#i need to figure out how to make the quality better i swear it looked better idk

[crazyyyslots]

girlfriend

[ddarker-dreams]

Lock I need you to share something about Gojo. Jjk is getting worse with no hope in the future. Plis just a tiny part is god. 🙏🙏🙏🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Detour.

Gojo Satoru x F Reader x Geto Suguru.

Warnings: Mild not SFW implications, Gojo and Geto are Not normal about you, exhibiting possessive behavior. Word count: 1.2k.

-Index-

"—Excuse me, miss!" 

The exclamation barely registers amidst the crowded street's ambiance. Everyone has a destination they're eager to reach, and you're no different. Unlike those native to the area, however, you're more likely to get lost; hence your current conundrum. 

You examine the mess of squiggly lines, blocks, and patterns intended to function as a map. 

Kagurazaka, Kagurazaka... c'mon, I know this one... it starts with the kanji for god or something, right? 

While you scrutinize the map, the same voice from earlier calls out again, this time beside you. You glance around, not wanting to respond if he’s trying to flag down someone else. In doing so, it becomes increasingly obvious that you’re who he’s been trying to grab the attention of. 

From the looks of it, he’s a man in his late thirties, wearing a suit that could use a good ironing. You can’t recall meeting him before. Then again, you’re not privy to everything that happens back on campus. Meetings with influential figures frequently occur without your knowledge. You only ever find out about them later when Satoru loudly voices his critical view on everyone who attended. You are wearing your uniform, it’s recognizable to those in Jujutsu circles. 

You’d rather not stir up a scandal by unintentionally snubbing a Zenin or someone equally important. With this in mind, you politely inquire, “Can I help you?” 

“That uniform… you’re a high schooler, right?” 

You nod, figuring that this confirms your hypothesis. 

“What year?” 

This question makes less sense. Maybe he wants to know your proximity to Suguru, or, far likelier, Satoru. These types always have their own designs for the pride of the Gojo clan. 

“I’m a second-year.” 

“I see, I see,” he begins rummaging through his blazer’s inner pocket. He procures a business card and holds it out. “How about a job? From the looks of it, you’d make a good fit.” 

You blink. 

Are you… allowed to do freelance work? You’ve heard of specific sorcerers being requested for jobs, but that’s always been through the school. Besides, as a Grade Three, you don’t think you can go on unsupervised jobs. Not wanting to seem rude, you reach out to accept the card— 

—Only for it to be intercepted. 

“Sorry, she’s completely booked,” a voice that sounds the furthest thing from apologetic chimes in. 

Gojo Satoru stands to your right, adorned with his circular sunglasses and trademark grin. He rips the card in half without so much as a second thought. You stare at him, incredulous. Questions swarm around your head. When did he get here? How didn’t you notice him until now? Why does his cursed energy have such an unnerving quality to it? 

He bends down and hangs his arm around your shoulder. “You’re somethin’ else. Ignoring Suguru and I’s calls, chatting up strange men in Kabukichō… I swear, we can’t take our eyes off you for a second.” 

“Wh— I’m not chatting anyone up!” You whisper yell. His infinity nullifies enough for you to jab a finger at his chest. “Why can’t you give better directions?! ‘West of the Edo Castle’ doesn’t tell me anything, it just sounds like a TV drama!”

Satoru shrugs. “Should’ve just asked an auxiliary manager to drop you off.” 

“You might treat them like a personal taxi service, but I’d rather not. Taking the train’s fine.” 

The man finally overcomes the shock inflicted by Satoru’s audacity, taking a step forward. “What are you, her boyfriend or something?” 

“Bleh, no!” 

“Future husband.” 

Yours and Satoru’s responses come out simultaneously. 

“In that case—” 

“Excuse me,” A new presence interrupts the increasingly irritated man. Suguru wears a friendly smile which somehow comes across as more menacing than Satoru’s wolfish grin. He places a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You are aware that it’s a minor you’re trying to recruit, correct?” 

The man flushes at the accusation. “Listen, I dunno what you’re trying to accuse me of—” 

“I’d hate to see you get in trouble for a mistake like that,” Suguru cuts him off again, raising his voice ever so slightly. This attracts the attention of some bystanders. “Who knows what consequences that’d result in, especially for a married man like yourself…” 

Huh. You hadn’t even noticed the gold band on his ring finger. Suguru’s nothing if not perceptive. 

Nearby commuters whisper amongst themselves while eyeing the scene. The man’s gaze flits between a self-satisfied Satoru and an overly polite Suguru, eventually settling on an escape route. Wordlessly, he departs, although you swear you overhear him muttering ‘crazy kids’ and ‘doomed girl,’ along the way. 

“Yo, Suguru. Took you long enough.” 

“Unfortunately, not all of us can teleport.” 

“Your curse did a better job at tailin’ me than you.” 

Ignoring the jab, Suguru dusts his hands off while honing in on you. “You alright? You weren’t answering our calls.” 

“And you’re late,” Satoru whines. He helps himself to searching through your purse, taking your pink Razr hostage. “Huh. Battery’s dead.” 

Suguru appears content. “What’d I tell you?” 

“If she’s blocked me before, the same could happen to you.” 

“I wouldn’t block Suguru.” 

“She wouldn't block me.” 

This time, it’s you and Suguru who speak concurrently. Satoru pouts, putting his hands up like he’s under attack (which he probably believes himself to be). You snatch your phone back without issue, unlike when he last stole it. He unblocked himself and dangled it above your head until you promised you wouldn’t do that again.

“And here I was, about to treat you both to pastries,” Satoru sighs, melodramatic as ever. 

“While we were waiting for you, I noticed creampuffs and macaroons on the menu; which would you recommend?” Suguru inquires, not bothering to acknowledge Satoru’s complaints. 

“That depends on what you want from the experience,” you mimic his decision. “Creampuffs tend to be one flavor, whereas macaroons come in multiple, so the variety’s nice. When I get a variety pack, I always end up disliking one of the flavors and wishing I’d just gotten my favorites instead.” 

Satoru sighs as loud as he can. “Right, right, I’m just a walking wallet. Let’s get going before someone else solicits [First].” 

“Eh?” You turn your head to face Satoru. “‘Solicits?’ As in…?” 

“Se—” 

Suguru slaps a hand over Satoru’s mouth. “What he means to say is that this isn’t the best area for a high school girl to linger.”

“W-Wait, hold on! I thought he was like a… er, how would you say that… sorcerer employer?” 

They both stare at you. 

“You do know what Kabukichō’s famous for, right?” Suguru tentatively asks. 

“Hm? ‘Kabuki’ is a type of traditional theater, isn’t it?” 

“...” 

“...” 

“Let’s just show her what we mean,” Satoru bends down, picking up two halves of the business card he split in half earlier. “It’ll be a good lesson. I’d rather not have to come fetch her in this place again— oh.” 

Suguru inspects what has the power to shut Gojo Satoru up. You watch as his eyes move back and forth, his face shifting while he does so. His lips narrow into a thin line when he pulls back. Curious, you stand on your tiptoes, hoping to catch a glimpse yourself. Thankfully, there’s yomigana above some of the kanji you don’t recognize. This eliminates any possibility of you misreading the card’s contents. 

‘Oh’ indeed, you think. That poor guy…

It’s a business card for the company that oversees AKB48. 

[fallingstqrss]

kiss it better

request: can you do a one-shot just like the scene where coryo goes insane because he thinks that the reader left him in the cabin but she didn't and they just go to spend some quality time.

a/n: thank you so much for the request i love this idea!

summary: following the death of Mayflower and Billy Taupe you and coriolanus decide to flee the districts, hoping to avoid the persecution of the peacekeepers. however, when you seem to get lost in the woods coriolanus panics.

warnings: there is a brief description of mayfair's death but it's not detailed. coriolanus might be slightly ooc cause this is my first time writing him but i swear im trying my best.

Coriolanus had made a huge mistake. he hadn't meant to kill Mayfair, he just panicked. He was just going to let her leave but then you walked in, making you a part of Sejanus' horrible plan.

"What's going on?" You spoke, eyes moving from Coriolanus to the weapons that lay on the table. Coriolanus saw as your eyes widened and he hurried to comfort you. "Corio, what's going on?" You questioned again, clutching onto his bicep, hoping for reassurance.

"Y/n, it's gonna be fine-" Coriolanus started, attempting to soothe you as he ran a hand across your cheek.

"Oh, none of you are going to be fine. I'm gonna tell my Daddy what all of you did and he's gonna string you up!" Mayfair spoke in an almost taunting tone. Her threat casts a chilling shadow over the room. As Mayfair turned to leave Spruce, fueled by tension and adrenaline, raised the gun to her back.

"I can't let you leave," Spruce spoke. Y/n took an unconscious step back, recoiling from the potential for violence. Coriolanus could tell you were scared and he felt horrible for being the reason you were involved in this. His mind was racing, he knew he had to get you out of there.

"She's bluffing, she won't actually do anything." Billy Taupe defended, eager to avoid any harm that might come to his girlfriend and to deescalate the growing tension in the room.

"Really? Was I bluffing at the reaping? Tell me Lucy Gray, how did you like your time in the Capitol?" Mayfair spoke, eyes staring at Lucy Gray, who gasped. Mayfair smiled as she turned to leave. Coriolanus jumped at the opportunity, lunging for the weapon on the ground. In a single second Mayfair had fallen to the ground. You gasped, your eyes fixated on Mayfair's fallen figure. Coriolanus was quick to shield you from the unsettling sight, positioning himself in front of you.

"I need you to go home y/n. I'm going to get this figured out. But you need to go home right now and you can't look like anything is wrong," He spoke, his tone firm and filled with urgency. "y/n, please." Coriolanus spoke again when you didn't move. You had stood still, trying to process the events that had just unfolded in front of you. Finally, you looked up at Coriolanus, a nod of reluctant understanding breaking through your shock. You trusted Coriolanus, he would get you guys out of this.

Coriolanus watched you leave, a mixture of relief and worry painted on his face. Once you were out of sight, he turned back to the remaining people in the room. He was determined, now that your safety was at risk nothing else mattered.

That's how the two of you ended up here, walking through the woods, in search of life beyond the districts. Despite some attempts at small talk, the weight of the recent events hung heavily in the air. Coriolanus could sense you were struggling to come to terms with the deaths of Mayfair and, more importantly, your shared friend Sejanus.

"I just don't understand what happened. Sejanus' plan was horrible but he seemed like he was being careful," You rambled on, your voice heavy with confusion and grief. You were unaware of Coriolanus' involvement in the death of your friend. You also didn't notice the tension of the captured Coriolanus at the mention of Sejanus.

"He apparently wasn't careful enough," Coriolanus responded, his tone colder than usual, a deliberate attempt to steer away from the conversation surrounding Sejanus. He longed to focus on the two the two of you would spend together, the new life you could start. Coriolanus was taken aback when you came to an abrupt stop, forcing him to backtrack to stand in front of you. You stared up at him, your eyebrows furrowed.

"Do you not mourn for Sejanus at all, Corio?" You spoke, your eyes reflecting the sadness and confusion that weighed you down. Coriolanus felt a pang of guilt for being distant. However, the truth of Sejanus' death was a burden that he couldn't bear to share with you. He knew you would've never forgiven him.

"Of course, I do," Coriolanus spoke, his tone softer now in an attempt to console you. Coriolanus brought a hand to cup your cheek. "But, it was his actions that killed him." You still seemed unsure, offering a careful nod before turning your gaze to the ground. Coriolanus dropped his hand, moving to walk next to you again.

Eventually, the two of you arrived at the cabin shown to you by Lucy Gray and the Covey. Coriolanus couldn't shake the feeling of your silence, finding it unsettling. The two of you walked into the cabin, setting your things down. "We should fish for a while, we're going to need some food for the rest of the trip," Coriolanus suggested.

"Lucy Gray said there should be some poles under the floorboards," You spoke, avoiding eye contact with Coriolanus as you hung your belongings on the hooks by the door.

Coriolanus nodded, moving towards the boards he found to be loose. He lifted the boards, his eyes widening as he lifted the sheet to reveal the guns that had been used to kill Mayfair. You observed from across the room, a twinge of concern gracing your features. "What is it, Corio?" You questioned, his familiar nickname being a small sense of comfort in the moment of the unsettling discovery. He remained silent, picking up the gun as he turned to face you. Your breath caught in your chest as you saw the weapon, your mind flashing back to the violent events.

"It's the guns," Coriolanus stated, his eyes moving between the weapon in his arms and you. "This means we can go home," You hummed, nodding in agreement. The revelations held the promise of an escape. The promise of a way home. But, they also unearthed memories Coriolanus knew you could never fully forget.

"I'm going to see if I can find anything to eat around the lake, maybe that one root Lucy Gray mentioned," You spoke quickly, shaking your head as she grabbed one of the small shovels left near the door.

"Y/n, wait," Coriolanus spoke, sensing the uneasy energy that surrounded you. "It could be dangerous," Coriolanus spoke, his protective nature kicking in. You smiled as you recognized his instinct to protect you.

"Well, it's a good thing I've got this," You spoke, attempting a teasing tone as you held up the shovel. You could tell Coriolanus didn't quite believe you and you hurried out of the door. Coriolanus was worried for you but brushed off the interaction, trusting that you could take care of yourself. He rewrapped the guns, hoping to drop them into the lake, burying the echoes of the past.

Coriolanus stepped outside heading towards the boat. His eyes circled his surroundings, hoping to find you. However, he didn't see you. He looked around again, his breathing becoming more ragged as he called out for you. He was met with the horrifying echo of his own voice, no response from you.

You had ventured into the forest after finding that Katniss was not ready to be eaten. You had hoped to find some berries, remembering the ones Maude Ivory had collected for you to eat. You attempted to ignore the way the trees seemed to close in on you, the path you thought you knew being erased. You ignored those thought, you had been going in a straight line, there were no place to get lost along the way.

"They should be up here," You whispered to yourself, letting out a sigh as you hoped to break the silence that lay within the forest. The rustling leaves and distant calls of birds engulfed you as you moved throughout the forest.

You had been walking for a while, looking around you realized you have never been in this part of the forest, a sign that you had gone way too far. You turned in various directions, spinning around as you searched for the way you came. Panic began to set in as you quickened your pace, unfortunately leading you to venture deeper and deeper into the forest.

In her disoriented state, you failed to see the root sticking out of the ground. Her foot caught on the root, causing you to stumble forward. Desperation clawed at you as you tried to regain your balance. However, the forest had other plans.

A divot in the ground forced you to the ground as your hands reached out to break your fall. The forest floor met you with a sickening thud, your head colliding with a moss-covered rock. The world around you spun, the pain in your head intensifying with every breath you took. As your consciousness slipped away, the forest seemed to blur into a blend of green and brown, the shadows seeming to dance together in a mesmerizing rhythm.

Back at the cabin Coriolanus grew restless as he awaited your return. The seconds felt like hours as he stared at the tree line, willing you to appear. Finally, Coriolanus was sick of waiting and decided that he would find you himself.

As he ventured into the forest the trees seemed to swallow him. His breaths came out fast, each step propelling him further into the silent forest. Anxiety was clawing at his chest, hundreds of what-ifs raced in his mind.

"Y/n? Did something happen? If something happens we can talk about it!" Coriolanus shouted, pausing as he awaited a response. But he didn't receive one, he only had the rustling leaves to greet him. The silence that surrounded him was deafening.

"Y/n, please say something. I need to know you're okay," He pleaded again. The forest remained silent, offering no hope to comfort his growing concern. Fear painted vivid scenarios in his head, each one darker than the last.

"Please, y/n, if I did something I'm so sorry. We don't even have to talk about it, please just come back with me." Coriolanus pleaded. His pleas became more urgent. His mood shifted from worry to complete despare quickly.

"Please, I can't lose you too." He spoke, this plea much quieter than the previous ones. His voice broke as he spoke, his eyes searching for any clue of you. His steps quickened as he moved around the forest, his handles trembling as he pushed branches out of his way.

"Please, y/n," He called one more time, assuming the worst. He'd come to the conclusion that you left him. It was either that or you were dead, but he couldn't bring himself to grasp the idea that you were dead.

Unbeknownst to Coriolanus, you began to stir on the forest floor. The pain in your head still lingered but the sound of someone's voice distracted you from the pain. You listened more closely as you tried to sit up. Your senses were snapped back into reality when you realized that it was Coriolanus' voice you were hearing. The closer you listened you realized how distressed he sounded and it practically broke your heart. You listened again to his ever-present calls, trying to hear which direction they were coming from, his voice acting as a life-line.

"Corio," you called out weakly, standing as you braced yourself on one of the trees. Coriolanus' head snapped in the direction of your voice. He hurried in that direction, his eyes wide with fear and relief. "Coriolanus," You called out again, wondering if you had imagined him calling for you.

"Hang on y/n! I'm coming," He spoke. Relief washed over him when he finally saw you leaning up against one of the trees, Coriolanus rushed towards you. In your disoriented state you barely even realized he had found you until he engulfed you in his arms. Your senses finally started to come back to you as you reciprocated the embrace, wrapping your arms around his waist.

Coriolanus pulled away for a moment, his eyes scanning your face, he could hardly believe he'd actually found you. He'd thought you were gone for good. Your eyes met his, being met with a vulnerability from Coriolanus you'd never seen before. Coriolanus hated the way you made him felt. He hated how worried he always was for you. But, he also couldn't deny how much he loved you.

"What happened?" Coriolanus finally spoke, brushing your hair out of your face to examine the cut on your forehead.

"I was looking for those berries, the ones Maude Ivory showed us and I got lost, and then I think I tripped," you began to ramble, stopping yourself to take a breath before speaking again, "It's all kind of a blur." Coriolanus nodded as he processed what you said, unraveling his arms from you as he wrapped an arm around your waist to help guide you back to the cabin.

"Well, I think we should get you back to the cabin," Coriolanus spoke and you laughed as you nodded. You'd had enough of the woods.

Back at the cabin Coriolanus used one of the med-kits you'd brought to clean you up. Your heart swelled at how gentle he was, his hands moving cautiously over your face.

"So, will I survive?" You questioned, a smile gracing your features.

"I think you'll be okay," Coriolanus responded, a smile of his own coming across his face. But, you could tell the smile didn't meet his eyes. You could tell something was still bothering him. The sunlight pouring in from the windows illuminated the worry that was still present in his eyes, a silent acknowledgment of the fear he'd felt when he thought you'd abandoned him in the forest.

When Coriolanus finished cleaning the wound he set the supplies to the side and leaned in, placing a delicate kiss on the spot he'd just tended to. The warmth of his lips lingered on your forehead, a comforting gesture that transcended the physical healing.

"There, kissed it better." Coriolanus whispered as he moved away from you, cleaning up the remaining supplies of the med-kit.

Despite his comforting gesture, you couldn't ignore the concern that was still etched on his face. As he finished putting the med-kit away he turned to look at you, being met with your questioning gaze. "Corio, you've been on edge since we got back. What's wrong?" You questioned him, taking a couple steps closer to him so you could wrap your arms around his waist.

Coriolanus hesitated, his eyes betraying his turmoil of emotions. He opened his mouth to respond but the words got caught in his throat. Tension lingered in the air as you searched his face for clues on what he was feeling.

"It's nothing, y/n. Just a scare, that's all. Everything is fine." Coriolanus spoke. However, despite his attempts to comfort you, you could still sense his unease. You reached upwards, cupping his face to draw his attention.

"Come on, Corio. Talk to me," You spoke. Coriolanus sighed, he was torn between his desire to shield you from his concerns and the intimacy the two of you had always shared. Eventually, he gave in.

"I just... I can't stand the thought of anything happening to you. losing you in the woods, even if it was just for a moment, it terrified me." Coriolanus confessed softly. Your eyes softened at his confession.

"I'm right here, Corio. I'm not going anywhere." You assured, he nodded. "I love you, Coriolanus. Wherever you go, I'm gonna be there." You spoke, his words caught him off guard. The two of you had never used the word love.

"Y/n..." Coriolanus started, his eyes moving away from you. However, your hold on his face forced his attention back onto you. "I've never been good at this, relationships. I'm afraid of losing you, of not being enough." You nodded, you understood Coriolanus' insecurities as he'd previously voiced some of his concerns to you.

"Corio," You took a step closer, "I love you for who you are. I don't need you to be perfect." You assured him. Your words hung in the air, in that moment, leaning into Coriolanus, your lips meeting his in a tender kiss. Coriolanus, having been initially surprised by the kiss, eventually surrenders to the kiss. When the two of you pulled away you spoke again. "I want to go back to the Capitol, Corio."

Coriolanus looked surprised but that was overtaken by a look of happiness. He wanted nothing more than to return to his home and family, and now that you did too there was nothing stopping the two of you. "Wherever you wanna go, I'll follow you." Coriolanus spoke, repeating the words you'd said earlier, you smiled at him.

The decision being made, the two of you faced what leaving the woods meant. Coriolanus worked to dispose of the guns while you packed the remaining items you had at the cabin. As you walked out of the door you saw him pushing the boat back to shore. Coriolanus jumped out of the boat, outstretching his hand for you. You smiled at the gesture, moving to meet him, enclosing his hand with your own.

[thaliagracesgf]

i hail a cab with a goat, and make some questionable decisions at a party

next

author’s note: i want to make it, like, really, really, clear that this is not a fic glorifying sa or being a victim. what the reader goes through here is a horrible experience, one that’s happened to me and countless other women (and other people!!). this fic is for anyone who, in the words of rachel sennot in bottoms, has been “gray-area-d,” and felt completely lost afterwards, not knowing how to feel or what to think. this is one example of how you deserved to have been treated, and i’m sorry if this or something similar wasn’t your experience. 

content warnings: sexual assault (not graphic and not by luke! r is sort of tied down and has their shorts undone), violence (luke is not happy about this situation), alcohol (r is drunk), talking about it afterwards?, talking about monsters (on a regular pjo level), swearing. 

word count: 6.6k. i had a lot to say. so sorry.

this is the first fic i have written in a while, i hope you enjoy it!

