#in response to my first thought which was an irrational never talking to another fucking man ever again so long as i live

[zimshan]

do not fear the winter blowing in the hearts of men i’ve seen american flowers they will bloom again

[rcksmith]

Lust — Kaz Brekker

Gif by @kitsyoung

Request: “Hey. I really like your writing and I was wondering if you would consider writing a Kaz piece with the smut prompts 76, 1 & 33. Obviously with your au rules. If it’s too much I completely understand tho”

“7, 17, 36, and 73 from the smut list for Kaz Brekker please? If not, no worries! 💖 Thank you!”

“Holy shit that last kaz brekker smut- AMAZING. Was wondering if you could write another smut with smut prompt #6? Of course if this bothers you just ignore it. Thank you so much 🥰”

Smut prompts:

1. “You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat.”

6. “Do you think of me when you touch yourself?”

7. “The only way you’re getting off is on my thigh.”

17. “after that little stunt? you’re not getting off that easy”

33. “Maybe I should get you a collar so you don’t forget who you belong to.”

36. "If I have to pull over, you won’t be able to walk for the next week.“

73. “You know, you look real pretty when you cry.”

76. “Shh, don’t worry, I’ll take very good care of you.”

Couple: Kaz Brekker/ Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, explicit smut, dirty thoughts, dirty talk, nsfw, jealous, mention of fight.

Word count: 5k

A/N: All smut requests for Kaz must follow these rules.

Thank you so much for the requests and for all affection 💖 I decided to compile these requests, since they were the same central plot. I added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down. I hope you like it and good reading.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are open. Love you ❤️

— — — — —

There is a theory that always, somewhere, there will be a person capable of making you lose your breath, and your reasoning, whenever he appears on the scene. Someone who robs you of your breath, your heartbeat, your ability to think clearly and your control to keep your hands not shaking.

And Kaz Brekker would always be that person for you.

From the first time you laid eyes on him, it's been a feeling of dying and going to heaven. Except that Heaven was, in reality, a hot, burning hell. Where your greatest punishment was being forced to watch his tall figure, who exuded masculinity by every inch, walking in front of you like a Renaissance painting very superb.

Nothing that Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Picasso created has bordered on the personification of beauty that he was.

Kaz was beautiful in a very mysterious, dangerous and chilling way. You would describe his aura as the height of midnight in an enigmatic city, his hair the color of the core of sin and his features as lines that the god Ares would have drawn. Everything about him reeked of the fog of suspense stories, with a touch of lust.

All the looks he directed at you were caustic, flickering and intense as a candle flame, reverberating through your veins like angry eels and always make the room feeling charged with electricity, like the ground after the fall of a lightning. Everything between the two of you seemed to be filled with something fiery and arcane. From the gazes, the rubbing of shoulders, the times when the skins touched. Everything was a compilation of sensations that make you catch your breath whenever Kaz Brekker appeared.

He was your kryptonite. In all senses.

And that was exasperating in the extreme, at staggering levels. You felt your center of your sex vibrate whenever he directed you that voice whit baritone intonation and predatory looks, whenever the button-down shirts were tight enough for you to revel in the contours of his body, or sometimes when he wore the cane to signal or stopper something. This was the worst of them. His cane.

Have you lost count of how many times Kaz stopped you as counting money, by putting the tip of the cane over your hands, or stopped you from going somewhere by blocking your path with the cane, lifting the object horizontally in front of your belly. And every time you felt your legs tremble, your breath fade and a very dirty part of your brain whisper that you wanted him to use that object in you in more fun ways.

Your body was so responsive that there were times when you knew, with every fiber of your soul, that Kaz was able to read the paths in which your thoughts wandered. He lowered his gaze to you, in that breathless connection that promised to contain the most nefarious paths of sin, and maliciously curved the left corner of his lips in an arrogant, oblique expression. At such times, you could feel in your soul the words he did not say:

I know the perverted things that you are thinking.

And the truth was, he really knew. Kaz memorized every change in your breathing, every blush on your cheeks, every trembling of your hands, every your trembling look whit a frightened girl who had been caught thinking of something impure. He knew how your body was responsive, needy. And he himself had to control himself not to push you over the desk in his office and fuck you like an aggressive animal, bringing all your perverted thoughts to life.

It wasn't his physical reactions that kept him from taking action, but an even more visseral reaction than the pulsing desire he felt for you. Mine. The primal, determined, burning sensation of possession. That it ran through his veins like hot, bubbling lava. The desire was familiar, but this statement, not. Like the jealousy he felt for you, he quickly recognized the danger he was in.

If Kaz touched you…he knew he would never be able to let you go.

Mine. A statement that resonated spontaneously whenever he saw you, a testament to the reactions the two of you triggered in each other. However, not even the awareness of the dangerous game that was between you was able to dispel the climate of provocative sensuality that pulsed in the places whenever the two of you were together.

It was like playing with a powerful drug. One slip and he would be addicted forever.

On days like this, when Kaz had just come out of an exasperating meeting with Peka, a businessman and mobster who was always looking for ways to try and bring Kaz down, his already bad temper turned to terrible. He felt compelled to break something, drink a whole bottle of the best English whiskey in that club, and punch someone. Kaz felt the anger pulse through his veins, in a pure and perfect way.

He left the office, turning off his cell phone so he wouldn't be disturbed and descending the stairs to the center of his Crow Club, mind buzzing and anger seeping in his blood. He needed to unwind, maybe get into the car and head home. Maybe actually drink that whiskey bottle. Maybe both.

Kaz was about to take another step down, running a gloved hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes, when his gaze met your figure. And that was when the already terrible temper rose to the very badly.

Normally, a vision like that would have just bothered him, a compulsion to do something. But that day, Kaz was at the height of his angriest feelings. And seeing you, bold as a goddess in that little black dress, next to Jesper at the gambling table and flirting with a guy to your left, did things with every last bit of patience and self-control he had.

His eyes never left you as he took another step, running his hand through his hair again to contain the unruly strands. You were laughing, downing another drink and placing a card on the table. You turn back to the man to your left, your eyelashes fluttered gracefully in a promise to allow him to guide your rein tonight.

But there would be no goddamn rein for that fucking guy to guide.

Kaz gripped his cane tightly, descending the other short stairs and advancing toward your with dangerous, determined, and angry steps.

"...in this part of the year, criminal law cases drop a lot." The damn guy was telling you, his boring blond hair falling over his blue eyes in a way Kaz found annoying.

To fucking hell with that blond-haired Dande.

“Y/n, Jesper!” Kaz tapped the end of his cane on the table, stopping the cards under the polished wooden end.

Everyone at the table looked at him startled, their actions frozen. He saw you swallow hard, a soft tremor sigh in your shoulders.

Good!

“Shouldn't you be at the door?” Kaz turned to Jesper, his eyes sparks with annoyance.

“Right now, Boss.” He stood up, giving you a strained smile and heading towards the door.

“Kaz…” You started, voice softly intoxicated.

You knew you weren't supposed to be at the gambling table, let alone so late at night and drunk, even if Jesper was by your side. You had the ability to win every play, in any game, and that ended up not only driving the others away, but leaving the men, already drunk and irrational, aggressive and with an extremely bruised ego. And they almost always wanted to retaliate physically. As much as there were security guards and cameras everywhere to keep something bad from happening, Kaz couldn't stand the thought of someone hurting you. Not even blinking insultingly in your direction.

He sent you an icy, sharp, steady look. A clear warning for you to stop there any excuse you were about to give. To be careful with the next words you would say. You swallowed hard, looking away and getting up from the table. Slightly wobbly from the drink, you fished your coat from the chair next to you, giving a strained, apologetic smile to the guy you'd been flirting with so far.

“I better go home and call an uber and…” You started, but Kaz cut your sentence.

“I'll driver you.”

His tone exuded annoyance and impatience, giving no opening to any objections, demonstrating that he was in no mood for games. Much less defiance of his orders. You knew him too well to recognize that that night had pulled his nerves beyond what he could handle, the strain and irritation in his eyes told you something had happened beyond what you knew. His jaw, straight and strong as glass, was clenched tightly, his night-colored hair was disheveled in an overwhelmingly attractive way, and his black robes sinfully marred every line of his body.

You should have become wary of the dangerous energy that he exuded through every pore at that moment. However, to your inebriated and excited brain, Kaz Brekker has never looked so fucking hot! Your underbelly vibrated in response to the personification of sin that Kaz was, your heart racing at alarming levels as you followed him out, walking over to his car.

Like every piece of Brekker's clothing, his car was sleek black, with big black wheels, tinted glass and dark leather seats. Hades' chariot. You felt your breath catch when Kaz opened the passenger door for you, his eyes avoiding yours, his jaw still clenched and dangerous energy exhaling through every fiber of his tall, lean body.

Holy Mother of God, this man was a perdition!

Kaz contained an instinctive desire to go back inside and tell that aspiring Dande that you weren't available. Instead, he closed the door when you got in and turned around in the car, closing his own and squeezing the steering wheel harder than he would have liked.

Midnight height light streamed in through the darkened car windows and gently illuminated the curve of your cheek, highlighting your skin that Kaz might have named the color of the gods. So much attention was too seductive. Emotions and reactions still bubbled through each his vein like scandant water, mingling with months of frustrated desires and burning sexual tension.

At that moment, jealousy laced him. Mine. Amazing and at the same time propelled by dangerous strength, Kaz tried to trap that feeling back into the dungeon of his soul. He controlled his fury, yet he couldn't completely tame. Annoyance turned to anger. Starting driving the car forward, Kaz tried to think of anything but how you looked like the Goddess Aphrodite on that dark bench. Splendid as a heat ray in a winter day.

“Kaz…” You started, that gentle, repentant tone that stirred every spark in his soul.

He hated how his name on your lips sounded so sensual, so right and so delicious. He would give everything he had to hear you moan his name.

“Don't start” he warned, now not because of latent annoyance, but because he didn't know if he could stop himself if he heard your voice.

However, you didn't make things any easier for him.

"You don't have to be so angry." You go "I wasn't even using all my intellect on the game, I wasn't trying to win."

Kaz didn't even know if that was the core of the problem anymore. Was he angry that you went to a table where it was dangerous? Yes. But the waters were much deeper than that, much more dangerous. The way your smile, sweet and sensual, was directed at that guy, reeled in Kaz's mind, impregnated with the plague. He felt the blood burn in his veins just remembering how melted you looked for that man. And as much as he couldn't blame you, because you were free and single, the primal, irrational part of him screamed so much louder now.

Mine.

“This does not matter anymore.” It was the only thing he managed to say, the very sensations drowning him.

“And it wasn't even that dangerous.” But unlike him, you were obliterating the burning emotions that Kaz exuded. “There were only a few players drunker than a door, and Jesper was on my side, and also James, who was very charming and...”

Kaz almost lost direction, making the car bounce smoothly. He staked his eyes at you, puzzled and bubbling.

“James?”

“Yeah, the blond guy who…”

"I don't want to know, Y/n." He cut you off "I don't want to hear about the guys you allow to drool around you like mangy dogs."

The distilled rage was impossible to contain, and before Kaz knew it, the words were out. He turned forward again, his hands tighter on the steering wheel.

“Wait…” Your tone was slightly smug, and the way you rubbed one thigh against the other was impossible for Kaz to miss.

The grip on the steering wheel tightened.

“You are jealous?” Your intonation dropped to a low, sensual, provocative level.

Suddenly, Kaz's entire body became very aware of your body inches away. He could feel the heat that you radiated and the lyrical, sweet and sinful scent of your perfume flooded all his senses. The air grew thin, puffy and stuffy, and if it had been December cold outside, Kaz would still feel the height of summer in that car. Flashes of excitement and danger rippled through the car, and the brief silence grew even more charged with sexual tension and lustful anticipation that stirred every fiber of Kaz's being.

He made the mistake of looking at you again, and your softly mischievous smile that promised a lifetime of satisfied desires only served to incite his madness. Kaz had never understood how a man could want a woman so badly that he acted irrationally and carelessly. But now he understood. And when he realized you tried to stifle a sensual sigh from the way he was looking at you, his body won the fight against his mind and Kaz stopped abruptly the car at the red traffic light.

The sexual tension between you had become unbearable. In one moment, Kaz was fighting the series of overwhelming and disturbing emotions that dominated his entire being, and in the next moment, he had taken your mouth with his in a fiery, fierce, animal kiss. Stealing all the air from both of you, his thoughts, and his sanity.

He held your face firmly in his hands, his fingers going down to the strands of hair at the nape of your neck, turning everything into something more caustic and desperate. Yours hands went to his arms, moving up to his shoulders and cupping the sides of his neck, pulling him closer. Kaz's tongue inched into your mouth without waiting for permission, conquering and claiming every fiber of your body, of your soul, in a continued of kisses you couldn't tell where one ended and another began.

The moan of satisfaction you let out gave him a lust and desire unlike anything Brekker had ever felt. Like hot, addictive honey down in his throat. He was still gripped by jealousy, annoyance and possessiveness. With the desire for you pulsing in his body just like his heartbeat.

Kaz pulled back millimetrically, his blue eyes overshadowed by the heat of the moment, his lips red and swollen from the sinful kisses he gave you. At that moment, Kaz Brekker looked like an angry young God, and you've never felt more attracted to someone in your life than you are now.

You looked at him, panting and needy, wishing with all your might that he repeat the same actions. And you knew he realized that. Perfectly. You saw the spark of male satisfaction ignite in his eyes as he absorbed your desire. He was so close... so very close, and you couldn't stand the enormous anxiety for a caress, a kiss, anything.

His cocky smile intensified as you put more pressure in your touch his skin, your fingers trailing down his neck and back to his shoulders, silently pleading for him to do something with you. Anything he wanted.

Kaz lowered his one gloved hand to your jaw, thumb and forefinger squeezing your chin and making you look at him directly, you staring into the deep, shrewd blue of his eyes. He pulled you closer by the grip on your chin, the husky, erotic words hitting your lips like a promise of sin as he said:

“Maybe I should get you a collar so you don't forget who you belong to.”

It was impossible to control the loud, needy sigh that escaped, your center throbbing in despair and wetting the thin cloth of your panties. You wanted he to touch you more, pull your body against his until there was not a single sigh left, claim your soul and your body as his. You had parted your lips to say something, most likely a plea for him to continue, but the traffic light turned green and Kaz took his hands off you, straightening up on the bench and putting the car move.

In the absence of his warmth, his body, you felt cold, empty and frozen. As if Kaz were your sun and you were Icarus. Feeling the compulsion to need to get closer, complete its magnitude and bask in his rays. Every cell in your body begged for him, in needy and submissive requests, telling you to accept anything he told you, that he gave you, as long as it touched you.

“If I knew that to make you kiss me I would have to flirt with someone else, I would have done it a long time ago.” You teased, a satisfied, malicious smile on your lips.

Kaz looked at you in annoyance. In a clear warning that you should never more do that again.

"If you wanted me to kiss you like the brat you are, you just needed to have asked." He countered your game to the full.

"But if I want more than that?" But just as he knew how to play, so did you.

You swiped the tip of your tongue across your lips, kicking off your shoes and pulling your legs over the dashboard of the car, exposing your nearly bare thighs through the thin black fabric of your dress. Your actions instantly caught Kaz's eyes, and his grip on the steering wheel grew stronger and his breathing heavier.

The air inside the car became more ardent, burn, charged with eroticism and lust that left both of you breathless. An electrifying energy coursed through their bodies, as if they had been struck by a bolt of fire. You wanted him in a way you never thought you could want anyone.

Kaz took a deep breath, and looked at you with dangerous predator eyes as he said:

"If I have to pull over, you won't be able to walk for the next week."

The words made your body tremble. But if Kaz was trying to dissuade you, that was the last thing he should have told you. Instead of taming the fire inside you, it threw gasoline into the aggressive fire. You pressed your thighs together, your body sensitive to his words filled with burning promise.

In five minutes of insane courage, you took your feet off the dashboard, leaned toward Kaz, and brushed his neck with your lips. In slow, burning, hot kisses, you traced a path to the pulse in his neck, opening your lips slightly to brush your tongue over that pulse point.

“Please.” You beg.

Kaz's moan was low, but loud enough in your mind. You were being his undoing and you knew it. Suddenly, the car veered to the right and came to an abrupt stop. You would have lost your balance if Kaz's hands hadn't clung to your waist, pulling you in one movement to his left thigh, pressing your soaked core into the black fabric of his pants.

You gasped loudly, or he, or both. And in the next moment, his mouth was on yours again. The kiss was more aggressive, possessive, angry and ardent. Kaz kissed you as if he wanted to decree you his, proclaim his possession. You didn't see when he removed his gloves, but the touch of his skin with on your thighs was all you could think of.

“Kaz…” You moaned into his mouth, and the grip on your thighs moved up to your hip, digging his fingers into your thin dress-covered skin with such force it was sure to leave marks tomorrow. "Please."

You knew what you were begging for, but the moment Kaz forced your waist to move against his thigh, rubbing your pulsing core against his thigh, you forgot even your own name. And Kaz knew it. Then, like dominant man who wanted to see you surrendered to him that he was, his mouth went to your ear as he whispered:

"Do you want me to fuck you?" Kaz wiggled his thigh against you, making your clit roll against the soggy fabric of your panties.

You moaned loudly, your hands tightening on his shirt, your face hiding in his chest as an overwhelming, aching pleasure invaded your system. It felt good, but unbearable for being so little, churning something in your belly that made you despair for more.

"Y-yes." You whimpered, rolling your hips on his thigh.

Kaz's bare hand crept up the slit between your thighs, your dress already balled up at the top of your waist, and dipped his fingers into the juncture of your pussy and his thigh, pulling your panties to the side and making you feel the fabric of his dark pants against your wet, hot flesh. You moaned louder, your grip on his shirt tighter and your hips rocked harder for have any friction.

“Do you want me to fuck you like the little slut you are? Is that what you've wanted all this time?” His words, husky and strong, in that intense, dominant intonation, sent all your self-control to hell.

"Yes." You sobbed. “I-I need you."

But his hand in your panties went up to your chin, and he forced you to look him in the eye once more. The electric intensity of that look turned you on even more, making you gasp as his thigh still rocked against your throbbing clit.

“After that little stunt? you’re not getting off that easy” It was very hard to think with all the stimuli he was giving you, but the thunderous blue eyes warned you to pay attention to his words “Do you think you deserve me to fuck you?”

His gaze invaded you so deep and so warm and intense that you wondered if he was trying to leave a burning imprint on your soul. All over your body, overwhelming desires resonated, and you gave in to the compulsion to roll his thigh further, whimpering from the pressure on your clit.

"I'm s-so sorry." You whimpered, eyes pleading with he "It won't happen again."

"Won't happen what?" He tightened his grip on your chin, not painfully, but firmly to get your attention.

"It won't happen again, Sir."

The reward for your obedience came in an aggressive, hungry kiss, his hand in your chin dropping for your hip and wiggle his thigh at your needy pussy.

"Do you want to cum?" He teased you.

"Yes, S-sir."

"The only way you're getting off is on my thigh."

Then, as if to reiterate his statement, his mouth clutte to yours once more, his thigh swayed with more vigor and his bare hands moved up to the neckline of your dress.

His warm palms and long fingers lowered the straps of your dress and released your braless breasts, your nipples hard with pleasure and your breasts swollen with arousal.

Your moan was muffled by Kaz's, and he just released your mouth to lower his lips to your left breast, capturing the innocent nipple with his mouth and rolling his tongue across your flesh. You moaned louder, your waist twisting desperately against his thigh as your hands tangled in the strands of his black hair.

Kaz delighted in every inch of you, his hands going back to your waist as his mouth attacked your other breast, leaving a trail of hot saliva on his tight, needy nipples. Brekker was consumed by a fierce hunger and need, so overpowering that he pressed his fingers to your skin as if you were his last meal. He'd wanted for so long to do all that, to dive into your body like a starving man, savoring every inch of your warm skin.

Letting out a loud, delighted moan, Kaz increased his thigh movements as he suckled on your nipple, feeling flung to hell heaven as you squealed softly and collapsed onto his thigh, smearing his black fabric with your hot cum. But Kaz couldn't care less about the fucking pants. His cock hard and rigid as a sword hilt throbbed desperately, commanding him to sink into the heat of your slippery walls.

"This is much better than I dreamin." You whimpered softly, your face still buried in his neck, your waist wiggling slyly in his thigh.

"Do you think of me when you touch yourself?" He teased you, taking his hands to your panties away from the center of your pussy and pulling them between your legs, tucking them in his pants pocket.

You nodded, your mouth dipping into his neck in broken kisses as your hands went to his pants belt, trying to get rid of any barrier between the two of you as quickly as possible.

"Please, please." You begged, flustered as Kaz stopped your hip movements with his hands "I need to feel you inside me."

Your plea was sated with an arrogant kiss as Kaz reached for his pants, pulling the fabric of the boxer together and letting pop out his dick throbbing, pulsing and his swollen head, brushing in your pussy with lazy strides.

"S-sir!" You cried, trying to earn more.

"Shh, don’t worry, I’ll take very good care of you."

The strong, long arm wrapped around your waist, pressing your chest against his chest as Kaz guided his dick to the entrance to your pussy, with one hand. He play whit you, pressing his head into your entrance just enough to make you feel the pressure, recoiling when you swayed frantically for more. The painful pleasure sent tears to your eyes, and you sobbed loudly as you were just toy in his hands.

A few hot tears ran down your face as you whimpered, helpless in his arms to get what you wanted.

"You know, you look real pretty when you cry." Kaz pressed his mouth to yours.

In that second, he completely sank his dick into you, swallowing your loud scream as the thickness of it widened you and hit the bottom of the well. The grip of his arm around you tightened, and Kaz lifted you and brought you let down badly, drown his dick even more deeply inside your hot, wet, desperate walls.

"S-sir!" You moaned loudly, his mouth leaving yours, but not pulling away enough and letting you feel his hard breath hit your lips.

You followed his thrusts, bouncing your waist up and down hard and letting his dick beat frantically inside you, robbing you of your breath and your ability to think. Your moans mingled with his, the pornographic sounds of their bodies crashing together were loud and you thanked God the car windows were black and the street was deserted.

"So fucking good slut!" Kaz growled against your lips, one hand leaving your body to snake down to your throat, maintaining a firm, dominant grip.

You moaned his name and his title between loud moans and broken sobs. Yours hands closed around the shirt off his shoulders and the waist shimmied between the thrusts, making sure his dick was completely inside you.

“You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat!” Kaz tightened his grip on yoir neck, watching you tilt your head back and expose your entire body to the delight of his eyes.

He growled louder, spurred on by that sinful sight, and increased the rhythm that pounded inside you, filling every inch of you and sinking down as anatomically as possible. Kaz felt possessed by a wild beast, insatiable and euphoric, and each thrust he gave you was more force he inflicted on you, marking you as his.

Kaz pulled your neck to him, pressing your mouth to his as he growled against your lips: “Mine.”

You nodded frantically, the apex bursting in a burst of pleasure as his dick came out and sank in hard, desperate, urgent strokes.

“Yours”

You promised, kissing him urgently and swallowing a low cry as his dick shuddered inside you, flooding you with the hot liquid until your walls overflowed, giving you a feeling of being incredibly full. You whimpered into his mouth, exchanging a sloppy kiss as Kaz gave you a few more thrusts, making sure his cum would fill your every inch, not letting you dare waste a drop.

“Mine” he repeated through the kiss.

so, the weather??? HAHAHA, anyway friends, i hope you enjoyed. Don’t forget consult the rules if you want to request for some Kaz smut. Love u. O

[magnus-the-maqnificent]

Let's Analyze - Alec in CoFA

So, I’ve been seeing plenty of discourse on two of my mutual’s blogs about this topic… so I thought I’d sit down and write another analysis post about my beloved Alec Lightwood cause people are still giving him shit for a book that came out ten years ago 🤦‍♀️

This is gonna be in two parts, and I'm putting both under the cut:

PART 1 - ALEC’S INSECURITIES 

So, the first part - how Alec’s insecurities drove him to saying stupid things in CoFA

A quick disclaimer - I’m NOT blaming Alec alone for his and Magnus’s break up. What happened was pretty complicated, and the blame cannot be put on one person alone. 

That said, let’s start with Magnus and Alec’s early ‘official’ relationship, in trsom.

These scenes are taken from only the first part of the book, but I’m pretty sure they’re more than enough to get a sense of Alec’s insecurities and all the chinks in their relationship. Throughout the entirety of trsom, we see more bits and pieces of Alec’s insecurities about Magnus’s sexuality, and his past and all the people he might have known - and that’s okay! Insecurities happen, cause brains are stupid like that.

