygirl," He said with a smirk and a little playful wink which made you flustered for a quick moment since it was out of character for him to ever call you that, that was always his thing with Penelope. You glanced at Spencer and his gaze seemed frustrated and angry, his knuckles almost turning white as he gripped the coffee cup harder. You couldn't quite read what was on his mind since he never was the best at showing or expressing his emotions. It was clear he was upset maybe jealous even.

"Oh come on now, I'm just playing no need to get all flustered. I'll see you both in the meeting room in ten." He said patting Spencer on the shoulder seeing as he made no comments at all about the interaction.

Before you could try and bounce back from the awkwardness Derek had instilled into your conversation with Spencer this morning felt like it couldn't get any worse until you got a call on your desk phone and you picked up.

"Hey Y/N, I need you to go into the evidence room and bring me a few boxes of evidence. Looks like its so old and outdated that its not in the computer system yet," Penelope explained over the phone.

"Penelope really?! Is it that urgent that it needs to be right now?" You question in a bit of an annoyed tone in your voice being as nothing seemed to be going as planned this morning.

"Yes Y/N it is! Pretty pretty please I won't ask you for any other favors for the whole day I promise," She pleaded and well you couldn't say no to your best friend in the whole department.

"Fine I'll go. Just text me the record box numbers and I'll go get them." You said letting out a breath as you nervously played with phone cord.

"Make sure to bring Spencer or Derek with you. The boxes are pretty heavy and good luck!" She hung up quickly before you could even say another word in protest but you accepted that this was basically defeat at this point.

You put the phone down hanging up and you give Spencer a look that makes him immediately curious. After with whatever just happened with Derek there was no way you were bringing him as a helping hand. You hated to admit it but the evidence room was extremely dark and scary looking to go into by yourself so it put you at ease that maybe Spencer would tag along.

"So...Spencer I need your help to go get some boxes from the evidence room. Are you in?" You ask taking one last sip of the delicious coffee and putting it down.

"Yeah, yeah of course I'll help." He quickly responds without hesitation as he followed your lead around the office and towards the direction of the room.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence between the two of you, he finally broke it the moment you reached your destination.

"I didn't know you and Derek had a 'thing' going on. I just always assumed him and Penelope were more into each other because of that ridiculous petname he calls her which honestly I think is a violation against having a healthy and safe work place environment-" He was fumbling his words as he rambled on about how he just couldn't imagine you and Derek being together.

"If it makes you feel any better Derek and I aren't a 'thing'. We never were. I don't know why he called me babygirl...it felt wrong but I know he was just probably joking with me to get on my nerves or something." You admit as you turn the rusty old doorknob after fussing with the keylock and open the door slowly.

"Wait...really so you aren't into him?" He questions while following your lead into the very lowly lit room that was filled with hundreds of boxes on dusty shelves.

"Make sure to hold the door open or else it will-" You spoke a bit too late because before you knew it you heard the door close and lock behind the both of you.

"-lock us in." You finish your sentence and Spencer looks behind him seeing as the door had really locked you two in there for who knows how long now.

"You should have warned me beforehand."

"How was I suppose to warn you beforehand if you had me distracted with something else?!"

"Jesus now we are stuck in here and Y/N you know how much I hate small dark enclosed spaces! This is literally my worst nightmare right now!" He exclaimed as his breathing seemed to get faster and he put his hand to his chest that was heaving up and down quickly. Spencer was having a panic attack and you weren't sure what to do.

"Hold on Spence, let me just call Penelope I'm sure she can help us." You say quickly fumbling with your phone, trying to put on the flashlight and finding her contact to call her as soon as possible.

"PENELOPE!" You scream into the phone in a panic.

"AH! Y/N why are you screaming into my headpiece right now?!"

"Spencer and I are stuck in the evidence room and he is having a panic attack right now so what do I do?! Can you get us out of here please!" You begged.

"Oh god…ok so this wasn't how this was suppose to go!" She replies back quickly.

"Penelope what are you talking about?! Did you plan this?"

"Well I wasn't planning on the door locking but I wanted to give you the right moment to make your move on Spencer but not like this!"

"Penelope I'm going to seriously unfriend you after this."

"I'm sorry! I'm gonna try and fix this right now just give me a few minutes, I will call you back right away."

"Is everything ok?" Spencer asks in-between quick and heavy breaths now that he has resorted to sitting on the floor while he tries to control his breathing but sadly all the dust and darkness isn't really helping at all and he seemed to be clutching his chest.

"We will get out of here soon, don't worry about that right now, just focus on me Spence." You say sitting in front of him and trying to do something but you didn't know what to do that could help in this situation.

His breathing only got quicker the more he seemed to panic and at that point you got an idea but maybe it was worth the risk of whatever would come afterwards but you decided to just do it anyways.

"Hey! Spencer look at me...just look at me..." Your voice trailed off as you seemed to lean in closer to him, your hands cupping his face, being pricked by his stubble as you made eye contact with him despite the lighting situation.

Without even having to think twice you quickly closed the gap between the both of you and your lips met his. At first he was completely stunned you could tell by his reaction since his teeth seemed to clash with yours but as you both eased into it a wave of relief hit his body and he was completely relaxed. You didn't let go of him only bringing him as close as humanly possible while your lips moved gently against his. Before the both of you almost ran out of breathe you slowly pulled away, his forehead leaning against yours as you were surprised with yourself that you even did something like that to begin with.

Spencer's eyes seemed to be darting everywhere looking at you but then looking all over your entire face, still in shock that you flat out kissed him.

"How...How did you do that?" He whispered out into the small space between you both.

"I-Uh...I read once that holding your breathe can stop a panic attack," You paused for a small moment almost getting lost in his brown eyes as you tried to focus on trying to shamelessly explain yourself.

"So when I kissed you...you held your breathe."

"I-I did?" He asked almost in disbelief that he even had the chance to kiss you.

"Yeah...you did."

"Thanks...you know that's really smart..." His voice trailed off almost echoing but you could help but blush and feeling absolutely flustered by the whole situation.

"Well I just-I read it somewhere and I felt a bit helpless not being able to help you so I thought this must be the only way." You twiddled your thumbs in your lap looking down as you bit your lip, it still tasting of coffee except it seemed more bitter tasting.

"Must be the only way, hmm," He hummed a bit in disbelief at your explanation but he reached his hand out to hold yours and gently squeezed.

"Do you believe now that I definitely don't have a 'thing' with Derek?" You question squeezing his hand right back as you couldn't help but smile at him despite not being able to see him too well in the darkness.

"I don't know I might need you to verify one more time just to make sure." He says with a chuckle coming off his lips.

"Wow you're much cheekier than I thought Spence." You say giggling a bit to yourself.

"You know when we finally get out of here do you maybe want to go to dinner with me sometime? I mean only if you want to-" He was still nervous and somehow stuttered out his sentence but you just pulled him in for a hug and kissed his cheek in the process.