⭑

seven a.m. in the camp half-blood dining pavilion saw the same faces every morning. you, silena beauregard, clarisse larue, and annabeth chase. your little group of friends spanned six years, at seventeen, fourteen, thirteen, and eleven, and your best friend, who had been off at college all year, made it eight. 

you didn’t remember becoming friends with silena and clarisse, although you figured hannah, your best friend and silena’s older half-sister, must have introduced you, and clarisse came along with her. 

you had met annabeth and hannah when you were just thirteen, when you had followed a friend to connecticut in the middle of pre-algebra. 

“do you understand any of this?” you whispered to grover. he gave you a look as if he had never seen a fraction before last week, and you sighed. your teacher, a kind old woman named ms. lucy, gave you a look. when she gave the class a new problem to work through, she came and knelt by your desk, looking over your shoulder at what you had managed so far. which was a whole lot of nothing, unless you included a sketch of grover that would make picasso proud. you shrunk sheepishly in your chair. 

you looked to your right, as if trying to see how bad it really was compared to your model, but he was gone. you turned back to ms. lucy. 

“did you see grover leave?” 

“hmm?”

“grover. did he go to the bathroom?”

“i assume so, dear. if you convert the decimal—" but grover’s things were gone. you felt terrible. you knew you were a terrible student, and ms. lucy was so kind to you anyways, but it wasn’t like grover to walk out of class like that. he was terrified of authority.

“i have to go,” you mumbled to ms. lucy, throwing your things in your bag and slinging it over your shoulder. “stomachache.” 

she looked genuinely concerned. “would you like me to let the nurses know you’re coming?”

“no… no. that’s okay.” and you ran out the door. 

it wasn’t too hard to find grover. he was sitting in an empty classroom just a few doors down, but what was weirder was that he was watching a video on the projector. weirder still, he was talking to it. you knew it was rude to eavesdrop. it didn’t stop you from doing it. 

“chiron, i can’t just leave. she’s here, and she’s in danger. she needs a protector. anything could come for her at any moment—" was he talking about you? 

a deep voice over the projector, whose face you could hardly make out through the low-quality image, answered: “i will inform her mother and she will go home. she will stay there until we can send gleeson to collect her and—"

“why can’t you send gleeson for these kids?” 

“he’s too far, it would take him a day at least to reach them. i already told you, this was a request from hermes himself. he wants his son and his friends collected as soon as possible, and—" 

who the hell was gleeson? and hermes… who names their kid after a greek god? at least choose one with a better name than hermes. it sounded like a disease. your mother had named your brother after some greek hero, but he didn’t go by it. and at least it was, like, a human name. 

“he’s the god of travelers.” you were starting to worry that grover might be on drugs. what on earth had they put in those enchiladas at lunch? “can’t he get him, like, a car? a day could be too long for—"

“grover.” the voice boomed. that shut him up. “you will go. you will escort the son of hermes, the daughter of athena, and the daughter of zeus to camp, and then you may return to the city. this is not up for discussion.” you were really starting to think that the booming voice might have been two booming voices, but the door was closed and the audio was already crackly, so you decided it didn’t really matter. 

you heard grover’s voice say, “alright,” defeated and almost mournful, and then the message cut off. your eyes widened as you realized that grover would probably step outside any second, and you would have no excuse as to what you were doing with your ear to the wall. you turned slowly, and winced as your shoe squeaked on the linoleum floor. you started speedwalking. no sense in trying to hide anymore, you were just interested in getting as far away as possible before-

“oh, gods.” grover’s voice echoed between cinder block walls and metal lockers. “how much did you hear?”

you turned, your fingers nervously twisting the straps of your backpack. “i mean. not everything. just. you know.”

“almost everything?”

“yeah.”

“this is not good. this is really not good.” grover wasn’t talking to you anymore. he was pacing the short ways of the corridor, head in his hands, muttering to himself. “my first mission and i’ve already messed it up completely.” 

“how could you have messed it up completely? you haven’t even met these kids yet.”

“oh, gods,” grover groaned.

“woah, dude. are you like, hindu or something?”

“what?”

“you said gods. plural. i read this book—"

“okay,” grover interrupted. “you need to go home.” 

“okay. that was rude. also, it’s like the middle of the day. my mom’s at work and my stepdad will kill me if i come home early.”

“your stepfather. perfect. just climb in the back window of your room, and when your mom gets home, tell her that chiron says you need to go to camp immediately.”

“what? what the hell are you talking about? who— is that who you were talking to on the phone?”

“what?”

“the phone call. the one you were mad at me for overhearing…”

“okay. first of all, that was not overhearing, that was eavesdropping. second of all, i’m not mad. this just complicates things slightly. third of all—"

“dude, you need to—" grover glared at me, and i shut up. 

“third of all,” he repeated, “that wasn’t a phone call. it was an iris message.”

“a what?”

“nevermind. not important. ask about it at camp.”

“why do you keep talking about a camp? i haven’t been to camp since music camp in second grade, and they don’t want me back. i was really, really, bad at the recorder.”

“you played the recorder?” grover looked suddenly very interested. “nevermind. you need to go home.”

“dude. i’m telling you, i. can’t.” 

“you have to—"

“take me to connecticut,” you suggested. 

“what?”

“isn’t that where you’re running off to?”

“you can’t come to connecticut with me—"

“why not? you seemed pretty adamant on the phone—"

“iris message”

“that you needed to be with ‘her’. based on how insanely you have freaked out, i’m guessing that was me. so take me with you.”

“i know you have no idea what is going on right now—"

“thank you for finally acknowledging that important part of this conversation.”

“- but taking you to connecticut would be an astronomically bad idea. like i-would-get-fired kind of bad idea.”

“you’re twelve. how on earth would you get fired? child labor laws are—"

“i’m nineteen.” 

you laughed at that one. “yeah, sure.” 

grover rolled his eyes. “look, i really, really, wish i could explain more, but i need to go. and i really, really need you to go home.”

“ok.”

“like really, really need you to listen—" he paused. “okay? great!”

“if it means that much to you, i’ll go home.” grover sighed with relief. 

he was eating his words. and a tin can he had picked up off the street. you had followed him out of the building, watched him call a cab, and then, at the last second, jumped in after him, slammed the door, and told the driver to drive before grover could figure out what was going on. 

after your initial panic, when you realized you were hurtling up fifth avenue at three-hundred miles per hour with three old ladies behind the wheel, you had straightened yourself out, and made grover explain everything. he had, reluctantly, when he came to terms with the fact that you were in too deep to back out now.  

he explained camp, the greek (not hindu) gods, and the ladies in the front (who had one eye between them) were very helpful about filling in the details. so, so many details. he explained that he didn’t know who your parent was, just that you were powerful, and that he was planning on asking your mom before everything went up in flames.  

he explained that he was going to connecticut to escort three (now four) demigods to camp half-blood, and that they would likely be tailed by monsters the entire way back. four demigods as powerful as you, and one forbidden child — a child of zeus, poseidon, or hades, as he had mentioned — would attract a lot of attention. 

and you did. it took you a month to get to camp after you found thalia, luke, and annabeth, constantly being thrown off course by monsters, over which you got to know them better than any friends you’d had in your life (with the exception of maybe grover and your little brother). your mother was worried sick, but you iris-messaged her (grover finally got through on that one) every so often, letting her know you were okay. she was surprisingly understanding about camp. she apologized that she hadn’t been the one to take you herself, and that she had been forced to hide the truth from you for so long. the calls always ended though, when she tried to tell you who your father was. the water would shut off suddenly, the rainbow disappearing along with your mother, so you learned to avoid the topic if you wanted to continue talking. 

when thalia died, you were in shock. you sat at the edge of long island sound at camp for three days, staring into the ocean. you didn’t speak, even when you were claimed, as you sat, by your father, poseidon, and shuffled your things from the hermes cabin into cabin three. it was just another loss — you could no longer sleep in the bed next to luke’s. there were no familiar faces in cabin three — no faces at all. you were completely alone. 

eventually, an older aphrodite girl came by the cabin. she introduced herself as hannah, and she showed you around camp, forced you to sit with her and her siblings at dinner, dealing with chiron and mr. d’s disgruntlement herself, and at the campfire. she dragged you to the center of the amphitheater, dancing slowly at first, and then faster, until you were laughing and finding luke and annabeth in the crowd and dragging them to dance as well. 

you missed hannah so much. she wasn’t that far, a first year at barnard this fall, where you would hopefully be in a couple of years. you weren’t ready for college yet, you thought, so you would take a gap year (though you hadn’t been in school for years) and stay at camp, while chiron would help you convince the admissions committee (using the mist) that you had a perfect gpa, excellent extracurricular activities, and a stellar recommendation letter from a highly admired ancient greek scholar by the name of professor c. brunner.  

sitting at breakfast with you was probably miserable, you could admit. you were counting down the days until hannah came back, and your friends were definitely tired of it. but for some reason, this morning silena was practically jumping up and down with something. 

“will you stop?” you asked. “you’re shaking the entire table.” 

“i can’t, i’m sorry.” she seemed sincere in her apology. “i just— oh, you’ll see.”

you didn’t see, in fact, as someone jumped out from behind you and wrapped their arms around your head, their sweatshirt covering your eyes. “who—" you started, before you got a whiff of lavender-vanilla perfume and jumped up from the table. 

hannah. you shrieked, probably waking up half the camp. you spun around and tackled her to the ground, hugging her so tightly you would probably cut off her circulation. 

she pushed you off, laughing, and got to her feet. “it’s good to see you too, babe. what’s up with all of you? you never call, i feel like i’ve been completely cut off.” (you had iris-messaged her last week for five hours). 

“your sister is still absolutely obsessed with beckendorf,” you said, sitting down.

“hey!” silena protested.

“but of course he has no idea that he likes her.” silena turned pink. “no one here is good enough for annabeth, obviously—"

“i never said that, clarisse doesn’t let any boys near me.” you stick your tongue out at her. 

“i don’t know what you’re talking about,” clarisse said, feigning obliviousness. “you hang out with luke all the time.”

“he’s always hanging out with that new kid.” she grumbled. “or—"

“speaking of, clarisse definitely thinks this hermes boy is so cute— you haven’t met him, he got here a few months ago, but his name is chris, and i think they would be so cute together. she’s out of everyone’s league, obviously, but if anyone would be good for her—" 

“gods, you would think you’re the aphrodite kid, listening to you.” hannah smiled. she stole a bite of your french toast. 

“i’m just excited to see you,” you said, laying your head on her shoulder. silena and clarisse smirked. 

“she’s leaving somebody out here,” silena said, smiling. 

“i know, it’s weird, she never shuts up about him otherwise,” clarisse added, narrowing her eyes at you teasingly. 

“oh, who could you possibly be talking about?” hannah twirled a piece of hair. she hasn’t even been here, but one doesn’t forget their best friend’s crush of four years in a few months. 

“i do not,” you protested meekly. 

“you knew who we were talking about, though” 

“i spend a lot of time with him, that’s all. there would be a gaping hole if i told you about my day and didn’t bring him up.”

“would you stop pretending as if you aren’t in love with each other, please?” annabeth interrupted. “you’re worse than them, at least they can admit it.” she gestured at clarisse and silena. 

“i am not in love with him, annabeth.”

“you’re always starting at him.”

“i’m in conversation.”

“with your eyes. that is literally textbook romance.” 

“i could so admit if i was into him,” you say, cutting her off. “i admit things like that all the time. i told you i thought jack was cute. you know that kid from demeter?”

“we all know you made that up,” annabeth said, crossing her arms over her chest. silena gave her a light push. 

“don’t be so quick to accuse, annie.” only you and silena ever called her that. “i don’t think she made it up. i just don’t think she’s as into him as she is into him.”

“would you drop it, about luke, please?”

“hey, you said his name, not me,” silena smiled. “but sure. i don’t believe that you’re not into him, but i’ll drop it if you can prove that he isn’t into you.”

your heart sank. you weren’t sure why, but you suddenly felt nauseous at the thought. hannah’s hand rested on your knee, as if she could sense it. 

“how am i supposed to do that? i can’t read minds.” 

“hook up with jack at the campfire.”

“what?”

“flirt with him! you were just talking the other day about how you’re eighteen and you haven’t even had sex yet.” hannah covered annabeth’s ears, to which she shoved her off and glared. “jack’s, like, really hot. i saw you staring the other day.”

“when luke wasn’t around,” annabeth added, one eyebrow raised.

“you want me to have sex with jack?” 

“i’m not saying that. just flirt with him. see what happens. we’ll— she gestured between herself, clarisse, annabeth and hannah— see how luke is doing.” 

“okay, he isn’t going to be doing anything,” you said. “i don’t see what this accomplishes.” but even as you were saying it, your mind betrayed you. you thought for a second and conjured an image of strong arms holding you, soft lips kissing yours with the bonfire light in the background. maybe you were near the beach.

“we’ll see,” silena smiled. 

you didn’t want to go all the way, or anything. you knew that. but… jack was really hot. and sweet. he was always catching little kids falling off of obstacle courses with soft bushes, and growing them flower crowns. it couldn’t hurt to talk to him, see what happened. maybe he’d ask you out, or something. bring you flowers on a date. and you guessed you wouldn’t mind making out with him. 

the campfire roared in the middle of the amphitheater. the only people there were the older campers, and some counselors trickling back in from tucking kids into bed. you had helped luke with the hermes cabin, because he had so many kids to take care of, and you had none. 

you pulled the covers over katie, a girl a little younger than annabeth, who had gotten to camp a few months ago. she was still unclaimed, but with the way she spent all day in the strawberry fields, and the plants tended to shoot up around her, you were fairly sure where she belonged. 

you kissed the top of her head, and stood up, looking around the dark cabin for luke, seeing him kneeling beside a little boy, probably about the same age as katie. the boy sounded like he was crying. 

 “hey, connor,” luke whispered, rubbing circles on the kid’s back. “it’s okay. it’s okay. i get them too.” you realized that the boy must have been afraid to fall asleep. “travis is right above you, he’ll protect you, okay? nothing bad can happen to you here.”

he looked over at you, before turning back to connor. “and we can play poker tomorrow, you’re getting pretty good.”

“are you leaving?” the boy whispered, choking a bit on his tears.

“just for a little bit, kid. i’ll be back soon, i promise. i’ll be here when you wake up. i’m not going to leave you anytime soon.”

“okay,” the boy mumbled. luke pulled the covers over his shoulders, and ruffled his hair before turning to you. 

“let’s go,” he mouthed, gesturing at the door. the two of you crept outside, luke much more stealthily than you, closing the door silently. “god of thieves,” he shrugged, but he didn’t grin as he usually did when he bragged. you didn’t have to ask why, but you played along. 

“yeah, yeah, i know,” you said, rolling your eyes. “can we go now?”

“yeah, ‘course,” he said. he slung his arm over your shoulder, pulling you into him as you walked, and you couldn’t help but think of silena’s words as you rested your head on his chest.

arriving back at the campfire, you pulled yourself away from luke, walking over to hannah. she smirked at you, pulling you in for a hug. 

“you don’t have to do this, you know,” she said. 

“i know,” you replied. “i want to. he’s cute.” 

and he was, you thought, as he led you away from the campfire. you’d sat for an hour, letting the flames dance over your skin as you talked with him. he made you laugh, even blush when he grew a flower out of the stone to tuck behind your ear. when he grabbed your hand and pulled you to your feet, you felt dizzy, though that might have been the alcohol. 

as you walked further away from the amphitheater, you spun around in the grass, laughing, and he laughed with you. or at you? you couldn’t really tell, and you didn’t really care. you just wanted to kiss him. you didn’t notice that you weren’t heading near the cabins until he stopped in a little cove at the edge of the forest. 

“why are we here?” you asked, a little dazed. 

“come on,” he said. “you know why.” 

and then he was kissing you. it was messy, and made you kind of uncomfortable, but you told yourself to get over it. you couldn’t expect it to live up to the time luke had kissed you, on a dare, when you were thirteen. nothing would ever live up to that, because you couldn’t have him. he hadn’t even cared when you had left him at the party, talking up some girl you couldn’t really see on the other side of the fire.

you blinked, pulling away from jack. you hadn’t realized as you were thinking it, but you had admitted to yourself for the first time that yes: you did want luke. really, really, wanted him. you pushed back on jack lightly. 

“i’m sorry, i don’t think i can do this right now,” you mumbled, wiping your mouth on the sleeve of your hoodie — luke’s hoodie, that he had given you that night after he kissed you, when you were shivering outside, staring into space because you couldn’t understand what you were feeling. 

“come on, it’s fine,” jack replied, pulling you back into his arms. they weren’t like the arms you were picturing earlier. no, you could admit to yourself new that those had been luke’s. your mind was reeling— you knew that you couldn’t have him, that he would never like you like you liked him, but kissing jack felt wrong. not that you had really been kissing him back. 

“i want to go home,” you said, and you weren’t sure where you meant. back to the campfire, to luke and hannah, back to your cabin? maybe even back to your mom on the upper east side, who you missed every day but couldn’t live with during the year for the sake of your little brother, who was too young to know that he, too, was a son of poseidon. 

“really? you were flirting with me all night,” jack mumbled into your lips. “stay a little longer.” it was true, you had been flirting with him. you figured you could at least make out with him for a bit. you resigned, letting him lower you onto the grass, and reluctantly letting him run his hands along the hem of your shirt. 

hannah was getting worried, and luke could tell. he had forced himself off when you were clearly interested in that demeter guy, who luke knew and was friends with but suddenly hated with all his guts. he had forced himself to be interested in getting the details on silena and beckendorf, which he didn’t really realize he was getting to share with you later, resigning to glancing too often through the flames of the fire at your face, and the way the flames made you look like a goddess. no, he thought. you always looked like a goddess. 

but hannah, who had just arrived back at camp for the summer that morning, was biting her lip, and looking around with a bothered expression on her face, and luke had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, that he needed to know you were safe immediately. 

he walked over to hannah, probably too quickly, and didn’t waste time asking how she was, or how college had been. “where is she?” he demanded, too forcefully. he would have to apologize to hannah later, but he only had one thing on his mind.“what’s wrong?”

“oh. hey, luke,” she said, still in a sort of trance. he snapped his finger away from her face, shaking his head.

“hannah? where is she?” 

she shook her head and widened her eyes. it was clear to luke that you had picked up that habit of staring out at nothing when you were deep in thought, usually not about pleasant things. “she’s with jack,” she said. “they left a little while ago. i just… i don’t know. i should go check that she’s back at her cabin by now.” 

“yeah, yeah we should,” luke grumbled, and started taking the steps out of the theater two at a time in an effort to get out. hannah followed— you had told him that his stress could be contagious. 

you weren’t in your cabin. you weren’t in the demeter cabin either, and the pair of them woke up a bunch of kids as you barged in, which he was sure mr. d would have a lot to say about in the morning, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

he ran across the basketball court, hannah close behind. 

“i have an idea of where they might be,” hannah said, pointing in the direction of the woods.

“how do you know?” 

“because i showed jack that spot when we were fourteen,” she said, grumbling. luke clearly wasn’t the only one who cared about you. 

“i thought you were gay?” luke questioned, not slowing down. 

“yeah. like i said, fourteen. people explore things, figure themselves out.” gods, she thought, men could be so incredibly stupid. 

they ran faster than ever to the edge of the woods, where sure enough, they found you, lying on a mossy stone with jack hovering over you. luke wanted to run to you immediately, but hannah held him back — no easy feat, but she managed. 

“hold on, romeo,” she strained. “you can’t just barge in there and—” then she heard it— the unmistakable sound of your voice, and the word stop.

“jack…” you mumbled. you were so drunk. you weren’t sure where you were anymore, and you didn’t really remember walking over here, though you knew you had. “jack, we can do this later, i’m tired—” 

“you’re fine, it’s fine,” he said quietly, starting to undo the zipper of your shorts. you reached down to stop him, but he pushed your hand away, and as it hit the stone, moss started growing over it, holding it there. 

“jack, stop it,” you said, more forcefully this time. you realized that he didn’t even know what he was doing, and for some reason that scared you more. he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he wanted it— he wanted you held down, and he didn’t care that you didn’t. 

he shushed you, but looked up at a rustling in the trees, and a familiar grunt. 

luke broke out of hannah’s arms, but it didn’t really matter, because she had been letting him go anyways. he stormed across the clearing, and while you were still dazed and confused, you couldn’t miss the entirety of jack’s weight being ripped from on top of you, and you thought you saw a fist collide with his face. 

hannah, however, rushed to your side. she didn’t particularly want to see luke end up bloody and beaten in the infirmary, but she had bigger fish to fry right now: namely, you. she tore up the moss, no longer strong as jack’s focus was elsewhere, and redid your shorts for you. there were tears on your face as she pulled you to your feet. 

there was so much noise. jack was shouting at luke, but you couldn’t make out the words. you could hear the music and the gleeful sounds of counselors from the amphitheater, but it seemed worlds away from you. 

as hannah led you out of the woods, much faster than you could really manage, your head began to pound behind your eyes. a splitting pain hit your forehead, and your vision went black and spotty. you stumbled forward, relying entirely on hannah to keep you upright, but one stray tree root took you down. you swam between consciousness and a dark, dark sleep. there was screaming, it was hannah, and then the familiar deep voice of clarisse, barking orders. you thought you heard annabeth’s name, and then two strong sets of arms lifting you up, and carrying you away. 

you woke up at the bottom of the sea. no. that wasn’t right. the bottom of the sea was soft, covered in mud and sand. you tried to stretch your body, hitting plastic walls. as your eyes focused, you could make out cartoon fish swimming entirely too close to your face, and you sat up with a start, splashing water all over a corner of the infirmary. 

a kiddie pool. they had filled a kiddie pool with salt water, and left you in it overnight to soak, like one of those colorful dinosaur toys that grew in water. and the worst part was that it seemed to have worked. you felt brand new, like you had slept for a hundred years, and at the same time followed a very strict workout regimen, taken a juice cleanse and eaten like a king. you groaned, and slipped back under the water. 

you stared at the ceiling, watching wooden beams ripple with the surface of your personal ocean. you wondered if your father ever felt like this is in the pacific, if he could be that big if he wanted to. your camp necklace floated up before your face, crossing a familiar face lurking over you. 

you sat up. cara fletcher, hannah’s friend, held out some nectar. you shook your head. 

