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brickstick3000 · 3 years ago

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❧✎Eddie Munson/m!reader drabbles :)

CHALLENGE

Saw someone from 20-God damn-12 [2012] doing this challenge just a minute ago, and I was looking for inspiration so here we go...

1. Shuffle your music playlist

2. Using the duration of the song that plays as your time constraint, write a drabble centred around the song's theme.

3. Repeat this for ten more drabbles (in my case with the same character: Eddie Munson/m!reader)

Ok, here we go!!! [I RECCOMEND LISTENING TO THE SONGS WHILST READING!!] ~~

"Money", The Drums

Munson, post graduation, is dating Y/n and wants to desperately give something material to him rather than physical affection, but he's too broke.

•Eddie and his newly formed band go around Hawkins trying to make it big in the music industry whilst Y/n supports and tags along for the ride

•Yet Eddie feels as though he isn't giving enough to his partner and their whole relationship, Y/n being the one earning a real living for them, and so he wants to atleast surprise him with a little something

•Maybe a road trip to some place serene, or perhaps get Y/n his own first motorbike

•Oh wait, Munson himself doesn't even own a vehicle, that's terrific

•With his band not rocketing into fame, as he hoped, and Y/n's work not being the most terrific, they both return home frequently a little down and struggling to feel excited for anything

•Eddie wishes to change that.

•And so here he is with his band trying to write a bunch of original singles and drive their careers into the world, rather than performing small gigs of other people's songs at the local bingo; the band and Y/n hop on a bus to the big cities in the blink of an eye

•Touring with the new label they've signed under and somehow, even though it isn't paying the rent, this is just about the best present Y/n (and Munson) could ever ask for

"Men In Black", Will Smith (fitting af)

Eddie and you bonding over slaying demo-shit in the Upside Down.

•For two avid DnD players, there were two ways the existence of and your involvement in the Strange part of Hawkins could have gone: being completely piss-scared off, or acting like badasses trying to defeat all the beasts

•It was evenly split, both you and Munson had agreed, with the latter being most definitely terrified, and the former, yourself, heavily engaged in all the action

•Sure, the two of you were frightened; half the time all the group saw was you two holding eachother in terror after anything had just gone down, but as you became more accustomed with this living nightmare, a sure-fire amazing duo you became

•Putting 0 brain cells with 0 brain cells seemed to produce something of a bond whether that was destined or not

•Fighting demo bats and coming to Eddie's rescue in the final moments of the battle with Vecna meant that although Hawkins, and potentially the world were in grave danger, there was a little hope for something kindling between the two of you

[It's alright I guess... this was a difficult one, but oh well.]

"Funny Thing", Thundercat

(ANOTHER banger ong)

High school party hosted by kids (who are the equivalent to Mr. Steve "The Hair" Harrington High School King) in which you two managed to find yourselves in by unexplained means.

⚠️CW: ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE⚠️

•Eddie is completely out of his head; drunk to the point of ultra-extroversion, and when the moment rolls like an aesthetic little montage of his strange, nightly experiences

•Getting up to all sorts, the man waddles through the large, and awfully packed house; beer can in hand and loud music making his experience all the wilder

•And there it is that he spots you; also getting to a lesser sober state and feeling excitable in the crowd

•Your smile is all that's rendering in his brain right now, and it's all that he can remember when he makes his way to boysterously greet you

•It isn't exactly the most gentleman of ways to approach someone, but he does it in as fashionable a manner he can muster; nearly tripping up in front of you before getting a very blurry conversation going

•Blurry in a good way; nicotine rush settling in not even minutes later when the two of you have wormed your way outside, still drinking and dancing, staring into each other's dilated pupils

•So many feelings and only simple words can describe them: happy, feeling pretty good

•That's what you told eachother as the night progressed; just dumb fucking teenagers doing crazy shit in the streets of Hawkins together

(This shit was wholesome. Definitely my favourite so far)

"Garden Shed", Tyler the Creator [again ;)]

Eddie and reader coming out together in a fucking garden shed 💀

⚠️CW: DRUG USE⚠️

•Weed again. Like they always do.

•The heat of a Hawkins summer, 1986

•Munson never was the type to smoke outside of his caravan when he had the chance, but with Y/n, he was much more willing

•There was just something about that August, in this tiny, run down shed, at the bottom of L/n's overgrown garden that made smoking in the day so much cooler

•Basking in their musk and the static heat, the two of them, having frequented their little shack many times before, mumbled into the peace: crickets chirping in the back as their high headedness kept them talking like it was nothing

•" Yeah man, noticed you've been talking to her a lot recently." Y/n muttered, breathing in the smoke of Munson's recent exhale

•"Mhm, Chrissy is something. But don't get me wrong, in case this gets out to anyone, she isn't my type.."

•"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah.." another long drag from Y/n, and a couple insects buzz by them- the door way to the shed wide open for any slight breeze to keep them awake

•Moments later, Y/n speaks again; "what's your type then?"

•"Oh you know," there's a crackle of something burning in Munson's joint before he continues, "Someone who can just talk about shit and I don't have to worry about impressions."

•"Ain't Chrissy just that?"

•"Yeah, Chrissy's that, but not all that... what about you?"

•Eddie's eyes have now averted to look over at Y/n, catching the very edge of his side profile; a really beautiful one at that.

•"Someone who doesn't give a flying shit about what others think and is willing to geek out over whatever gets them excited."

•Another dragged out silence; not awkward, not boring, just peace... a natural pause in this basking heat

•Ripples in the far weeds and curtain of shrubbery from heat waves seem to move in and out like the motion of the sea

•"Anyone you're looking at now?" Neither of them knew who asked, honestly. It was just kind of lingering

•Eddie feels a blush rising to his already clammy cheeks once Y/n's dopey eyes met his

•"Yeah, Munson. There is..."

(Not exactly coming out, but you know what, I'm satisfied)

"Put My Hands On You", DEAN

⚠️Minors DNI⚠️NSFW⚠️

Top!Reader, Sub!Munson; had to throw in some smut, since it's my speciality.

•Eddie and Y/n collide with eachother against the caravan sink, knocking clutter over with the brute force of their passion

•"Mmpf- shit." Eddie hissed upon hearing the clashing of dishes, hoping none had broken

•Both were flustered with anticipation, this being the first time they could finally touch one another; the first time they could satiate this long brewing lust

•Their lips ravished: rushed and feral, grunting as they tried shrugging each other's shirts off.

•Heat simmered from every pore of their skin; complexions turning pinker by the second as Y/n wrapped his calloused hands underneath thick thighs

•"Bedroom." Munson took a second to breathe, hand flat against Y/n's bare chest as they stared into each other's hazy pupils---

•And in the bedroom they were

•"God..." Eddie sighed, loving the way Y/n's lips wandered against his throat

•It was smooth and skilled, as though he knew the weak points of Munson's skin already, and with every nip and suck came an awfully gorgeous and insatiable gasp

•Now, Eddie had his nails dug shallow into the curves of his ravager's shoulders, Y/n already tugging on the belt loops of his jeans

•Slowly, slowly, that expert tongue had been marking it's way down the canvas of Munson's milky chest, and their eyes would meet once Y/n's chin was resting upon Eddie's crotch

•Gentle hands, burning with a flame at each finger tip, roamed in between them; groping at skin and rubbing against two completely overwhelmed nipples. Red, hot and sticky all over, Munson was feeling a rush of something so severe it was like some new level of high; like tweaking on a nicotine rush... whilst drunk?

•Y/n placed a feathery kiss in the dusting of hair at Eddie's naval, just above the gate to his painfully tight boxers, and the man had nothing else left in him to wait

•"Yes."

•All clothes were ripped off of him and Y/n had full access to whatever he needed

•"Oh shit, L/n, please"

•The creak of Eddie's mattress and his uncontrollable gasps filled the air, both bodies rocking back and forth on a wild chase to see who could push who over the edge first

•Their skin slapped, raw, rough, and lustfully so, having both of them moaning at eachother without restraint

•Eddie was pulled closer to Y/n with their foreheads brushing together and forcing heated pants to be met with guttural moans

•The Metal Head was in another world, unsure of what to do with his hands or legs, or anything; clinging on for dear life as a natural instinct, so hard that it would bruise both of them, and yet feeling nothing but the friction of skin inside and out

•Pulling, dragging, hitting that place that neither of them could get enough of

•"Eddie-"

•"Yes! Ah-"

•Eddie's entire body clenched inward, letting his mind focus on the intense and unforgiving slamming of hips until finally, the pleasure was all too much. The man's legs twitched as hot ropes of cum painted them both white and pretty

"Master of Puppets", Metallica

(guys I'm not playin' rn... this song was the first english one that played istg LMAO)

⚠️CW: DRUG USE⚠️

Y/n and Munson being chaotic af on mad drugs and shit.

•It's like something out of breaking bad: the two men getting absolutely shit faced in Wayne's caravan (instead of some expensive strip club) on Eddie's stash

•And it's god damn chaos.

The two of them ransack the place with their animalistic behaviour: Munson playing the most metal shit at the top of his Amp's diaphragm and Y/n jumping around like an ape gone feral

•All this before getting chased out by police and noise complaints

•Darting through Hawkins woods and ending up at a little drive-through, the two decide to go stock up on their snacks by stealing a shit ton of sweets and setting up camp at Lover's Rock

•Lighter? Check. Cigarettes? Not a doubt.

•About 3 smokes later the two go for a little hike---

•Skinny dipping at the lake? Yeah, for a couple hours, but then as soon as Munson finds a couple cans of beer and coke left in his rucksack, it's back to damn chaos

•"You ready to absolutely demolish the shit outta Hawkins?"

•"Hell yeah!" They cry, hopping into action; wreaking havoc across neighbourhoods in Wayne's truck; booming music around the streets at 4 in the morning and not returning home without handcuffs and a fine of $100 for disorderly conduct. Each.

[This was just crack, of course. Don't do drugs, I'm not condoning this behaviour, this is not a true depiction of being high on Class A drugs and Master of Puppets is a song about how the use of drugs completely takes over you and fucks up your life. You heard it first from Metallica. So listen to the most metal band out there.]

"For the World", The Internet

Reader willing go to any lengths to protect Eddie, and vice versa

•Eddie and yourself are infatuated with eachother

•So much so that whenever you have time on your hands (which is most frequently) the two of you are either smoking some variant of tobacco and weed, or getting creative in bed. There really is no in between

•Eddie is special to you, so much so that your first instinct, whenever the man is in an ounce of pain, danger, or the sort, is to jump into combat mode

•Eddie, although being a lot more relaxed about such a thing, and preferring to take things slow- unbothered with the dramatics of fighting (since he isn't really a sporty guy) can be just as protective, even if he's a bit chicken

•We all know Munson's little S4 hero arc... well, he'd do it a thousand times over for you, and it would still be his year

•To be honest though, you're both very content to just snog on the couch and kill your lungs everyday (rather than beat up bad guys and monsters for eachother in acts of mighty heroism)

[Idk what this is. I tried... I don't wanna skip too many songs because it's making the challenge not a challenge otherwise. Hope this was ok, even though I was heavily sticking to Syd's lyrics.]

"NEW MAGIC WAND", Tyler the Creator

(best song dude)

Reader trying to convince Munson not to leave him for his Chrissy

•The both of you were not in any way shape or form in a relationship, and there had always been a strong repulsion from Eddie toward whatever feelings he had for you, and those that you returned

•The world view of 1986s? Homosexuality isn't exactly the best way to express oneself

•Eddie Munson, already being an outcast himself, really didn't want to dig his grave deeper, and so mingling with you in the very intimate ways he did always left a sour taste in his mouth

•And whether it was out of true attraction toward her, or an attempt at self-conversion, Eddie was keeping a close eye on Ms. Cunningham with you still following close behind in hopes of something more

•And that 'more' never came

•Eddie, gradually leaving you behind, and hanging around with Chrissy became a lot more frequent and obvious, and your very unstable and frustrated brain had realised that you would do anything to stop that

•If Eddie wasn't yours, he was no one's, and one day, if he never ceased his antics, you might just have to act upon that

[What in the angst, balls and shit? Srsly, I clearly stated in my rules that angst was off limits but this just happened, so I guess it's canon now LMAO. Sorry, I wasn't about to write a yandere reader though because I think this is enough.]

"Resonance", Home

Eddie, post S4, is alive and running from the Upside down, trying to get back.

•Whilst things are absolute mayhem on top of Hawkins, one man, all alone and waking to the worst of it all is spitting up blood between the molten cracks of Earth. Eddie Munson.

•For weeks, he shivered in the cold of The Upside Down, trying to recover from the brutality he had been faced with

•And still hiding from any creature that might be out for him in this toxic air, Eddie ran--- day in and day out, not knowing which was which as all light ceases to make an appearance in that desolate place

•Y/n, on the surface, hadn't ceased his search

•He wanted Eddie back; needed the man back, and so against anyone's caution, he and Dustin set out to look for Munson, hope still in their hearts (or atleast Y/n's, as Dustin has already witnessed the passing of his beloved friend)

•Through the weeks of madness in Hawkins' newly disrupted and evacuating town, the two search the corners of their home for a way back to the Upside Down

•One day, their hopes became reality

•Eddie, on the brink of hypothermia, starving alone was defeated. Curled under a branch, watching the red skies flicker and cackle... nothing but evil. Nothing but nothing.

•Y/n:"Eddie!!"

•Dustin:"Munson?"

•Whilst Henderson is beginning to believe the worst is true, and Eddie is losing his insanity (or so he thinks) at the sound of his two lost companions. A weak and croaky "Guys...?"echoes around the forest

•The two exchange a look, and do not hesitate to sprint into the wilderness, not caring to disrupt the hive mind, though they know it might be the death of them

•"Fuck. Eddie where are you?!"

• The man springs to his feet, new found adrenaline in his system, though he's running on only that.

•"Y-y/n?" I'm here!"

•There's rustling and tripping and all kinds of noise being echoed around the forest now, as both parties try to chase eachother down

•"We're coming!" The wind rushes by their ears, deafening as ever, when all of a sudden, the 3 are standing opposite each other.

•"Guys?" More silence

•"God, please tell me I'm not fucking dreaming-"

•"Jesus, Munson!" Dustin screeches, and the two collide with the man, embracing him as though they'd never held him before

•A lone tear escapes Eddie's eye, seeping into the pale of his grinning cheek

"Love", Dean and Syd

⚠️CW: DRUG USE⚠️

Eddie trying to convince Y/n to come smoke weed at his place as a cover up for (hopefully) a raunchier time.

•The two of you are high school acquaintances, you having not necessarily noticed him but Eddie being overwhelmingly restless to attract your attention

•He frequently manages to be at the same place as you (on purpsoe) usually with a joint in hand, trying to look all cool, and therefore the both of you have bonded over the mystery of his drug dealing and magical box of treats

•And now he has you a little curious to enter his (infamous) camper

•Once you've had your first few puffs of his dangerously effective stash, a feeling of complete tranquility crawls over your shoulders.

•Living in the moment was all that you could do on this strange and foreign high, looking into Eddie's oh-so dilated eyes, as he watches in awe at the way weed has it's way with you.

•Every now and then there are flashes of moments of Eddie laughing and playing with his hair like a shy kid, and you can't quite piece scenes together nor remember what you both just said, but it feels wonderful

•The heat and closeness that holds you together- a feeling unmatched by any sober state- mixed with the morphing and spinning of Munson's room brings you closer and closer

•And once your lips have touched, the trip only gets weirder, and greener, purple, colours. Yeah something like this would be nice again

~[Not joking, straight after this, "Me and Your Mamma", and "Pass The Dutchie" came on. Imma skip just cuz it's too much lol.]~

Alright, I quite enjoyed this toward the end (the entries for this challenge are NOT in order of being written by the way) and so I might do this more often for inspiration. Have a good day, losers. And remember, Drugs might be fun, but they certainly aren't metal.

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #male reader #male reader x eddie munson #eddie x male reader #stranger things drabbles #drabbles #Spotify

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watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

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Hey Daddy - Bucky Barnes

a/n: so this one is a little more... lighthearted? idk but it was based on THIS request!

pairing: Bucky X Reader

word count: 1.9k

summary: You join Peter and his friends for a game of Truth Or Dare but you wish you stayed in your room when MJ challenges you to do a task that will definitely out your secret relationship with Bucky.

masterlist

You totally forgot Peter would have his friends over for the night, so you’re slightly surprised when you find him with Ned and MJ in the kitchen, but it’s a pleasant one. You’ve been spending a lot of time with him, being the youngest of the adults in the tower, you developed a great friendship with the youngster and his friends.

“Oh, hello guys! Good to see you again!” you beam at the three of them, Ned greeting you with a little wave and a stunned smile on his face. Peter has recently revealed that Ned might have a tiny crush on you, which you find cute. Though you’re more than a decade older than him, you find it endearing he is crushing on you out of all the amazing women on the team.

MJ nods in your way as she munches on her sandwich, if you didn’t know her better you’d think she is annoyed by you judging by the look on her face, but you’ve learned by now that this is her default expression, almost a happy one.

“Hi Y/N!” Peter greets you smiling. “How was your day?” he asks lightly. He is such a good kid, knows his manners and cares so much for others. The men in the tower like to tease him about his soft behavior, but you think it’s such a great trait.

“A little tiring. Training kicked my ass today, but it was fine. What are you guys up to?” you ask, grabbing yourself a canned soda from the fridge.

“MJ wants to play truth or dare, but only because she wants to make us do embarrassing stuff,” Peter huffs looking at the girl who just smiles with a shrug.

“Oh, I love that game! Used to play it a lot at parties too!” you smirk, remembering the times you played with your friends in the basement of your mom’s house.

“You want to play with us?” MJ offers.

“If you don’t mind…”

“Not at all!” Peter smiles, happy to have another person join their little group. Glancing at Ned you see that he is now blushing, the tip of his ears turning red as he keeps his eyes fixed on the screen of his phone. Poor kid will have to learn how to function around women sooner or later.

The game starts out quite innocent, it’s not even the wild version where you’re drinking, though it popped into your head to pour yourself some wine. But then you decided to keep it PG rated for the kids’ sake.

But as more and more rounds go down, the tasks and questions are getting a little… spicy. When MJ turns to you and asks you the question of the game and you answer before you could even think about it, you know you are in trouble.

“Dare,” you answer and want to take it back right away, but you don’t want to look like such a pussy. But then MJ smirks at you devilishly and you consider just walking out before she ruins your whole life.

“Alright, text all the other Avengers ‘Hey Daddy’ and read the responses out loud.”

The boys gasp as you press your lips into a thin line, knowing well it won’t end good on your side. Especially because there is one person whose response you would rather not read out loud.

You’ve been close to Bucky since day one and though you both were a little ignorant towards your feelings, a few months ago you finally moved your relationship a little further than just being friends. However you both agreed it’s better kept as a secret, at least until you figure out where you really want to head together as a couple.

Now, if you text that message to Bucky there’s no way he won’t write back something that would bust your asses right away, but you can’t back out now, you can only hope he is busy doing something else and won’t pay attention to his phone.

Pulling your phone out of your pocket you lean onto the kitchen island as the kids start cheering for you being a badass and accepting the task.

“Just hey daddy, that’s all?” you ask as you open your contacts.

“Maybe add a winking face,” Ned suggests and you shoot him a glare that immediately turns his face red as he shuts his mouth.

“The winking face is a good idea,” MJ nods.

“Thanks, Ned,” you mumble under your breath as you start opening the text threads, sending them all the same message. Tony, Nat, Steve, Banner, Clint, Sam, Strange, even Rhodey and at the end of the list… Bucky.

“And what, now we wait?” Peter asks.

“Place the phone here so we see when you get a reply and you’ll read them, we can move on until then,” MJ tells you, bossing you around like you’re not even a highly trained special agent who could take her out in a blink of an eye.

The first reply comes from Nat who just asks if you’re drunk. Then comes Banner, who sounds offended that you think he could be your father, totally missing the point of the text. Tony teases you about always knowing you had a thing for him, Steve kindly tells you he only sees you as a sister, Clint just reads the text and doesn’t reply. Sam just sends a simple “control yourself” message back while Strange threatens you to block you if you send another text like this again. Rhodey doesn’t even reads it.

You start to feel relieved when about twenty minutes pass by and no reply comes from Bucky. The game moves on and you almost start to forget about the whole task when your phone lights up again and your breathing hitches when you see Bucky’s name appear on the screen.

“Oh, another reply!” MJ beams as she urges you to unlock the phone and read the reply. When you do so and see his text, you almost just hop off the stool and run out of the kitchen. You consider saying something else, pretending like he didn’t write what he did, but MJ doesn’t take the bullshit and her patience runs short so she simply snatches your phone out of your hand and reads the text herself.

“I specifically remember you saying you’re not into that stuff. What else are you keeping from me about our sex life?”

You let out a long and tired sigh as the room falls silent and they all just stare at you in confusion before MJ slowly slides the phone back to you.

“Our sex life? There’s… there’s a you and Bucky?” Peter asks quietly, not sure what to do with the new information. An anxious chuckle slips from between your lips as you try to find a way to get yourself out of this massive trouble, but nothing comes to your mind. You’ve fought aliens, assassins, you were captured, tortured, went on a hundred mission in your life, yet now three kids defeated you with a game of Truth or Dare.

“Well, um… It’s a funny story, you know—I don’t… fuck,” you mumble, scratching the back of your neck.

“Are you like… together or is it just a friends with benefits thing?” MJ question, shooting you a curious look.

You don’t get to answer, because just as you are about to open your mouth, the man in talk walks in, a puzzled look on his face, phone in his hand, probably still dwelling on your latest message. His eyes spot you first, but then he realizes that you’re not alone and he freezes. It’s not that Bucky doesn’t like Peter or his friends, he just feels so far away from people these days, let alone teenagers who are about a century younger than him.

“Oh,” he breathes out, slowly walking closer to you. “Hello guys,” he murmurs shyly, trying to put the picture together as his eyes fall back to you and he sees how uncomfortable you are. Before he could get another word out, MJ speaks up and just as always, her raw style doesn’t disappoint any of you.

“Don’t worry, your girlfriend is not really into the Daddy stuff.”

You almost choke on your own breath as you turn to shoot her a glare, your hand moving to grab Bucky’s arm gently, sensing him growing more and more anxious with each second.

“MJ, I don’t think Sergeant Barnes is the right person to joke around with,” Ned mumbles, avoiding to even look at Bucky as you let out an airy chuckle.

“G-Girlfriend? We are not—“ Bucky starts, but you cut him off.

“No use to deny, Buck. They know it.”

Bucky huffs, closing his eyes for a moment before he moves closer to you, his hand coming to rest on your lower back. Despite the absurdity of the situation, this small little gesture makes your heart pitter-patter in your chest.

“Is there any chance this could stay between us, kids?” you ask with a charming smile, turning to the three troublemakers.

“I don’t know, what do we get out of keeping it a secret?” Peter purses his lips, pretending to have the higher ground, but you already know what’s about to come.

Bucky’s vibranium arm snaps to the counter top as he shoots a death glare over to the poor kid and though he definitely looks like he is ready to kill any moment, you know that it’s all just an act.

“How about I don’t rip your guts out, kid? That enough?” Bucky growls and while all three of them take a step back with wide eyes and dry throats, you just shake your head chuckling, placing a hand to his hard chest.

“Buck, no need to go all winter soldier on them. They’ll keep our secret, right?” you ask with an innocent smile and all three of them start nodding wildly, as if they just saw a ghost.

Seeing their reaction you realize it’s better if the game ends here and you let them be on their own. You thank for the fun time before grabbing Bucky’s arm and pull him out of the kitchen, heading up to your rooms.

“You shouldn’t have scared them that badly, Buck,” you scold him, but you still actually find it kind of funny, seeing their pale faces and fearful eyes at your boyfriend’s tough guy act.

“Well, they scare me too sometimes,” he mumbles shrugging. “Especially that MJ girl… she is just… weird.”

You can’t help but laugh at his words, a six feet tall super soldier with a metal arm being scared of a teenage girl with a big mouth, that’s quite an interesting concept.

“Hey,” you stop him before the two of you would part in the hallway. He turns back and his blue eyes soften on you. “Do you want to… sneak into my room?” you ask, biting into your bottom lip as you smirk up at him, sliding a hand up his chest, cupping his cheek in your palm. “We could have some fun… Daddy.”

“Wait, are you really into the daddy stuff?” he asks with wide eyes, making you cackle with your head falling back.

“Just shut up and come to my room,” you chuckle, pressing your lips against his as you pull him into your bedroom, shutting the door closed behind you.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

#bucky #barnes #bucky barnes #bucky imagine #bucky fanfiction #bucky fanfics #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky oneshot #bucky one shot #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes one shot

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dazed--xx · 3 years ago

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Mr. & Mrs. Jeon (2)

MR & MRS SMITH screenplay written by Simon Kinberg/ Novelization by Cathy East Dubowski

T/W: Assassinations, guns, suggested sexual content, crumbling marriage, contract killing, Rocket Launcher, Government agencies, slight DV(they accidentally hurt each other physically) anything else i did not mention

A/N: I DID NOT WRITE THIS THE AUTHORS ARE LISTED ABOVE. I was definitely watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith and just saw Jungkook as John so often i needed this this is chapter 2 every chapter will have this disclaimer.

JUNGKOOK

I remembered the Colemans' party on the way home. Wow, the fun just never ends. But we’d said we’d be there, and it was important to be good neighbors. As I entered the foyer, I heard Jane upstairs in our room-home from “work.” So I headed up to remind her about the party. I won't say I snuck up on her, but let's just say I didn’t go out of my way to announce my arrival. As I paused in the doorway, I saw her struggling to button up a pink dress. Something looked odd about her movements, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.

Suddenly she froze, like a deer picking up the scent of a hunter, and turned. “Honey,” she said-with a tense, forced smile. “Didn’t see you downstairs.” “Just got home.” My eyes lingered on hers. “How was that work thing?”

She shrugged coolly. “Fine, good.”

As she walked toward me, she sniffed-her nose wrinkling in disapproval-then she frowned. “Another one with Taehyung?”