But all of Alec’s insecurities could’ve been laid to rest with a simple conversation. But the conversation never happens. Magnus tends to deflect and change the topic every single time his past is brought up. I understand Magnus’s reasons for hiding his past, of course, but it doesn’t help his relationship with Alec. Magnus hiding a good chunk of his past will inevitably lead to Alec questioning himself - why is he so secretive? Why is he not telling me anything? Does he not trust me? ...and so on.

And when Alec is already feeling insecure in this relationship, this happens - (sorry about the terrible cropping btw)

And then later, while Magnus is talking to Camille,

Now… when people are insecure about something, they get irked at the smallest of things. I’m saying this as an insecure person myself. So now, you've got Alec, who's insecure as fuck, and his vacation with the person he loves got cut short by his ex who refuses to talk to anyone but him, and when they get there, his lover and his lover's ex seem to have obvious chemistry, he gets hit with the reality that his lover has dated several, probably even hundreds of people before him; and he has to leave them alone in a room so they can talk, and then he hears the ex basically just list all his shortcomings - i.e, his mortality, his appearance is compared to some random dead guy (sorry, Will) whom your lover had a crush on, which is just weird, and when you've had enough and open the door, it's to see your lover and his ex, standing close as fuck, and he's! touching! her! face! and! looking! into! her! eyes!

*takes a sip of water* yeahhhh... Alec was straight up having a bad day.

And at this point, a) Alec is still in his first relationship. He didn't get to navigate romance when he was younger, and while there's nothing wrong with that, there weren't exactly cutesy presentations titled 'how to keep your relationships healthy' floating around the internet. Heck, he didn’t know the internet. He didn't know that he had to communicate with Magnus, and it doesn't help that boy avoids conversations about feelings like the plague. And b) at this point, Alec would be facing several negative emotions - insecurity, obviously. Hurt. Helplessness, because of his mortality. Fear, that he might not live up to Magnus’s past lovers. Jealousy at seeing Magnus and Camille so close.

Negative emotions like these often tend to show up as anger or sorrow... and in Alec’s case, that would be anger. Which leads us to THIS- (🙈)

*sighs in second-hand embarrassment*

*drinks more water*

*this is gonna be so hard aksjakak*

So. Alec dealt with his insecurities... by being a mean, mean bitch to Magnus :/

Let's break this scene down, slowly, bit by bit.

First, Alec cuts into a conversation between Magnus and Jordan, when Magnus mentions Woolsey Scott, followed the rest of that particular page. To Alec, he's just a figure from Magnus’s past, and a possible lover, though in Alec’s defense Woolsey Scott WAS Magnus’s lover. This is the first instance that we see in which Alec lashes out at Magnus. It seems like he's trying to make a point to Magnus - "I don't know anything about your past, and so I don't know who you've had romances with, but I want to know." Except he makes his point in the worst way possible and ends up slutshaming Magnus.

The "What's true?" line, in response to Jordan saying "so it's true what they say about warlocks, then?" is pretty obvious. Alec is clearly not liking the idea that this random werewolf might know about warlocks, and in particular, his Warlock boyfriend.

Next... ooh boy... Alec basically snaps and in the next few paragraphs accuses Magnus of wanting to flirt with others which... is not a good look on ya honey 😕. These lines are the ones that get him accused of being biphobic... but is he really? I'm gonna talk about that in part 2.

So, in the first paragraph, where Alec makes the comments about Jordan, I find his choice of words pretty... interesting, seeing as 'messy-haired', 'broad-shouldered' and 'chiseled-good-looks' are all used to describe Alec in the series. Not sure if its relevant, but definitely interesting.

And in the next one, where Alec says, "or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways. Is there anything you aren't into?" The 'apparently' makes me curious. In rsom, Alec mentions that he's only recently heard of the term bisexual, and there's plenty of time between rsom and cofa, so Alec should be absolutely sure of atleast the basic meaning of bisexuality. But I'm pretty sure it's just inconsistency on cc's part, since if rsom didn't exist, this book would be the first time Alec learns about Magnus’s bisexuality. (Which is obvious when you look at the scene after Magnus reveals that Camille is his girlfriend.) And as for the second sentence, I feel like it's a fallback to earlier in the book when Magnus says (I'm just gonna write the dialogue from memory), "I've dated men, women, warlocks, faeries, vampires, werewolves and even a djinn or two." Here, Alec is angry, and he takes the knowledge that Magnus has dated a variety of people and once again, lashes out.

Looking at all of it together, Alec’s insecurities are definitely a factor in all of this. We know Alec has pretty low self esteem in tmi, and he keeps having irrational thoughts about someone else grabbing Magnus’s attention, like in the trsom scene I've posted above. And he ends up taking out his insecurities on Magnus.

Was it wrong of Alec to say all those things to Magnus? Yes, absolutely. But looking back through all his scenes in cofa, it's easy to see how he could've fallen into the pit trap of emotions.

And before anyone says "but it wasn't addressed in the later books", it was, in CoLS. I’ve hit the image limit, so I'm just gonna type it out -

"[Magnus] said it would be better if he didn’t come. Apparently him and the Seelie Queen have some kind of history."

Isabelle raised her eyebrows.

"Not that kind of history," Alec said irritably. "Some kind of feud. Though," he added, half under his breath, "the way he got around before me, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Alec!" Isabelle dropped back to talk to her brother....

So, there. Alec makes yet another slutshaming comment, Isabelle overhears and is clearly not happy about it, and it's clearly implied that she talks to Alec about it. And Alec doesn't make any more slutshaming comments since then. Boy now knows what he did was wrong, and makes sure not to repeat it again.

Although, I do wish we had more than this. I wish we had more of Magnus and Alec talking about this argument, heck, even about all their arguments and the reasons they broke up, but you can't get everything you want, apparently :(

And now onto the next part...

PART 2 - IS ALEC BIPHOBIC?

The short answer, uh, no, not really.

The long answer.... would be complicated.

So, back in the day, when this discourse was at an all time high, I remember reading a bisexual person's essay about this topic, and they said that this comment from Alec - "or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways. Is there anything you aren't into?" - would be a biphobic microagression.

According to Google, a microagression is "a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority".

And in Alec's case, IF his words were biphobic, they were completely unintentional. They were microagressive. Which is... still bad, of course, but it's more complicated than that.

If you look back on Alec's supposedly biphobic statements, they're more about Magnus’s hypersexuality and promiscuity than anything else. Yes, even the line i mentioned like two paragraphs ago. At first glance it may seem like a direct attack on Magnus’s sexuality, but think over the explanation I gave for the line and it will make sense. And a lot of people know that the whole 'bi people fuck around a lot and are cheaters' thing is a stereotype.

Now, it may seem like I'm going off topic here, but bear with me. I couple of days ago, I watched this video by chance. (Tw for the aids crisis and lots of biphobia, not from the narrator, if you wanna watch the video). Basically, back in the 1980s, bisexual men were scapegoated for spreading aids to the straight community and were vilified by popular media as being promiscuous scepters who would cheat on their wives with gay men and then give aids to their wives. (Yikes 😬). And since bisexuality was practically unheard of before all this (several bisexual activists have stated that all this shit, though unfortunate, pulled bisexuality out of the closet), it's safe to assume that this is how those stereotypes came to be - through 1980s propaganda.

But living with this propaganda is... a very limiting experience. The people who leaned and unlearned and fought against this propaganda are mostly US Americans who grew up with it, either the actual propaganda itself or passed down by their parents. But like I said, it's a very limiting experience. US is but one country out of many, and even for those living in the USA there's a chance that they grew up in a very hush-hush environment. People who grew up hearing all these stereotypes will see it as biphobia, while people who didn't - like Alec, and me, and several other people will not. A lot of people grow up with absolutely no knowledge of the queer community, and chances are that they'll be incredibly confused when a stereotype is pointed out to them, and they often get no more explanation than 'this is a harmful stereotype'. Queer experiences aren't the same for everyone, and while I respect the people who see this as biphobia, they should recognize that there are many people who won't see it that way.

I have seen bisexual people say that Alec's words were biphobic, and I've also seen bisexual people say that they weren't. Thus, there is no clear consensus about whether or not Alec was being biphobic. And like I said earlier, Alec grew up far, far away from mundane anti-queer bigotry. He was essentially a clean slate when it came to knowledge of eer microagressions of any kind, because microagressions and stereotypes are often incredibly specific, don't have anything to do with a person's race/sexuality/gender, etc. and will make zero sense unless you know the history behind them. To Magnus, who lived through the anti-bisexual scapegoating, the words would've definitely stung, but Alec didn't even know the implications he would be making with this words! Of course, the impact is greater than intention, and I imagine Magnus would sit Alec down one day and talk about all this history with him.

And idk if I can even blame cc cause the history of bisexual men is RARELY ever talked about, atleast on the internet.

Also, this scene in cofa is the only instance where he can be interpreted to be biphobic. Nowhere else in all of tmi, and even tec, do we see Alec express hatred or disgust or microagression towards bisexual people. If this was seen in a repeating pattern from Alec, one could argue that he's biphobic... but he isn't. Some might point to some of his internal thoughts in trsom to argue otherwise, but I believe that actions are superior than thoughts.

There's also the thing about unlearning prejudices, but in Alec's case there was hardly anything to be unlearned. The only prejudices he did pick up on were against himself, through vague homophobic comments from Robert.

P.S if you've read this far, I am legally entitled to compensation for thinking of cofa Alec for 48 hours. Put your favorite Alec moments in my askbox cause I wanna focus on his good side now. 😎

But yeah, the main thing here is that Alec has grown from his mistakes, apologized, and hasn't repeated this behavior at all.

And lastly, I just wanted to add - I don't think all this was unintentional on the author's part. She's grown up with the us American queer community, and has mentioned that she has bisexual friends, who have no doubt faced prejudices because of these stereotypes. I think she was trying to condemn making such statements, but a lot of people don't read between the lines and end up misinterpreting it and make both the character and her to be biphobic.

So... TLDR; was what Alec said biphobic? Maybe. It depends on who you're talking to. Is Alec, as a person, biphobic? Nope. Not at all. 😌

[studiobeebo]

~♡ Winter Warmth ♡~

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 2.1K

Genre: warm and soft like mash potato. 

A/N: has this trope of sharing winter clothes been done a million times? yes. will that stop me? no.

as per usual, reblogs are the best way to get my works around since tags tend to be unreliable so they’re greatly appreciated! enjoy!

“You didn’t bring a scarf. Or a hat. Or anything.”

Your current ‘mission’ partner’s characteristically irritated tone broke you out of your current daze as you shifted your eyes towards him as the two of you walked side by side, close enough that it was clear the two of you were at least friends, but not so close that things were...weird.

“Oh, no..” You hummed, a puff of steam escaping with your words and just as soon evaporating into the cold winter air. “To be honest I didn’t think it would be this cold. Oh- but it’s not that bad, no worries.”

He looked at you for a second before shrugging and facing forward once again, the previous silence between the two of you settling back in as your eyes drifted back to your right where rows and rows of shop windows twinkled with Christmas lights and other inviting decorations. 

See, the so called ‘mission’ the two of you had been sent on wasn’t really a mission at all, it was more like an errand to satisfy everyone back at school’s ‘urgent’ need for a variety of coffees, hot chocolate’s, and tea lattes, which didn’t sound like much, however your oh so gracious sensei insisted you go to this very specific cafe that was about a half an hour walk away instead of the one that was barely a ten minute walk away. Fushiguro seemed particularly annoyed with that, but then again, when wasn’t he annoyed by one thing or another.

The only thing was that you assumed he was bothered because Gojō had made yet another needlessly difficult request of him, however while he was annoyed with Gojō , that wasn’t exactly the reason why. The reason he was particularly peeved was because his teacher said the two of you just haaad to go together. “It’s safer that way.” , he said “Treat it like a mission!”, he said.

Bullshit. 

Gojō was testing him on something even he didn’t want to think about, let alone admit to. Fushiguro told him one thing, ONE THING about you, just an off handed comment on how much you had improved using your cursed technique in such a short amount of time, and that’s all it took for Gojō to give him that fucking look. At least, Fushiguro thought it was only one thing, but the more Gojō started making little comments about the two of them, about how he thinks they’d be sooo cute together, he realized that maybe he had been unconsciously talking about you more than he thought. That was true too, but he wasn’t one for much talk and the little that he did say wasn’t enough to tip Gojō or anyone else off about his apparent interest in you. As it turns out, the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’ is true, and that’s especially so for someone as observant as Gojō is.

He saw all the little things that most people probably didn’t have a second thought about, but he had known Megumi for a long time now so to him, his actions were clear as day. The little touches on your shoulder to gently move you out of the way, the way he would tend to gravitate towards you whenever all of you first years were on missions together, how distracted he’d be if you had a bit of a hard time fighting off a curse. Gojō could go on and on about the tiny ways Megumi treated you better, with more care, than anyone else, but he chose not to pester him too aggressively. He knew if he did that, Megumi would shut him down just as aggressively and dig deeper into the denial about his feelings for you. So instead, Gojō pushed him in little ways, like teaming you two together for training practices and in this case, sending you out together to get drinks.

Megumi knew that of course, that Gojō was messing with him, but man was it hard to say no when your face lit up and you exclaimed that you could actually go for a hot chocolate. So now here you were, walking side by side in silence that was currently doing nothing but make him overthink. Should he say something? Would that be weird? Or were you off put by the fact that he wasn’t saying anything? All the while he had that usual grumpy look on his face that was really just one of concentration, but you didn’t take it to heart regardless. You had known him long enough now to know that even when he did look upset, he kind of just had a resting grumpy face and it didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still, you would admit that you were feeling a bit awkward.

You liked Fushiguro, maybe a tad bit more than what you admitted to your other friends, but while the two of you were friendly and worked just fine together, you had never really spent time alone with one another outside of school, and as you walked through the slightly crowded sidewalks you realized you didn’t really know how he felt about you. Sure you were associates and classmates, but did he see you in that way? Did he only tolerate you? Or maybe he was just indifferent, not thinking of you as much more or much less than someone he worked along side. Even though you didn’t have any answers to said questions, you couldn’t say you were nervous to be out with him. In fact it was kind of nice, even if you weren’t talking much, and you were okay with settling and just internally gushing about it to yourself. So you kept to yourself with a slight smile on your face, stopping for a second here or there when something in one of the shop windows caught your eye or to press your cold hands to your mouth and blow warm air onto them.

You had said you were fine, but the temperature seemed to keep dropping, and when you felt a small damp prickle of iciness on your nose you realized why. That one snowflake slowly turned to many as snow began to fall steadily from the sky, catching on your hair and jacket but melting as soon as it came in contact with your cheeks. 

“Pfft, no wonder it’s gotten so cold. I seriously thought we weren’t going to get any snow until later on in the season, right?” You asked, turning to him with a laugh as you rubbed your arms as if that would do much to help through your coat. 

“Guess not.”, he said with another shrug. “Doesn’t look like it’ll stick though, we should be fine.”

He peered out of the corner of his eye at you, watching as you shoved your hands into your pockets and gave him a nod before looking up as you walked to watch the snow fall in a childlike awe. Something ticked in him, another one of those little irritating itches that he would get whenever you would do something like that. Something so simple, yet he couldn’t bring himself to look away. That, and the irrational part of him that was currently screaming at him to do something stupid, an internal voice that was getting louder and louder with every fall of a snowflake and shiver of your shoulders until finally he just had to give in.

He let out an annoyed huff, not at you but at the fact that he felt so stupid and absurdly flustered as he unwrapped his scarf and took his gloves off, temporarily shoving them into one pocket as he stopped to lean over and wrap his scarf snuggly around your neck instead. You jumped a little in surprise as you tore your eyes from the sky and gave him a quizzical look, but before you could say anything a pair of gloves that were a little too big for you were shoved into your hands as well. 

“Oh, thank you but I’m really-“

“It’s fine.” He cut you off, but not in a mean way. You noticed the hint of pink on his cheeks, but surely that was due to the cold, right? He sighed again in an attempt to make himself feel a little less tense as he continued on in a more relaxed tone. “Seriously, I was getting too warm anyways.”

Now you really couldn’t help but smile as you gave him a small nod before slipping on both gloves. They were too big just like you thought, but warm, and the fuzziness bristling in your stomach seemed to help warm you up as well. You absent mindedly tugged his scarf a little closer around you as the the two of you began to walk again, and your own cheeks began to heat up a bit as you inhaled his scent. Though you couldn’t really pinpoint what it was, it was like a little not-so-gentle reminder that he really did just give you his scarf and gloves to wear. You tried not to let it get to you, he was just being nice and he said he was too warm anyways, but you still had to bite your inner cheek to keep yourself from smiling too wildly and risk him thinking you’re a total creep. 

“Thanks Megumi, I appreciate it.” 

Oh god no.

He thought he had steeled himself but that caused him to stop in his tracks, only for a moment or two, before his body went into self preservation mode and moved on its own, but the way his heart skipped a beat in response to something as dumb as you calling him by his first name for the first time was everything but calm and collected. Still, as much as he tried to keep even an ounce of what he was really feeling from showing on his features, it only took that little halt in his step for you to realize what you just said.

“Oh, shit- I’m sorry. That’s probably kind of weird for me to call you.”

“It’s fine.” He repeated the same words he had said only a few minutes ago, only this time he didn’t sound nearly as confident. Whatever was going on in his chest was not, in fact, fine, but what was he supposed to say? ‘You treating me like I’m a close friend seriously fucks with my doubts of having a thing for you’? For heaven’s sake he could take out a literal murderous demon in the blink of an eye but god forbid he try to keep his normally cool composure in front of who he now had to admit was his crush.

“If it really isn’t fine you don’t have to act like it is.” You laughed out awkwardly, still having trouble trying to read his features. 

He hated seeing that bit of doubt and worry in your eyes, enough so that he shoved what he was feeling down even if it was just long enough for him to give some reassurance that you referring to him so casually was actually more than just ‘fine’.

“I’m not ‘acting’. If it really bothered me I would say something about it. Trust me, I’ve gotten good at telling people off...” He grumbled, his mood slightly souring at the mere thought of what Gojō would do if he could see him now, with color tinting his cheeks and his brain scrambling for the right words to say which, judging by the short laugh you gave that was simply music to his ears, he had successfully done.

“True, true. Guess I’ll just have to stay on your good side then, yeah? Dunno if I could take it if you were actually mad at me.”

He scoffed and muttered in response as he trudged ahead of you.

“As if you would ever be on my bad side…”

“Hm?”

“I said ‘can we hurry up before it gets worse outside’. If we take much longer Gojō is going to start blowing up my phone.” 

You laughed and then smiled in a way that you could only imagine looked incredibly goofy as you stared at his back while he continued walking ahead of you, maybe just a tiny bit giddy that he was ok with you being a little more personal and less formal with him. Surely that meant the two of you were friends, right? Or maybe he could think of you as something more some day…

“Are you coming with?”

“Yeah, yeah!” You exclaimed, shaking your head and leaving those thoughts for another time in order to allow yourself to enjoy this moment as it was, warmed in the face of the winter chill by a cozy set of winter clothes and a fuzzy feeling in your heart.

[herstarburststories]

He didn’t make it to 42

Pairing: Dean Winchester x reader

Summary: it’s Dean’s birthday, you go to visit him with some news and things that need to be said.

A/N: Happy bday, De.

Warnings: so much angst, mentions of sex, hopeful/happy ending (?)

Dean’s dead. It’s Dean’s birthday and he’s dead. You can’t argue much.

Sam denied the demon blood inside him, and that didn’t stop its evil nature from growing and gasping for his fresh air to the point he was almost shocked alive. Dean denied his dad’s destructive methods’ results for the longest time, and that didn’t stop the cicatrixes in every emotion he had ever shown. You denied the absence of Dean and that didn’t stop the bricks cracking in your soul. There’s only so far you can go with your eyes closed.

So here you are. Standing in front of an empty grave. You are bigger than the dull tombstone, yet you can’t help but not to feel tall, at all. How can you even start to talk? Talking to Dean used to be easy even when it got hard and now you’re feeling like a lost kid in a supermarket. Your snide thinking spells out his name with venom, saying it isn’t easy for you to open your barmy mouth and spill out contrarian shit because this isn’t Dean, just another meaningless symbolism that Sam promises that will help. The real Dean died almost a year ago, he was burned in a hunter’s funeral, the flames dancing over his body as the smell of burnt meat invaded your nostrils. Whenever you try to remember his fragrance, that manly aroma which you loved to scent each morning, all your brain can come up with is the odor of his skin and guts burning. The smell lingers like bad perfume, it doesn’t matter how many times you wash yourself with his soap-- that only broke your heart worse.

But today is Dean’s birthday. He deserves a visit, even if it’s not him. Then you go and attempt to deal with the desolation, push it away just a little, and pick up something from the enormous pile of things you wish to tell Dean. You glance at the cold tombstone: Dean Winchester. 1979 - 2020. Beloved son, big brother, and husband. Hunter. A hero. Simple definitions that can never make it up for who he was and what he meant. You purse your lips and cough a little, a gentle wind touches your cheek so tenderly. If you were still a believer, you’d think this is some sort of sign, Dean’s presence or some other pious hoax. All you do now is to remain in quietude, a deep breath. Ultimately, your voice comes:

‘’You didn’t make it to forty two, huh?’’ You scoff humorless, reminiscing to the multiple days that Dean said he wouldn’t go past 35. He did live each year like it was the last--- you aren’t sure if it's such a good thing. If you carry on like your days are outnumbered, you are silently entertaining yourself until death's knock on your door. ‘’I always hated when you were right. Let’s be honest, you had the words of a pessimist and the wants of an optimist. Still, if you were to be right about something, it would be about a bad situation. A nest with too many vampires, how crappy the motel’s bedroom would be, or how that third glass of wine would make me tipsy. So yeah, I always hated when you were right. And look at you now! You aren’t right, you aren’t wrong. You are dead! And I’m the crazy girl screaming at an empty tombstone.’’

You let out a laugh empty of joy. That’s how a hunter’s life is: you die and people stop talking about you because it’s too sad or too long gone to hold any pity, meanwhile the ones who recall about you go loud with all the spirits in their heads. You put your hand in the pockets of the heavy leather jacket that once belonged to a green eyed man who would be turning 42 today, some strange force causing you to speak again.

‘’Wow.’’ You shake your head to the blue way you paint the scene until you notice that you never greeted him. ‘’Hey.’’ The simple word adds a comical insult to injury. ‘’Guess the dead don’t care about manners, huh?’’ You arch your eyebrows with a grin that demonstrates anything but happiness. ‘’Miracle died. Sam digged a hole next to the bunker and buried him there. He isn’t the same since you died, you know? Not the deceased dog-- Well, he wasn’t the same either. Always whining and scratching your door like a fucking cat, and sniffing your old boots. He made me company in your bed and I whined as much as he did when you didn’t come back home that day. He stood by the door most days, waiting for you to appear. I can’t judge him, I did the same.’’ You shrug, not caring about how risible that confession may look. It's true. You became as irrational as a loyal dog at some point in this sorrow. ‘’And Sam, your baby brother… I think he died with you right there, Dean. He didn’t try to bring you back as he promised, but I shouted and screamed so much. I said I would burn the bunker and throw Baby over a cliff if he didn’t-- if he didn’t let me try. I lived up to the mad woman title.’’

You are crestfallen, pacing on top of where the eldest Winchester - Sam’s brand new nomination -  supposedly was buried. You know your boots barely touch an infected land, there's no deceased man under your steps. The dead thing is in you.

‘’I spent days dragging your body everywhere and nowhere, anywhere I could catch a crumb of relief in hope to bring you back. But I couldn’t. Jack could, but that ungrateful idiot doesn’t wanna follow his grandpa steps and get too attached to mere humans, the creation or whatever. As if we are just some skin and bone to him, as if you are just another human.’’

You sit down on the tombstone, some tender solace in being close to a thing that's supposed to represent him, like sleeping hugged to a pillow or waking up to a photograph of his. Your nails sink against the gelid concrete at the thought of screaming into the sky for the new God that seemed as deaf as the last one. His calm answer to your burning pain. How he dared to tell you he knew what he was doing— as if he was the original lord and not a three years old. You can't make him do it, so you hold on the fury of some overthrown nation.

