#i was psyched when i realized it still works!

[gf2bellamy]

hiii, you can ignore this request if you don’t want todo it!! It’s sort of fluffy/hurt comfort. Spencer and reader have been pining over each other for ages until reader finally asks Spencer on a really cute date to a museum or something. Reader shows up a little early to make sure they are there on time, and waits for Spencer to arrive. Spencer is super super late because something happened on the underground/metro, and reader thinks Spencer has just stood her up so she flees to Penelope. I’m not sure how it would end, and sorry it’s so long!! :)

date — spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader ( no use of y/n ) content warnings: reader feeling upset bc she thinks spencer stood her up a/n: hii !! i love this idea and i hope you like this :) also this gif might be my all time favorite spencer gif

You were early. Maybe a little too early.

But sitting at home, pacing back and forth, obsessively checking the time—it was only making things worse. You’d spent the better part of an hour staring into the mirror, pulling and adjusting your clothes, second-guessing every little detail. At some point, you just had to force yourself out the door before you talked yourself out of it completely.

And now, here you were. Standing outside the museum, shifting from foot to foot, your breath fogging slightly in the crisp afternoon air.

It was a history museum. The moment you’d heard about the new exhibit, your thoughts had gone straight to Spencer.

It had taken you a month to work up the courage to ask him to come with you. A full month of rehearsing in your head, psyching yourself up, only to completely fall apart when the moment actually came.

You had been a stuttering mess, stumbling over your words, barely able to get the invitation out. But Spencer—Spencer had been just as awkward. There had been a long, heart-stopping pause where your pulse pounded so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

Then he nodded. Enthusiastically.

His curls bounced with the movement, and for a second, you thought he might actually be more excited than you were. The two of you had grinned at each other, wide and dorky and entirely too pleased with yourselves.

The memory made you smile as you stood there, phone in hand. You glanced at the screen. 1:55 PM. Five more minutes.

Deep breaths, you reminded yourself.

Your fingers tapped lightly against your thigh as nervous energy buzzed through you. You weren’t sure if it was the anticipation of the date itself or just the fact that it was Spencer.

Maybe both.

Time passed. More than five minutes. More than ten. Too much time.

You had started out standing near the entrance, glancing around every few seconds, expecting to see a familiar figure rushing toward you with an apologetic look on his face. But as the minutes ticked by, your stomach slowly twisted into knots.

Now, you were sitting on a nearby bench, your hands clasped tightly in your lap, biting your lip to keep your emotions in check. You stared down at your phone, heart sinking as the screen lit up. It was much, much later than 2 PM.

Spencer wasn’t coming.

And you knew him well enough to know that Spencer was the most punctual person on the planet. If he hadn’t shown up by now, there was only one explanation.

Spencer Reid stood you up.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you pulled up your contacts, pressing the call button.

Penelope answered on the second ring.

“Hey, sugarplum! What’s up? Are you geeking out over fossils and artifacts yet?”

You hesitated, your throat tightening. “Hi, Pen… are you busy?”

Immediately, her tone shifted. The warmth in her voice was still there, but now it was layered with concern. “No, not at all. What’s wrong? You okay? I thought you and Boy Genius were off on your little nerd date.”

You let out a small, shaky breath, staring down at your shoes as you nudged a small rock. “No… uhm… no.”

There was silence on the other end for a moment, then a softer, more careful voice. “Do you wanna come over?”

You nodded before realizing she couldn’t see you. “Yeah. Yeah, can I?”

“Of course, sweetheart. I made cupcakes this morning. I’ll have some waiting for you.”

You murmured a quiet “thanks” before hanging up, already pushing yourself off the bench. Penelope’s apartment wasn’t too far from the museum—thank God. You just needed to get away from here.

The walk to her place was a blur, and before you knew it, you were curled up on her couch, a plate of cupcakes in front of you. You picked at the frosting absentmindedly before finally whispering the words that had been weighing on your chest.

“He stood me up.”

Penelope’s eyes widened in shock. “What?”

You took another bite of the cupcake, trying to drown your sorrows in the taste of chocolate.

Penelope was still staring at you, her brows furrowed in confusion. “But… he was so excited.”

Your chewing slowed. You glanced up at her. “Hmm?”

She shifted closer, her expression troubled. “Spencer. He had been talking about this all week.”

That caught your attention. You sat up a little straighter, swallowing the bite of cupcake.

Penelope nodded, as if replaying the memories in her head. “He actually bought a new tie for it,” she added, her voice full of certainty. “A completely new tie. I helped him pick it out.”

You blinked, your breath hitching. “What?”

“He wanted it to match you.” She gave you a knowing look. “I mean, he didn’t say that, but I know these things. The man was so particular about the color, the pattern, everything. He kept fidgeting the whole time we were shopping. It was adorable, really.”

Your mind reeled.

Spencer had been planning for this. He had been excited.

So why hadn’t he shown up?

You were suddenly wide-eyed, staring at her as she continued rattling off all the things he had done in preparation for the date—how he had debated over restaurant options in case you wanted to get food after, how he had even worried about what books he might mention so he wouldn’t ramble too much.

He had wanted this.

“Oh.”

It was all you could manage to say. Your brain was still trying to process everything Penelope had just told you.

He had been excited. He had planned for this. He had even bought a new tie.

You couldn’t help the warmth that crept up your neck, a soft blush blooming across your cheeks. “So… he wanted to go out with me?” you asked, your voice laced with disbelief.

Penelope tilted her head at you, giving you a look that practically screamed, Seriously? You still have to ask?

Silence settled between you.

Then, finally, you spoke again—quieter this time, your confusion only growing. “So… why didn’t he come?”

Penelope hummed, tapping a perfectly manicured nail against her chin. “Maybe he got the day wrong?”

You gave her a flat look. “Garcia, it’s literally our only day off from work. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mix it up.”

She groaned, slumping back into the couch. “Right. Good point.”

The two of you sat there, completely stumped.

Penelope let out a dramatic sigh. “I also have some cookies if that helps?”

You exhaled, running a hand through your hair. “Yeah,” you mumbled. “That helps.”

She shot up from the couch. “Good, because emotional support baked goods are my specialty.”

You managed a small smile, but even as she disappeared into the kitchen, your thoughts remained elsewhere.

But then you were pulled from your thoughts by the sound of a knock at the door.

Before you could react, Penelope’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “Can you get that? I’m trying to heat up the cookies.”

“Sure,” you called back, pushing yourself up from the couch and making your way to the door.

The last thing you expected when you opened it was him.

Spencer.

Your mouth fell open slightly.

He stood there, slightly breathless, his shoulders slumped like he’d just run a marathon. His curls were messier than usual, a few stray strands sticking to his forehead. But what caught your attention most was his outfit—something you’d never seen him wear before. A soft button-up, a tie you knew had to be the new one Penelope mentioned, and a blazer that was slightly wrinkled, as if he had been gripping the fabric with nervous hands.

Neither of you said a word. The silence stretched, thick and heavy, as you just stood there, locked in place, staring at each other.

Then, from behind you, Penelope’s voice broke the moment. “The cookies are ready!”

You heard her footsteps approaching before she finally reached the door, holding a plate of freshly warmed cookies in her hands. “Who’s at the—”

Her sentence cut off the moment she saw him.

Spencer.

She froze.

Now she was staring too.

More silence.

You swallowed, your fingers tightening around the edge of the door. “Spencer,” you finally breathed out, your voice barely above a whisper.

He blinked, as if snapping out of whatever trance he was in. His lips parted, like he wanted to say something—needed to say something—but the words just wouldn’t come.

“How dare you stand her up like this?”

Garcia’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. She held the plate of cookies in one hand while the other jabbed a perfectly manicured finger in Spencer’s face.

Spencer’s eyes widened, his cheeks darkening with guilt. “I didn’t mean to, I swear,” he stammered, shifting nervously. His gaze flickered from Garcia to you, his expression almost pleading.

“I took the metro,” he rushed out, “and then it broke down. Completely. They couldn’t get it fixed for an hour and 10 minutes, and my phone didn’t have service underground, and I—” He stopped abruptly, his ramble faltering as he let out a breath.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I’m so sorry.”

Garcia pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes as if debating whether to keep scolding him or let him off the hook. After a moment, she exhaled dramatically and slowly backed away toward the apartment.

“Alright, alright. I see what’s happening here,” she muttered under her breath, before giving you a not-so-subtle wink and slipping inside, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Now, it was just you and Spencer.

You weren’t sure what to say.

You had been so sure he had stood you up. The hurt, the disappointment—it had all settled deep in your chest. But now, standing here in front of him, hearing the way his voice shook with sincerity, seeing the genuine guilt in his hazel eyes, you felt your frustration unravel, piece by piece.

“Oh.”

It was all you managed to say—again.

Spencer winced slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I know that’s not really an excuse. I should have—I don’t know, found another way to get to you, or—” He sighed, shoulders slumping. “I just… I’m really sorry.”

You studied him for a moment, your gaze softening. A small smile tugged at the corner of your lips. “So you didn’t ghost me on purpose?”

His eyes widened a bit, and he rushed to correct himself. “No, no, of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you.” His voice dropped slightly, filled with sincerity. “I was actually looking forward to today. I did my research on the museum, and I heard there’s a painting on the second floor that—”

Spencer abruptly stopped himself, his face turning a dark shade of red. He tugged at the strap of his satchel nervously, clearly embarrassed by his over-explanation.

You couldn’t help it—you smiled even wider.

“How did you know I’d be here?” you asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Spencer seemed momentarily caught off guard by the question. “Oh.” He blinked, looking slightly flustered. “Well, you’re very good friends with Garcia,” he said, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

From inside the apartment, you could hear Garcia mumbling with an exaggerated tone, “Good? We are best friends, Dr. Reid.”

You grinned, knowing she was eavesdropping. Spencer’s cheeks reddened further, and he seemed to realize that his conversation was no longer entirely private.

Spencer continued, recovering quickly. “Every time you’ve had a bad day at work, you tend to go to Garcia.” He gave a small shrug, like it was an obvious conclusion. “Like that one time when Hotch made you rewrite your report—remember that? You went to Garcia then.”

You raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

“Or when Strauss got mad at you,” Spencer continued, his voice now soft with the memory. “You also went to Garcia.” He fiddled with his satchel again, clearly fidgeting with nerves.

You let out a small chuckle. “I see how it is. I’m predictable.”

Spencer gave a sheepish smile, his hands finally falling to his sides. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. I just—well, you seem to always go to her for advice when you're upset.”

You could hear Garcia mutter a small “As she should,” behind you.

Your heart warmed at his words, and you pushed yourself off the doorframe. “I guess you’re right. I do tend to run to Garcia when things go sideways.”

He nodded, looking slightly relieved that the tension seemed to break between you. “So, I just assumed you’d be here… and when I got here, I wanted to explain… before you thought I had just… forgotten.”

You stepped forward, offering him a smile. “Well, i'm glad i can stop worrying that you've stood me up.”

Spencer’s shoulders relaxed. “I really am sorry,” he repeated, his eyes soft and earnest.

You looked him in the eye, the teasing edge of your voice gone, replaced by something warmer. “It’s okay, Spencer.”

A small, relieved smile spread across his face as he let out a quiet sigh, trying to smooth down his disheveled curls. He tugged at the hem of his shirt, attempting to look a bit more put-together in front of you.

Then, as if on cue, Penelope’s voice cut through the silence, loud and clear from the other room. “Dr. Reid, ask her if she wants to go to the museum now!”

You could almost hear her taking a bite of something, likely one of the cookies she’d been baking earlier.

Both you and Spencer immediately blushed, the heat rising to your faces at her suggestion.

“R-right—yeah, uhm…” Spencer stammered, his voice faltering for a moment as he tried to collect his thoughts. “Would… would you like to go to the museum?” His voice was shy, and the way he stumbled over the words made your heart flutter a little.

You couldn’t help but smile at his awkwardness. “Yes,” you nodded enthusiastically, your excitement starting to bubble up. “I’d love to.”

You turned to Garcia, who was still sitting on the couch, her eyes wide with a smile so big it practically took up her whole face. “I’ll, uh, see you at work, Pen,” you called over your shoulder, still feeling a bit giddy.

Garcia shot you two thumbs up, still grinning like she was the proudest friend in the world. “Have fun, lovebirds!” she yelled after you.

You couldn’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm as you turned back to Spencer, whose face was still a little flushed. “Shall we?” you asked, motioning toward the door.

Spencer nodded, a shy smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah… let’s go.”

[treefish]

final thrift finds of 2024

[dykedvonte]

I also just realized that we really only get the 7 days before the crash to really see the people Curly and Anya were before the crash. It's not even the full seven days. We get the first two and the last two with a gap in the time for what could have gone down.

I just realized how vague it was and how quickly it all happened. They are such small moments and such short glimpses. She's only just told Curly two days before the crash. The next she told Jimmy and Curly had to confront him. It's further implied right after that conversation, Curly goes to collect himself and figure things out and Jimmy immediately crashes the ship, once he's far enough to not stop him, cause he knows Curly would never truly allow it to happen.

But he takes that as the okay to go ahead, because in the long time he's known Curly, that's always been the okay.

The difference in the gaps in the timeline really just paint a bigger less explained but more obvious picture.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

so funny that the two possibilities of magneto not knowing how to control his powers ranges from his watch being kinda janky (ultimate) and At Most he's just mildly inconvenienced at random or he accidentally kills himself with a plane (ruins)

[deoidesign]

.

[adelaidedrubman]

wip wednesday on day one nanowrimo sick and twisted world

i was tagged on this extra Fucked Up wip wednesday by my loves @socially-awkward-skeleton @direwombat and @nightbloodbix! outgoing tags below cut for space efficiency + join the writing tag list here!

actually trying to do nanowrimo for the first time, albeit nontraditionally and jumping between a few projects. (yell at me about which ones if desired.) so here’s an excerpt from a bg3 oneshot on the november agenda: lae’zel and my rogue gnome girlie millie having an emotionally constipated debrief following All Of That at the crèche. no real spoiler warning for this one since they are being vague, but a small warning for idle but insincere suicidal ideation + character cracking joke on said topic 

Millie swung her legs back and forth, dangled off the ledge of the cliff.  She leaned back, palms pressed against rock, looking down at them — at the skin growing more weathered, dry and cracked by the day — rather than down into the chasm. She would wait here stubbornly, she thought, until someone came looking for her. 

If she was lucky, she thought, that would mean she would wait there forever — wait sitting right there for ages there until she grew too weak for her body to hold itself up, and she went limp and plummeted off the cliff in her sleep none the wiser, before she ever had to worry about losing herself to the tadpole.  A soft whisper of wind that never reached to brush her skin told her she was not so lucky.  Attuning her ears to the barely audible rustle of the footsteps told her everything else she needed to know — light, airy and quick, but forceful and sure.  “Lae’zel,” she noted flatly, without lifting her gaze from her own hand pressed against cragged rock. She studied the smattering of sunlight filtering through trees to create blotches of warm bronze against her skin amongst the web of shadows cast by leaves.  She’d spent so long clinging to the shadows — being nothing, nobody, anytime she wanted.  Finding solitude, oblivion in the blink of an eye, as soon the whim to disappear struck her.  Now, here she was — stuck with a camp full of companions her survival necessitated not abandoning, despite her heart crying for space. Including one companion adept enough at tracking her down Millie couldn’t even carve out a five minute illusion of having left them behind.  Hells, she couldn’t have truly held the illusion, anyways. Even with no other soul around, the idle wriggle of the tadpole tickling the depths of her brain would always be there to remind her she wasn’t truly alone.  Millie sighed, the presence of the woman behind her likewise heavily felt despite her lack of audible response.  “If you’re skulking about back there so you can push me off the ledge, make quicker work of it. I’m not that keen on putting up a fight, anyways.”  “Tch,” Lae’zel spat, single syllable stinging with the acidity of disgust. “I would not soil my hands claiming empty victory against an opponent pathetic enough to welcome death,” she replied. “I will turn my sword on you at your surrender should the tadpole overtake you. But only then.” Still not turning around, she droned, “Lae’zel, it’s me — Millie the ghaik.” “Your foolishness is normally tolerable, hardened as it is by your ferocity,” Lae’zel replied, drawn out with a hiss of disdain. “But in the wake of the embarrassment you proved at the Crèche, I find my patience for it thinned.”

no pressure tags out to beloveds @g0dspeeed @florbelles @josephslittledeputy @afarcryfrommymain @poetikat @just-another-wasteland-merc @voidika @captastra @confidentandgood @belorage @deputyash @blissfulalchemist @shellibisshe @thedeadthree @ladyofedens-blog @miyabilicious @simplegenius042 @henbased @clicheantagonist @firstaidspray @strafethesesinners @quickhacked @jackiesarch @v0idbuggy @orionlancasterr @stacispratt @8bitpizzacoupons @strangefable @shallow-gravy @roofgeese @inafieldofdaisies @corvosattano and anyone who wants to share!

[krems-chair]

Don't mind me, just revisiting the plot (again) and dying over this line (again). (These screenshots are going to be abysmal, but you'll get the point).

"To stop now would dishonor those I have wronged to come this far."

Yeah he's talking about Mythal (earned or not) and Felassan and Lavellan and Varric...but the way it applies to HIM, too, is what absolutely guts me.

Long post ahead...

Solas realizing that Lavellan doesn't care about how others see him or want to use him under the inquisiton, that HIS motivations as he has shared them are enough for her and worth defending against those who would tell him he's something he isn't. Solas, for the first time, being confronted with the realization that one these new elves he does not see himself in will still go to bat for him.

(Is he duplicitous? Yes. But intent on working against Corypheus? Undoubtedly).

"You came here to help, Solas, I won't let them use that against you."

“How would you stop them?”

“However I had to.”

“...thank you.”

