#i need to drive up island late at night some time and actually go star gazing …

[clowninthecoffeehouse]

only saw a few of the shooting stars last night during the meteor shower because a bunch of clouds drifted in, but the northern lights were really visible so still got pretty pictures

[melishade]

Number 19?

This ask game

Based on this old ask I answered a while back: Head Canon (Camping Trip)/ Personal Life

Optimus remained seated quietly in his alt mode as the graduates of the 104th sat around the fire and talked amongst themselves late at night.

It was a simple idea. The 104th wanted to take a break and go on a proper camping trip for the night. Hanji had permitted it because they thought that it would be a good bonding experience. They had also recommended that Optimus go along with them, for both protection and team building as well. Even though many humans in the military had finally gotten used to the idea of Optimus being around them, Hanji thought the idea was a sweet one.

So the 104th and Optimus had traveled together to explore some of the unfamiliar territory outside the Walls. Even though they had set up a campsite at the shoreline of the island, they thought it would be interesting to see what else the island had to offer. When the sun began to set, they set up camp in a small forest that they had come across. They had set up their tents, the fire, and their food and water, and they merely talked amongst themselves.

The Prime thought that it was good for them too. Much change had happened in their lives in such a short amount of time. They deserved a moment or normalcy where they felt like they were in control.

Optimus grunted a little. He did feel cramped in his alt mode. He was sure he was driving around in his alt mode all day, following the humans. He needed a moment to stretch his legs. Optimus put himself in reverse and slowly drove backwards. He didn't have to drive that far. He had actually spotted a clearing not too far from their campsite and ended up going to there. When he reached the grassy field, he transformed into his bipedal mode and stretched his arms. As he stretched his joints, his gaze turned upwards towards the starry night sky.

The stars on this world were charted differently compared to Earth. When he was on Earth, he was able to memorize the stars and their constellations. He was able to use the knowledge of Earth knowledge and the map the Autobots had originally used to locate Cybertron from Earth. He was able to feel some comfort in the fact that even though Cybertron was so far from home, he still knew where it was. He knew how to get back to that world. But here...

Optimus stopped stretching before lying down on the grassy field. He rested his servos on his abdomen and stared at the stars. He tried mapping out the stars on this world and tried to figure out where Cybertron would be from this location, but he had little knowledge about this planet's location and the constellations on this world. Cybertron was alive and well again, but it was lost to him. It was out of his reach. But it wasn't too bad. He could still admire the beauty of the stars on this world.

"What are you doing out here?!" a voice called out. Optimus careened his helm to see the 104th approaching him.

"I wished to be in my bipedal mode, and I wished to gaze at the stars," Optimus explained to them, "You are more than welcome to join me, if you wish."

Optimus wasn't expecting too much as he gazed back up at the stars. He offered mainly out of common curtesy. He was certain they would go back to their routine and-!

"Mikasa, give me a boost," Eren requested as he tried to climb the Prime's shoulder to get onto his chest. Mikasa silently kneeled down and cupped her hands together. Eren stepped on the hands, and Mikasa pushed him upward, allowing Eren to reach the front of Optimus' shoulder. Eren then pulled himself upwards and sat down, swinging his legs along the edge.

"I'm gonna stick to the ground," Connie decided as he sat on the ground next to the Prime. Sasha sat across from Connie, leaning against the Prime's shoulder and placing her hands behind her head.

"Can I get some help up there?" Armin asked with an extended hand. Eren leaned down and took Armin's hand before pulling him upward to sit next to him.

"I...did not expect you to be so comfortable," Optimus confessed, now being hyperaware of the smaller creatures next to him.

"We've known you for a few months now," Jean retorted as Mikasa sat next to Optimus' helm, "At this point, us being around you is just second nature to us."

Jean decided to lie down on the grass instead of next to the Prime. "Besides, we know you're not going to hurt us."

Optimus was quite surprised at the show of confidence. "I appreciate your candor."

Armin turned his attention upwards towards the stars. "Optimus, what else is out there?"

Optimus glanced over at Armin as he continued. "You've mentioned before that there were other worlds besides ours and Cybertron, and the world where humanity is free. But...are there any others?"

Optimus turned his gaze towards the stars. "There are a multitude of worlds besides this one. The universe is a place of infinite possibilities. Each world has their own unique ecosystem. Some contain life, while others do not. For example, a world that is supposed to be similar to Earth called Mars. The planet functions more as a desert, containing nothing more than red sand and rock formations. Humans on Earth have questioned the ability of signs of life, as there is water on that world, but the ability for Mars to properly sustain organic life is still unknown to them."

"Why water?" Sasha asked, "Wouldn't it make sense for it to have fruits or game?"

"Water is an absolute necessity for organics, like energon is necessary for Cybertronians," Optimus explained, "Without it, your world would not be able to grow plants and trees, which in turn, provide food and resources for other animals to consume."

"So is there a planet made out of snow?" Jean genuinely meant that as a joke.

"Yes, actually," Optimus answered.

"I was kidding," Jean declared, earning a small chuckle.

"Those planets do exist," Optimus continued, "Some harbor snow, while others have consistent ice storms not sustainable for hosting any life."

"So were you actually on that type of world?" Eren asked.

"It was a planet the Autobots and I tried to avoid during our travels," Optimus explained.

"What was the craziest thing you've ever seen during your travels?" Sasha asked, "Like both world and animal wise."

Optimus couldn't help but smile a little bit as he explained to them a world of acid rain that would completely melt skin and erode armor. It kept them enamored and he couldn't help but continue explaining more about his travels. He enjoyed making them happy with his tales and adventures beyond this world.

Meanwhile, Eren couldn't help but feel jealous. He didn't want to be, but how could he not? As Optimus continued to tell his stories, the angrier he felt. Optimus' tales were a stark reminder of the fact that Optimus is the freest person that he's ever met in his entire life. He's seen so many worlds and has seen beyond the stars, yet he chooses to still help a tiny little island.

Eren looked back up at the stars. He hoped that he would see at least one of those worlds someday. It sounded like fun.

(Alright, this one is done. I've been asked 79, but the rest is free game.)

[dolce-tenebra-toscana]

La squadra and what languages (other than italian ) i think they might speak:

Risotto ✂️: Greek 🇬🇷

Italy is very close to Greece, and i think Risotto participated to some summer camps with his church group ( his granny had some connections with the local diocese ) and so he spent 4/5 years of his childhood in the island of Corfù. He knows the basics of the language and can keep up with a conversation but if people start talking to fast his brain shuts down and start singing " Ciuri Ciuri " by Roy Paci.

Prosciutto 🍖: French 🇫🇷

Ok so with Prosciutto is a lil complicated; his mother was a piano teacher that traveled a lot in France for concerts and sometimes he hat to attend to ( or do his own recital) and being the son of two cold hearted perfectionists he was supposed to speak fluently the language at first try. At the age of 15 ( when he decided he had enough of his family and ran away to Napoli ) he decided to put his knowledge aside and speak only in italian or the sicilian dialect, cause his hate for the tongue was rooted so deep inside of him. Eventually Risotto found out about it and knows that if he needs someone to translate some documents in french,Prosciutto is the right man!

Melone 🍈: Chinese 🇨🇳

The city of Prato has one of the largest Chinese community in Italy and Melone, being the lil know it all he is, was more than happy to add this skill to his curriculum. He started when he was in university and of course the first thing he tried to do was flirt with the chinese students from the Erasmus program ( his pronounce was terrible at first and received so many slaps in the face ) but the more he practiced the more he actually started enjoying the complexity and history behind the language. Now he uses it when he has to do some hacker jobs or just finding weird sited for his " alone nights "....yes i know, this mann CAN'T be normal.

Illuso 🔎: German 🇩🇪

Illuso's father was born and raised in Dresden but during a lil trip in Torino, was mesmerized by the beauty of an italian brunette...3 months later he found himself living in a loveless marriage with her and their unborn baby. Now, he didn't love his wife but he truly loved his son and he did everything he could to teach young illuso about his german heritage: he spoke to him in german when his wife wasn't around, sang his childhood's lullabies to him, made illuso watch cartoons and read comic books in german...La Squadra's favourite narcissist may act all tough and brag about his high level skills with the language but truth is, he just remembers fondly those memories with his late father.

Ghiaccio 🧊: Finnish 🇫🇮

You just got your driving licence, you are an angry teen from Veneto and your first car is a green Panda 4x4 that you are using to run away from the police after your parents had " a lil accident ". What's the best thing you can do to let some steam out? Hide in the countryside of Emilia-Romagna, roll up a j*int and listen to Finnish heavy metal music. Ghiaccio had some really tough times before joining la Squadra, and had a lot of pent up anger to let out, so he found comfort in finnish music and while he screamed with their lead singers in a very akward imitation of their dialect he actually slowly started to learn that ancient and interesting tongue. Now he can proudly speaks a fluent Finnish and whenever he has occasion he spends time with Risotto, blasting music and doing some wild karaoke.

Formaggio 🧀: Spanish 🇪🇸

Ok cheese man here is the king of flirting, and what language yells sensuality all over the place ( in his mind at least ): spanish~ He spent MONTHS in Ostia Lido, trying to catch the secrets of the iberic latin lovers and how the get all the ladies during his adolescence and now with his arrogan-ehm confidence, roman charm and smooth talking like an italian Ricky Martin he literally has to peel girls from his body. No seriusly 2/3 times the rest of the team thought he wasn't going to get some that night but the moment he starts lowering his voice and speaking spanish, the girl is already swooning in his arms. Watch out this summer chicas~

[wreckmetoji]

idfc

An ongoing fic in which you don't realize you have both Fushiguros at your feet.

↳ Toji Fushiguro/Reader

Part 5/?

Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 6

content warning. age gap, afab reader, angst if you squint, mild smut, sugar daddy toji, mild exhibitionism, mild public sex, oral(f receiving)

This is part five of a several part story revolving around smut. **Minors DNI**

1.5k words

He left you dumbfounded when he parted not a second later, waving as he walked down the hall. "Let's do this again soon." Everything was starting to go back to normal. The last couple days were spent catching up with friends, having the four of you hanging out together again felt natural. You'd be lying if you said you hadn't been avoiding hanging out with Megumi alone, though. Everything he did was more obvious now, the lingering stares, the way his eyes darted down to your lips whenever you spoke to him directly, the subtle brushes of his arm and hand against your own while walking. Even if someone else was talking, he would be looking at you. You didn't know how you were so blind before. Anyone with eyes and common sense could see he was absolutely head over heels. My sister is visiting this weekend, are the words that finally got you to accept one of his onslaught of offers to hang out, even if it was just a dinner at 'some restaurant'. It was true, you'd mostly done it to see Tsumiki again, but you did feel bad with how you were neglecting him. The entire morning of you felt nauseous. You weren't nervous about being around him, though. You were more concerned with the fact you had to sit at a table and act chummy with someone that had fucked you senseless, and didn't hear anything from after the fact. Strong vibrations from your phone rattled against the granite kitchen island, urging you to quickly slide some low black heels on and run out the door. Once downstairs, you whistled at the black Lexus LC 500 sitting in front of your building. Getting inside the car, you were mesmerized by the beautiful leather, all the buttons, and screen built into the dash. Dad let me borrow his work car, he told you when you asked, confirming your suspicion that he didn't drive his own car over deliberately. When you were told it was just dinner at some restaurant, you didn't expect to pull up to a beautiful building with a valet. You suddenly felt incredibly under dressed in your black milkmaid dress. It had a window just below the bust, the short a-line making you feel trashy compared to every other woman walking in. It made sense why Megumi was in a dress shirt now. You stood, dumbfounded and starry eyed as your friend briefly spoke to the gentleman behind the tall marble podium, too absorbed in taking in the high ceilings and rich red and gold accents to realize you'd been taken by the hand to walk further in. "Oh!" Your gaze snapped over to the slightly secluded booth table, seeing a sparkly eyed Tsumiki shouting over for you. She seemed like she'd already had a few drinks. The eye contact she was making was short lived when your own trailed slightly to the left, your mouth going dry. Toji sat beside her, dress shirt tight against his thick crossed arms, the top couple buttons on his shirt undone to expose his sharp collarbone. He had his sleeves rolled up, but only halfway up his forearms. His expression was unchanging, but the way he eyed you up and down let you know he wasn't made aware you would be part of the dinner. Much to your displeasure, Megumi had sat you down beside him, directly across from Toji. "Goodness, look at you. You've both grown so much!" Tsumiki prattled on, you occasionally joined in on the conversation. Despite her light and airy exterior, your attention was too caught up in how silent the taller man was nearly the entire night, only ever briefly speaking up when address or ordering food. Every time you tried to sneak a glance, your gazes met, you were always the first to look away. At some point you were convinced it wasn't coincidence, and he'd just been staring at you the entire time. Once dinner and dessert was cleared from the table, Megumi sighed and pushed his chair back. "I'll get the car and bring you home–" "Actually, you can drive Tsumiki." Toji finally said something without prompting, causing all eyes to focus on him. "She needs to get up early to catch her flight. Since I need to pay, you can drive her to the hotel. I'll drive your friend home." There was a lingering silence, before Megumi sighed, begrudgingly agreeing. You and Tsumiki said your formalities, although you sat uncomfortably in your chair once you were left in silence in the presence of him. It was just the two of you, and now that you didn't have any watchful eyes, you silently confirmed that he had been staring at you all night. "Nice to see you... again..." You chewed the inside of your cheek after speaking, eyes looking down where you fiddled with the hem of your short dress' skirt. "Yeah." Silence. If you could pass away right now, you would. This was excruciating. Why did you come to this stupid dinner? Why would you put yourself in this situation? "Ever been fucked in a five star restaurant bathroom?" Choking on your spit, you looked up wide eyed to see he had the same flat line expression, brow only slightly arched. He was a hard man to read, but any idiot could tell he was toying with you. "Obviously not, no–" He interrupted you by standing, reaching into his well fitted black trousers and placing a black credit card on the table. His green eyes could cut steel, the dangerous way he looked down at you as he walked past giving you goosebumps. "Bathroom. Two minutes." With how low his tone was, and how he looked at you, you knew better than to go against what you were told– no, ordered. Keeping a watchful eye on your phone clock, you hadn't even noticed the waiter walk up to take the card and leave again. When you got to the bathroom door, you tried desperately hard to ignore the way the restroom attendant standing outside glanced you up and down, then rolled his eyes. Toji, what the fuck did you say to this guy? Said man motioned for you to walk inside, the first thing you noticed upon entering was the crystal chandelier and gold plated everything. Toji had his back facing you, rolling the sleeves of his dark navy dress shirt up just past his elbows when you cleared your throat to announce your presence. Watching the turn of his head and slow drag of his eyes to you, then over to the clock beside the door you'd just entered, then back to you. His lips twitched. "Right on time." Unsure why, but you were disappointed he didn't praise you for being so timely. You blamed it on the fact you knew you'd be punished had you been even a second late. "Now, princess," His voice was laced with venom, a nefarious twinge to how he addressed you. "What business did you have marching in here dressed like that unannounced?" You didn't answer his question. You weren't sure if he even wanted you to. Despite the fact, you kept eye contact, looking like a lamb cornered by a starving wolf. "Sit." He commanded, hand resting on the marble countertop beside a very expensive looking sink. His tone didn't make you nearly as nervous as the corridor of mirrors, nearly every wall covered with one. Heels clacked against the marble floors, slowly, as you made your way over. You had to hike a leg up onto the counter to get on top, yelping when a sharp smack stung your newly exposed bottom. Looking back back with narrowed eyes, you were met with an intense, impatient glare. "Did I tell you to take your sweet fuckin' time?" You quickly scurried up, your back pressed against a mirror as he leaned into you, caging you between his arms. "Legs up." It was a struggle to move with how closely Toji was leaning into you, but you managed to bring your knees up to your chest, panties now completely exposed. You didn't want to address how it made your pussy quiver. He seemed to take a moment, drinking in how scantily clad you were. "Those don't cover a goddamn thing, princess. We're you planning for something?" He leaned back, hands leaving the counter. "Take them off." Toji nodded his head, eyes looking down at your underwear as he crossed his arms. "Pull your dress up while you're at it." You did as you were told, removing the lacy black thong, throwing it in his direction as some semblance of rebellion. His smirk fell, letting you know immediately a mistake was made. Continuing, you grabbed the hem of your skirt, bringing it up to your mouth and biting down on it, holding it up with your mouth. What a spectacle you must've been, all propped up and ready for him to devour you. Toji crouched down, picking up the panties you'd thrown at him and stuffed them into his pocket before he stepped over, dipping his head between the apex of your thighs. "If you feel like being a brat," He gave your bare cunt a slap, making you flinch. "Then I'll treat you like one." You leaned your head back against the mirror, eyes closing when you felt him gently blow over your already throbbing aroused pussy. "Aren't people going to walk in?" Your protest was muffled from the hem of your dress stuffed in your mouth. You hoped you could talk some sense into Toji, as if anyone ever could. "I paid the attendant a hundred bucks to stand outside and stop people from coming in," Toji stroked up your folds with his index finger, bringing his other hand up and parting you with his thumbs to get a good look at the way you twitched for him. His lazy smirk grew, breath ghosting over your heat. He spoke, the words making you shiver more than his tongue now licking a long stripe up your pussy. "We've got fifteen minutes. I'll only need seven."

[matthewtkachuk]

forgive me - rafe cameron

you’re ready to forgive Rafe, but first you’re going to make him work for it, sequel to ignore me

warnings: smutty smut smut (sorry not sorry), oral (female receiving), penetrative sex, lil bit of cockwarming (for @anxietyandtacos)

pairing: rafe cameron x reader

word count: 2.9k

a/n: in honor of me hitting 700, here’s the long-awaited sequel to ignore me, i hope yall enjoy 😏 (lowkey this isn’t proofread, sorry not sorry)

Rafe Cameron was the most annoying person on the planet, he was persistent and determined and so goddamn stubborn. He didn’t like to take no for an answer, and he knew every button of yours to press, and boy did he enjoy pressing them. He would pick and prod and poke until it drove you absolutely crazy and you had no choice but to acknowledge him. Above all though, he truly, deeply loved you and that’s why you could never stay mad at him. He didn’t need to know that, though.

After some of the best make up sex you’d ever had in your life, after you had left him in a huff to spend the night in the spare room once again, he’d ramped up his efforts to earn your forgiveness. The next morning he tried the breakfast angle again, this time bringing you eggs benny and a mimosa from your favorite brunch place on the island right to you in bed. You had to hide your smile as you sat up against the headboard and took the tray from him without even a half-hearted thank you. He didn’t say anything, but you saw the way his mouth twisted into a little pout and you could practically hear the gears in his head turn as he thought of his next step.

After you’d finished your breakfast, you made your way back home, thinking the extra bit of distance might further frustrate and motivate him. Lying on your couch, you spent your time scrolling through the several messages Rafe had left for you and giggling at his desperation. The earlier anger you had felt had all but faded, leaving behind soft fondness as you scrolled through various iterations of ‘I’m sorry baby’ and ‘I love you’ and ‘talk to me’ and ‘please’.

As it turns out, Rafe’s next step arrived after lunch in the form of Sarah Cameron holding a garment bag in one hand and a box that looked suspiciously like it might hold a necklace within.

You scoffed at the items in her hands, lifting an eyebrow as you told her, “If he thinks he’s going to buy my forgiveness…” you paused thoughtfully, eyeing the label on the garment bag and the Tiffany blue packaging of the jewelry box, “Well, damn he might be right.” Sarah only giggled and handed off the items to you, telling you that was only ‘the beginning’ and to be ready by 5.

Part of you thought about ignoring your instructions, slipping on a pair of fuzzy pajamas and watching movies with a glass of wine. The thought of Rafe’s face seeing you on the couch when he arrived that evening was almost enough to do it. But, truthfully, you weren’t even that mad anymore and you were really curious to see what kind of dress he had picked out for you. Looking at the time, you sighed. You really needed to shower, and you liked to take your time getting ready, so you got off the couch and headed up into your bathroom.

After your shower, you unzipped the garment bag and admired the silky, black fabric of the dress, more than a little impressed with Rafe. You spent the next few hours slowly getting ready, taking the time to do your hair and even bringing out the winged eyeliner. Your last step was slipping on the dress, loving the feel of the fabric against your skin.

At five o clock on the dot, your doorbell rang. You took your time swiping a thin coat of lip gloss to your lips before rolling them with a smack. Slipping on a pair of simple black heels, you checked yourself out in the mirror one more time. Rafe had done well choosing the dress, it was in your exact size and hugged the contours of your body perfectly. A small smirk graced your face as you imagined his reaction, and you couldn’t wait any longer, leaving the sanctity of your bedroom. You heard Rafe making small talk with your parents as you descended the steps. Your mother had loved Rafe the moment you brought him home as your boyfriend, but your father had taken longer to warm up to him. It made your heart happy to see the two of them getting along and so you rushed down the last few steps to keep from breaking out into a wide grin.

His jaw dropped slightly when you came into sight, eyes respectfully roaming the black dress hugging your figure. “You look beautiful,” he smiled, though his eyes furrowed when he noticed your bare neck.

“Could you help me put this on?” You asked softly, handing him the diamond necklace you grasped in your small hand and turning around, lifting your hair. You couldn’t help the shiver as his hands brushed against your décolletage and quickly clasped the necklace. He was grateful you didn’t feel how his hands shook.

Spinning back around, you grabbed his hand and tried to wish your parents goodnight and make a speedy getaway, but of course your father had other ideas.

“Have her back by 11,” your father gruffly reminded him and you rolled your eyes.

“Dad, I’m twenty years old,” You told him exasperatedly, but he just shook his head and reminded you that you were ‘under his roof’ for the summer.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, darling,” Your mom smiled, placing her hand on your father’s bicep to calm him. Grinning at her, you told them you loved them and all but dragged Rafe out the door. The second the door closed, you let his hand fall and walked purposefully to his truck. The way his smile fell a little hurt your heart, but you were playing the long game and it was too soon to give in. Rushing ahead of you, he opened the door and helped you in before shutting it for you and jogging to the driver side. He didn’t make a move to grab your thigh, and you found yourself missing the warm comfort it provided. While avoiding his gaze, you grabbed his hand from the wheel and placed it on its familiar position on your upper thigh, watching the way the side of his mouth upturned in your peripheral vision.

It didn’t take long to reach your destination, the cute new restaurant with seating on the waterfront. You had been talking about going there since it opened, but you and Rafe hadn’t yet found the time to go. You gave him a questioning look, there was definitely a wait list but he just shrugged and smiled before getting out of the vehicle and meeting you on the passenger side, opening the door for you again and helping you out. He tossed the keys at the valet, and walked into the restaurant, and you didn’t let go of his hand this time.

Sitting at your table overlooking the calm water, the late afternoon made its way into evening in a flurry of smiles and laughter and quiet conversation. You didn’t know if it was the way his larger hand held yours over the table, the soft adoration in his gaze, or the messy way his hair fell in his eyes, but by the time the entrees had been cleared from the table you knew you needed him. You could pretend the whole date hadn’t done a thing for you, or you could try and get him to show you just how sorry he was.

As he looked through the dessert menu, you squeezed his hand and murmured his name. He looked up at you and flushed a little under your intense gaze, asking, “Baby?”

“Take me home,” you told him slowly, and you saw his face fall. Sighing a little, he nodded “Alright-“

“No, Rafe. Take me home,” you emphasized the last word, tongue poking out to lick at your bottom lip. This time, you saw comprehension flash in his eyes and he nodded quickly, pulling out his wallet and dropping a couple hundred dollar bills on the table, more than enough to cover your bill and leave a generous tip.

The drive back to his house was considerably quicker than the drive to the restaurant, and his hand rested dangerously high on your upper thigh the entire drive, stroking it softly and ever so slightly moving closer to where you needed him without ever actually touching. The second he threw the truck into park, he was hopping out of the vehicle. Thankful that Ward, Rose and Wheezie were on the mainland for the week and Sarah was probably slumming it down on the Cut, Rafe pulled you into the house and slammed you against the shut front door, eerily reminiscent of when you had slammed it only a few days ago royally pissed off at your boyfriend.

You hungrily kissed him, hands running through and messing up his already messy hair. One of his hands gripped your waist tightly, the other cupped your left breast. Whimpering into his mouth as the hand on your waist slid down your side and slipped under your dress, you tugged on his hair. “Upstairs?” you asked when he broke the kiss to look at you. He smirked and you gasped when he threw you over his shoulder and carried you up the stairs, hand squeezing your ass just because it was right there and he could.

He set you down gently on your feet, both of his hands coming to rest on either side of your jaw as he pulled you in for a slow, passionate kiss. You felt your head spin, seeing stars as one of his hands slipped a little lower and began to gently put pressure on your neck. Gasping, you started to undo the buttons of his dress shirt, slipping your hand underneath the material and pulling it off of him. Your hands trailed down his toned chest and over his abs, before your smaller hands fumbled with his belt, pulling it clean from the belt loops of his dress pants. When you reached for the button, he pushed your hands away and spun you around to unzip your dress, pressing your chest into the door.

First, he pushed your hair over your shoulder and pressed a kiss to your shoulder blade before beginning to slowly pull the zipper down your back. Kissing every inch of back he exposed, all the way down to where your lower back met your ass before standing back up and pushing the dress off your shoulders, allowing it to spill at your feet. You turned around, back pressed to his bedroom door, and stood before him in just your matching lingerie set, and your entire body felt hot from the way he was looking at you – like you were everything he could ever possibly want. “You’re so beautiful, baby,” he murmured, causing your face to get even warmer.

Running his hands from your shoulder blades, down to your wrists, he linked your hands together as he pressed open mouth kisses down your neck and between your breasts. Pausing to mouth at your nipple through the lace of your bra, he continued kissing and sucking his way down your chest and stomach, stopping at the lace of your panties. You sucked in a deep breath as he sunk to his knees, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh before pulling your panties down your legs and helping you step out of them. He leaned back, admiring your core before stroking you slowly with his index finger, gathering the wetness on the tip of his finger. “Such a pretty pussy baby,” he whispered, “and all wet just for me,”

“Rafe,” you whined, hands moving to grip his hair as he lazily played with you, carefully avoiding your entrance and your clit. He smirked up at you, large hand gripping one of your thighs and lifting it to rest over his shoulder.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll take good care of you,” he kissed his way up your thigh, tongue flicking out of his mouth to lick at your clit once, twice. You jerked your hips, one hand leaving his hair to grip the dresser that stood beside his door. He pulled his head back and tilted it up to look at you, continuing with a smirk, “as long as you forgive me.”

The way he was looking at you coupled by his grip on your thigh had you unable to speak. Rafe mistook it as you stubbornly holding onto your anger, choosing to press his thumb to your clit and kiss the inside of your thigh, causing you to gasp. “Forgive me baby? Please you know I can’t stand you bein’ mad at me. I miss you.” He murmured against the smooth skin of your leg. You still couldn’t speak, and so he pressed his mouth to your clit, sucking and licking as you moaned above him. Suddenly stopping, he leaned back to look at you, indicating he wouldn’t continue until you spoke.

“I- yes, I forgive you, please, I-“ you whined, tugging on his hair. Sighing in a mixture of relief and pleasure as he reattached his mouth to your pussy, your head hit the back of the door with a bang when he slipped a finger into you, then another. You couldn’t help but grind your pussy against his face as he noisily sucked and licked. Eating you out was one of Rafe’s favorite things to do, and he once joked that suffocating between your thighs was the only way he wanted to go. It didn’t take long for you to reach your high after he inserted a third finger into you, curling all three fingers and stroking your walls. Your legs shook and you whined his name as you came, slumping against the door. If Rafe hadn’t been holding you up, you’re certain you would have fallen to the ground, boneless. After he had licked you clean, he gently set your leg back on the ground and rose from his knees before he pressed you into the door, kissing you as you tasted yourself on his tongue. His hand wrapped around your body and easily undid the clasp of your bra, slipping the fabric down your arms until you stood bare before him entirely.

Pressing a kiss to your lips again, he began to undo the button of his pants, before telling you to ‘get on the bed, baby’. Your legs felt like jello as you made the four steps to the bed, crawling onto the bed and laying against the pillows, watching him slip out of his pants and boxers, mouthwatering at the sight of his naked body.

You waited with baited breath as he crawled his way over your body, leaning down to kiss you again, slipping his tongue in your mouth as your chests pressed together. You ran your hands up his muscled back, holding him close to you as you kissed. He leaned his body weight on his forearms that rested on either side of your head, before reaching down to guide himself into your warm heat. The stretch was so good it was almost painful as he slowly entered you, inch by inch until your hips met. He was slow at first, keeping an even pace as he pressed kisses against your neck, your chest. “See how good it can be when you forgive me, baby?” he murmured into your neck. You could only whine in response, holding him tightly to your body.

