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clockwayswrites · 1 month ago

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City Pigeons Bleed Green Part 22

masterpost

Someone’s fingers were in Danny’s hair when he woke. The fingers weren’t so much carding through his hair as petting him. Some sleepy part of him wondered if that was something he should be offended by, but the comfort of it far outweighed any offense of being pet like a cat. Besides, the touch said safe.

He’d woken last night with a nightmare.

It hadn’t been a bad one— at least not once he was awake. Swirling starscapes and the smell of something woody and spiced brought him back to the here quickly despite the unnerving quiet of the Manor. Still, it had been a nightmare and Danny was very grateful when Jason had settled, more upright than not, next to him the bed.

That was very much not Jason’s hand in his hair though. It wasn’t big enough.

Danny made a mumbled noise to let whoever it was know he was starting to wake up. The hand stilled and then pulled away. (He should have stayed quiet.)

“Good morning, Brother.” Oh, Damian. “Todd and Grayson are off doing something that is surely inane. Grayson asked that I stay with you until you woke. I hope that was not a problem…?”

“Nope. Thank you for staying,” Danny said around a jaw cracking yawn. “It’s, um, just change, you know?”

“Yes,” Damian agreed after a moment. He continued almost hesitantly. “When I first arrived at the Manor from the League, I woke often from the quiet. In the League, there is always movement with guards changes and the global nature of it. It is also unwise to sleep too soundly there. The act of… fully resting is one that has taken me time to accept. But it is safe here. Father and the others would allow nothing to harm us here.”

Danny finally made himself open his eyes and roll over so that he could look up at Damian. His little brother, though not by much. “…yeah, they wouldn’t, would they?”

“They would not.”

“Thank you for staying with me anyways,” Danny said.

Damian’s resulting blush was pretty adorable.

“Yes, well, you are welcome,” Damian said as he swiftly stood. “Breakfast will be at the hour. That should be plenty of time for you to appropriately ready yourself.”

Danny held back a still sleepy laugh as Damian practically fled the bedroom. Then he took a moment to stretch slowly from the very tips of his toes to the tips of his fingers. The bed— his bed was just the right side of firm while the bedding softened everything back down. Despite the nightmare, Danny felt well rested.

It was a feeling he could get used to.

Breakfast called though, so Danny got up, showered (a novelty he still enjoyed), and dressed. The Red Hood sweater was a comfort that things hadn’t changed too much even though everything felt (and was) so very different.

If he got a little lost on the way down to the kitchen, well, that was just an adventure, wasn’t it?

Someone had saved Danny a spot between Dick and Damian, and Danny tucked into it quietly. The table was alive with chatter and people passing around plates. It was overwhelming. It was nice.

The seat at the head of the table was empty, and Danny figured it must be for Bruce who was just now stepping into the chaos of the dinning room. He stopped behind Jason’s chair and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I see you were busy last night.”

Jason jutted his chin up defiantly. “Dick was there too.”

“Ever the big brother. Well, I’m proud of you, Jaybird,” Bruce said and dropped a kiss to the top of Jason’s head.

It left Jason looking completely stunned. His mouth open and closed a few times before he mumbled a quiet thanks and tucked into himself as much as someone Jason’s size could.

Worried about Jason’s response, Danny looked to Dick. He looked only proud though, grinning at both Jason and Bruce, so Danny tried not to worry about it. They would either explain it or not.

There would be a lot that happened now that Danny wouldn’t get or understand, and that would have to be okay. They’d been a family long before him. The others had managed to join though and become part of it, so Danny would too. Or at least Danny could try to believe that he would too. He was trying to have hope again.

“Master Danny,” Alfred called from the doorway. “Do you enjoy eggs with breakfast and if so, what kind?”

“I, um, yeah, I’ve been enjoying what Jay’s been making me.”

“Master Tim, what sort of eggs has Master Jason been making?”

Tim blinked up blearily from his mug of coffee. “Why would I know that?”

��Scrambled,” Jason said to Tim. “Or over-hard. Nothing with runny yolk.”

Alfred continued to look at Tim pointedly, who shifted in his seat before repeating what Jay had said.

“Thank you, Master Tim,” Alfred replied before sweeping away rather dramatically, for a man in an old fashion suit.

“Okay, what the fuck?” Tim questioned several beats later.

Bruce, of all people, hid a smirk behind his hand.

“Jason’s mad at Alfred, and Alfred is maybe not handling that well,” Dick answered eventually.

“Wait, Jason, at Alfred?” Duke asked, leaning forward to look at Jason with wide eyes. “Is something going to explode? Has exploded? Will be rigged to explode soon?”

“Naw, all the destruction is long gone and none of it was exploding,” Jason said, then paused. “Okay, well I guess it did start with an explosion.”

“Oh my god, Jason,” Dick said and buried his face in his hands.

“It’s my death, I’m allowed to joke about it.”

“Oh, is that the rule?” Danny asked.

Suddenly all eyes turned to him. Danny leaned as far back into his chair he could. The attention was more than a little intimidating.

“Yes,” Jason said with a pointed gesture of his cup.

“No,” everyone else at the table replied.

Danny was a little confused.

“Maybe wait until we’ve talked about how you’ve died,” Bruce said. There was a strained tone under his gentle words. “And give us a little time to come to terms with it.”

“Oh.” Danny gave a little nod. He tried not to think about all the things that he still needed to tell. “That makes sense. Since I still haven’t…”

“How about a tour of the manor after breakfast?” Dick asked, scattering Danny’s thoughts.

“What?”

Dick shrugged. “Well, you didn’t really see much yesterday. We should give you the full tour. This place is big.”

“And confusing,” Duke added. “Take every tour you can get. I’ve been lost more than once.”

“Thomas is being dramatic,” Damian said with a sniff.

“No, he’s right,” Jay said. “You rich boys don’t get a say in what’s normal.”

Tim waved away the comment. “Are we including downstairs in the tour?”

Everyone but Danny seemed to look to Bruce for that answer.

“I don’t see why not. After all, Danny has known most of you all longer in the masks then out of them. It isn’t like that part of our family is anything hidden,” Bruce said. “Besides, if Danny needs anything during the night, he should know where to go.”

“Not that we’re all going to be out on the streets right now,” Dick assured quickly. “There’s going to be some of us still in the manor every night.”

Danny was saved from having to say anything to that by Alfred coming back with plates, but he thought that at least a few of them noticed his tight grip on his coffee cup.

The tour started on the ground floor. It turned out that there was more than enough to see there before even getting to the second floor and Bruce’s office, Damian’s art room, a study room, etc.— Danny didn’t know how he would find anyone. The manor might be great when people needed quiet or time apart, but how was Danny going to find anyone?

In the apartment, all Danny had to do was walk out of his room. There was always someone right there in the living room or kitchen. There was always someone when Danny needed them. Now if he walked out of his room there were at least eight rooms to try. There were studies and offices and sitting rooms. There was a library and cinema and an indoor pool. There was a billiards room.

It was like a game of Clue.

Danny F—Phantom, in laboratory, with the portal. And the scalpel and the acid and the electricity—

The hand he quickly slapped over his mouth with didn’t quite cover up the hysterical laughter.

Jay turned to look at him, question and worry both evident in his eyes.

“Sorry, just… weird thought. Can we… could we take a break before the basement part? It’s just a lot.”

“Of course we can, Brother,” Damian said and immediately started them off in a different direction.

He’d been acting as the main tour guide, as was his ‘duty as the blood son’. Jay had come, because Danny was still embarrassingly attached to him and Dick, and Duke trailed along with because ‘someone was needed to translate the rich into real person’. It turned into an interesting set of commentary, that was for sure.

Danny was glad for the break and how that apparently meant refreshing lemonade, fresh fruit, and cookies in one of the sitting rooms.

“It’s wild, isn’t it?” Steph said.

Apparently she’d shown up at the manor at some point, which meant that her, Cass, and Tim were also joining them for the break. Jay had left to ‘drag Dick out of the hell pit’, whatever that meant.

“Yeah, it is. I really think mansions are just like that though. Every one that I’ve seen has been wild in some way,” Danny said. “Though this one takes it as far as history and sheer… grandeur.”

“Dude, how many mansions have you been in?” Duke asked as he snagged another cookie.

“Okay, well, maybe only three, but they’ve all been wild. One had a bowling alley and the other was owned by a half-dead villain,” Danny explained. He paused thoughtfully. “Or maybe everyone I know… knew is just weird.”

“I mean, looking around this room…,” Steph said.

“I’d be insulted if it wasn’t true,” Tim said.

“You’re a drama queen, I bet you’re insulted anyways,” Steph replied.

Tim gasped, dramatically, and through his hand across his forehead. “How dare.”

Danny covered his soft laughter with another bite of a cookie. It was a little overwhelming having so many of them around at once, but it was also nice. Everything was so much more… alive. Danny could use to be more alive.

“Having cookies without me?” Bruce asked as he leaned against the doorway.

“Yes,” Tim answered without hesitation.

“I see,” Bruce said with a slight smile. “Danny, why don’t you steal a few and come with me.”

Danny nodded, scooped up several cookies into a napkin, and headed Bruce’s way. He held open is haul when he got close. He hoped Bruce liked the same type of cookies as him. Bruce took a white macadamia nut cookie, one of Danny’s favorite. Danny ducked his head with a smile.

“So,” Bruce started after they had been walking a bit, “did they show you where my study is?”

“Mhum.”

“Good. You’re always welcome to come in if you need me, even if I’m in a meeting or working, all my children are.”

“I—okay, got it,” Danny said. He fiddled with the napkin before plucking out a macaroon to chew on.

“Good,” Bruce said. Danny didn’t know if Bruce believed him. “I was thinking that you and I could start to to look over the Batcave together, there are a few things I’d like to talk to you about.”

Danny nodded and popped the rest of the macaroon in his mouth for the excuse not to talk. He followed Bruce into his study, through (of all things) the grandfather clock, and into the wall. The elevator ride down was quick and the air got noticeably colder until the world opened up into an actual cave.

The space was full of vehicles, spaces he assumed were rooms, a massive computer, and several very large, very odd items. Who just had a life sized t-rex? Apparently Batman, that’s who.

Bruce lead them over to a round meeting table and sat down. He motioned for Danny to do the same, so Danny did and placed the napkin of cookies on the table between them.

“Danny,” Bruce leaned forward and clasped his hands. “I want to assure that there is no obligation or expectation that you do anything with the vigilante work.”

Danny glanced away from Bruce’s serious gaze. “I… everyone else does…”

“Yes, and sometimes I hate myself for that.”

Danny started, gaze snapping back to Bruce.

He smiled somberly. “I’m not exactly the most well adjusted person and I know that. I doubt I would have ever been ‘normal’, but losing my parents so young to a violent crime and being raised by a man who still calls me ‘master’ didn’t help. I feel a… profound sense of obligation to this city and guilt when something in it goes wrong. To me, my wealth and skills means it is my duty to protect Gotham, often at the sacrifice of all else. Too many times that drive has almost lost me the things that matter most.

“When Dick first came to me after his parents death he was angry and reckless and determined to get justice. I saw so much of myself in him that in an effort to protect him, I let him follow in my footsteps. When Jason joined the family… I wish I had been clearer that his place in this family wasn’t dependent on him becoming a vigilante. I wish I had told he in very clear words that I would love him no matter what. I’m still working to make up for that.”

Danny pulled a the the sleeve of the too large hoodie he was wearing. “What if I… what if I feel that sort of guilt to?”

Bruce let out a huff of air. “You and I, we bring up the very complicated question of what is nature verses what is nurture. I will always work to never assume that how I might do or feel something is the same as how you might. I know there are times where I will mess up though. And if you do feel a guilt like that, I know very much how it feels and I will do my best to help you through it or set you up with someone who can.”

“What if it doesn’t go away?”

“I wouldn’t be trying to make it go away,” Bruce assured him firmly. “What I would be trying to do is give you the tools to handle it in a healthy way. To know where your lines are. Our goal is to make sure that you’re happy and healthy. After that, if you still want to be a Cape, we can talk about what that would look like for you.”

“Okay,” Danny said after a moment. “Can I… if I don’t end up being, um, a Cape, can I… would I still be allowed to change into my other form?”

“Of course, Danny,” Bruce said. There was soft look about him that Danny couldn’t quite name. “Since you were injured last time you were in it, I would like someone to be with you when you first changed so you can have medical help if you need it. But if there’s no issue, you can change whenever you want to. We want all of you here.”

Danny rubbed at his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry. “I—thank you.”

“Are you seriously having a heart to heart in the Batcave, B?” Jay interrupted as he stepped out of the elevator.

Dick bounded out from behind him and over to scoop Danny up into hug that Danny leaned happily into.

“It’s fine. It was… it was needed,” Danny said. He peaked out from around Dick’s arms and glanced from Jason to Bruce and back. “Bruce has something to say to you also.”

“Danny,” Bruce sighed.

Danny buried himself back into Dick’s hug. His reply was muffled. “Better late then too late, right?”

“Right,” Bruce agreed after a beat. “Danny and I were talking about how there’s no expectation for him to be a vigilante. I wish… that I had been clearer about that with you, Jaylad. I wish I had told you that neither your place here or my love for you was contingent on you becoming Robin.”

Dick sucked in a sharp breath and his arms tightened around Danny, but he stayed silent. It was very silent.

Finally Jay cleared his throat. “Yeah, I wish you had too, old man.”

“It’s still true,” Bruce said quickly. “If you want to go to college still or start a foundation—anything you want, chum.”

“Right. I’ll… yeah, I’ll think about it.”

“But for now,” Dick cut in excitedly, “time to show off the the fun parts of the Batcave!”

“He means the dangerous parts,” Jay said. His voice was still a little rough sounding.

“Boys…” Bruce said, sounding resigned. “Danny is still healing. Let’s keep the dangerous parts to a minimum, please.”

“Sure, B,” Dick chirped in the least unconvincing way possible.

Danny was afraid in that good excited away, like right before the drop on a roller coaster. It was a nice sort of fear to have and he smiled as Dick dragged him off deeper into the cave.

#dp x dc #batpham #city pigeons

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soobnny · 4 months ago

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dating him | yang jeongin

❝ why’d you come into my life so late? ❞

guys this one’s a secret romantic

even the boys are shocked when he tells them he has a gf now so casually

like WDYM ?!!??

anon said this but picture the boys eating at a restaurant

and the boys r like the food here is crazy good like how’d u find this place

and he goes idk my gf recommended it

and then there’s silence

before all hell breaks loose

bc wdym … wdym u have a gf and u didn’t tell us ????????????

dramatic faces of betrayal from hyunjin and han i can imagine bc their baby didn’t tell him

i think seungmin would know just bc they’re dorm mates and i think jeongin trusts to ask him advice without BOOKING him to the boys

he seems nonchalant on the outside, just a silly boy

but he’s the sweetest

i think he’d treat love so gently ☹️☹️

he’s always wanted to explore romance, always wanted to find it

he couldn’t ever admit it out loud bc he knows he’d get teased

he was the boys’ baby after all

and since he was the boys’ baby, by association, you were now their baby too

u two are the couple they adore

they act like they’re ur parents

chan dad mode activated

anyways he’s kind of emotional and sensitive

so i think the both of u navigate through love for the first time together

it’s a lot of ups and downs

BUT …. it’s led to him realizing just how much he loves you

i totally believe you’d go on either the most goofy dates or very expensive dates

no in between

he’d be the type to treat you and have staycations at 5-star hotels

you’d just cuddle and watch movies and eat room service

YES I SAID CUDDLE

even the boys were shocked when they saw it for the first time

bc ?!!!???? their baby ?!!!?? physical touch ?!!?

jeongin never minds when it’s with u

but it’s also something he’s had to learn

he’s very appreciative of ur patience

anyways back to ur dates

i can imagine u guys just buying a bunch of strawberry cakes and doing a taste testing

like u’d record it and everything

u can’t post it bc he kisses u like 928373 times in that video

there’s a makeout session like once

oh, and dinner dates

and very competitive rock paper and scissors over who pays for the food

except when he loses, he’d cheat and say he’d go to the bathroom but he’s actually paying for it

so keep ur eyes on that boy

i think he’d also be the type to really enjoy clothes shopping with you

you’d just put on a fashion show for each other

he’d end up buying a few things he rly liked on you

he’s got good fashion sense

might sneak in a matching item or two

maybe some shoes so it’s more subtle

jeongin also loves playing tourist in ur own city

the two of u would just walk around

visit some tourist spots

take pictures even

it’s just rly funny and rly cute

it feels a lot like being a kid again with him

u guys even buy useless toys for kids and bring them back to the dorm

😭😭😭😭

this includes like those little charms for kids

u two end up making craft bracelets and necklaces

and even tho they look ridiculous, u wear them in public

this is ur own version of promise rings

anywahs minho ends up taking some of the toys u’d bought for his cats

when the boys come home, u two are usually just cooped up in jeongin’s room

bc he wants his privacy!!!!!!!!

but when he lets it slip, and u two fall asleep on the couch, expect lots of pictures taken

i’m sorry

the boys are also emotional

they’d wake u up so u guys can have dinner together

he’d get so blushy and embarrassed and threaten his hyungs ofc

han jisung: when will it be my turn ???

they just want love from innie too

UGHHGHG kicking each other’s foot under the table while eating

he loves annoying u

but u love annoying him equally

when u aren’t over at the dorms

he’d be the type to text you random links on youtube at 3am

those charlie bit my finger type beat

gorilla destroys crocodile epic video

jeongin also gives me the “sends u things” vibe

u’d suddenly receive flowers without warning

or get those “did you eat?” texts and if u say no, yeah, best believe he’s already delivering food to u

hmmmmm u’d probably be his plus one in fancy events

but u guys end up ditching those to eat at fast food chains

yes … in ur very fancy dress and his rly sexy suit …. out in a fast food restaurant

u guys get weird looks but

jeongin doesn’t mind 🙁

as long as he’s happy with u

AWWWWWWWW

u guys also attend or volunteer for charity events together

i think he’s rly found his match

treat each other well !!!!!

congrats on finding love

note. credits to user @.luvknow for the layout of this post! let me know what you think! please discuss these with me i’m crazy

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betweenstorms · 1 month ago

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Part Three of Where We Part (previous chapter) (next chapter) (masterlist) Childhood Friend!Simon x fem!Reader

At first, you could only blink, the cigarette dangling from your lips as his words settled over you like a slow, creeping dusk.

Simon Riley.

After all these years, standing in front of you, bigger, harder, and somehow even more distant than the boy you once thought you knew. It was like some cruel trick of fate, a cosmic joke that you weren’t sure you were ready to face.

You let out a surprised, awkward chuckle, but it caught somewhere between a giggle and a whimper. It sounded so awkward, so pitiful. Gosh, you acted ridiculous, like a bloody schoolgirl, but the alcohol had numbed the embarrassment.

You really wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Simon Riley, standing outside a pub in Manchester like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like his entire life hadn’t been torn apart. Like he hadn’t disappeared from your life without so much as a word all those years ago. The laugh died in your throat, because there was something about the way he carried himself that told you he wasn’t here for a casual pint with old friends. Simon would never be here for something so trivial, so simple.

“You’re…” you started, but the words got stuck in your throat.

You wanted to ask where he’d been, why he was here, why he looked so different yet so familiar at the same time. But nothing coherent came out, just a jumble of thoughts, words and emotions that refused to form into sentences.

The last time you’d seen him, he was just a skinny boy.

Now, he was all sharp edges and quiet intensity. He was hard. Rough. Weathered. His face, a canvas of scars and hardship, told you that the years hadn’t been kind to him, but God, they’d made him heartbreakingly handsome. His body, once lanky and hunched, was now huge and muscular, the kind of frame that spoke of power, discipline, and control. His scars, the faint lines etched around his eyes, the ruggedness of his face—they only added to the dark appeal that cloaked him like a shadow. And with those intense hazel eyes that seemed to hold a thousand secrets, he was the kind of man who turned heads, who commanded attention, and somehow, that was making your head spin more than the beer had.

You shook your head quickly, like a cat trying to shake off water, hoping to rid yourself of the thoughts creeping into your mind.

“S’been a while.”

He didn’t smile. He didn’t offer any pleasantries. It was as though the years that had passed between you were an afterthought, insignificant compared to the weight of the heavy silence that lingered in the air now. You tried to find your footing in the forming conversation, your mind still struggling to keep up with the reality of him standing there, right in front of you.

“I—sorry, I just... didn’t recognise you,” you stammered, your voice a bit too loud, too high-pitched in the quiet night. You took a nervous drag from your cigarette, stealing a glance at his face. “Bloody hell, seems like you only pop up when I’m tipsy.”

You attempted a joke, your voice trembling slightly. It was weak, you knew that, but it was the only thing you could manage in the sudden tension of the moment. You flicked the cigarette nervously, watching the ashes scatter to the ground. Anything to stop yourself from looking directly at Simon, anything to break the intensity that had settled between you.

“Not intentional,” he said simply.

“Gosh, you look so… different,” you said softly, the words slipping out before you could stop them. It wasn’t a question, but a statement, an observation that felt far too obvious.

Simon tilted his head slightly, his sharp gaze flicking over you, sizing you up with that same old intensity that made you feel like he could see straight through you.

“You don’t,” he said flatly, his voice rough, like gravel underfoot.

You snorted, rolling your eyes. “Liar.”

Simon’s lips twitched, but it wasn’t quite a smile, more like a faint acknowledgment that he’d heard you. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t going to indulge in any sort of nostalgia or humour. He was as closed off as ever. And yet, despite it all, despite the time and the layers of this strange silence between you, the weight of history between you was undeniable.

The warmth of the alcohol in your blood made it easier to stand there without fidgeting, but deep down, you were brimming with questions, confusion, a strange mix of anger and relief.

You couldn’t decide whether to yell at him for disappearing or thank him for being here.

Here with you.

“Where’ve you been?” you finally asked, trying to sound casual, though the question felt like it was hanging heavy between you both, too loaded with unspoken things.

Simon let out a soft huff as if the answer was far too complicated to explain in the back alley of a pub. He didn’t want to talk about it, that much was clear. You desperately wanted to keep him there, to say something, anything, that might ease this strange reunion.

“You just… vanished,” you pushed. “After everythin'.”

His hazel eyes flicked to yours, and for a second, there was something there—something raw and fragile beneath the stone mask he always wore. But it was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by that cold, guarded look you had always known him for, even as a kid.

“Had to,” he said, his voice dry as sand.

“That’s it? You just… had to?”

He glanced away, the flickering light from a distant streetlamp casting long shadows across his scarred face. “Does it matter?”

His words hit you like a punch in the gut.

Did it matter? Was he mad? Of course it mattered.

How could it not? You’d grown up together, after all. You’d shared so much, more than either of you ever said aloud. His family buried, his house empty, no one knew where he’d gone. You had carried that silent burden with you for years, the burden of not knowing, letting it weigh down on your heart like a lead weight. But maybe that was the root of the problem. Maybe you had been holding on to something he had long since let go of. Maybe you were clinging to the memory of a boy who didn’t exist anymore.

You swallowed hard, resisting the urge to press him further.

This wasn’t the time or the place to dig into the past. Maybe not ever. Simon wasn’t the type to dwell on old wounds, and you knew that no matter how much you wanted answers, they weren’t going to come easily. Instead, you took a long drag from your cigarette, letting the smoke fill your lungs and dull the ache in your chest, watching the pale plume rise and disappear into the cold night air.