“Went by the sports bar,” I lied casually. “Put a few bucks on the game.”

“How’d you do?” Jane asked. I thought back over my evening and shrugged. “I got lucky.” I know. Puns are the lowest form of humor. But hey, a guy has to amuse himself when he can’t exactly rely on scintillating conversation with his wife. She walked past me, out of the room. Careful to leave paper-thin spaces between us. That little dance we do. It’s called the Miserable Marriage Sidestep.

I followed her downstairs, snagged a bottle of wine as I passed through the kitchen. Glad, actually, that we were headed over to the Colemans’. Shooting the breeze over a few drinks might be just what the doctor ordered right now. “Everything okay at the office?” I asked as we climbed the steps to the Colemans’ front porch-looking like the perfect American couple.

‘Fine, good” was all she said. It was all she ever said about her job. “How was the ball game?”

“Awesome,” I replied automatically. “Knicks by one in overtime.”

“The Knicks played tonight?” she asked me, fussing with my hair the way she does sometimes, and I frowned.

“Yeah?” I said, flattening it back in place, worried about the Knicks now, trying to remember the schedule. They did play tonight, didn't they? Fortunately, the door opened, and Martin and Suzy appeared, beaming like we were their oldest, dearest friends. “Welcome, neighbors!”

“Hey!” I said, hoping our smiles didn’t look too fake. Jane and I stayed together long enough to have drinks shoved into our hands and to put in an appearance as perfect spouses. Then we drifted, hopping from one conversation to the next. I made my way around a plastered guest who was playing the baby grand—it was either “Stairway to Heaven” or the Moonlight Sonata, I couldn’t quite tell. Then I ran around in the cigar fog created by a group of investment bankers speaking the language of stocks and bonds.

“Are you kidding?” one of them said. “Duxbury’s never going to close that high. I heard their stock’s getting butchered.” “It’s a bloodbath,” another one confirmed. “Jungkook, how’d you make out this quarter? You take a beating?” Okay, someone was talking to me. I rewound to the question. “Actually,” I said, jerking a thumb in the general direction of my home next door, “I got all my dough buried under the shed over there.”

Which they thought was pretty damn funny-lots of guffaws and backslapping. For half a second I was tempted to show them what else I had tucked away under that innocuous-looking structure, but I wasn’t drunk enough, and neither were they.

A condition I decided I definitely needed to remedy.

JANE

When I got home from work, it was just past nine. No time to shower and change, so I just pulled a loose pink dress from my “Suburban Wife” collection on over the little black dominatrix number I’d been wearing. Just as I was buttoning up the dress, my inner security alarm went off. I quickly ID’d the intruder in the dresser mirror.

Jungkook-lounging in the doorway, studying me. He scared the life out of me, actually. How’d he do that? Nobody sneaks up on Jane Jeon. And what kind of man sneaks up on his wife like that, anyway? How long had he been there? Had he seen what I was wearing underneath my respectable pink dress? We danced around each other—doing the His ’n Her Shuffle long-married couples are known to perfect—exchanged some passive-aggressive barbs, then headed next door to the Colemans’. Sometimes I dreaded their parties, but that night I was glad to have a place to escape to.

As we walked up the steps, Jungkook kept asking me about work. Weird, since he rarely took an interest anymore. I tried hard not to break a sweat, but that proved nearly impossible wearing as much leather under my country-club attire as I was. To cover up my nervousness, I mumbled something about the ball game and fiddled with his hair, which only made him scowl.

But as soon as the Colemans opened the door, we were wearing our matching his-’n’-her, happy-couple smiles. As our hosts led us into the party and poured us drinks, I couldn’t help but wonder: What am I doing here? All these people that we saw at barbecues and holiday par¬ ties. The men slapping Jungkook on the back, the women greeting me with air kisses and cutesy waves.

They think we’re the perfect couple, I thought as I smiled and kissed back. The women adored Jungkook and envied me; the men winked and called Jungkook a lucky son of a bitch, and sometimes tried to corner me in the kitchen. If they only knew we were just Barbie and Ken, and that our dream house was nothing but a plastic facade.

But maybe I was just tired. Assignments like Marco Racin sometimes depressed me-I preferred the straight shoot. And this wasn’t just my cover; this was my life, these were my neighbors. Nice people, most of them, if a little on the boring side. This was the perfect world I’d dreamed of as a child.

So maybe it was the fact that I was still wearing my black leather dominatrix clothes beneath my dress that was making me feel as if I didn’t fit in. A “double life” to most of these other women meant stepping outside their role as wife and mother to serve as PTA president. What would they think if they knew what I really did for a living?

As usual, Jungkook had quickly abandoned me and was off shooting the breeze with all the other half-crocked husbands, while I was left to swap recipes, potty-training tips, and neighborhood gossip with the wives. So I stood there, talking to three women whose party accessories included a baby in their arms.

Mom number one was fawning over her little darling as if it were the first girl ever born on the planet. I smothered a laugh when her “perfect” baby spit up all over her “perfect” pantsuit.

But Mom number one just smiled indulgently and glanced at me. “Hold her a sec while I run and clean up?” What-? Mom number one had suddenly shoved her baby into my arms. Nothing that had happened to me during my evening at the hotel had scared me half as much as this. “No, really, I...” But Mom had already disappeared. I held my breath and stared down at the squirming little bundle. Guns, I could handle. Men acting like babies-a piece of cake. But real-live babies-I didn’t even know how to hold them.

Please, God, I thought, don’t let me break it! For a moment the little girl and I stared each other down; she seemed as stunned as I was to be thrust into this unexpected relationship. Perhaps she could tell I was not the mothering type. I don’t do babies. No big deal. It’s a choice I had to make a long time ago. I’d never had anyone to depend on, and I chose a life that meant I couldn’t afford to have someone depend on me. Two a.m. feedings and staying home with sick children would never fit into my schedule. Never mind the fact that I risked my life every time I walked out that door.

Couldn’t do that to a kid.

The other mothers didn’t see it that way. I was a young married woman, living in the burbs, without a baby. I could see the questions in their eyes every month I showed up not pregnant. Especially with a husband like Jungkook. “Babies see everything, you know,” Mom number two was saying.

“Mmm-hmm,” Mom number three agreed. “It’s as if they can see into your very soul.”

Terrific, I thought. I peeked at the foreign operative in my arms as she sized me up. Could this tiny spy really read my thoughts? Could she look into my core and see what I’d done an hour ago with the very hands that now cradled her? As the mothers looked on, I smiled weakly, waiting for Judge Baby to hand down a sentence for the lifestyle I’ve been leading. And then ... she smiled at me.

The little assassin!

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if I’d been shot in the heart with a stun gun.

“She likes you,” Suzy said, peeking over my shoulder. I let out my breath and smiled at the darling little girl. Thanks for not blowing my cover, kiddo. I felt relieved. And something else-a strange feeling I couldn’t quite describe. Then, just to yank my chain, the little stinker pulled at the top button on my pink dress, revealing a scrap of the black leather sin suit beneath.

I quickly covered it up and glanced around, hoping no one had seen. Fortunately the moms’ attention had been drawn to some new knickknack on Suzy’s whatnot. But I definitely felt a distant pair of eyes on me. Who ... ? I scanned the crowd and spotted him, through a haze of cigar smoke.

Jungkook, staring at me, watching me with the baby. Strange. I’d never seen him look so scared. We left the party soon after that. I claimed a headache; Jungkook apologized that he had a big meeting in the morning. Moments later we were back in our lovely home, in lovely pajamas, brushing our teeth at our lovely his-and-her sinks. Our faces in the twin mirrors reminded me of the dead-eyed portraits of people from hundreds of years ago that hang in museums. The sounds of flossing and brushing seemed overly loud in the silence.

Jungkook spit, rubbed his eye. I glanced at him, this man with whom I shared so many of the ordinary but intimate activities of daily life. This stranger. I couldn’t for the life of me have guessed what he was thinking about. It was a mystery. But not the good kind.

I met a man once, a mysterious stranger-a man who danced along the knife edge of danger and never looked back, except to take my hand and pull me along with him. But when I tried to hold on to him-when I married him-he disappeared.

If he’d never been real at all.

Jungkook glanced up and caught me staring. I gave him a tight smile. We went to bed.

The lights went out.

I pulled the covers up to my chin and turned away from my husband. Maybe, if I looked, I could still find that man in my dreams. I don’t know if I slept. But lying on my side, facing away from Jungkook, I seemed to watch the seconds of my life click away on the digital clock, the minutes passing like hours.

11:15.12:04.1:37 ...3:00.

Suddenly two phones rang. His-and-her cell phones. Jungkook and I sat up instantly and swung away from each other.

Had he been awake all this time, too?

Both bedside lamps clicked on. We sat on the edge of the mattress like mirror images and answered our phones.

“Jane Jeon.”

“Jungkook Jeon.”

On my phone, a man’s voice. Elegant accent. It was my boss. Code name: Father. I could picture him in his stark, darkened office; I imagined him sitting there every moment of the day or night, never sleeping, his mind always tinkering with some new plot.

“It’s three in the morning,” I said softly. “Everything okay ... Dad?”

A new assignment. Urgent. Father gave me instructions: simple, direct, no chitchat. No “How are you?” No “Did I wake you?” No “Say hello to your husband for me.”

“Yeah. Okay. Of course,” I said. There was a click on the line. No good-bye.

Behind me, I heard Jungkook speaking into his own cell phone. “This is the second time this week,” he whispered. A long pause, then: “Right. I understand. No problem.”

I heard him end the call with a soft click. we sat there in silence a moment. I could hear Jungkook thinking. We turned toward each other at the same time. “What’s up?” Jungkook asked lightly.

“Oh, Dad’s not well,” I said, trying to sound concerned. “Mom’s freaked, thinks he’s got pneumonia.” I shrugged. “Probably just a cough.”

Jungkook thought a moment. “Well,” he said carefully. “Maybe you should take the day off, go see if the old man’s okay.” I studied his face in the soft light.

Why was he being so nice?

“Your mom would love it,” he went on, “if you spent the night at their house.” And so would you? I wanted to ask. But instead I said, “You’re so sweet.” Jungkook shrugged. “Just thinking of your dad.” I nodded. Sure he was. Then: “What was yours?” “Atlanta office,” he answered quickly. Too quickly. “Got an e-mail about the stress statistics for that dam.” He shrugged again. “I’m gonna be working flat out next couple days anyway.”

We both nodded, satisfied. I’d bought his story; he’d bought mine. Like dancers in a well-rehearsed ballet, we reached for our bedside lamps, turned out the lights, and slid back under the covers.

“That damn dam,” I whispered in the darkness. “Yeah,” he said. “That damn dam.”

I closed my eyes and lay there in the darkness, hands on my chest like a corpse in a coffin. And I could feel Jungkook doing the same.

Slowly, but surely, we were burying each other alive.

JUNGKOOK

Dawn-my favorite hour. As the world tips between night and day. Darkness and light. The past and the Future. For that brief time anything seems possible. Suitcase in hand, I whistled as I crossed the back lawn to the toolshed, just like any happy husband getting ready to go to work.

Once inside, I locked the door and stopped whistling. The toolshed was just a cover for the real tools of my trade. As usual, the grinding bench skidded aside easily to reveal a safety box in the floor. I worked the combo lock, unlatched a trapdoor handle, then spun the handle.

The floor opened up. I clambered down the ladder, pulling the suitcase in after me, then switched on the light and considered the possibilities. The stacks of cash I kept there were neatly organized according to country of issue. Choice of weapon was a little tougher. Too many damn options. My weapon collection was a virtual arsenal: rocket launchers, grenades, and handguns galore. It was like shopping at Wal-Mart.

I needed something light and easily concealed, but with dependable firepower and range. I found what I wanted, then quickly locked up. Back topside, I was Happy Hubby again. Whistling, I headed into the garage, locked my suitcase in the trunk of the sedan, and backed out into the street, my mind already focused on my work. Automatically checking the rearview, I realized I’d forgotten one husbandly duty. I hit the automatic garage-door opener, and the garage door slowly closed.

Then I drove off to my other life.

JANE

I was still in bed, but my eyes were open; I was alert, listening. Then it came: a sedan pulling out of the driveway. Don't forget to close the garage door, Jungkook.

Okay, there it was, that unmistakable sound of the door closing. He’d remembered for a change. I rolled out of bed and dashed for the bathroom. I didn’t have much time. Four minutes to shower, three to dress-hey, I was a professional-I dashed into the kitchen and switched my oven to CLEAN. No, I wasn’t an obsessive housewife who couldn’t bear to leave the house with drippings from last night’s lasagna baked onto the oven floor. I had something else cooking in my kitchen. The timer beeped, and I yanked open the range door. Next I typed in several digits on the touch pad and . . .

Beep! A ten-second warning began. I tapped in my security code, and the beeping stopped. The base of my oven slid open.

And I smiled.

This is where I kept my special kitchen gadgets: sleek guns, glistening knives. Clean, well oiled, and organized. Since Jungkook couldn’t even boil water, I’d quickly learned that the best place to store a few secrets was in the kitchen. I looked through my choices, then slid my favorite knife onto my thigh.

Lights off, coffeepot unplugged, and I was out the door, into the garage, backing out of the driveway in my car with the “Neighborhood Watch: Keeping Our Streets Safe” bumper sticker.

It’s what I did each day, though it was not quite the line of work my neighbors imagined. Soon I was at a high-rise building in the city, shoving through the revolving door. As I moved through the atrium and waited for the elevator, I checked my appearance in the mirrored doors: formfitting black suit, short skirt, high heels, briefcase.

Killer outfit. I was ready to go to work.

The elevator swept me to my office on an upper floor, and I stepped into the security air lock. Ultraviolet light washed over me, checking for weapons and verifying my identity. My company logo appeared on a security monitor, along with a readout of my body temperature, blood pressure, weapons, jewelry. They could probably even type what brand of mascara I was wearing.

“Jane Jeon,” said a female computer voice. “Confirmed.” I reached for the door to my office, but the voice stopped me: “Stand by for contact.” I paused, surprised. This was unusual. And then a face appeared on the screen.

A familiar, distinguished-looking man, the Big Boss.

Father.

“Sorry to intrude,” Father said with formality. “But we have a ... situation. And I need you to handle it personally.” My eyes narrowed. This was not normal procedure. “Target?” I asked.

My newest hit appeared on the screen. “Benjamin Danz,” Father explained. “I’m sending the specs now. We need this quick, clean, and contained” I nodded. “I’m on it, sir.”

I reached for the door to go to work, but Father’s voice stopped me.

“Jane ..” I looked to the screen. He paused a moment, then said only: “Good luck.” My eyes narrowed. That was very, very uncharacteristic. Father was usually brief and efficient. And in spite of my long relationship with the firm, he rarely wasted time on social amenities.

So what was different about today? The expression on his face ... there was something odd about it. But before I could study him further, his image disappeared from the screen.

I shook my head. Probably just imagining things. With my ID confirmed, the far door opened, and I stepped into the high-security offices of Triple-Click—a top computer temp agency. But that was only a front. I stopped a moment and looked around. God, I loved this place! This vast ultrasecure metal room buzzed with the world’s most advanced technology-flooding data, live feeds, all at warp speed and humming with efficiency.

But more important was the staff I’d assembled. In a male dominated industry, I’d gone out of my way to hire the smartest, most competent young women I could find. I smiled at Rose, who ran this place-at least, until I arrived.

“Good morning, girls, how’s our day look?” Rose tapped a key on her computer, and a huge plasma screen monitor lit up with our logo and specs on our new target, direct from the home office.

Yep. Father worked fast. “Okay, ladies,” I said briskly. “Let’s get to work.” Our newest target appeared on the screen—photo, stats, daily habits, everything but the last time he’d gone to the Jungkook. “Target is being moved tonight across the Canadian border to a federal facility,” I informed my staff. A map appeared, and I pointed to the relevant location. “Only vulnerability is here, just south of the border. Julie, I want GPS and SAT elly of the canyon, and weather report for the last three days,” I said to my go-to gal for stats.

God, this felt good. My job was all I needed: It eliminated the confusion and self-doubt I’d felt the night before-first at the party, then at home-the way sunshine burned off morning fog. I had a job to do, and I knew how to do it. I was in my element; this was home.

Everything seemed possible in the morning. I studied the man’s face in the photos. Cute. I knew that shouldn’t matter. A mark was a mark. But somehow it was easier if the slime was as ugly as hell. I don’t know, maybe it was just a girl thing, but to me, it was always a little harder to assassinate a guy who was good looking.

But no problem here. It wasn’t like he was Brad Pitt or anything. I studied that face, memorizing every line, every wart, the length of his eyelashes, the shape of his ears-branding his name into my memory.

Benjamin Danz.

Well, Mr Danz, welcome to the last day of your life ...

JUNGKOOK

I parked outside an anonymous building on the waterfront, then slipped into a small office on the ground floor labeled Jeon engineering, where, as far as the general public knew, I was just another guy running a worldwide engineering enterprise.

‘Morning, Louise,” I said to my receptionist. She and her husband Louie manned the front office. They were a happy, comfortable twosome, almost like a mom and dad to me. But I pitied any evildoer who underestimated their abilities.

They were secretary, valet, and bodyguard all rolled into one, and I treated them like royalty. Besides, Louise made the best chocolate-chip cookies on the planet. I definitely had to stay on her good side.

‘‘Morning, Mr. Jeon,” Louise replied. ‘‘Trouble in Atlanta?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

Louie handed me an envelope. “Airline boarding pass stub, taxi receipts, hotel bills.”

“And we’ve got those new specs for the dam,” Louise added, handing me a rolled-up blueprint. “Good, good. I’ll take a look,” I said as I headed down the hall toward my office. Halfway there, Taehyung emerged from his own hole in the wall and fell in step beside me. He was singing some pop ditty, goofing around as usual.

I shook my head. “Taehyung, what’s new?” I asked him, as much to stop the assault on my ears as to gather information. “Same old same old. People need killing.” He shrugged, then added, “You know. I’m having a little get-together this weekend. Barbecue at the house. Just the guys.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll check with Jane,” I said, and headed toward my office. Taehyung shook his head as he watched me go. “Uh-huh. You wanna borrow my cell phone, Jungkook? I’m just saying in case you want to scratch your ass or take a piss or something, you should probably check with your wife first ...”

I just rolled my eyes and closed the door without answering. I didn’t need marriage advice from a guy who still lived with his mother. Inside my office-Jeon Engineering’s secure room-was where the real work got done. The sparse midcentury decorating suited me. The place felt comfortable, uncluttered, efficient. Like something out of an early James Bond movie. Here I could find my focus; I could think. This was home. The door closed. The room was secure. I dropped the rolled-up blueprint into a pile of blueprints that had never been opened, never been read. Then I sat down at my desk and pulled the arm on a model crane.

Instantly a panel on the wall shifted to reveal a high-tech plasma screen, displaying our agency’s dark Logo.

“Good morning,” I said. “Voiceprint confirm,” a secretary, voice only, replied. “Good morning, Mr. Jeon.” Then a face appeared, that of an elegant dark haired woman whose considerable years in the business were reflected in her eyes.

It was the big kahuna. My boss. Otherwise known as Atlanta.

One look from her could turn the most ruthless operative into a sniveling little boy. I straightened slightly, surprised to see her. “Hello, Jungkook,” Atlanta said in her black velvet voice. “Quite a body count this week.” I'll take that as a compliment, I thought, but said nothing.

“We’ve got a Priority One,” she went on, “so I need your expertise.” A target profile flickered on screen: photo, stats, everything but the last time the guy took a crap. They probably had that info, too, somewhere. “Target’s name is Danz,” Atlanta reported. “Aka the Tank.”

“The Tank ...” I almost laughed. “He looks fourteen ." Oops. Atlanta's face tightened. She was deadly serious about this, whatever it was. I better behave myself.

“He’s a direct threat to the firm,” Atlanta continued with an edge to her voice. “DIA custody. They’re making a ground-to-air handoff to helo, ten miles north of the Mexican border. I want you on-site, make sure that target does not change hands.”

I leaned forward to study the data streaming across the screen. People can lie, cheat, pretend to be something they're not. But the eyes always give them away.

One look at them and I knew instantly that this guy was a total jerk.

Benjamin Danz, I thought, welcome to the last day of your life. . .

JANE

I’d set up operations in an old dusty mine shack perched on a rocky precipice somewhere in the Desert. Where exactly? God only knew-somewhere north of the U.S.-Mexican border was the best I could tell you. I scoped out the area with binoculars, and saw nothing but miles and miles of hot burning sand. And yet its haunting beauty tore at my heart somehow. The lonely emptiness of it all...

Wait-what was that? Ah. An incoming dust cloud led my eye to a convoy of SUVs, shimmering in the sun as they traveled along a nearly invisible sand-swept road that snaked across the desert.

“Target incoming,” I reported to my team, who were in touch by radio.

“Copy that,” Rose answered.

I grinned. Time to go to work. Here was the setup: I’d connected a fairly simple triggered timer box to mining cables running out into the desert floor. That area was defined on my laptop by a wire-frame image with twenty white dots: a wide kill zone through which the caravan would pass.

It was kind of like a roach motel.

The convoy would check in …......BAM........but they wouldn’t check out, I waited for my prey to move closer, then set the plan in motion. “Charges set,” I reported. “Arming on contact.” The images on the screen told me the good news: The convoy was heading straight for my kill zone. One minute away.

Perfect. “Right on time,” I murmured, and smiled. Careful planning, perfect positioning, flawless teamwork … I figured we’d wrap the job and be out of there before the desert heat could wilt our powder-fresh antiperspirants.

Easy as pie.

But then something ruined the view. Bloody hell! What was that? I adjusted my binoculars. Nothing but sand. Then-there it was again! Now I could see: Some kind of small sports vehicle-I think they called it a Baja Buggy. It bounced over a sand dune, disappeared, crested another dune ...

Then vanished again into silence.

Then again. And again. “What the hell is that?” Rose exclaimed in my headset. “Threat? Redundancy?” I shook my head in disgust. “Maybe just some yahoo in a dune buggy. Desert’s full of them.” As the vehicle moved closer, I caught sight of the driver. He was wearing a helmet and goggles, a silly scarf flapping in the breeze behind him. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

Fucking asshole.

Of all the sandboxes in the world, he had to come play in mine. I checked my screen and scowled. The buggy showed up as a moving blinking dot on my laptop screen. He was headed straight into my kill zone. Goddamn son of a ...

“He’s going to set off the charges.” I tensed, waiting. Stop ... stop ... stop ..Mere inches short of the laser trigger, the buggy halted. I exhaled a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Now, if he would just get the hell out of there … But then the driver pulled a hotshot spin, slewing sideways barely, just barely slicing into the kill zone with his back tire.

Like a lot of things in life, just barely was as good as 100 percent.

My computer flashed its warning: green-meaning, the

charges were activated. Thirty seconds to go.

“Countdown initiated,” I heard Rose exclaim. “Are they in the zone?! Jane!”

“No, no, it’s gonna blow too early!” I cried. “I’ve got to reroute the charges!” I lunged toward my timer box and went to work, disconnecting wires, trying to take back orders it had been programmed to execute no matter what. It was intense intricate work-not the kind of thing I liked to do in a rush.

Head down, focused, I broke out in a sweat. At last I managed to defuse the charges. The lights turned white. I looked up to check on my gate-crasher. He’d parked his toy and hopped out. He was looking around. And then I watched him open a silver case. A weapons system perhaps?

No ... a lunch box? Who the hell was this? An enemy operative-or a happy hiker?

“What is this guy doing?” I muttered. I watched in amazement as the man pulled out a wrapped sandwich and what looked like pie.

Helluva place to stop and have a damn picnic! Whoever he was, he was skipping the Skippy and going straight for dessert.

JUNGKOOK

“Good afternoon, Mr. Danz,” I said, watching an approaching convoy of cars. Through my binoculars, I estimated their distance at about a half mile. We were in the desert somewhere, a little north of the Mexican border. Stationed atop a high dune, I had an excellent view of the road. The position of the convoy allowed me just enough time to open my lunch box and grab my sandwich and slice of key lime pie. Both were wrapped so tightly in Saran Wrap, they looked like they were about to suffocate.

That’s my little Martha Stewart, Jane. God, when had she gotten so uptight?

A Post-it note stuck to the sandwich said: XOXO Jane. Nice of her to make food for me. Nice to include the note. Only . . . she'd put a thousand of these in a thousand lunches, and they always said the same thing. I almost wondered if she had them printed up at Kinko's.

I unwrapped the pie first. Hey, it was pretty good pie, I didn’t want to hurry through it if the convoy got here quicker than estimated. Damn, it was hotter than the devil’s own sauna out here-I sure could use a couple of margaritas. As I surveyed the approaching motorcade, I pulled out my silver flask, sneaked a belt of Red Label, and tried to pretend it was icy-cold tequila. Then I took a big bite of dessert-and moaned. Mmm-damn good pie. One of the few things Jane made that I actually liked. It reminded me of hot nights in foreign places. Like the Caribbean. Or Bogota. The sharp tang of lime went perfect with the scotch.

But I’d better keep my mind on my work. I mean, this was an easy hit, as far as hits go: well set up, plenty of time. Yet I still needed to focus. Even when it came to the smallest assignments, I prided myself on doing a perfect job.

But there was no reason why I couldn't have a little fun. “So,” I said like a sportscaster, “we got us a hefty convoy of vehicles. Main attraction is a heavily armed Navigator center stage. A tough can to open. Any ideas, Jungkook?”

I heaved a Javelin CLU 76mm rocket launcher onto my shoulder. “Well, Bob,” I answered myself, playing the coanchor, “I thought I’d try my luck with the Javelin.”

I activated the laser sight, searching for my target.

“Incorporating passive target acquisition with an integrated thermal imaging sight. It’s got all the features you’d expect from a larger fire-and-forget weapon system wrapped up in an easily portable six point-four-kg package.”

The convoy moved closer.

Benjamin Danz was about to die.

I sneaked another bite of pie.

JANE

All my questions were put to rest when I saw Dune Buggy Dude hoisting a huge rocket launcher onto his shoulder. This guy was hunting, babe, but not roadrunners or armadillo. Dammit! He was after my guy! I did not like this. I did not like this one bit! I plan a perfect little hit, and some two-bit James Bond wannabe stumbles onto my playground waving his big toy gun in my face!