‘’Anyway, I couldn’t bring you back. Your body, well, you know how human anatomy works. Your body started to smell like death. We tried to stop with human and magic ways, and it wouldn’t work because you were dead. You should’ve seen the doctor’s face when we got you in that fancy hospital tha night. I think we traumatized the doctor with so much violence and trauma. She didn’t even give us a false hope or anything, you know? She just asked about organ donation of what was left. She just wanted to take every little thing out of you, as if you were just another accident on a Tuesday night.’’ Your shake your head as the memories and your points start to mix, it's hard to discern things and keep a straight line when you have an open wound in your insides. ‘’Well, they couldn’t bring you back to life, and neither could Rowena or whatever I looked for. Don’t be mad because I tried, Winchester. You know I’m too stubborn for my own good. I had to try.’’ you refuse to apologize, yet adds the playful words in his eulogy. ‘’But then your body started to stink and God, how could I continue to be so violent to your corpse? That was when I decided to listen to you for the first time and to Sam, so I let you go. I hate you for asking that.’’ What an ambiguous, contradictory truth to bare. You are glimpses of a person for months because of Dean Winchester, still have the energy to argue his selfless logic, just to love him even more. He's got your devotion, but man you can hate him sometimes. ‘’I hate you for going on that stupid hunt. I hate you for being dead, you giant idiot that I love so much.’’ You can't bring your mouth to say loved. "I was always telling you to let the past go and now I’m in love with a dead thing. What a comic way to end our history. I told you that Miracle died, right? I don’t know if dogs go to heaven, but I hope he’s in there with you. I wonder what your heaven is like. I bet it has Whiskey.''

Your dry chuckle makes your notice the tears in your eyes, glistening your orbs as they go like a waterfall to be absorbed by the thirsty land after leaving your cheeks.

"Sam and I-- We tried to make some sense out of this cruelty, but we can’t. You are dead and I can’t seem to put it past me. I still sleep in your bed, and I can still taste your body burning on the roof of my mouth in the quiet nights. I cried this morning because someone asked for a burger, can you believe that? It was so stupid since I used to shake my head and argue with you about cholesterol. Suddenly I was crying at lunch in a restaurant because some stupid kid asked for a burger with extra bacon. They sang Happy birthday to this dumbass child, and I interrupted with my awful crying, and wished that you were celebrating your birthday and not that kid. I guess you could say I wish death upon an innocent child with a problematic eating routine.’’ That was a whole new level of low, as if you are the one wrapped with the sentiment of laying six feet under.

‘’Everyone tells you about how grief is singular and particular with similar emotions that bring people who went through this together. They even have that crap stages thing and all that. You know what they don’t tell you?’’ Your mouth shuts for a moment, like you are waiting some response. You nod as if whatever you were expecting is handed to you. ‘’Grief can be fucking ridiculous. Who cries because of a burger full of oil and cardiac diseases? Who cries because they found a grocery store recipe under her dead boyfriend’s bed? Who falls on the ground screaming in the middle of the mall because they saw a flannel? Who? Those things are so stupid.’’ You smile like there's no tomorrow and the laugh leaving your lips is a treacherous tone. Perhaps you just aren't build up to express joy anymore. ‘’You see it in the movies and in the books and you think, you know, you think to yourself that grieving is being sad on special dates and randomly remembering the loved ones because of some screaming memory, like a flannel or their perfume. Thing is, it’s not just that. All your body seems so small, so tight for all the ache and agony inside it. Your senses go wild, you are not just one person in one place. You’re just the pain everywhere, like being pulled apart and you beg to jump in the fucking grave with them. At least you would be together, at least you would feel like one person and not suffering edges of a broken earthy thing. And--And you start remembering things you didn’t even know you had mesmerized. I look at the ceiling and remember you saying you’d paint it someday. I look at the kitchen and remember me screaming at you for giving Miracle the rest of the food. I smell Sam’s clothes and started crying because hey, they don’t smell like alcohol. You don’t iron them while drinking anymore, so of course they don’t smell like cheap beer.’’ You are chuckling through the tears and it only makes it more monstrous. ‘’Everything is you now that you are gone. Every man has something similar to you, every garden is green as your eyes, and each step sounds like you are coming home. They didn’t prepare me, not for this.’’ You said breathless. A soft single follows. The knife cuts both ways; the empty breeze and the words hurt. Where's the middle term? Where's the limbo? Where's the only safe place for you to rest your weary head?

Out of nowhere, you blurt out, ‘’I can’t masturbate,’’ I know it’s something stupid and even selfish to say, but I think you’d like to know. I can’t masturbate. That’s a part of the whole losing someone process that people are too ashamed to discuss, or maybe they don’t have the urge to be touched anymore because after someone you love dies, after someone-- the hands who touched are dead and cold, you become a haunted object. That’s how I feel most days, like I’m a haunted house because you touched me and now you’re dead and some days I believe I am too.’’ You look around the places. It's beautiful. It's lonely. It has trees and flowers and green. Not as green as Dean's eyes, but it doesn't matter anymore. He doesn't even have eyes at this point. ‘’Well, I can’t masturbate. I can’t touch myself. And I can’t ask someone else either. I tried and ended up punching the guy, Dean. I swear. I panicked when he was between my legs and just punched his nose. You’d have liked it, you were always the jealous kind. I won’t admit that, but I thought it was kinda hot. Especially when you got possessive in sex.’’ A dirty grin appeared on your lips, the echoes of luxury lasting in your eyes for a brief moment. ‘’I don’t think I can be cared for anymore, honestly. Sam tried to hug me when Miracle died and I… It was like I wasn't there. I got frozen in time, and I live in my sleep. In my nightmares you are alive. I  dream about the day you died every week and I used to wake up screaming, but now those nightmares are the only proof you were alive now that you’re as dead as the police report says this time. It was the most painful, calamitous moment for you and I swear it was a nightmare for me, but then I realized that at least I had you there, egoistical or not, I made my nightmare into a dream.’’ You aren't sure which opinion Dean would have on that. Would he understand? Would he shake his head? You wish you can ask him just this one more thing, just beg him to write it down for you on how to be without him here.

You raise on your feet, glaring at the name craved in the concrete. The tears go by still, although they're as usual as the blood in glir veins at this point. ‘’Death is so silly. What it takes, anyway?" Each word conquers more inches of pure wrath. ''People die because they stumbled on their own feet and hit their head somewhere, or they drove their car too close and too fast to the cliff, or because they were giving birth, or because they dated the wrong person, or because they were hunting a fucking vampire and got impaled. What are the chances? How stupid, and idiotic is death? Always creeping and waiting to bite and chew a piece of you-- Taking every scrap of you from me like that’s its right.’’ You are screaming, starting to kick and punch the tombstone with any piece of straight you have. Your limbs hurt and the blood is visible, but you keep going. ‘’YOUR STUPID DOG DIED, DEAN! AND YOU DIED! AND I DIED! SAMMY DIED! YEAH, IS SAID SAMMY! GO AHEAD, TELL ME ONLY YOU CAN CALL HIM THAT.’’ Another punch, your knuckles are ripped. Another kick, your boot as a hole. ‘’DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.’’ Kick. ‘’SAMMY, SAMMY, SAMMY!’’ A punch to each name. Anything to get a reaction, to get comfort. Anything. ‘’YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU ARE DEAD.’’ Gasping for something you don't need anymore, sweet oxygen, your eyes are on the tombstone again. And the definitions. And the trees. Your body is sore and aching. It is the kind and coercion no person wants which you needed; the freedom of feeling outside the exact pain that was inside. ‘’You can’t because you are dead. I’ve been playing some sick games in my mind, you know? Sam stopped hunting and had his closure. He was always better at letting go than you and I, but he’s still hurting. I never saw him hurting so much. I think he knows you won’t come back this time, how could you make us promise something like that?  Well, my twisted game is a bunch of misleading what ifs. What if you hadn’t gone after John? What if you hadn’t gone on that last hunt? What if you had stayed with Lisa? At first I didn’t like her much. Jealous, I admit that. But she grew on me. She gave you something I couldn’t back then and I’ll always be thankful for that. And even though it would rip me apart, I’d rather you to die at sixth after living your suburban dream with her. Have another kid besides Ben, maybe a girl this time, and just have that apple pie life. You and Sam would live close and your kids would always play. They’d be as close as brothers. Maybe I’d get a guy and bring my own kids and we could’ve a barbecue and everyone would be happy. But we don’t get soft epilogues here. It ends how it starts, right? Bloody and desperate. I thought maybe, maybe Lisa could understand what’s going through my head now. I drove to her new address and parked close to her house. I must have spent hours there, thinking if I should come in or not, If she somehow remembered after Castiel died or if I could make her brain work again if I told her the truth. But then I just drove back home and fell asleep wrapped in that stupid lumberjack flannel of yours. The one I always mocked, yeah? She may understand me, but I know you wouldn’t want that. You want her, you want me and Sam to be happy. I don’t know if I can do that, Dean. It’s like myt brittle soul shrewd and my body is just waiting to collapse.’’ You signed, overwhelmed by the battle without an anthem. The victory with no triumph. Is it still a win when you don't have someone to come home too? ‘’Your dog died, it’s the first birthday you didn’t live to see, and I bought all the things you told Mrs Butters you wanted for your birthday because it’s your birthday. I just don’t know how to celebrate it with you dead. People stop counting after they die, right? They just say he’d have been 42 or he died at 41. They give melancholy smiles when they wake up and check the day on their phones and a woe atmosphere swallows them for the rest of the day. Then they get better the next day. I think everyday is your birthday.’’ You attempt to wipe away your tears, which only causes your pulsating hand to stain your face red. ‘’Dean, for the first time, what died stayed dead! Congrats.’’ Once again, a hysterical laugh. ‘’I wish but no. What died didn’t stay dead, you are alive, so alive in my head. I swear you are there some days. I wake and watch the door, so sure you’ll come back. Sam says I’m living in delusion and I have to wake up and keep going since that's what you would want. That's enough to make him keep going, but it only makes me angry. Everyone we know and some strangers looks at me like I'm a house on fire and no longer a warm home, like I'm a car accident. They think I don't notice but I do.’’ You look at your boots, the whole is rolling out blood like your hands. You feel closer to Dean. How sick.

‘’Help, I’m still right where you left me." You plea, his love lingering like a bruise. ''I think gravity is overwhelming and it keeps me here. Sometimes it’s like I’m one of those dusted books Sam used to read. Or those Bukowski ones that you hid, so we wouldn’t see how smart you’re. You tried so hard to hide your intelligence because you didn’t think you were entitled to it. You saw yourself as the protector and never the valuable one for protection. You, the man who made an EMF out of an old radio, who rebuilt the Impala from the ground multiple times, and who knew patterns better than any detective. The man who showed me I could rely on someone other than myself. The dude with a lopsided grin, tough hands and a heart of gold. I miss you so much. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were singing all those classic rock songs and Taylor Swift pop hits, while I drove here. I would think you were home, smelling like guts because you wanted to eat before taking a shower after a hunt. I would think that you are in the Deancave, waiting for me to curl up on your lap to watch Scooby Doo or Doctor Sexy MD until we aren’t watching anymore. If I didn’t know better I would think no death could take you from me. There would be no tear us apart in our vows.’’ The only thing that keeps your organism working is that Dean died knowing how much you loved him. You never let this talk for later or never. No tomorrow is promised. That's a nice comfort, maybe that's what will help you to let go in the future. ‘’But yesterday your stupid, skink dog died and I lost the last living thing that I had from you. You know what’s more angerting? I cried and Sam cried and I noticed we were the living things you left behind and all we have is each other. All your closets of backlogged dreams were left for us-- so yeah. Sam is done hunting and he’s met a lovely girl, and they are moving in like in your domestic dreams. I’m taking care of the family business like your other contradictory dream and making sure Sam is safe enough to be normal. Because I have to, we have too. Stupidly enough, I still wait for the day you’ll burst out the door and tell us to hit the road again. I still watch every episode of your dumb tv shows to make sure I’ll know everything that happened when you ask. I still drive around in your car and close my eyes when the street is calm, only picturing you driving as Baby’s engineers go wild but those are my hands on the steering wheel. If I didn't know better, I’d think you are still around. But I know better. I still feel you all around. I love you.’’

Your monologuing ends as astutely as it stated. You get up, press a kiss to your ruined for the next weeks hands and place it on the rock with writings. You turn around and walk back to the car that you parked near, only in case of Dean wanting to see Baby. How knows? You and your clandestine faith. You lick your lip and get in the car.

You swear you the AC/DC cassette wasn't there before, but when you turn on the car and the radio it starts playing. It's the first true smile that comes to your mouth, it's bloodstained and you look like a shameless woman. With that you can deal.

It hurts a bearable hurt for now. You didn't think it was possible. Maybe someday.

The end.

(she takes a little longer to arive in heaven than sammy. his baby brother says that women are most likely to live around six years more than men. it doesn't ease him up, though. dean waited sam for too long, his platonic soulmate. and now he has to wait his romantic one too? the eldest Winchester considers it the best earthly present when the he sense you around, that smell of orange and apples. it's you, he knows before even turning around. he can't wait to love you again. your name rolls off your tongue so naturally, as if you had seen each other just yesterday: ‘’hey, y/n.’’)

But then again, nothing ever really ends, does it?

REBLOG AND COMMENT. Feedback is magic and helps me!

Starburst's footnote: It just didn't feel right to make an author's note on the top. I wanted it all only to be an arrow to the story. So, this is my side note: it's six am and I'm up writing this after inspiration kissed me with a bruise in the middle of the night. Or more like grabbed my throat. Anyway, I had to write and finish this one to post today, even pushing sleep aside. Hey, we are writers, that's what we do! I've been watching the show since I was eleven and I cried like a baby with the finale. This series was just so important and crucial to molde aspects of relationships for me. The song marjorie by Taylor Swift was used here, and so was the line "you got my devotion/ but man, I can hate you sometimes" by Harry Styles. I told you guys I would use it somewhere! A special thanks to @msmarvelouswinchester​ who helped me with her encouraging and opinon. You are the best! And with all of this I wanna say: Happy bday, Dean Winchester!

REBLOG AND COMMENT! Feedback is magic! Especially about this fic, I’d like to know your opinion. Tags in the reblog! Send an ask or dm to get in the taglist.

[brawltogethernow]

So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Pt. 14 | S.R.)

Series Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Finale |

Summary: Separated and terrified, Spencer and Reader rely on their unique skills to survive. The team, minus Penelope and Derek, don’t know who the strange girl in the bank is, but they find out very interesting things about her history.

A/N: I don’t know how banks work. Idk how heists work. I know nothing. I hope you enjoy it anyway! Couple: Spencer/Fem!Reader 
 Category: ANGST. Just. All of it. All of the angst. Every bit. 
 Content Warning: Gun violence, discussions of death and dying Word Count: 10k

MASTERLIST

—————————————————

“Hello, my name is (y/n)(y/l/n) and I’m calling from the Bank of America on K St. Northwest to report shots fired. The shots sounded like burst-fire from multiple semiautomatics.”

When adrenaline kicks in, there are a lot of things that don’t feel real. Time seems to warp into some ominous presence weighing down on you, but your body has never felt lighter.

“Ma’am, where are you?” Her voice sounded so far away. My own just felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else entirely.

“I’m inside the bathroom. Listen, I might not have a lot of time. There’s a federal agent inside the bank. His name is SSA Dr. Spencer Reid with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Call...”

My mouth blanked on the names of the two men Spencer talked about the most. I’d met them both, why couldn’t I remember?

Several more shots rang through the building as an answer. It was enough to shake loose the names, which flowed from me before I could even comprehend where they came from.

“Call SSA Aaron Hotchner and… Derek Morgan.”

“Can you remain on the line?” She sounded insistent — which is against their protocol by the way. My eyes were glued to the bathroom door’s hinges.

“Only until the door opens.”

The sentence conveyed my thoughts without actually forming the words. Once that door opens, I’m probably going to die. It wasn’t a completely irrational fear.

“Okay. I need you to remain calm. Did you see any of the gunmen?”

Jesus, it was like everything I’d just told her had gone completely over her head. “No, I’m in the bathroom.”

“Does the agent have his service weapon?”

“No.”

If she didn’t ask me a question I could say yes to soon, I was going to lose my fucking mind.

I tried not to think about Spencer outside, but I couldn’t help it. All of my thoughts were on him, even before the commotion.

Was he even still alive?

“Help is on the way, Ms. (Y/l/n).”

“Please hurry.”

My entire body shook from the hormones, my instincts telling me to do anything besides sit crouched on a toilet in a bathroom stall. I don’t even know why I bothered hiding. They would definitely kick them in, or just shoot straight through the doors.

“We’ve contacted Agent Hotchner and he’s also on his way.”

Finally, some good fucking news. I released my breath as quietly as I could, closing my eyes for just a moment to compensate for the fact I hadn’t blinked in several minutes.

“Thank you,” I whispered, clutching the phone like it could actually do something for me past this point. But it couldn’t. No amount of breathing exercises would help me through this one.

Suddenly, there was movement outside the door. A crowd of people were shuffling past the door, and I heard the distinct sound of a toddler wailing.

“I have to go.”

“Wait, don’t hang up—“

I couldn’t wait, though. With trembling hands, I erased the evidence that I’d ever called them in the first place. And then I resumed my position as a sitting duck; quietly and as ready as I ever could be.

I listened for his voice, but I never heard it.

—————————————————

Three seconds.

Did you know that a semiautomatic weapon can fire up to three rounds per second, depending on how fast the user can pull the trigger?

After the first shot is fired, no one moves. Puzzled and alert, people are paralyzed. Your first reaction is to look for the source of the sound. It’d been a second before I turned to see the three armed people and two dead security guards behind me.

It takes the average person one and a half seconds to cognitively process that they're in a potentially life-threatening situation. It takes another .7 seconds for a physical response to kick in.

Three seconds.That was long enough for a maximum of nine shots per person to be fired- twenty-seven shots in total; it was long enough for the air to be filled with the sudden outburst of helpless screams the patrons of the bank, and it was long enough for me to realize that I didn’t have my gun and that my girlfriend wasn’t by my side.

“Everybody get down on the ground!”

Amid the chaos, I felt that all too familiar twisting sensation in my gut that begged time to reverse just enough for this to be a dream. Enough time to reverse the decisions that led us here.

But time was a cruel mistress, and she did not plan to bend to the whims of mankind, no matter how desperate.

Another deafening burst of sound rang through the air, shots fired into the ceiling now as myself and the others fell to the ground.

My gaze was fixed on the bathroom entrance. I couldn’t breathe. Please, I begged, stay hidden.

“Listen up! If everyone does what we say, you can all go back to your boring fucking lives.”

Injuries occur in less than two percent of bank robberies. Deaths occur in less than one. Saturdays are the second to least likely day for a robbery to take place. In the past 5 years, less than 10 people have been killed in bank robberies, and most of them were the perpetrators. Statistics usually calmed me down and helped me focus.

But these people didn’t care about statistics. They were defying the odds I had just recited to myself. They had already killed two people. Our luck was already stacked against us.

“Take everything out of your pockets and put it in front of you.”

As soon as the order was given, I was running through an inventory of everything in my pockets. It didn’t take me long to realize that with a cursory inspection of the items, they would figure out who I was.

But what were the odds that they would actually scrutinize them? I figured they were fairly low; you don’t rob a bank to get cheap jewelry and petty cash, even in a bank. What were the odds they would notice if I left something in my pocket — especially if my wallet was in front of me. If it wasn’t large enough to be a weapon, and I put out my objects of value, why wouldn’t I put out the rest of the contents?

So I decided to take the risk, removing my wallet while retaining my separate identification.

Luckily, the attention seemed pretty far removed from me. If I wasn’t too busy being extremely grateful, I might have been offended that they didn’t consider me a threat in the building.

“Alright ladies, all of you get up and follow my lovely friend here. You’re going on a little trip. Fellas, you stay right where you are.”

The sound of my heart pounding drowned out the instructions that weren’t intended for me. It was fine, I hadn’t planned on moving, anyway. As long as I could see the door to the bathroom, I was perfectly fine right where I was.

But I still felt for the terrified women that were shakily rising to their feet. To my right, I saw a woman struggling to hold a small infant. My heart was fracturing at the struggle, wishing I could help her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t risk doing anything that might draw attention to myself.

I felt like a traitor. I felt useless. I was quite literally trained to handle this exact situation, but now that I was here, I couldn’t move. I wasn’t thinking about strategy or how to maximize efficiency; all I was thinking about was her.

“Jake!” A woman’s voice screamed from the other side of the room. When I turned, I heard the sound of a rifle cracking against bone before the man hit the ground.

“Jake, huh?” The man above him laughed, using the business end of the rifle to turn the disoriented man on his side. “Well, Jake, how would you feel about your girlfriend watching you die?”

“Please don’t hurt him!” The woman sobbed, scrambling up off the floor that she’d resisted leaving. I wondered if (y/n) would have refused to leave me, too.

The man prodded the woman with the gun, urging her to follow the rest while simultaneously providing easy enough instructions. The man apparently named Jake made a few noises of desperate protest as he watched her leave.

“Shut the fuck up!”

“I’m sorry,” Jake pleaded, “I’m sorry, please don’t hurt her. I’ll be quiet.”

Smart man. I understood his hesitancy, though. His girlfriend kept her neck craned back until she was no longer in sight, gazing back at him for as long as she physically could. I closed my eyes just for a moment, to try and combat their current strain.

Unfortunately, just like it always seems to happen, that’s when they spoke the words I had been dreading.

“Hey, you check the bathrooms yet?”

“Nah, I got it.”

I closed my eyes tighter now, scared that if I opened them, I’d give myself away. There was no possible way that I could hide the terror I currently felt. To be fair, I think it was only natural to be scared — but not like this.

There was a loud crashing noise of doors slamming, and the voice I knew better than I knew my own reached my ears, making sounds I’d never heard from her before.

Don’t fight them. I pleaded again, Please, don’t fight them.

“Let go of me!” She screamed as the door to the bathroom swung open. Unable to keep my eyes shut any longer, I opened them to see her clawing at the ground as she was dragged out by her ankle. “I can walk by myself! Let go of me!”

I wasn’t sure if she didn’t see me in the commotion, or if she’d just made the decision to act like she hadn’t. Either way, I was grateful. Still, my worries were justified as one of the three unsubs walked over to me.

“Why are you looking at her like that? You know her?”

Craning my head up, I shook my head no. It must not have been very convincing; the rage in my heart at them for thrusting her into this situation evident in my eyes.

“You wanna play hero, kid?”

“Sorry. No.” I muttered, taking a deep breath in a failed attempt to regulate my heart rate or my voice, “She’s… very loud. I get headaches.”

“Yeah well, deal with it.”

That might have been the end of it, if I’d played my hand better. But it turned out that the risk I had previously elected to take was woefully miscalculated. I didn’t meet their eyes anymore, knowing that doing so might threaten whatever frail illusion of masculinity they possessed.

It still didn’t stop them from holding the gun to my head.

“Empty your pockets.”

“Okay. I can do that, but I have to put my hand in my pocket.” I explained, moving my shaking hand to my back pocket, “It’s not a weapon.”

For once, I was grateful that I was the resident wimp when it came to stressful situations. Sure, I could handle myself, but I definitely didn’t look like I wanted to be there. Had I been any more of a visible threat, I was certain they would have figured out my identity long before this point. They might even have killed me right away.

“Hurry up.”

Swallowing hard, I pulled the identification from my pocket, flipping it open and holding it up for him to see, my gaze aimed fully forward. He snatched the badge away, a cheeky chuckle and a smile in his words.

“FBI, huh? Well, aren’t we lucky. You just became our most valuable player.”

—————————————————

Morgan arrived on the scene relatively unhurried and mostly just curious. The information Garcia had sent over text message was vague, likely due to the crime being a local one. Nothing about this seemed to be the BAU’s usual fare.

It took him almost no time to find Hotch, dressed in casual clothing, surrounded by the massive response team swarming around the bank. But Hotch hadn’t spotted him yet, fully involved with SWAT.

“What’s going on?”

Finally turning to notice his arrival, Hotch gave his normal matter-of-fact report in his simple, succinct manner. “Three people stormed the bank approximately 20 minutes ago and killed two security guards. There are 19 confirmed hostages inside the bank.”

But there was one significant detail that seemed to be missing, and Morgan started to scan the crowd for familiar faces as he spoke. “Hotch, this doesn’t sound like anything we’ve been working on. Why are we responding?”

“The caller alerted us that Reid is inside.”

