#i made a head base then ghosted it so hard xxx

[palustrine]

I will DIE if i dont own a silly fursuit one day

[tacticaldiary]

hi hello, if you have the chance, could u write a ghost x reader of an overworked/ burnt out reader who faints or something. just stressed out overprotective ghost to warm our hearts <3

thank you so much xxx

Bone Tired

Pairing: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort ; Fluff

Ghost knows she's been pushing herself but he didn't think it was this bad. She nearly gives him a goddamn heart attack by collapsing right in front of him.

"Don't make me tie you to the bed."

"Jokes on you, I'm into that." She snickers at the long-suffering sigh he lets out.

Masterlist

Just because they weren't deployed on a mission didn't mean things were any less busy for them back at base. Drills, morning runs, training, paperwork, and more; there was always something to keep them busy.

"Focus." The low timber of his voice snaps her out of her thoughts, dragging her back to the present. "I would've incapacitated you three times by now." Ghost says with a frown. Or at least she thinks he's frowning under that mask. He sure sounds like it.

"Yeah, sorry L.T." She blinks, widening her stance and dragging her tired mind to attention. Everything just felt...off. Her clothes were too itchy, the bright fluorescent lights hanging from the room were too prickly, and the training mat under her feet felt difficult to get her footing into. Maybe she was catching a bug? She'd been feeling mildly feverish the past few days, after all, sporting a headache she opted to power through with painkillers.

Grunts and groans and jeers echo around them as others take their turn to spar with each other. She'd already lost against Gaz once, a rare outcome in itself, and now she was pretty sure Ghost was going easy on her. She's surprised she isn't face-first on the mat right now, actually.

Blinking away the knowledge that her arms feel like lead and her mind foggy, she lunges at him with her fist, an attack easily parried and side stepped by the man.

In all honestly, she's known for a while that she needed a proper break. A few days to herself full of nothing. The last op she'd been on had been long and gruelling, a solo one at that, weeks' worth of trekking through a mountain range far south in the cold to get to an isolated camp where their target had been laying low. It was a success, but she swears she can still feel the snow bite into her flesh if she thinks too hard about it.

The moment she'd got back there had been debriefings with Price to attend, files to be reported to Laswell, all the while keeping up with her usual routine and drills...

Her eyes widen as she's spun around, an arm circling her throat and pinning her in a hold.

"You're sloppy." Ghost clicks his tongue from behind her, and if she were any less exhausted, maybe she would have felt a shiver go down her spine.

Here, they were just soldiers, but in private? That's a whole other story. Their relationship had to be kept under wraps for a multitude of reasons, but Simon was one of the best things that had ever happened to her. Having someone who understood her work, who shared the experience and knew exactly what she was talking about, who knew the best ways to comfort and listen and advise her...it was rare.

A rare and beautiful thing, that's what they had. They helped each other grow, made up for the others weaknesses and blind spots.

But they weren't in private right now, so after she taps his arm to concede, he pushes her away, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Are you ill?" He asks tightly, eyes going up and down her body as if he could detect whatever was making her pause. She'd seemed fine the last time he saw her, but clearly something was wrong if she was this...dazed?

She shakes her head. "Just didn't sleep well last night." She lies through her teeth. She couldn't afford to be sick right now, couldn't afford the luxury of wasting time resting. She still had to report to Laswell, attend a meeting on what the next steps were to reach their targets close contacts. Then she promised Soap she'd hit the shooting range with him, and then Gaz asked her to help him with that paperwork he had to fill out...

Taking a step back, she stumbles a little.

It all bubbles up inside her, overwhelming and insurmountable, a mountain of work that keeps piling up to reach new heights and-

Was Ghost talking? She blinks, trying to get the ringing out of her ears. It was loud and annoying, and it made the headache she'd been sporting since yesterday stronger.

Ghost's eyes widen. He's definitely saying something. She hopes Simon knows she wasn't ignoring her on purpose. She was always good at reading him, so maybe if her vision would stop spotting and focus, she could actually see his eyes properly and figure out what was wrong.

In the end, the roaring in her ears becomes deafening, to the point where she squeezes her eyes shut. How easy would it be to just...stay like this. Just for one moment. To revel in the nothingness of the dark, where she got just one second of silence away from the list of things she had to keep doing.

Just one more moment.

Another step back, an unsteady sway.

She hits the ground hard, the last thing she hears being the yell of her name from that familiar, rough voice.

                                  · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Bleary eyes blink themselves awake, squinting against the warm glow of the lamp by her bedside table. Groaning, she attempts to sit up, only to widen her eyes in alarm when a hand firmly pushes her back.

Instincts kicking in, her hand flies up to latch onto the wrist in a weak grip.

"It's just me." The low voice has her relaxes instantly, hand falling away onto the bed.

"Simon." She says, surprised when her voice doesn't come out as more than a whisper. "Where...what happened?" She winces at the throbbing in her head as she takes in the scene. Simon settled down in a chair next to her, a book laying open faced on her side table.

"You passed out." He says, plainly worried. "The medics said you fainted from exhaustion. Ain't that something to explain, love?" Now that he's ditched the mask, she can see the creases of worry in his forehead, the downwards quirk of his lips. "Damn near gave me a heart attack."

"Passed out?" She echoes, trying to remember. "I...guess I did."

She sure feels like it. Her body feels like lead, as if it's doing everything it can to ensure she stays in bed. Shivering slightly, she looks around for another blanket. When she reaches for the fluffy duvet folded at the foot of her bed, it's immediately snatched out of reach by Simon.

"Give it." She demands, reaching a hand out.

"You have a fever." Simon shakes his head, holding the item out of reach. "It'll break quicker this way."

"I'm fine." She protests, managing to sit up this time under his unimpressed stare. "I'm alright, Simon. Can't afford to be sick right now."

"That's not how it works." He sighs, standing up. "I thought I'd hurt you for a moment." She watches him walk towards the small table near the opposite wall, fiddling with something there while he talked. "Damn near took a year of my life away with how you crumpled onto the mat."

"It wasn't you." She assures him quickly. Some of the tension visibly drains from his shoulder in what she can only assume is relief. Needless as it is, she feels a little guilty. How long had he been thinking her passing out had been his fault? No, this was on her, on her busy schedule and-

Wait, what time was it?

Dread curls up in her gut as she slowly turns towards the small window. The lamp was on when she woke up, of course it was night.

"I was just tired is all." She says, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "But I'm as fresh as a daisy now, and I've got so much shit to do." She lets out an anxious, long breath as her brain kicks in, charting how much time she'd lost, how quickly she'd need to work to get it all done-

"I have that meeting with Laswell...I wonder if Price thinks I just didn't show up to his office..." She doesn't realise she's been muttering her thoughts aloud until Ghost cuts her off.

"You're not going anywhere, sweetheart." He declares over his shoulder. "Get your ass back in bed."

"I can't, there's too much I have to do today." She protests. "And I've already lost half the day-"

"I wasn't asking."

"Simon-" He turns around and she finally sees what he's been doing.

"Don't make me tie you to the bed." His threat is much less effective when he's holding one of her mugs that says 'Bad Bitch' in obnoxious neon pink calligraphy, the phrase surrounded by a flowery border. She'd got it for him as a gag gift for his last birthday and had cackled at the dead, unimpressed stare he fixed her with. It had remained in his room for a while before she'd snatched it, claiming she'd actually appreciate it.

"Jokes on you, I'm into that." She snickers at the long-suffering sigh he lets out. Her laughs morph into a deep chest-rattling cough that wipes the smile off her face and leaves her wincing.

Sitting next to her after tossing the pillow onto the mattress, he brings the warm mug of tea up to her. "Easy does it." He mutters quietly when she grabs it from him and takes a drink.

"Thank you." She sighs, handing it back.

"Talk to me." He orders, not unkindly. Simon wasn't someone who was all lovey-dovey, but he loved just as hard and much as the next person. Just because he didn't choose to flourish it with pretty words and smiles doesn't mean she felt any less cared for.

He was a man of action, through and through.

Little touches throughout the day, silent glances checking in with her. Staying by her side during missions, working in tandem and recognising when she needed space versus when she needed him near.

He was her other half, and it had been eating away at him that he didn't fucking realise she was this unwell until the consequences caught up with her.

Ghost won't admit the primal flash of fear that struck through him when she'd crumpled to the ground like that. He thought he'd hurt her while sparring, that he'd done something to make her pass out like that. Even after the medics cleared her and he carried her here, tucked her in and everything, there was still a nagging worry of 'what-if' in his mind.

The relief of hearing her confirm it wasn't him was tainted by the knowledge that he hadn't noticed her pushing herself.

After a moment of deliberation, she gives in, tucking herself back into bed and thinking for a moment. She tells him everything, tells him how she hasn't had a second to herself in these past few days, telling him about the load she has on her shoulders and the crushing time limit ticking down in her ears for every task she had.

He listens quietly, to his credit, doesn't interrupt her even when she trails off, having to muster up the energy to keep going.

The fact that talking tired her out to this degree made his heart twist uncomfortably.

"I didn't think I had a choice but to take it all head on." She finishes, stifling a yawn. She looks up at him for his response when he doesn't talk, finds him staring at her with a half-lidded gaze, a furrow in his brow.

"Why didn't you ask me?"

"Ask you what?" She asks, confused.

"For help."

That was...a good question. It takes her a second to come up with a sheepish answer. "I...I didn't think of that." She admits, drawing out another quiet sigh from him.

"You're going to be the death of me." He grumbles, but she can't complain when he's gently tugging her to the side and climbing in with her under the covers. "I've sorted things out with Price and Laswell. Do whatever else you need to when you're capable of not face planting into the mats again."

A warm feeling of gratitude washes over her, her heart warming with the kind gesture. It was so...it was so Simon.

When he tangles their legs together and tucks her into his side, she wrinkles her nose. "I'm all sweaty." She tries to argue, tapping at his shoulder half-heartedly when he lays down with her, a strong arm around her waist pulling her in.

"I've had your blood on my hands before, I don't think sweat is going to be a problem." She can hear his voice rumble low in his chest, right under where he head rests, and she hides a smile in the fabric of his shirt.

When he runs a hand through her hair, she practically melts against him.

Eventually, her shivering stops, replaced with a bone-deep warmth that nothing could chase away. Simon. The warmth of him, of his care, of his love. She'd take it over a heatpack any day.

His arms around her make her relax. Nothing would nag at her, drag her away to chain her to a desk under Simon's watch, that much she knows. Safe. Protected. The feeling was rare living the life she did with her job, but Simon made it so easy to believe that she was untouchable as long as she was with him.

Before she knows it, her eyes flutter shut and her breathing evens out, because goddamn did the bastard know exactly where and how to touch her to get her all sleepy and relaxed.

"Thank you." She mumbles against him, words half incoherent.

"Always, love." He rumbles back, brushing his lips over her head.

Requests Are Open! Reblog, Like and Comment!

(16/07/2023)

[slippinmickeys]

The Rains of Bimini

You can read this in its entirety here.

Note: This fic was completely inspired (not based on, you understand, just inspired), (and quite oddly, I must admit), by the recent animated Disney short “Us Again.” You don’t need to watch it or even know it in order to (hopefully) enjoy this fic, but I do hope you will watch it one day. It’s an absolutely lovely piece.

XxX

How could he have known, when she walked into his office with her bad suit and her earnest smile, that she would be the last person he would ever love? You don’t always realize the momentous things as they’re happening, and so he’d needled her a little; without any thought to his lost sister, he’d used his snottiest big brother voice and accused her of spying. Her. His last, best love.

Kids called to the forest, enveloped in a swirl of wind and dessicated leaves; the way the light from the slide projector shone on her skin, the blue from her eyes practically lit from within. The ghost of a moment caught on cellulose, those kids with marks on their backs, metal shoved up their nose. All projected on the glory of her perfect ivory skin and that ugly fucking suit. And she’d taken it all in stride with the confidence of a woman who’d rewritten Einstein before she’d hit quarter life. Her.

God, how many years had it been since that first day? How many decades now? He looked at her across the room, still a small woman, but gravity pulling the weight of seventy years and two pregnancies on her hips and thighs. She was still lovely, perfect as far as he was concerned, but he himself was another story. There were liver spots on his hands and less hair on his head. And while she’d walked into his life when he was a lithe young skip, he hadn’t even kissed her until he was nearing forty.

And then there were those empty years, when she’d had to leave him, when she realized that even her strength — and she was stronger than anyone he knew — wasn’t, couldn’t be stronger than someone else’s pain. His.

He had only himself to blame, really.

XxX

It was barely a rumor. The Rains of Bimini, they called it, and he wasn’t sure it wasn’t some convoluted joke. He hadn’t thought about it in decades, not since it’d brushed across his desk eons ago, headed for the metal filing cabinet: a few pages in a file that had held his attention for all of three minutes. It wasn’t even in the States, why did the FBI have a file?

Here in the now, Scully had just hung up the phone, talking their daughter through some romantic conundrum (he cared, he did, but it was hard to keep track). She still had the phone in her hand, a small maternal smile on her face, and he had a flash of her in their youth — the pinched waist skirts, the way her hips would sway while walking down the halls of the Hoover — and it dawned on him how many years they’d wasted.

It was called the Rains of Bimini — that’s all he could remember — and it made you young again. For however long the downpour lasted.

XxX

“Do you remember our trip to Bermuda?” he asked her. That was how so many of their conversations started these days — do you remember ? — and that trip was just before the dark time, before she left, but it was his way in. “You in a black bikini, me at the oars?”

She gave him a faint smile. “I remember.”

“Do you want to go back?” he asked.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She was happy. She had to remind him sometimes that she was happy. Had been since the improbable conception of their daughter and the impossible return of their son. She could feel him sometimes, and he her; their lives a background of static only occasionally tuning into each other’s channel. She still thought of him as William though he now went by Jack.  

“Do I want to go back?” she asked. “To what?”

She’d been suspicious of his headspace for weeks, of his nostalgia, his wistful expression. Once Fox Mulder glommed onto something, he didn’t let it go, and he’d seemed to glom onto their past.

“The Caribbean,” he said, “though I was thinking maybe the Bahamas this time.”

“For what?” she asked. There was no longer any darkness to cast out.

“For old times sake,” he said, and she thought that maybe he needed this.

XxXxXxXxXxX

He was not expecting her to capitulate this easily.

“Okay,” she said, with a small smile and a careworn look in her eye.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Okay. I could use some sun. So could you. The SAD lamp’s just not cutting it this far into spring.”

He’d been preparing arguments, budgetary spreadsheets, he even had Lily ready with a Mom-you-should-go pep talk prepped and ready, only an SOS text away.

