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cheryblossomdreams · 4 years ago

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A Discussion About Dramione

This is a very difficult ship in the HP fandom, alongside others like Drarry etc.

However, I think there is something to be said for it regardless, since I’ve seen a lot of anti-Dramione content with some valid points and a lot of non valid ones too, so I suppose I’d like a try my hand at rebuking some of them.

1. Dramione shippers romanticize abuse and bullying.

At first glance, it certainly looks that way. Draco Malfoy was a racist, petty, spoiled bully that jumped on every opportunity to bully Hermione Granger and her friends. He is not a good character. In the Dramione fandom, no one claims he is a good character either. Instead, the Dramione fandom recognized the canon potential for change in Draco and uses that to shape their fanfics. The largest majority of the fandom (There do exist those really young fans that don’t quite yet understand everything that will blindly defend him or create extremely problematic fanart, but they are truly a minority) acknowledges entirely all the wrongs Draco has committed, and they are many. Actually, in most Dramione fics, the writers go to great lengths to process the part of DHr’s past that was filled with hatred and insults. You can find examples of this in the fic Measure of a Man by @inadaze22. Also to the point, most of Dramione fanfiction is written and set in a time many years after the War, after their school years, where they’ve both grown, matured and become adults, changed by time and what they went through, so it is a null point to say Dramione shippers romanticize bullying when their content is almost always set in a time where Draco is no longer a bully and Hermione is no longer a victim.

What the Dramione shippers like to emphasize is the fact that even though Draco used to be a horrible person, he had changed and grown past that, owned up to his mistakes and is now a different man. That’s what the stories they write are about. He had the potential to change already established in canon that he used later through his life to become someone better Hermione could eventually forgive and love.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a Dramione shipper that would say that while they were still in school they should’ve gotten together. Absolutely not. The content most of the Dramione fandom creates is always set post-canon, at a time where Draco’s changed and grown up from who he used to be, and Hermione recognizes his change and forgives him.

She certainly doesn’t have to forgive him, she doesn’t owe him anything, but part of Hermione’s bravery and overall character is that she would have been able to forgive him when she realized he’d changed. Plus, he saved her best friend’s life at a critical point in the war and, even though he did nothing to help her because he literally couldn’t have, which is something I’m pretty sure Hermione would have been grateful for, even a little bit.

The Malfoy family saved Harry’s life TWICE in HP, in both extremely critical moments in the war (Draco lying at the manor, Narcissa lying to Voldemort), which is something Hermione wouldn’t have been able to just ignore and pretend like it never happened, because that’s not who she is.

There probably is a very small percent of the Dramione fandom who create problematic content, but every fandom and every ship has toxic shippers, besides they are simply not the majority.

2. Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem Draco.

The redemption arc Draco got in HP is extremely flimsy at best, especially considering the amount of damage he’d done prior. He saved Harry’s life, yes, but he did nothing to protect either Ron or Hermione, so personally I wouldn’t harp on about that being much of a redemption arc at all. However, I don’t think any Dramione shippers use Hermione to redeem him. In the Dramione content the things he did wrong and the hurt he inflicted is something Hermione recognizes and then, through the story, eventually chooses to leave behind. Besides, she doesn’t have to redeem him, since we know from canon he’d grown out of his beliefs eventually, privately at least if not publicly (more on this later).

3. Draco had a choice in how to act, if he really didn’t believe in blood supremacy.

No, he didn’t. Let me break it down why.

When he was 11 years old and first coming to Hogwarts, he was too young to understand the beliefs his parents ingrained into him were wrong and harmful, he simply didn’t have the mental capacity to comprehend that. He was a child that hung to every word their mom and dad said and he acted accordingly.

As he grew up though, started going through puberty and maturing, he would’ve realized that blood supremacy is wrong. Let’s say this realization came when he was 14. Lucius and Narcissa weren’t with him at Hogwarts, so if he changed his behavior to reflect his new realizations, they wouldn’t have known, right?

WRONG.

Do you really mean to tell me that if Draco Malfoy, only son and sole heir to the Malfoy family, an extremely wealthy, influential family in the Wizarding World and its politics, part of the sacred 28, well respected and with a high status in society, suddenly started being kinder and friendlier to Muggleborns and Halfbloods, people wouldn’t talk? People wouldn’t wonder, get suspicious? That such news wouldn’t reach his father, who’s got eyes and ears everywhere (evident by the fact he was able to bribe someone in Hogwarts to buy his son a position on the Quidditch team). And how do you think Lucius Malfoy, a devout Death Eater, would have reacted to receiving such news? What do you think would have happened to Draco when he came home that summer?

Draco was never abused and I doubt Lucius would start then, but I am positive he would’ve been disowned, for betraying the values his family had upheld for centuries. Lucius is a staunch blood purist and he absolutely would cut all contact with his son (disown him) when news reached him Draco was making nice with Muggleborns and Halfbloods.

And Draco knew this, he knew how strict his father was, he knew how deeply he believed in blood supremacy and he knew the consequences for stepping out of line and being anything less than the perfect son.

What would a 14-year old kid do being disowned? Homeless essentially?

So, even if he had realized the wrongs of his beliefs and renounced them, he couldn’t have done that publicly, and certainly not with Hermione Granger or Harry Potter much less, seeing as Harry Potter is the nemesis of the man his father believes in.

By the time he reaches 15 and 16, Voldemort is already at full power again and living in Draco’s house. Now things get even worse. After Lucius fails to get the Prophecy in the Department of Mysteries, Voldemort decides he has to punish him for his failure by having Draco take the Dark Mark. By this point, Draco had abandoned ideas of blood supremacy, but at this point, what the fuck is he going to do? Refuse The Dark Lord? The Darkest Wizard in all of Wizarding History? The guy who is living in his house AND holds the lives of him AND his entire family hostage? Who could and would murder Draco’s mother and father and Draco himself if Draco disobeyed? The man who murdered a person right on Draco’s kitchen table and had Nagini swallow them whole?

Even if all of that wasn’t true, and it is, how’s a 16 year old kid going to fight off a house full of seasoned Death Eaters, proficient at the Dark Arts who will use Unforgivables on him, plus Voldemort himself, plus a giant terrifying snake?

At that point, Draco is left with literally zero choice but to take the Mark and obey his mission to murder Dumbledore.

He hatches several plots to kill Dumbledore, all of which fail. When they stand at the Astronomy tower, even Dumbledore himself calls all of his plots halfhearted and weak. Dumbledore offers him help, but Draco is very clear in his regret of the things he’d done and the fact there’s no going back now.

‘I have to do this, I have to kill you, or he’s gonna kill me.’

AND

‘What do you know about me? I’ve done things that would shock you.’

(I’m paraphrasing here, these aren’t the exact quotes).

At which point Snape shows up and kills Dumbledore in Draco’s place because of the Vow he made to Narcissa.

Any way you look at it, he really didn’t have any choice, even if he did at some point during school renounce his beliefs and grow past them.

4. He tried to kill Ron.

I’ve seen antis blame Draco for this one, which is a bit ridiculous. He did not. He had madam Rosmerta poison a bottle of wine, which he sent to Horace Slughorn, hoping Slughorn would pass it onto Dumbledore. Filch hadn’t noticed any traces of poison in it, because he is a Squib, he also didn’t doubt a shipment from Rosmerta, and so he just gave it to Slughorn. Slughorn kept it around and then later he was the one to offer Ron a glass of that wine. In Draco’s plan, Ron wasn’t ever even mentioned nor included in any way. It had been an unlucky coincidence for Ron, and Draco couldn’t have possibly known that Slughorn would hold onto the wine, that Ron would ever be around Slughorn OR that Slughorn would offer Ron that same wine. Sufficed to say, Draco never attempted to murder Ronald Weasley.

5. He did nothing while Bellatrix tortured Hermione.

We’ve been over this, what could he have done? He had saved Harry’s life earlier, but that one lie couldn’t of spared Ron or Hermione, their faces were too recognizable, even if Harry’s wasn’t.

A room full of Death Eaters, some of the cruelest, most dangerous ones mind you (Bellatrix Lestrange) and he’d be 17, if I remember correctly, still not even an adult, plus at this point in the war even more powerless (considering the fact the Malfoys had fallen out of favor with Voldemort, evident by the fact Lucius tells Draco that if they deliver Harry Potter to Voldemort, all would be forgiven).

What did you expect him to do? Leap into battle and try to fend off dozens of Death Eaters, effectively betraying the Dark Lord in the process and single-handedly getting his entire family killed, if not even himself?

Would you have done that? No, of course not.

6. Draco Malfoy is not redeemable.

Now Draco’s “redemption arc”, if it can be called that, is a powerful moment but it’s flimsy. JK didn’t really ever intend for him to be redeemed or liked either, but let’s take a look at it anyways.

It is canon that Draco stopped believing in blood supremacy at some point during their school years, though we can’t know exactly when.

How can I say this, when his behavior never indicated that?

Well, I’ve already been over why he couldn’t have suddenly changed his behavior, now let’s go through how I can claim it is canon.

The scene where Draco lies to everyone about Harry’s identity.

That moment could only exist IF Draco didn’t believe in blood supremacy anymore.

Think about it, if Draco was devout to Voldemort and his beliefs like his father, he would have had no problem or conscience to tell everyone ‘Yes, this is Harry Potter, hand him over.’ It would have been favorable to him if Harry died.

And let’s be clear, if Draco had said the truth in that moment, Harry would have died. He was captured, wandless (his is broken, when they escape the Manor he steals Draco’s), Ron and Hermione captured as well, he was entirely helpless and surrounded by powerful Dark Arts wizards and witches who would lead him directly to Voldemort the moment they got confirmation it was indeed him and that would have been it. Voldemort would have killed him. Voldemort would have won.

But that isn’t what happened.

Draco looked at Harry, recognized it was him (evident by a later scene where Harry straight up says that. “Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me, you didn’t say anything.”) and at first, still unsure what to do, asked why Harry’s face was like that, and he’s told Harry just came in like that.

Draco says “I’m not sure.”

At that point Lucius grips him and tells him that if they gave up Harry Potter to Voldemort all would be forgiven, Bellatrix brings him closer to get a second look.

Draco knows all the consequences of what he’s doing at this point, he knows what he’s risking, the literal lives of everyone he loves, and what does he do?

He still lies.

‘I can’t be sure.’

It’s a powerful moment for his character, BUT it’s not enough for redemption. The amount of pain and hatred he’d spewed for 6 years (I say 6 years because The Golden Trio wasn’t attending Hogwarts for year 7) is not redeemed by this one instance. His actions, letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts, likely torturing people on command of the Carrows in 7th year, are not redeemed by this moment, even if he did save Harry’s life.

However, though this instance doesn’t constitute redemption, it is telling of the fact Draco has changed, and changed significantly from the hateful, angry, spoiled, racist brat he used to be, which gives him potential to grow up into a different, better man.

Whether JK intended it or not, the way that was written makes Draco Malfoy more than redeemable, if not for the duration of the books, then later through his life.

Being a horrible person at one point in your life does not make you forever evil, does not mean you can not ever change. To prove this, I’d like to humbly request you to watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSH5EY-W5oM

Voldemort’s regime is very similar to Hitler’s Nazi movement, so this video is very fitting to my point and HP in general.

Here’s another three:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0vS0qvYo0&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4gly9n9RBo&list=TLPQMTcxMjIwMjBZfqJdkbbQJw&index=3

If you don’t have time to watch, let me sum it up for you.

The first video chronicles the story of a man who’d been part of the Neo-Nazi movement, managed to leave it behind and become an activist and overall an amazing guy now.

The other three links chronicle the story of Daryl Davis, a black man who’d attended KKK rallies and even met with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK Roger Kelly, somehow despite all odds became friends with him and eventually managed to get through to Roger Kelly to the point where this man (The leader of the KKK on a national scale) stepped down from his position and left the Ku Klux Klan.

That’s real life, something like that happened, truly happened, but Draco Malfoy is irredeemable?

PLUS, Draco is hardly the first case like this.

Take James Potter as an example. James was also a rich, racist, privileged white boy, and a bully. He’d bullied Snape severely, even set up a “prank” with his friends that would lead to Snape getting attacked by a WEREWOLF, putting him in mortal peril, with great potential of killing him, that required then a rescue operation.

James attempted murder, or if you don’t want to go that far, he set up a situation that quite possibly could have gotten someone killed, and he got to mature and grow past his behaviors and redeem himself, fall in love with Lily and have a wonderful son.

Why couldn’t Draco change when James had?

In conclusion, I think there’s a big diifference between what the Dramione fandom actually is and what antis think it is.

The heart of the Dramione fandom is about growing and changing and maturing and forgiving and falling in love despite the differences of the past.

It’s not about romanticizing bullying or toxic relationships, life is not black and white people, people can change and grow from their past actions and people can also forgive and move on.

There’s plenty of examples in the books of Harry and Ron mistreating Hermione and they all move past those instances (obviously that can’t be compared to what Draco did, I’m just making a point here).

I do acknowledge that the Dramione shippers have some bad apples among them, some problematic people that take it all too far, but honestly, every fandom and every ship has bad, toxic people so you can’t really use that against them.

All in all, things aren’t the way antis always present them, there’s a lot more gray there, and I hope this entirely too long post helped some of y’all see that.

#dramione #dramione discourse #pro dramione #a defence of dramione #anti dramione discussions

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anti-porn-unicorn · 4 years ago

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I’m a girl (18 now) who got exposed/addicted to pornography at a really young age, and I wanted to share my specific story on this blog so that the platform can get it out there.

Under the cut is my full story, and it’s a little long winded, so if you don’t want to read the whole thing, I bolded in purple the general topic/idea of that section. Just look for whichever of those interests you and the section will be about that. The first and last paragraph are good for context and end goal, though.

Thank you.

I don't fully remember my first exposure to porn. I know I was in third grade (6-7 yrs old, I had skipped a grade). The reason I had wanted to share my story, in fact, is because I don't see many stories with circumstances similar to mine. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. Most I see have at least one of the following 'modifiers', for want of a better word. 1. The person is a victim of CSA/grooming. 2. The person was at a generally pubescent age (~11-14). And/or 3. The person experienced porn as a quick disturbance. To be clear, these stories are as valid and important as mine, and I simply think more perspectives make evidence of the effects of porn more airtight. I've never been the victim of SA, harassment, or grooming, ever in my life. My story shows the effects of exclusively porn.

The first memory I can recall about this was actually the first time I got caught. I was 6 yrs old, and very into video games,so on this day, I was playing a 3D porn game on my crappy hand-me-down laptop. I kind of knew that what I was doing wasn't acceptable, so I was sitting in my room in the corner as far from my door as possible. My mom walked in so I just slammed the laptop shut because I wasn't that good at hiding things. My mom obviously asked what I was doing, and I tried to keep her from looking, but it was right there when she reopened it. This is where the battle of it begins.

From ages 6-14 I don't have a good timeline of events but a few pop out that exemplify the severity of the issue. These are very probably out of order.

I got an iPod Touch for Christmas (~6-7), and every night I would watch porn on it until they caught on. I literally still remember some names of the sites, most that don't even exist anymore. My parents have always been amazingly caring. I couldn't ask for more. During the earlier ages (~6-8) I was put with a child therapist for fear of a deeper issue. My parents started either taking technology away in the night and/or setting restrictions on the internet. Unfortunately, between my slight tech-savvy, and my crazed addiction at this point, this wasn't a solution.

The addiction got DEEP. It warped my brain. When I had no technology, I used everything I could find.

Whenever I had access to less restricted internet, I used it. Once I asked my older cousin to use her iPod and watched it on there.(she noticed and told my mom. I remember my mom had asked me "Is there anything you need to tell me?", and I knew what she meant, but I just said "nope!" and walked away. At one point my dad's work provided him with a Blackberry, and I asked him could I play one of the built in little games. Once I had it, I watched porn. (when I gave it back to him he pressed the "back" button, and I was caught.)

