#it just feels like such a mark of failure

[endereies]

STUDY SESSION - CS

No Nut November - Day 20

NNN Masterlist...

-➤ Chris helps you take your mind away from studies

You had been sat in your bedroom for hours. It was completely silence other than the sound of pens scribbling and keyboard keys tapping. Every free area of space was covered by some scrap paper. Words had started to blur hours ago, and it only made things worse for you. Nothing made any sense to you and with your finals coming up soon, you couldn’t waste any more time.

Nothing could split your eyesight away from the sheets of paper around you, not even the growl of your stomach. The feeling of hunger slipped past your mind as the thoughts of the previous failure mark forwarded everything. You were too disappointed in yourself to think about yourself.

It had gotten to the point that you hadn’t noticed Chris walk behind you and start speaking, not until he gripped and turned your chair towards him. “Hey…you’re up late?”

“Chris? You are back early, weren’t you filming until 2am tonight.” You grew confused as you only felt a few hours pass in your mind.

“Y/n? Its 3am? I’ve been downstairs because I thought you were asleep, until I heard movement. What are you doing up?” He saw the exhaustion etched into your eyes and it only made his eyes soften with worry.

“Just studying, my exam is in a week, and I don’t want to fail again.” You stopped copying down notes to look up at him.

Chris stared at the freshly written on paper and met your gaze again. “What was the last thing you just wrote down.” You were about to tilt your head before he stopped you. “Without looking”

Words stuttered out your mouth, your fingers tapping, trying to find the answer. “Uhm, the definition of functions?” Your voice squeaked, knowing it was more than wrong.

“Nope, you aren’t even doing functions, it was the nth term baby… How are you meant to revise like this if you cant remember what you’re writing.” You tried to protest and once more he stopped you. A few of the papers began to be hard to focus on and gain any knowledge from and you sighed your head in defeat.

“I know this is important to you, but you’re important to me.” Both his arms gripped your shoulders, the dim lights of your laptop highlighting the sincere look in his eyes.

“Mhm…okay.”

“Good, now, there is some pasta on the stove, have some fuel and you can crash out, all this will be waiting for you…”

Your body drew itself into Chris’ chest, a sharp exhale escaping. He snaked his hands around your body and placed his chin on top of your head. He swayed slightly, embracing the physical touch before creating some distance.

“Thank you, Chris, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry, love. Just relax now, you need it.

@melliflws @yuhayeee @st7rnioioss @sturn-bugz @bueckerrss @worldlxvlys @raysmayhem-72 @patscorner @y0urm4m @bernardsbendystraws @junnniiieee07 @luverboychris @jnkvivi @rac00ns-are-c00l4 @shorthairchris @colorthecosmos444 @anabethinking @zay-sturns @anyaa2s @emilyfaith2003 @jassturn @imjusthereforthesturniolosmut @sturniolosiphone @ribread03 @slutf4rmatt @spaghetti835928383 @flouvela

© ENDEREIES 2024

[deivorous]

..

[s4gefr0g]

I am definitely not going to enjoy the holidays

[accio-sabrina]

guess who's probably gonna be a dentist?

[catgirlwarrior]

Tried telling my mom how I'm feeling about college and just got "well you just have to breathe and deal with it"

Not to be a quitter or anything I am one minor inconvenience, one fucked up ramen order, one sensory overload away from clawing holes in my skin and wanting to nap on a highway at rush hour because of this college "just breathe" is not going to fucking cut it

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

You know that bit of year eleven where you've finished all the content for the courses you're doing but it isn't quite exam season yet so it just feels like you're in limbo... how from the very start of the year I just felt like I was waiting for the 15th of May, to start the exams I've been prepared for since I was four... all the threats and practice and now it's real and it's like you just can't process it, something that has been nothing but a looming shadow for so long is suddenly so real and just around the corner. Full circle. It'll all be over and my mind just can't figure out what to do with that knowledge.

[yanosdiary]

Me not being fazed by a bad mark, not realizing that its a bad thing:

Aben: *looks at my mark, pats back in sympathy*

Me: ???

Also me: fuck, am i that useless?

[featherymainffins]

Binge-reading Dungeon Meshi because it's the only thing standing between me and suicide ngl.

[dilfdicks]

★ thinking about fwb!gojo who flirts with anyone and everyone in front of you because they know you're not dating and he knows it will earn him the most mind-melting orgasm later on.

because you hate it, hate how his eyes rake down their bodies and his hands linger just too long on their lower backs when he goes in for a 'friendly' hug. you hate how he introduces you as his friend, despite having fingered his cum back into you that same morning.

he will go the whole way if he knows you're really taking notice. call a girl pretty, ask for her number and promise he won't forget to call and arrange a night she won't forget. doesn't even glance in your direction to gauge your emotion, because he can feel it, feel the radiating heat from your body, the sharp look you're burning into his skin.

flirts like a whore because he knows you'll fuck him like a whore the moment you can get him alone. he doesn't know for sure whether its you staking claim on him, marking your territory, or if its just a girl thing he doesn't understand. but what he does know is that jealous looks good on you, and feels even better inside of you. you fuck him harder when you're jealous, fuck him faster and for longer and with all those porn-made moans and groans and whines for more.

and each time, without failure, when he cums inside of you he whispers right next to your ear — 'she couldn't take me like you do.'

he'll make you his eventually, he already knows he's going to marry you. but for now, he'll enjoy the way you swear you don't have feelings for him then cry on his cock if he even looks in another persons direction.