The words were so unexpected that Morgan actually did a double take, his eyebrows furrowed and bowed as he replayed them in his head. “Wait, how did the caller know that?”

“I don’t know,” Hotch said with an equally perplexed look, gripping tighter to the communicator in his hand, “but she referred to us and him by name.”

‘She?’ Morgan thought, his heart stopping for a second as he excused himself from Hotch’s side, pulling out his phone and frantically calling Garcia, who had already made her way to the BAU.

“Hey there handsome.” It was a mild nickname for the famed Penelope Garcia, but Derek knew that she was probably already in a tough spot. After all, it’s not every day that one of their own is in these situations. At least, not unexpectedly.

“Hey Garcia, do you have eyes on the people in the bank?”

He could hear the feverish click-clacking of keys on the other end, followed closely by her equally frantic voice. “I’m working on it but so far I can only see the main lobby. They separated the women and the men for some reason. Why would they do that?”

“Just focus,” he calmly reminded, “Can you see the women?”

“No. All the women and children were moved to the back.”

Rubbing his face to try and relieve the tension that had quickly made its home over his jaw, Morgan glanced over at the entrance to the bank. It was strange to think that so much had happened so quickly.

Garcia had mentioned twice now that the women had been moved to the back, and he was trying to figure out why they would do that beyond the usual control mechanisms.

“I’m trying to see in the back now, but apparently banks take their video surveillance far more seriously than everything else. Last I checked, a camera never stole money or fired a gun!”

“Focus, babygirl.” It was an instruction for himself just as much as it was for her.

“Sorry, I’m nervous, and you know how I get when I’m nervous!” She squeaked, “I don’t like seeing you guys on my screens. I’d much rather see you in person, safe and sound and preferably smiling.”

Trying not to lose his patience, Morgan just sighed. It wasn’t her fault. It was no one’s fault, except that of the bastards who just had to go and ruin a perfectly nice weekend.

“Can you at least tell me who the caller was? Did they call from inside?”

“They were inside and, one second, let me check, it was... oh.” Her voice cut off abruptly, dropping into a high pitched, desperate whisper. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“It’s... the girl from the movies,” Garcia’s voice got faster and more panicked, “Derek, it’s (y/n). It’s Reid’s girlfriend. Reid’s girlfriend is inside the bank.”

Now that his suspicions had been confirmed, he wasn’t really sure what to do with the information. Because now that he knew Reid wasn’t alone, he felt the need to tell Hotch.

A profiler with a loved one involved was in dangerous territory. It wasn’t just Reid, but Morgan had personally seen just how unhinged Reid could get when it came to (y/n).

“Can you see her?” He asked, his voice lower than it was before.

“Oh, god, yes! I can!” It was not the kind of excited exclamation Morgan had hoped to hear, but at least he had confirmation she was alive. “She was in the bathroom but… They’re dragging her away…”

Morgan had tried not to pry too far in his best friend’s life before, and he took a moment to consider whether his next request was honestly necessary, or if he was just trying to find a reason to snoop.

But he wasn’t. There was something off about that girl. It wasn’t that she was bad or wrong, but she was far too comfortable in situations that didn’t call for it. The way she carried herself told him that she had held her own hand too often.

“Garcia, I know I’ve already done this to you once but... I need you to tell me everything you can find on her.”

—————————————————

My entire body ached; the sensation of an unfamiliar hand clenched tightly around my ankle burned long after I was released. It was definitely sprained, at the very least. I didn’t dare try to touch it, though. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble, and the bristling discomfort kept me where I was.

Which, for now was on my knees in the backroom of a bank lobby. Beside us was a large, heavily reinforced steel door with way too many different contraptions. I decided then that this whole arms race between burglars and corporate America had gotten a little fucking ridiculous.

But however annoyed I was by that, I was far more irritated by the hushed bickering between the man and woman holding rifles on the other side of the room. I could only hear every couple of words, but I got the gist of what they were arguing about.

Apparently, they’d never heard of an alarm system that’s connected to locks, which seemed extremely stupid for people who had gotten this far. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue that something was off about this entire situation.

Still, I couldn’t deal with them making the same fucking arguments over and over, so eventually I blurted out what I’m certain any millennial in the room would know. “The keycard won’t work if they’ve sounded the alarm.”

The statement earned me a gun to my face, and after a brief second of confusion, I flinched away from the cold metal of the barrel.

“What was that, sweetheart?” She was clearly looking to gauge my reaction rather than actually ask me to repeat the information. That was fine. I wasn’t exactly a talented actress, and I didn’t see the point in pretending to be meek.

If she was going to kill me, she was going to do it. Although I was certain Spencer would disagree, I chose to believe that our fate is dictated long before it happens. I was not a profiler; if I survived, it would be because I had been taught to survive through brute force and spite rather than calm negotiation.

“The keycard system is linked to the alarms,” I said, slower now, “Someone hit the alarm, so the cards aren’t going to work. You’ll need to use the old school keys.”

Her eyes narrowed, her voice dropping to a much lower register as she crouched down to my height. “How would you know? You work here?”

“No, my dad worked security.” It wasn’t a lie as much as it was an understatement, but she didn’t need to know that. I guess that’s one of those good things growing up with the dad I did; I got very comfortable speaking in vague generalities. Spencer hated it.

“Well, your daddy isn’t here to help you now.”

Wasn’t that the damn truth. But that didn’t mean I was alone, I reminded myself. Despite being dragged and my vision turned literally upside down, I had caught a glimpse of him in the lobby. He was alive. That thought alone was keeping me sane right now.

“The different keys you need for an override are probably kept on separate people so one person can’t do it alone. Probably the different managers.” I muttered, nodding to the side where one of the employees flinched at my words. Anything to get away from the fucking gun in my face.

“Is she right?” The woman sneered to the manager, turning her full attention to someone else. I felt a little guilty, since the poor manager seemed a lot less put together than I was. But hey, they needed her, too.

“Yes, I already gave you my keys,” she squeaked, holding her trembling hands up, “Th-There’s another set behind the desk I think.”

“Would you look at that...” It was the first time the man in the room addressed me since he had pulled me out of the stall, and I had to admit I wasn’t exactly a fan of his. But at the same time, I knew that he was going to be remarkably more receptive to me than the woman. She seemed to be the one who was actually in charge.  

“Little miss problem was actually helpful,” he cheered, raising his weapon to point to the ceiling as he approached me. I chewed nervously on my cheeks, trying to meet his eyes but finding them uncomfortably bare.

“You should turn off the camera too, I’m just saying.” This time I didn’t nod, using one cautious finger to point to the small device that was currently staring right at me. I understood that it was probably helpful to Spencer’s team to be able to see, but I wasn’t really keen on my death being videotaped... as well as anything else I might end up doing.

‘Never leave a trace.’ That’s what I’d always heard.

‘Keep’em guessing. Even if you think it’s gonna kill you, because you don’t want to live with that over your head.’

“Fine. Do that and go get the keys.” He sounded intrigued, and I felt his searing gaze against my face.

“I think you should do it.”

The tension from before, when the two were arguing, had quickly resurfaced. She clearly didn’t trust him to be alone in the room, which solidified my belief that she was calling the shots, and he was just being dragged along for the ride.

In another life, I might have respected her ability to order stupid men around.

“Why the fuck is that?” He snapped, earning a bored roll of her eyes. The next thing out of her mouth was expected, but unfortunately the last thing I wanted to hear.

“I want to talk to her alone.”

Great. And naturally, her idea of ‘talking’ to me included weaponry. Using the end of the gun to tilt my head up to her, she gave a suspicious smile.

“Why are you helping us?”

“I want to go home.” It was my immediate and instinctual answer. It was the truth. I was helping them because I wanted to get the fuck out of here.

But you know, people expect everyone to have a squeaky-clean moral compass, so I decided to give a few more reasons.

“And I don’t give a shit about a massive corporate bank. I was just here to go to the bathroom– I don’t even have an account here.”

Maybe that was too many reasons, because just as her hesitance waned, it was back in full force. Shoving the barrel against my throat, she sneered, “I don’t believe you. You’re too comfortable with a gun in your face. You a cop, too?”

Cop?

I tilted my head to the side, baring more of my throat to her as I drawled, “Who’s a cop?”

For once, I was glad that Spencer had made such a point of reassuring me that he was not ‘a cop,’ because otherwise I’m certain the terror would have been obvious in my eyes. But for now, I could trust the numb apathy that was washing over me.

Please don’t be talking about Spencer. Please don’t know that. Good things never happened to law enforcement in situations like this. Hell, the two security guards had been dead in seconds.

“I think you know.” She was smiling, and I realized that this fucking psychopath was sharper than she wanted me to think.

“I don’t.” The words were said through clenched teeth, and I prayed that she would see them as insistent anger over the fear that lie beneath them, “And why would you kill me if I was helping you?”

She smiled, drawing the weapon up and down my throat until it landed lower at my chest. The movements were slow and light, a playful glint in her eyes when they met mine again.

“For fun.”

I didn’t move a muscle, my body remaining tense under her ministrations as I forced myself to hold my gaze steady. If she wanted fear, she wouldn’t get it from me.

“Then do it.”

The look she gave me told me she had seriously considered it, probably a little annoyed with my presence. But there was something else there, too, that same soft recognition that in another reality we might have been friends. I’m sure she saw herself in me a little bit; or at least somebody useful.

This confirmed my suspicion that I’d never really be able to read a psychopath. I didn’t understand how Spencer could do it every day. It’d only been a few minutes alone with her and I could feel myself losing the happy memories of the day.

Luckily, the man returned at the same time I saw a plan developing in her mind.

“Hey, come help me,” he called to her. Her response was surprisingly swift, the metal that was tracing over my collar bones disappearing without another word. He was holding a small bag of money, which seemed to seriously irritate the woman.

“Did you get that money from behind the counter?” I asked it before she had a chance. I wanted him to trust me. Or at least look at me more. It wasn’t that I wanted his attention as much as I knew I could distract him fairly easily.

He looked over at me, a dumbfounded look on his face. Men are so fucking stupid, I thought. The pissed off expression on his partner’s face told me that she agreed.

“It’s going to explode if you mess with it or it leaves the area. Probably with tear gas. If you’re escaping in a car, you’re not gonna want it.”

“Yeah, we know about dye packs, bitch.” She snapped, grabbing the bag of money and tossing it to the side of the door they intended to use.

I stared at the locks they hadn’t even bothered trying to touch. The same locks they apparently didn’t look up or know anything about when they came. Suddenly it hit me why this all felt so very off.

It was strange enough that no one was wearing a mask, and as far as I’d heard, no one was really trying to get out of this situation. I was certain that by this point there was a large crowd of armored men outside.

“Just trying to help,” I muttered as I started to scan the room, looking for telltale signs of tampering. The anxious whispering of the man distracted me just long enough to get more information.  

“Won’t that set off some shit? Chain reaction shit?”

“Shut the fuck up,” the woman responded with a swift elbow to his gut as she started to walk away, “you are an absolute moron.”

As soon as she was out of earshot, I heard the faint curses that fell from his lips. As he picked up the bag just to toss it away again, I noticed the presence of odd packages in the corner of the room. He really did not want exploding dye packs near those boxes, which seemed remarkably out of place.

“Why does she think she’s in charge?” I asked, finally ripping my eyes away from the objects that now seemed glaringly obvious. “You two guys outnumber her.”

“You’ve got quite the mouth on you.”

Relaxing my body as much as I could, I shifted back and forth on my knees, rubbing the tired muscles of my thighs. “I may have been told that once or twice.”

He actually chuckled; his eyes drawn to my legs like the absolute moron he so obviously was. She definitely had gotten that one right. The other women in the room were watching me, but I tried not to pay them any mind.

I didn’t know when or why they decided to let me do whatever I wanted, but I appreciated their apparent comfort in letting me try to kill myself. He made his way over to the boxes, each a specific size and shape. He carried them so carefully.

“I figure there’s no point in being scared if I’m going to die anyway.” I finally said. Shocked gasps and whispers filled the room, but I didn’t divert my attention to them– No matter how much I wanted to tell them to shut the fuck up.

They would distract me from the way his mouth curled into a smile when he closed the gap between us, his hand sliding down my head and over my shoulder to follow the braid Spencer had meticulously woven an hour before.

“How about you just shut up and sit pretty for me, sweetheart.” I tried not to let the disgust show as his hand slid behind my neck, holding my head so that I had to look up at him. “You seem like you’d be real good at that.”

Ha! If only Spencer could hear him say that. But I could play the good girl for just long enough.

“Do you need help?” I asked with a tiny shrug, “I might be little but I’m pretty strong.” Strong enough to break your fucking hand if you don’t get it off of me.

“Nah.” He ordered, his hand on my neck getting tighter. “But I don’t doubt that you could be useful. You look real good on your knees.”

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might be visible through my ribs. I just needed an excuse to move. If he could give me an excuse to move, I could do so many things.

“Please let me help,” I begged, raising my hand to his forearm against my shoulder. His eyes began to shift, moving just enough to tell me that he wanted to look to the hallway. He could hear her footsteps, too. She was coming back, and I only had a few seconds left.

Once both of my hands were on his arm, I got the feeling he knew something even worse was coming for him.

“I’d love a chance to get to show you how helpful I really am.”  

—————————————————

Hotch had spent the past five minutes on the phone with the male unsub in the lobby, and the conversation was going absolutely nowhere. For whatever reason, they just seemed to deflect any opportunity provided to them.

They didn’t seem to give a shit about anything beyond pushing the buttons of each person they interacted with. Which, they did quite successfully.

“Didn’t realize one pig would bring the whole flock of you here,” he laughed, clearly motioning to Spencer on the video, “How bad do you want him back?”

“What do you want?” He responded without hesitation or a surprise. It was such an expected question to ask that he’d barely even thought about his words before they came out.

“Easy. A chopper, and for you to fuck off.”

That was the equally stereotypical response, meaning it was entirely unhelpful to them. From what they could deduce, they were equally confused as to why this heist seemed to follow all the rules, but match none of the motivations. It was like it was a show, a game, rather than an actual attempt to maximize profits.

“We can do the helicopter, but we can’t give you a pilot.”

“That’s fine,” he responded with a shrug, “Don’t need one.”

It was the first piece of useful information he’d gotten so far on the call. Because if they didn’t need a pilot, it meant one of two things: either one of them possessed the skill themselves, or they weren’t ever intending to use the helicopter.

Briefly pulling the phone away, Hotch turned to Morgan. “Tell Garcia to check our list with people with pilot’s licenses or any other connection that might provide them the skills to fly a helicopter.”

He returned to the call, continuing the usual script for these situations, trying not to act like he’d learned anything new.

“Can you release the women and children?”

“Nah,” the guy said with a chuckle, “I’ll wait.”

Hotch listened to the sound of the receiver for a moment, staring at the entrance to the bank like it would provide him the answers he still needed. He had his suspicions of what might be happening, but with no eyes in the back anymore and the trigger-happy group that had formed around him, he wouldn’t have the resources to convince them not to go in guns blazing.

“We’re ready to move in.” Which is exactly what they had requested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He stated before finally moving to look at the man next to him, “Something isn’t right here.”

“Yeah, a lot isn’t right here. There’s 19 innocent people in there.”

It didn’t really matter how many times he went through this situation; the results always seemed to be the same. No one listened, even when it wasn’t one of their men inside.

“Storming the building isn’t going to help them. There are three armed perpetrators inside, and they’re each in a different area. It would be impossible for us to take out all three at once. Especially now that we can’t see in the back. There could be explosives in there for all we know.”

The man was unpersuaded.

“If we can’t save them all, minimizing casualties is the name of the game.”

“Wait a few more minutes. I’m waiting to hear back from our analyst. If they have the capability of flying a plane, its highly likely they also have the knowledge and skills to create weapons that we aren’t currently prepared to handle.”

Although still unconvinced, the man grudgingly gave in to the request. Hotch closed his eyes, trying to be grateful for the extremely small victory; they’d gained a few more minutes. But the relief was short lived, with Morgan putting his phone aside for a second to mutter the same thing Hotch was thinking.

“Hotch, these people are way too confident. It’s like they know there’s a way out.”

As soon as he said the words, the two just looked at each other.

“Garcia, can you also check for any other way out of the bank?” He asked, walking back over to the table laid out under the nearby tent. This would have been a great time for Reid to be here, he thought as he stared at the ridiculously complicated schematics.

He understood they didn’t want people to be able to figure them out (so they couldn’t rob the bank), but this was just ridiculous. It looked ancient.  

“Sure thing, but… Morgan, I think there’s something else you should see.” The nerves dancing in her voice told him that they were about to switch subjects. “You know how the guy disabled the camera feed in the back room. I was reviewing the footage we do have and it looks like… (y/n) told him to.”

“Why would she do that?” He asked, furrowing his brow as he glanced over to the ornate bank doors. Part of him wanted to joke that things would’ve been a lot simpler if he didn’t have to worry about Reid’s weird girlfriend, but it didn’t feel as funny when they were both in danger.

Maybe later, he thought hopefully, when they were all together again.

“I… don’t know why. But I did what you asked, and I went through her record and found a ton of sealed files on her and also her dad…”

Morgan’s attention was definitely piqued at that point, but he wasn’t entirely sure what to say. In the stunned silence, Penelope spoke again.

“Should… Should I unseal them?”

It was the same question he was debating in his head, and he honestly didn’t know. Although a long shot, he hoped that she could provide at least the bare minimum of context before they made that kind of decision.

“What kind of files are we talking about?”

“I can’t be sure until I unseal them b-but, I mean, they’re sealed for a reason and I’m talking scary sealed. Like, it might take me a minute sealed. Giving me the heebie-jeebies sealed.” She grew more frantic as she continued. Morgan knew they were running out of time.

“I get it.”

“Is Reid okay?” She switched gears, recognizing that Morgan’s hesitance meant it was probably a bad idea. She wasn’t going to push it unless he did. They didn’t even know if she could help even if they unsealed the files. Especially without a visual.

“They know he’s with us,” Morgan sadly admitted, “I don’t know what’s going on. Did you find another way out of the bank?”

“Right.” The conversation was going to give everyone involved whiplash at this point. “Yes! There is an access way through tunnels underneath the bank but it would take a massive distraction for all three of them to be able to get out of there without us meeting them on the other side. I’m talking earth shatterin–.”

She didn’t finish the sentence, her tongue halting the second her mind caught up with her voice. Morgan was equally concerned, recognizing the kind of distraction that this might require and the perfect way to escape with maximum damage.

But that wasn’t what got his attention. There was no fiery explosion or shouted epiphany, because at that same time there were the muffled sounds of gunshots coming from inside.

“Oh my god, what was that?!” Garcia yelled, accompanied by frantic clicking as she filtered through each individual camera to try and locate the source of the noise.

“Garcia, do you have eyes on the main room?”

“Yes! But it wasn’t in the main room, Derek, it was in the back!”

It was a difficult and necessary job, to consider what those sounds might mean for the young girl they’d met only a few weeks earlier. Morgan’s thoughts went even further, not only worried about her safety, but his best friend’s sanity. Lord knows Reid didn’t need another thing weighing on his conscience. Especially not about her; it just might destroy him.

“What does the unsub in the main area look like? Does he look confused? Surprised?” The words were coming, but he didn’t know where from. His body was on autopilot, desperately seeking any validation that they could still save everyone.

“I-I don’t know! He looks grainy! The image is like an inch wide!” She was clearly growing frustrated, which was a feeling they all shared at this point. “This camera is from before I was even born!”

“Try, Penelope,” Morgan pleaded, “Give me something.”

But the other men weren’t willing to wait.

“That’s it. We’re moving in.”

Morgan turned to them, his hand clutching tighter to the phone just in time for her to speak.

“He’s calling for them but they’re not coming out. He looks… Oh no. He’s yelling at Reid now. And... And it looks like someone is coming down the hallway? But he’s not looking–”

It was impossible to focus on everything that was happening, heavy boots and massive commotion as people began to take their positions. But if someone was coming down the hallway, and the unsub didn’t know, that could only mean a few things. Either he was about to be proven disposable, or someone else had fired those shots.

Either way, one thing was clear.

“Wait! We can’t go in there yet!”

—————————————————

There was a point in time where I might have questioned whether I would ever get used to a gun in my face. There was also a point where I actually had gotten used to it. But nothing could have prepared me for this moment, this terrifying realization while staring down the barrel of an assault rifle that I didn’t want to die yet.

I used to think that my life was somewhat disposable. Sure, I was helpful and useful for my job, but ultimately, I considered myself replaceable. The next person to come might not have the same credentials, but they probably wouldn’t also have half the flaws I do.

But now I wasn’t thinking of work. I wasn’t thinking about how replaceable I was, because it wasn’t my life that mattered.

I didn’t want to die yet, because I wanted to see her again.

So I just stared at the weapon, trying to remember that it was still a great possibility that I could. I tried not to think about what was in front of me, choosing to use most of my brainpower to picture what it would feel like when I had her in my arms again.

The vision inside my head ended swiftly, with the sound of rapidly fired weaponry coming from down the hall. Through the commotion of screaming, I surmised that at least two guns had been fired.

Silence followed. It was a stifling, exhausting, painful silence.

What broke it was even worse, with the gun in my face smacking into the side of my head as the man holding it lost his grip at the sound.

“What the fuck was that?!”

He looked at me like he expected me to have the answers, but I didn’t.

“I don’t know. I-I don’t—“ Not only did I not understand why two guns would fire, I didn’t know who had shot them or for what reason. There was one thing I did know. “It sounded like your weapons.”

“Hey, what’s going on back there?!” He shouted, twisting his body just enough to see around the corner.

There was no reply.

“Did your people get in here somehow?” The panic was obvious, and I didn’t know how to calm him down without arousing suspicion. He was continuing to devolve, stepping closer to me as he stuck with his original thought, “How the fuck could they have done that, huh?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there anything you do know?”

It was a question I’d been asking myself. The longer the silence continued in the back, the more rapidly my anxiety rose. There are only a few reasons why we wouldn’t hear more screaming.

Either someone had managed to get remarkable control over the situation, or all of the hostages were dead. Including (y/n). I forced myself to consider the far less likely, but still possible third option: She was dying, and I could still help her.

“I know that there is still a way for you to get out of this.” I barely recognized my own voice as I rambled, “Is it possible your partners… Is it possible they were planning on leaving together?”

“What?” He sounded disgusted and exhausted, but simultaneously insecure. It didn’t take much effort to realize that he was the weakest of the crew. I’d already had my suspicions that whatever the next step in this journey was, he wasn’t going to be making it with them regardless.

“It was their decision to leave you out here, right? In the place with the most windows and the first access to the door? They put you with all the people most likely to fight back. And now it sounds like…”

I paused, my lips unable to make the next words without a deep breath. “It sounds like they killed the people in the back as a diversion to send in SWAT. Does that sound like something they would do?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

That was enough confirmation for me. It was definitely something they would do, and he knew it. He probably suspected it himself. Thankfully, it gave me enough courage to push back for the first time in this encounter. “Then go back there and see if they’re still there.”

“And just let you be hero and save all these guys? No chance.”

I wanted to laugh; if only he knew the real reason I wanted him to go back there. As terrible as it was, I didn’t care at all about the rest of these men right now. As far as I knew, they were relatively safe. In fact, they were in a better position if what I’d deduced was true. This man, while violent, wasn’t the kind to murder everyone in sight, even when cornered. He’d more likely be shot by SWAT.

“I’ll come with you.” It was a plea, a desperate attempt to get more information that I both wanted and feared. He watched me carefully, trying to read the terror on my face to determine where exactly it was coming from. He knew the hostages were useless to him if he had me, so I wasn’t particularly scared for my life.

At least, not just yet.

“Fine. Get up.”

I willed my legs to stop shaking; to just carry me far enough that I could see her face. I just needed to know that she was okay.

But then I felt a fine mist over my skin— it almost felt like the noise happened after, but I knew logically that couldn’t be true.

A gun fires before the bullets hit their target.

Time seemed to move slower as his body fell to the ground in front of me. My eyes followed him to the floor, but only until I saw the person holding the gun through my peripherals.

“...(y/n)?”

And there she was, clutching tightly onto a rifle, her body barely upright as she staggered forward. There was something remarkably off-putting about the sight of her holding on for dear life to something so morbid. A jarring contrast I would not soon be able to forget, if I ever could.

There was something even more unsettling about the ease with which she carried the weapon, and the fact that she had managed to fire something that powerful without a single stray bullet.