I used Youtube. This was when YouTube was way less moderated (back when the app was a little old timey TV). I learned I could look up "striptease" and "nip-slip" and other stuff like that, finding more soft-core videos that could suffice when the internet in general was locked down.

I straight-up found out ways to disable the restrictions. Once I found out my mom's PIN for the controls, I went and disabled them, but changed the PIN so it would look like they were still on, and so that she couldn’t access and re-enable them. (I made it 7399. Spells "sexy". My mind was a mess.)

My parents bought a book called "The Classical Tradition". I'm just learning now as I'm looking it up that it was a Harvard Reference Library book (probably why it was so damn thick) about ancient Greek and Roman culture. I didn't know that. I had realized that sprinkled throughout the book there were pages that were more glossy than the rest, which you could see from the sides of the pages (the book was HUGE). These were the photo paper, which had the classical paintings and sculptures. And because these had nudity (Think "The Birth of Venus" type) I would regularly flip through this book when I needed a "fix". Absurd.

My parents got me an American Girl book that was made to ease worries about the developmental years. The pages on breast development / the anatomy of the vagina were what I looked at the most. When my parents had gotten me the child therapist, there was the logical fear that I might have been molested. The therapist gave me a book where there was a page with two cartoon mice, a boy and a girl. They were wearing swimwear/underwear and the point of that was "anywhere the clothing is covering is somewhere that adults can't touch you without telling.” They might as well have been stick figures, there was NO detail. But since they were in ‘underwear’ I'd always look at that page a lot. Anything barely vaguely sexual.

During this part of my life, I got no real pleasure out of this, I was just obsessed. For the first year I even watched it on mute out of fear of being caught. The lowest point during this period was when I very unfortunately filmed a video of me touching myself. I got nothing out of it and had no intent on ever sending or posting it. I was just emulating what I had been seeing. I deleted it the next day. I was 9 then.

From puberty until now (11-18) is when my sexuality was shaped by it. The addiction was far more controllable, I could spend a couple weeks to a couple months without it, but I'd always come back. Because it was now tied to my body. And while my need for it to be constant was gone, now I had to deal with the tolerance issue.

Over time what I watched became more and more depraved. I had the personal preference of hating anything amateur, because of the low quality, so I managed to avoid anything obviously non-consensual or involving visibly underaged girls, but that doesn't really mean much with the stuff the studios were putting out. During the middle points it got REALLY violent and disturbing. Bordering on torture (extreme kink) and even bodily deformation. As a young woman, I couldn't really tolerate any of the role based Kinks (father-daughter, babysitter, schoolgirl), so more extreme for me meant more extreme acts. Just absolute destruction of women's bodies for the purposes of sex. I moved away from that when tumblr banned porn and I started using reddit for it, and also during that time I was realizing how fucked up of an addiction that this was, even before I found feminism/anti-porn. I actively started trying to quit it, for good. But I always went back.

One big effect is heavy confusion with my sexual orientation. A lot of people face this, but the addition of porn for me really throws things off. Like: Am I bi, and a form of comphet/denial/inexperience keeps me from seeing women in a romantic way? Is it a mix of that and porn? (relatively likely) Or am I just straight, and the porn has completley shaped my mind (likely). 90% of the time I watched solo female content or lesbian content, and could only stand to watch certain specific forms if it included men at all. In real life I find a fair amount of men attractive but their bodies in a sexual sense are tolerable at best, but usually cringe inducing. l've never been attracted to a woman romantically, but exclusively women's bodies are sexual to me. It feels like everything in my brain that I would have been able to use in order to figure myself out has been permanently overwritten with incorrect information. Because of porn.

I've still got it bad. Every once in a while, I’ll read something vaguely sexual, or see a woman in a risque photo, and then the seed is planted. I'll always say "I'm not going to do it, I always feel disgusting after, it’s not even really enjoyable at this point, I can do better than this”. I always give in the end of the night. I'm 7 days off of it. I've been on this earth for 18 years. 12 of those years I've been cripplingly addicted to pornography. Two thirds of my life, and for as long as I can remember. I can never undo it. Just like an alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, only able to achieve remission, I will always be a porn addict. I have to be careful. But I have to hope for the future. And with finding the community that is speaking the truth about this, I'm heartened to do better. To no longer be held down by an addiction to consuming my own oppression.

#thank you for sharing #you’re not alone in this #I’m glad you escaped the addiction!#submission

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dollymadness · 4 years ago

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Hello. Shoto falling in love with a villian (with tragic back-story). At first he's very bothered by his feelings but later on he finds out their story and he understands the villian's side however villian hates his father and wants to murder shoto to avenge his family who were abandoned by endeavor during a house fire.

Pro hero Shoto x villain NB reader

hey loml !! sorry, this took me too long

Villain quirk: Fierce Snake - they can shapeshift into a full fierce snake or only incorporate the animal senses (which includes venom, highly sensitive skin, improved chemosensory...) on their human form.

You can choose the particularity of the snake that suits better on the situation.

The drawback is the short time you have on the full form, or when you are using more then one sense.

You are the ambicious type, with a indeed charming nature. A person that woudn't hesitate on sacrificing everything and yourself to reach the main goal.

But you are sure such extreme attitude won't be needed at all, due to your clever and logic brain. One thing, out of all that you are sure, is to overanalyse each move, every little step is calculated.

Shoto is a highly rated pro hero, on his prefered area. He isn't the biggest fan of the front line, the battle and the caos. Instead, he choose to live in the shadows, working successively suceed stealth missions.

Todoroki is the best type of spy, he is polite, cool-headed and extremely smart. The man is even more effective than Hawks was, he is changing this behalf of the heroe society to be more straight to the point, functional.

However, is not always that easy to find the needed information. After all those years, the company decided to try again an old strategy.

"All i have to do is go there and say i want to join? Sir, with all the respect, but-" Even being the CEO, Shoto is always respectful with his co-workers, even giving them power and space to desagree with him and openly point it out.

"Sir, i'm telling you that this will work. If you want, i can show the presentation again, and all the points to prove it's the best change we have."

There were rumors that the villains are planning something big against the top heroes, however they can't get even a small clew. All the pre-existing methods had failed on them and the team suggested to Shoto to infilter, alike his precursor.

It's a big and, on Shotos concepition, dumb step to make. The villains woudn't feel on the same trick two times, would they? "So many time has passed since then..." His co-worker argument was valid too. "You can easily scape if it goes wrong." Obviously he can. He would be the number one if wasn't for his area of action.

He is scared, but doesn't let it show on his expression when he agree. After all the discuss, they get out of the company with a well thought plan, step by step.

On the other side, the delinquents were also working on their main scheme. They wanted a war, as the LOV once did, but they needed a strong weapon to realize such, they wanted something better than the nomus, maybe an item to potentialize their individualitys. Still, they didn't have a clear direction.

Mei is the big brain, the scientist. Is she an inventor from the heroes side? Yes. Does she give a single fuck to the motivation besides just creating insane "babys"? No.

And she isn't getting anywhere with her "basic creations", in their masters word. All the villains can do by now is mess with hero society as much as possible and wait to their weapon to come to life.

Shoto is getting his job done. He putted himself into the ghettos and patiently waited. "Hey, hey, hey! What do we have here?" The elastic masquerade man curls on the walls next to Sho. "How can i serve you, your majesty?" He sneers, while the hero keep his face emotionless.

Todoroki then explains his will to join the villains, with the excuse of the hate of his on father and all the abuse he did to him, that part was not enterely a lie. He even managed to split out that he never wanted to be a hero, only doing for parental pressure.

The criminal listened with boredom filling his face, taking Shoto inside.

"Oh, if it's not our royal highness! Tell your dad i said hi." The Mastermind proceeds to talk by the moment Shoto walks in.

"Hello, sir." He started politely, lowering his head to show respect. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but i came here to offer my help to your crew."

Again, he gave the same excuse he'd gave minutes ago.

"I see. But don't think that i'm going to accept a filthy rat like you that easily... those who don't learn with the history are complete fools. You know are i'm talking about, don't you?" His voice was so low, barely audible and it send shivers on Shotos spine.

"Yes, sir, but i'm willing to prove my worthy." Todoroki could hear his voice cracking, the moment isn't bringing good memories.

His father was the one who used to put him in such a humiliating position.

"You can start by begging. If you want it, you will do anything, is that correct?" He watches as Sho silently gets on his knees. "And stop with that 'sir' thing. 'Master' will do." A big smirk appears

"Yes, master." He was starting to feel disgusted by himself, but didn't back off. "Please, let me join this league. I'm begging, Master, please." Hate on the most pure form runs throught his veins while he stay still, looking to the ground as it is the most interesting thing on earth.

"Tsc. I don't know if that erection you getting me is enough. What do you think, Y/N?" You suddenly emerges from the back of the empty dark room and joins in.

"Give the guy a chance, if he is bad we can just cut his head off." You see Shoto fighting his urge to look up and see your face, and it steals a laugh of your part.

"As you seem like having so much fun with this worm here, now he is under your wing. Test him as much as you want and if he fucks everything up, i'll blame you. Understood?" The Mastermind now shows that he's harsh to his allies to.

"Understood!" The man walks away, letting you and Shoto solve this new problem you both got into.

"So... what do you'll like for me to call you, peasant?"

"Shoto is enough."

"Okay, call me Y/N, i don't need all this formality that Master likes... get up." you order and he hops up in a second.

"Endeavors son is under my wing... a bit ironic, don't you think?" laughing to yourself, he eyes you as you clingy around his shoulder.

"You know what? This is going to be fun..." You shift into a snake, curling up on his neck, as Todoroki jumps in fear.

"So, Shoto, how you're going to prove me that you aren't faking this shit?" You turn into human again, only to shift again on his arm. "Huh?" Again, and now he is getting used to it.

"I-i don't now, 'boss'. You are the one to tell me this, right?" You finally stop, feeling pure joy while the young man has fear all over his face, body tense and eyes about to jump off.

"Yes, darling, i am. Trust me, if this is a setup, you will regret." You threat biting his neck, laughing as you walk away.

You put Shoto in all possible kinds of difficult situations...

He had to share confidential information about his hero friends.

Let the villains take a building filled of civillians.

And he had to help on the secret missions all along. You would curl on his neck and move for the extension of his shoulder, just to remember him that all his moves are being watched.

Shoto is skillful, and it's not hard to notice. In a short amount of time, he is already a pro on the wickedness. Slowly turning himself into a cold-hearted villain, and doesn't seem to hate it.

"Sho!" You two were leaving another building, with some items that Hatsume required. "You think that's funny?"

You try to play mad, but end up laughing with him. Shoto had freezed you just to mess around, and is now using his quirk to creat a beard on your face.

"I do." He complains, moving away to have a good vision of the scene he created.

"Of course you do, bastard. Set me free now!"

"Or what?" He teases.

"You know i can do it by myself, but i'm giving you the chance to redeem before i kill you." The playful tone don't make it less ominous.

"Make me." As the words drop out his mouth, you shift into a snake and get out of the ice, shaped to your human form.

You crawl till him, turning back into your normal form and quickly choking him. "Now we are talking."

"Any last words before i make you regret?" Your nails are sinking on his soft skin.

"I was couting on it." He smiles.

There will be a part 2 soon !! :)

#mha #mha todoroki #my hero academia #my hero academy fanfiction #my hero academy imagines #boku no hero #boku no hero academia #boku no hero academia fanfic #mha shoto #bnha shoto #todoroki shoto #shoto todoroki #shoto x you #shoto x reader #shoto fanfiction #todoroki #todoroki fanfic

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thegeminisage · 4 years ago

Note

top 5 moments in broken road?

i literally waited until now to answer these ask meme questions so i could do this w/o spoilers. anyway time to do an ask meme i got questions for THREE ENTIRE WEEKS ago

#5 - "my girl" john/mary reunion

Mary rushes forward into John's waiting arms. He gathers her up and holds her close, pressing kiss after kiss into her hair, tears running down his face. "My girl," he says, in aching disbelief, drawing back to cup her face in his hands. "My girl." She laughs through her own tears, and when he smooths one gun-calloused thumb under her eye she turns her face into his hand, and then he draws her close and kisses her, like they're the only two people left in the whole wide world.

look. am i valid? no. but they compel me. to them their story is just as real and longlasting as dean/cas is to us. so i added a little gutpunch to that reunion because it’s my fic and i get to do what i want >:) actually, even though i made a point of calling john “dad” and mary “mom” in dean’s pov, in this moment, i deliberately used their names - it’s more than just mom and dad, it’s theee john and mary winchester back together after all these years. no, they don’t stay that way, but after a 22-year quest in her name, it still deserves to be like a Reunion.

(other four are below the cut to spare ur dashes. there are major spoilers for the whole fic, just warning u)

#4 - john getting punched by [SPOILER]

Dean's shoves his father with all his might, yelling, "Let go of me!" Partially because even though just moments ago the dungeon was exactly where he wanted to be, he absolutely doesn't want Dad to be the one to put him there, partially because he's afraid that Michael is about to break free from that cage in his head and vaporize everybody in firing range, and partially because he's afraid that if Dad doesn't let go, Cas will kill him.

But Dean's only got one hand free, and Dad's grip is too strong. Michael and sleep deprivation have made Dean weak; he can't get away from Dad on his own.

Then, when Cas is still just out of arm's reach, Sam lays into Dad with the fiercest right hook Dean's ever seen.

Dean knows that right hook well. That's one of the first moves Dad taught him, one Dad forced him to practice a thousand miserable times—how to stand, when to turn, where to throw his weight—until he honed it to absolute unthinking perfection. And it is perfect: Sam nails Dad right on the jaw with all six feet and change of muscle, sending him staggering back, his grip on Dean slipping free.

Dad slumps against the wall for a moment like he's literally seeing stars, like it's all he can do not to pass out. His nose looks like it might be broken. Dean rounds on his brother; if he was expecting Dean to thank him for that, he's going to be disappointed. "What the hell, Sam?"

But Sam's looking at Dad, not at Dean. "He said," Sam pants, "to let go of him."

i’m normally very anti-punching john, but i feel like if anybody has the right to do it, it’s sam. he’s spent his whole life being protected from john by dean and he finally gets to return the favor! all his problems are solved because he’s literally the bigger man now in every way! i doubt sam would ever punch john on his own behalf, but it is UTTERLY in character for him to do it in defense of someone else, but i bet it was pretty fucking cathartic too. picking sam moments in this fic is like picking children but this...you know, it wasn’t even in my outline. it happened organically as i wrote. and it just. feels right.

#3 - sam telling john to clean up his mess

"Seriously, Dad—we've had enough of your lip service. You're sorry? You want to help? Clean up your mess."

What? John frowns. Does he mean Dean?

But, no—Sam twists and picks up an actual mop and bucket from the corner behind him. The bucket is full of red-tinted water. "Go in the kitchen," he says, "and if Dean says you can use the sink, run some clean water with bleach. We gotta get the blood off the floor, because the longer it stays there, the worse it'll stain—especially on the hardwood."

"Uh," says John.

Then Sam gives him a severe, no-nonsense look that nearly punches the breath from John's lungs—because for the very first time, he sees his Mary in that stubbornly unimpressed face. "Do you understand? This isn't a motel. You can't expect someone else to do it for you. Don't go in the kitchen," Sam says slowly, enunciating every word, "unless you're going. To clean up. Your mess. You want room service—there's the fucking door."