[vidalswife]

Imagine you're a 400+ century old witch and you somehow end up falling in love with the female embodiment of death, who then has to take your son's soul after he dies, which results in you hating her. Now, you're trying to get your power back, and after years, and i mean YEARS, of not seeing her, she comes along the journey to help you and your coven get to the end of a death mission. You know what she is, you know why you don't like her, but you also know that beyond that you can never hate her. She's the only woman you've truly ever loved, and just her touch can drive you crazy. You spend each day thinking of and yearning for her, and then when the teenager you've taken under your wing almost dies, you plead with her not to take him. She does this for you, she doesn't take him, just for you. And in a campfire circle surrounded by your newfound family, she tells them all of a woman she once loved, who she is physically and emotionally pained by everyday, knowing that she hurt this woman more than she can ever explain, and more than anyone can ever imagine. She says this woman is her scar, a mark of failure and devastation she has to carry with her for the rest of her life. This woman is you. You leave to breathe, knowing it was you, knowing that just the simple word "loved" coming out of her mouth when she was talking about you made every bone in your body ache for her. She follows you, puts her hand on your back, and you can't help but to pull her in for a hug, it feels like heaven, like you're soaring above the sky with nothing else in the world but the two of you, and you realize you haven't felt the gentle touch of this woman since what happened. In your moment of longing and desperation, you cup her face, and you pull her in for a kiss, not only inches apart, but centimeters. A single breath holds her apart from you, and all those feelings you have for her rush back to you in an instant. She embraces it, but pulls back at the very moment. She knows you are vulnerable, she knows you're in pain, she knows you're not ready to feel her again. So she says your name, and she looks at you the way she always has. She didn't have to say it for you to know she loves you, and you weren't sure if her reluctance made you love her or long for her more, or both.

[byoldervine]

Types Of Writer’s Block (And How To Fix Them)

1. High inspiration, low motivation. You have so many ideas to write, but you just don’t have the motivation to actually get them down, and even if you can make yourself start writing it you’ll often find yourself getting distracted or disengaged in favour of imagining everything playing out

Try just bullet pointing the ideas you have instead of writing them properly, especially if you won’t remember it afterwards if you don’t. At least you’ll have the ideas ready to use when you have the motivation later on

2. Low inspiration, high motivation. You’re all prepared, you’re so pumped to write, you open your document aaaaand… three hours later, that cursor is still blinking at the top of a blank page

RIP pantsers but this is where plotting wins out; refer back to your plans and figure out where to go from here. You can also use your bullet points from the last point if this is applicable

3. No inspiration, no motivation. You don’t have any ideas, you don’t feel like writing, all in all everything is just sucky when you think about it

Make a deal with yourself; usually when I’m feeling this way I can tell myself “Okay, just write anyway for ten minutes and after that, if you really want to stop, you can stop” and then once my ten minutes is up I’ve often found my flow. Just remember that, if you still don’t want to keep writing after your ten minutes is up, don’t keep writing anyway and break your deal - it’ll be harder to make deals with yourself in future if your brain knows you don’t honour them

4. Can’t bridge the gap. When you’re stuck on this one sentence/paragraph that you just don’t know how to progress through. Until you figure it out, productivity has slowed to a halt

Mark it up, bullet point what you want to happen here, then move on. A lot of people don’t know how to keep writing after skipping a part because they don’t know exactly what happened to lead up to this moment - but you have a general idea just like you do for everything else you’re writing, and that’s enough. Just keep it generic and know you can go back to edit later, at the same time as when you’re filling in the blank. It’ll give editing you a clear purpose, if nothing else

5. Perfectionism and self-doubt. You don’t think your writing is perfect first time, so you struggle to accept that it’s anything better than a total failure. Whether or not you’re aware of the fact that this is an unrealistic standard makes no difference

Perfection is stagnant. If you write the perfect story, which would require you to turn a good story into something objective rather than subjective, then after that you’d never write again, because nothing will ever meet that standard again. That or you would only ever write the same kind of stories over and over, never growing or developing as a writer. If you’re looking back on your writing and saying “This is so bad, I hate it”, that’s generally a good thing; it means you’ve grown and improved. Maybe your current writing isn’t bad, if just matched your skill level at the time, and since then you’re able to maintain a higher standard since you’ve learned more about your craft as time went on

[homunculus-argument]

As a kid, I wasn't taught any concept that there's a difference between wanting to do something, and enjoying it. I was a largely unsupervised kid with undiagnosed ADHD and parents who expected their kids to just raise themselves on their own. So when I was capable of spending hours drawing or reading a fun book, but couldn't even remember that I had homework, ever, I was told that I simply didn't want to do well in school. And who was I to question that, I'm eight years old.

Enjoyment and passion were the only forms of motivation I knew, and if I couldn't make myself either love doing boring math homework as much as I loved my hobbies, or force myself to push through things I hated with sheer willpower alone because I want to succeed so bad, then clearly I was simply not as good as all the other kids, who could do that. And that attitude carried onto adulthood. Every time I struggled to muster genuine love and passion into something, I thought that I just don't want it badly enough. Not to enough to love it, or to suffer through it.