It was the way his hips thrust in and out of you, the soft affirmations he whispered in between breathy, whiny moans, the way he gripped the headboard. It was the way he told you he loved you when he was fucking you into the mattress, the look in his eyes as he hiked your leg up further up his hip to enter you even deeper. It was the perfectly imperfect combination of all things Rafe Cameron that had your eyes rolling into the back of your head, your pussy clenching on his dick, as you came hard for the second time. Groaning at the feeling of you around him, he fucked you through your orgasm, chasing his own high.

Wanting to help him, you pressed a kiss to the spot just under his ear, smiling when he rewarded you with a whiny moan. Mind clouded with the pleasure he was still giving you, you incoherently rambled in his ear, “God I love you so much baby, you’re so good to me. You make me feel so good, no one can make me feel this good but you.”

Groaning, he slipped a hand down to rub against your clit, hoping to bring you to your third orgasm as he approached his own. Back arching without warning, you came unexpectedly around him again, crying his name and “I love you” and “I forgive you baby, I forgive you.” Your words spurned him on, and he came inside you before collapsing on top of you, cock still buried deep in you. You held him to your chest as it heaved, willing your soul to return to your body.

“You forgive me, huh?” He mumbled, smirking against your chest, “Was it the three orgasms, dinner, or the Tiffany necklace?”

“Oh baby,” you giggled, leaning down to kiss his sweaty forehead, “I already forgave you before all that, just wanted to make you sweat a little.”

Throwing his head back in a whiny laugh, he pressed a kiss to your chest, “Cruel woman.”

“Ya, but you’ll forgive me.”

everything taglist: @velyssaraptor @danicarosaline @copper-boom @x-lulu @prejudic3 @rekrappeter @downbytheouterbanks @ilovejjmaybank @bricksatanakinswindow @jellyfishbeansontoast @sunwardsss @rudyypankow @im-a-stranger-thing @alexa-playafricabytoto @maybankfullkook​@girlsru1eboysdroo1 @sortagaysortahigh @socialwriter @bluesiderudy @anxietyandtacos

[mrsgiovanna]

Buon Compleanno (Don Giorno x Fem! Reader)

It's as the name says... This fic is close to my heart and I really enjoyed writing it for our Golden king's birthday. Mostly fluff, it does contain mentions of alcohol consumption though. I hope you all enjoy. ❤️🎊🎉😘🐞💭

P. S. Let the fluff ensue 💐

Word count: 2.5k

“So Mista... Fugo, are things ready on your end? I’ve got confirmation from North Island that everything is ready for us on their end. We have to stagger our arrivals so that Giorno doesn’t actually see you guys there until the party. All our villas are ready for our arrival and his presents are being safe guarded there until we arrive,” you beamed as you secretly went over the final checklist for Giorno’s birthday get away with the team and Trish.

Your friends had ever so thoughtfully come over to see you and Giorno off… well more so to iron out the last details of your master plan, but your boyfriend didn’t need to know that. Attempting to keep your plans for his birthday hidden from him was a near impossible feat. Trying to get him to take some time off and just live for himself was an even bigger task, but being who you are, you managed to plan everything down to the finest detail.

Trying to get the entire island to yourselves and plan the party of a century for your closest allies was a mammoth task, but it was what you felt Giorno deserved. In the years that he’s spent running Passione, he had always placed his own needs secondary to the needs of the organization, which is why you resolved to give him the best experience imaginable for his 21st birthday.

“Hi Giorno! We were just talking about you,” piped up Trish in a voice loud enough to alert everyone to the young don’s looming presence. Eyes widening for a split second, you manage to compose yourself without him catching on and flashed him a pleasant smile. You were taken aback by how handsome he looked dressed down in an azure linen Armani suit, hair braided loosely and cascading down his shoulder. He took his place at your side, casually circling his arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your temple.

“Morning everyone, what’s this about me?”

“Oh, we’re just discussing what we’re going to be doing when you’re away… you know, cats and mice and the like,” joked Fugo, earning him a worried look from Giorno.

“Gosh, relax my love… come on, we have to go, it’s a pretty long flight,”

“Alright, alright, let’s go bella. Well, I’ll see you all in a few days’ time,” leaving to the collective goodbye wishes of your friends you set off to catch the private jet which would take you to the little piece of heaven in the Seychelles.

Upon landing at the airport, you were just one short helicopter flight away from your destination. Giorno’s demeanor was akin to that of a child on Christmas eve, taking in his beautiful surroundings on the helicopter. Stepping onto the helipad, you were greeted by the wonderful fresh scents of the salty sea air, clear blue seas and white sandy beaches for as far as the eye could see. After the welcome, you were lead to the main villa, given your golf cart and allowed yourselves to get settled in for the rest of the night, choosing to spend a quiet night lounging on the balcony overlooking the ocean.

Giorno couldn’t help but stare at your beautiful form. The way the moonlight bounced off the ocean behind you and illuminated your skin mesmerized him. He had known you ever since he had taken over Passione. You served as a valuable ally when it came to weeding out the members who were still unwilling to adopt his ideals. As the years marched on, he started seeking out your company more and more, until it became apparent that he was at his happiest when he was around you… and once the realization had dawned on him, he wasted no time in making you his. You fell hard, and fast, and it was so easy fall into step with each other’s lives, as if you had been created just for each other.

“Bella, this is incredible, I know I put up a bit of a fight but I’m so glad you did this…” he uttered with a dreamy look on his face.

“I’m glad you think so my love, you’re going to love the day I have planned for us tomorrow… Ah! Actually, later on today," you say, glancing at your watch, "it’s just past midnight! Happy birthday my love! I hope you know how much I love you, and I’m incredibly proud of you and all you have managed to accomplish at such a young age… you’re… you’re pretty amazing you know,” the emotions swirled around in Giorno’s eyes while listening to your heartfelt speech.

“(y/n) … I… you’re… I just love you so much tesoro, you’re everything I could ever want,”

“I love you too Gio… come on, it’s late, let’s get some rest,” you say while leading him to bed.

You rose early, just as the sun made its glorious appearance over the ocean. As early as you had woken up though, Giorno was already awake, nursing a cup of coffee as he stared pensively at the brilliant blue water.

“Good morning handsome, penny for your thoughts?” you greeted your lover, wrapping your arms lovingly around his shoulders and nuzzling into his soft hair.

“Good morning principessa… I’m just thinking about how much I love you…”

“Oh? Is that so, Mr. Giovanna? Well prepare to love me even more, go get ready, we have lots to do today,” you say, a lovely light, lilt coloring your voice.

“Any hints?”

“Wear something comfortable, something that we can walk around in,”

With that, your day had started with a guided hike through the island. Between Giorno’s life-imbuing ability and your affinity for adventure, you were both mesmerized by the flora and fauna you encountered on the hike. Once that was over you looked forward to coming back to a special couple’s massage which eased your sore muscles and relaxed you both into a dreamlike state. Finally, after your last treatments, you could get ready for your “dinner” at the piazza. Feeling a sense of pride as you put on the last of your accessories, you smiled at your reflection in the mirror while inspecting your stunning outfit, and grew even happier when you saw Giorno walking out in a casual charcoal grey Dior suit which matched your dress, but not his expression unfortunately.

“What’s the matter my love? You look great by the way…”

“Thank you tesoro… you’re quite the vision yourself,” standing behind you, sharing the mirror, he raked his fingers through his uncooperative hair, sighing in annoyance.

“Gio, stop- here, sit down, I’ll help you,” you say as you gently brush out the tangles and scrunch the wave back into his lovely golden hair. You carefully braid the length of his mane but leave his signature triad of ringlets out, admiring how beautifully the shorter sections of his hair framed his face.

“There…” you leaned back to admire your efforts, acknowledging the fact that you had a particularly exquisite model as well.

“Are you sure this is fine my love?” there was a hint of doubt in Giorno’s voice, but you made sure to banish any such thoughts.

“Of course, I love your hair like this,”

“Well, that’s good enough for me. Shall we leave my princess?”

“Yes… but can I drive the golf cart?” you ask, extending your arm to him, gesturing for the keys.

Speeding past the rest of the villas, you just wanted to make sure that everyone was already at the piazza ready to surprise the young don.

“Are you sure we’re at the right place my love? Or should we be at a different entrance, this looks like it’s closed,”

“Yes caro, come on, I’m sure the staff are inside… I’ve picked up on your habit of wanting to dine in solitude,” you explain as you walk towards the entrance hand in hand. Stepping into the restaurant, the lights dipped and instantly got brighter revealing your closest friends jumping out of their hiding spots with a collective, rambunctious yell of “surprise”, startling your unsuspecting boyfriend.

“Happy birthday my love,” you softly say once again, as the lively music started to play in the background.

“You… did all of this? For me?”

“Of course bello mio, well, I did have help though” you gestured behind Giorno, pointing out Mista, Trish and Fugo walking towards you both.

“Oi, happy birthday Giogio, haha, you look like you need a drink, I’ll be right back,” said Fugo as he went to order the first round of drinks for your little group. Between flitting amongst your guests, dancing with your handsome beau, and stealing moments away to be alone him, you almost forgot to give him his gifts, which were safely stored in the wine cellar of the establishment.

“Well, what do you think my love?” Giorno’s eyes widened when he saw the glass-encased, white Fender Stratocaster signed by just about every rock star, most importantly, his favorite guitarist, Jeff Beck.

“I’ve been looking for this for the longest time… how did you find it tesoro?”

“I also know some people… that’s not all, look next to it…” you motioned towards 5 Morocco solander boxes that housed a rare first edition of the complete 10 volumes of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

“I thought that might look quite beautiful in your study… adding something especially meaningful to your collection,”

“I’m speechless (y/n) … you’ve gone to such great lengths…” you hush him with a passionate kiss preventing him from gushing about your efforts as you were determined to make this night about him.

“I’m sure we’ve been gone for too long, lets rejoin our guests my love,” you started to walk towards the staircase exiting the wine cellar, but you were pulled back against Giorno’s broad chest, grasping your face in his hand, he kissed you with so much fervor this time, leaving you flustered and battling to calm your racing heart. Noticing the effect, he managed to have on you, he gently coaxed you back upstairs with a wicked smirk.

“Hey, you’re back, we’ve been looking all over for you two. We have one more person who wants to say hello,” with a soft smile, Trish reaches behind her to pull out coco jumbo, which meant only one thing…

“Signore Polnareff! Even you…”

“You know I’ve always had a soft spot for pretty girls Giorno… Joyeux anniversaire! You’re a brave young man with a good head on your shoulders and integrity in your heart, always hold on to that,”

“Thank you signore Polnareff, it means a lot coming from you, considering…” cutting him off before Giorno could complete his sentence, Polnareff attempted to lighten the mood.

“Non non non, no sad thoughts tonight, get this man a drink someone, you’re all slacking here,” he said looking at you as you mouthed a small thank you in his direction.

“(y/n), you’ve really outdone yourself. Giogio, you’re a lucky man,” said Mista as he brought a special bottle of champagne for you all to raise a toast with. “Alright, while we’re all here in the same place, I just want to say that you’re all important to me…”

“Mista’s drunk guys, prepare yourselves,” Trish says with an eye roll resulting in hushed giggles as the gunslinger tried to (unsuccessfully) arrange his sentimental thoughts.

Unable to stand it any longer, Trish takes over and pays homage to Giorno, as well as the special people who had given everything in order for them to live, enabling them to carry on their will.

As the party raged on, you took a small break in a dim corner of the piazza, and took a moment to marvel at the fruits of your labor. Everybody was having the best time, including Giorno. After being called away by one of his associates, it filled your heart with fluttery sensations watching the man you loved finally able to act his age for once.

“May I sit with you, carina?” startled out of your musings, you find an old friend standing over you.

“Lorenzo, of course, please, have a seat,” you offer emphatically.

“So, how is one half of Passione’s power couple doing?” his question earning a loud giggle from you. You continued to make conversation with Lorenzo, until Trish came to inform you that one of the service providers needed to confirm a few details with you, so you politely excused yourself and followed Trish. You were confused as she lead you to a secluded part of the beach, where you find Giorno standing alone, staring broodingly at the ocean for the second time that day. You realized that she just made an excuse draw you away to check on Giorno, being slightly concerned yourself after seeing the expression on his face.

“Gio? My love, what’s the matter? Did you just need some fresh air?” he turned to faced you with the softest smile.

“You know bella, I’ve loved you so deeply for years now… you always know what I need… even before I do. I never really feel complete anymore unless you’re with me… which is strange because I’ve always been content on my own. And then it hit me, you will always hold a part of me, and I’ll always seek you out because of it… You’ve given me probably the best experience of my life tonight, but, there’s just one more thing I would like from you to make the day perfect…” you felt light-headed when you saw Giorno moving to kneel down on one knee, pulling out a little trinket box, opening it to reveal the most beautiful ring.

“(y/n), would you give me the greatest gift and agree to spend the rest of your life with me as my wife?”

Emotions tugged at your pretty features, as you whispered a breathy affirmation, while nodding excitedly. Exhaling sharply with a stunning smile, Giorno got back to his feet and placed the elegant ring on your finger, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss thereafter. You threw your arms around his neck, and held him tightly, before the realization dawned on you.

“Wait! How long have you been planning this, Gio? Your question was met with his soft, exasperated laugh.

“Oh! For the longest time amore, I’ll admit though, your plans had forced me to adapt my own, but I had some help in achieving all of this… Trish is a lifesaver,” explained your new fiancé with a hint of pride in his voice.

“I love you Gio, but you managed to hijack your own celebration… I don’t know what to do with you!” the mock exasperation dripping from your voice drew a small laugh from Giorno.

“That’s your problem now tesoro, you already agreed to marry me, no take backs,” with that, you both decide to return to the festivities. Intertwining your fingers with his as you slowly walked back, you both stole loving glances at each other, communicating your intense affections for each other through your eyes alone… perhaps it was as he said, you mused… that a part of your soul resided with him also, and so you always sought him out to feel complete too, just as he did with you.

[anastasiyaigorevnadobrodevskaya]

Kuka pelkää pimeää?  - Kaapo Kakko

A/N: I hope you will enjoy the reading as much as I enjoyed the writing. A big thank you goes to everyone who has supported me. Here on tumblr I’d like to thank @nhlandotherimagines​ personally. Thank you Jessie.

Kuka pelkää pimeää? - Who is afraid of the dark?

The song mentioned.

Word count: 1764

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Having a relationship with a hockey player can get hard at times. It can get even worse if both sides of the relationship are working for a professional hockey team. Boy, can it get even worse if those teams happen to be the division rivals in the NHL.

The whole situation was tense as it was before the corona decided to lock me up with my boyfriend at our shared apartment in New York. Between his crazy schedule and mine, just as chaotic one, it is very difficult to find some peaceful time for one another.

Having just returned from a roadie, which was successful taking 4 out of 6 points, I close the door behind me as quietly as possible. It’s already late and Kaapo leaves for a couple of away games of his own tomorrow morning. Which doesn’t give us much time to spend together, but at least we can sleep in the same bed for once.

I change sleepily and get ready for bed trying to not make too much noise. After dragging myself out of the bathroom I slip under the covers right next to the sleeping body of my boyfriend. He stirs in his sleep, slowly turning around so he is facing me.

“Hei. How was your flight?“ His soft mumbling is barely audible and his hands reach out wrapping around my waist. His fingers slipping under the fabric of my T-shirt.

“It was okay. Guys were pain in the ass as usual.“ I laugh nuzzling my head into his chest rumbling with laughter. “But I am damn tired.“ I add a yawn for demonstration.

A chuckle leaves his pretty lips as his big hands caress my bare back. “Then sleep.” He advises, voice laced with sleep I unintentionally woke him from. I hum in response closing my eyes. I relax into the soft mattress listening to the even breathing of my beloved one.

//

Lying in bed I try to drift off to dream, but fail terribly. Again. Decided I’ve had enough I reach for my phone and turn it back on. Throwing the covers off of me I sit up and rub my face, annoyed at my inability to fall asleep despite being tired. I reach for my wireless headphones and put them on pairing them with my phone. I put on a rather calming playlist and click on the flashlight icon.

Tiptoeingly I leave the room making sure to close the door behind me and head for the living room. I turn on the light hanging above the kitchen island and grab a glass filling it with water to the very brim. I chug down almost half of its content and set the rest on the marble surface.

I walk over to an armchair and push it to the floor to ceiling window. I stop and cringe slightly when it makes a disturbing noise. I throw myself on it with a heavy sigh escaping my lips. Closing my eyes I take a deep breath. I focus on the music reaching my ears. The gentle tones infecting my brain trying to get it to loosen up.

I open my eyes taking a look at the city below. It never sleeps. No matter the crazy hour there’s always someone driving the busy roads. It’s as if the dark sky was outstretching its arms and reaching for people in an attempt to put them to sleep. Humans, ever the persistent creatures, are escaping its hold with cars lighting up the roads and apartments with yellow light seeping through the glass and blinds.

I hate the dark. In fact it terrifies me. I bring my knees under my chin and hug my legs close to my body. The unknown danger hiding in the shadows scares me. I no longer check under my bed for monsters. I don’t need to. They are in the streets, we meet them daily, although we don’t realize. But walking home alone in the dark makes my blood run cold at times. I can’t stand it, no matter how old I am.

Finnish songs from my playlist come up and I smile. They always remind me of Kaapo. An instant mood lifter. One song catches my attention. Kuka pelkää pimeää from Herrat. How fitting, eh? It's about two people being the only ones wide awake at a late night hour. The sleeping city and stars shining above it, but them not being afraid of the dark. I wish. I think bitterly.

I sing along quietly, imagining driving around the city with Kaapo. With no destination in mind, just driving. Probably listening to our favorite songs and messing up the lyrics, especially me making up new Finnish words and him laughing at and with me. He rarely smiles, but when he does it’s so worth it. He saves it for the good moments. With him I would drive even at the darkest of the nights.

A happy sigh escapes my lips as another of the songs I keep deep within my heart comes up. I look around the apartment, the only source of light being the one I left on at the kitchen island.

A figure standing in the living room doorway catches my attention and I shriek. Pulling my headphones down I reach for my phone, panicking. The person steps into the light and I release a breath I forgot I was holding in the rush of it all.

"Jesus fucking Christ. Are you insane?" I almost yell with a trembling voice. I add a couple more swear words, mumbling them under my breath and in a language my boyfriend speaks ever so fluently.

"I-I am sorry. I didn't want to scare you." Kaapo apologizes, the tips of his ears turning red. Coming up to me I stand up and he wraps his arms around my shaking figure. "I am sorry." He whispers in his native language.

"You scared the hell out of me." I whine placing my head on his firm chest. He just holds me closer and rubs my back soothingly. "What were you even doing standing in the shadow like that?"

"You weren't in bed." His voice is laced with concern, his accent heavy.

"Couldn't sleep." I say in Finnish. My knowledge of that language is not great, but I like it and it makes him more comfortable. It makes our talks more private. More intimate. "I am sorry, I woke you. You should sleep. You have a flight in the morning."

"And you just came back. You are tired too. Come back to bed." He tries to reason with me.

"But I can't sleep." Arguing back I shake my head in his chest.

"And if I help you sleep?"

"How?" Lifting my head I look into his blue eyes.

"Trust me?" Brushing a strand of hair behind my ear his fingers brush my cheek gently.

"Kyllä." I breathe and nod.

Taking me by the hand he walks to the island turning the lights off. The moment it goes dark my heart rate picks up. "Kaapo." He squeezes my palm reassuringly.

"I am right here with you." He pulls me to his chest. Taking me by my thighs he lifts me up. My limbs instantly wrap around him and I burry my face in his neck. "It's alright." Turning his head he kisses my hair and starts walking back to our bedroom.

Flicking on the bedside lamp he sets me on the mattress. He then turns around opening the wardrobe and shuffling around for something. I take off the headphones from around my neck and put them on the bedside table. Tilting my head I watch him, but remain quiet, more than interested in what he is up to. Pulling out a small box he sets it on the ground pluging it in.

He looks up at me with a soft smile. I remember the box! I gave it to him on his birthday. He turns the lamp off and then presses a button on the box. The dark room lights up with many little white starts and green and blue clouds moving like Aurora Borealis. My heart bursts with so much love at this moment.

It's a star projector I gifted him because he missed Finland so much and I thought that seeing the stars would remind him of home. It did. He was so happy he couldn’t stop smiling. I was never more proud of myself as back then for picking the right gift. That is actually how I found out about his interest in the stars.

He climbs onto the bed laying down on his back. Reaching for me he pulls me to his side. He takes the duvet pulling it on top of us. I place my head on his shoulder and his warm palms settle on my waist. “Can you point the Polaris?” He whispers into my hair.

“Of course. It’s uh-“ I let my eyes wander across the ceiling. “There. Pohjantähti.“ I point to a star. “On the right from the light.“ I explain excitedly. “It is part of Big dipper which is uh- Otava in Finnish!“ I look up at him to see if I remembered right.

“Very good.“ He smiles squeezing my hip. “And that,“ he points up, “is Iso karhu. The big bear?“ He questions the last part, unsure of the English translation.

“The great bear. Yes.“ I giggle. “But there is one star missing, no?“ If I recall correctly there should be a mistake in the image. I mean, when we turned it on for the first time Kaapo pointed out the absence of one star.

“Yes, Mizar is not there.“ He confirms. “I still can’t understand how they forgot Mizar when Alcor is right there. Mizar even shines brighter than Alcor!“ He shakes his head. I smile at his passion and the unintentional English thrown into the mix.

“Minä rakastan sinua.“ I whisper filling the silence that settled between us.

“I love you too.“ He mumbles the cute way he always does.

We continue lying in our bed talking about stars we miss so much. I feel my eyelids grow heavy and slowly the stars fade from my view. I feel a shift on the bed and decide to protest. “Don’t leave.”

“I am just going to turn it off.“ He whispers and suddenly his warmth is gone. I pout sleepily reaching my arms out grabbing onto the empty air. I hear a click and feel the bed dip. Then his arms wrap around me and a content smile takes over my face. “Hyvää yöta.“

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Translations:

Kyllä. - Yes.

Pohjantähti - Polaris

Iso karhu - The great bear

Minä rakastan sinua. - I love you.

Hyvää yöta. - Good night.

A/N: Hopefully it was worth the wait.

[georgiasfm]

╰  ･ﾟ. * 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐈𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐀𝐘 ;

[ scarlett leithold, cis female, she/her ] have you seen GEORGIA CALLOWAY lately ? yeah, i heard they're TWENTY TWO years old and a REALITY TV STAR/PODCAST HOST now in charleston city. i mean, i don’t know if it’s their LEO vibes or that they’re -OBSTINATE and -CAPRICIOUS but also +GREGARIOUS and +EMPYREAN but they remind me of MIND GAMES by BANKS. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble around here. 

hey besties ! i’m ley , i’m 20 ( well .... i will be at midnight ) , i go by she / her pronouns , and i’m livin’ in the est timezone ! i unfortunately have a super busy weekend bc it’s my birthday , so i won’t be able to be around as much as i want to be. but i’m gonna do my best to as active as possible ! thankfully i wrote this intro ahead of time so for once it isn’t a complete disaster ( it’s still not good tho so don’t have high expectations ) anyways , here’s miss georgia calloway !! 

𝐈  . 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬  :

FULL NAME  :  georgia belle calloway .       AGE  :  twenty - two  .   DATE OF BIRTH  :  july 23rd . ASTROLOGY SIGNS  :  leo sun , aquarius moon , pisces ascendant .   GENDER  : cis woman  .   PRONOUNS  :  she / her / hers  .   SEXUALITY  :  bisexual .       MOTHER  :  diane calloway  :  former pageant  &  debutante queen turned stay at home mom / trophy wife .   FATHER  :  jack calloway  :  career politician  &  mayor of charleston .  SIBLINGS  :  georgia is the middle child of five kids . two older brothers , two younger sisters .  POSITIVE TRAITS  :  gregarious  ,  vehement  ,  alluring  , venturesome  ,  empyrean , altruistic  . NEGATIVE TRAITS  :  obstinate  ,  reticent  ,  flighty  ,  temerarious  ,  capricious  .   AESTHETICS  :  the patter of raindrops against glass windows , the lingering scent cigarettes mixed with sweet perfume , drinking honey whiskey out of red solo cups ,  watching constellations with exhausted eyes , sneaking out by means of the vine trellis , leaving texts unanswered for days , a box of pageant awards hidden away in the closet , secrets that weigh more than gold on cherry stained lips , bending every rule just enough to get away with it , wrinkled white satin dresses and knee high ruffled socks , one too many bottomless mimosas at brunch , hearts drawn on fogged glass mirrors , lollipop stained lips . CHARACTER INSPO  :  brooke davis ( one tree hill ) , sarah cameron ( obx ) , lux lisbon ( the virgin suicides ) , jackie burkhart ( that 70s show ) . 

click here for a quick trip to her pinterest bc it describes her better than i ever could !!

( tw ; infidelity , death , drunk driving )

𝐈𝐈 .  𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝  :

       from the second she was born , georgia was treated as her mother’s little doll. diane had been ecstatic the day she found out she was with child for the second time , and even more ecstatic to find out she would be having their first little girl. she was dressed up in pink dresses and frilly socks , shown off to all of the women country or her mother’s weekly book club nights. she was the apple of her parent’s eyes , until she wasn’t. with brunette tresses  &  honey brown eyes , georgia was adored by everyone .... her beauty noted with claims that she would grow up to be a heartbreaker. her mother thrived on the compliments ; the subtle reminders to what her own childhood had been like. she had always planned on having a little girl that she could do pageants with just like she had with her own mother , and darling little georgia was perfect for that. at such a young age , georgia fell in love with the pageants. she thrived in the spotlight , with all eyes on her. and just like her mother , she won every competion she was entered in , until she didn’t. by the age of nine , georgia was starting to grow bored of the constant pageants and recitals , wanting to explore other interests. by that point , diane’s interest in her had worn off and moved onto the next child , a five year old with beautiful blonde curls and dimpled cheeks. georgia grew to know the subtle ache of rejection , and from that day forward , did everything she could to win back her mother’s affection. 

      from the outside , the calloway’s came off as the picture perfect family. but from the inside ? things were quite the opposite. georgia’s parents had unmeetable expectations for their children. get perfect grades , nothing below a b acceptable. sit down , look pretty , and shut up. don’t cause a scandal. their love was entirely conditional , only being shown when their was something they believed deserved rewarding. if you were to ask georgia , she wouldn’t be able to tell you the last time her mother actually hugged her for genuine reasons , and not to manipulate her into doing what she wanted. their father was rarely home , always away working or traveling for work. it became obvious that he was having an affair –– multiple affairs , but diane just looked the other way. the calloway family was very prominent in charleston , especially with her father being elected mayor , and their was nothing that diane would allow to ruin their image. even if it cost her own happiness.

       things got considerably more difficult around the calloway home when georgia was sixteen. her eldest brother had gone out for a night of fun with a group of friends , and made the fatal mistake of getting into a car with someone who was far too drunk to drive. georgia will never forget the conversation she overheard from the living room that night ; “ they were drunk. lost control of the vehicle. died on impact. ” it tore the family apart , dividing them even more than they already were. georgia couldn’t stand the silence of her home after her brother’s death. so she started partying constantly , going on 48 hour benders and staying out long past her curfew. she couldn’t even recognize herself in the mirror. gone was their innocent little girl , the apple of their eyes. even this couldn’t get the attention of her parents , they barely even noticed she was gone most of the time ; all they did was yell at her to not make them look like fools. 

        for her whole life , georgia followed her parent’s rules. after graduating high school , she was expected required to go college and get a degree , but georgia just couldn’t be bothered. this is the one time she went against her parent’s wishes. her fear of being stuck here forever , with the same life as her parents ; a husband that doesn’t love her and miserable children , won out over the need for approval from her parents. so she ran off to la , and landed herself on love island usa after being approached by a producer. georgia is reality tv gold , and quickly became a fan favorite. her most memorable moment being after she got her heart broken on live tv , when she purposely held up a lighter to set off fire alarms ; and then laid on the ground getting drenched by the sprinklers. so now she’s single again after being made a fool of in front of the world , back home with parents that hate her for bringing them unwanted attention , and stuck in the city she tried to get away from. but , she’s got a podcast. it’s called the bimbo summit and it’s pretty much the only thing bringing her joy right now. it started as a way for her to expose some behind the scenes shit from love island , but now it’s just for fun. 