THERE’S THE FUCKING DOOR. i love this bc firstly i believe in man of the house sam and secondly it falls into the same thing of like...sam is finally big and strong enough to protect dean and by god he will make himself an impassable 6′4 between this man and his brother. i think especially since finding out about flagstaff, DOUBLY since becoming a parent, sam is like...so less than impressed with john’s bullshit, and even more impatient than he already was of john’s stupid excuses.

there’s also this motif of cleaning throughout the fic - in john and sam’s very first scene alone together, they are washing dishes. at first this was a nod to sam and dean doing it in lebanon - dean washing, sam drying - but washing is the “hard” part of doing the dishes; when my mom taught me how to do them i began learning by drying first. so of course dean has been washing and letting sam dry all their lives - almost literally, because john talks pretty early on about dean being a neat freak too, because john simply wouldn’t pick up after himself but still hated the mess. there’s a few mentions of it in the fic, how john liked being able to leave a mess behind in their motel rooms, how he’d prop his feet on the table - but in season 10, it’s sam on his knees scrubbing the bloodstained floors after dean’s murder spree, and in broken road sam makes john wash the dishes, and at the end, sam makes him mop. @maulthots put it best:

like that’s it. that's literally it. and then, finally, john offers to clean up on his own without being asked. that’s Growth™, at least in whatever way he’s capable of it. at any rate, he’s too afraid of getting hit again to NOT clean up after himself lol

#2 - dean/cas car scene [content warning for nsfw and discussion of past sexual violence - scroll down to #1 if you’d like to skip it!]

Cas lets go of Dean, but it's to reposition his hands on Dean's knees, slide those huge palms up Dean's thighs. Dean feels the heat of them bleeding through his jeans. Then, holy shit, Cas rests his thumbs on Dean's belt buckle, and makes eye contact.

Dean wets his lips, a little uncertain. He has no idea what Cas is going to do. "Yeah, okay," he croaks.

Cas leans in and kisses him again while he undoes Dean's belt. Like—fuck, like he knew Dean wouldn't want to watch. Dean hears the zipper on his fly, and all at once it clocks that, yeah, okay, this is really happening. Heart thudding in his ears, Dean reflexively lifts his hips so Cas can pull his jeans off. But Cas only slides them down a little. Then he reaches into Dean's boxers and gets a hand around his dick.

Oh. A small, quiet noise drops out of Dean into Cas's mouth, and he turns out of the kiss, panting as Cas pulls him out of his clothes. He's not sure what he was expecting, but this is okay. Just a handjob—he can handle that. It's good, actually. A little dry, but Cas has a light touch, and Dean has decided that he likes Cas's hands. He knows the shape of them very well.

i really enjoyed writing this whole scene, but this was my favorite part. cas technically does get dean’s consent, which was important to cas and a little bit of a big deal for dean too, but dean didn’t ask what cas was going to do before giving that consent, because he almost...doesn’t care? like, dean’s previous experiences with men were all lousy at best, and violent and traumatizing at worst, and arguably none of them were 100% consensual. so part of him is figuring that whatever happens will be within that spectrum, and he’ll just deal with it being awful no matter what it is because he almost literally can’t picture it not being awful. he's not doing it because he likes fucking men or expects he’ll like fucking cas, he’s doing because he wants to be close to cas, he wants to be away from michael and his dad, and because if he and cas are together now that’s part of the package and he’s just done the full “for keeps” commitment bit, so he’s not gonna pussy out now, right? he trusts cas not to actually harm him, and be closer to “lousy” than “violent,” but he is, in his mind, basically giving cas consent to hurt him, because to him that’s what sex with men IS. and he’s understandably pretty nervous because he doesn’t know what’s going to happen - all he’s sure of is that he won’t like it.

but then he does like it! he likes it a lot! trusting cas turns out to be the correct choice! because if cas had turned him down in that moment, trying to baby him or second guess him, i think dean would have felt really hurt and angry and embarrassed, he would have felt like he was broken or untouchable. which is why cas took him at his word, but ALSO did pretty much the most tame thing you can do and still count it as having sex. so cas managed to thread the needle perfectly because he knows dean so well and he’s literally been inside his mind and witnessed that trauma and knew everything to avoid doing. so for dean it wound up being TRULY consensual instead of the sort of fake consent he’s used to handing out to johns. if that makes any sense. idk i just really enjoyed doing it. i think a valid reading is that dean has this physical fear of men that is just...not explored very much in fic. and it was nice to write something where cas was sort of able to undo or heal a little of that damage.

#1 - michael

No, no, no—we can't die—we can't die, we are eternal, we are our Father's most beloved, His favorite son—

No no no no no no no no no—I can't die—I can't die—

Light fills the room, reflecting in Dean's eyes making them look as though they glow. And for the very first time, John sees him. John sees him, John sees him, John sees him—

Where is my Father? Is He watching? Can He see me?

Father, help me, I beg You—please, I don't want to die—

I don't want to die—

i could honestly paste the entire michael scene here, there’s not a thing about it i don’t love, but this was probably my favorite part. and look, i waited NINE YEARS to see michael!dean, i deserved to go apeshit!!! i think the fun thing about michael is that he’s a great foil to both john and dean, the literal connecting tissue, especially when he’s hopping bodies like that. he’s dean’s aggressor but he’s also dean’s twisted reflection, nearly broken by his father’s absence. it was impossible for john to see dean as he really is until michael let him see it through dean’s own eyes.

and then “i” at the end - i knew going in that i wanted a “we” pronoun (though i almost chickened out of it), because michael’s in charge but he’s also making his vessel do things with him, like laugh or scream or hurt people. but when michael dies, he’s alone figuratively and literally, because john’s not dying with him, and his own father has forsaken him too - and that’s the way dean so often felt, and FEELING that was probably the only thing that could possibly give john the motivation to be even slightly less self-centered and shitty.

michael was my whole reason for writing this fic - because i was livid they didn’t use him to tie dean and john together in canon, because the burden of being his vessel is just one more thing dean had to take...this whole chapter, this whole fic, hinged entirety on the batshit insane dynamic between michael and dean and john. and like there are parts of this fic i was insecure about and wished i could have done better, but this? i think i nailed it. definitely the part i had the most fun writing.

but like, honorable mention?

"Dude," Dean says, flipping on his blinker so he can pull up beside the local grocery, "can we not do any touchy-feely shit, please? That's—"

"Gay?" Sam suggests.

"Get out of my car."

>:)

#liz answers asks #deanwinchestergender #broken road #br meta #supernatural #spn for ts #ASK MEMES #technically

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mellifluousoctopus · 4 years ago

Text

I decided to make a character analysis post about my observations of the tv show and what i know about the comics. I’ve bolded my main points.

abuse TW, canon incest mentioned

On Diego

Diego is often mischaracterized as gruff, insensitive, resentful of all his family, abrasive and rude. Especially towards Vanya. But in reality he’s big softie, although a less emotional one than Luther. Diego hides his feelings and vents them in other ways. No matter how visibly present they are, his has a disdain for his emotions. Maybe because they are so present. He feels very strongly. (anger and love being a very easily seen example) Reginald is cold and calculating and emotion is a blindness on the battle field as well as a liability to be manipulated by Reginald and by others. Diego hates his emotions not only to appear competent in his fathers eyes but to also hide from Reginald’s wrath. No doubt that boxing and vigilantism are whats keeping him from going insane.

He will try to deny it but his father’s teachings have big bearing of who he is now. The duty of the strong to protect the weak, vigilantism, striving to to hone and train your powers and body so that you are useful a better hero. These are ideals that Diego has taken from his upbringing and we see him live by even so much as to abandon all reason and try to save a doomed man at the price of the timeline. This devotion to the teachings of his father despite Diego’s resent of him, is an ironic circle of his father’s manipulation that birth his hero complex.

He does everything that Reginald instilled in them with the same subconscious motive. He is in confliction with his own emotions and his own motivation. Diego’s strive to be something in his fathers eyes as compared to Luther, who was seemingly given extra attention and praise. As Vanya wrote in her book, they were all starved for attention, but Diego was in such close proximity to Luther, that the extra weight attention that Luther had was in stark contrast to Reginald’s neglect. This explains both his obsession with the numbering system and his connection with Grace. In an attempt to be noticed by his father and to prove himself upon comparison to Number One. Diego pushed himself harder and harder towards more and and more impossible standards of what he thought would achieve his father’s love. But Reginald has no love and Diego broke. He began to resent Reginald and what he believed was a rank system. Before the dinner we find that Diego still believes that number is associated with rank. He appoints them as Team Zero, because the number one/number two bullshit would divide them in the face of Reginald. There is no proof that any of the others believed in the rank system.( Luther obvious believes that he is the leader, but in no way does he use his false authority as a palanquin over the other others.)

Grace supplemented Diego the attention that he lacked from his father. To all the children she was fair, gentle, calm, and understanding. She was a guiding hand and beacon of love in a cold and isolating household. To Diego she was salvation. A chance at be given love and support that he so obviously was missing. Grace probably spent more time with Diego. Both from the boy’s own choosing and from the duties given to her by Reginald, A cold, commandeering, traditionalist. Diego’s stuttered was stamped out of him out of him by all means. While corrections and punishment would come at anytime, Diego’s real speech therapy most likely given out by Grace, who is the only governess the children the remember and is seen reciting tips to him when he struggled. This extra attention validated Diego and strengthened his connection with Grace. This connection opened his eyes a bit faster to Reginald’s narcissism. Grace is Diego’s mother, she is the only thing in his life that provides unconditional love. He has seen her beyond Reginald’s programming. Seen her think and feel. Shes a person him. A person that Reginald mistreats as severely as he does the children. He treats her like an object despite her humanity and she is oblivious to Reginald’s abuse of her and the others. It makes him hate Reginald even more. Grace’s treatment is confirmation of Reginald’s. He wants to save her, but until he can he will hate Reginald for her.

As I’ve said before Luther, Diego, and Allison were the golden trio, the jocks, the children which Reginald placed most of his attention as they were the first 3 and therefore the three most manipulable. Like Luther, Diego’s emotions and his powers (which require Reginald’s shaping to be a more than average threat) earned him the title of second useful.

Diego was the third wheel among the 3. When he first began training Diego was most likely like Luther. Eager to learn, eager to help, however he was most likely motivated by fitting his father’s expectation. Later on trying to exceed his fathers expectations in order to compete with Luther. Luther was his rubric, but as it become more and more frustrating to become equal to him in his father’s eyes as well as more and more apparent that Grace was tool rather than a person Diego began to hate Reginald. Luther refused to see their father’s cruelty and Diego began questioning authority as result of this blindness. He saw Allison in a similar light. At this point she was self absorbed denier according to Diego and both Luther and Allison’s relationship (they were not subtle) reduced them to moon-eyed freaks. further fueling Diego’s self isolation and defiance.

Saving Klaus is saving people. To Diego, Klaus is a civilian that should not be. They are a victim much like Grace and their(Diego and Klaus’) siblings are to Reginald, but they have the ability to do more. Klaus is representive of Diego’s frustration with the inabilty to respond to the academy’s greater purpose.

Diego shed tears on his missing brother, but there were few good memories behind it. Five is a self assured asshole, he’s pretentious and spends little time with the siblings (except maybe with Vanya). He’s also able get to dads attention with little effort which Diego wants. His powers allow him shortcuts too. Diego was bound to be jealous and feel slighted. Diego does not instigate competition with Five because Five does not bathe in the attention nor acknowledge it. Diego also thinks the attention is less of something he compete with as such attention comes from the meeting of minds.

Ben was a great friend. They had quiet and limited friendship, though as there was a rift between their motivations. As much as both hated how they were used by Reginald, Diego focused on Reginald and his experiments rather than the powers and crime fighting (which was where Ben directed his ire) but they had great times.As we know Ben and Diego played at least one prank on Allison as children however it is implied that this was a common occurrence. These pranks could have been a form of rebellion or simple play by them that didn’t involve their powers or Reginald. I’ve chosen to believe that Ben was actually a large part of these pranks creating them and doing a lot of heavy work with them, and that Diego was the enabler, willing to help, and coming up with wackier and wackier ideas. Luther, Allison, and Five were the likely targets because they were the ones that refused to have fun on their own time, or chose to eat out of Reginald’s palm.

A lot of people think that Diego hates Vanya, for some reason. He doesn’t. He loves her. She’s his (little) sister. She sweet and timid. And she’s an innocent and a bystander to the teams greater responsibility to the innocent. When Hazel and Cha-Cha broke in, Diego is mad at Vanya for being there. Not because she’s there but because she is unable to protect herself. She has no training and she is at very very dangerous site. She is still his (little) sister and he still is obsessed with protecting the innocent. The reason people think he hates her is he feels betrayed by her. He is short and sharp, but that’s his defense. It keeps her away and keeps him from showing any other emotions. To him, she first banked on their trauma. Not only is this grossly upsetting and violating. Having all your scars presented in a public sphere is wrong especially without your consent, especially when you refuse to be vulnerable. The book is also dramatic from Diego’s point of view. Diego shuts down any extra emotion that isn’t rage. In his mind Vanya should have dealt with it and kept dirty laundry unaired or at least have been direct in her grievances, especially since she had nothing to complain about. He (and the others) believed that Vanya had it the easiest. She has no training, she was not put in the ways of violence, he believes she was never subjected to experiment. She is ordinary. She has no greater responsibility. She should be fine. His distrust is granted and validated in the second season. Born of further betrayal and fear. Vanya has gone against Diego’s raison d‘etre, she has also wiped out entirety of earth and after years of underestimating her. Shock and distrust, (but not despise) are bound to arise.

#diego hargreeves #the kraken #tua #The umbrella academy #character analysis #analysis #ik this is super over due #the one on #luther #is already out #reginald hargreeves #grace hargreeves

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winchester-purgatory · 4 years ago

Text

Fake marriage, snobby mother and booty calls | Dean Winchester x OC

Summary: Awsten’ sister tells their parents she’s married - she isn’t. Dean accepts to play along when her parents comes to visit for dinner

Word count: 1670

Notes: I wrote this for the Christmas bingo I participated back in December but only now got to finish it

Dean Winchester wasn't husband material. He liked old cars, 80s rock music, had a bit of a drinking problem and had been in jail. He hated to wear ties, being more of a flannel kind of guy, and always had oil or grease stained hands from fixing cars.

Her mom was going to hate him.

He was also a bit of a ladies man, but that part didn't need to be mentioned at the Christmas gathering.

''Are you sure this is a good idea?’’

''You gotta be there,'' Awsten insisted, looking at Dean over the island countertop where they were having breakfast. ''My sister already told everyone I was married. I would be the family’s laughingstock if I they show up for dinner and there is no man in my apartment after such a big news.''

''I still don't get why you couldn't tell them it was a misunderstanding. Why make things complicated when they were initially simple?''

''Because they're from another generation and won't understand. They won't find it funny that we played the 'just married' card to get free alcohol. Or that we only hook up on the daily.'' The redhead sighed, taking a sip of her hot coffee. ''If Charlie hadn't tagged us on social media, my sister would've never seen the picture and caption...''

Dean reached out, squeezing Awsten’s bare thigh on the bar stool, and looked at her with apologetic eyes. ''Charlie’s really sorry. She didn’t think the picture would get to your family.''

''I know. It’s okay. I made my peace with it. Now, we just have to play pretend.'' She stood, taking her empty plate and putting it in the sink to wash later.

Today was going to be a long day and Awsten was dreading all of it. Having her parents and sister over for Christmas wasn’t part of her December plans. For the last two years, she had escaped the family reunions and had intended to do it again this year. She didn't hate her family, they were just so strict, judgemental and draining to be around.

She'd rather rent a cabin in the mountains with a couple friends - Charlie and Dean included. At least, that promised a lot of fun.

Dean joined her by the sink, doing the same with his dishes.

''Thank you for doing this, Dean.''