Being medicated for the first time was a game changer. Like holy shit, so this is your brain on dopamine. And suddenly I wanted to do things, turned my life around, took up the passion career I had never dared to try. And when the first "honeymoon phase" of the meds wore down, the same fear came back - I don't like this anymore, do I not want it bad enough? What else could I possibly want?

And I shit you not I was literally 30 years old when I understood that life isn't just either loving every minute of pursuing a passion that you love, or joylessly dragging yourself through things that you don't even want to do. I can just tell myself "just because I don't like doing this doesn't mean I don't want to be doing it." It's not a mark of failure, weakness or lack of motivation, if sometimes the career you want to be doing just feels like having a job.

[plutonianeris]

CHIRON

Blood on my shirt, rose in my hand

You're looking at me like you don't know who I am

🖤 Chiron in the 1st House: From the beginning, life has left its mark on you, both inside and out. There’s a constant feeling of being seen, but not always in the way you’d like sometimes, it feels like others are looking right at your scars. This awareness of not quite fitting, of always being “too much” or “not enough,” can make it feel like you’re on display, even when you’d rather hide. Self-doubt is a frequent visitor, leading you to question your worth or think you’ll never be as confident as others seem to be. The journey of healing here means stepping out of the shadows and realizing that your uniqueness is your strength, regardless of what others think.

🖤 Chiron in the 2nd House: Your relationship with security, especially around money and self-worth, has been rocky. It often feels like you’re striving for something you can never fully attain. You may have experienced financial instability or felt as though you lacked the foundation others seemed to have. Even when you do achieve success or accumulate wealth, the feeling of “not enough” lingers, and no amount of material gain seems to fill the void. Your journey to healing involves learning to value yourself independently of external measures and understanding that your worth is inherent, not tied to what you have or earn.

🖤 Chiron in the 3rd House: Communication has never felt easy or natural. You might have grown up feeling like no one truly listened, or perhaps you were criticized for what you said, leading you to hold back. Sometimes, it feels like your thoughts get stuck, unable to be fully expressed. This can make interactions exhausting and even painful, as you’re left feeling invisible or overlooked. The healing process here is about realizing that your voice has worth, whether or not others understand or agree. Your words matter, and you don’t have to prove or justify your thoughts for them to be valuable.

🖤 Chiron in the 4th House: Home and family may feel like sources of deep pain rather than comfort. You might have grown up in an environment that lacked warmth or safety, leaving you with a sense of instability. No matter where you go or how much you try to build a safe space, it can feel haunted by old memories and unresolved emotions. This sense of never truly “belonging” can follow you, leading to a feeling of isolation. True healing lies in creating a sanctuary within yourself and letting go of the past, finding peace in a space that is yours, even if it’s just a quiet corner of your mind.

🖤 Chiron in the 5th House: Joy, romance, and creativity feel like distant concepts. While others seem to enjoy life with ease, you may struggle to let go, fearing judgment or disappointment. You might push people away to avoid the potential of being hurt, or find yourself critiquing every creative effort, never allowing yourself to fully enjoy it. There’s an ache here, a longing for the freedom to simply be yourself without overthinking. Healing means allowing yourself the grace to be imperfect, to embrace joy, creativity, and romance without fear of failure or rejection.

🖤 Chiron in the 6th House: Everyday life often feels like a grind, and you may experience constant anxiety about your health, routine, or responsibilities. This can lead to a cycle of burnout, where you push yourself relentlessly, hoping that if you work hard enough, you’ll finally feel “good enough.” Instead, exhaustion becomes a constant companion, and the inner emptiness remains unfilled. Healing for you involves letting go of perfectionism and understanding that your value is not in how much you do or how well you do it. True self-care is more than a concept it’s a necessity for survival.

🖤 Chiron in the 7th House: Relationships bring out some of your deepest wounds. Being alone can feel unbearable, yet being with others brings a different kind of pain often because you’re reminded of past disappointments or fears of abandonment. You might attract people who mirror these insecurities, leaving you feeling incomplete or unworthy. It’s a struggle to find balance, to give without losing yourself and to receive without feeling indebted. Healing here means realizing that no relationship will complete you; only by accepting yourself fully can you find peace in connection.

🖤 Chiron in the 8th House: Intimacy and trust are difficult for you, often tied to painful memories or past betrayals. You may want closeness but fear the vulnerability it demands, keeping others at a distance to protect yourself from potential harm. There’s a deep wound here, a sense that life’s darker sides loss, betrayal, suffering are unavoidable. Until you allow yourself to confront this pain and the protective walls you’ve built, true intimacy will always feel just out of reach. Healing means embracing the idea that vulnerability can coexist with strength and that trusting others doesn’t diminish your power.

🖤 Chiron in the 9th House: You search for meaning in a world that often feels unsteady, leaving you questioning beliefs that others find comforting. This can lead to a sense of isolation, feeling as though the spiritual or philosophical answers you seek are never quite within reach. Traditional beliefs may feel inadequate or insincere, and this constant quest can leave you feeling lost. Healing means accepting that your journey is uniquely yours and finding peace in a path that doesn’t need to align with anyone else’s truth. Embrace the unknown, trusting that not every question needs an answer.

