#i really need maeve to be there when he's killed or whatever

[supemaeve]

You really will do anything to hurt me, won't you? So… what are you and William cooking up? Hmm? Maybe you two brought that supervillain to town.

[fortheloveofwonderland]

My Reply | S.R

This one was a request from the lovely @reidsaurora-replies for my milestone celebration which got wildly out of hand. I think I damn near used every lyric of the song in this one. Also, Maeve does not exist in this universe. I felt like his phone calls with her were too similar to the letters with reader and not needed

Summary - Spencer writes his deepest tragedies down on paper for his pen pal. After ten years of exchanging letters and some divine intervention from JJ, the two of you finally come face to face.

CW - this one covers most of Spencer’s canon storylines including Tobis Hankel and his drug addiction, his moms illness, his fathers abandonment, getting shot in the knee, his headaches, Emily’s “death”, prison arc, Mr Scratch and Emily’s kidnapping, angst, interfering friends, lots of literary quotes.

WC - 6.3k

Making friends was always something Spencer Reid had been inherently bad at. He was always too young or too smart which always seemed to put people off of forming friendships with him. 

When he joined the BAU, his team called themselves his friends. But Spencer knew if he’d met any of them outside of work he would have nothing in common with them. 

They were simply friends by proximity, which admittedly was better than having no friends at all. But he couldn’t talk to them about everything, afraid to scare them away with talk of his mothers illness or his fathers abandonment. 

And sometimes he just needed to talk to someone. 

It was Garcia’s idea that he sign up for a pen pal. When she found out about his mom during the course of the fisher king case, he’d confessed that he didn’t feel comfortable talking to the team about such things. 

At first she’d actually suggested talking to someone online, she had many online friends who she talked to in various chat rooms. But after almost an hour of trying to explain that to the technophobe doctor and getting little more than a deep frown in response, she changed tact. 

A pen pal appealed to Spencer greatly. He already wrote daily letters to his mom and found it somewhat cathartic, getting his thoughts down on the page, but he never bothered her with the darker stuff. 

The idea of a faceless person he’d never meet reading his deepest, darkest thoughts was actually intriguing to him. And so with the help of Penelope he found himself a pen pal. 

In his first letter he’d just introduced the basics, his name and age, what he did for a living and that he lived in DC. 

He went on to explain how hard he found it to make friends and the difficulties of talking to his already established friends about the darker parts of his life. He ended the letter with a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird.

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - Harper Lee.

He received a reply little over a week later. 

Your name was Y/N and you were twenty two, three years younger than him and a grad student at Columbia University. You told him you would be happy to read whatever he sent you, that you were more than willing for him to write to you about the things he didn’t tell his friends. 

You signed off with a quote of your own quote from the book Infinite Jest.

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realise how seldom they do.” - David Foster Wallace. 

And so he did just as you said and he wrote another letter. 

His second letter to you was five pages long. He went into great detail about his mothers illness, how he’d been left to deal with it alone at ten years old. He wrote about how he’d made the decision at eighteen years old to have her committed to a sanitarium. 

He told you about growing up as a child prodigy in Las Vegas and how hard that was. You were the first person he ever told about Alexa Lisbon and being tied naked to a flagpole. 

He spoke about the events surrounding Elle leaving the team and how it didn’t feel complete without her. 

He ended the letter by apologising profusely that he’d wasted your time with his long winded rambles and said he hoped to hear from you soon and scrawled a quote from The Great Gatsby.

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald.

He said he would understand if you didn’t reply. But you did. 

The letter took two weeks to arrive and you explained that it was because you wanted to really process his words and give each and every one of them the time they deserved. He read the last few lines of your letter over and over again in a loop even though they were etched into his memory after only one glance.

I wish there was something I could say, to erase each and every page you've been through,

even though it's not my place to save you. 

“When I get lonely these days, I think: so be lonely. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” - Elizabeth Gilbert - Eat, Pray, Love. 

He wasn’t familiar with the book and so he’d gone out and brought it and read it cover to cover within an hour. 

Reading your letter made Spencer feel understood for the first time in his young life. You didn’t pass judgement on him. Spencer found that between the pages of your letters he found a kindred spirit. 

The letters continued back and forth for several months until one day you didn’t receive a reply. His last letter had been penned to you on route to a case in Atlanta, which you’d responded to the day you received it. But there was radio silence from Spencer. 

You shouldn’t have been as worried as you were, but you couldn’t help yourself. His letters had become such a huge part of your world, often rereading them hundreds of times just to make sure you didn’t miss any little nuance on the page. 

His handwriting was ingrained within you, his scrawly, sometimes barely legible penmanship danced behind your eyelids every time you closed your eyes. His letters had rapidly become the best part of any day. And for over a year you didn’t receive a reply. 

After a while you’d stopped holding out hope every time you collected your mail. Eventually you gave up ever expecting to hear from him again. Maybe he didn’t need you anymore. Perhaps he’d made a real life friend, maybe even a girlfriend and you’d been rendered ineffective. 

But then little over a year after you sent your last letter, you found an envelope in your mail slot with the familiar handwriting you adored so much and the DC postmark. 

Y/N,

I don’t really have any excuses, all I can say is I’m sorry. I have written you fifty three letters over the course of the last year but never mailed a single one. They are piled up on my desk, addressed and even stamped, but I couldn’t bring myself to mail them. 

I’ve been struggling, I can’t lie to you. I can’t even lie to you through a letter and tell you I’ve been fine because I haven’t. I think you would see through my prose, know that I wasn’t being truthful. And you’ve never given me a reason to be anything but honest with you.

The case in Atlanta was one of the hardest I’ve ever worked. I’m not going to beat around the bush, I’m just going to tell what happened and hopefully this letter will end up with you and not in the pile on my desk. 

I was kidnapped by the man we were hunting down. I spent two days tied to a chair being beaten within an inch of my life but a man with multiple personalities. In fact, that’s not strictly true. I wasn’t beaten within an inch of my life; one of the personas killed me. 

I’m not entirely sure how long I was technically dead before he revived me but obviously not long enough to cause permanent neurological damage. Irreversible brain damage occurs after four minutes without oxygen so it stands to reason it was less than four minutes. 

But during that time, my life flashed before my eyes, including every single word of every single one of your letters. 

One of the alter’s drugged me in his own way of trying to save me. Drugging me was supposed to help with the pain, both mental and physical. I fought it at first, desperate for him not to stick that needle in my vein. But after that first hit, I stopped resisting. 

I think you can probably already see where this is going. You’re incredibly smart and you seem to know me so well. After I shot Tobias Hankel dead I took three vials of dilaudid from his corpse. 

I should have prefaced this by saying I am now ten months sober, and offered up the good news first. But there were several months that I continued using the drug in secret, hoping it would aid in erasing the memories of it all. 

It took a case in New Orleans in which I met up with an old friend Ethan and ended up almost destroying my career for me to decide to get sober. I’ve had a lot of difficulties in my life, as you know, but getting clean is the hardest thing I have ever done. 

And now for the first time in months I’m craving again. Maybe that’s why I’m writing to you, determined to send this letter this time. I need to know that everything is going to be ok and you are the only one that I will believe it from. 

My team tries. Now it's all out in the open, they try to help. But you don’t even need to try. Your help is so effortless, so easy and I’m in real need of that right now. 

His letter went on in this vein for another six pages. He also included several pages of handwritten poetry which he had copied out of a book to send you. With each word you consumed you felt your heart breaking for him a piece at a time. 

And he signed off with a surprising choice of quote from The Lorax.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” - Dr Seuss. 

You spent the next month or so trying to cultivate the perfect reply, but for the first time in your life, words failed you. 

It was three days after Spencer received his one year sober chip that your letter arrived. 

I got your letter and the poetry you sent me, postmarked in December of last year. I really hope you’re doing better, all your friends close by your side, one step closer to recovery.

I hope by the time you receive this you are close to one year sober, but if you didn’t make it you need to know that’s ok too. Life is full of ups and downs Spencer. If you didn’t make it this time you will the next time. Or the one after that. 

If you relapsed I need you to not beat yourself up over it. You will be ok, Spencer Reid, for that I am certain. 

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. 

***

When he got shot in the knee, he wrote to you from the hospital. He told you how hard it was for him to turn down pain medication when he was in so much agony. But he was over two years sober now and he wouldn’t do anything to risk a relapse. 

Your reply spoke of how proud of him you were and how you knew it couldn’t have been easy for him but you hoped the fact you were proud went some way to aid him. 

He told you it meant more to him than you would ever know. 

Then he started having headaches and the letters became sporadic. When he did write he told you how painful it was for him to try to focus on the words in front of him. 

I’ve seen so many doctors and no one can tell me what’s wrong with me. It’s like they think I’m making it up, like this pain isn’t real. 

On my good days it’s a dull throb but on the bad days it’s nearly paralysing. I’m so scared that this is a precursor for schizophrenia. I'm still young enough for my first break, and it is a genetic illness. 

I love my mom but I can’t turn out like her, Y/N, I just can’t. I'm so, so scared. 

But your letters are the greatest comfort to me. I don’t think there are words to describe how much they mean - I will try to surmise it with a quote from Charlotte's Web -

"'Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.'" - E.B White.

You could feel his fear through the pages. His handwriting was somehow even harder to read than usual and sentences often tapered off with no ending. There were whole passages scribbled out so violently his pen had ripped the paper in places. There were crude drawings of brains and dark rain clouds in the margins. 

Spencer, 

I am so sorry you are going through this and that no one can give you the answers you seek. But this isn’t the end for you, even if it is schizophrenia, you can still live a full and normal life. 

If you'll just hold on for one more second, if you just hold on to what you have, you will wake up tomorrow. Behind every rain cloud lies the sun. As Victor Hugo said in Les Miserables -

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” 

In his next few letters he seemed to be getting better, his headaches slowly dissipating until they only hassled him every once in a while. Things seemed to be looking up for him. 

But then one of his best friends died. 

His detailed letter told you all about Ian Doyle and Emily’s history with him and went on to conclude how she died on the operating table. 

I’ve been through a lot of trauma in my life, lost a lot of people close to me but never like this. I’ve never had to bury someone I love and honestly I don’t know how to move past this. 

My initial reaction has been dilaudid. It's the only thing I can think of to take the pain away. 

Tell me not to do it, Y/N, please. Please tell me that this grief will get better and that using drugs again is not the answer. Please help me stay clean. 

"When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time — the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers.” John Irving - A Prayer for Owen Meany

It took you longer than it should have done to formulate a reply. You felt pressured, like his sobriety hung in your hands. You hated that his friend had died but you didn’t think it was fair of him to put this on you. And you told him such.

Spencer,

I am sorry to hear about Emily, I know how close the two of you were. I’m no expert on grief, I can’t tell you how to deal with this.

You know full well that using dilaudid again is a bad idea, you really don’t need me to tell you that. Honestly, I’m a little frustrated at you for putting this on my shoulders. 

I am always here to help Spencer, in any way I can but sometimes I think you expect too much from me. We’ve been trading letters back and forth for the better part of five years and I don’t think you’ve ever really asked me about myself aside from those first initial letters.

And it’s fine, you needed this friendship more than I did. But over time this has started to feel so one sided and I don’t always look forward to your letters as much as I once did. 

I realise this is not the best time for me to be saying these things but I can’t hold back any longer. I’m glad I can be someone you can turn to but I have my own life, my own issues and I have no one to talk to about them. 

You put too much pressure on me Spencer and it’s a lot to take. I’ve tried to help shoulder your misery all these years but it’s starting to bring me down. All I can say is you need to wake up, you've gotta believe; you can't give up. Time keeps going on without us, long after we're dead and gone.

And you finished it with a simple quote from After You by Jojo Moyes.

“No journey out of grief was straightforward. There would be good days and bad days.” 

It was no surprise to you that you didn’t receive a reply. 

***

Y/N,

It’s been two years and I’m sorry for that. Two years, one month and eleven days. The truth is your last letter was hard for me to read as you can probably understand. 

The hardest part of reading it was the fact that I knew you were right. I’ve been selfish all these years. I’ve treated you like a sounding board for my problems and never once asked how you were. 

It's taken me time to write this because I wanted to get to a better place before I responded. I was angry at first, I felt like I was being abandoned again and my anger would not have been conducive. 

Then I was hurt, hurt that the one person I thought would always be there for me had turned their back on me. I displaced my grief over Emily’s death onto you and anything I would have written in that time would have only been the rage fuelled epitaph of a grieving man. 

And then once I dealt with those emotions, life simply got away from me. Emily was alive and well, her death was faked to get Doyle off of her back. Again I was angry about being lied to by my friends but eventually I was just happy she was alive. 

Then I turned thirty and had a crisis of faith I suppose. I guess with my intellect I always assumed I would be doing something more with my life and turning thirty kind of threw me through a loop. 

We had some changes to the team, new agents coming and going. All in all things have been somewhat hectic. 

But that’s not why I’m writing. 

I am writing because I really do want to know everything about you. I want you to be able to open up to me the way I always have to you. I want to be your shoulder, your repreve. I really hope I haven’t completely blown our friendship and I hope to be the kind of person who you can talk to. 

These arms remain stretched out to you and maybe someday you'll accept them. Maybe it's too late to save a young girl's heart that's long stopped beating. But I hope that it isn’t. 

“You have been in every way all that anyone could be…if anybody could have saved me it would have been you.” Jennifer Niven - All the Bright Places. 

You wanted to tell him it was too little too late, that after two years of silence you weren’t interested anymore. 

You wanted to simply not reply, ignore him entirely like he’d done to you. 

But you couldn’t. And so you replied. 

It was your longest letter to date, depicting in great detail how he’d made you feel over the years and all the hardships you’d faced without having someone to vent to. 

But getting to write it all down had been purifying, and by the time you were finished you weren’t mad anymore. 

I am willing to give this another shot, but things have to be different. If we’re to continue this friendship then it has to be a two way street. 

But I can’t pretend that I haven’t missed your letters because I have. I see pieces of you between the words, parts of yourself I’m not sure you realise you leave on the page. 

I’ve painted a picture of you in my mind's eye and even after two years with no letters, I’ve carried that picture with me wherever I go. 

I feel like I somehow know you better than I know myself and I hope going forward you can start to know me the same way. Charlotte Bronte once said -

“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.” - Jane Eyre. 

***

Spencer didn’t know how it happened, he only knew that it had happened. Over the course of all the years writing to you it was almost a surprise it hadn’t happened sooner. Or maybe it had and he just didn’t realise until now. 

Spencer Reid had fallen in love with the woman who wrote her prose to him. 

It had been ten years of letters, every single one of which he kept in their envelopes in date order in the bottom drawer of his desk at home. 

Those letters were his lifelines on bad days, the one thing that kept him tethered. He didn’t even know what you looked like, even what you sounded like but he loved you. He loved you with every fibre of his being. 

And he couldn’t stop himself from telling you exactly what you meant to him. Even if it inevitably destroyed what the two of you had, he couldn’t stop the words from flying across the page. 

So that’s pretty much everything that’s happened these past few weeks. Mom’s doing ok but obviously it's a huge adjustment for her and I’m not entirely sure how long I can keep her living with me but for now it works.

How did the interview go? I have absolutely no doubts that you blew them all away with your presentation, you’re a hard person not to fall in love with.

Your presence in my life has brightened my every waking minute. You once told me that behind every rain cloud lies the sun; you are the sun behind my clouds. Your letters bring me back to life, your handwriting penned onto my soul. 

Is it foolish of me to be in love with someone I have never laid eyes on? William Makepeace Thackery said in Vanity Fair -

“It is better to have loved wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.” 

I suppose that’s as good of an answer as any. 

***

Five days after he penned his love confession, he was arrested in Mexico. Once all the drugs had left his system, only after he was extradited and arraigned and placed at Milburn was he able to dwell on the fact he never received your reply. 

And being trapped in a cell gave him way too much time to think about that. 

It was possible you had replied, maybe even just to tell him he was crazy to even think he could be in love with someone he had never met. But he was sure you wouldn’t have even bothered to respond, thinking him a lunatic you needed to cut ties with. 

After a month in prison on one of JJ’s visits she brought a letter with her which she had found in his apartment. She recognised the handwriting on the envelope from several she’d seen him reading over the years. 

She wasn’t allowed to give him the letter but she offered to read it to him. At first he’d declined because he had no idea what to expect from your reply but after several long minutes he’d decided to let JJ read it to him. 

Spencer,

I am pleased to hear your mom is doing well but I do think you know that this solution won’t work in the long run. You say you live in a one bedroom apartment? You and I both know that you can’t sustain having your mother live there permanently. But I know you and I know you will figure out what’s best for you both.