"Yes, I would love that Spence." You say with a smile on your face as you squeeze him tightly in your arms.

Eventually Penelope came to the rescue with a giant crowbar in hand as she pried the door open, breaking the lock in the process. You had never seen Spencer happier to go into the meeting room and go straight to work in his entire life. Now that you both were finally out of the evidence room the next hurdle to jump over was to finally go on your first date with him knowing that it was confirmed that you two both had feelings for each other and it was a plus that he was a really good kisser too.

[damned-punk]

A Small Confession (Katakuri x Reader)

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Content Warning: kissing, fluff

Content Description: gn!reader services Katakuri’s merienda and it develops into something more ♡

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It was approaching the time of day when you’d pick up an order of the most delectably crafted sweets and tea, inspect the order to ensure its accuracy, and then deliver it to its intended recipient. The action was clockwork, a process that had become a fixed part of your day. The responsibility had been placed upon you somewhat unexpectedly, especially considering your original position in Mama’s manor was to care for her youngest children. On one particularly busy afternoon, the usual server for those in higher command was absent and it was abundantly clear that the ever specific order of donuts to be served at a set time each day could not, under most circumstances, be disrupted.

It was intimidating at first, Katakuri wasn’t exactly a conversationalist and you couldn’t ignore the obvious dissonance in size between the two of you. Nevertheless, you always greeted him with kindness and let him know that you hoped he’d enjoy everything. This simple exchange of professional courtesy kept up for several weeks until you noticed that he began to linger just a little longer than necessary, slowly integrating topics of light conversation that surpassed boring details of the weather or news, chipping away at the most interesting components of your personality. At some point you’d began to replay your interactions with the scarved man in your head after each delivery, carefully examining each exchange of words in search of something more.

These increasingly drawn out interactions had allowed you to form a quiet friendship, still maintaining the same routine but with a much different scene following your usual delivery. Katakuri had begun inviting you to sit in on his merienda’s, ordering extras to offer you while he discussed the details of his day and asked about yours. No matter how hard you fended against it, a connection had formed between the two of you and there was little that could be done about the surmounting ripples of longing that had started to crest over your usually rational thoughts. You’d find yourself captivated by his unique features, attempting to remain aware of his insecurities but always looking away with a reddened face when he’d ultimately catch you.

“I’m beginning to think you like what you see.”, Katakuri remarked with a grin and cocked brow, flustering you far beyond the usual boundary.

“And what if I do?”, you played into his hand, a reality that he’d already confirmed as to not make a fool of himself.

“If that’s the case, we should spend more time together.”, he suggested openly, catching you off guard in the best way possible, “Not just like this anymore… I’d like to get to know you, (Y/N).”

“I’d like to get to know you too, Katakuri.”, you smiled up at him, heart pounding and mind swimming with the endless possibilities of what might flourish from his suggestion.

You did exactly that by learning what kind of music he listened to, what genre of movies he enjoyed, the savory foods that he occasionally craved, how his stern expression would soften so drastically behind closed doors, how much he adored his siblings, and how many of his outwardly expressed mannerisms were performative for the sake of the family. You wanted to lift that weight off his shoulders and allow him the space to be himself, free from Mama’s reign and the responsibilities dumped on him as the result of his position as a Sweet General.

There were many facets of Katakuri’s life that were tragic, the constant strain he was under changed the way you viewed the time spent during his merienda. It was an escape, a time and space that he could exist under no specific circumstances. He brought you into that space because you felt comfortable, it wasn’t a chore to interact with you and it gave you such a profound sense of gratitude to be able to witness the innermost parts of his world.

As time went on, things began to take a more intimate turn. He’d lift you to rest in his lap or nestle your smaller frame into the crook of his arm, bringing the two of you closer than you’d initially ever thought possible. It was strange, in a good way, being so close after observing him at a distance for so long. Topics of conversation took a deeper turn in tandem, now consisting of what each of you wanted for the future and how you hoped those things would occur.

“Do you want children?”, you asked him somewhat out of the blue.

“I don’t think so…”, he pondered the thought for a moment, “I don’t mind children, but I don’t think I want any of my own. It’s never been something I’ve envisioned for my life.”

“I see…”, you trailed off, looking away from his face and wrestling with the uncomfortable feeling that his answer left you with.

It wasn’t that you were unsatisfied with his answer, rather it was his overtly dismissive tone of the future. It almost felt like he wasn’t sure he’d even have a future to look forward to which was painfully ironic given his abilities with observation haki.

“Do you think anything really happens for a reason?”, Katakuri asked after several still moments.

“I think that some things do and others are a matter of circumstance. There are too many instances of coincidence for fate to not exist, but the presence of doubt leaves room for error.”, you answered his very loaded question, “Why do you ask?”

He remained silent, studying your face and flickering back and forth between your eyes before setting his gaze in the distance. You shifted your position to rest your back against his front, letting your eyes scan for whatever scene had caught his own. He seemed rather lost in thought, or perhaps he was trying to find the right words to say. You lifted his much larger hand into your own, mindlessly playing with his fingers as a way to let him know you were still engaged in the moment with him.

“I never imagined I’d meet someone like you.”, he stated softly, the deep tenor of his voice reverberating against your back, “I actually saw you making the delivery before the issue with the server’s had even happened and… well…”

“And well what?”, you pressed him, lifting your head upward to meet his gaze.

He was already looking down at you and his cheeks were several shades darker than usual. It was so comical to see him worked up like this, his expression and posture in stark contrast to his usual unwaveringly stoic self. He averted your gaze at the mixture of embarrassment and anxiety that had surmounted his initial security in the conversation.

“I liked what I saw.”, he answered simply, meeting your eyes with a sense of hope.

You couldn’t stop the toothy grin that spread across your face, a bit giggly from how small but sweet his confession had turned out to be. He rolled his eyes endearingly as you leant your head against him, your own cheeks now deepening to match his own. In retrospect, this had been a long time coming. He took your chin between his fingers, taking your breath and leaning down just before your lips. Your heart hammered in your chest, ears nearly ringing from the anticipation. He wanted to give you an out if this was something you were unsure of, the last thing he’d want is to make you feel trapped.

As your hand lifted to sit atop his wrist, he took the opportunity to kiss you. The two of you pulled away at the same time, resting forehead to forehead in a moment of comfortable silence. The certainty and assurance that had developed between the two of you was indescribable, everything about the two of you together felt natural and as though it had always been this way.

“I think I liked what I saw as well.”, you teased him, earning yourself a peck on the forehead, “I like you a lot, Katakuri.”

“I like you a lot too, (Y/N).”, he returned, pointy teeth on full display as he mirrored your affection.

The two of you were a slotted pair, meant to be together and fitting one another flawlessly, Katakuri was the perfect man for you.