“I-“ he sputtered, expecting resistance and getting none, “I’ll book the tickets.”

XxX

He was out of practice, but he still had some game and one or two contacts left at the FBI. Well, contacts of contacts.

“Bimini,” he said again, his annoyance leaking through the phone line, “B - I - M - I - N - I. Why are you busting my balls, Danny, you forget how to spell when you retired?”

Valadeo barked something at him over the line, but Mulder just smiled into the phone.

“It’s a keystroke away,” he went on, his tone the same he’d use to calm an irritated Scully, “Agent Harrison digitized them like two decades ago, it’s not like the guy even has to leave his desk.”

Danny rumbled something back.

“Bimini. Should be filed within the context of rain or some other meteorological event. Now… You still like Lagavulin, or does it interact with your ACE inhibitor?”

More rumbling.

“Rum?” Mulder said, “who the hell drinks rum?” Rumble. Bark. “Fine,” he went on, ”I’ll send two.”

XxX

It was warm when they deplaned and the air was humid and smelled of flowering jasmine. The airport was a paved airstrip and not much more, customs set up at a folding table under a lazily rotating ceiling fan. The agent that stamped their passports had skin the color of burnt caramel and he smiled widely when he handed them back.

“Welcome,” he said, his voice tinged with a high lilt, and he had eyes only for Scully, who smiled back shyly.

Mulder muttered his thanks and they rumbled with their suitcases out the door and onto a sidewalk that was rough with crushed sea shells that sparkled in the sun. The suitcase wheels rolling over them sounded like thunder.

There was a single taxi idling at the curb, a cerulean Peugeot that was in need of a new muffler. Mulder leaned down tentatively to talk with the driver through the passenger window, and he agreed to take them on the ferry at Buccaneer Point and on to East Wells, where the road literally ended. Mulder had found a rental house not far from an unnamed cay east of the bonefishing flats, the proprietor of which would meet them near Shark Mound at the end of the road. Or so he hoped. His discussion with nearly everyone while trying to book this trip had always ended politely, if not with a few details still up in the air. The lackadaisical mien of the locals was off-putting to a modern American such as himself, and he had to adjust his expectations and toe the schism to run on Island Time.

“You sure you want to go out to East Wells?” the driver asked them after he’d gotten their suitcases in the trunk and they settled themselves into the back seat, no doubt eying the gray in their hair. “The hotels in Alice Town are much nicer. There’s not much out there beyond… there’s not much out there.”

Scully leaned over, giving Mulder a skeptical look. “Where are you taking us?” she whispered.

He smiled and tried to give her a reassuring smile.

“We’re sure,” Mulder said, though he wasn’t. The details on the rental house were slim, but from the thin file he’d gotten from Danny, the rustic east end of the island was where they needed to be to have any hope of encountering the Rains.

The driver shrugged and started the sputtering engine, gunning out onto the road from the small terminal.

“Out there,” he said, playing tour guide and pointing out his window not far from the airstrip,“is the Fountain of Youth. You’ve heard of Ponce de Leon?”

Mulder could feel Scully’s eyes on him, but he feigned interest in what the driver was telling them - his thoughts turning to Mothmen and sleeping bags - and peered at the schlocky signs as they passed, the “fountain” little more than a shallow green pond with a couple of bright shacks hocking souvenirs.

Once the taxi boarded the ferry for Alice Town the combined sounds of the Peugeot and boat’s engines made talking impossible, so all three of them pulled out phones to pass the time on the short trip across the bay, the service an ancient 3G.

The taxi bumped down onto King’s Highway not ten minutes later and they drove through the hotels and shops of Alice Town and Porgy Bay and in no time the Highway was surrounded by mangrove forests and palms, and what civilization the island had, ended.

“Will the property where you are staying be provisioned?” the driver asked after a lengthy silence, the wooden beads of the cushion under him squeaking into the vinyl of the seat.

“Yes,” Mulder said, with more confidence than he felt, “but do you have a card or something so we can call you when we need to head back to the airport?”

“Or to town to get supplies?” the driver laughed, and leaned over to reach into his glove compartment, pulling out a scrap of paper and a pen, and jotting something down against the steering wheel as he drove. He handed the slip back to Mulder, who glanced at the chicken scratch which approximated a local number. Mulder pushed it deep into his pocket and avoided looking at Scully.

The left side of the road widened out, the dazzling blue of the Caribbean Sea appearing suddenly along the roadside and stretching out into the horizon. The light shone in on Scully’s side of the car, turning her hair a rich, muzzy gold, blending the cinnamon-sugar color of an aging redhead into a sharp golden cap. She closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth, and Mulder took the opportunity to admire her profile, the way the fine lines that creeped from the edges of her eyes and mouth spread like starburst and faded into her still delicate, porcelain skin.

Then the car hit a rut and the spell was broken.

“End of the line,” the taxi driver called out lyrically, and he slowed the vehicle until it came to stop right where the road did, a single concrete barrier covered in faded and chipped yellow paint the only indication that the jungle hadn’t actually just taken over the road.

They slid out of their seats and onto the hard packed coral where the pavement ended, and the driver pulled their bags out of the trunk and looked around skeptically.

“Someone meeting you here?” he asked Mulder.

“Should be,” Mulder said, checking his watch, when a white haired gentleman emerged from the vegetation where the road met the edge of the beach.

“You Mulder?” the gentleman asked, to which Mulder nodded. With that the taxi driver waved at them both and took the traveler’s cheque that Scully handed over, got in his car and made a skillfully executed three point turn, rumbling back down the road from which they’d just come. Once the engine noise faded into the distance, Mulder turned to the man standing before them.

“Akaal,” the man said, introducing himself, and held out a hand to shake Mulder’s. He had an intriguing look about him. Shock white hair that was handsomely coiffed, and an ethnicity Mulder couldn’t quite place. He appeared to be at least ten or more years older than Mulder himself, but not an age that was stooped or wizened; rather a fit, keen look and a sharp eye that reminded Mulder distinctly of Scully.

“Is this all your luggage?” Akaal asked, nodding at the two hard sided suitcases.

At Mulder’s confirmation, the man leaned down and picked one up in each hand straightening as though they weighed nothing at all. Mulder caught a very spousal look from Scully which seemed to suggest something along the lines of you’re going to let the octogenarian carry those, are you kidding? at which point Mulder took a step forward to intervene. But Akaal casually turned toward the beach and said “the cottage is this way,” clearly expecting them to follow.

“We can carry those,” Mulder said, rushing to catch up, to which their host replied:

“It is a long walk, and I’m used to the sun here.”

Mulder was ashamed to admit he was relieved. He was not as fit as he’d once been, and the days now started with his body creaking and groaning, and a trudge across the sand seemed perhaps less physically arduous without having to carry forty pounds of all the things he’d overpacked. Anyway, Akaal moved with the grace of a much younger man. Assuredly one younger than Mulder himself.

For her part, Scully slipped off her sandals and looped the ends through her fingers, glancing happily at the ocean before contentedly and obediently following Akaal.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Down the beach and around the end of a point sat a small cottage, windows facing the ocean spreading across the whole front. It had a sturdy tile roof and a lanai on the southern side of the house that was held up on the ends with stripped and polished tree trunks with branches extending into the eaves. The outside was painted a rustic and weathered blue the color of the sky. Scully was instantly smitten.

She’d been suspicious of this trip since he brought it up. Suspicious since he booked it, keeping most of the details to himself. Suspicious since they’d gotten into a cab at the airport and he’d practically refused to meet her eye.

Why he’d booked a cottage so far from the rest of civilization (if that’s what you could call it on this small atoll) was anyone’s guess, but something he was more likely to do back in the more adventurous days of their youth, not now, when he was almost deferential to Scully’s comfort to a fault.

And while she had enjoyed walking the beach -- it felt pleasant to have sun on her face and sand between her toes -- there was something else going on here, and she was going to figure out what it was.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Akaal showed them around the cottage, which -- thank fuck -- was charming and clean and well provisioned, the pantry and small refrigerator stocked, a coffee maker on the small bar in the corner nearest the ocean.

“What brings you to Bimini?” Akaal asked, and Mulder looked over at Scully, whose profile was dark against the bright backlight of the Caribbean.

“Nostalgia,” Mulder answered quietly.

Akaal set down their suitcases and straightened, nodding at Mulder like they shared a secret.

“Perhaps you’ll make new memories, while reliving the old ones.”

Akaal glanced at Scully and then turned away to show them how to work the shower, and explained that the door to the lanai sometimes stuck if it was humid.

Mulder, sensing that Akaal knew something about the legend that filled barely three pages in a file at the bottom of his suitcase, took a chance. “Should we be expecting any… rain?” he asked.

Akaal narrowed his eyes at Mulder and then stood up a little straighter.

“Afternoon showers are pretty common,” he said, “but if you’re interested in the weather, the point past Mangrove Bay has a small cove. If the Gods smile upon you, some rain may fall.”

He and Mulder locked eyes for a long moment.

“Thank you,” Mulder said, reaching out to shake his hand.

“Have a good stay,” the man said. He then turned to Scully and gave her a slow, monarchal nod of the head, before turning and leaving the cottage through the back door, closing it solidly behind him.

Scully watched him go and then turned to Mulder, looking a little puzzled.

“How is he getting back into town?” she asked.

Mulder shrugged. “Maybe he’ll walk,” he said, “he seems to be pretty spry for an old guy.”

“We should be so lucky,” Scully said, dropping her sandals on a mat by the door and taking a slow turn to look around the cottage.

“This is nice,” she said, sounding a little surprised.

“Oh ye of little faith.”

She turned to him slowly. “I saw your face in the taxi, Mulder. You were worried too.”

He shrugged and she followed him as he carried their luggage into the small bedroom.

“All right,” she said, taking her suitcase from him and tossing it onto the bed. She turned to him with her hands on her hips. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Mulder, why are we here? We could have stayed in one of the bigger hotels in town or gone to St. Croix or the Caymans or something and been far more comfortable, so why are we here?”

Mulder hoisted his own suitcase onto the small luggage rack underneath the window. He opened it, unpacking slowly, looking out at the ocean and debating how much to tell her. Finally, he grabbed the file he’d printed out from beneath his swimming trunks and handed the manila folder to Scully.

She took it, sinking down slowly to sit on the bed as she read.

“Oh, Mulder,” she said softly, looking up at him. She gently pressed the folder closed and set it down on the bed, standing up and moving in front of him. Her eyes searched his, watery and bright, blue as the sea outside the window. “You’re trying to recapture our youth?”

“Pathetic, huh?”

“No.” She reached up and ran her hand along his cheek. “It’s not pathetic and neither are you.”

He was about to argue with her when she put a finger to his lips. “Don’t even try.” He smiled against her, the skin on the inside of her finger as silky as melted wax. “You haven’t taken me on an X-File in a long time. I kind of like it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She leaned in and kissed his lips, just a peck. “Now go out there and make me a mai tai or something and I’ll get us unpacked.”

He backed his way out the door, still smiling.

“What goes in a mai tai?” he asked.

“I don’t know…rum,” she said, with an uptick of her lips.

He turned away from her and made a face.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“Akaal said Mangrove Bay?” she asked him, and he nodded. “There’s no Mangrove Bay on this map.”

She turned her phone so he could lean in to look at the digital map she’d brought up of Bimini, his progressives perched on the end of his nose.

“Rokovoko,” he said, and she quirked him a grin.

They had made a simple dinner of grilled fish and a fruit salad from the offerings of a bowl on the cottage’s small dining table, at which they now sat, casually planning their attempts to find the Rains. They had pored through the file, such as it was, looking for clues. The most they’d honestly gotten was the maybe-not-even-real nudge nudge wink wink information they’d gotten from Akaal. Who did not answer his phone when Mulder called with some questions. Perhaps he should have told him there was a problem with the cottage (there was not – it was lovely).

Mulder took a sip from his water glass and leaned forward onto his elbows.

“We’ll go explore in the area he told us about in the morning, see what we can find?”

Scully nodded at this and rose to clear their plates and cutlery.

They made quick work of the dishes and went out to sit on the small dock to watch the sun disappear over the land behind the cottage, both delighted to find that an aggregation of manatees had congregated there, drinking from a pipe secured to the bottom of the dock -- overflow from the well dug into the water table out back.

Two hundred yards out, a fishing charter roared by on its way back to the port in Alice Town, its twin outboards spraying up a rooster tail of foam.

The humidity in the air added volume to her hair, and it was fluffed out and curled coquettishly over her shoulder like a shampoo ad in Redbook. He reached out to wrap a lock around his finger and gave it a gentle tug. She turned to him.

“Remember that summer I spent scrubbing boats?” he asked.

She smiled, remembering. It was their year on the run. He would walk into their drab little extended-stay motel room after working on the docks all day, smelling like sweat and Simple Green. His hair back then was shot with sandy highlights from the sun, the white soles of his sneakers stained Comet blue. He would grab her around the waist and press his gritty chin into her neck, running his rough, newly calloused hands under her shirt. Then to the bed, where he would rock into her, panting with want, rumbling how much he’d missed her into the cup of her ear. She would have to leave for the bar downstairs twenty minutes later to sling lobster rolls and Yuengling to fat tourists until 11:00, their educations wasted. It was the most emotionally honest summer of their lives. She could still picture the thin wood paneling of that motel room, the water-stained Virgin Mary on the ceiling, the fact that it never quite stopped smelling like the sweet, bleachy musk of their sex and peanut oil from the fryers.

She reached up to thumb his chin. Love was such a short, simple word; it wasn’t nearly complex enough — there weren’t enough letters for how much he made her feel, even all these years later.

“We’re going to find the cove,” she said with certainty. “I’ll pack us a lunch.”

If there was magic here, Mulder would find it, or she would find it for him.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The next morning, lathered in sunscreen and wearing swimsuits, they headed northeast up the beach. The air was sticky and quiet but for the call of gulls, and a single pelican glided low over the water, its wings fixed, stiff as a kite catching the breeze.

The day was bright, but there was a bank of grey clouds to the east which never seemed to get any closer, and Mulder would glance at them at least once a minute, fixated. Scully attempted to draw his focus.

“Remember that trash monster?”

Mulder gave her his attention. He was familiar with this old game.

“Yes. Remember the wolf lady?”

Scully made a face. “Remember that walking tornado?”

“Do I?” he said with a leer, “Those were my favorite cuffs. Yours too, if I’m not mistaken.”

They walked until they hit a wall of mangrove growing out over the water.

Mulder peered around the edge of it, scoping out what lay before them, a tinge of excitement creeping up his spine.