“Suppose it doesn’t,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him.

Simon didn’t respond. As usual.

You both just stood there, cigarettes burning down to their stubs, and you couldn’t shake the feeling that the silence between you wasn’t just awkward—it was something more. It was the echo of all the years that had slipped by without either of you being part of each other’s lives. Fifteen years. You were different people now, shaped by other worlds, and yet… here you were, standing in the same place, in the same city that had once been your entire universe.

Much to your surprise, Simon was the one to speak again.

“How’ve you been?” he asked, the question almost noncommittal, but there was an edge to it—like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer.

You hummed, looking down at the scuffed toe of your polished shoes, suddenly finding the concrete more interesting than his piercing gaze. A frown formed on your lips as you mulled over his question, not sure how to respond. There was something so absurd about it, but at the same time, something so normal about him asking how you’d been. Something that almost felt... wrong. As if you were supposed to have a neat little answer, a perfect summary of everything you’d done, achieved, or failed at since he’d vanished.

But you didn’t know what to say.

How could you compress the years, the loneliness, the small victories and large failures into one simple response? How could you even begin to explain everything you’d gone through, all while he was somewhere you couldn’t reach?

“Uhm, dunno,” you muttered, your voice full of bitterness you hadn’t meant to let slip. It sounded insignificant, just like how you felt in that moment—small compared to the towering presence of Simon Riley and whatever hell he’d walked through to get here. “What am I supposed to say to that?” You laughed, but it was hollow, like you were trying to convince yourself that you found it funny.

Simon crossed his arms over his broad chest, deep in thought.

His cig hung loosely between his fingers, the glowing tip flickering like a beacon in the dark. His brow furrowed as if he were calculating something important, something far beyond the alleyway of a dingy Manchester pub.

And then, out of the blue, he asked something ridiculous.

“You married? Got kids?”

For a moment, you thought you misheard him.

It was such a normal question, one you might expect from an old friend or a distant relative. But coming from Simon it was jarring. Almost laughable. It didn’t match his rugged, military exterior at all.

You snorted, caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

“Nah,” you said, shaking your head slightly. “Not even close. My fiancé cheated on me with my roommate from uni, if you can fuckin' believe that. But that was years ago now. I haven’t really had anythin' serious since then.” The chuckle that followed your statement was missing humour. You said it as casually as you could, but the old wound reopened just a little.

Simon didn’t respond immediately.

He didn’t flinch, didn’t offer pity or sympathy, but you saw something flicker in his eyes—an acknowledgement, perhaps. Maybe even some empathy, though it was hard to tell with him. He was never one to show his emotions easily, not even when you were kids.

“Bastard,” he hummed after a beat, the word falling from his lips with the same cold weight that had always been in his tone.

It wasn’t much, but somehow, it felt perfectly enough. Like in that single word, he had offered all the understanding you needed.

“An understatement.”

He took another long drag, exhaling slowly, smoke curling up into the air and disappearing into the night. The question had seemed so out of place, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was his way of trying to understand what he’d missed—what had happened to you in all those fifteen years he was gone.

“What about you? Wife, kids?” you asked, your voice softer now.

Somehow, you were afraid of what his answer might be.

“No,” his voice was flat, almost mechanical.

There was no trace of emotion, no elaboration.

Just a simple, cold statement of fact.

His gaze flicked briefly to you before settling somewhere off in the distance, like he couldn’t quite bear to look at you for too long. Then, the quiet between you stretched on again, thick, unyielding and undeniably familiar. The sounds of the city filtered in, the distant hum of traffic, the occasional shout from the pub, but here, in this small bubble of time, it felt like the world had fallen away. Like it was just the two of you, suspended in the remnants of a shared past that neither of you knew how to navigate anymore.

“I thought about you,” you admitted quietly, surprising even yourself with the confession. “A lot, actually. I wondered where you were. If you were alright. If you were even alive.”

Simon shifted, his gaze fixed on the ground.

“Sorry.”

It was more than you’d expected from him. So you just nodded, unsure of what else to tell him. You stood there for a moment, your heart thudding in your chest at the weight of Simon's quiet apology. You weren’t sure what to say in return. It hung in the air between you, fragile and tentative, like a bridge over a chasm that neither of you were ready to cross. His eyes, once sharp and piercing, softened in the dim light, but he kept his gaze away from yours, as if looking directly at you would acknowledge the gravity of what you’d said. That you had thought about him. His broad shoulders shifted, his jacket rustling slightly, but he didn’t move away.

You felt a sudden tension in the pit of your stomach.

The kind that comes when you’ve said something too vulnerable, too real, something that can’t be taken back. Therefore, you took a deep breath and decided to shift the conversation, hoping to relieve some of the tension that had settled thickly between you both.

“So, you’re still in the military?”

You flicked the last of your cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with your shoe. He nodded, but didn’t elaborate, his face unreadable in the shadowy light of the pub’s back alley.

“On leave?” you hoped to get something, anything, from him.

“Yeah,” Simon replied curtly, his voice rough and clipped.

He ignored the question that still hung in the air: why here?

You licked your lips nervously, wondering if you should keep going or let the conversation fizzle out. But there was something in the air tonight, something that made you feel like you had to at least try. This wasn’t just some coincidence, was it? Seeing Simon again after all these years felt too significant to let it slip away without trying to make sense of it.

“Where do you live now?”

For a second, he hesitated, tapping his lips with his cigarette, clearly weighing whether or not to answer you. His gaze flickered to the side, his brow furrowed in thought, and then, finally, in a voice so low you almost missed it, he said, “Got a flat in London.”

London. The city you both now called home.

Your heart skipped a beat at the revelation. The vast city suddenly felt much smaller. He was so close, yet he’d been so far from your life for all these years.

“Well,” you scratched your neck, unsure how to approach the next part. “You could visit me sometime. You know, when you’re on leave. I’m not far, really. We could… catch up.”

It was a clumsy invitation, but it was genuine.

Despite the awkwardness between you, you wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. That even after all this time, you were still here.

Simon didn’t react at first. He stood there, arms crossed, his still frame making it seem like he was wrestling with something deep inside. You weren’t sure if he’d refuse, brush off the offer like it meant nothing, but he didn’t. The silence stretched on, but then he shifted again, flicking the ash from his cigarette.

“Maybe,” he muttered, his tone giving nothing away.

It wasn’t a yes. But it wasn’t a no either.

His next question, though, caught you off guard.

“How’s your parents?”

You hadn’t expected him to ask about your family. Your parents were never nice to him. But something in the way he asked, in the way his voice softened ever so slightly, as though asking about something more human softened the edges of his tough exterior, and that made you realise that maybe he hadn’t forgotten everything from your childhood. Maybe, just maybe, he still cared, in his own distant way.

You smiled faintly.

“They’re good, well, as good as can be, I suppose. They moved to London a few years back, actually. After my dad was diagnosed with cancer.”

The words felt heavy, even though you’d gotten used to saying them. It had been years since the diagnosis, but the weight of it never really faded. It was always there, lingering in the background, a reminder of time slipping away. His expression didn’t change much, but there was a shift in his posture—a slight drop of the shoulders, a softening of the jaw. It was subtle, but you saw it. He dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath the heel of his boot with a sharp scoff, a sound that was more resigned than dismissive.

You pushed yourself away from the wall, the sudden anxiety making your pulse quicken.

“Leavin’?” the question spilled out before you could stop it.

The fear of him slipping away again, without any warning, without a trace, gnawed at you.

You immediately felt heat creeping up your neck, embarrassment flashing across your face. Why did you care so much? Why did you sound so desperate? You pursed your lips, trying to gather the frayed edges of your dignity, feeling a bit foolish for asking.

Simon looked at you, raising an eyebrow as if you’d just asked something utterly daft. His expression didn’t change much, but there was a glimmer of something, amusement, perhaps, in his eyes. “No,” he muttered, resting his now free hands in his pockets. “Not yet.”

The relief you felt was almost palpable.

You bit your lip, feeling foolish for jumping to conclusions, for thinking he’d just disappear again without a word. You exhaled slowly, trying to calm your racing heart, grateful that he wasn’t about to walk away just yet. There was still time. Time to say whatever it was that needed saying, even if you didn’t quite know what that was yet. You watched him carefully, still half expecting him to turn and leave despite his assurance.

The years had taught you not to rely too much on anything.

The autumn wind picked up, sending a sudden chill through the alleyway, but neither of you moved. This whole charade, the whole small talk felt like a delicate dance—one wrong step and it could all come crashing down, leaving the silence too much to bear.

“Thought you’d be married by now,” Simon said, his gravelly voice cutting through the quiet.

You blinked, startled by the sudden statement.

Pouting a bit, you looked up at him, feigning offence. “Can’t tell if that’s an insult or a compliment, mate.”

He shrugged, tilting his head to the side, and for a moment, the faint shadow of a smirk played on his lips, barely noticeable. He looked at you, not just a glance, but a slow, measured observation, like he was trying to piece together who you had become after all these years.

You found yourself doing the same.

When you first saw him that night, standing in the dark, your reaction had been immediate. You were drawn to him. Not just because of the memories you shared or the ghost of the boy you once knew, but because of him, the man he had become. The raw, rugged power he exuded. It stirred something deep in you, something that made you feel small and breathless in his presence.

What did he see when he looked at you? Did he think you’d aged poorly? Did he think you looked tired, worn out by the years? Or did he see the remnants of the girl you used to be, the one who had laughed too loudly and dreamt too big?

“Why did you say that?”

“Figured you’d have that all sorted by now. You always talked about it.”

You blinked, momentarily thrown by his response.

Of course, he remembered. He always had a knack for remembering the things that mattered most to you, even when you hadn’t realised how much they mattered to yourself. You had talked about marriage that much, hadn’t you? About the picture perfect life you imagined for yourself. A house, a garden, a family—simple dreams that felt so far away now.

“Yeah, true. At one point, all I could dream about was that,” you confessed, your voice quiet, almost lost to the night. “Perfect house, perfect family... maybe a couple of dogs runnin’ around in my perfect bloody garden. I thought I had it all mapped out when I left, like… you know, everythin’ would just fall into place once I started my life in London.” You smiled faintly, but there was no happiness in it, only a soft, sad acceptance. “But it didn’t. None of it did.”

The confession felt surreal, especially with Simon standing there, his presence almost too big, too solid for such vulnerable words. But at the same time, there was something comforting about it, knowing that he wouldn’t judge. Simon had never been one for meaningless platitudes or false reassurances. If anything, his silence, his mere presence, felt like the only kind of understanding you needed.

You could feel his hazel eyes on you, heavy and contemplative, as though he was waiting for you to continue. And suddenly, you wanted to. The words spilled out, unfiltered, like they had been sitting on the tip of your tongue for far too long.

“Now? I dunno. Now I’m just happy if my parents are healthy. If I’m healthy. I’m not really thinkin’ about love anymore. Not like I used to, at least. When you’re young, you think you’ve got all the time in the world. You think everythin’s just gonna... work out. But then life happens. Things change. People leave.”

Simon's jaw tightened just a fraction, as if the truth of what you’d said had hit closer to home than he’d care to admit. You wondered if he thought about those years like the way you did—if he ever looked back and felt the same sense of loss that gnawed at you every time you remembered the way things used to be.

“You can still have that,” he muttered, his voice low, almost gruff. The words felt heavy, like they carried the weight of more than just an offhand comment. “If that's what you truly want.”

A sharp pang hit your chest, not from the words themselves but from the rawness of them. It was the sort of thing people say when they don’t know what else to offer—when they’re too afraid to dig deeper, but they can see the cracks in your carefully maintained façade.

You weren’t sure if he meant it to be comforting, but it didn’t land that way. Instead, it just scraped against the edges of something you didn’t want to acknowledge.

Without thinking, you reached into the pocket of your jacket and fished out your cigarettes, suddenly needing something to do with your hands, something to break the intensity of the moment. You tapped the pack against your palm before offering it to him. He looked at it, hesitating for a moment before shaking his head.

“Maybe once,” you mumbled, trying to play it off like the subject didn’t sting as much as it did. “But not really anymore. I’m too old for that shit. That ship’s sailed, Si.”

Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. He flicked it on, the small flame illuminating his roughened features in the dim light as he leaned toward you. You cupped your hand around the flame, lighting your cigarette. He watched you closely as you took a drag, his eyes following the trail of smoke as it curled upwards into the cold night air.

“You’re not old,” the tone in his voice was oddly serious, almost reprimanding, as if he was annoyed at your self-deprecation.

You snorted, a dry laugh escaping your lips, smoke swirling around your face. “You should tell that to my back,” you joked, shaking your head. “Some mornings, I feel ancient.”

Simon didn’t pick up on your sarcasm. He fixed you with a look, his brow furrowed, as if he was thinking back to something. “Maybe you didn’t take my advice last time we talked.”

You stilled at his words, as his reference hit home.

You knew what he was talking about.

That summer night, fifteen years ago, when you’d left him standing under the rose bush in your parents’ garden. He’d told you to live your life, to move on. And you had, for the most part. But now, standing here with him again, you wondered if you had truly moved on, or if some part of you had been stuck in that moment ever since.

You felt a sudden ache, a strange emptiness you hadn’t realised was still there, like a flower wilting under the weight of its own bloom. You looked down at the ground, avoiding his gaze, feeling the years press down on you like the world had shifted beneath your feet.

You let out a shaky breath, suddenly feeling small in his presence. “Yeah, maybe I didn’t.”

You hadn’t taken his advice. You’d spent too long waiting, too long caught up in the idea of what could have been, of what should have been. And now, here you were, standing in the same city, still trying to figure out what your life was supposed to look like.

Simon pushed himself off the wall, straightening up, his large frame suddenly seeming even taller, more imposing. His movements were deliberate, but not rushed, as though he had made up his mind about something. Your cigarette hung loosely between your fingers, long forgotten, as you watched him, your heart sinking as you realised he was preparing to leave.

“Find the happiness you deserve.”

It wasn’t a command, but it wasn’t a casual suggestion either.

This time, you didn’t mock him. You didn’t roll your eyes or laugh it off, like you had fifteen years ago. Instead, you bit the inside of your cheek, lowering your gaze to the ground. You weren’t sure if you could say anything to that. What was there to say?

Before you could fully gather your thoughts, Simon stepped forward, and suddenly, he was standing much closer to you than before, so close you could feel the warmth radiating off his body. Your heart skipped a beat, your breath hitching in your throat as you instinctively looked up at him. His presence was overwhelming and it made your pulse quicken in a way you hadn’t expected. The air seemed to freeze around you both, suspended in that moment.

He didn’t say anything, he just watched you, his hazel eyes studying your face like he was trying to commit it to memory. His gaze roamed over your features, and for the first time that night, you felt truly exposed under the weight of his attention.

Then, without warning, Simon’s hand came up, and his fingers gently grasped your chin. The touch was firm, but not harsh, guiding your face up toward him, tilting your head so that your eyes met his. You felt the cigarette slip from your fingers as you stared up at him, wide-eyed and breathless. Your mind raced, trying to make sense of the sudden closeness, the unexpected touch. What was he doing? What was he thinking? The warmth of his hand on your skin sent a shiver down your spine, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

Simon’s gaze remained fixed on yours, his calloused fingers still holding your chin in place, as though he wanted to see you clearly, perhaps for the first time in years. You didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe, afraid of breaking whatever fragile moment this was. The world around you faded into the background—the pub, the noise, the cold. None of it mattered. Only him, only this moment, suspended between the past and the present.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it ended.

Simon released you, his hand falling back to his side, and he stepped away.

“I’ll visit,” he promised, his voice calm, almost casual, as if nothing had happened at all. The distance between you felt sudden, leaving you dumbfounded and your cheeks burning hot red. He turned away from you this time, his broad back blocking out the rest of the alley as he moved to leave. “If I’m in London again.”

You blinked, still trying to process everything that had just happened.

The impact of his intoxicating presence, the way his warm touch lingered on your blushed skin, the way his words seemed to hang in the air long after he’d spoken them, like a secret. The whole situation, the proximity, the way he had touched you, the idea that Simon Riley might actually show up again, left you reeling.

Maybe this wasn’t just a fleeting reunion. Maybe it wasn’t just a chance encounter. There was something more to this, something unspoken but undeniably real.

“Yeah,” you breathed, not sure if he heard you. “I’d like that.”

And for the first time in what felt like forever, you believed it.

Originally, I planned to end this story after the first chapter, but the kindness and encouragement in the comments have inspired me to keep going. Now, the story feels incomplete, like there's more left to explore. I’m considering turning this into a short series, with one or two more parts to make it feel whole. Thank you for your comments and support—I really enjoy talking with all of you!

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januaryembrs · 4 months ago

Text

WHO'S AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD ME? | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [10]

description: the one with Cat Adams + the one where she tells him.

length: 13k

warnings: literally just watch 11x11, mention of vomit, blood, alcoholism. mention of pregnant wives??

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‘who’s afraid of little old me?

you should be,’

She remembered when she was little when she would wake up so early even the birds hadn’t uttered a morning chirp, her stomach grumbling because she usually hated the fancy stuff they had for dinner and ended up leaving it on her plate. She remembered thinking her mother would be no use, that Elizabeth would tell her to go straight back to bed, even if she whined and cried that she wanted breakfast, remembered thinking Louise, the au pair that usually took the morning shift, wouldn’t be in for another hour or so, and she certainly wasn’t tall enough to reach the cabinets yet.

Which left her with Emily.

Nineteen year old Emily, who was already in and out of the house with college, her hair a box dyed black, singed from all the crimping and hair spray. Emily, who liked to take her to the park even if she pretended she was too old, who played Barbies with her and helped her cut all their hair off probably because she figured that was better than her constant urge to do whacky things with her own locks. Emily, who had never wanted a little sister really until Elizabeth had brought home the carrier and suddenly she had never loved ten chubby fingers and toes so much.

She remembered waking Emily up, usually by pulling herself up onto her sister’s Mötley Crüe themed bedding and prodding at the girl’s shoulder until she stirred, how Emily would lead her down the long, ornate hallway into the kitchen, when the only sound in the house would be their bare feet padding along the cold tiles. How Emily would yank two bowls out of the cupboard, tipping a generous dose of coco pops in each of them, back when they were full of sugar and real chocolate, not the healthy crap they sold nowadays.

It would just be the two of them at the breakfast table, crunching on their spoons, five year old Bugsy no doubt dribbling the brown milk down her chin and pyjama top, but she was happy. Because she had her big sister.

She stared down at the dregs of cocoa that whirled into the white milk as the cereal sat there longer, because she was only picking at it really, and it had nothing to do with the fact she was almost certain they had changed the recipe since she was little.

“I was thinking,” She said after a moment or so, while Spencer pottered around the kitchen, fixing them both a pot of coffee that she usually was usually bouncing over to grab at this point in the morning. Except today she felt sluggish, lost in that maze of thoughts that only Spencer could really unpick, and the second she’d started speaking his head whipped over the counter to where she idly stirred her breakfast, “About what you said when Gideon… We could probably afford to start looking at buying a house soon, what with the mortgage rates dropping,”

She looked up at him hopefully, hoping he couldn’t sense the hesitation on her breath because he usually knew what she was thinking before she said anything, and for once she wished he didn’t have that crazy ability to read her mind, only to see him with a small if not saddened smile.

When Gideon had passed, Spencer had gotten in his head that they needed to leave the apartment, that if the Jason Gideon could have been caught unaware, then they weren’t safe either. Of course he hadn’t meant it, at least not entirely, but Gideon passing had spun the logic half of his brain that spouted the statistics that they were no more in danger now than they were before he’d gone, but still it was something he’d been thinking about. A house meant more space; more space meant they could stop tripping over each other's laundry, meant they could get the bigger shower they’d always talked about, maybe even a tub. A house meant the garden he knew he always wanted Niko and Sergio to have now they were grey around the whiskers and couldn’t run so fast.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Spencer said, picking up their mugs of steaming hot goodness and carefully stepping towards her, gently sliding the drink over to her as the liquid sloshed and threatened to dip over the edge, “Is there any place you want to look?”

He left his own mug in favour of circling his arms around her shoulders and pulling her in for a soft hug, her head falling beneath his chin where she sat on the barstool.

Kissing her hairline gently, she heard him inhale her shampoo scent, and she plonked her spoon back in the bowl to wrap her arms around his waist, squeezing herself into every crevice that they weren’t already touching.

“I don’t care,” She said, tilting her head to look up at him with love sick eyes, only to see him already besottedly gazing at her, and she guessed by the way his lips draw up at the corners that he didn’t realise he was still smiling, “Anywhere with you is good enough for me,”

He looked down at her in that way he usually did, expression soft and sweet and entranced, but she saw the traces of worry in his gaze, “You feeling okay? Today is going to be… hard,”

Bugsy’s expression faltered slightly, and she turned away to push her face into his stomach so he wouldn’t see the doubt lingering in her eyes. She nodded anyway, even though she knew he would catch her in the lie.

After Scratch, Hotch had ordered her to take three months off for a psych evaluation, had granted Spencer at least a month of holiday to watch over her because he knew Reid’s head would be all over the place with worry if he’d returned to work without her. It was like asking Garcia to leave her computers and fluffy pens at home; it just wouldn’t work.

By the time she was cleared to come back, despite the recurring nightmares of that day still eating away at her sleep, Hotch had set her up to work solely from the office, strictly no field work.

He liked to think it was for her own safety, for her own good since he saw the way she pounded coffee like it was juice while Spencer lingered around her with a worried stare. But if he had to be honest with himself, Hotch couldn’t get away from the things Scratch had made him see just as much as she couldn’t. He couldn’t escape seeing her throat slit like she was a lamb for slaughter, the life leaving her eyes as she faded away. And it was the thought of her carotid artery spraying over his boots that made him want to lock her up in bubble wrap and never let her go.

But that was feasible in their job, not really. So desk duty it was.

“You don’t have to go with us into the field, you can always stay with Hotch and Garcia,” He offered, stroking her hair behind her ear and tempting her to look back up at him with gentle fingertips under her chin, and when she saw the unease in the muddy hues, she squeezed him tighter, knowing the past five months had been just as hard on him.

“No, I want to,” She protested gently, her hands weaselling under his shirt and onto the warm, soft skin of his back, pawing at him like a cat trying to settle. “If you’re being made this woman’s number one target, I want to be there on stand by,”

And he couldn’t really argue. Because no matter what frame of mind he was in, even if it had been him captured and tortured, he would never let her go out as bait and not be there breathing down her neck.

He sighed, the urge to protest stuck in his throat and all he could think to do was bring his lips to hers gently in a soft kiss, because his resistance to her being put in the line of danger would only be futile.

She hummed into the kiss, his hands skirting over her back and she swore she would be content if the rest of her life was spent in Spencer’s arms, in the warm mornings at their kitchen table just the two of them, and the idea of that last part spun her stomach into turmoil all over again.

What if he freaked out? No, scratch that, he was definitely going to freak out. Spencer hated change, hated having things dropped on him, and Diana was already getting worse with the symptoms of Alzheimers she had begun presenting. He had more than enough on his plate as it was, and she knew she was the only thing that could keep his head from exploding with the worry, even if she was sometimes the cause of it. He’s always been a worrier, and part of her despised herself for the fact that he had shot out of bed every single night she’d been in the midst of a night terror, when the room spun and Peter Lewis seemed so real and so close and she woke up screaming. Because she’d brought him enough stress and trouble, and now she had an extra helping of it dished up and ready.