“They’re dead!” She boomed across the room, dropping the weapon onto the floor before she yelled again, “Everyone get out! Hurry!”

No one moved. All of the men, myself included, stared at the tiny girl who’d just saved all of our lives.

“Get out now! There’s a bomb in the back!”

Those were the magic words to stir a panicked crowd into action, people stampeding to the single double door at the entrance, but my eyes were fixed on her. She staggered forward, her arm around her waist and her eyes beginning to roll back.

Perhaps I was just clueless, my one-track mind too slow to navigate the scene in front of me, but it took me that long to see it. My brain rioted against the visuals it took in, the dark crimson dripping down her body. It looked like it would swallow her whole.

I tried to will my body to move, to run to her and do something, anything to help her. But I couldn’t, frozen in place as her small steps got weaker. It wasn’t until I saw her begin to sway that I lunged forward just in time to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Wait!” I screamed to anyone who would listen, my eyes frantically trying to meet someone in the crowd, “Someone get a medic!”

The woman with a child was the last one to pass. She stopped among the commotion, looking down at the carnage in my lap before bolting towards the door.

I had to trust that she would care enough to do something, because from that point on my attention wouldn’t be leaving (y/n). Her eyes were glassy, staring off into the distance and wandering aimlessly despite my face being in view.

“Hey, hey little girl.” My voice crackled as I held her cheek, “Hey, look at me.”

She was finally able to meet my gaze, her eyes filling with love with a small, delirious smile gracing her lips.

“Hey old man.”

The grin didn’t last long, the sounds of her choking and coughing replacing it as blood filled her mouth. I tried to turn her enough that she could spit it out, but it was obvious she was struggling to get any air at all.

“We’re gonna get you some help, okay?” I said with a false confidence, the twisted curve of my lips not even barely resembling a smile.

“It hurts,” she sobbed, her hands slipping in the blood on her stomach.

“I know.”

There wasn’t anything I could do; all I could do was sit there and stare, trying to decide where my hands should be. She was applying pressure to her wound on the front, but I could see the wreckage that was once her back. My hands wouldn’t be enough.

“I’m sleepy.”

“I know.” I was trembling, tears dripping from my face and mixing with the bloody mess; they still couldn’t dilute it, somehow make it vanish. “I know you’re tired. But you’ve gotta stay awake, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

At first, I wanted to say the innocence in her voice was surprising, but it wasn’t. She was innocent. She was just a young girl, trying to live a happy, normal life before she met me.

“You’re doing great.” I tried to convince myself this wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t work. She had said it herself — she wouldn’t have ever come to a bank on her own. The statistics of the rarity of this situation kept playing on a loop in the back of my head, but it was just a low hum beneath the sound of her pained whimpers.

“Spencer, I need to tell you something.” The newfound insistence in her voice twisted in my gut, and my hands held tighter to her arm.

“No, don’t,” I begged, already anticipating what was going to happen. “Please, don’t do this.”

“I have to tell you right now.” And then her voice was calm, a smile on her face as her blood-soaked hand left her stomach, trying to raise to touch me. It didn’t make it.

“No, you can tell me later.”

The words were so slurred and pathetic, I’m surprised she understood them. But she did, taking a deep, whistling breath. It was clear it hurt her to speak, and I wanted to tell her to be quiet, but the masochist in me needed to hear the words all the same.

“Spencer, please. Just listen to me.”

This sounded too much like a goodbye.

“I love you.”

Our bodies rocked as I realized I hadn’t taken a breath of my own in too long, the pain in my oxygen deprived lungs not nearly enough to distract me from the genuine softness of her voice.

“I love you so much,” she whispered, “Do you know that?”

I don’t know how she wasn’t crying, her eyes barely open but too tired to blink. That rosy complexion had faded, her skin blanching the longer she lay in my arms.

“Yes, I know.”

“I love you with my whole heart.”

My mind was flashing images from only a couple hours prior, her warm laugh as she laid on my lap, the way her hair slipped between my fingers while I wove it together.

‘You think you’ll still be around?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

The memories were blurring together, creating a symphony of promises that were about to be shattered in front of my eyes.

‘Forever,’ she’d said. ‘Forever.’

‘A white picket fence. Two little bratty genius babies. Just a normal, domestic life with Dr. and Mrs. Reid.’

Rejecting the thought, I shook my head, “You’re going to be fine.”

“I understand what you meant when…” Her voice was too quiet, too distant, to be this warm. “When you said it was nice to be able to say it.”  

The heavy footfalls and sound of a transport bed wheeling across the floor alerted me that I would have to let her go soon. Whether this would be the last time I ever held her, I couldn’t be sure.

“They’re gonna come take you now, but I’ll be right behind them. I promise.” I barely got the words out before their hands were all over her, those tired eyes shooting wide open as unfamiliar hands replaced mine.

“Wait, Spencer!” She cried out, her body too limp to make a meaningful attempt to stop them, “Don’t leave me!”

Her screams and sobs were ringing louder than the gunshots had, my body slowly making its way upright as I watched them place her on the bed.

“I’m not leaving you, I promise.” I tried not to let the panic bleed through, raising the volume as she started to be taken away from me, “Stay awake as long as you can.”

I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her attempts to scream. If she was calling my name, it wasn’t recognizable. I’m not sure which hurt worse— the sound of her tired lips butchering my name, or the silence that followed.

She wasn’t able to scream anymore.

When I emerged from the bank, the sun burned my eyes just as much as the sight of my team shocked to see me covered in blood. But I couldn’t focus on them at all, immediately bolting after the paramedics without another thought.

The extra time it took them to carefully load her allowed me to jump into the back of the vehicle before the doors shut. There were no words to describe this situation, nor make it any better.

So I just stared in horrified fascination, trying to gauge her odds as they rapidly changed in front of me. Of 107,141 firearm injuries last year, 31% died. How many of the 69% had assault rifle wounds? I couldn’t remember any other statistics. My brain had turned itself off, focusing only on the frantic beeping and scrambled voices.

“Where is he?” Her tiny voice cut through both the internal and external noise.

“I’m right here.” I nearly shouted from my precarious position standing in the back of the rattling ambulance. I wanted to move closer, but I was too scared. There were so many hands on her, and I didn’t want to get in the way.

“I’m scared.” She said, mirroring my exact thoughts.

“I’m right here.” I repeated, closing my eyes to hide from the carnage long enough to put words together that might make her feel any ounce of comfort, “You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you.”

Taking an experimental step forward once the paramedics seemed settled in their places, I came to stand behind her. My hands were tinted red and trembled as they reached out to touch her cheeks.

She took a sharp inhale at the sensation, just barely holding her head up straight. I couldn’t tell if she was leaning into my touch or just couldn’t control her neck any longer. Her skin felt like ice, and although she was still beautiful, the blue tint creeping over her face struck fear in my heart.

“How much longer until we get to the hospital? Her body temperature is dropping.”

If she heard me, she didn’t respond. I stared at the paramedic who was obviously more concerned with other things at the moment. They were kind enough to give me a response, even if it wasn’t a satisfying one.

“Just a few more minutes. We can’t do anything until we stop the bleeding, sir.”

“Spencer…” Each time she spoke was simultaneously terrifying and comforting. It was confirmation she was alive, but also troublesome, because I knew that she should be reserving her efforts for staying alive.

“Hang in there, little girl. We’re almost there.”

She opened her eyes, staring up at me with clouded vision. I could see the pain so clearly it might as well have been me on the table.

“Please help me,” she sobbed, “help me.”

“I-I can’t.” They were the two hardest words I’d ever had to say. Frustration mounted in me, but none of it was directed at her. She didn’t do anything wrong. Myself, on the other hand, I hated myself in that moment.

She was begging for me to help her, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but stand here and watch as she bled out in the back of an ambulance, a stranger’s hands practically inside of her stomach.

“I don’t want to die.”

The way her voice cracked took whatever was left of my sanity with it, and I felt my fingertips slip in the blood as I pressed against her face.

“You won’t,” I tried to assure her, “You’re going to be fine. Just stay awake.”

“I can’t.” The usual spunk in her voice had faded, leaving behind the sound of a twenty year old girl with no fight left in her. “I’m so sorry, Spencer…”

‘Sorry?’ I thought below the horror, ‘for what?’

When her eyes shut, they couldn’t even make it all the way. It was an expression I’d seen before on the field. I wasn’t meant to see it on her.

“No. No, no, wake up.” I urged, patting her cheeks softly before closing my hands around them more tightly, “Wake up, little girl, please.”

I was talking to no one, because I don’t think she could hear me anymore. Absolutely nothing in her body changed, even as the paramedics became more rushed.

“I’ve located the bleed!” The woman beside me yelled as the ambulance began to rapidly slow down. “I’m sorry sir, but we need you to move.”

“Whatever you need. Please, just help her.” I’d said the words, but my actions didn’t follow. She stared down at my hands that were still tethered to (y/n)’s face, trying to provide the warmth that she desperately needed.

Somehow, I was able to wrench them away, only then realizing the bloody handprints I’d left behind. Her face still wasn’t moving.

“Please, I—“

Before I could say another word, they were already out of the ambulance. I followed as closely as I could behind them, trying to focus enough to ensure that every word said could be played again in my mind. Because the second she crossed the threshold into the surgery suite, I wouldn’t be able to hear them anymore.

I would have to wait. I would have to wait for her to be better, or wait for a declaration. And in that vast silence, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop from torturing myself with every single word uttered in this building before the doors closed.

The doors were ahead of us now, and I wished time could slow down enough that I could give her one more kiss and tell her to be strong one more time before she went into the Schrodinger’s Box that was the emergency room operating table.

I wanted to tell her that I loved her, and when the thought crossed my mind, I realized that I’d never said it back. She’d said it three times, but in my adamant denial I’d failed to return it.

It was so much like us, I’d almost laughed. She’d made such a point of worrying about me leaving her, neither of us had ever stopped to think about how I’d live without her.

How would I live without her? The only person I trusted to have an answer was wheeled into the room, the door shutting abruptly in front of me.

In the reflection of the metal door I saw myself, drenched in the dark liquid. I tried to clean my face with my hand only to realize that they, too, were dirty with her blood.

The world had fallen silent, and I let myself be crushed by the overwhelming loneliness of an existence without her.

‘Don’t miss me too much, Dr. Reid.’

It was too late.

—————————————————

| Part 15 |

[haikyuuhimbosandhypebeasts]

Heliotrope

Here’s my submission for the Forget Me Not collab for Anisylum! Please note the TW as it is VERY heavy. This piece is entirely SFW though!

Ship: Tsukishima Kei x GN! Reader Genre: Angst, but some fluff in some places. Word Count: 2.2k  Trigger/Content Warnings: near death experience, hospitalization, COVID-19, vomit mention, amnesia after hospitalization, a suicide attempt is briefly mentioned, swearing because this is by me Sexy Sexy Masterlist: here!

Sand clung to skin and the harsher rays of light that usually cascaded and burnt you had died away into a fading tangerine glow. You perched comfortably on the sand, taking note of the undulating waves- they were like you in the sense that while you could crash down hard on the opposition, you would shy away in a fragile manner when faced with gentle treatment. Perhaps it was that you felt you weren’t worth such luxuries that you found it hard to make friends through your first few years of high school. Perhaps it was trying to push people away because you were afraid yet alarmingly aware of your mortality. Perhaps it was something else entirely, something you weren’t quite ready to come to terms with. What you did know was that you weren’t alone in the violent struggle through high school to make friends while you had your walls up. Next to you was someone you never thought you’d share your favorite place with; in any terms you found this boy appalling with his behavior. So appalling, you saw yourself in the way he closed himself off and cut those close with tongue lashings. You knew this only through another friend who took issue with him as you went to another school in an entire other prefecture. Words mauled their way out from your throat, breaking the silence between you and Tsukishima Kei. “I won’t ask you why you tried to do what you did today. But I will ask if there’s anyone you can talk to in your life.” You didn’t understand yourself. Why would you say that…? You don’t remember anything like this at all… His response was equally incoherent and odd. “Okay, but I’ll kill you if you go back on it.” When you opened your mouth to reply to him, the ground around you suddenly reared up like a defensive serpent. A pillar of beach sand forced its way from the ground into your throat, suffocating and trapping your lungs in permanent fullness. You could only gag and cry, unable to even see Tsukishima past the torrent of sand breaking into your body with the intent to kill you slowly…

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You woke up once more in that dull grey-blue and white room with the only sounds you could properly process being the beep of a heart monitor somewhere behind you. You had managed to halfway curl into somewhat resembling the fetal position, but something kept making you cough and gag as your throat was caught. You move your hand to whatever is catching and about to make you vomit- a tube. This tube, you followed, was in your nose good and solid, and you felt it deep enough in your sinuses you didn’t dare try to pull it out. Moving your hands felt foreign like you had forgotten how to process being human and natural motions like that. You testingly ran your right hand down the tube, taking care to not tug and cause discomfort. Your other hand came to rest on your face. It was slick from sweat, likely due to whatever the fuck you just had a dream about. At the corner of your lips was another tube and when you followed where it led it was taped to the side of your face. You lick your lips and manage to almost fall into a haze until you see movement for the first time in what feels like forever. To be fair, it is one of the most jarring appearances of a person you’ve seen in your whole life to what you can recall. A person in a full-body hazmat suit enters your room through a door you hadn’t even processed was there, then greets you as casually as they can through a plague-resistant suit. “Hey there.” You squint at them. Yeah, you have no fucking idea who this cosplayer in a hospital is, and while you should probably be polite, you feel like you got ran over not once but twice.  You try to speak to them, but you can’t. You don’t have the air for it, it’s like you have no control over your breathing. Clarity washes over you. You’re hospitalized. These are tubes because you were asleep and weren’t breathing or eating right. The realization must show on your face because your nurse speaks up again. “Don’t worry about me too much, we’re just gonna check your vitals and if you feel up to it, we can see how you do without the ventilators.” You try to manage out a “whoopee”, which unimpressively comes out as some form of odd wheeze, and your nurse begins by grabbing the blood pressure cuff covered in protective plastic while they wear a sympathetic expression.

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Once you were off the ventilator, the nurse informed you about what had happened. Apparently, an ambulance was called when you were unresponsive and nearly blue in the face, sitting in front of your refrigerator with the door open. You were diagnosed with a severe case of COVID-19, something you had feared would wipe you out entirely and turn you past tense since its spread in your country. This fear wasn’t entirely irrational, either- you were immunocompromised and have been since you were a child. You grew up with being careful around others and hearing of a highly contagious new strain was something that filled you with so much paranoia you seriously considered quitting your current career and instead adopting a hermit lifestyle while completing college at home. Of course, such a thought was squashed by the slowly impending thought of rent, bills, due dates for assignments, and your bitch of a manager who lets people get close to you without a mask on. It’s not a big deal, (y/n), she once said to you. You wanted to shoehorn some tubes down her throat just to survive, see how that felt. It didn’t help that human resources wouldn’t listen to your complaint. They brushed it off since you were just a lowly sandwich maker at a chain sub place. If you had enough scraped together for lawyers right about now, they’d be totally fucked, you thought to yourself. Even more jarring is that it seemed you lost a handful of memories while in the hospital. You could remember basic outlines of people in your head- your very tall and incredibly testy roommate, your younger sister who wore glasses and was much smaller than you, and… a foggy memory of a man with messy black bedhead who had an arm wrapped around your shoulder. It hurt to think too hard. The doctor soon came by to give you test results, to check your vitals again, and to look over your records. He was a bit terse, but you can’t make the best judgments of people when they’re in plastic suits. “We’ll need to get you cleaned up by tomorrow and you should be able to head home,” he’d said, looking over your chart. You didn’t necessarily feel too ecstatic about your trip to your apartment. You remembered your roommate and how finicky he was, and you dreaded for him to belittle you over your condition. You dreaded it enough to even feel a knot of anxiety form in your stomach, wrenched in between your ribs without the intent of ever coming out. “We’ve already contacted uh…” The doctor squints at the screen, “Tsukishima… to come to pick you up tomorrow at noon. We’ll have care instructions printed out. You still have to quarantine for about a week more since your immune system isn’t at its most prime currently.” You agreed, it probably wasn’t a good recovery idea to make a couple of sammies for the public while you were recovering from a virus that had you intubated. He seemed grateful that you were lucid and cooperative, at least.

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You, predictably, didn’t sleep well after being in a medically induced haze for several days. Even more predictably, you found yourself awake from anxieties of the future. Tomorrow was only a few hours away, and then you’d be home. Home… what did that look like for you? The fog in your head was thick initially. You do remember coming home from classes at a different time than Tsukishima, how when you entered he’d often be reading over homework. You remembered how sometimes he would be in the shower and the scent of cheap green apple soap filled the living room connected to it. You remembered… You remembered holding his thin frame in your arms on a bridge, pulling him back from oncoming traffic. You remember how you both collapsed and how the cold autumn air stung your lungs. You remember wide golden eyes staring back at you, as tears slowly filled them, then his normally impartial voice breaking as he hiccuped a sob, “Why? Why did you have to be in Sendai right now?” You felt tears stinging your eyes and a lump form in your throat. You found yourself in distress of your new emotions. Maybe… maybe you can sleep this horrible feeling off. Maybe this fog in your head where you need to know how deep your relationship ran will lift once you get genuine sleep.

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Finally, a knock on the door encouraged you to rouse from your sleeping state. And eloquently, you spoke your true feelings in your sleep-deprived state,  “No.” You hear the doorknob turn and the door open. There’s a lack of a greeting from your nurse nor a quick apology from your doctor for interrupting your sleep. Actually, if you’re gonna use logic, what nurse or doctor is gonna wake up their peacefully sleeping patient in recovery? Thought of it being your doctor or nurse practically evaporates once the intruder has a seat on your bed. They still haven’t spoken, so now you’re remembering what tricks of self-defense you learned online to give this person a proper ass-kicking for getting way too close. You crack your hazy eyes open to get a look at where they’re sitting and you stop dead in your thoughts as wary gold eyes peer down at you. Your eyes widen out of reflex and butterflies bloom from your stomach at seeing what you now remember is your roommate. “I knew you were awake,” He said, a wry smile on his face. His expression was betrayed by his concerned gaze, though, “Wow, you look like shit.” You don’t know entirely why past his comment feeling not as an insult, but almost as a compliment, but you smile a little, “I feel like it too.” His expression doesn’t change. He runs a large calloused hand through the tresses of your hair, though, as if to soothe you. The doctor walked in and apologized for interrupting the moment between the two of you, unsure if it was something serious. You told him it was nothing because that’s what it was to you.

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The car ride wasn’t filled with the snarky banter you had been expecting. Instead, there was plentiful comfortable silence as Tsukishima drove. You didn’t know whether to be grateful or not for the silence- you still felt quite feeble and needed way more bed rest before you could get ready to do anything for anyone. Despite the wholesome silence, you felt those round gold eyes focus on you occasionally. And even though it was comfortable, you felt a melancholy twinge in the atmosphere as he inspected you. “I know you’ll give me shit for this… but you look like you’ve lost weight. I uh…” He gripped the steering wheel harder. You glanced over at him. A shade of baby pink dusted itself across his cheekbones and nose as he focused on the road. “I’m worried about you.” Fuck, there go those butterflies again. Something in you pushed to help- to comfort- but the logical side of your brain brought you to a halt. You’d weighed it in your head a couple of times. You two act closer than just roommates, and it’s not entirely clear how or why you got up to this point… but you had a solid hunch you might be dating this guy. Maybe? You closed your eyes and rested your head on the car door as you thought. You remember how sand clung to your body and you could hear the roaring of the sea. How you watched Tsukishima focus on the waves to regulate his breathing. You vaguely remember your words breaking away from your throat and catching the salty sea air. “Why don’t we stay together?” His lanky body stiffened, then he looked at you with disbelief. “... you wouldn’t want that. I’m fucking annoying and mean.” Your eyes creased with familiarity at the line. “Yeah? So am I. We can butt heads until we balance each other out.” It looked like he wanted to cry, but his pride wouldn’t let him cry in front of you anymore today. “I won’t ask you why you tried to do what you did today. But I will ask if there’s anyone you can talk to in your life,” you reached a careful hand over to rub his back, “Kei, if there isn’t, let me be that person.” You felt how his breath shuddered. To save his pride, you looked to the ocean and watched its hypnotic movements. After a few deep, shaky inhales and exhales, he replied. “I don’t understand why you’re being nice to me. Why you didn’t let me die. I will probably come back to this point in my life several times and you’re trying to say you’ll put up with it?” There was some bite to his tone, he was trying so hard to put up walls when he had no will to do so at the moment. How long had he pushed others away from being close? If he was anything like you… it was since grade school. “Let me be your support for when you’re in pain,” You tried once more, “I’m stubborn as shit so I know I won’t give up on you.” “You’re not getting it, you fucking idiot. I’m always in pain, that’s just been life,” he snapped bitterly, glaring at you now.  “Then I guess I’ll be by your side forever.” You’d said it without thinking that day. It was like the ocean grew quieter with your words as if even Poseidon became interested in your proposition. You felt heat rise to your face at the implications of what you said. He stared at you with raised eyebrows and the slightest hint of a champagne pink hue on his face. He averted his eyes almost in a panic and watched the ocean again, suddenly very aware of his own expression. You carefully peered over at him again to see he’d only grown redder, now mirroring you. “You… don’t mean that,” He said as if it were a statement. “I do. You’re a good person inside, but you’re defensive and hurt. I’ve seen that from you in the past and I’ve learned more about you today. I want to be there for you as long as you’ll have me. Will you let me?”  He picked at the sand as if thinking it over for a moment. There was a brief pause as waves rolled over each other in front of both of you, the sound of their impact being the only thing to grace your ears. Finally, his cynical tone returned as he regained some form of his prior composure. “Okay, but I’ll kill you if you go back on it.”

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

“Hey. (Y/n), we’re home,” Tsukishima gently shook your shoulder to rouse you from your sleep. You opened your eyes slowly and groaned out a swear. Tsukishima felt a hesitant smile creep up his face as he opted to just try and maneuver you into your shared home himself. He remembered how waking up was hard for you. Once he opened the passenger door you nearly fell out onto the pavement, only saved by your seatbelt and the giant himself. Your face fell awkwardly into his hip, and you grumbled at the interruption to your sleep. “You sleep like the fucking dead, christ,” he mused out loud and sat you up so it was safe to unbuckle your seatbelt. He urged you to get up more- it wasn’t that you were heavy, he just really wasn’t in the place to lift you at the moment and didn’t even know how to go about it. Regardless, he held you up by a shoulder and crouched to make it easier for you both to walk to the apartment. In some part of your sleep, you began to speak, “Kei.” He kept his gaze trained forward at the front door and struggled to grab his keys from his pocket, “Yes?” “Are we married?” Kei dropped his keys, then shot you a look of concern, “... No…?” He had to hold himself back from saying not yet, unsure of what you were getting to. He reached down to grab his keys and he focused back on the door. “Why are you asking?” He unlocked the door and threw it open, getting you both inside finally. He set you on your couch and sat on the floor in front of you. You looked at him suspiciously, now roused from your sleep. The only thing on your mind was that dream- it had to be a memory! You refused to understand it as anything but that. You prodded, “On the beach, I told you I’d be by your side forever.” He seemed to weigh your thoughts heavily in his mind, “... did you forget about us?” You didn’t expect what felt like cold water to hit your back so hard and so suddenly at his suggestion. He didn’t seem hurt at the thought, instead, he found himself occupied with your reaction. His hand reached out to rub the side of your face as you looked at him with wide, guilty eyes. “Don’t worry about it. Your sister told me this kind of thing might happen…” His calloused thumb traced over your lip, and he offered a smile the best he could, “I’ll try to explain it.” Tsukishima explained that what you remembered happened about four years ago and you had been living together ever since. He motioned to photos on the walls of the two of you and people who you could just hardly remember. When you rested your index finger on an individual who was much scrawnier than most of the people there, sitting on the bench with you and watching you speak with admiration, Tsukki put his hand over yours. “That’s your sister. She took most of these pictures, but she usually sits next to you when you have a space available.” You nodded and closed your eyes. You began to remember summers you spent with her in childhood and her yelling at you to do your homework when you bothered her as you got older. You smiled a bit. Once your eyes opened again, your finger traveled to possibly the tallest person in the room. He was big, but you remembered something warm and comfortable about that man… “That’s Kuroo. You both went to the same high school and you were in his friend group.” You both went on like that for a while until you’d cleared everyone in that picture. Once you did, you sat down to think over the new cluster of names you’d picked up. “... when you promised you’d be here with me forever, did you remember what I promised to you?” Kei asked as he sat next to you. “No… I just remember what happened on the beach up until you threatened to kill me if I took back my promise.” “Oh, right. I was going through that phase,” He seemed displeased with the comment. You found it almost funny but refrained from laughing for his sake. He continued, in a quieter tone, “I promised that if something happened to you, that I would always be here for you, too. That I’d get you back into shape.” His larger hand gently entwined with yours, “... so if you remember that promise and you’ll have me, I’d love to marry you once you get your memories back. … If you want to. I-” You cut him off with a hug to his side, trembling a bit as your emotions got the better of you. You smiled up at him. “I can’t promise I’ll be better fast, and I still feel like several trucks ran through me at once… but I’m happy,” you managed out. You didn’t know what your face looked like right about now and you didn’t have the nerve to look up into Kei’s glasses to check your reflection. He wrapped his arms around you in return, pressing the side of his face against your head. “Please, don’t give me an answer yet. You’re not in the right mental state. I’ll wait for you until you’re ready.” You ran your hands up and down his back. You weren’t exactly afraid of remembering things, but you were quite anxious for what tomorrow might bring for both of you. Despite that, you felt safe recovering in his arms, and you were sure you’d feel that way for a long time.