“i’m okay.”

she raised an eyebrow. 

“fine,” you sighed, taking the flask and drinking. it did help. you felt like you could take on the minotaur. 

“your friends were here all night,” she said. i kicked them out around ten because they were falling asleep on each other, and i didn’t need any more cracked skulls when they fell off the stools. 

“more?” you asked. she sighed, looking over her shoulder. 

“your boyfriend beat that kid up pretty bad last night,” she said. you didn’t see jack lying on any of the cots, but a head of dark curls lay a few beds down, and the body attached to it did not look to be in great shape.

“he’s not my boyfriend.” you answered quickly, not taking your eyes off of luke. “is he okay?”

cara seemed to make out which he’s you were referring to. “i wasn’t talking about him,” she said. “hannah told me what happened. if you ask me, luke didn’t do nearly enough damage.” 

“don’t tell him that,” you said. “and he’s also not my boyfriend,” you added as you processed her words fully. 

“not yet, he’s not.” hannah said, strolling in with three bagels in hand.

“i thought i told you to go to bed,” cara scolded, taking her bagel. “you’re going to drop dead one of these days.” hannah smiled, ignoring her as he sat down next to her and put her arm around her shoulders.

you glance between them, ideas churning in your mind, but they were quickly interrupted by the bagel being shoved in your face. you had always thought that the harpies must have spent some time in the city— they made a dam good bagel.  

“so.” hannah started. “you are going to tell us everything you’re thinking right now, because i see you looking over at him every two seconds, and don’t think you’re getting out of any of it.”

“i’m eating,” you grumbled. hannah reached to snatch the bagel away, but cara swatted her hand back. 

“she’s recovering.” you stuck your tongue out at hannah. 

“i don’t care,” hannah said. “spill.” 

“look, i don’t even know what happened last night—” 

“because you were really, really, drunk,” she interrupted. 

“do you want me to speak or not?” you demanded. 

“okay. fine. but just so you’re aware, he swooped in and defended you, and beat the shit out of that little asshole, who, just between us, mr. d is fucking fuming with.” trust hannah to get distracted two seconds in. demigod adhd was no joke. “he dragged him to the big house this morning himself, severe concussion and all, and according to lee, chewed him out for about an hour. something about the sanctity of drunkenness and how it is not to be weaponized… even chiron was surprised.” she paused for breath. 

“anyways, the point stands— he,” she nodded her head at luke, “was quite literally your knight in shining armor, and if you still don’t think he is absolutely enamored with you—” and you were pretty sure you heard a cot creak— “then i swear on my mother i will call her down and force her to do something about this because i cannot take it any longer.” 

“he was just being a good person, hannah,” you muttered. “he’s just like that.” 

hannah looked as though she were about to scream, but cara rubbed her hand along her thigh, calming her before she spoke herself. 

“there’s something more than that, isn’t there?” she asked softly, and you thought she was staring directly into your soul. “there’s a reason you don’t think he likes you.”

you hesitated, splashing the water around in your pool and making eye contact with a cartoon fish as you worked up the courage to say what it was you knew you had to get off your chest.

“before last night,” you started, your voice cracking as you spoke, “it was just me thinking i wasn’t pretty enough, or good enough for him. that he wouldn’t look at me because there are so many other girls at this camp who are obsessed with him. and i don't think i realized that i liked him either. but now…” a sob came from the back of your throat, and you looked up at hannah, tears streaking your red face. 

“why would he want me now?” you sobbed.

“hey. stop that,” hannah started. “what jack did to you wasn’t your fault, and everyone knows that.” she was trying to make you feel better, but the news that your pathetic love life was the talk of camp wasn’t exactly reassuring.

“it was, though,” you said quietly. “i led him on. i never told him no that strongly, and i was flirting with him all night. what reason did he have not to think… not to…” you were hyperventilating now, your words coming out in broken syllables. 

“i’m a fucking slut, and now everyone knows it,” you managed. you sank back into the water to slow your breathing, but tears still streamed down your face. 

“that’s bullshit,” came a voice from elsewhere in the infirmary. you could have thrown up then and there. you pulled yourself up by the walls of the kiddie pool, looking down the aisle as luke castellan limped towards you. his scarred eye was bruised and bloodshot, and he had a massive scrape running up his left arm, and that was just what you could see. the tears began to fall faster. 

“luke…” 

you were thirteen years old again, at the top of half-blood hill, holding grover upright. you were watching desperately as he stumbled upward, through the pouring rain, carrying a screaming little girl who was trying with all her might to run back and help her friend. all four of you were sobbing, exhausted and beaten. seeing them all like that was ten times more painful than the gash in your side. 

“that’s bullshit,” luke repeated. you got up from the pool and held his face in your hand, inspecting the bruise. you took the rest of the nectar cara had given you, holding it to his lips, but he pushed it away. “you’re not a slut,” he said. suddenly everything about your conversation came rushing back to you, and it hit you that you had just admitted to him that you were in love with him. 

you turned your head. hannah and cara were gone, slipped out the back door. you turned back to face luke, face red and tears pouring over your skin.

“that wasn’t your fault. you didn’t owe him anything. he‘s disgusting, and deserves to have his fucking dick cut off.” you laugh, despite everything. 

“i think mr. d may have actually taken care of that,” you whispered. 

“good.” you looked at him for a while. his eyes were so beautiful, a deep, deep, brown that reminds you of the otters that hung mysteriously around your upper east side apartment when you lived in the city.   

“why did you have to fight him?” you asked, reaching up to his face again. 

“you were in trouble,” he said. 

“luke.” the tears were threatening to fall again. “you could have seriously hurt yourself. i just… why? why not just pull him off of me?” you needed an answer. you needed to know why, why on earth he had put so much of himself in front of you, in front of jack’s fists.

he looked down at you, a pained expression on his face. “you know why,” he whispered. 

he looked down at your lips, and you shook your head softly. you looked down at your feet. you were so afraid, afraid that he wouldn’t be interested now that you didn’t want… that. from him. yet— that you considered looking up and letting him kiss you.

he shocked you when he wrapped his arms around you and held you close to him, holding the back of your head into the space between his chest and his shoulder. 

“okay,” he whispered. “that’s okay.” then, softer. “i love you.”

you couldn’t say it back. not yet, not now. but you held him tighter, holding on to him like he was the only thing stopping you from falling into tartarus. 

“i’ll be here forever,” he spoke into your hair. and you believed him. 

the hermes cabin hosted a movie night that night. you were watching the incredibles two, at a request from connor stoll, who was currently involved in an intense argument with annabeth over which installment was better.  

“i think i’m going to start calling you that,” luke whispered in your ear. “jack-jack.” you glared at him. “‘cause, you know, your last name’s jackson-” 

“yeah, dude, i got the joke,” you said. you rolled your eyes, nuzzling your head into his chest. you could stay like this for a while, you thought, and as you closed your eyes, you felt him press a kiss to your head — something you had told him was okay. you couldn’t wait to bring him home for a weekend. maybe annabeth, too. you couldn’t help but think she would get along great with your brother.

⭑

a/n: hello loves! i hope you enjoyed this, please please leave any feedback or anything, and let me know if you would like me to continue this story/write more of luke and the reader's past. i hope people enjoyed the little hints at percy! so excited for this reader and to explore all her relationships.

[pariahsparadise]

animal | s. h.

nav. | m.list

summary: steve proves to you that he can be rough in bed.

wc: 1.4k

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

warnings: smut, p in v unprotected sex (please use protection guys), swearing, shitty writing, unedited as usual

a/n: HEAVILY inspired by that one scene in friends. i have been obsessing over this for the last week, and it's probably better in my head than it is in writing. but i thought i'd share anyways.

Sometimes, it felt like the universe hated you. It was probably the only reasonable explanation for why you and Steve had to run into your ex on date night. The reason why your ex had to make some comment that left Steve feeling insecure, and ended up cutting your date in half to go home. The reason why you were currently in Steve’s room, trying your best to reassure his anxieties about your relationship. 

“No, trust me Steve, you are so much better for me than Chris was!” you protest truthfully, although your next words go unchecked, “I mean, with Chris, it was always just this meaningless, animal sex.”

Steve stills abruptly, a shocked gasp escaping him. You slap a hand over your mouth, eyes wide and horrified at what just escaped it, before you hurry to reason with Steve.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it like-”

“Oh, I think I know exactly how you meant it. Jesus Christ,” he says, running a hand through his hair. 

“No, Steve, I said that it was meaningless-”

“Animal sex, yes, I heard you the first time, thanks.” He cuts you off, agitated. “W-what does that mean, does our sex not have animal in it? At all? Not- not even a little bit?”

“No, Steve,” you repeat, a little more forcefully this time as you cup his face, making him look you in the eye, “You’re not listening. I’m not going to lie to you, because yes, sex with Chris was rough-” Your boyfriend scoffs, pulling away from you, but you drag him back by the collar of his shirt, “-it was rough, but what I have with you is so much better. We- we have the softness, the love, the intimacy between us. I always feel cared for when I’m with you, Steve. I swear, Steve, honey, you are the best I’ve ever had.”

“Until now.”

“What?”

Before you can get any more words out, you’re shoved backwards onto the bed. Steve follows you a second later, crashing his lips onto yours. Your breath catches in surprise, the abruptness and urgency in his motions making your head spin. He takes control of the kiss instantly, hands skimming over your ribs and waist. He inclines his head to deepen the kiss, tongue slipping past your defences before you have time to react. You squeak at the intensity but melt into it quickly, heart stuttering as Steve tugs at the bottom of your shirt. He wrenches the fabric in his hands, pulling it off you expertly, before it’s tossed to the floor and forgotten.

Steve makes even quicker work of your bra, his right hand trailing to your back to snap the strap clean through. Your breath hitches in your throat as you pull back, eyes disbelieving as he peels your ruined bra off your figure.

“That was one of my favourites,” you tell him half-heartedly, watching him throw it over his shoulder, unfazed. Steve doesn’t bother responding, electing to use his mouth to leave harsh nips and kisses all over your exposed collarbone and chest. He leaves a particularly hard bite on the underside of your right breast, shushing your startled cry and soothing the marked skin with his tongue. 

By now, his hands have found their way under your thighs, groping at your ass as he pulls you up by the waist, moaning as you intuitively roll your hips to meet his. He’s painfully hard, and you’re not sure you’ll be able to survive much longer without feeling him inside of you.

“Steve,” you manage, surprised by the breathy quality to your voice, “I need you to fuck me. Now.”

He chokes at the direct command, but manages to recover swiftly. “Yeah, doll?” he asks as he rids you both of your remaining clothes, “You think you deserve it?”

“Please,” you gasp, hands sprawling around you to grab onto something, anything, to anchor yourself as Steve fully slides into you. Ever the gentleman, he waits for you to adjust to his size before he starts moving, setting a brutal pace that propels the entire bed backwards into the wall, banging against it repeatedly, in sync with the sound of skin slapping skin. Fucking you harder than you ever dreamed he could.

“Oh, my God,” you cry out as he straightens up, managing to find the correct angle to hit the spot, pistoning in and out of you mercilessly. You hadn’t lied earlier, sex with Steve has always been good, he’s consistently attentive to all your reactions and practically devoted to your pleasure, careful to never hurt you. But this is a side of him you’ve never seen, a sheen of sweat coating his body, the hair on his chest glorious, his eyes transfixed on where his cock plunges in and out of your drenched cunt. You know that this must paint the sexiest picture. You, on your back, clawing sporadically at the bedsheets under you, your thighs held apart by Steve’s hands, who fucks you like a god.

He’s rough to the point of making you scream, making you writhe helplessly against him, unable to do anything but take what he gives you. It’s wild and passionate, and though you had suspected earlier, you now know that he’s ruined all other men for you.

Your orgasm approaches rapidly, driving you feral, hands clenching into Steve’s forearms for support, leaving scratches you just know he’ll tease you about tomorrow. Steve watches your eyes flutter, feels your cunt clench around him, and offers a silent apology for what he’s about to do.

He pulls out, snatching your release away from you cruelly. Various cries and curses pour from your mouth as you claw at Steve’s arms weakly, frustrated. 

“You didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” he asks you, mirth lacing his words, and you hate how he manages to sound so casual, so unaffected. Fuck him, he’s not even out of breath.

“Steve- please just-” your voice dies away, unable to say any more, and Steve flips you over by your hips.

“No,” he says, voice lower and more stern than you’ve ever heard it, and you shudder. “It’s going to take a while to get you completely fucked out, but believe me, we’re not going to stop until you are.”

His hand reaches for one of the pillows at the head of the bed, and he lifts your hips to prop it carefully under your waist. He presses the small of your back down meaningfully, and you comply to his silent request, arching. You feel the hot press of his cock against your folds as he adjusts against you and shiver, dying for what’s about to come.

Spoiler, it’s you. Around six times through the night, in various positions and on various parts of Steve’s body. When you’re completely and utterly exhausted, throat scratchy from all the screams he pulled out of you, Steve finally takes pity on you, carrying you bridal style into the bathroom, before changing his mind and deciding to bend you over the sink.

After you finally make it into the shower, where Steve had to prop you up to stop you from falling over, and get cleaned, you’re too tired to do anything but sleep. Steve carries you back to his bed and massages your shaking legs, kisses the harsh marks he left tenderly, and strokes your hair, making sure you manage to get some rest in whatever is left of the night. Always, always the gentleman.

“Steve!” you shriek from inside the bathroom, and your boyfriend runs in, looking alarmed. He looks at you with worry, but it fades into a smile as he sees you pointing at the marks he’s left all over your neck, collarbones, and even your breasts. 

“No, stop grinning like that,” you tell him seriously, gesturing wildly at the various hues of red and purple that now make up your upper body, “I have work today! What the fuck do I do about this?”

“Wear a low-necked shirt?” he suggests, half serious, chortling a laugh as you try to punch his chest. 

“Fuck off, Steve, what am I supposed to do? I look- I look like I was mauled by an animal!”

“Oh, weren’t you?”

[twit-ter-pa-ted]

Love Language - Roronoa Zoro

a/n: and here is zoro's love languages rank! i'd love to know what you think his rankings would be and what else he'd do for each love language. feel free to share! thank you for reading! <3

p.s. proofread this while half-asleep

other parts:

Vinsmoke Sanji | Monkey D. Luffy

Physical Touch

Believe it or not, the infamous swordsman is a sucker for physical touch. He has to be touching you in any way or form at all times.

During meals, your hands or even just your pinkies would be intertwined under the table.

He likes holding your hand as you walk together, though he likes it better when you hold onto his bicep.

During bedtime, Zoro would nuzzle into the spot between your neck and shoulder.

To top it off, he's almost struck wide awake when you run your fingers through his hair while he's trying to sleep. It drives him crazy.

This proves to be essential whenever he's supposed to be keeping a lookout while the rest of the crew sleeps.

Acts of Service

He shows acts of services in the smallest, unnoticeable ways.

He would hold you with a guiding hand through treacherous paths, tie your shoelaces for you (better than Luffy would, promise)!!<33

Whenever you find a heavy object that you have to move, you don't even have time to assess how heavy it is. Zoro's already carrying it where you need it to be, no hesitation.

I just love this man sm

Quality Time

When he sleeps, he wants you sleeping with him – that's his quality quality time.

Still, it doesn't always happen because this man sleeps 13 hours a day like a goddamn cat.

So you're left with no choice but to stay awake from him and to be the one to catch him up on what he missed while asleep.

Sometimes though, he'd end up falling asleep again while listening to your voice like it was his lullaby.

So you learned to often trail off whenever his eyes (or rather eye?) would start drooping shut, then he'd open one eye again to look at you and have the audacity to ask "why'd you stop?" As if he doesn't fall asleep most of the time.

Plus, he likes having you around. You seem to have a much better grasp at directions than anyone on the crew or anyone else he had asked before (he can't admit to himself that he has a horrible sense of direction) so he doesn't get lost as much when he's with you (keywords: 'as much'. he still manages to get lost so you'd tie your pinkies together with a string.).

Words of Affirmation

It slips so naturally from his mouth that he doesn't realize how much he affirms you, but neither of you complain.

Wherever it may be, he would never fail to praise you.

In battle, on the ship, on adventures, even in the kitchen where you tried to cook while Sanji was out buying stocks and almost ended up burning it down to the point of no return. He'd praise you for ruining one of the idiot cook's treasures.

You don't understand how natural it comes from him, because he leaves you flustered every time he affirms you.

On the other hand, whenever you give him words of affirmation, he can't help but (subtly) smile in return and give you a peck on the lips to even the score.

Giving/Receiving Gifts

He may not be big on giving gifts for anyone, but for you he is.

Nami doesn't give him much money. So, he instead makes origami figures to give to you with little love notes written inside them.

He made you swear to never tell the crew he would do this.

When Nami does give him money during a pit stop at a village, he goes all out into spending all of it on you. Whether it be food, clothing, jewelry, weapons, anything you wanted.

And whenever it's you that gives him a gift, even if it were just like the origami ones he would give you, he kind of starts choking back tears because he's so moved. But he's a swordsman so he must not show that he is.

Still, that doesn't stop him from hugging you to death and thanking you.

[millenialfanfictionaddiction]

Comparing You to Their Ex-Girlfriend

Featuring Osamu

Osamu Miya x Fem! Reader (she/her pronouns)

Warnings: swearing, arguing, under appreciation, mentions of ex’s, mentions of alcohol, Atsumu being the voice of reason 😵‍💫

AN: I’ve been wanting to continue this series for a while and I figured who better than our favorite Twin, Osamu 🥰

*Atsumu fans please don’t come for me, I adore him I promise 🥺

You and Osamu had been dating for a little over a year and what a year it’s been. Filled with tons of highs and equal lows, you and Osamu had navigated it all together.

When you’d first met Osamu, he had just opened his first Onigiri shop and things were hectic, but you somehow made it work. You’d visit him whenever you could, stop by to support his business and even stay late helping him clean up after close. You were the epitome of a perfect girlfriend and yet, sometimes it felt as if your good deeds went unnoticed.

You knew Osamu didn’t purposely ignore you, he was just busy being a business owner. The stresses of the early mornings and equally long days were hard on him. Still, you wished he’d occasionally throw a “thank you” or a “what would I do without you babe” your way. Nevertheless, you continued to thanklessly help your boyfriend whenever and wherever you could.

On one particularly busy Friday night, you swung by the shop to help Osamu close up, excited that he was leaving the shop in the care of his valued employees so you could spend so much needed quality time together. You pushed open the door, announcing your arrival as you did most everyday, only this time, you were not met with your usual chipper boyfriend.

“I’m here!” You shouted, the door sitting behind you as you placed your coat and purse on the coat rack besides the door, a welcome addition to the cozy little shop. The kitchen door slammed open as Osamu immediately started in on you.

“Dammit Yn you are so late! What took you so long? I’ve been cleaning all by myself!” He shouted as you looked at him, a bit taken aback by his hostile attitude.

“Geez Mr. Grumpy, I’m sorry I’m late but the train was packed, and I had to wait for the next one. I did text you,” you clarified, walking over to the counter as Osamu huffed and turned heading back into the kitchen as you followed.

“Well, I sent everyone home early because I assumed you were coming to help me, but I guess I shouldn’t have because I pretty much did everything myself,” he growled as you stood by the kitchen sink, eyes narrowed on your unusually hostile partner. He was never this mean, never this rude to you.

“Samu, I said I was sorry, ok? Geez it’s not like I don’t come and help you every day after I work a full 8 hours. I even take the train opposite my normal station just to be here to help,” you recalled, trying to keep your cool. Surely something had happened today to warrant this.

“You act like I’m forcing you to be here Yn! Like I’m making you help me out with my store!” Osamu exclaimed as you crossed your arms over your chest. You were done being patient and forgiving.

“I never said that Samu! I offer to help you and I’m always glad to help but you don’t need to yell at me especially when you can’t even spare a thank you half the time for all that I do for you!” You roared, pissed off that he seemed to be blaming you for the free help you offered him.

“Don’t act like you're such a saint Yn! You weren’t here through any of the hard stuff like Amy was! Now she was a real saint!” Osamu hissed as your eyes widened and you took a step back.

Amy was Osamu’s ex-girlfriend and someone you had always felt inferior too. When you had met Osamu, he had told you about how Amy had left him shortly after opening his restaurant, stating that he never had time for her. Osamu was a broken man when you met him, and you worked to help pick up the pieces. He worked long hours, sometimes 7 days a week just to avoid being alone. When you came into the picture, that all changed as you helped him manage his store and make time for himself, cherishing every small moment you had with him.