𝐈𝐈𝐈 .  𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲  :

georgia is the girl that’s not easy to forget. she’s outgoing and amiable , but stubborn and not easy to push over. she was the one that moms would warn their kids to stay away from in high school ; she leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes , no matter how hard she tries not to. she has the purest of intentions , genuinely just wanting love  &  happiness for herself and everyone around her , but it seems like the universe has different plans. 

she almost has this air of melancholy surrounding her ? like even when she’s happy and smiling , you can still sense it or see in her eyes that she’s not truly happy 

very charismatic , she’s a major people pleaser so she’ll put everyone else’s feelings before her own . she just wants everyone to be happy even if it means she ends up being miserable . 

georgia’s a selective oversharer . she’ll tell you all these useless little facts so you think she’s opening up when in reality you don’t truly know her because she refuses to talk about the things that matter . 

she’s trusting once she gets to know someone , but if you break that trust even once she’s not very quick to forgive. she’ll hear you out , but it’s unlikely that she’ll ever let you back in. 

she is completely unhinged. somehow picks the worst possible decision every time a problem arises. she’s not much of a logical thinker , and tends to let her heart make decisions for her. it’s gotten her into a world of trouble one too many times , and yet she’s never learnt her lesson. 

she’s also a serial dater. in her pea brain attention = love so she’ll flock to wherever she gets that. she likes the validation of relationships but hates the commitment , so pretty much all of her relationships end before they ever really start. 

don’t ever tell georgia she can’t do something. she’s a stubborn bitch and she’ll either do it immediately just to spite you or dedicate her entire life to proving you wrong and that’s not something anyone needs to deal with.

very opinionated and not afraid to make sure you know !! she will stand up for what she’s believes in without even a second of hesitation.

she would not be caught dead looking unpresentable .... she’ll do her hair and a full face of make up even if she’s waking up at 4am. and don’t even bother to ask her to go out after she’s done her skin care routine .... there’s no chance 

doesn’t really know how to handle her emotions ? so when she’s hurt she tends to just .... shut down & push everyone away 

she is a hardcore adrenaline junkie , she does so much stupid shit just for the thrill. making spontaneous and impulsive decisions is her favorite pass time.  she just holds a lot of emotion in , so anything that will release all of that or make her feel anything other than the things she’s avoiding are very much welcomed.

[krinsbez]

The Heroes, Future Season Picking

maxw@jcogginsa @skjam, @maxwell-grant

As it would appear discussion of Season One has come to a halt for the moment, this thread is for discussing Season Two.

Some ideas proposed thus far...

By @jcogginsa:

As I said previously , my idea for this one was to have the principal characters come together for Keane’s funeral before getting sucked into the season’s plot. To expand on that, what I think should happen here is that Keane was familiar with several other great detectives. After they leave his funeral, they get sucked into what looks like an Agatha Christie style whodunnit, which is eventually revealed to be something of a more supernatural flavor. The big name of this season could be an aged Sherlock Holmes, but if we don’t go with that, Watson would be a fun pick.

- General Zaroff, the antagonist of ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ sinks a cruise ship, which he believes Doc Savage is aboard, believing that Savage will survive and make it to Zaroff’s island, where he can hunt him for sport. Unfortunately, he’s misinformed, because the Savage aboard the ship is actually Patricia Savage, not Clark. She, along with other pulp heroes who were aboard, then have to deal with Zaroff. Possibly with the Wolfman and Tarzan involved

- The aforementioned “The Shadow vs Lovecraft” season. This would be a later season, since I think it’d be good if Fu Manchu had a more sizeable role in it, to show that while he’s a bad man, he’s not a “wants to end the world” kind of Bad man. Additionally, as a late act twist, I think it’d be nice for a Golden Age flavor of Superman to show up, as he is thematically a foil to Lovecraft

- While most of the seasons would be stand alone, I did have an idea for a loosely connected Trilogy of seasons featuring Sun Koh, the Nazi Doc Savage. One Season would deal with a search for Atlantis, and end with Sun Koh arriving in the present day. Then the season after that would featuring Conan battling Sun Koh in the distant past, and then the season after that would see Sun Koh suffering his final defeat at the hands of Doc Savage.

- A season set on Mars, featuring John Carter attempt to stop the Martian Invasion from War of the Worlds from getting launched

By @krinsbez:

-News of the Underworld: Belgian boy reporter Tintin is back in New York City, doing a ride-along with Justice, Inc. when they’re called in to investigate a gang that’s been robbing museums. But then their leader becomes convinced that one of the artifacts is posssesed by a demon and is talking to him (I think it should be ambiguous if he’s delusional or not), and begins planning something more grandiose than mere thefts, the Avenger calls upon…not sure. Someone with knowledge of mysticism and the occult, but not so much that no ambiguity exists.

-Skull and Crosswinds: In the midst of WWI, the 20th Phantom discovers that Robur the Conqueror’s ahead-of-his time flight technology has fallen into the hands of the European branch of the Singh Brotherhood, who plan to use the war as cover to plunder the continent from the skies with impunity. To stop them, he must somehow convince G-8 and Hans Von Hammer to work together.

-Black As Night And Red All Over: In ‘70s NYC, Shaft, Blade, and Vampirella join forces to defeat Blacula. Given the pun of the title, I thought about throwing in Kolchak, but A: I don’t know that much about him ATM, and B: What little I do know suggests he lives elsewhere?

Comments by @maxwell-grant:

Funny you mentioned wanting to bring Superman into the “Shadow vs Lovecraft” season, because I’ve been tinkering with my own Shadow - Superman crossover idea for a while now, that whole text I wrote about crossing The Shadow with Lovecraft spawned out a Shadow meets Superman text I haven’t finished yet.

The inclusion of Fu Manchu though? I’ll definitely keep it in mind. Although The Shadow, Fu Manchu, and the Cthulhu Mythos are such massive properties, such quintessential pillars of pulp fiction as well as fiction in general, that Superman’s inclusion might be either too much, or perhaps the right ingredient to pulling it all together. Definitely something I have a lot of ideas for but maybe better saved for later.

“The Most Dangerous Game” starring pulp heroes definitely sounds fun though. I think one of the things I most enjoyed about these posts is that they got me to think and write about characters I’d never given much thought prior. I’d definitely like to do more with further obscure choices.

@krinsbez

Here’s an idea for that Tintin x Justice Inc crossover. When The Avenger and Tintin investigate museum robbers who run afoul a mystical artifact that might be driving them to more sinister plans, they need someone who’s familiar enough with the occult and also with historical artifacts, and so they call…Indiana Jones. Benson would have preferred calling someone else but they are in a hurry and Jones was easy to reach. Indy wants absolutely nothing to do with the dead-faced creep who names his knives and the little kid running around in a trenchcoat and demonic artifacts and whatnot, but then he gets involved and goes along complaining about being dragged into another supernatural bullshit adventure, as usual.

Comments by @skjam:

The really obvious proto-Superman for pulp stories is Hugo Danner from “Gladiator” by Philip Wylie.  He dies at the end of the book, but this can easily be handwaved; perhaps a Snake Plissken-like “I heard you were dead” from everyone who recognizes him?

“Most Dangerous Game” with Pat Savage?  If you want to make things really tough for Zaroff, team her up with Jane Clayton, Lady Greystoke.  By the third Tarzan book, Jane’s the second-best person in the world at jungle survival.  (She drops back to third once their son reaches his teens.)

Additional comments by @jcogginsa:

Been thinking more about the great detective pitch I made, and I think good characters to use for that season would be Sar Dubnotai (who I only know of because of Maxwell Grant’s Pulp tarot), and Inspector Ginko from Diabolik

Additional comments by @maxwell-grant:

@skjam I think Hugo Danner is an interesting enough character that, while I do have some plans for him, I wouldn’t just use him as a Superman analogue.

@jcogginsa Sar is definitely a great choice, in fact it’s a logical choice to have him enter the scene as a response to Ascott Keane’s murder, since Sar is an occult detective as well, far older, more powerful and resourceful than Keane, and generally being a far more interesting character too.

I haven’t yet had a chance to read the original Sar Dubnotal stories but something I really enjoyed about the Tales of the Shadowmen stories I’ve read with him is that they emphasize him being a psychologist on top of everything else, so he lends himself into scenarios where he uses his magic to help characters dig into their pasts and deal with their trauma and so on, which is definitely something that sets him apart from other pulp heroes, even those with mystical powers.

The fact that he can speak with the dead could also allow us to include characters from different time periods. For example, maybe Holmes did die a while before the story began, but Sar has been receiving visions and guidance from Holmes in the afterlife that sets him on a trip to America where he has to help some of his detective friends deal with the aftermath of the murder of an American occult detective. That way, not every character we want to include outside of their time period needs to be immortal (although Sar may be, as even in his original 1910 stories he was hinted at being much older than he appeared, and now he’s going to be appearing in the 1930s presumably unchanged).

Sar can very well serve as the link that binds different characters and storytelling elements together.

Some thoughts of my own.

-On Hugo Danner: I have to agree with @maxwell-grant that just using him as a Superman analogue is not a good idea, not least because, asides from powers they are very different characters. Not sure using Superman is the best idea either, since he’s as close as you get to a bright shining line where Pulp Heroes stop and Super Heroes begin (given that there are plenty of superheroes who are 100% Pulp Heroes as far as I’m concerned, it’s not much of a line, but still)

-On what to do next: Obviously, I’m partial to my own ideas, but of @jcogginsa‘s ideas, I like the Detectives or Most Dangerous game one’s best. Which sentiment appears to be shared by the rest of you, so let’s go for it.

-On Detectives: Unfortunately, I’ve never even heard of Sar before, so I’m not confident of my ability to do stuff with him.

-On Most Dangerous Game: I love the concept, but I can’t buy Gen. Zaroff by himself as being a legitimate threat when Tarzan is involved? (as far as I’m concerned. kidnapping Jane is a form of suicide)

[scarletwinterxx]

Timeless pt. 6 - Doyoung AU

For my other works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

All works are copyrighted ©scarletwinterxx 2020 . Do not repost, re-write without the permission of author.

PART ONE || PART TWO || PART TWO.5 || PART THREE || PART FOUR || PART FIVE || PART SIX || FINALE

Doyoung motioned for me to go ahead so I did, him following closely behind. The place looked the same, if anything it looked like no one lived here. The place was spotless, furniture's looks unused, the only sign that someone’s living here are the shoes by the front door and the few fruits on the basket. 

I continued to look around, not noticing that Doyoung was now standing beside me and waiting for me to say something

“Oh I uh- I didn’t really think this through” I mumbled, nervously fidgeting with my fingers

“Clearly, why don’t you take a seat? Do you want anything to drink?” it wasn’t like he was being cold, he just sounded tired.

“Water sounds good, thanks”

With that he walked across his kitchen while I sat by the island, just watching him. I realized I looked a bit creepy just watching him like that so I settled my eyes on my lap. 

“Here you go” I hear him say, making me look up. I mumbled a quick thank you. 

Doyoung just stayed on the other side of the kitchen island that separated the kitchen and living room, leaning on the counter behind him with his arms across his chest. His gaze never leaving me, I felt tiny under his gaze. 

“You know, you said when I come back you’ll be smiling at me” I mumbled, I’m not sure if he even heard me with all the mumbling I’ve been doing. I don’t even know why I keep on mumbling

He let out a chuckle before speaking, “It’s been a long day for me, and clearly I didn’t expect you to be back” 

“I didn’t either”

“So why are you back?” 

“I just felt like it’s time” I gave him my answer, after that there was just silence. 

I know Doyoung has a lot more things to say, questions to ask like he mentioned in his letter but right now no words are really being spoken between us

“Are you okay?” his question caught me a bit off-guard

“Me? Yea I mean as okay as I can be”

“That’s good to hear” 

Then silence again

“Doyoung-”

“I-” we both spoke at the same time, 

He motioned for me to continue on, “Go on”

“No, you go. Ask away, that’s the least I could do” I couldn’t even look at him, feeling too nervous under his gaze. His silence just added to my fuel to my anxious nerves.

All I heard was him taking his keys from the counter then walking towards the door, that’s only when I looked up to look what he’s doing

“What are you doing?” I asked him

Doyoung had one hand on the door and another holding his coat, 

“Somewhere, want to come with?”

“Weren’t we about to have a very serious talk?” I asked back

“We will, I just suddenly felt like going on a trip” he shrugged

I stood up from my seat to follow him, when we got to his car he still haven’t said where we’re going. It looked like we were going away from the city

“Are you okay?” I asked him the same question he asked me, looking over at him I can see he was thinking about an answer to give me

“I’ve been worse, been better too” he answered

“How about now? what do you feel now?” I asked, he gave me a brief glance before looking back on the road

“I’m thinking whether this is actually real or I’m back in my office passed out and dreaming”

His answer broke my heart, I knew I hurt him but hearing him say it hits me like a thousand bricks.

“Sorry” was all I could say, how I wish I could mend what I broke

“The worst part is this wouldn’t be the first time I’ll dream about you being here, with me. Then I wake up and realize you’re still gone”

I tried to discreetly wipe the few tears that escaped, I knew there were some tears that were bound to be shed, I didn’t know it would be this bad

“You should hate me, after what I did. You don’t deserve that”

“No I don’t, but I want to know why you did it” he replied

“Because”

“Because what? You got tired of me? of us? you got cold feet? you were scared? Any reason would be better than having no reason at all”

“Because I love you!” I screamed, catching both of us by surprise. It was the first time I’ve ever said that I loved him outloud.

“You loved me, that’s the reason why you left me? because you loved me?”

“The irony right. There we were, about to get married and spend the rest of our lives together. You would think I would be the happiest girl. I was. Remember when you felt that feeling of being seen for the first time...”

“All our lives, you were all I saw. Even when you didn’t need me, I was there ready to drop everything just incase you do. Even when Joy thinks I’m so stupid for just not telling you I liked you all this time but instead I drank my feelings away and accidentally confessed to you...”

“Even when you were happy with someone else, I was happy seeing you happy. Even then, I was there.” 

I wiped the furious tears that are flowing down on my face, trying to suppress the sobs as I try to speak

“I was scared that it wouldn’t be like that for all our lives, I didn’t give myself the chance to see anyone else because you set the standards so high I wouldn’t even look at another’s guy way if it wasn’t you. All the time I was gone, I learned how to love me, I learned to be independent, I learned to live with just me. I’m not scared of being alone, don’t get me wrong. But I also learned that I won’t be able to love anyone else the way I did with you, it’s scary to think you’ll only feel like that once in this lifetime”

“Did you ever think to ask me how I feel?” Doyoung spoke up, his voice softer this time as if he was scared he was going to make me cry if it goes one decibel higher

“You have a tendency to not say what’s on your mind, You keep your distance” I answered, “I knew, I just wasn’t sure because you never said anything”

“You’re right about one part, I might have never said it but in my own ways I tried to show you. Remember when you missed prom? I didn’t want you to miss out so I threw you your own prom night. When you got drunk on your birthday? that was the night I knew I couldn’t keep away from you. You looked at me like I put all the stars in your sky, who else would ever see me like that?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked

“I was scared too, Was it worth risking a lifetime of friendship for my own selfish want? I already had you in my life, I was okay to take what you were ready to give. It just seems like we were both waiting on each other”

How can two smart people be this dumb. I can already hear those kinds of comments from our friends. And I agree, we could’ve avoided all this trouble if only we said what we really felt

“We’re kind of dumb aren’t we” I told him, looking out the window to see the scenery passing by

“We are”

For a while neither of us said anything. The silence didn’t feel heavy this time, the atmosphere didn’t feel suffocating. We still have issues to work through, we’re taking one step at a time. 

“Doie”

“Mhm”

“I missed you”

I didn’t hear a reply from him, instead I feel his hand reaching out for mine. Intertwining our fingers together. 

After our little drive last night, Doyoung dropped me off at Joy’s place. I felt bad for keeping him out til late last night since he still had work the next day but the hug he gave me told me he didn’t mind. He just held me so tight against him, I can tell he was still trying to figure out if it was a dream. 

“It’s too early for you to be smiling, and where were you last night?” Joy asked

“With Doyoung” my answer made her almost spit out the orange juice she was drinking

“Excuse me?! You were with who?”

“Kim Doyoung, you know that tall dude you’re friends with. My supposed to be fiance” I answered

“Okay okay hold up. I’m going to be late so we’ll continue on with this conversation later” Joy said as she pick her stuff from the counter, “You’re staying here tonight right?” she added

“Where else would I stay?” I asked back,

“At Doyoung’s since you’re back together or whatever”

“It’s not like that” I mumbled, and it is the truth. I’m really not sure where our conversations leads us, what we’re calling this relationship or whatever

“Okay well see you later, Bye”

I spent the rest of the day productively. Since I’m moving back here, I was finishing up with my new working arrangements. It was a good thing that the company I worked for had an office branch back here. After talking about my plans to move back here, they courteously allowed me to switch branches. 

I didn’t even notice it was already late afternoon when my phone rang, Doyoung’s phone flashing on my screen

“Hello?” I said as I pick up

“Are you free tonight?” his question took my surprise, wondering what got him to ask that

“Uh- I guess?”

“You guess?” he chuckled, “I mean, yes. I really didn’t make any plans tonight. Unless you call ordering take out as plans then yes I’m free”

“How about instead of take-out, you can have some home cooked meal?” his question got me smiling already

“I would never turn down good food, why? Are you cooking tonight?”

“If you come over, then why not” I don’t why but his statement got my blood rushing to my cheeks

“Okay, sounds like a plan”

“Okay, should I pick you up from Joy’s?” Doyoung asked, I could he was enjoying this. I was too. Whatever this was.

“If it isn’t too much bother then sure”

I was never like this but his invitation got me scrambling to the bathroom to get ready, I had to remind myself it was only dinner but I was still nervous. It felt like I was going on my very first date. 

The thought making me blush yet again. 

After struggling to pick an outfit, an activity that shouldn’t have been as hard as it was, I finally settled with some comfy knitted sweater paired with simple jeans. I tried to make it seem like I’m not trying but still looking cute. 

This whole finally confessing to him thing got me feeling nervous all of a sudden. 

“Hey, you look flushed. Are you okay?” were Doyoung’s first words when I opened the door for him

“I’m alright, why?” I asked back

“You look so red, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again, laying the back of his hand on my forehead. For the tenth time today, this guy got me blushing yet again. 

“Yep, should we go now yea that sounds good let’s go” I told him so fast then pulled him out of Joy’s apartment. 

The ride to his place was less hectic, we just talked about how our day went, what he’s been up to these days, and all that. It was easy to fall in a conversation with him, I admit I missed this too. 

As promised he cooked dinner for us, it was nice. Better than I remember, I was suddenly reminded how he used to come to my place to cook us dinner even after a long day at work

“Thank you for tonight, I missed this” I told him, we’re now cleaning up the dishes we used. He insisted that he would just clean it up later but I didn’t want to leave it out. Plus he already cooked for us, it was the least I could do. 

Passing him the last plate I washed while he pats it dry. I wiped my hand on another towel and leaned on the counter beside him

“Me too” he was looking down, a small smile on his lips

He looks so adorable I wanted to kiss the little smile on his lips

Wait

I thought, looking around as if someone heard what I just thought of. My eyes as big as saucers. 

“Y/N? You okay?” He asked, putting away the last plate on the cabinet beside me head. My eyes following his movements. 

“I actually have a question” I answered, now that we’re on this new chapter of our relationship and we definitely learned from past mistakes I’m going to ask instead of guessing like we did before. 

“What exactly are we? I know I just got back and we still have a lot to talk about, but it would be nice to know what we are or if you don’t totally hate me” 

I looked over at him, waiting for an answer. His gaze wasn’t on me, jaws tense, lips pursed, 

I’m starting to think it was a bad idea that I asked when suddenly I was trapped between the counter and his body. My eyes level with his chest. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at him yet, so I just stayed frozen. My hands clutching on the counter behind me until it turned white. 

“I’m going to throw that question back to you, because I already told you when you’re ready, in your own time, place and pace, come back home. Now that you’re here, I’m not going to let go of you. Are you okay with that?” 

Before I could give him an answer he was speaking again, 

“We don’t have to go back to what we were before. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to. If we’re going to do this, I want us to do this with just us and no one else dictating what to do with our relationship. Just you and me”

“You and me, I like that” I repeated with a smile. 

I feel his hand under my chin, raising it so now I’m looking up at him eye to eye

“I’m sorry it us this long” he whispered

“I’m sorry I walked away” I whispered back, his finger gently caressing my cheek as if I was the most fragile thing

I don’t know if it was just me or the space between us was getting smaller and smaller yet it felt like he was still to far from me.

“I’m never letting go of you now” he told me, his forehead now resting on mine. He was so close to me I could feel his breath fanning my face. I can already tell my cheeks are as red as they could be right now

“Okay”

and with that he closed the gap between us. His lips landing softly on mine. 

In that moment I saw our whole history play before, when we were kids playing in my backyard, to our awkward teen years, to getting our college degrees to almost getting married. Our whole timeline replaying in my mind, a smile making it’s way on my lips

When we broke apart, we didn’t dare to break from the hold we had on each other. His arms around my waist and my arms around his shoulders,

“What got you smiling like that?” he asked then gave me a little kiss on the nose

“Just how long it took us to get here, honestly I would do it again if it meant this is where we end up” I mumbled, relaxing in his arms. I’ve never felt more at home. 

It doesn’t matter how long it took us to get here because my mom was right, love like ours is timeless. It’s the kind of love that you can’t measure with time. We’ve loved each other on our own ways all throughout the years we’ve known each other. Now we have all the time in the world to give the love we both deserve.

[to-star-lake]

re: untitled [ end ]

pairing | jjk x reader genre | ceo!jk, arranged marriage word count | 4.2k pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3

Jungkook turned towards the door, his fingers resting on the handle for a moment. He turned and looked back at you.

“Come home to me, ok?”

You nodded. 

He turned the knob and opened the door, the light that poured in illuminated the soft smile on his face. You let him take a few steps out into the gallery before following behind him, and you watched as he walked through the crowds of people, his movements fluid, cutting perfectly through the chaos in the room. 

You don’t remember ever seeing Jungkook smile this much before. You never knew how sweet and infectious and healing it was to see. And all of this made the knot that had been forming in your stomach twist into something increasingly painful. You felt a mounting pressure in your chest, tears rising in your eyes once again but you suppressed them. You watched as he pushed through the front doors of the gallery, a gust of wind outside catching his hair, and from his profile you saw how the streetlights outside lit up the little stars in his eyes. 

You knew you shouldn’t keep what you found out today about Taehyung from him, but you felt a responsibility to confront Taehyung yourself first. How could you have been with a man for over a year and not know that he was using you to steal from your company? 

You took a deep breath and brushed at the hem of your dress, looking around for Taehyung, and spotted him alone by the bar on the opposite end of the room. You made your way over to him and as you approached him, he lit up brightly, reaching an arm out around your waist, pulling you in for a hug and a soft peck on your cheek. 

You flinched visibly at this contact, and he noticed. 

“Is everything ok? I was starting to think you weren’t gonna come by, I tried calling you a bunch of times,” he said, a concerned expression on his face as he pulled away slowly. 

You took a breath in, “I’m alright, just a long day at the office.” 

“Do you want a drink?” he asked, motioning for one of the bartenders but you held your hand up. 

“No, that’s alright, I think I’m still a bit hungover from last night.” 

“Yeaaah,” he scrunched his brows together in recollection of last night’s events, “Namjoon was pissed after he escorted the two of you out. Was everything ok? You know, between you and him?”

Taehyung’s emphasis on the word ‘him’ made you cringe. He as a name, you thought. 

“Everything’s fine,” you answered impatiently, quickly growing tired of the small talk. 

“Well..” Taehyung seemed to sense your annoyance and assumed it must’ve been that you didn’t want to discuss the topic of you and Jungkook, so he quickly changed subjects. He opened his arms and gestured at the gallery. “What do you think?”

You glanced around, doing your best to feign a smile. “It’s beautiful, Tae. Everything you dreamed, and more,” you could feel your jaw tightening, the lie seething through your teeth. “It looks like it must have cost a fortune,” you continued, cautiously. 

He laughed, reaching a hand up and adjusting his glasses. “It did, but I couldn’t have done it without you,” he smiled. “Without your encouragement,” he seemed to catch and adjust himself. 

You did your best to muster a smile at this, and proceeded to choose your next words very carefully. 

“So, Miya told me this morning the security guys are working on an IT audit, I had to clean out my emails and cloud,” you began, watching him carefully, gauging his reaction to each word. 

He ran a hand through his hair and took a sip of his drink, “Oh yeah, I saw the memo. I haven’t had a chance to go through mine yet.” 

He isn’t closing off, you thought, and this encouraged you to go on. “Well it got me wondering, when was the last time we did a finance audit?”

He was raising the glass to his lips again and froze for a moment as you said those words. 

“It’s not my area of expertise, so I thought I’d ask you. I don’t even know if we need one..?” you continued, watching as his irises made microscopic darts back and forth for a moment before he took a much larger gulp of his drink and set the glass down on the counter. 

“Oh, we don’t need to audit our books,” he answered, looking at you and smiling. “I actually conduct internal audits every quarter, so we can avoid those pesky external audits.” He tilted his head, checking his surroundings before sliding an arm around your waist and lowering his face to your ear. You tensed up, your hands forming into fists at your side at his words and at this sudden contact. “This stuff is nothing you need to worry your pretty head about.” 

You felt every muscle tense in your body in an attempt to hold yourself back from punching him square in the gut right then and there, biting your teeth together to keep yourself in check. 

He inched his body closer to you. “Since everything is okay with him, would you want to come over tonight?” 

You took a deep breath and stepped back. “You know, I’m still not feeling well from last night, I think I’m just gonna go home and take it easy.” 

He stood upright and studied you for a moment, and you put on the best poker face you could manage, continuing to smile. “You do look a bit flushed,” he reached out and caressed your cheek with the back of his fingers. “Yes, get some rest, you’ve been too stressed lately.” He leaned down and gave you a peck on the cheek and you turned quickly, walking towards the front entrance with as much grace as you could, given that what you really wanted to do was slam his head through the wall. 

“Fuck!” you shouted once you got in your car, slamming your palm against the steering wheel, gripping onto it tightly, hunched over and taking purposeful deep breaths to calm yourself down. 

You couldn’t stop your mind running the entire drive back to the penthouse. You felt disgusted. You were disgusted with Taehyung. At how he easily he could smile and lie to your face like that. At how he’d been stealing from the company all this time, taking advantage of you. But more than anything, you felt disgusted with yourself, for allowing this to happen.

You bit at your lower lip nervously as you rode the elevator up to your floor, a million thoughts running through your head. You wondered how you would tell Jungkook. You wondered what he would say, what he would think of you. You wondered if he would hate you. A part of you hoped he would hate you. Because that would be easier than seeing him smile, while you were being pulled down into the depths of a suffocating guilt. 

When the elevator doors opened to the penthouse floor, you saw that the hallway was darker than usual. And you felt your eyes grow wide, looking at the scene in front of you. The lights overhead in the hallway were dimmed and instead it was lit by a row of candles, lining a path covered with flower petals, leading to the penthouse door. 

You along the path carefully, and upon opening the door, saw the entire room lit with candles, vases of flowers placed along every surface, and Jungkook seated quietly in the arm chair beside the window. You noticed he had changed into a pair of grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt with the hood over his head, and was leaned back lazily in the chair, hands resting in the pocket of the hoodie. 

He turned and saw you walk in and stood up swiftly, brushing the hood back from his head, revealing the messy flop of dark waves of his hair. He was beaming, and walked over to you while you stood frozen by the door. 

“You’re here,” he greeted you, and you could hear the smile in his voice. He slipped his arms down around your waist and pulled you into a kiss. You looked around at the apartment when he pulled away. 

“Jungkook..what is all this?” you asked, dumbfounded. 

His smile grew, and out of the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he produced a small bouquet of wildflowers and held them out to you, like a magician would. “Happy anniversary!” he declared. 

You stood, unmoving, blinking at him, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“You aren’t impressed? I’m pretty impressed I pulled off this trick, although I was sitting there for so long some of these petals got crushed, plus I was practicing with this a bunch of times in the mirror-” he chuckled to himself but you shook your head, finally registering what he just said. 

“Did you just say happy anniversary?”

He tossed the bouquet aside onto the kitchen island and smiled. “You don’t know what day it is?”

You looked around, thinking, until you remembered. It’s now late September. The last week of September. The 26th. The day the two of you were married. Slowly, you lifted your head to look at him and asked sheepishly, “You remember the day of our wedding anniversary?”

He nodded, scrunching his nose in a proud smile. “I also remember your birthday, and your parents’ birthdays, just to make you feel a little worse,” he laughed softly, reaching his hands out and brushing the sides of your arms playfully. 