The interview was amazing and they offered me the job on the spot. If it wasn’t for all your help with the presentation there is no way I would have gotten it, so thank you so much for that. 

As for the other thing…

For some time now I have been wondering about feelings I didn’t understand. You’ve been such a large part of my life for so long and even though we’ve never met I feel like we have, if that makes sense? I feel like in my heart I know you. My heart knows your heart.

Falling for you was as inevitable as the sun rising each morning. Perhaps it is foolish but I believe Thackeray knew what he was talking about. And I also believe Emily Bronte was talking about me and you when she said, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” 

Spencer had interrupted JJ then, when she was smiling from ear to ear as she read your words out loud. 

“That’s enough.” He cut her off, burying his head in his hands.

“Wow, Spence, I had no idea you’d met someone.” 

“I haven’t met anyone. She is simply a woman at the other end of a series of letters.” 

“How long?” JJ placed the pages down in front of her.

Spencer looked up at her, a small blush on his cheeks. He didn't want to be talking about this, least of all on the other side of a plexiglass screen with his other inmates nearby but he responded all the same.

“Ten years.” He shrugged. 

“Ten years?” JJ sounded incredulous. “Ten years of letters and you’ve never met? Why?”

“I, uh, it never really came up.” It wasn’t a lie, you’d never once discussed meeting in all those years. 

“Is it like a distance thing? Does she live far away?” 

“No,” He sighed with a shake of his head. “She’s in New York.” 

“New York!” She huffed. “New York is a five hour train journey, Spence!” 

“Jennifer, now is really not the time for this.” He lowered his voice as JJ’s had garnered eyes in their direction. “There is really no point in discussing this as we have no idea when or even if I’m going to get out of here.” 

“Don’t say that.” She shook her head.

“It’s true.” He shrugged sadly. “I really can’t think about all this right now, ok? Just take the letter back to my apartment and pretend you didn’t see it. Please?” 

If it weren’t for the desperation in his eyes she might have argued it. But she didn’t want to waste what little time she got to spend with Spencer fighting.

“Ok.” She relented with a small roll of her eyes.

“Thank you, JJ.” He offered a tight lipped smile. “How are the boys?” 

JJ filled him in but she wasn’t really focused anymore. In her head, she was already penning a letter of her own…

Y/N,

My name is Jennifer Jareau, JJ, and I work with Spencer at the BAU. I’m not sure if he’s mentioned me to you or not. He hasn’t really told me too much about you if I’m honest. But I have learned that he has strong feelings for you and you for him. I’m wondering if I can make a suggestion…

***

When you received the strange letter from Spencer’s friend JJ in response to yours, you’d been initially extremely confused as to why he was letting his teammates read your secret correspondence. 

But when she’d gone on to tell you that Spencer had been arrested along with all the details surrounding his incarceration and how she’d read your letter to him during their visitation, you started to understand. 

But then a few days later, before you had a chance to reply to her, you received another letter from Spencer with a postmark from Milburn Correctional Facility.

Y/N,

Maybe Thackeray and Bronte were right or maybe they were wrong, I can’t say for sure. What I can say with certainty is that I can’t carry on like this a moment longer.

Something has happened to me, it won’t be hard for you to figure out what as soon as you see the postmark. I am not willing to get into it or explain how I ended up here. But I have no idea how long I am going to be inside and I don’t want the rest of our communication to be sent through a string of guards who will pick apart each tormented sentence. 

I ask you not to write me back. This has to be the end of the road my dear. This letter has to be our last. I don’t know how much longer I will continue to be able to live like this. Each day my hope dies a little more and I’m sure I won’t make it out of here alive. 

I am writing simply to say thank you. Thank you for all your years of listening, for all your patience and kind words and your hopeful prose. In my darkest hours you have shown me the light, dragged me out of the shadows of my own creation. 

I love you for all that you are and all that you have done but even you can’t save me this time. This really might be the end for me and I don’t want you to blame yourself. You are the only reason I made it this far in this treacherous game we call life. 

Take care of yourself, continue to live your absolute best life. And in time I pray that you forget me and are able to love someone far more tangible. 

All that is left to say can be summed up by a quote from The Miniaturist - 

“You are the sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.” Jessie Burton.

You replied firstly to Spencer, his heartbreaking words more pressing than JJ’s letter. You kept it short and to the point, knowing that various other prison guards would read it before it even made it to his hands. 

I appreciate but can't accept this thank you note that's sealed with your last breath and I won't stand aside and listen to you give up. 

You are stronger than that Spencer Reid and if I know anything about your team from all the years of hearing you speak of them it’s that they are the best at what they do and they will prove your innocence. 

Just remember what Ernest Hemmingway said in A Farewell to Arms -

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places.” 

You will be stronger at those broken places, Spencer, I have no doubt about it. 

And besides, if you don’t make it out of there, how do you  propose to ever meet me? 

Whilst on a role, you grabbed a clean sheet of paper and started scrawling again. 

Jennifer,

Thank you for your letter. I have spent some time musing on your suggestion and I think you might be right. 

I think it's time for me to take a trip to DC…

***

Spencer never opened your last letter because he had no intention of replying to it. If he didn’t read it, he could pretend you had never sent it and he wouldn’t be tempted to write a response. 

Instead he stuffed it between the pages of his book and tried not to think about it. 

After two and half months his team proved his innocence and he was released but he was thrown into the deep end of trying to find his mother. 

And even once he found her unscathed, he was rapidly thrust right into Scratch’s web after he kidnapped Emily. 

Taking the elevator back up to the BAU alongside JJ after they’d escorted Emily to the hospital it already felt like a lifetime had passed since he left prison. And all he wanted to do was chronicle all of it to you. 

Maybe once the dust settled, once he’d wrapped his head around everything that happened he would open your letter and send you a reply. 

But for the first time in ten years, Spencer didn’t want to drag you into his mess. 

JJ was strangely quiet as the elevator made its ascent. He didn’t even want to be here, he’d planned on going straight home after leaving the hospital. He hadn’t slept in his own bed for two and a half months and he couldn’t wait to collapse into it. 

But JJ had insisted that instead of him getting the metro home, if he popped back to the BAU with her to collect some paperwork, she would drive him home. 

And honestly he was just too exhausted to decline. 

JJ’s eyes were hyper focused on the digital floor numbers as they got higher. A few seconds after it displayed number five, one floor below the BAU, she turned and looked at him. 

“Don’t hate me for this.” She blurted out. 

“Excuse me?” Spencer frowned, too tired to try to understand what she meant. 

“I couldn’t just let it go.” She shrugged, a guilty smile on her lips. 

“Let what go?” His frown deepened. 

Her eyes flicked back upwards as the number five rolled into the number six and the elevator started to judder as it prepared to stop. 

“Just remember I love you and that’s the only reason I interfered.” She shrugged as the elevator stopped entirely and soon the doors were peeling open. 

Spencer looked away from her and out of the open doors to where someone was standing just a few feet back. 

Spencer’s eyes landed on the stranger only it wasn’t a stranger. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew exactly who this person was standing on the BAU floor. 

He remembered the way JJ had read him your letter and how you’d told him your heart knows his heart. 

Well his heart knew yours too. And he knew the heart beating a few feet away from him was yours. 

“Y/N?” He croaked, slowly stepping out of the elevator but not too close to you. 

“Spencer?” You smiled at him, the kind that reached all the way to your eyes. 

Neither of you noticed JJ slipping quietly away, wanting to give you some privacy. 

“What are you doing here?” His brows were furrowed and he was rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. 

“You’re friend JJ wrote to me. She told me everything that happened to you. And she made me realise that ten years is too long to wait for a first meeting.” Your voice was like honey to Spencer’s ears. 

Your prose was beautiful, but hearing the words from your lips as you stood in front of him in all your ethereal glory was more than any letter could convey. 

“I…I am actually speechless.” He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. 

“You? Speechless?” You giggled and Spencer felt the sound all the way to his heart. 

“You’ll come to learn I am much more of a wordsmith on paper. In person I am incredibly awkward and often trip over my words. I ramble when I’m nervous or clam up entirely, no in between. I spout facts and statistics rather than have a meaningful conversation. I am much more comfortable writing my words down on paper than speaking them out loud.” He let the words spill out of his mouth, proving his point entirely. 

“I’ve waited ten years to hear your voice. Please never stop talking.” You smiled so brightly at him he felt like he was floating. 

You were here in front of him, not just hidden between pages of letters. You were real, tangible; within his reach. 

And suddenly the last thing Spencer wanted to do was talk. 

He took a few tentative steps towards you and cautiously raised a hand to your cheek. You sighed in content when he cupped your face and nuzzled against his palm. 

“I could talk to you about anything and everything all day long, my love.” He smiled, inching his face closer to yours. “But at this moment in time I have one slightly more pressing desire to do with my mouth rather than speak.” 

“Oh yeah?” You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer. 

The warmth of your body and your smile encompassed him. As he looked into your eyes, finally looked into your eyes, every bad thing that had ever happened to him slipped away. 

“Love starts as a feeling, but to continue is a choice. And I find myself choosing you, more and more every day.” He quoted Justin Wetch’s Bending the Universe. 

“Spence?” 

“Yes Y/N?” 

“As sweet as that is, I thought there were more pressing desires to use your mouth for?” 

“If you insist.” He smiled and quickly closed the small space between you.

When his lips finally met yours it felt like all the pieces of the universe were falling into place. 

For ten long years you’d communicated in the pages of letters, constructing replies to what felt like one sided conversations that were confined to only live on paper. 

As the kiss deepened every single one of those words seemed to float in the air around you, spiralling like a tornado made of a decade worth of missives. 

He swore he could hear each and every word whispered to him in the voice he’d longed to hear all these years as he kissed you like you were the most important being on the face of the earth. 

And when he pulled back and mumbled I love you against your lips, it was the easiest reply you’d ever given. 

[knockoffheart]

newest member of the seven (2/6)

summary: a one on one with maeve, gaining homelander’s approval, you’re killing it!

warnings: it’s a “The Boys” fanfic… blood, gore, swearing, nudity, etc. Intended for 18+ ONLY, this chapter contains no smut. ALSO i write for myself and am low key new to writing so lower all expectations. <3

before you read: this story is written in second person, she/her pronouns are used, reader has female genitalia and identifies as female. the character is never referred to by name , but is a supe called “Replicate”, she has power-copying abilities.

“Sorry for what? That I’m possibly spending my last night alive crying on the kitchen floor?” You sigh, leaning into her palm.

“Maybe sorry that my super strength ruined your fridge and that pretty painting you have hanging up?” Maeve gave a weary smile.

You let out a laugh, “Now I’ll have to drink warm beer and stare at vandalism when I try to go to sleep.” The two of you stare at each other for a moment, it looks like she wants to say something, but she never spoke. You decided to instead.

“Why would he want to kill me? What did I even do?”.

“He’s… possessive. Insecure.” she shuffles uncomfortably. Though normally quite straightforward, she couldn’t get herself to tell you the truth. He can tell you have a crush on me. She feels a warm, tingling realization in herself and quickly pulls her hand away from your cheek. Pull yourself together, you’re gonna get her killed.

“Is this why everybody but Starlight has been a fucking asshole to me?” you blurt.

“ I wish the answer was yes,” she grabs two of the beer bottles that had fallen to the floor. She opens them and hands one to you. “I thought if I ignored you, you’d quit. You’d go back to whatever city you came from and I’d never have to see you again”. You stare at her and make a face.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” You take a swig of your beer.

“I wasn’t finished—I didn’t want you getting hurt, or.. killed. I thought if I ignored you, so would Homelander. And he did, up until now. He’s jealous of how quickly America has fallen for you, how everyone has…”. Her eyes meet yours, “Look, when we were recruiting you I could tell just how good you were… strong, smart, charismatic, beautiful-” she stops herself, faces forward, and finishes the rest of her beer. Her face tickled red with blush. “I didn’t want him to destroy that. Destroy you.”

“What about the others?” you scoot closer to her and rest your head on her bare shoulder. You could smell her perfume, some luxury brand’s vanilla scent you guessed. You lean in closer and sip your drink. She rests her head on top of yours and sighs.

“I told Deep if he touched you… I’d kill him. And A-Train.. he is just an asshole.” The two of you shared a laugh. You finished your beer and she set it aside for you. Your pinky grazed her hand before you finally got the courage to hold it. Your hand was barely touching hers, scared of your newfound strength. She smiled somberly and squeezed your hand. You turned to face her and reached to hold both of her hands, staring at her head on.

“Do you think he’s really going to kill me?”.

“I don’t know. That’s why you need to leave. Tonight. Please.” she brought your hands to her mouth, you could feel her breath blowing across your fingers. She pressed a small kiss into your hand, and began to stand and leave. You were left on your knees, staring up at her.

“Please.” was the last thing she said before she disappeared into the elevator. You remained on the floor, finally letting your tears free. Choking back sobs you rose, slightly unstable and headed towards the shower.

-

You pampered yourself with all the products Vought had provided in your suite, taking extra care to remove all the glitter from the earlier interview. ‘I’m just their fucking circus animal.’ You scrub your face harder at the thought, then shut off the water, snapping the handle in the process. “Fuck off.” you muttered as you drop the hunk of metal onto the shower floor. You step out and grab a towel. The softness of it grounds you for a minute, but when you look into the mirror and meet your own eyes the image of the ad from before flashes in your mind. ‘You’re just a DOLL! A NEW TOY VOUGHT LOVES TO PLAY WITH!’ White hot rage floods your vision as your thoughts continued to race. When you came to, the mirror was shattered and shards covered the counter. You huffed and went to put on your nightwear.

Anger still boiling inside, you grab the TV remote and power it on. A re-run of a recent Homelander interview is playing.

“How about the newest member of the Seven, Replicate, I mean she’s been blowing up on social media everywhere! Tell me, what is it like working along side her?” the too-chummy interviewer asked.

“Well. I haven’t personally been on any missions with her but I’m sure she’ll be a great teammate when she has time in her schedule — I mean a new show takes a lot out of a person.” Homelander commented, his hands gripped tightly onto his thighs.

“Any spoilers you can hint to, Homelander Does she copy your powers? A-Trains? Noirs?!”

“Hah..” he was tense, “ I’d like to see her try.” He jokingly punched the reporters arm.

The interview continued but all you could hear was a ringing in your ears, your fist clenched and unclenched before you let out a guttural growl, screaming and soaring your fist through the wall. Over and over again, unrelenting, you only stop when there is nothing left to hit.

“Fuck you.” you spit, glaring back the the TV which was now playing an ad for The Deep’s newest audio book.

Try to fucking kill me, asshole. You shook the drywall off your fist and laid down in your bed, passing out from exhaustion at some point.

-

You wake up, gasping. The first hints of sunrise trickling in through your window. Your bedroom looks like the aftermath of a frat party, groaning you get ready for the meeting. You’re ready to face Homelander and whatever shit he was about to put you through, but your hand still trembles as you go to put on mascara. Recollecting the sensations, smells, and images from last night sent a wave of adrenaline throughout your body. Jesus… c’mon pull yourself together. You try to push the thoughts of Maeve to the back of your mind, promising yourself you’d revisit them later — if you survive.

You are the second member to arrive at the meeting table. The Deep is there, sat awkwardly in his chair. He stares you down. You take the seat farthest away from him and sit with your legs crossed, looking around at all the things you’ve only caught glances of. The Deep clears his throat and shuffles in his seat.

“So you finally got the green light? About time. I figured you were always too busy doing girl shit. Brushing your hair or whatever.” He huffs and rolls his eyes.

Stunning intellect. Smiling, you reply, “Homelander invited me last night, we had a great chat. I hope you finally start to see me as one of you. I feel lucky to be in a room with such talented heros.”

He titters, intrigued by your mentioning of Homelander and the not so subtle boost of his ego. He rises from his seat and starts to cross towards you.

“You know… I could always help you train sometime. Just the two of-“. He’s cut off by the sound of a throat clearing. You both turn towards the door, Maeve enters with her eyes staring daggers at the man next to you.

“Woah! Chill… Not touching her!” he raises his hands up defensively and sulks back to his seat. A-Train and Black Noir enter shortly after. She takes the seat next to you, and turns her harsh gaze to you.

“What the fuck are you doing?” She rasps.

“I-“

“Ahh - Replicate so glad to see you could make it. It’s about time you joined us, I mean you are one of the Seven after all.” Homelander’s voice booms through the meeting room.

Starlight enters in the middle of his speech. Your eyes meet briefly as she takes her seat. She instantly turns towards Maeve. She furrows her brows and subtly motions to you. Maeve gives no response and crosses her arms, eyes now watching Homelander’s every move.