Solas grappling with the fact that it wasn't just a one off, that this Dalish woman being faced with "hypotheticals" he's desperately been trying to get her people to entertain is jumping in head first, pushing back and disagreeing with him but never treating him worse for their differences and always admitting when he's helped shape a changing perspective. Solas daring to ask for help and marveling at the fact that he receives it, that the same woman who asked if it might some day be possible to live alongside spirits, who did not immediately shoot down his critique of THE CHANTRY REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE SPIRITS AS LEGITIMATE BEINGS (GAH), who did not laugh at him for saying he preferred their company most days, this woman, is going to drop time and resources during war time preparations to personally help his friend.

And then, when he is too late and has once again failed someone he considers a friend, he disappears within himself, where he has always gone to exact punishment for the weight of the lives he believes he's betrayed. It almost works, too.

Psych. Lavellan doesn't want him to grieve alone, to stare at the place in the Fade where his friend used to be and think of all he should have done differently.

“The next time you have to mourn, you don’t need to be alone.”

“It’s been so long since I could trust someone.”

“I know.”

“I’ll work on it. And thank you.”

But does she stop there? No. She doesn't chafe at this random apostate who speaks with certainty and unapologetically delves into a past he believes worth preserving, even at the cost of questioning her culture as it currently stands.

The very woman he once thought of as a mistake that HE unleashed upon the world is asking to be a part of his, not because of what he can bring to the table, not because she needs a right hand man, and certainly not because she thinks he has some well of power and intelligence critical to winning over enemies she’s willing to join for "supervisory" purposes (cough cough hi Mythal). She bears the weight of choices that can and will lead to death, to pain, and when it wears on her she relies on him, not for solutions but so that at the end of it all she might smile with someone who knows her heart and the good she tried to do amidst a sea of terrible options. She wants to be known, no inch of her unturned, and worse, she thinks she knows him. But how could she? This is no longer who he is, it is merely the remnants of what he destroyed to make a world at Mythal's whim.

And still she unbalances him, accepts him, wants more. Solas is sharing a personality that brings him the closest he has ever been to his spirit form, and it is ENOUGH for her. Existing as he has always dreamt of is all takes to earn her loyalty, respect, and eventually love.

“You’re an admirable man. Not many people know who they are the way you do.”

“Thank you. Both for saying that and…for seeing that. Few in this world can see me instead of just seeing a pair of pointed ears”

She. Sees. Him. Every part he slowly is realizing he wants to be known for and even a few he thought he could hide. And then he gives it all up. Because he woke to a new world where spirits and elves and mages were so far removed from the role they played in Arlathan that it can only be yet another mistake he caused and must fix, never mind the fact that the dwarves have forgotten why they fled underground millennia ago in the first place.

The friend who tore him from the world he loved, urged him to take physical form? She is dead, too, never mind the fact that she ignored his urging for a different path, nevermind that he killed and tore and hurt in her name because otherwise what was losing the part of himself he loved for?

"A spirit becomes a demon when denied its original purpose.”

“It hurts. It always does, but I will survive.”

“You bound it to obedience, then commanded it to kill. That is when it turned.”

He may no longer recognize where the Dread Wolf ends and where Solas begins, but if he gives up now and permits himself the chance to remember, the pain he caused himself and others means nothing, because he did it all for Mythal and in his final discussion with her, regardless of what Veilguard tries to convey, she does not release him from his position as her agent.

And maybe that's part of why I'm so angry, because EVEN BEFORE TRESPASSER, the fragment of Mythal that ends up in Morrigan could have freed him, but she does not.

"The failure was mine," he tells her, voice trembling. "I should pay the price."

Silence.

"I am sorry." He whispers.

And do we get that "what we did, we did together" psuedo-fake ass-absolution, the one that, if given enough time and safety to put himself first he may have realised he doesn't truly need to pursue the things he deserves, that make him feel finally like himself again? No the fuck we don't.

"As am I, old friend." She murmurs.

Looking through the lens of Veilguard, this isn't an apology, it's a condemnation. It's Mythal tormenting him one more time, twisting the knife deeper, agreeing that it is Solas alone who has brought them to this point, who deserves to be punished. And then she reminds him what they are to each other, what he is supposed to be to her. What he must become again.

"It isn't abuse if I ask," Cole says in his personal quest.

"Not always true," Solas shoots back.

Var lath vir suledin. Our love will persevere.

I wish it could, vhenan.

And so he pushes onwards, spending almost a decade denying himself his true nature and regretting that he ever gave it a chance to come through because now he KNOWS that this world is different and a little broken, but it's a world he could be a part of because of the woman and the friends that made a place for him. It is a world that doesn't necessarily need to be restored as much as it might need renovation, but that is not the world Mythal demanded of him when she let him kill a remaining piece of her. And any solution but that means the hurt of taking a body, of hurting the titans, of time and time again being called on by one evanuris to fix a problem they all caused, was for nothing.

And a Pride of that magnitude, that sinister an origin, has a long, long way to fall.

So he recommits to the friend he gave up his nature for, he refuses to let himself remember that Lavellan learned the full truth of his identity and still begged him not to mourn alone. Even so, he still cannot quite forget.

He kills again. He kills again. He kills again.

He kills a friend.

He fails to prevent the Evanuris from wreaking havoc a second time, wrenches another innocent into his war, and when they ask him about the woman he calls vhenan, he feels the mask stifling him begin to suffocate. But he never lets it fall, because to surrender now is to place her broken heart atop the pile of regrets he's been holding up like Atlas crumbling beneath the weight of the world itself. Because he still thinks it selfish to want the things that make him feel like himself again, so they need to be taken off the board entirely.

And then that same uppity little shit has the audacity to tell him it's not too late, that he can turn back.

"To stop now would dishonor those I have wronged to come this far."

If he gives up now, his entire corporeal life has been a betrayal of many, but worst of all, he will have ruined himself for nothing.

But then she's there. A little older, a little sadder, and still looking at him like she did the night he almost broke and instead carefully removed any suggestion that she had ever belonged to anyone but herself.

"Didn't you hear me?" Her every action screams as she kneels to meet his gaze like he did the day he took her arm (another failure, another sacrifice he cannot let be for nothing).

The tombstone in the fade is his greatest fear, but it is not his fate. Why? She will not let it be. It cannot be his din'anshiral if she is not beside him.

Lavellan may not have understood the depth of exactly WHEN Solas first came somewhere foreign and uncertain to help, but she never once failed to keep her promise. She refuses to let his initial desire to do good be held against him any longer. And when she sees him accept that not-quite-absolution-definitely-more-of-a-power-play from the god that saw what he was capable of and molded him into a weapon, she finds her in to make sure he doesn't walk off alone to mourn again, never again will she lose him to the expectations others have of him. No doubt she wants to find a way to sink the fingers of her good hand into that spectral visage and tear it away like he wishes to do to the veil. But she is not here for Mythal. She is here for her heart, and for the man who has been carrying it since the moment her lips met his in the fade ten years ago.

“No orders to kill, no conflict with its nature, no demon.”

"There is no fate but the love we share." She tells him as soon as Mythal's too-little-too-late platitudes send shudders through his body.

Banal nadas ar lath'ma vhenan.

She forces him to see that the only remaining betrayal is to lock himself away one more irreversible time. All that's left to lose is the piece of himself he cherishes more than his greatest victories: all that he has to gain comes from making sure the love that was given to him at Skyhold, in the moment where Varric saw all he was capable of and still tried to bring him back home, was not given in vain.

It will not be so terrible a place, so unforgivable a betrayal if he can finally dare to put himself first. If, unlike that night in Crestwood, he finally gives in not to break, but to make himself whole.

There's a codex entry in Inquisiton about a spirit of wisdom who is summoned by researchers and only after a very pleasant conversation do they realize they made a mistake and never successfully bound the spirit in the first place, that it chose to speak with them of its own accord.

"I am not certain the spirit would have talked so freely had it been shackled at the time," writes the author of the entry.

I keep thinking about this alongside the datamined line of Morrigan saying, "And so, the Dread Wolf is stopped by, of all things love."

But that isn't quite right, is it?

Because in the end, of course the Dread Wolf could only ever freed by, over everything, love.

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[sparsilees]

Harry is a clever and competent wizard

A recurring theme in fandom I find endlessly tiresome and disappointing is the portrayal of Harry as an academically struggling student who’s lamentably hopeless at Potions and middling in all other subjects aside from DADA, and who, alongside Ron, is in constant need of Hermione’s guidance. It’s present almost everywhere. It’s reinvented canon. And it’s shoved down new readers and non-fans’ throats alike. Please, there’s an HP wiki available for your perusal. Don’t go about consulting popular fics and the Hermione-biased movie director’s visions to draw your ideas of Harry and Ron’s psyche!

It’s doubly aggravating when this depiction is used to highlight Hermione, Draco, or so-and-so classmate’s magical Einstein-levels of genius and reinforce the false narrative that Harry’s singular claim to brilliance lies in Quidditch, and that he’s got nothing more than fluff and snitches between his ears on top of being oblivious to the point of idiocy. That apart from excelling in Defence, he doesn’t have much upstairs... (And even then a minority of the fandom portray DADA as akin to gym class where it’s all honing muscles, muscle memory, and reflexes, with Harry framed as an archetypical gymbro on top being a himbo. What?!)

So we’re just going to overlook his devastatingly biting wit and clever asides? Or brush aside how he repeatedly demonstrates his ability to perform well under pressure? His keen intuition and how he carefully retains seemingly insignificant, misfit puzzle pieces until the eureka moment strikes and he seamlessly integrates them into the bigger picture?

Take these two examples from Philosopher’s Stone with an intrepid tiny Harry:

Harry was quite sure the unsettled feeling didn’t have anything to do with work, though. He watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid was the only one who ever sent him letters. Hagrid would never betray Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get past Fluffy . . . never . . . but — Harry suddenly jumped to his feet. “Where’re you going?” said Ron sleepily. “I’ve just thought of something,” said Harry. He had turned white. “We’ve got to go and see Hagrid, now.” “Why?” panted Hermione, hurrying to keep up. “Don’t you think it’s a bit odd,” said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, “that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it’s against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don’t you think? Why didn’t I see it before?”

Quirrell cursed under his breath. “I don’t understand . . . is the Stone inside the mirror? Should I break it?” Harry’s mind was racing. What I want more than anything else in the world at the moment, he thought, is to find the Stone before Quirrell does. So if I look in the mirror, I should see myself finding it — which means I’ll see where it’s hidden! But how can I look without Quirrell realizing what I’m up to? He tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself. “What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!” And to Harry’s horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself. “Use the boy . . . Use the boy . . .” Quirrell rounded on Harry. “Yes — Potter — come here.” He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got slowly to his feet. “Come here,” Quirrell repeated. “Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.” Harry walked toward him. I must lie, he thought desperately. I must look and lie about what I see, that’s all.

Bravery alone wasn’t enough to overcome his troubled upbringing with the Dursleys, or Quirrelmort, or Diary Tommy, or the final leg of the Horcrux hunt — it required a combination of mental agility, resourcefulness, and cunning to evaluate the situation, outsmart his opponents, and tip the odds in his favour. Harry needed to survive. To survive, he needed something other than mere guts. Harry’s ability to think on his feet and leverage his intelligence to gain the upper hand in challenging scenarios remains a testament to his brilliance and his remarkable presence of mind. He isn’t the foolhardy, impulsive Gryffindor who leaps into danger headlong without prior planning everytime.

(For that matter, Gryffindor are more than their “bravery” which has somehow been twisted into being synonymous with “reckless” — Sirius being a prime example of this, when in GOF he was urging Harry caution in their communications, despite the fandom conveniently only zeroing in on the depressed, cooped up version of him in OOTP, sigh. Bravery is fortitude, pluck, tenacity, strength of moral fibre, resilience, and heart as well.)

Some other less-mentioned examples of his quick mind: Harry wondering about Snape and Karkaroff being on a first-name basis; remembering Nicholas Flamel just from a long-ago glance, and again, Stan Shunpike despite their single encounter; Harry coaxing out Slughorn’s secret (no, it wasn’t all the Felix Felicis); Harry putting himself in Voldemort’s shoes, and Ron and Hermione deferring to his superior, albeit scary, knowledge; and Harry frightening Ollivander with his deductions about the wands. (It wasn’t solely Hermione’s brains that enabled their chances of survival in DH, let’s ditch that false narrative.)

The most laughably contrived bit in fanon is the unfounded notion that Hermione lets the boys cheat off her work to coast by in class. Fanon is wrong on both counts. Hermione would sooner report the boys for cheating than allow them to copy off her, and Harry isn’t anywhere close to scraping the bottom of the barrel in class, and neither is Ron. The handful of instances in canon where she looks over their assignments and helps correct mistakes isn’t cheating. Her input is akin to getting a second pair of eyes or a beta reader to ensure their work is up to snuff — heaven forbid a student help out a friend by suggesting some tips and tweaks. (Or attend tuition or retain a personal tutor or three.)

The ‘that’s why Harry isn’t a Ravenclaw’ jokes get pretty stale once you realise a large portion of the fandom genuinely think he isn’t a smart kid or has never read a book of his own volition/interest in his life. But Harry enjoyed reading his new books late into the night before starting Hogwarts (he found Hedwig’s name in A History of Magic, after all). Admittedly, studying is a feat in and of itself when you have zero access to books, but some cunning can turn around your luck!

Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn’t be with him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry had a dangerous murderer for a godfather — for Harry had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Sirius was innocent.

‘Oh, Potter can’t differentiate between a salamander and newt’s eyes.’

‘Asking him to skin shrivelfigs is a tall order since he can’t wield a dagger properly.’

‘He used shredded jobberknoll feathers when the recipe called for a fine powder. Poor Hermione will have to take over yet again to save his stupid arse.’

It’s these many variations and renditions of Harry’s alleged, often exaggerated, ineptitude in fandom content and making a monkey out of him, which I come across more often than not, that are an instant turn-off.

The widespread idea that Harry’s success in the subject can be attributed solely to the Prince’s book is misguided and further undermines his intelligence — and this jaundiced belief that’s crystallised itself as canon, of Harry and Ron putting on a double act as stupid slouches in class and therefore deserving of Snape’s derision and the Slytherin’s put-downs, is a far cry from the truth. Snape’s opinion of Harry’s intelligence or ability should be taken with a grain of salt, given that Harry has been described as a bright and talented child since his first year, by the Professors, Dumbledore, and the Sorting Hat. Even the resident megalomaniac described him as “not unintelligent”. You know what’s actually canon?

1) Snape’s biased approach towards Harry and Neville caused them to have an unwarranted fear of failure and reprimands. The Potions classroom was a hostile and unwelcoming learning environment for these two boys.

2) Harry is pretty confident when left to his own devices in class in OoTP before Snape flushed his effort down the gutter.

Exhibit 1:

Snape, meanwhile, seemed to have decided to act as though Harry were invisible. Harry was, of course, well used to this tactic, as it was one of Uncle Vernon’s favourites, and on the whole was grateful he had to suffer nothing worse. In fact, compared to what he usually had to endure from Snape in the way of taunts and snide remarks, he found the new approach something of an improvement and was pleased to find that when left well alone, he was able to concoct an Invigoration Draught quite easily. At the end of the lesson he scooped some of the potion into a flask, corked it, and took it up to Snape’s desk for marking, feeling that he might at last have scraped an E. He had just turned away when he heard a smashing noise; Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of laughter. Harry whipped around again. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor, and Snape was watching him with a look of gloating pleasure. “Whoops,” he said softly. “Another zero, then, Potter . . .” Harry was too incensed to speak. He strode back to his cauldron, intending to fill another flask and force Snape to mark it, but saw to his horror that the rest of the contents had vanished. “I’m sorry!” said Hermione with her hands over her mouth. “I’m really sorry, Harry, I thought you’d finished, so I cleared up!”

Exhibit 2:

“After this year, of course, many of you will cease studying with me,” Snape went on. “I take only the very best into my N.E.W.T. Potions class, which means that some of us will certainly be saying good-bye.” His eyes rested on Harry and his lip curled. Harry glared back, feeling a grim pleasure at the idea that he would be able to give up Potions after fifth year.

Exhibit 3:

Ron found it quite easy to ignore as they spent most of Saturday and Sunday studying for Potions on Monday, the exam to which Harry was looking forward least and which he was sure would be the one that would be the downfall of his ambitions to become an Auror. Sure enough, he found the written exam difficult, though he thought he might have got full marks on the question about Polyjuice Potion: He could describe its effects extremely accurately, having taken it illegally in his second year. The afternoon practical was not as dreadful as he had expected it to be. With Snape absent from the proceedings he found that he was much more relaxed than he usually was while making potions. Neville, who was sitting very near Harry, also looked happier than Harry had ever seen him during a Potions class. When Professor Marchbanks said, “Step away from your cauldrons, please, the examination is over,” Harry corked his sample flask feeling that he might not have achieved a good grade but that he had, with luck, avoided a fail.

Whereas in Ch 15 of OoTP, Snape had marked Harry’s essay on moonstones as Dreadful and claimed it to be a realistic expectation of OWL grading:

“I have awarded you the grades you would have received if you presented this work in your O.W.L.,” said Snape with a smirk, as he swept among them, passing back their homework. “This should give you a realistic idea of what to expect in your examination.” Snape reached the front of the class and turned to face them. “The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination. I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week’s essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or I shall have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get D’s.” He smirked as Malfoy sniggered and said in a carrying whisper, “Some people got D’s? Ha!”

And yet, Harry did very well on his OWLs before he even got a whiff of the Prince’s book.

Astronomy A

Care of Magical Creatures EE

Charms EE

Defense Against the Dark Arts O

Divination P

Herbology EE

History of Magic D

Potions EE

Transfiguration EE

Harry and Ron studied (!) both days of the weekend before Potions OWLs (!) without Hermione (!), and still Harry wasn’t sure he’d secure a good grade yet ended up scoring an EE. Exceeds Expectations, which y’know translates to: Surpasses Expectations, So Much Better than Expected, Rather Brilliant.

Unless you believe that anything less than the top percentiles is rubbish, Harry is not a ‘certifiable dunce’. There’s no denying he’s a competent and clever wizard and easily punches above his weight when he’s properly motivated and applies himself. Intelligence is a genetic trait, and Harry comes from nerdstock.