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[thebiggerbear]

"Sleep. I'll keep you safe." - Beau Arlen Prompt Response

Summary: Your house is broken into one night when Beau wasn't home and now you find yourself expecting it to happen again at any moment. Will you ever feel safe in your home again?

Pairing: Beau Arlen x Female!Reader; Beau Arlen x Female!Lawyer Reader

A/N: Prompt from @thelonelyempath. My brain immediately settled on this idea when I decided to respond to this prompt from more than one character. It just seemed to fit. Hope this is alright.

A huge thank you to my beta @rieleatiel for her services. You rock, girl!

Warnings: mentions of break-in, mentions of guns, mentions of possible violence scenarios, implied possible assault scenario

Word Count: 4030

Taglist: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187

Beau Taglist: @heartlessdelusions; @nancymcl

Jensen Taglist: @samanddeaninatrenchcoat; @deansbbyx

You can read on AO3

"Sleep. I'll keep you safe."

Soldier Boy version ✨ Dean version ✨ Jenny version ✨ Tom version ✨ Jason version ✨ Anael version ✨ SDV Alex version

You checked and rechecked the locks on the windows of your upstairs bedroom. You’d never admit it aloud, but you were nervous and on edge.

The other night, Beau had had to work late due to some case that had dropped into his lap near the end of the work day. When he’d called, all apologetic, you’d told him it was no problem. You lived with a lawman so you knew how it could go sometimes, and you knew to adjust accordingly. The simple solution? You ordered takeout and decided to indulge in some wine and Netflix. 

Once you’d finished half of the newest season of Virgin River, you decided it was time for bed. Sadly, Beau had gotten so tied up with the same case and wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, and that was only if he was lucky. You made sure both doors were locked, turned the lights off, and headed upstairs. At one point, you smiled to yourself at the thought of perhaps waiting to get into bed before calling your cowboy and enticing him to lock himself away in his office or car for a bit.

You had just finished your nightly routine, slipped on the silkiest nightgown you owned, and crawled onto the bed. You positioned yourself as best as you could, smiled as you flipped over to Beau’s contact picture, digging your teeth into your bottom lip. You were just about to facetime the sheriff, hoping he would move away from anyone he was around to answer it, when you heard a sudden breaking of glass downstairs.

You froze, your heart pounding and a part of you wondering if the wine glass you’d left on the counter had fallen off. Then you heard it again. This time a larger volume of glass broke and it was obvious that there was force behind it. You knew then that someone was trying to break into your house. Your mind began to race; to outsiders, your house gave all the tell-tale signs that its owner was home, moving about and/or possibly asleep. Whoever was downstairs was making a lot of noise, and if someone intentionally broke into a house that was clearly occupied, it could only mean one thing.

You jumped off the bed and ran to the closet, speedily entering in the combo for Beau’s gun safe. You grabbed the gun, made sure it was loaded, and hurried to close the bedroom door, hitting the lock. You swiped your cell phone off the bed and called 911, huddling in a corner that couldn’t be seen right away from the door should someone bust in. You kept the gun pointed at the door as you quietly gave the dispatcher your address and all the info needed. You remained on the call with them until the police arrived in record time.

Beau hadn’t been too far behind them, Poppernak having heard the call come through and letting him know immediately. You were in a robe and a pair of Uggs you had thrown on quickly, talking to the responding officers, when your boyfriend pulled up, jumping out of Pedro and running right over to you. He gathered you up in his arms and lifted you off the ground. “Thank God,” he whispered, holding you to him. After a moment, he gently placed you back on your feet and cupped your face, studying you intently. “Are you alright?”

You nodded, still not fully able to speak. The adrenaline was still running rampant through your body, yet fear and shock were slowly starting to make their presence known as well.

He gave you a tender smile and pulled you in for a hug, holding your body against him in a way to further reassure you that everything was alright. And if it wasn’t, you knew he would do everything in his power to make it so.

The officers had taken your statement and assessed the damage, but the suspects had gotten away before the cops showed up. That’s right, suspects — as in plural. Your neighbor across the street, Melanie Layton, had seen them running down the street to the soundtrack of police sirens getting closer; said persons then disappeared in a car that she didn’t know the make or model of, nor could she make out the vehicle’s color. She had just pulled into her driveway, having finished a long evening shift at the nursing home she worked at, and between the darkness and her own exhaustion, she hadn’t been able to really see much of what had happened.

That evening, Beau brought you out to the camper he kept even though he’d moved in with you four months prior. His reasoning had been that you two could take a break from the town should you ever need it, and that night, you’d never been more grateful for his thinking ahead. He stayed in bed with you until you fell asleep. and when you woke up in the middle of the night to find him not in the camper, you quickly discovered that he was sitting outside in one of the deck chairs, sipping coffee and cradling a shotgun in his lap. 

He’d given you a smile when you stepped outside. “I didn’t wake you, did I, darlin’?”

You crossed your arms and inclined your head towards the gun. “What’s that for?”

He shrugged. “I just feel better having it handy is all.”

“So you’ve got a shotgun while you’re sitting on the porch.” You sat down in the chair next to him, flashing him a smile of your own. “What’s next? Yelling at kids to get off your lawn?”

He didn’t laugh at your teasing like you’d expected him to. Instead, he held out a hand to you and you took it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, sweetheart.”

“Beau, you had to work. It’s okay.”

Beau let out a heavy sigh and lowered the shotgun safely to the ground with his other hand before pulling you over to sit with him. “No, it ain’t. I should have let Hoyt handle that case and I should have been home with you.”

You weren’t quite sure what to say. You knew it wasn’t his fault, of course, and how could it be? Still, a part of you was still coming down from earlier and your thoughts were running rampant. What if the suspects had come through the bedroom door? What if you’d had to shoot one — or both? Worse, what if you had frozen up and they came upstairs to find you all alone, defenseless and in a vulnerable position? What if you hadn’t even heard them and you were facetiming Beau when they found you? What if you had been able to convince Beau to go somewhere private for a few and you had been in the middle of—

You squeezed your eyes shut, not wanting that thought to go any further, and instead laid your head on Beau’s shoulder. He kissed your forehead and rubbed soothing circles into your back.

“We’re going to get through this,” he quietly reassured you.

You opened your eyes and nodded. “We will. I know we will.” 

A sweet smile formed on his face and he grabbed the blanket that had been wrapped around him and carefully wrapped it around both of you. You had snuggled into him and he pressed a kiss to your hair before laying his head on top of yours, holding you close. You had stayed like that for the rest of that night.

Presently, the police still hadn’t been able to find the suspects even though they checked street cams, traffic cams, canvassed the neighbors, and even took another run at Melanie in case she remembered anything more from that night. At first they tried to dismiss it as most likely two young guys high on meth looking for an easy score, but after one glare from Beau, the detectives assigned to your case cleared their throats and assured you they’d delve deeper. You had been asked to come up with a list of anyone that might be less than pleased with you and, being a county attorney that worked the Criminal Division, that list was bound to be long. You’d even had to think back to your time in Bozeman. Still, nothing panned out. The cops literally had nothing to go on, but they said they would keep you updated about any new developments that came up.