It wasn’t one of those things she could keep to herself, not even if she so desperately wanted to sit on it and mull it over for a few months. She needed to tell him soon.

Spencer looked down at her eyes, the way they’d glazed over slightly, and he wished he could crawl into the space where her thoughts bounced between one another if it meant he could figure out what had gotten her so twisted up the past few weeks. She hadn’t been herself entirely since Scratch, but she had been getting better. She’d started getting more sleep, seemed less jumpy when they were in the quiet of their apartment, and part of him thought maybe that was why she wanted to look at houses. A fresh start. And yet overnight, she’d had this guilty look in her eye like she was suddenly a million miles away, and he hated it. Bugsy had never been distant, which seemed odd to think considering she was burying her hands and face into him like she had no intention of letting him leave. But there was something in the depths of her brilliantly big mind that seemed to hold her tongue for her.

He kissed her again, hoping it was all in his head, hoping she wouldn’t keep things from him because it was them and they always told each other everything. Even if it was gross and weird and inappropriate, everything.

And he thought maybe it was because he was going on a date with another woman, using himself as live bait to flirt and charm and seduce an assassin in order to take her into custody without fuss. Yeah, that was probably it. He couldn’t say he would be all too pleased if it had been the other way around and he would be watching her ravish another man even if it was just for the job.

That was definitely it. There couldn’t be anything else.

“You know I love you,” He said as a statement, yet she nodded as though it was a question, and he kissed her again because he’d regretted not doing it a hundred times a day the second he’d seen her in that closet, regretted not seeing the fact she was more than likely uncomfortable with her boyfriend of two years wining and dining a murderer. “Whatever I say when I’m there with her, you know I love you, more than I could ever love anything else,”

He seemed so sincere, his eyes turning into that soft puppy like frown, and it only served to drive the knife in deeper as she nodded, her hands wrapping into his hair and pulling him down to kiss her again, this time just a little harder like his lips could wipe away the pit in her stomach. Because it was Spencer, and she was lying by omission, and god did she need him to know how much she loved him before things went wrong and they changed and-

“We have a little time right?” She said, his hands taking the hint as they pulled her to her feet gently, cereal long forgotten in a chocolate slush, and his hands reached down to cup her ass in the way he was more than used to doing now. Didn’t stop him from blushing however.

“Y-yeah we have time,” He said, and she barely let him finish his sentence before she’d claimed his mouth again, not that he was complaining. She looped her fingers through his belt buckle, stepping backwards with his guidance towards their bedroom, and he hummed through a moan when he felt her run the other hand through his already messy bedhead, tugging on the ends of his curls gently.

“Good,” She responded, with a drop of that natural Bugsy cheekiness he was used to, and the sound of it made him smile. Maybe it was just the job after all, “I think I need a demonstration on just how much you don’t mean whatever you need to say to her,”

He smirked, because she was more like herself than she had been in days, and god was she pretty when she smiled at him before they had sex, like she knew what was coming, like she knew what she did to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could hear his heart thumping in her ears just as clearly as he could.

“I think you’ll need multiple demonstrations,” He said, his fingers looping in between her buttons on her trousers and popping them apart softly because they’d done this before, rushed it so they weren’t late for work, and ended up ripping good jeans, “Gather multiple sets of data before you draw a conclusion,”

He kissed down her neck and her small laugh became a moan, “I think it’s pretty much the only way, Doctor Reid,”

He laughed, and she felt it against her pulse, the sound of it making her shiver as he shoved the door open with little remorse for the way it slammed into the wall. And she made a promise to herself that once they’d caught their UnSub, she would tell him, even if it meant all of this would change.

–

He arrived at the restaurant five minutes early, his suit steamed and neat, a single red rose in his hand. His skin was already crawling at the idea of flirting with another woman, but Spencer knew none of it was real, knew he was just doing his job. Still it didn’t diminish the desire to glance where Bugsy and Rossi were sat in a booth, because he’d seen her in that red dress a thousand times before, and yet it still made his jaw drop the second he saw her in it.

The brief had been black tie, something to fit in with the five star restaurant, and god had she delivered. He ought to have protested, told her that she was too distracting and maybe insisted she stayed in the office if she looked so striking, but then again she could have worn a bin bag for all he cared, he would still be fighting the urge to look over at her.

He chose the seat with Bugsy at his back as to eliminate his urge to stare at her, because Dave could keep her safe, the rest of his team could watch her, he had to trust that.

He lay the rose on the other side of the table, fiddling with the other parts of the cutlery to make sure everything looked perfect, even though in his mind he was thinking of all the things Bugsy would have been saying if she was his date tonight. She probably would have made a comment on his suit (she already had before they’d even stepped out the hotel, just as he’d given her arse a quick squeeze with cheeks even more crimson than her dress because she looked divine), probably would have offered to go to the in-and-out down the street instead because she never cared about splashing out on dates, just being with him was enough.

Adjusting his jacket a little, he waited, trying to keep his head far away from his girlfriend, although that was much easier said than done. He couldn’t remember what his brain was like before it was filled with thoughts of her.

The ring sat in his sock drawer, buried in one of his older pairs that he hoped she wouldn’t go after since he’d made the mistake of putting it in with his boxers and almost got caught within a day when she went to steal some ready for bed and he’d chided himself for the sloppy work. He knew he wanted to ask her, thought he might even bring her to a fancy place like this, maybe prepare a small speech that attempted to tell her how much she meant to him even though he knew there wasn’t enough words for such a thing. Would he hide it in the cake? No that would be cheesy, she found cheesy overdone. Would she even like it done in public? No, she would hate that, he would wait until they got home, maybe even try that thing she’d wanted to do in bed for a few weeks, and then when they were done-

“Spencer?” A woman appeared at the table, a woman who by all accounts was objectively pretty, yet he felt that small kick of victory when he recognised her from the FBI database.

Cat Adams. Assassin. Mastermind. UnSub.

“Cat?” He said with practised naivety, and this time he forced all thoughts of his loving girlfriend from his head like they were about to be tainted by the woman standing in front of him, “Hi,”

“Hi,” She replied, her grin too bright and sparkly for anyone to ever guess she was a killer though he supposed that was the point,

“Hello, it’s nice to finally-” He cut himself off when she leaned up to hug him, her face drawing closer to his suddenly and she looked like she was gearing up for a peck on the lips. Forward. Much more forward than he’d given her credit for, and his stomach flipped in discomfort as he leaned away, “Oh s-sorry, I have kind of a germ thing,” He excused, which wasn’t a total lie.

Also my girlfriend is sat ten feet away and I can already hear her clenching a fork ready to ball your eyes out like a melon, he wanted to say, though he kept his snark to himself.

“Oh, sorry,” Cat said, holding her hands up in surrender, and looking up at him with what he knew to be false innocence. But he played along, because the sooner they caught her, the sooner he could be done with the entire thing.

“I’m kinda weird with hugs,” He explained, his face boyish as he gestured her to take a seat, because at least then he could put some distance between them, “Please, sit down,”

She smiled dizzily, slipping her jacket off to reveal a blue dress that accentuated her pixie short hair, her collar bones that could cut glass, her small, sleek figure, and she adjusted her straps as an excuse to divert his attention to her breasts.

“That’s like the oldest trick in the book, get some new material, bitch,” Bugsy mumbled under her breath, drowning her venom in sparkling apple juice disguised as champagne from where they sat in a dark corner booth and Rossi chuckled, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t worry about boy genius having a wandering eye, kid. Reid is more devout than my mother on Easter Sunday,” He said, picking at the starter they’d ordered as a way to seem busy. She hummed, diverting her attention into her chicken salad, making sure she wasn’t looking at the happy couple for too long as they talked awkwardly, “Do you think you could take her?”

“I know I could take her,” Bugsy responded in a clipped tone, and Rossi sniggered, and they heard Tara and Derek do the same down their earpieces.

“It was a joke,” Cat said, to something they hadn’t quite caught, though by the looks of it they were still just making small talk, “A bad joke,”

“No, no, it was funny,” Spencer said reassuringly, and he chuckled, though Bugsy knew off the bat it was fake because she loved making him laugh and it sounded nothing like that. They fell into an awkward silence and she could hear Spencer scrambling for things to talk about because if she walked away their lead to the other assassin went right with her.

“Can we start over? Hi, I’m Cat,” The woman said, fixing her skirt with a shy smile. She certainly didn’t seem like a killer, Bugsy thought, where she glanced at her in her peripheral. She certainly was pretty, spritely even. A little too eager to kiss a guy she just met.

“Hi, I’m Spencer,” He replied, in that nervous tone he usually got when she flustered him.

“Is it true you have three PHDs?” Cat asked with, well, cat-like eyes flicking between sly and seductive, and Bugsy could see how any man who wasn’t as smart as her boyfriend would fall for the act.

“Yes, that’s true. I do have three PHDs,”

“What’s your favourite book you read last year?” She pressed and Bugsy sipped her juice to stop herself from answering for him.

“I’ve honestly never read a book I haven’t loved,” He said, deflecting the subject, while his girlfriend smirked into her almost empty plate.

Demons by Fydor Dostoevsky, she corrected to herself because she knew he’d gone back to it more than a handful of times.

“Tell me about your wife,” Cat went in for the kill, her timid smile morphing into something wicked as she watched Spencer squirm.

And the second she’d said it something had reared its ugly head inside him. Because try as hard as he might, all he could think about was Bugsy’s face and that damn ring.

“If you don’t mind, I’d er…” He cleared his throat, wondering why it was so difficult to get through a single conversation when they’d ran through the plan a million times. He knew she would ask, and yet all he could do was get defensive thinking about Cat damn Adams setting her hands on the woman he wanted desperately to marry, “I’d rather not talk about her,”

“Might as well get it out in the open right? I mean, it’s why we’re here,” She said smugly, like that innocent bounce in her step had wiped right away, revealing the murderess underneath, “How long have you been married?”

“Four years,” He lied, though he thought back to JJ’s wedding that same amount of time ago and how beautiful she looked in her dress and her cast and how he’d wished it was theirs.

“When is she due to give birth?” Cat’s eyes narrowed at the man, pushing her hair behind her ear in a playful manner.

Bugsy stopped, licking her lips and hoping Rossi wasn’t watching her as she finished off the last of her sparkling juice, raising a hand to a passing waiter to order a second round.

“You having another one, Grandpa?” She said innocently, despite the stink eye he gave her and nodding to the non-alcoholic beer he’d ordered.

“Watch yourself,” He said as the waiter retreated, and she snickered into her meal, “Grandpa will knock you on your ass,”

“You would never, Hotch would hate that kind of paperwork,” She said setting her cutlery on the side of her plate to signal she was done, “HR would have a field day,”

“I wanna hear you say it,” The line crackled in their ear as Bugsy’s drink arrived at the table, and she couldn’t help but think the woman’s seductive voice could easily pass for a call girl. She chanced a quick look over at their table, her heart rate spiking when she saw the woman all but eye fucking Spencer with a bit of her lip, like the thrill of the chase was half the fun for her, and Bugsy felt the disgust settle in her stomach.

“To have her killed,” Spence replied, and she looked away then, the bitterness settling on her bottom lip in a sneer. She didn’t think for one second that Spencer would think the woman was alluring, it didn’t make him flirting any easier to watch.

The UnSub smiled wryly, looking down at his arm, “Let me see your ring,”

Spencer froze, holding his hand out hesitantly, the feeling of the gold band entirely alien on his finger even though he was trying to get used to it for the sake of the case. Cat’s hand shot out like a snake striking, holding his ring in between her perfectly manicured fingers, her eyes roving over the jewel.

“You know what that is?” She said with contempt, shaking her head, “A noose, only it doesn't kill you all at once it kills you slowly, day by day,”

And he couldn’t have disagreed more, in fact the only thing that was killing him was the fact he had been dumb enough to wait so long to propose to the woman he loved more than life itself.

Spencer Reid, dumb and in love.

“You ever feel that way?” She said, ripping him out of his thoughts, and he nodded wordlessly, sighing for effect.

“I feel that way all the time” Except his every day was spent wondering just how he ever got so lucky, how he managed to fall in love with the same woman who gave him apple cake when he couldn’t remember the last real meal he’d had because he was three months deep in an opioid addiction and having her look at him like he hung the damn cosmos.

“Take it off,” She ordered, and Spencer tried flashing her a surprised if not charmed smile, though his hackles were slightly raised, “As a sign of your commitment. To me,”

He bit his cheek, knowing better than to argue back if he was playing the part of the down beaten husband, and began twisting the gold ring off his wedding finger, handing it over to her expectant palm.

“If she sticks to the pattern, she’ll take him to a secondary location and then kill him.” JJ observed, sipping on her mocktail in her own fancy, ruffled dress, shooting Tara and Derek a look where they played the part of a sweet couple on a date.

“I’d like to see the bitch try,” Bugsy said through a wide fake smile, her face showing no symptoms of anger except the flash of teeth.

“Don’t worry sweetheart, we’re not letting it get that far,” Rossi added, and the two of them clinked their drinks together in a ringing chink, “Hotch, do you two have a visual?”

Penelope confirmed with a few taps of her keyboard, and Hotch nodded as Spencer confirmed with a small flick of his eyes he could hear the feed, ”Alright, all agents stand by. Dr Reid will give the green light, don’t move until we have it,”

“Twenty four carats?” Cat asked, twisting the ring in between her fingers with a smug grin like she already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Spencer replied, looking down at the band and back up the soulless dark hues of the black widow woman.

“Twenty four k times… four years. Means this ring should be dinged and nicked, but,” She huffed, reaching into her purse under the table, and Bugsy damn near spat out her juice when she heard a gun load through the mic, “This sucker is brand new. You’re not married.”

“What was that, was that what I think it was?” Penelope’s stressed tone rushed through the ear piece, and the sound of it plus the smell of the chicken she’d just eaten made Bugsy’s stomach turn again.

Except this time she felt it coming up into her throat, the same way she’d found herself feeling queasy for a few days. Spencer had thought she had a stomach bug, had tried to get her to stay home with some mint tea, but this was more than the last few times. It was like her anxiety clenched her gut in a tight grip and twisted painfully, and she lurched forward, slapping a hand over her mouth.

“Kid?” Rossi said, his brows frowning at the expression on her face, and she immediately began untucking her napkin from her chest.

She needed to make it to the bathroom now, hoped on everything that the sudden movement didn’t distract where Cat held a gun to Spencer’s midriff beneath the table.

“What is she doing?” Morgan hissed into the mic, while Hotch and Penelope began barking protests.

“Oh, good lord, Bug, stay down, you don’t know what that psycho is going to do!” Penelope squealed, watching Bugsy rush out of the booth seat, a hand firmly over her lips, and Aaron brought a hand to his head, a splitting headache forming at the sight of the youngest agent rushing for the bathroom.

“Prentiss, what are you doing, you could blow your cover,” He snapped, though there was no anger there, and she could only switch her mic off for what was about to happen, knowing the team had much bigger things to worry about.

Bursting the doors open, she dived for the nearest stall and fell to her knees, head in the bowl before she could hock up her guts over the floor, and then came a horrid retching sound.

Spencer’s eyes widened at the table, hearing his team yelling out orders at the one person he couldn’t keep track of, and it took everything in him not to turn in his seat to investigate for himself what happened for her to flee the safety of the table, or go after her even. Because even if he wanted to, even if he needed nothing more than to make sure she was okay, he couldn’t move an inch. Not with the gun being pointed at all of his important organs by the experienced killer with a smile.

“Do you know why I’m so good at my job?” Cat asked in a sweet tone, her eyes cold and calculating as she cocked the gun beneath the seat.

“Because you kill without compunction or remorse,” Spencer bit, the flirty look in his expression long gone the second he’d heard the rest of his team calling for his girlfriend. He needed to keep his head, Bugsy was safe so long as she was far away from the woman pointing the gun at him. Having the weapon aiming for him he could deal with.

“That only gets a girl so far in life,” Cat agreed with a nod, her jaw setting in a hard clench, “No, it’s because I think through every possible outcome and then I plan accordingly,”

And Bugsy’s stomach seized hearing her voice so cold and viscous, and she would give anything to hear her partner flirting with that bitch of a woman if it meant she knew he was safe. She emptied her stomach again right as she heard their UnSub speak once more.

“You see, I didn’t walk into your trap. You walked into mine,”

And with that Bugsy gave another hurl.

–

“Spencer, why did you take time off from the FBI?” Cat insisted, her voice nails on a chalkboard, and he felt the apathy on his face flick into slight annoyance.

Bugsy. Because Bugsy had been ill, because she hadn’t been sleeping, because she hadn’t been herself for a few months, because his mom had gotten worse, because they needed him.

Spencer would take the bullet before he ever told her about Bugsy, because he knew for a woman who loved male attention, telling her about the girl he loved most in the world would only draw a big target on her back, and he would never dare to put her at risk. Never again.

Not a single hair on her head, he’d promised. Not even a scratch.

“You can ask me as many times as you want but I’m still not going to tell you,” He snipped, making sure to keep his face expressionless if he really wanted to sell the deal that she was a nobody to him.

Her mouth tightened in frustration, “Then you’re cheating, and I don’t like cheaters,”

“You don’t get everything you want just because you’re pointing a gun at me under the table.” He stated blankly, his team waiting on bated breath to see if they needed to send in their back up since JJ’s cover had already been blown. “You’re not the first killer to point a gun at me, you’re not even the first woman to point a gun at me. Sorry.”

Cat’s smile shifted into something akin to a snarl, and she leaned forward on her elbows, and Spencer matched her challenge with cool ease. “You’re really gonna take this all the way, aren’t you?”

And Spencer smiled wryly, because her composure was collapsing beneath her, “Yeah,”

“So am I,”

“Dave, go,” Hotch ordered, and Rossi drew his gun beneath a napkin, shuffling to his feet, “Prentiss, where the hell are you?”

And she knew she was wasting time, but her stomach had picked the worst time to flip. Perhaps it was the anxiety, or the pressure of a gun being pointed at her love, or maybe it was bad chicken. Either way her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, her legs weak where she’d crouched on the floor, and she chided herself for not being able to pull it together when Spencer needed her.

And as if her nerves weren’t rattled enough, she heard Spencer’s mic mute out, and she knew then that the time for sticking her head in the bowl and screaming at herself to get up was over. Spencer was in trouble. Two of their agents' cover was blown. With Tara and Derek sitting the opposite end of the restaurant, he was alone if Cat Adams decided to pull that trigger.

Spitting the rancid taste from her mouth into the toilet, she reached up for the flush, wiping her mouth with a handful of toilet paper.

“Hotch,” She tuned in, and she heard the sighs of relief as he and Penelope seemed to both ease slightly at hearing her voice, “I’m back, how’s Rossi?”

“His cover’s blown, he’s heading out to find JJ,” Hotch responded, his heart rate in his throat the second he’d heard her sound through. He knew it would be unfair if he pulled her from field work for another three months, but the second she’d disappeared from their screens, he’d already began thinking of the excuse he could give if it meant he knew she was kept out of harm’s way, “Where are you, are you hurt?”

“No, no, just,” She cleared her throat, leaving the stall and heading for the sinks, “Bad chicken I guess,”

Taking a handful of cold water up to her mouth, she swilled the liquid around to try freshen herself up, sputtering it back into the sink and running the back of her hand over her lips.

“Do you need to get out of there?” Hotch asked, the concern thick in his tone, almost as clear as it was on his brow as he leaned in to Penelope’s monitor, “Lewis and Morgan have got eyes-”

“No, I’m not leaving him out there,” She protested, leaning over the sink with an exhausted huff, “I can’t head back to the table, she’ll know I was with Rossi,”

And as if she had spoken a plea to the universe, one of the waitresses waltzed through the bathroom door carrying glass cleaner and a bunch of fresh toilet paper under her arm, smiling sweetly at Bugsy who seemed like any other patron of their restaurant.

Her eyes snapped over the girl’s body, figuring she was about the same size, perhaps a tiny bit bigger than herself, she almost audibly heard the click of the idea and before she knew it she had reached out to grab the girl’s attention.

She just hoped it worked, because otherwise the scolding she was going to receive from Hotch wouldn’t be worth it in the slightest.

“Here’s what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna penalise you by adding ten minutes because I actually did learn something important.” Cat said with a smirk, her finger flicking over the clock on his phone as she prolonged the countdown, and Spencer squirmed where she shuffled closer to him, close enough that their knees were touching and he could feel where the toe of her heels were teasingly stroking up his calf, like threatening him and his team for information was getting her off. He felt filthy, like he’d need a dozen showers before he fell into his girlfriend’s arms, and part of him considered skipping the whole dinner and speech, asking her the second he saw her again if she would be his wife.

Because this, having another woman so close, was making him sick.

“Oh really? What’s that?” He snapped, his patience wearing thin as his lips pressed in a straight line.

“Your back up, I flushed them out,” She replied with a smirk, looking around the room with an arrogance Spencer wished he could wipe right off of her face, “It’s just me and you now,”

“Hi, how are we all doing this wonderful evening?” A chirpy voice came from the end of the table, slamming two menus down between them hard enough that their attention snapped to her immediately. Spencer felt his eyes morph into horror, though he fought hard to hide it, as he saw a familiar face, the same one that had been running through his mind since, well, forever. Her red dress was gone, replaced with a maroon shirt and a black pencil skirt, her hair tied back in a neat bun and she had a pen pushed behind her ear for good measure as she smiled at them tightly.

Bugsy had really done it this time.

“My name is Emily and I’ll be your waitress. Can I get you started with some drinks?”

–

“Prentiss, what in god’s name have you done?” Hotch barked, as she waltzed behind the bar, ignoring the looks from the barman that clearly had never seen her working there before.

“I’m making sure Spencer has back up if she decides to get trigger happy,” She bit back, snagging a pitcher of water from the fridge and two crystalline glasses, placing them on an upturned tray.

“And what happens if she gets trigger happy towards the waitress that won’t leave them alone?” Morgan snipped, shooting her a look where their table faced the long, walnut coloured bar that wrapped around the back of the establishment.

“Well then, I guess we pray there’s a doctor in the house that isn't Spencer,” She huffed, plastering a fake smile on her lips, and carefully shuffling the tray onto her palm, “You’re going to have to take me out yourselves if you think I’m leaving him there alone,”

And they huffed, Hotch running a hand through his hair. Because they knew she wasn’t kidding. God help the man who tried to stop Bugsy when she had her mind to something.

And with that resounding silence, she listened to Spencer’s mic, hoping to catch a foot in to the conversation.

“You should have seen right through me the moment you walked in, but you didn’t,” He said, and she didn’t need to take a glance at Cat’s face to know she was getting more than riled up. Why was she here? What happened to staying with Rossi where it was safe? It was her first day back in the field, what was she doing? He didn’t think he’d ever been so angry, though he knew if he scratched the surface of the feeling he’d find it was fear. And unfortunately for the woman sat opposite him, he’d stopped pulling his punches because of it. “You couldn’t. Because you can’t get to the man you really want to hurt, so you need to hurt every man who reminds you of him,”

Cat’s face flashed with what he could have sworn was hurt, before her eyes steeled back over and she shrugged nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t hit straight home, “That’s kind of boiler plate psychology, isn’t it? I’m just another girl with daddy issues,”

“You’d be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents,” He snapped back, because he couldn’t dare take his eyes from their UnSub, no matter how desperately his gut told him to check on Bugsy. “If it’s so boilerplate, let's test that theory. How hard did you look for him?”