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

My voice was hard and controlled when I alerted my crew: “Its not a yahoo. We’ve got another player on the field.”

There was a pause; I knew Rose was studying my live feeds. And I knew what she was thinking. Hell, we’d memorized the same page in assassin school.

In a situation like this, the book said to abort.

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

I could hear the seconds ticking away. Could hear Rose biting her tongue, trying hard not to give advice.

Frantically I considered my options. Then I saw that our intruder was preparing to fire-now!-

“He’s going to take out the target before they hit the kill zone,” Rose blurted.

That’s what She thought.

“No, he’s not,” I said.

Not if I had anything to do with it. All discussion ceased. Time to move-now. I swung a silenced survival rifle from a sling on my back and snapped it into firing position. As Buggy Boy took aim at his target, I locked onto mine: HIM. Thanks for holding still, dude ...

I fired.

JUNGKOOK

This was gonna be so easy. I had my Javelin locked onto my target. I was pumped, but relaxed. And the convoy was walking right into my hands. I even had a moment to spare.

It should have been a piece of cake. Or should I say pie? Because that’s when Jane’s key lime pie began calling my name again. Some of Jane’s cooking flat-out sucks-not that I ever tell her that. Hell, I take enough risks every day in my job without doing something really crazy like that at home. Besides, traveling the world, I’ve eaten a lot worse. But this pie of hers rocked. I checked my sights. I had just enough time left. I smiled as I reached for that last sweet-and-sour bite.

Hey! There was sand getting into my pie! I reached down to cover it.

Phhhzzzzzt!!

“What the-’’ Lucky for me, my well-trained body was ahead of my brain. I ate sand as I hit the ground. Then I just lay there for a moment, afraid to reach up, afraid to feel if my head was still there. But slowly I realized I was just grazed. My right ear stung like hell, though. The bullet had clipped it. My ear was bleeding, but not too much.

Now I was pissed.

Somebody was out there.

Somebody who wanted me dead.

JANE

“Player down,” I reported to my crew. “Back in business.”

That was easy enough. One shot, and he was no longer an annoying interruption to my game. I like to think I’m the kind of person who’s open to discussion on most topics. But when I’m in the middle of a job, hey Don’t mess with Jane. Too bad Pie Boy had to learn the hard way. But the great thing about the desert?

No muss. No fuss. No cleanup. The buzzards would take care of that. I cracked my knuckles, and turned my attention back to the approaching convoy.

JUNGKOOK

I searched the area where I thought the shot had originated. I saw nothing but an abandoned mine Shack. But wait. Movement-there. A slim figure passed by the open doorway. Somebody was there, and up to something. Looked like a little guy. Whatever he had planned, he definitely didn’t want me snooping around.

Out here in the desert, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Only one option: Eliminate the threat. I dusted off my launcher and took dead aim at the shack. I fired it up, and watched it cough out a heat seeking warhead. Thirty feet ahead, it roared to life, spewing out a sheet of flame while screaming across the desert toward whoever had the misfortune of being in that shack.

Whoa, Mama. Do it!

JANE

I had a teacher once in seventh grade. She used to nag me about my lack of focus. If she could only see me now. Every fiber of my being was focused on the approaching convoy. I could visualize Benjamin Danz riding like a prince in that SUV.

I’d done my homework, and I was ready to ace the test. But then an unexpected noise broke my concentration. It sounded something like whooomph!

As in ...MAJOR FREAKIN’ FIREPOWER! A quick glance told me it was headed for my current address. The shack.

Shit!

A blazing fireball was hurtling straight at me. And I was gonna eat it!

By instinct, I dived off the rocks ...

JUNGKOOK

BOOM! The old mine shack exploded into a million little pieces. I gulped and stared down in awe at the smoking object I held in my hand. “You should so not be allowed to buy these . . .” I guess I had successfully eliminated my intruder.

Unfortunately the kick-ass blast had also announced my presence to my target. The convoy had stopped, alerted to danger. And now it was turning around . . . Oh, no you don ’t! I still had a chance to pull this thing off. I quickly hoisted my trusty rocket launcher to my shoulder and took aim again.

JANE

The force of the explosion propelled me through the air. I hit the ground hard, losing my gun in the fall. My laptop, I thought as I tumbled away from the exploding mine shack. Yeah, lost that, too. If I could just find it... could I still pull this off? Or was it destroyed in the blast?

JUNGKOOK

before I could shoot, the desert erupted in a ground-shaking explosion. I’d never experienced an earthquake, but if it was anything like this, I was definitely going to avoid them in the future. The blast knocked me to the ground as dust clouds eclipsed the sun.

I hunkered down and waited.

As the sky finally cleared, I got to my feet-battered and covered in sand. I looked in both directions, trying to get my bearings. My nemesis must have set up some kind of kill zone in the desert, timed to explode when the convoy drove through. An elementary technique-it was a trick I’d used myself dozens of times.

Even though I had attacked the agent, his system must have been programmed to operate on its

own.

The only problem was . . . The convoy-alerted by our fighting-was now speeding away in the distance. Damn, I was pissed. This had really ruined my day. I had no idea who’d been out here getting in my way. I didn’t even have a clue as to whether the agent was dead or alive.

But either way, I was determined to learn his name. I swore that when I found out, if he wasn’t dead already-he was sure as hell going to wish he was. I started to walk away. But then I spotted something-a light blinking on and off in the rubble from the mine-shack explosion.

A laptop computer. Unbelievable. It was still working.

I grinned and ran to retrieve it.

JANE

Goddamn bastard.

I hadn’t expected a difficult mission. And I sure as hell hadn’t expected any unidentified players. My team was thorough, organized, and always well prepared. We were better than this. But this pie-eating punk had made us look like amateurs.

I didn’t even want to think about what Father would say about tonight’s miserable failure. But one thing I swore as I rendezvoused with my team: I would learn this man’s name.

And then I would make him sorry he’d ever met me.

JUNGKOOK

Back in the city I stopped by the diner to tell Taehyung what I'd found. I stared into a mug of black coffee as Taehyung wolfed down the Hungry Man Breakfast Special. Day or night, that guy could pack it away. But I wasn't hungry. All I could think about was my ruined assignment and the agent who had thrown me off my game.

I fingered my nicked ear. It had been a long time since anybody had come quite that close to putting a bullet through my brain. “Two hitters. You ever have two hitters on the same square?”

“Not that I'm aware of,” Taehyung said around a mouthful of eggs and toast. “You get a good look at him?” As if the situation wasn’t weird enough, something about my opponent kept gnawing at me, too. I shrugged, trying to remember. “Little thing. Buck ten, buck fifteen tops ...” Not much bigger than

Jane, I thought. That’s when it hit me. “I'm not so sure it WAS a him”

Taehyung’s fork clattered to his plate. He just stared at me. “You got beat up by a girl?” Ouch. I didn't care for the way he’d phrased that. “I think so,” I admitted. I swiveled on my stool to face him. “Taehyung, she was a pro.”

Taehyung shrugged and went back to vacuuming his plate. “Well, then, this should be easy. I mean, how many hitters are chicks, right?” He had a point. Hell, that would eliminate most operatives in the whole goddamn business. Taehyung's eyes drifted after the waitress. “I’d like to see her kick my ass . . .” Taehyung’s appetite for women was almost as voracious as his appetite for ham and eggs. I waited patiently for him to remember I was there.

“You got anything to go on?” he said, turning back to me at last. I did-the laptop I'd found in the rubble. It was pretty beat-up, but it was still alive. And I knew a girl who could do wonders with twisted bits of metal .

I gulped down my coffee and spun off the stool. “See you later, Taehyung.” I slipped into the back room of my favorite digital chop shop and looked around for a whiz kid named Gwen. I spotted her bent over a worktable covered with junk-it looked like a computer graveyard. With her spiked hair and White Stripes tank top, she looked more like a baby-sitter than the electronics genius I knew her to be. I told her I had a slightly damaged laptop, then laid the machine on the counter for her to examine.

She surveyed the charred wreckage the laptop had become. “You put a campfire out with it?” she asked skeptically. I smiled. Very funny. “My advice to you?” she said, wiping her hands on a rag. I leaned forward hopefully. “Buy a new one.”

“This one has sentimental value for its owner,” I insisted. “Who’s that?”

I smiled innocently. “I was hoping you could tell me.” Gwen chewed her lip and examined the machine. “No serials,” she pointed out. “Looks like it’s government or something.” She threw up her hands. “It’s untraceable.” Okay. It wasn’t hard to tell where this was going. But I waited, the ball in her court.

“There is something we might do. It wouldn’t be easy”-she glanced up at me-“or legal.” I forked over a portrait of Ben Franklin, my favorite president. “Oh,” she said, in a voice like Shirley Temple, “it’d be twice as illegal as that.” Of course it would. I held out Franklin’s twin. She grinned and snatched it from my fingers, then went to work.

Of course, there was no way I was letting that precious bit of evidence out of my sight, so I hung around, staring out the window. Thinking about all that had happened. “So why you gotta know so bad anyway?” Gwen asked as she attacked the guts of the machine.

“You know me, Gwen. Just an honest citizen trying to return some lost property . . .”

“Yeah, right.”

“. . . who’s given you two hundred bucks to shut up and get on with it.”

She just laughed and kept digging. At last she let out a tiny whoop. “Here we go. Upgraded RAM module.” She bipped the bar code on her reader. Information flooded the screen of her diagnostic machine. “Okay,” Gwen said, scanning the news. “The chip’s Chinese, imported by Dynamix, retailed by blah blah blah . . .” She started typing, her fingers a blur.

“I think I can get you a billing address.” She glanced sideways at me. “You’re just sending flowers, right?”

“Chocolate,” I murmured in my sexiest voice.

“Stop, you’re getting me hot.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. I was about to make another joke when she stopped, and read, then shook her head. “No name, just an address . ”

“Fine,” I said eagerly. “Let me have it.”

“Card's registered to Five-fifty Lexington, fiftysecond floor.” An electric shock shot through me, a jolt that had nothing to do with anything in Gwen’s shop. The address sounded familiar. Too familiar.

Gwen peered at me. “You know this place?”

I shook my head. Unsure.

And something in my gut told me: I would regret finding out.

JANE

I stormed into the Triple-Click project room, breathing fire. Thank God Jungkook was “out of town” and I was supposedly spending the night at my parents’ house. I was furious, and I knew I would have had a damned hard time playing the perfect little wife around him right now. Not that he would have noticed. But I was thankful I had nothing else to think about but my job.

I slammed my briefcase down on my desk. “We lost the package,” I announced. “The FBI secured him this morning.” Rose sank back in her chair. She knew as well as I did that this was a big deal.

Bottom line: We’d fucked up.

But I am notorious for being a damn sore loser. I absolutely have to win. And I wasn’t through with my little interfering mischief maker. Bottom line: The dude was gonna pay.

“I want to know who that bastard is and what he was doing on my patch-”

“Jane ...”

“—let’s see the tape,” I rushed on. “If the tunnel entrance has a traffic camera, we can hack into-”

Jane ...” -and I want to talk to-

‘Jane!” I turned, scowling with impatience. Jessie was holding out a phone. Shit. If Jessie was interrupting my war dance, then there could be only one person on the other end of that phone. Jessie shrugged. “Father” We shared a dark glance. She knew I’d rather face a firing squad than take that call. But courage is part of my job description, so I didn’t hesitate. I took the phone and said hello.

Ouch. Father’s formal accent sliced through me like an ice pick when he was angry. I listened without interrupting, knowing I deserved every blistering word.

Still, I tried to stick up for my team. “The FBI secured the package. The window’s closed ...” I flinched at Father’s response. “Sir, there was another player-”

“I told you we couldn’t afford any mistakes on this end.”

For some strange reason, a chill ran through me. I quickly shook it off like water on a wet dog. “But there was another player at the-”

“We do not leave witnesses,” Father interrupted. “Zero exposure. If this player ID’d you-”

“I understand, sir.”

“You know the rules,” Father went on, his voice cold as ice.

“You’ve got forty-eight hours. Clean the scene, Jane.” I held my breath as he paused; he seemed about to say something else … But then the line went dead.

Yeah, nice talking to you, too, Dad. But I knew the rules. And I’d been in the business long enough to know that Father meant what he said and said what he meant. There would be no second chances.

Success was the only option.

But that was okay. Succeeding was one of my favorite things to do. I slammed down the phone and turned to my crew. I was still angry, yes, but also exhilarated by the

adrenaline pumping into my veins, the thrill of a new chase.

“We’ve got a new target,” I informed them. “Let’s find out who he is.

JUNGKOOK

Lexington Avenue. I checked the address again. Two more blocks. Two more blocks till I knew. I didn’t know whether to run or drag my heels. So I walked, with my hands stuffed in my pockets, head down.

Two crosswalks later I knew I could no longer put off the inevitable. So I steeled myself and looked up. There it was: 550 Lexington Avenue. A typical up¬ scale skyscraper.

As I walked the last few yards, my pace quickened, and I shoved through the revolving door into the lobby, nearly sprinted to the building register on the wall as I dug the crumpled paper out of my pocket to double-check an address I knew by heart. There. Suite 5204E. And beside it, a company name.

TRIPLE-CLICK, COMPUTER TEMP AGENCY.

The blood drained from my face. “Not possible ...” I muttered under my breath. I felt as if that desert explosion was knocking me off my feet all over again. Did I know the company? Hell, yeah, I did. In fact, I knew someone who worked there. Knew her well.

Or maybe . . . maybe not at all.

Someone who just happened to be a very close relation of mine . . .

JANE

We taped our missions, whenever possible. (Although I’d specifically “forgotten” to have the crew record my night with Marco Racin-some memories just shouldn’t be preserved for posterity.) You never knew when some casual visual detail might reveal some major information.

So I ran the tape of our botched operation in slow motion,examining every square inch of the screen. When I got to thetape of my Buggy Dude, I zoomed in, hoping to see what per¬ haps I’d missed before.

Something shiny caught my eye. I leaned forward. It looked like ...I blinked. It looked like a hip flask, the kind you’d use to carry your preferred brand of booze to the Kentucky Derby, or some other posh event. Like bourbon. Or scotch ...

I started to move on, but something made me take a closer look. The flask looked familiar, which totally freaked me out. It was like checking into a new hotel room-and finding one of your possessions in an empty drawer. Of course, a lot of men carried flasks. I bet at least 50, 60 percent of them were silver, too. Maybe more. I advanced the tape a little and noticed something else, lying on the ground at the man’s feet.

Pie.

So what? I made a pie just the other day. Key lime pie, as a matter of fact. Jungkook’s favorite. I’d even packed him a lunch with a slice of that pie the night before he told me he had to go out of town. Did he take it with him? I don’t know-I didn’t check the fridge.

But hey, lots of people made pie every day. You could get it at any deli or supermarket. All kinds. Nothing special about pie. So what if the pie in this video looked like key lime, too. And I’m sure lots of women knew how to make that special distinctive crimp in the edge of the crust. The one I thought I madeup. My signature, kind of.

Really, a guy carrying a silver flask and eating pie, even key lime pie, pie with a special signature crimp to the crust, well, what was so unusual...

Quickly I rewound to the man’s face and blew it up to life size. The image was still blurry, impossible to see clearly-plus my subject was wearing a helmet and goggles.

He could be anybody. Really. But the tilt to his head, the set to his shoulders ... the attitude in the way he stood ...I’d seen this man before.

I couldn’t get a clear view of his eyes because of the goggles. The helmet hid everything else but his mouth. I stared at that mouth. Those lips ...

Holy shit.

I felt the blood rush to my face, and I swallowed hard as I leaned closer, so close my nose almost touched the screen. So close my lips were almost touching those lips ...

“It’s your husband,” Rose said behind me. I choked and spun around. But Rose wasn’t looking at the face on the screen. She was holding out the phone. “It’s your husband,” she repeated. “He’s back from Atlanta.Wants to know about dinner.” He was back. From Atlanta. Or wherever the hell he’d really been.

Like maybe somewhere even hotter. Sandier... The floor seemed to tilt. Images of life and work collided into conclusions that made no sense.

Your husband... Familiar words that suddenly had no meaning.

“Tell him .. ” My voice faltered. Tell him what? That I know everything?I know nothing. Not anymore.

“Tell him .. ”

Rose peered curiously at me. “Tell him ... dinner’s at seven.”

I turned around in my chair to stare once more at those lips. Lips that could send a woman reeling. Or whisper a lifetime of pretty lies.

JUNGKOOK

Dinner’s at seven? That’s all she can say? Dinner's at seven?! “It always is,’’ I muttered into the phone, then hung up. I wandered back out onto the sidewalk and stood for a minute, gazing up to the fifty-second floor.

Dinner's at seven, dinner's at seven . . . Jesus Christ! I’d been setting my watch by dinner's at seven for five goddamn years. I’d been brushing my teeth beside her, sharing closet space with her, hell-I’d been sleeping next to her, completely unarmed and totally exposed, for what seemed like centuries! And all this time . . .

She'd been slipping out to assassinate people when I wasn’t looking.

Christ Almighty! Yesterday she tried to fucking kill my ass-and all she can say is, “Dinner’s at seven?! ”

I’d played mind games with some of the most devious operatives in the business. But this woman-God, she was gonna blow my mind. I leaned on a corner trash can like a drunk about to hurl, and slowly dropped the crumpled address into the garbage.

Get a grip, I told myself.

I was a pro. I’d been trained to function in even the most dangerous situations. I had the experience and the skills to deal with this, too.

That’s when anger overtook the shock, adrenaline goading me to take action. I stood up, straightened my cuffs, and strode purposefully toward the parking garage, where I’d left my car. I had a dangerous mission to complete.

I was heading home for dinner.

JANE

I left the office early for once. Told Rose I wasn’t feeling well. Said maybe I’d picked up a bug in the desert. Which made me wonder ...

Note to self: Check car, house, person for any other kind of bug that hitter might have planted while trying to break my neck. Rose accepted my excuse without question. At least not spoken. Her eyes asked me everything.

But I couldn’t talk about my suspicions yet. Couldn’t tell anyone—not even Rose, who knew almost everything about me. I just wasn’t ready.

I had to be sure, see for myself, that my life with Jungkook was a total optical illusion. By the time I got home, my hands ached from gripping the steering wheel so hard. Only one thing had kept me from losing it.

Dinner’s at seven.

On the drive home I planned the menu in detail. Decided which china and table linens to use. Debated whether to stop for flowers. I wanted-needed-everything to be perfect. One last time.

Before everything fell apart.

JUNGKOOK

My headlights flashed across the house, the yard, the driveway, the garage. Things I never really looked at anymore, they were so familiar. Suddenly my perfect home in the burbs looked like the set for a TV show called Somebody Else’s Life. I killed the lights and stared at the house for a minute, with just one question on my mind.

What the hell was I getting for dinner tonight?

When she tried to kill me on that mountain, had she really been trying to kill me? Her husband? Or was I simply an enemy operative who’d gotten in the way of her hit?

Did she know about me? And did she know I knew about her?

Jesus. Could two people really live together in a house with secrets like ours, and have no idea what was going on?

I looked at the kitchen window.

No sign of my darling wife.

Was she making dinner? Or cooking up plans for a murder?

With fear and loathing, I forced my wedding band on my finger and made myself open the car door. The hinge screeched. A dog barked in the distance. Shrubbery rustled by the front door.

Tonight my lovely house looked incredibly menacing in the shadows, like a beautiful woman with evil on her mind. On full alert, I walked up the sidewalk and opened the front door. Lucy, I'm home . . .

Cautiously I stepped into the front hall, one hand on my suitcase, one hand in my pocket where I kept my courage. I'm talking about my gun. Not the booze.

I eased the door closed and moved forward, eyes darting everywhere . . .

“Perfect timing.”

I jumped and almost shot my foot off. Jane-she’d appeared out of nowhere, silent and deadly. Dressed to kill, you might say. And holding up two chilled martinis. The perfect wife. Just like old times. As if the entire universe hadn't changed since I went away.

I nodded at the martinis. “This is a surprise.” She bitched at me all the time about my drinking. “A pleasant one, I hope,” she said with a flirtatious smile. She thrust the fragile glass toward me, and by reflex, I took it. With my gun hand.

Coincidence? Or the clever strategy of an experienced assassin?

Then she leaned in for a kiss.

I didn't close my eyes.

So I noticed-neither did she. “You’re back early,” she said. A challenge. “I missed you.” “Missed you, too,” she replied. Was it my imagination? Or did her eyes dart to my bandaged ear?

But she’d turned away, motioning toward the dining room. “Shall we?”

“After you,” I said, the perfect gentleman. Perfectly careful . With a casual shrug, she turned and led the way. I let my eyes roam up and down her swaying curves, in¬lspecting her for clues, weapons . . . really looking at her for the first time in years.

Let me tell you, that outfit revealed a lot more than it concealed. Definitely no weapons on board. At least not the conventional kind. I might have enjoyed the view if I hadn’t been so damned worried she was about to blow my head off.

When I entered the dining room, my apprehension jacked up a notch. The joint was all decked out like we were expecting the royal family for dinner-flowers, the best linens. More than one fork. Match your ass, I warned myself. The bitch is definitely up to something.

“Thought you only broke these out for special occasions,” I said.

“Isn’t dinner with my husband special enough?” she said. She even held out my goddamn chair for me.I sat down slowly, my eyes never leaving hers, all senses on alert. Like a maitre d’ in a fancy restaurant, she removed my white linen napkin, and I must admit I flinched when she whip-cracked it open before laying it across my lap.

“Why, thank you," I said, playing along.

“Anything for you,” she cooed.

Yeah, I bet.

As she walked around behind me, I surreptitiously slid my knife into my lap, hiding it under the napkin.

She didn’t seem to notice but just skipped out through the kitchen door, tossing a coy smile over her shoulder as she disappeared.

I nearly laughed out loud and reached for my cocktail. Till I saw something through the swinging kitchen door. A can of Drano sitting out on the counter. I froze with my martini inches from my lips. Jeez. What the hell did Drano smell like? I sniffed my drink. It smelled okay. I thought. Maybe . . . But that didn’t prove anything.

Keeping my eye on the closed kitchen door, I quickly dumped my drink into a vase of flowers in the center of the table, hoping they wouldn’t explode.

As I waited, I studied the table, looking for I wasn’t sure what: clues, weapons, traps. Every piece of cutlery flickered menacingly in the candle¬ light. The wine became a vehicle for poison; the table runner a strangulation device. The centerpiece, a place to conceal a deadly grenade.

Then my little wife was back, smiling like Playboy meets Good Housekeeping over a steaming roast. A roast that had a wieked-looking knife sticking out of its back. "Mmm. Pot roast. My favorite.” The knife glinted in the candlelight as Jane sharpened it, wielding it as if a roast weren’t the only thing she knew how to carve.

Shit. My hand shot out and clamped down on her wrist. “No, no, no,” I murmured. “You’ve been on your feet in the kitchen. Allow me.”

For a moment I felt her resist, but I lovingly disarmed her. I noticed she quickly stepped away from me, now that the razor-sharp blade was in my hand.

As I held the knife, ready to slice into the meat, I kept an eye on her reflection in the shining blade. Fuck! She’d pulled an even larger knife from that frilly little apron of hers. How the hell did she smuggle that in? The thing was big enough to hack a path through the jungle, but she was using it to cut our baked potatoes in half. Like it was what she always used.

Like Martha Stewart gone mad.

It was crazy. We just stood there, side by side like newlyweds, while maybe plotting how to slash each other’s throat. I studied her, watched how easily she handled a knife. Hell, how had I missed this before? This lady had the hands of a master slasher.

I wondered what she’d used for practice. “How’s work?” I asked casually. “Fine,” she replied. Then a funny look crossed her face. “Actually, we had a little problem with a commission this week.”

“Yeah?” I asked, instantly alert. “Mm-hmm. A double booking with another firm.”

I placed a perfectly carved slice of pot roast onto Jane’s plate. “Everything work out okay?” She slid a potato onto mine, the blade a little too close to a similar-shaped piece of my anatomy that she might not be so averse to slicing. “Not yet,” she said. “But it will.”

Okay, up till now, you could have argued that I was being paranoid, that I was reading too much into every little thing. But now I was definitely getting the sense that we were talking in riddles and code.

We sat down at opposite ends of the table, out of arm’s reach. She sipped her wine and waited for me to begin.

I stared down into my plate, hesitating. What if the food was poisoned? Then I caught Jane watching me carefully. Hell, I couldn’t let her know she had me spooked, so I hacked off a hunk of meat like a medieval warrior and boldly took a bite.

“Mmm. This is great,” I said, fighting the urge to spit it out on the floor. “You do something new?” She glared at me for the first time that night. “You always ask that.”

Yeah, well, what else was I supposed to say after eighteen hundred meals? I chuckled to cover my ass. “I always forget how good it is.” Her smile returned; I cut more meat slowly, playing for time. “Could you pass the-”

Wham! Something skidded across the table, and my hand shot out to catch it.

The salt.

If it had been a blade, I’d have been dead before the smile touched her lips. In some ways, she was doing what she always did. She always set a nice table, served a nice meal that looked like something out of a magazine. Always strived for pure perfection.

Hell, it was like eating in the same damn restaurant night after night after night. But tonight she was different. We weren’t just in a different restaurant. We were in a different restaurant on a different planet. There was an underlying edge to everything. Something subtly different to her moves.

I watched her closely as she reached toward her glass of water. Her movements seemed confident, deliberate; every move a clean straight line.

How had I missed the hard muscles that rippled along her lovely arms? How she moved with the grace of a trained ninja? How alert she was, and how quickly she reacted to every sound?

Like a true professional, conscious of every move, someone who knew that well-conditioned reflexes and decisive moves could sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

Had she been hiding this side of herself? Or had I simply been too bored, too preoccupied, too stupid to see what was right here under my nose all along?

“How was Atlanta?” she asked pointedly. Especially since she knew damn well I hadn’t been there. “Had a problem with some figures,” I said easily. “Something didn’t add up.” “Big deal?” she asked.