As insane as the situation was, Awsten was glad to have someone like Dean. Not everyone would have agreed to partake in her crazy plan and play married couple for the holidays, even for one night. And, he will definitely add some spice to her family's Christmas dinner.

''It was my idea in the first place to get the alcohol. And, I wasn’t going to say no to free turkey.''

Awsten scoffed. ''The turkey might be free, but you are helping me. I’m not gonna do all the hard work by myself, Winchester.''

''I would try to eclipse myself, but since you did most of the work last night, I guess I could help you for today,'' he said as he slid a hand under Awsten's tee shirt to cup one of her cheeks and gave it a small squeeze.

After six hours of chopping, whisking and seasoning, the faux-married couple were finally ready to receive Awsten’s family.

The redhead has put a red tablecloth to mask the chips on the wooden table, something that would've definitely not gone unnoticed by her mother, and pulled out the pretty candle set she had received three Christmases ago to decorate the center.

Dean lit up the Christmas tree filled with miscandellous, non-traditional ornaments and hoped no one would point out the missing Christmas crib under the tree. It was somewhere in the storage closet and Awsten didn't feel like fetching it.

As they were setting the table, Dean caught the silver ring on the redhead’s finger. ''Just so you know, I would've never offered you this cheap ass looking ring. My wife deserves something better than a plastic rock.''

Awsten narrowed her eyes. ''I did with what I had and with the time I had, Dean! I couldn't get myself a real wedding ring. Diamonds are hella expensive.''

''You didn’t even get me one.''

''I forgot. But, knowing my family, they won't even notice. They'll be too occupied looking elsewhere,'' she promised.

''You mean my charming smile?''

She glanced at his flannel and stubbles, both red flags in her mother's book. ''Among others.''

It was around six o’clock when the doorbell rang. Awsten smoothed her velvet dress and checked her lipstick in the hallway mirror before opening the door.

''How can you get married and not tell us? I didn't raise you like this,'' her mom asked, skipping the greetings and walking in like it was her own place.

Awsten contained herself, forcing a smile. ''Hello to you too, Mom…''

Richard and Emilie, Awsten’s dad and sister, followed inside, shutting the door behind. They shed peeled off their winter layers and hung them on the overflowing coat hanger.

The elder woman peered into the apartment, looking for the handsome man her daughter had married. ''Now, where is that husband of yours? We didn't make all that travel for nothing.''

''I’m right here, Mrs. Torres,'' Dean replied, coming to the entrance to greet the guests. He kissed both her mom and sister’s cheeks and shook hands with Richard, his politeness surprising the Torres.

Although he had succeeded to impress her with his politeness, Dean didn't earn Cecelia's approval. She gave him an up and down look, disapproval casting itself on her face almost immediately.

''Shall we move to the kitchen? Dinner is ready.''

''What's your career, Dean?'' Cecelia asked, attacking him with questions as soon as they sat down around the table.

The redhead gave her mother a dirty look, knowing exactly what she was doing. To most, it looked like Cecelia was being nice and trying to get to know Dean, but she was being a snake and trying to find valid reasons to not like Dean to back herself with when she’ll later confront Awsten.

Dean swallowed his bite before responding. ‘’I'm a mecanicien, ma'am. I work at my uncle's auto-shop.''

''Ah.'' She glanced at her cadet daughter and back to Dean, disapproval in her eyes. ''Are you planning on taking over the business?''

''I love cars, but owning an auto-shop isn’t in my plans for the future.''

''What is, then?''

''Owning a bar. Commercializing my own beer...or whiskey, perhaps. Something along those lines.''

''I assume you are studying business?'' Mr. Torres asked, suddenly taking interest in the conversation, owning himself a business.

Dean shook his head. ''No. I’m not in college, Sir. College isn’t for me.''

''How did you meet?''

''Was it like the movies? Your car broke and he repaired it?'' Emilie asked with a snicker, making fun of her sister.

Awsten glared at her. ''No. We met through Charlie, my roommate. You remember her? She and Dean are long date friends.''

As the dinner progressed, Cecelia’s disdain toward Dean was getting more and more apparent - and she made little efforts to hide her feelings.

''If you'll excuse us, I need a drink. Awsten, darling, will you come help me in the kitchen?'' She flashed Dean a forced, bitter smile and stood, heading to the kitchen for some privacy.

''You don't like him.'' taking a glass out of the cabinet to

''With reasons! Have you seen this guy? I don't know what you find in him. He looks like...a lumberjack. You are worth so much more than him, Awsten. Guys like him don't go far in life,'' she said in true Cecelia Torres fashion, always quick to judge others.

''Well, we're already married, Mom. What can you do?''

''Is this why you got married in secret? Because you knew we wouldn't approve.''

An unsurprised laugh left the redhead's lips. ''Of course you would think that… Yes, Mom, I married a guy solely to spite you.'' Awsten poured the strong alcohol in the glass, the amber liquid gliding over the baby Yoda shaped ice cubes. ''Is it so difficult for you to believe that I love Dean? Just because I was raised in high society doesn't mean I wish to follow that kind of life.''

Cecelia huffed. ''You say that now, but you'll change your mind.''

''I doubt it.''

''Did he...force you into this? Marrying him.''

Awsten's eyes widened. She couldn't believe the words that left her mother's mouth. ''I'm leaving. You're being crazy.'' She took the drink she had prepared for her mother and left the kitchen, needing it.

''What about my drink?''

''Congratulation, Mom hates you. You’re everything she didn’t want for me.''

''Aw, damn,'' Dean said with sarcasm, helping Awsten clean up. ''I thought I had made a good impression.''

The redhead bit back a smile. ''I’m sorry for how she behaved toward you. For the way she talked about you. She’s insufferable sometimes.''

Dean shook his head. ''Don't apologize for her. I don't care what she says about me.'' He brought the leftovers to the fridge, trying to control his grin at the thought of stealing a tupperware of turkey for his lunch tomorrow. ''And it's not like we really are married - not that I'd care more then.''

''Now you get why I never visit my family. They're all similar variants of my mother.''

''They say family wants the best for you, but it's not always the case. I've stopped caring about others' opinion of me long ago. I can take a snobby mother who believes I forced her daughter into marrying me.''

Awsten stopped washing the plate, her stomach dropping. ''Oh no... You heard that?''

Out of all the disgusting things her mother had said tonight, this took the crown. Awsten had hoped Dean hadn't heard, but the kitchen wasn't very soundproof.

She opened her mouth to apologize once again, but Dean beat her.

''Don't say it.'' He turned around to face the redhead, eyes soft on her. ''She can assume whatever she want of me, but I'm still your main booty call,'' Dean added with a smirk.

''Dean!'' She hit his shoulder at his crude words, holding back a smile.

He shrugged and continued what he was doing.

#dean winchester #dean winchester fic #reader x dean winchester #dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #supernatural fic #fake marriage au

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kob131 · 4 years ago

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Rewatching volume 8 I can safely say that they kinda ruined Ironwood's character. To me they made him a cartoony villain by shooting the counsel guy and teaming up with Watts at the start of the volume, as well as him willing to blow up mantle even though Salem was gone. I think they should have taken their time in the volume making Ironwood a villain, Judgemental critter explains how he could have been better in her review. Buuut that's just my opinion

Then I figure you don’t mind if I go into Judgmental Critter’s Ironwood part?

‘Ironwood is an interestingly complex character, both kind and understanding but also stern and harsh.’

... That’s...not unique. Like, at all. That’s like every Sink or Swim Mentor or Stern Father figure. Fuck, Hank Hill came to mind.

‘He was the one who broke the news to Yang, being earnest and disappointed that yang was disqualified. But also put his foot down so there’s no protest from the girls.’

... So? This isn’t the aspect of him that Volumes 7 and 8 are being focused on and this is BEFORE his paranoia and trust issues got validated so of course he’s in a naturally better state.

‘Here’s a man who convinced himself that he built an army that couldn’t be beat.’

Wait, did you just...skip the part where he relates to Yang and implies he has PTSD, indicating he’s not exactly mentally well? ... What the fuck?

And you’d better be considering this when you come to Volume 8, after his army has been beaten and just got stretched thin.

‘In Volume 4, he stands kindly by Weiss’ side, stands up for her against the Atlas elite and when the girls meet him again-’

... *graps Judgmental Critter by the collar as they pass by.* Don’t think I didn’t notice that.

Jacques: You've never trusted anyone other than yourself!

Ironwood: (shouting) And for good reason!

Weiss covers her mouth with her hand as she gasps at the sound of Ironwood slamming his fist onto the desk.

Ironwood: If Oz had just listened to me from the start...

Jacques: You need to get a grip.

Ironwood: That's exactly what I'm doing. Our people need protection. By this time next week, the Kingdom of Atlas will be officially closing its borders. No one in; no one out. Without the council's permission.

Jacques: You mean, without your permission?

Ironwood: And if that becomes the case, I would think you'd want to be on my good side.

Funny you don’t mention this in your summary of him, considering this is portrayed as a deeply personal reveal of the man.

I also remember that you ignored what he said in Volume 2.

Glynda: Trouble sleeping?

Ironwood: (Looking back, gripping his shoulder with the other hand.) Arm was acting up.

Glynda: Of course, so logically, you got out of bed, dressed yourself completely and decided to gaze menacingly out into the distance. (Approaches all the way to his side, then looks at him concerned.) What's wrong?

Ironwood: I've trusted him for years. We both have. I just... I can't help but feel like he's keeping us in the dark.

Glynda: Don't be ridiculous! You know very well that we are not the ones in the dark.

Ironwood: (Laughs humorously.) That makes it worse! I refuse to believe that a man that I've trusted for so long would act so... passively.

Glynda: (Puts a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder.) You're a good person, James. You've always done what you think is best for the people, even against strong protest. It's admirable. But it's high time you stopped talking about trust and started showing it. (Drops her hand as they stare into the distance together.) Ozpin has experience that the rest of us lack. And I think that's something worth remembering.

These things that connect Ironwood’s actions in the past and his actions in the future...

And you don’t mention them despite being big character moments for him? Maybe this is a coinc-

‘He knelt to spoke to Oscar, which showed his dad energy!’

... *steams starts to rise from my face*

Ironwood: Without him here to guide us, all I can do is use my best judgment.

Behind him, Oscar shifts uncomfortably. As if sensing something, Ironwood stops and looks back.

Ironwood: What is it?

Oscar: Actually, Oz isn't completely gone.

Qrow: Uh, Oscar here is… is the next Ozpin.

Ironwood: Oz?

Smiling, Ironwood quickly and eagerly approaches Oscar, who looks nervous.

Ironwood: I'm so glad you're here. I didn't think you--

Oscar puts his hands up and interrupts Ironwood, as the latter crouches to Oscar's level.

Oscar: Not quite. He's kind of, um, gone... at the moment.

Ironwood's smile fades, and he lowers his head.

That wasn’t him acting like a dad, that was Ironwood being desperate, given a fleeting glimpse of hope that the man he respected and looked to above all others is...there, standing in front of him, where he can finally have an equal again.

That was...so blatant and obvious I am finding it hard to believe you’re not doing this intentionally.

“He spoke to Oscar as if he was a trusted ally despite missing Ozpin’s words of guidance!”

Oscar. Has. Ozpin. In. Him.

Ozpin. The man that James, AGAIN, respects and follows.

No. Fucking. Shit.

“He gave Team RWBY the Huntsman title and upgrades!”

‘Huntsmen’ in Atlas meaning ‘soldiers’. And that is STILL not contradictory to what he does later.

‘He was well meaning and kind...until he found out they lied to him.”

Which was bad of them...but they were also in fault when they treated Ozpin harshly and James did WORSE so what does that tell you?

‘His PTSD comes flooding back!’

...

......

...........

You skipped how he refused to trust the council, his PEERS, with the info about Amity or even Robin, whose entire issues with him could have been solved if he TALKED to her, all because of his trust issues.

You have completely shoved his trust-related skeletons into the closest and play up his more pitiable PTSD issues. You’re fucking Mary Sueing him.

‘Was all of it Team RWBY’s fault? They didn’t give him the truth but neither did Ozpin-’

Was it Team RWBY’s fault that the Fall of Beacon or Atlas’ issues happened? No! In fact, James was more culpable in both scenarios (if he listen to Ozpin then the machines COULDN’T attack Vale citizens and if he told the truth and listened to Team RWBY before he had no choice then he could have stopped all that shit!) than them. And just as Ironwood’s issues don’t excuse Team RWBY’s fuck ups- Ozpin’s issues don’t excuse James’ fuck ups.

‘Who can he trust? How many levels of precautions does he need to take?’

You know, I’d buy this shit if not for how the depth of his trust issues isn’t actually shown, how his issues with trust went beyond this and came around to how he was isolating himself. This is still trying to play pity for the man instead of seeing him for who he is.

‘We left Ironwood last Volume as a complex man whose filled dwith grief, guilt and fear-’

And what have we seen as the end result of these emotions time and time again in RWBY?

They cause the person to devole.

Hazel is filled with grief and used that to help justify his shit actions.

Ozpin is filled with guilt and let it distance himself from others.

Yang was filled with fear and couldn’t move on.

And Salem...Salem is all fucking three and we KNOW how she turned out.

The way that ‘complex man’ is portrayed is the same way one says a character is complex as an excuse to ignore their darker issues. She goes onto portray Volume 8′s beginning with Ironwood as somehow not in line with his ‘complexness’ when this has been an issue with him since Volume 2.

And as a special fuck you to that:

Do you have any idea how tempting Ironwood’s position is? To be hurt again and again by others as you try to defer to them? To see yourself as right time and time again but still struggling to see other’s point of view as valid? To resist the temptation to discard what EVERYONE says, to not care about what others say and carve your own path regardless of what others think, feel or say?

I have. Countless times and it is SO HARD to not do what Ironwood did.

‘In his first scene, Ironwood crossed the line!’

Not really. From Ironwood’s point of view, Slate was standing in his way with Salem at his doorstep and in a worse shape than ever and he can’t afford to waste any time with him. Killing him is rather logical and why would Ironwood care? It’s right in his eyes and the morality of other people has only been chains to him.

‘This isn’t playing on his paranoia!’

Gee, what emotion is it that causes Paranoia again? ... Fear? And Ironwood did this out of what again? ... Fear of Salem?

How is it RWBY can bee so unsubtle to cause blunt force trauma on it’s audience and yet they STILL routinely fail to see it.

‘He’s just a shitty cartoon villain!’

Ah huh. Again, I heard the same about the P5 villains. And they all had real world counterpart (Madrame in particular can be compared to ROOSTER TEETH).

‘Cartoon villain’ is just a buzzword at this point.

‘His personality before was so much more intriguing!’

The personality where you chopped off the stuff that shows this coming?

Yeah headcanons tend to appear that way.

‘Everything he was just thrown away to give us a laughable shell of a character!’

AKA ‘Two Ironwoods’ right?

Newsflash- characters and people can change for the worst. People can reach this point and beyond for the same reasons as James did. Good people can devolve and change. And yet he still had his humanity. He still tried to hold back in some manner before he felt concerned even more. He never took joy in what he did. And he still cared for his people.

To call all that effort just a ‘shell’ because you BLATANTLY cannot accept this change in a character enrages me beyond what text can show!

‘He didn’t develop into a colder, heartless man-’

Yes. He. Did.

He ignored his people’s concerns and feelings just for a greater goal. He treated people as a whole instead of individuals. He kept secrets more and more. He constantly questioned if his compromises gave Salem the advantage.

He did devolve. You just blinded yourself.

‘I could see this happening!’

Right, if the show jumped through X+1 hoops right?

‘But instead-’

No fuck you, I’m done.

God what is with these twins and pissing me the fuck off?