Tears welled in your eyes as you stood tall, your eyes locking with Osamu’s as you spoke, “Well if Amy’s such a saint, then why don’t you call her up and ask her to come help you close shop because I’m done!”

You pushed open the kitchen door, quickly moving to grab your purse and coat as you swiftly left Onigiri Miya. Osamu stood still as a statue, his mind flooded with guilt as the words he had spoken to you rang over and over in his mind. He snapped from his stunned state, running to the door as he made his way outside to try and catch you.

“YN!! YN!” He shouted, the streets flooded with people as he looked all around for you, only you weren’t answering him, you weren’t there.

You cried as you walked to the train station, your vision blurred from the mascara that flooded your eyes and cheeks. You sat down on the train, pulling your phone out and calling Atsumu.

Your relationship with Atsumu had been relatively strong since he visited his brother's restaurant often with his teammates. You valued Atsumu’s opinion no matter how idiotic it might be at times. The phone rang as you waited for the star setter to answer his phone.

“Hey YN, what’s up?” Atsumu cheered as your voice broke, and you started crying harder.

“A-Atsumu,” you agonized over the phone as the atmosphere of your phone call suddenly changed.

“YN! What the hell? Are you ok? Where’s Osamu?!” He shouted as you began crying harder, surely clearing the entire train car with your blubbering.

“I-I think Osamu is still in love with Amy!” You cried harder, a sigh escaping Atsumu before he spoke.

“Trouble in paradise? I always told you that you were too good for him Yn, but I’m confused, why do you think he’s still in love with that squealing pig? She left him!”

“He-he told me that I’m not as good as she was and that-that I’m not supportive like she w-was,” you responded, snot now running down your nose as you wiped it on your coat sleeve, not even caring how you looked.

“YN, Samu can be a jerk sometimes, trust me but he loves you. There’s no way he would go back to Amy after all the shit you do for him.”

“Well, he never acknowledges all the help I give him, nor does he ever say thank you!” You shouted back as Atsumu sighed again, rubbing his temple.

“Samu adores you YN and he always brags to me how you come after work to help him and how you stay super late just to make sure he gets out at a decent time. He really does appreciate you Yn,” Atsumu countered as you rolled your eyes, frowning angrily that Osamu bragged to everyone about how you helped him but yet never seemed able to spare a single word of appreciation.

“Yeah, well now he’s going to have to figure it out himself because I’m done! And don’t try to talk me out of it Atsumu, your brother is such a fucking asshole!”

“Hey Yn, you ain’t telling me anything new. I’ve been telling people he’s an asshole for 20 some years!”

You talked with Atsumu for a few more minutes before arriving at your home station. You bid him a farewell as you made your way home, swinging by the connivence store to grab booze and drink snacks to drown your sorrows.

Osamu locked up his shop, his mind elsewhere as he made his way back to his apartment. He had been on autopilot since you’d run out, the words he spoke continuously looping in his mind. How could he have said those things? He no longer harbored any feelings for Amy and hadn’t for a long time. He knew shortly after he met you that you were the one for him. You were just as devoted to his dream as he was, and you were always so happy to help him in any way you could.

His phone rang as he entered his apartment. He was hoping it was you but instead he was greeted by the annoying picture of his twin brother flashing on the screen.

“What?” Osamu growled, answering his phone as he heard a chuckle coming from the receiver.

“Messed up big time didn’t ya?” Atsumu laughed as Osamu grew more annoyed by the second.

“What the hell did you call for?” Osamu hissed back as Atsumu cleared his throat, his tone suddenly becoming serious.

“Just wondering how you're going to make it up to her. You really did it this time man. She called me completely heartbroken from the train station,” Atsumu responded as Osamu felt his chest tighten. Sure, he had felt like a jerk before but now he felt like a complete asshole.

“What do I do Sumu? I love her and I really fucked up this time. I brought up Amy which was a fucking low blow and I know it. Worst of all, YN is a million times more supportive than Amy ever was,” Osamu acknowledged, sitting on the stool at his kitchen counter.

“We’ll have you told Yn that?” Atsumu asked as Osamu played with a pen on the table.

“Told Yn what?”

“God you really are an idiot! And here everyone thought I was the stupid one! Have you told Yn how much you appreciate everything she does for you? How she comes after working all day to help you clean up? Or how she makes sure you get out at a decent time? Or even how she stands outside advertising your stupid new onigiri recipes that sometimes taste like absolute garbage?”

Osamu paused, looking up and staring at the picture of the two of you outside of Onigiri Miya. It was one of the first pictures you’d had taken together, and it was right after whirlwind sales day. His mind tried to recall all the times he had thanked you and all the things he had done to show his appreciation. His mind came up blank.

“Fuck! Fuck I haven’t even told her thank you once!” Osamu shouted, grabbing his keys and running from his apartment to the street below.

“Damn not even once Samu? And people say you’re the nice twin?”

“Shut up ya idiot!” Osamu snapped as Atsumu chuckled.

“Go make it up to your girl, ok? But remember who saved your relationship! I want an Onigiri named after me!”

Osamu ignore his brother as he quickly hung up the phone and ran to the station, tapping his feet as he waited for the train to arrive. Thankfully it wasn’t busy as he boarded and waited for your stop.

He ran from the train, booking it across the city as he made his way to your apartment. He took the steps two at a time as he pounded on your door, out of breath as he waited for your answer.

The door opened slightly, your eyes narrowing on his as you slammed the door right in his stupidly handsome face. Alright he definitely deserved that.

“YN please! Please baby- please just listen to me. I know you hate me, and you have every right too. I was a completely selfish jerk, and I said some awful things to you. I’ve taken advantage of all your help and kindness, and I haven’t even bothered to once acknowledge it. The truth is that you’ve done way more for me than anyone ever has, even Atsumu. You loved and supported me and never once complained about it,” he breathed out, tears welling in his eyes as he continues,” I know I don’t deserve you YN but please just know that I love you and I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.”

Behind the door, your eyes flooded with tears again as you listened to his words. You loved Osamu more than anything and while his words stung, you knew he said them out of anger. While it still didn’t make it right, he had come all this way to apologize so the least you could do was hear him out. You turned around, opening the door as you peeked at him, his beautiful eyes meeting yours.

“What you said hurt Samu. It gutted me when you brought her up,” you cried as Osamu deflated. He knew what he said stung. He hadn’t met for his anger to get out of control like that. He knew he had to fix this.

“I’m so incredibly sorry for bringing her up Yn. I don’t have any excuse for what I said. Amy never gave me what you give me. She never supported my dream like you do and that’s why I love you so much Yn. You’re it for me,” he whispered as your eyes again flooded with tears and you opened the door, pulling him into an embrace.

“I love you too Samu and I’ve only ever wanted to see you happy. I love helping you and I don’t need praise all the time but sometimes it would be nice,” you responded as he pulled you in right, holding you close as if you would disappear if he were to let go.

“I can do that Yn, I can definitely do that.”

[bohemian-nights]

Let’s talk about the changed between white book laena to black show laena

Book leana had a pretty awesome life. She married at the age of 22 to a man she loved, traveled the world with him, had 2 babies and they lived happily on driftmark with her family together until she passed away at childbirth despite her loving husband doing everything he can to save her. + her husband remarried 6 months after her death.

Now let’s talk about show leana

She married daemon much younger than book laena, was neglected and unloved by him, was forced to live away from her beloved family and burned herself to death because “feminism” 🤡 only to have her husband sleep with another woman on her fucking funeral. And the showrunners claim they wanted to respect her character?????? Disgusting.

In the book laena is the only wife that daemon seemed to truly love. (Until nettles). He never cheated and they had a happy marriage. But when she’s black suddenly she’s the second choice to the white female lead. What a fucking joke. And then they absolutely spit on her by having her husband sleep with said white female main character on her funeral. This show treats its black characters like shit. I really don’t understand why people aren’t talking about this.

This shows deranged fandom tells you everything you need to know about the problematic way they treat black characters. We haven’t even got nettles’s casting yet. The most important dragon seed. Literally who gives a shit about the others? But I wonder why we have their castings but not the casting of the only canonically black character in the dance???? If nettles is not in season 2 I’m going to drop this show. If they’ll introduce the dragonseeds without nettles they are fucking disgusting.

All of this is why I criticize this shitty show and equally shitty fandom👏🏽

People try to act like you’re the crazy one for noticing how these changes affect the treatment of the characters, but nope fandom racism, more specifically fandom misogynoir, is real and it’s happening with HOTD.

Book!Laena was treated with love and respect, but the moment she became Black-ish she became worthless to both the showrunners and the fandom. All she's good for is to be a prop/placeholder. Hell, when she died people seemed more concerned about Vhagar, a dragon, rather than the woman who lit herself on fucking fire.

They made Laena into a stereotype just to make a crazed white woman’s death look better than it was and this demented ass fandom cheers it on.

Because she’s Black and not a cookie-cutter stereotype in the source material, Nettles' whole existence is a problem to these people and she must be cut, erased, reduced, etc.

They try to say she’s completely irrelevant. That the only reason people like her is because she's Black or out of spite, but I can think of a dozen white characters who don’t even come close to reaching her relevancy to the plot

This is why she’s always included where some characters like Ulf, Hugh, Sara Snow, Alys Rivers, Gwayne Hightower, and Silver Denys are omitted, and 5/6 of those characters are confirmed for s2. And I'm not trying to say none of these characters shouldn't be included(well we could do without 2 of them), but they aren't more important than her.

Nettles literally has all the qualities people usually like in characters(the ordinary girl who despite all odds does the unthinkable, she’s a survivor, she’s a final girl, she has one of if not the most powerful men in the realm willing to die for her, and she becomes a goddess like figure) yet she’s hated for it because she dares to be Black. They won't even try to relate to her or see her importance because she is Black.

They’d rather prop up psychos or mediocre flops just because they are white rather than ever admit that Nettles is an interesting and integral character to the Dance. She’s awesome. The man who created these freaking books that you claim to love and swear his word is law thinks she’s awesome and yet you want to deny that she’s awesome and has no real value because you’re scared shitless she’ll upstage your psycho(book!Missy Anne)/boring(show!Missy Anne) fave.

It’s nuts and like you, I won’t be watching s2 if Netty’s not there. They found time for a maid who shouldn't even be there, propped up Addam to the Gods, and gave Hugh an unnecessary sex scene, all while cutting Nettles out. Nope. I’ll skip straight to s3 cause I’m not dealing with this show's BS and blatant disrespect. It’s unacceptable!

[roseeycreates-blog]

more of farmer au, please! Who's Suyin's dad? tell us more about the gaang and their children? more of farmer Lin? what did Toph find out that ruined their relationship? how come Toph never found Kanto?

Aaaaahhhh! Thank you for taking an interest in the AU! I've said this before and I'll say it again, this makes me so happy~ ANYWAY, I'll answer your questions~

Suyin's dad is Sokka. Let me tell you about the complicated relationship they had. As I mentioned in a previous ask, Sokka was in a relationship with Suki while Toph was with Kanto. After Toph announced her pregnancy to the gaang, Sokka started feeling a little jealous because everyone else, even the one he least expected, had one. He proposed to Suki and asked her to move to Republic City to start a family, but Suki graciously declined. She loved Sokka but couldn't leave Kyoshi Island and her people. They needed her there. Sokka understood because he couldn't leave Republic City and his duties. They both chose their careers over love. Months went by, and then Toph lost her child and her lover. Sokka knew how painful it was to lose someone, so he offered Toph a shoulder to cry on. Toph acted annoyed and insisted she didn't need anyone, but Sokka's persistence won her over. He took extra care of Toph during that time, helping with the investigation and search for Kanto and the midwife. When Toph lost all hope, Sokka was there for her. Old feelings for her friend reignited, and Sokka began seeing Toph as more than a friend. That's how they had Suyin. However, their marriage didn't last. They argued most of the time, especially about Toph's way of raising Su. When Suyin was just 10 years old, her parents split for good. It wasn't a messy breakup because both of them knew they were better as friends than as a couple. Toph also knew that Sokka loved her, but not as much as he loved Suki. About the GAANG and the next-gen:

Zuko ended up with Mai and led the Fire Nation. They were the first to have a child, making Izumi the first baby the Gaang took care of. Toph and Aang spoiled her rotten with gifts and sweets whenever they visited. Katara and Mai often scolded them for going overboard. Aang and Katara had Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin. Unlike in canon, Aang never neglected Bumi and Kya. They always went on family trips, spending quality time together and passing down their Air Nomad and Water Tribe cultures. Izumi’s nickname is Zumi, but Zuko prefers calling her "my princess." Bumi is often called Bubu or Umi by baby Tenzin and later on by baby Suyin. Kya goes by her name, but Aang calls her "my baby girl." She loved it as a kid, but as she grew older, she wasn't as fond of it. When Su was born, Kya was relieved that her dad retired the nickname and passed it to baby Su. Because the adults were often busy, Suyin spent more time with her cousins. Additionally, she spent a lot of time with her father, Sokka, since Toph was frequently occupied with work.

More on Farmer Lin:

Lin had a wonderful childhood despite growing up without a mother. Her father often affectionately called her "Meilin." She found a second mother figure in Lei, her babysitter (also the midwife who delivered her). Lin cherished Lei deeply and once even asked her to be with her father, but Lei always declined, insisting that Kanto was just a friend.

Lin was a quiet child and not very social. She had a few friends from the neighborhood and school. She was known as the quiet kid you never mess with because one time, she snapped and fought off a bully who was picking on her friend.

As a teen, Lin became popular with the boys because of her looks, but she wasn't interested and found them really annoying. Her father would tease her about being tomboyish and say she was too intimidating. She would tease him back, saying, "Maybe I'll marry a feminine boy, and we'll run away and elope, Dad." This always got Kanto, and he would swear that no man would ever lay a finger on his precious girl and take her away from him.

In her young adult years, Lin inherited her grandpa's farm, including the existing workers whom she chose to keep on. Despite their assurances that they can handle things, Lin insists on personally tending to the plants. She also has a soft spot for the farm animals and owns a shepherd dog named Zhenzhen. He's incredibly loyal and friendly to Lin but also fierce and protective of her.

Toph and Kanto's relationship hit the rocks when:

Toph discovered his ties to a gang, later known as the Triple Threat Triad. They argued fiercely because Toph insisted on getting him and others involved arrested. Kanto begged Toph, promising to reform and leave the gang, but Toph remained firm. She insisted he stay free until after she gave birth, after which he would face justice.

Despite Toph's efforts, Kanto managed to evade her thanks to his connections in Ba Sing Se. With "Kanto" being a common name, especially in the Fire Nation, Toph focused her search on finding a firebender named Kanto within the Fire Nation. Meanwhile, Kanto played the part of a non-bender widowed father, complicating Toph's quest to locate him.

[my-name-is-bunnyfoxy]

Rise Leonardo HEADCANNONS

While he is often joked to be the gay one on the team, he is actually abrosexual who currently switches between bisexual and or pansexual.

His favorite singers are Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Arianna Grande and at times will listen to Justin Bieber.

His favorite comics are DC and his favorite is the Flash and also enjoys Kid Flash. He also loves Beast Boy because he finds him funny.

Leo knows how to cook and bake. Though doesn't really do it often. He does it when he is hungry or bored. Or simply when Mikey can't make them any food.

He has actually babysitted Senor Hueso's son a few times. Mostly taking him out for ice cream, arcade and also buy him whatever he wanted.

Leo enjoys finding any poster or anything with some kind of picture on paper and hanging it on his walls in his room. He also enjoys at times just getting another copy of a comic he already has and cutting out pages and plastering them on his wall thinking it looks cool.

He enjoys collecting action figures and will actively snatch one he finds even if it came from the trash can.

Donnie judges Leo's outfit choices on many occasions and Leo learnt to deal with it. Though then he would just trash Donnie's clothes and make a mess whenever he gives him the most hurtful judgement.

When he is dealing with stress or feeling depressed he will shut his door, plop headphones on, get cuddled and put on his favorite movies and admire characters who he can relate to.

He jokes being a blonde girl after 'Bad Hair Day' episode.

He doesn't like cream the best. Despite that, he will devour cream cake anytime.

Whenever he wants to vent, he looks at a mirror and puts a photo of one of his family members or friends and start venting to them. He would eventually after the events of the movie start to communicate properly and start to genuinely vent to his close ones. He felt as if it was better then to bottle his emotions.

While he is seen as the type of guy to swear on a daily, he actually swears the least along with Donnie. Only when he is fully in-raged and in need of using curse words to express his rage or any other emotion of his. I'd say he is the 3rd to swear.

He actually sneaks out a lot with April to skateboard at a roller skating park at night.

If he had an Instagram, most of his pictures would be of his brothers sleeping or just fails or pranks.

He sliced a rabbit in half... (I feel like certain shippers are gonna come for me or start making jokes about that one rabbit character TMNT has crossovers with lmao-)

For absolutely, NO REASON, he begged Draxum to film him doing a very dangerous stunt with his tentacles. That day he broke 75 limbs and 2 of his ribs and lost 100 pounds of blood (not really but he broke a lot of bones)

He's a sci-fi nerd. Besides, Jupiter Jim, his favorite sci-fi movies are Star Wars, E.T., Monsters VS Aliens, Batman VS Superman.

He loves poor quality movies because he can then make fun of them. That's why him and Raph stopped watching live-action Disney movies-

He developed massive claustrophobia when Raph sacrificed himself for him and got in the pod.

Clings onto Raph after the movie and they both put a leash on each other 24/7 to make sure they are safe. Also since Leo is aware of the tracking devices, he always asks Donnie where Raph is. The same is with everyone else.

[gentle2angel]

Trey Clover x Fem!Baker!Reader

Summary : You opened a small bakery downtown not long ago and a certain green haired student heard highly of your small business. He comes to visit just to make sure if it wouldn't threaten is family business..

!! Warning.s :: None

ˏˋ•╰┈➤ ᴘᴀʀᴛ 1 ,

Time flew by as it was already lunchtime for the students at Night Raven College. Two young men made their way to a closed space outside. Usually, they both eat at the cafeteria with the rest of their friends, but Trey wanted to study an upcoming exam and Cater could always use some help with his homework's.

As Trey was explaining something to Cater, the ginger suddenly sighed loudly. " You lost me Trey, I don't understand a single thing of what you said.. ". Trey looked at his friend dumbfounded. Cater changed position into a more relaxed one and pulled his cellphone out. He took a photo of the green head man who had a disappointed expression on his face. " And click! ' Boring study session with the school drunk Trey! '. ". He giggled to himself while reading his caption out loud. Though, Trey wasn't pleased with Cater's description of him. " That was really unnecessary. ". The teenager didn't seem to care about his friend words, he just suddenly gasped had what was on his screen.

As the phone was almost smashed into the young bakers face, Cater excitedly started rambling. " OMG, I cant believe I forgot to tell you about this! A new bakery opened in downtown not long ago and I tried some of their sweets. " Trey finally had a better view of the photo and saw a really well decorated café with many cute pastry's. " They were ON TOP and the service was amazing. Btw, the bakery is so pretty, literally couldn't stop myself from taking pictures! ". He couldn't disagree, the bakery was actually really fascinating and he couldn't doubt his friend on his statement of the food quality.

Trey decided that after school, he would go and take a look at it. Caters review made him intricated in this new bakery. Was it that much of a deal? Maybe after all, his family business would get some competition.

The last class of the day came to an end and the green haired man started to make his way downtown. He didn't have time to go to his dorm and get changed, because if he did, the shop would already be closed. He couldn't risk it, as he didn't want to visited in the morning knowing how much of a rush it usually is.

... - ... - ... - ... - ... - ... -

The sun was settling down and soon, you'll have to close the shop. You sighed in relief as your day is close to come to an end. You still needed to do some cleaning tasks, but it's nothing too tiring.

Focused on cleaning the counters, you almost didn't hear the front bell ring. The melody made you lift your head up only to be meet with a tall figure. A green haired man, maybe 1 or 2 years older than you, walked towards you. Standing behind the front desk, almost frozen, you had the time to analyze the stranger. You assumed he rushed here since he was still in his school uniform.

You finally looked up to take a look at the upper level of his body and saw his beautiful face features. Your cheeks began to rose up as you realized how attractive the young man was. You couldn't take your eyes away from his, well until you finally came back on earth. He was standing in front of the desk, finally looking around. " H-Hi, what could I do for you today Sir? ". You felt so embarrassed because not only did you stand there like a pole, you also didn't greet him when he entered and now you're stuttering..

The tall man attention came back to you and he gave you a faint smile, but you swear he made a small smirk. " Sorry for coming this late, I wanted to see if the rumors are true. " Your heart skipped a beat, people are starting rumors about your bakery? " I-Is that so? May I know what these rumors are about? ". Your voice was still shacky unfortunately. The green haired man chuckled lightly. ". Perhaps they're about how good of a place it is, I also heard that the sweets were quite tasty. " You furrowed your eyebrows. This man talks like he has experience, just what is he trying to do here.

You tried to make a composed expression as you respond to the stranger. " Ohh.. Glad to hear that the rumors aren't bad! ... Well in that case, would you like to try something? ". You gestured to the several pastries further away on the counter. " After all, that's what I came here for. ". He responded with a mocking tone. Yea, something is definitely up. " Let me select you so of my best rated cooking ".

As you selected some of your sweets, you took a quick glance at the boy. He may be handsome but he sure is acting like a bitch. Who does he think he is, acting like is all above, mocking me and all ARGH. Your mind continued to drift off in the insults until you place the plate full of pastries, almost violently, in front of the boy.