“Life or death.”

Our eyes locked across the table. I could see flames-candle light-flickering in her eyes.“More wine, dear?” I asked. Before she could even answer, I insisted, “Allow me. It is in the middle of the table, after all.”

I rose and strode toward her.And smiled at the fear that leaped in her eyes.

JANE

Look at him. Goddamn bastard. Sitting across from me at the table like he’s done every night for six long years. Going through the motions like some Toys “51” Us husband on Everready batteries.

Always smiling. Smiling at me. Smiling at everything I said. Smiling at the goddamn pot roast. Without ever really seeing any of it.

While lying to me about everything. How was your trip to Atlanta, dear? Oh, fine. A few problems with Some figures. Blah blah blah.

Except I wasn’t even in Atlanta, darling. I was in the desert trying to blow you up with my great big GUNS! And all the time drinking from the silver flask I’d given him and . .. and ... eating my pie!

I watched him going about the motions. Did he think of me when he was gone? Did he laugh about his stupid little wife as he stuffed my pie into his big fat mouth? Had he joked about what a fool I was while he lay in the arms of some femme fatale operative in post mission bliss?

No wonder he rolled over and went to sleep every night he crawled into bed with me. He wasn’t boring. He’d just burned up every ounce of energy living his thrilling double life! Somebody else got his James Bond; all I got was Ward Cleaver. Father Knows Best. Leftovers!

The only thing he ever kept me up with all night anymore was his snoring.

Damn him.

Now he was coming toward me like he thought he was Cary Grant, ready to pour me another glass of wine.

Suddenly my heart froze. I didn’t like that look in his eye. And here was the Question. Did he know it was me he almost killed up on that mountain ravine? Was he here to finish the job?

Maybe he didn’t know, didn’t know I knew. So maybe he was really just going to pour me some wine.

Or maybe he was just tired of his boring little wife and wanted to kill her off so he could run away with some killer named Natasha!

I watched him move toward me, eyes never leaving mine as he so casually palmed the wine bottle on the way.

Mm-hmm. Cary Grant.

Cary Grant, Serial killer. I tensed, eyeing the bottle in his hand. How easily he could swing it around and smash my skull if he wanted to.

My eyes shot to the nearest knife on the table. I held my breath, crossed my legs, and held out my glass.

Just as he leaned down to pour—or kill—he looked startled. I realized my dress had drifted up a bit, revealing my bandaged knee and the bruises from my fall on the rocks in the desert.

He let the bottle slip from his grasp. My hand shot out and caught it in midair. A brilliant save; excellent reflexes. Not the reflexes of a housewife.

Stupid me.

A slow smile spread across Jungkook’s face.

Our eyes locked once more.

He knew. And he knew I knew. And now I knew that he knew

I knew.

Ah, yes. All of a sudden we were a very knowing couple.

I let the bottle drop.

As it fell in what seemed like slow motion, toward our perfect white carpet, memories flooded my mind How we had been in Bogota. How he always seemed to be in the middle of things. I never questioned why he was there, or why he kept such strange hours for a man overseeing a construction project. All I cared about were those blissful hours he was free to spend in my bed.

When I wasn’t making love to him, I’d been out handling my work assignments. Three assassinations in one week.

And the whole time? He must have been doing the same. The bastard had been lying to me from day one.

With a thud, the wine spilled across the floor, covering the perfect rug with a horrible blood red stain.

JUNGKOOK

We spoke at the same time.

“I’ll get a towel,” Jane said.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

An excuse. We both fled.

I ran into my den and shut the door behind me, panting, my mind racing in a million different directions.

In a single night, in a single moment, the whole fucking world had changed. No words spoken. No shots fired.

But our eyes had confessed everything.

She knew; I knew. There was no going back. Staring into her eyes as the wine spilled. I’d had a flashback. Memories of Bogota.

I’d never asked her why she was there, hadn’t questioned how easily she'd fallen into my bed. I was just so damn glad to have her there. And in between making love, when I’d slipped off to take care of a few assassinations-four in one week-she’d been slipping off to do the same.

The bitch had been lying to me since day one. She’d tried to kill me before. Now that she knew I knew everything, she really needed me dead.

A door slammed somewhere in the house, and I stopped cold. I pressed my ear to my door, but I heard nothing more. Crossing to my desk, I pulled open the main drawer and tapped open a hidden compartment.

A gun, a clip, and a silencer.

In three quick moves, the parts clicked into place. Then I took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall, the gun behind my back. I scanned the dining room. The candles flickered ominously. Had she just hurried past them?

“Jane?” I called out. “Honey . . . ?”

No response.

Maybe she didn't answer to that name anymore. Then I heard a noise outside. My eyes snapped to the window.

The garage door was opening. The car-she was going to drive away! I raced through the house, out the front door, across the lawn, just as she began to back out of the garage. I lunged into the driveway and blocked her path.

“STOP THE CAR, JANE!”

Instead, she hit the gas, rammed our beautiful Mercedes-Benz wagon over the low wall, and tore across the grass. I knew there was no way I could catch her if I just followed her. But maybe I could cut through the neighbors’ backyards . . .

Dumb idea. Especially in the dark. The Colemans’ yard was easy, but then I leaped some bushes, and Damn. Landed on some kind of kiddie play set. Once I fought my way out of the swings, I ran right into a yard with a barking dog . . .

Let’s just say I got up close and personal with just about every kind of outdoor suburban paraphernalia imaginable before I made it to the end of my run. Might have been funny, if it was a movie.

Finally I made it to the end of the block and climbed a fence-just as Jane's car careened around the corner.

Gotta admire a girl who can drive on two wheels.

Our eyes locked.

“Something you want to tell me, hon?” I shouted. The look she gave me could have set a snowman on fire, and maybe that’s why the fence chose that moment to collapse. Down I went, plunging headfirst into a muddy puddle. Which would have been bad enough. But then Bang! The impact caused me to accidentally fire my gun.

“Oh, shit!”

One thing about a bullet: You can’t take it back. It’s kind of like sex, you know? Once that hammer slams down and says Go, baby! it’s a done deal. And “accidentally” is never a good thing.

But you know what’s even worse than accidentally shooting off your gun? When that shot chooses-out of all the targets in the universe-to slam through your wife's windshield.

Oh, shit. If I didn’t just kill her . . . she was going to kill me.

JANE

Maybe Jungkook wanted to hang around the house and play cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. Spy vs. spy.

But I was sick of games. And I couldn’t bear to be in that house with him one more minute. So I ran.

“Six years,” I muttered as I backed out of the garage and stomped on the gas. “Six years!”

I sped down the street and swerved around a corner. Then suddenly my headlights hit Jungkook like a spotlight: He was hanging at the top of a fence looking like a convict making a break for it. He must have cut through our neighbors’ backyards.

I glared at him as he shouted some lame taunt that I couldn’t understand. Then the fence he was clinging to fell over, tossing him into the mud, and the next thing I knew a bullet slammed through my windshield! I couldn’t believe it. The bastard was trying to kill me! I instinctively closed my eyes and slammed on the brakes as I braced myself for impact.

It took a moment to realize the bullet had narrowly missed my head.

Gasping in relief, I stared out the window, through the bullet hole, at my assassin. Otherwise known as my husband. “You bastard!” I shouted. Jungkook got to his feet, covered in mud. “Okay, honey, stay calm,” he called out as he ran toward me like a madman, waving his hands-and gun. “You know I didn’t mean to-”

But I was too angry to think straight. All I knew was that I didn’t want to hear any more of his lies. I aimed the car at his belt buckle-and burned rubber. “That’s it!” he shouted. “Overreact.” But then he realized I wasn’t kidding.

“JANE!” he shouted. “STOP THE CAR!”

“Sorry, baby!” I muttered under my breath. “You can’t tell me what to do anymore.” One of the many things Jungkook didn’t know about me was that I’d played myriad forms of chicken over the years in my job, and I never lost. There are countless bad guys who’d be glad to swear to that fact, but they’re all dead.

Wham! At the last second Jungkook leaped onto my car and vaulted over the roof. I quickly glanced back to see where he’d landed. Okay, maybe I looked to make sure he was okay. But there was no sign of him.

Which could only mean ...

HE WAS ON THE ROOF!

Half a second later, a side rear window exploded as Jungkook kicked through it and landed in the backseat covered in shattered glass.

A ballsy move, I had to admit.

“Now, look—” Jungkook began as he leaned forward from the backseat.

But I was already making my own ballsy move: I popped my door and leaped out of the car, barrel-rolling across the street into a soft, overgrown yard.

Dear Jungkook, I wanted to tell him as I landed, good-bye. Our marriage is over. You can have the car.

But alas, he was screaming too loud to hear.

JUNGKOOK

Holy shit!

She jumped out of the fucking car-with me in the backseat!

Uh-huh. Definitely mad about the bullet! I stared out the back window. Saw her stand up and brush herself off like it was nothing. And felt the car-wham!-hit the curb.

“JANE!” I shouted as the car caught air. “We need to taaaaaaalk”

Somehow, later that evening, I found myself on Taehyung’s doorstep again-wet, muddy, bruised-but in one piece.

At least my body was.

I wasn’t sure about my heart or my mind. The first was bashed, and the second I was about to lose. It was late, but I needed a friend. And not someone who was just a barbecue buddy like Martin Coleman.

The door cracked open and Taehyung peeked out. Then the door swung wide. “What the hell happened to you?” he gasped.

I limped over the threshold. “My wife.”

#jeon jungkook #BTS jungkook #jungkook #jungkook smut #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x reader #jungkook assassin au #jungkook spy au #jungkook jeon

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hangovercurse · 4 years ago

Text

The Things We Can’t Tell Pete About

Pete invites you to meet his friends from The Dirt and makes you promise not to flirt with any of them, which is a lot easier said than done, especially when Colson Baker acts like that.

Request: “Hey so I love all your writing and I just thought you should know that! But also I’d your requests are on still would you mind writing a youre Pete’s little sister but kells got a crush xx”

Colson x reader

Warnings: Drug use, Cursing

A/N: I know, Dom (Yungblud) wrote the song, but also I am the writer and I say that Y/N wrote it :) Anyways, enjoy. This is only part 1 of what is probably going to be a fun, cute lil series. Also thank you to the anon who sent this! You made my day(s)

Word Count: 2411

| ii | iii | iv | v |

masterlist

New York was lonely without your brother. He had been filming in New Orleans for the past three months, leaving you alone. You had some friends, but Pete was your best friend. You were only eight months younger than him and practically attached at the hip. You supposed going through trauma together would do that to people.

He facetimed you all the time from set, updating you on things in his life, showing you cool stuff from the set, and introducing you to his castmates. You had kept him updated on your music, playing him demos of songs you were writing and getting his opinion on them.

Him being away wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it definitely sucked for you. So, when Pete texted you that he was having a few friends from the movie over the night he got back, you were ecstatic.

Before you left your apartment to walk to his, he texted you.

You’re not allowed to flirt with any of my friends

You rolled your eyes as you locked your door, preparing a response.

I’ll try my best

Your phone buzzed seconds later.

I’m serious. I don’t trust any of them with you.

And I don’t need that kind of awkwardness in my life

Like if you date one of my friends and it goes badly

I don’t wanna deal with that shit

You chuckled at his chain of texts.

Don’t flirt with your friends because they’re dicks, got it

Don’t worry bro, I know the sibling code

You came to find out that that was a lot easier said than done. When you walked into his place, everyone in the room turned to look at you. You recognized most of them from your facetimes with Pete, but you doubted they remembered who you were. One who did remember you was Colson, Pete’s new best friend. He made eye contact with you from across the room, a sly grin on his lips. You sent him a small smile, Pete’s text running through your head briefly.

You found your brother lounging on the couch, a huge grin on his face. He was definitely tripping on mushrooms. “Y/N!” He yelled. “This is my baby sister, everyone.”

You rolled your eyes, walking further into the room, grabbing a drink from the cooler, and taking an empty seat on the opposite couch. “I’m less than a year younger than you, Pete.”

You heard a snicker from the one of the guys, looking over to see Colson covering up the smile on his face. “But you’re still younger than me so it counts.”

Everyone went back to their own conversations, which you were thankful for. “Y/N, you remember Colson, right?” Pete motioned to the blond guy.

“Yeah.” You nodded, looking him up and down. His muscle tank exposed the sleeves of tattoos, which seemed to cover every inch of his skin. “Your hair was different, but yeah I remember you.” You opened the beer on the coffee table, taking a swig.

“You’re the musician, right?” He asked you, leaning back onto the couch.

You nodded, “Aspiring musician but, yeah.”

“Oh, she’s great. You should hear her sometime.” Pete butted in, grinning like an idiot at you.

You rolled your eyes but had a smile on your face. “I work primarily as a songwriter and editor right now, but I’m trying to work on putting out some of my own stuff.”

You felt a little intimidated talking to Machine Gun Kelly about music, seeing as he was one of the best in the industry, but he seemed to be genuinely interested in your work. “Well, if you ever want some help or someone to listen to it, I’d be willing.” He flashed a smile, his bright blue eyes sparkling.

“Thanks, that’s really cool of you.” You bit your lip slightly, trying to hide the fact that you were totally breaking Pete’s rule.

Pete sent a glare your way to which you raised your eyebrow. You weren’t really flirting; you were just… making connections. “Anyways,” he cleared his throat, “I’ve been working on this sketch idea, Y/N, and I need your opinion.”

You nodded, letting him talk. “So, I was thinking like, there’s this guy with posters all over his wall. Like life size posters of a bunch of different people. And he falls asleep while doing homework and he dreams about them coming to life. And it plays out like one of those really bad commercials that encourage kids to stay in school and shit. Like the posters are telling him to study for his test, but then there’s this one poster that’s like, very sexy. And she’s just like, talking about hot dogs and everyone else gets really sick of it and one of the other posters tries to like, tear down her poster or something.”

Throughout his description, you got more and more confused. “Pete, that’s not funny that’s just fuckin weird.” His mouth hung open in shock. “Dude, seriously? The big punchline is the playboy poster girl talking about hot dogs until the other poster people get tired of it?”

“Yes.” Pete said, as if it were obvious. “That’s hilarious.” You glanced at Colson with a questioning look on your face. He seemed as unsure of the joke as you were.

“Pete, man, that’s not your best work.” Colson clapped him on the shoulder and you giggled at Pete’s disappointed expression.

“You guys are mean.” He pouted and you two laughed. “Ok, well, how would you make it funny?”

“I don’t know if you can, bro.” Colson’s laugh was contagious. When he laughed his whole body shook, his feet stomping and everything.

“What are the other posters?” You asked, trying to be supportive but knowing this wouldn’t turn out very good.

“Well, I was thinking maybe one is like a video game character. Like that lady from Wreck-It-Ralph. The mean one. And then like a snowboarder who is definitely high, and someone else, I dunno.” He shrugged, taking a hit from the joint in his hand and passing it to you.

“Okay…” You trailed off, looking at Colson for support. You brought the blunt to your lips, inhaling the smoke and bringing it down, letting the smoke leave your mouth slowly. You passed the joint to Colson, who gladly took it, a smirk on his face.

Pete looked between you two at the small interaction, a frown. “So, the posters,” he brought your attention away from the man again, “they’re all really serious about teaching this dude math. But the hotdog girl just keeps talking about hot dogs in like this really high-pitched voice.”

You watched the smoke fall from Colson’s lips, not fully paying attention to your brother.

“Yeah man, I think that sounds funny.” Colson told Pete, his eyes lingering on you for a little longer than they should have. “It could use some work but if anyone can make it funny, it’s you.” Colson punched your brother on the shoulder, but the look he sent you said the exact opposite.

You held in your giggle, taking another sip of your beer.

The rest of the night followed a similar pattern, you and Colson flirting and Pete trying to get in between you two. At one point, after a few more hits of weed and a couple more drinks, Colson brought out a guitar, insisting you play something for him. Where he got the guitar from, you had no idea, but you didn’t ask questions. Instead, you rolled your eyes, insisting that “if I have to play something, so do you.”

Everyone was too caught up in their own conversations to care about the noise, or too drunk. You started strumming, trying to remember the chords to a song you had started writing a few days ago. “There’s no lyrics yet, just a melody I came up with.” You blushed, feeling very self-conscious suddenly.

“Guess I’ll just free style to it then.” He chuckled as you started to strum, your fingers working the strings like they had your whole life.

The blond man closed his eyes, head nodding as you played and thinking of what to rap.

“Watch me, take a good thing and fuck it all up in one night. Catch me, I’m the one on the run away from the headlights.

No sleep, up all week wastin time with people I don’t like. I think, somethin’s fuckin wrong with me.

You smiled as he sang, watching his expressions change as he tried to think up the next line.

Drown myself in alcohol, that shit never helps at all

I might say some stupid things tonight when you pick up this call

I be hearin silence on the other side for way to long, I can taste it on my tongue, I can tell that somethin’s wrong.”

He opened his eyes, looking rather proud of himself. “I had some of those lyrics already, but I just changed ‘em a little. I really liked that.”

You nodded, “That was impressive.” You smiled, looking back down to the guitar when something hit you.

You began to play the same melody but pitched higher to fit your voice.

“Roll me up, and smoke me love

And we could fly into the night

You take drugs, to let go, and figure it all out on your own

Take drugs, on gravestones, to figure it all out on your own.”

You looked up to Colson, watching his expression change, his eyes wide. Pete had a proud look on his face.

“Pete, you are a sucky hype man. You did her no justice.” Colson hit Pete on the arm.

“Whaddya mean, I told you she was great.”

Colson looked over to you, a stupid smile on his face. “Seriously, that was fucking amazing. Like, we gotta write that shit out some day.”

You bit your lip, trying to stop the blush from reaching your cheeks. “Yeah, that’d be cool.” You were trying your best to keep your cool as Colson kept his gaze on you, but you were completely freaking out on the inside.

A little while later, almost everyone was gone except you, Pete, Colson, and Douglas Booth, who joined your conversation not long after your jam session. Pete let out a yawn, directing your attention to the time.

“Jesus, it’s already 4am?” You asked, a frown on your face.

“Why, you got somewhere to be, darling?” Douglas asked you, your face scrunching up from the nickname.

“I have a writing session at 11 am tomorrow. Or, today, I guess.”

Pete reached out to hit you in the head, playfully, which you dodged. “Go to bed, dummy.”

You shrugged, “I’m gonna be dead at it anyways, might as well keep the party going a little longer.”

Douglas rolled his eyes, patting your shoulder. “Be that as it may, I am ending this party and going home. Goodnight, guys. It was nice meeting you again, Y/N. Good to see you guys.” Douglas and the guys did that little hand slap and hug thing before he left.

“I love you both, but I will also be going to sleep. And you should too.” Pete stood up, stretching his arms out before giving Colson a fist bump and leaving to his bedroom.

Once your older brother left, Colson moved to the couch you were on, his arm falling over your shoulders. You looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “And how can I help you Mr. Kelly?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m assuming Pete gave us both very similar talking to’s, given the glares you’ve been receiving all night.”

“You mean the “don’t flirt with my friends” talking to or the other one?” You tilted your head, a sly look on your face.

“That’s the one.” Colson laughed through his nose, an adorable smile on his face. You were both considerably high, but you still knew exactly what you were doing.

You moved closer to Colson’s body, “Well then I guess we’d better not do this.” You said quietly, leaning into him. “Or this,” You grabbed his jaw, inches from his face.

“Or this?” He whispered, connecting your lips. You smiled into the kiss, tasting the weed on his tongue. You adjusted your body so you were facing him, his arm that was once around your shoulder now wrapped around your waist.

His other hand grabbed your leg, pulling you up so you were straddling his lap, and your arms wrapped around his neck. His lips seemed to fit perfectly around yours, and you did all you could to keep yourself from moaning into the kiss as his hand began to travel up your leg.

Realization hit you like a brick wall, and you pulled away, your breathing heavy. “Sorry,” you muttered after a few seconds. You climbed off his lap, smoothing out your shirt. “We shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t have done that.” You smiled awkwardly down at him.

He nodded, the same realization hitting him. “Yeah, that’s not the best idea. Sorry I wasn’t really thinking.”

You shook your head, cheeks still very red. “No, no, no don’t apologize. It was fine, it’s all fine.”

He nodded, looking down awkwardly. “I should get going.” He stood up, landing a little too close to you.

“Why don’t you just sleep here? Pete won’t mind and it’s a lot easier than going home.” You bit your lip awkwardly, taking a few steps back.

Colson scratched the back of his neck. This was a very different demeanor than he had before, and you found it very cute. “Are you sure?”

You nod. “I’ll get you some blankets and pillows.” You moved towards the guest bedroom, a guilty smile on your face. You moved your hand to your lips, feeling where Colson’s lips had graced you minutes before.

You came back to find Colson laying on the couch, one hand behind his head. “We don’t have to tell Pete about that, right?”

You shook your head, a small smile still playing on your lips. You put the pillow behind his head, watching his eyes as he watched your lips. “Stop looking at me like that or I’ll do something else we can’t tell Pete about.” You said quietly, watching him grin. You pulled the blanket over him, leaning down to be level with his face.

“I kind of like the things we can’t tell Pete about.” Colson chuckled, leaning forward to connect your lips again.

#mgk #mgk imagine #mgk angst #mgk fluff #machine gun kelly #machine gun kelly imagine #Colson baker #colson x reader #colson baker imagine #colson baker fluff #colson baker angst #pete davidson

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archived-kin · 4 years ago

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genshin modern au cheat sheet

i’m planning to do more pieces set in this au, so i’ve put together a quick list of the characters i'm planning to write about/include!

there are three main groups here - the zhao family, the ragnvindr family and friends, and the Miscellaneous Pals™

(the next volume in this au is going to be a xiao piece, and that should be up within the next two or so days!)

1. the zhao family

zhongli, 36: history professor at the local uni who also plays the guzheng very well, tea-enjoyer, a very proud and supportive dad who loves his kids more than anything in the universe - probably unironically has so many pictures of them in his wallet

xiao, 23: taking a degree in psychology at the local uni, has a cool motorbike, bit of a control freak, doesn’t like surprises, will drop-kick you if you look at him or his sister funny, wants a cat but his dad’s allergic, never really grew out of his emo phase

yanfei, 19: baby of the family, prodigy lawyer-in-training, far smarter than many people give her credit for, likes building snowmen, has to protect her unsuspecting dad from Evil Salespeople looking to make some extra money

xiao and yanfei are biological siblings, and zhongli adopted them when xiao was 11 and yanfei was 7. the circumstances of this adoption is a mystery that none of the zhao family members seem willing to divulge…

the zhao siblings can have a little bit of tragic backstory. as a treat.

basically they were born into poverty and often went hungry for days on end. biological parents were distant and neglecting (though not actually physically/emotionally abusive - yet.)

when xiao was caught shoplifting bread and fruit from a local grocery store so that he and yanfei could actually eat, both parents went ballistic and kicked him out the house in the middle of one of the coldest winters the town had seen

poor kid was practically freezing to death out there, and yanfei raised such a fuss back in the house that mum slapped her square in the face to get her to shut up, which xiao saw through the window, and he promptly decided that he Was Not Putting Up With This Shit for any longer

immediately went to a neighbour’s house and told them what was going on, neighbours promptly called cps, and an investigation was launched

parents were deemed unsuitable for raising kids and (after a lot of back and forth) the two kids were taken into care

meanwhile zhongli was kind of sad because he had no friends or family in this town and all he really did was write articles, read books, and mark work

then one of his co-workers mentioned hearing about xiao and yanfei’s story and it hit zhongli so hard that he immediately rang up the adoption centre and ended up taking them in

and from then on both yanfei and xiao were very happy and healthy because zhongli was literally the best dad ever and put everything into taking care of them

2. the ragnvindr family (+ friends)

diluc, 29: budding businessman who still works at his dad’s cafe but is looking to open up his own company some time soon, still buys himself juice in those little cartons with the straws, still doesn’t know how raising bread works?? how does it get bigger???

diona, 7: diluc’s adopted daughter who has her father firmly under her thumb, bit of a spitfire but can also be the sweetest kid ever, enjoys making ‘potions’ out of grass and flowers and water (diluc can and will actually drink these potions because his love for his daughter knows no bounds)

kaeya, 25: diluc’s idiot little brother who’s changed majors at least five times and still doesn’t really know what he wants to do, practises fencing and horse riding in his spare time like a nerd, spoils his niece rotten

lisa, 26: the first of kaeya’s three roommates, has a degree in english and could easily have gone on to become a leading scholar but chose to instead open a bookshop that gets way more business than expected because she’s pretty and men and women alike are all simps

albedo, 23: the second of kaeya’s roommates, bit of a genius, has already started his chemistry phd, is almost concerningly pale and exhausted at all times, has not gone a day without breaking one of the cups for at least two years

venti, 21: the third of kaeya’s roommates, studying music, acts way older than he is sometimes but is mostly just a child, asks at least one of his roommates to marry him every day without fail, was and still is both a music and a theatre kid

lisa’s actually the one who owns the roommates’ residence because it’s on top of her bookshop

i was going to keep the whole ragnvindr family trauma thing but i decided that diluc deserved to be happy in at least one au so the brothers are still happy brothers :D

unfortunately that means that i’ve transferred a lot of the family trauma over to diona

essentially her mother died when she was a baby and her father, draff, turned to alcohol to get him through the stress of raising a child alone. unfortunately this led to him drunk driving one day, and he crashed the car into one of the wall’s of diluc’s dad’s cafe.

draff died on impact since he was in the front seat, but three-year-old diona managed to pull through despite her injuries. one thing led to another, diluc ended up taking care of her for a bit while the authorities sorted the whole thing out, but then he got too attached and decided to adopt her permanently

now diona has a dad, three uncles and an aunt who are all willing to shower her with all the love she deserves :’)))))

3. the Miscellaneous Pals™:

xiangling, xingqiu, chongyun, 17: local high school kids, they’re all kind of dating each other, low-key got adopted by xiao at one point, guoba is xiangling’s guinea pig and they all have joint custody over him

barbara, bennett, razor, 17: also local high school kids, also kind of all dating each other (but a lot more tentatively), regulars at diluc’s cafe, almost never seen apart

lumine, aether, ??: they keep showing up here and there around town to climb a tree and just sit there throwing leaves at people on the streets, then disappear. no one knows who the fuck they are

tartaglia, 23: nicknamed childe by his friends, also known as Mr Moneybags, is always just hanging around the local uni campus but doesn’t actually study anything there. his real name is ajax, but he thought that was lame so he gave himself a cool new one

eula, 24: new teacher at the local high school, her father used to be headmaster and was notoriously cruel to his students so everyone’s kind of wary of her, but she’s just really sweet and wants the best for her pupils :(((

amber, 21: number one eula defender, teaches the younger kids at the local primary, likes bunsen burners a little bit too much, still can’t remember how to spell the word necessary

hu tao, 25?: shady local mortician who may or may not practise illegal things, was kind of dating yanfei at some point but zhongli sent her packing as soon as he realised who she was, no one knows what her deal is

xiangling’s already a budding master chef and has received several offers from culinary schools, xingqiu is planning to study literature/language at uni but also might just go straight to trying to get a book published, chongyun is going to continue the family tradition of studying the supernatural with maybe a side job at xiangling’s future restaurant so that he doesn’t end up with no money if he doesn’t get any supernatural work

barbara is planning to go to medical school and also sings/dances in her spare time, bennett still doesn’t know what he wants to do but is considering carpentry among other things, and razor is dead-set on working at either a zoo or an animal shelter when he’s older

tartaglia never leaves the house without at least three pocket knives and a water pistol. he’s never had to use them yet, but you never know...

eula and amber live together and are probably dating but they’ll both just dodge the question if you ask them about it

they’re most definitely together though because on eula’s birthday amber brought her entire class of little kids to say happy birthday and bring her flowers

(incidentally amber is diona’s teacher)

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babymetaldoll · 4 years ago

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DIWK - Chapter four: "Hurt"

Words count: 13,7K

The gif is mine ✨

Warnings: Hardcore Spencer trauma. Mention of drug abuse, torture, Criminal Minds usual case triggers. Spoilers of Season 2 E14/15 Criminal Minds.