If he could achieve those grades whilst serving 7-hour torture sessions with Umbridge, suffering from Voldemort and Snape tearing into his mind, and putting up with the government slandering him in his second most important school year, running on fumes and sheer will (constantly disruspted sleep routine? Ugh!), then yeah, remove all those crutches, and he’d be raking in straight Os for most of those subjects. (It sort of sounds like ‘excuse our mental health and and anxiety’ for us if we perform poorly in exams, but not for Harry ‘he’s an idiot throwing teen tantrums’. Someone give me a hammer.)

“You’d need top grades for that,” said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet from under the mass on her desk and opening it. “They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s, and nothing under ‘Exceeds Expectations’ grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It’s a difficult career path, Potter; they only take the best. In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years.”

Did he earn the grades? Yes. The Auror program ran aptitude tests, too, and only took the best, yes? Not because he’s a hothead with a daredevil streak and impulse issues, yes? Not because his dream was to be an Auror since his third year, or that he was only exceptional at fighting, or some such nonsense. After all, Barty Crouch Jr, he of the impeccable OWLs record, saw something worthy of Auror material in Harry and planted the seed in his mind. (Reminder: Barty also said Hermione should consider joining the Aurors too because her “mind works the right way”.)

And Moody thought he, Harry, ought to be an Auror! Interesting idea . . . but somehow, Harry thought, as he got quietly into his four-poster ten minutes later, the egg and the Cloak now safely back in his trunk, he thought he’d like to check how scarred the rest of them were before he chose it as a career.

If Harry was incapable of telling up from down in Potions, the Prince’s annotations would have been like casting pearls before swine. Worse still, Harry’s supposed lack of know-how would have caused more harm than good. The book only helped to refine the skills and knowledge he had cultivated over five years of study. Having a comfortable learning environment, an encouraging teacher, and superior instructions allowed Harry to maximise his potential and excel in class. (This phenomenon of underachiever-to-star pupil can happen in real life and is not unique to Harry. It happens with neurodivergent students with slightly different needs, students who require a more personal teaching style, and students stunted by an unhealthy learning environment. When their needs are met and supported, they tend to thrive and reach their potential.)

To put it into perspective, imagine taking an average kid whose expertise in cooking extends to making beans on toast and putting them in a professional kitchen. Imagine asking this kid to fillet a salmon and very finely slice lemons for garnish, tasks that require careful hands, finesse, and patience. If the kid can’t distinguish between a paring knife and a boning knife, they don’t stand half a chance. They’re liable to mess up the fish from the get-go. They might use a petty knife for everything and present a terribly executed dish; or they might cleverly choose a smaller knife but misuse it, not knowing that the flexibility and sharpness of a blade vary depending on their purpose, and end up seriously hurting themselves. Either way, filleting a fish is best left to seasoned home cooks and the pros.

In contrast, Harry is identical to a proficient home cook who knows the ropes but lacks some finesse and the fancy carving and plating skills of a trained culinary student. He has a firm grasp of the necessary theory and techniques and knows how to prep ingredients correctly, but may fumble the ideal application of said techniques, lacks an inborn zeal for the craft that lends to creativity, and overlook the finer details, particularly when he’s weighed down by fear of censure and humiliation. His level of success hinges on variables such as his confidence, familiarity with a recipe or method, and the type of environment he’s in. Talent is like a little seed; when nurtured, it will flourish.

Slughorn’s NEWT class was small, admitting twelve students out of a fortyish-student batch. No Gryffindor apart from the Golden Trio made the cut, and they were joined by the lone Hufflepuff, four Ravenclaws, and four Slytherins. Essentially, only a dozen students achieved an EE or O to qualify for NEWT Potions. Fanon will tell you most of the Slytherins have been tinkering with cauldrons in their diapers, but canon shows that only two other Slytherins, besides Draco and Blaise, made the grade. So, how are we still perpetuating this incorrect interpretation that Ron and Harry were barely keeping up academically when they’re more adept than half their year?

Harry and Ron aren’t academically inclined or driven by an obsessive urge to pore over books most hours of the day for fun, so what? Let them joke around and play chess and cards and broom race in the rain without bringing their brains and academics into the equation. Let Harry be a proper child/teen when he’s not busy hunting clues and crushing evil plots. Stop making the sum of HJP be “Powerful Himbo” or “Saviour Complex and Running on Luck”, which is pretty disrespectful towards a character who has shown himself to be so, so competent and well-rounded.

It’s such a huge thorn in my side that both Harry and Sirius (of all people, when he’s twinning with James as the insultingly effortless mavens during their time at Hogwarts!) habitually have their intelligence questioned and maliciously devaluated, or blown off entirely. So I had to sit and get this chaotically demonstrative commentary off my chest. Thank you, if you’ve read till the end!

[covenofagatha]

The psychology of love (Part 3)

Your first date with Morgan and a lesson in defense mechanisms and the delay of gratification

Word count: 4.1k

Warnings: none yet, slowburn

Morgan and you go out to dinner the next day. You had seriously been considering just never texting her and making more of an effort to avoid her, but Wanda and Nat pestered you continuously during breakfast until you had given in. 

Turns out, you were both free that night. 

You had a class in the evening, so you meet her at the pizza place off-campus after. She’s wearing a light blue dress that brings out the color in her eyes and her Black Opium perfume makes you wish there was someone different sitting in front of you. 

“Did you have a good day?” she asks while you’re waiting for your pizzas to be done cooking. The awkwardness of a first date is hanging over you, coupled with the fact that her fingers were inside you on Monday. You’re still a little shocked that happened. 

But you nod and smile. Morgan is nice, and she’s trying. The least you could do is try as well. “Yeah, I had two classes. They’re both pretty easy. My hardest are definitely Physiological Psych and Personality Psych.” 

Even the mention of the latter makes your stomach clench. Agatha has wormed her way into your brain and you don’t know how to get her out. The perfume you ordered should be here tomorrow and you regret buying it. 

Realistically, what are you going to do with it? You can’t wear it—both Morgan and Agatha will pick up on it. It’d be absolutely pathetic to spray your pillow with it and imagine it’s Agatha next to you, plus Wanda would surely wonder about that. 

Which means you spent one-hundred dollars on a bottle of perfume that’s going to sit on your desk and serve as a reminder that you’re delusional. 

A waitress brings over your personal pizzas and sets them down in front of you, steam billowing off. 

Morgan’s looking at you, a little expectantly, and you clear your throat. “How was your day?” you ask, realizing that you never returned the question.

“Pretty good, thanks. I had an International Relations class. We already have a quiz next Tuesday, which is crazy considering this was our second day of meeting.” You learned that she’s a Political Science major while you were waiting in line for pizza. 

She doesn’t say anything else, so you chew on your lip and try to think of ways to get the conversation going. “So…how did you get into political science?” At least her face brightens at that. 

“My dad works in local government and I’ve always been really interested in it. I’ve interned at his office since I was probably sixteen? I’ll be able to get a job with him once I graduate and then hopefully I can be elected for something,” she says before launching into a few stories about town halls that she’s been a part of. She’s from a small town in Indiana and the people there are apparently a little unhinged.

Morgan’s just telling you about a petition one man started to make his birthday a town holiday when the door to the restaurant opens and a familiar face walks in. 

It’s Agatha’s standoffish TA. Morgan is still talking but your eyes follow Rio as she walks up to the counter and shows them her phone. The lady nods and picks up a boxed pizza that’s sitting next to her and hands it to Rio. 

As she’s walking to the exit, she tilts her head over to you like she feels you staring. You quickly look away but in your periphery, you can see her coming closer until you have no choice but to crane your neck up at her. 

“You’re in Professor Harkness’s class, aren’t you?” Rio asks, but it’s more of a statement than a question. She obviously remembers you from Agatha’s office yesterday. 

You nod and she chuckles amusedly, tongue bulging in her cheek. Her complete one-eighty of a personality change is throwing you off. 

Rio glances at Morgan and then back to you, a gleam in her eyes. “Good luck.” Before you can ask what she means—is she talking about Agatha’s class? talking about Morgan?—she shifts the pizza in her arms and strolls out the door without looking back. 

Morgan raises an eyebrow at you. “That was weird.” 

You choose to not say anything and take a bite of your pizza, instantly wincing when it burns your mouth. “Did the man get his petition approved?” you refer to what she had been talking about before Rio, and Morgan dives back into that memory. 

She talks for most of dinner, only really taking a break while she’s eating, and then you walk her to her car. Thankfully, neither of you wants to hang out in the resultant once you’re both done with your food. She’s parked right in front whereas you had to find a spot in the garage behind the row of restaurants. 

“Do you want me to give you a ride to your car?” Morgan offers and you pretend to think about it before shaking your head. 

“No, that’s okay. It’s not very far.” There’s a minute of silent shuffling while you both try to figure out how to end the date. “Um, well I had a great time with you tonight. Let’s do this again soon?” 

She smiles warmly. “I’d love that.” And then Morgan leans in to press a quick kiss to your cheek before getting in her car. Her perfume drifts into your nostrils and lingers and you hear Agatha’s voice telling you that you did very good. Heat flashes through you but you tamp it down. 

You wait until Morgan drives off before turning to head to the parking garage, but you see another person that you know in the shadows. 

Professor Harkness. 

Your heart lurches as she pushes off the building wall she was leaning against and steps into the light. She’s wearing blue pants and a matching blazer over a black turtleneck. The gold from her necklace catches the streetlamp glow. Her long, loose hair frames her face and you can see her blue eyes glinting even in the dark.

Swallowing roughly, you irrationally worry that she’s going to be mad about you and Morgan. A part of you wants her to be mad. 

But she just smirks instead. “Dinner with a friend?” 

“Something like that,” you mutter, shrugging inconspicuously. “What are you doing here?” It seems like she’s waiting for someone—a date? Not that it matters, of course. You just want insight into your mysterious teacher. 

She moves closer to you, close enough so you can smell her perfume. It’s getting really fucking confusing with both Agatha and Morgan wearing the same scent. “I’m just picking up dinner,” she hums. “Nothing as exciting as you.” 

Your cheeks burn. “That wasn’t anything, just a first date. We met at a party a few days ago.” When I let her fuck me because she reminded me of you.

Agatha nods like she knows something you don’t. “Do you remember learning about defense mechanisms?” 

“What?” 

“In a general psych class, did you ever learn about defense mechanisms? Freudian methodology, of course, that believes our ego unconsciously wants to protect the superego from the id when we do something that would otherwise cause us anxiety, guilt, and shame.” 

“I mean, yeah?” You’ve heard of them, but why is she bringing them up? 

She waves a hand at your apparent confusion. “We’ll get more into them later in the semester. I just think it’s neat, you know? How we can be doing something and not even be aware that we’re doing it. Denial, rationalization,” she fixes you with a pointed look, “transference. The mind does really work in interesting ways.” 

You nod and bite your nails, not sure what to say. It feels like you’re missing something by a mile.

But Agatha just smiles. “See you tomorrow in class, hon.” She winks before leaving you outside and you slowly trudge back to your car, completely dumbfounded. 

Once you get back to your dorm, the conversation with Agatha still fresh in your mind, you halfheartedly return Wanda’s greeting and take out your computer and type “transference” into Google. 

Transference is the psychological phenomenon where someone redirects feelings from one person onto another. It occurs when someone unconsciously projects feelings or desires onto someone else. 

“Holy shit,” you say out loud, your blood running cold. Wanda’s head turns toward you but it’s like you have tunnel vision. 

Was Agatha implying that you going out with Morgan is you redirecting your feelings toward your professor onto someone who looks like her? 

Your heart is thumping so loud you can hear it. Are you being that obvious to Agatha? Can she tell that you have a crush on her? 

As if to make matters worse, you get an email notification saying that a package has been delivered—the perfume. A whole day early, like the universe wants to prove its point. 

You let it sit in the delivery room all night because you don’t trust yourself not to go crazy if you smell it right now. 

But you barely get any sleep at all just thinking about it. 

The next morning, Wanda and Nat interrogate you at breakfast. You had told Wanda the general basics of how the date had gone last night, but now they’re pressing you for the details, which you reluctantly give. 

“It was good, she spent a lot of time talking about interning for her town’s government. She’s a Poli-Sci major—” Nat scoffs and rolls her eyes and Wanda laughs, “—and apparently her dad is like the mayor or a council member? I don’t know, I mean, she’s nice and all…” 

“Oh, come on,” Wanda says, fond exasperation staining her voice. “You always do this. You meet a great girl and then you decide that she’s boring or that you don’t really like her or you make one tiny thing of their personality into a big problem. Why can’t you just let yourself have something?” 

It stings how well she knows you. “I just…I don’t know…I’m just not sure we’d work that well together. And it doesn’t really make sense to get into a relationship now, does it? We’re graduating in the spring so why start something new if we’re going to end up in different places? She wants to go back to Indiana and I’ll probably stay here or go back home, so it just doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point.” 

Nat looks unimpressed. “Really? That’s your excuse for why you’re going to self-sabotage? If only long-distance was a thing, god.” 

Wanda pats her girlfriend’s hand and stifles a smirk at the sarcasm. “Just because it’s not going to end in marriage doesn’t mean it’s not worth it,” she says gently. “Why not go on a few more dates, just to see what happens? And who knows? She could be worth it.” 

It won’t work because she’s not at least twice my age. Except you can’t exactly tell your friends that. So instead you say, “Yeah, maybe.” 

“Even if it’s not a relationship, it could be a friends-with-benefits situation,” Natasha adds and Wanda snorts. “You’ve already had sex with her so you already know what you’d be getting into.” 

“Okay, okay,” you grimace at her crassness and push your chair back. “I have to get to class.” 

You have about twenty minutes before it starts, so you’re not in a rush, but you need the walk to clear your head and mentally prepare for seeing Agatha. The quip about transference has you still reeling and it’s only the third day of this class but it’s already the second time you’ve been nervous to look at her. You’re not sure you can get in trouble for having a crush on a teacher but you certainly don’t want Agatha being uncomfortable around you.

So you’ll keep your distance. You’ll go to class and take notes and answer questions, but you’ll leave right after. You won’t let her praise affect you and you will definitely not get close enough to smell her perfume that makes your cunt pulse. 

Practically everything you were just thinking goes out the window when you walk into class and see her standing at the front of the room. 

Agatha’s wearing another turtleneck, white this time, under a tan blazer and matching pants. You wonder if she’s been wearing them to hide hickeys on her neck—but then you remind yourself that you don’t care, despite the growing feeling of jealousy in your stomach from your absolutely baseless speculations. 

She smiles at you, something dark hidden behind her pink lips, and you shiver as you sit down. Does she know what she does to you? The praises, the projection tests from Wednesday, the way she looks at you? 

She seems to like you more than the other students in the class—is that just because you answer questions? Does she encourage you for that because she needs someone to? You’ve had classes where absolutely no one would talk and it was awful. Her praising you for that could just be her way of making sure there’s not an awkward silence. 

But it feels direct, pointed even. Like she wants it to be you.

Or is that just you hoping? 

Agatha isn’t the first teacher you’ve had a crush on, not by a long shot. There was the English teacher when you were in eighth grade. She wasn’t even your teacher, but you still found excuses to talk to her. There was your ninth grade Biology teacher, and then you took her Environmental Science class senior year just to have her again. Your Developmental Psychology professor from the spring semester of your first year in college. You’re sure there’s more. Each time, though, you were certain that you were special. 

Each time, you were sorely disappointed, but not surprised. 

You want to say that it feels different with Agatha, but you need to get a grip on yourself. 

She’s in her late forties, at least. She might have a partner. You glance at her hands as she’s typing something on the computer. No ring. That doesn’t mean anything, you tell yourself. 

But she could get in serious trouble for sleeping with a student. If everything else worked out, if all the other stars aligned and by some way, she did want you, she’d never risk her job over that. She has two doctorates and has published multiple articles about her research, which you’ve been meaning to read, and has won several awards for her work. She’s devoted her whole life to psychology and you are not going to change that. 

Agatha may tease, but at the end of the day, you feel confident that she will never be anything but professional, which means that you really need to get over this. 

“Okay, getting back into Trait Theory,” Agatha starts and you scramble for your notebook. She clicks present on the slideshow and you begin scribbling down everything typed on the first slide. “Theorists who approach personality through the Trait approach want to know what exactly traits are and what they do. Do they describe how we behave? Are they a sum of all we’ve learned? Do they reflect underlying personality? Are they the building blocks of our personality?” 

You chew on the tip of your pen and Agatha’s eyes flick to you with a glint in them. Her lips twitch up and you freeze. 

“The problem with traits is that people are inconsistent. We act one way when we’re by ourselves and a different way when we’re with friends versus family versus professors versus romantic partners. So do situations predict behavior more than personality traits?” 

Agatha surveys the classroom expectantly so you hesitantly raise your hand, wheels turning in your head trying to think of a sophisticated response. She smirks and nods at you. “I mean, I think situations obviously have some part in how we act, but it’s not like we’re completely different people based on who we’re interacting with. It could be kind of like, what traits do we use more of when we’re with some people and what traits do we use less of?” 

Her brows furrow and you can see her mulling it over. “So you’re saying that we have a bank of traits, of consistent traits, but which ones we tap into depends on who we’re with?” 

“Yes?” Your voice wavers but you hold eye contact with her. 

Agatha hums thoughtfully. “Very good. I like that.” Your cheeks flush and you duck your head, the eye contact becoming too intense. “And it brings us to an interesting thought. I want everyone to write down how you consider yourself personality-wise. And then write down some traits you’d use to describe your best friends.” 

You write some general words down for you and then for Wanda and Nat. It’s hard to sum someone’s personality up like that. Glancing around the room, you see everyone’s still working so you pick at your nails and pretend that you don’t feel Agatha staring at you. 