“I think this is the place,” he said, looking at what was almost too small to consider a bay, but hemmed in in several places by clumps of mangroves growing out over the water. From where they stood on the beach far to the east of the cottage, they could see where you’d have to swim out past them to reach the sandy cove, which that carved into the land past the overgrowth. The point extended out like a light sandy arm, ending at rippling fingers where the ocean took over.

“Looks like we’ll have to swim around the mangrove to get there,” Scully said, surveying the area with a skeptical eye, her hands on her hips. “Do you think it’s very deep?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

Mulder dropped their phones, the towel and bottle of sunscreen Scully insisted they carry into a dry bag that held their packed lunch and slung it high on his shoulder.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

Mulder led the way, wading out into the warm water, leaving a trail of silty sand in a line behind him through which Scully passed, several yards behind. A school of small fish crowded around his feet and then darted away. The water gradually rose until it was at his chest, and he turned to find Scully treading water, too short to touch bottom. He maneuvered the pack to the top of his head, not really wanting to test how waterproof it actually was.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she answered, her hair swirling about her shoulders like kelp, “go ahead.”

Twenty yards past the mangrove growth they were able to wade back onto shore, a trio of palm trees lining the thin strip of sand. The point was off to their right and had a sharper angle here, knifing out into the ocean.

“Mangrove Bay,” Scully said, looking around.

“Looks like we found our cove,” Mulder said, nodding toward where an arc was carved out of the water at the base of the point, surrounded by sheets of green fronds. The sand in it looked light as air and the water that lapped gently at the shore was the purest blue. He held out his hand and Scully took it without a word.

Once they arrived at more or less the middle of the small cove, Mulder stopped and unslung the pack, snapping out the towel onto the sand for somewhere to sit. He handed Scully a water bottle and lowered himself down, his spine popping as he settled. He kept his eyes on the shelf of grey clouds, but they merely hung in the air far out over the ocean, getting neither closer nor further away.

“Should have brought a book,” Scully said, sitting down beside him.

“You want your phone?”

“Not yet,” she said, leaning back on her elbows and closing her eyes. They were in sun dappled shade that cast swaying shadows along the column of her neck. Eventually she laid down fully, rolling up her sun hat to use as a pillow.

It was a quiet, peaceful place, not too shabby a location to while away a day, and eventually, they ate their lunch and dozed. Scully started reading a book on her phone as the afternoon wore on, her eyes squinting at the small screen. He cast out his gaze toward the bank of grey clouds, but they had moved further out to sea and changed, lightened in color.

He sighed and reached out to rub a hand along the back of Scully’s neck.

“I think I’m going to call it,” he said.

She looked at him sympathetically. “You sure?”

He nodded. “Seems wrong to be disappointed in this beautiful weather, but…”

Scully rose and stretched, wincing, and shook the sand out of her sun hat.

“We can walk out to the point if you want,” she suggested, “get a better look at the layout of the island?”

Mulder shoved their lunch detritus deep into his pack.

“Nah” he said, “I think we should head back before the tide comes in. We tried.”

Scully nodded and folded up the large beach towel.

When they finally neared the cottage, the breeze had picked up from behind them, blowing out the gauzy sarong that Scully had tied around her waist. Mulder turned to look back at the direction from which they’d come, and saw a line of grey haze coming at them fast. Mulder gave Scully’s hand a squeeze and took a couple of tentative steps toward it, the thin wall of rain rolling in with the sweet smell of petrichor.

It wasn’t a wall of water — more of a filmy curtain — and it rolled in and over them in a gentle mist. Mulder turned to Scully, waiting for the magic to wash over her, for the years to melt away, but nothing happened. She reached up and pulled her sun hat off, letting it drop to hang limply from her fingers. Mulder looked down at his own hands, fronts and backs, the fine papery skin damp, but unchanged. Disappointment washed through him and he felt his shoulders sag.

When he looked up, Scully was at his side.

“Maybe that’s not how it works,” she said softly.

“Maybe,” he said, “How do you feel?”

She gave him a small rueful smile. “The same. But wet.”

He looked out over the water as the small squall passed by and over them, and reached out to squeeze her shoulder.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She couldn’t get him to go back to the cove. She knew he was disappointed, that, while a long shot, he’d thought there was a chance the Rains of Bimini were a real thing. And the let down was bigger than it ought to be. He was putting on a brave face, and being generally agreeable, but every time she suggested they try the cove again — just in case — he would turn her down and suggest something else.

They were leaving in two days - had already arranged for the Peugeot-driving taxi driver to meet them at the end of the road the morning of the second day. Tomorrow was it, Scully thought. She didn’t actually believe in the phenomenon, but she wanted an adventure for Mulder, something to make this trip not a total loss in his eyes. Something they’d reminisce about. Do you remember when we went to Bimini…?

“I want to go night swimming,” she said, apropos of nothing.

“What?”

They were sitting out on the lanai, each reading a book, the sun having set an hour previous. Mulder was propped on the small wicker sofa, his long legs hanging off one of the arms. She reached out and gripped his bare foot in her hand, squeezing.

“Night swimming,” she said, “come on.” She rose from the lounge chair and set down her book, face-down to mark the page.

Mulder looked at her a little dubiously — night swimming in the embrace of the Atlantic was perhaps not the most attractive prospect to a man whose adolescence began the same year he’d watched Jaws in the theater. They had even filmed the blockbuster the year before on the beach his family frequented — there were things that stuck with you.  

“I dunno, Scully,” he said, and she knew he was thinking of sharks, barracuda, but she knew how to get him to follow.

The night air had that soft feeling of the tropics, like the air itself was a lover with a warm feather-light caress. Scully pulled off her top and dropped it to the floor at Mulder’s feet, turning to leave through the screen door of the lanai before she could clock his reaction. She heard the door open and close again before she’d gotten ten feet from the cottage. She shucked off the rest of her clothing as she walked and waded in, not bothering to look behind her.

XxXxXxXxXxX

She surfaced like a selkie, hair dark in the wet moonlight. She caught his eyes where he stopped a few yards in, water lapping gently at his thighs, and then she dove back under in a swirl of calm water, his own Galene under the waves.

He walked out until he was hip deep and then let his body fall forward, the buoyant warm salt holding him up. There was a churn of water to his left and then she was in front of him, wrapping a slippery arm around his waist.

“Thanks for joining me,” she said, her lips close to his cheek, coral-tipped pink even in the light of the moon.

“You might not be thanking me when you get stung by a jellyfish and I have to pee on you.”

“Vinegar works better than urine, but I thank you for the thought.”

“There’s a Selfless Act/Penis joke in here somewhere, but I’ll save you from it.”

“One heroic act after the next.”

He rested both his hands on her waist and kicked them out to deeper water, pulling her close so that her breasts pushed softly into his chest. He could touch the sandy bottom here but he wasn’t sure if she could.

“I should be thanking you,” he finally said, dropping the jokey tenor of his voice. She tilted her head at him in question, her cool, wet skin warming where it was pressed to him. “For flying down to the Caribbean on a snipe hunt,” he went on to explain.

“Yeah, vacationing in the tropics with the man I love is a real chore.” Her eyes flicked up, half a revolution of an eye roll.

He smiled at her, turning them in place so that the moon lit the shadows of her face.

“You know what I mean.”

“So you owe me, is what you’re saying.”

He hummed, thinking of a few fun ways he could pay her back.

Her arms came up out of the depths to wrap slowly around his neck and she leaned her face into him, just below his ear. A warmth bloomed low in his belly.

“Take me back to the cove,” she husked breathily.

It took him a moment to register what she said.

“Wait, what?”

She laughed and kicked away from him, the water swirling in cooly to fill the space she’d just been.

“You owe me a false pretense, Mulder,” she said. “You owe me an X-File.”

He sighed and tilted his head back, looking to the dome of the heavens, awash in purple and smattered with stars. He felt foolish for bringing them here. Flying a thousand miles for three pages of rumor and nostalgia.

“I thought you were humoring me.”

“I was,” she said, finding the sand with her feet and standing so that her breasts bobbed just below the surface. ���And now you can humor me.”

He sighed, watched her slick body rise up out of the ocean and drift back toward the cottage. “What do you hope to find?” he asked her retreating form.

“A memory,” she called back.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They had lazily packed up most of their things that morning, remembering that Akaal had told them that the rain sometimes came to the cove in the afternoon. They made simple sandwiches for lunch, using up the last of the bread and lunch meat, passing a nearly empty bag of chips back and forth.

Mulder wadded up his paper napkin and dropped it to his plate, leaning back in the chair to look at Scully. She crunched her way through the last few chips.

“Want me to pack up the dry bag?” he asked her thoughtfully.

“I already did,” she said, licking salt from her fingers.

He contemplated her for a moment, listened to a gull call out from the surf outside.

“I used to feel like I had to promise you things,” he finally said, and she looked up. “That I knew what I was doing, that everything would be okay… a nice trip to the forest.” She gave him the ghost of a smile. “I don’t know when I stopped doing it. Promising.”

“I do,” she said, after a quiet moment. He raised his brows in question. “You lit a candle for me, in a church.” He smiled, remembering. “From then on, all your promises were implied. You don’t have to say them out loud for me to know you’re making them, Mulder.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I don’t know what to promise you for this,” he said, nodding toward the direction of the hidden cove. “I can’t promise you an X-File.”

“Promise me a walk on the beach,” she said, “the rest will sort itself out.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

“Is it just me, or does it seem further away than the last time we were here?” Mulder asked after walking for what felt like several miles.

“No, I know what you mean,” Scully answered, and she did.

The day, rather inauspiciously for their purposes, was clear with not a cloud in sight. They had taken their time, pretended there was no real purpose to their jaunt; held hands and picked up sea shells and stopped to watch a pod of dolphins play in the surf. But even though they took their time, the beach seemed to stretch out before them like a dolly zoom in a Hitchcock film and it took what seemed like an extra thirty minutes before they reached the growth of mangroves that denoted the edge of the cove.

Without a word, Scully handed over her sarong and phone and Mulder dropped them in the dry bag and they waded out to swim out around the overgrowth, the water swelling and receding around them like a whale’s heartbeat. They waded out and up onto the beach of the cove streaming water onto the dry, powder white sand.

Mangrove Bay had an odd feeling to it this time, Scully thought, different than several days before. The palms that lined the edge of the cove had large fronds that seemed to shiver in a breeze that she couldn’t feel on her skin. The sky above was still clear, no sign of rain that she could see, but that didn’t mean much out here. As proven on their very first day, rain could sweep across the tropics quickly and without warning, and anyway, when you were investigating an X-File, things never happened the way you expected them to.

“You have to admit it’s picturesque,” Mulder said, looking out over the sea, at the endless expanse of blue.

“It is that,” Scully said, wrapping an arm around his waist and leaning her head into his side.

“Should we send a selfie to the kids?”

Scully laughed, but tipped her head in for a picture as Mulder pulled out his phone.

“That’s weird,” he said, fiddling with it, “my phone’s dead.”

“Did it get wet?” Scully asked.

“Bone dry. And anyway, I haven’t had a phone that wasn’t waterproof since 2019.”

Mulder reached into the bag to pull out Scully’s and found it in the same condition.

“Huh.”

“We’ll plug them in when we get back to the cottage. Maybe they got too hot in the bag and it drained them,” Scully said. “Come on, Mulder, don’t worry about it.”

Scully put her sarong back on and they dropped the bag beside a piece of driftwood high on the sand, deciding to walk to the end of the point to the far right of the cove just to see what they could see.

It was pleasant; the air still and the sun warm. Bougainvillea grew up at the base of the point where the land started in earnest, socking in the edge of the beach in a brilliant, magenta pink.

They reached the end of the point and stood in the hard packed sand, surrounded by water on three sides. Scully took a deep breath of the fragrant tropical air and once again leaned into Mulder’s side.

“At the quiet limit of the world,” he whispered, quoting her Tennyson.

She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand and without a word both turned to walk back toward the cove where they’d left their small collection of things. It was time to head back. They’d done what they came to do.

As they walked, Scully kept her eyes cast down, looking for a few good shells she could keep on the kitchen windowsill, when she felt Mulder pause beside her.

“Scully,” he said, and the tone of his voice made her look up. When they connected eyes, he raised his arm and pointed toward the shore of the cove. Scully’s gaze followed his finger.

The sky above the beach was dark, unnaturally dark, a low bank of angry clouds rolling in above the swaying palms, sweeping in from the land side of the island, up and over the trees.

“Do you think it’s-“ she began to say, when Mulder reached a hand toward her, not taking his eyes off the tableau before them.

“Come on,” he said, his voice low. She grabbed his hand without another word.

The rain started falling the moment they reached the beach. Scully dropped Mulder’s hand and took a few halting steps forward, putting her hand out into the falling water as the sheet of rain swept over them both. They traded a quick look and then Scully took a few more steps, not really expecting to feel anything, but still anticipating some kind of transformation, a deep-brain vestigial instinct telling her something would be different, but really only feeling the clammy sog of her swimsuit and sarong clinging to her leg. She could hear Mulder coming along behind her, the rain making the sand under their feet firm and easier to walk on. She took a bracing breath.

“Well,” she said, turning to him, planning to buck him up from disappointment, “we tried. You know, I almost thought-”

She froze in her tracks. He had stopped several feet behind her and was wearing a shocked expression, his mouth dropping as he looked at her. The rain dripped down his cheeks and pressed his hair to the cap of his skull, and his eyes, looking back at her with slowly dawning shock and delight, stared at her from the face of a man she hadn’t seen in years.

“Scully?” he said, his voice a little smoother than she was used to, tinged with an edge of awe.

“Mulder?” she questioned back, then looked down at the backs of her own hands, at the smooth, unmarred skin. Her fingers shot up to her face, not sure what she should expect to feel. “Am I-?”

Mulder nodded at her. “Younger,” he said, not moving an inch from where he stood, “Jesus, Dana, you look like-” he didn’t finish what he was going to say, but she knew anyway. They looked like they did on their first case in Bellefleur. A couple of kids, soaked to the skin by the side of the road, nine seconds (and forty one years) gone.

One more long moment and then he was rushing up to her, lifting her off the ground as easily as a danseur lifting a ballerina.

“Holy shit, Scully!” he shouted. He was as giddy as he’d been in Oregon all those years ago, and she found herself being twirled around, her body still tense from shock, disbelief. Excitement.

“Mulder, put me down!”

He laughed as he did so, and as he lowered her to the ground, she felt light, buoyant, strong. As fleet of foot as she had as a teen. She took a few halting steps forward, and Mulder seemed to have the same idea and they took one look at each other and ran down the beach, pushing, pushing, faster than either of them had run in years. They ran all the way to the cove’s edge, and slowed as they reached the perimeter, which was also the edge of the rain, each of them breathing hard and smiling at each other in awestruck delight.