Summary: An unsub abducts Spencer, and reader blames JJ for it.

A/N: Have you ever wished you were there to save Spencer from Tobias Hankel? I know I have. I know reader wants to... I'm dying to know what you'll think of this chapter! Sorry if it's a little too graphic, writing Spencer's POV of this episode was really hard.

Series Masterlist

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(Y/N)'s point of view

I remember the day Emily Prentiss arrived. We had a case in Saint Louis. Two serial killers, 'cos it couldn't just be one asshole making everyone miserable. And on top of all, Hotch was confused and upset 'cos he never signed Emily's transfer to the BAU. It was like someone was trying to force her into the team, and we all thought it was weird.

We left the bullpen off to the case and left Prentiss in the office, not knowing if she actually got the job or not. I know Elle and I weren't incredibly close, but it still felt weird to think someone might join the team and try to replace her. It didn't work that way in that job. It didn't feel right at the moment.

There is something I also distinctly remember about that day: Gideon talked to me. And not only that, but he actually trusted my knowledge. We hadn't been on the best terms for a few months, so that approach meant a lot to me.

We were at the police station. Reid and I had been analyzing the letters one of the killers had sent to a journalist to find something that might help us catch him before there were any more victims. That's when JJ and Jason walked in, and he asked about our progress.

- "He only sent this to an individual, which shows he is not confident enough to initiate contact with the masses."- Spencer explained as he projected an image of the letter on the wall.

- "Emotional indicators are analyzed through slants, and you can see the shooter maintains vertical, narrow letter writing, and both are signs of repression"- I said and pointed at the image on the wall- "And the pressure, if you look closely, it's excessively heavy, which shows that he's uptight and can easily overreact."

Gideon looked at me and nodded. It was my cue to keep on talking. For once in a long time, I was feeling approved by him.

- "You got all that from his handwriting?"- JJ asked me, surprised. Reid looked at me from the other side of the room, and I could feel his smile reflecting how proud he was of me.

- "Graphology is an effective and reliable indicator of personality and behavior."

- "But my writing is always different,"- she added, and I nodded. I was waiting for that comment.

- "Yes, because it represents your emotions at the moment, just like your facial expressions parallel the way you are feeling while you are speaking."

- "What else can we know about our unsub from this?"- Gideon asked me.

- "Well, our killer uses simple statements, all first person, like "I won't be ignored," which means he's obviously tired of feeling this way. He may have a job in solitude or one that he feels strips of his identity. His work might require him to wear a uniform, something that shows absolutely no individuality, or he may be overqualified for his menial job and feels that he doesn't get the respect that he necessarily deserves."

I made a pause and waited for his words. I was giving my best, and I swear I was still hoping I could ever get Jason Gideon's blessing.

- "I think we are ready to give a profile,"- he said and nodded.

And damn, that felt good.

When we were back in Quantico, Hotch had a long and clearly awkward conversation with the section chief, Erin Strauss. She was scary. She was clearly trying to get rid of Hotch, questioning his work daily, decisions, and how he managed the team. Why? I have no idea.

It felt she forced him to accept Prentiss into the team. We were one man down after Elle left. Ok, one awesome woman down, so we definitely needed some help. And Emily was a great addition from day one.

We clicked right away. Prentiss was funny, smart, but most of all, she constantly had to prove she deserved to be there. Just like me. Gideon gave her the cold shoulder from day one, and that I could relate. The only difference was that she won him over in a few days, though. I was still trying to win that battle.

Garcia decided we needed a girl's night, and she hosted the first of many "BAU Girl Power get together." Basically, it was us at Penelope's place drinking and talking.

That first night, we updated Prentiss with everything that had happened with Elle. She wanted to know everything about us, what we did, how long we've been on the team, and how we all got along. It was sweet and fresh. After that year in the BAU, I had already learned to enjoy the sweet things in life. Like getting drunk with my work girlfriends.

- "So, does Hotch ever smile?"- Emily asked, and we all laughed at the very same time. Yes, it was getting late, and we weren't as sober as we should have been.

- "He does! he does!"- JJ assured us- "You should see him with his baby."

- "He is a dad?"- Emily was shocked. I was surprised too when I found out Aaron was married and with a baby. The amount of time he spends at work always made me feel he had zero personal life.

- "And has a beautiful wife"- JJ added- "He is always laughing when he is with her and baby Jack."

- "I guess this job can drain the happiness from your day... "- I thought out loud, but before anyone could say anything about my dark and bitter comment, my cell phone rang.

- "Hey honey bunny, everything ok?"- I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I didn't want to interrupt the girl's conversations.

- "Yes, I just wanted to make sure you were drinking enough water between drinks"- I laughed and shook my head. Only Reid could call to say such a thing. He was the sweetest friend on earth.

- "Yes, I am, don't worry. I'm not going to be hungover or drunk tomorrow. I know you are excited about the new exposition."

- "You are gonna love it!"

- "I am sure I will"- and I wasn't kidding. I loved when he dragged me to the Smithsonian or any museum for some nerdy fun.

- "Have fun with the girls."

- "What are you doing, by the way?"

- "Just reading a little, you left your complete Sherlock Holmes collection here, so I'll be solving mysteries while you get drunk."

- "Don't have too much fun without me"- he chuckled and ended the call. I smiled and walked back to the girls looking at me with a funny grin on their faces.

- "Was that your boyfriend?"- Penelope asked me, and I frowned right away.

- "No, it was Reid. He just wanted to confirm we are going to the museum tomorrow."

- "Wait"- Prentiss narrowed her brows and looked at us confused- "Reid ain't your boyfriend?"

JJ and Garcia's laughter was epical, as well as my frown. They nearly gasped for air while Prentiss and I waited until they calmed down.

- "No"- I finally answered- "Reid is not my boyfriend."

- "He is more than that; he is her work husband,"- Penelope clarified, and I turned to her with my mouth wide open, shocked.

- "What the fuck? Reid ain't my work husband. He is my best friend!!"

- "Yes, and you happen to call your best friend "honey bunny," right?"- JJ questioned, just like she had a few months before when we were alone in our room away on a case.

- "Reid is my best friend, and yes, I call all my close friends by weird pet names. You will get one too if you are lucky."

- "But I thought"- Emily continued- "I mean, he looks at you like you are his sun."

- "No, Prentiss, the only coupe in this team is the one between "chocolate thunder" and "baby girl" right here"- I pointed at Garcia, and she just blushed and covered her face.

- "My love for Derek will burn forever with the intensity of a thousand suns. I mean, have you seen that man? he was made by the gods and sent to earth just to give my existence some sense"- we all laughed at those cheesy words, though Pen was serious about them.

- "But, have you ever...?- JJ looked at her and made a pause. We were all looking at every single facial movement or behavior she might show to read her body language."

- "My relationship with my loverman could never be tainted by something as mundane as sex."

- "Like you wouldn't lick honey from that six-pack and ride that thunder."

The words just left my lips, and I blame the buzz. BAU (Y/N) would have never said that. Drunk (Y/N) would, totally.

The girls laughed until tears fell from their eyes, and I just chuckled, honestly happy to make them laugh. I had been more of the real me than I had ever actually been around them in nearly a year.

- "Hello?"- my phone rang again when I was walking out of the bathroom. And this time, it was Paul.

- "Hey babe, what are you doing?"

- "Hey, I'm..."- I looked at the girls in front of me and sighed- "I'm stuck with paperwork"- and they turned to me immediately. I could read the "What the fuck" on their faces.

- "Well, I'm at Rob's in case you feel like dropping by. We are writing a few songs."

- "I'll text you if I finish with this early, but... have fun."

- "Ok, bye"- I hung up and sighed.

- "And that was..."- Prentiss asked, frowning.

- "My boyfriend,"- I explained and grabbed another beer

- "Sure, I could feel the passion,"- Garcia joked, but I just didn't think it was funny.

I knew my relationship with Paul wasn't alright. Actually, things with Paul weren't. Period. We were done, it was apparent, but still, neither of us had said it. That relationship was just a few phone calls every once in a while, only to make small talks. When we were together, we would just watch a movie, eat something, drink a few beers, and that was it. It had been a long time since we had sex or even made out. I don't know why I didn't end it sooner. I guess I was just afraid to do it.

But I let more months pass before I actually did something.

Spencer's point of view

I'm not proud of what happened that year after Prentiss joined the team. I think that year changed me profoundly, and a part of me never fully recovered afterward.

Maybe it had to be that way, and it was something I had to go through to grow up. I guess I'm still trying to make some sense of all the misery I put my friends through. Mostly (Y/N). She was in hell with me.

A few weeks after New Year, we started working on a case. Someone was killing wealthy people in their own homes. At first, we thought there were two unsubs, 'cos one of them called 911 after killing, and you could hear them struggling and arguing. But no, it was just one.

Tobias Hankel was a delusional serial killer. He had split personalities, not two but actually three. His father, the one who tortured me. The archangel Raphael, who was trying to make God's will, killing people. And himself, who wanted to save me, but instead, he nearly destroyed me.

What do I remember about the day he kidnapped me? I remember I was stupid enough to try to catch an unsub alone, just to prove I could take care of myself on the field. Hotch sent me and JJ to talk to Hankel at his house, 'cos apparently, he might have seen the unsub months earlier. But no, he was the unsub, and neither JJ nor me could stop him.

We hid in a barn, and I was so eager to prove I could catch him; I told JJ we had to split up to cover the place. I was counting on Hotch to get there with the team sooner than they did, and before I realized it, I was in the middle of a cornfield, and Hankel was pointing at me with my own gun.

I was sure I was going to die right there. All of Hankel's personalities were struggling inside of him. I couldn't stop thinking about why I thought I could do it on my own? Why had I been a reckless asshole? Was it because I wanted to prove I was an excellent SAA? Because I wanted to impress JJ? Maybe I tried to convince myself I could do the same job my team did. I knew I wasn't the most physical person, but I had a gun. I had been trained to capture killers.

Yes, I was an asshole that day, and I've regretted everything that happened that night many, many times in the following years.

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair, and the archangel Raphael had taken Hankel's mind completely. The room was dark, and it smelled awful. He was burning fish hearts and livers, 'cos he believed it kept the devil away.

I was confused and lost. My head was spinning, and my heart was about to burst into my chest. I knew I could die any second now. Raphael wasn't the one to show mercy. That's what I had learned from all the videos Hankel had uploaded to the web. He had shared with the world every murder they had committed to show the other sinners what was going to happen to them.

- "They believe you can see inside men's minds"- Raphael looked at me with dark eyes, implying he meant Tobias and his father

- "It's not true. I study human behavior."- my voice was shaking. I knew I had never been more scared in my entire life. He took out a gun and showed me one bullet.

- "Do you know what this is? It's God's will."

Things didn't look good for me. He put it in the cylinder of the revolver and spun it. He was going to let my life to luck.

- "You don't have to do this"- I tried to talk him out of it, though I knew it wasn't going to work.

- "No go, sinners, to your God."

And he pressed the trigger.

What went through my mind the seconds that passed between having the gun pointed to my face and realizing I had lived? My mom. All I could think of was how my mom would react to the news of my death. I could never bear to hurt her like that. I couldn't die. I couldn't leave her alone.

I sighed, relieved, and bit my lips not to cry. Raphael looked at me with a blank expression and walked out of the room. I had survived for now.

I struggled with my handcuff, but it was useless. My head was killing me. I could feel the open wound on my head, still dripping blood on my temple and head. I tried to focus on the pain for a few minutes, just to make sure I was awake. It was a nightmare, and keeping myself sane and conscious under those circumstances was nearly impossible.

How was I going to get out of there alive? Did the team know where I was? I had no idea where I had been taken. I had been unconscious the whole way. It was dark, and I couldn't see much around me. I wasn't afraid of that darkness. I was more fearful of the man that left me alone, 'cos he was armed and mentally unstable. Darkness had nothing on him.

I had to focus on the things that kept me sane. The things that made me want to get out of that room alive.

- "My name is Spencer Walter Reid. I'm twenty-five years old, my mother's name is Diana Reid, I was born in Las Vegas, October 28th, 1981."

I closed my eyes and tried to think of all the things that made me happy.

- "I work at the BAU, my best friend's name is (Y/N), and she sits at the desk in front of me. Derek Morgan is the closest I've got to an older brother."

He was. He still is. You have to be close to dead to start seeing things clearly sometimes. Derek was my brother. He treated me like a kid, but a kid brother. He was always teasing me, trying to teach me how to pick up girls, trying to drag me to the gym with him. Derek was a good friend, we were very different, and I knew if we had been classmates in high school, we would probably never have talked. He was a jock, and I was a nerd. But life had brought us together. And now I couldn't think of a better friend than him.

I tried to focus on my happiest memories. My birthday came to mind. The guys had planned a Halloween-themed birthday party at the conference room of the BAU. Of course, Garcia baked a cake and (Y/N) helped her decorate it. It was incredible, 'cos it was covered with tiny gourds and skulls.

- "Frank and Mikey sent you these,"- she announced after everybody had given me their presents. I wide opened my eyes in shock 'cos I had no idea her friends knew it was my birthday or even cared about it.

- "Why?"- I had to ask.

- "'Cos they think you are amazing. They actually wanted to come over to your house and have a few beers tonight."- I opened my mouth to say something, but Derek interrupted me.

- "Pretty boy is gonna get to work hungover again."

- "Shut up"- (Y/N) and I said at the same time, making everybody chuckle. I opened the present her friends had sent me and laughed right away.

- "Lucky Doc"- I read and took out of the bag a Sports Illustrated issue with Lila Archer on the cover. My cheeks turned red immediately.

- "Frank still hasn't overcome that story. I think he will hate you forever"- (Y/N) laughed (along with the rest of the team) and gave me another present.

- "They also sent you this. They said you were going to like the man in black"- it was a Johnny Cash's vinyl- "Frank picked it. He thinks he is some sort of musical psychic that can read people's taste in music."

- "We should get together and have a few beers one of these days. I need to thank them for these."

Gideon looked at me in silence as soon as I said those words. But I didn't care if he disapproved. I was going to be (Y/N)'s friend, whether he liked it or not.

He is the closest I've had to a dad in the latest years. He cares about me, and he tries to make the best of me that he can. Yes, he can be too apprehensive. I think that's a way to put it. But only because he wants me to be the best profiler I can be.

I never thought I would end up working at the BAU. I never thought I would love the job I do as much as I do. Back when I was in college, I thought I would dedicate my life to finding a cure for schizophrenia, but I ended up hunting serial killers across the country.

And though I was about to die, I didn't regret any of the decisions that led me there.

The morning found me shaking, cold, and scared. I was in a small cabin in the woods. Just like the worst and more cliché horror movie ever made. This was my own horror movie.

- "What are you staring at, boy?"- Tobias opened the front door carrying logs for the fire. His voice had changed yet again, so I knew it wasn't the same person I had talked to the night before.

- "You are not Raphael."- I whispered, looking at every movement he did.

- "Do I look like Raphael?"- had I insulted him? I couldn't tell. He turned to the fire, and I took a deep breath, doing my best to stay calm.

- "Thank you for burning those, for keeping us safe."- I said, looking at the fish hearts and livers he was preparing to put on the fire.

- "Don't try to trick me."

- "I would never try to trick you."

- "You are a liar."

- I'm not a liar."- it was hard to stay calm and not start screaming for help or mercy, but I knew that was going to take me nowhere with him.

- "Lying is a sin."

- "I'm not a liar."- he walked closer to me, and sat right in front of me, held my leg up, and grabbed my foot.

- "This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins."

- "I am not a sinner"- I whispered again. He took off my shoe.

- "We are all sinners."- it didn't look good for me, not at all, and I knew I had to talk to him with his words with his beliefs to save my life.

- "The Lord spake unto Moses saying "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord" and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy."

Hankel, this time in the personality of his father, looked at me surprised. I might have done something right, 'cos he stopped moving, and for a second, I thought it was going to be ok.

- "You know Leviticus."

- "I know every word of the bible. I can recite it for you."- but his eyes turned dark again.

- "The devil knows how to read too."

- "I'm not a devil, I'm not a devil2- I repeated, and couldn't stop shaking, 'cos my life on the hands of a sociopath.

- "I'm a man, my name is Spencer Reid, and I have a mother, and I have a father just like you, and they taught me the bible, let me recite the bible."

My voice cracked at the knowledge of what he was going to do. He stood up, still holding my foot. He was going to torture me, he was going to try to break me, and I had to be strong. I didn't know how I would find the strength, but I had to be strong.

- "Time to confess, Spencer Reid"- and without further notice, he slapped a log against my foot, making me scream in pain. It hurt from the tip of my toes until the back of my skull. I hadn't felt that kind of pain, and it was worse knowing he was just getting started. Tears started falling down my cheeks in no time.

- "Confess!"

- "I don't have anything to confess."- I whimpered and closed my eyes, 'cos I knew he was going to continue his torture. And so he did. The pain was excruciating. I was sure I was going to pass out

I tried to go to a happy place in my head, somewhere when I could hide from all that pain. It was too hard, though. It hurt too much. I kept repeating over and over again I wasn't a sinner, begging Hankel for mercy, as he shouted I had to confess.

I made an effort to think about what he might want me to say. What did he want me to confess? Which sins was he talking about? But nothing came to my mind, nothing but the pain and the fear of dying.

(Y/N)'s point of view

The second we reached Hankel's cabin, I started looking for Spencer. I had a horrible feeling about it. Morgan and I headed it to a barn with Prentiss. There was no sign of anyone. It was dark and quiet. Never a good sign.

- "Shit!"- I whispered, staring at three dead dogs and a bath of blood in front of me. There laid the body of another victim that was missing from Hankel's last attack.

- "FBI!!"- JJ shouted suddenly. She was pointing his gun to us, clearly in shock- "Don't move!!"

- "JJ, it's Morgan, (Y/L/N), and Prentiss! Don't shoot"- Derek tried to calm her down, walking towards her- "Are you hurt?"- she lowered the gun and stared at us. You could read the fear and the trauma in her eyes.

- "Tobias Hankel is the unsub,"- she whispered as Prentiss rubbed her arm sweetly, trying to comfort her.

- "Yeah, we know"- I moved towards her too and put my gun back into the holster.

- "And we thought he was just a witness"- we looked around, and JJ pointed at the dead dogs.

- "JJ, where is Reid?"- Derek asked her, but she just continued talking.

- "They completely tore her apart"

- "JJ, look at me,"- I said and held her arm carefully- "Look at me, where's Reid?"- she was shaking, and her voice was cracking. I knew she was making her best effort to pull herself together.

- "We split up. He said he was going to go in the back."

And there it was. That was the reason why I had a bad feeling all along. Derek looked at me and nodded as we read each other's minds. The two of us turned around and ran outside, leaving JJ with Prentiss, waiting for the medical team and ambulance to check on her wounds.

Gideon and Hotch were inside the cabin, looking for Hankel, but there was no one there. And there was no sign of Reid behind the barn either, in the cornfield, or anywhere in the perimeter. Reid was nowhere to be found, and I started losing it little by little. I tried to repeat myself the words Hotch had said many times during my year in the BAU: "when you are out there with the team; your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case." But the case had never included my best friend missing before.

- "Hey, is there any sign of him yet?- I asked the police chief as I reached the ambulance. He was there talking with JJ, making sure she was ok.

- "We got every one of our units on the road. He won't make it far"- I nodded and watched him walk away. I knew he thought I was talking about Hankel, but I actually meant Reid.

I turned to JJ and moved a little closer to her. Her eyes open wide, staring back at me.

- "You can't find Reid?"- I just shook my head and tried to sound as casual as I could, not to freak her out. She was still in shock. I didn't want to make it worse.

- "Not yet"

- "(Y/N)"- Derek held my arm and forced me to walk away from the ambulance.- "Reid followed him into the cornfield. It looks like somebody got dragged."

My heart stopped. Did the psychopath hurt Spencer? Did he kill him? Did he torture him? Was he hurt? Was he alive? Where was he? Derek looked at me, and I nodded. I bit my lips and took a deep breath. Hotch's words were my mantra now: "your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case."

- "Are you sure?"- we turned to the police's chief, overhearing his conversation- "We are on our way now."

- "What's going on?"

- "The sheriff down two towns over, he just gave directions to a man who fit Hankel's descriptions. It's to a motor lodge in fort bend."

- "Let's get Hotch and Gideon"- Derek held my arm and walked with me to the cabin. We had to find Reid, and we had to do it fast.

That was the worst night of my life. The first worst night of my life, to be sincere. I didn't close an eye. I went through every paper, every note, every detail in that cabin, trying to find a clue that could lead us to where Tobias had taken Reid.

I felt someone had ripped my heart from my chest. I had to think straight, and to do it, I had to keep a cold head. But as the hours passed, it became a more demanding and more challenging task to complete. I knew the whole team was suffering, but that didn't ease my pain. And I knew JJ felt guilty, but that didn't stop me from blaming her in my mind. She left him alone. I would have never left Spencer alone on the field.

- "(Y/N), you should try to get some rest."

Derek whispered as he sat on the floor next to me, where I had been sitting for the last half hour, reading Tobias's old diaries. Nothing but fear of his father, mentions of Dilaudid use, and bible transcriptions.

- "I'm ok,"- I answered and didn't even take my eyes from the pages.

- "(Y/N), I mean it"

- "I'm not going to rest if he is out there in the hands of a psychopath, Derek"- I had to bite my lips and shut the fuck up, 'cos if I said one more word, I knew I was going to burst into tears.

Morgan just wrapped an arm around my shoulders and moved me closer to him. That was the first time I let him hug me, and it felt good to know I wasn't alone in my desperation. I knew he loved Reid like a brother, and neither of us was going to stop until we found him.

- "Welcome to our nightmare"- JJ's voice broke the silence we had been into for the last hour when Hotch walked into the cabin with Penelope.

It was morning already. There were still no signs of Reid. Prentiss, Gideon, JJ, and I had been sitting at the table, reading everything we could.

- "His computer is an extension of his brain. I need you to dissect it,"- Gideon whispered to García. You could feel the concern in his voice. She just nodded in shock and turned to Derek, who held her hand and helped her get set up in the computer room.

- "So, nothing new since I left?"- Hotch asked and looked at us. I just shook my head and continued reading.

- "Well, the good thing is the guy documented practically every second of his life"- Prentiss words took me from the pages I was reading. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. The concept of "good" was poorly used in that phrase.

- "The bad news is, we are still un-piling,"- she added and sighed.

- "From the looks of it, he hasn't left this place in years,"- JJ managed to say. She made her best effort to be useful, but she was in worse shape than everybody else. Yet, that didn't make me feel bad for her. I was mad at her and kept making my best to put it aside, 'cos my head had to be in the case.

- "He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail,"- Emily inferred, but I shook my head as soon as I heard her.

- "No, no, no, it's more than that!"- I shook my head and took a deep breath- "Sheriff's office, 911 calls, every time he engages the police and gets away with it... he reassures himself, God's on his side. Not ours."- I added.

Gideon nodded, and we shared a moment of agreement. He was as worried as I was. I could feel it. I'm not saying the rest of the team wasn't, I'm saying Jason was as fucked up as I was, and I could sense he was having the same trouble I had making sure my head and not my sentiments were into the case.

But if anything happened to Reid, I didn't know what I was capable of doing.

At a certain point, I got sick of reading and not doing anything and decided to look around the house again if we had missed anything. Derek went along. One part of me felt he wanted to stay away from JJ too. Maybe he was as mad as I was about her leaving Reid alone. I know I couldn't blame her, but I did it anyway.

- "Guys!! I think I've got something!"- Derek yelled, and I ran over. He opened a door that led to a basement. I walked right behind him, pointing my gun and my flashlight all over. But there was no sign of Reid.

- "Tobias Hankel!!"- Morgan shouted. Someone was sitting in what looked to be a gigantic freezer- "Tobias!"- but we didn't get any response. I took a step closer and examined carefully.

- "Morgan, I think we just found Hankel's father."

Spencer's point of view

On my second night in that cabin, I met Tobias. The third personality of Hankel walked into the room, carrying what seemed to be a dead deer. He looked as frightened as I was.

- "You need to eat."

- "What's your name?"

- "Tobias."