Her mouth screwed up in bitterness, “Very hard,”

“And how disappointed were you when you realised you will never find him?” Spencer drove the knife in deeper, watching Cat’s resolve fade under his hateful stare, “You needed some other outlet for your rage and for a while this worked, but it also tripped you up,”

And Bugsy stopped, because Spencer always had a way of saying the exact right thing that made her brain tick into genius, like everything about him made her the best version of herself even if he didn’t mean to. That was what tripped her up. Her father.

“Hotch, it’s her dad,” She murmured, flashing a couple of customers an easy smile as she took the plates off their table, because Cat would catch on way too fast if she seemed to be the only person not be doing a job, “That’s what she wants, that’s her endgame,”

And there was only a single second between them, before Hotch caught up to that wonderfully big brain of hers, “Serial killers with an endgame will do anything to get to them, even if it means taking themselves down with it,”

“Why would I make you sit here for thirty minutes?” Cat’s voice crawled down her ear piece as she burst through the kitchen doors, dumping the plates at the pot wash and looking to where JJ and Rossi were talking with the manager.

“Because you’re stalling,” Spencer said, though he didn’t have that usual tone that told her he was sure of himself, and she knew from the direction it was going that something was missing. They’d missed something, otherwise they’d have Cat in cuffs by now.

“Then you don’t know me at all,” She hissed back, and Bugsy shook her nerves out through her fingers, peeking at where they were sat through the thin glass pane on the door, “Do you think I would show up here without an escape plan. Or is that just what another girl with daddy issues would do? Maybe if you hadn’t fallen victim to your own gender bias, and yes all men have gender bias, even you Dr Reid, you would have recognized that your entire strategy was based on one faulty detail. Can you see it?”

Spencer paused, his frown shifting on his face, “You’re not here alone,”

“And my partner? Less paranoid than you think,” She said, and by the sounds of it the smirk was back on her face, and Bugsy fought the sneer twitching at her lips.

“You planted a bomb in the building,” Came Spencer's response, the grave realisation setting all three agents into motion. JJ’s head whirled to where their youngest stood by the door, her eyes widening at her partner’s words.

And for a second she wanted to beg Bugsy to take cover outside, to get out while she still could, because it had been a miracle the last time a building had exploded around her and she’d only broken a few bones. JJ didn’t think she could stand to grieve her for good, not the girl who had already gone through so much for them. All because they had missed it.

But she knew better, knew Bugsy would fight tooth and nail to stay if Spencer was still in the building. Knew that that argument would only be futile, a waste of time, because the Prentiss girl was not leaving.

“We’ll go check it out, you stay put,” JJ ordered, drawing her gun to her side as Rossi did the same and Bugsy nodded, “Don’t do anything stupid, don’t draw attention to yourself, Spencer knows what he’s doing,”

And Bugsy paused before she answered, choosing to give them a slow nod because she already had a good idea of what her next move would be, and it absolutely did not involve staying put.

Like hell she would stay put while he was there.

With that, JJ and Rossi turned on their heel to head for the stairs leading underneath the building, and Bugsy picked the tray back up, right as Lewis burst through the revolving doors, a serious look on her primped face.

“We need to evacuate,” Tara said, and Bugsy nodded, flicking a look behind her to where the rest of the kitchen seemed to be waiting on their order, because the second JJ had flashed the FBI badge, they had frozen.

“You get the customers out safely, I’m going to buy us some time,” Bugsy said, and Tara watched her slip through into the restaurant, the tray pressed against her stomach.

This was stupid. Stupider than she’d ever been, but her thoughts struggled to make sense whenever Spencer was in trouble. And it was like she saw the splash of his brains against the table, the same way she’d seen it in Lewis’s house all on the ceiling, like she could see now just what his organs would look like when Adams shot him however many time in the abdomen.

She couldn’t think like that. They would be okay, they would figure it out together, they always did. They always managed to put their heads together when they were in trouble.

Being in danger together seemed like a much better bet than having to watch the love of her life killed in the middle of this damn restaurant because she hadn’t done anything. She wanted to do everything with him for the rest of her sorry life, and if that meant sitting at the nozzle end of a pistol with him, then so be it.

She just hoped he would forgive her quickly.

“All we want to do is-” She heard Spencer begin, the other waiters filtering out of the kitchen with shaken looks on their faces, as they carefully slipped their patrons the bill that had already paid off, asking them to leave calmly and quietly.

“Minimise collateral damage, I get it, I’m not mad,” Cat snapped back, rolling her eyes, “It’ll give me the cover I need to slip out. I just need to know it’s clear, so do me a favour and tell your boss that nobody leaves until its safe for me to do so,”

Spencer chewed his tongue. He couldn’t let her leave, not when they had her so close, not when they were pursuing Penelope, not when they were so close to catching the woman responsible for so many kills.

Spencer hated losing, he hated knowing that she was about to get away because he had been too wrapped up in his overwhelming thoughts to figure out her plan, too busy fretting over the two women who meant the most to him to think ten steps ahead like he usually did.

He’d been sloppy, even though he knew he should cut himself some slack. His fiancee, girlfriend, had been tortured, his mother facing a different kind of terror in her mind altogether. He hadn’t been thinking about work, he’d been thinking of the house they were going to buy with the picket fence and the porch swing and the mortgage, and the damn ring-

“Well?” Cat’s goading voice ripped him out of his reverie, and he huffed in defeat, “Spencer?”

“You can leave,” He murmured, the agitation scratching at his skin because he was struggling to think of a final card to play. He was usually so good at games, usually won every single one of them. But his head couldn’t settle when Bugsy wasn’t near, when he couldn’t make sure she was safe.

Cat shuffled out of the side of the booth, her eyes flicking across the restaurant for her contact, and Spencer had barely opened his mouth in protest before he watched the UnSub walk straight into a waitress, a false smile slipping on her face as to not raise alarm.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was-” And yet his breath hitched when he spotted the hair he’d ran his fingers through just that morning yanked into a bun, the lips he could kiss for an entire lifetime curled in disdain, the body he worshipped refusing to move out of the way for the woman in a hurry.

And it seemed Cat only realised that the woman who had brought them water wasn’t a waitress at all, despite her plain face that had faded into the background, despite the fact Spencer hadn’t given her a second glance; Only when she heard a gun cocking behind the serving tray at her stomach did the fake smile drop from Cat Adams face.

Because she hadn’t flushed out Spencer’s back up. Not while Bugsy was still alive and breathing.

“Sit back down,” Bugsy growled, keeping her tone low but with enough bite that Cat’s eyes narrowed to hide the surprise.

“Well, well, seems I hadn’t planned for everything, I thought a pretty face like you would know better than to pull a gun on a woman with her finger on the big red button,” Cat said wryly, though Bugsy caught her eyeing up her chest as if to be checking for a bullet vest, “Move out the way, sweetheart. You don’t want this to get ugly,”

Spencer’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth, though he kept his breathing even. What was she doing?

He didn’t care that he had no more power over her than anyone else on the team, he wanted to drag her out of the room himself if it meant she would stop throwing herself in the way of danger.

“Unfortunately, sweetheart, that’s not happening.” Bugsy snapped back, her expression melting into something rogue, something teasing as she leaned towards Cat with a challenge in her eyes. “You’re going to sit back down, and I’m going to show you exactly why you should have accounted for a pretty face like me,”

“You’re stalling,” Cat snickered, trying to push past the waitress, who wasn’t a waitress at all but an FBI agent, only for her hand to shoot out and grab her wrist, tossing the tray on the table.

Spencer felt his heart lurch into his throat as he saw both of them pull their guns to waist height, a blink and you’d miss it kind of movement, and it was like he’d seen the game set and matched then and there.

Bugsy wasn’t backing down. And neither was Cat.

“I make it a habit of knowing what kind of women are going on dates with my boyfriend,” Bugsy’s hand tightened around her wrist, watching the surprise flicker in the woman’s eyes, and she scoffed, “What? You really thought all that flirting and nervous glances were real?”

And the woman said nothing, her ego clearly a little hurt, though Bugsy was just sticking to the profile, and the profile said she revelled in male attention.

“Cat got your tongue?” Bugsy snipped through a grin, even if her chest was pounding at the feeling of the gun pointing at her abdomen, “Well, lucky for you I have a present for you. On the condition you sit back down and play my game,”

“You think I’m going to fall for that shit?” Cat seethed. It was one thing to outsmart a man, that was fair game, that was easy pickings for a woman like her. But a woman, a woman who seemed to love playing with her food as much as she did. That was different, “What is it, a reduced sentence? The good TV in my two by four cell? You can keep dreaming, I don’t want your worthless promises,”

“I’d hardly call your daddy dearest worthless,” Bugsy mused, and she watched Cat’s expression falter, “A dead beat drunk maybe, but worthless? A little harsh considering you waited so long to meet him,”

Cat paused, eyes flicking over the woman’s face for any signs of a lie, “You have my father?”

And Bugsy smirked, “Do I look like I’m bluffing?” But her face was set in stone, and Cat hated to admit she seemed too confident to be lying, “Why don’t you make this a little easier for everyone and sit back down. I’m not done with you yet,”

The murderess scowled, her shoulders straightening as she ripped her wrist out of Bugsy’s grip and retreated back to the booth.

And it was only then that Bugsy looked at Spencer, his eyes wide in a horrid mix of terror and rage, and it was a sight she swore she never wanted directed at her again. But she couldn’t leave him, he had to understand that. Because if all the bets were off, if all the cards were dealt, she knew he would need to be dragged screaming from the building before he left her to deal with a hostile UnSub alone.

And Spencer knew that too, of course he knew that. Yet it didn’t diminish the sickening worry bubbling up in his chest as the women sat down at the table, and their game had a playing field.

“So, I take it this is the darling wife you wanted killed,” Cat sneered, and Spencer didn’t dare take his eyes off the woman with the gun, even if Bugsy did have one pointed right back at her, “I don’t blame you, I’d want to be rid of her too,”

And they both knew it was a dig, a stab in the interest of getting them both riled up. But it wouldn’t go far. Because despite the anger Spencer felt dwindling in his chest, he always worked better with her. Like a puzzle piece in the tangle of his mind had clicked into place, and suddenly they were a team again, and she seemed more like herself than she had in months, an ease about the way she leaned back in the plush seat despite the fact her finger was resting on the trigger.

“Have you ever played Cat’s cradle?” Bugsy asked her, knocking her knee against his as if she’d heard his thoughts. They were together in this. Together. Even if the building went up in flames and bullets and the plan went to shit. Just the two of them, the way they’d always been.

And he felt himself ease back too, something akin to security shifting over him. They always were safer together.

Cat’s eyebrows raised as Bugsy dodged her comment, “What, do you want to braid my hair like sixth graders, too? What about it?”

Bugsy shrugged, reaching over with her free hand to the glass of water she’d set down for the two of them, “The way I see it, Cat, you have got those little paws caught in yarn and are scrambling to get out of it,” She chuckled, taking a quick sip, “Now, if we were to let you go, you’d end up walking out of here scot free, and who knows, might even blow up the whole building anyway. But, if we help you out of this little tangle you’ve got us all in, then maybe we cut a deal that doesn’t involve all of us going out in a ball of flames and champagne. Sounds good right?”

The woman’s lips pursed tightly, her head tilting in annoyance, “Alright. Get on with it, no one likes a show off. How did you find my father?”

Bugsy smirked, “Well that was pretty easy once you have access to the files we have. We traced your birth record to a Daniel Adams, who did in fact leave the country in 1987 but returned in 2012. Based on confidential records in rehabs and sober living houses, which in turn pointed us to flophouses and soup kitchens.”

The brunette’s eye twitched, like the girl had just spat in her face, which was what it felt like, and she felt the taste of her own medicine was just as sour as she’d always presumed.

“He couldn’t put twenty four hours together sober, sweetheart,” Bugsy summarised, shrugging her shoulders as if it was no big deal to her, just another bum on the street, “You can probably imagine our surprise to find that he lives here in DC,”

“Where?” Cat hissed, and Bugsy snickered, shaking her head and taking another sip of her water.

“I’m an agent, not a miracle worker. It wasn’t that simple,” She replied, boredly tracing her finger over the restaurants emblem they had printed on the napkin, “I found him on the street, showed him your picture and said I’d like to ask him some questions about his darling daughter,”

Cat’s lip pulled down in annoyance, her matt red lipstick smudging with her pout, “And?”

And perhaps Bugsy was being cruel. Perhaps she was playing into the profile that indicated Cat needed someone to match her wit and zeal if she was going to listen. Men, she could squash like bugs. Bugsy, ironically, not so much.

Perhaps she was thinking about how she’d reached into Spencer's pants to retrieve his gun, and wanted some of what she was saying to hurt.

“He didn’t even know he had a daughter,” Bugsy said simply, with a small shrug of her shoulders, and she watched the woman’s onyx brown eyes glisten with unshed tears as the realisation crashed on her, "Didn't really seem to care,"

“He-he didn’t remember me?” Cat asked, the tease that had been there half an hour ago wiped clear from her tone, and Bugsy shook her head.

“Nope,” She said, popping the last syllable, “Alcoholism really rocks your brain. Sorry, honey,”

Adams scoffed, shaking her head with venom, “You’re not sorry. Sorry is what people say when they don’t understand,”

And Bugsy’s brows raised, a bitter empathy flicking in her gaze. Quick, but not so quick that Cat didn’t catch it, and she shuffled in her seat.

“Oh,” Their UnSub paused, the trodden down look on her face rekindling with interest, “But you understand, don’t you? What, does your father like a good beer or ten, princess?”

Bugsy snickered emptily, “Ofcourse I understand,” She said, leaning over the table to hold the woman’s glare, because like hell would she back down just because Cat was treading on home ground, “I haven’t spoken to my father in five years. He picked the hot wife and holidays to Aruba over his little girl and he thought a new pony or two would make up for all the times he forgot Christmas. I can’t even remember the last time he sent me a birthday card on time, and yeah he was a bit of a mean bastard once he'd had a whiskey,” She shook her head with contempt, and she felt Spencer knock his knee against hers gently, but she only watched the viper woman with careful eyes. And to her shock, Cat seemed like she understood her, like she had some kind of respect for her telling the truth. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m very good at making sure old guys like that get what’s coming to them. Or is that just what another girl with daddy issues would do?”

Cat’s face seemed to shrivel in frustration when she heard her words repeated back to her, “Is that really why you came here today? To help me?” And Bugsy tilted her head, knowing their UnSub was running out of time, that her window of opportunity was closing with the patrons of the restaurant getting antsy to leave. “Do you know how many men have told me they want to help me?”

Letting her expression smooth into empathy, she leaned forward, her tone dropping into a hushed murmur, “That may well be true, sweetheart, but from where I’m sitting, I’m not a man,”

And Cat paused, something like regret drifting over her face, before she spoke again, “Do you want to know how that worked out for them?”

And with that, JJ and Rossi watched the C4 charge’s switch to green, indicating their line was live and ready to blow.

“Hotch, she just armed the bomb,”

Bugsy’s expression dropped an inch, the sight of it making Cat’s lips curl into a cheshire smile.

“You’re not the only one with a loyal partner, honey,”

But the Prentiss woman was quick on her heels, watching Morgan and Tara rise from their place at another booth, heading towards a woman sitting at the bar on her phone, and she forced her lips together to stop herself from looking too smug to cause suspicion.

“It seems so,” Bugsy agreed with a nod, handing her gun off to Spencer beneath the table.

If he was confused, he didn’t show it, probably because he trusted that big brain of hers with everything in him, even if he was mad enough he could feel the annoyance oozing from his hot cheekbones. Yet to the rest of the restaurant, Cat Adams, included she hadn’t moved an inch.

“But, there is one thing I can guarantee about this partner of yours,” She said, leaning over to pour herself another glass of water casually.

Cat hummed in content, “Oh, right? What’s that?”

And Bugsy smirked, barely raising the glass to her lips as Morgan pounced on the Bomber, ripping the phone out of her hands and causing the patrons around her to yelp, “She’s sure as shit not as clever as me and my husband,”

Cat’s head whirlled around to see her partner’s face slamming into the hard wood of the bar, Tara yanking the cuffs from her belt, and she barely had time to flick back to the two agents facing her before a pitcher of ice cold water was thrown in her eyes, her thick mascara running down her cheeks and blurring her vision. Spencer dove over the table and grabbed her gun from her grasp as Bugsy ripped her out of the booth with rough hands.

She threw her to the ground in the few seconds she was disorientated, her hands tightening around her wrists as make shift cuffs, and she saw Spencer hurrying to grab the real things from his pockets.

“That was a cheap shot, you’re a cheater, you said you’d play fair,” Cat barked, her cheeks pressing against the rough carpet as the agents cuffed her, ignoring her protests and shoves.

“Honey, this is me playing fair,” Bugsy snapped with a cruel smirk, “You threatened my friends, you stuck your hand in my boyfriend’s pants, and pointed a gun at him. Believe me I could have done so much worse,”

And with that Cat Adams was hauled off the ground by the two of them, as they led her out to the police van waiting outside the restaurant.

–

The doors pulled open, empty, and Cat’s face dropped, because her only silver lining on the entire outcome had been that she’d be able to meet the dead beat dad that ran out on her.

That agent’s face had been so genuine as she’d said it. It had seemed so real, and yet…

“You lied to me,” She said as Bugsy set her down on the bench, Spencer pulling another set of handcuffs from his belt and the two of them looked up at her, her lashes lining with disappointment.

“If it helps, we really did try to look for him.” Spencer said, his tone blunt because she had a crazed look in her eye he didn’t like one bit the second she stared at his girlfriend.

And even though she was the one in chains, heading for prison for a twenty year sentence at the minimum, she laughed. Cackled.

“It doesn't matter anyway, I still won,” She said, that venomous gaze turning to Spencer because she had learned atleast two thing in the time she’d been sat with the two agents that ruined her life.

One. Spencer’s mother had Alzheimers, that he hadn’t been lying about. That she was sure was too real to be a story he’d pulled out his ass.

Two. The girl wasn’t phased by insults or bites or cruel words directed towards her. Yet when it was at Spencer…

“How do you figure that one?” Bugsy said, her brow furrowing as she shook her head at the woman.

“In ten years, Mommy dearest won’t remember anyone’s name,” Bugsy’s head shot up at that, her lips curling into a snarl, and she forced her fingertips into her palm to stop herself from throwing a slap at the woman’s face, “But I’ll remember yours,”

Bugsy daren’t react, no matter if her chest boiled in anger at the woman’s callous words. Spencer had to give that information up, give a small bit of his soft underbelly to get the woman to trust him enough not to shoot.

And she couldn’t exactly blame him when he rose to his feet, darting out of the van with a clenched jaw, because the day had been an entire shit show, and she knew by the growl of annoyance he let out that their was a big conversation looming over her head, one she could only see ending in a fight.

It was just the two of them in the van, Cat entirely bound to her seat, and her painted lips had pulled into a grin the second he’d stormed off, her sleek eyes snapping to Bugsy who looked ready to slit her throat.

“Oh, come on Princess, it was tit for tat,” Cat shrugged as if she didn’t seem destroyed, “You took my dad from me, I guess I had to do the same for that hubby of yours,”

Bugsy looked down at her, swallowing her rage with a purse of her lips, feeling her breath rattle with unfiltered animosity.

“You’d make a shit profiler, for what it’s worth. What you profiled about him was all off,” She snarled, stepping away from the woman and looking down at her as if she was shit on the bottom of her shoe, “At least he’s going to make a better father than the bum who would rather sleep on concrete than know you,”

And with that she slammed the doors closed behind her, darting off on Spencer’s heel.

+1. The one where she tells him.

She saw his stress lines, the way the day’s events had weighed heavy on him. He sat on the sofa, his shoes thrown by the door after a tense drive home, and she'd found a space on the coffee table in front of him.

He was quiet, he had never been quiet with her, not in the years since they’d kissed that first time in her room. He wasn’t one for the silent treatment, she knew that much. Yet he was just that. Silent.

“Are you mad at me?” She asked, her voice that of a child as her brows scrunched together in worry. She felt the words bubbling in her throat, the thing she’d needed to tell him for a week gnawing at her tongue, crawling it’s way out, only she worried that after what she had done, he might just be ten times more annoyed at her throwing herself in the line of danger.

He stayed quiet for a moment, and she thought this might turn into their first real fight in the two and bit years they’d been together. Her skin went cold at the words that loomed over them, and she knew by the way he sighed alone he was pissed.

“You can’t do that,” He said, his voice a restrained bite, and he shook his head for good measure, “You can’t put yourself in the way of danger again, I can’t do that again, not after Scratch.”

Her throat closed up with tears, and she glanced at him, her fingers itching to take his warm hands in her own, her body begging to preen into him, have him kiss her and tell her he wasn’t mad, that he still loved her, that everything was okay. But he wouldn’t. Not because he didn’t feel any of that, of course he still loved her, but the wet that lined his lashes told her all she needed to know. That seeing what Scratch had done to her had scared him enough that even the idea of her coming close to a hostile UnSub with a loaded gun, that straying from the plan that was designed to keep everyone safe, had tipped him into a grey area that had him both wanting to hold her close and never let her go whilst yelling at her in that broken cadence to show her just how hurt he was.

“I’m sorry, I just-” She choked, her eyes becoming watery and pathetic and she hated crying during arguments, not wanting to look weak but that was exactly how she felt. Weak. Like she had no backbone to lean on because she knew she shouldn’t have intervened, but the snake-like woman undressing her boyfriend with her eyes while cocking a weapon at him had pushed her over the edge.

“Oh, you’re sorry, that makes it much better,” Spencer shook his head, furrowing his brows and it was only when he leaned forward that the salty hot tears dribbled down his cheek. “You- you can’t just do that, Bugsy, you know that right?”

She nodded, the words building in her trachea like word vomit, like she wanted to scream the confession at him that she should have given him the second she’d found out. “I know, I’m sorry,” She said again, her words entirely warbled with guilt because she’d never seen him so distraught, and she thought back to the horror that had spread on his face when she’d sat down.

“You can’t do that to me, sweetheart, do you understand?” His tone had shifted, something a little softer and he grabbed her hands tightly when her shoulders hunched together, and she leaned forward to try to hide her cries in her lap, sitting silently like a scolded child, “What were you thinking? You just got back into the field today, you could have been hurt, you could have gotten someone else hurt-”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” She sniffled, her expression truly guilty, because everything he was saying was exactly true, she could have gotten him shot. “I didn’t think, I wasn’t thinking, I just was worried that…” She trailed off, her heart rate spiking when the words almost slipped from her tongue. She couldn’t tell him, not like this.

“What?” Spencer pressed, because he didn’t like the look of whatever had just passed over her face, and she shook her head in denial, “Bug, tell me,”

“No, I can’t,” Her breath clogged in her chest, coming out in a shaky rattle, and it was then that he leaned forward even more, trying to dip his head down to catch her eye, "Not like this,"

“Please tell me,” He begged, his eyes still stinging where another wave of tears threatened to burst at the seam when she shook her head again, her chin pressing down into her chest because he hated this. He hated arguing with her. “I’m sorry I yelled, I didn’t mean to, honey, I just got- worried.”

“I know,” She said quietly through another sniffle, rubbing her cheek on her shoulder to dry it, “I know, I’m sorry I didn’t think it through I just,” She took a deep breath, because she knew she needed to tell him, knew there was no more running from it.