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maggotmouth · 3 years ago

Text

hillo sexthy legends !! i’m nora and i’ll be writing margo colby n probs sm1 else bcos lets be real, i lack self-control. u can find her pinterest here n some info abt her sexy self below the cut. plot with me on discord ( hot girl midsommar#8664 ) or in my ims !! x o x

* CAMILA MORRONE, CIS WOMAN + SHE / HER | you know MARGO COLBY, right? they’re TWENTY-THREE, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, ELEVEN YEARS? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to SCRAWNY BY WALLOWS like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole BLEACH WHITE SNEAKERS POUNDING ON A GYMNASIUM FLOOR, USING THE SAME BLUNT SCISSORS TO HACK THE SLEEVES OFF AN EXES T-SHIRT THAT YOU USE TO CUT YOUR 3AM FRINGE, A WALNUT-SHAPED ACHE IN THE PIT OF YOUR STOMACH FOR THE PERSON YOU COULD HAVE BEEN thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is AUGUST 8TH, so they’re a LEO, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nora, 25, gmt, she/her )

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS SENTENCE FOR SEXII GOOGLE DOC!!

bullet point summary of margo.

— born margaret but NOBODY calls her that. its colby, coach or margo, and go to the privileged few. margo grew up in the creek commune n then dropped out of school cos of a teenage pregnancy so she was a bit of a cautionary tale back in’t’day (said tht in my yorkshire accent). she now works for summer camps coaching pee wee soccer and pee wee cheer, as well as helping out her beekeeper dad on his honey farm, which is jst north of abernathy creek, and working at scuba on the off seasons.

— its just her and her dad, and has been for as long as she can recall !! everything she knows about her mum could fit on the back of the weathered passport photo she keeps in her wallet of a stranger who shares her face - her name’s melody, or at least tht was name she used when working as a dancer, she’s from argentina and dropped mag’s dad as soon as someone w more money came along.

— margo’s father is a beekeeper with his own organic honey company. margo and her dad moved to irving in the early 00s, the summer between grade school and middle school, because her dad had heard about the communal living in abernathy creek and wanted to lend his skills there and live off the fatta the land in a very lenny from of mice and men kinda way.

— for a few years of middle school margo was bullied for living with the ‘freaks from the creek’, but when they realised how chill her dad was with underage drinking, margo ‘keg-bringer’ colby soon gained popularity among the more renegade students. every so often, the high school parties would happen at her end of town, occasionally with members of the commune even offering the high schoolers a spiritual experience they’d never forget (often in the form of mushrooms) which meant people tried to stay on her good side. to get an invite to a margo colby party handed you a free pass to make up the most ridiculous shit about the commune you liked and nobody else could say anything, because they’d never been to the creek.

— at school, margo had a lot of ‘behvioural issues’ bcos of undiagnosed adhd, she found it difficult to sit still for hours n write down huge chunks of information n her restlessness was seen as laziness. she was encouraged to do sports, as were most of the kids who weren’t that academically inclined, but she turned out to be pretty hot shit at sprinting, because she grew up surrounded by bee houses and he who runs slowest gets stung, baybeyy!! so yea, in school sports became her LIFE. she was gonna get a sports scholarship to college but ended up dropping out of school in senior year n becoming one of those kids who could have had it all but lost it.

— she had sex with sutter at a house party when she wasnt really ready because it felt like the right thing to do at the time and everybody else was doing it. she’d attended health class, she’d seen the corny videos. she knew about all the statistics, but she also knew that it had never happened to anyone she knew and the pull out method was basically safer than the morning after pill and way less expensive.

— a teenage pregnancy knocked her out of the runnings for prom queen and meant she had to leave school early. she didn’t go to college when her friends did, instead she spent the time interviewing potential foster candidates and eating her weight in lindt chocolate while marathoning love island in her room.

— she had a son, who she passed off to someone else a couple of towns away. it was a closed adoption which seemed like the best idea at the time, but she now wishes she had access to his life.

— after peaking in high school and jumping between jobs for a few years, she got a more permanent role at scuba which she loves with all of her heart and soul, but unfortunately a bar job doesn’t pay the rent.

— she works at summer camps coaching junior soccer and netball on the side. she’s extremely competitive and takes it very personally if her team lose. the kids all call her, coach colby n write her longwinded letters about how they’ll never forget this summer camp before they go back to their suburban picket fence houses n she keeps all the letters in a drawer n takes them out to read when she’s feelin depressed.

— enjoys surfing and worked for a number of years on resorts like mila kunis’ job in forgetting sarah marshall. she went on to work 18-hour days as a stewardess on luxury yachts which is a part of her backstory i added after watching season one of below deck because i guess i really am that fucking impressionable. met most of her surf friends doing tht but said she’d never in her life do it again bcos it was mostly just picking up after rich white ppl for shit pay. she came back to irving n thats when she started doing the summer camp jobs so she could move out of the creek n get her own apartment.

— she never actually finished senior year so she’s currently going to night school at the community college to get through her exams and is trying to save to go to college or open university. she wants to major in criminology. she’s super ambitious but also super adhd so she fluctuates between thinking she can achieve anything to just feeling like a failure n thinkin whats the point

— used to shoplift to feel joy and as an act of resistance to her hippy commune routes, but now sees herself as a reformed, bin-diving freegan (sims 4 eco living can i get a hell yaaaa). also she thinks it’s totally wrong to steal when you have enough money and clearly don’t need to steal to survive, ppl risk imprisonment for basic necessities, so for her to do it for a brief thrill and some new shades felt a bit derogatory

— was raised jewish. became a vegetarian as a child because it seemed, at the time, easier than having to explain which foods she was and wasn’t allowed to eat together, so she just cut out meat entirely. still a vegetarian now and dabbles in veganism, although its become less about not eating certain meats in the milk of their mother and more about her global impact / carbon footprint

— nurses little animals to health in her garden. has a hedgehog name OJ short for orange juice not the other one filthy pig. her and her dad have always been huge animal rights activists and existed on a vegetarian diet. the only one in their house who isn’t vegetarian is their cat, auggie. (short 4 augustus gloop)

— has a lot of stupid ass stick and poke tattoos. there was a phase during her years as a barmaid where she wanted to train as a tattoo artist n would mostly practice on herself or any friends who would let her

— she doesn’t form many long lasting friendships cos she tends to be super excited when she makes a new friend and just see them all the time but then it wears off and she can ghost a bit. she’ll always coming pinging back but she’s not the most predictable or loyal friend, sometimes she’ll sleep in your house every night for a week and then you won’t even get a text from her for a month. her best friends are elderly neighbours and houseless people she meets when volunteering at the foodbank. she thinks they’re more authentic than most of the ‘fake posers’ she meets down the vela pier

— calls herself a butch lesbian but still has sex with men when she wants validation. sexually attracted to some men, especially effeminate men, but only romantically attracted to women. very possessive of the gals in her life.

— stopped giving a shit about getting older or adhering to anyone elses bullshit standards, realised it was all fake p much as soon as she dropped out of school and one by one her friends just stopped texting her

— lives in one of the lofts in port apartments. it’s open plan with rugs and lava lamps everywhere. she has a palette bed. its all very ‘sustainable chic’. like, oh wow, a pallet bed that im supposed to think you made from scratch but i KNOW you got it off ebay because you thought it looked trendy

— constantly says shes poor but still buys clothes from urban outfitters. sus.

— frequently found at fannies flirting with the cute bisexual bartender with a choppy black bob.

general vibe / personality

vibrant, vulgar, self-absorbed, tenacious, veers bewteen apathetic and dogmatic, temperamental, flighty, unreliable, magnetic, charismatic, passive aggressive, likes to play devil’s advocate, takes the moral high ground. estp and a leo

likes: 70s music, john wayne movies, black mirror, philosophy, cowboy chic culture, dc comics, the smell of locker rooms,, deep red lipstick, lacrosse sticks, smoking weed from a bong, dogs, karaoke, pet rats, kate moss, late-night strolls, hawaaiian shirts worn open over a bralette, skinned knees, thai food, picking the apples at the very top of the trees, zip-lining, cigarettes, the idea of pegging but not the practical application of it, decorative lamps, LGBTQ+ pin badges, worn-out furniture, twangy electric guitars.

dislikes: girls who call other girls ‘pick me’ girls, woody allen movies, mental mathematics, wealthy children, quentin tarantino, ironing, institutionalised misogyny, the imaginary future, french literature, ‘dump him’ feminism, wes anderson films, spoken word poetry nights, college-educated bar staff who act like they’re better than you, indie softbois, the general mentality of cheerleading squads.

aesthetics

orange peel, the smell of bleach, skeleton drawings in the margins of a journal, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, bleach white sneakers pounding on a gymnasium floor, setting dumpsters on fire for the hell of it. a hit flask of vodka decorated with hello kitty stickers, split knuckles, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, a child in an oversize bee keepers suit, scabbed knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your dad wouldn’t take you, a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

hoo boy this is getting LONG AS FUCK but here are my wanted plots

wanted plots

ok margo’s been in irving since she was like 10. she’s quite a vivacious person?? she dresses completely instinctively without any sense of cohesion so she stands out. a guy once told her she was wearing the ugliest outfit he’d ever seen and he thought that was so cool and brave of her. but anyway where was i going.. she grew up in the abernathy creek so stuck out like a sore thumb,,,, maybe ppl who were super interested in the creek or maybe poked fun at her bcos of it idk.....

b4 she dropped out, margo used 2 b in with the cool kids at school bcos her dad would buy them booze and rarely ask for the money. maybe a fun plot cld b with some of the ‘it girls’ she used to hang around with b4 she got pregnant n dropped out and they all went off to college n stopped texting her.

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! some1 she feels like she knew before irving ???

since margo literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships. fwbs. enemies with benefits. all the angst. all the slow burn mutual pining we hate each other narratives

locals who play sports. margo wld be all over community soccer n take it way too seriously. maybe ppl she plays hockey with. girls who she’s like, weirdly intimate with but its not a thing cos the other girls straight !!! what do u mean !! aha just fun !

she works part time at scuba. i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry.

she's also a surf instructor and occasionally works as a lifeguard!! gal has like 7 jobs ik but regular swimmers hmu

ppl she coaches at the gym !! she wants to be a personal trainer

i reckon she might have recently started meditating to try and calm down her mind cos its always bustling with thoughts, n i think she’s p interested in buddhism so if anyone’s a buddhist hmu

someone she’s trying to make a zine with on female empowerment and women in film and art, etc. just a very feminist zine.

TLDR: angry sports gay, former high school track prodigy turned drop out, who likes feminist literature, wearing leather jackets over slip dresses, and smudged red lipstick.

this was so long !!! im sorry !! if you’ve read this far have a biscuit, love x

#aaaaaaa #we back boys #irvingintro #hmu for plots bayybeyyy

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imagineaworlds · 4 years ago

Text

I Love You (Part Thirty-Seven) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of death, torture, panic attack, PTSD-- everything Criminal Minds. Talk of sex, BDSM, Dom/sub relationship, etc.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 11928

Timeline: Season 6 Episode 06. Seven months after part thirty-six.

I huffed as more flour fell off the counter and landed on the tile floor of the kitchen. I promised Hotch that Jack and I would be clean, but it was getting increasingly hard to uphold my end of that deal as Jack tried to start a food fight. I was trying my hardest to not dip a finger into the sugar and drag it onto Jack’s nose. Despite the fact that Jack wanted to make these cookies in the first place, it seemed like I was doing all the work while he was trying to make the world’s biggest mess. Hotch definitely saw this coming. Which, in hindsight, was probably why he tried to warn me away from the task, but I wanted to spend some time with Jack doing something he was excited about. And this was that something. Unfortunately for me.

Jack had jumped onto our bed before we were awake, begging us to help him make some Halloween cookies. Hotch groaned and told him that we could just go buy some at the grocery store— but Jack was adamant that he wanted to make them homemade, just like Haley used to do. Hotch opened his eyes in an instant and looked at me, searching for help that I was refusing to give. I thought that it was a good idea, and if it was tradition, what was the harm. Hotch knew, though. The bastard knew and he didn’t warn me. I mean, he tried to tell me that if it got too messy, it would be my mess to clean up. When I told him, “Make me” after Jack left, Hotch warned that if I didn’t pick up after, then I’d have a problem walking tomorrow.

That threat was enough to convince me to try and baby Jack while we started gathering up all of the ingredients to make the cookies he wanted. It started fun and innocent, but the more bored Jack got with the process, the quicker he was to spiral into chaos. He thought it was funny to stick his hand into the bag of sugar and eat a handful of it. Not only did it just encourage his sugar high that had come with all the candy laying around the house, but it got everywhere. I tried to warn him to not do it again, but he got smart and started chugging the orange and black sprinkles. When I noticed what he was doing, I tickled him to loosen his grip around the bottle, then hid it on a shelf that was too high up for him to reach. Then, as we started rolling the dough, Jack kept trying to steal some to eat raw, which I told him wasn’t healthy, but he didn’t seem to care.

“It tastes good!” he had insisted after I squinted sternly at him.

When the cookies were finally in the oven and I managed to shoo Jack away so that he couldn’t find some way to burn down the house, I started cleaning up the mess we made. There was flour and sugar all over the counters, the floor, and, somehow, the wall. Jack had dropped a few sprinkles, too, but by some miracle, most of them managed to make their way into his mouth before I stole them away. I wiped down the counters after sweeping up the floor first. When that was finished, I grabbed the cookie cutters to put away. Jack had wanted black cat and pumpkin shaped cookies, tossing the ghost shaped cutter to the side the moment he laid eyes on it.

Once the kitchen was clean, I had a few minutes to spare before the cookies would be done baking in the oven. Jack was out in the living room, watching a random Halloween movie; Hotch and Jessica were outside, decorating the house together while talking about Jack, probably. We had been away a lot recently, and Hotch was still worried about Jack since Haley’s death. Because Jessica spent more time with Jack than anyone else, it made sense for him to go to her about his son—

The kitchen timer dinged.

“Jack, go grab Dad and Aunt Jessica!” I called out.

I heard the TV turn off and the front door fly open as I leaned down with oven mitts on to grab the cookie sheet. I set the tray on a pair of hot pads on the counter and sighed while taking off the mitts. The cookies looked good, and they’d be fairly easy to decorate— especially since Jack was probably just going to spray orange and black frosting and sprinkles on them randomly before calling it a day.

Three pairs of footsteps echoed throughout the house, the front door closing behind the last one inside. In a minute, Jack came running up to me, and when he tried to touch the cookie sheet, I pulled his hands away with a warning that it was too hot. Jessica and Hotch walked in shortly after. Hotch hummed happily. I smiled at him to notice that he was taking in the scent of sugar cookies. My nose had grown accustomed to it, but Hotch notes aloud how good it smelled, and I said that it was all Jack’s doing. “And the mess?” Hotch had asked, gesturing to the tiniest bit of sugar and sprinkles under the counter; to which, my smile disappeared, and I squinted at him. He only grinned. He was going to find any reason to tie me down to the bed.

When the cookies had cooled off, Hotch lifted Jack onto the kitchen island and handed him a container of frosting. I handed Jessica the sprinkles. I let her know that she was in charge of them, and not to give Jack the opportunity to throw them everywhere like confetti. She laughed and accepted responsibility if anything were to happen. I put the cookies on a few different paper plates so that the pumpkins and black cats were separated; also, that way Jack and Jessica had their own plates and Hotch and I had a plate to share.

Jack started with the orange frosting. As I suspected, he gripped the tubing with both of his fists, and he started squeezing as much on as he could, not even trying to stay on the cookie. Hotch had to steal it away before he could waste all of it. When we had the orange frosting, I started carefully decorating the two pumpkin shaped cookies we had. I was more careful about staying within the lines and making them look perfect. Jack, on the other hand, now had the black frosting, and he was going at it again, so Hotch had to step over to keep a careful eye on him and help teach him how to properly coat the cookies. I handed the orange frosting to Jessica when I was done with it. Next, I did the black cats. Jack was already biting down on one of his over-frosted cookies, getting crumbs all over his shirt and lap. Looked like it was going to be another random laundry day. That boy was lucky I loved him.