You couldn’t hold it together any longer. Tears flew from your eyes and you fell to your knees, your stomach was clenching and your chest felt like a brick had been dropped on it. 

Jungkook dropped to the floor with you, squeezing your arms, tilting his head to look at you while you shook your head from side to side, averting his direct gaze. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I was only joking,” he said frantically, confused and frazzled by your reaction. He slipped a hand under your chin and lifted your head to look at him. “Don’t cry, it’s okay.” He leaned down and kissed your forehead, making a soft shushing sound against your skin. 

You lifted your hands to his chest and pushed him back gently, shaking your head. “JK, I have to tell you something,” you said, looking up at him and upon seeing how intently he was focused on you, you knew you couldn’t lie to him, there was no debate, there was no room for your pride, and the words and feelings that’d been wracking your head and heart began spilling out beyond your control. 

“I was at the office earlier, and I was running out to come home but Seokjin stopped me outside my office, he was all nervous and panicked, and so I told him to just tell me what was happening and to be quick about it,” you stifled a sob, taking a breath to try to calm your nerves a little. “Jungkook, he showed me all these bank statements. They showed Taehyung’s been stealing from the company. He’s been transferring twenty thousand dollars each month from the corporate account to an offshore account filed under Vante Studios LLC, he’s been doing it for a year, I-”

You looked up at him and saw the austere expression on his face hadn’t changed, his eyes remained focused intently on you, listening closely to every word. Your head dropped and you took another deep breath to stop the tears. “Jungkook, I-” you stared down at your hands helplessly in your lap. “I’m so sorry..I didn’t know..” you kept staring down, too afraid to look up at him. 

“I’m such an idiot, I should’ve known…” your voice dropped below a whisper. You hunched over even more, unconsciously wanting to make yourself smaller, so small you might disappear right in front of his eyes, so you wouldn’t have to face him. 

You heard him take a deep breath and you braced yourself for what might come next, but he reached his arms around you, pulling you into his chest, holding you tightly against him. 

“Shhh, don’t cry,” he whispered softly into your hair. “And don’t say those things about yourself.” 

His words made the tears return. 

“I’m so sorry, Jungkook, I’m so so sorry..I didn’t know..” 

He pulled back and brushed strands of your hair from your face, and cupped your cheeks with his hands, wiping away some of the falling tears with his thumbs. “It’s okay, Y/N. I knew.” 

You looked up at him, confused. “You knew?”

He nodded. 

“Since when? How? Why didn’t you say anything?” you felt a surge of adrenaline rising. 

He laughed softly. “Well I pay pretty close attention to the books, and saw that withdrawal a few months ago and looked into it. I thought it might’ve just been a discrepancy with a payment, until I overheard Taehyung say the words Vante Studios one day when he was on the phone. And I didn’t say anything to you, because, well-” he gazed at you with soft eyes. “You seemed to like him. A lot. I thought you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I thought maybe you would think it was just some ploy for me to get you to stop seeing him. So I kept it to myself, and tried other things to make up for it.” 

You felt your eyes widen in an epiphany, “The defense contracts-” 

He nodded. “I thought if I couldn’t do anything about him, I’d just have to make up for the lost revenue. And then I bought out the shareholders to give you a majority of the company so your assets would be protected.” 

You felt your head drooping over again upon hearing his words, upon realizing how far he’s gone to protect you. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me about it..”

Jungkook lifted your face to look into your eyes and smiled. “I guess I’m a bit of a coward in this way. I didn’t want you to hate me. Well, I thought perhaps you already hated me, so I didn’t want you to hate me more. I thought I’m the guy your parents forced you to marry. And here’s a guy that you actually like. I thought if I ruined this for you, I’d ruin any chance of redeeming myself in your eyes. And you’ve done so much for the company since you took over. I’ve been running around, doing nothing to help, while you’ve grown this enterprise beyond what our parents could’ve ever imagined. And the longer I was away, the harder it was for me to come back. But when I found out about Taehyung, selfishly, I thought it was my chance to prove myself. So I let it go on at the expense of the company, and worse, at the expense of your trust,” He caressed your cheek gently. “So please don’t apologize or feel badly about this. I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark, and for letting it affect you so.”

The two of you sat in silence for a few minutes, and you felt your tears begin to dry and your heartbeat begin to slow to its normal rhythm. He held your hands, squeezing them and smiling, and asked, “So you were running out to come home earlier? To see me?” 

“Oh, oh my god,” you sat up at the sudden recollection. “Jungkook, your emails-”

He tilted his head, confused for a moment, and then, realizing he knew what you meant, laughed. “Oh, those old things..” he reached a hand back and scratched at his head. 

“I’d never seen them before today,” you rushed on, gripping onto his arms in your excitement. “I forgot that, years ago, you sent me a picture of Yoongi making out with my friend, remember?”

He tossed his head back, laughing at the memory. “Oh shit, I can’t believe I did that, it was so juvenile-”

“No, well I ended up just diverting all of your messages somewhere and never saw that you’d sent me more, and-”

“Wait so you haven’t seen the emails I’ve sent you?? Any of them??” He exclaimed. “Well, I suppose that’s better than, all this time I thought you were just ignoring me,” he chuckled. 

You squeezed your hands around his arms, “Jungkook, all those photos you sent..all those beautiful, beautiful photos. I can’t believe you’d gone to all those places,” you felt these words coming out, propelled by the emotion of a kind of openness you felt between the two of you that you’d never felt before. “And you know, it’s so funny. When I was younger, I had this notebook, it was like a travel journal, I glued all these pictures of the places I wanted to go to with descriptions and lists of the things to do, and it’s such a coincidence, it just reminded me, those were also the places you went! That you sent me pictures of!” 

His lips curled into a gentle smile and he said, “Well, it’s not soo much of a coincidence.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen your notebook,” he laughed. 

“My travel notebook?”

He nodded. 

“Wait, when?? How??”

He placed his hands on your shoulders to calm you down, and you realized you were sitting up on your knees in excitement. 

“Gosh, I think we were like 14?” He furrowed his brows, trying to recall the memory. “Remember, we were both still at the Princeton Academy together back then? Anyway, you were already in Calculus, and I was flunking out of Algebra 1. Remember, my parents begged your parents to let you tutor me?”

Your eyes grew wide in recalling the same memory. “Oh my god, I used to go over to your house after school to help you with your homework, I remember! Oh JK, you were so bad at math..” you heard yourself laugh and he did too in remembering how he struggled over the concept of equations, how you’d spend hours at the dining table in his parents home going over formulas with him, using every metaphor in your arsenal to help him understand various math theories. 

“Ha, god I hated math. And I remember you hated having to tutor me,” he laughed. 

“It was because you never paid attention!” you chuckled at the memory. “I could never get you to focus, you were always messing with your phone or bringing your toy model cars to the table instead, or eating, oh my god, you were always just eating.” 

“You remember one day you were timing me on a practice exam and I looked over and saw you flipping through the pages of, it looked like a scrapbook? I asked you what it was and you told me it was your travel journal, it had all the places you wanted to go, and then you shushed me and told me to focus on the test,” he was beaming at the memory, his eyes curling into glowing crescents. “Anyways you flipped to a page about France, and I saw there was a photo of a bakery.” 

“Oh! I remember, it was a photo of La Gourmandine in Nice, it showed a bunch of strawberry turnovers sitting in a windowsill to cool,” you continued, catching on to the same memory. “Oh my god, that was when you brought out the pop tarts.” 

He squinted, trying to remember. 

“The pop tarts! You pushed your exam book aside and came over to my side of the table and when you saw the picture, you immediately went into your parents’ pantry and brought out a box of strawberry pop tarts. You took out a package and handed one to me and pointed to the picture and said, ‘we have those right here.’”

He threw his head back, laughing as he remembered. “Right, you’d never had a pop tart before! Your mom was so strict, she never let you have refined sugar, I remember now. We ended up eating so many snacks that day.” 

“God, the pop tarts started it, then you brought out the all the sugary cereals I wasn’t allowed to eat, the sour gummy worms, the chips, the sodas-” 

He was clutching his stomach in laughter. “We got so amped up on sugar. Oh, and then my mother came downstairs and told me to go walk the dog, you followed me outside and I normally take Gureum down to the pond behind the house, down that giant, steep hill. And you, oh my god, you took off your shoes and squished your toes in the grass and you said to me, ‘I bet I can make it to the pond faster than you.’”

“That’s right! I can’t believe I did that, that was so out of character for me, I challenged you to a race? And you fell! You literally took like three steps and then tripped, and you pulled me down with you! We basically rolled down to the pond, and Gureum was just barking at us from the top of the hill like we were idiots.” 

He smiled, “Don’t you remember what happened next?”

You thought further on what came next. 

“We were laughing so hard when we made it to the bottom of that hill, like, amazed we were still alive. And you were stretched out on your back like a starfish, just so happy. I’d never seen you laugh and smile like that, you looked so free, you were so spontaneous. And I reached over to brush a some specks of grass and dirt from your cheek and you sat up, leaned over me, and kissed me,” he recalled, smiling. “You said you’d never kissed a boy before and just wanted to know what it would be like.” 

You looked up at his glittering eyes as he described the memory. 

“And then my mother came outside and called for you cus your parents were here to pick you up. That was it for me, you know,” he continued, sighing. “When I saw you smiling and laughing like that that day and you kissed me, I was done. You were it for me.” 

You let out a sharp exhale, listening to his words, and without even commanding your body to, simply by instinct, reached your arms up around his neck and pulled yourself against him in a tight hug. He slid his arms around you lazily and rested his chin on your shoulder, sighing. 

“JK?” you said after a few moments like this. 

“Hmm?”

You pulled away, sitting back on your heels. “We need to do something about Taehyung.” 

He sighed. “We could loop in Namjoon. I’m sure he’ll will want to fire him right away.” 

“Fire him??” you exclaimed. “I don’t want to fire him, I want to sue the shit out of him, he should be rotting in jail for- why are you laughing?”

Jungkook pulled you close to him, smiling. “I take it this means you definitely don’t want to see him again?”

You frowned at this, “And you know, if I could murder him and cut him into a million pieces with no repurcussions that would also be preferable to just firing him-”

He leaned down and kissed your cheek and laughed. “You don’t have to do all that, love,” he said softly. “Let’s call Namjoon. We’ll fire him, the company will put out a statement, his reputation will be ruined, he’s done for.” 

You contemplated this for a few moments and nodded. 

You and Jungkook got Namjoon on the phone, conferencing in Seokjin as well, and laid out the entire situation. Namjoon was furious, and went off about lawyers and and taking legal action. You and Jungkook insisted that you simply wanted Taehyung removed from the company, and a statement issued about what he did, and leave it at that, that you are choosing not to pursue legal action. Ultimately, Namjoon and Seokjin also agreed with this course of action, and Namjoon said he would take care of this immediately before hanging up. 

You leaned back into the sofa and Jungkook reached out to take your hand in his. 

“Well,” you began. “What now?”

“Weeelll, you know, we never did go on a real honeymoon,” he said, smiling. 

“But where would we go? We haven’t booked anything, where would we even stay?” The realist in you challenged. 

He slipped his arms around your waist and shook you playfully, “Awh come on, where’s that spontaneous girl hopped up on pop tarts and soda? We can go anywhere! And you know,” he sat up and looked at you intently. “We could go, and we don’t have to come back.” 

You laughed at this, “Yeah, ok, realistically, I think I could maybe spare a week away from the office? At most?”

“Y/N,” Jungkook sighed, leaning his arm over the back of the sofa to turn to face you. “I’m being serious. Let’s go. We can go to all those places you’ve wanted to see. We could move around, spend six months, a year, at each place.”

You knit your brows together at this, “Ok, but most of those places are abroad, how are we supposed to run the company if we aren’t here to run the company?”

He smiled, “Let’s give it to Namjoon.” 

“You want to give the company to Namjoon??”

He took your hands in his. “I want you, I want us, I want us to be free.” His eyes gleamed, he looked at you in earnest, an edge of desperation in his words. “I want you to be free. I want to see you smile and laugh every day, without any stress, any worries, I want us to live.” 

You felt a kind of weight lift from you at his words. “But..our parents’ legacy..”

“Is our parents’ legacy. Not ours.” 

You looked into his eyes, into his dark irises gleaming, and for the first time, without any reservation, feeling an incomparable surge of courage, decided to take a leap. 

“Let’s get Namjoon back on the phone then,” you said, and you watched as his eyes lit up. “I have a feeling he’s going to be very pleased with this news.” 

fin. 

[anonniemousefics]

The Deal Is The Deal

Originally posted on AO3

Fandom: Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom | Kaz + Inej

Word count: 7,774

***Rating: NSFW (aged-up characters) -- I’m gonna say this is a 7 on the smut scale***

This piece follows The Trouble With Wanting and is best read second.

Synopsis: Kaz Brekker is not a useless podge who mopes and stews over his personal problems. Kaz Brekker makes deals. Kaz Brekker enforces. Kaz Brekker stays twenty steps ahead. (Or that’s at least what he tells himself.)

Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason, but the right reason made him damn near unstoppable. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Part of crafting a persona your enemies feared involved a considerable amount of convincing yourself of your own fearlessness. And Kaz was very good at convincing. Kaz Brekker always got what he wanted. That’s what he told himself.

Because Inej Ghafa was his perfect reason. Ketterdam had tried to break her a thousand times more than it had broken him, and still she was a better person than he could ever hope to be. He’d always believed the world would be better off if Inej had her way in all things. Making that reality had now become his singular focus.

He had sat in this same spot many times before, at his desk chair in Per Haskell’s old office on the main floor of the Crow Club, considering the terms of their deal and how he would fulfill them. Kaz Brekker was not a useless podge who moped and stewed over his personal problems. Kaz Brekker made deals. Kaz Brekker enforced. Kaz Brekker stayed twenty steps ahead.

(That’s what he told himself.)

Inej had laughed at him when he’d framed it in this way – their deal. But he didn’t mind. If he ever became stranded on a desert island, he could have lived off her laugh alone.

“You can’t just call it something normal?” she had asked him, over a year ago.

They were sitting on the tiles of the roof of The Slat when Inej said this, a blanket of stars overhead. A half-empty bottle of kvas had sat between them, an unspoken boundary he wasn’t sure which one of them would attempt to cross first. Probably her, that’s what he was betting. She always had been braver than he.

“Is what we’re dealing with normal?” Kaz countered.

“A relationship where two people have problems?” said Inej, and she rolled her eyes. “No, you’re absolutely right. We’re revolutionaries.”

“You know what I mean.” Kaz shot her a sideways look. Inej sighed in reluctant acknowledgement. All Kaz had to do to know how the odds were stacked against them was to walk down the street. Men and women all over Ketterdam could hold hands, casually kiss on their way out of their front doors, fuck in dark alleys when they thought they were alone. Kaz and Inej were, as much as they hated it, different.

The only way forward, the only way Kaz knew, was to strike a deal.

“I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know anything about relationships, Inej,” he said, “but I do know deals. And I know how to con. And that’s what will save this.”

“Enlighten me,” Inej drawled. She was raising an eyebrow, her head propped up on her arms as she wrapped them around her knees. Guarded, Kaz noted, and with good reason. He wasn’t offering her romance, and for that, he felt a twinge of shame. Somewhere in him had to be a better man for her, and he hoped it wouldn’t take too long to unearth him. Damn it all, he would try.

“You want me.” He could say it now with more confidence, but it still sounded unbelievable. “And I want you. Mind, body, and soul.”

“Hm.” Inej hummed her approval, lifting her head just a bit. In the dim light from the streets below, he could see a tiny smile play on her lips.

“Those are the terms of the deal. Simple enough, really. Unfortunately,” he stretched out his bad leg, leaning back on his hands, “our bodies are not holding up their end of the bargain. And what do we do when cocky little sods won’t follow through on their deals?”

Inej unfurled her legs then, leaning back as he had. She wore a cheeky half smile as she clucked her tongue with a pitying sigh.

“Penalties,” she said.

“Exactly,” Kaz nodded. “We collect. We learn their histories, we learn their motives, we learn what they love, what they hate, what frightens them, what bores them. We learn all this so we can apply the perfect amount of pressure, combined with just the right leverage.”

“I can’t believe this is making sense.” Inej was shaking her head in disbelief as she took a swig from the bottle.

“The deal is the deal, Inej,” Kaz said. He shifted so he was looking at her face, the thick braid that fell over her slender shoulder. “And if our deal is to each other, and our bodies are violating our terms, then I swear to learn everything I can to give you the leverage you need to break this stupid sod.” And he thrust a hand against his chest to drive the point home.

“He is not a stupid sod,” Inej said, tenderly, her brown eyes sparkling, and slowly, she pressed her fingers over his on his chest. Kaz swallowed hard, feeling his heart in his throat. Alive. Alive. Alive, he told himself. Her flesh was warm, dry, living, her pulse in her palm. Different. Good. Deep breath. Alive.

When his heart rate slowed again, he wrapped her fingers in his and pressed a quick kiss to the back of her hand. Alive. Good. It was good. And her smile that followed, breathtaking.

Worth it.

“And I swear the same to you,” Inej promised. She leaned closer so that their shoulders brushed, and she looked up at him through oil-black lashes. He could smell her hair in the night breeze, the sweet coconut oil she used. Intoxicating. Thank her Saints this world isn’t a just one, he thought to himself. He was sure he’d done nothing to deserve such a face. “They say Kaz Brekker never met a safe he couldn’t crack,” she went on. “I suppose I shouldn’t doubt you can figure out my combination.”

His mouth felt dry and his slacks a little tighter as she leaned over and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. It was barely a peck, but for the first time, it wasn’t enough. He found himself leaning forward, eyes closed, even as she pulled away. From the smirk she wore when he opened his eyes to her, she had noticed.

“I might like your metaphor better,” he confessed, his voice hoarse. And Inej laughed.

That was their deal. Conduct reconnaissance. Apply pressure. Utilize leverage. Crack the safe.

Nina Zenik would have a field day with these innuendoes, he realized. If it had been an actual contract, he should have considered some kind of non-disclosure clause.

Getting sloppy, Brekker.

He had his black-trousered legs propped up on the desk, trying to quickly wolf down the sandwich Pim had brought in for him from a nearby street vendor. He knew he ought to have taken the walk himself. It helped to stretch out his bad leg a few times a day or taking the stairs up to The Slat would be nearly impossible. But he was up to his tie knot in paperwork, and he got distracted far too easily these days. There were reminders of her everywhere.

This chair, for example. He was torn between saving it forever, maybe casting in bronze, or replacing it completely for the sake of his work ethic. It was there, barely a month ago, that they’d somehow found themselves late one night while Inej was portside. He couldn’t even remember now why they hadn’t gone upstairs to The Slat. Maybe it had been the crowd in the Crow Club. Didn’t matter. He’d locked the door, and one thing had led to another, and somehow he’d ended up sitting in this exact chair, Inej straddling his lap.

He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. There were no waters lapping at his ankles. Jordie’s ghost was apparently growing disinterested in his little brother’s dalliance. And Inej showed no signs of vanishing. Rather the opposite. She was above him, running her hands from his chest to his hair, her lips desperate for his. He’d even forgotten to take off his gloves, but she didn’t seem to care as he traced the slope of her hips, the curves of her muscled thighs that gripped either side of his.

“I want you,” she gasped between heated kisses. She held his jaw in her hands, demanding.

“You have me,” he rasped. He slid his hands up the lithe curve of her waist, where the base of her ribs flared with every ragged breath.

“I want to touch you.” Kaz thought he was seeing stars as she worked her lips over his jawline to the shell of his ear. She nipped at his earlobe, and he shivered. “But I’m not ready for you to touch me yet,” she whispered there.

At that, Kaz pulled back from her a moment, hovering his hands over her body. He tried to be a quick student of her, of this maddening, irresistible lock of hers. He knew well enough that when the lock said stop, you damn well stopped.

“Are you ok?” He gave her a quick, concerned assessment. Her demons were cunning, but they were becoming easier for him to spot. But in that moment, Inej was rosy-cheeked and biting her lip, her dark, thick braid coming loose around her face and shoulders. She was breathless, her breasts rising and falling just inches from his body. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t lost sleep wondering when he was going to hold them again, but he wasn’t about to press the issue. Patience. Leverage. That was their deal.

Inej leaned into him, sliding her arms over his shoulders as her breasts pressed against his chest.

“I’m just gathering information,” she insisted, meeting his lips again, just once. “Leverage.” Another kiss to his jaw. He felt like a human stick of butter, sliding down a pan. “Pressure.” And she ground her hips against his, rubbing against his cock so that it throbbed. The sound that came up from his chest was not one he’d ever heard from his body before.

“You do not have to do this, Inej,” he said, in spite of himself, still wary of the last time they’d pushed into new territory.

Inej sat back so that he could see her full face, the streetlight from outside glowing orange behind her black hair like a halo. He searched her soft brown eyes, not understanding the look on her face.

“That’s exactly why I want to,” she said, softly.

It was moments like this Kaz could almost hear the sound of lock tumblers clicking into place.

He sat back, his gloved hands gripping on the arms of his chair.

“I’m all yours, Inej,” he said, his voice husky. He trusted her with his demons. He trusted her with his life.

She had her hands on his torso, raking her eyes over his body, and he felt like he might catch fire. These men who bought their pleasure in brothels could never know the thrill of being so desperately wanted, and, for a moment, he almost pitied them. Almost.

“It doesn’t bother you, when I sit on you like this?” Inej asked, flicking a glance up at him. Kaz could only shake his head, dumbly. If she only knew how incredible she looked up there. They built monuments to this kind of glory.

“And it doesn’t bother you when I do…this?” Inej palmed her hand against his cock, and Kaz drew in a sharp breath. Had she asked a question? Was he meant to answer?

“This,” he was stammering as she slowly stroked his cock through his trousers, “this is what you want?” He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Over him, Inej nodded, her eyes dark and smoldering. The leather on his gloves creaked as he tightened his hands on the chair. He wouldn’t try to touch her, not without instruction. Those were her terms.

Outside the locked office door, the sounds of drunken laughter and broken glass bottles rose as Kaz’s head slipped back against the chair with a groan. Inej kept her eyes trained on him, like she was hungry, devouring his every movement as she applied pressure, slowly stroking him from hilt to head and back again. As his eyes slipped close, his breathing deepening, she leaned in against him again, her body hot and taut, planting kisses up his neck.

In that moment, he didn’t give a single fuck about anything else, not revenge, not profit, not the Dime Lions, not the ghosts of his past. There was only Inej. His Inej. The girl he was determined give the world to, just you wait.

“Inej,” he breathed, and he felt her smile against his face.

“It’s good?” she whispered, checking. Good? That was a pitiful word for what it was. And if he wasn’t currently losing all sense of time and space, he’d have offered a better word.

“This is good information, Brekker,” she crooned in his ear.

Kaz was sure he’d never been so hard in his life. He clenched his fists tighter, his breath quickening, and vowed to meet this offer in equal exchange as soon as he could.

“I’m going to be a better man for you, Inej,” he heard himself spout, maybe a little too loud. He was panting, shaking. There was a crest rising inside of him, a wave of energy stronger than any he’d felt before.

“You don’t need to--” Inej started to say when Kaz let out a moan.

“I’m going to love you the way you deserve,” he swore with a gasp.

“You do; you already do,” and Inej covered his mouth with hers as he broke apart beneath her, a low moan against her lips as the wave crashed over him, sending him out into the sky.

And he didn’t care so much in the moment how gross he felt in his slacks, as Inej leaned her forehead against his. His chest heaved while he caught his breath, still coming down from the clouds, and she whispered to him, “I say your name when I touch myself, too.”

So, the chair had to go. Or stay. Whatever. Either way, in its current state, the paperwork was mounding up, and she was due back any day now, and he had to get caught up. This was not how he wanted to be spending his time while she was back in Ketterdam.

“Kaz!” Jesper Fahey shoved open the office door with a shout, startling Kaz.

“Shit, Jes. Knock,” Kaz swore. “I could have been indisposed.”

“Sure,” Jesper rolled his eyes in disbelief. Kaz pressed back a smirk to himself, thinking of the chair. Maybe the chair stayed after all.

“So, it’s true, then.” Jesper strode to the middle of the office, folding his arms. “There is a mattress in your office.”

Kaz glanced at what Jesper now pointed at, accusingly. It was true. The mattress was pushed vertical up against the wall, to keep it out of the way while he worked during the day.

“Astute of you to notice,” Kaz grunted, pulling at the next piece of paperwork in the pile. Expense reports. This one was last month’s? Fuck.

“Pim and Anika are worried about the mattress in your office,” Jesper said. “So, Kaz, why is there a mattress in your office?”

“I’m having construction done on The Slat,” Kaz shrugged, which was true. “I can’t sleep up there until it’s done.”

“That’s it?” Jesper glared at him, incredulous, his eyes in slits.

“There is no mystery here, Jes.” Kaz spread his hands out wide. “There is construction upstairs, so I sleep down here.”

“This is weird. Even for you,” Jesper frowned. “Anika thought maybe your leg was getting worse. Like you couldn’t make it up the stairs.”

“I can still beat your ass up and down those stairs. Happy? I have work.”

“So, what are you having done to The Slat?” Jesper was leaning against the far wall, his arms still crossing, looking about as moveable as a mountain. Kaz chewed on the inside of his lip.

“I just wanted running hot water,” he lied. Well, it was true enough, anyway. There would be running hot water up in The Slat when all was said and done.

He wasn’t ready to tell Jesper the real reason, what had happened six months ago that had snowballed into him sleeping on a narrow mattress at night in his office. He didn’t want to admit why aloud, but deep down, he was always waiting for the day when Inej had had enough of this, their deal, enough of him. It would break him when that happened, he knew it would. And if he had to break the news of it to Jesper, too, broken and in shambles… he just couldn’t imagine doing it. It was safer for everyone, Kaz included, if no one knew.

He’d thought that day had come six months ago. Why it hadn’t was only a testament to Inej’s undying patience.

Sometimes, when Kaz’s bad leg hurt in the night, it helped to walk the streets. He liked to think it made him look unpredictable. You never knew at what hour Dirtyhands could appear. A short stroll around the block could get the blood flowing in his leg and send a message to the thugs and goons lurking about the dark alleys at night all in the same half hour. Efficiency at its finest.

He took a slow walk that night. He’d spent too many hours at his desk that day, and his leg was stiff and the ache was constant. It was when he’d paused past the glow of a street lamp that he sensed the shadows flit about behind him, and, without moving his weight from his cane, he began to reach for the revolver in his coat pocket.

“Kaz, it’s just me.” Inej’s whisper stopped him, and as he turned to the alleyway, his girl was leaping silently from a fire escape and his heart stuttered. She could land on her feet like a cat and throw back her braid when she stood, not a bead of sweat on her.

Kaz checked the streets, back and forth, but saw no one.

“You’re following me,” he observed, and was it weird he was flattered? “I wasn’t expecting you to dock until tomorrow.”

“We caught a strong current,” said Inej, who kept to the shadows and leaned against the side of the alley. “And it’s not that I don’t trust your new spider, but I don’t trust your new spider.”

Kaz huffed a laugh. Anika was learning, but it was true there would never be another Wraith.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked.

“Your reign of terror here is making these streets rather boring,” Inej shrugged. “No one’s tried to mug me or shank me all night.”

“I gave the muggers and the shankers the night off. Tuesday nights are strictly for public urination.”

“Is that what you’re doing out and about?”

“Change starts at the top, Inej. No one gets immunity in the Barrel.”

Inej stifled a laugh behind her fingerless gloves, and Kaz desperately wanted to kiss her.

“Were you going to stop by tonight?” he asked instead.

“Depended on what I found,” she replied.

“And?”

“If you’ll have me.”

If he would have her? Saints. Perhaps he hadn’t been clear enough. He would have her every day for the rest of his life if she wanted.

“I’ll meet you in The Slat,” he said instead.

He thought about kissing her all the way home, and he climbed the stairs as quickly as his throbbing leg would allow. But when he locked the door and turned to face her, Inej was sitting on the edge of his narrow bed, her slim body looking a little slouched, as she hid a yawn behind her hand. Of course, she was exhausted. And he offered her something he’d never offered before: a place in his bed for the night.

She’d looked both a little nervous and a little intrigued by the concept, and eventually gave in. He offered her one of his nightshirts to sleep in and couldn’t help himself from gazing over her bare legs, the way the thin fabric skimmed over the supple curve of her ass.

They decided the night was just for sleeping, and while Kaz waited for drowsiness to overtake the ache in his leg, he kept glancing over at her asleep on the pillow next to him, her thick black hair spilling over the cotton like ink, her soft lashes splayed against her golden brown skin. He thought he could die happy after this.