You stand, “Thank you, Homelander. I’m truly honored to serve.” You place your hands over your heart and sit back down. Worm your way in. Worm your way in. If you could get him to believe you were truly submissive to him, you might get out of this unharmed.

“As you all know, someone has been supplying our enemies with Compound V. Temp V specifically, which is being made solely here in this tower. In our own Vought Tech labs.” He puts his arms behind his back and leans on the balls of his feet, “Which, sadly, means it’s most likely an inside job. I mean, how could someone betray me like that — us like that?” He shakes his head and scans across the table, eyes eventually meeting yours.

“Replicate, for your first mission, I want you to find this traitor and eliminate them. You’d be doing something none of the other members could accomplish. I know you won’t let me down.” He clasps his hands together and smiles, “Of course you’ll be granted access to any supe’s power you need to get your grubby little hands on, you’ve been granted access to the labs — go wild!” He tosses a flash drive to you. “Meeting dismissed.”

>back

>next

[compendiumofconstellations]

Okay, I wanted to write this up before I lose it, but I saw this post scrolling through my Facebook feed about how Butcher's TempV powers should have been what he got in Season 4, and that they were utilized too early and gone too soon.

I'd like to disagree. Season 3 has him hit the lowest point we've seen (until Season 4). He lost Becca for good; he's trying to do right by her and the promise he made her. He spends a year playing things safe and doing things "the right way". But the glass castle comes down hard and fast in Season 3.

He learns Neuman is the head popper and hears straight from Hughie, his canary and the person who has been pushing so hard for doing things the right way, that the right way doesn't work.

Maeve brings him news of a weapon that took down Soldier Boy, so it has to be able to be used on Homelander, right? (Of course, the weapon is Soldier Boy, which is a whole other kettle of fish.) And she brings the TempV. She, of course, doesn't know what the side effects actually are. She just knows that it could help.

Butcher confronts Mallory, is actually right for once in his life when he tells her that she fucked up, and what he gets in return is being told that he's exactly like his father, which is his worst fear. And because he hates himself, he believes her, despite the evidence of the last year of his life proving otherwise.

So he pushes everyone away. He takes the TempV, and even that was supposed to be the hypocritical turn. And like he tells Maeve in 3x05, it just makes him more him. And that is why he gets a matching set of powers with Homelander, because the TempV is playing on the anger and rage and violence, and it makes him into what he hates the most, because that's part of him.

And then he keeps taking TempV, and he starts melting his brain. He's dying. And so he finally takes Compound V, because it's accessible, and because he's going to try to do whatever it takes to survive.

Of course, it doesn't do jack shit for him, but it does affect the TempV-given tumor sitting in his skull.

I really do think it's something akin to Venom, so the Compound V isn't affecting Butcher anymore. It's affecting the tumor. The tumor clearly has some amount of sentience. We've seen it move. We've seen it come out and protect its host. And we've seen it manifest different faces to play Butcher in different ways.

Becca is there first, and she's the one who keeps encouraging him to get up. She's the one who keeps him moving forward even when he's dying. And the more Butcher kind of accepts his fate and tries to make amends and set things up for after he's gone, the more that he starts seeing Kessler, who influences him to put different plans in motion.

Becca and Kessler aren't the angel and the devil on his shoulder. Becca and Kessler are the Venom-Tumor manipulating its host. Survival and a reminder of what he's surviving for, and then mass destruction.

After all, we haven't seen Becca since Kessler told her to shut up. Because the Venom-Tumor doesn't need Butcher to consider what he's surviving for anymore. It's strong enough to take control of its host now. And it does. We saw that in Episode 7, when Butcher calls Kessler a wanker, and it knocks Butcher out in response. We saw it in Episode 8.

Butcher shouldn't have gotten Homelander's powers for Season 4 as his "final form". Because the TempV made him more him but also killed him, and the Compound V made that growth a sentient monster, the consequence of his own actions, and his own personal hell.

I do think Butcher will die in Season 5. But how far will Venom-Tumor drag him down first?

[ficyorick]

hi. I have a question. In BE when Billy started to have a desire (or whatever you call it) for Homelander. before New York and he just didn't realize it (and he still barely realizes it), in the last chapter Homelander thinks exactly that way. or was it born during a close encounter when Homelander was in a cage and remained the only real being for Billy.

GOOD QUESTION and the answer is Complex bc this is a very psychologically dense fic (bc that's the way i like it 😭😭😭😭 i WISH i could just write for two ppl who are simply in love but NOOOO)

ill split the answer in two parts to make it easier for myself ghifgh so:

BILLY'S POV - he was not into homelander at all until he managed to depower him and keep him like a trophy. he still doesn't understand what he feels for him and its a very weird possessive feeling, HL is basically his property but also his responsibility, he made him this way and he is also the only person keeping him alive (it goes beyond just giving him food, he's also the only person keeping kessler from killing him as we've seen in ch8). at the same time, homelander is literally what keeps him sane, he is the only other human interaction he gets (or got...) while he's out there murdering supes. this makes them insanely co-dependent on each other in a very strange way. billy is not ready to admit that he loves him, but is aware that he needs him and that what he has gone too far at points. in general, their love for each other in this fic is mostly discussed in terms of ownership

does billy realize homelander feels the same kind of desire ?? thats an even trickier question but he does notice him get more manageable, while still being the old homelander that he wants to have just for himself (so he's not whipped into submission, he's giving himself over)

HOMELANDER'S POV -- he absolutely thinks billy is obsessed with him and had to have been for a while, because he's very self-centered. also this is the only thing that makes sense for him because he also views love in terms of ownership (i think this is a new thing for billy, but for HL is the most familiar thing in the world). if you look at the way he acts with maeve in the show, someone he admitted he loved "in his own way" -- what he does, is control her. scare her, crowd her in, literally manipulate her life by outing her. and he does that because he cares (and bc he's a shitty person but we all know this). so if billy does this to him, it means he cares and he cares an INSANE amount to blow up a whole fucking city and kill his father to get to this point. that's just how homelander views relationships - in terms of ownership and utility. he was in a relationship with madelyn because they were useful to each other and she basically owned him (and he let her). he was in a relationship with maeve bc he thought they could get each other to the top and have a family together.

in bad ending, he is in a completely different situation, he is no longer of any use to anyone without his powers, there's no point to his life anymore--but billy loves him that way, loves to see the weakness in him and he NEEDS him to stay sane. add in other issues and isolation (another huge point, all of this happens bc they're sooo isolated and only have each other+internal voices to listen to), and homelander is more than eager than to enter another transactional ownership-situationship. he put up a valiant fight, but this is all he knows in the end

a bit of a ramble and idk if i made things any clearer but tl;dr, they were obsessed with each other before new york, just not romantically/sexually, but everything after new york compounded it into something Really Toxic and Weird.

[wikiangela]

the boys 4x03 thoughts

so the Seven are just the four now lmao or I guess the six now but we'll see how long those two will last 🤣

Butcher working with JDM! 😍😍

firecracker needs to stfu 🙄

I love Sage's attitude and her dynamic with homelander, it's just so interesting

frenchie won't tell colin now is he 😫 that'd be too quick and and too easy, i bet this is eating at him like the guilt for mallory's grandkids smh wtf frenchie 😫

now firecracker's braindead followers are walking into starlight house jfc 😭

Frenchie likes colin sooo much and its clearly tearing him apart and its so sad 😭😭

oooh Victoria's gonna figure out Singer knows so quickly 🤣 and he wants to ban supes from every position but entertainment? lets see how homelander and vought likes that lol

btw Claudia Doumit is soooo gorgeous 😍😍😍

"I'm going to kill them all" she signed with the most adorable smile ever 🤣🤣🤣 she's the cutest, even when she's murderous lol

kimiko and frenchie are really the definition of ride or dies 💪❤️

flip A-Train? I like the idea but also he might flip back within a second so that's risky lol

Butcher contacting ryan through video games lol love it - also wow that game is violent

what does Noir's replacement not get about 'don't talk' jfc dude, watch anything with real Noir in it (they have plenty of movies) and study his behavior and do.not.talk. where did ashley find this guy jfc 🤣🤣

lmao Ashley got demoted from CEO to mascot, how sad 🤣

Butcher baked cookies and bought all those games aww - even if he dosed those cookies whatever lol

if anyone can concknve A-Train its MM fr, and if he does, i love it and cant wait to see where it goes - I just hope it actually sticks this time lol

high frenchie started so funny and now it's just so sad 😭😭

oooh who's the girl?? was she another one of the kids like kimiko??

"I wouldn't want me either" nooo why am i crying jfc, this poor kid 😭 homelander just showed up and screwed up his whole life 😭

Ryan just wants to be with Butcher but he thought what he said was genuine 😭😭😭

that conversation between Ryan and billy was sooo good 😭

Ashley, if you wanna live, better fucking run 😳

oh god the vought on ice shit is so cringe lol

I miss Maeve 😭

is Victoria really gonna team up with homelander 😬 i hope not but also it could be interesting 👀

omg i knew they wouldn't just kill hughie but got scared anyway lol

oh my god this turned into a massacre lol homelander was really determined to kill 😳

A-Train came through!!! if he's fr on our side, im so here for it!! 🤩

Kimiko is so worried 😭

okay, I feel bad for hughie's mom 🥺

JDM has just the best voice 🥵

Sage and Deep?? ummm... 🤢 that was weird. what's the thing on the table??

Homelander is loooosing it 😳 so scared for Ryan, if he really snapped, he'd kill him fr

go home??? Im soooo invested omg

[officialleehadan]

Eyes Met

Once Cursed

+++

“There’s a rumor, one of the old nobility is in the castle.”

Sorsha was helping in the gardens today, complete with a wide-brimmed hat that shaded her from the sun. Niala was beside her. The castle’s maids rotated through every position they could hold through the course of a moon. It looked random from the outside, but really it was a carefully-designed dance that made sure none of them were near Naevelon more than once or twice a month.

She was sure it was infuriating for him, and honestly, she really wasn’t terribly sympathetic to his plight. Until she was sure he wasn’t going to kill her on sight, she intended to stay hidden.

“Who is it?” she asked curiously. They carried a basket between them. It was time to harvest the peas. The morning was spent picking them. Now she and Niala were busy shelling the sweet green peas into a large bowl for Master Tassaros.  It was lazy work, seated in the fresh grass under a blooming apple tree, but they had been in the laundry all week. The light work was welcome. “Did you catch a name?”

“Only that it was a duke,” Niala said regretfully and dropped another handful of peas into the bowl. “One of the old ones.”

Hope filled Sorsha’s heart. There weren’t that many of the really old nobility left, and most died in Maeve’s massacre. Still, there were a few who hadn’t been in he castle, and one who, if he had been here, might have turned the tide in their favor.

“Can you finish the peas?” she asked with a look into their basket. They were mostly done, but there was another hour or so of work left. She didn’t doubt that Niala would be pleased for a little extra time in the gardens, but it was still polite to ask. Sorsha was careful to always ask her fellow maids. Maybe they would take her commands, but it wouldn’t be worth driving away the friends she needed so badly. “I think I need to know who it is.”

“I figured you would,” Niala said and waved her off. “Swap me your had for my head-scarf. The pale in your hair is starting to show.”

Sorsha winced. Her hair had always grown fast. Currently that was a problem, as it meant whatever they colored her hair with faded or grew out quickly and revealed the gold of her hair. She checked to make sure her tight braid was in place, and took Niala’s head scarf to hide the rest. When she was sure it was all covered, she handed over her hat.

“Good luck,” Niala said, still busy with the peas. “Come back when you’re done, we have more out here to do.”

“I will,” Sorsha promised. The work needed to be done, and for now, that meant she had to pull her weight. She would never again take the good food she ate for granted. Not now that she knew how much work it was to grow and make it. “I’ll meet you in the kitchens.”

It wasn’t far to the castle from their spot in the kitchen gardens, and Sorsha was having a good day with her curse. Her breath came easily, and she felt stronger than usual. It was a blessing on a day that she needed to be sneaking around where she ought not to be.

The castle was quiet today. The servants were all focused on their work. It was after lunch but still a while until dinner service, so there wasn’t much for anyone to do in the immediate. Sorsha paused to grab a laundry basket from the mending room on her way past. It was always better to be seen carrying something. A servant who was somewhere they weren’t supposed to be should always have a reason to be there. Collecting the mending was always a safe reason. The mending was eternal.

On through the castle she went, and stopped here and there to gather up the mending- might as well do the chore for real on her way- as she worked her way towards the noble quarters.

Even with a legitimate chore to explain her presence, Sorsha was careful to duck out of the way as soon as she heard voices, noble voices, coming towards her.

Her heart sank when it turned out not to be the duke she was seeking, whoever he was, but Naevelon and Maeve. They kept the careful distance of enemies between them. Sorsha knew by now that there was no love lost in their family. Naevelon didn’t particularly want to kill Maeve, but he would if she crossed him. Maeve, of course was vicious, and did not appreciate being ousted as queen. Still, she was unlikely to kill Naevelon outright. Not and risk their Imperial father’s wrath.

Even so, being seen by either of them was a danger she couldn’t afford.

Worse, there was nowhere to hide, and running would get their attention.

Instead, she sank into a low curtsy as they passed and kept her head down as if she was shy, which she wasn’t, or afraid, which she was.

“If you cross Duke Callum, he will kill you,” Naevelon was saying as they walked. Sorsha’s heart lifted. She knew Callum well, and trusted the old hero. She could ask for no finer ally, and he would surely be willing to help her. “He is not the harmless old man he appears and I have already sent word to Father of his presence. Do not think you can attempt to kill him and get away with it.”

“I would never,” Maeve said, a silken liar as always, but also irritated that her brother stole a march on her. Not, Sorsha thought, that Maeve could do much about Callum. He was the finest swordsman to ever live, but he was still a fine hand with magic. Fine enough to ward off most of Maeve’s tricks. He was also too old for her to simply seduce. Sorsha fought the urge to run from her tormentor. Maeve was close, too close, and she knew Sorsha’s face. “Not and risk your glorious departure from this land.”

“Do not assume you will be staying when I go,” Naevelon said sharply. He passed Sorsha almost close enough to touch. For a moment, she hoped she was safe. When the prince paused suddenly, her breath caught in her throat. “You. Girl. Look at me.”

“Your highness!”

An aged voice snapped from down the hall. Duke Callum walked into view, tottering as always, aided by his cane. Both the totter and the cane were, Sorsha knew well, illusions he could banish at will. From the sounds of things, Naevelon had figured that out as well.

For now, however, he provided the escape she hadn’t dared hope for. For a single moment, she met Callum’s eyes and received a lightning-quick wink in return.

The old hero knew exactly what he was doing, and who she was. He would come find her when he was ready.

Until then, her only job was not to be caught.

She could do that.

On silent, slippered feet, she ducked into the nearest of the noble rooms, empty for the moment and made for the servant’s passages from there.

Help had come at last.

+++

Once Cursed: (FULL COLLECTION)

Dance of Blades

Into the Underbrush (Subscriber Only!)

Behind the Walls

Changing Names (Subscriber Only!)

Fallen Down the Stairs

Stone-Faced

Careful Mending 

Old Warning (Subscriber Only!)

Old Warriors (NEW!)

Eyes Met (NEW!)

+++

MASTERLIST

[snarkylinda]

I should be studying, showering, sleeping, doing literally anything else but instead, I am going to do a long post about a mentally ill blorbo because I am mentally ill myself.

SO! We all make fun of Spencer let me take my vest off and lower my gun for no reason Reid, it's a meme at this point- but that....tendency is a consequence of what I find the most fascinating about his character as a whole....his relationships- or more like, the relationships he makes up in his head.

Before I go into details I want to leave something very clear that anyone that has seen even one season of the funny cop show has noticed: Spencer is highly obsessive.

Now I am not talking about his fun little facts or that he likes star streak and doctor who obsession- those are hyperfixations, and even tho MY hyperfixation it's ruining my life, his are actually harmless and overall make him happy.

His obsessive nature had almost cost him his career, if not his life, multiple times.

If you stop to think about it in depth, why does Reid abandon all common sense when it comes to certain UnSubs, certain cases? well the most evident answer is that he projects whatever trauma of the week they decide to explore onto them- and yes, that is the nick of things. He pulled that stunt on Elephant's memory because he related to Owen's harassment story, he wanted to help Nathan because he understood being afraid of your own mind turning against you, he wanted to help Adam because he couldn't save Tobias. You get the drill- but....that is not always the case.