Not a second after your action, he bents down close to the plate and , analyze it, well kind of? This time, he really catch you off guards.. " Um.. Is something wrong ehh.. ". He didn't even let you finish your sentence. " Trey, my names Trey and no, everything's alright. ". He said so as he came back to his previous position. He took his plate and stormed off to one of your tables. He's so weird..

You gave Trey some time to eat his selected meal and continued to clean the café. You watched over where he was and couldnt stop to wonder why was he acting this way towards you. As you cleaned a spatula, you decided to go and serve him.

" Would you like anything else Mister Trey? ". You literally forced a smile just so no suspicions was drawn towards you. As he took the last bite of the single sweet, he looked up to you. " I'm fine.. ". He took a moment before asking something. " Your pastries are.. really enjoyable, I've never ate something like this. Could you please tell me who's the owner? ". He looked like he wanted to say something else other than enjoyable, that bastard doesn't want admit that your cooking is good. " I'm the owner, Y/N L/N. Why you wanna know? ". Your polite façade was starting to fate slowly. " Because I wanna know the name of my competitor. ".

" Excuse me? ". He relaxed on his chair. " That's right, I'm a baker myself and is a part of my family's business. I wanted to make sure that your small business wasn't threating mine but guess my plans took a turn. ". You balled your fists. " I prefer not being involved in this stupid one sided competition of yours, Trey. ". You empathized the last word. He stands up from his seat. " And why is that? Is Lady Y/N scared to loose? ". He shifted his aura to a psychotic one, almost. Now, you've had enough, this man needs to be put back in is place! " Pardon?! Ill take your customers and make them mine, you insolent! ".

" Oh really, I think its gonna be the other way around, be careful with your words young lady or youll end up sulking over them. ". He brushed your shoulder as he walked towards the entry. " Prepare for your downfall. Well then, see you soon Y/N. ". He empathized his last word and walked out the door, living you fuming in the middle of your bakery. Oh boy, he fell on your bad side and there's no turning back now. This is war.

ANGEL : The ending is really rushed, sorry in advance. I know there wasn't much interactions who gave away the attraction but believe me, there's gonna be more in the next part. I already have something planned for the ending and I believe this is gonna be 3 or 4 parts in total! Ill maybe even make a sequel haha! Anyhoo, see ya in the next part!!

cc : @ooooshirasama on twitter

Tags !!! :

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

i never thought i would have a more unhinged concert experience than this past fall but i think this one actually beat it in that respect

overall: MUCH better than yesterday. vibes just felt massively improved and i felt it in my playing

somewhere in the middle of a piece i straight up got my right elbow HIT by the scroll of the associate concertmaster’s violin. i have no idea how it happened nor do i know why his scroll was there but it hurt and he did not offer so much as an apology afterward. sigh oh well

we should have a system of filing onstage instead of just randomly swanning in whenever we feel like it lmao. i think that contributes to concerts starting late. however ate honorsprofessor and the graduate student insist on following me onstage like baby ducklings so that’s funny to me

boy this program really was just grueling, i operated at maybe 80% for the mendelssohn italian second movement so i could devote more energy to the dvořák 7 third movement but still wound up absolutely SPENT for the haydn 104 finale. i swear i only managed to push through by grace alone. this was probably the most intense program i have played yet

i think the only piece where we had any lengthy rest was the brahms serenade 1 movement 1 with the two 20-ish bar rests. so that was like. two hours of almost straight playing

after the dvořák tita conductor gave us a huge grin which i would have appreciated more if i hadn’t been desperately been trying to rally the troops (my strength) to power through the haydn

i got a handshake from tita conductor at the end of the concert 😭 she did not do this last night or warn the non-concertmaster string principals during the warmup that she was going to go for it so i was taken completely by surprise when she held her hand out to me after shaking the concertmaster’s hand so i probably looked like 😳 when i took it LMAOOOO

okay here’s where things get really unhinged.

i knew i wanted a picture with tita conductor at some point in the school year and reckoned that this would be a good time to ask since this is (i think) our last concert that’s just us and not with other ensembles for the year.

i kind of chickened out but ate honorsprofessor egged me on (no shoving me towards tita conductor this time though)

my parents, some of my coworkers, and one of my friends attended and i waved my dad over before approaching tita conductor on the stage and asked her for a picture

tita conductor brightened and said “yes—my best principal second that i’ve ever had!”

oh god. she is not emotionally prepared for me graduating.

anyways we had the picture (i also asked ate honorsprofessor to be in it too because. its literally the cover of the graphic memoir), and then she said to me “there’s a part in the brahms where you have to count so many rests and then come in with pizzicato. i never get to cue you there but you always come in anyway. by the time i figured out i needed to cue, you had already figured it out yourself and you have never missed that entrance.”

i was like “oh, well, i love the brahms” trying to explain that i have listened to it so much that half the time i wasn’t even counting i was just going with how it sounded in my head and then she said fervently “i do too” like girl i know. you picked the piece. you keep singing it. you made the program 😭😭

there’s also the fact that whoever wrote the part put a brief viola cue in there which makes it easier for me. but i didn’t say that

it should not surprise me that tita conductor likes me this much but it does surprise me that i rank that highly even though she’s only known me for a little over a year. fun times

sad that we may not have rehearsal this thursday but really—after that exercise in endurance i do need some good quality rest

[fourseasonsfigs]

Happy Camp Dolls

There's few things cuter than figs holding dolls! This set in particular is super, super adorable.

The inspiration for this is the interview for Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun's joint Happy Camp appearance to promote Word of Honor.

They're checking out their character's official Rua 10cm dolls!

These two, I swear. I love everything to do with Happy Camp so much!

...and so does everyone else, based on my entire shelf of Happy Camp figs! And more are still on the way.

These two cuddled their dolls all the way across the ocean, arriving safe and sound.

And here they are! Looking super, super cute. I absolutely love the poses here, with Junjun holding his doll in both hands (like the picture) and Zhehan holding his out in his palms.

I was able to prop up these figs to take the first pics, but there was no way these two were going to be able to stand up on their own. These figs are heavy! Since they are unbalanced they would definitely fall over. They got glued down immediately.

I was trying to think of the best way to say, there's a lot going on with Zhehan's pants, but I can't quite figure it out. I think we need a pic of what Zhehan is wearing.

Ah yes, these ones! I swear they almost look like overalls. Anyway, the fig maker did a great job adding in the extra design elements of these jeans (that's a good way to say it!).

I like the detail in the shoes too, which we now can compare to the full-length pics (sorry they're not better quality).

I will tell you that until these figs, I never realized either of them had anything on the backs of their shirts. In fact, looking at the pictures and various videos I still don't see the image on the back of Gong Jun's shirt except for this one video:

And there it is, sure enough. Ahaha, hearing Junjun mutter, Wo de tian never fails to put a smile on my face!

The slightly stockier "fat body" style is super cute - makes these already adorable figures even more so!

The fig maker did such a nice job here with the tiniest of details, like the colors on the shirts.

I love how they did Zhehan's spiky short hair here!

Too, too cute! I'll get a close up in there of the dolls for you:

The scale on these dolls are tiny. They did a good job making them look like the Rua dolls - I'm impressed they got the detail they did!

These figs look like they should stand up well with those nice wide feet.

Zhehan being a little bit shorter makes him even cuter!

I'm really happy the dolls are attached to their hands and I did not have to try to wrangle the dolls into their hands. Zhehan's doll would have been ok but I do not even want to try to imagine trying to wedge Junjun's doll in his hands.

A+ for these figs! I am just so charmed by them. I have another set of figs with dolls on order, but they are still in production. Still, I'm looking forward to them!

Material: Resin

Fig Count: 515

Scene Count: 36

Rating: The happiest!

[link to the Master Post Index]

[masterwords]

a yearning that you can't ignore

Summary: The BAU end up with a case in Chicago - missing college students - that takes them right to Derek & Aaron's doorstep. At first they're a little excited to be back in the action, but quickly the two of them find themselves mixed up and in too deep.

Words: 13.4k

Pairing: Hotch/Morgan (background Reid/Alvez but it's not much here - they are a couple in this universe though)

Warnings: canon-typical violence, stalking/obsession, gunshot, hospital, swearing, vomit (quick, due to head injury)...it's a Criminal Minds story surrounding a stalker case.

Notes: I started this fic back when CME started airing as I thought about how Hotch and Morgan probably don't mind their quiet lives, but when the opportunity arises for a little action...can they say no? (No, they cannot. As you're about to find out.) Anyway, case fics are fucking HARD TO WRITE...and it took me half a damn year to figure this out. In fact, there are 2 other versions of this fic that have nearly 10k words too because I couldn't decide what to do for the case...so maybe you'll get more case fic when I figure out what to do with all of...that. Also, this is clearly setting up a sort of second part. But it's in the Chicago Times universe, so they're all interconnected anyway. So...here.

OH! And, one more thing?! THIS IS MY 300TH FIC ON AO3! Yeah baby. 293 CM fics, 300 total.

Look at me being SO multi-fandom. lol Okay, on with the show!

**

(1)

It started with a coffee.

Just a cup of coffee, an Americano piping hot and placed on his desk with a little smiley face and an “A” where the name should be. He could tell it had come from the student coffee stand not too far away, the one he stopped at in the mornings on his way to his classroom.

He always ordered an Americano.

“Did one of you leave this here?” he asked once class had started. Silence. Students glanced around the room eagerly. He'd worked in the BAU long enough not to trust food that was just left sitting around, or really even food offered by well-meaning individuals. Probably a student, or maybe another teacher, had decided he needed a pick-me-up. That wasn't untrue, he was dead on his feet. His insomnia was creeping back in at the edges, slowly eating away precious hours of sleep. Eroding his delicate grip on his life.

He ignored the coffee and moved forward with his lecture. Teaching was starting to feel like a trap, an endless cycle of bad days. The students only half listened to him, and he thought maybe he could handle that if the games the staff played weren’t so tedious. He wasn’t cut out for the behind the scenes drama of this any more than he had been at the FBI. As with anything, there had been a honeymoon phase but that had passed and now this job was grating on him. Each morning he dragged himself out of bed and wondered why he did it. He had no inflated sense of self, no certainty that these young adults were the future...they would make their way into the world with or without him. Most of them looked at him like he was the barrier that stood firm between them and what they wanted.

The coffee ended up in the trash after all of his students had gone.

He was home the next two days with Hank, playing and singing Raffi songs and grading an endless stack of papers. He even got in a couple of decent naps with Hank which helped a little with the lack of quality nighttime sleep and his general sulky demeanor. Little sleeps were better than no sleep at all Derek had told him when he mentioned the naps.

On his desk, when he came back, was a small box of chocolates. He glanced around for a note, some kind of indication that this was left specifically for him and from whom but there was nothing but an “A” written on the little attached card.

He left the chocolates where they were and sat at his desk to begin his morning routine. There was an hour before his first class and he had a lot to do. His office was shared with another professor and this year they’d managed to work it so they were in on opposite days, a way to pretend neither had to share. Maybe the chocolates were meant for his roommate. He nudged them off to the side and pulled out a book with color coded pages marked for his lecture, scouring the passages once more to make sure they were what he wanted to convey.

The chocolates didn't enter his mind again.

It wasn't that he couldn't have put those pieces together, but there didn't appear to be a connection that warranted too much thought. It wasn't unheard of that students would gift their teachers with small bribes, incentives to give them better grades, and he had plenty of kids on the verge of failing his class. Enough of them that he wasn't surprised when they cornered him begging for extra credit opportunities or for him to be kind to them because their second cousin on their mom's side was sick or their grandmother had died (not the same grandmother that died last semester, a different one...) or that their partner had broken up with them. Those were the most common complaints, and they usually came with an offer of some kind...a coffee, candy, promised tickets to an event, you name it. No one wanted to fail a class and lose their scholarships, lose their chances.

He was soft, but he wasn't that soft. There was plenty of extra credit he was willing to offer, he was even willing to accept service opportunities, internships, journalism...he wasn't too rigid to help them out, but he paid no attention to bribes.

(x)

“Someone is giving you gifts?” Derek asked, vaguely interested. The tacos in his little styrofoam container were of much greater interest as he attempted to dump hot sauce on them and eat without making a mess of himself in the process. A few onions and a mess of cilantro fell into his lap anyway. “You know who it is?”

“No idea. I have a list of students who are struggling to pass but I can't see any of them thinking a gift would help. Especially without taking credit. You would think that if they wanted me to raise their grade for coffee and chocolates they would make sure I knew who it was. They've both just been signed with the letter A.”

“For Aaron?”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe they're buttering you up. Were the chocolates any good?” Derek flashed that wicked little grin at him and Aaron rolled his eyes in immediate response. Derek knew damn well Aaron wasn't going to eat them, they'd probably found their way into the trash bin after hours. Hidden so no one saw, no one's feelings were hurt. But there was no way in hell he would eat them.

“Should I tell someone? Would that be overreacting?”

“What would SSA Hotchner advise someone of in your situation?”

Aaron glared from behind his sunglasses and bit into his last taco. Half of the meat fell out into his tray and he groaned miserably. He’d been on such a roll.

“SSA Hotchner isn't the expert in obsessional crimes. I'm looking for SSA Morgan to answer the question.”

Derek laughs and shrugged, telling him that he was probably overreacting. Like usual. Drawing conclusions where there aren't any because he’s so damn tired he could barely even keep his eyes open at lunch. “You sure you didn’t hallucinate the chocolates?”

“Shut up.”

“No I’m serious. Your sleep has been shit lately, baby. Not to mention...have you considered that you miss the excitement? That you’re looking for something to get your blood up a little? I know this teaching thing is starting to drag you down, I told you it would. You’re not a desk job guy. Might be time to find you something else to do.”

Derek was absolutely correct about the lack of sleep part (and the missing action part), even if he was very wrong about Aaron overreacting.

(x)

The gifts stopped for a full week once grades were posted, and Aaron thought it was a good thing he never mentioned his gifts to anyone else. It was obviously an overreaction brought on by years of barely contained paranoia. It didn't start that way. Once upon a time he’d been able to separate his life from his job, the evil of men from his every day. Until Foyet, until Peter Lewis. Until evil men marked him for some reason he never really did understand. He'd spent hours, weeks, months agonizing over the why. What did he say or do to make Foyet focus so hard on him? What was it that made Lewis target him? He didn't fit victimology for either of them, not by a long shot, and yet...they'd both managed, in their own ways, to ruin his life.

“Professor?” asked a timid voice from the doorway. He glanced up from the paper he was examining to find a student he didn’t immediately recognize smiling at him. He was good with faces, and she did look somewhat familiar, but he couldn't place her. The insomnia strikes again.

“Yes?”

“I um...I hope this isn't too forward of me to ask, but I was wondering if I could have lunch in your office today? I wanted to talk about getting into your program...”

“Oh, I uh,” he started, at a loss for words. He'd never had lunch with anyone in his office, let alone a student. It felt inappropriate and uncomfortable. “You'll need to talk to an advisor. Admittedly, I don't know much about how that works.”

“Oh. I know. But I kind of just wanted to ask you some questions about the classes and the topics you cover. I took your criminology course last year but I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with that or move into forensics instead, you know? Do I want to learn how to catch them or clean up after them? Sorry, I'm rambling. Would you mind?”

She was already taking a seat at the chair in front of his desk before he even has a chance to register what was happening. He simply continued staring at her while he tried to switch gears from grading papers to using words. This not sleeping thing was going to be the death of him. It didn't matter as much when he was younger, he could dump gallons of coffee into his system and scrape by. Well, he still drank the coffee but not as much because it gave him heartburn so bad he thought he could breathe fire and he was not willing to live through that pain on purpose anymore. There was a time in his life that the pain was a necessary side effect in order to maintain his top of the food chain status...well now he was low on that food chain and he simply doesn’t need the stomach pain.

“I suppose I could talk for a few minutes. It isn't really appropriate for a student and teacher to eat lunch together like this, but as long as the door remains open, if you have a couple of questions I can try to answer.”

She didn’t seem to mind the rebuff, didn’t seem to register it at all really. Instead she set her lunch on her lap and began unwrapping a sandwich while she rattled off some background and finally a question. And then another. She hardly gave him time to speak, though when he did he found it somewhat easy to come up with what seemed to be a suitable answer to the questions at hand. She seemed pleased at least.

During a lull in conversation, he folded his hands together on the desk and glanced at the clock. He hadn't eaten his own lunch and would pay for that later with a bout of hunger induced heartburn that would probably make him sick, but there wasn’t any time left to do anything about it. He could chew a handful of Tums on the way to his classroom and hope for the best. It wouldn’t be the first time. Getting old came with a lot of new habits his younger self would get a good chuckle over. “If that's all, I really need to get prepared for my next class.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right. Well, thank you for your time...” she hadn't taken her eyes off of him. It was starting to make him more than a little self-conscious. He was acutely aware of every sound he made, every move of his body. The crack of his knee when he straightened his leg, the way his glasses made the bridge of his nose sweaty, the click of the desk clock punctuating it all like an external heartbeat. He kept his hands still lest she misinterpret something. She didn’t seem to care, though. She left without any fuss, thanking him again for his time and for having lunch with her. She called it a lunch date, and that made him vaguely uncomfortable but it passed quickly. It isn't the first time a student had bombarded him with questions in his office, and if he had tried to connect it with the gifts he might be a little suspicious, but he didn't bother.

The gifts had stopped and the questions seemed genuine. She didn’t come back, either. That fact put him at ease.

Two weeks went by quietly. Without a gift, without a question. Everything seemed to return to normal.

Until a student went missing. The first poster was placed on the bulletin board right outside his office.

Days later, another.

And then came a phone call from Emily. That part was inevitable. Chicago PD knew that he and Derek lived there now and they seemed almost eager these days to have the BAU come in and help them clean up. Probably their way of making something up to Derek, paying the debt they owed to him.

They would be paying that off for a long, long time. It was collecting interest faster than money owed to the IRS.

(2)

“Hotch?”

Spencer's voice carried through the sea of students moving briskly down the hall. It was familiar and slightly jarring, a voice that felt wrong – out of place. There was no way he could find the right mix of words to describe the feeling that voice elicited, the way it felt like coming home though he hadn't even located the source yet. Students moved in waves, in groups usually, laughing and talking or groaning about a strict professor pop quizzing on something they haven't even gone over yet. (“Just because you chose not to come to class on Tuesday does not mean we haven't been over the material,” Aaron has said on more than one occasion. The students seemed mostly unfazed by this statement. He was never really surprised, the memories of his own college years were distant now but he remembered that part. Too many classes, too many hours at his job, too few hours of sleep. Whatever the reason, he can understand it...but it was still his job to throw those quizzes at them anyway.)

Aaron looked around for the source of the voice, scanning the crowd until lighting on Spencer who stood slightly taller than the bulk of the students around him. He was waving a little excitedly. If he was a dog his tail would be wagging. Aaron waved back eagerly, realizing he'd never actually done that before. If he was a dog, he might give his tail a small test wag. To see if he liked it. A first time for everything. Seeing Spencer felt magnetic, he had to move toward him.

A salmon swimming upstream would have had more grace, but Aaron fought his way through the crowd to where Spencer stood in the open doorway of a teacher's lounge anyway. Elbows squeezed at his sides to make his lumbering less noticeable, his hips swerving one way and the next in a sad attempt not to bump into any of the students. He said “excuse me” more times in those few seconds than he had in years.

“Reid, what are you doing here?”

“Oh...um, Emily said she called you.”

Aaron frowned, searching his scattered memory banks for something. Maybe she had. Yes, she had. But what about? His sleep had dwindled to no more than three hours a night, and that three hours was if he was especially lucky. Just a phase like the moon but it sure managed to gobble up his memory storage. Still, he thought he could recall the conversation dimly. Her voice, anyway. Shrill, accusing, sarcastic, sweet. All of them rolled up into one comfortable friend shape. And even if he couldn’t remember exactly what she said (though he knew it was stored in there somewhere), he knew what they were in town for. It was all anyone could talk about.

Two students missing. No bodies yet.

It was all any of the teachers could talk about, and those who were aware of Aaron's previous life found an almost impossible addiction to cornering him. His office ceased to be the sanctuary it had been at one time. The student who never introduced herself was only the first of many, it seemed, who wanted to barge in on him during office hours and utilize his precious free time. And he found it impossible to say no.

There was a time in his life he'd had a scowl that would scare most people away, but not now. Now he was comforting because he knew. He understood. He'd seen it all. Most of it would haunt him forever; you can retire from the BAU but it never leaves you. What he knew, he wished he could erase. It no longer served him...but it served them.

They wanted to be told it was okay, that someone would catch the person responsible before it happened to any other students, that they didn't need to be afraid. He knew far too much for that. He refused to lie, and his refusal to lie was when the police decided they needed help. The people were busting down their doors saying they needed to call in help. Get their children back. Two missing now would multiply if they moved slowly.

When Emily called him, he vaguely remembered telling her he'd been expecting it. The police were in over their heads. He also remembered feeling a little jolt of excitement...he didn't like to admit it, especially to Derek, but he missed it. He missed being useful for more than diaper changes and helping with math homework. True, it was time for him to move on, things had gone too far, he’d been personally targeted by too many serial killers and he had Jack to think about. But if you asked him, if you caught him on a particularly honest sort of day...he would admit that he wasn't ready. He didn’t want a desk job. He didn’t want to teach.

Being forced out stung like regret.

“She did,” he said finally. Certain he'd spoken to Emily about it now, once he'd jumped down the rabbit hole of his scattered memories. “I'm sorry, I've been a little distracted.”

“Yeah,” Spencer added, nodding a little slowly. “I bet. Two students. Do you know them?” Spencer said “do”, not “did” so Aaron figured that was good sign, no bodies yet. It was very little hope but it was something.