But then, in the dead of night, everything changed.

Kaz awoke with a start, his heart pounding, when Inej screamed, terrified, pummeling at him with closed fists. He recognized the signs instantly; nightmares plagued his sleep regularly, too. He snatched at one of her wrists, trying to stop her from hitting him in the face.

“Inej! Inej!” His voice was hoarse from sleep. “Inej, it’s Kaz. It’s Kaz.”

Her eyes weren’t even open, and, as he tried to restrain her, she pulled one of her knives from under her pillow and leapt atop of him, straddling his torso with Sankta Elizabeta at his jugular in an instant.

“Inej,” he tried again, but his own voice was starting to shake.

She was slick in cold sweat, and her thighs now pressed on either side of his bare abdomen, wet flesh trapping him, pressing in on him. He was having trouble drawing a breath. Nausea churned in his stomach. He forgot all about the knife at his throat. What did it matter when the sea waves were crashing in over him, filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs…

Inej was blinking her eyes and dropped her weapon with a horrified cry.

But all he saw were her vacant eyes, purple bruising blooming from their rims, bloat rotting at her jaw. And he was drowning under her.

“Kaz! Kaz!” Inej took his face in her shaking hands, as if she could pull him back from the darkness that was overtaking him.

“Stop,” he tried to rasp, but it was barely audible. Her hands were a corpse’s, pulling him under.

Without thinking and desperate for breath, he grabbed her waist and threw her to the side. He spilled out of the bed, his stomach lurching. The nightstand rattled, and the washbasin shattered when it fell. Shards of ceramic scattered across the wood floor. He would have vomited all over it had it not been for the wastebasket. He managed to grab its edges just in time, hurling his stomach’s contents into it.

He retched so hard, tears spilled from his eyes and snot ran from his nose, but when he finally sat back, shaking and spent, Inej was there. She had put on his leather gloves before handing him a towel and a glass of water. His strong, level-headed Inej. When he could finally look at her again, her cheeks were tearstained. He could never admit defeat to such a shattered face.

“Fuck.” He released a ragged sigh as he sat back, running the back of a shaking hand along his lips. Inej sat across from him on the floor, still breathing hard from adrenaline. He needed that laugh of hers. He said the first thing that came to mind. “I’d actually really enjoyed that dinner.”

But Inej was too shaken, her brows cinched together, her raven black hair disheveled over the shoulders of the white nightshirt.

“I’m so, so sorry, Kaz.” Her voice was strained against the threat of tears.

“Are you ok?” He reached out of her gloved hands, and she took his fingertips with a little sob.

“This was a spectacular disaster,” Inej said. But Kaz squeezed her fingers, hoping she’d look at him. Needing the reassurance that this wasn’t the final straw. That they were still fighting their way out together.

“This was just good reconnaissance,” he objected, though his throat still burned. “We learned some valuable information tonight. We just need separate beds. How many fat, rich mercher families have you spied on that sleep in separate beds?”

“Those same merchers attack women in brothels, Kaz.” Inej wiped at her cheek with her spare hand, clutching at Kaz’s tightly with her other. “Maybe we just need a bigger bed,” she said with a sigh.

We. She’d said We. She hadn’t given up, hadn’t even considered it, and she’d said We. He’d buy her whatever bed she wanted after that. But The Slat was only big enough for Kaz’s narrow bed. And before he knew it, Kaz was meeting with contractors, looking over blueprints, hiring a foreman, haggling over the cost of materials, picking out new plumbing, new fixtures, and now his home had been stripped down to the studs.

The important thing was, when it was all finished, Kaz was buying the biggest, widest, most luxurious bed in all of Ketterdam, and it was going to fit, damnit.

“This is sending a message I don’t think you want to be sending, Kaz,” Jesper was saying, gesturing to the narrow mattress propped up against the wall.

“Which is what?” Kaz was growing impatient.

“That the Bastard of the Barrel sleeps like a weird little hobo,” said Jesper.

“Hobos don’t have offices to sleep in, Jes. That’s why they’re hobos.”

“Just check into a hotel like every other normal rich bastard,” Jesper begged. “You have the money. Why are you being so weird?”

Because Inej was coming back and what kind of message would that send to her? Meeting him a hotel. After what they had done in the chair the last time she was here. That implied all kinds of things he didn’t want her worrying about.

But if Pim and Anika had wrangled Jesper into confronting him, then maybe he was worrying about the wrong message.

And for all the chaos of the Van Eck Affair, he had enjoyed their stay at the Geldrenner Hotel. Their penthouse suite had been exceptional. It was further from the Crow Club than he would have liked, but the hot running water...and the room service. And Inej could have her pick of beds if she came by. No midnight vomiting would occur there.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he said to Jesper, dismissively. Jesper gave a sigh of defeat and turned to leave.

“You’re too rich for this weird ass behavior,” he shouted at Kaz over his shoulder.

“No one wants your financial advice,” Kaz shouted back.

But Jesper turned back in the doorway, one hand on the frame.

“Oh,” he added, “you’re still coming for drinks on Saturday? Wylan needs a final headcount.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, every damn time. Yes, Jes. Yes. I’ll always be there.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to go book a hotel room, obviously. Tell Roeder to throw out the mattress.”

“Can I give it to Wylan? That thing looks like it needs to be incinerated.”

Wylan could have the mattress for whatever flammable experiments he was working on in his free time. Kaz was already looking forward to another stay at the Geldrenner.

He took a long walk to the Geldrenner Hotel, where he was pleased to find the penthouse suite unoccupied and currently available. He left the reservation under K. Rietveld. Inej would know.

“What does the R stand for?” she’d asked him months and months ago. Nobody would believe they were both naked when she brought it up. In his defense, it had been Inej’s idea, this new leverage. She’d suggested they undress completely and not touch each other. She had wanted to conquer her fear of being naked with a man, and she thought it was something to be done in steps.

Did she think he would say no to such a thing? He’d literally had dreams about this.

Kaz was holding a box of waffles when she suggested it. He’d brought them in for their dinner, a dinner he mistakenly assumed they would be clothed for, and his first moronic thought was that he ought to have picked a less messy food. Once it finally registered what was about to happen, he set the box down and began to slip off his tie.

“What does the R stand for?”

She was sitting across from him, completely bare, with her long black hair veiling her breasts. He looked up from his dinner. He’d been trying his best to focus on the food, to will his cock into not getting any ideas. She was gesturing to the tattoo on his bicep.

“My real surname starts with R,” he replied.

“As in Rietveld, isn’t that right?” Inej flicked him a glance, one that could set a fire smoldering deep in his guts.

“You knew?” he wondered, and then drew in a breath as Inej began to stand to her feet, leaning across the table toward him. He could see everything, from her dark, protruding nipples beneath her long hair, the smooth planes of her flat stomach, the tight curve of her brown waist. The folds where it all met. His cock throbbed, rebelliously.

“I’m the Wraith, Kaz,” she said, her voice husky. “I’m glad you finally told me.”

“This is cheating,” Kaz pointed out, as she pecked his lips.

She had tasted like apple syrup. What would the rest of her taste like?

So, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when, three days later, he was returning to his suite at the Geldrenner at the end of the day and found Inej waiting on the windowsill. She was the Wraith, always and forever. Kaz quickly unlocked the window to pull her inside.

“Please tell me you haven’t been sitting out there all day,” was his greeting.

“I wanted to watch a Ketterdam sunset again, and I don’t fall, Kaz,” Inej said. She was as brown as a nut from her days in the sun, and her cheeks were a rosy apple red. “And no,” she added, “I haven’t been waiting long. You’re not at least a little be impressed that I found you?”

“My dearest Inej, I am in a constant state of awe around you.”

She looked up at him with a brilliant, toothy grin and big, soft brown eyes, and he wrapped his arms around her waist while he kissed her, pulling her close to his chest. She smelled like salt and sea spray, and he could taste the sweat on her lips and he didn’t care. It had been over a month since he’d held her, tasted her, and his body was falling in line with the terms of their deal. He wanted her, however he could have her.

“I missed you,” she told him, as she curled her head against his chest. He drew long, slow circles up and down her back with his fingertips so that she hummed softly in approval.

“I missed you,” he said into her hair.

“I can smell myself,” Inej lamented, with a disgusted groan.

“You smell perfect.” Kaz didn’t care.

“I need a bath.”

“I’ll draw you one.”

And Kaz ordered up room service, too, while Inej bathed in the tub, filling up the bathroom with steam and lavender. She was still soaking when the food arrived, an elaborate spread, since Kaz had ordered one of everything, not knowing what she wanted, and he nudged his head into the bathroom to let her know.

The bubbles had mostly dissolved, and the water pooled just under her breasts, her brown knees bent up out of the water. She’d pulled her long, clean hair out of the tub, letting it trail over the edge to dry, while she leaned against the side of the tub with her eyes closed.

Kaz suddenly understood the myths about mermaids luring men to their deaths.

“You can come in,” she said, a soft, relaxed smile on her lips.

Kaz still wasn’t sure what to say, but wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to look upon her. He leaned against the bathroom counter, trying not to ogle like a creep.

“This bathroom,” Inej remarked, looking all around them. Kaz drew in a deep breath. This bathroom, indeed. He’d kind of been avoiding it. This was where he’d first felt her skin, had tried to kiss her, and it had sent him reeling into nightmares of his past. He hadn’t thought of it as reconnaissance then. He had just been a boy, trying to be with the girl he liked, and instead only hopelessly embarrassing himself.

Inej seemed to sense how he withdrew at the memory and held out a soapy hand to him.

“Come here,” she said, tenderly. But Kaz hesitated. Wanting. Lusting. But knowing better.

“Wet skin is a non-starter for me,” he rasped, shifting uncomfortably.

“Of course it is.” Inej looked apologetic as she pulled her hand back. She shifted in the tub, pulling at the drain.

“Don’t get out on my account,” Kaz said.

“I need to be with you when you’re making that face,” Inej insisted, and she stepped out of the tub. He still couldn’t get enough of the sight of her wet body, glistening in the lamp light, beads of moisture running in rivulets down her rich golden legs as she toweled off.

“What face?” Kaz asked.

Inej wrapped the towel around herself, tucking it over her breasts, and stepped in front of him, resting her hands on his hips. She gave a playful tug at his belt.

“You get a look when you think something’s broken beyond repair,” she said, and looked up at him with her wide, adoring eyes. “And half the time, you prove yourself wrong within the next 24 hours anyway. I love to watch that part. But not the broken face. Broken face is heart-wrenching.”

Without armor. If he was to ever have her, to love her the way she deserved, she needed to see every ugly truth the armor hid. Every time he got close, that is what her lock demanded. Without armor. He swallowed hard as he rested his hands on the wet terrycloth on her hips, holding her close.

“I half-expected to die that night,” he confessed. How glad he was he hadn’t.

“I would never have let that happen.” Inej’s gaze was steely as flint, and he believed her. But there was something else.

“It would have been a relief,” he said, lowly.

Inej pulled back and held his dark gaze, as if to hold this new plate of armor with all the love she had.

“And now?” she asked, holding him tighter. He felt her intent in the pull of her embrace, the same intent he held in his chest in every battle against their demons. Stay with me. I can’t lose this.

“I was a kid then with nothing more to lose,” he told her, and let his forehead dip to touch hers. “But now I have everything.”

He could sense her smile even as he closed his eyes, reveling in her warmth and how it no longer called to his ghosts. But then she stepped back and turned, hoisting herself up onto the countertop, still holding her towel in place. Her hair spilled loose down her back as she reached to him, pulling him closer again between her knees, the same spot where they’d tried to get close those years ago and had each nearly keeled over from the other’s proximity.

“You know the best part about surviving, I’m sure,” she said, pulling him by his tie.

“Tell me,” he said with a crooked smile. He placed his hands on the counter either side of her hips, leaning in.

“When you survive, your story isn’t over,” said Inej, as she loosened the tie knot. She pulled it off through his collar and let it drop to the floor. “And sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get the chance to write over parts you don’t like.”

She leaned back on her hands, extending her slender neck out ever so slightly with a pointed look in her eye. The smell of lavender and soap bubbles wafted from her clean hair, and Kaz drew in a breath. He would have to have been an idiot not to catch her meaning. Go on, she was saying. Write the story we wanted.

This time, when he pressed a soft kiss to her neck, he felt her soft pulse against his lips, her fresh scent all around him, and the desire coursing through his body. She gave a soft, contented sigh and slid her hands up his shoulders as he straightened his body to meet her lips again and again, rewriting and rewriting.  

“Better,” she whispered when he finally pulled back, and she brushed the tip of her nose against his. “Much better.”

His heart was pounding mercilessly in his chest, and when he reached up to cup her precious cheek in one hand, she leaned her head into his fingers, kissing his wrist, and it shattered him.

“I never want this to end,” he said, his voice husky. Much better, indeed.

“Then don’t stop,” Inej whispered, and he brought her lips back to his.

He could sense her urgency rising, the desperation with which she began to pull him to her body, to weave her fingers into his hair, and it would have been easy to break, to let her have her way with him again. But they had a deal. Kaz Brekker never made a deal he didn’t keep. So, this was no time to lose his head, to grab at everything he wanted. He’d been preparing for this moment. If he was going to make good and pay back what he owed, he was going to have to run this like breaking into Kerch bank vault.

She was already above him, propped up on the bathroom counter of her own volition. That was a good sign, good leverage. Inej did not like being prone with him or forced into anything, and no one could fault her for that.

He brought his hands to her face, running his fingertips from her cheeks to her hair as she sighed into his mouth. He felt her part her lips to him, felt the brush of her tongue, and, emboldened, he ran his hands down her bare shoulders, her skin prickling in goosebumps.

“I love what your hands can do,” she shivered. She was pulling at the buttons of his shirt, exposing his chest where he felt as hot as a furnace against her cool hands. Let her have some control; she thrived with it. She slipped her hands into his shirt, pushing it over his shoulders until it dropped to the tile below.

He held her waist in his hands as she clutched at his shoulders, her thighs tightening on his hips as their kiss deepened. It took every ounce of restraint Kaz had to not taste every inch of her mouth, not pull at the rest of his clothing and beg her to just fuck him already please. There was nothing but a towel separating her bare breasts from his skin, and, Saint fucking hell, he wanted this. He wanted her. Her exposed thighs felt like silk against his sides, and he could only imagine what the rest of her felt like. His hands dipped a little lower, exploring the slope of her ass.

“More,” Inej panted, and Kaz couldn’t hold back a groan. He gave her ass a little squeeze, and she chuckled against his mouth. Running his hands along the underside of her thighs, he pulled her closer, letting her hook her legs around him. Heat from her cunt radiated across his lower abdomen.

“Saints, Inej,” he rasped, breathless. His slacks were uncomfortably tight, and she had to notice. When she pulled back, he was sure she had and braced himself, but there was no look of terror in her eyes this time. No, she had something else in mind.

She held up one hand and, slowly, sucked on two of her fingers. And then, with Kaz’s jaw slack in lust and awe, she slipped her hand between her legs, beneath the towel. And with her eyes on him, she began to knead.

Kaz hardly dared to breathe. He’d imagined, but he’d never seen… he’d researched for advice, like any decent con artist, but he’d only hoped…

He watched the rise and fall of the tops of her breasts in rapture, waiting for any sign that he could approach without setting off alarms. When she let out a little moan and put a hand to his chest again, he gently leaned in, taking her lips once more. He tried to put as much love and admiration and passion into that kiss as he could muster, slowly slipping his hands back to the lithe curve of her waist.

Her breathing deepened as she worked herself, and she moaned softly, her eyes falling shut. Kaz ran his fingers lightly up and down her arm, knowing what he wanted, trying to work out a strategy.

It had to be like picking a pocket. Replacing a wallet with an exact weight, so quick, no one noticed.

He kissed her ear as her head fell to the side, and then, slowly, traced the silky soft length of her arm, slipping under the towel, before gently curling his fingers over hers. She stopped the movement, but didn’t open her eyes. She wasn’t running.

He paused, too, breathing heavily in spite of himself. She was wet, practically soaked, against their fingers, and, for a brief moment, he felt the lapping of water at his ankles. He fixed his eyes on the pulse in her neck. He focused on the sound of her breath, the labored breathing of her desire. He inhaled the soap and the lavender scent of her. She was alive. So very alive. And after a moment, the dread passed, and he was still there and so was she, and his longing for her hadn’t diminished.

“Show me,” he whispered against her ear, and she leaned her head against his.

He traced the movements of her fingers, delicate, like picking a lock in the dark, slow circles around her tender nub of skin.

“Kaz,” she whispered, in a tone he was sure he’d never heard before. Lock tumblers clicking into place.

He moved his fingers as she did, through the velvety skin of her folds, until her hand dropped away from his, her eyes still closed as she bit her lip.

“I’ve wanted this,” she confessed with a groan. Kaz was out of words. Locks didn’t usually talk back, and they were never this gorgeous.

And then when she leaned back further on the counter, the towel began to slip and she did nothing to stop it. It fell away behind her, leaving every bit of her exposed to him, the full swell of her breasts and the tense muscles of her core, and Kaz didn’t mean to, but he swore out loud.

“Don’t stop,” she begged him, her arms starting to shake as she leaned back against them. “Please, Kaz, more.”

His mind was a scramble of every touch he’d ever given, every encouraging sign she’d ever given him. More what? Where to start? With his spare hand, he traced her neck again, down her sternum between her breasts, watching the line of goosebumps spring along her skin.

“With your mouth,” she gasped, and he sprang at the chance to oblige. She quivered while he trailed a line of kisses from her neck down her chest, and, growing bolder, took one dark nipple tenderly in his mouth. When she didn’t object, he ran his tongue around its rim, tasting its foreign sweetness and feeling her gasps of pleasure swell through her chest.

She raked her fingers through his hair as he felt her breathing grow haggard beneath his lips, and her hips bucked restlessly against his long fingers. He had a moment of nerves that she was growing frustrated with his inexperience, and, with a silent prayer, he slipped a digit inside of her.

She let out an audible sigh, clenching at his hair, and he knew he’d hit the right combination. As soft as before, he stroked her ridges along her cunt, still carding his thumb through her folds as she had.

Her arms gave out altogether, and he found himself standing over her as she laid back on the countertop, her hair spilling into the sink, a flush spreading across her breasts. Her body arched; her pussy felt as taut as a bowstring. He’d never seen anything so glorious in his life.

Curses fell from her beautiful lips when she came, head tilted back as a shudder overtook her whole body, spasming on his fingers. She gripped his forearm to steady herself, leaving half-moon nail marks in his skin. And then she stilled, naked, spent and breathing hard, feet on the counter with her knees bent in the air.

Kaz leaned over and kissed her forehead while she gave a breathless hum of satisfaction.

“This bathroom,” she remarked again, heaving an exhausted sigh. Her cheeks were rosy as she smiled brightly up at him. Kaz grinned, crookedly, a victorious lockpick’s smile.

“This bathroom,” he agreed.

Much, much better.

Next work in this series: These Damn Crosswinds

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Breath of Fire IV

I think we’re closing in on the end. But in good ole BoF fashion, the last leg is taking the longest. Also, Nina is totally the main character of this game.

NINA

I’ve only ever beaten BoF 3, 4, and 5--though I’ve played 1 & 2. It’s a constant that Ryu is the main character, and that Ryu is the player. Ryu is never (to rarely) given dialog because the player is meant to imagine the voice of Ryu. And while this definitely works for BoF 3 and 5, Nina is clearly the main character in 4.

1. We Start the Game as Nina

In both BoF 3 and 5, we start the game as Ryu, and that’s basically where we stay for the whole adventure (occasionally controlling other characters). BoF 4 has us start with Nina. It’s a simple distinction, but sets up my next point.

2. Nina Makes All the Decisions

My screenwriting professor said the main character makes the decisions that drive the story. In this sense, Ryu is extremely passive. He’s mostly just along for the ride. It’s Nina that offers to help him, Nina that decides he should tag along, and it’s Nina’s quest he joins. Later, Nina decides to rescue Cray. Nina goes to her father for help. Nina asks the gods for assistance. Nina insists they save Ryu. Nina encourages Dies not to abandon Ershin. Nina insists on the helping that furry...thing. All the while, Ryu is just like, “...sure.”

I vaguely know how the game will end, so we’ll see if this all holds up.

3. It’s Nina’s Quest

The game starts with Nina and Cray on a mission to find/rescue her sister. While Ryu is integral to the plot, he doesn’t have a lot of skin in the game. Nina is also royalty, and this game has some Games of Thronesian politics going on. While Ryu’s actions carry little weight beyond the act itself, everything Nina does has the ability to affect policy and international relationships. We see this when the Empire pressures the Alliance to cede territory post Nina’s rescue op failure.

Also, Nina just told Ryu that she loved Cray. Ryu isn’t even the love interest in this game.

I’m actually really happy that Nina is the star. Female characters aren’t normally given the respect they deserve. Maybe instead of Breath of Fire, they should have called this “Wings of Destiny”...cause Nina has wings.

Back to the Plot

So, Ryu went super-Dragon and killed some imperials. The gods have offered to help Ryu, (as long as he plays hide and seek first), and Fou-Lu has escaped the village in which he had started to feel at home.

Nina and the team discuss things and decide that if it’s Ryu’s destiny to meet up Fou-Lu, they might as well confront him proactively. They seem to be under the impression that the empire is using Fou-Lu gain power (if they only knew).

Ursala is the Imperial captain that captured us, but now she’s our captive. The team asks her to help them get into the Empire. She’s confused. It was her mission to bring the dragon to the Empire, so this kind of works out...She agrees and is now a playable party member.

I like her.

Heading back to the warp gate, we learn that it’s broken because of our previous activities (and because we were attacked by Captain Jackass). Ursala tries to make us feel bad, but she works for an evil Empire--so jog-on. We have to head north and need a sandflier but don’t have the cash. This is comical, cause I put in a cheat for infinite Zenny way back when...

We’re supposed to ask a merchant sandflier for help, but we’re too late. Ursala immediately jumps to action and without a word, Scias follows her lead. They take the merchant ship like a band of pirates and it turns out to be a French-accented froggy friend from before that sexually harassed Nina, Marlok. He tries to make use feel guilty, which works on Nina and Cray--but the rest of us know he’s a POS. He offers us a bond to buy a ship, expecting that we’ll do great things and thus able to cash in on our success.

We get to a checkpoint, but it’s blocked. Ursala wants to fight the guards, but Nina is against it. We do the non-violent solution of trampolining over the wall. We get to a ship yard...I only now realized in the game that the oceans aren’t water--but mud. weird...where’s all the water? So the only seas are up north.

The captain doesn’t want us on without the blessing of the sea god. We got to coastal cave and find the Sea Dragon there...I think. We get his blessing and are good to go. The captain now doesn’t want women on board. The women insist that they are tough and have been through a lot. The muscle the dude we keep fighting shows up, and it’s implied that his defeat would prove we’re tough. Ursala shoots him and falls off the mass of the ship. So  a new test of courage is needed. Ursala and Nina must stay within the hull of the ship over night with ghosts and bugs. They succeed.

As we travel across the sea, we fight muscle dude again (he was much stronger this time). And then the wind stops. The sailors think this area is haunted, maybe by a god. We go check it out. The dungeon is interesting, but frustrating. You have to walk across planks to get to the other side, but the planks break and drop you down into the hull. There’s a light over your head to warn you when you’re about to fall, but I still fell a lot. In the hull, as you walk, skulls that are spread about rattle and vibrate: it’s eerie and entertaining. Eventually we find a rock creature that thinks of itself as a god, but it’s just a rock powered by god-power. So we kill it.

No remorse.

The wind returns and we make it across the sea. After traveling through a jungle, we meet a furry thing. I feed it some food and it seems happy...I think. At the end of the jungle we find a treehouse and are attacked by more furries. The previously furry comes to our defense and we meet Beyd. He has married one of the furries and maybe these are his children? Cray had my reaction and was like, “Well...uh, anyway--how do we get to the empire?”

One of the furries gets sick and Nina vows to save it (cause she’s the main character!). This brings us to an interesting, but not super fun mini game. We get to sail the boat, but you have limited supplies. Every second you’re on the seas, the supplies get used, but they’re used faster if you row. Rowing is necessary because the wind doesn’t always blog in the direction you need. So you have to decide whether to burn supplies by rowing, or wait for the wind to change directions. There’s places to find and treasure to discover. It is, kinda fun...

While we’re out here collecting medicine on the high seas, I also find the sea god: SCORE!

We save the furry and are guided to some islands that are available to walk across when the tide is low. So we venture a cross some tropical keys. It’s pretty. The group gets tired and Nina insists on taking a break: cause she’s the main character. After our rest, the tide has risen and the group is trapped. Cray is pissed and Nina feels responsible.

This is an interesting part of the game cause the group has to survive on an island and reflect on their mission. Ursala warns it could be months or years before the tide recedes. Chill Ursala. The group explores the island and finds both water and and great fishing spot. We’re gonna be fine. Just delayed.

Scias likes the island, as he just sleeps all day. After a while, Cray chills out and apologizes for his temper. While Ryu is casting a line, Nina reveals that she’s in love with Cray, causing Ryu to trip. Nina reflects on her feelings, unsure if they’re true and doubtful that Cray feels the same.

The tide recedes and the team escapes. We come to a riverlands that requires some log riding and log dodging. It’s cute, but I want to get out of here...

Fou-Lu, after escaping the village, receives a direct hit from the hex canon. They apparently used the friendly lady that help Fou-Lu as a “sacrifice” to power the canon. EVIL! Fou-Lu survives and arrives at the capital. He meets statue guardian that recognizes him as the first emperor. Fou-Lu orders the guardian to destroy the imperial city. Fou-Lu is pissed, and just doesn’t seem to think humans are worth it...

As the guardian destroys the city, Fou-Lu cleans up loose ends, finally killing the general that ambushed him on the night of his awakening, and then killing the current emperor. The Emperor first tries to act subservient to Fou-Lu, but then stabs him with the “dragon slayer” sword. It doesn’t work and Fou-Lu laughs in his face.

Similar to Breath of Fire 3, the game has reached a point where it doesn’t have more story to tell, but wants to add hours. So there’s tons of little quests and obstacles that have little to do with the overall plot. It’s sad, because the minigames and mini-nations they’ve created are really interesting.

I tried to think back to how Final Fantasy 7 handled this. I think, for the most part, the game doesn’t make its endgame clear until much later. Most of the game is, “What should we do now?” So I don’t feel there’s as much a “rush” to get to the end. Also, much of the game is about tracking Sephiroth, so you’re really looking for clues as you find obstacles, vs having an end destination and just running into a million reasons why you can’t get to it. You feel out of control and inconvenienced. But these obstacles would make really interesting and fun side quests. Having them as options would absolutely make them more interesting.

Another thing that Final Fantasy 7 really succeeds at is making each new area a new piece of the puzzle. You’re always learning history about the world or a character. So while it might be a brief obstacle, it’s also an interesting deeper dive into the world. Breath of Fire’s diversions don’t feel as enlightening.

Still, BoF4′s diversions still feel like progress cause we inch closer to the goal...it’s just that we’re not getting much character or world development in the process.

Combat

I do prefer the combat over BoF3 (and many RPGs). I like that the other characters are always on-call in the battle, and it’s easy to switch out (more so than Final Fantasy X -- how I remember it anyway). I’ve done zero grinding, and I’m pretty proud that I’ve survived so far. After crossing the sea, it seemed like the enemies were getting ahead of me, but I got better at using the spell combos (which are cool!). So surviving a few battles usually meant getting a few levels up. When I first played the game, i was cool with grinding, but I’m glad I don’t have to now. The only thing that is cheating: I gave myself 99999+ zenny. So I’m able to stock up on healing supplies. Though it helps, I’m sure a few hours of grinding would have me being just as well stock on healing supplies.

Is it better than Breath of Fire 3?

I’m a little torn. Breath of Fire 4 is “epic”. There are multiple nations that have a strong sense of culture and history. The mythology around the dragons is of the galactic scale. World War is in the balance and my party includes two members of royalty and two semi-gods. The world feels huge even if the story is pretty linear.

In contrast, Breath of Fire 3 had three nations--that I could tell: Wyndia, Eastern Kingdom, and across the sea. Strangely, Wyndia had gangster cities, gangster markets, and amoral lab that was accidentally making mutants. While eastern kingdom seemed pretty chill and peaceful--but lacked a ruling entity. Hmmm...