- "Tobias, who was here before?"

- "Probably my father."

He looked at me up and down, and he immediately understood what he had done to me. It was scary how he could dissociate. Someone with multiple personality disorder is usually unaware of the other personality states and memories when an alter is dominant. In this case, Tobias knew the other personalities but considered them different persons. He didn't think they were all in his head.

- "I'm sorry if he hurt you."

He looked at me like he understood everything I had been going through. Maybe he had been through something similar when his father was alive. Perhaps he had been a victim of Hankel as well, and that's what triggered his psychopathic nature.

He walked over and took out his belt.

- "What are you doing?"- he wrapped it around my arm, and I started begging him to stop.

- "It helps"- he took out of his pocket a needle and a small bottle of what seemed to be some kind of drug.

- "Don't tell my father. He doesn't know they are here."

- "Please, I don't want it, I don't want it, please"- I cried and begged.

- "It helps. I know"- it was the last thing Tobias said before the needle found my vein.

And he was right. It helped. Every single amount of pain I was feeling disappeared. My brain shut down. Somehow, everything was ok. I never had in my entire life felt so good before.

My mind kept flashing memories of when I was a kid. I kept seeing images of the day my father left and how he called my mother crazy.

- "You are weak"- mom spit those words after he refused to take me with him. I know she said it not because she didn't want me with her, but because mom knew she was sick and wanted the best for me. And he refused.

- "I'm not weak."- I whispered as I looked at her smiling back at me.

- "I know, honey."

I don't know how long I was drugged, but when I woke up, Tobias wasn't there with me anymore. It was his father.

And the torture continued.

(Y/N)'s point of view

Gideon was trying to convince me to go out with Prentiss and JJ to see a Narcotics anonymous's contact that might give us more information about Tobias. Emily had found some flyers about it in his room, and it could be the only lead we had to find him and Reid.

- "You need to get out of this house for a while"- he whispered and tapped on my back.

I knew he wasn't the one to be loving or physical with people, less with me. But that moved me. I turned to him and my eyes watered up. I was scared, and I couldn't hide it anymore. The more hours passed, the fewer the chances were to find Spencer safe. Alive.

I felt his arms around me suddenly, holding me tight, trying to keep the pieces of me together. We were alone on the porch, and though I didn't want to fall apart, I couldn't hold it anymore.

Jason didn't say a word. He just hugged me and let me cry for a few minutes. I didn't say anything either. I actually couldn't because I was overwhelmed with everything.

- "Are you ready, (Y/N)?"

Prentiss whispered as she walked over with JJ. I turned my back at them for a second to hide the tears that kept falling down my cheeks. I knew it was a shitty thing to do, 'cos it was obvious I had been sobbing, but they gave me the courtesy of not saying anything.

- "You go, I need (Y/N)'s assistance with some diary entries"- the two of them walked away quietly, and thankfully, didn't argue with Gideon.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and felt his hand on my shoulder one more time.

- "You are doing a fantastic job,"- he said and turned around.

I wish I could tell you that made me feel better, but instead, I just thought I had the duty to bring my friend back home safe.

It had been at least an hour since the girls left. Morgan, Hotch, Gideon, and the police chief were in the living room with me, reading. I sipped my hundredth cup of coffee and re-read the same diary entry for the third time.

- "There's something weird going on here."- I thought out loud and walked towards Gideon

- "You think?"- the police chief turned to me and raised an eyebrow, ironically.

- "No, seriously, check this out. This journal is filled with religious ramblings. He notated hour by hour: "November 15th, 3:17, if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will", and it goes on and on: 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42."

I made a short pause and looked at Gideon and Hotch. They didn't get where I was going.

- "But then, it goes blank for days."

- "Maybe he got sick of writing"- I seriously hated that police chief.

- "I think I got it"- Hotch whispered- "Journal entry: "December 6th. Father is sick. He wants me to put him down. I say thou shalt not kill. He said, honor thy father. Must pray for guidance."

- "So he kills his father as an act of mercy?"- Gideon asked, knowing the answer.

- "This is two months ago. Tobias Hankel's father had been dead for four months already."

- "That's exactly it"- I murmured, thinking Tobias Hankel was way more fucked up than we thought.

- "Look at the floor"- Derek pointed at a chair and moved it- "These scuffs marks are fresh. It's like two people were pushing the chairs constantly, trying to fight for control."

- "So?"- I swear to God, that chief was driving me insane.

- "This journal matches Charles Hankel's handwriting, but it was written after he died"- I explained. Still, it felt he wasn't following me.

- "What do you mean?"

- "Upstairs, Tobias' bedroom got junk piled from floor to ceiling, but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection."

- "So, are you telling me one of Tobias' personalities was his father?"

Apparently, I had to draw a picture so the chief would get it. Fortunately, Gideon continued explaining the whole problem before I lost what was left of my patience.

- "Well, Tobias was raised with a strict religious code, black and white, right and wrong. When his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give."

- "His brain couldn't handle the moral contradiction, so he split into two personalities to keep his father alive."

Hotch tried to put it most easy and simple words possible.

- "So, who is Raphael?"

- "My guess, he is a mediator between the two"- Gideon nodded at my words and sighed.

- "Angels have no human emotions, live or die. They don't care, as long it's God's will."

- "We need to start profiling Tobias' father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid."

Finally, I felt we were going somewhere.

When Emily and JJ came back, they gave us the news. Tobias was addicted to Dilaudid, which explained the fracture in his mind, and how he lived with three distinct personalities.

The police chief announced a computer store robbery, giving us some hopes that Tobias would use them to track him down.

- "Guys!! Guys!! get in here!!- I heard Derek shouting and I ran to the computer room. I felt sick in the stomach in less than a second. There he was, Spencer. My Spencer Walter Reid, tied to a chair, bleeding, shoeless. Clearly tortured.

- "He's been beating,"- I whispered, feeling my eyes water up. I would have given anything to be there instead of him.

- "Can you track him?!"- JJ yelled by my side, and I nearly smacked her. That's how sensitive I was feeling.

- "Hankel's only streaming this to his home computer."- Garcia whispered. And my heart dropped with those words.

That wasn't what I was supposed to hear. We were supposed to find him and bring him back safe.

- "This is for us"- Gideon didn't take his eyes from the screen- "He knows we are here."

- "I'm gonna put this guy's head on a stick"- Morgan was so mad I believed him. I wanted to do the same, if worse.

- "I'm gonna kill him myself as soon as we find him,"- I said and felt Aaron's hand on my shoulder as he asked Garcia

- "Why can't you locate him?"

- "He's rerouting to a different IP address every 30 seconds. I can't track him."

It knew it had to be hard if Penelope couldn't find her, but that didn't help. If anything, it made everything worse. I felt powerless. Hankel couldn't be more intelligent than us.

Spencer's point of view

- "Are you ready, boy?"- Hankel pulled my hair and forced me to look at him. I was still as high as fuck, but knew I was about to be tortured again.

- "Ready for what?"

- "My weakling son thinks God gave you to him for a reason"- if the reason was to get me into drugs, then the answer was yes.

Hankel placed a video camera in front of me.

- "Can you really see inside men's minds?"- he asked me and made a pause, pointing to three screens- See these vermin?

It took me a second to realize he was showing me images of real people. He had put cameras in those people's houses. How? When? What kind of sick game did he want me to play with him?

- "Choose one to die. I let you choose one to live."

- "No"- I didn't even think about my answer.

- "I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior."

- "You are a sadist and a psychotic break. You won't stop killing. Your word is not true."

I don't know if it was because of the drugs or because I hadn't eaten or drank any water in too long, but I was somehow resigned and tired of fighting.

- "The other heathens are watching- Hankel announced and pointed at the camera in front of me."

My eyes fixated on the camera right away. My team was watching me. (Y/N) was watching me. I didn't want to make her worry even more. I needed her to know I was ok. I know I wasn't, but I didn't want her to worry about me.

- "Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved"- Hankel was sick. It was all a game, and religion was just an excuse to kill.

- "I won't get to choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher."

Hankel didn't like my answer, 'cos he grabbed me and pulled me up, looking into my eyes, insulted, annoyed, losing his temper.

- "Can you really see into my mind, boy?"

He was honestly scary, and it petrified me to think he could execute me right there, in front of the team, and I could never tell them how much they mean.

- "Can you see I'm not a liar?!"- he insisted. I nearly whimpered but made my best not to break- "Choose one to die and save a life. Otherwise, they are all dead."

He dropped me on the chair and turned around. It was clear he wasn't joking. I took a deep breath and nodded.

- "Alright, I'll choose who lives."

- "They are all the same"

My eyes traveled across all the monitors. It was nearly impossible to pick one person to live, knowing all the other people there would die. Hankel was sick, and I had to set a plan to escape because otherwise, I would end up dead.

- "Far right screen,"- I whispered. He turned around and nodded.

Then, he recited the name and address of the woman on the screen. I prayed for the team to find her before Hankel came after her too.

No. It wasn't Hankel this time.

- "Raphael,"- I whispered, and he nodded. I looked at the screen again. The woman we were watching picked up the phone. She was in her kitchen. He walked around, frowned, and turned to her computer. In a second, she had turned it off. My team had reached her. She was safe, I hoped.

Hankel turned the camera off and looked at me.

- "You've done your part. Now it's my turn."

I knew what that meant. It wasn't good.

He left the cabin, and all I could see were the monitors in front of me. Those people were going to die. They were going to die because I didn't pick them. I killed them. You don't need to pull a trigger to kill someone. I could never forget those words. And this time, they meant more than anytime before. I didn't press a trigger, but I had killed two innocent people. And I actually had to watch them die.

When I saw Rapahel walk into the victims' house, I tried to close my eyes and think of anything else. A part of me kept thinking he wasn't going to kill them. He just wanted to threaten me.

But not. Raphael slaughtered them.

I found myself craving whatever it was that Tobias had given me the night before. The drug in my veins had given me a kind of peace I had never felt. And I never thought I'd have either. The type of peace that can be addictive, 'cos it turns your head off. And God knows, sometimes I needed to turn my head off.

Remembering everything that has ever happened to me, especially all the awful things, wasn't a gift. It was a burden. And whatever it was that Tobias had put in my veins, it had taken that burden from my shoulders, at least for a couple of hours.

Who wouldn't want some more of that peace?

- "Reid!"- Gideon's voice took me from my thoughts. He was sitting right in front of the camera in the victim's house. He was there with Hotch and the police, investigating the crime scene.

- "If you are watching this, you are not responsible for this. You understand me? he is perverting God to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He can not break you."

I know he meant it. But I couldn't believe any of that, not after watching a family get slaughter just because I didn't pick them.

(Y/N)'s point of view

- "I thought you were going to try and get some rest,"- I said as JJ walked to me in silence. I made myself my hundredth cup of coffee, and she just showed up next to me, trying to engage in conversation, I guess.

- "Everybody else is working. I should be too."

- "We can handle it,"- I whispered and refused to look at her. I swear I was trying not to hate her, but it was getting harder and harder with every hour that passed without finding Reid.

- "It's funny, I keep thinking the one thing we need to crack this case is... well... Reid"- she chuckled, nervously and I just looked at her and nodded. I didn't even smile. I didn't move a muscle.

I didn't want to be with her, or anyone, as a matter of fact. And I wasn't going to hide it anymore. So I tried to walk away.

- "You think Reid and I should have stayed together at the barn, don't you?"

I stopped walking and looked at her. You could tell she was having a hard time facing the whole situation, and most of all, you could tell she felt guilty.

That really didn't stop me from being mad at her. I was trying to be the better woman during the investigation, but the uncertainty was getting on my nerves.

- "JJ, go get some rest,"- I tried to answer calmly, but I knew I was looking at her like she was dead to me.

- "I can tell that's what you are thinking, so..."

- "I just wanna get Spencer home safe."

- "But... if I had his back like I was supposed to do, he'd be here now"- and that was enough.

- "JJ, what the fuck do you want from me?"

- "I just...."- she was about to cry, you could tell- "I want someone to tell me the truth."

- "You want the truth? Ok, there you go: I would have never left him alone. None of this would have happened if I had been the one with him out there! 'cos I would never let anyone or anything hurt him!!"

I shouted. All the anger I had been feeling those days was finally getting off my chest. And fuck, it felt good.

- "You fucked it up, JJ, and if something happens to Spencer, I am never going to forgive you, never!"

JJ bit her lips, trying her best not to cry. But I still couldn't feel sorry for her.

- "Is that the truth you were looking for?"

- "(Y/L/N)?"- Hotch stood next to me with the most annoyed look in his eyes.

I knew I was out of line, but this wasn't about work anymore. This was personal. This was Reid we were talking about, and JJ had fucked it up. There was nothing to discuss.

- "What? You sent him with her, now she is here, and he isn't. What else is there to say?"

- "(Y/N)!"- Hotch followed me as I stormed out of the kitchen and out of the cabin- "(Y/N)! stop!"

- "What?!"- and I simply snapped- "Are you gonna suspend me for telling her the truth? Are you going to fire me for losing my shit while working a case!? Fine! I don't care! I don't give a fuck! All I care about right now is that my best friend is missing, and a fucking psychopath has him! That's all I can think of. That's all I've been thinking about for the last two days!"

I was yelling at Hotch. I was yelling at my unit chief. I was fucked. I knew he was going to fire me after that. But I couldn't help it. I was going insane. Tears kept falling from my eyes as I held my cup of coffee tight, holding onto it with my life.

- "(Y/N), we are all worried about Reid."

- "I know you are all worried. I am too, and I'm also afraid and mad and going fucking insane knowing I am standing here not knowing what to do to save him."

- "That doesn't give you the right to treat JJ like this is her fault"- I don't know if he was talking like my unit chief or like a father figure trying to end a fight between two of his kids.

- "Did she stay with Reid?"- I simply replied and looked at Hotch in the eyes- "Did she?"

- "She is not the only one who feels guilty, so do I. And I know I won't forgive myself if anything happens to Reid."

Hotch made a pause and tried to find a way to say what he wanted to say. The door opened, and Gideon walked to us. He knew what was going on, and he didn't say a thing. I was sure he had already heard everything. We weren't actually arguing quietly.

- "We are not getting any closer,"- Aaron finally said.

- "Reid is brilliant. He'll figure out how to survive"- Gideon's words were way more hopeful than my thoughts. In my mind, Reid was too scared to think of a way to escape.

- "You know, I always take advantage of Reid for his brain. But I never actually teach him how to deal with things emotionally."

Hotch whispered, and his words were filled with regret. I was filled with anger and anxiety, and I know the two of them felt the same. But they way better at handling their feelings.

- "Lead by example,"- Jason answered, probably trying to make him feel better.

- "What kind of example is that?"- I simply replied, and both of them stayed in silence.

I don't think my words helped Hotch, but I wasn't trying to do that either. I was just honest. And Hotch's emotional assistance was shit on the field. Even Gideon was better.

- "He'll make it,"- Jason reassured us and nodded- "Now stop arguing and go back to work."

Spencer's point of view

I was glad when Tobias came to me that night with a needle in his hand and put the drug into my vein. I needed some release after watching a family die 'cos I didn't save them.

- "I'm sorry I had to leave"- he excused himself, preparing the drug next to me.

- "You can leave again, and you can take me with you,"- I begged in a soft voice.

- "My father would be angry,"- he replied and didn't even look at me. This time, I didn't even argue when he wrapped the belt around my arm. I was even a little eager he'd do it faster.

- "Not if he can't find us."

- "He always finds me."

- "If you tell me where we are, my friends will come, and they'll save us."

He gave me a look, mixed with horror and resignation. It broke my heart to think for a moment of all the horrors that lead Tobias to be as sick as he was.

- "We can't be saved,"- he simply replied.

- "We can, we can, I promise. If you tell me where we are, I'll save us both."

- "Listen to me. It's not worth fighting."

Somehow, I understood why he said that. I was afraid and shaking but still did my best not to think of all the pain I was in, of the terror that haunted me day and night.

- "Tell me it doesn't make it better- he said and showed me the needle."

I couldn't say no, 'cos he was right. It did. The drugs made his horrible situation bearable. I could understand why someone decided to use something to avoid the pain. I had faced all and each one of the pain and horrors in my life sober. It was time life was a little bit sweeter, in a sick way.

I remembered being twelve. Mom had had one of her episodes the day before, she was in bed, and I woke her up. I walked into her room and opened the curtains. It was already five in the afternoon, and she still refused to get out of bed.

- "The doctor says you need to get out of bed,"- I argued when she repeated she was just resting.

- "I've been reading"

- "He says you need exercise"- she sighed and tried to make a joke.

- "That's because his idea of good literature is Our bodies, ourselves."

- "Well, he is your doctor."

- "He is a neanderthal"- I gave up and started walking out of the room. She just laid in bed and looked at me.

- "Where are you going?"

- "I'm going to see if Jeff wants to play"- Jeff was our next-door neighbor and my only friend growing up.

- "Come here. Let me read to you."

I know Garcia made fun of me when I said my mother used to read me Valentine's sonnets when I was a kid. Most people think I have a weird relationship with mom, but they don't understand what it was like growing up with her. They don't know what it was like for a twelve-year-old boy to finish high school, facing bullies. Handling the pressure of being a kid genius and the fact I had to take care of a schizophrenic mother.

How come I didn't start using drugs earlier?

I remember that afternoon I sat next to my mother, and she made me pick one of the many books she had with her on the bed. I choose Proust. I knew she loved it. I loved it as well.

"For a long time, I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say, "I'm going to sleep."

I can still hear her voice, reading to me. Both of us avoided reality for a while, hiding in the books. I always do it regardless. I hide in the books to forget. I hide in knowledge to avoid acknowledging the real personal issues I have. I hide in my work saving people when no one ever saved me.

I work catching psychopaths when I know I might actually have a mental issue myself. I might end up just like mom, and it frightens me so much; there are many nights I can't even close an eye. If I get sick too, then no one will take care of her. I am the only one in her life. And she is the only one in mine.

She and (Y/N), but there is no way my best friend would ever take care of me if I got sick. Not because she wouldn't want to do it, but because I would never let her. I don't want to be a burden in her life. And she would hate me, I know. And I could never live in a world where (Y/N) hates me. Not then, not now.

(Y/N). She is the best thing that happened to me in the BAU. Yes, I had a family with my team, but she was different. She was my life. She was the reason why I smiled. She was the one person that made me feel I was important to someone. I knew the rest of my friend loved me, but I loved her.

That was it. I loved (Y/N). And I was scared I was never going to see her again.

(Y/N)'s point of view

I was standing next to Penelope. She kept trying to force me to eat. She knew I was living on coffee, but I just couldn't swallow anything. She held my hand as the two of us stared at the screens, hopefully waiting for Hankel to make contact again.

- "Any more signs of Reid?"- JJ walked over to us slowly and looked at me, afraid I might snap on her again. I just shook my head and sighed, doing my best to be nice to her.

- "He just posted the last murder online."

- "It had over 17 thousand hits in the first twenty minutes,"- Penelope added, and her voice was so full of revulsion. It was clear she couldn't handle the horror in the human mind.

- "I want to see it,"- JJ said, and I frowned, confused.

- "No, you don't,"- Garcia answered and looked at me- "Come on, munchkin, just eat one cookie, please."

- "Don't tell me what I want and don't want!"- JJ's tone shocked us both. She was severe and angry. She was rude at Penelope, and for a second, I almost snapped again.

- "If I can't watch this..."- JJ whispered and glued her eyes on the screen- "I have no business being in the field."

She looked at me when she was done talking, and for once during those awful days, I felt some kind of compassion for her. She had to be feeling like shit, no doubt, and no matter how mad I was at her, she was still my friend, and I didn't want her to suffer either.

- "JJ, it's not a competition,"- I tried to say in the softest voice possible.

- "I... I need to see it."

- "If you stop being affected by things, you lose parts of yourself, you know."

It was somehow ironic that I was the one saying those things. Me of all people in that team. Me, the one who was afraid the most of losing herself in work.

- "Show me"- she finally looked at Garcia, ignoring my words, and Penelope pleased her. She pushed play and simply said

- "I won't watch this with you."

García held my hand, walking me out of the room, leaving JJ alone in the room. She sighed and wiped the tears that started falling down her eyes.

- "I don't know how you do it either"- she whispered- "I don't know how you watch those things every day and don't go insane."

- "If it makes you feel better, I don't know how I do either, and it scared me to think my heart might be numbing with each case we solve. With every psychopath we catch."

- "We are gonna find him"- she assured me and held my hands tight- "We are bringing him home safe, I swear."

- "Let's go find Gideon,"- I said, nodding at her words- "He needs to know Tobias posted the last murder."

Jason was mad, beyond furious. He was losing it. Derek and Prentiss kept trying to crack Hankel and discover where he had taken Reid. Meanwhile, Garcia, Gideon, and I made our best to take the video of the murder from the web.

- "I have a list of everyone from the file-sharing chain. I could send out a mass warning that the video is actually a virus,"- Garcia said and started typing as fast as possible. I just stared at the screen, waiting for something, anything to happen.

But I wasn't waiting for what came next.

- "Confess your sins"- Hankel's voice made me jump, and the sight of Reid, still tied to that chair, bleeding, and being tortured, broke my heart again.

- "Confess!!"- that sick psychopath shouted and hit him.

- "I haven't done anything,"- Spencer sobbed, but it was useless. Hankel kept punching him, over and over again, even when my best friend begged for mercy.

I felt Jason hold my hand as I was holding Garcia's. The three of us felt powerless, useless, angry, and scared, all at the same time. I couldn't bear to watch Reid being tortured, but at the same time, I was so glad he was still alive.

That until Hankel beat him so hard, he pushed him back in the chair, and Reid started convulsing.

- "He is killing him,"- Penelope cried, and I closed my eyes, biting my lips. Spencer was choking, and that mother fucker just stood there, watching him die.

- "That's the devil vacating your body"- he spit those words as Reid simply passed out. I didn't know if he was dead. I didn't know if he was going to make it. Shit! I didn't know anything.

I let go of Jason and Penelope and stormed out of the room. I was unprofessional, and I knew it, but I knew I would quit if anything happened to Reid. I wasn't going to stay working at the BAU if Spencer died.

- "Are you ok?"- Derek grabbed my arm. I just broke into tears and held him tight. He wrapped his arms around me and let me cry.

- "He's dying! We can't find him!!"- I sobbed against his chest.

- "(Y/N)! (Y/N)!"- I heard Penelope yelling as we all rushed back to the computer room. Hankel was giving CPR to Reid, trying to bring him back to life.

- "Come on, come on, please,"- I begged as I watched him pushing his chest over and over again until Spencer woke up, gasping for air.

- "Thank God!"- Hotch sighed and rubbed his hands against his face. The whole team let out a breath of relief simultaneously, and I kept watching Reid. His opened eyes gave me hope.

- "Wait,"- Prentiss said suddenly- "When was the video of the last murder posted?"

- "Nine thirty"- Penelope answered

- "And when was the time of death?"

- "The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later."- Hotch added and didn't even turn to look at Prentiss. We were all still shocked looking at the screen.

- "That's just a 19 minutes difference,"- I said and turned to García- "How long would it take to post that file?"

- "Two or three minutes."

- "Let's call it two,"- I said, getting excited- "You figure a maximum of 60 miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankel has to be within a 17-mile radius of the crime scene."

For a second, I felt I was rambling facts just like Reid would. It made me miss him even more.

- "García, can we see it on the map?"- Aaron whispered. He was clearly affected, and it also made me feel selfish, knowing I had made a tantrum with the whole team, forgetting they were suffering as well.

- "Call chief Farraday"- Jason commanded as soon as we saw the map of the area on the screen- "I want that area locked down like it's martial law."

JJ stood up and grabbed her phone but didn't make the call. García warned us something was going on with Reid and all of us stared at the screen in silence.

Spencer was on his back on the floor, still tied to a chair. It was clear he wasn't fully conscious of what was happening.

- "You came back to life,"- mother fucker Hankel said, spitting the words in anger.

- "Raphael,"- Reid whispered, recognizing one of his personalities.

- "There can be only one of two reasons."

- "I was given CPR,"- my friend whispered, but it was clear that wasn't one of the psycho's options.

- "There are no accidents. How many members of our team are watching us right now?"

- "Seven."

- "The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail, and they were thrown to the earth."

- "He thinks it's the revelations"- Hotch explained- "The seven archangels versus the seven angels of death."

I didn't know much about religion, but it didn't take a genius to figure out he didn't believe we were the good guys.

- "Tell me who you serve."

- "I serve you,"- Reid answered right away. His voice was a whisper. He had to be exhausted.

- "Then choose one to die"

- "What?!"

- "Your team members, choose one to die"- I knew what he was going to answer at that, and I didn't want to hear it.

- "Kill me,"- he replied immediately, and I closed my eyes, unable to watch what would happen next.

- "You said you weren't one of them."

- "I lied."

- "Your team has seven other members. Tell me who dies."

- "No"- Penelope gasped, and Prentiss cursed. I opened my eyes and nearly fainted. Hankel had a gun pointed against Reid's forehead.

The silence amongst the team was unbearable. Neither of us knew what to do. We were all panicking, praying, desperate.

- "Choose and prove you'll do God's will."

- "No."

Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed until Hakel pulled the trigger, and no bullet came out. I nearly sigh, but it wasn't over.

- "Choose"- he repeated

- "I won't do it"- Hankel didn't even wait. He just pulled the trigger, and we all jumped at the same time. He was safe again.

- "Life is a choice."

- "No,"- Reid repeated once again. And Hankel pulled the trigger for the third time.

- "Choose"- and for the first time, Spencer made a pause. Was going to pick one of us to die?

- "I choose"- the whispered- "Aaron Hotchner."

Derek and I looked at him, and his pale face didn't move a muscle.

- "He's the classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4 "Let him not deceive himself, and trust in emptiness, vanity falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense."

Hotch stormed out of the room as Hankel pulled the trigger one more time and shot the wall.

I felt I was going to puke. If Reid hadn't picked one of us, he would be dead.

- "For God's will,"- the mother fuck said, as he put another bullet in the gun after removing the casing.

I couldn't look anymore. I followed Gideon and Derek to find Aaron going through all Tobias's diaries on the table.