The compulsion grows too great in you, though, so you look at her. She doesn’t seem abashed that you caught her—if anything, she looks excited. You swallow roughly to get some moisture into your suddenly-dry mouth and your teeth sink into your bottom lip. Her eyelashes flutter, maybe just enough to be considered a wink, but then someone coughs and the moment is broken. 

Agatha clears her throat. “Take a look at what words you wrote for yourself and then compare them to the words you wrote for your friends. Chances are, there’s a good amount of overlap. Opposites attract sometimes, but it’s more often than not that we choose to surround ourselves with people that have similar personalities to us. If we do that, then our traits might be influencing the situations that we’re in, which influences our behavior. It’s a lot to think about.”

She clicks to the next slide. 

“Psychologists have found that both situations and traits influence behavior about equally after conducting some experiments that we’ll look at another time. Now,” she turns off the projection and the screen at the front of the room goes dark. Everyone looks at her. “I want to talk to you about an opportunity for next week.” 

Someone out of the corner of your eye perks up. “Extra credit?”

Agatha shoots him down with a glare. “It’s the third class of the semester, first of all. Second of all, there will be no extra credit in this course.” 

He slumps down, defeated. You think he might be the same person from the first day who was upset about only having five grades. 

“We will have a speaker on campus next Tuesday evening at six pm giving a presentation on fallacies from famous psychological experiments. I’ll be sending out more information about it, but I think it will be very interesting, especially for this class. It’s optional, but I do heavily recommend attending.” 

You raise your hand and she smiles. “What studies are they going to look at?” 

“Excellent question. The presentation will look at the Rosenthal study on expectancy effects, the Stanford Prison Experiment, among a few others, and one of my personal favorites: the study on delay of gratification.” 

“Is that the one—” a girl begins to say before Agatha interrupts her like she didn’t even hear the student. 

“Mischel and Ebbesen would call kids into a room one-by-one and tell them that they could either have a small candy bar right away, or wait some unknown amount of time for a larger candy bar. The researchers would leave the room and see what the kids would do.” Her blue eyes pierce into you and her face morphs into something almost predatory. “Is it better to get instant relief for something small, or to wait and let the anticipation build up for a better reward?” 

She prompts you with a tilt of her head and you wonder if she can see the slight sheen of sweat breaking out on your forehead. “If it’s going to be worth it to wait,” you rasp. 

Agatha licks her lips before nodding slowly and then settles back into her casual demeanor. “I mean, who doesn’t want a bigger candy bar?” she jokes and there’s a titter throughout the room. She gives you a smug smile and you face forward, cheeks burning. 

She continues talking but you’ve completely zoned out. You feel like a kid in the experiment—have something with Morgan, real but fleeting, or wait for even the possibility of Agatha? Once you’re not her student anymore, there shouldn’t be a problem. And you graduate in the spring anyway. 

But that’s if Agatha would even like you back then. 

What happens if the researcher never comes back with the big candy bar after the kid waits forever? 

She finally wraps up class, saying that she needs to rush off to a meeting and you slowly pack up your bag just in case she lingers. She may be in a hurry, but it’s nothing compared to the other students and it’s only a minute before you and her are the only ones left in the room. 

The air feels thick with electricity and tension and it’s like you’re rooted to your seat when she starts to slowly walk toward you. You can feel your heartbeat increase and your breathing quickens—your body wants to run but it can’t. 

“Great job today,” she mumbles and drums her fingertips atop your desk surface, her perfume rolling over you like a wave, and you don’t even realize that she’s gone until you hear the door shut behind you. 

You shakily stand up and swing your bag onto your shoulders and go to the library, desperately trying to ignore the heat between your legs.

After dinner, you pick up the package containing the perfume on your way back to your dorm. You’re almost afraid to open and smell it because you know your body will betray your mind. Your cunt has become conditioned to the scent—conditioned to Agatha—and you really need to figure out how to stop it. You’d throw out the bottle entirely if you hadn’t spent so much money on it. You’ll find some use for it, maybe for a party or something. 

Just as you get into your room, your phone buzzes with an email. Your heart starts to race when you see Agatha Harkness at the top of it and you quickly click on it. 

To your dismay, it’s just a course email. 

Hello Personality Psych, 

Here is the link for information concerning the speaker presentation next Tuesday evening that I mentioned in class. As a reminder, you will not receive any extra credit for attending, but it is an opportunity to learn more about flaws in renowned psychological experiments. Please email me if you are interested so I can get your name on the list. 

Best, 

Professor Harkness

You chew on your lip. It’s not something that you necessarily want to go to, and for no extra credit, it might be a waste of time. 

But you do seriously doubt that anyone else in your class is going to go, which would make you stand out to Agatha. 

You imagine walking into a room full of people you don’t know, anxiously scanning the crowd, to find her smiling at you and beckoning for you to go sit next to her. She’d lean in to whisper some remarks about the speaker into your ear and her hair would tickle your skin. Maybe you’d be bouncing your leg because of your trouble sitting still and she’d put a hand on your thigh to help you focus. 

Fuck. Your cheeks are burning now and the temptation to open the perfume so it feels like she’s there is gnawing strongly inside you. 

Instead, you compose a new email. 

Hi Professor Harkness, 

I would love to attend the presentation.

Thanks! 

You sign it off with your name and hit send before you can rethink it and then throw your phone to the end of the bed. 

The moment you press your hands to your face because you can’t believe how bad this is getting, your phone vibrates. You know what it’s going to be before you even look at it, and yet you’re still surprised to find that Agatha responded almost immediately. 

I’m very glad to hear that and I look forward to seeing you there. 

Professor Harkness. 

Only this time, instead of the regular email signature under her name, and every other professor’s name in their emails, that shows her position, the university name, and her email address, there’s something else as well. 

Ten digits. Your breath catches in her throat. 

She added her phone number. 

Taglist: @lostbutlovely33 @diorrxckstar @whoreforolderfictionalwomen  @katekathry @onemansdreamisanothermansdeath @tayasmellsapples @natashashill @mybraininblood @mysticalmoonlight7  @cactuslover2600 @loveem0mo @readysteddiero-nance @lonelyhalfwitch @lesbiantortilla @crescendoofstars @sol-in-wonderland @ahsfan05 @gbab09 @sasheemo @agathaharness @live-laugh-love-lupone @chiar4anna @fuckedupforkhahn @lowlyjelly @sweetmidnights @n3bula-cats @m1vfs @agathascoven1 @filmedbyharkness @autbot @claramelooo @dandelions4us @agathaallalongg @jujuu23 @21cannibal @angel-kitten-babygirl-u-choose @jeridandridge

[michaellangdonswhore]

warnings: again, smut. put me in a fucking hospital.

word count: 5.5k

----------------------------------------------------------

You were, by far, Jonathan Crane's least favorite student.

You knew it, and it was complete bullshit. You were always on time, always in every class, and always completed the work. You had always had such good grades in every class, but not with him.

While not giving you the worst grade imaginable, you were never able to get over an A-, which pissed you the fuck off. Obviously, to any other normal student studying psychology, they'd take the A-, but not you.

And again, nothing over an A-. There was the frequent B+, sometimes B, and when you really pissed him off he would go as low as a B-.

You've done everything you could to get him to like you. You would ask questions, clearly put extra effort into the homework, and even applied to laboratory studies that he ran. You hated not being liked.

However, at this point in the year, you had given up on trying. You still did everything you were supposed to do, because you wanted a good grade, but you hadn't bothered participating or showing any interest anymore. You had decided to focus more on your other classes. Due to this, you had been working late into the night, causing you to be exhausted for your 8 AM lectures with Crane.

You were exhausted, trying to pay attention. Your head hurt so much for looking at a screen for so long last night.

Crane is flipping through a slideshow, and you find yourself dozing. It's not that this stuff bored you, you had just already learned it back when you took AP Psych your sophomore year of high school.

You snap back into reality when you hear your name being called.

Crane is singling you out with an annoyed expression on his face. You turn red because everyone, all 400 other people in the class, are staring at you.

"I'm sorry. Is this boring you?" He puts his hands on his hips.

"No-" You begin.

You're stammering. You normally don't have such a rough time with public speaking, but being downright exhausted and being singled out for nearly falling asleep in class is extremely embarrassing.

He pauses for a moment and stares you down.

You feel as if you were naked, as if you were completely exposed to him. You didn't like him looking at you like that, like he was taking into account every imperfection.

"As I was saying..."

Thank god.

He resumes to what he was talking about before and you're more alert, heart pumping full of humiliation. You're taking notes now, typing quickly and probably annoyingly loud (you can tell because he keeps shooting you small glares every time you hit the spacebar).

Finally, the hour is up and he reminds everyone about the homework due that Friday. You collect your stuff and head out the door. You don't realize, but he watches you leave.

Everything you do irks him.

Maybe it was because your first paper challenged his psychological beliefs, or because your intelligence challenged him in general. But literally everything about you pisses him off.

Your loud typing, your questions that challenges his lectures, how you turn everything in on time, how you flawlessly converse with the other students. He is so desperately waiting for you to slip up.

As previously stated, you were putting less effort than before into his class. He picked up on this. You were turning your papers and chapter readings in the last minute, you weren't asking questions, and you were even falling asleep.

You had three days to complete a portion of the assignments given. You completely forgot about it.

Due to your tiredness and your weakening desire to try for the class, you had forgotten to write down the homework in a planner that you always checked daily.

Crane is a quick grader, and usually he always grades your homework first; more specifically, as soon as you turn it in.

You realized you didn't do the work as soon as you woke up that morning for your 8 AM class. You had never ever missed an assignment. Ever. And you had no time to do it and make it to his class on time. You were freaking the fuck out.

It's okay. Maybe he hasn't graded it yet.

But no. He was such a strict grader. He was harsh.

Whatever. You may as well hope for the best.

To distract yourself from your predicament, you talk to the boy who sits next to you in the class. It's just smalltalk about the workload and about an upcoming test.

You stop talking when Crane clears his throat. You shift back in your seat and open your laptop.

"It's a Friday. It's 8 AM," Crane begins. You think this is going to be the introduction of a psychological speech. "For all 399 of you that did your homework last night, go enjoy your Friday morning."

People being looking around and whispering, not sure if this is a trick, but you know it's not.

You're freaking out. Your heart is racing and you cannot believe that he would actually do this to you. Usually teachers will just give you a bad grade and call it that, but to single you out and have the entire class leave except for you is an all time low.

"I'm not messing with you," Crane continues. "Go. You know who you are."

He's looking at you dead in the eye and you stay put as people slowly get up to leave, looking around to make sure others are doing the same. You avoid his gaze, looking at your computer screen.

Soon enough, everyone is out of the large lecture room, some looking back to see the one person who didn't do their work.

Once the door is shut, and everyone is completely out of sight, Crane locks both of the doors and looks up at you.

"Are you deliberately trying to fail my class?" He questions. "I thought you wanted to be outstanding."

You can't find words to say. He scoffs and moves to his desk, shuffling through papers and bringing out a decently large stack to over to you. It feels like hours pass by as he walks up the steps to you and drops them onto your desk.

You look at them, confused.

"This is the homework that was due at midnight." He explains.

"It's never so much..." You stammer. You can feel his hatred burning into your skin.

"It's what's due next Wednesday, Friday, and the following week too. Let's see if you can get this done by.... hm," He checks his watch. "By the end of the period?"

"All of this?" Your eyes widen.

"When's your next class?" He asks.

"You're my only one today." You continue to avoid his eye contact.

"Then you can stay." He says. "Until you finish all the work."

"But-"

"I can't trust that you'll do it." Crane says, taking a step back from you. "You need to complete it. In front of me."

"Please, Professor," You try to defend yourself. "I've been-"

"I can assume what you've been doing, you've almost fallen asleep in my class." He scoffs.

You feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment over him getting the wrong impression. Does he really think that low of you?

You take a deep breath. You'll just have to deal with this.

"Do you have a pencil?"

He grabs a black pen from his desk and looks up to you, motioning to sit in the front row. Close enough. You swallow your pride and grab your things and the stack of paper, walking down to the seats in the front.

The class itself is an hour, but it took you almost five to complete the amount of homework he gave you. The readings were long, and the quality of work was demanding. You were eager to do well, to prove yourself.

You hate that he hated you.

His eyes were on you the entire time you did your work. The silence was loud, but you pushed through it. You got three weeks of homework done, and proudly put the stack back onto his desk.

"I'll see you Monday, Professor," you smile, then walk away.

After that, you tried harder; harder than you tried compared to every other class you took. You did this, not to get him to like you- but to get back at him with the fact that you knew your shit; you were a good student. You sat in the front, did side research, and spent nights studying for his endless quizzes. And he wanted to fail you to make you stop what you were doing, but you were getting all the answers right and you both knew that. He wouldn't want you taking anything to the next level.

With you in the front, it made it harder for him to not be distracted by you. Mid speech he would find himself locking eyes with you, disrupting his words and leaving him stammering for a brief moment. Ever since you've upped the eye contact, you've gained more control of the situation.

You arrived in class that Wednesday; the situation in which Crane forced you to stay and do two weeks worth of work in front of him occurred around three weeks ago. You're sitting in the front in between two empty seats; no one likes to sit in the front in Crane's class. It's usually only filled with around three to four people. Crane isn't in class yet, which is weird considering he's always there early, before anyone else even gets there. The class is almost about to begin and he's never been late.

Soon enough, it's one minute after the class is supposed to start and he's still not there. You start feeling antsy, wondering where he is.

Finally, he walks in; two minutes after class is supposed to start. So unlike him.

He places his briefcase on the desk and begins setting up his computer while everyone takes out something to take notes with.

"Now, you all know what I specialize in, I hope," He states, not breaking eye contact with his computer.

He specialized in phobias. Apart from dedicating his time to teaching you, he was a therapist mainly for fears.

"I'm sure we all know what exposure therapy is, correct?" He asks. Pretty much the whole class nods in unison. "Good. For those of you not on the same page, it's the type of therapy which someone is exposed to their fear or trauma."

He begins flipping through his slideshow, giving more and more information and lecturing about it, but you can't help but notice it's an almost bias review.

You're left with homework to write a review on some boring documentary on the history of exposure therapy and a pretty long excerpt of the textbook you all were reading.

So, you did your work and followed all of the instructions. You wrote a review on exposure therapy.

The next Monday, you get to class and you sit in the front row. There's a big stack of paper on Crane's desk, and you assuming that you're getting a pop-quiz, but no, that's not the case.

Crane's waiting for everyone with his shoulder rested on the large stack of papers. Once the time hits 8, he begins.

"I printed out all of your outlines," He begins. "I've made some comments and given some feedback. We'll spend the class working on them."

He starts calling out names and one by one, people receive their papers. You're sort of anxious- you left a pretty negative review on exposure therapy, something that he seemed so passionate about.

"Y/N Y/L/N." He says, saying your voice with more of an annoyed tone than the other students. You get up and grab your paper from his hands, tugging harder due to his firm grip. Clearing his throat, he continues calling out the following names. You go back to your seat, nervous to look at the paper. When you sit and look at it, your stomach dropped.

There's nothing on the front page. Then you look at the second.

See me after class.

There is literally nothing but a see me after class.

Oh my god.

What did I do?

Was he offended at all by what was written? Surely, that wasn't your intention... yes, you wanted to piss him off, but you had some respect for him. You didn't want to actually maybe- make him insecure about his work?

Class seemed to take hours to go by; you didn't even know what to do about your paper. He gave no other feedback other than to see him after class. How were you supposed to work with that?

You looked around at your classmates typing away. You're annoyed that he actually helped them.

See me after class.

At least give me feedback on my fucking paper.

Everyone then realized the time and began to pack up. Crane stood up from his desk and took his glasses off.

"Remember, papers are due Friday!" He manages to get out before people start heading out the door.

You put your things in your bag, trying to act out to your classmates as if you were leaving. You felt so embarrassed. You hated how he kept embarrassing you and how he had the power to do that. It was infuriating. You felt him staring at you as you packed your stuff up, moving slower, nervous that he would call you out.

You took your time, though, waiting till everyone was out of the room.

With everyone else there, you felt so confident. You were one of the smart ones and you at least had witnesses, but alone with him? You were completely inferior. He could quite literally ruin your life with a bad grade and could easily tarnish your image, being the head of Arkham and all that.

"I found your paper quite interesting," He says, emphasizing quite.

"I'm sorry-" you begin. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"Offend me?" He scoffs. "You think you offended me?"

"I just- I know this is what you do, right?" You stammer.

"I'm interested in your point of view." He says. "About the pain, how it's long term. I'm interested as to why you seem so against it."

You shrug.

"What's your biggest fear, Y/N?" He asks you. "What is it? Failure?"

"I'm not trying to fail."

"Oh, yes, you've proven that." He clicks his tongue. "Sitting in the front, turning things in quickly, wearing shorter skirts. Don't think I don't notice what you're doing."

"What?"

"You write intensely about the struggle that people with PTSD-"

"Wait," you interrupt him. "What did you say?"

"I'm trying to discuss with you what you've written."

"Professor, my clothing choices have nothing to do with me wanting to do well in this class," you say. Now you're offended.

Instead of apologizing, which is what you think any decent person would do, he looks you up and down and scoffs.

"You're wearing tights."

"What?"

"Surely, those must be uncomfortable. You're not wearing those to satisfy yourself," he says.

You grow red, and angry.

He keeps humiliating you.

"Who are you trying to impress?"

"Will you stop?" you groan in frustration. "Why don't you just let me get by like you let everyone else get by? I do everything you ask!"

"I want to know who you're trying to impress."

"I'm not trying to impress anyone," you hiss, finally looking up at his crystal eyes.

You know it's disrespectful, but you turn to walk away and to leave.

"No, no. We're not done."

You ignore him, walking towards the door, but he quickly beats you to it, shutting it and locking you in.

"I said we're not done." He said, completely composed. "Sit."

"I want to leave."

"Your biggest fear is failure, yes?" He questions. You don't nod or shake your head, but it is pretty much true; you hate failing. You need to succeed and be good at everything you do. "Sit. I can very much make that fear come true."