He lifted a palm to her cheek, his thumb skirting under her eyelashes, and he forced himself together because he could never stand to see her cry, not when it was partially his fault, “What?”

“I just can’t do this without you,” She murmured, her heart in her throat, and it only made it difficult to swallow. She chanced a look at Spencer, his eyes wet and red and worried as she continued, “I can’t be the one to tell this kid their dad died because I didn’t do anything,”

“What..” He started, his brows immediately falling into a frown as he looked at her. She swore she could hear every single contraction of her heart muscles in her ears, the blood rushing through her veins making it sound like waves crashing on a shore right in her eardrum.

“It’s still fixable,” She jumped in, before he could say anything, like she needed to justify immediately what she’d said, or even just talk to fill the silence because she hated not knowing what he was thinking, “It’s only five weeks along, I still have time to… fix it-”

“Five weeks- you-you’re pregnant?” Spencer’s eyes were wide, with horror or shock she had no idea, nor did she want to find out judging by the way he had turned pale, reading between the lines, “W-What- fix it? Is that what you want to do?”

She stopped, because he seemed to be keeping a lid on his emotions, trying his hardest to sound calm and somehow that made it all the more worse. Because she would rather him get angry, or get frustrated and tell her this was too soon, or tell her there was no way he was ready to be a father, because at least then the pressure of it wasn’t on her back to decide for both of them.

But he would never, and she didn’t know why she’d ever second guessed him. He wasn’t yelling, or turning away, or leaving her the second things got tough, because it was Spencer. And Spencer would never. Spencer gave her the choice of what she wanted to do.

She stopped, her lungs suddenly feeling just that bit tighter, as she shrugged pitifully, and she thought this was perhaps not the most ideal way to tell someone you’re pregnant, “I-I don’t know, I think…” She stopped, because what did she think? She’d been so wrapped up in worrying about what Spencer would think, worrying about his mom and her nightmares and Cat God Damn Adams that she hadn’t even let herself entertain the thought of a little them.

But if she said she didn’t like the idea of a little boy with Spencer’s hair and glasses and smile, if she said she couldn’t see the photo album his mom had handed her full of pictures of their kids butt naked and watering the flower beds, she would be a liar.

“I think… it would take a lot of work, I mean it’s a baby for christ sakes, Bugsy, of course it’ll take work,” He nodded slowly as she chided herself, but she felt his hands tighten on hers, and the tiny gesture gave her the encouragement she needed. She took another breath, that boy with brown curls and her eyes in a jedi costume flashing through her head, “But.. I think having a mini you is everything I could have ever wished for,”

His lip quivered for a minute, and she worried she’d said the wrong thing. And then…

He smiled, wider than she’d ever seen him, like she could count every single one of his teeth, and she copied him despite the way a frog leapt into her throat, and she saw his eyes line with a fresh set of tears.

“Really, we’re really doing this?” Spencer asked, quietly, like someone could hear them, or perhaps he couldn’t believe himself even as he said it. He thought his chest was about to explode, thought his heart could never love someone so much as he loved her, thought it would never beat the same way again as it had before he’d been told he was going to have a baby with the woman he’d been in love with for nearly nine years. She nodded, her shy smile turning into something happy, maybe even excited as he pulled her in for an achingly sweet kiss, his hands cupping her cheeks as he kissed her lips over and over and over again, ignoring the salt that trapped in her skin, and he realised then he had started crying just as much as she had. Two wailing saps sitting in their living room, happier than they’d ever dreamed they were allowed to be. “I love you, I love you, I love you more than anything, I was so stupid, I’m so sorry I shouted-”

She chuckled, shaking her head, and drawing him back in for a long, silencing kiss, “I was stupid, very stupid.” Bugsy said, the weight lifting off her chest like a dumbbell had been moved, and she could breath again. Because Spencer kissed her like he wanted to merge their bodies into one, like he didn’t care for breath anymore as long as he had her lips on his, and she couldn’t help think if that was what he thought of her too, “No more being stupid from either of us. Kid’s got to have at least one smart parent,“

He smiled, enough joy in his eyes to make her think she was handing him the universe. And yet that was exactly how he felt. Like everything he dreamt of as a kid, when he was in his room wishing his dad had stayed because sometimes looking after his mom was tough on a twelve year old, or when he’d held Henry for the first time and thought maybe he wouldn’t be terrible at it by the time it was his turn.

He looked at Bugsy, the idea of their kid growing inside her, about the size of a petit pois pea at five weeks, and Spencer damn near felt like he’d won the lottery.

And all thoughts of Cat Adams were gone from both of their minds, the viper woman she wished she had gotten a good right hook to when she’d had the chance entirely unimportant now.

Because they were going to be a family, more so than they already were. And Bugsy felt as though she couldn’t love Spencer any more than she already did, but she could love his baby more than she’d ever thought possible.

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#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #matthew gray gubler x reader #i love bugsy & spence #spencer reid fanfic #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #criminal minds fic #criminal minds #matthew grey gubler x reader

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bovineblogger · 5 months ago

Note

Just wanted to pitch my two cents in response to the previous anon! Hi friend, I know for a lot of us who get our food shrink wrapped and packaged at the grocery store it’s mind boggling to even imagine there’s a healthy way of animal husbandry.

I grew up in The Big City™️ but was raised by my grandparents. They grew up farming (just crops, their families were too poor to own livestock or purchase meat/milk/eggs) and taught me to have an incredible respect for where food comes from. We grew our own crops in the tiny backyard, composted, and did aquaculture even before I knew what it was. We bought our smaller meat from the local butcher minimally processed. You had to debone and process the whole chicken, fish, rabbit, frogs, etc. Grandpa traded his veggies for different fruits with the other oldies. Grandma made her own wine and yogurt. And I’ve worked and volunteered at animal shelters and wildlife rescue/rehab centers growing up. I still compost nearly all of my food waste. Even then, I didn’t truly understand the extent to which a properly cared for animal farm could be healthy and ethical.

Until I met one of my previous partners that is. They grew up in an incredibly rural area on a family farm that had animals, including a herd of cows for meat. They hunted, but always to protect the livestock and made use of the animals they killed/sold them to others in town who would. It seemed so counterintuitive to my sensibilities and raised my hackles at first. How could you say you love animals and do that? But I began asking questions…for hours and hours because it was nothing I’d been exposed to.

The way they and their family cared for/revered their animals seemed almost religious to me when I first encountered it. From the time they were kids, it was always the animals’ chores first. You woke up but fed and milked the cows before you made yourself breakfast. They made blankets for the animals and read to them. You gave the herd everything they needed and then some. If something in the barn needed fixing, that would happen first before new windows for the house. The animals had their own things and toys and treats. It was love! There were never cattle prods or whips or any of the machinery you associate with industrial farming. The animals would greet them happily every morning. They loved and trusted their people back enough to be naughty a way a pampered cat is. It really sunk in when I stood next to a cow for the first time — there’s nothing that would stop that animal from harming you, especially if you were a kid, unless it respected you and loved you back.

(They once told me the story of how some large predator like a bear or wolf tried to sneak into the pasture at night. The family woke up there next morning to a furry pancake that had been utterly stomped into the ground by the herd.)

A whole lifetime later, they can still remember the names, personalities, and stories of all the animals they raised. I would get bored and try to list off random names as a game to see if they ever had an animal called that, actually. But the thing that initially shocked (and stuck with me the most) was that when they’d take an older cow to the butcher, they would get packages of meat back labeled with that animal’s name. But it wasn’t ever scary or traumatizing for the kids. They always knew where food was from. Sometimes they were even there helping when that animal was born in the barn. What that did was give them an incredible sense of care, respect, and duty for those animals. When they had dinner that night, they would say grace and mean it in a way you only could if you viewed that animal as an equal family member. I was raised religious, but had never heard grace said like that, with that amount of genuine intent until I ate dinner with them. It used to be just something I did, just going through the motions.

That being said, yes it would probably be the most bio energy efficient/less emissions heavy if the whole world shifted away from a meat-based diet. But ideal isn’t always realistic/something we can achieve overnight. Meat alternatives are often expensive or time consuming to prepare (like beans/legumes). The way I see it, this blog is part of a harm reduction approach in facilitating an appreciation/love/education for livestock and then encouraging people to seek out more mindful sources of meat, like some local farms. We’ve seen time and time again, shame/blame are far less effective in getting people to re-examine their worldviews than education and love.

thank you so much for this ask, this is so so so so so lovely!!! i feel like a lot of people that arent farmers or dont have farmers in their family dont really understand just how much love is there.

#asks #cattle #img #barleys faves #info

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natalievoncatte · 20 days ago

Text

Kara had been pacing for hours. With every step she took, the anxiety was worse, and if she didn’t stop soon she was afraid she’d wear a groove in her floor.

Lena had Kryptonite.

Why did Lena have Kryptonite?

Why was Lena gathering the only thing that could hurt her? The best way to kill her?

Fuming, Kara stormed back and forth, rubbing at her arms as her heart raced. She couldn’t imagine Lena ever harming her. They’d had brunch that morning! They’d chatted and gossiped and Kara had laughed at a tiny bit of crème on the tip of Lena’s nose, and her heart had swelled in her chest when she imagined flicking it off with a finger.

(She wondered if her lips would taste like sugar and spice and everything nice)

When Alex had told her, Kara had protested, objected, shouted, and finally Alex had left her alone to “work it out” but told her they had to do something, and soon.

Kara had to know.

Why?

She couldn’t stand it anymore. It was like a full body itch, wriggling beneath her skin from scalp to soles. If she didn’t get an answer she’d lose her mind.

Kara reached for her suit, hanging crisply pressed from the same clothing rack as her work outfits, but stopped, fingers curling around nothing.

She couldn’t do this as Supergirl. Lena would be hostile, defensive, clam up and shut her down. No, this was a job for Kara. That was what she told herself when she shrugged into a cardigan and set off, walking rather than flying across town.

Kara traveled as a human traveled, slowly. Her part of town was vibrant, with music and excitement spilling from hip bars. The tang of booze and the sharp acrid bite of tobacco smoke lashed at her as she passed.

She reached downtown and walked down the street, hugging herself and rubbing at her arms as if against a chill. It was quieter here, the offices and towers empty near midnight. As she passed Noonan’s, she briefly paused to study the chairs as they sat atop the tables and the empty space where she’d once slung lattes and pastries before somehow getting sucked into Cat Grant’s mad world.

She saw her own reflection in the dark glass and adjusted her glasses before moving on.

Lena’s building had doormen and one of them recognized her.

“Miss Danvers?” he said. His name was Todd or Rod or maybe… she didn’t remember. “Miss Luthor isn’t expecting guests.”

“I was just in the neighborhood.”

“It’s a bit late for an evening stroll.”

Nevertheless he stepped inside and returned a moment later, ushering her to the elevator. The light for Lena’s floor was lit. She’d called it up herself.

When the doors opened and Kara stepped out, Lena’s door stood open, spilling light out.

“Kara?” Lena asked softly, “It’s so late. What’s wrong?”

Kara froze, her resolve slipping away as easily as the moisture on her tongue as her mouth went dry. Lena was dressed in silk pajama bottoms and a silk top that left her shoulders bare and a flowing silk robe, all green. Her hair was down and fell over her shoulders in inky waves.

Kara could only stare until Lena’s hand curled around her arm and guided her inside. She closed the door behind them and offered Kara a glass of water.

She drained it.

“Kara, what is it? You look terrified.”

Kara looked at her, really looked at her, hearing Lena’s heart quicken as she did. Lena looked away sharply, a soft pink dusting her pale cheeks.

“Are you alright?”

“I have to ask you a question,” said Kara, “and once I ask it I can’t un-ask it.”

Lena swallowed hard, then went to pour herself a scotch, downing two fingers neat in just three gulps.

“Are you going to ask me about the Kryptonite?”

Kara flinched. Lena looked away from her, turning the glass in her hand, trying to hide the shaking.

“Yes.”

Lena slowly, deliberately placed the glass on the counter and shifted herself onto one of the kitchen stools.

“I should be glad it’s you she sent,” said Lena. “Agent Danvers would probably just shoot me first and ask questions later.”

“She? Sent? What do you mean?”

“Supergirl,” said Lena. “I know you’re at least acquainted. I always wondered how, if she knew you first or your sister.”

“Lena, why do you have Kryptonite? Where did you get it?”

“I made it, actually,” said Lena. “It’s surprisingly simple to synthesize if you know how.”

Kara swallowed, hard.

“As to why I have it,” said Lena, “you might be the only person who will believe me.”

“Go on.”

“I’m testing a method of destroying Kryptonite that renders it inert and harmless. It could also be used to destroy the mineral in large quantities or create a lightweight protective layer in Supergirl’s suit.”

“Does it work?”

“It works.”

“But you haven’t told Supergirl.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Still staring at the glass, Lena turned it on the countertop, the thick base making faint scraping sounds against the marble counter.

“Because she wouldn’t. I think when we first met she was suspicious but then really believed that I was trying to help, but lately she’s been suspicious and distant, and questions everything I do, even after Medusa.”

Kara felt a pang of guilt in your chest.

“You’re right,” Kara sighed. “She would. She has been… she’s been struggling for a while now. Things are more complicated and she was hurt after… you’re right, and she owes you an apology.”

“It’s not like we’re friends,” said Lena. “It’s not like I had brunch with her this morning.”

Kara froze, going very still.

“I’m not an idiot,” Lena said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Think about it. Supergirl’s best friend just happens to be the sister of the deputy director of the D.E.O., who regularly works with Supergirl. Supergirl’s best fiend is who has having coffee with her just when two goons happened to toss me off my own balcony. In the middle of the night. Supergirl’s best friend who is also Superman’s cousin, just like Supergirl is his cousin.”

“I… but I never said I was…”

“You’re Clark’s cousin and Clark is Superman. Lex has known for ten years, Kara. I already knew.”

Kara hugged herself tighter.

“Also,” said Lena, “you flat out told me you can fly on the day we met.”

“Oh,” Kara said softly.

“Oh,” said Lena.

“Were you going to say something?”

“I liked having a best friend. I like Kara.”

“I am Kara.”

Lena looked at her, and she felt herself shrink.

“Do you believe me about the Kryptonite?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“If you wanted to hurt me by now, you would have. Besides, I… I just do.”

“I have never understood why you can be so harsh to me with that stupid suit on and so kind to me the rest of the time.”

Kara looked away, as her lip began to tremble.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lena. I wish I’d told you sooner, after Medusa or after Metallo almost exploded in our faces. I know I’ve been acting differently lately and I’m sorry.”

Kara turned back and saw that Lena was crying, a tear glittering on her cheek. A sharp, cruel pain lanced through her, like a knife parting her flesh from her ribs. She took a halting half step forward, stopped, then closed the distance, lightly resting her hand on Lena’s back. Feeling her body heat beneath the silk was intoxicating, and Kara felt her head spin.

“Did you come here to tell me?” said Lena.

“I came because I was scared, and angry. I’m tired of losing things. Places. People. I was so scared that Alex and James were right and I was being stupid about you.”

Lena snorted. “Oh of course.”

“The first time I ever saw you, I had this feeling, this… I can’t even put it into words. It was like remembering something I’d forgotten I knew. That same day when Clark said you were up to something, I told him off.”

Lena turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Is that feeling why you couldn’t leave me alone?”

“Yes,” Kara whispered.

Lena turned her body on the stool, facing her, and slipped off onto her heels. She stood mere inches from Kara now, looking up at her. With Kara standing in her sneakers and Lena barefoot, the height difference forced Kara to look down at her.

It was unbearable. The softness of her soft pink lips, the elegant rake of her jaw, her chin and throat and collarbones demanding kisses. She was so tiny and vulnerable and soft.

“You’re so damned rash and impulsive and headstrong,” said Lena. “Lex is going to kill you. He already wanted to kill you to spite your cousin, but now it’s worse because he knows. He casually dropped it in conversation and he caught my tell.”

“Your tell?”

Lena’s fingers walked up Kara’s chest and fiddled with her collar, playing with the top button.

“If I can figure out who you are, he can too. He has, I’m sure.”

“Lena,” Kara said.

“I won’t let him hurt you. The Luthors took everything and everyone from me and he can’t have you too!”

Kara froze for a brief moment, going very quiet. She swallowed hard as Lena looked away from her gaze, pointedly staring into her chest.

“Tell me they’re wrong,” Kara whispered.

“I would never hurt you.”

“Lex isn’t going to do anything to me,” said Kara.

She had, almost without realizing, slid her arm around Lena’s waist and now Lena was a soft weight pressed to her chest, heart fluttering between them like a tiny bird. Kara touched Lena’s jaw and gently tilted her face up as their eyes met.

“Kara Danvers believes in you, Lena.”

“I’m scared, Kara. He knows how I feel.”

“How do you feel?”

“For someone with fifty different types of vision, you can be incredibly blind.”

“I know how I feel,” said Kara. “You’re more than a friend to me, Lena. I can be more to you if you want me to be.”

Lena darted up and pressed a soft kiss to Kara’s lips and she was momentarily stunned, too stunned to even kiss her back until instinct took over and she pulled Lena even closer, molding their bodies together. When Lena moaned into her mouth, Kara could swear she could feel her soul briefly leave her body.

“You know, I’ve never properly thanked you for those heroic rescues,” Lena husked, her voice like a silk scarf flowering over Kara’s skin.

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eddies-ashtray · 5 months ago

Text

Falling asleep on Eddie’s bed in the middle of the day and the sweet things that ensue after.

(CW: g!n reader, Eddie calls reader ‘pretty’ once). |0.8k|

♡*♡*♡

Eyes still closed, you smile lazily as you tune into the rattling and whir of the yellowed fan. Basically all it does is push around warm air, but its gentle gust brushing your bare shoulders pleases you nonetheless. Sometime in the early afternoon when you’d first dozed off atop Eddie’s covers it stood, unplugged, on his side of the bed.

You know he’s next to you before you’ve fully woken from your brief slumber. The dip in the mattress, the quiet scratching of a pencil on paper. These signs not only alert you of his presence but encourage you to blink your eyes open as you draw in a deep breath.

Your gaze settles at his hip. The curled edges of Eddie’s cut up band tee rest just below his waist, exposing a sliver of pale skin.

“Mmh,” you grumble, squinting up at him as the sunshine casts a glow across the bed. “What time is it?”

Eddie’s eyes, appearing much lighter as they soak up the glowing rays, crinkle in the corners as they meet yours, a smile playing at his lips. “Hey, sleepy.”

“Dopey,” you greet in jest.

He smiles bigger, squeezing his eyes shut as a quick breath escapes his nose.

“Very original.” Eddie’s deadpan tone does not match the delight kissing his features.

You shrug with some difficulty (only one shoulder lifts as the other is pressed into the bed), as if to say ‘What did you expect? It was right there.’

Rolling over onto your back, you stretch out like a cat, your whole body lengthening as your arms reach above your head, and release an involuntary groan of pleasure feeling as your muscles stretch.

Outside, trees rustle in the breeze and children shout and laugh as they play in the summer sun. They’re such nostalgic sounds they make your heart ache for the briefest of moments, like they’d evoked a sweet childhood memory which melted away before it could fully resurface.

Sensing his eyes on you, you peek back up at Eddie as your right hand comes to rest on your stomach, the left one falling palm-up by your side.

“You look pretty when you first wake up,” he expresses, all warmth and love.

“No way.” No one does. He just loves you.

“Yes way,” He mocks lightly as he stares down at you, his hand coming to settle over your forearm as he rubs his thumb into your skin.

You concede because you know you could both go back and forth like that forever. And because you’re too warm and feel too much like jelly to argue.

Instead, you sigh contentedly before pushing yourself up so you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with Eddie.

Lolling your head onto his shoulder, you whisper, “Time?”

So apparently taken by your slightly puffy face, he’d likely forgotten you’d even asked.

Immediately, he extends his left arm out to you so you can read the watch settled on his wrist.

2:22pm.

Tugging his arm gently to your face, you press a quick kiss to his hand, “Thanks.”

He hums as you place your head back on his shoulder, the sound reverberating deep in his chest. Despite the warmth in the room the sound gives you chills.

“Watcha drawin’?” You sing-song, though you can see his sketchbook from this angle.

“Watcha think?”

You almost jest, say, feet, before you realize, “Are those my hands?”

They must be. You know it not because of how detailed the drawing is. It’s more of a sketch so far. You know it because of the ring on the middle finger.

Eddie had found it while thrifting and gifted it to you one day. It wasn’t a birthday or anniversary or holiday. Just a normal day in March. It was a particularly frigid day, all grey skies and icy window sills. You’d arrived at the trailer after your shift about 20 minutes before Eddie. But when he did arrive, he went straight to you, and he said, I got ya somethin’ with that charming smile of his, all fidgety and excited like he was about to open presents on Christmas day. And then presented you with that beautiful ring he’s so carefully sketching onto your graphite hands.

“Mhm. You’ve got nice ones,” he says, taking hold of one of yours and softly tracing the ridges of your knuckles before thumbing the silver ring. It never comes off.

Your heart aches in the best way. You feel so content being here with him. Napping on his bed and waking up to him drawing you, caring for you, loving you. You squeeze his hand in yours before tilting upwards to press a sweet kiss to his cheek.

“Keep drawing, please?”

You can’t believe you get to sit here next to him in the middle of a balmy summer’s day while he presses pencil to paper with that rickety old fan sitting on your side of the bed.

♡*♡*♡

Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this please reblog <3 & let me know what you thought!

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goodbyehomepuppetshow · 22 days ago

Note

BOO!! Happy Halloween!

First | << Previous | Next >>

“Highly doubtful, but let’s see you try.”

“Alright, here we go! Once upon a midnight gloomy, there was a little town with cobbled streets and creaky houses. Now, these folks? They liked to leave their doors open, their windows cracked, and their lights out—y’know, the perfect setup for an uninvited guest.”

“Seems irresponsible to me.”

“What did the guest look like, Barnaby?…”

“Glad you asked, Walls! This guest didn’t have a shape, or a face, or even a body you could see. But oh, you could feel it. Just like that tickle in the back of your throat when you know you’re about to sneeze but it just won’t happen.”

“A ticklish ghost? Terrifying.”

“Patience, Frank! So one night, a lady in her cottage hears this raspy, scritch-scratchin’ sound from her window. She gets up, opens it wide—without thinkin’, naturally—and sees nothin’ but fog. But when she turns around, she finds… a trail of little wet footprints, each one inching closer to her bed.”

“Maybe it was a cat…”

“That’s what she thought! She followed those footprints, muttering about how her old tabby must be trackin’ mud everywhere, but then… the prints stopped right in the middle of her room. The air grew heavy, like someone was watchin’, and when she turned around… BAM! There it was: her own reflection in the mirror, smilin’ at her in the dark!”

“Barnaby, you’re not even trying! It’s just her reflection.”

“Ah, but here’s the thing, Frankie. She tried to look away… but couldn’t. Her reflection moved when she didn’t, smilin’ wider and wider till her face split open—”

“Nonsense! That’s not how reflections work.”

“It was then she heard a whisper… soft, and slithery. It said: ‘Look closer.’ And like somethin’ had taken over her, she leaned in, closer and closer, till her nose was nearly pressed to the glass. And right before her eyes… she saw it. A face in her reflection’s mouth—a face that wasn’t hers. The mirror was swallowin’ her up, draggin’ her right inside!”

”…That’s ridiculous.”