- "I'm not a narcissist,"- he said as soon as he saw us.

- "Come on. Look, you can't think anything from that"- Jason tried to calm him down, in case he was somehow affected by what Reid had just said on camera- "He is not in his right mind, Hotch."

- "No, stop, stop. Alright, everybody, right now: what's my worst quality?"

He had to be kidding. We all stared at him, muted, lost in that conversation. What was his point? Neither of us said a word. We just looked at each other, confused and awkward.

- "Ok, I'll start. I have no sense of humor."

- "You are a bully,"- JJ added.

- "You can be a drill sergeant sometimes,"- I said, and he nodded.

- "Right."

- "You don't trust women as much as men"- you could feel it in Prentiss's voice. That one was personal.

- "Ok, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team because I don't, ever. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that. He also quoted Genesis chapter 23, verse 4. Read it."

Hotch gave me the book. He wasn't even breathing as she spoke. He was in a hurry. We were all.

- "I'm a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead of my sight."

- "He wouldn't get it wrong unless it were on purpose."

- "He is in a cemetery."- I said and looked at him. He nodded, and I swear to God, I saw a slight smile on his lips. That smile was hope. We were getting closer.

Spencer's point of view

I took a sip of water. I hadn't drunk in days, and my throat burned. I was still a little lost, still a little off.

- "Tobias, is that you?"- I saw him nod, sitting next to me. He moved the cup of water closer so that I could drink some more.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and looked at him- You saved my life- he stared down at the ground and finally whispered

- "I'm sorry."

- "Why?"

- "He'll win in the end."

It was sad to see Tobias Hankel's good person locked inside a sick mind that also held a psychopath like his father.

- "Tobias, I need to know something. It's important. Are we in a cemetery?"- and he nodded. I smiled at him and sighed, relieved. Help was coming. My team was coming.

- "I used to come here to get high."

- "I was right."

- "No one bothers you here. I never told anyone about it."

He wrapped his belt around my arm, and I turned to him, still smiling. I didn't know if I were happy I was right or glad I would get high again. Maybe both. Maybe the second 'cos the minute that needle got to my vein, that sweet, sweet release felt like a bath of joy that washed away any pain, regret, or guilt I could have ever felt.

Guilt. I've had my share of that. I remember the day I had my mom admitted to the hospital. She hadn't eaten in days. She wouldn't take care of herself, and they're just so much I could do. I wasn't able to keep her safe from herself, from her mind.

- "What are these men doing here?"- she asked me as I walked with two nurses into the study. She was writing and reading. It was all she did, preparing lectures for classes she didn't have to give, in imaginary campuses.

I stood in front of her and hesitated for a second. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, telling mom I was taking her away from her own house.

- "They are from the hospital. They are here to help,"- I whispered and looked at my mother's confused expression. She was so thin. She looked so sick. I felt so guilty I couldn't do better for her.

- "I don't need help, and you can't be here without permission, tell them, Spencer."

She looked down at her books again and tried to continue writing. I took a deep breath, I knew I would break her heart, but there was nothing else I could do.

- "I called them"- she looked at me in pain. Deep, honest pain. Like I had just shattered her heart. Which I had done.

- "Spencer"- she simply whispered and stared into my eyes, begging for an explanation. I was trying my best not to cry. I had a whole speech prepared. I was going to tell her how much I loved her. I was going to explain to her how good it was for her to be in a place where someone could continuously take care of her. I had facts and statistics, but all I managed to say was:

- "I'm doing this for you."

And I felt like a liar. 'Cos, there was a part of me that was doing it for myself too.

- "This isn't legal"- she shook her head in shock and kept trying to find a good explanation to what was going on.

- "Your son is eighteen, ma'am. He can act in your welfare,"- one of the make nurses explained to her.

- "You need help,"- I said and prayed she could understand. But she just burst into tears and begged.

- "I wanna stay here!"

- "I'm... sorry, mom."

- "Please, these are my things, this is my life..."

Those men took her. They took her from her house and put her in a hospital. No. I put her there. I put my mom in a hospital so I could live my life, 'cos I am selfish and couldn't take care of her anymore.

- "Spencer, please, don't do this to me."

Those were the words that haunted me day and night. And my mother's crying face, begging me not to take her from her own house.

What kind of a son am I? I did that to her. I put her in a mental place 'cos I couldn't deal with her disease anymore. 'Cos I didn't know how to take care of her.

- "What are you sorry for, boy?"- I heard Hankel ask when I woke up. I was muttering, "Sorry" as I came back from my trip.

- "I sent her away."

- "Who."

- "My mom. I couldn't help her."

- "Is that a confession?"- I nodded and looked around, confused. Lost. High- "You know the bible. Exodus 21:17"

- "And he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death,"- I whispered, scared and full of regret.

I heard him walk towards me. He kneeled and uncuffed me. I didn't know what was happening. Honestly, I was still too high to get what was going on around me.

- "Grab a shovel,"- he commanded and walked outside.

I was too weak to dig fast. I don't know how I was actually moving, but I was digging my own grave. I never thought I would ever end up doing such a thing. It's not something you think about, actually. Not unless you work in the BAU. Here, you start analyzing and considering the way you'll die: 'Cos you could, every day.

- "I ought to bury you alive in there, give you some time to think about what you've done,"- Hankel said and looked at me while I worked, playing with a knife.

- "I know what I've done."

- "Don't talk back to me! Dig!"

I pant and kept moving, very slowly, trying to buy myself some time too. I was sure the team was coming to get me any minute now. I was counting on them, though the more I thought about it, the less worthy of salvation I felt. Maybe I deserved to die after all.

I was almost certain I had seen some lights moving in the back. Flashlights. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I was too tired. And still too high, too.

- "Dig faster!"- he commanded me as I moved, losing my breath.

- "I'm not strong enough"- I cried, 'cos I felt like that. Like a failure, a child that aimed to be a grown-up and failed miserably. A bad son. The worst agent. A fake that deserved to die.

- "You are all weak!! Get out of there!"

Hankel took off his coat and left it on the ground. I slowly moved so he could dig for me, but the lights in the back took my attention, and he noticed. As soon as he turned around, I quickly grabbed his coat and reached out for the gun.

- "You've only got one bullet, son,"- he said as he looked at me. And I just pulled the trigger.

I shot him. I killed him. Hankel. Raphael. Tobias. I freed Tobias. Or at least, that is what I wanted to think.

- "Reid!!"- I heard (Y/N) yelling as I crawled to Tobia's body. He was still awake. He was himself.

- "You killed him"- he said, and he was relieved- "Do you think I'll get to see my mom again?"

- "I'm sorry,"- I whispered, and he was gone.

- "Reid!!"

(Y/N) yelled and ran over. She kneeled next to me and held me in her arms. I couldn't move, because for a few seconds, I couldn't believe she was real. She was there.

- "Honey, honey, are you ok? Can you hear me?"- she said, and tears started falling from her eyes- "Honey, it's me."

I just looked at her and hugged her. I hugged her as my life depended on it. There she was, next to me, finally.

- "I thought I was never going to see you again,"- I whispered and sobbed.

The urge to kiss her filled my whole body. I needed to taste her. I needed to show her how much I had needed her those days. But I knew I couldn't.

I didn't want to let her go. I didn't for a few minutes. I just hold onto her for my sanity. She kissed my forehead, cupping my face with both hands.

- "I'm so happy to see you. I'm glad you are ok... let's go to the ambulance, ok?"- I nodded but didn't let her go. I felt I could hold her forever. I wanted to keep her close for as long as I lived.

But the rest of the team gathered around us, and I wanted to thank them too. I needed to thank Hotch. So as soon as I let (Y/N) go, I wrapped my arms around him.

- "You alright?"- he asked me.

- "I knew you'd understand,"- I managed to say with tears falling from my eyes and a knot in my throat.

For a moment, I thought I was never going to see the team again. My family.

JJ held me close and apologized. I knew she felt guilty for leaving me alone, but I was the only one culpable for what had happened. I wanted to prove myself, and all I managed to do was prove I was a fool. A useless SSA.

- "It's alright, it wasn't your fault,"- I said and did my best to smile at her. But I know I failed. Gideon grabbed my arm and nodded.

- "Let's get you out of here."

- "Please,"- I whispered before we started walking- "Can I have a second alone?"- he looked at me and nodded, looking at Tobias' body lying by our side. He walked away, and I kneeled next to my capturer.

But instead of paying my respects, instead of cursing. Instead of anything, I took the Dilaudid bottles from his pocket and put them into mine.

And that's how the real hell started.

DIWK Taglist:

@all-tings-diego @big-galaxy-chaos @svveet-peas @muffin-cup @shilohpug

Spencer taglist

@calm-and-doctor

General Taglist

@spenxerslut @ash19871962

–

Do you want to be on the taglist or ramble about this chapter with me? Just send me a message here.

Next update: May 5th, 2021

#Spencer Reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fanfic #babymetaldoll writes #cm fanfic #criminal minds fanfic #Emily prentiss #Aaron Hotchner #jennifer jareau #derek morgan #penelope garcia #emily prentiss #babymetaldoll edits #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfiction

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imagine-that-100 · 4 years ago

Text

Truth Serum

Description: Matty Healy x Reader (Female) | You’ve been friends with Matty for quite a few years and he thinks he knows pretty much everything about you. Like how you’re always more honest when you’d had a drink and even more so when you’re tired too. But when a head injury and strong painkillers are added to that equation, for Matty it’s entertaining, but for you it’s a recipe for heartbreak.

Word Count: 9.7k

Warnings: A lil bit of angst but mostly fluff.

A/N: This was requested by @jagz72! Sorry it took so long but I got VERY carried away and just couldn't stop writing. I really hope you enjoy reading it, I definitely enjoyed writing it. I hope everyone has a very Happy New Year! This year has been amazing (on Tumblr) and I’ve connected with so many people on here it’s been really lovely making so many new friends. I’m wishing you all a wonderful 2021!

Likes and Reblogs are appreciated but most of all, thank you so much for reading x

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This really wasn’t how you hoped your day would go. But here you were, sitting on a hospital bed with a nurse shining a torch in your eyes making sure you were okay.

The reason you were here may be funny in the future when you tell it back to your kids or something. But right now, you were worried and so was the man that was holding your hand, who’d been the cause of your injury.

Matty had brought you to A&E as soon as the incident happened.

You'd been friends for 3 years, so it really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary these days when Matty popped by early in the morning. You knew he liked getting out of his house so his inability to sleep for long durations didn’t suffocate him.

After all, no one liked lying in bed wide awake when you knew you were meant to be asleep.

So, you’d given him a key many moons ago to try and help him combat that. You were a creative person, be that crafting or baking or painting.

You had it all.

So, his mind could run wild in your house and he’d yet to get bored. You’d woken up more than once to find him in your lounge, painting once but most of the time you found him trying to replicate your baking goods.

And he was really shit at it.

When he walked into your home this morning, you were already up and in the kitchen baking. Truthfully it was a surprise to see you up and about so early as it was only 6:30.

You didn’t sleep very well last night as you’d been out drinking with a few friends. You never really slept well after an alcohol filled night. It always left you really dehydrated and because you lived quite a bit out of London, not too far from Matty, you most of the time started with your hangover before you even got back home.

But that was the choice you made when you went into the city to drink.

So in theory Matty shouldn't have been surprised when he saw you already awake this morning. He knew you’d gone out and he knew what drinking did to you.

Matty quite liked when you got drunk with him, you were a really funny person and you pretty much had no filter when you had alcohol in your system. That was always fun for you all when you went out, and Matty loved the taxis back home with you on nights like that.

He always brought an extra drink in the taxi with him so your hangover wouldn’t start in the 30 minute drive back.

Matty had greeted you with a hug when he walked into your house and found that you were in the kitchen. You seemed really happy to see him too and you got to chatting about how Notes was coming along.

But it seemed that you and Matty let time get the better of you as Matty kept teasing you for practically still being drunk. The alcohol that was still present in your system obviously hadn’t worn off it’s truth serum effects yet and Matty liked to tease you about doing impulsive things, like baking cookies at 7:30 in the morning.

The next time Matty looked at the clock though, he was really late for a meeting. Your tired, tipsy, sleep deprived self had been quite entertaining leading him to forget that he had people to meet.

Jamie had called him double checking about the meeting that was meant to be starting at 8:45. But the time was now 9:22 and he still hadn’t showed up so Jamie, being the friendly manager he was, just called him up to check if he was okay.

“Oh fuck.” Matty curses looking at the caller ID and the time.

You look around at Matty worriedly and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m meant to be at a meeting with Jamie and the lads right now.” Matty tells you, “I’ll be just a minute.”

Matty goes out of the kitchen to answer the call as he didn’t want to disturb your early morning baking. He didn't care if you could hear what he said or not he just didn't want to disturb your morning.

That and he was going to try and get out of the meeting so he could stay and eat all the cookies you’d yet to put in the oven.

Matty answers Jamie and profusely apologises for lacking manners to show up to a meeting on time. Thankfully, Jamie isn’t that fussed about it and suggests putting the meeting back as he was free until early afternoon.

Matty jumps at that chance.

But then Matty practically whips himself around with the intent to ask you how long it will take to bake the cookies so he’d know how long to push the meeting back, but he never gets that far. When Matty turns around, he barges his shoulder straight into you causing you to be pushed back.

You were just about to make your way past him to get your phone from where you’d put it on charge in your lounge earlier, but that was long forgotten when your head smacked off the corner of the wooden door frame behind you.

The bang to the back of your head shocked Matty to his core. You both stopped dead and looked at each other and as soon as Matty’s hands rested on your shoulders he kept apologising.

“Shit shit shit. Y/N are you okay?!” Matty asks, his hands flying to your shoulders to steady you, his phone still in his hand.

“I’m okay.” You tell him in shock, moving away from the door frame a little to hold the back of your head.

You could feel a lump forming already, but there was no blood, so you guessed you were alright. Matty quickly puts his phone to his ear to tell Jamie he’d call him back before he pockets his phone and holds your shoulders again.

“I’m so sorry Y/N. I didn't know you were there, are you okay? Did I hurt you?” Matty asks worriedly.

“Not your fault Matty.” You tell him, “I’m fine.”

Something which Matty doesn’t believe for a solid minute despite you assuring him that you were okay.

Once he relaxes a little, he pulls you into a hug as another way to apologise. You also relax and take your hand off the back of your head to hug him back, trying to assure him you’re okay. But you can’t help the curse that falls from your lips as you could already feel a headache coming on.

“Fuck me.” You say resting your forehead down on his shoulder.

His eyes go wide, “Really?” Matty questions in shock.

“No.” You say immediately, and Matty is about to laugh until you correct your statement to, “Well, not right now.”

Matty’s eyes widen, “What?”

You didn’t even say it in a sarcastic or joking way. Matty immediately felt the need to pry.

“My head hurts a little.” You whine into his shoulder, but he assumes it's to try and distract from the little slip up you just had.

And as much as Matty wanted to make your head better instantly he was shocked by what you said. So before he could stop himself he grins, “Tell me what you just said.”

“Matty I’m fine, go to your meeting.” You say picking your head up off his shoulder.

He looks into your Y/E/C eyes and they narrow as he asks if he hears correctly, “You said I couldn’t fuck you right now?”

“Yeah, so?” You shake your head as if you didn’t remember saying that.

Matty looks at you curiously, frowning a little as the thought had never really crossed his mind that you thought of him like that. “You want me to fuck you?”

“We’re not discussing this right now.” You shake your head again but Matty sees pain flash through your eyes. You hold the back of your head again and he can see you're actually in pain. “Matty, my head hurts.”

“I’ll get you some ice.” Matty says letting go of your waist and looking to your fridge freezer across the room.

Before he can move though you grab his arm and say, “No, go to your meeting.”

“You can’t just say you want me to fuck you and then tell me to go to a meeting Y/N.” Matty grins at you.

You close your eyes and sigh, “Matty.”

Matty’s grin gets bigger and he holds your waist again and teasingly says your name, “Y/N.”

“You shouldn’t be joking about this now...” You shake your head a little harder, “You just made me accidentally whack my head on the fucking door fra- oh... I feel dizzy.” You say and Matty’s heart goes in his throat when your eyes roll to the back of your head and you almost go limp in his arms.

“Shit.” Matty says, tightening his hold around you so you don't fall to the floor and hit your head again.

And that was how you ended up in A&E at 9:55 on a Friday morning.

“Okay so, you’re okay but you’ve had a moderate concussion and you're unfortunately going to be in pain for a day or two with it.” The nurse tells you when she stops shining the torch in your eyes.

“We will give you stronger painkillers than the ones you’ve already taken but with these you need to be woken up every two hours when you go to sleep tonight. Try and stay awake as long as possible today and then,” She looks to Matty, “You need to wake her a little every two hours. Not like getting up and about but she needs to respond or you call an ambulance.”

“Oh he’s n-” You start to correct her to wonder what you need to do for yourself because Matty wouldn’t be with you.

But Matty says, “Yeah course, I can do that.”

After the nurse told you and Matty what symptoms of things getting worse to look out for you picked up your prescription from the chemist. After that though you expected to go back home and try to relax your headache away but Matty refused to let you out of his sight because it was his fault you were in this state.

So Matty took you to his pushed back meeting and took you to the studio afterwards as he had to keep his eye on you. You weren’t chatty throughout it all, as you tried to keep yourself to yourself.

But that didn’t mean that you didn’t find the meeting fucking boring and you felt like you were intruding in the studio. But you did get another insight into their new album which was fun.

You tried to keep your mouth shut whilst you listened to it, liking to take in the lyrics but when you did you were a little shocked about it.

The song you were allowed to listen to today was Nothing Revealed/ Everything Denied and there were a few revelations in there that you weren't expecting. But you tried to keep that as quiet as you could because the strong painkillers mixed with the lack of sleep was also acting as another form of truth serum.

Since taking your painkillers early this afternoon, you’d been messy to say the least. You’d made a fool out of yourself when you complimented all of the other boys.

Earlier you basically told George earlier that you thought his tattoos were attractive. You told Ross that his hair was looking really good with it longer on top and you even accidentally moved it and styled it a tad for him. You forced yourself to not tell Adam that you found him hypnotic when he played the guitar.

“You have nice eyes” You tell Matty, but not actually meaning to, as you sat across from him at the cafe you’d gone to for lunch not far from the studio.

Matty glances back at you from the window then and he smiles, “Thank you”

He also feels the need to add, “You’ve got nice eyes too”

You seem to become a bit embarrassed then which makes Matty smile. You seem to disagree with his observation though and shake your head which confuses him a little, until you say, “I have boring eyes”

“Mine are literally the colour of this table Y/N” Matty says, pointing to the dark wood that your plates both rest on. “Not very interesting”

“They are interesting. They look like they see the world differently” You say honestly before looking back down to your food.

Matty watches as you eat then. It seemed like you didn’t mean to say that either because you went a bit shy again.

He decides to let this one slide but when you do it again he can’t help himself.

About 3 hours later, Matty was driving you both back home from the studio and he noticed that you were pretty silent in the car despite one of your favourite songs just being on the radio. Matty looks to you after the song finishes and notices your leaning your head on the window.

Your eyes were closed and you looked a bit better than earlier, so he asked you, “How you feeling, love?”

But you didn’t answer him and that makes him panic a little bit. He forgot you weren’t allowed to sleep.

“Hey Y/N/N” Matty says, flicking his eyes between you and the road and he shakes your shoulder.

“I’m tired Matty, leave me alone ” You say shrugging his hand away.

“No no no stay awake” Matty says pulling on your hair a little bit instead to try and annoy you awake.

He does it for a minute and he only stops when you pick your head up off the window. You shift in your seat and turn towards him so you’re now facing him properly and resting your temple on the headrest.

You close your eyes again but you know he’s right, so you ask, “Can you keep chatting to me to keep me awake because I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

“Fuck.” Matty chuckles.

You always told him to shut up. Never to keep talking.

“Have I broken you?” Matty chuckles a little looking back to the road.

“Not in the way I want you to break me.” Matty hears you whisper and his eyes go wide.

He sees that your eyes were closed again but this time you were curled up on the seat facing him. It didn’t even look like you knew what you just said.

He immediately turns his head and asks in shock, “Do you know you said that out loud?”

“I said that out loud?” You ask, your eyes open in shock.

“Yes Y/N.” Matty smirks glancing back at the road and then at you again.

You look mortified and you pull your phone out of your pocket and distract yourself on that. You don’t look at him as you say, “Well pretend I didn’t”

Matty wants answers though. “Y/N do you wa-“

But you interrupt with, “Matty when are you releasing Notes because I wanna play If You’re too Shy on repeat?”

“Y/N/N.” Matty tries again but you have none of it.

“Answer me.” You insist, evidently not wanting to revert back to what you said.

Matty gives in and estimates, “Like May-ish.”

“May?” You question in an annoyed sigh. “Matty you said it would be out last year.”

“Don’t believe what I say music wise.” Matty says looking back to the road now as you definitely weren’t going to go back to the topic of him ‘breaking you’. “I said that we were stopping the band after Notes remember and that’s changed.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you ever said that. You belong on a stage”. You say as you scroll back through your phone.

“Thanks Darling” Matty grins, “Do you like watching me up on stage?”

He hopes to get another comment out of you like before. But he just gets a sarcastic, “Oh yeah Hun, you look like the drama queen you are.”

You’re good with your slip ups after that until late at night when you head up to bed with Matty following close behind joking about the ‘adult sleepover’ you were having. He’d insisted he was staying and doing the checks on you every two hours.

You were fine with that as he’d stayed in your bed before when the both of you had passed out mid movie nights, but the jokes you could do without. Especially when your lips were speaking so freely from the meds you were on and the lack of sleep in your system.

“You hurt me Matthew, you should be taking care of me not asking me to shag you” You say before heading into your bathroom to get changed after throwing a pair of joggers his way.

When you re-enter your bedroom, you see Matty already under your duvet and you give him a hug once you lie yourself down beside him.

“You’re never this touchy with me” Matty says a minute into the hug that's practically turned into a cuddle.

“Because I don’t know if you like me touching you.” You say as you let go of him and grab the pillow under your head to bring it between you so you could hug it as you drifted off to sleep.

But you leave Matty confused then. You were never the touchy type in general and in the time he’d known you, he’d never seen you with the boyfriend you had when you initially met so he didn’t even know if you were a cuddly person in a relationship.

“You don’t like anyone touching you.” Matty says after your eyes had been closed for a few seconds.

You don’t open them back up again, not even when you admit, “I like you touching me.”

It makes Matty once again freeze as he wasn’t expecting your honesty. And he certainly wasn’t expecting you to continue with, “Makes my day when you give me a hug or kiss my cheek or give me a loving headlock, even if your hair does tickle my face when you do it.”

You chuckle a little at the end of your sentence which leads Matty to do as well, at both your honesty and the comment about his hair. The way you’re smiling into your pillow is also impossible for Matty now to smile at.

“I love your hair, you know?” You tell him, still keeping your eyes closed.

Matt smiles at the fact your filter seems to be completely gone at this point. So Matty feels the need to compliment you back.

“I love your hair.” Matty tells you, tucking a strand of it that had fallen onto your face behind your ear. He tells you honestly, “I like messing with it”

“Mhhh” You hum with a smile. You add in a whisper, “I like it when you pull on it.”

Matty is once again taken aback by your statement and this time he can’t let it go. The teasing remarks that you’d been accidently letting slip all day had to have meant something, or you wouldn’t look so sheepish after you said them.

Like just now you were cuddling yourself into your pillow more than you already had been and Matty just couldn’t bring himself to let it go. Yeah it may not be the time for such a conversation at 1:48am but here you both were.

And Matty had to know.

So after a silent minute he said, “Y/N”

“What?” You ask softly.

“You know I can hear you whispering?”

“Maybe you were meant to.” You tiredly suggest, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Where’s this all coming from?” Matty asks, a little amused as you never gave out compliments unless it was about his music.

The music was something you never joked about but you always did with him and the rest of the band.

Matty watches as you internally battle with yourself on what to reply. But it seems the truth ends up being your easiest option despite you sighing before you start.

“I think I like you a lot Matty.” You tell him and it shocked the curly haired man to his soul. You carry on, your eyes still closed, “And once I slipped up I couldn’t stop myself from carrying on.”

Matty struggles to find words for a moment there. He didn’t know what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t this.

“I think about you all the time when I’m not supposed to…” You trail off for a moment there leaving the room in silence. Something which then leads to you add in a sad tone, “And I get it if you leave... I wouldn’t like me either but I’m sick of hiding it now.”

Matty stumbles again but he just about manages to ask, “Ho- How long...? Have you liked me?”

“I think I noticed after George’s party” You say thinking back to three months ago.

“Why?” Matty asks, not remembering anything significantly different about that night compared to the others you’ve shared together.

“Because you’re you” You say simply.

Matty frowns a little then, not annoyed he doesn’t think, but maybe a little disappointed. He didn’t want people to like him because he was Matty Healy from The 1975 anymore.

Matty wanted that left behind in 2015. That’s why he’d had the long relationship with Gabby and that was why he’d only been out with very few people since her, Twigs being the only one that got a little serious. But all of them eventually fizzled out for different reasons.

Matty just didn’t want people to want him because of who he was on stage or who the media presented him as anymore. He was done with it... completely and utterly-

“You always make me laugh by pulling a face when I’ve had a bad day at work.” You carry on after those few seconds of silence, and you continue on to say, “You know my shit and you tease me about it but in a fun loving sorta way. You tuck your hair behind your ear when you're nervous which is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen and I get jealous when you do it to other girls and not me, but that’s fine. And my heart goes rapid when you tell me a cheesy joke because you decided to tell it me first. And I find myself wanting you to be around all the time even if it’s the middle of the night.”

You finish off your tired rambling leaving Matty on the opposite side of your bed completely stunned. So much so that the man who always has something to say is left speechless.

Nothing coming out of his mouth even if he could think of something to say. You have completely stunned him.

He is so desperately trying to think of a way to reply to you that he doesn’t realise how much time passes. The only thing that rips him out of his thoughts are your next soft words.