Where Breath of Fire 3 feels “better” is that it feels more personal. The story starts small: a lost dragon-boy found my starving thieves. We live in a small town and solve small-town issues. This slowly grows to include local gangsters, a kingdom, and a dragon holocaust before we battle God. I like Breath of Fire 4′s characters, but I feel like I have a stronger bond with BoF3′s. Also, I felt like BoF3 tried to explore the grey area: killing monsters that had feelings. I felt emotionally challenged in the different scenarios. Whereas, BoF4 is always: “We’re the good guys, and we do the good things!”

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Twenty-Two) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual​

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of smut. Mentions of Dom/sub relationship. Talk of murder, kidnapping, shooting-- literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 14289

Timeline: A month after part twenty-one.

When we got back from the case we had just finished, Hotch and I decided to stop at a diner for dinner. I wasn’t necessarily hungry— especially after that case—but Hotch put the option out there, which meant that he was probably hungry, so I accepted for his sake. I could afford to snack on something, I supposed. But, really, how was I supposed to eat anything after that confession? I mean, Morgan practically ran out of the interrogation room to go throw up in the bathroom. None of us expected what Floyd Feylinn was going to admit to. We thought that, if anything, he was going to tell us that he ate Tracy Lambert, and we were going to call it a day. I don’t think any of us stopped to consider that everyone at the search party two days prior had unknowingly consumed Tracy’s remains in the chili he made. Our team hadn’t taken the offer of anyone’s home cooked meal because we were too busy trying to organize the search and build the profile. It was a good thing that we hadn’t. Despite not actually eating anything, though, I could tell that none of us were too keen on the idea of eating— which was why I was so shocked when Hotch offered. Maybe a milkshake or something wouldn’t hurt. I mean, it was cold that time of year, but a milkshake never killed anyone… Geez. Even thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

At the diner, there were only a few other couples occupying some of the booths, but since it was so late, most of the dinner rush was gone. Hotch and I could pick anywhere to sit, so he took my hand, and he led me over to a booth away from the window, somewhat towards the back of the dining area. He let go of my hand when we arrived at the seat he wanted. We both sat down simultaneously, scooching into the middle of the booths until we were comfortable. Hotch picked up his menu and started skimming. I picked up my menu, but I hid my face behind it so that he couldn’t see how disinterested I was.

Nothing looked good. Nothing sounded good. All I could think about was that chili and the way he laughed when he told us the truth. He didn’t care that he did that to all those people. He didn’t care that he did that to Tracey Lambert. He was a monster. The worst of the worst. And his wicked laugh was still ringing in my ears. I almost wished that Morgan and Hotch would’ve let the preacher strangle Feylinn then and there. He deserved it, didn’t he?

I put my menu down and sighed quietly, just thinking about how I was ready to go home. I was fine with not eating. I wanted to just lay down in his arms. I wanted to feel how his chest moved slowly against my back every time he breathed, and I wanted to feel how his strong, long arms would hold me tight, and how his breath would be hot on my ear, and how he would take random moments to kiss me. I needed simple. I needed him. I needed home.

Hotch finally looked up at me, reading my face. No. Profiling all of me. I looked up at him and did the same. Neither of us seemed happy or hungry. I originally thought that he wanted dinner, which was why he offered it; but I started realizing that he probably thought that I wanted dinner. It was clear that neither of us wanted to be there. What was the point of staying and spending money on a meal that we weren’t going to eat?

“Do you want to get out of here?” he finally asked me. I nodded immediately. He dug into his pocket, fishing out a ten dollar bill as an apology tip for ditching the waitress, then he reached across the table to take my hand. We both stood simultaneously, and he started pulling me towards the door. When we got settled in the car, Hotch leaned over the armrest between us, grabbed my chin between his fingers, making me look at him, and said, “You know what sounds nice?” I shook my head slightly while still being held by him. “Hot chocolate, blankets, and a movie.”

I hummed an agreement before leaning in to kiss him. After he pecked my lips a few times, he settled in his seat to face forward while starting the car. It wasn’t a long drive home from where we were, but Hotch seemed insistent on holding my hand in his lap while his thumb drew circled around my knuckles. His touch was so relaxing to the point I nearly fell asleep in the car, actually. I had been staring out the window, looking up at the sky and the stars that were above, and we were listening to quiet music over the radio. Together, his touch, the sky, the music, it all gave me a chance to forget for a moment just how horrible that case was. I knew that Morgan probably wasn’t taking it as well, since it had been personal for him, for some reason. But I couldn’t even take a moment to ponder his behavior while I was practically falling backwards into tranquility.

When I was little, Elle used to tell me that we would all turn into stars when we died. Now, of course, I knew that was a lie; but for the longest time, thinking that there was some other physical form waiting for us after life brought me comfort. When the world was quiet and life was peaceful, it was nice to think about that. Even now, I liked to think that Elle’s dad was up there in the sky, watching her and protecting her since I couldn’t. It made me feel better sometimes to think that there were people up there who could watch over me, my family, and my friends. When I couldn’t be there to protect people like Jack and Elle, maybe there was someone out there who was doing it for me.

At home, Hotch waited for me to walk around the car and meet me on the path in front of the house. After noticing how he was holding his hand out for me again, I balanced all of my things in my less dominant hand and intertwined my free fingers with his. As we walked up to the house, Hotch kissed my knuckles again. He had an obsession, I was convinced. I didn’t mind, however. I liked the comfort it brought me. I liked that it was a gentle, caring touch that silently told me that he loved me.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked him.

He nodded.

Hotch put his go-bag down so that he could open the door while still holding my hand. I thought about how Hotch was either going to just tear my clothes off and cuddle me or he’d actually give me the chance to get changed. I really wanted to go upstairs and throw on one of Hotch’s old sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants to go with it. His obsession was kissing my knuckles all the time, and mine was wearing his clothes around. It was nice.

The door opened and Hotch led me inside. We put our go-bags down on the floor and I sighed. “I’ll make the hot chocolate if you pick the movie.” He agreed by grabbing my hips and pulling me in for a passionate kiss that I had to push him away from before we could lose our breaths. “Pick a movie that we’ll actually end up watching.”

“What if I just pick one that we’ve already seen, that way it doesn’t matter if we miss some of it.” He grinned widely in response to the way I squinted at him. “Fine,” he threw his hands up in surrender. “As you wish.”

After I winked at him, I went to the kitchen. I sighed again as I grabbed two mugs from the cupboard, then two of the instant hot chocolate packets from the box next to the fridge. I turned on the electric tea kettle before leaning back against the kitchen island.

It was late, and I was somewhat tired, but a movie and a night with Hotch was the perfect way to wind down. In the morning, we’d probably call Haley to see if we could have Jack for a few days, and she’d probably say yes. She was good to us like that. She knew that with our unreliable schedules, every moment with Jack was practically borrowed time. She wanted to make sure that Jack got to see his dad as much as possible, and if that included giving him up and taking him in on random days without warning, then she was going to make it work. I liked that about her. It made her strong. It made her a good role model for Jack. It made her a good mom. In a way, I kind of envied her, actually. She had years with Hotch, and she had this connection with Jack that I would never have or be able to understand. If Hotch and I ever had kids, I just hoped that Haley would still be understanding with us. I somewhat hoped that she would actually be able to help. Her and Jessica were practically there at our every beck and call— which was a horrible way to put it, honestly… But I always wondered how they could do it. If Hotch and I got serious like that, I hoped that she could help me understand how to navigate it all.

When the water was hot, I poured equal amounts of water into our two mugs, then sifted in the hot chocolate powder. Hotch liked his hot chocolate scalding, unlike me. If it were too hot, I couldn’t drink it until it was practically room temperature. The way to find the right heat after practically boiling was to throw in a hidden ice cube with the marshmallows. Perfection.

I stepped back into the living room, carefully juggling the mugs while making sure that none of the marshmallows would hop out over the edge. “Alright, one order of hot chocolate for you— hold the ice cubes— and one hot chocolate for me with extra marshmallows and an ice cube.” I slowed my speed as I noticed that Hotch was getting off the phone. I prayed that it wasn’t work. We had just gotten back from that case, and I wasn’t too excited about jumping back into a new case yet. I just wanted to have a night to ourselves for once…

Hotch sniffled away a cry before turning to me with red eyes.

“Aaron?” I questioned worriedly, racing to put the mugs down. “Baby, what is it?” I sat down next to him and ran my fingers through his hair.

He cleared his throat as he found the bravery to say what was on his mind. “Penelope…” He hesitated. He never called her Penelope. Ever. More importantly, however, was the question running through my mind of why was he talking about her right now? What happened while I was gone in the kitchen? “She was shot,” he finally answered the question running through my mind before I could even ask.

I stopped petting his hair for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s on her way to St. Sebastian’s right now.”

“I—” I hesitated as I pushed myself to my feet, feeling how my head started spinning and my knees felt weak.

Garcia… How did this happen? Why her? When? Of all people, Garcia didn’t deserve to be hurt. Ever. She was the most innocent, precious being I had ever met. She would never hurt a soul. Why would someone shoot her? Our Penelope Garcia. This all felt so unfair. It all felt unreal. We needed to do something. We needed to be there for her. We needed the team to find out what happened—

Morgan.

Hotch reached out for my hand as I tried to stumble onto my feet. “I need to call Morgan,” I croaked, escaping Hotch’s grasp so that I could search for my phone. “Emily, JJ, and Reid went out for drinks, I think. You could, uh…” I brought my free palm up to my forehead while searching for Morgan’s number in my phone. “You can… You can call them—”

“Y/N,” he tried to catch my attention.

I brought the phone to my ear and listened as it rang a few times. Hotch was still trying to make me pay attention to him, but I had my back turned to him, my eyes trained on the floor, my hearing focused precisely on waiting to hear Morgan’s voice. How was I supposed to tell him this? Garcia meant the world to him. I knew that no matter how close Morgan and I would ever be, his connection with Garcia would remain ten times that. That was fine by me. I loved Morgan, and I loved Garcia. Morgan was my partner in the field, and my best friend in the entire world, if we were being honest. Having to tell him that the most important woman in his life had just been shot… It reminded me of when I got that call from Hotch after Elle was shot by Randall Garner.

Morgan and I had similar coping mechanisms. We connected through our traumatic pasts, and we grew close because of how we dealt with it, and how our platonic chemistry made us special. It was fine to work with him, to tease him, to have his back. But it was also a comfort to know that he was always there, no matter what. I knew that he would always understand me, and I would always understand him. When I found out about Elle, I practically shut down until I could hold someone I loved— Hotch, specifically— in my arms; at which point, I broke into pieces. I didn’t understand why it happened. Why Elle? Why us? I remembered feeling so desperate for answers, but there was nothing I could do. When Morgan would inevitably find out about Garcia, I knew that he would have the same reaction. I knew that this call was going to shut him down, turn him into a zombie of worry. I knew that he wouldn’t feel anything until he got to hold someone close, and then all of the questions and desperation would flood in. Why Penelope? Why us? Yet, no one would have any answers.

Morgan’s phone went straight to voicemail.

I cursed under my breath and tried again. Hotch stood from the couch, realizing that he wasn’t going to get me to talk to him yet. My mind was too far into thinking about Elle, Garcia, and Morgan to talk about if I was alright or not. I’d be fine when Garcia was okay. I’d be fine when Morgan would finally just pick up the damn phone. Maybe then I’d be willing to talk about how my head was spinning and I was fearing the worst. But until then, I just needed Hotch to call the rest of the team so that they could meet us at the hospital.

“Reid, Emily, and JJ are going to sober up and catch a taxi to the hospital,” Hotch said quietly from behind me.

I slowly turned on my heels, threw my arms up slightly on my sides in defeat, then whispered, “Morgan isn’t picking up.”

Hotch finally reached out to put a hand on my hip and practically drag me over to him. I reluctantly let him pull me, my feet stumbling under my mindless steps. His fingers dug into my hip slightly. When Elle was shot, Hotch immediately pulled me into a hug, even though our relationship had just gone public (unwillingly), and Gideon wasn’t too happy about it all. But Hotch still did it. He did it because he loved me, and he wanted to comfort a family member who had been put in harm’s way because of the job. But now we had another family member in the hospital, and neither of us were sure what to do. There shouldn’t have been a difference between Elle and Garcia, but there was, somehow. Hotch was paralyzed this time with me. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. But being able to touch me, to hold me, to grab me like he was on my hip, it brought him enough comfort to let his mind sort out all of his racing thoughts.

When we got home from the Feylinn case, we did what we normally did: tried to relax. Home was where we felt safe. Virginia and D.C. were supposed to feel safe, if we really wanted to broaden the area, but… Garcia was home. Garcia was in D.C. and she was hurt when she let her guard down, too. Why? Why couldn’t our team ever catch a break? Why did it seem like the world was always working against us? Why did the world have to go after the most innocent out of all of us?

“There are moments like this…” he whispered, “where I… I just don’t know what to say.” His other hand shook as he brought it to my hand and squeezed. “I—” he hesitated again. His eyes softened before he pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you.”

My free hand wrapped around his bicep. “She’s going to be okay.”

Hotch was always the one to give that reassurance, even if it was sometimes false. But there were times when someone just needed to hold him and tell him that it was going to be alright. With all of the burdens he carried around every day, there probably weren’t even a handful of instances where someone was able to ease his suffering. There were a million times where Hotch put everyone else before himself, but who else was there but me who could recognize his pain in his actions and his voice and understand that he needed comfort, even if he wasn’t going to admit it. Hotch was a stubborn man who had troubles with expressing how he really felt. It took him a long time to accept that it’s important to tell his loved ones every day how much they meant to him because time with them was never guaranteed, but he still struggled to come to terms with everything else. Confessing that he was worried about Garcia wasn’t going to happen, but I knew what he was thinking without him having to say it. I always knew it.

I kissed the end of his nose since our foreheads were still pressed together. “I love you, Aaron.”

Hotch’s hold on my hip tightened like he couldn’t find a better way to express how grateful he was for me. I understood the feeling. Sometimes there weren’t enough words— sometimes the words didn’t exist. “I love you” was a strong affirmation, but even then, it didn’t really convey what we meant. For me, at least, there was this strong urge in the pit of my stomach to constantly be by his side. It felt like this pull towards him that I could never ignore, no matter how hard I tried. That urge in return made his touches electric against my skin, which only made me yearn for him more. I felt like no matter how many times I could touch him or kiss him or tell him that I love him, it was never enough. Sometimes I asked myself if Hotch felt the same way, but then we’d have moments like this, and I knew that he actually felt it twice as hard, yet it pained him that he couldn’t show it as much.

“I’m worried about her, too…” I finally flung my arms around his neck and hugged him. His arms snaked around my waist and he pulled me as close to him as he possibly could. That urge had returned, and it wasn’t going away, especially not now. There was a tug in my heart when he kissed my neck. “Aaron.” I played with the ends of his hair. “Listen to me.” He nodded somewhat against my shoulder. “It’ll be alright. She’s at the hospital. She’ll be okay. I swear it. It’s okay to break, if you need to.” He shook his head. “Okay.” I knew that it wasn’t my place to push him. “I’m going to keep calling Morgan until he finally picks up.”

“We should go to the hospital,” he insisted, trying to part from our hug, but I held on tight.

“I love you, Aaron.” I wasn’t sure why the sudden urge to tell him that washed over me, but it did. We should have been spending all of our time and energy worrying about Garcia, of course, but there was a part of me that needed to stop and appreciate Hotch for a moment.

“I love you, too, Y/N.”

As we pulled up to the hospital, Hotch and I practically jumped out of the car before it was even off. We ran inside, racing around to find the emergency room. St. Sebastian was a huge hospital—bigger than the one that Elle had been taken to when she was shot. It was the hospital closest to our house, which was nice for getting there as soon as possible in situations like this, but finding anything or anyone within it was damn near impossible. You could ask twenty people where something was, and they wouldn’t even know, or they’d keep sending you around the hospital to find someone who did know because they were too scared to admit that they didn’t know.

Hotch searched around frantically, trying to find someone who could help. I turned to my left to look towards the O.R. and spotted a bloodied paramedic walking towards us. My brows furrowed and I ran up to him.

“’Scuse me,” I stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at me with shocked eyes. “Did you just bring in a gunshot victim?”

The paramedic glanced over his shoulder briefly. “I can’t disclose that information—”

“FBI,” Hotch said, flashing his credentials. “I’m her supervisor. What happened?”

The paramedic sighed. “It’s not looking good, if I’m being honest. We got her here just before she bled out, and the wound on her shoulder won’t stop bleeding. We can’t get the slug out until we get the bleeding under control— if we get the bleeding under control.”

I put my palm over my mouth to cover my shock and turned away from them. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. It was like finding out about Elle all over again, only this time there was no reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Instead, we were hit with the worst kind of odds. I hated it. I hated the asshole who did this to Garcia, and I hoped that he would eventually suffer for what he had done. It didn’t matter who he was. He shot an FBI tech analyst— he shot our family; and we weren’t going to just let that slide.

“I’ve gotta go,” the EMT insisted before running past myself and Hotch.

I heard Hotch step away from the hallway, probably to go think to himself. I didn’t blame him. We both needed some space— just for a moment, nothing too serious. My mind was wrapped around Garcia, Morgan, and Elle all at once. This was going to kill Morgan. I mean, rip his heart out of his chest, kill him. How was I supposed to tell him the truth? Maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t picking up the phone.

I felt a comforting hand grab my shoulder, then the next thing I knew, Hotch was spinning me around and pulling me into his arms. My fingers curled around the back of his suit jacket. “I just talked to the local PD,” he whispered. I pulled back slightly to look at him. “They think it was a botched robbery.” I put my head back on his chest. “There aren’t any leads. As soon as the team gets here, I’ll head there to see how I can help.”

“No—” I begged. I didn’t want him to go anywhere.

This was all too similar to the Fisher King, and I wasn’t sure if I could survive it on my own. I needed Hotch there as a reassurance that he was safe. If he left, I wouldn’t be able to protect him. We were already one teammate short; I didn’t need Hotch to end up in the hospital, too. Even if this were just a one off, robbery gone wrong case, I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t lose him when things were falling apart.

“Hotch!” Reid called out from the elevator. We tore ourselves off of each other and looked down the hallway to see Reid, JJ, and Emily all running towards us. “Any news?”

“She’s still in surgery. We won’t know anything for another few hours.”

My eyes snapped to Hotch’s cheek, trying to understand why the hell he was holding back on telling them the whole truth. Garcia wasn’t doing well. Things weren’t looking good. The team deserved to know the truth, to prepare for the worst, didn’t they?

“Any word from Morgan?” Emily asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve been calling and calling, to no avail.”

“I’ll try for a bit, just to give you a break.”

“Thanks,” I croaked, smiling shortly.

“Let’s take a seat in the waiting room maybe?” Emily offered up to everyone.

We all silently nodded and followed her to the waiting room just down the hallway. On our way, we saw Rossi come out of the elevator next. He went directly to Hotch for answers while the rest of us went to sit down. Emily and JJ took a seat beside each other, working on trying to get ahold of Morgan, and Reid sat across from them, just watching and listening. I saw on the opposite side of the room, right next to the window. I looked out and up. I took notice of the stars again, thinking about how they were luminating the night just a little dimmer now. It almost felt like they were waiting for a new bright star to join them, and I prayed that it wouldn’t be Garcia. We weren’t ready to lose her yet. The sky wasn’t ready for her.

Hotch and Rossi came in a few minutes later, refusing to take a seat. They stood in their own corner, still whispering between each other. They liked to whisper. The two of them were thick as thieves, and I knew that was bad news for me. I mean, I liked that Rossi and I could exchange stories about Hotch, and it made him red with embarrassment and anger. But I also liked how they were just two friends who had been reunited after years apart, and they had so much to discuss. I didn’t mind that they whispered about things. I especially didn’t mind that they whispered about me. But in times like these, when we were all searching for answers and comfort, their whispers seemed unsettling.

Morgan came running out of the elevator, eyes searching down both ends of the hallway to see if he could spot us. When he found us, he stopped for a moment to register that this was really happening. I stood from my seat and let him stare at me for a moment as he still tried to understand. When I found out about Elle, I felt paralyzed for the longest time. Even when racing around the hospital, I remembered not being able to think about anything. I couldn’t even remember how I got from the parking lot where Hotch gave me the call to the hospital where he held me in his arms. But once I had him, once I heard him tell me that everything was going to be alright, I knew that I was going to be fine. Morgan needed that same comfort. He knew it.

His arms opened slightly as he started running up to me. I caught him in a tight hug, letting him hide his face in the crook of my neck. He was taller than me, but he was fine with leaning down to nuzzle slightly. I told him what he needed to hear, that he was okay, she was going to be okay, and that it was going to be okay.

“Are there any leads?” Morgan asked, forcing himself out of our embrace. He looked over my shoulder for a response from Hotch. There was silence, which meant that Hotch probably told him the truth: we knew absolutely nothing. “Is she going to be alright?”

“The nurses said that we could be hearing from the doctors any minute now,” Hotch answered.

“Speaking of which,” JJ said, nodding to the door.

A surgeon walked in just on time. He was still in his scrubs, his mask on his chin, his cap still tied to his head. We all stood at attention for him, and I grabbed Morgan’s hand while preparing for the worst. He looked around at all of us, taking in our worry, debating on how he should proceed. I wished that he would just spit it out. It was either good or bad news. Just rip the fucking band aid off. Please.

“She’s alive,” he finally admitted. Everyone sighed with relief. Morgan dropped my hand so that he could wipe his face with his palms. “She was shot in the lower shoulder, and the bullet ricocheted into her abdomen, but we were able to stop the bleeding, seal up the wounds, and make sure that there was no damage from the internal bleeding.”

“Will she be okay?” Morgan asked.

The doctor nodded. “Yeah. She’ll be able to leave the hospital in a few days. She’s still in a medically induced coma, but you’ll be able to see her in the morning.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Hotch said with a forced smile, his arms still crossed over his chest. 

He nodded politely with the smallest of sealed lip smiles before leaving the waiting room. We all turned to Hotch. The room felt so much lighter now. With relief having washed over us, we could focus on the next part of all of this: finding the son of a bitch who shot Penelope Garcia. We were ready to work.

“You should all stay here for when she wakes up,” Hotch began, taking note of how we were all waiting for our assignments. “I’ll go with Dave to the crime scene. The lead detective on the case doesn’t think there’ll be anything to find, but we’re still going to try. I don’t care about protocol; I don’t care about whether or not we have new cases to work on. We’re not doing anything until we solve this.”

Everyone agreed silently, taking their seats again in the break room. Rossi gestured to Hotch, and they made a step towards the exit, but I caught Hotch’s sleeve first. He turned slightly to look at me. I know I appeared desperate, my pleading eyes trying to make him stay. We didn’t know if this was a robbery, or a target on Garcia, or a target on the team. He could have potentially been putting himself in harm’s way by leaving the hospital. I didn’t want him to be the next person brought in on a stretcher.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he whispered, pressing his palm to my cheek. I lovingly nuzzled against his touch. “Morgan needs you.”

“I know. But I need you.”

“You were the one who told me that it would be alright. Do you still believe that?” he asked while tilting his head. I nodded. “Okay. Keep that faith. It’ll be alright. I love you.”

I kissed his palm before taking his hand in mine, then kissing his knuckles. He loved doing that with me, and I was simply curious as to why. I realized that it was so… intimate. So special. It was one thing to kiss someone on their lips, cheeks, neck, face, body; but kissing their knuckles was so humbling in the oddest of ways. It actually made me feel closer to him.

Hotch’s thumb caressed my hand lightly before he carefully pulled away and went with Rossi. He seemed driven, like he was trying to stop himself from coming back and staying with me. Honestly, I wasn’t going to stop him from doing either. I wanted him to stay, but I also wanted him to find who did this. I was just… confused. He probably was, too. I saw how broken he was back at the house, and now he had to bottle all of that up for the team. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like in his position. It was easy for any of us to break, but Hotch always seemed like an immovable, emotionless force at work. While I obviously knew that wasn’t the truth, and I knew that he was suffering inside every time something happened to our team or every time we had a case with kids; no one else knew the truth. I had to share the burden of his silent struggle. I could see with my own eyes that it was killing him, yet no one else, even with all of their profiling skills, could seem to figure it out. To them, Hotch was an enigma, and they were fine with not solving him.

I sighed quietly to myself as I sat down next to Morgan. His head was in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. Just as I expected, he was a mess. He had probably put his emotions on pause while racing to the hospital, then when he finally saw that this was all really happening, he didn’t know how to cope. Garcia was his everything. He couldn’t bear to lose her in the way that I couldn’t bear to lose him.

“I miss Elle every day,” I spoke up in a hushed tone. Morgan did move or say anything. “I don’t think Hotch knows how painful it is to go through every second of every day knowing that he was the last person she spoke to before disappearing. He doesn’t tell me anything about her leaving and I don’t ask, but… I still think about her all the time.” I leaned back slightly. “Tonight, when we got home from the Feylinn case, we were in the car, and I looked up at the stars, and I thought about her again. For the first time in decades, I was reminded of a tale she told me where we all turn into stars when we die. I actually thought to myself that we have all of our loved ones up there, looking after us, protecting us, and I thought that nothing bad could happen. And then we got the call… No one was looking after Garcia, no one was protecting her. Something terrible happened and we weren’t there to stop it. I hate Elle for putting that dumb star idea in my head, but even more so because I thought I was over it, and the one time I stop to think that maybe she was right, the whole world seems to come crashing down.”

“Y/N…” he croaked quietly. “I can’t lose her.”

“I know.” I linked my arm with his slowly, somewhat forcing him out of the hunched position he was in. “But they said that she’s going to be fine.”

“I feel like this is my fault,” he finally admitted.

“You can’t believe that—”

“I do. After Feylinn, I’ve been thinking long and hard about God and religion… I prayed for the first time last night, Y/N. For the first time since my dad made me when I was a little kid. What are the odds that I do that, and it ends with Penelope on the table?”

“Derek,” I whispered, snaking my hand down to intertwine our fingers, “this is not your fault. I need you to hear me. No one could have stopped this.”

“I could’ve!” he said a little too loudly. “If I didn’t make her mad, she wouldn’t have blown me off, and I would have been there to save her!”

“Shh…” I cooed, squeezing his hand. I rested my cheek on his shoulder. “I promise it’s not your fault. The guy who did this is the only one responsible.”

“When am I supposed to start believing that?”

I paused and thought for a beat. “When we catch him.”

The sun started peeking over the buildings outside of the hospital when a nurse approached us. The stars that had been taunting us all night were finally gone, and so was the fear that Garcia would be joining them. There was another wave of relief in the room when the nurse came to collect us. We were all eager to see Garcia and to make sure that she was alright.

“Hi, my loves,” Garcia cooed before any of us could say anything. JJ walked up and took her hand. “No tears…” She reached up and wiped JJ’s cheek with her thumb. “I’m glad you guys are here. Thank you.”

We all smiled lightly at her. Her voice was so quiet and raspy, not at all like the Penelope Garcia we knew. Usually, she was loud, bubbly, and optimistic, but the surgery and the drugs had worn her down. I didn’t blame her for not being normal Penelope. In fact, I was glad that she was getting a break for once. After what happened, she just needed to rest. We would ask for our Garcia back when she was better.

“How are you feeling?” Morgan asked worriedly.

Garcia nodded vaguely. “I’m okay. I mean, I’ve been better… but… I’ll be okay.”

I hesitated as I looked around the room. I knew that we needed to ask her about the incident and about the Unsub in order to help Hotch and Rossi at the crime scene, but I didn’t want to push her either. There was a chance that she couldn’t be ready to talk about it, or maybe she couldn’t even remember anything. Either way, we needed to try. As much as it pained me to do it, I had to ask as quickly as possible.

I stepped forward slightly. “Are you up for answering some questions?” Garcia looked at me and nodded again. “Do you remember what happened?”

She cleared her throat, then said, “Yeah… I…” She chuckled to herself shortly. “I never saw it coming. He seemed so… nice.”

“You know him?”

“Mhm.” She looked up at Morgan, “You were right. I should have trusted my gut. I knew that there was something wrong about that guy from the coffee shop, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it, so I tried to ignore it. I just wanted to believe that he was into me.”

“What happened, Garcia?”

“He was dropping me off at home after our date. We were standing just outside, and he went to kiss me… I thought… I thought he was just nervous when he walked away suddenly. And then he turned around, and he shot me.”

“Do you have any idea why he would have done this?” Emily inquired.

“No. I just thought he liked me.”

“Do you have a name?” I asked, taking control of the situation again.

Garcia hesitated. After a moment of looking around at all of us, she nodded, a tear falling down her cheek. “James Colby Baylor.”