With the guy that Lindsey's dad murdered- Spencer didn't relate to him, he was just a piece of shit. How about Samantha? (I know there is a theory about William....doing shit to Reid when he was younger and while I can see it, for the sake of argument I will take her case into consideration) The father of the victim on "Identity"? I can name another example but this one I am going to save for last since it's the reason for me making this post-

And one can argue "Well, he is just a really nice guy" and while that is true- what I named before doesn't always apply, Spencer's compassion has a very clear, marked limit.

His relationships.

When Cyrus was killed in front of him by Morgan, Reid barely blinked- hell, he fucking SASSED him. Why? because he hurt Emily.

All sympathy he could have had for Cat before she ruined his life DESPITE kind of empathizing with her story based on what HE was going through went out of the window because she and her lil gang terrorized Penelope for months.

He felt compassion for Adam, but not for his father who he claimed was the true monster of this story in the aftermath.

When Maeve told her her ex was dead, he quickly brushed that aside to ask her if SHE was alright.

And ofc, we all know what happened in prison after his friend there was murdered.

Reid is often associated with UnSubs not only because of how his backstory aligned with their motivations (mental health issues, bullying, absent parent, losing a loved one) but because most of these crimes are passional responses- and Spencer can be extremely passional, to a point where it clouds his judgment.

Now...you might be thinking "ok that is all nice and good, but where does the obsession come into play? all that I know is that he is a cinnamon roll that loves his friends and has some really deep projection issues he really needs to work on" and you are not wrong, but what made me make this fucking thesis in the first place its something else....one of my favorite things to analyze about fictional characters in this kind of setting it's "the needs of one vs the greater good" thing.

Now let's be fr, we all as human beings will always, ALWAYS prioritize those close to us over literal strangers. Even among the best, most empathic people that is just how it is, that emotional hierarchy will always be there- what differentiates us is how much it affects our actions.

Now with a job like this, there will always be this conflict among the menbers- obviously, their families and even each other will always be a priority, but on working hours their focus HAS to be on doing their job, following the rules and just being as professional as humanly possible- even tho it sometimes kills them inside since it just doesn't feels right.

Reid actually doesn't face this debate that much- because all common sense, respect for authority and protocol goes out of the fucking window whenever he obsesses over a new blorbo lmao.

Had you heard the phrase "One death is a tragedy, a hundred is a statistic"? nothing rings more true that with Dr. Reid right here. He is able to keep his cool while touching mangled corpses and discussing all the shit that happened to them- occasionally looking horrified if it's messed up enough, but other than that he is able to keep the same level of professionalism and compartmentalization as his co-workers.

Annnnnnd then he gets to know a victim, a witness, or an unsub and the vest leaves his torso, his gun folds itself and his IQ lowers. Alot.

Let's get back to the example I put of the guy that was murdered by Lindsey's dad- in that moment he wasn't a murderer to Reid, in that moment all he saw was a teenager begging for his life and HE could be the only to save him- he couldn't. He obsessed over that instead of what the guy did and that lead him to desire to insert Diluid inside of him after 10 months of sobriety, not to mention being A BIG factor in what he does on Elephant's Memory.

"I thought I could save this one" was his response when Hotch scolded him.

Spencer literally can't forget shit. So he tries to make sure that when he knows someone, even if is on a dying moment like the mentioned UnSub, he can save them. He forms some kind of bond with someone and they stop being an face and a name adhered to his board that he is determined to save/get justice for because is his literal job and he is overall a good person. In his mind, it becomes his responsibility whenever that person it's saved, and when that crosses over obsessive territory and his job, that makes it mandatory to always put the need of the many vs the one (especially if it's an unsub) well....

It's when he spiral and puts his career/the case in jeopardy at best, and his life at worst, no to mention what that shit does to his already questionable mental health.

In the second ep of the tenth season, Reid confesses to Morgan that after killing the LDSK, it suddenly hit him and he obsessed over all the "what ifs", at that moment that guy wasn't the LDSK that almost got him, his boss and a hospital full of mortal hostages in danger- he was the man that Spencer Reid killed- and it only ended when he stopped obsessed over HIM and started to put his victim's faces on his wall, forcing his focus on them instead.

He was more focused on the father of the victim on "identity" than the actual unsub himself because years before he had stopped him from seeing his daughter, and had made enough of an impact to be remembered by him in the present. Thanks to that bond, that little relationship, Spencer was able to put himself between a highly emotional distraught father's gun and the man he wanted to kill, to protect him.

He didn't get to personally know Samantha until the end- but he got to meet the scumbag that raped her. Add that to the already soft spot he has for children and you have a very angry Reid ready to do literally anything to make sure this woman that didn't even knew him was safe.

And ironically enough, what prompt me to do this thesis wasn't even one of those nice touchy feeling moments Spencer had with someone he bonded over- either personally or on a parasocial level- but one where he was wrong, but was about to risk a whole case over it. Rock Creek Park.

In that episode, Spencer and this other girl are keeping watch over this mafia thing so this politician guy's wife cane come back (as you can see I pay attention to certain scenes more that others lmao) and you can see the exact moment where the mission....stops being Spencer's priority.

After hearing this girl's conversation with her mother, she stopped being "the maid" and became someone Spencer's "knows" and so this leads to....this

....why did I bother with that text block when this scene spills it out- Anyways.

I dunno why but Rossi's reaction always sends me to the stratosphere- he knows.

Anyways, turns out that the helpless maid was actually on it all along and Reid almost throws the entire case off over nothing- *slows clap*

Ok ok, this might seem like I am slandering my boy but as fun as it is to make fun of him, this is exactly why I love him. This recklessness as a result of tunnel vision it's....concerning considering his line of work, and his eagerness to go far and beyond for someone he barely knows just because he knows them, above everything else and he is there, and can't bare the thought of not doing anything for them., to have their death's imprinted on his memory.

In conclusion- he ain't lawful good/neutral like the first few episodes want to make you think, he is chaotic good. And a mess. And I love him.

[scorbleeo]

TV Series Discussion: Supergirl

Season 6 (2021)

Source: Google Images

The adventures of Superman's cousin and her own superhero career.

Source: IMDb (2015)

A Bittersweet End

I am going to start this out by saying I had no expectations for Supergirl Season 6. I might have watched all the previous seasons, but I was disappointed with the last or last 2 season(s). Although I adore Supergirl and the Super Friends, the plots were often average. Now thinking back, I can't even name a Supergirl villain that stuck to me.

That being said, this final season of Supergirl was much better than the previous seasons. It got me hooked onto the show and there were times when I was actually emotional. Although the villains were way below mid, the storylines were solid. And the action, I absolutely enjoyed it. Even the character developments were good. As a Supergirl season, season 6 was one of the better ones. As a final season, I believe it could have been better plotted.

Lets start with the villains. I'm not saying Nyxly was a marvellous villain but because of her existence and actions, it created several great storylines, especially the role it played into Kara's self-realisation, then development.

Lex on the other hand, his arc was so weirdly written. The Lex Luthor I was used to disappeared in season 6, for real. Him being in love really ruined his arc, when he could have gone down as one of the show's better villains. But, I like what the writers did with this character. I mean, people have tried to kill Lex, he lived. People have tried to incarcerate Lex, he walked away scott free. Other than the Phantom Zone, I doubt there would be another way to get rid of Lex once and for all.

As for Lillian. I hated her throughout all 6 seasons. I really did not like the idea of her redemption in the end but her redemption meant enlightenment for Lena. For that, I eventually accepted that there was a redemption arc for this infuriating woman. Perhaps, if her redemption was shown gradually through this last season, I might not have disliked the idea as much.

Through the entire season, I enjoyed more than I was bored. I liked more than I disliked. Unfortunately, there was something I seriously wished the writers never wrote down. What happened to William did not need to happen, or at least, not to him. It's not as if William's death meant the whole Super Friends was going on a revenge path, so why bring him back from being shot only to have him go permanently by being shot? He was the one character I constantly wished nothing happened to him since his first appearance...

Moving on to brighter topics, lets talk about Kelly. First thing first, that episode that was Kelly-centric? Wow. It was the first time Azie Tesfai impressed me. The way Tesfai portrayed Kelly in the episode, it was almost like I could feel everything Kelly was experiencing. Then came their wedding scene and I am never one for vows, not a romantic and could care less about wedding vows. However, Kelly's vows to Alex touched my heart. I really don't know if it's the words, Tesfai's acting, or the combination of both. Whatever it is, I finished Supergirl extremely aware of what a magnificent actress Tesfai is.

Next, Nia. Not only did Nia (and Dreamer) grow, Nicole Maines improved so much too. I never disliked Maines nor her character but the acting always felt a little awkward. Usually, I just let it go because if Nia is one awkward girl, Dreamer will be awkward too and thus the awkward acting. This last season proved me wrong because I still see awkward Nia but the acting very obviously improved. Completely off the tangent here but when Nia confronted Maeve? Atta girl! I loved it when Nia told her sister, she will not forgive her but she can give a second chance. That's the way, actually. How do people forgive without seeing how others handle their second chances?

Lastly, Kara's character arc. I have always loved it when Kara showed vulnerability. In this season, she's practically always vulnerable even when she's not actively attacked. It hurts to watch Supergirl lose hope so often but then the way the smallest things brought back some hope to her? Love it. The courage plot was something else too, something I did not see play out the way it did. As much as I loved it, I still don't know how I feel about the season ending with the world finding out Supergirl's identity.

After watching several Arrowverse shows consecutively, Supergirl was a nice end before a break from the Arrowverse TV shows. Although Kara and Mon-El are not endgame, I am still very happy that the finale brought back the old faces.

Rating: ★★★★☆

More Arrowverse here: Legends of Tomorrow Season 6 | The Flash Season 7

[aceontheline]

Way of the Friends (Part 1)

Context: This is Maeve. My OC. She is responsible for intergalactic shipments of numerous supplies. Things like food, fresh water, weaponry, etc. On this particular day, she needed to go to Mobius and deliver some food and water to survivors of the Eggman Empire invasion that had occurred.

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T//W: Character Death

Landing onto Mobius for the first time ever, the planet itself looked like it was in the middle of repair. I saw the devastation of the damages & walked along to a base. Delivering my usual packages to the armies of men and women was an easy feat. The only thing was distributing everything as equally as possible. Thankfully, the blue blur, Sonic, was there to help me out. He and I came up with a plan and gave resources to everyone that needed them... With the exception of the eggheaded scientist himself. Speaking of which, I hadn't taken into account just how spiteful this man really was. Just was I was walking back to my ship... It was in ruins. Everything was destroyed. My other shipments I had to make, the ship itself. It was all just ashes and scrap metal. I rushed back to the Sonic crew, panicking over the state of my ship. The two tailed fox boy, Tails, came with me to assess the damage. He saw everything in shambles & put a hand on my shoulder. He told me that it was possible to fix, but he wasn't sure if he could get it to my industry's standards.

"I understand. You don't have to do that though. I wouldn't want you to overwork yourself like that" I said blankly, just picking up pieces.

"You're okay to just crash here then? What about your job and future shipments?" Tails asked, actually concerned.

"I'll just have to explain what happened to my superior. I'll probably get fired, but I don't really know what else I can do here" I reply, my head hanging low.

Tails saw my sunken look on my face & asked me if I wanted to head to his lab and get a full breakdown of how he could try to fix my ship. I agreed and followed him there, calling my superior... Or "Former superior". I sighed and hung up right when we got to his place. Tails asked me if I had just gotten fired based on what he overheard. I nodded, with him placing a sympathetic hand on my shoulder, apologizing for what happened. He then asked if I even wanted to bother fixing it.

"Maybe another time. Right now though, maybe I just need a walk and some time to myself" I reply.

Tails agrees and he sends me on my way. I take a walk across all of Mobius and come up with a plan to exact my revenge against the culprit responsible. Thing is, Sonic and his buddies all had a moral code. Me? Not so much. I was pretty much as neutral as you could get. On my person, I had enough poison to kill a person and a few knives. These were all for aggressive clients, more so for self defense reasons in case things went awry in solo deliveries. So, I took a moment to enact my plans. I knew who Dr. Eggman was after some interrogation was done, and I found his base along my walk.

The plan was to figure out a way to remotely shut off Eggman's robots and cameras all at the same time, so I couldn't be seen or heard entering the base. Then, to put the poison in his water or whatever he ate//drank before going to bed. Once Eggman left for the day to go do his usual shenanigans of trying to take down Sonic, it all became easy.

I managed to sneak in through the vents unscathed and then I figured out the password with a hacking type device an old friend gave me. I shut down everything all at once, and I had a limited time to act. It was odd because after I was done putting the poison in things, I needed to turn all the devices back on and leave through the same way I came in quickly. As if nothing was touched. I felt my heart racing as I went through his kitchen and let poison absorb in just about everything. His water, his food, and even his mustache care supplies. I put a small amount in whatever I could, then turned on his devices and left. Mission success, as far as I'm concerned.

The next day, I was already hearing whisperings that Eggman had passed in his sleep. I didn't take any credit for it because if I did, it meant that I would have to confess to my "crimes". Basically attributing it to "random" occurrence. Everyone else was trying to figure out what to do, while I was just going for a walk by myself again. I had to think about how it was that I was going to settle in this environment. How I was going to live, build a house... Anything. Eventually, I found a nice plot of land that I wanted to use. I gathered building supplies and placed everything around the perimeter in preparation to build. Then suddenly realizing I had no help. I walked all around and only one person was willing to help. A red echidna by the name "Knuckles". He said he wanted to help because he could sense that I didn't really have any clue what I was going to do.

"So, I assume that you and I are just gonna build this house until it's done? So nose to the grindstone?" I ask.

"Yeah. That's just how we get stuff done around here. Any ideas how you want your house to look?" Knuckles asks in reply.

"Probably just a single floor. 2 bedrooms, a nice bathroom, a living room and a kitchen. That's it" I say, drawing out a crude sketch of some blueprints.

Knuckles asked if I heard anything about Eggman being dead. I shrugged and said that since I was new here, I didn't know who he was. He explained that Eggman was basically a villain to the world and that he seemed hellbent on attacking Sonic and friends. While all this was happening & Knuckles was telling me stories, we were getting pretty far along with the house's foundation. A pink girl hedgehog named Amy saw us building away and asked what we were doing. I told her that I couldn't get back to my home planet, since I don't have proper transport, so this was my home now. She got stars in her eyes after seeing our progress, asking if she could help. "Aw, why not?" I say, showing her my blueprints. She seemed more than willing to help with interior decorating and designing, so to let us know once we were on that step.

Knuckles asked her if she'd also be willing to get us some food, considering it had been a while since either of us had eaten. Amy nodded, leaving for now and promising to bring us back some healthy food. We thanked her as she walked off to her own place.

Sonic walked by and saw our slow but steady progress, also agreeing to help. He grabbed a hammer and went ahead building some more, in a somewhat speedy and calculated manner. After some point or another, we all stopped for the night. Amy came back and gave us all some sandwiches & a light dessert. She seemed happy that Sonic was around, so we all stayed around and talked for a while.

"Wait. I just thought. My place isn't done yet. I need a bed to sleep on at least" I say, scratching my head.

The others didn't really offer much in terms of refuge, so I went looking around for a place to stay for the night. That's when... I saw him. He seemed so calm and serene, his voice so soft and low as he meditated. I didn't want to bother him much, so I at least waited around the area until he was done. Once his eyes opened, he jumped a bit, seeming frightened. I apologized for scaring him and briefly told him my situation.

"So, you're new here. Interesting. What's your name?" the boy asked, his eyes gazed upon me.

"Maeve. Most of my friends just call me 'Mae' or 'Vee' though. What's your name?" I ask.

"Espio. I'm part of a detective agency called the Chaotix. Speaking of which, they're probably worried. I'm not usually out this late meditating. It was nice to meet you, Vee" Espio replies, smiling at me softly as he walks away.

I don't know if it was his voice, his demeanor, or what... But something about him made me feel safe. I decided to follow him, only because I was curious about him. He only gave brief answers about himself, then he arrived at his doorstep. A large crocodile and a small bee boy answered the door. They questioned who I was. Espio looked back to me, stating that I was a new friend. He asked if I could stay the night, as I had no place of my own quite yet. They seemed apprehensive until I said I could provide breakfast in the morning as repayment. They introduced themselves properly. The bee was Charmy & the croc was Vector. I smile in a friendly way and introduced myself in the same way I did to Espio.

Espio and I took refuge on the couch in the main room, talking for a little while longer. I found out that he was a ninja and had some excellent abilities based on the stories he told me. I told him a little bit about my former job and what got me here. Espio recalled that I delivered some pretty delicious food to Mobius, so he was looking forward to whatever I had to offer in the morning for them to eat. I chuckled, twirling my hair a bit. I fell asleep just shortly after Espio did. He took refuge on the floor for the night while I had the couch. Feeling a little bad, I begged him to swap places with me but he refused.