“This is wild,” Mulder said over the loud patting of the rain on the greenery, shaking his head.

“I don’t believe it,” Scully heard herself say and they both burst into laughter at her admission.

After a calming moment, Mulder turned to the boundary of the rain, and looked at the dry sand on the other side. He looked at Scully for a moment and then turned back toward it.

“I wonder if…” he said, and then before she could counsel him not to, he stepped through the wall of water and into the dry air on the other side. He aged almost instantly.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully shouted his name though he had stopped only a yard or two in front of her. He looked down at his hands, weather beaten and liver spotted. His heart leapt to his throat, on instant alert that he’d made a terrible choice, that something would happen—that the change would be permanent, that he’d somehow crossed the rubicon and couldn’t get back to Scully, ever. He rushed toward her, back into the rain and watched her face sag in relief. He felt strong and powerful once more, like a rock. He looked down once again at his hands and they were smooth, unmarred, as fine as a sculpture.

He flashed on his life, on Scully’s. What did one do when they had been gifted something as precious and extinct as one’s former youth? He looked to the woman standing before him.

He remembered putting Scully and their son in a helicopter, handing over the baby once she was strapped in. He remembered finding the gold chain of her cross in a car trunk, in a spaceship. He remembered kissing her at midnight in a hospital corridor, the way her lips were soft and supple. He remembered when the life was flowing out of her, one nosebleed at a time.

And suddenly he knew what he’d do with a twenty nine year old Scully, with a thirty-something self - what he should have done the first time - he stepped up to her and kissed her, hard.

She inhaled in surprise and then kissed him back, clearly feeling her oats, emboldened by her own returned youth. Her tongue was desperate in his mouth, and he scooped her up easily, hands under her ass, her legs around his waist. Desire wound its way through him like lava up the vent of a volcano; audacious and urgent and hot.

“Scuh-“ he panted as her lips grazed wetly along his jaw, his body responding in that quicksilver way of youth.

He yanked the top of her suit down and leaned down to lav at her breasts, high and tight and round as ripe citrus.

“Want you,” Scully breathed in his ear, her tongue darting out to flick the delicate lobe.

They were soaked to the skin now, slippery and raw. Scully struggled with the ties on his swimming trunks, which were tight and catchy in the wet. She finally got them loose enough to reach in and free him, and he could feel himself pulse in her hot little grip.

God, he was on fire, wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam rising off of them and into the misting downpour.

Aroused into a frenzy by her clever hands, he pulled the crotch of her swimsuit to the side and thrust up into her. She grunted and then opened her mouth, sucking in air breathily, her inner muscles gripping him, her sheathe as slick and wet as an overripe plum. He felt her fingers twine in his hair, gripping and yanking his head back so she could lick hungrily at his neck.

He lost all sense of time. Time they’d wasted, time they hadn’t, time he’d spent in the nirvanic cradle of her hips — none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was her; he drove into her like time didn’t exist.

The rain came down like a chorus, a gospel choir singing her praises, the water running over their skin sparking at nerve endings already at the apex of their capacity.

When he thought he might combust, she moaned into his neck and he gripped her hips in bruising handfuls and followed her home, emptying himself into her until he had nothing left to give. He sunk to his knees on the wet sand and held her to him tight.

After a moment, she scratched his back lightly and he loosened his grip, allowing her to slide off of him and right what little she was wearing, and when he tucked himself back into his trunks and rose back to his feet, she stood beside him, wet hair in clumpy coils of dark red, her lips curved into a smile.

“God,” she said, looking shyly aside, “we haven’t done it standing up in twenty years.”

“That’s a nice way of saying that I couldn’t lift you these days if I tried.”

“Oh, you could. You’d just throw your back out.”

He chuckled and reached for her hand, pulled it out and to the side like he was presenting her at cotillion.

“Let me look at you,” he said, and wiped water from his brow, lest it blur the vision she was.

His last, best love.

XxXxXxXxXxX

God, he was a vision; all smooth skin and lean muscle. He was broad shouldered and lean waisted, his head thick with dark chocolate hair. The look he gave her, one filled with affection and love made her feel things down to her toes.

“Dana Scully, you are the most stunning creature I have ever beheld,” he said, stepping into her so that the rain dripped off of his nose and onto her cheek.

She reached up to run her hand along his jaw.

“Likewise,” she whispered back.

He reached out to touch her. “I’ll never forgive myself,” he said tenderly. “We could have had this, then.”

“We have this now.”

“Yeah, but we-” he stopped himself, huffed a heavy breath, putting out a hand to feel the rain. “Dance with me?”

She smiled and stepped into him.

They swayed together, barely moving, until the sound of the rain took on a different quality. Scully looked up.

She could see the edge of the clouds sweeping toward them, heading off toward the end of the cove and the sea. She noticed it only a moment or two before Mulder. She saw a look come over his face -- his young, exquisitely carved face -- the realization that the magic was wending its way away from them, and he grabbed her hand and tore off after it, trying to stay within the spray of the rain, great clumps of wet sand flying up behind them. For a dozen yards she kept up with him, but his long legs ate up more distance than hers could and her hand slipped out of his. She pulled up short and he ran on toward the point of land at the edge of the cove, where the rain was slipping away from them, drifting ever-steadily to places that couldn’t be found on any map. Her heart followed him, and from where she stood, she could feel the moment the rain finally passed her by, her muscles heavy, her bones once again containing the knowledge and experience of her seventy-plus years.

She watched in nostalgic admiration as a young Mulder’s arms churned, as his long legs ate up the distance, the broad muscles of his back that perfectly youthful triangle from his shoulders to his waist, and then he was to the end of the point. He splashed out several feet into the ocean, and then the water slowed him and the rain, at that moment, passed him by, too. He sunk to his knees in the surf.

She gave him a moment and then made her way toward him, walking slowly. When she got to him, the waves were gently rolling past him, rising and falling along the length of his torso like a heartbeat or a breath. When he felt her next to him, he rose to his feet beside her, his face still watching the retreating sheet of rain, and he reached down to grab onto and squeeze her hand. After a moment she felt his eyes on her.

She expected him to look sad or bereft or lost, but his face held a small enigmatic smile.

“You know, you haven’t aged a goddamn day,” he said.

They made their way out of the cove with purpose, but unhurried, not exchanging a word. They stopped to collect their belongings, safely dry in the waterproof bag, and then swam around the point of mangroves, each of them making a conscious choice not to look back.

As they trundled back down the beach toward the cottage, a buzz emitted from the bag slung around Mulder’s shoulder and he stopped and unfasted the top, rummaging around until he came up with a phone; Scully’s. It buzzed again with a waiting text message.

“Guess the phones aren’t dead after all,” he muttered, handing it over.

Scully thumbed up the screen. A text message was waiting.

“Jackson,” she said, and Mulder looked over.

What was that? The message read. Scully held the phone up for Mulder to see.

“What do I tell him?”

Mulder smiled at her.

There’s still a little magic in the world, Jack she typed back.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The Virginia sunshine broke through the clouds above their porch like a tear in the fabric of the time, a pipe-like tunnel of pure light. Spring had sprung while they were away, and the last of the snow sat in low ditches, crusty and wet and full of the last of the winter grit. Buds were sprouting on the maple trees that lined the woods an acre or so off the west of their property, punctured with spiles and draped with bright white sap buckets – it wouldn’t be long until the air was suffused with the smoky-sweet smell from their neighbor’s sugar shack. Mulder rubbed his hands together, trying to infuse a little warmth into his fingers, and listened to the first of the cicadas' calling, duking it out with the robins and chickadees for auditory rights in the still-cool air of Farrs Corner.

Their vacation felt a bit like a dream, like something that had happened a long time ago, and but for the seashells lined up along the windowsill in the kitchen, Mulder sometimes felt as though perhaps it hadn’t happened at all. He felt his age. He felt the loss of his youth more keenly having regained it for a brief time.

The screen door closed just behind him with a hydraulic whine and swollen wooden thud, and then he felt Scully’s arms weave around his waist from behind. He smiled into the air and rubbed his cool hands along her bare arms.

“Your hands are cold,” she said, her voice muffled from where she was pressing her face into his flannel-clad back.

“Sorry,” he said, looking down at her arms, still freckled from a week in the Caribbean sun.

“Mm, no, feels good,” she said, and squeezed him before letting go to wind her way around his side, brushing herself against him and finagling her way under his arm, cat-like. He sighed and pulled her tightly to him, watching as the sunlight spread across their yard and the open fields beyond it.

“You’ve been quiet,” she said, running a hand along his chest and absently fingering one of the buttons on his shirt.

“Yeah,” he admitted.

“Thinking about Bimini?”

He sighed an affirmation. “Think we can go back? Someday?”

She was quiet a moment and then moved to stand in front of him.

“I think it wouldn’t be the same,” she finally said. “I want to be here. I want it to be now.” He rested his chin on her head. “Lily is coming home over spring break. She asked if she could bring her new boyfriend.”

“Oh god.”

Scully chuckled. “And Jackson wants to come out while she’s home. He said he and Kate have something they want to tell us all.”

Scully was the one tuned in to Jackson’s frequency, but Mulder knew without having to ask.

“We’re going to be grandparents.” He didn’t frame it as a question.

Scully nodded under his chin and was quiet. He could tell she was smiling. He tried to breathe it all in. The smells, the sounds… her. He lifted his head and she tilted hers back to look at him.

“Do you remember…” she started, and the sun glinted off the grey in her hair, “all those years ago… when I said I wouldn’t change a day?” He nodded, his throat thick. She reached up and fingered the papery skin at his temple. “I meant it, Mulder.”

And she lifted up and pressed her lips gently to his.

[handy-dandy-monster-candy]

Jayson, part Two

Rating: NSFW Length: 2381 Pairing: Male Crocodilian Lizardfolk x Male Reader (both cis)

xxx

If you thought Jayson was attractive in athleisure wear, he’s even more of a heart-throb in his usual streetwear, sporting a well-maintained leather jacket over a tank top and steel-toed boots. He greets you with a tiny bouquet that he fashions into a corsage for you, and then he takes you to an arcade with a beat-up facade but a lively interior. He tells you that his brother used to take him here when he was little more than a hatchling, and he’s happy to support a business that’s still thriving when it still has an active gaming community and good food.

He comes prepared with rolls of quarters and a competitive spirit, and you spent hours playing air hockey and head-to-head fighting games. He can barely squeeze into the seats for the racing games but that doesn’t stop him from laughing, and you laugh right along with him for what feels like forever. He takes no prisoners shooting hoops and you think your eyes would water if you gave the same focus he does to chasing down the ghosts in Mrs. Pac-Man, but after all the tickets are traded in, you get a giant stuffed gator—“My less attractive cousin,” says Jayson—and matching mood rings to commemorate the occasion. Putting them on feels like you’re having a shotgun wedding in Vegas somewhere, surrounded by neon lights and the wiggly 90’s patterns on the carpets.

You stash the gator in his truck and he takes you out to dinner at the mall, and you have to laugh when he balances curly fries on his snout like a carb-based moustache. Jayson seems to thrive when you’re laughing—he seems to magnify your energy and enjoys building you up as a result. You have some spare time before your movie date, so you go window shopping and try on all kinds of different outfits. You’re surprised to find that Jayson looks great sporting a cowboy hat, and you laugh when he pairs it with a set of pinstripe bell-bottoms in a pretty shade of lilac.

You lose track of time and have to scurry into the movie theatre like a pair of giggly teenagers, nearly spilling your drinks on your way up to the back of the darkened room where the bigger seats are. You spend most of the film trying not to be too obnoxious to the other film-goers, but you’re too into Jayson to focus on whatever action flick you both chose at the box office, and it’s clear that Jayson feels the same. You flick popcorn into his open mouth and he wraps his arm around your shoulders, tucking you as close as he can. The armrest between you gets frustrating for him, however, and it’s not long until you find yourself sitting on one of Jayson’s huge thighs.

You don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s murder for your tailbone; his muscles are hard as steel.

You whisper to him that you may as well have become that stuffed gator, so dearly does he hold you, but he whispers, “You’re easier on the eyes,” back to you in the dark. You spend the second half of the movie cuddling against his chest and playing with his big, thick hand, toying with the webbing between his fingers until he chuckles and tells you that it tickles him. His lap becomes much less uncomfortable as time goes on, and you realise with a flutter in your chest that Jayson’s nerves had led to tense muscles, and he’s relaxing around you as time goes on.

By the time you get back to his truck, the streetlamps have been lit for hours, and you’re both reluctant to stop touching. Soft pop music floats from the speakers when the engine turns over, and Jayson reaches over to turn it down even lower just to talk with you. He starts planning your next date with all the eagerness of a child at Christmas, and you’re not even the least bit offended by his presumptuousness; this date has been the best you’ve had in a long time—possibly ever. The chemistry is there, bubbling away below the surface as you hold hands at red lights.

When you get home, he walks you to the door of your apartment and squeezes your hands before you finally part, leaving you a butterfly-addled mess as you watch him drive away. He texts you when he gets home safely and you shoot messages back and forth late into the night until you fall asleep cuddling your new stuffed toy, cell phone in hand and a smile on your face. He texts you good morning the next day and asks if he can swing by to take you out for coffee, which you happily accept.

This begins a ritual of going on little mini-dates all throughout the week, and you start hanging out at each others’ apartments after you finish up at the office or Jayson at his studio, cooking each other meals and watching more movies. One night, you both fall asleep on your couch and by the time you wake, it’s the early morning hours, so you invite Jayson into your bedroom and let him sleep with you in your bed. You learn very quickly that Jayson is a massive cuddler, which would normally bother you through overheating except for the fact that Jayson is cool to the touch and a kleptotherm in his sleep. You find him as refreshing as the cool side of the pillow most nights he spends over, and it’s cute to watch him burrow under the covers for warmth.

You end up all but moving into his apartment, mostly for his comfort. His apartment is much bigger since he’s huge, and while you’ve never minded your little cubbyhole, you certainly welcome the change just to see him walk through doors without having to duck. You’re both still as tactile as ever, but it’s never gone further than a few heated kisses and heavy petting—something you’re determined to change tonight. You spend all day swinging wildly between knowing that everything will be fine and anxiety over the possibility of making an ass of yourself, but when the time comes, you feel an odd sense of calm.

“What’s all this?” Jayson asks when he gets out of the shower, eyeing the chair you’ve placed in the living room and meandering over to sit on it without so much as waiting for your response.