Beau hadn’t left your side for the first two days, electing to have his undersheriff delegate any new cases that came in and handle anything that he usually would. You both had stayed in the AirStream since you weren’t ready to go back home yet. He’d cooked for you, made you laugh, he’d taken you out and about to get your mind off things, and he’d held you close at night. He kept his gun next to the bed as an added means of making you feel safe, but you already felt safer just being with him and being out of that house. Feeling better or not, however, that didn’t mean you didn’t have your moments. When a server had accidentally dropped a glass at the diner Beau had taken you to for breakfast, you had nearly launched out of your seat with how high you’d jumped. Some young guy had stared at you a little too long as you and Beau walked down the sidewalk, and you immediately moved into your boyfriend and dug your fingers into his side when you passed the stranger. You didn’t feel comfortable being anywhere alone in town, feeling as if the moment you were, someone would either grab you, attack you, or hurt you then and there, and you wouldn’t see it coming. You were beyond grateful that you were allowed to conceal and carry, and you were even more thankful that your father had made sure you knew how to hunt, fish, and, most importantly, shoot by your eleventh birthday.

You knew what was happening and why you felt the way you did. You’d dealt with this situation enough in your job — you’d spoken with enough victims of burglaries and home invasions — so you knew the break-in had rattled you. You hated it; being scared of your own shadow wasn’t you, yet you couldn’t help how you were feeling even with Beau as a constant reassurance at your side. 

You really appreciated the careful attention he was paying you; after dropping you off for a visit with Cassie and Denise, a visit that was much-needed and much-enjoyed, he’d even replaced the back door that the would-be thieves had busted in their haste to get inside. There had been a beautiful back door with multiple panes of glass that allowed the sunlight in to brighten up the kitchen each morning, one of the features of the house that had you signing a lease two years ago when you’d moved back to town. What was broken had been replaced by an even nicer door that still allowed your kitchen to have that beautiful golden-hour glow, and the sheriff himself had installed it, locks and everything. Overall, Beau had been amazing and supportive, truly there for you without you needing to ask him to be. But eventually, after a few days, he did have to return to work and so did you. 

He’d had Jenny do a walk-through of the house with the both of you on your first night back. They both made sure all of the locks were working and Beau showed you the new alarm that had been installed as well as cameras on both entryways — everything was secure. Jenny had even posted a deputy outside your house for your first night.

But here you were, obsessively checking every entry point into your bedroom, the place that had served as your safe haven up until the other night. The aluminum bat that you’d purchased was placed next to the bed and you made sure your phone was fully charged in case you needed to call 911 again. You confirmed you had a full clip in your gun that was sitting on your nightstand. Beau had come in some time ago and watched your every movement as he got ready for bed. Only when you checked the locks on the window for the sixth time in your circuit did he slowly approach you.

“Honey, we’re sealed up tight. No one’s getting in without us knowing about it. Plus, Poppernak’s sitting outside. We’re good.” He wrapped his arms around you and hugged you from behind. “Why don’t you come to bed?” He whispered huskily into your ear. 

Any other night, you wouldn’t have needed to be asked twice, but this wasn’t any other night. “Did you make sure the alarm was set?”

He carefully turned you in his arms to face him, cupping your chin and lifting your eyes to meet his. “We’re safe, sweetheart. I promise.”

“I know, I just—”

“We’re safe,” he reiterated, brushing your hair back behind your ear.

You nodded and let out a deep breath. “I know. I’m just…” You struggled to get the words out. “They picked us.” At Beau’s furrowing of his brows, you elaborated: “Out of all the houses on this block they could’ve picked, they picked ours. They knew someone was home. How many cases have you worked where the suspects broke in while someone was in the house and that someone didn’t get hurt? I’m not talking run-ins, I’m talking purposeful breaking and entering, fully knowing someone was there. Because the cases I’ve had where that happens don’t usually have a happy ending.”

Beau mulled over your words for a moment, licking his lips as he tended to do when he was nervous or was about to spout some of that wisdom of his. Given the subject at hand, you knew it had to be the latter.

He framed your face with his hands and stared into your eyes. “Honey, we’re gonna find them. Okay? Helena PD is looking everywhere and so are we. We’re turning over every rock, checking out every possible place they could be.”

“But we don’t even know who they are,” you pointed out. 

“No,” he agreed. “But we have a description to go on. If they risked breaking in like they did, not caring who heard or saw, then they’re bound to make the same mistake again. It’s only a matter of time.”

“So someone else could get hurt before they’re finally caught?”

His brows began to furrow as he stroked your cheeks with his thumbs. “Sure hope not. But I promise you, we’re gonna find them. Soon they’ll be in jail where they belong, and in the meantime, you’re safe.”

You scoffed and pulled away from him. You knew he was just trying to help, to reassure you, but your nerves were frayed — had been fraying since the break-in. “You can’t promise that, Beau, no one can. What happens the next time you have to work late on a case, or you have to travel to testify in a case from Houston like you did a few months ago? Or what if I work late and I’m walking to my car, alone, and…” You couldn’t even finish that sentence, the idea absolutely frightening to you. “And the thing is you’re saying you’ll find them but how can you? You only have a description, not fingerprints, DNA, a profile, a license plate, a make or model of the getaway car — nothing. They could literally be parked behind Poppernak right now, waiting to get in here again, and he wouldn’t even know because no one knows what they look like!” You finished the last part in a yell of frustration. You weren’t mad at him, it wasn’t his fault, and you didn’t mean to lash out, but you were so tired of the bullshit assurances that everyone — from Jenny to the detectives to your friends — had given you the last few days when you knew better.

Beau studied you for a moment and then slowly approached you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into him. “How long have you been feeling this way?” He murmured into your ear.

“What? Frustrated?” You laughed but there was no mirth in it.

“Unsafe,” he clarified.

You dug your fingers into the back of his shirt and you could feel the familiar burning in the corners of your eyes. “Since the break-in,” you whispered.

He pulled back to look at you, sighing. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I thought by fixing the door, installing the alarm system and the cameras, and having Jenny do the walk-through with us… I thought all of that would make you feel better. I should’ve realized that maybe it was too soon for us to come back here after what happened.”

You shook your head. “It’s not that. I appreciate everything you and Jenny have done, and I won’t let anyone keep me out of my own home. It’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

You bit your lip, debating on how to tell him this next part. You knew he would be more than understanding, but for some strange reason you hated even giving voice to it. If you spoke it aloud, it might dare the universe and next time, you might not be so lucky.

“Y/N?”