🖤 Chiron in the 10th House: Career and public image are areas where you feel the weight of expectation, often putting immense pressure on yourself to achieve. No matter how much you accomplish, there’s a lingering fear that you’re still not good enough or that others will see through your achievements. You may feel driven to overcompensate, working tirelessly to fill the emptiness left by self-doubt. True healing lies in redefining success according to your own standards, letting go of the need for external applause, and finding fulfillment in growth rather than recognition.

🖤 Chiron in the 11th House: Finding your place in the world often feels like a challenge. You may feel like an outsider, longing for a sense of community but often feeling let down by friendships or social connections. There’s an ache here, a wish to belong while fearing that no one will truly understand or appreciate who you are. Healing means realizing that your path is different, that your uniqueness isn’t a flaw but a strength. You’re here to create a tribe that values the real you, even if it’s only a small circle of genuine connections.

🖤 Chiron in the 12th House: You carry a deep, often unspoken pain, a sense of loneliness that feels beyond words. It’s as if you’re bearing the weight of the world’s sorrow, and while people may recognize your empathy, they rarely understand how heavy it is to carry. You may find it difficult to separate your own pain from that of others, leading to exhaustion and emotional overwhelm. Healing for you is about setting boundaries and learning to distinguish your own emotions from the collective pain around you. Embrace solitude as a place of healing, not isolation, where you can nurture your soul without being consumed by the world’s suffering.

[nereidprinc3ss]

trolley problem

in which fem!reader has been gambling with her life and spencer reid is more than a little concerned

flangst, hurt/comfort warnings/tags: passive suicidal ideation from reader, she keeps risking her life, that really grinds Spencer’s gears, established relationship, existential dread, existential euphoria, lots of stuff about grief and death and self worth, not advocating for this, pretension from the author, blasphemy probably?, reader gets fuzzy from prescribed painkillers, arguing, hospital stuff, mention of sleep paralysis involving spiders, reader gets shot but she’s fineee, I pander to intro to philosophy takers, bau!reader, neurodivergent coded reader, if she’s not exactly like you I’m sorry, bean soup a/n: one day you’re in a writing slump literally the next you are in your notes app for six hours writing whatever the fuck this is but I think I love it even tho it’s weird and I hope u like it too!! btw this was gonna be called cotard's syndrome but then I never once talk abt cotard's but if u care that might be interesting context for the motif of not feeling human/alive, WC 3K

Spencer hasn’t spoken to you since the doctor left the room five minutes ago. 

The air is antiseptic as you take it deep into the hollows of your lungs and trap it there for a moment, trying to optimize oxygen intake without actually having to breathe very often. Hospital smell is as universal as it is suffocating. It reeks of everything but death—flowers, blood, bleach, vomit. A humiliating, desperate scramble to defy the very thing that defines mortality. It’s pathetic. It reminds you of the worst instances of failure and loss and denial in your life. It curdles your blood. Literally rots you from the inside out. 

You’ve had ample time to ponder that smell over the last few months because you keep ending up here, and some time ago you decided the institution of the hospital is inherently absurd. It’s stupid to think you could avoid the one absolute condition on your corporeal form: impermanence. It is the only thing that is promised, and people still waste their lives away running from it. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy. 

So around the time you acknowledged that hospitals are simply monuments to the self-importance of man, you gave up on trying too hard to preserve yourself. You’ve seen death too much and too often. You’ve tried staving it off with prayer and the miracles of modern medicine, and it never matters in the end because it’s all magical thinking anyway. All the wallowing and the bargaining and pleading never got you anywhere. 

You’ve accepted that from the moment you were born, you were marked for death. 

But you’re not a complete nihilist. You’re not even totally resigned to the abject certainty of death—because you’ve found a loophole.

Everyone has as many chances at escaping death as other people are willing to offer them at the cost of their own lives. Not many people are willing to make that trade—someone else’s life for their own—but you’ve decided you are. Because if not you, then who?

It’s not that you don’t see the value in your own life, as Spencer keeps making it sound. It’s just the opposite. You understand that you’ve got an extremely valuable resource, and you don’t just have to sit on it. There are things you can do. Choices you can make. Ways to defy death. 

Just… not yours. 

Or maybe you’re just in deep denial. 

Either way—this is a philosophy your boyfriend intentionally refuses to understand. He gets mad, or some kind of upset, every time you try to explain it. Usually he ends up leaving the room close to tears. You never feel good about it.

Right now he’s presumably trying to give you the silent treatment and not doing a very good job. 

“Stop holding your breath. Why are you—stop that.”

Spencer’s frowning, skin sallow and milk-blue under fluorescent lighting. Purple seeps from around his eyes like spilled wine on a white table cloth. Your stomach turns. 

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t tell you not to apologize. You don’t expect him to. 

“Why are you doing that? Does something hurt?”

Other than your entire bicep being on fire due to the 9 millimeter Luger it recently came into contact with?

“Not really. I just don’t like the smell of hospitals.”

At that, he gets stony again. Like, Medusa stony. You feel a tightening in your chest that has nothing to do with a lack of air. His arms are crossed. A silk lined blazer drapes over your lap, and you wonder if he’s cold in just that white button up. It’s translucent in this light, like onion skin, or maybe something less organic—the folds and wrinkles look like fabric, but lots of things look like something they aren’t. In the Pietá, Jesus lounges dead on his mother’s lap, his cheek pressed to her arm like either of them have warm flesh, and her skirts drape from her knees and fall to the ground in delicate folds just like Spencer’s jacket and looking at pictures of it you swear you could find comfort there too—but if you wanted to make space for yourself next to Jesus you’d have to do it with a chisel and mallet. You’re starting to think that’s what it’s going to take with Spencer, as well. 