“A present,” you say, shrugging out of your bathrobe and exposing your form-fitting outfit. You’d spent the whole week worrying about what to wear, but you finally found something that made you look and feel the sexiest you’ve ever felt. You put on the music you’d been practising to and approach Jayson, who’s now looking at you like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“Oh, yeah?” he prompts, reaching out towards your hips. You bat his hands away with a flirty smile—denying him his touch for the first time.

“Yeah,” you reply in a sultry purr, stroking down his bare chest before you step away and begin to dance. Jayson keeps his eyes on you in a way that he’s never done before, making heat pool low in your belly as you sway your hips and maneuver around his chair. You pepper little touches on his skin here and there as you go, pulling away before he can react or reach out to you. This seems to rankle and rouse Jayson as time goes on, making him twitch and fidget in his chair until you finally settle on his lap.

You are not expecting to sit directly on the mass straining against the crotch of his jeans.

“Jayson!” you laugh, and he laughs along with you, tension releasing from his body.

“What?” he chuckles, greedily stroking cool-hot lines along your back and sides. “Can’t blame a guy for getting excited. You plan this all for me?”

“Yeah,” you murmur, suddenly feeling shy. “We’ve been taking it slow. I figured it was time we got to know each other better.”

“Mm,” Jayson hums, looking you over from head to toe. “I like the lace.”

“I thought you might,” you say around a smile, snapping at the waistband of the lace panties you’d made sure peeked up over the waistband of your bottoms. You pull off the top half of your clothes so that you and Jayson are both shirtless, biting your lip as you stroke along the smooth scales of his chest. “Well? Take me to bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Jayson replies, hefting you up into his arms and tossing you over his shoulder to fireman carry you into the bedroom. There, he carefully deposits you onto the bed and strips out of his jeans, letting you get your first look at the pink, wet cock that’s slipped out of the slit in his body. It’s long and ribbed, thick at the base and tapered into a sharp point at the tip. You manage to give it a kiss before Jayson gently pushes you away, saying, “Not now, baby. I’m about to blow.”

“Already?” you blurt, surprised.

Jayson laughs. “That dance was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d had a camera.”

You blush, huffing your amusement. “If you’d tried to record it, you’d be out on the couch by yourself right now.”

“Duly noted.” Jayson gestures toward the pillows. “Strip down and lie back. I wanna see what I’m working with.”

“Yes, sir,” you purr, playfully batting your lashes at the man before you do as he asks. You’d taken the liberty of setting out a small selection of lubricants and toys earlier while Jayson was in the shower—something he notices now.

“Gonna have to prep yourself,” he says apologetically, wiggling the clawed fingers on his hands.

You grimace, then shake your head, moving to grab one of your favourites from the nightstand. “I was planning on it.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” he asks, amused and impressed as he climbs up onto the bed to join you.

“Only obsessively for the past two weeks,” you casually reply, mirroring his grin before you get to work opening yourself for his viewing pleasure. Jayson watches you like a starved man watching through the window into a bakery, practically salivating at all of the treats he couldn’t get his hands on. As you work, squirming on your fingers and then toys, you notice a strange gurgling noise coming from Jayson, somewhere between a growl and a click. You stop mid-thrust when you realise what it is. “Are you purring?”

Jayson laughs, embarrassed. “Yeah,” he says, stroking along the insides of your thighs. “My kind does that when we want in.”

“That’s so fucking cute,” you reply around your delighted smile, urging Jayson down into your own brand of kisses. Lizardfolk don’t exactly have soft, pliable lips, but his long tongue delves deep into your mouth, tangling with yours and leaving you breathless. 

“I think that’s enough,” Jayson whispers after another long interim wherein you stretch yourself out, helping you pull the toy you were using out and stroking your skin before he lines himself up. “Ready?”

You nod, biting your lip as you watch him push inside you until your eyes roll back and you groan from deep in your chest. “Oh, fuck,” you murmur, scrabbling blindly and finding Jayson already reaching for you, fingers sliding between yours until you hit webbing. “Sunny.”

“I’m here,” Jayson murmurs back, voice soft and strained. “Gods, you’re a vice.”

You can only make a gurgling noise of your own as he slowly and carefully works his way in, relief flooding you both when he finally bottoms out. “Is it in?” you slur, giggling drunkenly at the endorphins rushing through you.

Jayson snorts sharply, startled into a guffaw. “Fuck you.”

“Thought we were doing that already.”

“Not yet,” says Jayson, chuckling softly. “Hold onto me.”

You barely have time to do as you’re bid before he’s jackhammering into you, pounding shout after shout of ecstasy from your throat as you cling to his muscles and the bedding. Jayson is a skilled lover, changing his tempo and how hard he fucks you until you’re all but speaking in tongues, toes curling and legs clinging around his waist as he plays your body like a fiddle. He knows exactly when and where to touch you after just one round, and after what feels like hours of marathon sex, you tap yourself out on his arm.

“Mercy,” you gasp, chest heaving and dick spent and resting on your belly in a puddle of your own cum.

“Already?” Jayson laughs around his own panting, relenting and cuddling down against your chest with a satisfied purr. “You need to work on your stamina.”

“Yeah, well, you need to—“ You break off into incoherent mumbles, seeing stars. It takes you a full minute of internal negotiations to get your arms to cooperate with you, and then you wrap them around Jayson’s shoulders, toes wiggling against your boyfriend’s thick, scaly tail.

“You look wrung out,” Jayson murmurs, looking apologetic.

“Thanks, hun.”

“No,” he snorts, embarrassed now. “I mean, I was going to offer to help you shower.”

“Ooh,” you coo, sighing wistfully as you consider your jelly legs and the distance to the bathroom. “Carry me?”

“I was planning on it,” Jayson laughs, carefully pulling out and cuddling you up against his chest before he makes his way out of the bedroom.

“Oh, yeah?” you mumble, nuzzling against his collarbones and sighing again. His skin feels so good against yours. “Well, I bet you weren’t planning on me falling in love with you.”

Jayson chuckles as he steps into the bathroom, turning on the shower with one hand. “No, but I was hoping you would.”

“Really?” You’re momentarily distracted by the warmth of the shower’s spray against your back when Jayson steps in with you, and you melt like putty against his chest.

“As much as I love you,” he murmurs into your ear, making your heart dance a giddy little merengue in your chest. You smile against his skin and bury your face against his neck, chuckling as a thought strikes you.

You were going to be useless at Latin night tomorrow.

[imjustwritingg]

you can hear it in the silence

This takes place after Jay gets shot and the hospital scene in season 7, loosely based on the song “You Are In Love” by Taylor Swift. I’ve had this stored away half-finished for quite a while and put a crazy spin on it after seeing a prompt on Twitter. It also seems pretty fitting that I finished this specific one on the same day that JLS’s interview came out where he politely disregarded Linstead and said Upstead rights. Enjoy and let me know what you think. 💜

Also here: AO3 & FanFic.Net

cause you can hear in the silence

you can feel it on the way home

you can see it with the lights out

you are in love, true love

you're in love

XXX

“I can’t figure him out. He’s the first one through the door, a war vet, and he’d rather take a bullet than get the flu shot.”

“It’s hard because you love him.”

“When you were in surgery, no one knew what was going to happen and it made me realize I wanted to tell you something.”

“What were you gonna say?”

Hailey has replayed those moments from the hospital every day in her head since they first happened. Vanessa had straight up called the blonde out on her feelings, that it wasn’t just about her partner, Jay Halstead, but everything else he had become over the last few years of he and Hailey working together. A trusted confidant. Her best friend. Someone she could depend on endlessly. The man she had fallen for without even realizing she was falling in the first place.

When Jay had been given the all-clear to go home Hailey had somehow found the courage to finally tell him about her feelings for him. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something else were to happen and she never got the chance to tell him the truth about how she really felt towards him. Her heart always seemed to ache in that way where she could barely breathe around him and she wanted nothing more than to admit her feelings and hope for the best.

The words had been there right on the tip of her tongue, but with one ring of his undercover phone she was pulled back to reality. The walls shot up around her heart again, made her second guess everything up to that point, and she retreated back into herself as if it were some twisted sign from the universe screaming at her, “no, don’t do it!”

Could she really tell him the truth? And should she? Or would it ruin their friendship and the partnership they’d nearly perfected over the time spent working together? She just wasn’t sure. All of these questions plagued her mind since that day, but she knew she couldn’t voice them out loud. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

XXX

Jay had returned to work a week after his release from the hospital, but he remained on strict desk duty. He was itching to get back out into the field, but Voight had made it clear that, that wasn’t happening until the sling was off his shoulder and he got explicit written permission from his doctor. So, he stayed in the bullpen, pushing paperwork and helping to find leads for his team however he could.

When he saw his partner and Burgess at Platt’s desk that night after his first shift back, he couldn’t help the pride he felt inside of him knowing what Hailey had done to capture the perp.

“I heard you made a nice disarm,” he says while looking at Hailey.

Her face immediately breaks out into a shy smile. “Oh man. You want details?”

“Yeah, I’m losing my mind,” he tells her.

“After six days?” Kim teases.

“After six minutes,” Jay emphasizes with a slight shake of his head.

Before the three of them can make a quick escape from the district, Platt calls out to Kim making her hang back. She says a quick goodbye to the duo, leaving Hailey and Jay to themselves. Hailey looks at her partner and nods to the door, and the pair make their way down the stairs towards the exit.

The bitter winds of Chicago’s winter season meet them eagerly as the pair exit the district. Hailey isn’t sure how it happens, but they end up nearly shoulder to shoulder as they walk down the sidewalk towards the parking lot. Each time they almost brush against one another she feels a rush of heat move through her body from the proximity alone. Trying to ignore her feelings was proving to be more and more difficult with each moment that passed between her and the man at her side.

“Beer and story-time at my place?” Jay suggests as they near the lot.

“Give me about an hour?” Hailey counters. She just needs a little bit of time to herself to try and clear her head.

“Sure. I’ll order food from that Greek place you like,” Jay says.

She smiles at him. “Sounds good. I’ll see ya in a bit.”

Jay gives her one of his grins, one that Hailey has come to realize is only ever used with her and one that should be considered illegal, and then the two go their separate ways.

XXX

Hailey’s nothing if not punctual. If she says an hour, she means an hour. So when there’s a light knock on Jay’s door thirty minutes after leaving his partner at the district, he’s a bit perplexed. He’s got a pep in his step though as he walks to the door, a grin plastered on his face, and ready to spend his night with Hailey.

“You said an hour. Food’s not here ye-,” his teasing tone fades out as he pulls open the door and he stands silent as he looks at the woman in front of him who most definitely is not his current partner.

“Hi Jay.”

“Erin.”

Every emotion a person could ever possibly feel is felt by Jay within seconds of each other as he stands in front of Erin Lindsay for the first time in almost four years. Her dark hair falls down past her shoulders in waves and she’s not dressed in some fancy pantsuit, but there’s still something about the way she stands with her hands clasped together in front of her that seems like she’s got things all figured out now.

All he can do is stare at the woman in front of him, as if he’s just seen a ghost. And maybe he has, as memories of their days spent together, both professionally and privately, overload his brain. It causes him to grip the door handle so tight his knuckles turn white.

“What are you doing here?” He finally gets out.

She shrugs her shoulders. “I’m here for work. Heard you went and got yourself shot again.”

Jay rolls his eyes. “Hank tell ya that?”

Erin raises her eyebrows at him then and finds herself smirking at him. “First name basis with him now, eh?”

“You’re a little late. It’s been a few weeks since the shooting,” he says, ignoring her comment. His voice is strong and curt, the complete opposite of what it’d been mere moments before when he thought it was Hailey at his door.

“I was deep in a case. I didn’t know until about an hour ago when I talked to Hank on the phone,” she explains.

He just shakes his head at her. “Doesn’t answer my question. What are you doing here, Erin?”

“He told me how bad it was. I was in town and I wanted to know that you were okay. Can I come in? Please?”

Jay stares at her for a moment, wanting to say no, but something inside of him doesn’t let him get the word out despite the whisper of a voice in the back of his head telling him it was a mistake. He lets out a long sigh and steps aside instead, opens the door fully, and allows her to enter. He closes the door behind her after she steps inside and the two of them stand across from each other in his living room. Jay leans back onto the top of his couch, his arm still in the sling and his other hand shoved into the pocket of his jeans while Erin stands off to the side with her hands in her jacket now.

“What could you possibly have to say to me after all this time that a phone call couldn’t do?”

“I know how I left things Jay. I know I hurt you and I know I’m probably an idiot for showing up like this after everything we’ve been through. I just wanted to see you and make sure you were okay.”

Jay scoffs at her, shaking his head. “After everything that happened? You mean when you left without saying a word to me or to anyone besides Hank? Or do you mean when I texted and called and left a dozen messages, and you didn’t have the decency to respond to a single one to let me know you were at least okay?”

The combination of the last few years of keeping it all locked up inside of him, then unloading it during therapy, and now seeing her in front of him like nothing ever happened pushes him over the edge. She really showed up, expecting years of anger and hurt and pain to be swept under the rug as if her leaving hadn’t destroyed him for a period of time.

Erin just stares back at him and doesn’t speak. Hearing the anger in his voice and seeing the pain of what she’d left behind in his eyes wasn’t something she had prepared herself for on her way over to his apartment. She takes in the lingering stain of almost healed bruises on his skin, the sling in which his arm rests. She’s beginning to think this was nothing, but a mistake. That the look in his eyes now is going to be another memory that haunts her.

Erin pulls her hands out of her pockets and takes a step forward. She doesn’t touch him, she won’t, but she needs to be closer to him, needs him to hear her words and look him directly in the eyes when she says them.  

“I’m sorry, Jay.”

His eyes immediately close as he hears the words come out of her mouth. He hadn’t realized all this time that he was waiting for something from her. An explanation. An apology. Some sort of something that would make him feel some sort of relief or closure. Anything.

He opens his eyes a moment later when there’s another knock at his door and he thanks the heavens or the universe or whatever it is for the interruption.

He lets out a deep sigh as he walks to the door and when he pulls it open, he feels both relieved and panicked when he sees Hailey standing in front of him. It takes all of two seconds for her eyes to meet his and for a grin to appear on her face when she sees him. And then another two seconds later, her eyes find Erin standing behind him and her smile is gone. She glances between them, noticing the obvious tension that hangs in the air around them all now.

“Erin,” Hailey breathes out.

Erin offers a smile and a small wave. “Hey Hailey. Long time no see.”

“Yeah, it‘s been a minute. How ya been?” Hailey asks. It’s a poor attempt to be polite and make small talk, but she’s not dumb. She knows what she’s just walked in on and all she wants to do now is to turn around and leave and return home.

Erin shrugs. “Busy. Work has been crazy.”