You let out an uneasy breath and circled your arms around his neck, staring into his eyes. You forced yourself to admit to him what was really bothering you. “That night… When you were going to be late…”

His eyebrows flashed upwards, urging you to continue.

“I wasn’t… I was underdressed.”

You could see confusion starting to layer his expression but he gave you a nod of understanding. “You were getting ready to go to bed, you said.” 

“I was getting ready to facetime you.” When he still didn’t pick up on your meaning, you gave him a look. “So we could have a moment alone. Together.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened slightly when the realization hit him of just what you were talking about. “Oh.”

You nodded, retracting your arms and trying to step back a little, but his hand caught your hip to keep you from leaving. “I just keep thinking, what if I hadn’t heard them breaking in? What if they had come upstairs, into the room, and saw us? What if they…” You swallowed the rapidly forming lump in your throat, unable to finish that thought out loud. You noticed Beau’s jaw tighten, but his eyes remained soft as they stayed trained on you.

He urged you to close the gap between you with a gentle squeeze to your hip. “C’mere, sweetheart,” he whispered, encasing you in his arms once more. He hugged you tighter and you buried your face into his shoulder, inhaling his comforting scent. “That didn’t happen and it’s never going to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” you choked out. “One night you might not be here and then—”

“No one will ever lay a goddamn finger on you while I’m still breathing,” he vowed menacingly. “I promise you that, baby.”

You hugged him tighter, sniffling. It had always amazed you just how secure and at home you felt while in his arms before this; now, you were grateful for the feeling and you wanted to bury yourself in it until this other terrible feeling went away. Logically, you knew that Beau couldn’t be with you every single second of the day and you shouldn’t want that to be the case yourself, but right now, until you felt secure in your own home again, you really didn’t want to be here without him.  

After holding you for a few minutes, he gently moved to wipe a tear that had begun to make its way down your cheek. He offered you a reassuring smile while his eyes were lit with the fire of determination in what he’d promised you. “Whaddya say we move this conversation to the bed?” Your jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out of his head as he scrambled to correct himself, “I didn’t mean like that. I only meant that you’re tired — we’re both tired, and I thought maybe it would be better if we laid down and tried to get some shuteye, that’s all. I—shit. I’m sorry, honey.”

A laugh escaped you, surprising you both. Things had been so serious since the break-in, so intense, even a few minutes ago, that it felt good to laugh again. Just like he had been making you laugh back in the camper — something you never thought you’d experience in this house again. It was a pleasant and welcome surprise. You actually felt yourself start to relax a little. 

Beau beamed down at you, happy to feel some of the tension easing away from your body. “So, bed then?”

You lifted up on your toes and pecked his lips, grinning. “Bed.”

He waggled his eyebrows playfully at you, smirking, as he took your hand and led you over to the bed. Once you both were settled in, you snuggled up to his chest and his arm came around you. You felt even more tension melt away from you which was nice. You didn’t realize just how tightly wound you’d been since you walked back into this house.

“You know, if you wanted, I could start looking around for a new place for us,” he murmured to your hairline.

You frowned and fidgeted with his t-shirt. “I don’t want to be run out of my own home.”

“No one’s running you out of anywhere, sweetheart,” he promised. “But I do want you to feel safe. Whether I’m here or not.”

You thought it over for a moment. You’d been in this house for two years and you’d never had an issue, not until now. This was supposed to be one of the safer neighborhoods and you even knew a few of your neighbors. You’d been to their Christmas parties and Sunday dinners — you’d even been to Sarah Tyler’s daughter’s 5th birthday party at the beginning of the year. You didn’t own this house, yet it had become a home to you. You weren’t sure that you wanted to leave. But you also weren’t sure that you could feel one hundred percent comfortable here ever again. You hated the crux you were in. 

Almost as if Beau heard your thoughts earlier, he whispered against your skin, “If you’re worried about the kitchen door, we’ll take it with us.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “We can’t take the door with us.”

“Sure we can.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “I installed that puppy and I can take it back down.”

“And leave the house without a back door?” You teased. “Not sure I’ll get my security deposit back when they notice that missing.”

“Nah, we’ll just grab a door from Home Depot and give ‘em that one. I’ll even install it for them for free so you can get that deposit back.”

“My hero,” you joked, turning your head upwards and kissing him.

 “Just think about it, okay?” He murmured to your lips. “You don’t have to decide right now, but at least think about it.”

“Okay.” You smiled when he tenderly brushed your hair back with his hand before kissing you again.

He helped you to settle back down against him and gently rubbed your back, something that made you close your eyes. You were starting to nod off when you heard him murmur, “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe, baby.” Your smile reappeared hearing his voice reverberate underneath you, knowing he meant every single word.

“Love you,” you whispered, kissing his chest and snuggling into him once more.

“Love you, too, darlin’.” His other arm came around you and he kissed your forehead. “Love you, too.”    

You weren’t quite sure what you would decide when it came to the house, but you knew one thing: here, in Beau’s arms, knowing he would do whatever it took to make you feel secure again, you were starting to feel just that bit safer already.

dividers by @firefly-graphics

[jinisnuggets]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑶𝑵𝑬. 𝑫𝑬𝑳𝑼𝑺𝑰𝑶𝑵𝑨𝑳 - 𝑱.𝒀𝑯

PAIRINGS | Yunho x Fem!Reader

GENRE | Angst

Word Count | 1.2k

Warnings | Missing person mentions, multiple hints and mentions of death, swear words, states of denial, hints of depression, supernatural activity?

SYNOPSIS | You felt yourself slowly losing your grip on reality as you came to accept the fact that he was gone. You knew it, yet the hope still came back, the hope that maybe he was still out there, waiting for you.

Masterlist (None Yet)

NETWORK | @illusionnet @starlit-network @k-library @blossomnet

A/N | I was going to wait till I finished writing the entire series, but I would like to post this now to see how it does. If you have any feedback, please please please tell me :D

“Another report?”

Your eyes were tired, you were tired as you noticed her stare at you, remaining silent until she finally decided to speak up.

“Listen, I know you're only doing this hell of a job in order to find your missing boyfriend, but please remember that we have limited people who we're working with and most definitely not enough for you to be solely in charge of his case.” She scolded.

You groaned in frustration, “Are you done criticizing?” you muttered under your breath, flipping through the stacks worth of valuable information.

She blinked, shaking her head shortly after in disappointment as she sighed, earning a glare from you.

“Unfortunately, you're one of our best so please hurry up and do your job right.” she murmured.

Slamming the folders onto the desk while standing up and pulling your chair near her, taking a seat with a fake smile spread wide across your face.

“Well then Ms. Know-it-all, would you please stop bickering and take the time to show me this new case?” You asked, with an obvious sarcasm in your voice.

People often had the tendency to misinterpret you, leading to misunderstandings. Becoming a detective wasn't an choice whenever he went missing many years back, and it bothered you that people commonly misconceived your agony for discourtesy.