"As our new friend, you deserve better, Vee" Espio said with a soft smile & tired voice.

I felt the heat of me blushing rise to my cheeks. He chuckled, falling asleep.

Still feeling wary of my environment, I looked up at the stars for a little while, making a wish or two. Nothing too fancy, like returning to my home planet. Just some simple, baseless things like new clothes or something. I laid back down on the couch softly, as to not wake Espio & fell asleep.

Next ( Here )

Masterpost: ( Here )

[redflagromance]

Short Story Release: Duck Hunt (Maeve Le Fey Story- 8,122 words)

"I won't be making frogs." Maeve slapped the papers onto her end table, next to the lamp. "I appreciate you dropping these off, I really do. But I'm a little offended that you would even add that spell to my library requests unasked." She sniffed. "It's simply not to my tastes, Adelaide."

Adelaide followed her down the entryway, giving a cursory glance at the songbird peeping furiously for his attention in a golden cage.

"It's a classic for a reason." Her old classmate rolled his eyes, as if she was being unreasonable. "How can you call yourself a practitioner if you've never turned someone to a frog?" He turned away from the bird and fiddled with a ceramic on a display shelf. "People are starting to talk, Maeve."

"Why would I need to do that?" Maeve threw her hands up, sighing. "Why do they even care?" She shrugged off her coat and hung it on the hook. “Busy bodies, all.” She shot a disapproving look at the silly red bird beating its wings for attention.

Adelaide turned and shook his head piteously at her. "I suppose that if you don't know, you'll never know. Chin up darling, you have other skills. Eventually people will forget. Maybe you could make a point to show off something soon?" he suggested kindly.

‘They think I can’t do it? How ridiculous.’

Maeve took a deep breath and shook off whatever latent insecurity made her fear peer disapproval. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone.

"I'm afraid of hyenas," Adelaide said. He was clearly trying to comfort her with some relatable anecdote. "I've been as far back as I can remember." His voice went quiet, his gaze distant. He was seeing some other time and place now.

Maeve tuned him out.

"It's probably just because a pack of hyenas ate my Father," Adelaide muses.  "I wasn't old enough to remember, but I was there. The first time I saw The Lion King on Broadway, I lost my mind and killed 34-"

"Adelaide," Maeve interrupted tersely. "I appreciate that you're trying to cheer me up, but I'm not in a headspace for it."

He stopped talking entirely. He gave her a dazed look. He didn't seem entirely present.

She ignored that. "I'll see you tomorrow," Maeve said, hoping he'd take the hint and get out of her living room without their customary cup of coffee. She let out a sigh, because he was being kind. "Thank you for bringing this." She picked the spell details back up. He really did mean well. “I’ll think on what you said, darling. And I’ll see you at the reunion next month.”

Adelaide looked at her long and hard. He let out a sigh. His eyes softened with fondness. "Don't work too hard," he admonished. Then he left in a swirl of smoke. The distinctive aroma of his magic spread out through the room.

She closed her eyes and indulged in a deep, calming breath. Then she opened her eyes and gave the songbird a stern look. It had gone quiet and sullen when Adelaide left. “Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Maeve chided.

It peeped in response.

“So rude,” she muttered, and went to make something for dinner. She gestured sharply upwards with her left hand and the cookbook obligingly lifted to hover above the counter. She hummed and flipped pages, looking for the recipe that she’d chosen yesterday.

Music started for her, a pleasant background to the evening chore of preparing food. She was in a very good mood by the time that she had finished meal preparation, a ritual that soothed the rough edges of an irritating day at work. She plated a serving and put the rest away for her lunch tomorrow.

At said lunchtime Maeve opened the fridge at work anticipating culinary perfection- a particularly exemplary rendition of duck confit and a salad- but all she found was confusion.

“Where is my lunch.” She asked the universe flatly.

The universe didn’t respond, but the nosy man from the advertising department did.

“Oh, wow,” He said, coming up behind her. His hot ham breath was on her neck.

Disgusting.

“Looks like you’re the latest victim of the lunch bandito.” His pronunciation was abominable. Why were white men like this. This interaction was somehow worse than some contemptible peon stealing her lunch.

He was definitely doing his finger-guns thing. She shut the refrigerator door and walked away.

‘Someone is going to pay for this. For my lunch, and especially for Greg talking to me.’

Incensed, she went back to her office and flung herself onto her office chair. She stared at her laptop, musing over her options.

‘How long has this been going on? Greg implied that I wasn’t the first.’

She opened the anonymous HR complaints inbox, noting not for the first time the sheer number of complaints regarding the ply of the company toilet paper (unlikely to be changed).

Maeve would not say that she was particularly given to caring about the concerns of others, but she did like to think that she was competent at her job. She tended to review most suggestions on the same day, so it would have been bizarre to not have known about a, a- what did Greg call them?- a lunch luchador.

The only complaint that she could identify as being plausibly related was from four months ago. Faheema in Client Relations had had her tomato and peanut sauce salad stolen from the break room. Unfortunately, there were no suspects and the complaint had languished there.

‘That can’t be the whole story.’

Maeve leaned back and gently massaged her temples. ‘I should check back at the crime scene, and interview the witnesses.’

The work refrigerator betrayed no new information, save that her expensive glass container wasn’t there.

Neither was it in the sink, or the trash can.

‘The unsub must have taken the evidence with them.’ Maeve took out a tiny pad of paper from her pocket, and wrote ‘careful’ in it.

Of course, lunch was mostly over, so there was no one to interview in the break room.

‘I guess that means I have to go back to my contact.’ She mused. ‘Find other victims and witnesses. Walk the streets.’

She found Greg at his cubicle, drinking stale coffee. His oversized khakis billowed in the air conditioning breeze.

“Mr. Wilson.” She greeted, putting her hands behind her back. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

He looked up at her, wide eyes filled with something she couldn’t discern. Fear? Hope? Guilt? Surprise at being accosted by an HR attorney?

“That- that would be fine.” He put down his green mug. It said ‘I’d rather be golfing.’

“How can I help you?”

“My lunch.” She stated clearly. “It wasn’t the first to be stolen, was it?”

He coughed.

‘A sign of guilt?’ She eyed him up and down. Greg would be a prime suspect, if contemptibility were a sign of the criminal element. He didn’t seem to be able to afford a full pair of shoes to go with his socks, which would explain his motivations in purloining paninis.

“No, ma’am. It wasn’t. It’s been happening for over six months.” He rolled over to part of his desk, where he removed a legal notepad covered in scribbles. “I think the first one was Niraj,” he gestures a few cubicles over, “but there’s been one almost every work day.”

Maeve did some quick mental math and the answer was appalling.

‘The depths of this unsub’s depravity knows no bounds. That’s over 120 lunches.’

“Why haven’t people been reporting this?”

She could tell from his flinch back that her tone had come out too sharp. Meave compensated with a smile.

Greg gave her a wavering smile in return and ducked eye contact. “No one wanted to bother you,” he said vaguely, with a smarmy grin that made it evident it was a joke at her expense.

Her immediate theory was that the lunch thief had somehow intimidated the cubicle peasants into silence. She dismissed that after a moment- they would have compromised their anonymity if they communicated. No, the answer was much more likely that she had some kind of reputation for being unapproachable.

She got no further with the mystery that day. The incident might have faded if it wasn’t for the fact that when she warily opened the shared refrigerator the next day, her butternut squash risotto with porcini mushrooms and chicken was not in it.

“I am going to take a life,” Maeve said through gritted teeth. She ignored the sudden sound of a chair scraping and someone leaving the room. Someone coughed. She stalked over to the sink to look for her container– there it was, along with yesterday’s. She picked it up and made a sound of disgust. “Neither one of them have been washed.” Her voice came out incredulous. “This- this animal kept the first container in the office, unwashed, for 24 hours?”

She absolutely had to unmask this vile and petty bandit.

Maeve stalked back to her office and wrote up a scathing email. Then she deleted it and wrote another one, addressed to the entire company, with sugary sweet concern for whoever had eaten her lunch. She’d just found out that the sauce in it had been expired, after all, and anyone who ate it should seek medical attention immediately. She hit send and waited.

She did not have the kind of reputation that made people dismiss her as a threat. Whoever had eaten that was probably feeling fear for their life right now. Any minute now, someone would confess, or ask for permission to go to the doctor for a sudden stomachache.

Any minute now.

Minutes dragged on into hours and Maeve had to admit that whoever had robbed her had done something far more insulting than steal from her. They had dismissed her as a threat.

With that poisonous thought in her mind, Maeve found herself tempted to put a little something extra in the next day's lunch.

She refrained after remembering that the pattern indicated that it was likely she would be eating her own lunch tomorrow.

It wasn’t a targeted attack: the thief selected victims randomly.

After making that assessment, it was absolutely infuriating to open the fridge door at lunchtime and discover once again that her lunch was not inside. This time there was, again, no storage container in the sink or garbage.

“It’s in their desk,” Maeve muttered to herself, punching in an order for delivery with unnecessary force. “That little freak has my storage container in their rancid desk.”

They were definitely targeting her now.

…It was legally inadvisable to actively poison her own lunch, as well as a waste of a good container.

‘My only option is surveillance.’

It took a few days for the equipment to arrive and for the mail personnel to deliver it to her desk.

She reviewed the instructions multiple times, and waited for the end of business hours.

As usual, the feral masses fled the building at exactly five. She stalked back to the crime scene with a box of cameras and wires.

She was furiously drilling a hole into the wall when she heard someone call out to her from behind.

“Ma’am.” Someone said, vaguely threatening.

She turned around, one hand on the ladder for balance.

The security guard turned a gruesome shade of pink at the sight of her face. “I’m sorry ma’am, but do you have permission to do this?”

She waved her drill at him. “I’m a lawyer. This is all very above-board, I assure you.” Then Maeve leaned down at him. “I have noticed that you have been remiss in your duties. This lunch thief”, she spat, “has been allowed to run amok in this place for far too long. I am merely putting it right.”

“O-Okay then.”

The guard left in a hurry. No one evidently dared to check into whether she did have the authority or permission to install cameras, which was the first bit of luck Maeve had had all week.

Once they were installed, all she would have to do was watch and wait.

Maeve resentfully checked the recording from the previous day, rewinding and rewatching over and over again to try to catch sight of her container as hands moved in and out of the fridge. But it was no luck- she hadn’t managed to capture any definitive proof. It was difficult to determine at what time the unsub was striking, and there was significant traffic in the break room at all times of day.

She scowled as yet another office worker got their coffee and then stepped back to hang around in the aisle, blocking her view. They seemed unaware of the woman who was obviously waiting for them to move. Her blood pressure rose and she gritted her teeth, fighting her anger.

Why? Why were so many people that way? There was perfectly adequate seating.

Not for the first time, she considered moving her camera. But the only answer was patience. So she set her jaw and admitted that it would take at least one more day.

The options for camera placement had been limited. It would have been ideal to put it three feet from the refrigerator: except that the thief would see it immediately.

The unobtrusive placement she'd settled on had a direct line of sight to the fridge - as long as no one was standing in the way or there wasn't a tall person sitting at a certain table. That should be fine. What kind of lunatic spent their time standing around cluelessly in the walking path?

Apparently, one of the most beloved traditions of office workers was lurking in the walkway clutching their instant coffee. One of them was swaying back and forth on the recording she was watching at the moment. Maeve felt her hand curl into a fist.

She rewatched Angelica sip coffee on the monitor, taking over half an hour for a paid coffee break that she seemed to nurse beyond reason. Good for Angelica, honestly. She wasn't paid enough: Maeve had checked.

‘What I have managed to discover is that a large number of workers are avoiding work in the break room.’

But that wasn’t her concern. Frankly, she didn't give a damn about squeezing productivity out of office workers. She wasn’t one of the managers. Her concern was not with the cubicle jockeys escaping the crushing oppression of open plan offices, but of weightier merit. And she was failing at identifying the culprit.

‘I will find this thief if I have to comb through every inch of this office campus.’ She gripped her own coffee mug tightly. Her coffee was certainly cold by now, but she drank it anyway.

The office grade coffee left a sour aftertaste in her mouth and a film on her tongue. It was even more contemptible cold, but her sorry detective work merited sorry coffee.

She sent the next update, cc'ed to the President and Vice President, as per her habit. She didn't mind that they didn't respond.

Every day, it was the same. She would bring in lunch -unpleasantly textured, overly spicy, bland- the criminal devoured them all. Maeve would find her containers in the sink over the next few days, unwashed.

She considered seeing if DNA was left behind, and trying to see if the culprit could be identified that way.

It did seem likely that the kind of monster that would do this might have DNA on file with the authorities, but she didn't have access to any DNA databases in her capacity as an HR representative.

It made her think about criminal profiling, though. Everyone who'd had food taken was a young woman.

…That meant that he'd been in the room watching people either put their food in or eat it, she realized. In order for there to be a type of victim, the lunches couldn't be randomly selected.

He'd been grocery shopping. Looking at a menu.

And that, Maeve realized, implied free time.

She didn't know what that meant, but it wasn't something she'd forget.

The problem was beginning to interfere with Maeve’s actual work. Stacks of policies up for review were threatening to topple over her desk, erecting skyscraping monuments to corporate thoroughness.

But it was hard to care about that right now. Maeve hadn’t had a proper lunch in three weeks. She was tired of ordering in or waiting until after work. She was also tired of making lunches she was never going to eat, even if they were inedible.

‘I could always just stop bringing in my own lunch.’ She glared at the empty fridge accusingly. It wasn’t like she’d truly expected her lunch to remain. ‘Or I might put a mini fridge in my office.’

But both of those options were intolerable. The lunch thief would just be forcing her to either continue to not eat, eat foods that she did not want to eat, or buy a fucking fridge just to avoid them. And even if she solved the problem for herself, this godforsaken cyst of a person would just steal from someone else.

No. She had to solve it. She could crack this case.

The cameras had identified a few general trends. There was a general group of peons that came in around 10:15 for coffee refills, and then it was consistently busy from 11:00-1:00PM.

‘I’m going to check the fridge at half hour intervals, to see if there’s a pattern as to when the thief strikes.’

The next day, she clutched the steering wheel just a bit too tight on her way in. She wasn't even at work and the tension was ruining her mood. She hit the brakes at a crosswalk, eyes glancing over to check for children among the pedestrians by sheer force of meticulous habit.

There was a gaggle of elementary students laughing in an uneven pack on the left. She kept some attention on them in her peripheral vision as she went through the intersection.

In her rearview mirror she saw the next car come up the block and barrel through the intersection without stopping at the sign. They caught up with her right away and clearly hit the brakes hard, jerking when they slowed suddenly.

She saw the driver lift a hand and gesture at her in irritation, mouth moving as they doubtless raged.

The muscle in her jaw twitched with tension. She glanced at her speedometer to confirm that yes, she was driving at the limit.

So. That asshole was speeding in a school zone and blowing through stop signs.

"You know what I do to men like you?" Maeve asked her empty car, all coiled tension and tightly leashed violence. She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel and considered it: they'd pass her, legally or not, as soon as she gave them the chance.

She could follow them. They wouldn't notice. Anyone who didn't notice stop signs and children in a school zone was too self absorbed to realize they were being followed. It might make her late, but she had flex time. She could just arrive at work later. It wouldn't be the first time.

Maeve was sorely tempted, her blood rising with the thrill of the hunt.

It took real, punishing self control to flick on her turn signal at the normal place. She turned away with only a lingering glance at the bad driver in her rearview mirror.

She had to get to work on time to put her bait in the fridge at the normal time. She was already hunting down one piece of human refuse. Besides, that kind of thing required resources that she hadn't yet freed up.

Her iron self control got her to the break room by 8:00 am. She put the container in the fridge and gave it one last resentful look before she closed the door. It wasn’t even appealing to her anymore. She’d made this food to punish an asshole. It wasn't enough retribution, but it made her feel a little better.

The lunch was fish, cooked in ghost pepper sauce and served with leftover pasta. She'd gotten the fish on sale and then left it in her fridge for two days.

‘Honestly, I hope they eat this. I can’t.’

When she checked the fridge later, it was still there. And at nine, and nine thirty. Perhaps they had some self respect after all.

At ten it was gone. She made a note in her notebook. She hoped it caused vicious indigestion.

The next day, her lunch was gone at ten thirty. It seemed like a general pattern might emerge.

The trend held on Friday- her lunch disappeared sometime between ten and ten thirty.

She went into the weekend feeling victorious. Monday. This would end on Monday. She’d do a stakeout from 9:30 or so, until she caught the thief red handed. She couldn't just camp out in the break room and stare all day; not while catching up on her workload. But she could spare one morning.