As I made eye contact with Morgan, I grabbed my phone from my back pocket. “I’ll call Hotch to let him know.” I stepped out of Garcia’s hospital room and quietly entered the hallway. I leaned up against the wall and dialed Hotch’s number quickly, praying that he would pick up. I didn’t want to chase him around like I had to with Morgan, and I didn’t want to worry about him like I was with Garcia. Thankfully, though, Hotch answered the phone fairly fast. “Hotch?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got an I.D. on the guy. He went on a date with her, then when he went to wish her goodnight at her place, he shot her.”

Hotch sighed on the other end. “Makes sense. We weren’t sure why he did it in the courtyard, but that answers that. There’s not much else to find here, unfortunately. He used a revolver, so there’s no—”

“No bullet casing for evidence,” I finished, my shoulders falling in defeat. “If he’s smart enough to clean the crime scene, then the name he gave her is probably just an alias.”

“I know. I’m going to get in contact with another tech analyst back at the office and see if they can start digging around. Send me the name Garcia gave you. For now, just stay at the hospital with Garcia and Morgan. They both need you.”

Someone tapped my shoulder from behind me. I turned, the phone still pressed to my ear, to find that it was Reid. He whispered that Garcia wanted to see me and Morgan, but I shook my head at him. “I’ve gotta go, Hotch.” I hung up the call before he could say anything else and dug it into my pocket. “I can’t go back in there, Reid,” I told him quietly. He cocked a brow. “It reminds me too much of Elle.”

Reid’s face softened. “You know, I heard what you told Morgan last night about the stars…” I bit the inside of my cheek and turned my gaze to the floor. Of course, of all people, the great Dr. Spencer Reid had to hear me talking about stars and afterlife. He was probably preparing himself to give me a whole speech about what actually happens to us when we die and the science of stars and whatnot— “I liked it.”

My attention snapped back up to him. “What?”

“I mean, it’s not realistic, and I think we all know that, but… in times like these, when we need a little hope, it’s nice to hear. So, I just… I wanted to thank you.”

“Reid—” I didn’t know what to say.

The two of us were never close, which was why we never really talked or paired up in the field. It was always me and Morgan— and sometimes Emily— against the world. Reid did his own smart thing elsewhere while we went to go talk to witnesses or look at crime scenes. The two of us never sat around to get to know one another, but we never even got a chance to talk like this, which was so weird considering how I did still consider him as family. Our family included everyone on the team, even the people I didn’t get to chat with too often, like Reid and JJ. Their pain, what they were going through right now, was just as valid as the rest of us. Hell, they had been on the team longer than me, so of course it mattered. I was glad that I could help Reid somehow, even though I didn’t initially realize that was the case.

“I’ll stay with Morgan while they talk,” Reid offered, changing the subject quickly.

“Thank you, Reid.” I searched his eyes for a moment so that he knew I meant it. He smiled and gave a short nod before turning to go back to Garcia’s hospital room while I returned to the waiting room with Emily and JJ. “You guys okay?” I asked them, taking a seat beside them.

“I will be once we find this guy,” Emily answered.

“Same,” JJ agreed.

I stayed silent for a moment, then offered, “We could head back to the office and start building a profile…” They both looked at me. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re right,” Emily said as she stood, “Garcia wouldn’t want us to just sit around and mope. If she could, she’d be in her office right now, searching for who did this.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have any evidence,” JJ scoffed.

“That’s never stopped us before.”

We all looked at each other. We had an alias, we had the kind of gun he used, we knew what happened at the crime scene, Morgan and Reid could do a cognitive with Penelope to build a behavioral profile. To be honest, we actually had more than JJ was leading on. If we looked at this like it was any other case, and we started with victimology, we could make our way from there. And with Hotch and Rossi heading back to the office to meet with another tech analyst for help, we could honestly find the son of a bitch that did this to Garcia. If we just put our mind to it, we could do this. So we left.

Hotch and Rossi were already holed up in Garcia’s office with the new technical analyst that was going to help us by the time Emily, JJ, and I made it back to the office. We snuck by undetected, and we made our way into the boardroom where we started setting up shop. It was like Hotch expected that we would come back to start working the case because evidence photos were spread around the roundtable, and what little physical evidence and files they had were piled in a brown confidential box. I silently thanked Hotch for knowing us all well enough to have this ready for when we got there so that we could just dive right in.

I started by hanging up all of the photos on our board, using string to connect any similarities or clues that I spotted. Garcia lived in an apartment building that was built in the shape of a U around a simple courtyard with a cheap, rip-off, hadn’t-been-turned-on-in-a-decade fountain. Garcia had been led through that courtyard with her date, this James Colby Baylor guy, and all the way up to the front steps of her building. He got her comfortable, made her feel like she could let her guard down for just a moment while he complimented her and nearly made a move to kiss her. When she wasn’t prepared for it, he stepped towards the fountain like he was about to leave, then he turned around and shot her. Thinking that he had done what he needed, he ran away, leaving her to bleed out on the steps.

Emily froze when she saw me hang up the photo of the pool of Garcia’s blood that had still been on the steps when the cops started casing the scene.

“Just remember she’s okay,” I said. She nodded and turned back to keep looking through the files. “Hopefully Hotch and Rossi can find something about James Colby Baylor soon because that’s our only lead so far.”

“How could a random mugger plan to use a revolver and leave no fingerprints at the scene? This all feels premeditated,” Emily said.

 I agreed with her. Things weren’t adding up. I mean, we knew that he wasn’t a mugger because he went on a date with Garcia, but Emily brought up a good point. This wasn’t a date gone wrong or something like that. Whoever did this, whatever his name really was, he chose Garcia on purpose. There was something else that was really going on with this guy and Garcia. Hopefully Morgan and Reid would be able to find out more while talking to her as the morphine wore off.

“Um…” JJ mumbled, staring out the windows of the board room. Emily and I looked up from the evidence. “What’s wrong with Hotch?”

I raised a brow before walking around the table to see what was going on. Hotch had just left Garcia’s office from the left, and he was storming out to the elevators in the hallway. His face was sour and stern as he pressed the floor level button and tried to avoid making eye contact with the three of us in the boardroom as we watched him. Something must have happened when they were in Garcia’s office, but I wasn’t sure what. I had never seen Hotch that angry with a teammate, or with anything at work, before. Whenever I made him really mad, he’d get like that, but I always knew that I had done it and he’d calm down after punishing me. But with someone at work? Especially Garcia? Something had to be very, very wrong.

“Internal Affairs just ended our involvement with the case,” Rossi explained as he entered the room through the back entrance from the break room. We all turned to face him. “Hotch had to alert them about a protected file that Garcia has on her computer.”

“What the hell?” Emily inquired.

“They think that Garcia could be a security risk?” I asked.

Rossi shrugged. “Hotch is headed to the hospital now to ask her about it, but… now that Internal Affairs is involved, we’ve been taken off the case and she’s been suspended.”

“That’s bullshit. Garcia would never—”

“I know,” Rossi nodded, “but we have our orders. When they come to take everything, you need to let them.”

“No way,” JJ insisted. “This is ours.”

“Not anymore.”

We all looked out the windows again to see an agent from Internal Affairs walking up the boardroom. I cringed as he made eye contact with us and actually tried to smile at us. They couldn’t actually believe that Penelope Garcia was a security risk. She was an imperative piece of our unit— and even more so with the Bureau. She loved her job; she loved the agency. Garcia wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our family. She knew better. And Internal Affairs shouldn’t have been getting involved. I knew that Hotch had to call it in, but he should have waited until he could talk to us or Garcia.

When he came in, he got right to work with tearing down all of the photos I had practically just finished hanging up. As he did so, he explained who he was, why he was there, and how we could help. He instructed JJ and Emily to pack up all of the files and evidence that they had been looking through, and hand it over to him. I watched them hesitate, and they looked to Rossi for the order to not listen to I.A., but he wasn’t giving in. So Emily and JJ started doing as they were told— reluctantly, but they still ended up doing it.

“Is this really necessary?” Emily bit at him quietly.

The I.A. agent let out a disappointed sigh, “Yes, this is necessary.”

“A federal agent was just shot, and you’re choosing to investigate her rather than find the guy who nearly killed her,” JJ said as equally sour as Emily was.

With how things were going with Strauss and the close eye she was keeping on mine and Hotch’s behavior, I couldn’t afford to start an argument with Internal Affairs. As much as I would have loved to have given that guy a piece of my mind, if I overstepped in any way, he could have gone to Strauss, and I would get in trouble again. Strauss told me to be careful because she wouldn’t give me another chance again. While I usually wouldn’t listen to Strauss, she literally held my fate in her hands. For now, Emily and JJ would have to pick this fight alone, unfortunately.

“Look,” the agent gave in, “I am sorry that this has to happen like this, but it is happening. The best thing you can do is just cooperate.”

“We should at least be able to keep working on the case—”

“This is part of the case, Agent Prentiss. We need to know what it is that she’s involved in and if it has to do with why she was shot.”

“She’s not involved in anything,” JJ rolled her eyes.

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes,” all three of us responded.

The I.A. agent chuckled to himself. “Do you know why it is that the FBI hired her?” We all exchanged a glance of confusion, which he took note of, so he smugly continued. “She tried to hack the FBI, but she was on our radar long before that. The Bureau keeps track of potential problems, and we dictate what to do with them once we have them. Sometimes it’s safer to utilize them rather than lock them in a box and throw away the key.”

“So she was hired because she was dangerous?” I laughed. Garcia wasn’t a danger. She was the furthest thing from that. Garcia couldn’t even hurt a fly, I was convinced. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not. There’s a lot you don’t know about your friend, Agent Greenaway. My suggestion is that you let the people who do know the whole truth do their jobs. It’ll make everything much easier.” He picked up the box of evidence that we had unpacked, and he repacked, and before we could argue anything else, he left.

I looked at Rossi, who was standing to the side, still silent, still trying to blend into the wall. JJ and Emily sat down at the roundtable, left with nothing to do. We had made our way to the office in the hopes of getting to help Garcia, but, of course, the Bureau wasn’t going to make things easy for us. They never made things easy. But now we had nothing to do, and we weren’t even at the hospital to pass time while waiting with Garcia.

Four days after we got that call about Garcia and we still had no new leads. We thought it would be an easy open and shut case because our witness was alive— thankfully— and we had the Unsub’s name. Yet, we were still falling short of finding any actual real answers, and being taken off of the case by Internal Affairs wasn’t exactly helping matters. Any information we did have, and any theories we had built since then were all based around memory, and would all be inadmissible in any case or court.

 Garcia had since been released from the hospital, and Morgan was about to take her home to keep an eye on her. After being sent home early from the office because we were taken off the case and our work hours were over at around four, Hotch and I took the evening to make up for the movies and hot chocolate night we didn’t get after the Feylinn case. I snuggled into Hotch’s clothes, and he got into a pair of pajama pants and a tight t-shirt— which really wasn’t doing any favors for me because I genuinely wanted to stay focused on the movie and not his arms and chest. I made hot chocolate again, this time we actually got around to drinking it, and Hotch just held me in his arms.

By the time we had gone through two movies (one of his choosing and one of mine), we were both exhausted. I thought about just sleeping on the couch, but he complained about being too cold and uncomfortable, so we slowly and groggily made our way upstairs to our room to fall asleep. As we got into bed, Hotch pulled the sheets and comforter up all the way to our chins, then he pulled me close to him so that we were spooning. I smiled to myself and kissed the inside of his left elbow because that was the one trapped under me.

And then his damn phone started ringing.

Hotch sighed in my ear, his arms releasing their hold around me as he turned over to grab his phone. I whined, trying to push my back up against his chest again to coax him back into cuddling me, but he ignored me long enough to answer the call. When I heard him hum a listening tone, he rested his chin on my shoulder and held me in his arms again. We didn’t have any ongoing cases, and with Internal Affairs all up in our business, we weren’t likely to get a new case. So it definitely wasn’t work. The real question was, who was calling so late?

“Morgan, you better have a damn good reason—” Hotch stopped in his tracks, and I could vaguely hear Morgan ranting about something on the other end. Within a startling instant, Hotch sat up, practically lifting me with him. After yawning and wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I pulled the sheet over my chest. “Okay, okay, okay,” Hotch said quickly, yet calmly, like he was trying to get Morgan to slow down. ���We’ll be there in a few minutes. Call the rest of the team.” Hotch hung up the phone, and I looked at him. “Someone tried to get into Garcia’s place.”

I pushed the bedding off my body and raced to the closet. “What about the officer outside? And Morgan? Did he catch him?” I asked while throwing on some clothes.

Hotch joined me in the closet and started getting ready, too. “The officer on duty outside her apartment is dead, and Morgan couldn’t catch him in time.”

“Did he get a good look at the Unsub?”

“He says it’s definitely the guy who tried to kill Garcia.”

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath. “They’re both okay?”

“They sound pretty shaken up, but I think they’ll be fine.”

I went back to the bedroom and grabbed my gun and credentials. Hotch came out of the closet, handing me a pair of shoes, and I thanked him quickly. He grabbed his things, too, and by the time I had my shoes on, we were ready to go. He held his hand out for me, waiting by the door for me to catch up. I took his hand, and he started pulling me downstairs, to the alarm— which I set— and then all the way out to the car. For the brief minute where we settled in our seats, got buckled, and Hotch started the car, we weren’t touching each other, but the moment he started backing out of the driveway, Hotch was holding my hand again.

I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles again. “I love you.”

I could tell that he needed the reassurance while navigating his way to Garcia’s apartment. She had only just gotten home, and we had finally decided to get some rest, and things went to shit again. I was sure that he felt somewhat responsible considering he turned her into I.A., which meant that she couldn’t go back to the office, so her only option was her apartment. But it wasn’t his fault. He had to know that. He didn’t do this. He couldn’t control this anymore than he could have controlled what happened the other night.

This was just another fluke. Our jobs were dangerous, and our lives could get crazy sometimes, but this was just one of those times where it seemed like things kept piling on and we couldn’t stop it. The good news, however, was that we could stop it. There was no way in hell now that we would let I.A. walk all over us and take us off this case. Even if it put mine and Hotch’s jobs in jeopardy again, we were going to find the guy who was doing this to Garcia, and we were going to put an end to it. Hotch just had to keep that in mind and keep his eye on the prize. This wasn’t his fault, and instead of blaming himself, he needed to put his focus into helping Garcia.

When we arrived at Garcia’s place, cops were already barricading off the street to make sure that only officials could get through. Hotch had to roll down his window as we approached and flash his badge at the officer standing by, and then we had to wait for them to move the barricade. Up ahead, it looked like Emily, Reid, JJ, and Rossi were already there, but Rossi was the only one still outside. Hotch parked us in the middle of the road, just in front of Garcia’s building, and Rossi came over to open my door like a true gentleman.

“They’re still barring us from the case,” he told us both as we got out of the car.

The three of us headed towards the courtyard where the lead detective was waiting. We passed the coroners who were bagging up the body of the cop who was killed by the Unsub while he was on duty to protect Garcia. I tried not to look over and think about how that could have been Morgan and Garcia, too.

“The Bureau says they don’t want you here,” the detective said.

“We’re just here to comfort a friend,” Hotch insisted, though we all saw through the lie.

“I don’t care what they say,” he admitted to us. “This guy killed one of us. Any help you can offer, I’ll take it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m sick of being behind this guy,” Rossi ranted. “We gotta end this.”

We all nodded and continued into the building so that we could see Garcia, and potentially talk to her and Morgan about what happened. When we entered her apartment, everyone was surrounding her, comforting her, trying to talk her through it. She was very clearly shaken. Between hugging her pillow close to her chest, resting her head on Morgan’s shoulder, and listening to everyone’s kind words, she looked like she was trying to calm down, but it would certainly take a while. Hotch immediately interrupted everyone by insisting that we take Garcia back to the hospital because that was where she would be safest, but she, of course, had to argue it.

“No, I want to stay here,” she insisted. “I’m starting to remember more. Maybe if I stay here, I’ll be able to remember all of it, and that can help you guys.”

I looked at Hotch. She was right. If her cognitives were finally starting to work at her house, in a familiar setting, then it might benefit us to keep her at home. As long as the whole team was with her, she’d be safe. We wanted to help her, right? Well, this was the best way to do it. There was no denying it. So Hotch gave in with a nod and let the team continue their questioning.

“Tell us about his car,” Reid encouraged, leaning forward in his seat. “You said it was a white, 4-door, American. What else?”

Garcia closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “His seatbelt was buckled behind his back.”

My eyes widened slightly. Hotch and I exchanged a worried glance. There were only two kinds of people who sat with their seatbelts behind them: reckless people or police. For the most part, Hotch and I were pretty good about using our seatbelts, but if we were in the field and needed to jump out quickly, then we wouldn’t bother with them. If Garcia’s memory was correct, then there was a very good chance that the man who did this to her was a fed.

“Garcia,” Rossi said, sitting down in front of her, “You need to be straight with us right now.” He sounded angry and demanding—not at all as how I had seen him before. I figured that Hotch would be the one to finally snap at her because his fuse was always short, but Rossi surprised me. Garcia seemed taken aback, too, because she looked around to us for help. Rossi caught her with, “Don’t look at them, look at me.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” she said confidently and defensively.

“You got shot. Most people get shot for a reason. You’ve got a room full of people here who love you and are willing to believe that an FBI agent is trying to kill you. Now, I don’t know you all that well yet, so I’m going to need a little more convincing. We need to know everything you do on company time—which includes whatever the hell was on that file you secured.

“I—” Garcia hesitated, trying to look at Morgan, but Rossi wouldn’t let her. “It’s—It’s nothing—”

“Spit it out!”

“Rossi!” I yelled at him, but he held a silencing hand up at me.

“Tell us!”

“It’s nothing bad!” Garcia raised her voice, too, but out of fear rather than anger like the rest of us. “I counsel families of unsolved cases, and sometimes I’ll mark cases as imperative so they get reviewed faster.”

Hotch crossed his arms over his chest and said, “You’re not authorized to do that, Penelope.”

“I know,” she agreed while nodding and her voice shaking, “but I was just trying to help.”

“Yeah, but whoever was working those cases thinks you’re watching them now.”

“I just wanted to put pressure on them so that they don’t slide!”

“How many cases are we talking about?”

“I don’t know… Seven or eight, maybe? I would have to get into my system to know.”

“You can’t. You’re still suspended.”

“Wait a minute,” Morgan interrupted. “Garcia, you said that on your date, this guy was pressing you for information about your job—specifically if you were working murder cases.” Garcia nodded along. “Hotch, we’ve gotta look at those files. Whatever connecting piece there is in them, it has to be our Unsub.”

“We can’t do anything while Internal Affairs is watching us all at the office.”

“Yeah, but if we do it from here…”

Hotch sucked in a breath through his teeth while looking over at Rossi for a hint about what our next play should be. Honestly, it wasn’t a good idea and it probably wasn’t legal, but if Garcia could get into the system at home, find who the Unsub was, then get out before anyone could notice, it would do us some good. The only downside to all of this was that if Garcia did get caught, and considering Strauss’s tunnel vision on him and getting rid of him, she’d fire Hotch without hesitation. But, then again, it was still our best shot. Weighing the options, it could save Penelope’s life vs. Hotch losing his job. Unfortunately, the answer was fairly obvious.

Hotch released his crossed arms. “Alright. Dave, Y/N, JJ, and I will all go back to the office to maintain face and to keep I.A.’s focus on us. In the meantime, Morgan, Reid, and Prentiss, stay with Garcia. Don’t forget to log out of the damn system, understand?” Everyone nodded. He looked to me and Rossi, “Let’s go.”

When we walked into the BAU’s office, I spotted the Internal Affairs agent sitting at the table in the break area. He had cleared off everyone’s stuff, including the donuts Anderson brought in since everyone was going to have a late night, obviously; and he set up all of his work for his investigation into Garcia. It wasn’t right that he was there. I mean, they shouldn’t have launched an investigation into Garcia’s integrity while still searching for the person who shot her. There had to be priorities, right? Why was Internal Affairs taking a sealed file more seriously than an agent getting shot? It made my blood boil.

That being said, we knew we had to keep our cool. If we were going to buy Garcia and the others time, then we needed to proceed as usual. Hotch and Rossi went up to their offices on the balcony, while I stopped at my desk to grab some files. In the car, Hotch and I discussed potentially “reviewing some old cases” in his office, which really just meant that we were going to pretend like we were doing work while anxiously awaiting a call from the team with some news. If we just played this smart, we’d find the Unsub soon— since we were clearly the only ones who cared— and all would be forgiven. The investigation into Garcia and her work with the Bureau would ultimately turn out to be useless. She’d be reinstated soon, and things could just… go back to normal. But first we had to play this torturously long waiting game.

As I took my files from my desk in the bullpen up to Hotch’s office, I saw that the Internal Affairs agent stood from his seat in the break area to meet an officer at the front doors of the BAU. I furrowed my brows. They shook hands, greeted each other professionally, then headed over to Anderson’s desk where the tech analyst helping I.A. was sitting. I rolled my eyes, figuring it probably had to do with burying Penelope’s career rather than actually trying to save her. Assholes.

I stepped into Hotch’s office and closed the door behind me. He nodded towards one of the seats at his desk across from him, a silent gesture for me to get comfortable. As I sat down and put the files on his desk, Hotch tried to grab the top one, but I stopped him by putting my hand over his. We glared at each other shortly, a challenge to see who would let up first. Hotch wanted to work on some of my reports. Of course he did. But he already had a stack of his own, and we didn’t need a repeat of the Mulford case report. So he needed to work on his files, and I needed to work on mine. I get that he was just trying to help since he still felt somewhat responsible for my suspension, and me sub dropping the other day, and he felt like shit for going behind my back; but I wasn’t going to let him make it up to me by doing my work. Hell, he technically already made it up to me. How could he forget my reward the other day? Idiot.

“Come on,” he encouraged, trying to tug the file away from me. I narrowed my eyes and pulled against him. “Y/N.”

“Aaron.”

His glare strengthened. “I don’t want to look at my reports anymore. I’ve hit a wall with all of mine. Let me help you.”

I smacked his hand away playfully, managing to get a better grip on the file after he was caught off guard. I snatched the file and dropped it in my lap. “No.”

“No?”

I gulped. “We’re at work. Rules, Agent Hotchner. Remember our rules?”

He licked his teeth, a sign that he was getting angry and frustrated. “At some point, when this is over, and we’re back at home— where there are no rules, Agent Greenaway— I’m going to put you over my knee and show you what ‘no’ gets you.” He grabbed the next file on the top of my pile. “Don’t ever ask me about the rules again.” I cleared my throat as I looked down at the report I was holding. “What do you say?”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

“Good girl.”

“I’ve gotta stop locking that door behind me…” I whispered under my breath.

“What was that?”

My eyes shot wide. I hadn’t realized that I said it aloud. I had been thinking about how every time I closed his office door behind me, leaving the two of us to speak privately, Hotch always seemed to forget that we were at work, and he let his dominant personality take over. It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy it. I loved it. But he was literally the one who made the rules in the first place, and yet he seemed to be the worst about upholding them. I tried my best because I didn’t want the professional or personal consequences that would come with talking out of turn, but Hotch seemed to lose his filter when we were alone. It might’ve been due to the superior aspect that came with his job. Hotch liked having control over me. He liked telling me what to do in the bedroom, around the house, in the field, and in moments like these when we were alone and could speak freely. Being my boss probably allowed him to maintain that excitement of controlling me without being obvious. But being alone with me while at work, it was like a big stirring pot of all the things he loved about our relationship, and he just couldn’t seem to hold himself back.

That was why closing the door was always a bad idea. It gave him the privacy to demand things of me, to talk dirty to me, to tease me endlessly because he knew we were at work, and he knew that we had our rules. Every time he toyed with me like this, it made me want him to the point that I’d jump on him if the blinds on his windows overseeing the bullpen weren’t open. He knew that about me. He knew that I’d get on my knees for him under his desk if he asked me to. But he also knew that the two of us were being extremely cautious since Strauss was watching us like a hawk. He knew that he could torture me privately like this, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. That was the fun of the game. That was what excited him most.

But if I just left the door open… What could he do? Nothing. That was why I thought it, but I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. When Hotch caught me, he knew what I meant, and I knew that I was digging myself into a hole that I could only escape once he punished me for it. He had been playing around with the “no” thing because I practically baited him, but my little slip up wasn’t a game. When he once had enough self-restraint to not flat out start sliding into dom space yet, he was now entirely Sir. I was screwed. Once this case was over, I was sure that I wasn’t going to be let off the bed for… well… until the next case would call us in.

“Sir—”

“Not another word from you,” he said gruffly, looking down at the file he grabbed.

The self-discipline it took to not go over to the windows, close the blinds, then punish me then and there was killing him, I could see it. He had practically involuntarily slid into dom space, and it was going to take him forever to calm down. I almost wanted to apologize, but I had been given my command. With how deep into it I already was, there was no point in pushing back. While I would’ve been bratty about it in the past, just because I could, I knew that we really needed to focus on Penelope. It was fun to forget about reality from time to time. We liked spending a few minutes forgetting about everything going on around us. It was hard being in our field without taking a moment to remember who we were and how much we loved each other. People probably wouldn’t understand our dynamic. They would look down on it and turn their noses up at how we could act like this between talking about work and focusing on cases. But it was hard to take everything seriously all the time. If we didn’t appreciate who we were when things got too dark, then we’d lose our minds.

My phone started ringing. Talk about saved by the bell. I scrambled for it nervously, acutely aware that Hotch was paying attention to my floundering, despite how his eyes were focused on the report. I took a look at the caller ID, Morgan, before answering quickly.

“Sunshine, I need you to listen very carefully,” he said in a panic before we could greet one another. I continued to stay silent, waiting for what he had to say. “The Unsub’s in the BAU. He’s the deputy sheriff that’s standing next to the I.A. agent at Anderson’s desk.” My eyes shot wide. “Stop— Stop reacting.” My face fell flat. “Do you see him?”

I didn’t have to look over to see who Morgan was talking about. When I had been walking up to Hotch’s office, I saw the officer, and originally thought nothing of it. But now he was in the middle of the FBI. “I got him,” I answered calmly. Hotch looked up at me. He was trying to get a read on what was happening. “What do you want us to do?”

“Don’t approach him. Don’t let him know we’re onto him. We profiled him, and he’s a classic narcissist with a hero homicide complex—”

“And he’s spiraling?”

Morgan hummed an agreement. I swallowed hard, still trying to keep my cool.

If he was spiraling, that meant that he was going to go down shooting. The profile of Unsubs with hero homicide complexes included that they were sociopaths that didn’t even care about their own wellbeing if they knew that they were approaching the end. If Morgan was right— which, I trusted that he was— then our Unsub was going to take as many people as possible down with him if he even got a whiff of us closing in on him. Taking him down was going to be hard, especially since he was an armed, trained officer. It didn’t matter that nearly everyone down in the bullpen had guns. If he took even one person hostage, we were screwed.

“I’ll tell Hotch. Thanks.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah.” I hung up the phone and cautiously put it in my pocket. “Deputy in the bullpen,” I told Hotch.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye, clocking who I was referencing. “They’re sure?” I nodded. “What’s the profile?”

“Hero homicide.”

Hotch let out a quiet breath. “Okay. I’ll get Dave. I want you to go down the ramp just out front, not the one to the side. Go through the bullpen to get to your desk, grab your things, and try to make your way to the doors like you’re waiting for us to join you there. We’re going to surround him quietly and carefully. Understood?” I nodded again. “Go.”

I pushed myself out of my seat and started calmly walking out of Hotch’s office. He was just behind me, opening the door for me like a true gentleman. As I stepped down the ramp just ahead, Hotch took a sharp turn to the left to walk on the balcony. The deputy in the bullpen, along with the Internal Affairs agent and tech analyst, were focused on the computer in front of them. They were too busy to even notice how the office was moving around them… How I was watching them out the corner of my eye.

As I grabbed my purse from under my desk, Rossi opened his office door in response to Hotch knocking politely. They exchanged a few whispers, glancing down in the bullpen to look at the deputy and me. I nodded vaguely, a signal that I knew the plan and I was going to make my move. After taking note of Hotch’s lingering stare, I nervously bit my lip and took a brave step towards the doors. My eyes shifted to the deputy instinctively. When we made eye contact by accident, I cursed under my breath, and kept trying to move, my hands free and ready to reach for my weapon on my hip whenever.

I glanced over my shoulder quickly, noting that Rossi and Hotch had split up to take opposite corners of the room. My eyes met Hotch’s again, and I tried to look for a signal, knowing that I couldn’t make it any further without raising suspicions. The plan was for me to head to the doors, but he already knew. If I stepped any closer, the deputy would probably take the I.A. agent or the analyst hostage, or he would just start shooting without warning. But the signal I needed from Hotch didn’t come. He couldn’t give it yet. The three of us still needed to move into a better position.