You felt guilty. Guilty for becoming a top detective in your facility. Guilty for failing to keep that promise that was made so long ago.

Home felt like a prison; you only ever saw visions of how life was back then when everything was simply normal; had dreams that felt so real, so vivid that they almost fooled you, fooled you into thinking that everything was just a bad nightmare and in reality he was still next to you, holding you tight into the arms of his embrace.

Somehow, you still lived in denial; a slight hope that he was still out there somewhere: alive and well, though you knew the percentage of that was close to little or even none. Truthfully, the more you thought about it the closer you were to quitting that stupid job. It brought you nothing but anguish.

Afterall, it'd been 4 years. There was no chance of ever finding him by now.

Though your consciousness would never leave you alone if you ever quit without any sense of closure.

Before taking a job as a detective, you wished to study something more simplistic and take a different approach in life. Something that would allow you to live comfortably while still having time for him. You'd walk past the door everyday, always coming home to the lively smell of freshly cooked food, or the smell of a clean house.

You'd walk into the kitchen and see him, wrap your arms around his waist and allow yourself to rest on his warmth.

And now even the house seemed to have lost its color; as if it knew that there was no life occupying its residency anymore; it felt as if walking into an empty void of darkness.

The only reason you'd ever move his things was to brush away any dust that had made home on his furniture, besides that you never dared to move anything from where he had left it, not even when you got tired of seeing the same layout everyday. Maybe because it was the only thing you had left of him.

Following your steps and walking over to the door; taking a deep breath before opening it and revealing the other side, walking in as you let your legs guide you.

Dragging yourself, you moved slowly, almost limply over to the vase which was in the corner of his TV stand, carrying the brand new bouquet of red roses and placing them neatly inside, taking a seat on his bed as you forced a smile, already beginning to feel the warmth creep into your throat.

“Happy Anniversary.. Yunho..” you muttered, cheeks burning in vexation.

“It's been 8 years.”

Silence filled the room once more, almost as if you were expecting an answer.

You felt the tears stream down your face.

“My birthday's coming up… I'll be 24..”

Though it was hard, you began accepting the reality you were in, feeling yourself collapse onto his bed as your tears streamed down your cheeks furiously and landed on those blankets that hadn't been slept in for years.

Taking multiple deep breaths and sitting up. “I really wish you had finished your game. I can still recall how excited you were about it…” You muttered as your eyes landed on the game collection he'd been so enthusiastic about.

Sure, what you were doing would be considered stupid to an outsider who had no human decency on how it felt losing someone as special as Yunho; but to you it felt like therapy. Almost like you were speaking to him again.

Sighing, you stood up from his bed and walked towards the TV, wiping off some of the dust which had gathered.

“I hope you don't get upset with me for moving your things to the attic. I doubt it's healthy for me to keep it here, so I'll probably move everything soon, when I get the chance.”

You finally left the room, deciding it would be best to leave everything for the moment and go make yourself something for dinner, just to clear your mind, however, the moon came out from under the trees and soon came your bedtime.

Your room was at the end of the hall, which meant it was a requirement to walk past your missing boyfriend’s empty bedroom. Almost everyday for the last 1,460 days, you walked past that shut door that led into an empty void.

This time however, you felt strangely drawn to the room, and it wasn't until you noticed the soft light that peeked from underneath the door frame that you realized why that might've been.

The thought of an intruder was the first automatic thought that came into your mind, though instead of being fearful, you felt mostly frustrated.

Opening the door, you walked into the room with caution. It was emptied of any life except for the bright TV, which illuminated the room with a screen that had been long forgotten.

It was the game's homepage, the game that Yunho had been so excited about so many years ago. The brown bubble boxes of options dangling on the screen cheerfully; background moving with ease as it navigated through a default map from afar.

Staring and chuckling, you moved towards the remote and clicked on the off settings, which was uneventful as the screen went pitch black. You sprinted towards the door, about to close it behind you until the wall in front of you lit up with a bright light.

Once more, you turned around and saw the TV’s screen, shining optimistically on the game's homepage with the same brown bubble boxes dangling in the middle; this time, the background showed a different setting, which was that of a shop.

Maybe it was a glitch.

Making your way back, you picked up the controller, once more and clicked the off button; although the TV didn't shut off this time, the screen remained the same, unmoving except for the game's homepage animation.

You clicked again and again but nothing.

You walked towards the disk inserter, clicking the glowing button which was to release the disk contraction.

Nothing happened.

Walking back, the screen remained indifferent, mocking if not. And though you certainly weren't in the mood or mindset for it, you felt you mind ignoring what you knew you shouldn't, going into a state of euphoria as you picked up a controller from the stand and clicked the one and only option.

Start Game

[penelopesbaby]

"I’ll have a...."

Xanthus x reader

____________________________________________

The whole night had been an absolute blur. From killing off Xanthus' long lost traitor of an old friend to finding almost every alliance dead, including love who was in terrible condition. The trio, Xanthus, Dontis and love found their way back to the previously abandoned car in the middle of the woods next to the blood stained bayou.

Dontis sits in the driver seat while Xanthus sets love down in the back, sitting next to them to patch up the cuts and bruises given by audrick as a form of experimentation, test how strong the bond really was.

He was a sick man, a sad case of what tragedy can do to a person. And though Xanthus knew this, he could never feel remorse over his death. No matter how sad and "justified" his kidnapping and torture felt to audrick, Xanthus would not let him get away with the abuse he dealt to his love.

"Xanthus stop it that hurts." They whine, as he wipes a cut with the rubbing alcohol found in the first aid kit in the backseat.

"I know love but I need to patch you up, it will only take a few minutes, please be still." He replies grabbing the bandages.

In the front seat, dontis' mind is still trying to process the past few days for him, wondering if his hunter is safe, worrying for xanthus, and his lover who they only recently got back. It doesn't help that the couple in the back are yelling at each other over the pains of cleaning a wound.

He doesn't know what to do this time. For the first time, he has no words. Making a joke in a serious situation would only annoy the couple more, and words of encouragement would only fall on deaf ears. The only thing he can think of to make the situation better is... stopping for some food.

Its a perfect plan. Maybe not for xanthus, of course, but knowing his lover has had close to no food in their recent situation can only transfer the feeling of hunger and agitation to xanthus through the bond. Soothing love might fix things a little, at least he hopes.

"Xanthus stop touching me! I told you that shit stings-" "Well I need to disinfect your wounds! You've been covered in filth the past fews days what if you get-"

"Are you two hungry?" Dontis speaks above the bickering couple. "Theres uhh... a mcdonalds up ahead I think. [name] you haven't had much to eat, have you?"

The car falls quiet. Theres a moment of silence while love realizes how hungry they are before answering, "No, I haven't."

"Well let's fix that. I’m tired of listening to you two argue, so figure out what you'd like to eat." Dontis says while pulling into the drive thru.