“No, I don't. Did the entire team come?”

“Even Garcia. She probably could have done everything she’s doing from Quantico but I think Emily asked her to come because it was a Chicago case. She can't stop talking about the last time we were here and how we still haven't seen your house yet. She misses you. Both of you.”

“Well,” Aaron started a little hesitantly. They didn’t have a large home and the team...well it didn’t matter. They’d come all this way and if they had to cram into their small townhouse then they just would. Part of missing the BAU was missing these people. He wasn’t foolish enough to think it was only the job. “If you've got time when the case is finished, we would love to have you all over.”

“About that. I was actually hoping you might have time to...”

Here it was. Aaron knew it was coming. He was willing to bet that Emily or JJ was at the high school doing the exact same thing to Derek. They were crafty. Divide and conquer. All hands on deck.

Aaron narrowed his eyes, one hand shoved into his pocket while he fingered the worn shape of one of Derek’s challenge coins. He ran his thumb over and around, delighting in the smooth places and the rough places while he waited, trying to give the impression that he hadn't been anticipating this from the moment he laid eyes on Spencer across the hallway.

“Would you have time to come down to the police station later to look at what I'm working on? I could really use someone who knows the school...”

“I'm sorry, Spencer,” Aaron replied, accessing some internal autopilot. He had a script planned out for just such a question, because he knew it was only a matter of time. “Retirement has put a lot of things into perspective for me, and one thing I've learned is how easily I can fall back into old habits if I'm not careful. Leaving the BAU was among the hardest things I've ever done.”

Spencer nodded, crestfallen, though he didn't quite understand. There was something in Aaron's statement that felt like a big fat lie, or like he was desperately grasping at something that was already turning to dust in his hands. He could probably argue with Aaron right now and win without any real effort. His stance felt that shallow, that shaky, but he respected him enough not to.

“Okay,” Spencer replied quietly. Saying no sounded incredibly hard and he could understand that. Aaron had to walk away, and if he looked back now it might destroy the tenuous grip he had on his life. “That's okay. We'll let you know when the case is finished and maybe we can have dinner before we fly out.”

Derek, it turned out, wasn't so firm in his stance.

(3)

“You told them you'd help?”

“JJ came and did 40s with my football players. Told me that she'd beat my best player for an hour of my time. She put my entire varsity team to shame, Aaron. In heels. She was wearing fuckin' heels and she out-sprinted teenage boys. She probably would have outlasted me if I'd let her but I can't have my team seein' that.”

Aaron smirked but said nothing, just flipped the page of the book he was pretending to read in bed. He'd missed most of the last three pages thinking about Spencer asking him for help, and it would have been a lot better if Derek had also said no. Presented a unified front. He couldn’t be angry though. Just a little jealous. It was happening at his school, after all, and he wanted to say yes. Some part of him did anyway.

“Do you think I should help too?”

Derek nuzzled into Aaron's hip and wrapped his thighs up tight, giving them an almost painful squeeze. His anaconda move. It usually meant he wanted Aaron to put his damn book down so they could fool around before going to sleep, to pay attention to him, but Aaron wasn't sure what it meant under these circumstances. Didn't feel like fooling around was the next logical step in this conversation.

Still, it was always on the table.

“I think you gotta make up your own mind on this one.”

Aaron didn't appreciate that answer one bit and he made a little huffing noise to punctuate his dissatisfaction.

“What?”

“You're supposed to tell me I should stay out of it. That I retired for a reason.”

There was something nagging at him already. Something just out of reach. If he could just sleep, get one full night, he thought he could for sure grasp it. There was a connection he was longing to make and he knew it, he was close to it. But not close enough.

“Am I? And then what, you're gonna do it anyway and then we're gonna argue? No thanks. I'll back you up no matter what you decide but I won't tell you what to do.”

“You used to love bossing people around. Arguing with me was your favorite past time.”

“Yeah? I've grown up. You gotta make your own choices now buddy.”

His body made the decision for him a few hours later, while Derek lay basking in the silvery glow of the moonlight fast asleep. They had fooled around, quietly at first, clumsy and quick until the springs on the bed started groaning and then they finished up quickly. That was enough to put Derek to sleep but Aaron remained wide awake until much too late. Staring up at the ceiling, he thought about the students, their photos tacked up on bulletin boards. Have you seen me? Missing! He'd seen them, but those photos were common...often jokes, he'd come to find after taking the first few a little too seriously. Those were the WITSEC days, when he was terrified of his own shadow and the missing posters felt a little too on the nose. Gallows humor. He half expected to walk by one and see his own face or Jack's plastered there with dead eyes.

But these weren't jokes. People were worried. Students clustered together more, stayed after dark less. The library had all but been abandoned. They hadn't enacted a curfew yet but Aaron postulated that it wouldn't be long. There were staff meetings called and student safety agendas passed out to every professor who had a classroom. The phone call from Emily hadn't been a surprise. “We're being called out to Chicago. You've got some missing kids?”

“We do. Doesn't sound like anyone knows much.” He'd been coy even then. He really didn't know anything but he wasn't stupid...he could have if he'd tried. It wasn't his place. He wasn't some retired old cop still looking for a piece of the action, missing the glory days. Besides, he was pretty sure these were his real glory days. He was simply an old man worried about a couple of kids now. A spectator who just so happened to have insider knowledge and a front row seat.

At 1:15am an alert buzzed his phone nearly off of the table as he sat pouring over everything he knew, making notes to at least give to Spencer. He could do that much.

The alert made his blood run cold.

Another student missing. This time he did know the face, he knew it well. Malachai Peterson. He'd taken Aaron's criminology course last year and written an article for the law review that made Aaron and Derek argue for a full hour afterward. All in fun. Well, not all. Mostly. “So who won?” Malachai had asked when Aaron approached him about his article. “And more importantly, who agreed with me? You know...who was right?” Aaron only stared in wonder at this kid who was definitely going places and sighed. It was like looking in a mirror at the little shithead he'd been in school. Admitting that it was Derek who had agreed with the kid's stance, Malachai beamed. “Your partner is smart.”

It wasn't that Malachai was more important than the other two students, it was simply that he couldn't ignore three kids missing no matter how he framed his own need to keep himself separate from the BAU. How could he not help? He would have to be careful about how he approached Jack about it, there were a lot of hard feelings there, but he was certain Jack would see that he really had no choice. Not this time. What if it was one of his friends? The girl he had a crush on maybe?

That certainty waxed and waned for a few hours before he chewed a handful of Tums and decided he had to stop thinking about it. Had to try and get a few hours of sleep.

(4)

“Have there been any bodies yet?” Aaron asked, entering the conference room that they'd set up in the police station at promptly 6am. He hadn't slept a wink. Didn't feel too bad yet, but it would hit him soon. Turn the world to putty and his mind to mush. Luckily, Spencer was waiting with coffees and a grim map of Chicago one one side of the board, a blueprint of the school on the other. Spencer pursed his lips and Aaron sensed his immediate hesitation.

Telling Aaron the truth, that a body had been found, was going to crush him. Spencer was acutely aware of the fact that Aaron had lost some of his walls, had become softer or easier to read and it was obvious that this case was hitting him hard. So hard that whatever stance he’d taken previously about getting involved had only needed one night to completely fall apart.

“One, but it hasn't been identified yet. It's one of the females, probably Melissa because she was the first abduction. The body was...”

Aaron couldn't help flinching and feeling immediately embarrassed by it when Spencer described the state of the student's body. He was out of practice. Or maybe he was too close. Probably both. He simply wasn't the man he used to be, and maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

“Is someone at the M.E's office now?”

“Tara and Luke are there.”

“Have you been able to determine any patterns? Any connection?”

“Aside from the fact that they were all students at the same university, not yet. None of them had any real overlap in classes or extracurricular activities...Garcia is looking into their social media and private lives now. It's possible she'll find something that all of them have in common.”

“Do we know when Malachai went missing?”

“That's interesting. No. The parents didn't say anything right away, apparently he had a history of not calling for days at a time, very busy. And they just moved, so their mail is being forwarded...it took an extra day or two. They didn't know anything was wrong until the letter made it.”

“I know him,” Aaron said quietly. “He's one of my best students. A real pain in the ass, but a brilliant mind.”

“Did you notice him missing from class?”

“Actually,” Aaron started, feeling a little sheepish after what he'd just said. “He isn't taking any of my classes this semester. But he does check in frequently, he likes to push my buttons.”

Aaron stared at the blueprints and frowned, sipping the hot coffee in his hand. It was bitter and comforting. There was definitely heartburn in his future but damn it felt good in the moment. Worth the risk.

By the time Emily and Dave showed up, he and Spencer were deep in thought, bouncing ideas off of one another that ultimately went nowhere but it felt good to be on Spencer's wavelength after feeling so dull and so slow for the last couple of weeks. Things were kicking into gear. He allowed himself a moment to mourn this, he’d missed it more than he’d even been willing to admit to himself.

“Who let this old fart in here?” Emily asked with a grin. She looked like she'd slept. He was a little jealous. “Good to see you old man. Sorry you’re missing bingo at the old folk’s home to help out. We’ll get you back in time for the early bird special.”

“Old? You have more gray hair than I do,” he pointed out, standing to hug her. She smacked him in the arm first, and then came in for the hug. Tight and a little too long. She felt guilty that he was there. She hadn't asked him to come, didn't want to involve him. Derek, sure. He could walk away a lot easier, he'd done it on his own...he made that choice because he was ready. Aaron didn't and she knew it. He just got lucky that he found Derek here in Chicago, because if he hadn't...she didn't want to think about the husk of a man she'd have seen walking into Quantico ready to take his office back. A man so desperate to cling to something familiar after being un-tethered so long. She knew the feeling. It hadn't ended well for her.

Without a doubt she wanted to see him. And being that he worked at the university it had made sense to ask him questions, but she didn't mean for him to feel obligated to step back in, let alone take orders from her. His departure weighed heavily on her heart. Still, she forced a smile and let go of the hug to scrutinize the way he seemed to fill out his polo shirt and khakis differently, at the way his hair was long and a little shaggy in places, definitely more salt than pepper at the temples and flecked with sparkly strands that caught the fluorescent light from above eagerly. He had more laugh lines than frown lines, and her guilt somehow weighed heavier on her after that realization.

He was happy and she was ruining it.

“Mine looks better.” It was all she could muster, and she did so halfheartedly. Thankfully, before Aaron could call her out on how hollow her insult sounded, they were interrupted.

“I don't know about that...” Derek's voice chimed in from the doorway as he waggled a box of donuts in the air. Penelope and JJ flanked him with eager smiles. “I think he looks damn fine.”

“Ew. Gross. None of that here.”

“Whatever. You're just jealous, princess. You coulda had all of this...”

“Oh please. Not on your life.”

The team fell back into a familiar pattern of thought, of bouncing ideas off of one another, of sarcastic banter and camaraderie. While the differences were stark and unsettling they also somehow worked. There was some nostalgic whimsy and a clear bond that couldn't be broken by something as common as time passing. When Tara and Luke returned, things kicked up a notch. Derek and Aaron both found themselves wishing they’d had an opportunity to work with this team. This group of minds.

Aaron stood beside Derek naturally, like that was where he’d always belonged. He'd always done that, arms folded over his chest and deep in thought. Derek commanded the attention of the room like it was what he was born to do, all eyes on him. He knew the city inside and out, it was sewn into his very being, and he'd already figured something out.

“This isn't about the kids he's abducted,” he said, saying what they had all been thinking. “They're just tokens. You wanna know what I think? I think they were taken for attention, and then when it wasn't the right kind of attention they started dying. This is for us. I mean, this is for you guys.”

Emily nodded sagely. “I had my suspicions. Things like this usually escalate. I'll bet once we find him, we'll find that he started small. This is about one person, and it'll have started on a very personal level but that went unfulfilled so it gained momentum. Now he won't stop until the object of his desire gives him what he wants.”

“Which is?”

“Attention.”

Aaron felt a trickle of fear in his spine and he glanced at Derek, silent communication. Derek understood it immediately. It all fell into some sort of symmetry. They didn't have all of the pieces yet but his coffee and his chocolates were connected. When Derek opened his mouth to say something, Aaron shook his head adamantly. Not yet. They would push him into staying at the police station, put him in some false version of protective custody, and he thought for sure the kids remaining would die if he disappeared. If this really was about him, he had to continue looking. Had to make things look normal, or worse, look like he wanted to find them. Like the attention was wanted.

“We can't let you two go out into the field,” Emily announced as everyone prepared for their assignments. “You can consult but you're civilians.”

“As civilians, you can't really tell us what we can and can't do...” Derek pointed out with a sneaky smile. She glared at him, not at all joking. He hadn't seen her this serious very many times.

“No, I guess I can't. But I shouldn't need to remind you that you have children who depend on you not to be complete morons. Let us handle the danger.”

(5)

“You have an opinion now,” Aaron said as he ladled soup into bowls for everyone. He splashed some on his hand and hissed in surprise, wiping the broth on the towel nearby. “Are you going to tell me or make me guess?”

Derek, throwing spoons on the table, hummed and Jack smirked. Hank, oblivious to the new tension, slammed his fists on the table and delighted in the way it made the spoons (and Jack) jump. Their house was not quiet.

“You're gonna have to be more specific, I have opinions about a lot of things. Like how you always put barley in this damn soup even though I prefer rice.”

“You've never said anything.”

“Well, because it's not a big deal. Just an opinion. Barley's fine, rice is better.”

“Sure, it's just an opinion and you'll eat the barley but if I knew you had a preference I might make it the way you like. I do enjoy making you happy, you know.”

“You hearin' this guy?” Derek asked Jack with one eyebrow cocked. He knew very well that in this situation, he had an ally in Jack who had been dealing with Aaron's rigid cooking for a lot longer than he had. “You think he'd make it with rice?”

“No way. He'd tell you that it's called beef and barley soup, not beef and rice soup.”

Aaron let out a long, miserable sigh. They weren't wrong, that was the worst part. “What does this have to do with your thoughts about me helping out on this case?” he asked, hauling bowls of steaming hot soup to the table. Derek grabbed the others and followed him out of the kitchen with an exasperated look on his face.

“Look. Do I like it, you getting involved? No. I didn't really think much of it at first cos I figured you were gonna say no but now...I think that place is bad for you. I think you didn't sleep last night because it's already getting its claws back in there and I don't like that. But I know why you showed up this morning, I recognized that kid's name too. I get it. So whatever opinion I have...doesn't matter. I just want you to be smart about it.”

“You think I won't be?”

“I think that you're not as over the BAU as you think you are. And I think that could be dangerous if you're not careful. I think you still miss it and helping is going to make you question your decision, and that worries me...maybe I'm bein' selfish there, but I like the life we've got right now and the BAU doesn't fit into it.”

“You want me to tell them I can't help?”

“No. I'm kinda excited to be fighting crime with you again. But I worry about you, that's all. I know what makes you tick. You miss it and I think that it's dangerous when you tell yourself you don't. If it's a one time thing, it'll be fun. I like this part of us too. Like old times. But what if you can't let it go? What if they get on that jet and head back and take part of you with them? What am I left with?”

“I love our life too, Derek.”

“I know. I'm not sayin' you don't, I'm just sayin' that maybe you miss it more than you let on. You miss the excitement. You got all antsy about some student bribing you with coffee and sweets for a good grade...”

“Okay. Point taken.” He had yet to tell Derek how he’d been feeling about teaching. About the way it made his soul ache for more...of anything. About how walking into that school filled him with a sense of dread long before the students started going missing.

“What ever came of that, huh?” He hated the idea of someone having their eye on Aaron, and it was easier to make light of it than give weight to what they were both thinking now. That it might be connected. That Aaron was the center of the whole thing. That the coffee and chocolates meant something dangerous.

“I said point taken.”

Jack stirred his soup quietly, eyes flickering from one to the other while he waited for an argument. A real argument. Those didn't happen often, and they were usually over before they really got going, but this one had all the makings of a good one. An epic battle for the ages. Even Hank stared wide eyed at them while he mushed soup in his little fists and spread it out over the table in front of him. “Uck spoop,” he said as he smashed little bits of barley into the wood.

To Jack's disappointment, it all but fizzled out there. Either they would talk about it later or it was settled entirely, he wasn't sure. But things went quiet and Aaron yawned and Hank spilled what remained in his bowl into his lap and Derek groaned and took Hank to the bathroom to run a bath.

Dinner as usual.

“How was school?” Aaron asked automatically and Jack groaned this time. He had opinions about Aaron helping the BAU but his opinion, so far, hadn't been asked. He was a little touchy about it and decided not to control his teenage mouth...or the eye roll.

“Fine. School was fine. I've got a lot of homework...can I eat my soup in my bedroom?”

That was that. Aaron was left alone at the table, soup dripping onto the wood floor from one side, his muddy tired thoughts revolving around a photo of Malachai Peterson. He yawned again and glanced at the clock, wondering if it was too early to call it a day and head to bed. He was acutely aware that he was no one's favorite person at the moment.

(5)

Three nights of insomnia and Derek knew as well as Aaron did that this was a bad idea. The problem was, two more students were missing and they weren't any closer to figuring anything out, with or without help. Aaron found himself working in his classroom during the day and staying late in the office to make sure nothing happened. If students were going missing from his school, that was where he could help. He was organizing teachers and administration, trying to create some sense of safety. He would spend a couple of hours at the police station with Spencer and then come home to dinner with his family. Dinner on time one night, late the next.

No one said anything.

To be fair, though, Jack wasn't saying anything to him at all. Not a word. He’d gone radio silence, even to the point that he’d taken all of his meals right to his bedroom and shut the door with a finality that made Aaron’s heart sink. The BAU took his mother, ruined his life, and of course he was upset. Aaron thought about backing out. Saying he’d done what he could and washing his hands of it. Hell, he might even take some vacation time just to be out of the school.

Except he knew he couldn’t do that. Even entertaining the thought seemed silly. He was already in too deep, and furthermore, some latent anxiety told him that he was at the center of it all. Somehow.

In the meantime, he found papers in his office trash can crumpled into balls that hadn't belonged to him. He asked Spencer, discretely, to have them checked for prints without saying why. The last thing he wanted to do was look like a paranoid old man but he was pretty sure they were important. Could have just been from his office mate, but he had his own can – why would he walk to the other side of the office to use Aaron’s can?

(6)

“He stayed at the station late last night,” Emily told Derek over coffee at his desk. His office was a mess of sporting equipment, some broken and needing repair, some signed by famous athletes, really just athletic chaos. There was a net tacked to the ceiling, dangling precariously and filled with various balls – footballs, volleyballs, basketballs, soccer balls. Some nice and new, some with chunks taken out of them or deflated. There were tackle bags and dinged up old weights, baseball bats, hockey sticks, all lending themselves to a general odor of chemical cleaners, dust and sweat. Except his desk, that was pristine. “I think he and Spencer might be onto something though.”

“He's not sleeping,” was Derek's only viable complaint. It was quick. A little flash of anger though it wasn't really directed at anyone in particular. It wasn't like they'd been forced into helping, they made the choice and it had been fun at the start to feel that rush again, to know they were trying to save lives. It was just...they got out. They got away, and their lives were better for it. So much better. And now...he could see it shifting too quickly, spiraling out of control. If this case was solved soon, they might still have a chance. But if it took too long, or if it ended badly, whatever misgivings Aaron was having about his job would manifest in other ways and then they’d be in real trouble. He groaned miserably. “They'd better be onto something.”

If they weren't, if Aaron was just not sleeping with no end in sight, he couldn't imagine how much longer this could be sustainable. He was worried more about their lives than the case. He still had a firm grasp on where he was and what was of value.

“Why didn't you say no?”

“How do we say no to helping people, Em? These are kids disappearing. One of them is a kid we know.”

“Right.” She didn't look convinced. “Have you heard from him today?”

“He said Spencer was going to meet him at his office...”

“Nerds.” She just wanted to lighten the mood. Judging by haunted the look in Derek’s eye, it hadn’t worked.

“Hey, did he tell you about the coffee? And the chocolates?” He knew he shouldn’t be bringing that up, it went against every discussion the two of them had had recently but maybe it was time.

“What are you talking about?”

“A couple weeks before you guys got here, he found a coffee in his classroom. Someone had left it for him. He didn’t drink it…”

“Of course. It’s Hotch.”

“Right. Well then a little later he found a box of chocolates on his desk. They both were addressed to “A”, so we assumed Aaron but...I guess it could also be the person signing their own name.”

“He didn’t eat those either.”

“No. He threw them away. I told him he was probably overreacting, drawing connections when there weren’t any but I’m not so sure about that now…”

“Was this before the first abduction?”

“Yes.”

“Shit. If you’re right then he’s the center of it. Try calling him.”

Derek was already on it. His stomach was twisting in knots, tighter and tighter with each unanswered ring.

(x)

Spencer had a lot of ideas about what Aaron’s office might look like. At first he thought maybe it would look just like his office at Quantico, a smattering of achievements, well-loved and used books, some photos or relics from Jack’s childhood, maybe a vacation photo of he and Derek...but it was bare. There was nothing in it but books and files that related directly to his coursework. Aaron noted Spencer’s disapproval and shrugged.

“I started working here during WITSEC. No personal effects. I just got used to it.”

Spencer nodded. “I understand.” It looked like Aaron carried his own personal prison around with him in the same way Spencer did. It looked different but it wasn’t really, not when you whittled it down to the core. “What did you want to show me?”