"I do everything," you repeat. "Everything. I do it on time, I'm here always, I'm prepared for everything."

"Can you just fucking-" He pushes you down onto the seat next to his desk. "Sit?"

You weren't expecting him to physically force you to sit down, but you could pick up on the pent up frustration he had with you.

"The off the cut sweater, no bra-" He points out.

You weren't wearing a bra. You were surprised he had picked up on the fact- you could've been wearing a strapless, but no. He was right.

"Are you even wearing underwear?" He whispers.

You're flushed.

What the fuck was going on?

You thought he hated you.

And yeah, you knew he was an attractive man, that's what made this whole thing pretty exciting, but you never thought you would be sat down with him leaning over you saying things like this.

"Let me see."

"Professor?"

He grabs you off the chair and pushes you onto his desk, spreading your legs for you. Everything was moving too quickly; this all felt like a fever dream.

He tugs at the middle of your tights, ripping them open to expose your- and he was right- bare pussy. He lets out a chuckle.

"You're not trying to impress anyone?" He questions, again, peering up at you.

You try moving your thigh to cover yourself, but he forcefully keeps them open.

"Who was that boy you used to sit next to... Tim, is it?"

To be honest, you really didn't know that kids name. He was just someone you sat next to out of habit since you had picked that seat the first day of classes. But you hadn't been sitting with him for weeks at that point.

"Is Tim who you're trying to impress?"

"No!" You argue, still trying to fight the grip of his hand off your thigh. "I told you... I'm not trying to impress anyone."

"Hm." He says, placing two fingers on exactly the right spot of your clit, slowly rubbing in circles. . "You're not even trying to impress me?"

You stay silent, for a brief moment.

"Not in this way..."

But it's past that point now. He's already touching you, rubbing faster, and your exposed pussy is laid out right in front of his face. You're embarrassed and self conscious. He's too close for comfort.

"Yeah?"

The fingers once on your clit are now entering you. You still can't comprehend the situation.

But for him, he was putting you in your place. It was enough of the looks in class, the semi sexual and revealing clothing, the obvious need for his approval and to show him she was as smart- maybe even smarter than him himself.

"Is that why you're letting me touch you like this?" He asks, using the two fingers to pump your pussy.

It's out of your control but you're getting wetter the longer and faster he fingers you. It's beginning to show, beginning to drip down his fingers and onto his wrists. He notices this, then stops and looks.

"Disgusting," He huffs before licking his fingers clean.

"That's disgusting," You repeat at him, glaring a little, but you can't help but want his finger- more of him back inside you. You feel empty, desperate for his hands back on you.

"I don't see you asking me to stop."

You're silent, again.

He smiles, kneeling back down and spreading your legs open again, this time with a more forceful grip. He doesn't use his fingers this time, devouring you with his hot mouth and basically digging in.

He was really good at this. To be fair, no one had ever actually eaten you out, but you had never felt anything like it. He moves his fingers towards you again and fucks you with them as he sucks and licks at your clit. He was freakishly good. You felt something drip down your thigh; you didn't know if you were sweating or if you were fucking leaking. By the sound of it, probably the second one.

He removes his fingers and dives deep into your pussy more, making obscure sounds as he does so. He stops and looks up at you.

"Take your shirt off. I want to see your tits," he demands.

You comply; he's already seen a lot.

"Fuck, they're perfect." He says, now standing over you, playing with them and poking and twisting at your hardened nipple. He's pushing his hardened clothed dick into your bare pussy, giving you some friction has he sucks on your neck and plays with your nipples.

He grabs your hips and flips you over, putting you on your stomach and leaning you over the desk.

He kneels back down, eating your pussy again; he can't get enough of it. He can't get enough of the small whines escaping your throat and the way you leak and how you shake when it feels good- or when the pleasure becomes too much.

He adds his fingers in again, this time three, and you let out a louder, but not too loud, moan than usual.

"Professor-"

"You can take it." He assures you. "You better take it. If you can't take this how can you take my cock?"

You just weren't used to it- you had been fucked, but not for so long. He keeps licking and devouring your clit while pumping in and out of you. You feel so full- on the brink. You feel hot, and god you feel good. You don't even realize it, but you're riding his mouth and his fingers.

"You know, I wasn't going to let you come," Crane begins between breaths, keeping his face close to your pussy so you could still feel him. "But now that I think about it... I want you cum drunk on my dick. I wanna make you cum over and over again until you're a fucking mess."

He goes back to sloppily and messily eating you out again. It was so dirty; the noise, what was leaking out of you. You then felt that familiar feeling and you couldn't stop it; no matter how wrong this felt or how humiliated and exposed you felt, you couldn't stop yourself from moaning like a mess and cumming all over his mouth.

You needed a second to recover, but he stood up and grinded his clothed dick against you. You weren't ready for the friction, wincing over the contact with you sensitive clit. He grabbed your neck and pulls your back to him, kissing you, continuing to grind.

He unbuttons his pants and undoes his boxers, his large thick cock springing out, begging to be touched. He pushes one of your legs up onto the desk to give him better access to you.

"You're fucking soaked," He says as he teases himself some more, collecting what's came out of you as some lubricant.

He keeps rubbing your clit and the outside with his dick, back and forth. It feels good, but it's not enough. He pushes harder with his dick on your clit, continuing to hump you.

"Professor, please," you look back at him, trying to guilt him into giving in and fucking you, but it's not that easy.

"Shut up, and let me take my time." He says. He continues this for a little, before getting a new idea. "I want you to cum on my cock without me fucking you."

"What?"

He pulls you towards him then on his lap on the chair next to his desk.

"Grind on it." He demands, holding you in place by your hips. "Get it soaked."

You hesitate, but he's impatient. He pushes you down and moves your hips for you until you begin to do it with him. You grind your pussy against his cock, stimulating your clit once more. It didn't feel as good as his mouth, and god it probably didn't feel as good as his dick would feel inside you, but it felt good. And you were so fucking horny, you were on the brink of cumming again.

"Yeah, yeah, you got it," he praised you, rocking your hips back and forth. He digs his nails into your hips, definitely leaving some cuts in your skin, but you didn't care. You were so close. He begins to bounce up, pretending to thrust into you, adding to your pleasure. "That's it, you- oh fuck, yes, cum on my fucking dick."

You're dripping onto him as you ride out your high, clenching around nothing. It seems to last for a while, wrapped up in all the pleasure combined with his dirty talk.

He angles his cock towards your entrance and pushes into you- he feels hot and he's sensitive due to teasing himself. But no- he doesn't want to cum yet. He wants to put you in your fucking place. And even if he does cum, he has no issue continuing and even fucking a baby into you. Then, you'd have to walk around with the shame.

He gently picks you up, but then harshly slams you up and down repeatedly onto his cock. You've had no time to readjust after cumming a second time, and you were extremely sensitive.

"Slower, professor, please," You cry, burying your face into his shoulder. "It hurts..."

"Shut the fuck up."

He grabs you by the neck and pounds up into you, rubbing your clit as well to add to the sensation.

Yes, it feels good, but it's so overwhelming you can't help but tear up. Crane notices this and it goes straight to his head.

"Are you fucking crying?" He scoffs. "Fucking crying for me?"

He picks you up, keeping you firmly attached to his dick, and throws you over the desk again. He's fucking you deeper and at an animalistic pace; like he fucking needs this.

"Keep crying for me. Keep fucking crying."

He harshly grips your tits, twisting your nipple in the process.

"Fucking perfect tits, perfect pussy, perfect everything. You fucking strive for perfection- but you're letting me fucking ruin you. Is this how far you'd go for a good grade?" He laughs, fingers deep in your clit.

You can only moan in response, but this doesn't satisfy him.

"Fucking answer me."

"Yes," you cry out.

"Yeah, you're just a fucking whore who'd sleep her way to the top if that's what it took." He says, tugging your hair back, your sweaty bodies pressed closer together.

His words are filthy, but you're fucking cumming again.

He's laughing, mocking you for doing so.

"You fucking like being treated like a bitch, don't you?" He says, fucking you through your third orgasm. You don't know how he's not tired. As you expect, he doesn't give you a fucking break. You're worn out at this point; almost numb.

"Professor, I don't know-"

"You don't know if you can keep going?" He questions. "Yeah, you can. I'll fucking make you keep going. What was that... your third orgasm? Let me see if I can double that."

"Professor..."

"I'll stop when you give me three more."

You feel like you're going to pass out; the pleasure had become too much, but you were so fucking sensitive that a fourth one had come quickly. Your pussy was so swollen and red, but he had not gotten off of you.

"You're fucking..." He brings you back to the chair and places you on top of him. "You're fucking leaking all over me, fucking hell. So wet... do you hear yourself?"

You could hear yourself. It was disgusting. It was filthy.

"Aren't you embarrassed?" He asks. He slows down his pace, and you know he's teasing you. "Embarrassed that you're whoring yourself out to me like this? To a professor that so clearly disliked you? This is what you do for my approval."

He slows his pace some more.

"Would you do this for any other professor, Y/N? Let them fuck your pussy till you have nothing left to give? Bounce on their cock the way you do for me?"

"No, professor," you shake your head, trying to bounce faster but he keeps your hips in place, restricting you. He had succeeded- made you cum drunk and fucked you stupid, but this wasn't enough. He needed more. "No, no, only you. I'd only do this for you."

You're squirming around on his dick. He's stopped moving at this point, just staying in you.

"Stop fucking moving around. Don't you want to impress me?"

"Have I not?" You begin to regain some of your strength with this somewhat of a break he was giving you. "Have I not impressed you, professor?"

You give him puppy eyes as you gain some control of the situation, his grip loosing and you bouncing on his cock at a pace you like.

"I want to impress you, professor," you say seductively. "I want to- fuck!"

You start chasing your high again, you didn't even realize that you'd ever be able to cum this many times.

"Fuck!" You repeat. Crane is letting you take control, enjoying the show of you riding his cock, using him for your pleasure. "Do you like this, professor? Do you like when I fucking bounce on your dick like this?"

You had never heard yourself like this, or ever expected to talk like this. You had never felt so confident.

"Have you imagined this professor?" You continue. He's obviously at a loss for words, not expecting this side of you. "Have you imagined fucking me? Have you imagined bending me over your desk and eating me out till I came all over your face? My tits? Putting me in my fucking place?"

His hands found your hips again and he's helping you ride his cock. He's loving the words coming from your mouth.

"God, I think you wanted this more than I did," you laugh. You're so close. You wanted him to talk, but his reactions to your words were enough for you. "Make me cum again, professor, please. I- fuck!"

He's pushing into you and bouncing you up and down quickly and you're riding out your fifth orgasm.

He pulls you off of him and lays you out on the desk again, licking up your sore pussy. He hums while doing this, telling you how you taste so good. You're so- so sensitive, though, and you can't help but cumming on his tongue again not even seconds later, letting out a string of incoherent words.

That's six.

You look at him, but he's positioning himself in you.

"You said six-"

"I say a lot of things. I want you to cum on my cock again." He says, kissing your neck. "Last time. I promise."

He pumps into you, at a softer, but still quick pace. You feel so incredibly numb, but he still manages to work you up quickly while fondling your breasts and pressing hot kisses into your neck.

"Ah- fuck." He pants, fucking himself into you. "Fuck... gonna cum in you. Want you to fucking carry me around for the rest of the fucking day."

You don't object- your hearing was probably a little impaired at this point.

"Yeah, you want that, don't you. It's like a fucking award to you."

He's holding you closer now. You both are so sweaty and sticky.

You're about to cum again, but he grabs your throat tightly.

"Fucking wait for me. Don't be impatient."

As hard as it is, you listen to him. He speeds up, becoming sloppy before he cries, "Fuck, cum! Cum all over my fucking- ahhh, yes, fuck."

He shoots hot loads into you as you clench around him, milking more out of him. He doesn't stop, continuing to fuck you until every last bit of his seed has marked you. Even after he's done, he gets a few more strokes in before he pulls out, showing the combination of you and him leaking out of your pussy. He pushes you onto the floor and presents his dick in front of him.

"Clean it."

You obey, wrapping your mouth on his cock and licking away the filth that the two of you made. He groans and pulls you off of him.

"You'll get me hard again." He says.

He puts all his clothes back on and hands you your sweater. Your nipples are hard, poking through them now.

"I look forward to your next draft of your review." Crane says calmly, as if what just happened didn't happen.

"You- um..." you stammer, brushing your fingers through your hair. "You didn't give me any notes."

"I didn't?" He questioned. You shook your head. "Well, stay again after class next session. I'll go over it, personally, with you."

"Oh." You blush. "This wasn't a one time thing?"

"Y/N..." Crane looks at the floor. "I'm your professor."

You felt awkward. Of course it was a one time thing; how could it not be?

But then he looks back up at you.

"You don't want to fail my class, do you?"

[citricacidprince]

doodle request on relativity falls - id love 2 see ur vers of fiddleford and where he stands in the story!! :DD

Of course!!!

Oh Fiddleford, my dearly beloved Fiddleford, he’s just a little guy who makes machines that hurt people and I love him for that <3

In my Relativity Falls AU Fidds is a kid from Tennessee who moved to Gravity Falls pretty recently, like in the past year.

He’s still really handy with mechanics, like a genuine prodigy, but he’s so riddled with anxiety that it’s a battle to get him to share any of his projects outside of his robots he makes to get revenge on those who wrong him!

He really does like hanging out with the twins, he thinks their both fun and is very happy they actually wanna be his friend, however their constant ‘Getting into weird and magical trouble’ is so stress inducing to him he’s going to get gray hairs by the time he’s 20 (Dipper can relate-)

I don’t have a lot of things solidified for him yet, other than I want him to be EXTREMELY tempted to use the Memory Gun on himself, to forget a lot of the horrifying things he’s seen over the summer, but is stopped by Candy (The inventor of the gun) at the last second. You see, Candy didn’t spiral like Fiddleford did in the show, she only ever used the memory gun on herself once. However, she used it to erase every bit of knowledge she ever learned about the weirdness of Gravity Falls, and Candy had spent YEARS of her life dedicated to it, she was arguably more curious about the weirdness of Gravity Falls than Dipper was. He was only curious out of morbid curiosity, she saw the whimsy and wonder in it all. So when Candy used the Memory Gun on herself and erased such a huge chunk of her memory it cracked her psyche, not leaving her a rambling and insane kook like Fiddleford, but more oblivious and unaware to everything around her while also being a liiiiittle ‘not all there’.

Between the two of them Candy definitely got the better end of the stick. Fiddleford was deemed insane and used the memory gun over and over again until he couldn’t even remember who he was anyone, his life falling apart. Candy used it once to make sure no one could ever use her research to hurt anyone after she learned her lab partner was literally working with an otherworldly being who could go into peoples heads and it cracked her mind because her research WAS her entire life, leaving her oblivious and dazed. However, Candy managed to find people who cared about her and were willing to care for her despite this. Sure she lives in the dump, but whenever a storm comes through or she gets hungry she can always go up to her friends Grenda, Mabel Mason, or even Pacifica at some point to help her out. Fiddleford had no one.

I want Candy to give Fidds a little pep talk, convincing him that despite those memories being scary and uncomfortable he’s going to need all of them because they’re what will help him grow as a person. He can’t just pick and choose which ones he wants because one day he’ll realize he doesn’t have any memories left to burn.

Maybe there could even be a moment where Fidds tries to use the memory gun on Candy because he convinces himself he NEEDS it and doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of hating choice, but freezes up when he realizes it does work on her anymore. The realizes what he just did because of how badly he wanted that memory gun seconds after he did it and starts to tremble, dropping the memory gun as he begins uncontrollably crying that he ‘didn’t mean it’ and he’s sorry. Candy wouldn’t hold it against him, just seeing a scared kid who was so desperate to make the mind numbing anxiety that he would do anything, and she’d hug him and tell him it’s okay before leading him back to the rest of the group.

Fiddleford makes me soooo ill I love him <3

[kortac-sweetheart]

pt2/finale traitor!tf141 au

cw: some angst, hurt with lots of comfort, can be read as platonic or romantic, flashbacks to past torture, mentions of violence, military inaccuracies, reader tears 141 a new one (we all cheered), we're overcoming hedgehog's dilemma with this one boys (four times you saved them, one (and a half) time(s) they saved you) realllllly fckn long

(it's the finale part yay! i don't have any more ideas to continue this au, but asks abt it are always open)

in the months since you've joined kortac, you quickly cemented yourself as efficient, capable, and reliable in their eyes. as fundamental to the team as the very foundation of a home. your hard work in the field even earned you a new call sign, one gifted by könig himself.

wraith.

a harbinger of death, the final phantasmal apparition any enemy would have the misfortune to see. sweeping, practically dancing, through swaths of men, leaving them dropping like flies in your wake.

but if that was true, the why were you back under intensive care in the med bay again?

the latest mission had gone sideways. a simple recon mission that had went belly up due to an enemy ambush. reconnaissance turned into rescue instead. and kortac's new target?

you.

it wasn't pretty. the way they tore through the field to reach you, nearly trampling over friend and foe alike, guns blazing all the while. leaving nothing but blood and carnage in their wake, blood lust only temporarily abated before they realized the state you were in.

on the verge of passing out, bound and bloodied, battered and bruised all over again. you had certainly looked like your callsign then, pale from exhaustion and the fabric of your very being fraying once more. despite the strength of your bonds and your faith in them, doubt still gnawed at the edges of your psyche. the pain from the physical beating imposed by your captors was nothing compared to your own mental flogging.

will they come?

i hope they do.

they shouldn't come.

it's not worth it.

the mission is compromised.

i'm sorry.

the sight of könig kicking down the locked door and the feeling of someone gently bundling you into his arms was the last thing you remembered before passing out.

they came.

despite your ceaseless tears and aches, there was a small smile on your face, too.

waiting for you to wake up again was agonizing.

the four of them, huddled around your bed in the base's med bay, with only the incessant ticking of the clock and your steady breaths to break the silence. they couldn't focus on any paperwork they had brought either, too agitated, too restless, too worried, to focus on mindless bureaucracy.

horangi sat at your bedside, bent over from exhaustion and boredom, his hand clasped with yours. he remembers how you used to be, those few months ago. quiet but strong, withdrawn but not entirely cold, he could sense the smallest flicker of warmth--wanting in all your movements. despite it, you hadn't uttered a word to him at all, barely met his eyes, carrying yourself admirably, independently in action.

he remembers it as if it were yesterday, when you first spoke to him.

he was too caught up in the heat of battle, tunnel visioned whilst carving a path into enemy territory and leading the charge with you as support. you had felt the chilling, piercing gaze before you ever saw them, all but shoving horangi's head down and missing the sniper's bullet aimed for him. he had looked at you, bewildered, before you summoned the strength to speak.