“So stop walking into active gunfire. You’ll spend a lot less time here.”

Every deep sigh (of which there have been several) calcifies you further. Ironically, you never feel less alive than you do in a hospital. 

“I didn’t walk into active g—”

“I’m not debating it with you. It’s not a discussion.”

“So you’re just going to be pissed at me for the rest of forever? I mean, if it’s not a discussion—what are you gonna do? Break up with me?”

You feel yourself dripping poison in the well. Even as you say it. As his head tilts toward you slowly and intently from his spot against the wall, and his warning gaze is cold and unforgiving and weighs 3.35 tons.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Talk?”

“Don’t try and manipulate me by implying that there are no options between permissiveness and dumping you!”

“I’m not manipulating you. And I don’t need your permission to do anything.” 

The first part is an incredulous scoff as well as a blatant lie. You are manipulating him. Chisel and all. At least, you were trying to. It clearly doesn’t work very well. His jaw clenches.  

“Is this worth it to you? Fighting with me like we’re children solely so you don’t have to take accountability?”

“Accountability for what? I made a choice. I don’t regret it. You’re upset because I did my job.”

A beat. 

Silence always makes you feel the gravity of your words. 

“Do you believe that?”

His voice softens so much, so quickly, it splinters down the middle. 

You’ve never been known for your light touch. For someone who sees eviscerated bodies nearly every day, and prides herself on her evolved understanding of mortality, you often forget other people are not, in fact, impenetrable marble—they are flesh and blood and bone, and you’ve splattered yourself in the evidence of that. 

“What?” You murmur. You easily turn timid, when you’re afraid you’ve been too heavy-handed. Spencer’s seen you sob over the birds who hit the windowpane and never reappeared from the shrubbery—their delicate wings, their little beaks—he didn’t mean to, Spencer, and now he’s dead! He’s seen you spend forty minutes catching a spider with a cup and an envelope rather than smush it, even though you have reoccurring episodes of sleep paralysis wherein a giant arachnid is sitting on your chest, hissing and clacking its pincers. He knows you are, at your core, kind and good. 

It’s a little scary for someone to know that about you. It’s a little scary when you see your own vulnerability reflected in their eyes and the way they speak to you, the way you see it in him now. 

“Do you believe that the choices you make regarding your safety don’t concern me at all?”

“They’re… my choices to make,” you whisper, but you’re less sure than you were a minute ago. 

“I’m not talking about that—I’m talking about how it feels like you are trying to kill yourself every time we’re in the field.” His voice shakes. You swallow. “You have been hospitalized for four serious injuries sustained on the job in the past five months. Every time I bring it up, you—you talk about life like it’s optional for you. Like you’re not only willing to give it up but are actively looking to throw yourself in harm’s way every chance you get. You think that doesn’t terrify me?”

There’s a small chip in the paint on the wall next to him roughly the shape of Africa. 

“It’s not like that. I’m… I’m just having an unlucky streak.”

He snaps. 

“Luck isn’t going to get between you and a bullet. Ever.”

“It’s my job, Spencer.”

“No. It is a risk of the job. Not a defining feature or requirement. But you keep running toward gunfire like you have a quota to meet.”

“Spencer, I’m not doing it at you. I’m not trying to get myself hurt.”

“Well it doesn’t really feel like you’re trying to avoid it, either,” he shoots back immediately, and you feel the anguish radiating from him until it lodges in your own chest, like it was always yours. Maybe it was. 

You want to make it better, but you don’t know how, and even if you did, he’s pushing off the wall and crossing the room toward the door. 

“Where are you going?” You call, a little too desperately for your liking. 

“You need to eat something.”

Which translates roughly to he’s pissed and upset and he needs to leave the room. You’ve done this song and dance before. 

However, food and an absence of him are contenders for the absolute last two things you want right now. 

“Spencer, please don’t—”

But the door is already whooshing closed. 

You stare at the grey and white checkered floor. Light bounces off the waxen reflection—some sort of parallel universe you can’t reach, perhaps. The whole room is desaturated. A mechanical humming threatens to drive you insane. It doesn’t feel like a place for living humans. You’re not convinced you are one. 

When he comes back, maybe ten minutes later, nothing’s moved at all. In fact you’re not even sure you’ve been breathing. 

The door closes as quietly as it opens. 

This time, wordlessly, Spencer comes to you. You see his shoes first—his serious adult shoes. You wish he was wearing his Converse. 

Then you see the bottle of apple juice he’s cracking open for you. Blue lid. Same kind you always get. 

“You didn’t bring food.”

“You wouldn’t have eaten it.”

Fair enough. 

You take the bottle with your good arm and sip shallowly—all that adrenaline and the subsequent interpersonal strife has left you nauseous. The drink is too sweet. It clashes with the tang of metal in your mouth. 

Still, you drink enough to satisfy him, and then you’re tossing his jacket aside before balancing the bottle between your thighs so you can screw the lid back on. He doesn’t go back to the couch or his spot on the wall. 