Aaron reached beneath his desk and grabbed a small wastebasket with a tiny box of chocolates inside. The thing was still wrapped in plastic, in the same condition it was bought in. “This. It was left on my desk just before the disappearances. I threw it in this wastebasket so whoever gave it to me wouldn’t be offended, but it was un-signed and I - “

Before he could continue, a face appeared in the doorway. It was the student who joined him for lunch uninvited. “Professor H,” she began, eyes suddenly flashing a nervous energy as they flickered from Aaron to Spencer to the chocolates. “You didn’t like them?”

He stared, dumbfounded for a moment and then it all clicked. Quickly, he tried to save what there was to save, to keep he and Spencer out of trouble. “The thought was sweet, I do appreciate them. I just don’t eat food given to me unless I know the source. We had a few frightening run-ins with…”

“Cannibals,” Spencer said, following Aaron’s lead. He’d already managed to slip his hand into his pocket to speed dial Emily. “We had this case where a guy fed one of his victims to a search party. The people out searching for her. I haven’t eaten chili since, have you Hotch?”

“Not once.”

The student stared at them with her mouth open for a beat too long before forcing a too-wide smile. “I see.” She was blocking the doorway with her body, standing in such a way that they had no real way to get a handle on the situation. Aaron was armed, but it was his ankle holster only...Emily had forbidden he and Derek to go into the field, and if she’d seen him packing, she would have flipped her lid. As it was she probably knew he was wearing this but let it slide.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name when we ate together the other day,” Aaron said, smiling as soft as he could manage. “I was mentioning your interest to a colleague and realized how rude of me not to ask.”

She beamed at that and hugged her bag close to her chest. “Ashby. Ashby Hastings.” Aaron nodded.

“I’ll remember that when I see her next.”

“No you won’t. You’ll forget like everyone else.”

There it was. Spencer’s blood ran cold and he wanted to glance over at Aaron, an instinct to look to him for guidance...except he stopped himself abruptly because he was the FBI Agent with the gun slung around his waist and Aaron was, for all intents and purposes, a victim. God that felt weird to think. And this student in front of him, small and benign as she looked with her mousy brown hair and her big doe eyes was a murderer.

“Ashby,” Spencer said, approaching cautiously. “Professor Hotchner and I need to get going, we have a meeting we can’t miss. It was very nice to meet you.”

She shook her head in an oddly twitchy fashion, like she was arguing with herself, and reached into her bag. In her hand was a gun, now aimed at Spencer.

“You can’t take him from me. Everyone keeps trying to get in our way. I just…”

“It’s okay, Ashby. Where do you want to go?” Aaron stepped around the desk, his hands raised slightly from his sides to show they were empty.

She startled at that, switching the gun from Spencer to Aaron and back again. “I have something to show you. In the photo lab.”

“Where is that?” Spencer asked, though he already knew. He’d studied the blueprints of the entire school. The photo lab was in the basement. She was going to try to get Aaron into the basement.

“You don’t need to come. You can go to your important little meeting.” She moved out of the way, motioning for him to pass by her with her gun. He frowned at the gesture and thought briefly about what the best course of action would be. Leave and get help right away? He knew where she was taking Aaron. But he didn’t want to let Aaron out of his sight. Who knows what her plan was once she had him alone. Stalker cases never ended well, and if anyone knew that, it was Aaron. He’d play along as long as he could but eventually he would upset her, do something to ruin the fantasy and then he’d end up dead. When he chanced a look at Aaron, he understood -

“Tell Emily I’m sorry,” Aaron said as he walked out of the office beside Ashby and her gun. Spencer waited until they were nearly out of sight before he grabbed his gun and followed.

(7)

The sound of Aaron's body hitting the ground was sudden and shocking. It could just as easily have been the unsub or it could have been Spencer, but somehow Derek knew it wasn't. He knew it in his bones.

“Dammit,” he groaned, his heart skipping more than one beat. It nearly stopped, along with his breath as he followed behind Luke and JJ. “No going in the field��� Emily had warned, had repeated many times, but she couldn't stop him. Not when he knew Aaron was down those stairs in the dark with the unsub, how and why he couldn't fathom except that every fear he'd had came true. He knew Aaron would get in too deep. He'd catch a break, he and Spencer would crack it wide open, and then the two of them would put themselves into a situation they didn't want to be in. Couldn’t get out of.

The problem was, they didn't mean to.

“What happened?” Derek hissed, approaching cautiously with his flashlight poised ahead of him. Afraid to point it right at Aaron, he captured Spencer in the beam. He was hovering over Aaron's limp form, his hands flying fast over his body, searching for wounds beneath folds of soft fabric and tufts of hair. There hadn't been a gunshot but there was blood. Enough to be scary.

“She went that way!” Spencer shouted angrily at them, cursing them for stopping when he was already there. One set of hands was plenty and of all people he did not want Derek hovering over him. Not now. “Emily and Tara are following her. Go, go!”

“We need a medic!” Rossi shouted into his comm, dropping down beside Aaron and Spencer. Derek followed Luke and JJ down the corridor, there wasn't anything he could do for Aaron that Spencer and Rossi couldn't. What he could do was get the damn unsub and end this.

Of course nothing was ever quite that simple. There was a mass of confusion, of loud gunshots flashing in the dark, bullets connecting with metal, boilers hissing steam and voices calling out for an end to the shootout. They were going to destroy the school at this rate.

“You're surrounded, Ashby! There's nowhere to go!”

“You kill me, you never find those other kids...”

Emily glanced at Derek in the dark, a desperate and fearful look. Kids? Two more bodies had been found so far, she should only have one by their count, just Malachai, he was the only one she had kept even after more went missing. She was playing her trump card.

“We don't want to hurt you, Ashby,” Aaron said in a weak, hollow voice. A. She wasn't writing A for Aaron, she was writing A for Ashby. That thought had been circling his mind since the moment he saw her face. She’d signed her name and if he’d only been more with it, been awake instead of riding the waves of insomnia, he would have asked her name. He would have put it together. When Garcia sent her information over to Emily at the precinct, Derek’s heart sank. He knew. “Reid just sent me an SOS. I think they have her. We need to move fast.” One quick search through her laptop led to photos of Derek, of Jack, of Hank. Aaron’s press conferences from years before, papers he'd written, everything. Even information about Savannah overseas. Her entire hard drive was devoted to Aaron Hotchner and his life. She had even followed him home, followed his son to school, his partner to work...she knew everything about him.

But he wasn't afraid of her. She didn't seem to want to harm him at all, she just wanted him to notice her. He could do that. Or so he hoped, because in the condition he was currently in...he might not have much time to get the job done. The world swam in a sea of muted black and gray, swirling like an angry whirlpool. He was doing everything in his power not to be sick.

There was no way he could sit up on his own, let alone walk. He was being helped down the hallway, draped over Spencer and Rossi's shoulders, blood running into his eyes from a wound on his scalp. He needed medical attention fast, but he also knew he was the only one who could talk to her. She wouldn't listen to anyone else, she'd done all of this for him. It was one big love letter.

“They were your favorite chocolates!” she cried out into the darkness. “The ones with the gooey mint inside. You didn’t even look. You just tossed them in the trash.”

“I’m sorry, Ashby,” he said quietly, though it came out in more of a jumble than he’d hoped. She laughed at that and he decided it was in his best interest to stay quiet. She was building up to something.

His getting involved was by design. All of this was. When he scorned her gifts, she made sure the BAU came, knowing he couldn't say no. The coffee and chocolate had been a mistake, she knew that now. He wouldn't accept gifts of food from a stranger, that made sense. It had hurt at first but she forgave him. But the disappearances, well they were the perfect. He couldn't not help. It was all just bait and he took it. He’d never felt more like a silly old man.

“Do you like it? This was all for you. You won't even give me a chance. Our lunch date meant so much to me, the way you looked at me and talked to me...but then you ignored me. I had to get all of these people out here just for you to pay attention.”

“I know that you feel like an outcast. That these students mocked you, and that you've been keeping score. I know that Melissa and Tamika made fun of you in the showers, and they told you that a man like me would never see anything interesting in someone like you. I know that Shelly told you I only liked men and that you were being ridiculous. And I know that Malachai stood you up for a date...” Aaron was speaking between pained breaths, it came out slow and almost slurred in places. His arms being raised pulled at the angry, splintering pain of his broken ribs. Derek was afraid for him, but he kept his gun trained on the unsub as he listened to his partner try to grasp at the deep roots of his crisis negotiation knowledge. He would let Aaron try this tactic, try talking, but he wasn’t planning to let it go on too long.

Any move at all and he was shooting. He was not fucking around.

“Malachai thinks he's so smart,” Ashby said, and in the flare of the flashlight on her face Derek could see tears and the flash of the gun. She had it to her own head now. “And so do you. You just think he's so great.”

“He is smart,” Aaron whispered, hissing when Spencer moved against his side. His ribs flared pure white hot pain, and there was a nagging pull in his hip that felt like fire. “But so are you. I read your article on BTK in the school newspaper. Your analysis was...” his eyes closed for a moment and he almost gave in. His vision was swimming, going from black to gray, spotted with flashing lights. The pain in his head was almost overwhelming. “I'm sorry. My head hurts quite a lot, Ashby. Your analysis of BTK was fascinating. You um...” he sucked in a ragged breath. “You asked me questions about switching programs. If you haven't made up your mind yet, you're surrounded by the best team of profilers the FBI has, and I'm sure they'd love to talk to you. If you could just...” Aaron went limp mid-sentence, unable to hold on any longer. The pain in his head was shredding his conscious. Rossi quickly pushed him over entirely onto Spencer so he could get his own gun. Things were going to happen fast if he wasn't able to continue.

Spencer wrapped his arms around Aaron, holding his entire body up as long as he could.

“Just what?” Ashby asked, her voice thick with tears. “I just love you so much. Don't you see that? Don't you see how good I could be for you? You need someone to take care of you. Who appreciates you.”

Derek scowled and primed his trigger finger, feeling slighted by the attack. As if he wasn’t a good partner. As if he wasn’t everything Aaron needed and more. As if their relationship was trivial and meaningless.

“Agent Hotchner isn't able to speak right now. You hurt him very badly. We need to get him to a hospital...would you put down your weapon and come with us?” Rossi didn't even flinch, didn't hesitate when he called Aaron Agent, and Ashby frowned.

“You mean Professor Hotchner. He's retired. He's finished with you.”

“Right. I'm sorry, just a force of habit. I've known him for many years.”

“Let me see him.”

“No. He's hurt. Ashby, you need to put the weapon down.”

It didn't take long before she decided she was being lied to, that they were concealing something under the shroud of dark. That something about Rossi didn't sit well, that Aaron was being kept from her on purpose. That he was simply pretending to be hurt so she would listen to them and do as they said. Just hiding from her.

Or maybe dead, and if he was dead then she had nothing left. All of this was for nothing. That thought did her in, and soon after the bullets were flying again madly into the darkness. She didn't really intend to kill anyone, she had her eyes closed. She really just wanted them to kill her. If Aaron was gone she had nothing left.

Derek felt a bullet graze his arm, slicing hot fire through his skin like a molten knife. He did not miss this part of it. This bullshit. He really fucking hated being shot at, and he hated actually getting hit even more.

“Spencer,” Aaron whispered, grappling with consciousness. The sound of Derek crying out that he'd been hit stirred something in him that had been dormant a long time now. He could feel it vibrating in him. “My gun...”

“No way. Morgan will kill me.”

“Spencer...now.”

He managed to grab his ankle holster, his familiar friend, and in the madness he could somehow make out Ashby's face flickering in the flashlights and gunfire. His vision was red, eyelashes sticky with blood, but his sight...he knew he would hit her. He had the only vantage point that was a sure success, no tanks or other pieces of large equipment in the way. Some feeling, a strange icy feeling, flowed from his shoulder to his fingers and he knew...

Bullets were flying, she was going to hit one of them soon. He could hear Derek's voice, mad as a damn hornet, and he knew that for now Derek was okay. Hurt, yes, but not dying. Not yet. He had to do it now or she was going to kill someone. If he hesitated. And that someone might be Derek...his righteous anger coursed through him.

He aimed his sight right between her eyes and clicked down just a notch, just enough to put her down without killing her. He didn't want to kill her, he felt sad for her. He felt guilty for whatever he'd done to make her feel this way. But he was also angry that this entire situation was happening at all. She fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, a heavy thud, blood seeping out of a wound in her shoulder. She didn't try to get back up, didn't even try to move. She just cried.

“Is he dead?” she asked at the sound of the gun being kicked out of the way of her hand. “Is Aaron dead?”

“No. He shot you.” JJ's voice, stern and uncharacteristically cold, rang clear through the new unsettled silence. He could hear Ashby laugh, then, and it sent a chill down his spine. Laughing and crying.

“But he didn't kill me...” she sang quietly, smiling. “He must love me. He didn't kill me.”

“I will if you don't shut the fuck up,” Derek spat, walking past her with his hand covering the wound on his arm. Blood pooled between his fingers and the feel of it just made him angrier. He wasn't an FBI Agent and he sure as shit didn't have to watch himself anymore. This was fucked up and he was pissed. No, he wasn't going to shoot her, he had no desire to go to prison himself but he'd be damned if he was going to sit there while she spouted off about how much Aaron must love her if he had the shot and didn't take it.

Meanwhile, Aaron lay slumped against Spencer, the smell of gunpowder fresh in his nostrils. “...'m gonna be sick...” he mumbled seconds before emptying the contents of his stomach all over the ground where Spencer had been moments before. His reflexes were just sharp enough to save him from that. Derek rushed to where Aaron was, sat down beside him while he tried to get the sick feeling to pass, and frowned.

“What'd you have to go and chase this chick for huh? You couldn't wait?”

“Didn't chase her. She would...she was going to kill Malachai...did you get him? Is he safe?”

“Yeah, man. We got him, he was in the closet in the photo lab. He's with Tara now. What the hell happened? You said you wanted to show Reid something and next thing I know you're unconscious at the bottom of a stairwell...”

“I showed Reid the chocolates...my office...she walked in...it’s the student I had lunch with, Derek. The coffee...the chocolates...she wanted to...to show me something down here…” Malachai, he thought. She was going to show him what she’d done to Malachai. He gagged painfully again, this time a strangled sob escaped along with it. His chest hurt so bad. It had been a long time since he'd had a head injury that made him sick. “She let Reid go, but he followed us. When she went after him, they were near the stairwell. I got her off of him, and she threw me down the stairs. She didn't mean to hurt me...said she was sorry before she ran...she said she loved me...I didn't even know her name until today and she said she loved me...” He wasn't crying, exactly, but he was damn close. This was too much, it was just too fucking much. What was it about him that made people behave this way? Foyet? Peter Lewis? Now this?

“Looks like we need to start up our hand-to-hand training again huh?” Derek asked, keeping his voice as casual and light as he could. He pulled Aaron close to him. Just having him close right now was all he really wanted. The sound of his body hitting the ground, the silence that followed, it made him feel hollow inside. “You need a refresher course.”

They wheeled Ashby out on a stretcher and she stared at them sitting on the floor waiting their turn, at Derek holding Aaron there by his side. The sight of her made him angry all over again. But he won, he was the one who got to hold Aaron. Who got to take him home and kiss him and love him. It was childish of him to be angry like this, the girl had serious problems and he did feel for her...but she’d nearly taken something from him. Something big. She’d been stalking his family, prepared to go to great lengths. She had pictures of his toddler on her laptop, pictures of Jack who had already lost one parent to violence. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share any of that with Aaron, it might be better that he didn’t know.

Aaron didn't seem to notice her passing at all, he just let his miserable head rest against Derek's shoulder. His t-shirt was cool against Aaron's too hot cheek. It would be fine if he just...closed his eyes...for a minute...

(8)

“A concussion, two broken ribs, stitches in your scalp and a pretty badly bruised up hip. You're a complete shit show, you know that?” Derek said every word with love and exhaustion competing for top spot. He thought they were past all of this, but he had to admit...it was about one million times better sitting side by side like this, knowing they would go home and lick their wounds together. Sleep in the same bed, care for each other. No one was going home alone. That was a far cry from the old days.

They both had enough sick leave stored up to take real time away from work. To heal. Hell, the university was practically throwing sick leave at Aaron to make sure he was placated. Didn’t find a reason to pursue legal action...he wasn’t even thinking about it, though. But he’d take the time off.

And they would both have to tell Jack what happened. Do that walk of shame. He was already upset, this was just going to make it unbearable. Maybe they’d take a trip, go hole up at the lake cabin for a few weeks, repair things with some quiet quality time in the woods.

“You're not so hot yourself. You have twelve stitches. That tattoo's never going to be the same.”

Derek was a little upset about that. About the bullet ripping right through his ink, but he had been thinking about a new tattoo and maybe this was the reason to do it. Have it fixed, changed to meet where he was in life now. Who he was. In the meantime, his arm hurt like a bitch. They’d stuffed it into a sling for him and while he usually ripped them right back off, this time...he was going to leave it. The way it took the pressure off eased the pain some.

“You remember what Spencer was saying a few weeks ago? About one of us getting hurt and not having rights in the hospital?”

“Me. He said me, Derek. But yes I recall the discussion.”

“Guess he wasn't so far off, huh?”

It hadn't been easy, getting in there. They had to wait in separate triage rooms, sign papers, call him the emergency contact in the interim just to move things along. It was a little insulting having their entire relationship relegated to the emergency contact line of an intake form.

“I suppose not. At least we were both conscious when we came in. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Yeah. Might not be so fortunate next time. So...I was thinking...you wanna hitch your cart to this wagon officially? Bet we could find a chaplain around here somewhere and...”

“I do want to marry you, Derek. But not in a hospital with a splitting headache and stitches in my head. Can we wait a couple of weeks?”

“I've already been waiting a lifetime, what's another couple weeks huh?”

Aaron laughed and groaned with tears in his eyes, one palm pressing into his aching side. “Don't make me laugh. Please.”

“Right. Sorry.” Derek put his arm around Aaron and rested his head against Aaron's temple. “You know, it’s pretty cool. I'm basically getting married to Indiana Jones. College professor who likes to throw down a little action montage in his spare time. You haven't lost anything in your old age, even if you do eat Tums with your coffee and think I don’t see it.”

“Derek…” Aaron began, ready to tell him he was having second thoughts about the whole school thing. About teaching. Derek seemed to know without him saying a word.

“Okay okay. Let's go home, the team is coming over for dinner tonight and I'd like to get a few hours of sleep before they take over our house. We’ll talk about the future career path of Aaron Hotchner afterward...”

It was 3am. The last time they'd seen 3am like this...well they couldn't remember. They were beat. Aaron thought he might even be able to get more than three hours of sleep.

(x)

The noise level in their small house was almost deafening, and Aaron was for once glad that the hearing in his right ear was slowly giving out. He was propped up on the couch with ice on his hip (and his head) while Derek and Jack ushered anyone who wanted it around for the grand tour. There wasn't much to it, the house wasn't large. It was the perfect size, old woodwork, simple neutral design, Aaron's damn boats. The kids' rooms had more personality than anywhere else except the backyard which was a sight to behold. Derek had built boxes and boxes while Aaron filled them with dirt and plants and life. They had a hammock that stretched between two old maple trees that would blanket their yard in gold to be raked up once autumn hit.

“Your house is nice,” Emily said, plopping down on the couch beside Aaron. He let out a little whimper at the jarring movement and nodded.

“It is.”

“I don't know what I pictured, really...but this isn't it. It's so...”

“Normal?”

“Yeah. Normal. You and your fucking boats...what's with that anyway?” She was staring at a painting of an old boat hull over the mantle. Gray and brown wood set against shocking green water and huge evergreens. He followed her gaze and smiled.

“My grandfather painted that. He had a cabin on a lake in northern Idaho, and there's this boat that was sunk there. The Tyee II. You can still see the hull today, it's sunk in this little bay. It was the last wood-burning tugboat on the lake, hauling logs to the Diamond Matchstick Company. He sat on the beach and painted this right after my grandmother told him she was pregnant with my father and wanted to move back to Virginia to be closer to her family. When I lived in Seattle, Haley and I took a trip over to that lake. We stayed in a gorgeous resort and managed to find our way up the eastern side of the lake all the way to the wreckage of this boat...it looks almost the same now, a little worse for the wear but preserved shockingly well. On the mantle, there's a framed photo of Haley in the water beside the boat as it was when we went.”

“Okay, warn me next time you're going to give me a history lesson...” she smirked, tossing back the rest of the blood red wine in her glass. “I'm kidding. That's amazing. Sometimes I wonder why I decided not to have roots like this. But then I look at Derek's face yesterday when he saw you on the ground and I know...I can't do that.”

“You could.”

“I don't want to.”

“That's fine. You don't have to.” He let out a small sigh and leaned to the side, resting heavy against her. He was too tired to support himself any longer. Everything hurt. “I saw the way you looked at me yesterday.”

“Yeah. Don't you ever...ever do anything stupid like that again. I have Luke and Matt to break down doors and make stupid fucking decisions now, I don't need you and Morgan adding to my troubles. God. Seriously, Hotch. Tell Emily I’m sorry?! What were you thinking?!”

“Where is Matt?”

“Oh, he's on leave, his wife just had another kid. They have so many, like probably a whole sports team...all adorable. With him out, I thought I was in the clear...wasn't going to have anyone trying to get themselves killed for a while...”

Aaron smiled. “There's nowhere to add any more gray hairs, you’re all full up.”

“Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuuck you asshole. You retire and move in with someone you love and you think you suddenly have jokes?” She didn't move though, not even when he started to feel heavy. Not even when she wanted more wine but his head was on her shoulder and she could feel his shallow, pained breaths starting to slow and even out. She just managed to flag down Tara who refilled her glass for her, offering a sweet little wink for her trouble. “You know, you guys could consult for us sometimes. No field work, for the love...no field work. But you could consult, if you wanted to. Having you two doing some of the thinking really helped us out. You saved that kid.”