"enemy sniper in the vicinity. watch your six, horangi." your comm headset then crackled to life as you relayed the message to the team.

in the grand scheme of things, it was a small gesture. a teammate saving another's life is common place on the field, but horangi still felt grateful all the same. your sharp senses, your quick thinking, your presence and the safety it brought only emboldened him on the field, knowing that you'd be there to drag him out of harm's way.

outside the field, he knew that even if you couldn't express it fully aloud, you still cared for them very much. one day incidentally, you had noticed horangi picking at his food, dissatisfied with grey slop from the mess hall. (and you were too, to be quite honest.)

eventually, you found yourself and your team stationed off base for once, waiting around in temporary housing for the start of the mission. it seemed like the perfect time to have something other than MREs.

it was a very simple meal, grilled meat, storebought kimchi, savory steamed eggs and some freshly cooked rice. but when you called them in for lunch, horangi nearly dropped to his knees and proposed to you on the spot. he had to hold himself back from positively bear hugging you into his arms, instead eagerly complimenting the meal you prepared and squeezing your hand in appreciation.

"did you like the meal hong-jin?" he could barely hear you over the running faucet of the sink whilst he helped with the dishes, but he still beamed at you regardless. (he thought that meek voice of yours asking for approval was downright adorable.)

"of course i did! thank you. i really appreciate it." he couldn't remember the last time he felt so... content. so cared for and seen. it made him feel warm inside, heart full and fuzzy and soft around the edges from your quiet attentiveness.

that's why, when you all return to base and he spots you in the early morning light, sipping on coffee all alone—he joins you without a second thought. settling down next to you on the bench in the rec room with his own cup, no words exchanged but it's warm and comforting all the same.

you don't bat an eye at his presence, as if he was always meant to be there. you carefully lean into him, your shoulder's a hair's breadth from touching his. one hand holds your steaming cup and the other gingerly fiddles with his own free hand.

(you can sense his gaze too, burning into you and hong-jin as he watched from the hallway. mactavish. burning up with jealously, regret, remorse, as he watched you two.

watched the way you slowly scooted closer to hong-jin, leaning into his side as he casually swung his arm up and around your shoulder. watched as the tension bled from your body and left you utterly relaxed and open.

he couldn't remember the last time he saw you like that. if ever. he couldn't stomach the sight anymore, stomping away from the rec room with clenched fists and a deep scowl on his face.

that should've been him.)

(whether hong-jin sensed him too, he didn't say. if he did, or if he didn't, hong-jin didn't give a shit either way. all that mattered was being in the moment with you.)

krueger sighed as he glanced at the wall clock again, only five infernal minutes since last he checked it. he then glanced over to horangi, who was now soundly snoring in his seat, his head resting in his arms. then, a shadow of a smile graced his own face as he looked at you.

he remembers how the roles were reversed before, that time you went out of your way to save him. he remembers it clear as day.

the first ever mission where you two had been assigned as partners. he had respected you immensely, your silent intensity and lack of fluff, efficient, strong, a damn good partner. the mission had went off without a hitch, until the end of it.

you didn't know how to turned out like this. one moment the building was eerily quiet and still, and the next it was a raging inferno. just moments before, you had been separated from krueger looking for the documents. and now you were running, panting as you made it outside. but, something was off when you looked around.

where was krueger?

you hesitated only for a split second before running back in, while your teammates all shouted for you to stop. but you tuned them out, focusing, clearing your mind and remembering the layout of the building, where krueger said he was headed.

you found him in the hallway leading to the security room, crawling along the floor, his leg injured in the blast. clutching the documents with one hand, and using the other to drag himself forward.

when the smoke had parted to reveal you, he thought he was already dead. your silhouette blurry and grainy around the edges, the roaring fire illuminating your face in an ominous orange. an angel of death. he felt you take the documents from his hand, resignation filling him as he thought you'd turn and run.

he didn't resent you for it. not at all, take the documents, focus on the mission, leave the baggage behind. but you didn't. you didn't leave him there. you hauled him up single-handedly, adrenaline pumping through you as you fought to remain calm and steady, whilst rushing him and yourself out of there.

you spoke to him just loud enough to hear, keeping him awake and alert.

"c'mon krueger, i'm getting you out of here."

"keep moving, this is no place to die."

"you can sleep when we're safely back on base."

"i'm not leaving without you."

and he couldn't help but wonder, why?

for a man like him, one you barely knew beyond being teammates.

why? as you two narrowly escaped the building as it completely collapsed.

why? as you dragged his half unconscious body to the evac point, as you waited with him, patching up his wounds with what meager medical supplies you had on you.

why? as you fitted the oxygen mask over his face in the helicopter. his vision fading to black from exhaustion.

you sat with him as he laid in med bay, waiting for him to wake up. you remember what it felt like, to wake up all alone with no one around. how harrowing and disorienting it was, near tears when one of your old teammates had finally gone to check on you. through his (quite insincere) apologies, you sensed his piss poor excuses.

"oh, you're awake... apologies. we were busy." he didn't look physically exhausted at all, no sweat or sign of training.

paperwork, you realized.

they were too busy doing paperwork to stay by your bedside. when it sunk in, you had merely swallowed, staring at your bandaged hands.

"it's ok." you managed to mutter, after a beat there was a small click of the door. and the sterile room faded into suffocating silence once more as his footsteps led him away.

krueger, now awake, studied your face as you glared at the wall opposite you, hands clasped together and lost in thought. watching your tired eyes growing glassy with unshed tears, he decided enough was enough.

you startled slightly when he waved his hand in your line of sight, immediately snapped out of your trance. looking to him a concerned look that crossed your face, you murmured, "how're you holding up?"

"could be worse off... thanks. for saving me back there." he can see how you melt, a little less guarded with a small smile crossing your face. even under the sterile med bay lights, eyes tired and skin a little dull, you still looked like an angel. his saving angel.

he doesn't care why you did it. all it matters is that you did, he didn't need to know why when it was written all over your face. your actions, your presence besides him spoke more than words could.

(garrick had noticed you from the hallway, watching you intently.

green with envy as you tried to stifle your giggles before breaking into a real, honest to god, belly laugh. watched as you held onto krueger's hand so you wouldn't keel over in your seat from laughter.

watched as you wiped away happy tears-- so different compared to the terrified ones he remembers you shedding before. watched as your guarded demeanor melted into something softer, full of big smiles and genuine laughs you shared with krueger.

not him. it should've been him.)

(yes, krueger noticed him. didn't see him directly but he could tell in your eyes. how your laughter flickered and dimmed slightly as you glanced at something-- someone, before he redirected you back to himself. making you laugh at his jokes, and forgetting all about garrick. good. garrick could go to hell for all he cares.)

even when krueger was able to get up and walk around, you still stuck by him. doing work in his med bay room and telling you when and where you'd leave to. whether by pure happenstance or good fortune, krueger had been awake one morning just before you'd leave for coffee.

"oh, good morning, seb! i'm going to go have coffee with horan-- er, hong-jin..." a brief nervous pause, you were considering something.

"do you... do you want to join us?" asked with such tender hope in your eyes that he couldn't possibly say no. (frankly if you told him to jump he wouldn't even say "how high" he'd just do it.)

despite the sudden appearance of sebastian, hong-jin didn't look surprised in the slightest. they shared one look with each other and they immediately understood; watching as you happily prepared coffee, humming beneath your breath with your back turned to them. that morning, and for the following mornings after that; you enjoyed your coffee happily squished between the both of them.

back in your temporary room in med bay, sebastian had now drifted off in his chair. lulled to dreams by the quiet room and pleasant memories you shared.

nikto had elected to lean on the far wall of the room, opposite your bed. muttered something about being able to see the whole room for safety. but he now surveyed the tranquil room, seeing both krueger and horangi asleep in their chairs, and you, hopefully peacefully asleep too. his eyes lingered on the teddy bear that sat dutifully at your side, as if to protect you from night terrors. the teddy bear that he got you.

it was supposed to be like any other sleepless night, awoken from fitful slumber by nightmares both real and imagined, past and present.

rest would not visit them again tonight it seems.

with practiced ease they had made their way to the base's rec room, searching for tranquility in the stillness of night. peace, away from his restless mind. sitting quietly down at the table, waiting out the night until you happened to stumble in.

there hadn't been many words exchanged between you before. but there was mutual respect-- anyone would always appreciate a hard worker like you. but now he watched quietly as you tottered over to the empty seat besides him in the rec room, attempting to muffle quiet sobs as you slumped in the chair. they weren't the only ones to have bad dreams tonight it seems.

nikto didn't know what overcame him, they shouldn't of pried. everyone on base has their struggles, but between you, it felt different; his body overcome with the urge to help, to comfort.

he spoke quietly. "night terrors?" the question hung in the air for a bit before you sniffled, and nodded. he didn't ask about what aloud, but the offer was there. there was no judgement in his gaze, but understanding. even if he didn't cry, even if his own nightmares came night after night, he understood deeply.

they sighed, standing up and went to get a pot of coffee going; if he was going to stay up all night, might as well enjoy it. but after they set a fresh cup of coffee in front of you, the dam inside of you broke and you spilled everything, with nikto and the night as your only witnesses.

sobbing into your hands and sleeves about what they put you through. how they slashed so painfully at you, spat at you, how they imprinted themselves deep into your psyche.

you told nikto you despised looking in the mirror because it reminds you too much of them and what they did to you. how you can feel the phantom edge of riley's blade glide up your face, or how mactavish punched you so hard you nearly blacked out.

how you can still feel garrick's hand gripping your wrist, holding it still as his knife comes down on your pinky, severing it with no remorse.

nikto's care for you wins out against their new found contempt for task force 141 in the end. he gets up from his chair across you, and sits besides you instead. a single palm, placed soothingly on your back.

"allow us to show you something." their hands reach their mask and, they slowly, unhurriedly undo all the buckles and belts that secure it. methodically laying piece by piece of their mask down on the table, carefully, as to not startle you. the last piece of nikto's mask comes off and you're granted a front row view of his face.

they easily read your expression, no surprise, no disgust, no pity either. they see recognition in your eyes, familiarity. it's different from all the other looks they've gotten. you don't scream or cry (anymore), nor do you try to run away, instead you sit quietly memorizing their face.

for once, they feel as if they don't hate their own face either.

"the past comes for us night after night. but we cannot allow ourselves to wallow in it anymore. what's done has been done, the best any of us can do is simply move on... and keep living." the words settled into your mind.

nikto is right.

you can't allow the 141 to rob you of your life more than they already have. you want to thank him. for his advice, for his trust in you, and you tell him to wait for a moment.

he's left alone in the dark again, but it doesn't feel suffocating anymore. even he didn't know the weight they were carrying until it was gone. although your presence is momentarily absent, he-- they trust that you will return.

and you do. they note you look a little embarrassed, but you move to sit down next to him again before handing them a little well loved teddy bear. it's plastic eyes a bit scratched and cloudy, the ribbon around the neck is loose, and the stuffing a bit lumpy. well adored.

"here." you start. he takes a moment to give it a soft squeeze, and he doesn't know why but his heart sinks and soars at the same time.

"i always hug my bear when the nightmares are too much. it makes me feel better when i hold him... so i.. i want you to have it. so that he can help you too." you can't help but feel a little childish, fiddling with your fingers as you await his reply, but no such chiding or scoff ever resounds from them.

instead, a soft "thank you. we will cherish it." falls from their lips, and that's all it takes for you to truly relax. they expect you to return to your room but you don't, staying put and keeping them company through the silent night. sometimes you talk some more, sometimes it's just your breathing that's audible, they listen intently either way.

but they watch as your eyelids grow heavier, your words slurred and drowsy, and before you can fall asleep on the hard table; nikto tucks your body into their side instead. a warm arm and a strong chest keep you securely in place, blissfully asleep.

(nikto does not move an inch the whole night. not while you're still peacefully asleep, nor when the light of dawn illuminates the room and chases away the dark, and most certainly not when a certain lieutenant walks into the rec room.

the certain someone doesn't notice you peacefully sleeping in nikto's arms until he turns around and is greeted with the sight of your peacefully sleeping face. blissfully unaware to who was in the room besides you and nikto. he looks confounded, envious even, and nikto can sense he's itching to say something. but he sends the lieutenant an icy glare, lifting a finger to his lips.

the man doth protest too much, they think. making a talking motion with his hand, before pointing at him and then making an ominous throat slitting motion with their thumb. he seems to get the memo the second time around, quickly exiting the rec room with only a single final fleeting glance towards your peaceful face.)

(your sleepy visage belies your awareness to his presence. even in sleep your body still remembers, subtly awakening when he entered the room, feeling his burning gaze lingering on you despite being in nikto's arms.)

the second visitors to the rec room are much more welcomed ones. hong-jin and seb were surprised to see nikto there, but more importantly with you curled up peacefully in his arms.

any surprise is quickly replaced with adoration as they watch you peacefully snooze for a few more moments, before they sadly have to wake you. a simple "wakey wakey sleepyhead" and a small shake from hong-jin is all that's required to wake you. (nikto and seb do give him a teasing side eye for that.)

their hearts collectively squeeze as you gradually come to, looking at all of them with a fond glint in your sleepy gaze, a soft yawn and an even softer smile.

you now share your mornings with hong-jin, seb, and andre after that. the more the merrier after all. sometimes they fight over who gets to sit next to you, and the loser of three way rock paper scissors always sulks a little, but the smile you give all of them makes up for it.

in the quiet room nikto can feel his head nodding, drowsy with sleep, so he leaves the wall. laying down, horizontal to the foot of your bed to sleep.

(rest may not so easily visit nikto, but rest is within reach wherever you are. whether that may be right next to him, or a just few feet away in your room.

he had also gone and gifted you another teddy bear. after you so graciously gifted him yours, similar but not quite the same. with big round eyes, and cute ears and a neat bow that he tied himself, along with a little heart in one paw.)

when könig looked up from his paperwork to check if you woke up yet he was met with sound of soft snores in the room. looking around, he sees his trusted teammates sleeping peacefully and lets out an amused hum.

he feels his focus slip away, paperwork long forgotten when he stares at you.

he always liked you. long before you even joined kortac, when you were still with them. he saw himself in parts of you, like how it was so hard for you to connect with your team, and how you opted to close yourself off. he liked your tenacity, your readiness to work, it was a shame that they had gotten to you first.

which is why the 141's biggest blunder was the greatest thing they ever inadvertently did for him.

he almost pitied them, those fools. they did what they did, they chose to do it, and made the biggest mistake of their lives. no where did it ever say that he couldn't benefit from their self inflicted misery.

welcoming you to kortac was one of the best days of his life. you took to the new work like fish to water, always offering to pick up the slack whenever necessary. always finishing more paperwork than required of you, training the new recruits, you ran around non stop to help others. but he didn't like how you overdid it, even when you were on the verge of collapsing asleep in the hallway you still trudged on.

he remembers being up at ungodly hours doing work when you knocked on his office door and requested for more paperwork to do, despite the bags under your eyes protesting otherwise. when he questioned you, all you could respond with was a stilted "can't sleep." and that was that. he'll let you do paperwork until you tired and then he'd return you to your room.

but he watched in abject horror as you sat there long past him, completing reports and filing things away. and you were STILL awake and doing things even after he went to bed and woke up again. (he did place you on bed rest for a few days after that, as much as you silently complained about it.)

when this behavior continued, he knew that he had to question you about it. and so he waited until your brain was a little fuzzy from exhaustion, you inhibitions giving way to the more primal parts of your psyche. when your guard was down and you could be a little more honest.

"lieutenant." his voice broke the ambience of his still office, cutting through the sound of flitting paper and scribbling pens.

you head snapped towards his immediately, despite the way your eyes fought to stay open.

"may i ask why you work so hard? you do realize you don't need to go above and beyond, ja? you're only exhausting yourself doing this."

a pregnant pause lingered in the air as you stared at the floor under his feet. your grip tightened on your pen, and he thought that you'd get up and leave entirely.

"if you don't want to answer you don't have to. i won't force you--" his sentence was cut off abruptly when you looked directly at him.

"because i have to." your voice, despite being a whisper was more akin to a bomb. he was confused, going to question further but you then continued.

"if i'm not useful anymore. then i'll be discarded again like before." your voice was the weakest he's ever heard it, vulnerable and scared. your eyes were downcast again, avoiding his piercing gaze whilst unshed tears built in your own.

the sight of your tears glimmering under the warm lamp lights quickly roused him to comfort you. corralling your shaking and sobbing body into his arms, holding you tight as you sobbed your heart out.

he didn't tell you to stop, only letting you continue emptying your emotions where it was safe. one arm around the back of your neck and the other soothing up and down your back, "it's ok, sweetheart. it's ok. i promise you will never go through that again. so long as i live, i'll be right beside you. they won't ever touch you ever again, i'll make sure of it."

right there, in that cramped office of his during a frigid night, being consoled and comforted by your colonel, what else could you do but believe him? he sounded so self assured, his tone kept soft and low, cradling you against him until you fell asleep.

(price wasn't envious of könig at all, he was the man that put you into that position in the first place. executing that god forsaken order that ruined your life and theirs.

so why couldn't he will himself to walk away when he heard the two of you talking?

hell, he could hear your sobs being muffled into könig's chest. could hear you murmur the smallest "thank you"s towards him too. but no, he was most certainly not envious of könig at all.

how silly would that be.)