Spencer doesn’t pull away when you lean into him, but it does take him a moment to reciprocate. You’re still grateful all the same when he cradles the back of your head to his stomach like you’re made of porcelain. 

“I don’t think you understand how upset I am,” he says quietly. 

Only Spencer Reid could be furious with you and still hold you like this. 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur. 

“That’s not good enough. You need to stop risking your life like that.”

He doesn’t get it. Your brows flutter as they try to furrow but even holding that expression saps you. Maybe the pain meds are finally kicking in. 

“I just wanna help people.”

“That doesn’t explain to me or justify your urge to do it at the cost of your own life. We all want to help people, angel. The whole team. That’s why we do what we do. But we don’t run into shootouts. We don’t split off and provoke people with guns when we’re unarmed and unprepared.”

“But it worked. She got away.” You feel a spark of fulfillment at the memory of Gloria Sanchez in JJ’s arms just before the ambulance doors had slammed you into your first cage of the night. 

“We don’t know if he was going to kill her. He might not’ve fired at all if you didn’t go running toward him. That wasn’t strategic, it was reckless and irresponsible and you know that. I know you do. So something else is going on.”

The pressure in your nose that usually precipitates tears comes as a surprise. 

“I just—if that’s how I can save someone, why shouldn’t I, you know? Why do they have less of a right to live than I do just because they’ve been deprived of the choice? If I have a choice, and they don’t, I should choose to… to help them. That’s my job.”

For a long moment, you listen to your own breath, muffled by Spencer’s shirt, and the mechanical humming, and something dripping, and the low, buzzy chatter of nurses far down the hallway.

When Spencer next speaks you get the sense he’s holding a lot back. His voice is taut enough it wavers slightly. Taut enough that if he weren’t speaking so quietly he might be yelling. It’s like pinpricks all over your body—not enough to hurt, but enough to make sure you’re paying attention. 

“You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. Do you understand me?”

And yes, in theory, you do. But that doesn’t negate your original point. It only takes one life or death moment for you to utilize the most valuable resource you have. What happens after is no longer your concern. 

“On the psych evals you helped develop it asks if you think it’s appropriate to sacrifice the one to save the many. The answer is supposed to be no. If you say yes you get flagged. The FBI frowns upon… lever-pullers. And that’s exactly what I’m doing if I let one person die when I could’ve potentially saved them.”

“Protecting your own life is not pulling the lever. What you’re doing isn’t smart or morally righteous. You’re just throwing yourself across the tracks, too. If you were to fail a psych eval right now it would be because you’re passively suicidal. And you know what? The FBI also tends to frown upon self-immolative delusions of grandeur and girls who like to play sacrificial lamb.”

“’M not a… sacrificial lamb…”

“No,” Spencer agrees quietly, stroking your hair. “You’re not.”

And you can’t react to the fragility in his voice, or the content of his words, and the fact that when he says it he means something different—you can’t do anything about it. You can only catalogue it. You can only know that he loves you, and feel a little guilty about it.

Some time passes. You don’t know how long he remains standing so you can doze against him. He does not smell like the hospital. He’s the antidote for whatever grief they distill from widows and orphans before aerosolizing it through the whole place. 

“Baby?” He asks eventually. You know the lilt of it. He’s been thinking. 

“Hm?”

He hesitates. 

“Can we talk about you maybe taking some time off of work?”

“You heard the boss,” you mumble. “I can’t come in for at least a week.”

“I mean beyond that.”

You intend to respond, but by the time you open your mouth you’ve lost the prompt in all the brain fog. 

“You’re so comfy,” you murmur dreamily. “Thank you for being mad at me.”

If he responds, you miss it. 

You’re imagining the bed waiting for you at home, once the doctor is done observing you—warm, neatly made. Blankets woven with soft fibers. A mattress that will sink under your weight. You think of Spencer, who’s shaping himself to you, Spencer, who intentionally inhales when you exhale at night to make room for the rise and fall of your chest against his. You think of the imprint of his buttons on your cheek. You are both flesh and blood and bone. 

Strange, pill-induced half dreams and visions and memories take over. You’re in that alleyway again. That man fires. You don’t blink or scream or feel. 

Just before the bullet makes contact you’re standing in front of the Pietá. It’s massive. Spencer is there, too, holding your hand. 

You can’t actually see him, only, you know he’s there. You feel his warmth, his presence, when he leans over to whisper in your ear. The way you know him goes beyond sight. 

The Pietá—meaning the pity, in English—is 6’7” and six feet wide. It weighs 6,700 pounds. Michelangelo had to quarry the block of marble himself. He was only 25 when he finished. The Basilica keeps it behind bulletproof glass. 

Jesus and Mary behind bullet proof glass. 

God. Who’d try to kill Jesus a third time? He’s already dead. 

Besides—they’re both made of stone. Bullets would probably just ping right off of them. Or maybe they’d shatter just like you did. 

Probably not though. You’re not actually made of marble. You’ve no idea what it feels like to be a statue and get shot at. You sure know how it feels as a human, though—and it feels like shit. You don’t really know why you keep doing it. None of your reasons are good enough for Spencer, and he’s, generally speaking, pretty smart about some things. 

Maybe you’re tired of being human.