“Then what happened, Barnaby?…”

“They say she was never seen again… but sometimes, folks in that town would walk by that same house, and on certain nights, they’d see her face in the window, smilin’ back. And the scratchin’… well, it never stopped. They just don’t know if it’s her scratchin’ to get out… or if something else is in there, scratchin’ to come out.”

Barnaby’s smile fades, his voice lowering to a whisper.

“Sometimes, if you’re very quiet and listen real close… you might hear it, too.”

For a moment, the room goes silent. Even Frank finds himself glancing in the distance, his protests dying on his lips.

“I liked that story, Barnaby. It was… cozy.”

“Cozy? Yikes, Walls, remind me never to tell you a bedtime story!”

#ask blog #asks open #barnaby b beagle #frank frankly #puppet #send asks #wally darling #welcome home #welcome home puppet arg #welcome home puppet show #goodbye home story #goodbye home puppet show #goodbyehomepuppetshow #goodbye home au #halloween #spooky season

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kudossi · 5 months ago

Text

only god can write this script

“I’m, uh,” Lionblaze mutters, his tail sweeping behind him, “sorry for your loss.”

You would be, wouldn’t you, Dovewing doesn’t say, because she’s ex-ThunderClan, because she’s ex-prophesied, because his sister died for hers and because he’d wanted to kill her son, because she’s the leader’s mate, because her feelings about the cat who practically kidnapped her from her family to raise as a substitute for another are complicated and thorny at best. “Thank you,” she says at last, like she’s expected to. The diplomacy Tawnypelt has spent so long teaching her tastes rotten on her tongue.

Lionblaze wipes his mouth with one paw. Dovewing’s sister is ThunderClan’s deputy now, not him. She wonders how he feels about it. She wonders whether he thinks Hollyleaf should be there instead. She wonders if, just as she had been, Ivypool is just another substitute for a black cat with too-sharp eyes, too much potential. All wasted, of course, because StarClan was nothing if not good at wasting.

She wishes she knew why the she-cats suffered most. She wishes she didn’t know that they did.

She wishes Rowankit had been born a tom, sometimes, in her darkest moments. If he had, he wouldn’t be dead. “Simple as that,” she’d said to Ivypool last Gathering.

“Simple as that,” Ivypool had echoed, hollow. Bristlefrost had died for — what, exactly? So that more toms could live? So that the she-cat didn’t get the happy ending?

“There are never any happy endings for us,” Hollyleaf had murmured to her the morning of her death. The implication had been clear. Dovewing had stared at the only cat who ever understood her with wide, dry eyes until Hollyleaf had set her chin on Dovewing’s head, and then she’d been helpless not to lean in, a sob rattling her chest as she did.

“I approve,” Sorreltail had grinned at her as Briarlight had hissed defiance at the idea of being evacuated.

“Do I need it?” Dovewing had wondered.

“No,” Sorreltail had answered, simple as anything. “If it’s Briarlight, wonderful. But if there lies something for you outside of these borders — take it. Take it and never look back.”

It was the last time she had spoken to Sorreltail until she was cleaning her blood off of Lilykit and Seedkit as another panic swept over the camp. And even then, she was only speaking to a corpse, reassuring a cat who wasn’t there anymore that her kits would be okay.

(And Seedpaw had drowned to keep a stick — the closest memory of her mother she had — in ThunderClan’s possession. Dovewing had wept that night, inconsolable. Another daughter lost to the memory of her mother, a mother who had died because she had been expected to be a mother before a warrior, a mother despite the worst of wounds. A beaver’s dam bursts and is built again, over and over, until Dovewing’s coat drips with invisible blood.)

“Nursery work isn’t simple,” Ferncloud had smiled once, taking her through each task. Her demeanor was gentle, but the undercurrent was hard. Bumblepaw hadn’t taken this lesson. She knew that Lionblaze hadn’t, either.

“Why us?” Dovepaw had asked, looking up at her.

Ferncloud’s gaze, fixed on a point deep in the den, snapped to hers as if pulled there. “Because it’s only us,” she had said after a moment.

Less than a year later, Dovewing would step through Ferncloud’s blood to block a Dark Forest shade, all murk and mire and claws made of filth, from taking a bite out of her corpse.

“Don’t have another litter,” Lionblaze says now, callous in his way. “It never ends well for us.”

She knows — oh, does she ever know — that. No one star-touched could get away with a second litter, not if the stars had touched you young, even if they took the blessings they’d given away. Lionblaze’s first litter had led unremarkable lives — Hollytuft, despite her namesake, was quiet and unobtrusive; Fernsong had stepped a little farther than his bounds with Ivypool (and had paid for it, perhaps, with their daughter drowning in a lake made of rot); and Sorrelstripe’s history seemed to begin and end with her own litter (another dam, rising high; Dovewing looks away, now, because the alternative hollows her chest with rhythmic scraping of dulled teeth — pain comforted by pain). But the second? Two of them kittypets, the third an active rebel who had lost her mate to her own leader’s claws? A gentle fate, all told. They were all still alive, but what did that matter to him? Did the shame of having two living kittypet children outweigh the idea that both were alive, that both were happy, that he could visit them if he cared to?

“He shouldn’t have allowed it,” Jayfeather had said, his blind eyes staring into Dovewing’s soul.

“I shouldn’t have allowed it,” Lionblaze had said, anger toying at the end of every word.

But Dovewing had wanted, and now her tiny, perfect son is dead. “I won’t,” she says, hoarse. After all, she hadn’t ever been allowed to want. What had she expected? That StarClan would grant mercy to one who had only ever done their bidding?

“Guess some of us have to learn our lessons,” Lionblaze mutters. He scratches at an ear and averts his gaze from the direction of ShadowClan’s medicine den when someone stirs within.

Dovewing wonders if she can muster up the energy to be truly angry. She wants to be so badly, like one might want to escape sharpened claws dipped into soft flesh, but it’s hard to muster in this cruel, gray world without her son, with only callous gods to stare down at her. “Guess so,” she says, and wonders which god wrote this script she’s living. Her losses burn hot in her throat, the injustices as cold as ice, but Lionblaze could never fathom a story more unhappy than his own. “I guess so.”

#dovewing #lionblaze #hollyleaf #warrior cats #waca #wc #ferncloud #sorreltail #seedpaw #rowankit #jayfeather #ivypool #bristlefrost #child death mention #drowning mention #cw grieving

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rxzennia · 6 months ago

Text

rare critters

– tales of the voracity pathstrider

✎𓂃 a healthy dose of curiosity (ft. dr ratio) yall if i have to write another report i think i might kms sorry im 3 days late lol i was busy making concept art

when dr ratio somehow acquired a few rare critters from herta space station, he thought of one person:

aventurine.

if he’s so bad at looking after himself, maybe he could take care of something else instead. and these cat cakes are pretty tame and adorable… seems just right for him.

ratio sent a text to let aventurine know he’s coming to drop off some souvenirs

said souvenirs being these critters

ratio has one on top of his head and two in one arm as he rings the bell

it’s sometime in the afternoon, and you’re not around

(you’re attending a meeting on aventurine’s behalf so he can have a longer lunch break)

(you do that pretty often, actually. that’s why your boss can have entire afternoons or evenings to himself)

nothing would’ve prepared ratio for what he sees when aventurine opens the door

one, no, two? no, three?? faceless serpents slithering around his feet

and one really huge one around his neck???

their maws, aeons, their maws. as stunned as ratio is, he’s also scared shitless

they remind him of a certain aeon and he isn’t sure if he liked the implications

though, that aeon has long since disappeared…

the very moment the serpents sniffed something in the air, they’re all right up in ratio’s face

the trash cakes are definitely scared shitless

they’re quivering and whimpering

ratio is trying so hard to hide his unease

“since when did you have pets, gambler?”

“oh, they’re my assistant’s – don’t bite, please.”

and these dangerous, dangerous noodles listened???

they backed off obediently while still scenting the air again and again

at least they’re not one hair away from ratio anymore?

wait, more importantly…

“you’re living with your assistant?” ratio can’t help but ask. “and… they brought their pets over?”

technically, the slithery creatures around the house aren’t your pets, they’re literally parts of you, but does aventurine want to get into the details? not particularly.

“doctor, it’d be heartless of me to tell them to leave their pets,” aventurine chuckled, “it’s a long story. are these…?”

“i thought pets would do you some good. seems like your assistant has the same idea.” ratio passes the three cakes over to him. “here – from the space station.”

aventurine tells the especially thick leviathan on his neck to get off so he could hold the trash cakes

more like patting its body a few times until it got the signal and slid off of him

the cakes like him!

once he’s passed the sniff test, the cakes are all over him

they do remind him of someone, with those yellow eyes and grey… trash can(?) like body…

he holds them carefully, because unlike your creatures, he needs to hold onto these little guys

else they’d fall

invites ratio in while he’s at it, and he sits down to properly examine them

ratio watches aventurine for a moment, until your serpents catch his attention

oh, he’s so unnerved by them, but also…

he’s so curious! his scholarly senses are telling him to seize the opportunity!

are they really the same creatures as the ones depicted in the scriptures for oroboros?

how did aventurine get his hands on them? or rather, how did you get your hands on them?

and why are they so, so… docile, if they are really what he thinks they are?

what have you done!? how did you get them to be your pets?

his academic interest in you might have just skyrocketed

he engages in a staring contest with a creature with no eyes

somehow, somehow he just knows it’s a staring contest

he’s debating between approaching or not

they look like they would snap his neck before he could even react

“don’t try it, doctor,” aventurine warns, reading ratio’s actions from a mile away, “they’ll probably bite.”

“huh…” ratio makes a sound of pure wonder as he stands still, staring at the few noodles slithering over each other and scenting the air around him. “how did you tame them, then?”

“i didn’t.” aventurine shrugs as he plays with the new critters in his arms. “just sit tight, my assistant should be back soon.”

does that mean you’re the one deciding who gets to touch your serpents and who doesn't???

meanwhile aventurine has taken to the cakes from the space station

they’re so delicate and adorable, with their huge eyes and how stretchy they are

such a contrast to your huge serpents

your serpents are curious about them too, it seems

they keep trying to slither up aventurine’s legs

he has to keep pushing them down, all the while their maws opened and closed

trying to get a feel for the taste of these critters

not trying to outright eat them, just trying to get a taste

ratio is itching to just… grab one of your noodles

he can’t

how devastating

just then, the door opens with a click

“i’m home, aven.” you enter and practically throws your shoes off.

the sudden need to retain some semblance of formality in your home feels foreign to you now, but you’ve sensed someone else’s presence. it can’t be helped, even if the name aven feels odd on your tongue.

weird, aventurine usually runs out the moment he hears you

when you made your way to the living room, you see him and… some random guy?

said random guy looks like he’s into greek mythology?

is he like zeus or something

no, more like male athena or something

“oh, welcome back!” aventurine perks up as he lifts one of the cakes and shows it to you like a proud parent. “look at these little guys!”

your eyes never quite look away from the stranger, but you also dazedly take the critter into your arms. “this is…”

you immediately catch ratio’s eye – the way you carry yourself, the way the ends of your scarf seem to move on their own, and the way the few serpents find their way up your neck without so much as trying to touch the cake in your hands (even though they’ve been trying to taste it when it was in aventurine’s arms).

“veritas ratio.” he stands up before aventurine could introduce him and offers you a handshake. “you might know me as dr ratio of the intelligentsia guild.”

you stare at him without much of a reaction

his hand stays outstretched as he watches you expectantly

after a few seconds, you give his hand a firm shake and introduce yourself

you do know him, actually, you’ve read a few of his works

you quite liked his takes on philosophy and natural theology

he’s very insightful for a mortal

“can i help you?” you ask, because you don’t think ratio would bother talking to you if he hadn't been curious about something.

“your pets are most fascinating,” he gets straight to the point, “may i examine them?”

???

your pets?

the serpents?

you look to aventurine, who just turns away like he didn’t tell ratio those are your pets

you pinch the bridge of your nose and exhales exasperatedly

then again, perhaps calling them your pets is the best course of action right now

because the other option is spilling the beans about yourself

yeah

so… nice save, aventurine

you set down the critter in your arms on a nearby table and turn to face the doctor

“here.” you pick up one of your leviathans and guide it over to ratio. “they might do… things around you, but they won’t hurt you.”

ratio tries not to flinch when the heavy leviathan slither up his arm and coil around his neck loosely, but he winces and backs away slightly anyway. “how are you so certain?” he watches the creature with so much wonder as it scents him, then lifts its head so he can stare at it properly. or the other way around; so it can stare at him properly. who knows.

a healthy dose of cynicism is always good

it’s not like you don’t understand where he’s coming from

you shrug, because you really have no better answer without outing yourself

“i have them trained.” you say, but at this point you’re just pulling shit out of your ass

aventurine immediately covers his mouth to hide a snort

you shoot him a quick glare

you run a hand along its smooth body to show ratio that yes, he can touch them

its maw opens a little wider and drools a little onto the carpet

ratio carefully puts his hand on top of its head

it turns its head on contact and nudges against his hand

trying to scent the thing touching it (aka ratio’s hand)

but it doesn’t do anything other than what appears to be purely harmless scenting

could this possibly be the subject of his next paper?

“don’t think about it, doctor.” you cut him off the moment you see the telltale glint of academic interest in his eyes.

“i must disagree; they are of leviathan descent, are they not?” ratio asks, now caressing the big noodle with both hands and handling it with less hesitation than before, “this is of utmost significance; they might shed some light on the mystery of oroboros the voracity.”

you narrow your eyes at ratio

he doesn’t even try to prod around the subject, he just hits you in the face with it

as expected of such an erudite scholar, but still

(aventurine is watching the interaction with much interest while he plays with the cats)

(it’s like he’s enjoying the show)

(the remaining free serpents of yours has coiled up by his feet and fallen asleep)

(since they’ve realized aventurine doesn’t want them near the cakes)

you don’t want to bring too much attention to yourself, or your serpents

you don’t want things about oroboros to spread, either

in fact, you’re quite thankful to the enigmata and the ipc for heavily censoring them

“with all due respect, i refuse.” you do not allow any room for disagreement. “you are prepared to uncover the truth. is the rest of the cosmos ready?”

that’s not all of your argument, but the one you determine would be enough to keep ratio from conducting and publishing research about leviathans for now. oh, right – you’re not against ratio’s curiosity. you simply don’t want that curiosity to spread far and wide.

ratio frowns, not expecting such a swift rejection from you, but you do have a point. he’s a little blinded by his excitement.

your rejection sounds a little personal, if aventurine may say so himself

to ratio, it is very much just you being overprotective of your pets

as all pet owners do

to be fair, it’s hard to say. ratio is a sharp man

you stare at him, and he stares at you

the leviathan hanging on his neck tilts its head in confusion

if ratio is anything, he’s persistent

especially when it comes to knowledge

he opens his mouth to try to convince you again

you beat him to it and raise a hand to stop him from talking. “you can examine them for as long as you do not make publications.”

ratio is taken aback, his brows furrowing as you give him permission for further interaction with these descendants of ancient leviathans. this is your first meeting, so why –

in fact, aventurine is wondering the same thing

like, why are you getting along with the doctor so well when you’ve only met today

he’s not jealous or anything, he just has a huge question mark on your reactions

you’re usually very, very guarded against people who ask questions

especially about your scarf

but then ratio did see your serpents slithering around

perhaps you see no way of weaselling your way out of this?

anyway

if we’re being honest, ratio also has a huge question mark on your reactions

“i am a fan of your philosophical works,” you say, guiding your serpent back around you, “hence i am willing to satisfy your curiosity… provided you agree to my terms. think of it as an invitation.”

ratio takes a moment to mull over your words. to think that someone under the ipc has read multiple of his works, and has enjoyed them… is that why you are willing to compromise? but, well… you give him a feeling of a learned person. perhaps he will enjoy debating you.

“very well, that is good enough.” he nods, even if he still feels just a little bit disappointed, he’s anticipating a good back-and-forth with you already. “in that case…”

“i will let you know when i am free.” you sit down next to aventurine and let the critters on his lap crawl over to you and knead your thigh with their little paws. “and, doctor?”

it’s apparent to you that ratio has the same thought as you did when you decided to let your serpents drop their disguises at home. you glance towards aventurine next to you, then back at the doctor.

“thanks for the critters.”

#honkai star rail #aventurine #dr ratio #aventurine x reader #dr ratio x reader #ares's voracity pathstrider tales #honkai star rail x reader

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clockwayswrites · 1 month ago

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Cozytober Day 16: Facing fears

masterpost CW: referenced abalism

The water was cooling by the time there was a soft knock on the door frame.

“How’s my pruney boo doing?”

Danny hummed in response and pried open one eye to watch at Jason as he crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the tub. If he could have purred at Jason’s hand running through his hair, he would have.

“So you can absolutely just stay in the bedroom. I’ll bring you my tablet to use even if you want,” Jason said. “But if you want to come out, they’d love to meet you, words or no words. All of them know Cass, who’s even here today, and are used to her not always having words. I know it’s not the same with her as it is you, but I can promise they’re not going to judge you.”

Danny frowned. He wanted to believe that, he really did, but it was hard after today. His professor should have understood too. The problem was trying to explain that to Jason. He sighed and felt around until he found Jason’s other hand. He traced the familiar callouses as he took careful, measured breaths. He was fine. He was safe. He was relaxed.

“Asshole prof.”

“Shit, really? Want me to use my good name to ruin him? I’ll pull out the ‘Wayne’ card just for you.”

Danny laughed at that and pressed a kiss to Jason’s hand. “Maybe.”

“Just say the word. Or at least motion it really clearly,” Jason teased and dropped a kiss to the top of Danny’s head. “I’m going to go back out there, but you’re welcome to come out even if it’s only for a little bit. We have food on the way.”

Danny hummed his acknowledgment and gave Jason’s hand a squeeze before he pulled away. Once he had heard the door to the bedroom close, Danny gave in and pulled the plug to let the bath drain. He thought about what Jason had said as he dried off and dressed in a pair of his leggings and one of Jason’s massive hoodies.

Being introduced to Jason’s friends and family still scared Danny. But the cat was out of the bag, wasn’t it? They had seen him now and knew that he was Jason’s boyfriend. It didn’t seem really fair to let Jason deal with that all on his own. Danny didn’t know if he could be braved for himself, but he could be brave for Jason.

#dp x dc #dead on main #cozy dead

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damneddamsy · 2 months ago

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second sight | cregan stark x oc (part iii)

a/n: on today's episode of Stark Fluff, resident kook Claere visits the Wall and witnesses Northern justice, and lovestruck Cregan tries to learn Valyrian and gets jealous of the Crows

Summer snow in the heart of the North was a season of unyielding cold, where the land itself seemed to freeze beneath a heavy mantle of snow. The sky hung low and grey, reluctant to grant even a sliver of sun, while the wind howled through the stone walls of Winterfell, a biting reminder that the North held no mercy. Amidst the deepening frost, something warmer had begun to take root between Cregan and Claere Stark—an affection borne not of grand gestures, but of small, intimate exchanges that spoke louder than words.

For all her quietude and mystery, the Lady of Winterfell was in no way lacking in depth when it came to reciprocating care for her husband. She offered him a token of her trust, a fragment of her homeland—an elegant Valyrian steel dagger, its hilt wrapped in dragonhide, studded in jade, smelted from the ancient jewellery passed down from her grandsire, the king. She placed it into his hands one evening, her eyes averted, as though the act was more personal than she could bear.

"For your protection," she had said to him.

Concealing his astonishment, Cregan weighed the weapon between his hands and gave the dagger a twirl, deliberately exaggerated, flipping it neatly in the air and catching it with ease.

"A fine gift, princess. For my protection, is it?" Cregan asked, letting his tone take on a mischievous lilt. “But what if I prick my finger on it? Will that not cut me down faster than any enemy blade?"

Her eyes barely twitched, the ghost of a smile, though she quickly composed herself. "'Tis a poor fate to befell the Warden of the North."

Cregan grinned, clearly not deterred. "Ah, but think of it, princess. The songs they’d sing. The tales they'd spread. ‘Here lies Cregan Stark—felled not by sword or spear, but by his own sweet wife’s kindness.’"

He flourished the dagger once more, this time pretending to struggle with the spin, catching it just before it slipped from his hand. Claere’s eyes flickered, the faintest hint of something like amusement crossing her face, though it vanished almost as quickly as it came.

Cregan's grin widened as he gave the dagger one final twirl, his eyes sparkling with mischief. In a sudden, fluid motion, using her distraction as his upper hand, he reached out, grabbing Claere by the waist. Before she could react, he spun her around with stunning grace, pulling her close and setting the blade gently against her side.

Claere's violet eyes widened, not in fear, but in something far more difficult to decipher—curiosity, perhaps, or a faint tremor of excitement. The blade hovered against her ribs, cool and sharp, though Cregan wielded it with such care it felt more like a caress than a threat. The space between them had all but disappeared, the heat of his body pressing against hers.

“If anyone here requires protection,” he teasingly murmured, his breath warm against her ear, “it’s you. Not me.”

Her gaze stayed steady, unfazed, though the faintest flutter in her breath betrayed her. He never realized that her silvern hair was perfumed, a sweetness he could not pinpoint, maddening. Her posture remained unmoving and composed, slender hands grasping at his blade-bearing forearm.

“You think me vulnerable when I command the greatest strength in Westeros,” she finally said, her voice as calm as ever, though there was a hint of challenge beneath her tone.

He leaned in closer, the edge of the dagger still digging into her snug bodice. “Unless you mean to run to your dragon like a scalded little cat, princess. You cannot always hide behind your beast.”

Her lips parted as if to speak, but the words seemed to catch in her throat, her breath shallowing in the shared tension of the moment. The fire crackled softly in the background, the room growing still as Cregan’s grip on her waist tightened ever so slightly. How he was sorely tempted to close the last of the stretch between hem, to let his lips brush against the softness of hers until the cold North cannot separate them.

“And what of you, my lord?” she asked.

"What of me?" he breathed out.

"Can I run to you instead?"

His breath caught, and for a moment, the bravado melted away. He lifted the dagger, its hilt resting gently beneath her chin as he tilted her face to meet his gaze. His eyes, so often hard and stern, softened as he took in the sight of her, so close, so strangely unknowable.

“Always,” he promised, his voice barely audible.

It was said that the dagger gleamed proudly upon his sword belt the very next day, brandishing his gilded Valyrian glory like the dragonlords themselves had left their mark on him—no less intriguing than the woman he had married. It was a turn for the better in the northern lord. A man once shaped by duty and honour, hardened by the unforgiving land he ruled, Cregan knew how to lead, how to fight, how to protect. But Claere, with her violet eyes and sweet secrets, had changed him in ways not easily seen. She hadn’t softened him or drawn him from his duties—no, she had subtly unravelled him, like a thread pulled from tightly woven cloth.

Where once his thoughts had been consumed by Winterfell and its people, now they often lingered on her. And in thinking of her, he had begun to find a balance—between the weight of his responsibilities and the stirrings of something far more dangerous: the pull of his heart.

One cold morning, Cregan was in the yard, overseeing the training of new recruits, the frost-covered ground crunching underfoot, when the call came from a council member.

"A raven from Castle Black, my lord," the maester said, holding out the sealed scroll.

His brows were drawn in concern, and that alone set Cregan’s teeth on edge. Taking the letter, he broke the black wax seal with the direwolf sigil, his eyes scanning the missive. He read swiftly, his face hardening with each line.