(könig had most certainly known that price was outside. if not for his footsteps breaking the still night, then most certainly the camera recording would've told him. bastard just doesn't know when to stop does he. god, if you weren't positively sobbing yourself into exhaustion in his arms he would've stomped outside to tell him to go fuck himself.)

a few days after you confessed your troubles to him he awoke with a sigh, needing to talk to horangi. but he wasn't in his room. and neither was krueger. or nikto for that matter. and when he checked your room, you weren't there either. it left him scratching his head as he wandered through base in the morning until eventually stumbling into the rec room.

there you all were, on the rec room bench, bathed in the glow of early morning all sharing quiet conversation. his heart lurched in his chest at the sight of you, so happy you were practically glowing, squished between horangi and nikto.

when he was about to turn heel and flee you noticed him, calling out to him and so politely asking him to join. he froze before stiffly turning around and tottering over to an empty seat near you.

"so... this is where you all are in the mornings?" he spoke quietly, trying not to break the relaxed atmosphere.

and you piped up from your comfy place on the bench before anyone else could. "yeah! we're all here every morning. why don't you just join us from now on könig? i'm so sorry we didn't say anything earlier, you we're just really busy all the time and i ah... i guess i didn't want to bother you."

his eyes widened a fraction while his hands tensed around his coffee cup, taking a moment to mull it over. "sure. why not."

the bright grin you gave him in response rivaled the sun.

but he quickly woke from his reverie when he heard you sob. the sound still haunts him in his nightmares, blind and deaf he would still be able to tell when you were crying. the four of them snapping to attention as you contorted painfully on the bed.

you were back in that godforsaken interrogation room again.

where the lights blinded you in the darkness, where the cold nipped at your fingers and nose, where the ropes bound your body and where fear and hunger made themselves uninvited companions to your misery.

what would they take from you this time? hacking away at you more and more and more until nothing was left. your body, your mind, your pride, your soul, all fit to be chopped up and tossed aside.

what had you done this time? spoke too loudly, too much? didn't speak enough? looked at someone wrong? stood out too much? or did you try and fade into the background? it didn't matter anyway, they would hammer you down like a bent nail until it wasn't even visible on the wood's surface anymore, with only a crater left in it's wake.

oh, look. ol' skipper is here too this time. what a party it is now! the more the merrier of course, yes, why not allow price to blindly stick you with pins as if it were a mere birthday game?

what's the matter cap'n? got jealous just watching from the sidelines and wanted to join in on the fun now too? there's more than enough to play with and to discard before you get bored.

look at all the fun toys you have at your disposal! used syringes with mysterious unknown liquid, rusty pliers and nails, broken glass, a hot branding iron, and whatever other indistinguishable horrors lay on that table!

what fun will we have together today?

"sweet--" what? what was that? that didn't sound like any of them.

"sweetheart-- sweetheart wake up" were they talking to you? who was talking to you?

it was as if the ropes had melted away with no resistance when you stood up, stumbling your way to the door with warm light behind it. the torturous room falling away into the white void behind you with each further step you took.

"wake up sweetheart." the voice was coming from behind the door. with little hesitance you turned the knob on the door and with a gasp you awoke with a start. you were safe.

warm and safe. safe and warm. far, far away from that room. far away from them.

they had all deflated like a balloon, rife with heartache when you finally woke up from the nightmare. your panting and whimpers of "help" and "stop" and "please" had distressed them, watching you flail around haplessly made them want to cry. it was only when könig started to utter "sweetheart" to you that you calmed for a bit, then finally rousing from that horrid memory.

when you had registered that they were all there, at your bed, waiting for you, you nearly burst into tears again. a small wobbly smile gracing your face as you pulled them all into a tight hug.

"i'm happy. i'm so happy to see you all again. i love you all so much. thank you for waiting for me." they melted into your touch, your hug, until you pulled away and wiped at your eyes.

you muttered what had happened without any prompting from them, all too shaken up from the dream to keep quiet. "i saw them again. in my dream. i was in that room again. i think something will happen soon. it.... it felt different this time. my captain was there, too. he's usually never present in them."

they had made sure to be hyper vigilant around you that week. nearly pouncing on any of the 141 whenever they got too close or looked at you for too long. barring their teeth and snapping their jaws, before ushering you far and away from them.

but even the most hyper vigilant of hounds can't protect all the time.

it happened after you went to the bathroom during dinner. one way in, one way out, no where for you to run. at first it was mactavish, of fucking course it was mactavish. cornering you in that hallway to beg for your forgiveness, asking for you to return. what emboldened them so much this time around? oh you definitely knew. seeing you happy, oh so happy without them.

they knew their window to get you to return to them was closing, and fast. but they hadn't realized that it closed a long, long time ago. instead, your tolerance for them was dwindling, slowly, slowly draining until you'd finally explode.

mactavish just wouldn't let you go, kept sputtering on and on about how sorry he was until garrick and riley had showed up as reinforcement. at least garrick had enough balls to look you in the eyes as he begged you to return. riley didn't even look at you, staring at the tile above your head instead. allowed mactavish and garrick to do all the talking for him, the despicable bastard.

as if it wasn't bad enough to be hounded by the three of them, their ring leader had finally showed up too. strutting onto the scene with a stride far too casual to be appropriate. the man who you saw like a father, the one who tossed you to the dark without a second thought, the one who was too cowardly to show up and do the dirty work himself.

you didn't want to say anything. didn't want to give them the satisfaction of your reactions, your emotions, anymore of your life that they'd taken from you without remorse. but you had more than enough.

"don't you know when to take a fucking hint? haven't you done enough already?! when the hell did i ever say i wanted to return? what sort of message did you manage to delude yourselves into thinking was real?" you barked at them. they had looked taken aback, not expecting your outburst.

"but-- bonnie, i promise this time we'll be better! we promise! we'll take care of you--" if looks could kill, frankly, mactavish would've been a pile of ash on the floor.

"what makes you think you can take better care of me better than my own team can? where was this attitude when i first joined, huh? where was it? you don't even feel bad about what you did to me! you're just saying sorry to absolve yourselves from the guilt of what you did. like doing that could fix anything you did to me. you don't actually care and you never did! just-- all of you can go fuck yourselves."

mactavish looked like a kicked puppy but you couldn't care less at all. until price spoke up, just had to open his fucking gob didn't he.

"ye don't mean that." he muttered as you attempted to leave.

you turned abruptly to level him a nasty glare.

"oh i'm sorry. did you become a mind reader all of a sudden, price? what the hell do you even know about intention anyway? i'm pretty sure you didn't give any second thought to whether i actually intended to "betray" you all, now did you? well listen to me when i say this, if you ever try to pull this fucking stunt again i intent to make sure that no one would've ever even heard of you. i will make damn sure, that it was like you never even existed in the first place."

you had been gone for suspiciously long, their food trays abandoned without second thought as they went to look for you. rounding a corner near the bathroom they saw you muttering something to price.

they all watched as your eyes lit up when you saw your team, eagerly scampering over to them. horangi had pulled you into a hug, asking if you were ok, if they touched you all the while glaring at them. from the corner of you eye you could still see them, standing still as if you couldn't.

"what the hell are you all still standing there for? either use the bathroom or leave already, jesus christ."

as they were leaving, now, now riley thought it was a good idea to finally speak. the gall of these men is ridiculous.

"sergeant--" he started.

"that's lieutenant to you, riley." you barely spared him a glance before you turned to talk to könig once more.

"lieutenant.. we just--" could they seriously not take a hint? it's not even a hint, it's as obvious as a stop sign.

"are you that dense? do i need to sound it out for you? leave. me. the. fuck. alone. riley." he stood stock still for a few moments, looking at and searching for something on your face.

"you heard them, leutnant." he didn't even bother to look at könig, only shaking his head as he drifted down the hall.

you let out a deep sigh when they were all finally out of sight. practically collapsing boneless against könig's chest as he rocked back and forth soothingly. he patted your hair adoringly, cooing at you as they led you away, back to their barracks.

they lay you on top of konig's chest, with krueger and horangi holding you from each side, whilst nikto lies on top of you like a weighted blanket.

squished between all of them, you've never felt more content and loved. the 141 had their chance, but with you in their hands now? kortac would never, ever let you go.

one man's trash is another man's treasure after all.

taglist: @erintaro @trulovekay @rainingkatzen @blackcats-and-witchcraft @callsofthesky

[incorrectbatfam]

Which TV shows or sitcoms do the Batfam guest star in?

(I'm a 2010s girlie if you can't tell)

Selina has a one-episode subplot as a prisoner in Orange Is The New Black where she acts like she's going to try and make a daring escape just to mess with everyone else

Luke appears in the background of a large gathering or party in Black-ish but the characters are too busy with the storyline to notice until the end when they realize it's legendary MMA fighter Luke Fox, except he's just there for the food

Bette would be one of the extras in The Good Place whose entire role is to give people the wrong frozen yogurt toppings while acting like the absolute nicest person who got into the "Good Place" for saving an endangered goat species

Alfred is a customer just doing his shopping amidst the Superstore chaos. He just occasionally appears throughout the episode and when they're like "You're still here?" he unfurls a comically long shopping list

Barbara appears in New Girl as an HR worker at Schmidt's place of work, where she slows him down with pointless bureaucratic procedures when he's trying to get something done quickly

Bruce would appear as a prospective business client in The Office and offers to buy Dunder Mifflin until he gets a tour of the place as it's literally going up in flames

Harper would be sitting in the back of the classroom in Community interjecting with her side commentary until the characters realize she doesn't even go there

Damian would be a student in Abbott Elementary who starts doing the teacher's jobs, and when the school tries to call home, he poses as his own guardian with a costume and voice training

Cass is a part-time cashier who gets hired on the spot at Kim's Convenience but quits after one day not because of the characters or storyline, but because she was just bored

Dick appears in Brooklyn Nine-Nine as a New Jersey police officer working an interstate case, and him and Jake competing for the spotlight and recognition can be summed up by "oh my God, there's two of them"

Jason also appears in the same Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode as the main suspect, and the whole joke is that he keeps insisting he and Dick know each other (being irl brothers) while Dick is like "I've never seen this man in my life"

Carrie guest stars in Parks and Rec as a very passionate (and very annoying) lone teenage activist with a picket sign who won't leave the characters alone until they hear out her (very valid) concerns

Cullen appears in Psych as another "psychic" racing against Shawn to solve a case, but really he just knows how to get the evidence he needs from social media faster than surveying the actual crime scene

Helena plays a substitute teacher in Derry Girls who keeps insisting that the characters do a dumb assignment that actually makes sense in the end

Tim briefly makes a cameo in Cobra Kai at one of the karate tournaments, where he plays a competitor from a dojo that's not part of the main cast

Kate appears in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt for a minute as the characters trying to get someplace urgently, and she has a car or something they want to borrow but she's just like "uh, no, I don't know you"

Duke plays a tutor in Modern Family where the episode centers on school, and the session consists of him just trying to do his job while everyone else keeps interrupting

Steph cameos in Scrubs as a know-it-all med student who keeps trying to point out that a character is making a (harmless) mistake, only to get shut down until it happens and she's just like "that's what I was trying to tell you"

[rosemaze-reveries]

During an interview, the manor guests suddenly get a question about you. (Part 2)

hello hello! here is part 2 as promised. there are less characters than I hoped to write, but in exchange each blurb is a little longer than pt.1 !

part 1 can be found here

🦌🪼🤡🦎🪞🤕🕯️🎭

Q. Could you describe your relationship with (Y/N)?

🦌 Bane rubs his chin, tracing his memory. "Hm... Indeed, I'm familiar with that name. I'd suppose that's someone I knew when I worked for the DeRosses." He crosses his arms with a low, contemplative grunt, as if struggling to remember anything else. "I'd need a photograph." I happen to have a couple on hand, and he takes them gently. A long period of silence follows. After leafing through the photos for some time, he says: "I remember. They were always talking about marriage." With you? "Mm. I was never interested, but I never said no. Eventually I made them a ring from a scrap of iron. I hoped they'd stop visiting me if I satisfied them... It's too dangerous to come to the forest everyday." Then he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a ring of his own. "In exchange, they gave one back." He's been cherishing it all this time, even when he'd forgotten its origin.

🪼 Ivy - "I'm no stranger to feeling like I'm missing my other half, you know. That sense of loss is one of the only constants I have left. (Y/N) fills my emptiness, and without them it increases twofold." I open my mouth to ask, Do you think you could be soulmates? but then my eyes dart to the Yithian and I realize my mistake. Sorry, was that insensitive? Ivy is not amused with my implication that she might be interested in claiming (Y/N)'s soul. "My dear interviewer, I am a scholar, not a monster. Whatever you're insinuating, you're gravely mistaken."

🤡 Joker's face suddenly hardens, in spite of the fragile, twiddling-thumbs demeanor he'd shown me thus far. His hands ball into shaking fists and his lips purse, as if he's psyching himself up for a fight. Are you okay? I ask, preemptively guarding myself with my clipboard. Tears brim his eyes and the strength falls from his shoulders. He mutters out, "All I wanted was to be their sword and shield, their angel of light, and they left me out of my mind. Hahaha... Wanna know the biggest joke of all? I'd let them drive me crazy all over again."

🦎 Luchino's mouth stretches into a lazy grin. "That one's a cutie, eh? Had the pleasure of meeting them yet?" I shake my head, reminding him that (Y/N) is the focus of my current investigation. I guess his laidback attitude fooled me into saying too much. He promptly straightens his back, the smile fading. "Yeah... Yeah, from one researcher to another, I get the intrigue," he says. "But I can't say I fancy another guy using my love as a test subject."

🪞 Mary - "Do you take pleasure in nosing around a lady's private affairs? I'd expect more tact, even for an interviewer." The chill in her tone startles me. I sputter out something in my defense, but Mary huffs and waves me into silence. "(Y/N) is enjoying the privilege of being my right-hand. They're my favorite one so far, too. I dismissed the others without a second thought."

🤕 Naib - "On good terms." Wringing out any insightful answers from this man is tougher than I thought. In hopes of inspiring more of a reaction, I tell a small lie: When I interviewed (Y/N), they described a rather colorful affection for you... Almost immediately, Naib breaks eye contact and crosses his arms. But I still only get a guttural "Hm." in response. Can you confirm if this is true? I press. His answer is, once again, a curt "Hm." (Slightly more affirmative, I would say).

🕯️ Philippe - "My work has always stood as a testament to my love," he caresses the wax figure grafted onto his shoulder, "but shielding someone in life is a far greater challenge than honoring my losses. My worries are endless." Suddenly reminded of his sister's tragedy, I offer a sympathetic smile. Do you believe (Y/N) is in danger? Philippe returns my smile, though I can't make out the intent. "Of course. Evil lurks around every corner. At the very least, it won't reach them while I'm around."

🎭 Sangria - A fond smile graces her face as she recounts her memory. "It was clear to me after some time that I had disastrously entranced them." Then she adds, lightly, "I hadn't meant to, of course. At the time, I thought, I'm not looking for love—no, I'd had enough of it all—but soon, their smile would appear in my mind every time I sang. When someone gives you that much inspiration? You'd be a fool to let them go." She has a playful tone of voice, but I can tell (Y/N) means a great deal to her.

[katiascraft]

✐ᝰ "You knew all too well i was right where you left me" | CL16 ࣪𓏲ּ ᥫ᭡ ₊

parings: retired!charles leclerc x writer!ex!reader

🔎 chapter one: "love is short but forgetting is so long"

chapter two: “did the love affair maim you too?” -> chapter three

summary: It’s the story of a woman frozen in the moment her world fell apart. A perfect dinner ended with, “I met someone else,” and while everyone moved on, she remained stuck in that instant, unable to let go of the past. A poignant tale of heartbreak, grief, and the weight of being trapped in a “forever” that never was.

word count: +4,5k.

BLOG MASTERLIST - series masterlist

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

It's been a few crazy days for you. After what happened last time, it took you a few days to go back to the last flower cafe to write. You preferred writing in your studio at home. You had a comfy balcony with a lovely view of the Monaco sea. So you just took inspiration from it to write another chapter of your book. 

Seeing Charles confused you. You didn't know what to think or how to feel about it. You got scared you would see him again. But at the same time, you wanted to see him again. 

It felt confusing because you knew it wasn't right for you or the best to see him again, or wanting to or whatever. But even if he broke your psyche the way he did, you couldn't stop thinking about the what ifs. 

What if this time works? What if he was immature but he is worth it? What if this time is better? What if he feels the same way you do? What if he says he’s sorry? What if you forgive him?

All of those questions filled the fire to write. Writedown all of the what ifs as it was reality for your character. Maybe in this fictional life, you two have your happy ending.  

Your writing process was interrupted by your bestie phone call that you, of course, picked up. “Hey” you could hear the kids scream as if you were there.

“Are you coming to pick the kids up?” she asked, remembering you, you promised her to take them to have ice cream and for a walk. You facepalm. You forgot about it.

“Oh sorry, A. Yeah,of course. I’ll pick them up in 30 minutes. I’m sorry, i forgot” you apologised starting to walk towards your bedroom to get change. You still have your pajamas on. 

“It’s okay y/n. I knew you would probably forget that’s why I called. They will be ready when you get here. Thank you, i love you” you said i love you back and ended the call. 

You chose to wear a tracksuit, trainers and a coat. It was really cold this year in particular. But you loved it. You weren’t a fan of summer that much. You preferred snow and hot chocolate. Cuddling in bed to keep yourself warm. And playing cards near the chimney. You Loved autumn and winter, it made you feel special. 

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

So today was the day, the day he probably would become officially single. Charles really hated the divorce process. It was a very painful one. He had, once again, broken another woman’s heart. He wasn't proud of it but he really wanted to do things the right way from now on. No more bullshit. No more feeling guilty of the past, tied to it as if he had to pay for everything. So 6 months ago he communicated it to Alex, it was really heavy on the heart scene. He felt like an actual monster. However, he started therapy. He was starting to understand himself more and learning to forgive himself for every decision he took that maybe wasn’t the best, but he didn't know better. He was young and about to become one of the most successful drivers in formula one. He thought he knew what he was doing to then realize he actually didn't at all. 