"The line is quite long." Xanthus chimes in.

"I agree. I don’t feel like waiting and I’m sure your damsel doesn't either. Let's go inside." He responds.

Love looks around with confusion at the two unfazed men before making a statement they thought was obvious.

"We can't just go inside. I’m drenched in blood and sweat.. what if they kick us out?"

"It's McDonalds. I don't think anyone these days actually care. Especially not at 2:30 am." Xanthus responds and they only shake their head before getting out of the car.

Walking in and heading to the counter, they skim the menu to figure out what they're going to eat. Xanthus doesn't eat fast food. Or mostly any food for that matter, so he waits for love to tell him what they want while Dontis orders his food.

"Yes I’ll have a... Double quarter pounder with a large fry, a 20 piece mcnugget, 2 McCrispys and another large fry with a diet coke."

Xanthus and love glances at each other with wide eyes.

"Lord, Dontis!" Xanthus exclaimed. "Now that's really watching your figure."

"Gains can always come back but my McDonalds order can't, and I’m hungry!"

Xanthus scoffs, "Yeah yeah sure, what do you want love?"

They scan the menu one more time before answering.

"A 10 piece, medium fry and... a water."

"Will that be all?" The employee asks.

"Yes."

-----

"Fuckin weirdos man what the hell.." the employee thought before handing them their food and taking one more look at the blood stained clothes love was wearing.

"Guys.. We should probably eat in the car right..? Like to avoid staring." Love suggests.

"I don’t really care if people stare. But if you insist. It'll be better anyways, as I can continue patching you up." Xanthus replied before opening the door for them to walk out.

Dontis is already eating one of his orders of fries while they walk out, side eyeing Xanthus because he knows he's gonna hear more complaining about how bad the rubbing alcohol hurts from the backseat. At least the silence was nice for a while.

____________________________________________

I really love this idea! I think it was really cute, and I have an idea for an extended ending (please lmk if you wanna read it)

Tysm for reading!

-💋👠💄

[burning-academia-if]

Hello, I am mostly back and recovered at the time of writing this lol. June wasn't very productive writing wise (...for BA), which is fine because I needed that break! Look at everything I did do in June:

RELEASED CHAPTER 2 FINALLY

Spent like 2 weeks fixing bugs (dw chapter 3 I'll get beta readers so it doesn't happen again LOL)

Participated in the Raffle for Palestine + wrote and sent out the story to the winner!

Wrote about 5k words of Chapter 3

Wrote and edited Zoe's back story

Wrote most of Lars back story because I was inspired (sorry you won't get this until after Chapter 3 drops)

I'm pretty happy to have released Chapter 2! I'm gonna be honest, this felt like such a daunting release lol When I started BA, I was expecting no one to read it save for a handful of people and I'd just be chilling and writing mostly for myself like usual, so releasing it with over 1.5k followers was very daunting. With that said, I am glad people overall enjoyed the new chapter! The plan is for Chapter 3 not to take as long, but life is still hectic so we'll see. At the very least, it hopefully won't be any later then October (BA's one year anniversary month!).

I also just want to give another shout out to everyone who participated in the raffle for Palestine! Raising over two thousand euros in two weeks is still amazing to me, and I'm happy the IF community could come together like this to help out a cause! This was lowkey another thing I was nervous about since I've never really done anything that's felt like a personal commission before (asks definitely feel different lol), but other then my initial nerves the whole thing was a really nice experience!

Now, going into July, I want to focus on the UI updates I want to make. I have some things I want to shift around and change, and since coding is my biggest weakness I know it's one of those things I'm going to have to focus on. If things go well, I'm hoping to do a pure UI update by August. It'll mostly be the menu pages (achievements/stats/relationships/etc), but there are a few other things I want to add in and adjust outside of it. As for Zoe's backstory, that should be out soon, so keep an eye out of that! Finally, I also might not be too active in July. For personal reasons, July is always a hard month for me. Hopefully it isn't obvious, but just in case I'm not around as much as usual, that's why!

OH and before I forget, here's this month's chapter preview ft Angry Rook:

Lastly, I made the questionable decision to make a side IF. Updates will be very sporadic since BA is and will always be my main project until its completion. But if you want to follow it, it's To Taste Sweet Silver. An 18+ gaslamp fantasy about trying to steal the Fruit of the Old Gods in order to bring the world to an end. It's a little more niche I think, but feel free to check it out! The demo shouldn't take too long to get out since I did accidentally write most of opening already.

[saprophilous]

just letting you know that that ask you rb'd about glaze being a scam seems to be false/dubious. I think they're just misinterpreting "not as useful as we had hoped" and interpreted it maliciously, based on the replies?

not positive but yeah!

Ah yeah, I see people fairly expressing that being “debunked” as in, not a scam; I wasn’t personally particularly aligned to whether or not its “dubious origins” are true or not… so sorry about that.

From what I’ve read, I was more focused upon the consensus that it doesn’t work, and therefore isn’t worth the effort. So having a positive takeaway on glaze outside of its “scam or not status”, as potentially saving us from ai learning doesn’t seem useful to pass around.

Correct me if there’s better information out there but this from an old Reddit post a year back is why I didn’t continue looking into it as it made sense to my layman’s brain:

“lets briefly go over the idea behind GLAZE

computer vision doesn't work the same way as in the brain. They way we do this in computer vision is that we hook a bunch of matrix multiplications together to transform the input into some kind of output (very simplified). One of the consequences of this approach is that small changes over the entire input image can lead to large changes to the output.

It's this effect that GLAZE aims to use as an attack vector / defense mechanism. More specifically, GLAZE sets some kind of budget on how much it is allowed to change the input, and within that budget it then tries to find a change such that the embeddings created by the VAE that sits in front of the diffusion model look like embeddings of an image that come from a different style.

Okay, but how do we know what to change to make it look like a different style? for that they take the original image and use the img2img capabilities of SD itself to transform that image into something of another style. then we can compare the embeddings of both versions and try and alter the original image such that it's embeddings start looking like that of the style transferred version.

So what's wrong with it?

In order for GLAZE to be successful the perturbation it finds (the funny looking swirly pattern) has to be reasonably resistant against transformations. What the authors of GLAZE have tested against is jpeg compression, and adding Gaussian noise, and they found that jpeg compression was largely ineffective and adding Gaussian noise would degrade the artwork quicker than it would degrade the transfer effect of GLAZE. But that's a very limited set of attacks you can test against. It is not scale invariant, something that people making lora's usually do. e.g. they don't train on the 4K version of the image, at most on something that's around 720x720 or something. As per authors admission it might also not be crop invariant. There also seem to be denoising approaches that sufficiently destroy the pattern (the 16 lines of code).