“Well, thank you for coming in, Deputy,” the Internal Affairs agent smiled up at the officer.

Whatever it was they had been doing on Anderson’s computer, they were done. Maybe this would work itself out. If the deputy left, we could arrest him down in the parking lot where there weren’t innocent agents Hotch was responsible for in harm’s way. This could actually go well. All of our fretting could have possibly been for nothing, if we were lucky.

“Thank you for hearing me out. I’m sorry about all of this,” the deputy responded in kind.

“Oh, that’s no worries. We’re just happy to help—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Before we knew it, the deputy reached out, locking the I.A. agent in a choke hold. Just as Hotch, Rossi, and I unholstered our weapons, the deputy pointed the barrel of his gun at the agent’s head. Everyone, including the analyst sitting just in front of them, fell to the ground, trying to find cover under the desks. He got smart, pressing his back against the corner by the glass doors before I could get there. From where Hotch, Rossi, and I were all standing around the office, none of us could get a clear shot. I mean, if we wanted to take the I.A. agent down with the deputy, then, sure, we could make the shot. But we weren’t going to do that. Our only plan of action now was to diffuse the tension— though, it was probably going to be useless if we were relying on the team’s profile. However, we still had to try.

Out of all of us, Rossi was the best negotiator. Hell, he wrote the interrogation and negotiation how-to books for the FBI. In the Academy, we studied his tactics, and we studied his reports. If anyone could get through to the deputy, our best shot was Rossi. We all knew it.

“Don’t do it,” Rossi shook his head. I adjusted my grip on my gun as the deputy wavered. “You’re a cop. You know how this is going to go down unless you drop the gun.”

“I’ll take my chances,” the deputy spat.

“You’re standing in the middle of the FBI… What chances do you have?”

“You think that I’m afraid of the FBI?”

“No,” Rossi shook his head. “You’re afraid of being forgotten, and afraid of being remembered as the villain. You want to be the hero; I know you do. But if you kill that man there, you won’t be the hero. If you kill him, you’ll be locked away and forgotten. It’s your choice. You write the ending. You decide if you’re the hero or villain tonight.”

The deputy chuckled. “They told me you guys were the best minds in the FBI; But that’s the best you have? Pathetic.”

Hotch looked over at me, then to the door over my shoulder, before looking back at me. I raised a brow, wondering what he was thinking. His eyes shifted to my other shoulder, almost like he was telling me to move that way, away from the doors. I took the hint and slowly started backing up. The deputy took notice of my retreat, but he still didn’t make a move or say anything about it.

The thing I knew, a gunshot rang. The glass doors to the BAU shattered as a bullet penetrated them and fired right into the deputy’s head. Since he had been caught off guard by the shot to the back of his head, he didn’t have a chance to press his finger down on the trigger. As his body fell to the ground, his gun flew over by my feet. I quickly knelt down, picked up the weapon, and tucked it in the back of my pants waistband for safe keeping.

JJ stepped in through the doorway of broken glass. Her hands were shaking as she holstered her weapon, the same one she used to shoot the deputy in the back of the head. Everyone started slowly getting up off the floor while Hotch and Rossi moved in. We knew that there was no chance that the deputy was alive, but we all wanted to see it with our own eyes. This was the guy who killed our Penelope Garcia, after all. We needed the reassurance that he was really gone.

“You okay?” I asked JJ, holstering my own weapon, too. She nodded shortly, still staring down at the body. “You sure?” She nodded again, but this time more vaguely, like she was unsure of her answer. “You did good.” I patted her shoulder.

“It’s what he gets for shooting Penelope…” she whispered under her breath. “No one hurts the people we love and gets away with it.”

I nodded and looked over at Hotch. He was staring at me while talking to Rossi. My forehead creased slightly as my eyes softened into a pout. His did the same for the slightest moment. “I love you,” I mouthed to him.

“I love you, too,” he mouthed back when no one was looking.

[smol-and-grumpy]

Sky Full Of Stars - CH02

Sequel to Something Just Like This

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: He’s Dean Winchester, ex mobster boss, still a little cocky, less ruthless and not at all short tempered anymore. Instead, he thinks he’s hilarious (she doesn’t agree, though). They both try to live a quiet life. And Dean hopes, very hard, that his former life won’t come knocking at their door.

Warnings: Really fluffy. 

WC: 3109

SERIES MASTERLIST

Dean tries to be quiet, he really did, but as old houses are, the stairs creak underneath his weight when he descends. He flinches, squints his eyes and moves faster, trying his best to make himself feather light, and absolutely fails.

He hops off the last step, walks into the kitchen on his bare feet, makes a cup of coffee. He knows that he needs to get back to work when he wants to finish the house on time but Y/N’s so damn distracting.

Especially when she takes naps during the day because she’s more tired than she’s ever been. In fact, she’s even more tired now than when she was in her first Trimester, which is weird but what does he know, he doesn’t have to deal with the hormones so all he does is shut the hell up and let her sleep.

They’re only at half time, something over five months.

When she feels really tired, she likes to take baths to relax and then taking naps after, and Dean hates that. Absolutely super hates it. Can’t stand how he can’t help but join her. Not always with the baths but certainly with the naps.

It first started two months into her pregnancy when they were still painting her art room. She would start to paint and after a couple of hours she’d ask him if it was okay for her to go lie down. When he checked on her later, she was grinning at him from inside of the bathtub with foam all over her face. 

That first time that he discovered her in the tub when she was supposed to go lie down, he couldn’t help but jump right into the tub with her, sat her on his hard cock and let her fuck herself on him. He took her out and laid her down after, ate her out before her body was even dry. 

Their sex life was not boring by all means, but since she’s pregnant she became insatiable. 

Dean would lie if he said that he minded it. 

And if he can’t fuck her with his cock (honestly, she can really wear him out), he fucks her with his fingers (sometimes he thinks that carpal tunnel syndrome is on his horizon), and if his fingers and hands get tired, he eats her out until his jaw cramps up. Like he said, he doesn’t mind. It’s not like they’re going about it like rabbits. They don’t do it every day either but once she starts, it’s hard for her to stop.

So since then, she’s been taking naps and he naps with her. It’s tempting to just stay in bed all day, kissing, cuddling, making love, sleep. And if she wasn’t pregnant and they wouldn’t expect a little baby in roughly five months time, he wouldn’t even care about the house, but Dean needs to get things going if he wants to finish it. 

Sometimes, Sam comes around to help. Jess’s pregnant too. Is even ahead of Y/N by a month. So whenever Sam’s over, Dean would drink a beer with his brother and they exchange their thoughts and worries. Dean’s gotten much better at talking nowadays. 

Bobby showed up once too, and Gabe whenever he’s free and then Gabe would help Dean out. He gets so much done when Gabe’s here. It’s the ease of having worked together for so many years that makes a difference to Gabe and Sam. Also Gabe is no fucking pain in Dean’s ass like Sammy is. 

But most of the time, they’re on their own in their little house with a view to a sky full of stars. It’s never dull around here either. She’d find ways to get on his nerves and he might not even do it on purpose but he apparently can annoy the fuck out of her as well. Dean apparently talks too loud. Or he chews too loud. Or brushes his teeth too loud. Every little thing can be too loud. The hormones are fucking with her senses.

He drinks his coffee, it’s caffeinated. He once tried to sneak in decaf coffee but she just sat there and stared at the mug and started to cry. So he gave up on it, because she limits her intake. She already had one this morning so Dean gulps down his, burning his tongue off, but it’s better for her not to see him drink it. It’s also better for him. 

While he’s standing in the kitchen, he decides to make lunch. Cooks up some pasta with homemade sauce and he’ll chop up some veggies to throw it in with.

Dean’s chopping away at a bell pepper when he feels arms coming around his middle, her face pressing into his spine, right in between his shoulder blades. 

“Mmh,” Y/N mumbles into his back, he feels her voice vibrating along his spine. Her little bump’s pressed into his lower back. “Smells good.”

Dean grins, but doesn’t stop chopping, “Me or the food?”

“Food.” She says and he can feel her chuckle on his back.

“Not me?” 

Her hands brush along his stomach, feathery strokes travel down to the waistband of his sweats, and then she strokes along his clothed cock. Dean holds in his breath. “Baby, I’m chopping something here.”

He abandons the knife though, because he’s not dumb and is not risking chopping his own hand off when she palms him through his pants.

“You always smell good, that’s not fair.” 

It’s Dean's turn to grin. He takes her hand from his cock — that grows hard just from her touching it and it's still the same, he can’t not get hard when he’s around her — and turns around, picks her up and sits her on the kitchen island on the other side of the stove.

She’s pouting, just like he thought she would be. 

He stands between her legs, his hands on her thigh and around the small of her back as he looks up to meet her eyes, cranes his neck to kiss her pout away. 

She wraps her hands around his neck and Dean likes how she plays with the short hair there. 

“What are you cooking?” Y/N asks and nuzzles her nose against his chin.

“I’m making pasta.”

Her hand comes around his face, fingers scratching at his scruff and then she says, “I was thinking—”

“—No,” It came out of Dean a little too fast, can’t help it because he knows what she’s going to say. 

He knows her better than he knows himself, he told her once and it’s still true. He knows that she’s pregnant and has cravings and she really almost never wants to eat the thing he cooks her. Even though she’s okay with it first but then she changes her mind, wants something else and after she takes a couple of bites of said something else, she changes her mind again. It’s driving him fucking crazy is what it is.

The old Dean might have been mad, might tell her to fucking make up her mind but the new Dean is taking everything in with patience and an easiness he never knew he had. The only thing that really annoys the living hell out of  him is that she mostly has cravings for things they don’t have in the house and he would have to go to the store to get it. But that’s on him too, because he doesn’t want her to drive in his car with no real seatbelt. She would then argue that they still have her car which is parked in the garage but they haven’t used it for a while and Dean doesn’t even know if it would still start up because unlike the time when she was gone for the year where Dean would take her car for a spin every other week to make sure it’s still running smoothly, he didn’t have the time nor desire to take her car for a spin since they moved, and however, that’s not really the point anyway. The point being, he doesn’t want her to drive at all, because he’s still scared of what could happen if she gets into another accident.

He bought a new car already, thinks of ditching his Baby every time he has to take his family out and about, opted for a big family van but it’s custom made and it takes another couple of weeks to be delivered.

“Hey, you don’t even know what I wanted to say.”

“Baby, I’m making pasta. I’m not going to the store again for your cravings. I’ve been twice this morning already and one time late last night.” Dean says, and it’s true. Last night she wanted her coconut ice cream and when he brought it back, she realized that her hormones made her not like the taste of coconut anymore and she ended up crying. That was a night ruined and Dean wished he didn’t even go out at all.

The next store is twenty minutes out and if Dean gives in every time she craves something, he will never get anything done around here. 

Y/N swats at his chest, but her lips curve into a playful smile, “‘M not telling that you should go to the store.” She leans forward then, pulls him closer by the back of his neck and he wraps his arms around her.

“Then tell me, I’m listening.”

“What would you say if I tell you to go out for a couple of hours in the evening.” She mumbles into the crook of his neck and that’s when Dean knows that she’s scared that he’ll be mad because she’s not able to look him in the eye.

He frowns a little, “Why do you want me to go out?” She hugs him tighter and that’s when he adds, “Am I crushing you? Do you need space?”

“No, everything’s okay. I just want to do something and I need you out of the house for a couple of hours. Cas will come pick you up.”

Dean frowns some more, “So, you actually already decided for me.”

She comes out of her hiding and is looking at him, a smile so bright it makes his heart leap. “Yes.”

He rolls his eyes, but only for the dramatic effect. “Okay, but don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

“Me? Something stupid?” She gasps with one hand on her chest, “Never!”

Dean begs to differ. There’s one time she drew a bath and forgot about it. They needed to exchange the flooring of the bathroom after. Or that time when she burned the omelettes because she was distracted by her book. Or that time when she came back from the store and placed the milk in the freezer and ice creams in the fridge. The list goes on and on, but Dean rather not list them off, because he couldn’t win the argument. 

She once said that she can’t even take care of herself and while that might not be true while she wasn’t pregnant, he thinks it’s true now. It if wasn’t for him, she would have flooded and burned the house to the ground by now.

“Liar,” He only grins at her, kisses her then before she can say anything else. 

Y/N’s sitting on the couch and strokes Bubbles while Truffles is lying on the floor when Dean comes down from taking a shower, she can hear him walking down the stairs, it creaks awfully loud under his weight. He told her that he wants to work on that too, so the baby wouldn’t wake up all the time when he’s going up and down the stairs.

Bubbles loves its new home, the cat especially loves the space, loves going out and roaming around, and has already made friends with other cats and of course Bubbles doesn’t mind Truffles at all, would sometimes let the dog lick her and the feeling is mutual.

She’s actually glad Dean agreed on getting a dog. She never knew that he would cave because he told her that he’s not really a dog person. Come to think of it, he’s also not really a cat person. He’s not really any kind of person except of her, he said that himself. Now he has to share her with a baby and he’s slowly working up to it. It’s not going to be easy but that little one will also be half his so she guesses that Dean will be able to work on his issue. That issue still being that he’s afraid someone could take her away from him. 

Dean is working on himself, she can see that. Sees it in how he’s much more relaxed and she likes that. Likes how he wakes up with a smile on his face everyday. Likes, how he smiles more in general, how he’s less grumpy. How he doesn’t have to work all night and come home with bloody shirts. 

Nowadays, the only stains on his shirts and pants are from renovating the house or pottery.

Yeah. Pottery.

They are sharing an art room now. He’s doing pottery in one corner of the art room. It’s one of Bobby’s friends, Rufus, who’s also Dean’s friend and a closet psychologist who suggested that Dean tries pottery to help calm him down when the storm inside of him takes over. 

Sometimes, Dean would come in when she’s painting, sits down wordlessly and starts to do pottery. She won’t say a word either. Will sit there and paint until she can see the crease between his eyebrows even out.

He’s so distracting when he does pottery, though. His fingers and arms work on the clay. Sexy is what it is. It gets her hot and bothered every time.

Dean walks into the living room, dressed in casual jeans and a plaid shirt, smelling good and the scent makes her light headed. 

Just when he bends down to kiss her, Cas rings at the gate. That’s right, they have a gate. Dean’s overprotective but she understands, considering who he was when she met him.

He pecks her nose, her forehead, places his hand on her belly and rubs at it. “I think that’s my date.”

“You have fun,” She breathes into the kiss and feels his lips widen into a grin.

“Fun? Without you?” 

She rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean.”

Dean leans lower, kisses her belly through the shirt. “Be good,”

She frowns a little, “The baby or me?”

“Both.” Dean boops her nose and gets up, walks to the door and is out.

*

After Dean has left, she takes a long shower, gets into fresh comfortable clothes and starts to prepare everything she needs. 

It’s going to be a surprise. Dean has always done so much for her. He always makes sure that she has everything she needs, and has devoted his life to keep her happy so that she would stay, so that he could keep her. Even though she told him that there’s really nothing that would drive her away from him anymore. Guess he still doesn’t believe it so he does the only thing he knows he can, twists and bends his life around to make room for her in it. To make room for their family.

She orders pizza, places mats on their terrace, sets up fairy lights. She actually wanted to use candles but Dean hid all of them because he doesn’t trust her to not burn the house down.

Two hours has passed and Dean should be home in a couple of minutes. She has an agreement with Cas to get him home as sober as possible. 

Y/N moves pillows and blankets from the couch out to the little camping site she created. The pizza arrived a couple of minutes ago either, so she takes it out with her. She’s hungry and takes a bite out of a slice, hoping Dean doesn’t mind that she started without him.

Like she thought, Dean walks in after she has finished her first slice, and he calls out for her. The house is dark, the only light source is out here and she hopes he gets it, follows the source out to where she is waiting for him.

“Babe?” He slips out onto the terrace, slides the screen door shut behind him.

His face is lit up by the moonlight and the little fairy lights. She sees him smile, it’s all white and wide. 

“Surprise,” She smiles back at him.

She waits for him to get out of his shoes and join her on the mat beside her. He places his hand on her shoulder, the tips of his thumb circles on the back of her neck as he pulls her in to kiss her temple. “Is that why you wanted me to go out?”

“Duh,” She grins and he kisses the grin away.

They dig into the pizza and she knows that she forgot something, so Dean has to get up and comes back out with napkins and two bottles of water.

After they ate, they lay down, his head on her shoulder, while he rubs at her tummy.

“You see the stars?” 

“Yeah,” She whispers.

“Thank you,”

“No, I have to thank you.” She says, tilts her head, kisses his temple, his scruff tickles her chin. “You’ve done so much for me so at least I can do something too, even if it’s just something small.”

“It’s something big, alright,” Dean cranes his neck, kisses her cheek, leaves his lips here, “You’re doing more for me than you know,” He’s about to say more but there’s something happening in her tummy, something that feels like gas bubbles that are locked in there. Like she’s had too much fizzy drink, only that she had none. She felt it a couple of times already but it’s the first time that he probably feels it too with his palm on her stomach.

Dean swallows.

“Is that?” He props himself up on his elbow, leans over her, and there’s one more bubbly feeling.

She smiles at him, nods her head and his smile spreads on his face, the crinkles around his eyes deepens. Y/N cradles his face with one hand, letting the pad of her thumb travel over the crinkles that she loves so much.

Dean kisses her then, still smiling and chuckling. 

“The baby’s probably excited to see the stars too.” She whispers into the kiss, wonders how long it’ll take for them to feel a real kick, for Dean to feel it.

CH03

[s-creations]

Return the Flames - Chapter 1

All at Dead Bird Studios knew of Amos' (The Conductor's) ability. How the owl could suddenly erupt into flames if angered enough. When the studio first opened, Dominic (DJ Grooves) was told that Amos had his ability under control. Nothing to worry about. No possible loss of anything from an open flame.

A few years later however, and that control seems to have lessened to a dangerous degree.

It should have just been a simple, week long drive to fix the problem. It really should have been.

Dominic should have asked a lot more questions and should have been prepared for a twist ending.

_________________

Fandom: A Hat in Time Rating: General Audience Relationships/Pairings: The ConductorXDJ Grooves Warnings: Eventual depictions of violence, slow burn relationship, named characters, attempt of an accent, being hunted down, a race against time (sort of).

 It’s amazing how one outside source could influence an entire planet and change it’s view. Okay, maybe the ‘entire planet’ might be an exaggerated size. But, big key players were involved with the overall growth. So, it felt as if the world shifted when the time wielding child left to race among the stars once more.

 Mustache Girl, discovered to be named Mu when the dust settled, had seemingly disappeared. Her usual hideout had been cleared out. With no signs of her remaining there or found to be anywhere else on Mafia Island. There was a theory that Mu had hopped onto one of the many shipment boats and had left said island as soon as she could. If that was true, it would be nearly impossible to find her. No one could fully tell if this was a good or bad thing.

 The Mafia boss had officially retired when he couldn’t find a new body to use. Apparently the price      was    too high to pay for someone to give up their own. Losing that intimidating edge and just being gross, he announced his leave and traveled to the nearby mainland. There he found his new calling: being the store manager to a small fish market operation. Apparently, no one wanted to argue about prices against a goo of a human being that survived in a jar. Between the harsh words and rather disturbing appearance, people lost their argumentative spark quickly.

 The rest of the Mafia scrambled to figure out what to do with themselves. It took a lot of soul searching and late night conversations for a solution to be found. They reached the conclusion that they all worked better when they’re told what to do and decided to turn the island town into a high end luxury resort. Cooking Cat had taken the chief helm and taught a large team of Mafia members how to be proper cooks. It would be bad if a customer complained about food poisoning.

 Subcon Forest, while still downright terrifying and with Vanessa a heavy threat over the citizens, had seen the number of lost souls consumed by that place dropped. The Snatcher had apparently changed stance on determining which souls were meant to be taken. Namely those who were weighed down by a lot of sins. If asked, he would claim it was due to those being more filing when eaten. No one had the needed bravery to really question the twisted spirit’s reasoning. So, more living beings started leaving the woods. Confused, with their souls still in place, and all at the cost of a high-five.

 But the biggest change came from Dead Bird Studio. If one was interested in movies (which was a good majority of the planet) they knew of the rivalry that ran that place. Or      did     run that place. The Conductor and DJ Grooves announced, shortly after Hat Kid’s departure, that their feud was over. More or less. Everyone knew that years of animosity couldn’t be solved or swept under the rug, to be forgotten about overnight.

 So, it was an difficult uphill battle to learn what it meant to actually work together peacefully. Between Conductor’s anger and Grooves’ rather smug attitude, it was a hard progress. Both directors used a lot of late nights to find even ground. After a few months, they had reached a level of comradery that couldn’t really be qualified as ‘being friends’. Business partners was probably the best title.

 Which was still an achievement to marvel at, if Grooves was completely honest. But the worry of getting into a shouting match with Amos was now at the bottom of Dominic’s list.

 When the studio had been open for the first few months, they gained the title as the ‘studio with the hot headed director’. Dominic seeing first hand how deranged the other could become. The penguin could chalk it up to first time jitters. After all, opening up a business in the same building with someone you deemed as a rival was not the most calming experience. Add on top of that the tense world of film making and Grooves was surprised he didn’t eventually turn to biting off a few heads when things went wrong. But as Amos’ anger seemed to grow, Grooves began to worry that the director was going to have a heart attack from his numerous outbursts.

 What he was not expected was for the owl to suddenly have his ears erupt into      flames    . The only thing that pulled Dominic from his shocked state of mind when the sprinklers suddenly activated. All in attendance having to evacuate until the place was dried out.

 Unable to ask Amos directly (and already knowing the director wouldn’t have answered his questions anyway) Dominic had gone to the Express Owls for answers. He had been told that their director suddenly creating flames was something normal to see. Amos even had occasions where he would actually have smoke rising off of him. The penguin asked how this was even possible. As far as he knew, this was not a normal occurrence, and working with someone who could burst into flames at any time seemed a dangerous factor. Especially if it became a worry they’d lose the studio because of this. But Dominic was assured that Amos had his ability under control. That day was just a build up of bad moments that tore at the owl’s patient until it was just released.

 That didn’t mean Dominic didn’t start carrying around a small fire extinguisher whenever he had to be near Amos.

 Amos, on his part, was not a bird who opened up about anything. So, he never explained to anyone why he had this ability, with the Express Owls just accepting the idea their boss could handle himself. And, true to their word, Dominic didn’t see that many open flames coming from the angry owl. During their early years that was.

 Now, however, the worry had reached a new level of concern. Because Amos’ anger seemed to have suddenly grown. Even after the feud was put away. The control the other director had over the years seeming to have disappeared. Now the owl bursting into flames, full flames covering his body, when his mood was even. With another worry arising when he was around open flames and his anger made those grow dangerously. So much so, Dominic put his foot down on allowing open flame to be anywhere near the studio. Which annoyed Amos as now his movies lost a touch of authenticity. In turn causing the owl’s already short fuse to become shorter.

 It had become a dangerous, endless cycle. One that Dominic had to intervene before things got too out of hand. Something he was going to take care of today. Because he was afraid if he waited too long, they’d lose the studio they’d just started to work together in.

 Recording was done for the day and the studio practically empty as Dominic made his way to the Western-themed portion of the building. Asking a few lingering owls where their director was, he was directed towards Amos’ office. The partially closed door had light emitting from the cracks. Dominic gave his thanks before heading over. Raising his hand up to knock, the penguin paused hearing Amos’ daughter’s name.

 “Amelia...no, listen… Aye, ‘m aware. But you’re in no condition ta take me… I know, I know… No, flyin’ is too dangerous. Ya know know I hate those death machines and there’s no easy exit for me ta take in case of… In case I have an episode.”

  Dominic leaned against the wall, frowning. He probably shouldn’t be listening in.

 “There are no tracks that run there. Besides, the train will be in use. I can’t change that just ta better me. No- no, that’s not what I mean… People rely on the train… I don’t know who ta ask. I don’t know anyone who would want ta travel that far.”

 Amos laughed softly after a pause on his end. “Uh oh, someone sounds fussy… Aye, I'll keep ya up ta date as best I can… No, no, don’t ya fret about this. I’ll figure somethin’ out. Rest well Amelia, I’ll call tomorrow. ...Love ya too.”

 There was the clatter of something heavy hitting the table. Dominic could only assume it was the owl’s phone being dropped. Braving his chance, the penguin pushed the door open. He found Amos, bent over the writing table with a discarded cell phone next to him. The owl looked in complete shambles.

 Feathers were ruffled, randomly sticking out at odd ends. Some were even starting to turn gray. The familiar white button up had its sleeves rolled up over the elbows, the cross suspenders hanging limply from the black pants they were connected to. The similarly colored jacket was pooled at the Conductor’s feet.

 “If ya have somethin’ ta say, come in and get it out.”

 Amos’ growl broke Dominic’s stupor and the penguin closed the door behind him as he entered. “So-”

 “How much did ya hear.”

 “Enough that you know that you need to get somewhere with no reliable way to get there.” Dominic answered, pulling another chair towards the table.

 “Didn’t know ya were one for eavesdroppin’. Hopin’ ta find a usable script for yer movies?”

 “I’m going to ignore that last comment. I came to see if you were okay. Your ability is getting out of control and it’s becoming a concern. More than it’s been previously.”

 “‘M aware of that. That’s what I was tryin’ to fix.”

 “You need a ride to get there? To wherever this ‘fix’ is supposed to be.”

 “Great deductive skills.”

 Dominic let out a heavy sigh, tamping down the slowly rising anger within. “What I’m trying to say is that if you need a ride, I would like to offer my assistance.”

 Amos sat up at that, ears perked up. “...What?”

 “I will offer you a ride.”

 “Ya don’t even know where I’m goin’!”

 “It seems you’re desperate to get where you need to go. With your flares, it would be foolish for you to travel alone or in a confined place that you wouldn’t be able to leave when you needed.. So, let me help you.”

 “...Are we...alright enough with each other ta be stuck in a car? Together? For so long?”

 “How long is this journey?”

 “I need ta get ta Starlight Peak.”

 “I- That’s halfway across the planet!”

 “Ya can see why this is a bit of an issue fer me.”

 “Why do you need to get there?”

 The owl huffed, ruffling his feathers further. “I’ll explain, if ya promise you’ll take me, and ya don’t ask further questions.”

 “Those are pretty high demands.” Dominic crossed his arms.

 “This...is not somethin’ I want a lot of people to know about.”

 Dominic wasn’t ready for that answer. For as long as he’d known Amos, the owl has never been one to share any personal information. It took Dominic almost 8 years to learn he had a daughter and a few more months to know about his grandchildren. Which was really the only thing Dominic knew. Amos was short tempered but closed-lipped. Loud but private.

 So, seeing him here, quiet and withdrawn, ears folded and arms crossed…

 Dominic didn’t like it.

 “I will take you and I will not share with anyone what you’re about to tell me.”

 “And…”

 “And I will not ask further questions.”

 Taking that as an adequate answer, Amos sat up and faced Dominic properly. “I have this… ‘condition’ where I have this… I have fire burning in me.”

 “Ah...I wasn’t ready for that. Wait, like an actual fire?”

 “Aye, where did ya think my fire came from?”

 “To be honest, I’m not really sure. Now that I know however, it kind of makes sense.”

 “Well, that fire is burnin’ brighter everyday. More than what I can contain and control. There’s something at the peak that will help tamper that fire back down.”

 “Tamper the fire down? What does that-”

 “Ah, ya said ya wouldn’t ask questions!”

 “Alright! Alright…” Dominic raised his hands in defense as Amos glared him down. As the owl sat back down, Dominic felt himself relax. “It’ll take us at least a week to get there and back.”

 “Aye, ‘m aware.”

 “We’ll need to shut down the studio for that long.”

 “Ya worried about fallin’ behind on filming.”

 “You wish. I’m more worried about the paparazzi. If they get wind of this, they’ll have a field day wondering where we’re going.”

 Amos groaned, leaning back in his chair. “Peck, I forgot about that. Do ya think we could slip out without the peckin’ buzzards findin’ out?”

 “You’re joking, right? The first day we don’t open, they’ll be hunting us down. If not the day before we depart. Speaking of, when do we need to leave? I’m assuming the sooner the better.”

 “That would be ideal. But I do have a few things ta take care of before we do.”

 “How about the day after tomorrow?”

 Amos nodded to that suggestion. “Sounds like our best idea.”

 “Best get to packing then.”

 “Aye...and leave your peckin’ platform shoes here!”

 “You just don’t care for style.”

 “Do ya really want ta climb a mountain side in those shoes?”

 “...Fair point.”