It was not to be. At 9:30 on Monday, Maeve found herself staring at the empty space where her lunch (a phoned-in effort of three boiled eggs and a quick pickled salad) ought to have been. It was already gone.

The rest of the week made it clear that there was truly no pattern. This maniac took her lunch anytime from 8:05 (within the amount of time she’d used the break room bathroom on Tuesday), to 11:45.

That tickled at her hind brain. There was something familiar about that… Oh. She'd thought before that the thief must have a lot of leisure time in order to wait in the break room and choose victims. But the times that the food went missing was a clue too. No one who was being managed could just go wandering around the building at any time in the morning. Breaks were staggered to prevent congestion.

That meant that the thief wasn't being managed. The thief might be a manager.

That would narrow things down a lot. She printed off a few pages of company headshots of all managerial staff in the building.

When she took the document with her to the head of security, he got an uncomfortable look on his face. "I don't think that we can send someone to watch the break room for managers," he said in a steady, soothing tone.

"Why not?" Her tone came out sharper than she wanted. Maeve compensated with a little smile.

"Because," he said slowly, "no one will enjoy their breaks if they think that security has been deployed to watch them taking their breaks."

She rolled her eyes and left the security station in a huff. Something had to be done. This couldn't go on.

It was ridiculous and undignified. She'd never been hounded in such a petty way before. The effect that it had on her was surprising.

Her sleep started to suffer. She didn't enjoy cooking as much as she had before. That was infuriating, since she had deliberately cultivated the skillset as part of her routine. Spending a long time cooking quality food had made her feel proud of herself: now she just felt annoyed, constantly bothered by the hovering reminder that someone was toying with her.

She wasn't going to waste gourmet ingredients on live bait for some asshole, so she either had to eat leftovers or adjust all of her recipes for single portions. For weeks, she wasted time making a lunch that she knew she would never eat. It made her shake with a sort of helpless fury in her own home. This person was stealing more than food: it was her time and labor, her peace of mind and some of her dignity.

Maeve could feel her tight grip on her life slipping. It was on the fourth week of this unending nightmare that she realized that she’d nearly missed a meeting while waiting for lunch delivery in the lobby, and she hadn’t even ordered.

‘Enough is enough.’ She slammed a briefcase full of files onto her desk and gritted her teeth. ‘I’m going to find this person and deal with them myself. They're going to regret toying with me.’

The next morning, she packed up her laptop and brought everything to the break room, setting up at the table closest to the fridge.

People edged around her anxiously over the next hour, filling up their coffee mugs quickly and escaping to their cubicles in a way she knew was atypical from her study of the cameras and several office sitcoms. No one lingered foolishly several steps away from the coffee station, blocking the walkway.

She watched and waited for her patience to be rewarded. But no one came. At two in the afternoon, she left.

The next day, she considered her options. The thief had not struck when she had placed herself directly in the break room.

‘Then again, I was visible from the doorway. They probably saw me and chose not to steal. Perhaps they didn't even enter the room. If I want to observe my prey without detection, I should sit further away and decrease suspicion.’

The nature of her job made it very difficult to do in a public setting like the break room, which meant that Maeve was forced to only do reports instead of bringing out private files. She waited and waited, glancing up from her computer every few seconds.

Time drug on, and her nerves were shot. Maeve felt fried, tired, and hungry. She wanted to leave. Patrick from accounting kept trying to make bad puns in her direction. He'd seemed to misinterpret her behavior as an attempt to make friends with the other workers.

Movement by the doorway caught her attention, as someone in an obnoxiously colored jacket shuffled in. They crossed the room, pausing by the coffeepot to leave their mug with a careless clatter before making their way to the fridge.

It caught her attention. It wasn't criminal, but it was a little antisocial and selfish to leave your dirty dishes around.

Her intuition was humming at her. She watched intently as this person opened the fridge and removed a small glass container. She felt a heart-stopping thrill.

It was him.

The thief didn't even pause before turning to refill his dirty mug with coffee. He looked totally unbothered and casual, as if he did this every day. He wasn't in the least bit worried.

‘That’s mine! He's actually holding my food. There's no way to explain that.'

She quickly closed her laptop with a nasty little smile and got up, crossing the room in a graceful lope. She managed to insert herself between the long legged thief and the break room door just as he was about to exit with his coffee and her lunch.

He barely avoided walking directly into her. Instead of looking at her face, he tried to step around her. She side-stepped to block him.

“Hello.” She smiled, poisonly sweet. She was so close to vengeance. “Is that my lunch?”

“Hey.” The man just looked at his phone, and barely addressed her at all.  “Nah, it’s mine.” He sounded so casual. He was blowing her off.

“That is clearly my container.” Maeve said sharply. Her tone rose a little. Of course it was hers. She'd paid extra for the customized design on the glass. "That's a ridiculous lie when I actively watched you try to steal my food." She put a hand up for her food. "Here." She waited.

He sighed as he lowered his phone. He lifted the container with the braised duck she’d made last night, and finally made eye contact with her. He stuck out his lower lip in a mocking pout for a moment before he responded. “I don’t see your name on it. That’s one hell of an accusation, miss.”

He was… amused.  He was fucking getting off on this power play.

The sheer fucking gall of it stole her breath for a moment. She'd caught him holding her property, and he didn't think she could do anything about it.

‘I made that food. The rest of it is still in my fucking fridge at home. I could fit that duck breast back in like a puzzle piece.’

“Give it back.” She said, low and slow. Anyone could hear the danger in her voice. Even people who had no idea that she was a witch knew she was intimidating.

“Why would I do that? It’s my lunch.” Then he chuckled at her, and walked around her. She was frozen stock still. “You should be careful of who you accuse of things, miss. I’m an important man and you don’t want to get in trouble.”

Her heart rate was through the roof and her whole body was tense with fury. She turned to watch him go, blood thumping in her ears. Had that really happened? She'd caught him in the act and he'd condescended to her? He didn't even glance over his shoulder.

She'd never been dismissed like that. Never.

She had a furious and helpless lightning realization: this was why the other women  hadn't complained about the theft. They'd known that they were powerless to stop it. People just had to accept this vile, selfish behavior, because it was coming from someone above them.

'And it's because I'm a woman. He thinks he can do this to me because I'm a woman.'

Well. The unpleasant joke was on him. She wasn't an office worker. She was a lawyer. She'd go over his head. The company owner was a family friend: whatever caché this shitstain had wouldn't outweigh her position and connections.

He was going to regret the way he'd treated the office workers. Even if empathy was beyond him, he'd know that he fucked up by stealing from her.

“I am going to find out who he was," Maeve said to herself, icy cold in the chatter of the break room. He didn’t look familiar. "He's not from this department."

She would know. She'd been studying pictures.

“I think he’s a programmer.” Someone said quietly, and Maeve swiveled her head around in time to see a cubicle worker’s face disappear behind their mug. Whoever it was didn’t matter.

“Does anyone know his name?” She asked. No one met her eyes, but everyone shook their heads.

"He said he's a team lead," someone offered.

People had been watching that confrontation. A few weeks ago, she might have been mortified to be disrespected so publicly. But it wasn't the first time, she realized. That was probably why the complaints had stopped: someone had seen this man steal, and he'd threatened their job the way he'd tried to threaten hers.

She’d start with the website development team. They were only a floor down.

The unfortunate thing about massive streaming businesses is that they have an infestation of programmers. Maeve had to click through hundreds of faces before she found the rat-faced dillhole that had stolen her lunch and lied about it to her face.

“Raymond Atwater, meet your doom.” She whispered in victory at the screen. Evidently he was a team lead for the server security team.

What was obscene was that his team was in an entirely different building. This asshole had gone across campus to steal her lunch.

To be clear, he'd walked out of his office, through the office pool, out into the lobby of his own building, across two parking lots and a decorative garden,  through the lobby of her building and up the elevator to the 9th floor, all to steal her fucking lunch. And he'd done that almost every day for 3 and a half weeks. What was wrong with him?

‘Maybe he got caught in his own building.’ She mused, before sending a quick exploratory email to the HR team in his actual building, as well as the HR heads in the buildings closer to it. They might have more information.

She wanted dirt. Filthy dirt. And as much of it as possible.

In the update to the president, she happily included the footage and Raymond's name.

The response from the HR head in Raymond's building was fast, professional, and immediately confirmed that he was a problematic employee.

Maeve frowned at the email, rereading one line in particular.

"Management has been disinterested in pursuing suggested corrective measures for multiple instances of problematic behavior," the rep had written. Maeve glanced back up at the head of the email to jog her memory of the other woman's name, Kimberly Lianson.

"I would recommend a meeting with his head of department, Mr. Patel, and perhaps part of the executive team, since Mr. Atwood's actions have had an impact across the campus."

"I can do that," Maeve murmured to her screen. She sent off an inquiry with the company President's secretary about meeting availability. Most people needed to wait a week or two. But for Maeve, the secretary made time.

Two days later, she met Kimberly Lianson outside the meeting room. The older woman's eyebrows shot up.

"Would you like any help preparing for the meeting?" Maeve said, instead of a greeting.

Kimberly's face relaxed. She smiled. "That would be very helpful, thank you. Could you get the door?" She shifted her burden to the side and shook one hand free so that Maeve could access the key dangling from her wrist and open the door.

She pushed it open and strode in first to find the light switch.

"Thank you so much for putting all this evidence together," Kimberly started. She blew a little strand of sweaty hair off of her face. "I really start to wonder if they'll ever be willing to punish a manager, but I'm hopeful."

Maeve let out a surprised laugh. "He's guilty," she said. "I have him on camera stealing from me, and notes about everything I can see that he stole. The dollar value actually becomes rather substantial."

Kimberly's warm smile became a bit fixed. "Well." She glanced over Maeve's shoulder for a moment. "I think it's an uphill battle, if I'm honest."

Maeve stared. "There's enough complaints against him to wallpaper my office."

Kimberly's lips went thin as she pressed them together. "Yes," she finally said. "He does a very important job and makes the company a lot of money."

That was such bullshit that she couldn't speak for a moment. When she could control herself again, Maeve took a deep breath. "Well, I do a very important job as well," she said. "I'm confident that we can present the facts and get some justice."

Kimberly was obviously not convinced.

Maeve didn't mind. She'd see.

They finished setting up for the meeting and were ready before the head of information and security and the company President arrived, obviously finishing up some funny conversation. The president clapped Mr. Patel on the shoulder before he took in the room, amusement crinkling his eyes.

"I hear that there's a presentation." He took a seat. "About a, uh- somewhat difficult engineer."

Maeve smoothed the front of her skirt as she took a seat. "Yes, Ms. Lianson has a presentation prepared to make things shorter. Thank you so much for coming,  Mr. Conway, Mr. Patel."

"Yes, it's about Atwood, isn't it?" Mr. Patel didn't return her greeting. He glanced over at Mr. Conway. "Brilliant man," he explained casually. "Steps on some toes, but he gets results."

"Interesting," Maeve cut him off. "Ms. Lianson, if you wouldn't mind?"

She sat with her fingers folded precisely on her lap as Kimberly listed the types of complaints leveled against Mr. Atwood from his department and others. She had a still image from Maeve's camera of Atwood taking one of Maeve's lunches: and two other photos of him with different lunches. Because apparently he'd been stealing more than one lunch per day.

As Kimberly spoke, Mr. Patel fidgeted, pulling at his collar and fiddling with his cuffs. He tapped at his watch at one point, peering at the second hand. He didn't touch his stapled papers.

Maeve hated him. He obviously didn't care about this.

"When confronted about the theft, Mr. Atwood lied and insinuated that confronting him for the theft would mean retribution." Kimberly seemed resigned.

Maeve felt very tense.

The President was a family friend. He wasn't much more interested in the facts than Atwood's department head was. But that didn't matter. He wasn't going to let someone treat her that way.

When Kimberly wrapped up, Mr. Conway was the first to break the ice. He shifted in his chair and tapped his fingers on the table as he spoke. "Well, what are you expecting to happen?"

"According to company policy, he should be terminated immediately," Maeve answered immediately. "In light of the fact that he's causing disruptions in three different departments with impunity despite being made aware of the unacceptability of his actions,  he doesn't meet the standard for employees."

Mr. Patel let out an incredulous scoff. He waved a splayed hand around the room. "Over a few missed salads?" he said incredulously. "Don't you think that's a bit dramatic?"

"It does seem petty," Mr. Conway agreed, shaking his head. "The whole thing- he should write up an apology." He rubbed his hands together as if to wash them of this affair. "He's clearly immature, but no real harm was done.

Maeve stared at him. Making someone apologize is what one does with naughty children.

"This is a case of theft. Theft is a fire-able offense, and the dollar amount Mr. Atwood has stolen from employees is in the thousands."" Kimberly said, a little stiff. "Regardless of what has been stolen, Mr. Atwood has been stealing from other employees for years. This is not to mention the multiple complaints of harassment and creating an unsafe work environment."

"Snacks," Mr. Patel dismissed. He let out a sigh. "I'll increase the budget for snack food in our department so he isn't roving around for food."

"Good man," Mr. Conway said, and stood up cheerfully. "Well, thank you for your time, ladies, keep up the good work." He winked at Maeve. "Your cooking must be something! Your mother would be proud." He left with a little chuckle at his own joke.

Maeve was too furious to speak. If she opened her mouth, actual venom was going to spurt out. She stood dangerously still as the two men left the office.

A sigh from Kimberly broke the spell. "As I said," she started ruefully, "an uphill battle." She gathered up her materials.

She managed a stiff nod.

The older woman looked sympathetic. "I know," Kimberly said. She let out a sigh and rifled a hand through her hair. "That was frustrating. You could always go to the police." She gave Maeve a wry look. "I don't know that it would be much more effective." Then she walked out of the room, balancing the precarious stack of folders that neither Mr. Conway or Mr. Patel had bothered to even open.

She felt like her legs were numb in her expensive shoes. The red bottoms wobbled awkwardly on the carpet as she stood still and tried to process what had just happened.

The shame won out after the door closed behind Kimberly, and she exhaled a painful held breath. At least there was no one in the room to see her like this. Ungainly and unbalanced, Maeve walked to her office in a haze. People walked by her, clutching papers and mugs. She hugged the wall and averted her eyes.

'Maybe they'll do something about it,' she lied to herself. The elevator dinged above her head, but it sounded dull and remote. The lie coiled in the bottom of her stomach like a viper. She carefully stepped into the elevator, mindful that if she acted too out of the ordinary, people would make it the subject of gossip.

She tried again to console herself in the quiet of her office. 'At least he might stop.'

He'd changed buildings after the last few complaints, anyway. It seemed likely he'd move on to a new victim. Then Maeve could hold her head high enough in her building, and pretend that that meeting didn't happen. She could fix it.

Her lunch wasn’t missing the next day. Maeve ate it, thankful for the return to her routine. But it tasted like nothing.

She'd forgotten to season it properly. Maeve ate it mechanically, bite after bite of bland pasta.

Something worse happened in the afternoon.

It started with the little ‘ding’ sound her computer made when an email landed. Maeve put down the files she’d finally started working on, and clicked on the notification.

It opened an entire email from that skunk, Raymond. It started out banal enough.

“I’m sorry”

‘A good start, if a little lackluster in the begging he should be doing.’ She thought sourly, before starting on the rest. The viper in her stomach twisted.

“- if you were offended that I enjoyed your cooking. You are a decent cook, and I thought that the opportunity I provided you for someone else to try your cooking might improve your abilities while providing me with a quick lunch. I am, after all, very busy- I have 50 people under me”

‘No you don’t, you twat, I can see the personnel files. Why are you lying to me?’

“And my time is very valuable. Someday, if you work hard, I’m sure you will understand. As for feedback, I have to say that some of the food was better than others. You make a competent risotto, but you need to work on how you prepare fish. Hopefully you can improve.’

She had to look away from the computer for a long moment. The rage and embarrassment were bubbling up again. She felt nauseous.

“The President said that I needed to send you an email to resolve this misunderstanding. If you have any questions, please let me know. I’ll try to get back to you within a few days, as my schedule allows.

Thanks,

Team Lead Ray”

“You’re not my team lead,” she uttered, feeling petty and filled with bile. “In fact, you’re a fucking loathsome little worm. An utter wretch, a thieving pile of donkey mucus.”

The air in her office began to feel a little claustrophobic from her own malign energy, so Maeve took a second to breathe and lean away from her computer. Her stomach roiled.

“So, they won’t be doing anything about him.” That should have been less surprising after that awful meeting. Maeve would have thought that her history with the President and his family might merit a little more consideration.