“Here,” I said to Hotch, picking up one of the pumpkin cookies and holding it out for him. He leaned down, taking a handless bite. “Disgusting.”

Hotch smirked while chewing. He snaked his arm around my waist and pulled my side to his chest before kissing my cheek. I leaned away after a moment because of the rough touch of the crumbs on his lips. I laughed at him before dragging my thumb across his lips to brush away the crumbs and frosting. Hotch gently caught my thumb in his mouth and licked off the food. I froze, biting back a moan because we were still around Jack, but I knew that Hotch could see it in my eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.” I gave him another bite.

The very next morning, we got a call that there was a case in Detroit that the BAU had been requested for. Two days from then was Halloween. We were supposed to go trick-or-treating with Jack that night, but we were never home in just one day. I mean, unless the Unsub was a complete idiot—or a kid, like what happened over two years ago when Elle left. The odds that we would be home on time to trick-or-treat with Jack was slim to none. It was going to break his heart. We were all so excited to be dressing up together. Since I had been going out with Hotch, we spent the past two Halloweens together. There was always a theme for the three of us. Jack liked it when our costumes all matched so that he could be closer with me and Hotch. This year’s theme was so good. Jack and I were the most excited about it, of course, whereas I think Hotch was just excited about being with Jack and seeing what I would look like in my costume. I didn’t blame him. It was a really good costume. I knew that he was going to like it, but that was only if we got back on time.

Suddenly, Jack walked into our bedroom. The smile he had been wearing on his face slowly disappeared as he saw our half-packed go-bags sitting on the bed. I froze. Glancing between my bag and Jack, I realized how obvious this looked, and that this news was going to absolutely crush him. My initial hope was that I could head down to his bedroom, sit down on his bed with him, and explain that we were heading out for another case, and that we would try to race back as soon as possible. I wanted to break the news gently. However, now that he had just stormed in on us frantically packing up enough stuff for three days, there was no chance Jack was going to listen to anything we had to say.

“Jack—” I tried to start explaining, but he immediately spun around and ran back down the hallway. I looked at Hotch with a quivering lip. “Aaron…”

“I’ve got it.” Hotch leaned in to kiss my cheek on his way out of the bedroom.

When he was gone, I kept packing, though now my pace had slowed because of the guilt dragging me down. Once I had all of my clothes and toiletries neatly organized in my bag, I turned to finish putting Hotch’s stuff away so that we could leave when he was done talking to Jack. The guilt was still there. In fact, I think it only got heavier as I folded Hotch’s pajamas. It wasn’t fair to leave Jack, and we both knew that, but we also had no choice in the matter, and I felt like he knew that deep down, but he still hated it—which was totally valid. Sometimes, I hated leaving. Actually, since Haley’s death, I always hated leaving Jack. If I didn’t love working at the BAU as much as I did, and if I wasn’t so sure that I would be miserable without my job, then I would have quit just to stay home with Jack. But I wouldn’t have liked being a house mom. To be fair, I don’t think Jack would have liked having me hover around all the time, though, either. I think he wanted us around more, but he still liked some of the freedom that came with having us out of the house. Someday, he was going to be grateful we were gone so often. Before we would know it, he was going to be in high school, and he was going to be pushing us out of the house so that he could host or attend parties. Until then, he just wanted us there. He just wanted his parents—and since he couldn’t have his mom, he wanted me there. Sometimes timing and fate just fucking sucked.

I zipped up our bags and lifted them off the bed. Sighing heavily, I carried them out of the bedroom, and down the hall to Jack’s room. I heard Hotch talking to him quietly. As I turned the corner, I saw Jack lying on his bed, cheek pressed against the pillow, his face smushed and pouting. Hotch had a hand rubbing soft, slow circles on Jack’s back, while the other one supported his crouched position by holding onto his knee. When they heard me enter, Jack looked up at me, but Hotch didn’t.

“We promise, buddy, we’ll try to be home on time for trick-or-treating,” Hotch said. Jack didn’t look convinced, though. “Come on, bud… Can we get a smile?”

“You never miss Halloween.”

“I missed Halloween a few years ago.”

“Yeah, so Mom took me trick-or-treating.”

Hotch and I froze. This wasn’t Jack’s first Halloween without his mom, but it was the first Halloween we were celebrating with her. Since it was about this time last year that we were still mourning her death, none of us were exactly racing to go trick-or-treating. But we had been doing well in the year or so since then. Jack’s therapy was really helping him cope and understand what happened to him and his mom. Hotch was still going to therapy, too. Despite his protests about going and his insistence that he didn’t need it anymore, I still drove him every Tuesday and Thursday to meet with a Bureau therapist that understood the full extent of what happened, and I sat just outside the door the entire time to make sure Hotch wouldn’t try to escape early. We were doing well. Really well.

Still, though, it was in moments like this when Jack would bring up his mom and how she would miss something special to us that we would be caught off guard. He didn’t understand, of course. All he knew was that he mentioned his mom and the two of us would become speechless. He wasn’t old enough to understand yet that we didn’t know how to navigate handling Haley’s death and raising a five year old kid who had countless questions. He wanted to know why on Earth we would potentially be leaving him alone on Halloween night when we promised we would be there. He wanted to know why we weren’t doing more now that his mom was gone. And the worst part was, neither Hotch nor I had an answer for Jack. We just had to try and hold onto our promise that we would be back in time to take him trick-or-treating, and that he wouldn’t be without a parent this time of year. I didn’t care if I would have to leave the case early. If it meant getting back to my little man to make sure he was alright, I was going to do whatever it took.

I sat on the edge of his bed and pushed his hair back. “We’ll be here. I promise. Don’t you trust me?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” I reached out to hug him, and he let me, even going as far to hug me back with a little more force than I was expecting. “I love you, little man.”

“I love you, too.”

I kissed his temple before pulling away to let Hotch hug him. When we had said our goodbyes, and I felt somewhat reassured that Jack was alright with us leaving, we got in the car and started driving to Quantico.

We were headed to Detroit—which was absolute chaos that time of year. The local PD had noticed a three year trend in the days leading up to Halloween where he was only killing for those three days, and then he would disappear. At first, they thought it was nothing. However, last night, they had another case matching the last two years exactly. By then, it was clear to them that they needed a helping hand with this case, hence why we were being called in at the last minute; and hence why we were already on the jet and not meeting in the boardroom. With one night gone, there were only two nights left before the Unsub would disappear. If we didn’t catch him before then, we would have to wait another year. There was no fucking way I was going to let that happen. I wasn’t going to miss this year’s Halloween and next year’s Halloween with my son because of some asshole in Michigan, of all places. This Unsub who was burning his victims alive would have hell to pay if I broke my little man’s heart two years in a row.

Yeah, this guy, in all of his psychotic glory, was going out of his way to burn three victims over the span of three days, then proceeded to dump them all in random places around the city. Unfortunately for him, the first last night got a little out of hand, so before he could hide the body, the fire department was already made aware of the burning abandoned warehouse, and they were on their way. So, the Unsub left the body and ran.

By the time we were landing, Hotch had already dispersed assignments. Hotch, Rossi, Emily, Spencer, and JJ were all headed to the precinct to start the profile since we were in a rush, and in the meantime, Morgan and I were headed to the crime scene to get a look at what happened for ourselves. The local fire department—the ones who called us in—had done their best examining the scene on their own, but they were trained to look for human interference in dangerous fires. We had a vastly different skill set. Knowing that we were dealing with a serial killer gave us the upper hand since we knew what we were dealing with, but the FD just didn’t get that since it wasn’t their job.

As we pulled up to the warehouse where the most recent crime scene had been discovered, it suddenly made sense to us why he had chosen this place. Out of the entire city, this area was extremely neglected. It was quiet, and at night it was probably dark, and the seclusion meant that no one could stop him. That was… unless someone happened to be passing by and saw the fire. Unfortunately for him, someone did pass by and call 9-1-1 for that very reason, ruining his plans—whatever they were. We knew that we would learn more inside.

“Hello,” a man standing in the doorway of the warehouse said to us, waving in our direction as we got out of the car. He approached us. “Al Garner with the Detroit Fire Department.” Morgan shook his hand first while introducing us. I smiled and shook his hand. “I’ll be showing you guys around inside.”

As we started walking, Morgan asked, “Do you guys get a lot of fires this time a year?”

“When I first started working for the DFD, we had about 600 fires during the three days leading up to Devil’s Night. Nowadays, people are more concerned with drinking themselves to death than lighting fires. As of last night, we’re only down to 118.” He pointed to the door, “Our city-wide Neighborhood Watch program has really helped. We’re shorthanded down at the DFD, so volunteers really make or break it.”

I looked at Morgan, sharing a look that said, “Volunteers? People willing to thrust themselves into the investigations. Great.” So, I asked Al, “How many volunteers do you guys have now?”

He was leading us through the halls inside of the warehouse. “A thousand.”

“A thousand people?”

“They’re spread out all over the city. One of the volunteers actually called in this fire last night.”

“We’ll need to talk to them,”

“I’ll arrange for that.”

“And we’ll need the roster for all of your volunteers,” Morgan said.

“Whatever you guys need. But, do you guys really think that he’s one of them?” he asked, turning his head over his shoulder.

I shrugged. “We can’t rule anything out just yet.”

Really, though, the likelihood was ridiculously high. I could remember that the last big arson case we worked on was years ago. It always stuck out to me because Hotch and I had only just started dating, and somehow, the case got personal for him because the Unsub was killing families in their own homes, and our main suspect was a family man—a father who was just trying to do his best… Like Hotch. At the time, I didn’t know how to comfort him with that stuff. I knew that he was struggling to sit in that hospital room with the one victim who had survived the attack, and I knew that he was trying to clear this guy’s name, even though the evidence was stacked against him. In the end, though, Hotch was right. As always.

Our Unsub turned out to be an eco-radical that believed that the best way to create change and to get revenge on people for mistreating the Earth was by setting people on fire. It was a twisted way of thinking. But, then again, most sociopaths didn’t make sense, anyhow. But when our suspect found out who the real Unsub was—that he was a man who had been trying to help the FBI find whoever was really responsible, he went to end it once and for all.

I would never forget watching Gideon and Morgan as they held a distraught Hotch back. He was screaming and pushing, begging that we do something to help the innocent man trapped inside the burning building. But there was nothing we could do. That was the outcome of what happened when two people injected themselves into an investigation that they were emotionally connected to. Hotch had to watch another father die, and it killed him. And this was before Foyet—long before Foyet. There were no concerns that Hotch wouldn’t be able to protect his own family. He had just grown so close to that man during the investigation, connecting about their sons, their wives, and even their abusive fathers.

So, when it came to arson cases like these, I was wary now of “volunteers” that were there to help us with the investigation. I worried even more about Hotch. Now that Haley was gone—which was still a fresh wound thirteen months later—he was vulnerable to his empathy. He was a good man who cared a lot for other people, and he spent his entire life trying to save and protect strangers for that very reason, but he also knew that he couldn’t save everyone. He wanted to. Out of everyone in the world, he wanted to save the one person he should have always been there to protect, but… he failed… I hated admitting that. But he did. We both recognized that he failed to save Haley. However, he was never going to fail again, that much I knew. He was going to do whatever it took to protect me, Jack, and the rest of the world. Over the next two days, if we were to meet anyone with any type of tragic backstory, I knew that Hotch would break. There was just too much overlap between that old arson case and the sting of Haley’s death.

This crime scene, in particular, was in an abandoned engine factory, according to Al. That wasn’t uncommon in Detroit. Half of the city was filled with places just like this that had been ignored by companies once they moved onto bigger and better things, leaving a desolate building for the locals to maintain or pay to have demolished, which they obviously didn’t have the money for. But that was what attracted people like our Unsubs to them. With no one around, they were the perfect grounds for crimes and squatting. Druggies, homeless people, criminals, and high school kids all sought out freedom in building like these. But that just made our jobs that much harder.

The victim had been tied to a pole on top of a pyre in the middle of the room. Leading from the door to the pyre were drag tracks, a mixture of blood, dirt, gasoline, and soot. The only concern I had about that was that it was clear that the Unsub had dragged the victim in through the door we entered in, too, but the oil and soot told us that he also stood there while watching the victim burn. That was what didn’t make sense. In that massive warehouse, there were hundreds of better places to stand and watch it if he were a Sadist.

“How fast did it take for responders to get onto the scene?” I asked the Fire Department Chief.

“Less than five minutes.”

“So, for three years in a row, this guy has been able to uphold a pattern, despite the DFD and the local Neighborhood Watch program lurking around, keeping an eye out for guys just like him. How does he get away with that?”

Morgan shrugged. “Well, if he’s one of them, it’s easy to ensure no one comes in his area.”

“Yeah… But, then, how did he not know that there was a witness around? And why doesn’t it say that anyone else on the roster should have been in this area?”

“Because he’s not one of them.”

I nodded. “Exactly. There has to be another way that he can keep track of the fire department’s response times.”

Morgan stayed silent as he considered and continued circling the pyre. When a thought struck him, he looked over at me. “A police radio scanner.” He stopped. “They all share the same form of communication so that the police, firefighters, and paramedics can arrive on scene as fast as possible. If he hears on the scanner that the fire has already been called in, he stops watching, turns, and leaves as fast as he can. He’s gone before the firefighters are in the firetruck.”

“And as long as he stays in his safety zone, Rivertown,” I said, referencing where we were standing and where all of the other bodies had been found, “he knows how fast he needs to be.”

“This is worse than we thought…”

I nodded an agreement.

While we were gone, Reid and Hotch had been reviewing victimology, trying to find something that could connect all seven victims so far in the hopes of leading us straight to the Unsub. However, they were nose down in papers when we walked in. Even as Morgan and I sat down across from them, waiting to be caught up to date, Hotch and Reid kept reading and talking amongst themselves. And then Reid perked up with eureka.

“I couldn’t find any overlap, per say,” he began explaining to the four of us, “but I think I might have something interesting here.” He opened a file up to an 180 degree angle, then set it down in the middle of the boardroom table so that we could all see. “Tommy Proctor, our first victim, was a convicted felon. He was buried, unlike the other victims, which meant that our Unsub likely knew him.”

“Or, he could have just felt remorse since it was his first kill,” I countered.

That was how Reid and I always were. We pushed back on each other’s ideas and wisdom because it kept us on our toes, and it was really the only kinds of interactions we had at all. Since Haley’s death, we hadn’t been as witty with each other. I think he was scared to push back against me, especially since the team had been turning to me more while Hotch was still out of the office and there needed to be a smooth transition of power. I think he was also scared of breaking me. When Tobias Hankle took him, I remember the worry that was knotting in the pit of my stomach because we couldn’t afford to lose our boy genius… and, in some odd way, I could tell that Reid felt the same way about me and Hotch during the Foyet chaos. But now we were getting back into a rhythm. By pushing back against him, it was my way of telling him that I liked how we used to interact, and that he could give me shit for not knowing what I was talking about sometimes, or if I missed something obvious—since noticing small things quickly was supposed to be my thing.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” Reid argued directly at me. “The autopsy report shows that there were multiple botched attempts to burn Proctor, which means that—”

“The Unsub didn’t know how difficult it is to burn a body.”

Reid grinned slightly at our scrimmage. “Precisely.”

The door suddenly opened, Rossi entering as fast as he could, his suit jacket flying behind him like a cape. Emily was following just behind him. She closed the door as Rossi continued pacing while thinking over-time. “So, I just finished talking to the wife of last night’s victim. During her comprehensive, she recalls seeing the Unsub. He’s a tall, black, mid-twenty year old guy with a burn on his face.