He started his day journaling. He tried to write something but all he could do was drawing your face. That image he couldn't stop seeing every time he closed his eyes. He felt scared about it but he let himself follow along. It was best to try to take you out of his mind in some way. Then after breakfast he decided to play some piano and record new parts of a new piece he was working on. He sent it to his producer and drove to Carlos' house to have lunch together. Lando was also there. They all chatted and enjoyed barbeque at Carlos’ beach house. 

And at that moment, talking in the living room, something changed. 

“Yeah, I don't know. I think she is a writer. I always see her on the balcony surrounded by multiple sheets of papers and a computer. Or maybe she is a translator or something I don't know but she is cute, you know? Maybe you can hit on her lando " Carlos commented while serving more wine to their cups.

“Do you follow her on instagram or something?” Lando asked for further information, apparently interested. Charles was zooming out thinking about you. 

“Oh no I don't, I don't even know her name but” Carlos opened his window curtains “yup, there she is” Carlos pointed to the balcony that was visible from there. Lando patted Charles' arm so the three of them could see through the window hoping the woman wouldn't notice them. 

“Oh my god” Charles almost fainted when he saw you there in your sherk pajamas drinking from an avengers cup (you didn't change that, though. You still are a geek for movies, superheroes, comics and books he guessed). Your balcony was quite close, the view was 4k. The guys who looked at Charles getting whiter, felt weirded out about his reaction.

“All right mate? I don't think she is that ugly, you know? I mean, she is fine as hell if you ask me and I'm not that into red hair” Lando said, checking on charles.

“Yeah, maybe she is too beautiful… now that he’s officially single” Carlos added.

Charles shook his head going back to the sofa.

“It’s y/N, carlos. y/n it’s your fucking neighbor. She was there all this time and i didnt fucking know. I don't know how I never bumped into her " Charles spitted with so much mixed feeling. Lando and Carlos looked at each other. Carlos closed the curtains before sitting along them.

“Mate, i didn't have a clue she could be y/N to be honest. I’ve never met her, "Carlos explained himself.

“Wait, who’s y/N? And why is she neighbors with you?” Lando was confused. For a moment he thought they were joking but Charles looked affected. He missed a part of Charles' story or something. The only woman he met was alexandra and she is officially out of his life.

“It’s his ex, like the one” Carlos explained to him but then Lando was even more confused. Charles noticed and with a sigh he explained the situation better in his opinion.

“y/n was my girlfriend during my f2 days. I left her for Alex but since that moment I regret it. It was like 10 years ago. "Lando's face expressed understanding with his mouth showing an ‘o’.

“So I guess I can't date her now, right?” Lando said, receiving a correcting punch on his arm by carlos. “Alright, alright” 

“I need to go guys, i got stuff to do” Charles said after a long silence and stood up ready to go. He Couldn't stay longer. He needed to breathe some air. He was scared. He actually hated feeling like that. Scared of what? Of her? Of himself? Of the truth? The truth that maybe he did indeed waste all of these years pretending to like his life when all he wanted to do was go back to her? Maybe. But the truth was too heavy to admit and process. 

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

You were out with your nephews. It was a saturday afternoon, cold but the sun was shining bright. Between giggles you were walking with them to their favorite ice cream shop. 

Unfortunately, it was LEC ice cream. 

Benjamin and Renato were four years old, they were twins. And then there was Dante who was 6 years old. They were messy but today was a good day, they were chilling. They ran inside the ice cream shop all excited followed by you. You closed the door and they were already on the counter talking with the cashier. You smiled shyly. 

“good afternoon” you greeted her and she smiled back at you.

“Auntie, I want the chocolate one! It is always so yummy!” said Benjamin, excitedly grabbing your coat and pulling from it in desperation. He did a few little excited jumps as his twin. 

“No! Benjamin! I want the chocolate one!” Renato got mad at his brother. Their voices were so cute they made you giggle a bit. 

“It's alright boys, you both can get the chocolate one” you said, mediating between the siblings smiling at the cashier. She noted and went to look for them. “Dante, darling, which one do you want?” He was the shyest out of them all. He was so like your best friend, polite and collected. He looked at the flavour list on the wall. 

“I want the vanilla one, please” he talked directly to the cashier making you smile proudly.

“That’s my boy,” you said, congratulating him. Seeing him smile filled your heart full. You loved those three kids with your whole heart. You always get so emotional realising how fast they are growing. 

“Alright, gentlemen, here are your ice creams” the cashier said warmly and rounded the counter to give the ice cream to each one of them. You smiled watching the scene. They got shy but grabbed their ice creams anyway. 

“What do you say boys?” you looked at them gently. 

“Thank you very much” they said in unison, making the cashier smile widely. “go seat” you told them and they obeyed you. You got close to the cashier now in her seat on the counter. “How much is it?” you asked but before she could answer you, a voice, that fucking voice, interrupted.

“It’s on the house” you wanted to believe it was a dream and that it wasn’t real. But it was. It was charles. You turned to look at him a bit confused about the whole situation. He smiled at you again, the same way he did at the restaurant. You tried to play it cool, but you knew your smile and attitude were weird. 

“Oh, thank you. It wasn’t necessary” you said politely and he shook his head. 

“No problem, for real” he said and you half smiled in return. 

“Thank you” you say for both of them and went to sit with your boys at the sofa table they chose. You just didn't want to look at him that much nor you didn't know what to say. “Hey” you greeted them, and took some napkins from the table and cleaned the twins' faces full of chocolate. you smiled funny. Dante got closer to you while you were helping Benjamin clean his hands. 

“Auntie, is that the driver dad is a fan of?” he asked shyly close to you and really low so only you could hear him. 

“I think it is darling, would you like a picture with him?” you offer sweetly. He nods, smiling brightly. That made your heart race because you now have to talk to charles. You could hear him talking to his employees in a relaxed way. You could hear he came just to check in. 

You licked your lips nervously “i'll be right back, okay?” you tell the kids and stand up to walk right back to the counter. Your heart was racing. “Um, excuse me” you tried to capture his attention, and for sure you did. He looked at you immediately. His eyes found yours and you felt your heart skip a beat for a moment. “Sorry, but one of my nephews recognized you and I wanted to ask you if you could take a picture with him? Don't mean to bother you, of course,” you finally said. And you saw his face light up instantly. You were pretending you didn't know each other. You just played along without even mentioning it. You swallowed hard half smiling.

“Of course, no problem,” he said sweetly.

“Thank you” you said to him before getting to the kids.

“It's fine,” he assured you. 

You called Dante to come over and he came all shy. “Hey champ, is it good?” Charles was squatting to be on Dante's height. He talked really sweet to him. Dante stuck to you, intimidated to  have that awesome driver his dad loved so much. He nodded looking at him. “You wanna take a picture? I’ll be really happy to have one with you”  he said sweetly so Dante would loosen himself. He looked at me for aprovation. You just smiled and nodded at him excitedly. Dante then relaxed, nodding towards Charles in a huge smile. He gave him a hug and charles’ heart melted between the kid’s arms. 

They posed together and you took as many pictures as you could. And after cleaning Benjamin and Renato`s faces again, they also posed with charles. They started yapping with him and imitating car noises. They made you laugh for a bit. 

They got so excited, they gave Charles so many hugs. You played along so they can have a great moment to remember someday. You recorded some videos to send to your best friend agostina later, so she can have the memories. “My daddy loves you! He always screams to the tv ‘GOOO CHARLES GOOOO’ ” Dante commented imitating his dad in the funniest way making you laugh. “But he doesn't like Carlos that much, he prefers hamilton!”

“Oh wow, you are an expert in formula 1. Who’s your daddy?” Charles really engaged with your nephews. He even sat next to you so he could have a conversation with them. He got confused for a bit, he believed they were your children. But it didn't seem like that. 

“My dad is andrew and my mom is agostina, and she is auntie y/N” dante explained to charles the whole family dynamic in his way. You smiled nodding looking at Dante, then moved to see charles. He now understood the whole thing. You were their aunt. His heart melted for a moment. He didn't know what to say.

Benjamin asked you to grab him and you did. You sat him on your tights, and he was sleepy. You stroke his thin shiny hair gently as he pressed his head on your chest wanting to fall asleep. 

Charles looked at you with a half smile.

“I think it’s time to go home kids, mommy is waiting for you. It’s pizza night!” you told them funny and excited so they would get excited. Dante celebrated along with Renato doing a victory dance making you and Charles let out a laugh.

“Let me give you a ride, that baby wants to sleep,” Charles offered sweetly, looking at Benjamin in your chest. He was trying to play it cool but his heart was speeding faster than his car in any race. Looking at you like this, made him regret every single decision of his life. How could he leave you like that? He wanted to punch himself on the face because he was sure you hated him. So it was impossible to get a second chance nor that he believed he deserved it. 

You doubted but he got a point. Walking ten blocks with a baby or two in your arms was not gonna be an easy task and your back will suffer a lot. You sighed. “Alright, thank you. It’s really nice of you” you gave in at his offer and he smiled widely. 

“Alright, let’s go home guys” Charles announced. The cashier was even more confused than the two of you were. Since when did Charles Leclerc engage so much with strangers and offer them a lift? They must not be strangers at all. They must know each other all too well. 

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Charles helped you get the kids in the car, or well, his Ferrari  that was parked one block away. Dante, all excited, wanted to touch every single thing the car had so you had to tell him to calm down and behave for a bit. You got in the passenger seat. 

Charles let you use his phone so you put your friend's address on it. He now knew where you lived and he was thinking of offering to drop you there after leaving the kids but at the same time he didn't want to be so invasive. 

Smelling your perfume was sending him on a spiral. You still had that effect on him. And he didn't know how to feel about it. You didn't look at him. You probably hate him, he thought. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. But then why did you let this happen? Because of the kids? It was ten blocks away. He stopped himself from keeping up his delusions for way too long he would believe them. He felt like a kid about this whole thing with you. Or the one you had. The life you had. You made him and his family so happy. Arthur still likes you, you always had a soft spot on his heart. And that made Charles feel miserable. 

The drive was silent. The kids fell asleep in like three blocks. You were so nervous you would throw up right then and there. You just looked out through the window. You didn't want to talk that much with him. You knew that would be dangerous. 

He knew it too. He knew all too well what you were trying to do and in a way he was thankful for it. But in another way, he just wanted to know everything about you, again. 

A million questions were playing again and again in your heads silently but agonizingly at the same time.

Ten minutes later, you were finally on your destination: your best friend’s, agostina, house. She was waiting at the porch of her house. When she saw the black ferrari stop by her sidewalk she frowned. She thought you were coming on foot with her three children. 

You looked at charles in a half smile, just praying your friend doesn't get mad at you for this insane idea. “Thank you for lifting us” you said shortly and he nodded. It was awkward. 

“Let me help you” Charles said and both of you got out of his car. 

When your friend first saw you, she looked confused, with a million question marks in her eyes. But then, when she saw Charles coming off the driving seat, her eyes almost fell out. I mean, she was relieved that it was him at some point but not so much out of concern for you. 

“Hey, A” Charles greeted her with a wave helping you wake the kids up. He remembers your friend, of course. He remembered everything about you. 

“Hey, charles. It’s been a long time” A said, grabbing Benjamin from your arms. Charles helped Dante and you grabbed Renato in your arms. Both baby twins were knocked out sleeping. Dante grabbed his mum's hand and waved to Charles in a goodbye. He closed his Ferrari door and waved to us. You just smiled. You were in the most uncomfortable situation of your life. You didn't have a good feeling about this. 

You felt it was the beginning of the end, for some odd reason you couldn't identify yet. 

“Bye charles!” Dante said happily and was still a bit sleepy. Agostina smiled at him but when she turned to look at you, her eyes were screaming “ARE YOU CRAZY GIRL?” and how could you blame her for it. You just put her kids into the car of a known stranger. 

Charles observed the situation with you and your friend from his car. The sunset sun made you glow. And your eyes were so shiny he got confused for a bit if he was actually dreaming. He made his horn sound and disappeared into the monaco streets pretty fast. 

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Cozy wrapped around blankets and pillows, your friend brought you a cup of hot chocolate. You decided it was to sleep overnight to gossip because Andrew, her husband, was out of town for work. The kids were sleeping in their rooms. The baby monitor in front of you two. You were laying on the living room couch with ambient music in the background playing from the tv above the chimney. 

“I can't believe you bumped into Charles, to be honest. It's been ten years, you have never seen him and out of nowhere you see him everywhere” your friend was as surprised as you were. 

“Yeah, I don't know. I feel really weird about it. I thought next time i would bump into him i would be dead but i’m still alive so far. He felt so different… Yet he felt the same. His perfume was the same. His eyes are the same, the way they shine and…” you sighed stopping yourself. You started crying. You didn't know what you were feeling. If you were supposed to feel happy or angry or sad. The stress level was at its peak. It was too much emotionally to handle. 

It hurts you to pretend you didn't know him, that you didn't want him or that he was once your everything and now he was a stranger. A stranger holding so many secrets of you. All of your life traumas and experiences, your virginity, your first ever love story (and the only one). It still hurts because it couldn't be easier. Why couldn't it be forever together as you dreamed? When you saw him you felt the same as that last day you watched him leave that motherfucking restaurant. 

Your friend hugged you understanding how hard this was for you. And how frustrating it must feel to finally be ready to move on and then he is back just like that. How unfair life could be, right? She felt so sorry for you. You deserved to be so happy yet here we are, still crying for that ficking stupid asshole. 

It felt like the beginning of the end.

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

“Hey, Arthur, I'm officially and legally single again. Want to have dinner at my place?” Charles called his brother on his Ferrari the second he sat in the driver’s seat. He needed to talk to someone about what happened this afternoon. His anxiety had made a hole in his stomach and he almost threw up a couple of times. 

He felt guilty. Like he did something terrible lifting you and your nephews to your friend’s house.

“Bro!!! That’s amazing!! Ready to enjoy life? I’ll be there in 30 minutes, and order some steak. I’ll bring wine. Love you!!” he shouted into the phone making Charles put it a little far away from his ear so he won't be left deaf. He ended the call, so Charles couldn't say otherwise. He giggled a little to himself. He loved his family, but especially Arthur, he was his little brother, and also his best friend.  

After a few minutes, he was already wearing his comfy clothes and had ordered the stake his brother told him to. He had set the table and put some random playlist on spotify on shuffle. Now that he was home, the hole in his stomach was not as huge as it was during the day. His house was his safe place. Though, it still felt weird not having leo (his and alex’s puppy son) or alex around. He tried so hard to love her, he got used to having her around. The chemicals on his brain were adjusting still to his new life. He changed furniture and redecorated the whole house. He wanted to start again from zero. Rebuilt himself step by step and finally, the Charles he always wanted to be. 

The bell took him out of his thoughts announcing his brother had arrived. 

“Hey, Brody,” Arthur said excitedly, hugging his brother when the older one opened the door. Arthur was really proud of his brother. He knew how hard all of it was. And how hard he was with himself when it came to mistakes committed in the past.

⋆˚࿔ 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

They sat on the couch in front of the tv with everything already tidy up and with their stomachs full. They talked about everything and anything but yet not about her. 

“I brought you something, wait a second” Arthur said and got up looking for his bed. Charles observed his brother a little tipsy by wine already. He didn't know what to expect from him. He was always a surprise box. “I know you saw her again, I don't know how you feel about it but I know we will eventually talk about her. But I think it will help you if you read her book. I think it’s a fictional story but the way she tells it… i think it can make you reflect on what happened.” he added coming back from his bag with a book in hand. After he sat again on the couch he handed it to charles. Charles listened and watched the book in front of him. He took it carefully.

“I saw her today, she was with her nephews. I also know where she lives now as well. It was at carlos’ house and he was talking about his neighbor being attractive so Lando could try and hit on her. So he opened the fucking curtains and there she was on her balcony. I almost choked and died. Then I saw her at LEC. and I gave her a lift to her friend’s house. "Charles started throwing up everything that happened that day. Arthur’s eyes were big as plates. He couldn't understand how his brother survived o all of that. I mean, he was happy. He loved y/n, but he knew damn too well it was probably a nightmare for his brother to go through all of that. 

“Oh my god, charles. And you also were announced to be single legally? How did you survive? I'm impressed. You’re strong dude” arthur commented half joking half serious. Charles laughed it out a bit shaking his head. 

“I don't know but all I know is that my heart almost stopped how fast it was beating,” Charles answered.

“That’s called anxiety,” Arthur pointed out.

“I know. I was scared. She looked even more beautiful than she ever did or that I remember” he grabbed the book in his hands more strongly. He took a deep breath. “Today was too much for me,” his brother agreed. 

After Arthur was gone, Charles sprinted to his bed. He had a headache. He wanted to pretend it was because of the two bottles of wine they drank. But he knew it was because of overthinking. He laid in bed. Book in his hands. He started analyzing the cover: It was light blue, her favorite color he remembered. A red scarf and autumn leaves falling down. Her name is printed on the corner of it. He brushed his thumb above it taking a moment.

Adjusting his glasses he flipped to the back cover of it and that’s where something changed inside him.

‘Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?’

⋆˚࿔ TO BE CONTINUED 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

chapter three: coming soon.

tag list: @a-beaverhausen , @priniya , @annaluna12 , @thehoplessromanticclub , @emryb , @hadids-world , @kaztheemyth , @freyathehuntress , @diorbrxtz , @theseerbetweenus , @sie17136

shout out: thank you to my girlies from the gc (ur the best i<3u all), specially Sonny for hyping and helping me sm with this!

author's note: here it is <3 i'm so excited about this series! Sorry if you don’t see that much French I know NOTHING of it so yeah :(

what do you think it's gonna happen next?

don't forget to like, reblog or comment! and follow me so we can be friends :3 (and drink mate together!)