At the end of the day, it obviously meant nothing. Or worse, that that doddering twit thought she was a whining child. Whose mother would be 'proud of her cooking'. It made her feel sick.

Something she'd heard yesterday came to mind, unwrapping a painful present of context.

'The President implied he hadn't heard about this before.' she realized. 'I've been sending updates on this for weeks. They… didn't read them. Any of them.'

Maeve’s outlook on her employment really began to shift at that moment.

'They didn't care about my work. And they don't care about my position. About me.'

She took a look at the pile of HR complaints and considered her options.

‘I’m going to ensure that this is the worst mistake they’ve ever made.’

She turned back to the computer screen, still lit up with the offending email.

“And I’m going to start with you," she promised venomously.

Two weeks later, she was waiting on a bench under sun-dappled leaves in the local park. It was earlier in the day than she would have usually been off work, and she was enjoying the chance to relax and commune with nature. The birds were singing, the breeze was blowing, and the sun was shining its beneficence upon her.

She watched the ducks in the pond bobbing in the warm water, while a bird yammered endlessly next to her. Some elderly couples and a young mother were slowly walking around the lake, while some speedwalkers marched around the paths single file. She waited for all the passersby to face the other direction.

A particularly large bird scream in her ear disrupted her sense of peace, and made her ears ring.

“Oh, shut it.” She turned to the bird in the birdcage. It peeped at her, seemingly furious. “I’m about to release you anyway.”

She opened the cage and reached her hand in, delicately lifting the bird out of the door. She whispered something onto the wind, and threw it up into the air.

Its wings outstretched as it reached heavenward, before curling down around it in a shimmering golden light. Within a second, a dazed man in a red running suit was standing in front of the bench. He blinked blearily at her, before swaying. His legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed on the dirt path.

She left him there.

“Good luck explaining to your sand volleyball friends why you were missing for three months, you ass.” His hand moved, but it was going to take him a while to remember how to use those limbs again. Doubtless someone would report a man collapsed on the running path within a few hours, and the police would return him to his grateful family. Pat would never remember where he’d been, and couldn’t explain his absence. All he’d remember would be the new, bone-shattering aversion to running red lights in a school zone.

The tinny quality of a personal bluetooth speaker heralded her quarry.

As ever, she was well-timed. Just as Pat began to snore into the dirt, a familiar figure jogged around the bend of the lake. His long legs worked lazily, eating up ground in the middle of the path. He barely seemed to register the other people, prompting one of the elderly men to take a doddering leap off of the path, before Ray clipped the side of a stroller with his right thigh.

Maeve watched as the woman tried to tear into him, but Raymond, Team Leader Extraordinaire, seemed very convinced that she had been in his way, being that she wasn’t entirely off the public sidewalk.

He huffed at her, and then left, diverting up to the otherwise abandoned path Maeve was sitting on.

She idly ran her fingertips over the wire frame of the birdcage next to her. The sun had made it almost uncomfortably warm.

Raymond only stopped in front of her when he tripped on Pat’s unconscious body.

“What is that doing there?” He asked, sounding disgusted.

It somehow inspired more contempt for him than she had previously possessed.

‘Anyone remotely decent might wonder if he was alive or okay, you infested carcass.’

“Hello Raymond.” She rose, and stretched out her arms. “Lovely day.”

“Uh, yeah.” He looked at her without any comprehension. This muppet faced buffoon had stolen her lunch for over a month, and didn't know what she looked like outside of the office.

It rankled more than it should.

“Do you happen to have a fever, a cough, or any symptoms that would lead you to believe that you might have the flu or another illness?” She asked, businesslike. Her hands were at the ready.

“Of course not.” He had the audacity to look offended. “And where do you get off asking me that? Who-”

She waved her fingers and concentrated. His long white shirt became wings, and he shrank. And shrank.

In the span of a few moments, a confused white duck was standing on top of Pat’s back. She pulled her waiting phone out and snapped a picture, and sent it to Adelaide with the caption 'Look what I found in the park!'

Then she tilted her head, mentally measuring the waterfowl's dimensions.

“I probably should have made you a songbird.” She sighed, grabbing the duck with both hands. He made a weird sound in response. “I was just thinking of those beautiful ducks on the pond. Now you’re too big for the cage.” She stuffed him in anyway, working with the fresh transformation limpness. It would be more difficult to deal with him later, when he’d figured out how to be a duck. Then again, nothing she’d seen would have led her to believe that Ray was capable of learning.

She shoved the cage into the newspaper-lined backseat of her classy black car, and left the park without a second glance.

NOTE:

This was originally posted on my Patreon, where I am continually writing other character stories for Deplorably Devoted. Check it out here!

[luxmaeastra]

Rivitus eyes were widez vibrantly violet.

"Do you understand what this means Rhysand?"

If Wyrdmarks were showing up on Assassin, if that magic was waking again..

Rivitus turned from his older brother looking at his notes, all his work. He'd been working on the Valg in Hewn for centuries now.

He would be the one who be the next legend He'd be the one who didn't just crack then Wyrdmarks, he would be the one to create one.

'We need to go to Adarlan. See what Demetrius knows. If he has somehow -"

The Valg he'd taken, vagrants and criminals, maids and others. Ones know one would miss. Sure their parents wouldn't have understood but Rhysand would right? They had power in their blood - why not use it?

It said nothing of their children. Tisiphone's held Bloodties to Eywelle if he remembered correctly or was it Terresan? She was rumored to have Maeve's blood too. She was powerful even before she and Rhysand mated.

Would their children have more Asteri or Valg bent? Would they turn blank and only be fae? He should ask them, he should -

He exhaled and looked to Rhysand, running a hand through his hair. He'd given so much of his blood to his subjects. They'd been to control after that addiction. Had done whatever he asked, stolen, killed - been happy to bed him too.

"If we could crack the code of Wyrdmarks before the witches try? Do you understand the power we could have? The power Night would posses Rhys? We would be unstoppable. We could make you the High King. We could bring back what was taken when Helena -'

"Enough." This wasn't the little brother he knew, the one who would come to him with new discoveries. The one whose whole face would light up when explaining something that was complicated, something that no one else has realized.

The male before him seemed to become so riddled with his experiments he was no issues with stepping over that line, the fact he was talking about High King and-.

Rhysand stopped that thought, he stopped from going down the path in regard to Helena. Losing her had been a blow to their family, maybe that was really when the fracturing had begun? Had her loss really been that hard on all of them.

"I respect you Riv, I can see the good you can do, but where do you draw the line?" He moved towards him, his hand resting on the table. "How many were not willing when you started, how many did you steal away? I believe in science and the benefit of it, but this..."

[pearblossommina]

ToG Read-a-Long, Queen of Shadows, day 6

Ch31

Hmm

The fact that Kaltain can conjure and wield shadowfire really makes me believe she’s the daughter of the king. Magic is arrested in all wielders, except for him and also Dorian because he was *born* of him. So I am very much wondering about Kaltain, and this ability she has.

Also. Since she has powers, why would she let someone like Duke Perrington abuse her?

Does the demon sharing her body not care? If not, why not?

Ch 32

“You’re to stay in my chambers if yours are compromised” OMG I am shipping it, I am shipping it so hard.

I hate this, I hate reading about Kaltain getting abused

Why won’t she fight back? I know she’s possessed but why doesn’t her demon protect her mortal body? It’s so fucked up

Ch33

Ok this is a first, I have never been annoyed before at going *back* to Aelin and Rowan’s part of the story

But I am, lol, I’m a little annoyed

I want to know what’s up with Kaltain!

I want to know if Elide is about to do something daring and save her

“He’s spectacularly built,” she mused. “I’ve never been with a Fae male. Or female, for that matter.” Is Lysandra bisexual because I’m in love with her

Ch34

This chapter is so fucking cute I love going on a date I love eating snacks and chasing each other through Rithfold and buying dessert and wandering into old haunts and playing music

Omg

This is everything, it’s EVERYTHING.

Ch35

“I wanted to go for a drink to celebrate - not… brood. And I’d like to go with you.”

Chaol, my goodness, you are growing up.

I guess i ship it. You need someone no-nonsense like Nesryn to help you along your character arc. She’s no Dorian, but maybe she’ll make you happy.

Ch36

Aelin led Lorcan into the sewers to die

Jesus

Oh wait he’s not that easy to kill. I guess I *do* remember Lorcan. Vaguely.

I have a question!!!! When he says Rowan is bound to a mortal queen, and one day she’ll grow old and die, like. What happens. What happens with a blood oath if the person you are bound to dies? Does the oath evaporate, or do you carry it with you forever? If Maeve were, for example, to die - would Lorcan still be a pain in the ass or would he be able to do whatever he wants?

Ch37

Doriannnnnn baby

C’mon please. Get a foothold here. Get a hand hold, grab onto your eye sockets, and make your way back into your body. I am rooting for you. Please!

[misguidedasgardian]

What I was promised

Pairing: Soldier boy x Sup!Fem!Reader

Summary: The deal was simple, he kills Homelander, and Butcher gives him greenlight to fulfill his dream of having a family, you were just… collateral damage, another sup taken care off if you ask Butcher.

Warnings: SPOILERS OF THE BOYS SEASON 3 CHAPTERS 7 & 8.

Cursing, Dub-con, involuntary imprisonment, unprotected sex (do I have to remind you to not have a party without a party hat?), breeding kink, housewife kink, cursing, dirty talking, the works and everything fun related to this guy 

Wordcount: 3.7k

Notes: Oh I really wanted to write about this hot sup and honestly? his talk about wanting kids just triggered me 

This is it, the final fight. Butcher and Soldier Boy were getting ready to storm the tower, the final battle against Homelander where they knew they were going to win. Sharing stories about their childhoods and their crappy dads.

“I always wanted them, kids I mean, I've always thought I could do a better job than my father ever did” Butcher saw the plan he carefully and dangerously crafted crumble into pieces in front of his eyes

“Homelander is not your son” he said carefully

“He is the only thing I have”

“You can have more kids” he said then, “I know you like old bags, but you can still choose a young one, I don’t care, but he… has to go” Ben looked at him with with furrowed brow

“The young girls these days don’t want to form families, that’s what that cum-eating little shit told me”

“Well, yeah but you are a handsome devil, I know you can figure it out” he uttered hopefully

“Well, yeah, homelander is a piece of shit anyways, so fuck him” Butcher signed relieved

“That my boy”

“I could convince that girl to give me a couple of babies, I mean, she is sweet like that”

“Who?”

“The sweet one… the one on your team, the one with the telekinesis thing”

“(Y/N)?” he asked, it was Butcher´s turn to frown, “I don’t think she is your speed”

“I’ll make her my speed” he said firmly, and that’s when they both look at eachother, definitely

“That’s not how we do things with the ladies” he said carefully, “We ain’t in the 40’s no more” he growled. Ben only smirked

“So now you are telling me I can’t have her either?” 

“Only if she wants to” he reminded him 

“Turn a blind eye, convince everyone we are dead, and I'll waste my own son for you” 

“They are going to hate me if they found out I gave her to you like some sort of stuffed animal in a carnival”

“That’s the part where you convince them we are dead” he said simply, “You want me to fry Homelander? My own son? You’ll let me take her” Butcher looked at him

“But she can never tell anyone what happened” he warned 

“I’ll take care of that” he said simply, “You just think there is going to be one less Sup you need to worry about” 

“Good riddance then”

“You two are sick” Maeve muttered, and they both froze when they saw the redhead standing in the doorway of the room

“Oh, we getting sentimental love?” mocked Butcher, “She is just going to be collateral damage, we kill the bastard, whatever it takes” 

“And what are you going to do to her you sick fuck?” she asked then 

“You don’t worry your little head about that” muttered Butcher

“She doesn’t deserve this, she is actually a decent person”

“You heard the man, he won’t waste Homelander if we don’t let him take her, so that’s it” Maeve went quiet, sharing dirty looks with Soldier Boy, the man just smiled

“I’m not gonna hurt her” he said simply, “I’m just gonna turn her into what any decent girl should be, make an honest woman out of her” 

“This is so wrong” she whispered, but said nothing more as the three prepared to storm the tower

“They already have a huge startpoint” muttered Hughie

“We still have to try”, said Annie decisively 

“Agree” you muttered, looking up at Frenchie, Kimiko and MM, “we all know what we are up against, right?”

“Soldier Boy and Homelander won’t walk out of that tower” muttered MM, “whatever it takes”

“Whatever it takes” you all agreed

The plan was simple, Frenchie and Kimiko would go for the nerve gas to stop Soldier Boy while you all gained time and try to stop them. Hughie was to the control room to warn everyone as you and Annie ran in front of MM to protect him of whatever lies in front of you through the halls of Vought tower 

But when you got to them… it was already late. You couldn’t even walk through the doors of the news study when a huge blast threw you backwards. You flew through the air feeling as the air was punched out of your lungs and you collapse against a marble pillar, losing all consciousness 

. . .

When you came to your senses again, your head weighed a ton, and you had to make a huge effort to open your eyes. You took in the room, you were laid on a King size bed, and the room looked cozy, with a fireplace and all, a little outdated, like from the 80’s, but it was a very comfortable looking room. You took your hands towards your face and they both looked fine, you drew out your push wave and it still worked, your powers were ok, not fried out

“Oh good, I was scared I fried your powers” you grunted a little more when you recognized the men behind the words, “I wouldn't want you to lose them”

“Ben?” you called, finding him entering the room you were in, he smiled when he heard you calling him that, this is exactly what he wanted from you, his real name being moaned from those lips he liked so much, “What happened?” you murmured, “You used the radiation against us?” you seemed hurt, you sounded scared, and he didn't like that

“You tried to stop us from smoking Homelander” he explained simply, not denying it 

“Is everyone else ok?” you asked, “Annie and MM? Frenchie and Kimiko?” he sigh loudly, impatient, not wanting to have to explain to you, he didn’t care about them, he cared about you

“I don’t know, they were breathing when I left”

“You fried us up” you frowned your pretty little face and he didn’t understand why this was so hard for you to understand. Your eyes stopped at the TV, which was broadcasting the lastest news… Homelander was DEAD

“WHAT?” you said urgently, seeing the entire Vought tower completely destroyed, “What the fuck hapened?”

“Sweet things like you don’t talk like that” he whispered with that husky voice of his

“Ben… what happened?” you asked, softly, to appease him

“I complied with my part of the deal, I wasted Homelander” even if he clearly won, he looked defeated, “Homelander, what kind of shitty name that is anyways?” Even though this is what you all wanted, it felt wrong to celebrate the death of a human being, even though it was a Supe-supremacist psychotic piece of shit like him, still… celebrating a man’s death wasn’t right

“Is everyone ok?”

“I think so, I really didn’t care, I only cared about you” you felt your cheeks flush at his words and then he flashed you a poster boy smile. To distract yourself, you looked around. If the outside was any indication, you seemed to be in some sort of cabin

“Ben?” you asked, suddenly scared, your super hearing wouldn’t let you hear anything else but his breathing and the birds outside chirping, no cars, no other people, nothing. He raised from his seat on a small sofa and sat right next to you on the bed. His closeness made you uncomfortable

“Yes, sweet thing?” he purred, and you understand why he got laid everywhere he went, he had to only speak with that thick voice and all the panties in the room would drop

“Where are we?” Softly and gently was the way to go with him, you looked into his beautiful green eyes looking for the truth and the truth only, he smiled softly and tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ea, the contact of his gloved hands made you trembled in your spot

“We are in a cabin Legend gifted me after our first gig together, the old thing is still standing” 

“But why? Where are the others?”

“Around, why do you care so much?” he asked, annoyed, “I’m here” 

“But you had a huge fight, and Homelander is finally dead, and I… he was the most powerful man alive, I mean, I just want to know…”

“Everyone is ok” he said with a sigh, probably the others were covering your tracks, I mean, you just wasted Homelander and Vought probably had tapes about all of you doing so… so now you were fugitives again, and you had to lay low, if the other were ok it was all going to be fine. 