Maybe you’re tired of sleeping on your arm funny and waking up to a hand in your bed that doesn’t feel like yours and remembering all the hands you’ve held moments before they couldn’t hold yours back. Or tired of those moments where you are being held and it’s so unbelievably perfect and then someone has to let go, or when someone you love hugs you goodbye and you realize that there will always be a final I love you, or simply getting older and watching potential life paths fall away like rotten fruit to the ground. Maybe life is sometimes so good it hurts and you can’t bear it. So you tempt fate. You walk a tightrope because even if you fall and it can’t ever feel good again—at least it can’t hurt either. At least you won’t lose anymore. 

And yet. 

It does feel good, sometimes. Sort of often, actually. Even when it’s awful. 

Dead Jesus and Mary, with their marble skin and their bulletproof glass and their holiness and their virginity and all the other things they have that you don’t. Nobody can hurt them anymore. Not ever. 

Maybe that’s something you envy.

But you doubt they’ve ever been so terribly, wonderfully alive as you’ve been, or as comfortable as you are like this, leaning into Spencer’s warmth and his softness, in the hospital, or the Vatican, or your dreams. Your bicep was ruined but it’s healing. You are capable of ruin and rebirth in the same lifetime. In the same day, in the same hour. 

You doubt that in 520 years, behind bulletproof glass and unyielding, eternally flawless skin, they’ve ever felt as invincible as you do now. 

You doubt they ever could. 

[irndad]

won't you be my sunshine-a.h.

a/n: runner!hotch x sunshine!reader !! sooooo fluffy, first hotch fic of mine so be gentle with me! lots of pining and happy end <3 happy to continue with these two in an au!

Aaron Hotchner is not a particularly emotive man. 

This is a skill he has honed, a cherished quality that was not born of luck or of natural ability, but a skill that he has honed down to a fine tip point. He needs to be, in this job. It’s cost him things, of course, but for the most part, Aaron is happy with his choices. He takes a firm line with people he works with, and does not always let up in his personal life.

The only time this sometimes causes a hitch, is in his romantic life.

Which isn’t to say that he has one. 

There is a woman who reads in the park every morning. Aaron affectionately thinks of this bench as her bench, as it is marked by wisterias and hyacinths on either end of it. It’s something of a ritual, after his runs, that they talk. 

It’s fun. He doesn’t have a lot of space for fun. He’d collapsed on the bench one day after siphoning his anger at a particular case into a difficult run. He’d crashed onto the bench, sweaty and exhausted and hadn’t even seen her there. Which is a bit impressive, as she’s hard to miss the sight of. It is also in equal measure embarrassing. It’s not every day you collapse in front of a gorgeous woman, disturbing her from what is likely a lovely afternoon in the park.

That’s how it started, anyway. She doesn’t run, so each break is punctuated by her company. He’s actually not sure if they’re flirting. He’s not very good at that- the last time he has to he was 17 and so full of unearned confidence, he lucked into a partnership. 

Now, he’s a bit older and a lot more scarred. She’s younger than him, not by much. She laughs with her whole chest at his dry, glib humor- and this is something Aaron had forgotten. The joy of a beautiful, wonderful woman’s company beside you. 

He feels a little out of place next to her. Romance is not something he does. Ever thought he’d do again, really. That’s not to say that this is romance. Their romance is almost entirely hypothetical. He thinks of her at work, which is a monumental development in and of itself. 

“So, how was the paperwork? I know you’ve been taking a little more on since your colleague had a baby. It’s so kind of you to do it.” She asks him on a beautiful August morning. 

He fights off a blush that she remembers what he’s done for JJ. He’s not big on mentioning his own good deeds. Aaron believes that this would cancel it out. Still, her praise is a warm balm to the exhaustion that plagues him. It’s hedonistic, the way he wants her to say more about him. He wonders absentmindedly if she knew everything about him that’s hard to love, she’d still paint him with such a light and warm glance. She’s bright enough, he’s tempted to tell her everything about him just because she asks. 

“It was…alright. My team is excellent. I’m lucky to work with people like them, it makes the process better. I couldn’t ask for more.”

She giggles a little at this, and there’s that roar of affection. 

He feels a sense of ease around her, one that is suspicious for him. He tries not to romanticize, but this connection is hard not to. She’s beautiful- this is obvious to anyone who meets her, a simple truth of her. But Aaron is trained to notice things little factors that show the truth of someone. 

He likes to watch her- it’s a pleasant thing, getting to be in her presence. It’s a little addicting, the way she looks at him. It makes him feel like all of the things he knows to be true of himself- his relative failures, the closed-off nature of his demeanor- are things that not only can be overlooked, but don’t seem to be in her line of sight at all. It’s an honor, to have her doe eyes rake over the sight of him, to meet him with gentle conversation. 

He tries not to notice that she is gorgeous. Aaron has been around beautiful women, of course- this is not something that should surprise him. But there’s something effervescent about her, something that his him wondering if it’s possible that she might feel the same way about him. He knows that he used to be a more attractive man, but now. Well, he’s a bit bruised, both metaphorically and physically. 

It feels odd to even think of this happening. She’s just got a warm, sweet tone and he replays what it’s like when she greets him. She smiles her brilliant grin and sometimes hugs him. It’s embarrassing how much he likes the feeling of it- soft curves against hard muscle and scarred skin. She always smells wonderful, and he wonders how nice it would be to have more of this. 