“Well, that gives us a stressor,” I said, relaxing back in my seat.

“And the M.O. makes a lot more sense now,” Reid said.

Hotch agreed. “Yeah, but our Unsub probably wasn’t burned at a stake. There are hundreds of burn victims a year—”

“Thousands, actually.”

“Thousands,” Hotch corrected himself with a scoff. “The information helps, but it doesn’t give us a name. How are we supposed to narrow it down?”

“What if Reid and I were wrong?” I asked. I waited for someone else to say something—especially Reid—but everyone just stared at me blankly; so, I continued, “What if he did know how hard it is to burn a body, but the botched burns were actually his way of torturing Tommy Proctor, and then he actually did bury him because it was personal.”

Taking all of our different theories, we all split up to separate sides of the boardroom to start brainstorming. There was a piece here that we were missing. I wasn’t sure what it was, and Emily didn’t seem to understand either while she was working with me. We were trying to make the remorse theory work. Even though all of the other scenes didn’t show any sign of remorse at face value, I knew I could eventually see it if I just went through every single piece of evidence. Again, I had to prove to myself and the team that I wasn’t completely worthless. When my mind was too busy with other things, it was impossible for me to pull through with my “thing” as the one person who could just look at things and then immediately recognize them and profile them, and I knew that it was damn near impossible because every time I saw the word “Halloween”, I thought about how Jack was sitting at home, waiting and hoping that we would be back on time to take him trick-or-treating.

And then it suddenly hit me.

I stood quickly, rushing to gather up all of the files in front of me and order them so that I could see a similarity that I was catching onto. Reid said that he didn’t see any connections, but there was something he always overlooked. Relationships. He sucked at recognizing how important relationships were to people—whether they were romantic, familial, or platonic. That was his one blind spot because he never had a connection like that before with anyone who mattered, except for his mother. I mean, he had used people as surrogates, but they all left him, so he had since failed to see how people could hold their connection to someone over all else when he had always been put second to other things or other people. But not me and Hotch. He and I were everything to each other, and Jack was our everything. Period. We held those connections more dearly than anything else. It was possible that the Unsub felt the same way.

Everyone stopped what they were working on in order to watch me closely. When I found what I was looking for, though, I took a step back, letting it settle in my mind before I decided to tell them. Each of the victims had been taken in front of a loved one. A partner, a child, even a sibling. That couldn’t have been a coincidence. It was easier to take someone when they were isolated to ensure that there were no witnesses, and that no one could stop you. But this Unsub specifically chose people who were with someone who meant everything to them. This was all a part of his M.O. His ritual included taking someone from their loved one.

“He was burned in front of someone he loved…” I mumbled. Hotch cocked a brow at me. “He’s taking his victims in front of people,” I explained turning the files so that the team could see the connection I made. Reid furrowed his brows in confusion. I could tell that he didn’t understand how it was that he overlooked something as simple as that. I shook off a smirk. “He—”

Hotch’s phone started ringing. As he answered, his face immediately fell. The call was quick, barely even giving him a chance to thank the person reaching out to him. “There’s been another abduction,” Hotch told us.

“How do we know that it’s our guy?” Rossi inquired.

“Because his daughter told the responding officers that a monster took her dad.”

So, I was right… I wish I hadn’t hit the nail on the head so perfectly like that—or at least I wished I would have seen it sooner, because maybe that girl would still be with her father instead of asking why this happened to him.

“Garcia’s sending the police report to us now,” Hotch continued, our phones buzzing just on time. We all looked down to review what the girl had told the officers.

Christopher Edwards, thirty-five, white, single father, lived in the suburbs. Seemingly normal life. Actually, his life, on paper, appeared to be perfect, except for the fact that his wife left him and his daughter three years ago, shortly after she gave birth. Since then, he had to up his game in order to support his family, so he became a local contractor in Rivertown… our Unsub’s safe hunting grounds. He was burning all of the bodies in that area, which meant that area was extremely important to him—in fact, it could have been where he was burned in the first place. All of this could be revenge for what happened to him.

“Garcia,” I said after Morgan got her on the phone for all of us, “Christopher Edwards, what subcontractors did he work with?”

She scoffed. “The list is huge. Do you have any more parameters?”

“Anything that requires fire.”

“Cross reference that with anyone who’s part of the volunteer neighborhood watch, baby girl,” Morgan said. I nodded an agreement since it was a good idea. As we had suspected earlier while down at the warehouse, he was probably inserting himself into the investigation by staying on the watch.

“Nothing.”

“Come on, baby girl, there’s gotta be something.”

“Okay, give me a second. Let me switch some things around here, and maybe I’ll find a name buried in here somewhere—Ah! I’m amazing! His name is Kaman Scott.”

“How are you so sure?” Emily asked.

“Because, growing up, Kaman Scott was on track to practically be the bad boy turned convict. His family was poor, his education fell through, and he had been arrested multiple times in his teenage years. Only, in 2004, something happened to make him clean up his act and get his life together. After that change, there’s no sign of bad behavior. Actually, he’s the poster boy for a guy just trying to make it in an unfair world.”

“Maybe that’s when he met someone,” Rossi theorized. “That introduction gave him a reason to become a better person. What normally does that?” he asked rhetorically.

“Love,” Hotch answered, anyhow.

“But how do you go from changing your life in 2004 for someone you love to killing three people every year in 2009?” Morgan asked.

“A breakup.”

“Okay. So, then, where did the burn come from?”

“The breakup was probably a result of the burn. So, we need to look for something that happened in Kaman’s life—”

“Already found it,” Garcia interrupted. “In 2005, Kaman and his first victim, Tommy Proctor, were in a car accident, which resulted in Kaman’s car blowing up.”

“There’s the revenge,” Rossi said.

“How come he was stagnant between 2005 and 2009?” I asked.

Garcia’s keyboard clacked into the microphone of the call for a moment. “According to the accident report, Tommy walked away without a scratch, but Kaman was put into a coma. While he was out of it, he lost his job, his home—Oh! Oh, my! His landlord was Tony Torrell—the most recent victim.”

“Does Kaman have any family or friends that we could talk to?”

“No… But I just sent you guys his address.”

Hotch looked between me and Morgan. “You guys go check it out.” We nodded and started making our way out. Hotch grabbed my wrist before I could walk past him. “Be careful.”

I smiled and nodded, though I wanted to lean down to kiss him more than anything in the world. “I will.” I would just have to kiss him later.

That was all I could think on our drive to Kaman Scott’s house, though. That one kiss. Getting home to Jack and getting time alone with Hotch was all I needed in life nowadays. Holding onto that hope, knowing that they loved me, and I loved them, and holding my breath until I was at home with them again was what pushed me through every case. I suddenly understood what it was that my parents were always racing home for. My mom traveled the world for the CIA, working on all of these covert operations that we could never have any information about, which made growing up hard; but when she would come, she would set everything to the side just to be with my dad, me, and Elle. My dad wasn’t gone as often. Since he worked at the Academy, there were times when he was called away to do certain things, but he was usually more hands on with me and Elle. In a way, I supposed Hotch was like my mother, and Haley was like my dad. Only, now, Jack didn’t have someone who was with him all of the time—or at least the majority of the time. Yeah, Jessica was a rockstar for offering to help around with Jack whenever we were out of town, but… Jack needed someone there with him… But it couldn’t be me or Hotch. As bad as it sounded, we couldn’t live without our jobs.

When Morgan and I arrived at Kaman’s apartment, we didn’t even bother putting on vests. Since the report had come in that another person had gone missing, we knew that he would be all the way in Rivertown, completing his ritual while the team was searching for him there and Morgan and I were putting the pieces together at the apartment as much as we could. But the door was locked. On the drive over, Hotch had gotten a judge to sign a warrant, which meant that we could go in without an invitation. So, Morgan took a step back, then kicked the door in.

As we hurried inside, I tried to flip on a light switch since it was so dark, but the lights just wouldn’t turn on. I huffed. No light, no mirrors, no windows… It was going to be impossible to navigate our way around. The best we could do was to grab our flashlights and start using them to find clues as to who Kaman Scott was, where he was, and who his next victim was going to be. If we couldn’t stop this murder, we could at least stop the next one.

“Look at this,” Morgan finally said. I made my way around the room to meet up with him in a corner where he saw a collection of gas cans cluttered together. And they were all full. “He’s prepared.”

I shook my head at how ridiculous this was. There was no way for him to see out into the world—or more specifically, no way for the world to see him. There was nothing personal in his apartment. No pictures, décor, even DVDS. There was nothing in there that told us who Kaman Scott was as a person, and not just an Unsub. He was human at one point, right? He had lived a life with someone that made him happy, and yet there wasn’t a single hint of her anywhere. Even if they broke up as a result of his car crash, his obsession should have still been obvious. It was curious that he was hiding it so well.

And then, as if it were a miracle or Morgan could read my mind, he said, “Greenaway.” I turned to him again to see that he had just flipped Kaman’s mattress to find a diary hidden underneath. “There’s his obsession.” He pointed to the scrapbook of pages that were dedicated to whichever girl it was that Kaman had clearly been dating before his accident. “There’s no name in her.”

“He was covering his tracks.”

“We profiled him as organized, but this is a little much, don’t you think?”

“Not really. If he really wanted to keep her all to himself, he might go to extra lengths to make sure no one can find her.”

“Yeah, well, I know someone who can,” he teased, digging for his phone in his back pocket.

I smirked at how he was off to go call his “baby girl” to help us find whoever it was that Kaman was so obsessed with. Using facial recognition, she would be able to deduce it within minutes—maybe even seconds. She was good like that. Since her attack nearly two years ago, we had all been trying to appreciate her more since what she did was incredibly important to our work, and without her, we would be struggling to close cases as effortlessly as we were.

“We have a problem,” Morgan said, catching my attention. “Hotch and Chief Garner just found the most recent victim’s body dumped in Rivertown.”

“So, he’s on his endgame.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Garcia said over the phone, “I can’t find her. She’s not showing up in my database.”

“How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“And we really don’t have time to figure out why,” Hotch said on the call, too. “Garcia, is there anything recognizable in the photos to help give us a lead? Maybe a home address, school address, work—”

“Jay-Mo’s diner.”

“What?” I questioned.

“Jay-Mo’s diner,” she repeated. “It’s in the background of all of the photos.”

Hotch asked Chief Garner if he had ever heard of Jay-Mo’s, to which the fireman agreed. “We’ll head there now,” Hotch said.

“And we’ll meet you there so that we can regroup,” Morgan offered. It was a good idea, and it was a plan that seemed sufficient enough to Hotch so that he could hang up on us.

As we were pulling up to the diner, I could see a hint of red and orange hues that came from a roaring blaze inside. The closer we got, the more I could see it growing. The windows suddenly burst open. Just as Morgan put the car in park, I saw Hotch’s SUV parked on the curb just ahead, the driver’s side door completely open. My heart sped up. The realization dawned on me the moment I saw two shadows of men moving about inside the diner.

“No—” I struggled to get my seatbelt off. My wrist was still stuck against the buckle when I opened the door and started stumbling out of the car in an attempt to get to the diner and run inside to help Hotch. “Fuck. Come on.” I pulled against the seatbelt until it released me. “Hotch!” I shrieked, jumping forward to run to him. Morgan caught me in his arms, though, and held me back. “Hotch!” I clawed at Morgan’s grip. “Aaron!” The door to the diner opened up, and I saw Hotch stumbling out while carrying someone along. “Aaron!” I kicked Morgan’s ankle to get him to release me, but all he did was groan and constrict his arms around my waist until I couldn’t move. And then the diner blew up. “No!” I cried as Hotch and the man he was helping along flew forward onto their stomachs.

In his state of shock, Morgan released me. The second my feet were back on the ground, I started racing towards the sidewalk outside of the burning building, where Hotch and the man were groaning and writhing in pain. As I fell to my feet, Hotch looked up at me. I put my hands on his face. He was blinking dramatically, and looking around blindly, just like he did in New York. I told him to stay still. Morgan came running up to check on the man Hotch pulled out of the diner. While he called out for the paramedics, I kept my hold on Hotch’s face, trying to calm him down.

“I’m fine…” he groaned.

“Your ears—”

“They’re not ringing.”

“Your back—”

“I’m fine, Y/N. I swear. I’m not lying.”

I pressed my palms to his cheeks a little harder to keep him steady as I searched his eyes and body language for any of his tells. He was telling the truth. “Don’t ever do that again, Aaron Hotchner. I mean it. Don’t ever scare me like that again, so help me—”

He sat up and kissed me. “I’m okay.”

“Please stop doing this to me,” I whispered calmly. “Please.”

He groaned as he started pushing himself to his feet so that we could move out of the way for the paramedics that were trying to attend to the man Hotch pulled out. We glanced over to see Morgan holding a gash on his leg together until an EMT stepped in to trade places with him, so Morgan stumbled over to stand with us, too.

I was still holding onto Hotch. Ensuring that he was really okay, and not just lying to me about his health, like he had a tendency to do, was my top priority. There were medics helping the man he dragged out. Morgan wasn’t hurt. I was okay. Now, all I needed to be sure of was Hotch. He was an asshole when it came to his own health and safety. He always did everything in his power to protect those around him, and to make sure that they were alright; but he never let anyone show him the same courtesy. That was, unless I was babying him. But I didn’t want to baby him. I wanted to trust that for once—since Haley, at least—he could see that I needed to know immediately when something was wrong, and I needed to know the full extent of whatever was wrong with him whenever something bad happened. I just couldn’t afford to lose him like he lost Haley. I couldn’t fucking do it. In fact, I couldn’t even think about it. I didn’t want to imagine what could have happened if he had wasted another few seconds while saving that man in that diner. As noble as it was, it was ridiculously foolish. What was I supposed to do if he died? Raise Jack on my own? How? How was I supposed to do that without him? How was Jack supposed to grow up without a mom and a dad? Fuck Hotch for not thinking that through. Fuck him—

And then I flung my arms around his neck.

“I mean it, Aaron…” I mumbled into his neck.

As he wrapped his arms around my waist and hid his face in the crook of my neck, too, he whispered, “I couldn’t let him die in there.”

“And I couldn’t let you die in there, either.” I kissed his cheek. “We promised we would be home on time to take him trick-or-treating… Don’t make me a liar.”

Hotch turned to kiss my lips. “I’m sorry, baby.”

It was a little overdramatic to be all over each other and talking like that, but seeing him risk his life like that could only remind me of Haley. Every single danger that was thrown in our path just reminded me of her. It was like flashes. Victims, Unsubs, Hotch at work, even Jack getting pushed around at soccer… I couldn’t shake it. It was like a bad taste in my mouth. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get over it. I thought I was doing better. In fact, I knew I was getting better. It had been thirteen months since I found her on our carpet like that. Thirteen months should have been long enough. Yet, it wasn’t. The only comfort I had was holding him in my arms— alive. It wasn’t like watching him hold Haley’s dead body in his arms. He was alive. He was okay.

“Hotch!” Morgan called, running over to the man on the ground. “He’s saying something.”

We parted from our hug so that Hotch could fall to his knees beside the victim and hold his hand as he tried to croak something into Hotch’s ear. “Tra—” he tried to say. “T—” He was just too weak from the throw of the explosion. “Trac… Tracy…”

“Tracy?” Morgan clarified.

“Yes…”

“Who’s Tracy?” Hotch asked.

“Tracy…”

“Who is that?”

“Tracy…”

“Sir, you have to move again,” one of the paramedics insisted.