“Except for Noir, Homelander got to him before I could”

“Noir is also dead?” you asked, feeling bad for the ninja, you actually like him and your time in the tower and the times you spent with him had been very pleasant. But to Soldier Boy not too much since he was your worry his face turned in anger

“He was a traitor who gave me away to the Russians” he growled, “He is lucky Homelander got to him and not me”

“I’m sorry for what he did to you, but to me he was always… polite” you whispered 

“Let’s just not talk about that traitor fucker, a walking tumor” his tone made you frightful, so you just looked down scaping his gaze

“I’m sorry you had to be the one to kill Homelander” you muttered, “Hughie told us, that he was…”

“My own son” you looked back at him and it scared you he didn’t seem remorseful, or that he didn't show any emotion at all, “I didn’t get to raise him, he was a weak little pussy”

“I'm sorry about that” you whispered, “He wasn’t a good person”

“It doesn’t matter, I have a second chance” he muttered, he leaned in and before you could stop him he trapped your lips with his. He kisses you slowly. At first you are so impressed you couldn’t react until he tried to pry your lips open with his tongue. You pushed him but accidentally used your powers. Even when it barely move him, not being able to throw him off the bed 

“You are a little firecracker, did you know that?” he asked, amused by your outburst

“No” you whispered, he leaned in again to kiss you roughly, and you felt limb against his arms and chest as you return the kiss

He might be traumatized, he might have been an asshole, but he was hot as hell. He was one of the most handsome guy you had ever met and in a fraction of a second you thought about even if you fuck him, it wouldn’t mean anything but a good time, he was going to pretend nothing happened by tomorrow, so what’s the harm?

His hand went to encase your face against him, and you in turn grabbed his chestnut hair, playing with it with your fingers. His hands soon left your face to go down your neck to squeeze your breasts, as he groaned, pleased against your mouth

“Fuck” he whispered when he left your mouth to drop open mouth kissed down your chin and then devouring your neck, “You are a little slut, aren’t you?”

“No” you whispered, “I just want to fuck you” you said simply, your hands travelling down his body and then up against agains’t his skin until you reached his chest. He chuckled, his husky voice made your panties more wet if that was even possible. He slowly eased you down against the mattress, while he got rid of the blankets that were still covering you, so he could lay next to you. He was wearing some cotton pants and a simple shirt, and even though it would be to even hotter to fuck him while he was wearing his suit, this worked just fine. 

You moaned, losing all shame when he sucked on a special spot in your neck, and you spread your legs instinctively. You barely realized you weren’t wearing your super suit, you were wearing a plain t-shirt and cotton leggings just like him, which he ripped from your quivering body when he realized you had spread your legs for him 

He wastes no time in trapping you under him once he gets rid of your underwear. He opened up your thighs, your sex exposed to him, admiring your wet pussy. You wanted to be even so you, in turn, ripped to shreds his clothes as well, and to your surprise, his ock jumped free, missing the underwear

“God I love the new age” he purred, you squeezed his thick cock, moaning when you couldn’t completely wrap your hand around his thick range, he was going to rip you apart if he wasn’t careful, which you were sure he wasn’t going to be. His thick finger danced teasingly trough your folds, testing you, tasting how wet you were, because you were dripping for him

“I’ve never been the one much for foreplay” he murmured, you just nodded, wanting him inside you, “Hell, we have time later for some pussy tasting” the tip of his cock replaced his fingers, and you opened more your legs for him to be able to place himself comfortably between your legs, as he started to open you up with his thick cock. 

“Oh shit” you cursed, closing your eyes, your hands laced under your knee to keep your legs open for him. The stretch burned, but if felt so good you could kill him if he ever stopped. 

In a rough push he was completely seated inside of you, making you groan, uncomfortable because of his huge size, needing time to get accustomed to him, but fuck, you had never felt so full, and he touched all the right places inside of you, places you didn’t thik even existed

“Fuck you are tight” he cursed under his breath

“You are too big” you complained, but he only smiled, retrieving himself and then pushing into you roughly, the tip of his cock touching your cervix, making you scream in surprise

“Are you ok?” he smirked, and you just nodded, playfully grabbing his ass, encouraging to start thrusting into you, which he did. Soon he started at a rough pace, the mattress making you bounce off the force. 

You grabbed him by the back of his neck and drew him towards you to kiss him deeply. He chuckled darkly against your mouth when he read your intentions

“You are a sweet girl who likes to make sweet lovin’ aren’t you?” you nodded shamefully, like it was a bad thing, but he looked down at you with a glimmer in his eyes that made you rethink everything you knew about him. 

His thrusts where deep and calculating, almost methodical as he kept pounding into you, the tip of his cock kissing your cervix every time

“Shit!” you cursed as your eyes turned to the back of your head from the pleasure, the knot in your belly kept getting tighter and tighter 

“Fuck I feel your little pussy fisting my cock” he purred against you temple. With a wide smile, and using all the force you had, you managed to switch positions, getting him under you, much to his surprised when you placed your hands in his chest and started moving your hips teasingly, finding the perfect angle his cock would touch that sweet spot inside of you, oh and when you did, plus him grabbing your tits and squeezing them, made you cum so hard your thighs trembled at his sides. He grabbed your hips, taking control again and he started moving you roughly on top of him. You navigated your orgasm that lasted longer that you could handle, making you wanted to faint on top of the superhero

“Did you make yourself cum on my fat cock?” he mocked thrusting his hips up to meet you, making such a sloppy sound it was straight up filthy. “Answer me” he demanded, spanking your ass

“Yes I made myself cum on your cock” you confessed full of shame. Oh and you prayed the others weren’t at earshot, this was going to be very hard to explain

“Fuck, you are so tight you are going to make me cum” he admitted, fucking you even roughly, grabbing the globes of your ass, making you bounce up and down his cock for his pelasure, chasing his clímax 

What he didn’t expect was to draw another orgasm from you while he pumped you full of his come. Secretly, he hopes it sticks the very first time, as he made sure to press you against him for his cum to reach your womb if it had to 

He cum inside you, you felt it deep in your womb and you whined, feeling so good and warm. You weren’t on any birth control, but you guessed you could buy some plan b tomorrow, and slapped yourself mentally for being so careless

“That was one of the bst fucks of my life” you looked at him like he had three heads at his admission.

“Good to know, I thought you were some sort of manwhore” you giggled, and he laughed heartily 

“I am” he admitted, caressing your hips, while you were still on top of him

“It’s ok if I cuddle?” you asked dumbly, you liked to cuddle but you weren’t sure he wanted that, and if the others were going to come back soon 

“Of course sweetheart” he said with a chuckle, as he trapped you down his arm and against his chest sliding his softening cock off of you, making you whimper in the process. 

You relaxed cuddling into him, you laid against Ben’s chest, caressing his soft skin. He chuckled when he heard you purr, content against him.

“Aren’t you a sweet one?” he chuckled, caressing your naked shoulder and down your back, “you are a powerful superhero, and a mynx in the sack” he laughed, and you giggled against his skin, “Fuck I like those powers of yours too, I really hope our kids will inherit them”

“Our kids?” you asked, curious, raising your head to look at him, “what do you mean?” If he was him flirting he sucked at it

“The kids we are going to have together silly girl” you would have laughed at his poor attempt at flirting if you didn’t believe it was real. You wanted to cry

“Ben… where are we?” you asked again, a single tear falling down your eye

“I told you, my cabin”

“The others are not around, are they?” you wanted to climb out of bed, but he grabbed you and made you stick to him with a grunt

“We were having such a good time sweetheart, don’t ruin it” his voice was calm but he hid a threat in them, so you stood still against him again. “In exchange of me killing my own son, Butcher promised me he wasn’t going to get in the way of me taking you for myself”

“No” you cried, “He is an asshole of massive proportions but he wouldn’t do that” you muttered, “Besides the rest of them, the boys wouldn't…”

“They think we are dead” he said simply, “I had to destroy the entire tower to make sure our story sticked” you whimpered in fear, knowing perfectly well you would never be able to fight him off

“Why me?” you asked then 

“Who better than you to give the kids I always wanted?” he asked in return, and you whimpered some more as bitter tear ran down your cheeks and to his chest 

“We’d be terrible parents” you cried

“That’s not true” he said, angry, “You are sweet, and good and hot as hell, I mean, look at that ass” you whimpered some more, maybe referring to him.

“I will raise them right, like strong men',' and with his iron grip around you you just managed to curl more into yourself. 

2 years later…

Your husband, Ben, sat at the head of the table with your one year old bouncing on his leg. The baby, your son, giggled and showed him his one tooth he had to his father proudly as he smiled. That made your heart swell. It’s been a rough couple of years and you understood that what lies ahead, meaning the fact of raising your kids with Soldier Boy, was going to be challenging to say the least, but one thing you understood after so many times you tried to call someone or get help, there was no getting rid of him, so you had to stick around, you couldn’t leave your children, specially with HIM

“He is a handsome little devil, isn’t he?” he admired. Your son, Henry, he was big for his age, and chubby, healthy and strong like his father, who looked at you when you put the dinner right in front of him. He smiled at you and placed his hand on your 8 month baby bump. He wasted no time in putting another baby inside of you as soon as you recuperated from having the first one… And he was going to do it again…

“We make cute babies” you offered with a smile

“And strong ones as well” he said proudly, “These little shits are going to rule the world some day” he muttered. He rose his son in his arms and cuddle him against his chest, sometimes you wondered if he was going to be a good role model when he grows, you then look down at your belly, praying that it was a boy as well, you knew how old school he was, but you also thought a girl would melt his cold heart.

Your son hid his chubby face on his father´s neck, and that made you believe everything was going to be fine. 

A small continuation... here

Tag list!💕 @black-repunzel99

[imaginesbymonika]

It all tastes like poison.

Part 12.

the finale is coming soon…

previous chapter

masterlist

Pairing: Homelander x fem!reader / Solider Boy x fem!reader

Plot: based on this request: “can you please write an imagine about someone who use to be with soldier boy before he "died» which left her broken, but she still worked with vought for years because she ages slower than normal and she meets homelander who she kinda falls for, but when ben comes back she gets mixed emotions till he tries to kill homelander and then she'll have to work with everyone else to get him back into the box, which she doesn't want to do. LIKE ANGST?”

warnings: f-bombs, mentions of death and murder, mentions of blood

"Don't fucking try to be funny now.", Butcher declares through gritted teeth, but she merely shakes her head. "I- I'm not trying to be anything right now, seriously who is Becca."

Hughie blinks at her a few times before he turns to his friend:" I don't think that she's joking."

----

Y/N stares at the ground. An expressionless expression coats her features. M.M. watches her closely and catches sight of how she flinches when Maeve tosses a container through the window. Her guard is down. Entirely. If he wanted to kill her, he would have to do it now.

But before he can lift his second weapon, Maeve already demolished it. " Butcher's right. Homelander needs to die." At the sound of his name, Y/N's eyes glow green. "That's it.", the red-haired Supe explains:" Whatever it takes."

Starlight shakes her head in defeat:" I really thought that deep down you were a hero." Tears are dwelling up in her eyes. "Well, you were wrong. There is no such thing."

"This is not gonna happen."

Starlight's eyes glow bright, while the lamps in the room begin to flicker. " Annie, I don't want to hurt you."

"But I will."

Y/N's shoulders drop slightly at the sound of Solider Boy’s voice. He comes into the room, while his eyes are fixated on the blonde woman. Y/N detects how M.M. tenses up and she turns her head. "Don't even fucking think about it.", she grumbles, and he swallows thickly when he can feel his skull vibrating underneath his skin.

"All right, you lot.", Butcher says, his voice steady and flat. As if he doesn't truly care about any of this:" In the safe." His head nods in the direction of it.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey!", Hughie says and he slightly flinches at the sound of his voice when he once again echoes his request. Soldier Boy's hand moves down to his belt and he pats his weapon.

"Let's go.", Annie mumbles.

Hughie only scoffs. "Hey, not now.", she lets out as she passes M.M. His whole attention is still laying upon the man who slaughtered his family members:" Not like this." Y/N takes a step forward and infiltrates his field of vision. A fake smile arises on her lips while she softly waves and silently mouths:" Not ever!"

As soon as the door of the safe closes Y/N shuts her eyes and covers her face with her trembling hands. Ben tilts his head. "Hey, hey, hey. Are you okay?", he asks, and Maeve furrows her forehead at the delicately in his voice. But Y/N doesn't answer, she just moves closer and buries her face in his armored chest. Butcher only sighs.

----

Homelander smiles while he glances at the screen. He watches how a black and white Soldier Boy chats to a man behind the camera. It fills the Supe with satisfaction, after all his father is a genuine hero. One of the good ones.

"Scorched earth, eh, William?", he asks as he looks up.

"Scorched earth."

[rowan-macnally]

Managing a soft smile that she didn’t really feel at Riley’s attempt at humor, but it was all the things he wasn’t saying that Rowan honed in on more. He looked more exhausted than she’d ever seen him, even more so than he was when their father was killed. Swallowing hard as he turned away, she couldn’t help but follow him over to the railing, her need to protect him and help him stronger than the way a moth was drawn to an open flame. She settled in beside him, raising her cigarette back to her lips and remaining silent– she wouldn’t push him to talk, preferring to let him arrive at that decision on his own, or not. If he just wanted to stand in the stillness, with nothing but the sound of the breeze rolling through or the occasional wail of an arriving siren, Rowan could do that too.

She nearly died. Rowan’s breath hitched in her throat at her brother’s choice of an opening statement. It smacked into her with the same sort of impact as a physical shove. That truth was still so raw that Rowan hadn’t quite figured out how to process it yet, and so in a lot of ways, she figured this chat would be helpful for her too, although her main concern obviously was Riley. If he hadn’t gotten to their sister in time, Rowan didn’t want to imagine how different the outcome would have been. “Jesus Christ,” she hissed beneath her breath as Riley recounted the details leading up to Maeve’s arrival at the hospital. She had no idea how Riley was still standing upright beneath the crushing weight of what he’d had to do. Perhaps on a complete stranger, it’d have been more of an adrenaline rush than anything, but his own flesh and blood? It sounded more like an act of desperation and Rowan couldn’t fathom what living with that had to feel like. “Had no idea it was that bad, Riley,” she murmured, inhaling another quick, yet steadying drag from her cigarette.  Watching his internal struggle appear to claw its way to the surface in the way he fidgeted in place, Rowan ditched her cigarette and eased closer to his side, looping an arm through his– a silent assurance that she could be something solid for him to lean against. “I won’t say anythin’ to her,” she promised, just wanting to ease him of that potential worry right off the bat. It wasn’t her place to tell Maeve any of what Riley had to do to keep her alive. It was a conversation for the two of them, if Riley wanted it. “We’re not though, because of you,” she reminded him gently, even though Rowan knew the words likely wouldn’t do much to ease the turmoil he was grappling with. Still, she had to make note of that, feeling quite sure after what he’d described that they would be standing in a morgue had it not been for him. “I can’t imagine what sorta shit keeps playin’ on repeat inside that beautiful mind of yours,” she continued, giving his arm a squeeze, “And it’s easy for me to stand here and tell you to focus on the good, but I know that doesn’t stop that loop from playing over and over. I don’t wanna see it tear you apart,” Rowan murmured, shaking her head as a soft sigh leaked from her lips, “So whatever you need, just name it.”

Riley frowns silently, not at her, but at himself. Jumping to the assumption she'd try and get him to go home was just a thing born from his own inner turmoil. His silence continued onto the roof, not really feeling like he had any words to speak. Maybe the quake in his fingers, the weary eyes and the pasty complexion said enough. "Right as rain, aye." Riley lifted a brow, managing just a brief little twitch of a smile only to show her he was attempting a joke, he wasn't being a sarcastic prick. Her question came from a kind place, just as her follow-up did, though, hearing it made his shoulders stiffen and he chose to turn away. He couldn't look at her and refuse her, but it was only when he looked out into the distance and blew out the smoke that he pondered the idea that maybe it was his own silence that was hurting him the most.

"She nearly died." Riley says as he leans his arms on the wall of the rooftop, sagging his head low down just to take a breath. "I mean literally, point of no return, died. She was out cold when I found her. I ain't no medic but I'd have given her a minute or two tops before any intervention became pointless, and that's being generous." Clearing his throat, he turns his head to the side, giving a quick glance to his sister before looking forward again. "We got fuckin' lucky, Rolo. Her pulse was barely there, we-" he paused, stubbing out the cigarette. "I - had to do chest compressions to keep her alive until we got here. It's a fuckin' miracle it worked." That's how critical it had been, is what he was trying to express. Maeve came a literal hair away from death and it was all on his shoulders to pull her back.

It was difficult to say out loud, hard for him to relive because he hadn't managed to process it. It was obvious he was struggling, the jiggle of his leg, tapping of his fingers, the way he couldn't quite stand still without shifting his weight and brushing his ears against his shoulders. Maybe talking about it would help him settle with it, it certainly couldn't make it worse... right? "She doesn't know," sucking in a breath, he drags a hand over his face and swallows the lump in his throat. "I wanna keep it that way." He's firm about that, because this was a burden he could carry alone. Maeve didn't need something more to feel guilty about, that was for damn sure.

"We could be standing in a fuckin' morgue right now, I can't stop thinking about that." Even though it hadn't been the case, even though they weren't and Maeve was mostly fine... He just couldn't let go of that scenario that he felt was seconds away from being true.