"A matter concerning the Lord Commander?" He folded the letter and faced the concerned maester. "A dispute among the men, perhaps. He says something is amiss."

"Might you take Lady Stark with you to the Wall?" the maester suggested, hesitant.

"To the Wall..." he muttered, his thoughts reeling.

The idea of taking Claere to such a desolate, dangerous place—so far removed from Winterfell, from everything familiar—felt like madness. He couldn't picture her, with her quiet reserve and mysterious nature, fitting in among the men of the Night's Watch.

His jaw tensed further. His tone was sharp, almost defensive. "What use would she have there?"

But the maester held firm. "Lady Stark has already decided to fly her dragon beyond the Wall to hunt," he said, his voice measured, though a hint of concern lingered. "It may be wise for you to accompany her. The timing is fortuitous, my lord."

Cregan sighed, his chest tight. He had known for days now that this moment was coming, that Claere’s choice was set in stone. That beast had been restless for weeks. And Claere herself was determined to venture north, beyond the Wall, to hunt in the frozen wastes.

"It is inevitable," Cregan said quietly, more to himself than the maester.

His eyes darkened as the dragon's immense shadow soared above their heads just then, buffeting out a terrible gust over the castle, Claere riding high on Luna's back, disappearing into the clouds. He didn’t have a choice. This was unavoidable.

"Then we shall go together," he relented at last, his voice low.

The wind was biting as they rode north on their harrowing three-week journey to the Wall, their hot breaths visible in the morning air. Cregan rode beside Claere, their horses galloping in sync while the guards followed at a deferent distance. She had abandoned any appeals to ride in the warmth of a wheelhouse or even take to the skies on her dragon and fly ahead, preferring instead the unforgiving saddle at his side, in the cold. Though no one had questioned it, Cregan alone understood the motive behind her choice.

She wanted to be here—with him. The stillness between them was comfortable, the cold air nipping at their faces, only broken by the rhythmic sound of hooves crunching through the frozen ground. Cregan’s heart warmed beneath his layers of fur, his eyes briefly catching hers before returning to the path ahead. She wouldn’t ask for more, but in choosing the saddle, she had said enough.

It was not something Claere would ever say aloud, nor would she offer explanations, but he knew. Subtly her gaze lingered on him longer than necessary or the way she matched his horse's trot, never too far ahead or behind—there was charming purpose.

Claere tilted her head, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "You’re pronouncing it wrong again," she murmured, her tone soft but teasing.

"It was practically an echo," he defended.

"Say it again."

Cregan huffed, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth as he tried to repeat the phrase she had just taught him. Never in his life did he imagine he’d be learning High Valyrian on the way to Castle Black.

"Ānogar hen... zouldrīzes," he said, his Northern accent weighing down the syllables.

"Gentler. High Valyrian is spoken like silk, not iron. Here—" Her voice dipped into that fluid, irresistible cadence as she repeated the word. "Zaldrīzes."

He looked at her, taking in the way her wind-tousled hair framed her face, the subtle curve of her lips as they formed words from a language older than his line. She was still a mystery to him, but moments like this—when her guard was down, and they shared something as simple as language—felt like a step closer to understanding her.

"Ānogar hen zaldrīzes," he repeated, mimicking her softer tone this time, coming closer to her lilting precision.

"Much better," she nodded, her lips curving ever so slightly, the closest thing to a laugh he had coaxed from her in days. She had a way of teaching him that made it feel like time slowed, patient and unhurried, as though there were no wars, no winters to come.

Cregan shook his head, a quiet chuckle escaping him. "What the hell am I even saying?"

"Blood of the dragon," she replied simply.

He leaned in closer, his breath fogging in the cold air. "Go on. Teach me something more than that, something to certainly impress my fussy lady wife."

Claere’s cheeks pinkened slightly, though whether from his words or the cold he couldn’t tell. Her gaze lingered on his, the briefest flicker of mischief in those violet eyes as she seemed to consider his request.

"Sōnar māzis," she said at last.

"Sōnar māzis," he repeated, his Northern tongue struggling with the softer syllables, but he managed it with a proud grin. "And what might that mean, then? Did you just tell me to fuck off?"

Her faint smile deepened, her eyes glinting as she glanced at him beneath her hood. "Winter is coming."

Cregan raised an eyebrow, a hearty laugh bubbling out of him. "Impudence. So you’re teaching me my own words now?"

Her lips twitched, her gaze betraying a rare hint of humour. "I am only fulfilling my lord husband’s request."

"Well, your lord valzȳrys appreciates your patience," he said, the High Valyrian word for ‘husband’ falling from his lips with surprising ease.

Claere’s eyes twinkled with quiet amusement as she looked down, biting the inside of her cheek, though the smile lingered.

Cregan couldn't help but feel lighter. Even in the gruelling cold, the relentless wind cutting at their faces, there was a gaiety to these moments with her that made the journey easier to bear.

The road stretched endlessly before them, each night colder than the last. They stayed in small inns along the way as shelter—meagre tents were no place for a princess to stay in—tough dwellings where the air reeked of smoke and old ale, where the beds were too hard, and the cold seemed to seep into the shallow bones despite the hearths. Cregan had taken to having his men lock their chambers from the outside, an order issued firmly. It was not the home Claere knew, not Winterfell, not the strange, lonely halls where she roamed at night without restraint, eyes glazed, her body moving with a will of its own as if pulled by unseen strings.

And tonight was no different.

Cregan awoke to the soft thud of her knuckles rapping against the door, over and over again. The sound was soft at first, a gentle request. Please. He opened his eyes to the dim glow of the dying fire in the hearth, the familiar chill pressing against his skin despite the furs piled atop him. Please go. The knocking continued, persistent but hollow, as if she was beckoning something beyond the wood.

He sat up slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. Claere stood at the door, her silver hair tangled and tousled, her form almost wraithlike in the half-light of the room. She knocked again, her hand trembling. Please.

“Claere,” Cregan’s voice was hoarse from sleep as he swung his legs out of bed and rose to his feet. Again, and again, he thought in exhaustion.

She didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge him. She was lost in a dream. Her other hand rested on the door, her body swaying slightly as she mumbled something beneath her breath. It was a strange, disjointed whisper—words too faint for him to catch fully but they held an omen, a warning. He heard fragments.

The long night… shadows in the woods… they're coming...

His heart clenched, pity creeping up his spine. He hated to see her like this, trapped in some half-waking nightmare, her mind far away from him, from this place.

“Claere, come back to bed,” he called again, his voice softer as he crossed the room. When he reached her, he gently took hold of her hand, guiding it away from the door. She didn’t resist, but her eyes never fully opened, her lips still moving with broken words.

“It's coming for us, the cold dark,” she hummed a dire tune beneath her breath. “There is no light to flee to, no light.” Her voice trailed off, then her head lolled against his shoulder. "I need to see..."

Cregan’s grip on her tightened, his breath catching in his throat. There was always a touch of the uncanny about her, her Valyrian blood threading through her dreams like unclear rivers. The North held many ancient stories, and none of them were comforting. He feared these dreams were more than just the ramblings of a disturbed mind, feared she spoke of things deeper, older than he could understand. But he couldn’t let her drift further into the dream’s grip. Not here. Not now.

“Come, love,” he murmured, pulling her gently from the door and leading her back to the bed. His voice was calm, though his heart was pounding. “You’re safe here. There's no darkness. You're with me."

She didn’t oppose but obeyed him, her feet dragging slightly on the wooden floor as he guided her to sit on the edge of the bed. Her hands still trembled, her gaze distant as she continued to hum to herself.

“Winter takes them all. Ice… shadows in the snow… a frozen fire…”

Cregan sat beside her, his hands brushing the wild hair from her face. He forced a smile, blowing into her cold hands to warm them up between his. “The Long Night is far from us. You’ll see no shadows here. Only me.”

She was still caught in the web of her dreams, but his voice seemed to calm her. Slowly, her murmurs quieted, her head dipping forward into his chest as fatigue took hold. Cregan coaxed her softly, laying her back against the furs, tucking her in as if she were a child, her slender body looking far too fragile against the rails of the hard bed.

He sat there for a moment longer, watching her sleep, her breathing finally steadying. The firelight flickered nearby, casting long shadows over her pale face. His mind was far from at ease. Claere was no stranger to abnormal dreams, \but the words words she had spoken rattled him, more than he wanted to admit. It was as if the North itself whispered through her, the gravity of ancient things pressing down on her small frame.

Cregan ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. He despised this; containing her whims. But this was not home, these were unfamiliar lands, and the cold could swallow her whole if she were not mindful.

“Dreamy girl,” he whispered through a grin, though she was fast asleep. Wielding her languor, he leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, feeling the coldness of her smooth skin seep into his lips. He didn't want to pull away.

As they pressed on toward Castle Black, the weather only worsened—snow thickening, the path harder to tread. Their cloaks grew heavy with frost, and the icy air stung their skin. Yet through it all, Luna soared overhead, a silver cloud against the wintry sky, watchful and protective of her rider, as though even the beast understood that this journey required more than just fire and flight.

They rode side by side, close enough that their knees sometimes brushed, the subtle connection grounding Cregan as the world grew ever colder around them. Claere’s quiet presence had a way of making the stinging chill seem less wild, the wind less cruel.

At long last, after what felt like an eternity of braving the elements, the morbid outline of the Wall's ghost castles loomed ahead, the long gears of steel clanks running along the centre of the Wall that gleamed blue and crystalline in the sunlight. The miles-long, forbidding structure stood in stark contrast to the frozen wilderness, and Cregan felt a sense of grim duty settling over him once more. This was truly the edge of the world, and the sharp air seemed to echo that truth.

As they entered the courtyard through the hoisted gates, the Lord Commander, a grizzled, weathered man with a face lined by years of winter and duty, stepped off the barracks to greet them. His eyes landed on Cregan first, but they quickly shifted to Claere, widening in surprise. He had not expected to see her here. A Targaryen princess at the Wall was a rare enough sight, one they had not welcomed for ages, let alone the Lady of Winterfell. The presence of a woman, especially one so reserved and strange, stirred an undercurrent of whispers among the black-clad men watching from the shadows of the courtyard.

"Lord Stark," the Lord Commander greeted, his voice rough with age and the weight of command. His eyes darted again to Claere, his brows furrowing. "Princess… a surprise, indeed. Welcome to Castle Black."

"It's Lady Stark," Cregan corrected forthwith.

Claere remained the epitome of composure, her expression abstruse as ever, her violet eyes scanning the walls, the men, and the bleak surroundings. She was more out of place here than at Winterfell—there were no other women, and the Night’s Watch had not hosted nobility in quite some time, especially not one so mysterious, so… unflinchingly Targaryen.

Cregan alighted his horse, extending his hands to her waist in support, though Claere barely needed it. Her movements were nimble and deliberate. She landed beside him in a sweep of skirts, her gaze lingering on the Lord Commander for a moment before she offered him a slight curtsey.

"She is here to hunt beyond the Wall," Cregan explained, his tone casual though there was an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. "Her dragon will keep us company until our stay has ended."

The Lord Commander's lips tightened, his gaze flicking uneasily from Claere to the sky, where Luna circled like a silvern omen, roaring out deafening growls.

His gruff voice followed soon. "Aye, quite the companion. But, Lord Stark..." He hesitated, leaning closer, his voice dropping to a whisper, careful to keep out of Claere's earshot. "Taking a lady beyond the Wall, especially one unversed in the perils—it’s no place for her. Even my rangers can’t ensure her safety, with or without us. The risk is too great."

Cregan caught the underlying doubt, the old-fashioned notion that a woman, no matter her bloodline, had no business in the wilds. His jaw tightened, his grey eyes hard.

"My lady wife's mount is the White Dread," Cregan said evenly. "A dragon nigh as fierce as the one who scorched Harrenhal. Tell me again if you think she needs your rangers to protect her."

He stepped closer, his voice low and steady, but with the authority of the King in the North. "The decision is made. The Night's Watch may govern its own, but remember—these are Stark lands. These are my people. And my house honours the strength of all its kin."

The Lord Commander bristled but said nothing, merely nodding curtly. He understood the threatening significance of Cregan’s words—that the authority of House Stark in the North was conclusive, and any further protest would be taken as a challenge.

Cregan held his steely gaze for a beat longer before turning back to Claere, his hand relaxing protectively on the hilt of his sword. Luna’s shadow passed overhead again, a loud reminder of the strength she came bearing.

Claere remained silent, her attention focused elsewhere, though she could feel the stares around her. Cregan moved closer to her, his hand brushing her tensed spine in a modest gesture of reassurance, and though she didn’t react outwardly, he sensed that she took some comfort in it.

"Come along," he murmured to her.

As they made their way through the courtyard, the Night’s Watchmen continued to steal glances at Claere, awed and sceptical. But she walked beside Cregan with her peace, head held high as if she were oblivious to their scrutiny. He was accustomed to seeing this, it was the armoured expression she bore at home as well.

For all the severity of the journey and the stony welcome of the Wall, their moments only worsened. The Lord Commander had led them through the frozen courtyard, past the rookery, into another training square, towards a group of scruffy, tired men bound at the wrists. The air hung uneasily with tension as the three accused were lined up, their heads bowed beneath the weight of their crimes.

“They were caught plotting desertion into the wildling lands,” the Lord Commander grumbled to Cregan, his breath clouding in the cold air. “The punishment is death. We serve justice swiftly here, my lord, as you know.”

Cregan nodded, though his thoughts immediately drifted to Claere, who stood quietly by his side, her gaze already fixed on the bound men in the yard. She was observant, her violet eyes missing nothing, but Cregan wondered how she would react to what was about to unfold. Being a Targaryen, she was no stranger to violence—King’s Landing had certainly shown her enough of that—but this was different. The North demanded a harsher brand of justice, one that came without the pomp and ceremony of the South. Here, the punishment was raw and prompt.

His stomach tightened at the thought of her watching him carry out a beheading, especially so soon after arriving. But this was the North, and this was the way of things.

The Lord Commander’s eyes slid toward Claere, his tone lowering, a trace of something biting in his words. “You ought to carry it out soon enough. Thought it wise to inform you, seeing as you’ve brought your lady wife.”

There was an edge to his voice that didn’t go unnoticed by Cregan. The man was testing him—his pride clearly still stung from their earlier exchange—and now he was trying to make a point as if to say, You think she’s up to the task? Let her see the real cruelties of the world you boast of.

Cregan’s jaw tightened. He wouldn’t allow Claere to be disgraced in this way, nor would he let her be forced into witnessing something she wasn’t prepared for. But now that the challenge had been laid out, she could not very well step aside. It was a calculated slight, designed to unsettle them both.

Claere, however, made no indication that she had picked up on the tension. Her composure remained unshaken, her eyes briefly meeting Cregan’s before flicking back to the prisoners.

“The sentence will be carried out. We will see justice here tonight,” Cregan announced firmly, his voice collected, though a flicker of dread ran through him.

He glanced at Claere once more, his heart hammering beneath his furs. The Lord Commander might have forced his hand, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect her where he could.

The men to be executed were brought forth, their faces hollow with fear and resignation. The bound prisoners knelt before the chopping block, their breaths coming in fast, ragged puffs. The yard was eerily silent, all their dreading regards turning to Cregan as he stepped toward them.

But before he took his place to offer the verdict, Cregan turned back to Claere. There was a moment of hesitation in his gaze as he approached her, brushing a gloved hand across her arm in a subtle gesture. She turned her head slightly, her violet eyes meeting his in quiet question.

Without a word, he nodded toward his men, issuing a silent command. They understood him immediately. Two of his loyal lads stepped forward, their movements discreet, and gently led Claere a few paces away. Not far, but enough that her line of sight would be slightly obscured.

She didn’t protest, but she didn’t look away either. Her gaze remained focused, though Cregan could sense her tense scrutiny. She wasn’t afraid, that much was certain, but he wondered what she truly thought of the disparity between the judicious world of her ancestors and the brutal pragmatism of the North.

With one final glance toward her, Cregan turned his attention back to the condemned men, snivelling out pleas of mercy. Of words to be sent to their families.

His voice rang out over the yard, presiding over the murmuring men of the Night's Watch, commanding and final.

“Let it be known that your brothers have been found guilty of desertion and treason. By the laws of the North, and by the vows they swore, their lives are forfeit.” He inhaled a sharp breath, addressing the doomed men now. "I, Cregan of the House Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, sentence you to die."

The greatsword, Ice, glinted in the faint light of the yard, ready to deliver the mandate. Cregan lifted it high, the significance of the act pressing on him as it always did. He had done this plenty of times before. This was justice, and justice had to be done, but knowing that Claere was nearby, even out of his sight, made it feel different this time. He couldn’t explain why, but the feeling sat with him, solemn as Ice in his hands.

With a swift, practised stroke, the sword came down three times—with no leave—and the courtyard returned to its stern silence. Blood had strewed a good foot onto the frost, lifeless heads toppling and rolling off the blocks.

Cregan exhaled a long one, the tension slowly bleeding from his shoulders. He would have to shrug it off once again, take it like a king. Soon, the men's lopped bodies were gathered up to be torched in a lonesome procession.

When he looked up, he saw Claere watching him. Though she had been pulled back, her violet eyes lingered on him, as if mulling over what she had seen. He couldn’t tell if she approved or not, but in her inscrutable way, she didn’t seem disturbed. She simply was—a stillness in the storm.

After a moment, she gave him a slight, affirming nod, a gesture so small yet somehow momentous. Whatever had transpired between them, it had not shocked her.

But Cregan’s thoughts dimmed as he glimpsed the Lord Commander, who gave him a thin-lipped smirk of approval. He had gotten what he wanted, though it left a bitter taste in Cregan’s mouth.

As he sheathed Ice, his fingers brushed the Valyrian dagger Claere had gifted him. Soon her own gentle touch replaced it, having come to his side, sensing his apprehension.

"I apologize for what you had to bear witness," he said, cautious and quiet. "Did you look away?"

She shook her head in a silent response. A miserable sigh escaped him, proven right.

Yet when she risked a glance up at him, her gaze was calm, not a trace of concern there. "Your apologies go in vain, my lord. Justice is the same, no matter where it is served."

He hovered his hand near her cheek, aching to touch her, to find solace in her presence. But just as quickly, he fisted and dropped it. His hands, stained with blood and burdened with the affliction of the life taken, had no right to reach for her. Not now. Not when the bloodstained steel still lingered in his grip.

"Go," he muttered, stepping aside to make room for her. "Get warm. The captain will see you to your lodging."

Claere lingered for a heartbeat, her gaze fixed on him, wariness flickering in her eyes. But without a word, she complied, turning away and heading towards the wooden barracks, her form disappearing into the shadows of the dimming day.

The morning was bitterly cold, the early rays of sun barely cutting through the thick frost clinging to the stone walls. Inside the mess hall, Cregan sat at a long wooden table, surrounded by his guard and the timeworn members of the Night’s Watch. Plates of thick, greasy meat and stale bread were passed around, the clink of mugs and the low murmur of conversation filling the room.

Cregan stared at his plate, sleepless thoughts drifting back to the bloodshed of the night before. After that, Claere had been inconsolable, more jittery than usual, her sleep broken by quiet mumbles that filled their chamber, moaning and somnambulating once again, striking at the bolted door.

The Wall—its archaic, frozen weight bearing down on them—seemed to beckon her. It ground at her spirit, pulled at her, leaving him helpless beside her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the cold, endless stretch beyond was reaching for her, trying to draw her into its depths. All he could do was watch.

He had watched over her, lain awake, unable to rest. Every time she cringed and whimpered, he reached out, touched her face, and soothed her back to silence. But it was no use. Even in sleep, she was not at peace. All his strength meant nothing before her, not when the battle was in her mind.

The meal before him—charred meat, stale bread—was untouched. He speared a piece absentmindedly, his gaze fixed on the door. The hall grew quieter as Claere entered as if answered upon his call, her presence commanding the room in a way only royalty could.

She moved with an effortless grace, her dragonrider’s leathers of red and gold clinging to her like a second skin, a vivid flame against the bleakness of Castle Black. She was a fire in the heart of ice, a sight too bright for this grey, cold place.

It gnawed at him, the way they looked at her. Vows or not, they were still men—tempted, starving. He saw it in their eyes, the way they shifted, attempting not to stare but failing. Claere was unlike anything they had ever seen, no Northman’s daughter draped in modest furs or woollen layers. She was a dragon, forged in fire and blood, a queen among crows.

He hated it. Hated how they dared to want what was his. A furious wish flickered in him then. Let them see her as she truly was, as he sometimes did—the unnatural, quiet woman who spoke to shadows and sang her cruel songs. Let them think this radiant, untouchable creature mad. Better that than desire. Better fear than the thought they could ever have her.

He turned back to his plate, though the food had lost all appeal. His hands itched with the urge to reach for her, to pull her closer, claim her in a way that would leave no doubt in their minds. But he restrained himself.

She approached Cregan, her path instinctual. Without a word, she sat beside him, her hand reaching for a piece of bread—the only food she could stomach amongst the heavy, greasy fare. As she tore a small piece, a slight grimace creased at her brows. It drove all those farcical feelings of envy right out of his mind.

"Luna causing you too much trouble?" he asked, trying to make his tone light. He carefully unhusked a boiled egg and placed it beside her bread, pushing his little glass of goat's milk before her.

She poked her knife at the egg, as though she was too drained to even slice the egg herself. "I was too wearied to ride her this morning."

Cregan’s eyes flicked over Claere, her words lingering as they sat in the dim hall. He could feel her taut exhaustion, even if she masked it beneath her calm demeanour.

He felt a knot twist tighter in his chest. "You barely slept last night, and neither did I."

"Unfamiliar country," she reasoned.

He sighed, grazing his hand over her warm cheek and hair. Her sleeplessness was clear in the pallor of her cheeks, the faint circles under her eyes.

"I admire your resolve endlessly. There's no need to compel yourself, princess; and certainly no need to go chasing shadows and omens. It's not worth it."

Her eyes flickered—barely—but the ghost of a smile touched her lips, fleeting and strange. "You sound like her."

"Who?"

"My delirious mother."

He exhaled hard, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. "I fear losing you to whatever it is that rips at your mind. Past here, is a vast unknown. The world is dangerous enough without stepping into places best left forgotten."

Claere looked at him, her violet eyes undisturbed but faint. She was quiet for a moment as if considering her response carefully before she cut into the untouched egg on her plate.

"I am quite fine with danger, my lord. I have faced plenty under the guise of my uncles." Her words were barely louder than a breath, but there was a firmness there.

He would not have one bit of this. Cregan’s grip tightened on her hand, trying to ground her to the moment, to bring her back from whatever obscure force she felt. His gaze searched her face, looking for a way to persuade her otherwise.

"Please," he said; almost pleading. Would that not be a sight to behold, a begging Stark.

Her gaze lowered briefly, her fingers brushing his knuckles in a small, almost tentative movement.

“I know I’m not strong, not like you are,” she murmured, her voice meek, but unyielding. "But I must see what lies beyond. I feel it too keenly to ignore. It will not let me rest."

Cregan loomed atop the Wall, the winds cutting through his furs and coat of plates, but his intentions never wavered. His grey gaze tracked as Luna, immense and white against the grey sky, ascended higher and higher from the snowbound plains beyond Moletown.