Have a link to the sexy sexy masterlist down here as well. Unless you’re done reading, then have a good day. But if you’re not there’s some fire stuff in that bad boy.

[whump-town]

The Safe Side

No pairings

No warnings (surprising, I know)

Hotch is getting older and that scares the shit out of Reid

I probably wouldn't have finished this if not for @genevievedarcygranger

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

His only symptom is memory loss.

Reid sees it, he knows it. The symptoms he’s committed to his memory for better or worse dispelled so easily, so regularly before him but he can’t help but entertain his irrational fears. He’s not sure why. It would not be more comforting for Hotch’s occasional forgetfulness to be Alzheimer’s and not age and yet he waits for the moment that proves him wrong. For the phone call that Hotch is dressed for work and trying to get up to the bullpen. That they’ll lose him to anxiety and aggression, he’ll lose his temperament and comforting nature bit-by-bit until he’s broken down. And Reid will lose him too.

The good things become tainted by his fear.

At Christmas, they go to Rossi’s like they always do, and while the others dance to the music softly humming through the room Reid finds himself watching Hotch. Inspecting the grey hairs growing ever more along his temples, spread now through the rest of his hair. They age him appropriately but Reid can’t help but feel betrayed by their presence like he’s being taunted. No different from the reading glasses perched at the very edge of Hotch’s nose, the ones Hank lightly reaches up for. Old enough not to grab at them but still curiously taking a finger to trail their frames. Reid neglects his desire to be closer to them, to be drawn in by Hotch’s deep voice and the crackling fire soothing Hank to sleep. He stays where he is, hearing the ghosting bits of “Where The Wild Things Are” for the third time.

All he hears is science. Proof in the voice’s Hotch uses for each character -- “Oh, please don't go — I'll eat you up — I love you so!” -- that his language center had no inhibitions. The way Hank looks at Hotch when he bellows that line the first time, giggling and writing about when Hotch tickles him and squeezes him up tight so Hank can’t get away is lost to Reid for what it really is. That the spontaneous tickling and the reading mean other things. The love between them and Hank’s adoration for Hotch boiled down to symptoms Reid can prove Hotch doesn’t have.

Reid is terrified and it won’t let it up.

He finds himself panicking in Rossi’s backyard, surrounded by laughing people. Happy people who have no idea what his problem is. But he sweeps his over the clusters of chatting people and realizes that in all the groups he can’t find Hotch. Amidst them, he’s fairly easy to spot. Sticks to what he knows and who he’s most comfortable with. Diplomatic in that he makes sure he talks to everyone once but if he’s going to be someplace he’s not where he should be.

This is it, he tells himself. He’ll find Hotch confused, ambling about alone and where he shouldn’t be. Not sure where he is or why he’s here.

And then Reid turns around and finds Emily sitting with him on the porch swing. One of Hotch’s legs stretched out over the expanse of the porch, dark jeans a contrast to the concrete as he rocks them back and forth. Emily’s head on his shoulder and his arm around her back, a glass of wine passed between them. Neither saying a word as they watch the teams they built interacting with one another, families mixing together.

Reid can’t enjoy their smiles, the way they look out over everyone like proud parents.

Even his own birthday with books in a variety of languages sitting around him wrapped in an array of papers that so brilliantly display who their giver was. With his fingers tracing the one covered in newspaper, the one he knows is from Hotch, Reid is lost to this rot in the pit of his stomach. The sludge that fills his veins with tension. It leaves him the only person not smiling, with no idea what’s happening, when Garcia and Hotch stand over his cake fussing about which direction to light the candles. He misses the finger Hotch swipes through the icing and dollops right on Garcia’s nose. Looks up to watch Garcia retaliate with the same treatment but can’t enjoy it, can’t feel love or ease when the room erupts in laughter and Garcia and Hotch stand there with their icing-covered noses smiling at one another.

He finally finds the courage to mention it to someone, tells Morgan one afternoon when they both end up at Hotch’s house. Morgan is there fixing some wooden stakes in Hotch’s garden and Reid dropping off groceries. Hotch is sleeping off surgery medication, unaware of the hushed conversation being had outside.

“Kid,” Morgan can see it. The terror eating Reid alive. “They just hacked him apart and put him back together, all right? He’s on some strong shit right now. He’ll be fine in a day or two. You’ll see.” Morgan tells him not to worry about it, Hotch has been knocked around his entire life. Nearly sixty years of severe blows to the head and if he manages to walk out of this life with just a sketchy memory then he’s getting off lucky.

But when Hotch stands for too long in a room trying to remember what he was doing or when he can’t provide an answer for how much coffee he’s had or if he needs eggs or if he had the last bowl of oatmeal this morning it scares the shit out of Reid.

Really, Hotch is fine.

Hotch had to write his doctor’s appointments down and he’s constantly needing some sort of surgery to fix whatever old injury is coming back to remind him of his previous offense but he’s his normal actively grouchy self. He never forgets to stop by Reid’s apartment Thursday around noon or his promise to get Henry and Hank from school when no one else can.

That doesn’t mean no one worries about him.

He would hate to know the collapse wasn’t when they started taking note of his fragile health.

Two weeks after his forty-fifth birthday he pulled a muscle in his chest (moving the couch so Jack could get a Hotwheels out from underneath) and JJ had watched him pause during his coffee run to press his palm into the strain. Her mind had filtered through a hundred scenarios to explain the behavior and they’d all ended with his death. Hotch is the kind of person with a puzzle piece life, whose pieces are spread out over the course of years, meant to be collected and put together by only the most detail-oriented. She knew his father had died of a heart attack and Reid only served to reiterate that fact. It was only a pulled muscle but, not for the first time, she felt utterly terrified of how much losing him would hurt.

There’s a string of these awful moments when his humanity, his mortality, is right there for them to witness. And, as strong as they’d like to believe themselves to be, they look away.

He’s fine now, all things considered.

The janky memory thing isn’t all that bad. He has milked it on more than one occasion. It’s how he keeps missing his physical therapy. Although, that has come around to bite him in the ass. He’s supposed to be using this cane they gave him and now someone shows up every week to take him to the appointment so he can’t even play it off like he’s forgotten. Typically it’s Emily or Derek but Garcia’s shown up and Reid even took him once. It’s very annoying. Doesn’t help that there are roughly thirteen people who he might run into in public who know he’s supposed to be using the cane and who will inquire about it or bring it up to someone else.

He hadn’t realized just how many people could get on his case until he’d run into Matt’s wife in the store and after having their brief, polite conversation where he mentioned Reid had called him not that long ago asking for advice on the BAUs current case, she asked about his knee. She said Garcia had been fretting over this last surgery he had and told her about it, she hadn’t thought that much time had passed. Was surprised he was back on his feet. It had taken six hours for him to get the phone call from Garcia and then Emily came over an hour later begging him to just “for the sake of my fucking sanity, Hotch, take it easy”. That’s when Garcia sat down and made him a calendar and he lost his say in matters of his grocery shopping and responsibility to take himself to doctor’s appointments.

He’s since won back grocery shopping. His doctor wrote him a note and Garcia conceded. She’s not stupid enough to toss their schedule for his doctor’s appointments though.

So, though he loathes it, he takes the cane with him when he leaves the house.

He’s learned his lesson. Penelope Garcia is one scary-ass lady who has far more control over him and everyone else than he’d care to realize.

Hotch hears the doorbell, muffled though it is, from outside. He’d known getting down on the ground was a bad idea with the way his knees have been hurting but he’s got zucchini and cucumbers laying out in the sun and while he ignored them yesterday, he knows he need to get them out today. Reid had expressed interest in them and Rossi’s likely to want the zucchini. He also knows Derek offered to take care of this sort of stuff but it’s a too warm Sunday morning and Derek’s likely chasing around a happy toddler.

Besides, he doesn’t have enough tomatoes to compensate for Derek’s work. That being said Derek would come over and do it regardless, he doesn’t mind.

“It’s about to rain,” Reid informs him the second he gets to the door. Hotch watches Reid’s eyes flick to his empty left hand, to the curve of his limp palm where his cane is supposed to be. Unlike the others, Hotch knows Reid will not say anything directly to him. Emily might ask where the cane is and Garcia would insist on going to get it but Reid will just anxiously flicker back and forth between Hotch’s face and his hand. Twisting and worrying until Hotch gets it himself. Which is surprisingly effective.

Hotch hums his agreeance, he could smell it in the air. Can tell it’s going to be a good storm with the shift and strength of the wind coming in. It’ll cool things off for a few hours then bring back the humidity and the mosquitoes with a vengeance.

“Do you think” Reid follows Hotch into the kitchen. He’s careful to keep a distance, not to push Hotch’s pace. He mills about in odd places to compensate their gates, looks at the book sitting on Hotch’s coffee table. “Do you think it’s going to rain a lot?” He’s a genius with the means to figure that out on his own and likely he already knows what he thinks the answer is. Hotch’s opinion is still important.

Hotch is in the fridge, rustling bags around as he finds the bag of vegetables he’s got set aside for Reid. He’s weird about fruits and vegetables, worries about bacteria and things but will eat a Poptart for every meal if given the chance. The logic is irrational but after twenty years of worrying about Reid’s diet, Hotch has finally found a solution to this particular problem.

“No tomatoes,” Hotch promises as he hands the bag over to Reid.

Reid nods, “I don’t like tomatoes.”

“I know.”

Reid takes his bag, smiles as he thinks about what things he can make with what he’s been given. “How much do you think it’ll rain?” he asks again.

Hotch hums, having heard Reid the first time. “It’ll be a good storm,” he figures, “might take out the electricity.” He only adds the last bit as a warning. Reid’s scared of the dark, a fact exacerbated by big storms that knock out the electricity. A common occurrence but no less startling.

“Oh.” Reid worries his lip, looks to the ground and everywhere but where Hotch is.

It’s likely to start soon, the winds really picking up and the sun’s drowned out by thick, rolling clouds. The storm of the century it’s likely not. Hotch doubts it’s even the sort people pull over on the side of the road to wait out but he decides to think it might anyway. Decides to tap Reid’s elbow and motion for him to follow, “come on.” He’s not even really sure where he’s going but it’ll lend a distraction. “Wait out the storm,” Hotch tells him, glancing back to make sure Reid’s following. “I wanna show you something.”

They spend the storm in his office, leaning over an old law school textbook. Reid has an affinity for them. No matter how many times Hotch uses them for a distraction, pulling them down from their dusty shelves, Reid still takes to them like it’s the very first time. He’ll sit for hours reading over the information but, his favorite parts, are how Hotch they are.

The notes he’s scribbled in the margins. Flashes of yellow highlighter. A coffee stain or smudge where his palm moves against not yet dried ink. Notes for cases or classes. Pages he’s dog-eared. They’re lived in, nearly perfect condition biographies. Of course, Reid gravitates to them.

By the time the storm rolls over Reid realizes he’s been alone in the office for hours. Sheepishly, he gets up and looks around. Makes his way through Hotch’s house until Reid finds him on the couch. As soon as Hotch sees him he takes off his reading glasses, placing a bookmark in his book and raising his eyebrow to inquire if Reid needs something.

“I should probably get going.”

Hotch doesn’t miss how suddenly bashful Reid gets, the way he looks down at the floor. “If you’d like,” Hotch won’t encourage him to leave. He spends a lot of time alone. He doesn’t mind have someone floating around. But Reid’s decided he’s overstayed his welcome so he moves cautiously towards the door. Taking his time because he knows Hotch will see him out.

“Be careful,” Hotch tells him as he opens himself up for a hug and Reid flushes a little under the attention but still steps into Hotch’s arms. Hotch gives him the bag of vegetables and frowns at the state of Reid’s hair. “Stop worrying so much,” Hotch fusses and they’re both aware of how parental his tone has gotten as frowns. He can see grey hairs here and there. Maybe not as present as his but there. “Do you want to talk about it? Whatever’s worrying you so much?”

Reid freezes, confused. Ordinarily, he’d give in, Hotch always fixes things but not this time. “I’m okay,” Reid promises.

Hotch doesn’t believe him but Reid’s an adult and Hotch knows when he’s needed Reid will know where to find him. All he can hope is that Reid comes to him if he really needs help. “Alright.”

They nod once more and Reid steps out but he’s not halfway down the driveway when Hotch shouts “I meant it, be careful driving home!”

Reid stops where he is, struck by the oddness of this situation. He made it his entire childhood without this sort of thing. His mother cared that he got home but he didn’t have friends to be out with. Never needed to stop and figure out how to call home and tell her he’d be home late. Now he’s lost his mother and he’s lost Gideon.

And he’s terrified he’ll lose Hotch next.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” he offers, feels silly the second it comes out of his mouth. Like Hotch would care enough for that. Like Hotch won’t be bothered with him texting him. Like Hotch is going to sit there and wait for the text.

Hotch narrows his eyes, “you’d better.”

Because Hotch will sit there and wait for the text.

“Yes, sir.”

Hotch is fine but Reid will keep watching just to be on the safe side.

[coffeeinallcaps]

wip/rip meme: sw poe panic attacks

(Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!) In which Poe is FINE, he’s JUST FINE, GUYS, NO PROBLEMS HERE.

Two weeks after the Battle of Starkiller Base, Poe wakes up without a headache for the first time since Jakku. Sitting up doesn’t make him feel sick, and the lights don’t set off stabs of pain behind his eyes. There’s no wave of dizziness when he gets to his feet.

Sweet, he thinks before making his way to the refresher.

--

BB-8 is running preflight diagnostics when Poe gets to the hangar. The others are already there. Bastian is walking around his ship, checking the underside of the hull. Jessika waves at Poe from where she’s talking to one of the ground technicians, her helmet tucked under her other arm. Poe waves back.

“Morning, sunshine,” Iolo says, slapping Poe on the shoulder as Karé says, “All right, boss?”

“Yeah,” Poe says, and he means it. He feels good, well rested in a way he hasn’t felt since, well.

The feeling lasts until they’re about to take off.

One moment he’s fine. The next the canopy is coming down, closing in around him, and he panics.

The feeling doesn’t register as panic right away. It’s—it’s something primal, a sudden visceral overwhelming sense of wrong, something is wrong, he needs to get out of here—

“Stop,” he says, “BB-8, stop, abort,” and BB-8 overrides the control system, beeps inquisitively. Poe can’t answer the question, because he’s breathing too fast and too loud—heart beating wildly in his chest, throat, ears—and he’s already strapped in but he needs to get out, he’s stuck and the cockpit is way too small, there’s not enough room, not enough air, he can’t think, can’t breathe.

That’s when he realizes, I’m panicking.

It’s like his consciousness has split in two. He’s right here, gasping for air and ineffectually tugging at the buckles of his harness, but another part of him is divorced from all this, hovering somewhere in the back of his own mind thinking What. The. Hell.

What the hell are you doing, Dameron. Calm the fuck down. Get your shit together. You’re being irrational.

And yes, he knows, he knows that, knows it doesn’t make sense, but he needs to get out.

The buckles finally give way, and he’s moving, scrambling out of the cockpit, down the ladder that hasn’t been retracted yet. His foot slips on the last rung. He stumbles backward until his back is pressed up against something.

He still can’t breathe, still feels trapped—he reaches for his helmet, it takes him three tries to undo the chin strap, he manages to wrench the helmet off his head and lets it drop to the floor.

He’s sweating. His chest is heaving under his flak vest. It feels like he’s being punched in the diaphragm over and over again, like he’s going to be coughing up blood any second from now. Like Kylo Ren—

The vest needs to come off, too, but his hands keep slipping on it.

People are standing around him. He can see the scuffed toes of their boots, the dirty orange and olive green legs of their flight suits. “Take it off,” he hears himself say, between gasps, “take it off, take it off,” and they help him out of the vest, pull open the collar of his flight suit.

The part of Poe’s mind that is hanging back notes that this is embarrassing. A deeply humiliating experience. The part of Poe’s mind that’s panicking is unable to register it as such. The observation emerges behind an impenetrable transparisteel panel. It’s right there, he can see it, but he can’t reach it and it can’t reach him.

Someone—Jess?—says, sharply, “Step back, guys, give him some fucking space,” and someone else says, “No, I think—” and Poe closes his eyes, thinks, Yes, space, I need space, give me space and then two arms are winding tight around him. No, let go, he thinks, eyes still closed, Let me go I need and then Finn? but it can’t be Finn, Finn is still in the med bay, still in a coma, Finn is—

He struggles, half-heartedly. It’s a relief to have something physical to struggle against, instead of just the awful sense of terror ballooning in his chest, clawing at his windpipe. It gives him something to focus on. His panicking self and his observing self merge. The transparisteel panel between them drops away, and shame comes rushing in.

He takes a gulping breath and goes limp.

It’s Bastian who’s holding him. He’s trapped again, trapped between the wall and Bastian’s body, but Bastian’s body is warm and familiar and hiding him from view so it’s not too bad, really, to be trapped here. When he looks straight ahead, he can see the vast expanse of the hangar. The rectangle of sunlight at the end is a comforting sight.

This whole thing can’t have lasted longer than, what, five minutes? ten minutes? but Poe is fucking exhausted. He’s shaking, he realizes.

“Hey,” Jess says. “Poe.”

It’s just her and Bastian now. The others are gone.

Another hot, nauseating rush of shame washes over him.

“Poe. Look at me.” Jess is dabbing Poe’s face with her sleeve. It comes away soaked, he sees. Her other hand brushes against his cheek. “You with us?”

Poe nods. He’s still catching his breath. He doesn’t think he can speak. He thinks that if Bastian let go of him, he’d crumble to his knees.

Bastian doesn’t let go. He takes a small step back, but keeps his hands on Poe’s shoulders.

We’re late, Poe thinks. We need to leave. He wants to say it out loud, but the thought of getting back into his ship makes his throat close up again and a fresh layer of sweat break out on his forehead.

Jess wipes it away. She and Bastian are talking with their eyes. Poe appreciates the fact that neither of them is asking him what the hell just happened. He also appreciates the fact that neither of them is asking him if he’s okay.

The moment stretches on.

They’re late. They need to leave.

He can’t fucking get it past his teeth.

“You guys should go,” Poe says eventually, the words scraping at the dry inside of his throat. His voice sounds raw, wrecked.

Jess lets out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good,” she says. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

It’s the only right thing to say. He’d be putting all of them in danger if he tried to fly, let alone lead a mission, in this condition. He takes a breath. Still that pressure in his chest, like there’s a wet cloth lodged between his lungs and his ribcage. It’s like trying to breathe in deeply on a hot and humid planet. Like trying to breathe when Ren—

Poe swallows, shakes his head, says, “We have to...”

“Snap’s on his way down here,” Jess says. “We’ll be all right. I’ll take it from here. The only thing you have to do is go see Dr. Kalonia.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Bastian offers, and Poe wants to say no, wants to tell them to get out of here, it’s fine, he’ll be fine, but then he realizes one of his hands is fisted into Bastian’s flight suit, clenched so tight his fingers have gone numb. It hurts to let go.

One of Bastian’s hands stays on Poe’s lower back, barely there, as they walk. Poe doesn’t stop at the med bay. Bastian wordlessly keeps up with him.

“Thanks, buddy,” Poe says when they get to his quarters.

“Anytime,” Bastian says, with a small, soft smile that makes Poe want to sink through the floor.

He lies back on his bed with his arms folded over his face. They’re trembling. His whole body is trembling. He closes his eyes and tries to block out his thoughts.

He doesn’t move until the doors slide open.

“Poe,” Dr. Kalonia’s voice says.

Poe says, “Doctor.”

His head doesn’t swim when he pushes himself up on his hands. It doesn’t quite feel like the victory it did this morning. The familiar sour taste at the back of his throat is back, but he guesses it has little to do with a lingering concussion and more to do with what happened in the hangar just now.

Kalonia doesn’t start off by asking him questions, which—again—Poe appreciates. She sits down next to him on the bed. Her fingertips are light on his cheek when she checks his pupil response. She listens to his heart and lungs, takes his pulse.

“Headaches been bothering you?” she asks.

Poe shakes his head.

“Dizzy spells?”

“Not anymore.”

“When did your symptoms go away?” After a pause, during which she puts her flashlight back into her pocket and loops her stethoscope around her neck again, she adds, “I’m assuming they went away, because you never did come back for a final check-up.”

“Um,” Poe says, scratching the back of his neck. Dr. Kalonia reminds him of his grandmother sometimes; there are very few people in the galaxy who can inspire this amount of guilt in him this quickly. “I felt pretty good this morning?” He can’t help but add, “And in my defense, we’ve all been pretty busy.”

“From what my droids tell me, it seems you are perfectly capable of finding the time to stop by the med center for other reasons.”

Finn.

“Well, I mean, all’s fair in love and war, right?” Poe says. And then, “I am sorry, Doc.”

She smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Trust me, I would’ve known where to find you if I needed to.”

“That sounds vaguely threatening, Doc.”

“Good.” She sits back. “Look, Poe, I could run some more tests, but as far as I can tell there’s nothing physically wrong with you right now.”

“Clean bill of health, then,” Poe jokes.

“Not quite, I’m afraid.”

The doors slide open again.

“Oh,” Rey says, looking at Dr. Kalonia. “I’ll go.” She doesn’t move.

“It’s fine,” Poe says.

“I can wait.”

“It’s fine.”

Rey shrugs, then crosses the room and perches on the windowsill with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. There’s dirt under her fingernails. She smiles at Poe.

He smiles back at her.

“I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with you,” Dr. Kalonia says. “I think you had a panic attack. A severe one.”

(MORE TALKING)

(KALONIA LEAVES)

Poe throws one arm over his eyes again. “Come over here?” he says, flinging out his other arm in Rey’s direction, palm upward.

It’s a suggestion, not a request. He and Rey have been thrust together through their mutual connection with Finn. They’ve been spending a lot of time at his bedside together. Poe still hasn’t figured Rey out, not entirely, and he’s pretty sure Rey still hasn’t figured him out, either. Rey is still figuring herself out, life on the Resistance base seeming both exciting and overwhelming to her.

The mattress dips under Rey’s weight. She leaves some space between their bodies, but she puts her hand on his stomach, pillows her head on his arm. He can hear her breathe, soft and calm.

“Are you okay?” she says eventually, cautiously. There’s something about the way she asks the question that briefly makes Poe’s chest feel like it’s caving in.

He clears his throat, says, “Yeah.”

He doesn’t sound very convincing. She doesn’t call him out on it.

“Wanna go outside?” she says. “It’s sunny. There’s fresh air, and trees.”

“Really,” Poe says.

She shoves him.

“Careful,” he says reflexively. “Don’t damage the goods.”

Rey says, unimpressed, “Seriously?”

Poe’s chest still hurts. He lets his arm slide off his face, presses the heel of his palm against his ribs. It doesn’t help.

“You know what, fresh air sounds pretty good,” he says, sitting up.

“Good call,” Rey says.

[strawbeebo]

~♡ Winter Warmth ♡~

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 2.1K

Genre: Fluff

“You didn’t bring a scarf. Or a hat. Or anything.”

Your current ‘mission’ partner’s characteristically irritated tone broke you out of your current daze as you shifted your eyes towards him as the two of you walked side by side, close enough that it was clear the two of you were at least friends, but not so close that things were…weird.