As you've already noticed, GLAZING something can results in rather noticeable swirly patterns. This pattern becomes especially visible when you look at works that consist of a lot of flat shading or smooth gradients. This is not just a problem for the artist/viewer, this is also a fundamental problem for glaze. How the original image is supposed to look like is rather obvious in these cases, so you can fairly aggressively denoise without much loss of quality (might even end up looking better without all the patterns).

Some additional problems that GLAZE might run into: it very specifically targets the original VAE that comes with SD. The authors claim that their approach transfers well enough between some of the different VAEs you can find out in the wild, and that at least they were unsuccessful in training a good VAE that could resist their attack. But their reporting on these findings isn't very rigorous and lacks quite a bit of detail.

will it get better with updates?

Some artists belief that this is essentially a cat and mouse game and that GLAZE will simply need updates to make it better. This is a very optimistic and uninformed opinion made by people that lack the knowledge to make such claims. Some of the shortcomings outlined above aren't due to implementation details, but are much more intimately related with the techniques/math used to achieve these results. Even if this indeed was a cat and mouse game, you'll run into the issue that the artist is always the one that has to make the first move, and the adversary can save past attempt of the artists now broken work.

GLAZE is an interesting academic paper, but it's not going to be a part of the solution artists are looking for.”

[source]

[frankiebirds]

i think there are a few reasons reid is so particularly hostile towards emily post-2x15:

most simply, she was the newest member of the team, and therefore the one he knew the least and could most easily project onto. he doesn't know her well, so it's easiest to construe her actions as whatever he wants them to be in order to have someone to direct his anger at. he'd also feel less bad about attacking her over the other members of the team, who he knows far better (this is not calculated. im saying he needs someone to be angry at and he latches onto the closest person who he knows the least)

she replaced elle. i do ship spencelle (as a tragedy) but even if you take shipping goggles off, i do think they were quite close platonically. and even if you don't think he was close with elle, he definitely feels particularly guilty about her leaving. (he says so out loud with his mouth at the end of 2x6, when he's talking to morgan about the conversation he had with elle shortly before the case took a turn, and starts to obsess over what-ifs until morgan shuts that down). so not only is emily the newest member of the team, she's also replacing someone whose departure he explicitly feels particularly guilty about

she's calling him out on his obvious issues when none of the rest of the team are. ironically, i think its her newness that makes her feel like she can, and her newness that makes him respond so irately. i think the rest of the team feels uncomfortable and unsure of how to act—they know they need to confront him, but they worry about how to go about that without the friendship imploding. i'm not saying "well emily is new and doesn't gaf about him, so she doesn't care if confronting him makes him hate her." she wouldnt confront him if she didn't care about him, but she has less to lose. tying back to the first point, i also think emily being the one to confront him while also being so new to the team lets reid project whatever motivation he wants to onto her in a way he couldn't with the rest of the team. he can pretend she has an ulterior motive and therefor disregard her concern, while that would be a lot harder to do if someone he knew very well did the same. (again—this is not calculated).

i hope this makes sense 😭 i have a Lot of feelings on their friendship (as you can probably tell from my fics about them) and its rocky start. final thing: step 8 and 9 of NA concern making amends with the people you've hurt as a result of your addiction, and i think sometimes about the conversation he probably had with emily when he got to those.

[aziraphales-library]

Thank you so much for the work you do on this blog. For no reason at all I was wondering if you could recommend some fics where crowley is just extremely happy, having a wonderful day, loving his life

Here are some happy Crowley/good day fics...

May I Have This Dance? by AnonymousDandelion (G)

“Angels,” Aziraphale murmured, the words a warm and welcome breath of air not very far distant from Crowley’s cheek, “don’t dance.” “Oh?” Crowley’s answering smile was practically audible in his voice as he leaned forward, already on the verge of accepting the very obvious temptation to tempt. (That particular subtext technique — tacitly inviting Crowley to push, persuade, entice one step further — was one Aziraphale had mastered long, long ago. It no longer served the same purpose it once had, but that didn't mean they couldn't still dabble in their old patterns, if now purely for the entertainment factor.) “Is that the case, my angel?” “It’s certainly what I’ve heard, at any rate.” Reaching up, Aziraphale caught Crowley’s hand in his own, their fingers interlacing in what was now an accustomed movement… and never any less marvelous, each time, for all its growing familiarity. ~ ~ ~ In which Crowley and Aziraphale are very soft, very happy, and very together. That's the fic.

oh, but surely not by Phoenix_of_Athena (G)

Aziraphale can be firm, sometimes. Sometimes, when he really cares about something, he’ll speak up, and he’ll get this tone to his voice that makes Crowley take notice. It’s a little sharp, undeniably bossy, and it’s immovable…Crowley likes it.  Aziraphale usually takes pains to be passive; affable; soft—whatever he thinks it is that an angel ought to be, in order to guide people towards kindness and good and all that mush. But a lot of that’s an act; those are traits that Aziraphale’s put on, and which, over time, have left an impression on his personality. But really, Crowley’s counterpart has a core of steel underneath all of his silk and cotton. Crowley can be downright cheerful, for a demon. Peppy. Excited. Eager. Like a puppy, Aziraphale thinks when he’s not being particularly charitable, or like a child, when he is. It’s endearing, either way. And it’s striking. When Crowley’s not self-conscious, and he’s usually not around Aziraphale, he’ll get this grin. Wide, and wondering, and kind. Not like the wicked quirk of lips he’ll get after a job well-done, though that smile too has its own appeal—no, this one is hopeful, genuine, and charming in a wholesome way. Aziraphale can never help but smile back.

one of a thousand perfect days by 5ftjewishcactus (T)

Aziraphale and Crowley spend a lovely day together, first curled up in bed together, doting on each other and then later go for a picnic and a bit of stargazing. It really is a perfect day.

Ocimum Basilicum by KannaOphelia (T)

This was their life now. A peaceful village where they could hear the sea. Aziraphale was fast cultivating a reputation as 'that terrible man from the second-hand bookshop, he looks so kind and cuddly but just try buying a book from him, how that nice Mr Crowley puts up with the old devil I'll never know'. Happiness. Happiness was their life. Perhaps it was just that happiness was too much for a demon to bear without getting sick. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

Enrichment Activities by EdosianOrchids901 (T)

Eager for novelty, Crowley takes up art. Picking one medium would be too limiting, though. Aziraphale is confused by the deluge of sculptures, paintings, and drawings, but he tries to be supportive.

Visibility by Aethelflaed (G)

“I just…woke up like this,” Crowley explained, in what was probably supposed to be a casual voice. “Definitely a curse. Probably one of those angels, thwarting and all, you know how they are.” “An angel.” Pinching zir nose, Beelzebub tried not to imagine the foolish way she was probably grinning. “And by pure coinczzidenzze, this angel juszzt happened to make you completely inviszzible on the day of your department budget review?” -- A mysterious curse that Crowley DEFINITELY didn't cast on herself makes her invisible for a day! What sort of trouble can she get into? Or get her angel out of?

- Mod D