Hailey nods then, not saying anything else and not wanting to continue the conversation. She knows exactly who Erin had been to Jay at one point, and seeing the woman who caused him so much pain and heartache causes Hailey to immediately be defensive and cautious.

“So um, rain check then? We’ll catch up another time,” Hailey says a second later, looking at Jay.

That was the last thing Jay wanted, but he nods anyway. He can tell she’s uncomfortable and he can’t exactly blame her. He’s not so comfortable himself.

“Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he tells her.

Erin watches the two, a small knowing smile appearing on her face. She watches Jay as he watches Hailey, his eyes following the blonde as she walks away from him and down the hallway. The look on his face tells Erin everything she needs to know.

Jay only closes his apartment door when he hears the elevator doors chime open and sees Hailey step inside the elevator car. He turns back to Erin, running his free hand over the back of his head, while she leans against the back of his couch now with her arms crossed in front of her.

“How long has that been going on?”

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “How long has what been going on?"

Erin nods to the door, a smirk on her face now. “You and Hailey.”

“There’s nothing going on there. We’re just partners,” Jay tells her.

Erin nods, but the smirk doesn’t leave her face and despite everything, Jay still knows her well enough to know she isn’t gonna let it go. “You and I were just partners at one point too, ya know? We may not be in each other’s lives anymore, but I can still tell when you’re lying.”

“How long you in town for?” He asks her, ignoring her words.

She’s still smirking, but lets him deflect. “I head back to New York tomorrow afternoon.”

“You should go and see Voight before you leave. I’m sure he’d like to see you,” he tells her.

Erin nods, but doesn’t move. “You’re good, right? You’re okay?”

He knows she’s not only asking about the shooting, but everything else. His PTSD, his past, his life.

“I’m good Erin. I’m really good,” he assures her with a smile.

Erin nods again, looking down at the floor. When she raises her eyes back to his again he sees the tears and a look of realization in them.

“We won’t ever be friends again, will we?” Erin asks even though she already knows the answer.

“I don’t think we were ever really friends, Erin. Not really. You never let me in. I mean, really let me in. And I know I didn’t do the same with you either. Especially near the end. We both said and did things back then. We just didn’t work,” he says.

There is a sense of relief that overwhelms his senses as he says the words out loud, like he’s been needing to say them to her. And they sting like a slap to the face, but Erin gets it. She can’t hold any of it against him because he’s right. Things had been messy between them, to put it lightly. They both had their issues, together and apart, and they’d never quite learned how to deal with things. She knows he isn’t being vicious. He’s just being honest. He’s just being Jay.

“I wish things had been different for us. If I could go back and do it again, I would do it right,” Erin tells him, her voice sincere as she stands up straight and takes a step toward him.

“Can I at least hug you goodbye? We didn’t get that the last time I left,” she says quietly.

Jay nods and reaches for her with his good arm, wrapping it around her shoulders while Erin’s snake around his waist, careful of his sling. He gives her a squeeze and she does the same before the two separate, and Erin makes her way to the door. She pulls it open, but then turns around to face him one last time.

“If she doesn’t already know, you should tell Hailey how you feel,” Erin tells him.

He doesn’t try to play it off this time. He knows he’s been found out and he doesn’t have the energy to try and lie about it anymore, so he just shrugs.

“Not sure getting involved with another partner is the smartest idea. Didn’t work out so well last time,” Jay says. He makes a bad joke, a jab at them, and it’s a lame attempt to downplay his feelings and the conversation at hand, and Erin just rolls her eyes at him.

“Look, you can lie to me all you want, but don’t lie to yourself. You should tell her Jay. I can see she feels the same.”

She gives him one last smile and then she’s gone. And he’s left with the closure he never got from her before, but also with more questions than ever plaguing his mind now.

Jay makes his way to his sofa, plops down, and leans his head back against the cushions. There’s another knock on his door and he curses as he stands. It’s the delivery guy with the food he had ordered earlier. He pays the delivery guy and closes his door, looking down at the bag in his hand for barely a moment before a smile appears on his face. He’s exhausted and his shoulder is throbbing in discomfort, but he realizes right then there’s only one place else he’d rather be.

XXX

Hailey’s head is reeling by the time she gets back to her place. She kicks her shoes off as soon as she walks through her front door and then goes straight to the kitchen to grab a bottle of whiskey and a glass. She’s still in disbelief and shock that Erin had shown up out of the blue. A part of her feeling angry, annoyed, but mostly she’s just confused and curious.

Why had she come back? And why now, years later? Did she want Jay back? Did he want her back? Too many questions were clouding her head and she needed them to disappear immediately.

She pours herself a glass of whiskey and knocks it back quickly, enjoying the momentary burn as it slips down her throat.

She’s not sure how much time passes between knocking back her first drink and now sipping on her third, when a loud knock sounds at her door. She groans out, slightly annoyed, thinking it must be Vanessa. Her roommate was quick as a whip and damn good police, but the younger officer had a bad habit of forgetting her keys.

Hailey makes her way to the door, shuffling her socked feet against the hardwood floors and pulls the door open hastily. She doesn’t expect to see her partner standing on the other side and takes a small step back in surprise.

“Hi,” Jay says to her with a shy smile on his face.  

“Hi,” Hailey breathes out.

Jay doesn’t miss the way her voice seems to crack with just one word. Her eyes are glassy, but he can’t tell if she’s been crying or drinking, or both. He nods down to the bag of take out and beer in his good hand.

“Too soon for that rain check?” He asks her with a smirk now.

Hailey offers him a small smile and pulls the door open further, taking another step back so Jay can step inside. She closes the door behind him and leads him through the kitchen. He clocks the bottle of amber liquid on the counter as he follows Hailey to the living room, and then the two sit down on the couch.

“Whiskey huh?” He asks, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen with a slight smirk on his face.

“Yeah, I was thirsty,” Hailey claps back with a smirk of her own.

Jay shakes his head at her before reaching for the bag of food. He pulls out several containers, handing Hailey’s food over to her, and the two dig in.

They eat in silence, stealing glances from the other every so often. Jay can tell something is off with his partner and he’s certain it has to do with the fact that she’d seen Erin in his apartment not even an hour ago. He can also tell she’s keeping her distance from him. Had it been any other time they’d be sat together knee to knee, eating their food, knocking back beers, and griping over some sporting event playing on television. Instead, Hailey sits with her legs crossed like a pretzel, keeping space between them, as she stays as close to the end of her couch as she can.

What he can’t gather is why she’s so distant with him. And then he remembers Erin’s words from earlier.

“I can see she feels the same...”

Did Hailey feel something for him? Something more than normal partners should feel for one another? She couldn’t think anything happened with Erin, did she? Not after all this time. Not after everything the two of them had been through together.

Jay knew this was new territory for them. They’d never crossed this line before. The line of professionalism and friendship. But looking at her now, Jay was sure there was never a time before tonight that he’d felt so awkward around Hailey. That he couldn’t get a solid read on her and it was killing him.  

“You okay?” He finally asks after they finish eating. He turns his head to look at her and leans against her couch with his arms spread out over the back.

“I’m fine. Guess I just didn’t think I’d see you again tonight,” Hailey tells him as she takes a pull from her beer.

“How come?” Jay presses.

Hailey raises an eyebrow at him, silently asking if he was serious, and he just shrugs making her laugh. The sound alone makes him smile. Despite whatever was or wasn’t happening between them, he could at least still make her laugh.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that to happen. I thought it was you knocking on my door,” Jay says, reaching for his own beer.

“What did she want?” Hailey asks, unable to help herself.

“See how I was doing. Apologize. She’s here for work and Voight mentioned the shooting. I don’t know. Guilty conscience, I guess.”

“And how do you feel about that? Her being back, I mean.”

He takes a deep breath, letting out a long sigh.

“She’s not back. She’s leaving tomorrow.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Hailey pushes.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jay counters.

Hailey shrugs. “Lot of history there.”

“I feel like there’s too much history, but there’s also nothing left between me and Erin. There are no feelings there whatsoever. I’ve moved on,” Jay tells her.

Hailey nods slowly, taking another sip of her beer and taking in his words as she looks down into her lap. She starts fiddling with the label on her beer bottle, needing to busy herself with anything other than looking in his eyes. A part of her is nervous at what she might find in those green eyes she had come to enjoy looking into so much. Maybe lies, or worse, truth.

“Hailey.”

How was it possible to both love and hate the way his voice sounded saying her name?

She takes a quick breath and looks up, meeting his eyes. Green. Smiling. Honest.

“Yeah,” she breathes out.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just tired,” she says as she runs her free hand through her hair.

Jay shakes his head at her. “Tell me what’s really going on in that head of yours.”

He needs her to tell him. He’s practically begging her with his eyes, but Hailey just shakes her own head at him then and stands from the couch.

“I really am tired. Maybe we should call it a night. It’s been a long day for both of us. Thanks for stopping by and for dinner, but I just wanna go to bed.”

He realizes she isn’t exactly asking for him to leave, but rather telling him as she carries her beer and grabs their empty food containers, and then makes her way to the kitchen. He lets out a deep sigh before he gets up from the couch and follows her. Her back is facing him as she puts her glass from earlier in the sink and stores the whiskey away in a cabinet.

Before he realizes what he’s doing, Jay walks up behind her and reaches a hand towards her. He feels her body go rigid the second his hand lands on her waist, and then he hears the deep breath she takes.

It’s the first time they’ve touched one another in such an intimate way that wasn’t case related or him comforting her or shielding them from flying bullets in a surveillance van. It was just them.

He pulls at her side, forcing her to turn around and his heart aches at the sight of her blue eyes. Erin was right. Hailey does feel something for him. It’s splayed out all over her face and the tears in the corners of her eyes.

“Do you really want me to leave?” He asks. His voice is so quiet he’s not sure she even hears him.

He watches as she sucks in another breath and then shakes her head slowly, almost hesitantly. He feels his fingers twitch at her waist and he takes another small step closer towards her so they’re nearly chest to chest. His arm is around her now, his hand on her lower back.

“Can I stay?”

All she can do is nod her head. And then she reaches around her back for his hand and leads him up the stairs to her bedroom. They don’t say another word to each other. When they reach her room, Hailey releases his hand and grabs a pair of pajama shorts and a t-shirt from her dresser, then disappears into the bathroom. Jay slips the sling from his shoulder to remove his sweatshirt before carefully sliding the contraption back on over his t-shirt. He kicks off his jeans then as Hailey enters the bedroom again.

Her eyes linger on him for a moment as he stands in the middle of her bedroom in just a t-shirt and boxers. She gives him a shy smile and then nods to the bed. She takes the left side; he takes the right. And it feels so natural, like it’s not at all the first time they’re about to share a bed together.

They lay next to one another, ample space between them under the covers because he is still a gentleman and doesn’t want to overstep with her. He hears her blow out a deep breath next to him, and he turns his head slightly to look at her. There’s just enough light steaming in through her bedroom windows from the streetlights outside that he can make out the profile of her face, the angle of her jawline, and how she’s got her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

The awkward tension from earlier still somewhat lingers, but there’s a strange sense of comfortability around them now too. Because no matter what happens they’re still just Hailey and Jay. They’re still them. And before he can think twice he’s reaching his hand out under the covers to find hers. The sudden contact of his skin and the squeeze of his fingers against hers makes her jump and she turns her head to seek out his eyes in the slight darkness.

There’s a strange look on his face, one that she has seen before, but has tried to ignore. The look that tells her he feels it between them too, even though neither have admitted it or said anything out loud yet.

“You’re my best friend. You know that right?” He asks her then. His voice is deep and quiet, and he squeezes her hand again.

Hailey nods, realizing she’s been staring at him in silence this whole time before she says, “you’re my best friend, too.”

Jay squeezes her fingers once more and it’s quiet again as they lay side by side in her bed. He can feel it in the silence though. He can feel it in the slow brush of her thumb moving back and forth over the top of his hand. He can feel it in the way her eyes stare back at him.

There’s something palpable between them. Undeniable. It’s in everything they do and don’t do, everything they say and don’t say. They both know it, but say nothing else as they drift closer together in Hailey’s bed, not letting go of one another’s hand.

They don’t need to say anything because they know it’s just a matter of time before things change again for them. Until they finally break from their stubbornness and trepidation and insecurities that have stemmed from their broken pasts. They know this thing between them is inevitable.

[primasveraas-writing]

Kalluzeb- To Have a Home

@icecream-dino47 asked: “Can you do a one shot of Kallus and Zeb from Star Wars rebels?” 

My loves <3 thanks so much for requesting!

All requests are open!

WORD COUNT: 1126

XXX

“Last mission,” Zeb declares, sliding into the seat next to Kallus. The other man looks up at him, a quizzical eyebrow raised.

“Not quite,” Kallus frowns. “We still have that business in the Outer Rim Hera wanted us to do.”

“Right,” Zeb says, buckling his seat in preparation for takeoff. Kallus beings the launch sequence, reaching towards the controls. “Close enough,” Zeb shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. “We pack up, after this one, anyways.”

“That should be easy,” Kallus says absentmindedly, lifting the landing gear. “All my things are fairly consolidated.”

Zeb snorts. “Tell that to the inside of my cabin.”

“Your cabin, is it now? I seem to remember you grabbing my rucksack and telling me that “my space is your space, Alex-””

“Well, I meant you could have a drawer, not sort everything on the ship by color. Including my kriffing underw-”

“Alright, boys, are you ready? You’ve been cleared for takeoff.” Hera’s words cut through their bickering, the comms interrupting Zeb’s lament.

“Ready for takeoff, General,” Kallus says, disregarding Zeb’s snort at the title.

“Make us proud,” Hera says, a smile in her voice. She doesn’t protest at Kallus’ insistence on formality, though it’s unusual at this point. Over the years, “Captain” and “General” had simply become “Hera,” but perhaps she is sharing the sense of finality that’s overtaken Kallus. “See you soon.”

The feed cuts out, and Kallus guides the ship off the ground and into the air. 

“So, Commander,” Zeb teases, leaning back in his seat, “what are the results of your search?”

Alexsandr remains silent while they leave the atmosphere, but Zeb allows him the time to consider his answer.

“Insignificant,” he declares finally, punching in the hyperspace coordinates. “Given that you already seem to have someplace in mind and I cannot find a single system that would satisfy us both.”

He punctuates his sentence by pushing the throttle, sending the shuttle into hyperspace. Zeb waits for his partner to elaborate, but instead, Alexsandr shifts, reaching behind him for his cane. Zeb stands, passing Kallus the intricately carved piece of wood, then offers his hand to Kallus. Minding his bad leg, Kallus raises slowly, then accepts Zeb’s arm. Together, they make their way towards the back of the ship.