“Oh, no..” You hummed, a puff of steam escaping with your words and just as soon evaporating into the cold winter air. “To be honest I didn’t think it would be this cold. Oh- but it’s not that bad, no worries.”

He looked at you for a second before shrugging and facing forward once again, the previous silence between the two of you settling back in as your eyes drifted back to your right where rows and rows of shop windows twinkled with Christmas lights and other inviting decorations.

See, the so called ‘mission’ the two of you had been sent on wasn’t really a mission at all, it was more like an errand to satisfy everyone back at school’s ‘urgent’ need for a variety of coffees, hot chocolate’s, and tea lattes, which didn’t sound like much, however your oh so gracious sensei insisted you go to this very specific cafe that was about a half an hour walk away instead of the one that was barely a ten minute walk away. Fushiguro seemed particularly annoyed with that, but then again, when wasn’t he annoyed by one thing or another.

The only thing was that you assumed he was bothered because Gojō had made yet another needlessly difficult request of him, however while he was annoyed with Gojō , that wasn’t exactly the reason why. The reason he was particularly peeved was because his teacher said the two of you just haaad to go together. “It’s safer that way.” , he said “Treat it like a mission!”, he said.

Bullshit.

Gojō was testing him on something even he didn’t want to think about, let alone admit to. Fushiguro told him one thing, ONE THING about you, just an off handed comment on how much you had improved using your cursed technique in such a short amount of time, and that’s all it took for Gojō to give him that fucking look. At least, Fushiguro thought it was only one thing, but the more Gojō started making little comments about the two of them, about how he thinks they’d be sooo cute together, he realized that maybe he had been unconsciously talking about you more than he thought. That was true too, but he wasn’t one for much talk and the little that he did say wasn’t enough to tip Gojō or anyone else off about his apparent interest in you. As it turns out, the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’ is true, and that’s especially so for someone as observant as Gojō is.

He saw all the little things that most people probably didn’t have a second thought about, but he had known Megumi for a long time now so to him, his actions were clear as day. The little touches on your shoulder to gently move you out of the way, the way he would tend to gravitate towards you whenever all of you first years were on missions together, how distracted he’d be if you had a bit of a hard time fighting off a curse. Gojō could go on and on about the tiny ways Megumi treated you better, with more care, than anyone else, but he chose not to pester him too aggressively. He knew if he did that, Megumi would shut him down just as aggressively and dig deeper into the denial about his feelings for you. So instead, Gojō pushed him in little ways, like teaming you two together for training practices and in this case, sending you out together to get drinks.

Megumi knew that of course, that Gojō was messing with him, but man was it hard to say no when your face lit up and you exclaimed that you could actually go for a hot chocolate. So now here you were, walking side by side in silence that was currently doing nothing but make him overthink. Should he say something? Would that be weird? Or were you off put by the fact that he wasn’t saying anything? All the while he had that usual grumpy look on his face that was really just one of concentration, but you didn’t take it to heart regardless. You had known him long enough now to know that even when he did look upset, he kind of just had a resting grumpy face and it didn’t necessarily mean anything. Still, you would admit that you were feeling a bit awkward.

You liked Fushiguro, maybe a tad bit more than what you admitted to your other friends, but while the two of you were friendly and worked just fine together, you had never really spent time alone with one another outside of school, and as you walked through the slightly crowded sidewalks you realized you didn’t really know how he felt about you. Sure you were associates and classmates, but did he see you in that way? Did he only tolerate you? Or maybe he was just indifferent, not thinking of you as much more or much less than someone he worked along side. Even though you didn’t have any answers to said questions, you couldn’t say you were nervous to be out with him. In fact it was kind of nice, even if you weren’t talking much, and you were okay with settling and just internally gushing about it to yourself. So you kept to yourself with a slight smile on your face, stopping for a second here or there when something in one of the shop windows caught your eye or to press your cold hands to your mouth and blow warm air onto them.

You had said you were fine, but the temperature seemed to keep dropping, and when you felt a small damp prickle of iciness on your nose you realized why. That one snowflake slowly turned to many as snow began to fall steadily from the sky, catching on your hair and jacket but melting as soon as it came in contact with your cheeks.

“Pfft, no wonder it’s gotten so cold. I seriously thought we weren’t going to get any snow until later on in the season, right?” You asked, turning to him with a laugh as you rubbed your arms as if that would do much to help through your coat.

“Guess not.”, he said with another shrug. “Doesn’t look like it’ll stick though, we should be fine.”

He peered out of the corner of his eye at you, watching as you shoved your hands into your pockets and gave him a nod before looking up as you walked to watch the snow fall in a childlike awe. Something ticked in him, another one of those little irritating itches that he would get whenever you would do something like that. Something so simple, yet he couldn’t bring himself to look away. That, and the irrational part of him that was currently screaming at him to do something stupid, an internal voice that was getting louder and louder with every fall of a snowflake and shiver of your shoulders until finally he just had to give in.

He let out an annoyed huff, not at you but at the fact that he felt so stupid and absurdly flustered as he unwrapped his scarf and took his gloves off, temporarily shoving them into one pocket as he stopped to lean over and wrap his scarf snuggly around your neck instead. You jumped a little in surprise as you tore your eyes from the sky and gave him a quizzical look, but before you could say anything a pair of gloves that were a little too big for you were shoved into your hands as well.

“Oh, thank you but I’m really-“

“It’s fine.” He cut you off, but not in a mean way. You noticed the hint of pink on his cheeks, but surely that was due to the cold, right? He sighed again in an attempt to make himself feel a little less tense as he continued on in a more relaxed tone. “Seriously, I was getting too warm anyways.”

Now you really couldn’t help but smile as you gave him a small nod before slipping on both gloves. They were too big just like you thought, but warm, and the fuzziness bristling in your stomach seemed to help warm you up as well. You absent mindedly tugged his scarf a little closer around you as the the two of you began to walk again, and your own cheeks began to heat up a bit as you inhaled his scent. Though you couldn’t really pinpoint what it was, it was like a little not-so-gentle reminder that he really did just give you his scarf and gloves to wear. You tried not to let it get to you, he was just being nice and he said he was too warm anyways, but you still had to bite your inner cheek to keep yourself from smiling too wildly and risk him thinking you’re a total creep.

“Thanks Megumi, I appreciate it.”

Oh god no.

He thought he had steeled himself but that caused him to stop in his tracks, only for a moment or two, before his body went into self preservation mode and moved on its own, but the way his heart skipped a beat in response to something as dumb as you calling him by his first name for the first time was everything but calm and collected. Still, as much as he tried to keep even an ounce of what he was really feeling from showing on his features, it only took that little halt in his step for you to realize what you just said.

“Oh, shit- I’m sorry. That’s probably kind of weird for me to call you.”

“It’s fine.” He repeated the same words he had said only a few minutes ago, only this time he didn’t sound nearly as confident. Whatever was going on in his chest was not, in fact, fine, but what was he supposed to say? ‘You treating me like I’m a close friend seriously fucks with my doubts of having a thing for you’? For heaven’s sake he could take out a literal murderous demon in the blink of an eye but god forbid he try to keep his normally cool composure in front of who he now had to admit was his crush.

“If it really isn’t fine you don’t have to act like it is.” You laughed out awkwardly, still having trouble trying to read his features.

He hated seeing that bit of doubt and worry in your eyes, enough so that he shoved what he was feeling down even if it was just long enough for him to give some reassurance that you referring to him so casually was actually more than just ‘fine’.

“I’m not ‘acting’. If it really bothered me I would say something about it. Trust me, I’ve gotten good at telling people off…” He grumbled, his mood slightly souring at the mere thought of what Gojō would do if he could see him now, with color tinting his cheeks and his brain scrambling for the right words to say which, judging by the short laugh you gave that was simply music to his ears, he had successfully done.

“True, true. Guess I’ll just have to stay on your good side then, yeah? Dunno if I could take it if you were actually mad at me.”

He scoffed and muttered in response as he trudged ahead of you.

“As if you would ever be on my bad side…”

“Hm?”

“I said ‘can we hurry up before it gets worse outside’. If we take much longer Gojō is going to start blowing up my phone.”

You laughed and then smiled in a way that you could only imagine looked incredibly goofy as you stared at his back while he continued walking ahead of you, maybe just a tiny bit giddy that he was ok with you being a little more personal and less formal with him. Surely that meant the two of you were friends, right? Or maybe he could think of you as something more some day…

“Are you coming with?”

“Yeah, yeah!” You exclaimed, shaking your head and leaving those thoughts for another time in order to allow yourself to enjoy this moment as it was, warmed in the face of the winter chill by a cozy set of winter clothes and a fuzzy feeling in your heart.

[fangirlincorporated-blog]

The Lucky Australian

~~ 7 Almost~~

I wouldn't know where to start

"Sweet Music" playing "In The Dark"

Be still "My Foolish Heart, "

Don't ruin this on me

It had been a few days, and even though he had tried to keep himself busy, she was always floating around his mind.

It didn’t help him that whenever his phone would buzz he was always hoping it was from her, he’d been disappointed to notice that she hadn’t messaged him as much as he had hoped. There had been a few selfies and an occasional funny text through, he knew she was seeing a few friends and doing all the touristy stuff, but he had still wanted all more attention form her.

Henry couldn’t work it out, was she apprehensive to contact him more? Was she trying to play it cool? Logically, he knew that she was just enjoying her time in London, and he had no right to demand all her time, but still…he had just wanted her.

He had spent his day gaming, broken up by hanging out with kal when Charlie called, with nothing better to do and not hearing from Aurora for a few hours, he found himself at the pub. The warm summer air lifting his mood as he and his brother downed a few pints and surveyed their surroundings.

“You looking for anyone in particular?” Charlie whispered.

Henry sighed and put down his beer

“No. Not really”

Silence filled the space between them.

“Henry, what’s wrong?” Charlie sighed

Henry shifted in his seat, unsure of how to explain to his brother that he missed a woman that he had only known for days. How he wanted to be greedy with her time but not smother her, how he wished that every time his phone buzzed he was hoping it was her. How, he wanted to know every part of her mind, body and soul. He wanted her completely, but what if it was only lust on his part? What if it was only just a fire and no slow burn…The many what if’s were enough to drive him crazy.

“How did you know Heather was the one?” Henry asked, the question even surprising himself.

Charlie let out a breath and twirled his glass in his hand.

“I don’t know how to answer that one Henry. I guess for me, it was just an instant click, my head and my heart were in perfect unison at the time, I had that little voice that just told me this was it” he shrugged.

“You moved your whole life to Canada, weren’t you scared?”

“I was terrified, but the overwhelming feeling I had was that when I was with her there was no place I’d rather be, and that I’d be ok, no matter what happens”

Henry looked down at his glass.

“Is this about a certain Australian you met a few days ago?”

Henry looked up at Charlie and nodded, his insecurity and worry must’ve been plastered all over his face as Charlie’s features softened in response.

“It’s just…I only spent a few hours alone with her after we were at the pub, and the next day and no, we didn’t have sex Charlie”

“I wasn’t asking”

“You were thinking it”

“Thought never crossed my mind. Continue…”

Sometimes Charlie really knew how to get under his skin and piss him off, Henry couldn’t blame him, having siblings meant never being able to get away with anything.

“I had a really great time with her, it just felt like everything fell into place. She said she would call me in a few days because she was meeting up with friends and sightseeing, and I’m a rational man, I get that Charlie, I do. Its just…I want all her time, I want to be with her, I want to talk to her, I want to message her all the time, I want to know her, I want to be in the same space as her. I know I shouldn’t be demanding of all her attention, but every time the damn phone buzzes I hope its her, and I cant fathom for the life of me why she isn’t messaging me all the time or talking to me”

Charlie hadn’t stopped looking at Henry. Henry continued.

“I know, like I fucking know that she’s just with friends, but the other part of me keeps questioning, why isn’t she calling me? Is it too much, too fast for her? Is she not as interested as I thought she was? What if me being me is too much for her? What if its just lust? What if she’s not over her ex?”

“Her ex?”

Henry sighed and rubbed his eyes

“They were together up until 3 years ago, whatever happened she still has nightmares about”

“Whoa Henry, what-“

“Charlie, I don’t know. Aurora said it was a great relationship and it ended. I only found out after she told me because her friends imessages were popping up on her ipad, she said she would tell me later”

Charlie stretched his arms out in front of him.

“That’s a bit of a red flag”

“Yeah, but I cant force anything out of her” Henry growled in frustration.

Charlie didn’t miss the anger, he didn’t miss the hurt or the confusion that draped itself over Henry. Picking his words carefully, he continued.

“Henry, from what you have said already, I think you really like this girl, hell, you might even love her at this point and you don’t know. You have never spoken about any other women you’ve dated or seen, like you have Aurora and you’ve only known her a few days. I think, this is something worth trying for. I think she might be it for you, but you’ve only just net her, you cant demand everything now, no matter how hard you want it. That’s the thing with love and all that shit. It’s irrational, its intense and it doesn’t make sense. Be open, communicate and be honest, that’s all you can do. You will both navigate anything else that comes your way.”

Henry looked up at Charlie, he always had this way of being right about everything. Maybe he was right, maybe all those feelings he was having were a precursor to something deeper that he cant explain, maybe his heart knows before the path is laid out.

“Henry, why don’t you message her and ask her to meet you? Even if she’s already busy with friends, she would make time for you”

He looked at Charlie and back at his beer, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and just stared at it.

He heard Charlie sigh.

“I’ll get more drinks while your compose your sonnet” He laughed, making his way to the bar.

Henry ran a hand over his face and started typing out a message.

~~~~~~~~

“So, its 3pm, I’m going to start getting ready. We’re meeting at her place for pre drinks, then onwards to this gay bar she said I would like” Raphi said as he looked over at Aurora

“Does that mean its time for my boots Raphi?”

“Bitch, its always time for them boots. First though, I’m using the shower.” Raphi grabbed a towel and moved to the bathroom.

The past few days she had been shopping with Nate and his husband, she had travelled up to leeds to see an old friend and then went all the way down to bath to see an old work colleague. Never mind in between all that, partying with Raphi and Hanhan. She was glad for the few days she would have alone in Italy coming up. Even then, she would be visiting family. Holidays are supposed to be relaxing, she thought to herself.

She picked up her phone, wondering if she should message Henry. She had spoken to him on and off, but didn’t want to bombard him with unwanted messages, especially if he had changed his mind. He had still seemed interested but she didn’t want to push it, not to mention she had been seeing friends, which was a welcome excuse to try and get her mind off a certain brown haired, blue eyed Adonis. Dating was a lot much harder than she remembered

Suddenly, her phone buzzed in her hand, her face lighting up seeing is name on her screen.

Hey, this seems incredibly stupid, but…I really enjoyed my time with you. Wondering if you’re free tonight? Maybe we could catch up?

She started her reply, yelling questions through the bathroom door to Raphi. As she was halfway through, another message popped up.

I miss your company.

Her heart melted a little.

I’ll come meet you for a drink, I wont be able to spend as much time as I want with you, I’m being dragged to a club. I miss your company too.

Short and to the point. Mere seconds later, Henry replied.

Same pub we met at? What time?

She smiled, replying as fast as possible before throwing down her phone and getting her boots on.

~~~~~~~~

Charlie watched Henry as he continued to throw glances towards the pub door.

It had been 3 hours since Aurora said she would meet him. As it neared 6pm, Henry started getting nervous, bouncing his leg up and down under the table, not focusing on conversations and forever checking his watch. Charlie smiled into his beer as he took another sip. He remembered those butterflies and those nerves.

Charlie was able to distract Henry for a few minutes when something caught his eye, he looked up and the first thing he saw were boots, followed by Aurora, he snuck a glance back to Henry who hadn’t noticed her yet. Charlie looked back at Aurora as her eyes found them in the pub, she smiled and made her way over to them as Charlie kicked Henry under the table. He looked up, startled and then looked to where Charlie was pointing. Charlie knew the moment Henry laid eyes on Aurora, he was in trouble.

Henry’s mouth fell open as she came toward him. She was wearing all black jeans with a black top, her outfit simply hugging every curve of her body, but the standout feature was the thigh high boots she was wearing.

They were covered in silver rhinestones. This woman knew how to make an entrance.

Henry was still stuck to his chair when she walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Sliding into the spot next to him he didn’t notice her friends following her and seating themselves at the table.

Henry was silent, just staring at her. All the sounds around him evaporating as he took all of her in.

“I’ll shout you guys a round before we have to go.” She laughed. Henry looked at her and was silent for a moment just staring at her until Charlie broke his silence when he spoke to her. Suddenly, the world came crashing back into Henry, the sounds of the pub, the warmth of Aurora next to him and the smell of the perfume she wore invading all his senses.

She laughed at something Raphi said. Henry looked at her, his hands itching to touch her in some way. Slowly, pretending to be interested in a ring she wore, he reached out for her hand, and just held it, not wanting to let go.

Charlie observed them while the rest of the group entertained themselves. Aurora, talking and joking with her friends, for the most part didn’t seemed fazed at all by Henry's need for closeness. It almost came natural to her that she expected Henry wanted to that contact. Everything about her demeanour and her body language seemed so relaxed, like this relationship had existed for years rather than days. Henry on the other hand, seemed hyper aware of every movement and touch of Aurora’s, his nervousness and almost giddy appearance that he was in the same space with as well as the physical contact of the woman he was infatuated with, betrayed his usual tough looking exterior. Basically, he became a big teddy bear.

After what only seemed like a few minutes to Henry, Aurora and her friends announced their departure. Their excitement and slight buzz from the few shots they downed evident on their faces as they got up to leave, ready for the night ahead. Noting it was only 8pm, Henry felt cheated those 2 hours had flown by, and became a little depressed at the thought of her leaving.

Aurora looked Henry.

“If I survive tonight, I promise I will call you tomorrow and we’ll go on a proper date!” she smiled

“Bitch, what do you mean if you survive tonight? You’re getting as fucked up as us!” Hanhan laughed at her.

“Listen I’m going to be the most sober one there, god knows this one wont bend over the toilet bowl to throw up” She pointed at Raphi with her voice taking on a slight Italian accent, hands moving with every word.

“There we go, there’s the Italian!” Raphi yelled over his shoulder, making his way out of the pub. Aurora laughed.

“I better be getting chicken nuggets at the end of this night is all I’m saying” Aurora leaned down to kiss Henry goodbye like it was the most normal thing in the world and walked out of the pub following Hanhan and Raphi.

Charlie looked over at Henry watching her go. He knew, in that moment, that Henry would be spending the rest of his life with Aurora.

[darklove9314-blog]

Major ACOSF Spoilers

Okay so I try to keep an objective opinion I really do and I try to keep user friendly when it comes to Rhys because I know people like him. But I’m going to be talking about the baby situation in ACOSF and yes I’ll be talking about all parties involved, I’m tagging this anti rhys, anti Feysand, and anti inner circle just to be safe, so if you see it in tags that are not this than it’s tumblr trying to start fights again and any rude commenters will be blocked.

First off let’s talk about madja because I feel like people forget that a medical professional neglected to tell Feyre (the mother of the child and the patient at the time) pivotal information about her and her child’s life. Correct me if I’m wrong but if a medical profession in real life did that they would get in trouble for not telling the patient first unless said patient was a minor. Which Feyre is not. Most doctors have to tell the mother the danger to her child’s life. No matter how hard the news may be to hear. Any good medical professional would. I don’t give a damn if Rhysand is her high lord, Feyre is her high lady and if the narrative stresses so much that Feyre is Rhys equal when it comes to the power balance of the court than Madja should have still told Feyre first.

Secondly Rhys. I’m tired of people making excuses for him. It’s the reason I’m an anti in the first place because the fandom/ the narrative refuses to hold him accountable for anything, Here’s the thing, besides Madja, he’s the one who should be held the most accountable. First off let’s get into the fact that he knew prior to the pregnancy that any child they could possibly have may endanger Feyre’s life, but he thought it was such a low chance at happening that he never bothered to tell her about it. And the vision that bone carver showed him may have also contributed to this, However, wasn’t it revealed on the second book that the bone carver could twist the truth, like the fae can’t outright lie, but they don’t have to tell the whole truth either. Like there’s plot holes with the bone carver all together but thats a discussion for another time. But even if he assumed there was a small chance, he should have still told her. In case you know they had more children in the future than if she still decided to get pregnant than it would be her choice and she would have all the information prior. He also told a medical professional that she should keep Feyre’s medical information away from her even though he’s always stressed how important Feyre having a choice is to him. Yet he takes a choice about her autonomy and her child away from her. There’s a reason why when Feyre finds out the truth about her son, she reasonably upset that Rhys didn’t tell her. Also these two have a pact together that if one of them dies they’ll leave this world together. So if you think there was a threat to both their lives he would not only tell her, but tell the inner circle about it too, I mean they literally waited until the last moment to tell anyone about it which was a poor choice to say the least. Like if both of them die and their son survives than who would raise their son?? No one knows. Also if the reason Nyx has wings in the first place was because Feyre was in her illyrian form wouldn’t you just you know not have sex when she’s in her illyrian form in the first place.... and bringing it back. You’re telling me that she couldn’t shift to her illyrian form, from my understanding both situations are equally as dangerous so wouldn’t you pick the one that had the highest survival rate??? I- what?? Also you’re telling me that you can stitch Cassian back up with an open chest would but a csection is near impossible. How?? Also let’s not forget that when Feyre reasonable confronts him about keeping information about their sons life away from her, he deflects blame from himself and places it on Nesta, shit like this is why I fucking despise Rhys. Like sure dude, you’re the one who kept all this information from YOUR mate/ Your equal, but let’s blame Nesta yet again because accountability on your part always seems to be too much for you...Like I get the irrational anger, but still it’s not a fucking excuse for why you shouldn’t be held responsible for your actions. And then he decided to tell Cassian to get Nesta put of his court before he killed her. So you’re going to put added stress on your pregnant mate by threatening to kill her sister. 🙄🙄🙄 Like I can’t with how high his head is stuck in his ass, Like hold yourself accountable and apologize to Feyre about keeping that shit from her, because the one she’s probably the most pissed ah is Rhysand. You know the father of her child, The person who knew the information first, neglected to tell her, and told everyone not to tell her and his reaction makes me think that he never even intended to tell her in the first place, which is not what you do with someone who you find your equal. And this post is getting too long but I’ll make a part 2 to this because I’m not done talking about this.

[beetleboo]

long post. one i’ve been trying to make for a while now. hell, i wrote this like... third week of may. didn’t post it until now because i didn’t know if I wanted to.

but something i want to lay out, been wanting to lay out for months. dont want to talk to anyone about it, just want to put the info out there for it to be seen.

if you re/blog this i will block you. i may put this on the relevant sideblog at some point.

because 2020 was the worst year on record for me for a number of reasons, and it’s torn me down to the lowest point i’ve been in a long time, and this is just. everything that’s gone down. not a callout post, no one gets named, but these are all the events

partially in relation to my fandom sideblog, because that’s where i had community, and where it’s all just. gone. doesnt exist anymore.

i started up a server, ages ago now. somewhere i curated to be a positive and safe space for things, and for a while, it was that.

around the end of 2019, spilling over to the start of 2020 when it picked up, i found, both on my blog and in discord spaces, in particular the server i ran, that people no longer talked to me. no one would hold a conversation with me past a few basic responses, no one replied to anything i shared, no one engaged when i tried to start discussions. so i pulled back from the main server - S1. thought it was just a lull in activity. stayed that way for weeks, months, and I just muted the server. no one ever cared about anything i had to say. was lucky if anything i posted got even a token emoji react

was in another, smaller server - S2. people i talked to damn near every day, even in voice. played games together - that became... no fun simply because everyone else was so much better/further ahead in the game. i was completely useless, so didn’t server a function in game and never really felt like anyone actively wanted me around, but i still participated in chat.

but again, no one ever responded to anything I posted beyond maybe a token react

couple people discussing something one day. I contributed with Theory A, and quite immediately got that shut down. few minutes later, they rephrased exactly what I said and happily nattered away. so whatever I said wasn’t worth it when it came out of my mouth but if they talked about it, it was all well and valid. so again, between that specific experience and no one interacting with me, nor anything I post. server muted. treatment taught me no one cared about my presence there.

gave admin rights to S1, my server, to someone I trusted. two requests only: dont delete channels and let me know if you want to invite anyone (since I kept it private)

RYE (i’m just assigning random three letter names to people to keep this straight) posted public invites several times. never asked me. one of the two things i asked. brought it up with them that it bothered me, just got vague noncomittal responses. more public invites. eventually, after having the server muted for months, i handed over full control and left. that was almost a full year ago. none of the people have talked to me in that entire year, through discord or here or anything.

except RYE who sent me a message after a couple months like ‘wow i havent heard from you in a while hope you’re doing ok’. i wasn’t. after a bit but still the same day, i said as much. that i wasn’t doing well. they never responded. and i don’t mean like, they didn’t respond that day. i mean i literally never heard from them until months later when they sent me a meme and also didn’t respond to me commenting on that meme.

and this is one side of things. all of the above was the first half of the year. this next bit happened about. march2020? I was in another server - S3. another place that was a good space at the time. was in voice chat with two other people. started talking about one thing. MIN very suddenly said something along the lines of ‘i don’t care about this i’ll come back when you’re done’

this is one of the very few things that can trigger me - i’ve had a lot of people talk down to me if I dare look excited about anything. when they came back, i asked if they could try to just. depart conversations more softly. MIN always said ‘if i do anything hurtful to you just tell me! i dont want to do that kind of thing!’

this was clearly a lie as they exploded on me, telling me they always have to walk on eggshells around me, that I ask so many things from them. before what I asked them that day, I can only recall one other thing i asked (which was not to talk about a person who was abusive towards me, and they were like ‘yea sure np’ about that, over a year prior’)

the whole thing turned into basically me having to shut down the fact that i was hurt by what they did, had to ignore that now and i had to fawn and placate them and the only thing i got out of that was that my feelings were irrelevant, only theirs.