“I like your new shirt, by the way.” She smiles at him, and his heart jumps. It feels juvenile, but- she’s wearing a new lipstick, it seems. Her beautiful pout looks awfully tempting. 

“I like the lip color,” he tries to compliment back amenably, but that doesn’t stick. Instead, it comes out too earnest. He’s hyper aware of the fact that she’s right by him. She flushes, and Aaron feels a surge of pride. 

“Thank you,” she says, voice softer and flattered, and isn’t that a pretty sound? He’d love to do that for her, make her feel seen, make her feel like she’s as beautiful as she is, “I thought you might like it.”

It’s her directiveness that breaks the seal, he supposes looking back. Because she wore the lipstick for him. That’s just about the only thing it can mean, and he is struck with a particularly sensory fantasy of what it would be like to slot his mouth against hers- he gets the feeling it might be worth it even if he gets the color on his mouth. 

He’s a gentleman, though, he decides after a decidedly ungentlemanly amount of time spend staring at the gorgeous curve of her lips. 

“Would you want to get dinner with me?” He hears himself say it before he’s processed it, and then it’s out into the world. His heart is hammering and he’s blaming on the run, when god, it’s absolutely about how breathtaking she looks, the sunlight reflecting off her hair like a halo. When she beams back at him, she looks particularly angelic. 

It’s then, she leans over and kisses him on the cheek. 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

(Months later, when she is sitting on his kitchen counter and he is standing between her legs, gazing down at her with unabated fondness because he is entitled to that, he reflects on this moment and thinks god, how lucky am I, that I ran past that bench?) 

[bunnys-kisses]

captain mactavish loved to see virgins squirm on his cock. johnny mactavish was a notable womb buster and virgin breaker. he loved to leave the pretty bonnies panting for more, he loved to leave them fucked out and whiny. pathetic little things under him. he loved watching the cute little things on base run to find emergency contraceptive because even if captain mactavish tried to use condoms, it was nothing like filling a bonnie full of his cum.

you were his favourite though, the kind of woman that left johnny panting for more. you made him more feral than an upright man. he was a captain and yet when you walked by, his cock got leaky with want.

he man handled you like you were a toy. bruise your soft hips and fuck you until he was trying to get you to taste his cum in the back of your throat. johnny spent too much time with the structure of the military, he was battle-worn so to lose control in your pretty pussy was a luxury that he knew he couldn't go without. there were a dozen pretty faces on base, but none of them lingered in johnny's mind. so when he got you on your back in his room and his strong arms planted on either side of you. his cock rubbed up against the front of your pussy, his words filthy, "we gotta get 'em reacquainted, hen. been gone too long, she probably misses me." his words curled around a base part of your brain that was fueled by sexual need. you whimpered a little bit, you were caged under your captain. he was painfully big and as a result of your many encounters. not even your toys from home could relieve the itch under your skin. your captain was the only person that could make you cum. and johnny was more than happy to shoot every last of his swimmers into your cunt. at least he'd be certain that no other man could have you. when he got his impressive length into you without too much noise from you. he licked his lips. those blue eyes of his were heavy with a sexual want and you thought you found heaven. especially when he leaned back on his heels and lifted your hips until your were bent in a way that your knees were to your ears. you soaked cunt on full display for him.

"captain." "don't worry, bonnie. i got ya. just stay there, hook your arms under your knees so ya don't fall over." his words were heavy, almost caring as if you couldn't feel his hard cock in your stomach. he held onto you tighter and started to move against you heavily. you kicked out your legs a little bit and you felt heat flood your cheeks as he fucked you. the bed squeaked under the both of you as he placed sloppy kisses on your skin. he couldn't wait till he got some time off with you, he took you back to his flat in glasgow and got to mark your pretty skin. he wanted to see how bruised he could make your neck before you two got stares in public. as if they couldn't smell his cum on your skin. shore leave sounded nice about now, pull a few strings and surprise, you're with johnny the entire time. that was the luxury of being a captain. if you thought about leaving him, then he'd pull every string he could get his hands on to get you back in his circle. but from the blissed out expression on your face as he fucked you, you weren't getting anywhere fast. at least not until johnny puts a baby in you. he heard you talk about not wanting children, he had already made the decision for you. it wouldn't be hard, you put your faith too much in birth control and johnny was not about playing dirty. everything had a failure rate, it was only a matter of time. especially when his cock head was pressed up against your cervix. and it made you drool against your covers when you turned your head to the side. he could feel your pretty cunt flutter around his achy cock. the idea of him being with the only made you'd ever be with excited him and made him thrust against you faster. you whimpered and arched your back. he knew when you came then your brain would go flat lined. and he was right, you clutched onto him as you came. back arched and you squeezed your eyes shut. you didn't even form words, you just made a sharp noise that made johnny feel really good. the sight of you made him cum quickly as well. a thrust of his hips to make sure that his cock was getting comfortable with our spongy little womb. a promise of things to come.

before you could muster the strength to go find a way to make sure you didn't get pregnant, johnny was already one step ahead of you. his cock was hard once more and you were on your stomach, back arched to let johnny fuck that sweet cunt once more. even if you tried to claw at the sheets in some half-assed attempt to escape, johnny would always over power you. you're not getting away that easily, so just lie that and let your captain do all the hard work.

"don't sniffle there, bonnie. you'll look a lot better with some baby fat on your hips." <3