They settle in next to each other, enjoying the quieted hum of the engine and the moment of peace, away from everyone else in the Rebellion. Hera had agreed to give them a smaller diplomatic mission, as it was one of the few things standing between the men and their retirement. Kallus was well-suited to it, having given up fighting after Endor (and the worsening pain in his bad leg), and was elected to accompany him for protection, in the unlikely event of high tensions and blasterfire.

“You think I have someplace in mind,” Zeb says. It’s not a question, and Kallus takes his hand before answering.

“I think you would have a better idea of home than I ever would.”

Zeb gives a surprised laugh. “I’ve lived on a ship most of my life, at this point.” He sighs, turning to look at Alexsandr. “My ideas of family and home have changed, Kal. Since Lasan… it’s been the Spectres and the Ghost, for me.” Zeb admits, placing his arm between his head and the wall and leaning back. “I never needed anything else.” He nudges Kallus with his free elbow. “‘Till you came along and changed all that.”

Kallus grins at him, a glint of humor sparkling in his eyes. But then, it disappears as quickly as it came, and his features harden and sober. Zeb’s nagging feeling returns, and he wraps an arm around his beloved, drawing him even closer. Kallus relaxes into the embrace, and his eyes close. Zeb waits another moment, and Kallus takes a deep inhale before opening his eyes.

“I’ve never really had a home,” Kallus says suddenly, straightening. “Not since I was very young.” He looks at Zeb briefly, almost sheepish. “I’ve just floated around from Imperial base to base, going wherever I needed.”

“You’ve had the Ghost,” Zeb says pointed, and Kallus nods. “Like me.”

“Even that was hardly permanent. It was… it is home, but it seemed so… temporary. Hera would need it somewhere, and we’d stay at wherever the Rebellion needed us. I never expected to spend the remainder of my life on Hera’s ship, at any rate.”

“So where did you expect to end up?”

Kallus laughs- it’s something closer to a scoff, and Zeb’s heart slows at the bitter sound.

“I don’t know.” There’s no small amount of frustration behind the words, but Zeb knows it’s not aimed at him. “I didn’t- I didn’t expect anything.” He swallows, hard, and when he speaks again, his voice is quiet, nearly timid. “I didn’t expect to be here. Alive, I mean.

“I never expected to live this long,” Kallus breathes, glancing at Zeb. His partner goes very still beside him, but Alexsandr continues after Zeb squeezes his hand. “With the Empire- I never expected to go to war. I never expected to be anything other than Agent Kallus, ISB. I planned to die as one of them, on some mission, or alone after a lifetime of obeying their cause. Even when my allegiance changed-” Kallus shakes his head. “Even then, I could never see a life of peace, after the Empire. I was confident that the Rebels would win-” Kallus’ voice trembles, and Zeb thinks of all the nights Alexsandr stayed awake, too anxious to sleep as he poured over mission reports. Zeb remembers how, after Scarif and Yavin, his partner barely ate or slept, fraught with nerves even after the Death Star blew, how Alexsandr never explicitly stated his belief that the Rebellion would succeed until the first night of victory on Endor.

“Right,” Zeb says, shifting closer to his partner. Alex inhales slowly.

“I simply didn’t think I would be a part of it. Not that I wouldn’t survive, even, I just- no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t see myself on the other side.”

“But you did,” Zeb says, a little gruffly. Kallus nods wordlessly and rests his head on Zeb’s shoulder.

“I did.”

“And now you have a family.”

“I do, Garazeb.” The lingering sorrow on Kallus’ face melts when Zeb smiles down at him. Zeb cups Alexsandr’s jaw, then leans in for a kiss, chaste but lingering. When they part, a low chuckle escapes Zeb- a light blush has spread across the man’s cheeks. Alexsandr rolls his eyes, knowing the observation his partner has just made, then ducks his head, nestling into Zeb’s shoulder. Zeb wraps his arms around his beloved, and there they stay for a long while.

[shawnmendesprefs]

Game on, Mendes (s.m)

Author’s Note: Hiya, this is my first time writing for Shawn and not 5SOS lol so hopefully its not trash and this turns into the first part of many for this little concept. We are happy to take requests on this account or over on 5sauceprefs so don’t be shy ;) Hope you love it! xxx

Summary: you wake up naked in an unfamiliar hotel room, only to realise that you and Shawn have just started a game that you were both set on winning.  

Word Count: 1.7k

You opened your eyes to the sun beaming in through your hotel window, your head was pounding and the little alarm clock on the bedside table was telling me that it was only 7am. Why were you even awake?

Sighing in frustration, you yanked the big comfy blanket further up your naked body and shut your eyes to try and go back to sleep.

Wait. Why were you naked?

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

There are only two possibilities here. One, you got so drunk that you couldn’t be bothered to get changed in to your pyjamas. Which may or may not have happened before. Or two, there is someone else next to you in the bed and you did the naughty. Which, again, may or may not have happened before. Although, if it is one of the two, hopefully its possibility one.

You felt your heart beat start to get faster as you slowly rolled over in the bed, your eyes still closed because you were way too scared to actually look. What if you open your eyes and there is actually someone there? Not to mention how literally screwed you would be if paparazzi caught you and mystery dude together, leaving the after party or even entering the hotel lobby. Everyone knows that if any girl and guy is seen together, they’re automatically a thing so, you know. Your manager would 100% hang you by the ears off a clothes line if you were ever spotted deviating away from your perfect image to the public. 

After your internal mental breakdown, you must have stayed as still as you possibly could for what felt like at least 10 minutes before you finally got the courage to quickly open your eyes and reveal the truth of your naked body.

Oh. my. god.

You had done it again. You must have gotten so drunk that you don’t even remember any of the events from the previous night. Well, not much after presenting an award at the EMAS to Shawn Mendes, the absolute dream boat, and then leaving to attend Post Malone’s after party anyway.

I mean, it’s not really your fault that all your favourite people were there and that the cocktails were literally on tap. Strawberry Mojitos, tequila shots, you name it really.  Turns out though, that you probably should have toned it down a bit.

There was someone else in the bed.

You couldn’t see much of him except for his dark brown curls and his toned back as he was facing away from you. Your cheeks started to get hot as you realised that you probably had sloppy drunk sex with whoever this mystery guy is. Screaming.

Moving as slow as you could, again, in hopes that you didn’t disturb this guy’s sleep, you sat up so that you could peak over and hopefully recognise his face. His hair was kind of longer on top, his jawline was so sharp it could probably cut you and he was super-hot even when he was fast asleep. 

As you moved your face a little closer to his, for whatever reason you deemed appropriate in the moment, you accidentally screamed when his eyes shot open and stared back into yours. Yes, screamed. High-pitched, may have just seen a ghost, screamed.

It was Shawn fucking Mendes. You couldn’t help but mentally high five yourself, you go girl.

Without even thinking, you rolled out of bed and started to pull back on your dress from last night. In the process, you had realised that this was not your hotel room but probably Shawn’s as there was a big black suit case with clothes sprawled everywhere in the corner of the room. Your suitcase was white and your room was SO much messier than this. You’re both totally staying in the same hotel though, thank god because now doing the walk of shame wouldn't be so shameful after all – as long as no one spotted you.

Next to your phone on my nightstand was your clutch and your room key, so you quickly swept them up and made a bee line straight for the door, but of course, the stupid thing had a lock on it.

Fiddling with the turn-style look, you went to yank the door open only to have it slammed shut from behind you.

You turned to see Shawn who was trapping you between him and the door, his hand pressed against the door behind you.

He had a very amused look in his eyes and a stupidly attractive smirk on his face.

You had to remember to close my mouth to stop myself from drooling over his naked torso, his bottom half only covered by a pair of white Calvin Klein’s. You still can’t believe you had sex with this guy, you, the Victoria’s secret model, who actually had a secret now because you had seen the Shawn Mendes naked amongst other things.

Despite being quite proud of yourself, you never do this kind of thing. Sure, it has happened maybe once or twice but usually your schedule is so busy that you don’t even have time to sleep. You’re always travelling for work, and when you’re not on set for a shoot or walking a runway, you’re usually tucked away in a hotel room studying or writing assignments for your university degree. You’ve have been modelling with Victoria’s Secret for two years now, and most recently you’ve scored gigs with Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, and even Coach. You’re pretty much an angel in the streets, and usually an angel in the sheets. But, as you said before, last night was just too good to pass up.

“Going somewhere, Babe?” Shawn teased, making you roll your eyes.

“Yeah, obviously. Could you maybe step away from the door so I can go back to my room?” you replied which for whatever reason made him laugh a little.

“C’mon babe, at least let me get your number” Shawn winked.

Okay but seriously this guy is so sexy.

“If I give you my number, will you let me leave after that?” you questioned, making him grin as he nodded his head and handed you his phone. You opened up the contacts, typed in your number and saved it in his phone before quickly handing it back to him. Without another word, you opened the door and headed down the hall towards the elevator so you could go die of embarrassment in the comfort of your own hotel room.

“I’ll see you for round two tonight, princess!” you heard Shawn call, just as the elevator door shut.

What the hell have you gotten myself into?

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

It has been two days since your little encounter with Shawn and you hadn’t heard anything from him since. He had followed you on Instagram and Twitter but that thankfully went unnoticed by both of your fan bases. There also hasn’t seemed to be any paparazzi shots surface so you’re very grateful for that because as a result, your ears are still intact and your wonderful manager Krystal has no idea.

Admittedly, you did stalk his socials and both of you are still in Spain for the time being. He’s performing here tonight, and you have a shoot with Vogue Spain in the next couple of days before some much needed time off.

You were currently sprawled out on your towel at the beach. The sun was shining down and this dose of vitamin D was exactly what you had been craving. You had your air pods in your ears blasting some Khalid and a fat tub of cut up fruit next to you to snack on because you were literally hungry 100% of the time.

It’s a hard life having what seems like multiple stomachs to fill.

Trying to stop yourself from falling asleep, you rolled over on to your stomach and picked up your phone to reply to some comments on Instagram. Before you clicked on your most recent post, you quickly took a photo of your legs with the beach in the background and uploaded it to your story. It was a beautiful day and your beautiful followers deserved to see your debatably beautiful legs at this beautiful beach.

Clicking on to your activities page, your comments on your most recent post were blowing up. Why is that? The first was just a photo of you on the EMA red carpet, nothing too special. The second photo in the same post was you handing Shawn his award. Both of you with shit eating smiles on your faces. You had also thrown in the cheeky love heart eye emoji with “what a night” as the caption. So maybe you did know what all the commotion was about, but it was just a little flirt. Sue me.

Clicking on the comment section, you couldn’t help but spit out the grape you had just popped in to your mouth after seeing the top comment.

shawnmendes: it wasn’t just the award I scored that night ;)

Okay. It’s official, you were so screwed. And not just literally. Maybe your ears weren’t as safe as you thought they were, Krystal was going to go crazy and you were going to end up on a clothesline in Spain somewhere. 

Shawn just pretty much told the whole world about the night you’d spent together and for some reason, after putting the grape you were about to scoff down back in to my mouth, you could not wipe the smile off your face.

You really were trying to keep it cool, act as if him not reaching out wasn’t phasing you but who were you kidding. After you got over your lovely hangover, the night that you and Shawn spent together came flooding back and you’re almost certain that you hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.

After you liked Shawn’s comment on your post, you debated with yourself over whether to actually reply or not. You could already hear the stupid rumours circulating, and you could already quote some of the hate tweets that you’d start to receive.

Fuck it.

Y/Nstagram: @shawnmendes what happened to round two?

Game on, Mendes.

[xmilitisx]

XXX- What's your honest opinion about Jesse McCree (outlawjustice)? You talk to him a lot, does it bother you how he left OW? Did you two have a relationship?

X [ I’m just gonna answer as both here- just for a point of reference.]

►Miles[ Multiwatch / Multiverse / Discord- some tumblr ]

Jesse and I aren’t exactly friends, but we exist somewhere between that weird sideline of knowing each other, and respecting each other on their talents. He’s a secretive asshole, and he’s go this reasons. I don’t pry. I’ll ask him questions, and if he deigns to tell me- I’ll take that, if not. No harm, no foul. 

We both have a partner in common, which tends to put us in a relative orbit close to each other. As far as his character? Jesse’s a good man wrapped up in a lotta bad history. I don’t know everything about Deadlock. I know when he came. It wasn’t willingly. I still don’t know how Gabe got him to agree to sign on as an agent.

Like I said, there’s a lot in his history I don’t ask about- because it ain’t my place, and he doesn’t let people close without trust. 

Does it bother me that he left?

Yeah, course it does. Just because we aren’t friends doesn’t mean my concern didn’t extend to him. He left without a word, and without a reason to any of us, as far as I know. Looking back on it now, he was smart to leave when he did. Jesse’s always had that six sense that’s almost preternatural when you think about it. 

Man could sniff out a rat from a mile away, and danger from two. Comes from living like he did, I guess.

As far as a relationship? No, we never did. The closest he came was to bringing me debriefs and letting me go over them with him. Occasionally we’d talk in the halls, maybe we pass a word or two. 

But I don’t think he ever really trusted me enough to go past that, and again- that’s his choice. I … would have liked to at least been friends? And I’m trying to somewhat bridge that now. It’s… a tightrope of a walk. I should have talked to him sooner, let him know I was alive sooner. I should have done a LOT of things. And that’s on my end.

Hard to make a man trust you when all he’s ever done is been lied to, you know? I regret that.

Do I know him well?

No.

But I’d like to.

► Jack. [Predominantly tumblr / Discord based]

Jesse’s a wily son of a bitch. Didn’t trust him when he came in. Quiet as a fuckin’ ghost the way he looked at you. He didn’t look at you like a regular man, but like he was evaluating every single weakness you had, and how he could exploit it. Couple of times, I sat in on Gabe’s “meetings” with him before he officially signed up.

Ever see the way a wolf sizes up an elk?

That was Jesse in a nutshell. 

That’s what finally clued me in on what had my hackles up so bad. Most people, they come in for interrogation and they’re scared. Or they’re putting up a front. Not this guy. Not Jesse. No, Jesse came in like a predator scouting new territory and sizing up what might be as mean as he is.

Our… relationship did not start off well. It was stiff, and formal mostly- two animals circling each other to try to figure out how in the hell we fit in the hierarchy. Jesse’s reports came with a certain amount of… smug authority. Like he was doing me a favor. I know I come off standoffish and cold. For me, it’s a defense mechanism. 

Helps me cope with anxiety and shit.

For Jesse. It was a goddamn challenge.

The next ten or so years was us literally butting heads about EVERYTHING. Mission debriefs, requisition reports. [ i vetoed that shot-gun quick fast and a hurry. I didn’t need another crazy ass with buckshot.] Even all the way down to uniform changes.