(incidentally, I have had two other people turn on me in similar ways, accusing me of doing shifty/bad/terrible things, and not being willing to tell me what they are when I ask, only saying that ‘i should know what i did’ so that’s also now a Fun New Bit Of Trauma.)

and that entire weeklong event lead me straight to a breakdown. literal genuine breakdown i cannot convey how devastating that entire scenario was without going into far too many details.

so between all of these things happening in less than six months, with three different community spaces folding and collapsing and fading away from me, with many of the friends i thought i had just. moving on to other things and dropping me. people i talked to every day just not bothering with me anymore. they all have gone on to other stuff and no one ever went ‘hey beets wanna see what i’m up to’ or ‘wanna do this thing with me’

a handful of instances of me saying ‘yeah i’m dealing with these fears that have been reinforced lately that people aren’t safe to deal with, even thought part of me knows they’re probably irrational it feels like i have evidence to back it up’ and people immediately take it personally like i’m saying they’re not safe. despite. me outright saying. i know logically it should be irrational. but their reactions just reinforce it so it’s just a loop and tells me, again, never to bring up any of my problems with anyone.

so this all just reinforces that there’s something wrong with me. couple years back i spoke to a friend and how i was frustrated that I seemed to end up in bad spaces and they said ‘well you’re the one thing in common so its probably your fault’ and obviously they’re not my friend anymore but that has affected me so deeply. i can’t do anything without overthinking, whenever anything goes wrong i tear apart everything i’ve done and everything i’ve said or thought and i don’t know why things keep going bad. i try so hard but i’m just. not right.

so it all teaches me that there’s no point in reaching out in trying to talk to people because if i say ‘hey this hurt me’ i get ignored at best or torn down, yelled at, scolded. no point in trying to talk to new people because everyone just walks away at some point. not even a natural drift apart, i can handle that. but just very suddenly, they’re gone, off with better people doing better things.

roundabout, ties back to ‘consumption versus community’ - this is why i’ve been struggling so hard with lack of engagement on my sideblog. lucky to get a dozen notes on anything i make, unless it’s something other people can use (like mods) and even THEN it’s rare to see much activity. and that was FINE because i had people to talk to elsewhere, who would ask questions and we could back and forth and i shared my stuff and they shared those and it didnt matter if my posts only got a dozen notes because i had friends to talk to.

now i get (example) seven notes, six of which are likes and one is a reblog with no commentary. when i have something with a ton of notes, still, minimal commentary, no one talks to me. even on a mod with five hundred notes it just feels like i went ‘hey i made something :)’ and everyone picked it up and walked away with it, no one went ‘hey this is cool i want to talk to the person who made it.’

and it just feels like 95% of the time, i’m just overlooked. 

and it’s worse than it’s ever been in my entire life, and I wonder, what’s the point of any of this anymore.

why bother to make the posts to share when it all just gets passed by. what’s the point in trying to reach out to new people and make friends when i get lashed out at or left behind? the social is gone out of my social media. i had community, and now it’s gone.

so this has all been going on for months and months and months and hey! suffering. and i dont expect it to get any better, don’t expect this post to fix these issues, but i’ve been trying to say something about all of this for fucking months and i think just, laying it all out is all I can do about it. i’m sure i’ve forgotten some things to touch on but as it is, all these events, all of it happening all together. new traumas, old traumas reawoken, reinforced, i’ve been torn to pieces i don’t know how to function, i can’t remember the last time i felt like even half a real person. taught that the safe, positive spaces that meant so much to me don’t actually exist and they’ll all turn on me and be torn away. nowhere is safe anymore, and trying to make it safe is just going to ruin me again.

people aren’t safe, places aren’t safe, been proven to me time and time again so i just. stay away.

no matter how much i try to fight that, it just doesnt work.

anyway tl;dr beets needs therapy probably

[kaminobiwan]

hush

pairing: captain rex  x  reader

summary: you witness a side of Rex he never wanted you to see.

warnings: nightmares in this one loves, and mentions of death in flashbacks. also the f bomb plus other bad words not found in canon

a/n: more?? angst? I’m sorry??? this was requested by the harbinger of feelings™ herself, @morganas-pendragons (who is partially to blame for all my sad ideas lately, thank you I am LOVING this chaos), as well as an anon who wanted to see Rex being calmed down. the anon request was actually from wayyy back from my first milestone celebration, and the prompt word was ‘hush’, for which this fic is named. I am so sorry that took so long lmao and I’m still not done with all of them. but at least this time, it’s hurt AND comfort?

takes place a little while before Lost in Translation. hope you enjoy the return of Rex :-) bloop here’s my taglist

Of course, the first time you witness one of Rex’s nightmares, it’s one of the worst ones of his entire life.

He’d curse the Maker if he thought there really was one. At least, one that listened to clones.

But not even a Jedi could have consoled him after seeing the expression on your face when you found him thrashing around in his bed. The way your eyes shone with pitiful understanding as you’d realized why he would always keep his hair short, no matter what, from the way he’d been tearing at his skull.

Before this, he’d been having a surprisingly good day. Torrent Company’s recon mission had been a success, and back at base, they’d seen Fives and Echo — fresh from ARC training and beaming with new armor yet again. Fives had protested indignantly at being called an ‘ARC Shiny’ while Echo had promised to buy Rex a drink the next time they were both on Coruscant, and then he’d dragged you to his room at the end of the night in a rare moment of laughter and flirtatiousness.

He should have known better than to think he’d get away with one full rotation of peace.

The nightmare comes unexpectedly, his muscles seizing as gunfire flashes behind his eyelids. He’s back on Kamino, the attack on his homeworld replaying in his memories.

So many clones had died. Cadets had died.

The image in his mind fast-forwards to the aftermath of the massacre. He’s overturning the body of a brother clad in familiar colors — it’s Colt, unharmed save for a single lightsaber singe through the chest and a faint lip print left on his cheek.

And then, he’s screaming.

It was her, the assassin from Teth, the one that had wormed her way into his psyche and moved his limbs for him like a puppet on string, toying with his sanity as his own appendages betrayed him. She did this.

Colt’s hands suddenly reach up and grab hold of his face, dragging him downwards, and Rex screeches in terror. “Let go! Colt!”

“We fight together,” Colt’s eyes are unseeing, reflecting death, but his voice is directed to Rex nonetheless. “That’s what we said. But where were you, Rex?”

Another body rises next to him, but Rex is too wild with terror to turn. He can’t look at another dead brother. “You’re not real! Stop! Colt, I’m sorry.”

“Rex.” The voice calls his name again, but this time, it changes from Colt’s into someone else’s. Not a clone’s. “Rex! Wake up!”

His eyes fly open, his fallen brother’s hands morphing into your own as he takes in your face, frantic and lamenting. It’s still dark, but not tinged with the red of alarm lights on Tipoca. You grip his face tighter.

“This is real. I’m real.” Your voice breaks as you press your palms to his cheeks, forcing him to meet your eyes. “I need you to come back to me.”

He can’t speak — can’t even force his lungs to inhale an ounce of oxygen. His chest and throat burn with exertion, but he’s still gasping for air.

“Breathe with me, yeah? Come on, Rex. Breathe.” Where was Colt? Where were the bodies?

He can tell he’s hyperventilating, but it begins to subside as you hum comfortingly and bring his hands to his torso, instructing him to hold his breath and exhale slowly. Your words barely make it to his brain, but he complies numbly, feeling his stomach rise and fall.

“That’s it — there you go.”

Your voice brings him back to earth, and shadows that rim the edges of his vision slowly fade out. You continue to coax him down from the adrenaline of the phantom threat, and his breathing soon evens out.

It was just a dream.

You help him through the comedown for a while longer, making sure he’s still there. As the fragments of reality fall back into place, Rex thanks whoever is listening for your presence.

But as soon as he’s cognizant enough to notice the tears drying on his cheeks, and realize the fetal position he’d assumed in the midst of his thrashing, the panic is replaced with embarrassment, along with something worse.

Anger.

Immediately, he wrenches out of your grip, flinging your hand away in the middle of you stroking his bare back. He registers the hurt that flashes in your eyes, but he’s too irrational to feel anything but disgust — with himself.

You don’t know that, though.

“Rex?” Your gaze is questioning, positively dripping with concern, and it makes him even angrier. He feels like a child.

“Stop that.” He all but growls, and you wince as if he’s struck you. Rather than apologizing, Rex twists his body from you in a half-hearted attempt to hide his storm of horrible emotions. Guilt streaks the red-hot fury that eats at his chest, but he ignores it all. Pushes everything that isn’t cold-blooded indifference away. Get a grip.

Your voice is tentative and small when you speak again — stars, he hopes you’re not crying. He can’t handle that right now. “Stop what, Rex?”

“That look! Stop fucking looking at me like that.” He waves a hand around sharply as he responds, but still doesn’t turn to face you. “I don’t want your pity.”

A sniffle comes from your direction, and Rex shuts his eyes. Fuck. You are crying, and he can tell you’re holding it in as best you can so he can’t hear you.

He doesn’t mean to be so harsh with you, but he can’t help it. Letting you see what’s going on inside his head means dragging you into his mess of a brain, his mess of a life, and you don’t need that. Nobody needs that. You’re already more involved in it than he wanted you to be.

What he needs right now is to be alone. For you to leave, so that he can compartmentalize. He needs the isolation to numb the panic he feels still shaking his bones beneath his skin.

He needs to hide.

But just as he’s about to open his mouth to ask you to get out of his room, you’re shuffling out from under the sheets and standing between his legs, arms on your hips.

“I’m not pitying you, Rex. I’m just worried.”

“Well, don’t be. I’m tellin’ you not to.”

“Tough shit, Rex. You don’t get to decide.” You cross your arms assertively, and he finally looks up at you with similar ire. You’re glaring now, tears gone, but that patronizing compassion is still there. Rex shoves the thought down.

You’re not patronizing him. And yet, he just feels that way.

See, this is why he has to deal with these things on his own.

You call his name again, demanding him to pay attention to you. “You don’t have to wear your heart on your sleeve, Rex, but don’t hide everything all away just because you’re afraid someone might actually care about you.”

His brows furrow defensively. “I’m not —”

“You are. You always do. Because you think you don’t deserve it.” Although you’re speaking softly as to not wake the others in the barracks, your voice is still colored with insistence. Rex would laugh at the contradiction if he wasn’t so shaken. “It’s not up to you to decide what you’re deserving of. You don’t get to tell me how much I should care. You’re the one that needs to stop being so hard on yourself.”

His head lowers as he tries to escape the weight of your words. “I can handle it. I was bred for this.”

“Stop believing that! It’s not fair.”

“Fair to who? You?”

“To you!” You retort, throwing your hands up to accentuate your frustration. “You’re human, not just a clone. If you don’t quit the one-man-army act and open up, you’re gonna explode.” You seemingly deflate, but come down to sit next to him once more. Your hand comes to rest on his, and he doesn’t move it. “How well will you be able to lead your brothers then?”

You’re met with silence, and he can’t think of anything to say to fill it.

Deep down, Rex knows you’re probably right. You sound like Kix, telling him to take care of himself so he can take better care of others, but Rex has never been good at listening to that kind of talk, never been good at cutting himself any slack. He’s not even sure he wants to.

He doesn’t know who he’d become without the responsibility of command.

You squeeze his hand inquisitively, voice probing. “Rex, it doesn’t have to be me, but it has to be someone.” He looks up at you again, feeling drained. He’s tired. “We all want to be there for you. You just…” Trailing off, you search his eyes for any sign of acceptance, and his pupils follow yours as you pause. “You have to let us.”

He knows you don’t have anything left to say, and now it’s his turn to speak. You expect that from him, at the very least. This connection between you, whatever it was, consisted of a give and take. That much, he understood.

Still, it takes him a while to respond.

“I want it to be you.”

Your head tips in question, but you say nothing as you allow him the time to work through what he’s feeling.

“If I open up…I want it to be to you.” He nods as if he’s confirming the thought to himself, and his eyes find yours once more. “Please.”

You stare at him, and for a second Rex thinks he’s said the wrong thing, but then you let out a wry laugh. “If? Rex, you better believe that I’m not gonna quit until you do. In fact, you’re not leaving this bed until you promise you will.”

The mood shifts to a lighter one as you end your threat in teasing, but Rex still feels the seriousness in your statement. Somewhere inside him, gratefulness blooms, but he’s not yet conversationally equipped to tell you that without it sounding wrong to him. So, he places his other hand on top of yours instead.

“Okay.” He breathes. “I promise.”

That earns him a small smile from you, and in his exhaustion, he leans forward, resting his head on yours and clumsily plants a kiss to your eye. Your arms encircle him right away, and he buries his face into your shoulder. Silently, he catches the familiar scent from the fabric you’re wearing, and a smile of his own spreads when he recognizes his blacks on your frame.

“I don’t know how.” Still nestled in your embrace, he croaks out a warning. “But…I’ll try. For you.”

“For you,” you correct him, and he closes his eyes with at the way your affection overwhelms him. “Like I said before. I’ll help you with the rest.”

When he falls asleep again, cradled by you, it’s not a dreamless sleep.

But the dream is a good one.

[xbunnybunz]

The terrible, you. (3/5) [Wolf Keum x Reader]

Summary: After Wolf Keum unwittingly rescues you from seedy men in the dead of night, he can't shake you from his side. After a while, he's not sure if he wants to.

Genres: Romance

Date: June 16, 2020

-----

You did not appear again the next day.

Wolf Keum had not been waiting for you to present yourself. He made sure to remind himself of that.

Yet, the endless chatter of the “girl looking for Wolf Keum” going around Ganghak was grating on his nerves and disallowed him to purge you from his mind.

As someone his classmates could barely bring themselves to look at, he was an awful popular point of contention. You had made a bigger mess than you could imagine.

“I’m telling you, she’s way too cute for him. I’ve seen her working at the flower shop by the underpass, and I don’t think she could be interested in him like that at all, ever. Too bad for him.”

As one of the strongest members of Yeongdeungpo, Wolf Keum’s personal business was always made public business in a matter of days, or in this case, hours. He had first looked upon this with irrational contempt, wondering why his name belonged in anybody’s mouth if they could barely utter a syllable in his presence. After a while, he realized that rumors, while spoken about for the sake of entertainment, could also serve to emphasize his power without much effort on his part.

It wasn’t much different now, though Wolf had to admit he had never been jabbed in the pride regarding his romantic life before. He had no idea it existed until now. It stirred his temper more than dumbfucks shit-talking his fights, and he reasoned that his irritability stemmed from the fact that these slobs would talk about just about anything. Still, he couldn’t settle things like he did back then. Not while he was under Donald Na’s system. It wasn’t as effective than beating the living shit out of anyone who looked at him funny, but it did allow time for his bruised knuckles to heal before the next beatdown.

His friend was quick to snatch the collar of the offender.

“What the hell did you say about Wolf? What do you know? Do I need to knock out your teeth so you think twice before yammering?”

The smaller student squirmed in the iron grip, sweating bullets and eyes darting about to find aid from his friends.

“I- I didn’t mean to! I mean, I wasn’t talking about Wolf Keum, the girl, she-”

“You weren’t talking about Wolf Keum?”

Wolf watched out of the corner of his eye, hands in his pockets, as the student was nearly hoisted from the floor from the collar.

“Who the hell were you talking about then? Geum Sa-Wol? You watch that shit, loser?”*

As the student became a blubbering mess, Wolf swept his eyes over the crowd in the hallway. All eyes were diverted. It was deafeningly silent, a silence that Wolf Keum craved for two reasons. One, it meant he could finally have a few goddamn seconds of peace without her face bouncing around in his head; and two, it meant that although students refused to look up, they were still very much listening.

“Hey man.”

Wolf placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and he could feel the trembling of the other student through his arm.

“Don’t sweat it.”

The smaller kid was set down, and Wolf had to keep himself from snarking at his pale face and wide eyes. Instead, he turned his chin up and offered a sickening smile, his glasses catching the gleam of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling.

“I can’t waste time on shit-mouthed fuckers who can’t get the facts straight.”

Wolf reached out to scornfully dust off his wrinkled jacket, enjoying each flinch he induced when his hand landed too harshly or too quickly. He lowered his voice to a dangerous octave, a surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins when he felt the room drop ten degrees in response.

“Her and I have nothing to do with each other, and definitely nothing to do with you. It’s best for us to keep it like that for your sake, don’t you think?”

He lowered his gaze to glower at the shorter student, who, trembling, swallowed thickly and nodded stiffly under his suffocating presence. Wolf remained rooted to the floor, asserting his pressure for a few more long seconds for good measure before giving him a shove.  

“Now fuck off.”

He watched as the student took off, tripping over the air in his haste and plummeting into the unforgiving tiled floors with a splat.

Wolf regarded him with a derisive glance and moved to open the door to his classroom, and though it was someone else on the floor, all eyes were on him. He always reveled in the high of scaring someone shitless when he had an audience. Their deafening silence represented their resounding submission to him, but perhaps his most favorite part of all was the contrast of atmosphere immediately before and after he entered another room. The collective drop of shoulders, the perfectly synchronized sighs of relief and immediate whispers of disbelief flooded Wolf Keum with euphoria. It reminded him that his mere presence was enough to instill fear into the hearts of his peers, strong enough to demand subservience, and a testament to his self-made reputation.

It was exactly what he needed now after a long day of conflicting thoughts, which he shamefully had to admit, had made him restless. When he slid the door to his classroom open, he could almost hear the eyes moving from his back to his desk.

In all his years of accruing bloody knuckles and broken noses, he had never once been as stunned as he was in this one soundless and stagnant moment. A crowd had formed around his table, busybodies nosing about and phone cameras shuttering. The moment they heard the door fling open they scattered like roaches, throwing themselves back into their seats and trying hard to seem occupied as to not incur the wrath of Wolf Keum.

Piled high on his desk was an amalgamation of pinks and reds, wrapped delicacies placed upon gift boxes placed upon packages tied to little pink balloons. Wolf took this all in with as straight a face as he could muster, knowing everyone was more sensitive to his presence now than ever before. This included of course, eyebrows arching upwards and his jaw becoming slack.

No one could blame Wolf Keum for his reaction. They had in fact, reacted in the same exact manner- perhaps to a more notable extent. Even for a normal person, a love letter or a small baked treat would suffice as a proclamation of love. But for Wolf Keum, the gifts spread across his desk in a flashy show of affection were tenfold more surprising. It was incomprehensible to anyone that Wolf, the brute occupied with street violence and gang activity, would ever entertain the idea of liking someone, and even moreso shocking that someone could see past their terror and admire him- especially in such an ostentatious fashion.

This revelation was of course, made much more interesting because of the blatant denial that he had anything to do with a girl prior. Wolf knew this more than anyone and gathered his wits to press onward, feeling something strangely similar to adrenaline pulsing through his body and reddening his ears.

“W-Wolf…” His friend stuttered, raising a weak finger to point at the desk. “…What is that?”

Wolf skulked into the classroom, hands deep in his pockets and a snarl on his lips. He had an idea, but couldn’t formulate it into words. He settled for the next best thing.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know, dimwit? I’m looking now.”

“O-oh. Right.”

He approached the table with caution, cringing at the vivid colors and grotesque amount of home baked pastries and sweets. There was an assortment of red cosmos, pink tulips and white daises sitting upon everything, tied together neatly with a thick shiny ribbon pinning down a notecard.

Wolf considered knocking everything over in a fit of confused rage. He considered ordering his lackey to burn it in the incinerator. He considered many things, yet curiosity ate him alive and stopped him from uttering a single word.

He had thought about her all day, damn it all if denying it did anything. She had a strange manner to her that he couldn’t shake and he was enraged when she failed to show up again after gaining his attention. Though no, it hadn’t been directed at her- which was what infuriated him. For the first time in years, Wolf Keum had been disappointed in himself, perhaps for not being interesting enough to earn another visit, or strong enough to impress her beyond a single local market creampuff.

When she didn’t show up again as he had anticipated, he was overtaken by pesky attempts to explain it. He guessed she was shy, he guessed she was nervous, he guessed she came to her senses, he had guessed and guessed until it drove him up the wall and back down again. But even with his reputation and credibility on the line, even while being documented by a sea of students who undoubtedly would share this with friends later- now that just a breath of her existence was in front of him, he had to know- was she back after all? The adrenaline had now inched its way across his body and set his heart and mind aflame, temperatures soaring and burning their way across his cheeks.

“Bro, I can toss it for you-”

“Shut up for a second.”

Wolf ignored the other man, who wisely shut his trap. He was preoccupied with keeping his hand steady as he stiffly reached out for the notecard, a gleam overtaking his glasses. The gold foil note looked strangely out of place in his calloused and bandaged hands, but the name on the notecard was undoubtedly his.

Dear Wolf Keum, Yay!! You found my gifts!! I hope you can enjoy these snacks with all of your funny friends. The flowers are for you though. I picked them from the florist shop I work at myself. I hope you like them! (PS: Put them in carrot juice to make them last longer!) (PPS: or don’t… my boss tells me not to do that in the shop…)

He lowered the card and looked up with a deadpan glower, all the students who had been peering over their shoulders flinched and look back to the front.

He didn’t know what to feel. Wolf Keum was instinctively mad at everything. If the television didn’t work, he was mad. If he had forgotten an umbrella in the rain, he’d be mad and take someone else’s and still be mad. Any slight inconvenience to Wolf Keum was followed by inevitable punishment, and though he was inconvenienced now more than ever with your gifts tarnishing his title in both Ganghak High and the Union, in this moment he felt nothing more than exasperation.

A familiar pipsqueak shitstain voice sounded from the door.

“Woah, she really does like you! How?”

Wolf Keum grit his teeth and felt his hands ball into tight fists at his side, confusion igniting once again to erupt into a bitter and wild, barely contained rage. He was Wolf Keum. Why did he care? Why did he care what a shitty bread shuttle had to say?

He felt his temper raise to lick at the edges of his vision, something of the sort of beast he was used to encountering, but driven by something larger and much more foreign than he was used to. What was it that he, Wolf Keum, was so unfamiliar with? So unable to control?

A creep of red colored his neck, a dash ran across his face, and then he knew at once.

The amount of effort it took for him to sustain regular breathing was fucking bullshit. The way his fists were ready to swing yet ever trembling was fucking. Bullshit.

To onlookers, this Wolf Keum was the same as the Wolf Keum all the days before, face red with irritation, quaking fists itching for a brawl. He was thankful of this, but at the same time hated how he had to hide behind his title instead of living up to it.

Wolf Keum was insecure.

“You little bitch! I’ll rip out your tongue!”

A figure lunged at the smaller boy in the periphery of Wolf's vision, yet he paid it no mind. There was no satisfaction that came from the dull sound of crying and a fists cracking against a nose. Wolf settled into his chair with an aura that filled the room with a cold draft.

With his mood soured, everyone was suddenly reminded that Wolf Keum with gifts on his desk was in fact, still Wolf Keum.

The silence that surrounded the noisy beating did nothing to ease the atmosphere as the pink balloon bobbed softly in the air.