He followed them, unblinking as Luna triumphantly soared overhead, without putting up much of a fight. The sheer size of her—vast leathery wings cutting through the air—was enough to make the ground beneath him tremble with an almost deafening rush of wind. He could almost sense her fire on his skin, a living furnace against the winter. Her wings stretched wide, casting a shadow that nearly engulfed this portion of the Wall whole, even the cold, old skeleton was dwarfed by her presence. The men around him were silent, awestruck, but Cregan’s focus was fixed solely on Claere. All he could think of was her—Claere, commanding that immense beast, a mere speck on its back, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, flying into the unknown, facing it all.

Until they became no more than a shadow against the vast expanse of the wilderness beyond. His jaw clenched, eyes squinting against the wind, every muscle tense.

"Perhaps it is best if we leave the vigil to the scouts, my lord," the captain suggested.

He tossed him a vague smile. "Aye, it would be."

The hours crawled on, the cold biting deeper as Cregan remained rooted to the lookout post, eyes fixed on the horizon. The guard and the Watchmen lingered nearby, wild and tense, but none dared to speak. The only sound was the occasional distant roar of Luna, carried on the wind like an augury. It was a sound that rattled through the Wall, but it gave no answers. Was she hunting? Fighting? In peril? Cregan could not tell. His mind conjured images of Claere lost in the belly of that icy void, surrounded by darkness from her dreams, beyond even the dragon's protection. His jaw clenched against the rising panic—he couldn't show it, not to his men, not to himself. Yet every minute stretched thin, a tightness growing in his chest as the sun slipped toward the horizon, casting the Wall in long, threatening shadows.

At last, as the sun bled into the sky, they finally saw it; both victorious rider and steed.

"Dragon!" someone yelled, out of the blue.

Cregan looked up from the little furnace that warmed his gloved hands, ardent grey eyes observing the skies.

Luna’s silver wings broke through the golden skies, finding the light, and cutting an immense curve against the darkening clouds. The dragon’s landing sent a gust of frigid wind over the Wall, roaring out a rattling growl, her claws digging deep into the ancient stone. Cregan exhaled out a visible gust of air, the breath he'd been holding in for a long time as Claere nimbly dismounted, scarcely before Luna was lighted. She moved without hesitation, her steps measured, calm—but her face was pale, and there was a strange detachment in her eyes.

Powerless to his dying reign, Cregan strode to her, his heart pounding, hands shaking as he drew her into his arms. The relief was almost agonising as it flooded him like some forgone part of him had clicked itself back into place. He caught her chin to press kisses wherever he managed; at her hair, nose, brows, and cheeks; even that did not sate him.

"Claere."

Her name was breath on his lips, but she remained still in his arms, her gaze distant, as if her body was here and her mind elsewhere. He grasped her tighter, embracing her empty face to his neck, unable to stop the trembling in his hands. She was safe, unharmed, but it felt like a hollow victory. Something was wrong.

“Nothing,” she whispered, so faint he would've missed it. “I saw no one. There was nothing.”

Cregan pulled back, searching her face. He had expected triumph, or maybe exhaustion—but not this. Her words hung between them, cold and hollow. Did she see something out there? Something too terrible to speak of? Or was it worse—was it the absence of anything that disturbed her?

“Nothing,” he echoed, unsure of what to say, but his voice trailed off as she finally met his gaze.

And then, softly, for the first time, between chattering lips and falling darkness, she spoke his name. Time and stars could've condensed into nothing, it could not stand to compare.

“Cregan,” she murmured, her voice fragile, her eyes unfocused. “I want to go back to Winterfell. I want to go home.”

The words struck him harder than any blade. She had never called it home before, never spoken his name with such tranquil verity. In all her shroud of menacing whispers and oddities, she was his. And now, in her own way, she was telling him that he was hers, that Winterfell was hers.

He cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheek, overwhelmed with a fondness he had seldom regarded before.

“We’ll go home, love,” he promised, his voice hoarse.

But even as he held her, felt her warmth, a part of him sensed that whatever she had seen—or hadn’t seen—had shaken her deeply. Yet she had crossed the Wall and succeeded where her own ancestors had failed. Her name would go down in history, forever bound to the White Dread. But she seemed only depleted as if the cost of that victory mattered more than any glory could lift.

Claere leaned into him, following intuition, her face buried in his chest as if seeking solace from the emptiness she had found. The mysteries beyond the Wall had not revealed themselves to her, and now, all that was left was to return to the warmth of home. The closest to that was her husband.

He laid a kiss over her braids, holding her close, and whispering, "Let's go home."

omg i figured out taglists:

@pearldaisy , @thatkindofgurl , @theadharablack , @cherryheairt , @piper570

thank you for your sweet comments! there's more to come <3

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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 10 months ago

Text

The Host | Yandere Zoldyck Family

“I’m so happy, we were able to locate the portal so quickly! Now you all can return to your world without breaking the space-time continuum!” You mused, happily sipping on the piping hot tea in front of you.

Whether you liked it or not, you wouldn’t have refused this cup. After all, it was specially crafted for and given to you by the reclusive Zoldycks. It was an honor—more like a miracle that you were being served an un-poisoned cup of tea.

You were used to prickly (read as: murderous) anomalies that were ejected into the aimless void of time. As per your occupation you housed and befriended said anomalies until it was time that they returned to their dimensions.

When you were selected at the end of your life for this position, the galactic overlords in charge assured you that this was a duty perfect for you. That no matter what, your tenants would find themselves comforted by you during their time there.

You begged to disagree even though none of your tenants had successfully ended your life yet. You prepared yourself for the day they one day would.

“Yes, it will be a shame to lose contact with a host as pleasant as you.”

Zeno smiled, closing his eyes as brought his own cup to his mouth. Letting a hand fall over your heart you silently thanked him. Another hand reached for you tearing your attention away from the former head.

“It is a shame your work keeps you so busy!” Kikyo cried, holding your hand. Gingerly running the pads of her fingers over your knuckles.

“Ah, but I feel as though I haven’t worked a day.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you like this job of yours?” The old man raised his brow.

“Of course! When I’m not hosting I’m free to do what I please and the guests that come by always make things interesting.”

Memories of the various visitors came to mind as you smiled; Kikyo puckered her lip in a pout. Her clutch on your hand had gotten slightly tighter, nothing alarming but noticeable.

“But don’t you feel overworked? Tired? Lonely?”

“There’s always the other people in the town.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have expected them to have any intelligible conversation.”

You dismissed the slight towards your community, it’d be impossible for her to realize their worth within the year. Granted they weren’t particularly strong or inquisitive; it wasn’t like they were built to be outstanding anyway. Nonetheless, they were kind to you and always understanding when it came to the guests. Not once have you needed to send a complaint to upper management. Everyone played their prescribed roles without fail.

“They can be really pleasant, once you get to know them.”

Zeno sighed, “So you say but I can’t imagine you not caring for them. You're always so forgiving.”

“Well…they have their flaws.”

“Ah! You’re too humble (Y/n)! The least they can do is honor your contribution to their pathetic lives!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Zoldyck but a cake every once in a while is good enough for me.”

“Ah! So simple (Y/n), it screams you no nothing of luxury!”

“Really I feel as though I’ve almost been overwhelmed with it with the Zoldycks here.”

“Please! If you could see the Zoldyck Estate in our world, you’d truly know luxury!”

You let her continue, chatting with her and Zeno, who occasionally chimed in. It was time to enjoy their company for they’d be gone before you knew it.

____________________________________

“Ne (Y/n)! Alluka wants to hold onto your jacket for a bit is that alright?”

“Oh? I barely noticed I left it behind but sure.”

You continued to walk side by side with Killua making your way to your destination. The wind was cold. Wisping at your cheeks and nose as you mesmerized yourself with the smoky puff your breath made. Catching cat-like blue eyes watching you with amusement you stopped, replacing it with an embarrassed smile.

He snickered. “What? Don’t stop on my account.”

“Oh Killua you're the only kid that makes me feel like a silly child again.”

“Eh?! You make it sound like I’m the reason you’re just childish anyway.”

You playfully hummed. “Hm. Maybe I am.”

You shared a laugh before letting your eyes begin to wander. Looking past the trees of the park to admire the clouded sky blending into the freezing lake. Despite having walked this path millions of times before, it never failed to take your breath away. Making you sigh in awe, you minded the frozen droplets hanging off the naked branches; looking as though they were a part of some artist’s canvas.

Even the rosiness that danced at your cheeks brought by your body’s attempt to warm you in the frigid season, felt magical in its own right. It was easy to lose sight of your path as your feet remember the way; allowing you to drift.

But before you could go too far the warmth of another hand-a smaller hand in your pocket brought you back. Looking down in surprise at the blushing owner looking away from you. You chuckled intertwining his smaller, rougher hand with yours as you walked with a pep in your step.

“I-I’m just keeping my hand warm. Where I’m from it never gets this cold.”

You smirked. “Sure!”

You didn’t believe him and he knew that. But that wasn’t the point anyway.

“You two seem to be getting along well.”

The monotone voice stopped the both of you in your tracks. Standing in a slim-fitted insulating jacket was the eldest of the Zoldyck children. Standing precisely on the crack in the sidewalk he demanded you meet at. You didn’t miss the annoyed click of Killua’s teeth. Or the blank foreboding stare directed at a specific pocket of yours.

“Yup, Killua offered to walk me to our meetup spot. If you’re alright with it, I wouldn’t mind if he came with us.”

Illumi robotically tilted his head, his eyes still trained on the same spot it had been focused on since he started watching you.

“I doubt Kil would find any enjoyment in where we’re going.”

Killua's eye twitched. “Oh? Where are you going?”

“Somewhere for adults, I’m sure you’d find it boring.”

“Really try me,”

The two intensely held each other’s gaze, vaguely conveying that this may need your intervention. With a well-timed sneeze, you might have saved yourself and the whole park from their ‘playful’ exchange of blows. Illumi seemed to back down first stepping closer to your unoccupied side where he waited for his brother to leave.

Said brother didn’t look all too convinced. Squeezing his hand in yours brought his attention to you, already smiling in silent reassurance.

“Hey, take care of my sweater for me ‘kay.”

The silent message was heard as Killua, who begrudgingly released your hand from his hold. With a final glare towards his brother, he’d begun to leave, watching as you turned and waved to him as he went. He also watched as his brother slipped his hand into your opposite pocket. With a final click of his tongue, he moved at speeds practically impossible for the human eye back to the apartment you’d organized for him and Alluka.

Making your way wordlessly out of the park, finally stopping within the toasty insides of a ceramics shop. With the unmolded clay in front of you and the guide having finished their instruction, you finally giggled at Illumi.

“I’d hardly call ceramics an adults-only event.”

Illumi didn’t laugh, he didn’t even look up from the shape he was focused on molding.

“I would. He isn’t a part of this so it isn’t bizarre for it to be considered an adult event.”

You decided to keep quiet about the toddler two tables down. Instead, you poked your head over the assassin’s shoulder to see what he was making. Glad you hadn’t started working on your own creation, you pulled back the raven locks that were spilling dangerously close to his work in progress.

Missing the slight stutter of his fingertips as he registered the soft, gentle hold of your fingertips he continued. Opting to focus solely on his creation with more intensely.

“I’m so glad I brought a hair tie for this exact moment.”

“...if you don’t hurry up your clay will dry and your money will go to waste.”

“Ah. So money conscious.”

Finished with a nice low ponytail, you scooched back into your seat; prepared to begin your own creation. Sparing a glance at Illumi, you expected he’d be laser-focused on his work but instead he was staring at you unapologetically. While you found this wasn’t uncommon for him it didn’t change the fact that it was still odd.

“So uh what are you making?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’m just asking, are you worried I’ll make fun?”

“My finished product will be more than enough to answer you, right?

“I guess so.”

You had an inkling of worry that he’d create something graphic and horrific. But you had to remind yourself: he wasn’t Milluki. Who unapologetically, on multiple accounts, scarred surprised you with animal entrails, graphic posters, and concerning digital art that bore striking resemblance to you.

Speaking of striking resemblance…you had a glorious idea.

____________________________________________________

“So…what is it?”

You hated to ask but you had to. The ceramic resembled the bare requirements of a face colored by a paint color akin to your skin tone. Somehow when you turned your head to the left side you saw a screaming face but when you turned your head to the right it looked as though it was smiling.

“....”

He just stared at you blankly (as he usually did) but you could tell there was something unfamiliar. He turned his head away from you as he reached for his creation back.

“If you can’t tell than it shouldn’t matter.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, I’m sorry!”

You held the…thing in your hands with care as you bore witness to the rare sight of an embarrassed Illumi.

“Even if I don’t know what it is I think it’s beautiful in its own right.”

“Don’t lie its unbecoming of you.”

“I’m not lying!”

You let him snatch it from your hand and tuck it in his pocket. Smiling to yourself, you found comfort in that he didn’t immediately toss it into the trashcan by the doorway. Catching up with his quick pace you held you’re wrapped creation to your chest.

“I would like to continue on now.”

“Don’t just sweep it under the rug! It’s all about growth.”

_____________________________________________

“Here you are Kalluto!”

He was doing what you had suggested: finding his own style. Alas, he still found himself taking the most buried articles of clothing from your closet and posing in the mirror. If you had noticed you didn’t say much, when you let yourself into the room he’d been given.

“I made it just for you.”

The vase had a pink hue, with speckles of purple. He liked it but he was curious why he was gifted this.

“I based it off the color of your eyes. I saw the shade being offered and I thought it’d be a perfect souvenir for you.”

His cheeks were overtaken by a hot crimson as he gingerly accepted the small vase. He loved it! Holding it close to his chest he almost missed the presence of his eldest brother outside his room. Judging by the slim-fitted jacket, his hat, and his pointed stare at the gift itself told Kalluto everything he needed to know. So that was his decision, for his day out with you? The ceramics shop?

The image of you crafting something while smiling along with him. Hands touching one another while you both crafted something beautiful. Your attention solely focused on him.

He’s so jealous.

“Thank you. It looks beautiful.”

“ I’m so happy you like it! I was worried I wouldn’t get the color right but looking at you now I see I’m right on the mark.”

Kalluto’s cheeks never changed from heir red color, causing him to tuck his head into the collar of the shirt he stole from you borrowed. Sending a cautious look at the figure in the doorway he took a gamble. He put the vase down, quickly moving to nestle his head into your stomach almost immediately having your arms wrap around him. He didn’t bother locking eyes with the observer, instead pretending to be fully enveloped by your attention.

If he did have a problem, Kalluto could argue that his time with you was limited. Therefore nothing was off the table. Not when their access to you would be gone forever. He’d rather it not be that way.

__________________________________________________

“Silva.”

The call of his wife had the current head of the Zoldyck family, wordlessly asking what she needed. Nonetheless, he responded in kind.

“Kikyo.”

The two of them were seated a ways apart from one another each sipping on their respective drinks as the candles slowly burned.

“We need to talk about (Y/n).”

“What is there to talk about?”

He knew what she wanted to talk about. Those of any authority within the Zoldyck family already had a gray consensus about their host. All that was needed was definite words, so that they could be a united front on the subject.

“On the topic of (Y/n) coming with us.”

Silva crossed his arms.

“We cannot.”

“Why not? All of us like them! They show promise in maintaining the family, they’ve even convinced Kil to come home more often!”

He wanted to grit his teeth but he didn’t. Only brought his cup to his mouth for a pensive sip.

“No, they’d never survive training. Let alone our world in general.”

He maintained his composure as he parroted Zeno’s consultation. Even as his wife slammed her own cup on the tray and opened her mouth to protest. He knew she’d ask because he had asked.

“Mr. Silva. Is it okay if I call you that or would you rather it be Mr. Zoldyck?”

It amazed him that such a meek, small, weak host would have made him even consider bringing you along with them when they returned. Their host couldn’t be farther from them brimming with compassion and mindfulness that brought out a side the family had long since fought against.

It shouldn’t have enamored them as it had. But it did. Leaving everyone in the family vying for their attention. With them the family’s prowess in killing meant nothing and it didn’t do any favors in garnering positive response.

But it was for that exact reason Zeno mused that they’d never fit in the Zoldyck family. Even if they chose the route of marrying you into the family it would diminish your time with the everyone. Favoring the one they’d marry over all others. It’d be so unfair

“Husband, this opportunity to attain a sliver of another world would benefit the Zoldyck family! Even more so as a tenant or as a servant under all our care! It wouldn’t impede the family’s strength and their rules to serve would make them an asset to explore.”

“And have them reach a butler’s strength alone. At their level?”

Kikyo hung her head covering her visor with her hands as she resisted the urge to weep. Silva refused to look at her, focusing intensely on the still liquid in his cup. The pain in this revelation was mutual.

“Mr. Silva, did you go to aquariums when you were younger?”

“For missions.”

“What about on your own?”

“What would be the purpose of that?”

“I don’t know, to see the animals. To learn about them.”

“What use would learning about these animals do? If there is no time that I’ll be within their biome it would do nothing for me to retain this information.”

“Isn’t it nice to just be in awe though? To just fathom loosely about the world we barely have begun to discover?”

The image of their excited face illuminated by the tank was the moment Silva��s first felt that emotion. It reminded him of meeting Kikyo, of having his heir, of establishing a budding lineage. He learned that feeling was better not left ignored for it could very well determine the safety of the ones he felt it for.

He’s seen it in his children, in all his children, so he could only see what he could control spiraling for the others. He could only think about the repercussions for when they returned home. There’d be no way to cull it easily; with you being literal dimensions apart.

Kikyo’s sulking stopped abruptly her hands folding to sit on her lap.

“Perhaps there is a way to bring them without breaking the rules.”

Blue eyes look at her expectantly.

“The Zoldyck’s have not encountered anyone worthy enough to consider adoption.”

“Adoption?”

“Yes, the process hasn’t been used within the family before…if it were to be implemented–” There was something hopeful within her voice and a twitch of a smile on Silva’s lip.

“Then the rules that qualify the one adopted would be entirely up to the head of the family.”

Silva attempted to resist the smile that spread across his face, as he leaned back onto his hand. How apparent would it be that their host had such an impact on them since they left the mansion? But even so, this was proof that they should have their host after all.

“I’ll have to check with Zeno…but perhaps it might be a veritable solution.”

____________________________________________

You were glad you spent the night before sobbing your heart out. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to smile through the Zoldyck’s goodbyes. Granted none of them, except for Kalluto and Alluka, were even close to shedding a single tear. Nonetheless, you hugged them all trying to calm yourself.

The otherworldly energy spewing from the portal never made you nervous before and yet your hair was standing on end. Your tolerance for fearful situations had decreased significantly as you got to know the Zoldyck family but it never completely went away. You weren’t an idiot.

They were a family of assassins.

It’s foolish not to expect threats on your life at every other turn. But this had an effect on you on a deeper level than that. This was more unsettling.

Was it the amount of place-holding spirits killed during their stay? Or the physical planet of this dimension lurching as it coughed up one of the most murderous families to stay here? Or was there something wrong with the integrity of the dimension itself?

You were tethered to the realm and it was tethered to you. For the most part, it only means you have a loose idea of what’s to come with the weather or an effect on a guest’s actions. But in times of dire situations, you’ve had the world reach out to you. At this point, you were already looking for a sign.

But that wasn’t your main focus not when the younger ones were keeping you occupied. Hanging on your arms were Alluka and Killua; the latter was playfully mirroring the former.

“Aw (Y/n)! We’ll miss you so much!”

“Yeah! We’ll miss you soooo much!”

“Ah Killua at least you could pretend to be serious about this.”

Spying Kalluto a ways off clutching the vase you had made him you gave him a small smile.

“This relocation didn’t turn out to be a complete waste.”

Milluki spoke up, unabashed as he pulled along a cart of all his anime and gaming memorabilia. You could see the invisible sneers of disgust from majority of the family, Killua didn’t even bother hiding his.

“For once I’d agree,” Illumi chimed sending a bottomless look in your direction. “There were plenty of…unexpected trades to learn in a world devoid of hunters.”

“Thank you?” You shrugged.

Zeno let out a chuckle putting a thoughtful hand on your back.

“I think all of us in the Zoldyck family have learned quite a bit.” You had to fight the tears now.

“For that we thank you.”

The entirety of the Zoldyck family bowed to you, leaving you to fight tears at the demonstration of respect and love they had for an average-dimensional host. Fanning at the water building up in your eyes you bowed and thanked them yourselves.

“You guys! Get over here and give me hugs!”

You made sure to hug every member of the family even if they made unsettling comments as you did Milluki.

Getting the timing perfectly right the portal opened to its full size, the electric blue illuminating everyone’s faces. You could smell the atmosphere of the Kukuroo mountain and the forest upon it. All that was left to do was for them to enter.

“Alright now as stated before time has only been an hour in your world. Now you will be coming down from the sky but I’m sure you all will manage.”

“Thank you for everything (Y/n).”

You bowed your head to the patriarch missing the devious glint in his eyes.

“Of course.”

Starting with Silva they each dove into the portal, leaving you to stand by yourself in the field of sunflowers selected as a gateway. Turning away from the flashing portal you could finally address the world’s message for you. The surrounding grass began to lay down unnaturally, spelling out a word.

“They–”

You bent to down watching as the green blades folded into more words, filling your heart with trepidation as it spelled slowly.

“--will not–”

The blades continued to fold slowly as the sunflower stems frantically sprouted from the ground. Not bothering to wriggle free from the stems wrapping around your wrists, you tried to hurry the world’s spelling. Why did you feel like you needed to rush?

“-let you go–? Wait what the he-”

Before you could finish a translucent, glowing, and golden dragon, like one from Japanese folklore came out of the portal. Wrapping around your entire body it skillfully carried you into the shrinking portal. Only stopping for a short time to wriggle free of the sunflowers that were simultaneously pulling at your limbs.

Now on the other side of the portal, you were being pulled backward. Your front looking at the endless sky watching the portal shrink and close, slicing the desperately reaching sunflowers and their stems.

Something within you seemed to break but before you could dwell on that you finally tried to register what was going on.

“AHHHHH!”

Diving with you in it’s coil the dragon was rocketing in the direction of a mansion. All you could do was hold tight as the dragon slowed to a stop. Gently letting you lie on the floor, taking a moment to ground yourself you barely registered the booming voice.

“Congratulations (Y/n), you’ve been inducted into the Zoldyck Family.”

“W-what?”

“As the adopted of the Zoldyck, you’re duty to the family is to be protected and to participate in the family to the best of your limited abilities.”

“Wait—”

“Per your lack of Zoldyck blood, your title as the adopted is willing to change for the family’s convenience.”

“HOLD ON!” You stood up fully holding your shaking hands out as you began to process what this would mean. Before you can get a word in Kikyo runs up to you, shoving your head into her chest as she rocks your unsteady form.

“Rejoice my (Y/n)! Now for all the care you’ve given us, we get to take care of you!”

“Mother, you’ll smother them.”

“Ah big brother, don’t need to get jealous I’m sure you’ll get your turn.”

“I know that.”

Unable to speak or look too far away, you felt Alluka and Kalluto grab at your pant legs. No doubt they glared at one another as they vied for your attention.

“(Y/n)!” ”(Y/n)!”

Being no help at all Killua wasn’t too far behind, ”Oi don’t hog them all.”

Whether it was the exhaustion of dimensional travel or losing air within your mother Kikyo’s breast. Beginning to lose consciousness you could barely make out the ghost of a smile on Silva’s face. Zeno withheld no courtesy, smiling happily as he turned away.

After all, you were home with them. Where you belonged.

Surely the Zoldyck family could handle the dimensional repercussions of claiming their host.

963 notes · View notes