Note that Jesse wore the serape anyway.

…. Eventually, he left. And for a little while, I was relieved- but I also wondered, what would make a man like him just abandon something he’d put so much effort into. It got me thinking, and then it got me worrying. I tried to contact him a few times, but Gabe reassured me that if he needed to leave.

He’d come back in his own time.

… of course… that was before Zurich and… the fall out from that shit-show.

It’s… taken a bit, and some definite soul-searching on my part to realize how wrong I was about someone. How much I need to actually go forward, and do the right thing. Jesse is not a bad man. Jesse is a decent man, with a shit-ton of shitty choices he’s had to make in his life. He’s made the best of each and every one of him.

…And you can’t fault the courage of a man like that, even if his choices don’t seem so clear-cut- and-dried to you. It’s easy to look at the man from my perspective and see him only as a villain or a fuckin’ asshole whose only out to do shit to piss you off.

But… not when you look at the whole, and you take a step back from your own prejudices. Maybe if I’d been better about that with Gabe, shit wouldn’t have went down there either. I’m an old fool, but I like to think I’m learning still.

We had a relationship, but not in the way you think. It was push and it was pull, and he challenged me. Despite the irritation, I enjoyed the hell out of that and I liked it. Now? Ha, we’ve only recently gotten back in contact.

I’d… like to get at least to a stage of trust, but hell— I’ve got a long way to go, and I don’t know if I’m gonna live long enough to get there with the shit I’m pulling.

In the end, all I can do is try. 

@outlawjustice [since you were mentioned, my dude- thought you might appreciate this.]

[positive-stress]

Bands 4 the Sads

Hi I know I never use this blog, this is a weird thing. I’m making a big list of musics that get me through the Sadtimes. It’s for a facebook group but you can look at it too! Warning: this is gonna get long. I’m a sad boy.

Some of these are happy for when you need to fight the feels, and some of these are sad for when you need to feel the feels. I’ve included short blurbs with each one so you should know what you’re getting into.

I’m gonna break this up into songs, albums, and bands. Here We Go [INHALES]

BANDS

Fall Out Boy Obviously.

Good Clean Fun A goofy-ass positive hardcore band. They’re vegan straightedge but don’t let that turn you off. If I can listen to hip-hop, you can listen to this.

Jukebox the Ghost The best boys!!!! I love these good good piano rock boys. You will never have so much fun jamming out to an upbeat song about the end of the world. Their album Everything Under the Sun is a god damn masterpiece.

Math the Band If you know me at all, this is the biggest not-surprise ever. Math the Fuckin’ Band. The goofiest, funnest band in the world. It is impossible to feel sad while listening to their sick jams.

The Mountain Goats John Darnielle is maybe the most talented songwriter in the world. An emotion does not exist that he can’t make you feel. Listen to The Sunset Tree.

Lil B With as much music as this guy has, it can be easy to think Lil B sucks. He can be dumb and he can be gross and he can be mean, but he always listens to his fans and tries to do better and bring positivity into the world, and I love him for it. Listen to 6 Kiss, listen to Im Gay, listen to Everything Based, listen to Angels Exodus, listen to everything. Collect the rarest tracks. TYBG.

PWR BTTM A band that will make even the most self-conscious boy (me) smear glitter all over his face before going to their shows (I did). Whether they’re making you feel unstoppable or hitting you right in the feels, this band is always the fucking best thing to listen to. Please listen to PWR BTTM, you will not be disappointed. (At the moment they only have one album, Ugly Cherries, but their second, Pageant, is coming out soon and I expect it to be every bit as worthy of this list so I’m putting them under bands.)

Snowing RIP this perfect emo band. They got a perfect EP and a perfect LP out and then had to break up because that’s how it works. Some people say they hate this guy’s voice but those people just need to be sadder, damn it. I CUT MY AAAAAAAAAAARMS OFF

Terror Pigeon! / The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt! I don’t even know how to describe this one-man band. It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard. It’s dance music for people who feel isolated and hopeless. It’s the cheesiest, sweetest love songs you’ll ever hear. There’s very often a saxophone. Neil’s lyrics are blunt and goofy, but they’re the most heartfelt lyrics in the world. “If you put up with all of my bullshit, I promise that I’ll make you smile / I’ll remember your birthday and love you forever / The sun will be shining ‘cause we’ll be together.” Their debut album is called I Love You! I Love You! I Love You and I’m in Love With You! Have an Awesome Day! Have the Best Day of Your Life! With any other band, I’d see a name like that and say “alright, chill.” With Terror Pigeon, I feel like he really means it.

ALBUMS

Andrew W.K. - I Get Wet Sometimes you just need to party.

Born Ruffians - Red Yellow & Blue A super fun upbeat indie rock ride from start to finish. Only a little blue, only sometimes.

Carly Rae Jepsen - EMOTION BABY!!!! TAKE ME!!!! TO THE!!!! FEELING!!!!

NATSUMEN - NEVER WEAR OUT yOUR SUMMER xxx !!! The summeriest boys. The jazziest rock. This band loves summer and hates winter more than anyone in the world. Fuck winter. KILL yOUR WINTER!!!

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway This album is criminally underappreciated. Some of the most relentlessly uplifting indie pop I’ve heard in my life. HIGHLY recommended.

Dan Deacon - Bromst If there’s any album I would say changed my life, it’s this one. Great for when you’re in a good mood and want to have fun, great for when you’re in a shit mood and want to have fun.

fun. - Aim & Ignite This band actually used to be fun! Who knew? I kind of have to be in the mood for this one but it has gotten me through some shit. Rule of thumb: listen to “Be Calm”. If it makes you feel amazing, keep going.

Japandroids - Celebration Rock I’ve never heard a band say “OOOOOHHHHHHHH” so good. Listening to Japandroids makes me feel the way I assume listening to Imagine Dragons makes normies feel. This band will make you hold one clenched fist in the air or your money back.

Cap’n Jazz - Schmap’n Schmazz Required listening for emo boyz.

Electric President - s/t This album gives me the feels like no other. Hoo boy. This is an album to curl up with on a gloomy night.

Low - I Could Live in Hope I lied, this album gives me the feels like no other. Hoo boy. I thought this album was super boring until I listened to it at 4 in the morning when I wanted to die and it hit me like a train full of sacks of bricks. Incredible album.

i hate myself - 10 Songs This is a rough one in every way. Rough on the ears, rough on the emotions, and rough on the dude’s throat. Maximum strength emo.

Los Campesinos! - Hold on Now, Youngster... The happiest sounds, the saddest feels.

My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge I know, but like, actually. This is a legitimately amazing album. Sure it’s super cheesy angsty teenager music but my god if this isn’t the perfect super cheesy angsty teenager music I don’t know what is.

Neil Cicierega - Mouth Moods Jesus christ, this album is so dumb. 10/10. A mashup album that will catch you off guard and make you laugh out loud over and over.

Ninja Sex Party - NSFW Jesus CHRIST, this album is so dumb. Honestly though, it’s made me smile at some really shitty times. At first I thought this band sucked, then I realized they’re actually the best, assuming you think it’s funny when a man in a kimono sings about boners.

Spraynard - Funtitled Like, okay. These guys hit every pop punk/emo cliche in the book. Song titles referencing comedy shows? Check. Lyrics about “this town”? Check. Whatever. This album is perfect.

The Ergs - dorkrockcorkrod An album almost entirely comprised of self-described broken-hearted love songs, in the form of some extremely fun, fast, hard punk rock.

SONGS

Algernon Cadwallader - “Motivational Song” Johnny, Johnny, get on with your life! Won’t get a chance to get on with it twice So if fuckin’ up feels right, then fuck it up! BOP SHOO BOP, SHOO BOP BOP BOP

Animal Collective - “The Purple Bottle” This song is just so god damn... bouncy. Doodoot, doodoot, doodoot

Avey Tare - “Laughing Hieroglyphic” This song hurts in the best worst way. Be careful with this one, honestly.

Fang Island - “Daisy” The ENERGY of this song. My god. This is one of those songs that just makes you feel like you’re flying.

Four Year Strong - “One Step at a Time” Just a really great song about moving forward.

Future of the Left - “Land of my Formers” A surprisingly earnest, positive breakup song from a normally surreal, pissed-off band.

Sammus - “Nighttime (feat. Izzie True)” If you’ve ever stayed up way too late just stuck in your head, this is the song for you.

[EXHALES]

[sjohnson24]

The Diabolical Resides on Effie Street

Ghosts & The Supernatural – I’m going to talk about two experiences in my life that have left an impression with me throughout my whole life. The first one is the experience of living in a haunted house, this story is entitled The Diabolical Resides on Effie Street. This is what lead me to become a paranormal investigator. The other story, I talk about my days as a firefighter and why I thought that fire was a living entity. These are two experiences that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Now let’s start with what happened on Effie Street, read on.

One of the questions I get the most is…”why did you become a paranormal investigator?” Well, it all started when I was a little boy living on Effie Street in Fresno, California. The year was 1962. We lived in an old duplex on Effie Street, it was a corner house. I experienced horrible things at this house. I will describe the paranormal horrors that occurred in order as they happened.

1. The first experience I had at this home was hearing a woman’s serene voice calling for me. She was saying…”Dale, come here.” She was saying this over and over again. All my life, my parents would call me by my middle name Dale. This female spirit was also calling me Dale. I went towards her voice and looked out a window that allows me to see an orange grove. The voice was coming from the orange grove. I could not see the woman and got scared and ran to my mother.

2. I was riding my tricycle down the street. I stayed on the sidewalk and went about 6 houses up the road. I stopped at one house and looked at the front door. A man steps out to the porch looks at me and draws a shotgun on me. I got scared and went home as quickly as possible. I told my dad and my dad went up to the house and it was discovered that no one lived there.

3. On one night I heard the sound of something rolling on the sidewalk, this sound was at a distance. The sound kept getting closer and closer. Finally the sound was right at my bedroom window and it stopped. My bedroom window opened up half way on it’s own. I looked towards the window and saw a black tea kettle with 4 rollers on the bottom of it. The black tea kettle had a snout and the snout slowly turned towards me and a spray came out. I was covered in the spray and started hacking and coughing. The very next day I had a bad case of bronchitis.

4. Another night, winged skeleton heads flew into my room, there were about a dozen of them. I started screaming and my father came into the room and he also had a skeleton head. Finally he calmed me down and the winged skeleton heads disappeared and my father’s face became normal.

5. I was so scared of all the things that were happening to me, I started carrying a bible with me all the time. I went to the neighbor’s dog that was friendly with everyone and started petting him. All of sudden the dog’s features changed and from a friendly dog, he became a vicious dog and severely bit me in the hand. I was bleeding all over the place. I ran from the neighbor’s house through the orange grove to get to my house. While running through the orange grove, I could hear the sound of a woman maniacally laughing.

6. On another night, the winged skeleton heads came back in my room and I yelled and started hacking and coughing. My mother came in half asleep and gave me a teaspoon of poison. She thought she was giving me cough syrup and had me throw it up. It scared her to death, she thought she had poisoned me.

7. The final incident I was walking in the living room and something came up behind me and pushed me into the heater hard. I had burn marks all over my legs from this incident.

My dad received a promotion and before I knew it, we were moving out of the home on Effie Street and moving into a home on Simpson Avenue in Fresno. The incidents stopped. As I got older, I wondered if I experienced childhood night terrors or actually experienced the paranormal. I started reading everything on the paranormal and read many Brad Steiger books. Little did I know that the knowledge I would gain from Brad Steiger’s books would eventually help me become a successful paranormal investigator.

In 1977, I became a firefighter with the California Division of Forestry (which is now called Cal-Fire). I spent a lot of time training and only fought one fire in the Sierra Mountains. Talking with many of the seasoned firefighters, I learned that many believed that a fire is a type of life force. Fires have the quality of life, they can reproduce, they consume (eat), they grow, they deposit waste, they breathe oxygen. Biologists have actually looked into this theory that fire could be a living entity. Most biologists scoff at the idea that fire can be a living organism, because fire does not have cells. Other scientists make claim that not all living organisms must have cells to be considered a living entity. There could be living intelligent entities that are made up of pure energy. A person on the quantum level is made up of atoms, protons, etc. Atoms and protons are a form of energy. If the soul exists, the soul according to many cultures carries the make-up of our living selves.

The soul may contain our knowledge that we gathered as living human beings and may be able to manifest and when the soul manifests, people say they saw a ghost. Fire is a form of energy, so therefore, fire can be a type of living creature in pure energy form. Many firefighters that I talked to, believed that fire in survival mode, would appear to have intelligence. Fires would seem to have a mind of its own and jump from one tree to another, to escape the wraith of a firefighter. In the true story “Only the Brave” the main firefighter looks upon the fire and verbally challenges it. This movie is based on the true life experiences of the Granite Mountain Hotshots in the Yarnell Hill Fire. Most firefighters that I knew, would talk to a fire as if it was a living thing, of course they would use a few choice words.

My experience in fighting a major fire in the Sierra Mountains is that when I reached the area from our Colfax station, I was amazed on how huge this fire was. The smoke was in the shape of a mushroom cloud. It looked like a nuclear bomb had went off in the mountains. My first assignment was to put out a spot fire. My Captain was yelling at me to distinguish this fire before it became bigger and start consuming an area that we wanted to be in control of. As I tried to put out this spot fire, it seemed to move intelligently. Wherever I went, it seemed to go around me and actually leap from one spot to another spot, as if it wanted to survive. The Captain was yelling at me to get into the xxx damn roots of the fire! As I got closer, I could feel my hair singe and felt the heat on my cheeks. I yelled at the fire to stay put as I tried to extinguish this spot fire. The sound of the fire sounded like maniacal laughter as if it was mocking me. Before I knew it, it jumped behind me and in a matter of seconds there was a wall of flame 20 feet high behind me. I panicked and threw down the water hose and the water hose flew all over. I scrambled to the fire truck, sat on top of it with my arms crossed over each other. I wasn’t bulging from the fire truck. The Captain looked at me and said “get off the xxx damn truck!” I looked at the Captain and gave him my middle finger and said…”F you, I quit!” When I got back to the station the Captain was very nice to me and said…”Paul, being a firefighter is not cut out for everyone, I understand if you are quitting.” That was my first fire I fought and the last fire I ever fought and to this day, I believe the fire I was fighting was a living entity and had a mind of its own. With the unnatural behavior of the fire, I consider this experience as being paranormal, it definitely was not “normal”.

By Paul Dale Roberts, HPI’s Esoteric Detective

Halo Paranormal Investigations – HPI International.

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