So, we had gone to the diner with the lead that Kaman’s girlfriend used to go there all the time. It was a far-fetched lead, and we weren’t at all sure if it would pan out, but we had to try, and it was a good thing we did because we managed to save a man’s life in the process. But the girlfriend… The owner had given us a name: Tracy. We knew that the Unsub wasn’t a woman, so the owner of the diner must have known what we were there and who it was we wanted to know about. Kaman’s girlfriend’s name was Tracy. That was the logical explanation. The only question now was… Tracy who? And how were we supposed to find her?

I grabbed my phone and dialed Garcia’s number. “Garcia—”

“Is Hotch okay? He told me he was heading to the diner, and he told me he was heading in while we were on the phone, but all I heard was an explosion before it cut out—”

“He’s fine, Garcia. I promise.”

I heard her sigh with relief. “Thank Heavens.”

“I need you to look at the family that owns this diner. Is the owner of Jay-Mo’s related to a Tracy?”

“Lemme look…” she mumbled while typing. “Oh—Yeah. Tracy Anderson. She lives in Ohio—”

“No, she would be nearby. Where do her parents live?”

“Indian Village. It’s five miles from where you are.”

I hadn’t even realized that Hotch was listening to the call because I had put it on speaker in order to fidget with texting Emily everything I was learning. Before I could do or say anything, Hotch was getting in his black SUV again, this time dragging the DFD Chief with him.

“God fucking dammit,” I cursed under my breath. The chief probably knew the best way to get there and probably where the Andersons lived if the diner really was all that, as he said it was. That gave Hotch the upper hand. “Garcia, we need the address. The whole team does.”

“Already sent.”

My phone buzzed just as she said it. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Be safe.”

Morgan and I hurried back to our car, racing to catch up to Hotch as dispatch put out the address to the rest of the police and fire forces. Since the drive was short and practically past the sheriff’s department, we were leading a line of speeding vehicles with lights and sirens. We had the whole cavalry. It was going to be okay.

And then the son of a bitch had to say the one thing I absolutely didn’t want to hear just then. “Everyone needs to stand down,” Hotch whispered into his comm. I cocked a brow. What the fuck was he talking about? Stand down? Why? “I just need one guy from SWAT, that’s all.”

Morgan started coming to a slow and steady stop, reaching to turn off the lights and sirens, just like all of the other cars around us were doing. I sat up straight. What the fuck was he doing? No! This wasn’t right. We had to go help Hotch because he promised me that he wouldn’t keep doing this to me. I told him that he couldn’t keep putting himself in harm’s way just for a case when our little man was waiting at home for him—when our family just couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. Ever.

“Morgan,” I said urgently, “go.”

“No.” He turned off the car.

I turned to open the car door, but he locked it and put the child locks on. My face fell. “Derek Morgan, let me out—”

“Hotch gave us orders.”

My heart started pounding in my chest. I glanced out the side window, pressing my forehead against the cold window, watching as it started to rain. I’d never felt trapped like this before. This wasn’t even that dramatic compared to that day when Foyet took Haley from us; yet I found that my heart was so heavy with worry that night. At least someone had been trying to help the day Haley died. We were all in a car together, racing there as fast as we could, trying to beat Foyet before he could kill Jack and Hotch, too. The worry I had about not knowing if Hotch was okay or not was the same exact worry I had coursing through my veins when I thought that phone call was the last time I would ever get to tell him that I loved him, and that I would end up finding all three of them dead in our house.

“Y/N, this is just another day on the job. Remember what that was like?” Morgan asked me quietly. “The two of you always used to run into stupid shit like this because that’s part of the job, and that’s part of the dumb fucking thoughts you two always have running in your heads that it’s better if one of you go down than someone else on the team. So, now, you get to sit here and listen to his orders and worry about him the same way we always had to listen and worry about you guys.”

“I hate you.”

“Get in line,” he teased.

To be fair, when I did “stupid shit like this”, I wasn’t responsible for a son. I mean… I was, but… It was different because Jack had Hotch and Haley if something ever happened to me. But now it was just me and Hotch. And, in some weird way, I was still okay with Jack losing me over Hotch, because at least he would still have his dad—his own flesh and blood. If it were me in Hotch’s shoes in that moment, telling the team to stay back, I would’ve been comforted by the fact that Jack wouldn’t be alone still. But if Hotch died… That felt different. After everything, neither Jack nor I would know how to live like that.

“Sunshine, we’re going to be okay. He’s going to be okay.”

“We shouldn’t have let him become the unit chief again so soon—”

“It’s been over a year,” Morgan tried to explain to me.

I scoffed. “I know how long it’s been… I think about it every day…”

Morgan stayed quiet. Neither of us knew what to say now. I had practically snapped at him, though I hadn’t meant it, and I was sure he was aware of that. It still hurt, though. It hurt me, too. But I was so drained by my worry and running around, chasing after Hotch every time he went off to do “stupid shit like this”. We couldn’t afford to do this anymore. I knew that neither of us were going to quit the FBI because that just wasn’t like us, and we were always unhappy when we weren’t in the field; but I was getting tired of this. Things had to have a happy upturn sooner than later. Something good needed to happen soon. If we were cursed to always be upset like this, it was going to be the death of me.

“We’re clear in here,” Hotch said over the comm.

Within an instant, Morgan turned the car back on and started driving, meanwhile I worked to get the lights and sirens back on. The parade of black SUVs and police squad cars followed suit, taking our lead as we continued around the corner and towards the house. The DFD Chief was standing on the driveway, waving us over. As we pulled up onto the curb, I unlocked the car and jumped out, grabbing ahold of my gun, which was holstered on my hip, and my handcuffs, which were clipped onto my back—a trick Elle taught Morgan, which he then taught me.

Inside, Hotch was helping to free an old man and woman who were tied to the dining room table. Kaman, our Unsub, was on his knees, hugging a little boy as his mother stood close by. I slowed and furrowed my brows. Why hadn’t Hotch arrested Kaman yet? Why was he— Oh. I realized quickly what the situation was, so I released my hold on my gun and my handcuffs so that I could bar anyone else from entering until Hotch gave the go ahead, because there was no way I was going to arrest a father in front of his own son. I couldn’t imagine how that would feel. If someone arrested Hotch in front of Jack, I would have been furious, but upset because I would never in a million years want Jack to have to witness something like that. So, we were going to wait until the opportune moment.

Just as Hotch finished freeing the man and woman, he pushed himself to his feet and backed up towards me. “Go ahead,” he whispered to me.

I nodded, understanding that he wouldn’t want to make the arrest at all. So, I carefully approached Kaman and his family, leaning in to whisper into Tracy’s ear that it would be best if he took her son outside for a minute. She nodded. Kaman was pried away from his son, reaching out uselessly for another touch or interaction that wouldn’t come. When his son was gone, his mother having carried him out in her arms, I grabbed my handcuffs again, this time flashing them in front of Kaman so he knew what was happening; then, as I cuffed him, I recited the Miranda Rights for him, all while he was silent. I brought him to his feet when he was secured. An officer was then sent in to retrieve Kaman and take him outside.

Telling by the look on Hotch’s face, I knew that he didn’t want to spend another second in that house, but he wasn’t going to leave as long as I was in there either. So, I started walking out. As I strode past him, I made a gesture with my head for him to follow me outside without saying anything. He did.

When we were on the driveway with the rest of the team and the platoon of police that had come with us, I crossed my arms and watched as Kaman was led through the crowd. Morgan was standing by the car, watching us, a small smirk on his face that said: “I told you it would be okay. It’s always okay.” And I damn near wanted to smack that smirk away.

“You okay?” I asked Hotch worriedly.

He nodded. “Yeah. I just…” He turned over his shoulder to see the officers putting Kaman in the squad car. “Him and his son… They reminded me…” He sighed when Kaman’s son pressed his hands against the window of the squad car so that he could see his dad again.

“They reminded you of Jack?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Baby,” I cooed, grabbing his hand. I kissed his knuckles gently like he would always do with me when he was bored or wanted to comfort me. “Let’s go home.”

As I opened the door, Hotch pinched my hip, making me yelp playfully before kissing him. We both froze when we saw Jessica standing there, her arms crossed over her chest, a slight smile hiding by her faux anger. I bit my lip and laughed. It felt like I had just been caught bringing a boy home by my mother. The way she was staring at us disapprovingly, tapping her foot against the wood floor, but still somewhat happy to see me, and to see me happy. Actually, if anything, it felt like being caught by Elle.

“You guys are back early,” Jessica noted with a slight uptick in her voice, signaling that she was ecstatic about our sudden appearance. Her and Jack must have been way too skeptical about us coming back on time. “He’s doing homework upstairs.”

“On Halloween?” I questioned.

“He didn’t think you guys were coming, and he said he didn’t want to go trick-or-treating with me.”

And then we heard the pattering of little feet overhead. Jack must have seen our car pulling into the driveway because he was running as fast as he could down the hallway upstairs, racing for the steps, at which point, we heard him jumping down the steps. He knew he wasn’t supposed to run in the house. It was a bad habit, and we didn’t need him putting holes in the walls because he would crash into something or someone. But I would let it slide this one time. I could overlook him running in the house simply for the sake of getting to see him sooner.

I gasped playfully, “Look who it is!” Jack kept running at me, his arms quickly widening out so that I could brace my hands under his shoulders and lift him up into my arms. I hugged him close to my chest and kissed his cheeks over and over again. “It’s my little man!” I smacked one last kiss on his cheek. “Are you ready to trick-or-treat?” Jack nodded. I squeezed him tight. “Go get into your costume, then, okay?”

Jack slid out of my arms. After taking Jessica’s hand, the two of them ran upstairs together to help him get into his costume. Our theme this year was superheroes. Jack was on a kick with Spider-Man instead of Superman these days, so his dream since we started talking about what he was going to dress up as was to be Spider-Man. When he decided on superheroes, Hotch and I had to start figuring out what we were going to do. Hotch got lazy by digging into his closet to find an old t-shirt he had with Superman’s logo on it. He decided that he was going to pair that with a pair of jeans and call it a day. Meanwhile, I was dressing up as Wonder Woman—which I took deadly seriously by going out to find a real, good quality costume that fit me. It had a tight red top, low cut gold collar, short blue skirt, red shin and wrist guards, gold headband, and— my favorite part—the gold whip that attached to my skirt.

As I stepped out of the bathroom, adjusting my skirt to make sure it was lying flat, I could hear Hotch shuffling around the room to finish getting ready himself. “How do I look?” I asked.

Hotch turned to me, and I started spinning in a slow circle so that he could get a good look at me. His arms unfolded from in front of his chest, his mouth fell agape, and his eyes brightened. “You look…” he bit his lip, “so hot.” I laughed and shook my head at him. “Fuck,” he growled under his breath, stepping closer to me. His hands grabbed my hips and yanked me towards him before he kissed me roughly. “I love you,” he mumbled against my lips.

“I love you, too,” I responded, putting my hands on his shoulders, and sliding them up slowly to hold his face. “The Superman look is good for you.” I giggled as we parted.

“Do we have to go out or can we just lock the door and use this whip?” he asked me, yanking on the gold rope rolled up on my hip.

I rolled my eyes at him and pried his hands away. “It’s part of my costume, don’t touch.”

Hotch squinted and pulled me back towards him again. “It would look so good around your wrists, though…” He leaned in to kiss me.

“Okay, Dad, I’m ready,” Jack said, running down the hall. Hotch and I turned to face the door, but his hands didn’t leave my hips quite yet. I tilted my head to the side and rested it on Hotch’s shoulder. Jack stepped into our bedroom, dressed in a small, tailored suit, sleek black dress shoes, and one of Hotch’s ties hanging loosely around his neck. Jessica came in, too, staying just a few steps behind Jack. “Do you like it?”

Hotch raised a brow. “What happened to Spider-Man, kiddo? I thought we were all supposed to be superheroes.”

“Spider-Man isn’t a superhero.”

“He’s not?”

Jack shook his head. “No.”

“Okay,” Hotch played along, “I give up. Who are you supposed to be?”

Jessica was grinning from the doorway, and a smile was creeping onto my face as I realized just how oblivious Hotch was to his son’s love. Jack loved Hotch more than anything in the world. I had been saying it since I first met them; Jack saw Hotch as a superhero akin to the likes of Batman and Superman. I mean, he literally called us superheroes, and he said that our job was saving the world, and he called his homework junior superhero work. I couldn’t believe Hotch didn’t put the pieces together as Jack stood there, and both Jessica and I were grinning ear to ear. I couldn’t even believe that Jessica helped him pull this off and they didn’t tell us.

My heart was literally melting in my chest as Jack smiled up at his dad and said, “I’m you, Daddy.”

I looked up at Hotch and saw how big his smile was now. If Jessica and I were grinning ear to ear, I didn’t know what to call Hotch’s smile. I had never seen him that happy in his life. Since Haley, I feared that Hotch sometimes wondered if Jack blamed him somehow; and I was scared that it would impact their relationship because Hotch was worried that he was failing Jack. But seeing Jack standing there, looking like a spitting image of his father, there was no doubt in my mind that Jack loved his father unconditionally and put no blame on him. I just hoped that Hotch understood it now, too, and wouldn’t be afraid anymore. Jack needed his superhero to keep saving the world and raising him the best way he knew how. Hotch had never failed Jack, not even when it came down to what happened with Haley and Foyet. Hotch could never fail Jack. There was no way Hotch’s mind or heart would ever allow that to happen. And I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen, anyhow.

Hotch didn’t move for a second, paralyzed by the overwhelming feeling of glee. I reached down and peeled his hands from my hips and crouched down. “Come here, little man, let’s fix your tie.” Jack ran over to me and lifted his chin up towards the ceiling so that I could pop the collar of his tiny suit and fix the tie around his neck. “There you go,” I told him as I fixed the collar back down around the tie and Jack lowered his chin again. He lifted his arms into the air, a silent plea for me to pick him up. He was getting so big, I wasn’t sure how much longer Hotch and I could pick him up, but I was going to fight like hell to make that time last, and I was going to take every chance I got. I lifted him into my arms and propped him on my hip. “Do you like Dad’s costume?” I asked Jack, pointing to Hotch’s Superman shirt. Jack nodded. “Doesn’t he look like Superman?” Jack nodded again.

Hotch put his arms out this time, another silent plea to hold Jack. I handed him over and watched as Hotch adjusted Jack’s tie ever so slightly. “You look like a real FBI agent,” Hotch complimented. “How much candy do you think an agent can get tonight?”

“All of the candy!” Jack laughed.

“All of it?! Woah! That agent must be really good to get all of the candy. Do you think you’re up for it?”

“Yeah!” Jack wriggled himself out of Hotch’s hold and jumped to his feet. Jack started shuffling off to grab his Halloween candy bucket downstairs, then anxiously wait by the door until we would catch up with him. Jessica laughed and joined him.

Hotch turned back to me and grabbed my hips roughly again. “I love you.”

My heart swelled. I smiled at him as I brushed my fingers through his hair. “I think I might love him just a little more than you.”

“You always say that.”

“Yeah, but that was adorable…” I giggled and kissed his cheek. “What am I going to do with two Agent Hotchners running around?”

“It could be three,” he teased, leaning in to kiss my lips. I dodged. “Kiss me.” I smirked and dodged again. He grabbed my chin. “Don’t be a brat,” he growled before kissing me deeply. “I love you,” he breathed against my lips.

“I love you, too.” I kissed him back. When I pulled away again, I said, “And it could be more than three at some point—”

“You’re going to kill me…” he whispered with a smirk. His fingers danced over the whip on my side. “One step at a time, though. I just want to make the trio official first.”

“Dad!” Jack called from downstairs.

I giggled again and pulled myself out of Hotch’s hold. “I love you, but we should go.” I grabbed his hand, then started leading him down towards the front door so that we could take our little man trick-or-treating.

-----

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