“The team saved him,” Aaron corrected, his eyes drifting shut. “He would never have been in trouble...you never would have been there if not for me. It was all my fault.” His head hurt so bad, he just wanted to sleep. Not allowed to watch television or even read, not allowed to do much of anything but live life as a fixture on the couch for a few days...he didn't miss this. Not even a little. He could hear Jack in the kitchen telling Tara about him being little and knowing that his dad got hurt by whatever meal they had when he got home. If he was okay, they would cook. If he wasn't, it was hot dogs or canned soup. Something that required minimal effort, minimal time, minimal standing. Or Jessica would stay and cook them something, but he didn't like that as much because hurt dad didn't bother forcing him to eat vegetables the way aunt Jess did.

He peered into the swirling house, a sea of people in shapes and colors and sizes that confused his rattled brain and smiled. This house had seen its fair share of gatherings with Derek's family, or co-workers, Jack's friends, preschoolers for Hank's birthday...but it was a strange comfort having this particular group of people all under their roof. Luke and Spencer were standing and admiring the Tyee painting over the fireplace with their hands locked together (while Luke asked Spencer if he knew about all of Aaron's marksmanship awards and wondering if he could talk Derek into some hand to hand time just to see if he could take him), JJ and Tara were entertaining Jack in the kitchen, Penelope hadn't put Hank down the entire time she'd been in the house. She was glued to him, and he was thrilled to have someone to babble to about everything he loved. Aaron was a little worried she might try to stuff him in her purse when it came time to leave. He was pretty attached to the little guy. Derek and Dave were out back smoking cigars while Derek asked him for landscaping advice he didn't really need, he just liked to listen to Dave talk. He missed that. Dave had landscapers and groundskeepers who did the work for him, but he was the one who spent all the time dreaming up his spaces. He lived for entertaining, for filling his home with people he loved, and Derek thought now he understood exactly why. Their home never felt lonely, and it was rarely quiet, but this was a special kind of alive that he didn’t realize he was missing. These old friendships, they were missed.

“We're going to get married, you know.” Aaron whispered it, already half asleep, through barely parted lips. Emily nodded and hummed. “Soon. You'll come back for that won't you?”

“I wouldn't miss it for the world." She paused, licking her lips and glancing around the room at all of these people she loved who seemed so at home in this place they'd never been. Home wasn't a place, it was people, she'd come to learn that the hard way. "Are you happy, Hotch? Even after all of this? You’re really really happy with this life?” She couldn’t shake it, that guilty feeling that in the morning they’d all go back to Virginia and she’d return to her office that used to be his office. Her desk that was his desk. She needed to hear him say he wanted it this way. He would choose this way again and again. She needed it like she needed air.

“Mmm,” he hummed, nodding. “Yes. I am. Stop worrying. Let me sleep."

[peakdeer]

Day 9 - Sleep

I realize I'm behind. In my defense, school.

Sausage should sleep. As far as Jimmy is aware, he hasn’t slept in three days, and he’s working steadily towards a fourth. The man’s been working on a new marketplace for days straight, making an impressive amount of progress. The buildings were all top quality, each one made with the same care and diligence. Not to mention he looks very hot while building.

But he needs to sleep. Jimmy glanced over at his comm, yet to awaken with a message from Scott. He’d drag Sausage to bed himself if he wasn’t so absurdly strong and loud, but any attempts to do so definitely would not end well. So Jimmy was stuck alternating between staring at his comm waiting for his boyfriend to respond and staring out the window looking at his other boyfriend. From the last few times Jimmy had casually walked by Sausage and suggested he get some sleep (which was always brushed off by Sausage with the added bonus of ‘Don’t worry Jimmy! I’ll sleep when I get tired enough! Was that not comforting? Fine! I’ll sleep before it gets bad, okay?’ which was an absolute lie) Sausage had begun to droop as he worked, pausing for seconds as if he was drifting off before his head snapped up and he continued working. His hands were no less accurate, and the buildings still went on, and Jimmy continued to compose more paragraphs for his lecture.

Jimmy practically lunged for his comm when it went off, overshooting and falling off his bed into a twisted pile of limbs and pain. He struggled into a sitting position anyway, clicking open Scott’s contact to read his message.

Intolirable Snowman: What’s the issue

Intolirable Snowman: Also ‘intolerable’ is still spelled wrong, just like it was yesterday

Kranky Kraken: well, ‘kranky’ has been spelled wrong for weeks, so you can shut up

Intolirable Snowman: That was intentional. It’s alliteration. I sincerely doubt that ‘intolirable’ was intentional.

Kranky Kraken: WELL MAYBE IT WAS

Intolirable Snowman: Mhm. Sure. Keep telling yourself that.

Kranky Kraken: I SWEAR TO COD I’M GONNA DECIPITATE YOU

Intolirable Snowman: It’s ‘decapitate’, not ‘decipitate’.

Intolirable Snowman: Anyway, what did you need? You said it was an emergency

Kranky Kraken: …

Kranky Kraken: oh

Kranky Kraken: i forgot about that

Intolirable Snowman: I figured

Intolirable Snowman: was it actually important or can I get back to what I was doing?

Kranky Kraken: It’s very important! An EMERGENCY! An actual one!

Kranky Kraken: I need you to help me drag Sausage to bed!

Intolirable Snowman: I mean, I’m always down for some fun, but right now?

Kranky Kraken: AHFIUAWGUJNWIO

Kranky Kraken: NO

Kranky Kraken: SCOTT

Kranky Kraken: STOP TYPING

Kranky Kraken: I MEANT HE HASN”T SLEPT

Intolirable Snowman: oh

Intolirable Snowman: in how many days?

Kranky Kraken: It’s a sad day when that’s the first question that comes to mind. Not ‘what do you mean’ or ‘it’s probably a one-time thing’

Kranky Kraken: the first question is ‘in how many days’

Intolirable Snowman: well, answer the question

Kranky Kraken: four

Intolirable Snowman: HSLEGRIUHFEAOHA

Intolirable Snowman: SAUSAGE

Intolirable Snowman: I’ll be over

Jimmy leaned back against his cot, stretching his arms over his head with a toothy yawn. Scott should be over soon, and they can drag Sausage to sleep against his will.

Scott slammed open the door a few minutes later, wings spread open and an infuriated look on his face. “HE WHAT.”

Something in Jimmy’s chest quieted down knowing that one of his boyfriends was here. He always liked it better when they were near him, and they were safe, and they were taken care of. Scott, at the very least, remembered the concept of self-care, even if Sausage and his own self forgot it far too often.

“He’s been out there working for nearly four days with no breaks,” Jimmy got right to the point, raising his arm to point out the window at Sausage’s form.

“THE LITTLE—WHY are my boyfriends IMBECILES?” Scott snarled, turning harshly on his feet to stare down at Jimmy. “EVERY TIME I TURN AROUND! You two are terrible!” He sighed aggravatedly, sinking down into Jimmy’s lap. “For once, I would like you two to take care of yourselves. Is that too much to ask?”

“Apparently,” Jimmy remarked, completely ignoring the fact that Scott’s tirade was aimed at him as well. He fiddled with Scott’s hair, hugging him closer to himself. “You look tired too. Is your council being annoying?”

“Yes,” Scott admitted reluctantly. “I keep trying to pass reforms to help restore Rivendell’s economy, but they keep shutting them down. I can’t even fix the gold farm to help make more revenue without their approval, and we’re already in debt to Lizzie in gold. I’m not sure how to fix it anymore.”

Jimmy snarled low in his throat, instinctively clutching Scott closer. “Do you need me to threaten them for you? I’d be more than happy to!”

“I know you would. But that’s not appropriate for me to have you do—even if I would pay to see them cower like rabbits.” Scot sighed, leaning back into Jimmy before sitting up again. “Well, we have a Sausage to collect, don’t we?”

Jimmy nodded, heaving himself to his feet with Scott dangling from his arms like a kitten. He ignored Scott’s shriek of protest, heading towards the door. “Mhm. Let’s go get him. I wanna cuddle,” He commented sleepily.

Scott and Jimmy landed quite differently—Scott, curse his stupid elven grace, stuck the landing perfectly with the elegance of an angel. Jimmy, on the other hand, landed on a loose board and nearly fell off the building. He ignored Scott’s following quip, glancing around to pinpoint where Sausage was. Sausage had moved since he last saw him, now on the rooftop next to them. He looked up as they approached, a smile brightening his face. Jimmy instinctively smiled back, something warm bubbling up in his chest.

“Hey! Long time no see, eh?” Sausage called, laying his hammer down and springing across the roof to meet them. “You came to visit me while I was working?” Sausage inquired, looking up at his boyfriends with an adorable little grin on his face.

“Yes, you little workaholic,” Scott scoffed, picking up Sausage by the scruff of his neck. Really, for an elf, Scott was unreasonably strong. Of course, Jimmy was stronger, but Scott was an elf, a notably weaker species than the codfolk. Sausage didn’t seem to mind—yet, because they hadn’t started dragging him away yet. “How long have you been working out here?”

“Oh, not very long. Just since this morning,” Sausage lied completely unconvincingly. Scott clearly didn’t buy it, eyeing the dark eye bags under his eyes. They really did look like bruises at this point, a fact that neither he nor Scott were happy about.

“Mhm. Is that what you call four days?” Jimmy challenged, stepping next to Scott. Sausage seemed to bend slightly, possibly because he was now being stared down by his two boyfriends, both of which were rather scary and intimidating.

“…It hasn’t been four days,” Sausage tried, glancing away and towards the ground. Scott reached forward to grasp Sausage’s chin, forcing him to look at them.

“Three days is plenty reason for worry. The fact you won’t admit it is just straight up asking us to babysit you to make sure you actually sleep. No, no,” Scott shushed Sausage when he tried to speak. “I’m aware that’s mildly hypocritical. On the other hand, we make sure to at least take naps. You don’t. That needs to change.”

“And on that note—” Jimmy jumped in, stepping forward and scooping Sausage up, “—you are going to sleep.”

Predictably, Sausage began squirming like he was being kidnapped, whatever he had been about to say dissolving into screeches and violence. Scott stepped forward, helping to subdue Sausage to prevent extreme bodily injury to Jimmy’s person. Sausage could hit hard, after all. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to fly with him struggling this much, so they had to resort to walking through the streets with a very uncooperative boyfriend.

The Mythlanders they passed would walk by, hear the yelling, stop, look at their king as if wondering if he was being kidnapped, then notice Jimmy and Scott and walk away. It was very hilarious and offered a welcome distraction to Sausage’s ear-shattering yelling and rather annoying struggling. With two people, the intervention was going quite well, despite Sausage’s best attempts to escape.

They were halfway to the bridge between Mythland and the Codlands before Sausage finally quieted down, allowing them to drag him through the streets. It was all very comical, watching Sausage glare at the ground with his arms crossed as he was dragged along the cobblestones. However, that couldn’t be comfortable, so Jimmy heaved Sausage over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, eliciting several loud screeches. The codfolk were much more concerned about what was going on, but they slowly dispersed when Jimmy assured them that everything was all right.

Sausage was mostly silent as they made their way to Jimmy’s hut, likely because he was very aware that he was making himself look stupid and didn’t want to draw any more attention than he already had. Jimmy decided to pretend to ignore the occasional punches to his back. Really, it was like trying to give Norman medicine. You knew it was good for them, and that they needed it, but they still acted like you were torturing them.

Scott opened the door to Jimmy’s hut, beckoning them in. Jimmy barged into his house, beelining straight for his bed and collapsing on it dramatically—after readjusting Sausage into his arms. Otherwise that probably would have hurt. Of course, Sausage immediately began struggling and yelling and what-have-you like he was being kidnapped, but he was a very comfortable cuddle buddy when he wasn’t screaming bloody murder.

Scott rolled his eyes at them, a fond smile spreading across his face. Jimmy scooted over slightly, leaving room for Scott to come cuddle by Jimmy. To his satisfaction, Scott also flopped on the bed, cuddling as close as he could get to his boyfriends without being struck.

Jimmy ignored Sausage’s protests, keeping him tucked in between his arms. Sausage’s kicks and punches were half-hearted as best, falling into sulking in just a few minutes. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as a soft buzzing filled the air—a soft buzzing that sounded suspiciously like a purr. The first time they’d heard him purr, they’d been obsessed with it. Even now, it was the most precious sound Jimmy had ever heard.

“Looks like someone’s enjoying themselves,” Jimmy teased, running his webbed fingers through Sausage’s hair. His purring almost tripled at that, getting even louder when Scott slipped Jimmy’s arm over his shoulder to cuddle closer to Sausage.

“Oh, shut up,” Sausage huffed, burying his face in Scott’s chest. “I was fine. I was going to sleep! You didn’t need to intervene!”

“If you work until you pass out, that doesn’t count as sleeping,” Scott scolded.

“It does too.” Sausage argued, not even bothering to lift his head from Scott’s chest to make his answer clear.

“You’re insufferable,” Scott sighed exasperatedly. “Even Jimmy is better at knowing when he needs to take a break!”

“Hey!” Jimmy yelped defensively, smacking Scott’s legs with his tail.

Sausage and Scott burst into laughter at his expense, causing Jimmy to sigh fondly. He loved his boyfriends, even if they drove him up the wall, and even if they could be very stupid sometimes.

Because after all, they were his, and he was theirs.

[zorilleerrant]

“We’re doing what?” Bernard says, adjusting the sticky, itchy mask that Tim swears he’ll get used to if he gives it a few more weeks, and picks at the sleeve of his… he hesitates to say costume, because it’s basically just a tac vest in pink, and he has maybe a few too many accessories full of pockets, but there’s apparently a lot of things you need to carry just for day to day vigilantism in Gotham. “I mean, yeah, sure, Be Gay Do Crime, but what exactly?”

“I told you. We’re holding up a truck,” Tim says, again, like just repeating himself makes it any clearer for Bernard. He wants to ask if hold up means a different thing than he thinks it does, except what else could it possibly mean? What, are they going to lift it up to do maintenance on it or something? Tim seems like the type to say they’re jacking a truck and mean that. Also Bernard wishes they’d given him a code name instead of just laughing.

“Like a heist. We’re doing a heist? Is that not a supervillain thing to do?” They were actually really nice about getting Bernard kitted out and practicing with his staff (okay, they made a lot of innuendos about the staff, but if that’s what Tim uses, it’s easier to practice together, right? They made a lot of innuendoes about that, too) and apparently it’s a huge benefit that he already knows martial arts. But he kept asking whether they really needed all that stuff – four hundred separate antidotes – and they would just give Tim looks and ask if he really wanted to take Bern, which, rude.

“It’s not a heist heist,” Tim says, but he’s still dressed as Robin, and armed, even if he’s spinning his staff around his arms and across his back instead of standing menacingly, which is better on the supervillain front, really. “We’re, you know. Redistributing medications,” Tim says, with some kind of quality in his voice like he’s mimicking someone, but Bernard hasn’t spent enough time with his family in costume to figure out who, yet. Their superhero voices are super different from their regular voices. It’s disconcerting.

“We’re stealing medicine?” Bernard asks, skeptically, and also in a voice that’s supposed to sound deep and booming, but kind of just sounds like he’s imitating a frog. He’s workshopping it. “I’m not sure how I feel about stealing medicine,” he adds, even though Tim is rolling his eyes and clearly remembering some sort of slideshow about all this, which Bernard is kind of grateful he didn’t have to watch too.

“Just follow my lead, okay? The driver knows what’s up,” Tim says, and the truck does pull into the stop, just like he said it would, the driver getting out and stretching for a few minutes before opening up the back. There are boxes and boxes neatly stacked with little bats stamped on them, like actually stamped, like with a giant red rubber stamp. Tim starts unloading them, and Bernard has to scramble to help.

“What’s in these?” Bernard asks. He thinks it’s quiet, but he’s still trying to get his superhero voice down, and he’s starting to see why everyone else was making fun of him for it. (Or, mostly, except for Steph, refraining from making fun of him.) He winces when the truck driver looks up, and tries to smile to cover for his gaff, but, like, what exactly is he meant to be implying here? Tim looks like he’s holding back a snort, which is his fault anyway, because he should’ve briefed Bernard better. Given him a dossier or something.

“The usual stuff,” the truck driver says, blandly, not handing over an inventory or anything, but ticking things off on her fingers, “antibiotics, insulin, inhalers, all the name brand stuff it can be hard to come by. Got a couple of those heating pad things you guys like this time, too. And your guys’ stuff, you know. The painkillers and bandages and all. I think there’s some branded clothing in there, too, marketing’s doing a whole thing.”

“That sounds, good, thanks!” Tim says, shoving things inside the Batmobile, while Bernard stares like a dumbass, trying to figure out how long this has been going on, and what exactly is happening here.

“So, like. Do you get paid for this?” Bernard says, gesturing vaguely at the supplies that Tim is carefully loading up, cataloguing as he goes. (Clearly, Tim does have an inventory.) Tim gives him a weird look over that, and the truck driver does too, but it’s too late to take it back once he’s said it. Not if he wants to establish street cred. Street cred? Is that anything?

“I mean, I get paid to drive the truck,” the truck driver says, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes a little, and looking Bernard up and down like she’s wondering whether to trust him. And not even like she’s nervous either, despite the fact that he’s clearly armed, and not that nervous plus doesn’t trust Robin implicitly means she’s probably from Gotham, and been around enough to know when stuff doesn’t sit right. Which means Bernard should be careful about antagonizing her, probably. “Not enough, mind you, and they’ve got me on the kind of unrealistic timelines that would make you shit your pants, but they’ve programmed in a long time for the Bats to do their thing.”

Bernard stares at her in incomprehension for what feels like the longest time, except that he probably should’ve seen this coming, from the way Tim was talking and all. “They do this on purpose? Like. Your company sets up boxes for us on purpose?” He glances over at Tim, who shrugs, shuffling things around a box that’s overflowing with bandages, which he puts in the back seat, which makes Bernard kind of anxious they’ll need them later.

“Sure, I don’t know, insurance covers it or something,” the truck driver says, shuffling around some of the boxes left in the truck and shutting the door again. “They got to thinking it’s costing them more to try to fight off Bats than just handing them shit, and, you know, I appreciate the break. Apparently Batman calling up management in the middle of the night to say it takes how long it takes is scary enough they built in buffers on the schedule. I’m going to sit here and eat my entire dinner.”

At this point, Tim gestures to the picnic baskets Bernard had been asking about, to which he’d only given the cryptic answer it’s highway robbery, and which apparently is dinner, presumably made by Alfred, for the truck driver, who makes excited sounds when Bernard sets it out on the picnic table for her, laying out fancy picnic silverware and everything, including a full tea set which is for some reason in the basket. There’s a thermos full of hot water to prepare it.

Which makes sense, because at least one pouch in his utility belt is full of tea bags, just in case Bernard needs them on, like, a case, which doesn’t make any sense to him but he’s seen Robins doing way weirder stuff, so he should probably be used to it by now. He leaves the truck driver to her dinner, and goes to help Tim repack everything, some of it into the boxes it came in, some of it into various bags and envelopes. “This is normal?” he asks, and apparently his voice carries when he tries to make it sound funny like this, because the truck driver hears him.

She yells back, “oh, yeah, everyone does it except Wayne Pharma, who decided to spend the money developing better armor for their trucks and staffing them with guards and things. They won’t give any kind of help to the poor. They claim they’ve got to do it through charitable foundations, but people are robbing trucks left and right in this city, it seems an okay compromise. I think Bruce Wayne might just be an asshole.”

Bernard chokes on his spit a little, trying to respond and stop himself from responding at the same time, but at least he doesn’t make any kind of embarrassing noise, not even when Tim nods in enthusiastic agreement and says something about them thinking someone’s going to steal their proprietary tech secrets or something. “Paranoid,” Bernard adds, when Tim elbows him in the side, “guy’s paranoid, plans within plans, who knows what’s going on in his head.” Tim gives him a vaguely disappointed look for that answer, but Bernard can’t figure out what’s wrong with it, so he just shrugs back.

“Alright, you kids have fun, you stay safe out there,” the truck driver says, tucking into her soup and giving them a little wave. Bernard picks up the boxes and stacks them in the Batmobile’s trunk in the order Tim specifies, double checking to make sure everything’s squared away, and then they both say their goodbyes to the truck driver Bernard is now kind of wondering if Tim knows? Or maybe all the truck drivers just know how to get through the Bat version of a shakedown.

Bernard climbs into the front passenger seat of the Batmobile, wondering whether they’re just, like, going to go back and get the picnic set later? Or if there’s a tracker in it and Batman will swoop down and pick it up off the seat of the truck on its way out of town? “So, uh, I guess that’s where you guys get your painkillers and stuff?” he says, for lack of anything better to add, and then looks in the backseat, where everything set aside for personal use (kind of a lot, and now Bernard’s definitely worried about his ongoing health) stares menacingly at him.

“Better than breaking into a veterinarian’s office or something,” Tim says, completely unbothered, even when he throws an arm back reflexively to stop the biggest box from falling over when they turn a corner. They can’t have been driving more than a couple minutes when he pulls up to someone’s house where an old couple is sitting out front, waiting for them already. “Damian would be so mad if we robbed a vet, anyway. Hey! Guys! Guess what fell off a truck?”

The couple ambles over to pull some things out of the trunk (not most of them, even). They remind Bernard of his grandparents, if his grandparents trafficked stolen goods that Batman had arranged for them to hand out to their communities. Tim seems very pleased to be thanked, which Bernard gathers doesn’t happen all the time, and helps them move everything inside. Also the second picnic basket is full of cookies.