“Am I allowed to go to sleep now or do I have to stay awake?” You question in a whisper, your voice thick with tiredness.

Matty looks at your soft stunning features and just about manages to whisper back, “You can sleep... But don’t you want me to tell you how I’m feeling?”

You shake your head into your pillow and Matty listens intently when you say, “I’d rather have ten more minutes of us being friends without it being awkward and then I can wake up tomorrow and cry when you’re not there and don’t want to be my friend anymore.”

And just that sentence alone breaks Matty's heart. He assures you, “I’m never going to not be your friend”

Because no matter what happened tomorrow he didn’t want to lose you. You’d always been such a good friend, there was no way Matty was ever going to let that go.

“But you’re not going to be close with me anymore because you know I like you.” You say, your voice full of melancholy. But you for some reason feel the need to assure him, “And that’s okay. I wouldn’t like me either... But thank you for being my friend for as long as you have.”

“Y/N” Matty starts but you don’t let him finish.

“Goodnight Matty. Talk in the morning.” You say, “But if you go, I understand. I won’t bother you anymore.”

“I’m n-” Matty tired again but your tired voice interrupts once more.

“Thanks for everything Matty.” You say giving him a smile, your eyes still closed but you must have known he was watching you.

That night Matty didn’t sleep a wink. You were all he could think about. He lay on the other side of your bed for hours trying to process everything you said.

He couldn’t believe it. He was really shocked by your honesty just before you went to sleep but as you spoke he could physically see your body relax. As if it was a weight of your shoulders which he guessed it must have been.

Matty took the hours he lay awake and processed everything about yours and his friendship through his mind. And there were so many happy memories.

Matty didn't even get through the first year before his 2 hour alarm went off on his apple watch and he stirred you a bit to make sure you were still alive. He of course knew you were but when you hummed a little in response to him calling your name that was enough for Matty to let you rest again.

Matty went over every single thing he could remember in his mind. The highs and the lows of the last 3 years in your presence and he was smiling throughout most of it.

Sometimes his thoughts got away with him so much he had to put the TV you had in your room on to distract him. The volume stayed on low but he had to distract himself because not getting a chance to talk to you left him wanting to wake you up and talk everything through.

But he knew you’d had a shit night’s sleep the previous day and the bump on your head had left you really tired. So he couldn’t deprive you the rest you definitely needed.

But now it was 7:36 and Matty couldn’t just lie in bed next to you anymore. He had to go do something.

~*~*~*~

You woke up the next morning afraid to open your eyes. You were petrified.

Of course you remembered everything that had been said the night before and you knew if you opened your eyes and saw the guy you fancied beside you that your friendship at the very least would be okay. But if you opened your eyes to see an empty bed, you know you fucked it completely.

So that was why you kept your eyes closed for 5 minutes once you woke up. You could hear your TV playing music from the other side of the room so you never heard Matty breathing. But there was a reason for that.

Because when you opened your eyes, you found an empty bed.

Your heart sank and immediately tears came to your eyes. You knew you shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have told him anything.

Now you’d lost your good friend and probably the rest of the band on the way. By the time you sat up and walked into your bathroom, the tears were freely streaming down your face.

You didn’t even try to stop them. You just let them fall and got in the shower so you could cry to your heart’s content.

Your chest hurt. It hurt in a way it hadn’t for a long time because you’d not let anyone in like you’d accidentally let Matty in.

And of course he wasn’t interested in you. Why would he be?

You were no Halsey or Gabby or FKA Twigs. You were no one’s love of their life, but you thought Matty might have been yours.

It was so stupid of you to think like that.

You hoped the 20 minute shower would have been enough time to settle your heartache but apparently it wasn’t. You were still crying long after you turned the water off and you got yourself dry.

You cried as you blow dried your hair, you cried as you changed into your comfort pair of joggers (the ones you’d loaned Matty last night) and your massively baggy hoodie. You couldn’t stop the tears from flowing which meant that the pressure behind your eyes started to hurt your head.

You turned the TV off but that didn’t help. So you went downstairs to get yourself a drink and some painkillers as your injury from yesterday wasn’t helping either.

But when you opened your kitchen door the bang of something hitting the worktop didn’t help either. You push the door open fully and we’re shocked to see your kitchen in an absolute state with Matty standing there in his clothes from yesterday with a tray full of unbaked cookies in his hand.

“What are you doing?” The words come out of your mouth as you look at the state that your kitchen was in.

There’s baking goods everywhere and from the things that were out you couldn’t tell if he was making bread or some sort of cake. You were very confused but your curly haired friend also looked confused.

He didn’t turn to look at you as he was trying to make sure the cookies that were on the tray didn’t roll off as he put them in the oven. He opened up the now very hot contraption and once they were in and the door was shut he quickly put a timer on his phone to check them after a while.

“I’m trying to make you some cookies. But you know yours are always going to be better than mine because the first batch I tried I put icing sugar instead of cast- what’s wrong?” Matty asks, finally turning to look at you.

When he did, he saw that your eyes were swollen and your cheeks were puffy and your eyes were all bloodshot. He threw the oven glove to the side not caring where it went and walked over to you, “Why are you crying?”

You withdraw then and look down away from him. The ball immediately rises back to your throat and the tears that had just briefly stopped are threatening to flow again.

“Y/N/N” Matty takes your hand so you can’t move away again.

You shake your head and look down to the ground. You just about managed to get out, “Doesn’t matter”

“Course it matters, you’re upset” Matty says but you just shake your head and don’t look at him.

But that doesn’t mean he can see the tears rolling down your cheeks.

“Come here” He says, pulling you into a hug and you truly didn’t realise how much you needed it.

You inhale a very shaky breath which hurts Matty’s heart so he asks again, running a hand up and down your back, “What’s wrong? Why are you upset?”

You don’t have the energy to make up a lie so you just tell him the truth.

“You weren’t there when I woke up. I thought I lost you” You whisper but your voice comes out in a much higher octave than usual as you’re trying not to fully sob again.

Matty pulls away from the hug but keeps you close. Both his hands come up to cup your face and his thumbs brush away your tears and he says softly, “Don’t cry”

“Matty I’ve been crying for the better part of an hour, you telling me to stop won’t just make it happen” You half laugh half whine.

Your emotions were everywhere. You couldn’t believe he was still here. You still weren’t to be fair, you were half sure you were dreaming.

“You really think I would just leave you?” Matty asks with a tiny frown as he again wipes another tear away.

“Well yeah.” You shrug a little pathetically before carrying on in a pained voice, ”You don’t owe me anything. I’m just some girl you know. I’m not one important, so why would you stay?”

“Because you’re so much more than that you’ve just said.” Matty tells you honestly. His heart hurting that you thought of yourself like that.

“You don’t have to pretend.” You shake your head, ”I’m a big girl, I can handle rejection.”

Matty can’t believe you don’t get it.

“Y/N/N I’m standing in your house trying to bake you cookies, comforting you, I always flirt with you and I have done for ages… And you still think I want someone else?” Matty asks, wiping your tears away.

”No.“ Matty confirms, ”Yeah, you shocked me last night because you’ve never ever given me the slightest inkling that you liked me but when you started, it all fits Y/N.”

Matty continues to shock you with, “Why do you think I said ‘really’ yesterday when you said ‘fuck me’? I didn’t mean to say that just like you didn’t mean to say ‘not right now’.”

Matty grins as he finishes explaining, “But your you. You never let me get a word in edgeways which most of the time I love, but yesterday you didn’t let me get a chance to say that I fancy the fuck out of you.”

Your eyes go wide and you immediately shake your head, “No you don’t”

“Believe me I do.” Matty assures you, but you still don’t look like you believe him, “I don’t think you understand just how much though.”

“Because you don’t fancy me Matty. Stop trying to be nice” You shake your head and go to turn around but Mattys hand finds your hip and stops you turning.

Matty tells you honestly, “I’d say I’ve fancied you since we were out at that bar months ago and The Sound came on and you were dancing to it singing it to us.”

Matty grins as he continues, “And you did that thing I do on stage for the playing with yourself lyrics and I fully gulped. And then you pulled me up to dance with you and I loved listening and watching you sing my song at me.”

“A little narcissistic of you that Matty” You can’t help but say as you wipe away the tears that had sneaked down your eyes.

“Well it's lucky you like me anyway so I don’t even have to pretend it’s not.” Matty grins tucking a strand of your messy bed hair behind your ear. “Plus you looked really fucking good in those leather pants and you had the cutest most excited look on your face when you got me up dancing”

You giggle a little then and you half smile at him trying to make the tears stop. Matty helps with that by gently brushing his thumb over the bow sensitive skin under your eyes.

“So my beautiful and wonderful Y/N…” Matty likes the way you smile when he says that, “You need to stop crying because today I planned on wooing my best friend with cookies in exchange for a kiss and later on I was gunna get on my knees and beg my best friend to go out with me.”

You grin as you joke, “George is a lucky boy, isn’t he?”

“Shut up” Matty giggles.

You whisper a little, with a grin on your face, “Especially lucky for the get on your knees part.”

He gives you a knowing look then, but he just grins and asks, “How’s the head injury? Still making you spill your secrets I see”

You smile a little but only answer his question, “My head hurts from crying so it’s not a lot better.”

“Please stop crying.” Matty begs, ”I’d never leave you especially after that. I’m sorry I didn’t stay in bed, I just wanted to do something for you because you never got to finish making the cookies yesterday”

“You’re cute” You smile.

Matty mirrors it, “So are you.”

You smile at him and your eyes flick between both of his. He looked so gorgeous, yet so sleep deprived.

You're about to ask him about his sleep but Matty gets a question in there before you. “Can I kiss you now?”

Your eyes go wide, “No.”

“I feel vile, I’m all disgusting” You add sniffling a bit because you were all bunged up.

“Y/N you know how disgusting I am, do you really think I care?” Matty chuckles a little, again wiping away a stray tier.

You look into those gorgeous eyes and tell him, “I care”

Matty just pouts, looking down to your lips, “I wanna kiss you.”

You smile at his eagerness but softly plead, “Please wait until I’ve stopped crying.”

“Fine.” Matty says, “You win this one” and then he kisses your forehead.

You smile at the contact and Matty pulls you into a hug which you greatly appreciate. You tightly hug him back and you sort of melt into his warm body.

You feel another kiss being placed to the top of your head and you smile feeling that. “Come on Darling, gotta give you more of that truth serum” Matty says, knowing you needed more painkillers.

You giggle then but you pause when you recognise a familiar smell. You pull out of the hug and say, “Matty the cookies”

Matty immediately smelled the burning batch then too. He rushed his way over to your oven then saying, “Shit shit shit”

~*~*~*~

After the burnt cookies made it out of the oven and you helped him with a normal batch, you spent the day together. Him still looking after you like he did yesterday but this time he was overtly flirting with you all day.

You had to admit that you did love it. The fact he actually liked you back was something you were still a little shocked by but by the time you were sitting down eating your lunch together you’d talked through things a lot.

Matty had told you that he wanted to take you out later to a bar for some quiet drinks, and he said he had every intention of kissing you when he brought you back. You tried not to show how that made you feel bit Matty knew how you hid things so when he cupped your cheeks and felt how hot they were he teased you about being silently on board with the idea.

But the more you thought about actually going out with him, the more you wished it didn’t happen whilst you had a head injury. The last thing you wanted was to go out to a bar and have noisy people around you.

Matty himself was a handful sometimes and if you were honest you didn’t really want to get yourself ready to go out in public. You’d rather just stay in with the man himself.

So you thought you’d ask if he’d put a pin in the idea for now.

“Matty” You say once you come back into the lounge. As you sit yourself down on the settee beside him you ask, “You know how you said you’d get on your knees and ask me out later?”

Matty gives you a little playful grin then and answers, “Yeah?”

“Can you do that maybe in a day or two?” You ask him a little hesitantly. You also explain, “I still don’t feel all that great and I’d like to enjoy our date when we go out.”

“Thought you’d like me on my knees for you?” Matty teases a bit, shuffling himself a little closer to you.

You’re both facing each other on the settee now. The side of your heads are resting against the back of the cushioned surface and you’re just smirking at each other.

You run your tongue over your bottom lip as his playful look continues. Despite the teasing remark though, you continue with your honesty.

“I’d probably love it a lot more when I don’t have a splitting headache and I’ve not been crying all morning.” You grin and Matty chuckles a little before resting a hand on your knee.

“That’s fine” Matty smiles, letting his hand rub your knee soothingly. “What would you like to do instead?”

You quite liked that he didn’t want to leave despite you postponing the date. It gave you more assurance that he was still interested, even though he’d assured you several times now that he was.

You suggest, “Netflix?”

“And chill?” Matty suggests with a teasing smirk.

You can’t help but laugh, “We will see.”

The rest of the day surprisingly goes pretty fast. That may have been yours and Matty’s weird thing around each other though because whenever you were together it seemed like time just flew by.

You both went on a walk around the park near where you lived as a way to break up the day. It was a walk filled with Matty now being very cheeky with you and he found every excuse to put his hands on you.

The most memorable time being when you were standing in the queue at the little cafe that was there so you could get yourselves a sandwich. His arms had snaked around your waist from behind and he pulled you into him for everyone to see.

His touchiness didn’t even die down when you got to the lady who was serving. If anything he was even more attentive to you as he called you ‘Darling’ and ‘Babe’ when he was asking what food and drink you wanted.

The lady serving you seemed amused by your first ‘lovers quarrel’ over who was paying for what. Something which Matty ended up doing because he wasn’t taking no for an answer. You’d be sure to buy him something at some point to make up for it though.

But before either of you knew it you were curled up together on your settee with the lights on low as you watched your films. They weren’t anything intense, they were just shitty comedies like Zoolander and Step Brothers. Just films that you could chat over but then also pay attention to if you wanted a break from the chatting.

You don’t really know how you got into the position but in this moment in time you were curled up against Matty with your legs over his and he had his head on your shoulder as you watched the film. It was needless to say you felt so much better than you did this morning.

Maybe you should have been honest from the get go and you could have been experiencing this for a lot longer. You certainly looked forward to the cute innocent cuddles you’d have in the future as Matty had made it clear he was interested.

You must have got lost in your head for a moment though, because Matty’s lips gently meeting your neck was something that brought you straight back to reality. It was just a gentle peck which made you smile towards the TV and you just carried on playing with his hair like he’d not done anything.

But then he did it again for a little longer and then again a little bit higher up your neck. It was only when Matty carried on his little adventure that your fingers laced into his hair to encourage him.

You felt him grin into your neck then and he slowly worked his way up your neck like a teenager exploring that section of skin for the first time. You of course tilted your head to the side to give him more room and you both had a little giggle at that both being fully aware of what the other was doing.

When Matty started nipping on your neck you let your eyes close to bask in the sensations he was bringing to you. You felt like it was ten times better than what anyone else had done before, but maybe that was because you really fancied him.

Whatever the reason though, you didn’t want his lips to stop. And thankfully they didn’t.

Matty teased your neck until he was itching to kiss your lips. So much so that he silently pleaded to himself that you’d let him now your tears had long dried up.

“Can I please kiss you properly now?” Matty asks against your neck after another minute of the sweet torture.

You pull on his hair so his lips detached from your neck and when he looked up at you and his sweet brown eyes met yours. You nodded a, “Yes please”

And Matty didn’t need to be told twice.

Matty’s pillowy lips meet yours and you instantly melt. The nervousness that you felt building before every first kiss you’d ever had was gone and you let yourself enjoy it.

For Matty it was everything he hoped it would be. Your soft lips meeting for kisses every single time and when you brought your hand up to cup his face it was indication that you liked it enough for it to continue.

Your lips moved against each other’s almost cautiously as you both softly go in for the kisses you’d been starving yourselves of all day. Even though they were sweet and innocent, you couldn’t help your heart beating erratically in your chest.

You think it meant more to you because you liked him and have done for a while. Kisses like this weren’t the same as the ones you get when you were after a quick pull at a club. These meant something and the fact you were both gentle and almost hesitant with them proved that.

After a minute you both pull away, Matty pressing his forehead against yours so you could feel his curls tickle your face but you didn’t mind in the slightest. Your hands had chosen to cup his cheek and his neck so you really weren’t that fussed about his curls, if anything you welcomed them now you knew he didn’t mind you being close.

In this pause to catch your breaths you never really lost, Matty decided to tell you with a grin, “You’ll be pleased to know I definitely like you”

You giggle at that and let your fingers lace back into his curls before saying, “You’re a cheesy fucker” before you pull him in to meet your lips again.

It was less hesitant from both of you this time as the joke caused you both to smile into it a little. But it gets a little more forward after that.

They were more confident kisses this time which was slowly setting your skin on fire. And you both got that into them that the next time you knew what was going on you were leaning backwards with Matty’s lips still meeting yours meaning he was slowly trapping you between him and the settee.

Thankfully there were definitely worse places to be trapped. You would choose this form of imprisonment every time.

When Matty deepened the kiss it caused the both of you to whimper a bit. Mostly because of the way you pulled on his curls to encourage it and the fact that Matty’s hand had found your hip and he held you against him tightly.

The kisses only got braver from then on. Both of you now fully getting off on your settee with absolutely no intention of stopping anytime soon.

The only time you pause is when it’s getting a little intense for you because the lump on the back of your head was pressed into the harder part of the arm of the settee. So the next time Matty’s lips trail down your neck to allow you both to get some air, you let him know in your own sarcastic way.

“Matty” You half whine, loving the way he was kissing your neck now.

“Yes baby?” Matty asks and the pet name causes your stomach to flip. Hearing that fall from his lips in the position you were both in definitely felt good.

“I know I'm a good kisser and everything so it's not a shock I’m clouding your mind, but I had a head injury yesterday and you kissing me the way you are is pushing my head into the settee and it’s starting to hurt again.” You ramble honestly keeping your fingers tightly laced into his curls.

Matty chuckles into your neck then before placing one last kiss there for now. He then leans up and pecks your lips once more.

“Sorry baby” Matty says, pulling you up into a different position. You're straddling his hips then and Matty leans back against the settee with a grin plastered onto his lips, “This better for you?”

“Cocky little shit, aren’t you?” You laugh shaking your head at him.

Matty laughs too but he backchats, “Says you… You’re the one that just said your kisses were that good they left me with no memory”

“Well” You grin, pecking his lips teasingly once more before saying, “I’m speaking from experience”

“Come here” Matty says shaking his head, pulling you back down to him with the hand that cups your neck and you note a playful grin on his lips, “We will see whos mind goes foggy”

You end up kissing him like that for a long while just enjoying this new dynamic with each other. You had to admit to yourself that he was a really good kisser, but that shouldn’t really have surprised you, his tongue was out a lot in the Love Me video and he had it out half the time when he teased the crowd when he was on stage.

He definitely knew how to use it.

After the both of you calmed yourselves down, you cuddled yourselves up against each other much like earlier on as you carried on watching another shitty comedy. You watched them into the night again and you only noticed you half dozed off when you felt a soft kiss being pressed to your neck again.

“Matty” You murmur after feeling another lone tired kiss against the skin on your neck.

He must pick up on what you’re about to suggest because he asks, “Can I stay again?”

You nod and say, “Course”

You wanted to kiss and cuddle him for a lot longer than you already had been doing.

“Let’s go to bed, love” Matty says, picking his head up out of your neck and pecks your lips once more.

It leaves a warm feeling in your chest as you turn everything off downstairs before heading to bed.

When you get up to your room Matty’s arm travels around your waist and he hugs you into him. You lean back against him and smile at the feeling of his curls against your skin as he nuzzles himself into your neck again.

“You smell really good” He tells you before placing a kiss to the place where your neck meets your shoulder.

You grin at that, “Thanks, I think it’s just you though. All I can smell is your aftershave”

“Don’t feed the narcissism Darling” Matty spins you around then, “Take the compliment.”

You giggle before you kiss him again, this time with no hesitation at all. Your fingers lace into his curly locks and you pull on it hungrily to keep him close as he continues to walk you back into your bedroom.

They are just playful kisses coming from the both of you. Nothing too intense at all.

You like the feeling of Matty’s arms wrapped around your lower back pulling you into his body. You like the fact that he wanted you close, because you wanted him just the same.

You both pull away giggling a little when Matty almost trips the both of you over from moving towards your bed a little too fast. But thankfully it just ends in a playful, “Need to slow down. I’d feel bad if I gave you another concussion”

“I get it… I’ve wanted to kiss you for ages

“Well you can kiss me whenever you want” Matty grins pulling you down to straddle his lap which you do.

“Good to know” You giggle before kissing his pillowy lips again.

After a few more kisses, you’re both very aware of the tiredness creeping its way into your systems despite the new sensations you’re both getting from your lips attacking the others.

“Y/N/N, Darling, you’ve got my joggers on” Matty grins knowing that they are what you gave him to wear last night.

You grin, “You’re right” and then you get up off his lap and grab yourself some new pyjamas from your drawer.

“I can only apologise mister Healy” You say with a smirk as you push them down your legs and step out of them.

Matty wasn’t exactly expecting you to strip in front of him tonight but the fact your gorgeous legs were on display to him for a minute he didn’t stop himself from looking. Your very oversized hoodie now acts as a dress as it hides your underwear from his gaze.

Matty just couldn't take his eyes away from your legs though. He didn’t think he’d ever seen you in a skirt or a dress so actually seeing you in front of him like that just led to new thoughts circling his mind. Or his mind was until you hastily picked them up and launched the scrunched up joggers at his head.

“Ey” Matty called back playfully, holding the joggers in his hands now.

You point to your eyes and silently tell him that is where they are with a knowing grin on your lips. Matty can only press his lips together as an apology before you head to your bathroom to change again like you did the night before.

He didn’t need to get everything on the first day.

After changing and doing your nightly routine you come back to your bedroom to find Matty changed into your joggers and no top like last night and you don’t shy your eyes away from his tattoos this time when he walks past you to use the bathroom himself. Matty catches you looking but he doesn’t comment on it and at this point you don’t really care.

When he gets in bed beside you and he pulls you in to cuddle him you bring him out of his thoughts, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Course” Matty says, not having anything to hide from you. Especially if you were going to work out in the end, and he had every intention of you both working out.

“Do you really not try? Because I always thought you would be the opposite” You ask him curiously, more truths spilling from your lips thanks to your meds.

Matty asks curiously, “Not try what?” brushing your hair behind your ear so he could see your cute face.

But pout, a little embarrassed, “Don’t make me say it.”

“I genuinely don’t know what you’re talking about.” Matty chuckles, looking at how shy you’d all of a sudden become.

“In your song yesterday.” You say and it brings Matty a bit more clarity on what you were asking, “You said you lied and you’d never fucked in a car”

Matty grins knowing exactly what you were asking now, but he teases, “So what’s your question?”

“You know my question, why are you making me say it?” You chuckle, getting more flustered with each passing second.

Matty leans down and pecks your lips once before he tells you, “Because you’re cute when you get embarrassed.”

You sigh and whine into his neck, needing to hide when you ask, “Do you actually just lie down and not try?”

“See” Matty chuckles, “Wasn’t that hard to say, was it?”

“Just answer my question.” You whine embarrassed that your stupid fucking meds just let you ask anything under the sun.

“Why don’t you just wait and find out?” Matty giggles, pulling your out of his neck a little bit.

He found it very cute that that was the only thing you got out of his song when you were drugged up the previous day. At least you’d told him you liked it though.

“Because I’m nervous now. I thought you’d be the opposite.” You say honestly, “And after earlier I’m confused”

“Why are you nervous?” Matty asks looking into your gorgeous Y/E/C eyes, wanting you to feel comfortable with him, “We aren’t doing anything right now.”

“I know.” You say, and then shrug, “Guess you just spoil my fantasies by saying you haven’t fucked in a car.”

“We can fuck in a car if you like?” Matty teasingly offers before leaning in to kiss you again. He mumbles against your lips, “It won’t be a fantasy then.”

You giggle at that but don’t hesitate to kiss him back. When he pulls away you keep him close and as your nose brushes against his, you suggest, “One step at a time, ey?”

Matty loves the little eskimo kiss you’re giving him enough to carry it on for a few more seconds after he nods in response to your suggestion. God you were so cute, he was very lucky that you liked him.

“Can I keep you on these drugs?” Matty questions, “They make you very truthful.”

You roll your eyes when he says, “Quite like you complimenting me and asking me questions you wouldn’t usually. It feeds the ego more.”

You giggle at that.

“Don’t really have much to hide from you anymore.” You tell him truthfully.

Matty wants a little confirmation, surprised by you saying that, “No?”

“Nope” You grin.

“I’m quite glad you like me Darling” Matty says, tucking a loose piece of hair behind your ear.

“I’m glad you like me back Hun” You grin and kiss him again.

The sweet kiss lasts for a couple of seconds before Matty pulls away so you’re both cuddled against each other again now. You definitely liked being close to him and you were glad he was the cuddly type.

But then he makes a joke that makes you playfully smack his chest as you giggle. Of course, your Matty jokes, “Can’t wait to tell our kids you asked me to fuck you and then fainted”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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here2bbtstrash · 2 years ago

Note

my dear lovely amazing talented sweet em🫡 i'm used to sending you my long ass feedbacks privately BUT this time i'll send it on here since i have many pics i wanna insert and i'm so stupid idk how to do that in chat🤘🏼 LET'S START

before saying anything THIS IS A FEEDBACK PEOPLE THERE WILL BE SPOILERS (OBVIOUSLY :) )

the introduction??? I MEAN IT SEEMED TOO REAL😩 that's the hottest wet dream i've ever read like?? and the way she realised she's in deep shit after waking up DAMN😭 i really hope deep down that yoongi heard her moans🤭

it was soooo sweet when he calmed her down and was like: that's fine🫶🏼🫶🏼 when they talked with that racist mf. also i absolutely love that cliche where there's only one bed like damn😩 AND HE CHOSE TO SLEEP ON THAT BRICK FOR HER?? HE THOUGHT SHE WOULD MIND?? OUCH💔💔

i LOVED the new characters🍻 wait- i fucking forgot her name BUT I LOVE HER🤘🏼 loved how she gave mc some advice 🫂 she's super sweet AND funny (reminds me of someone🤭)

when mc asked yoongi to sleep on the couch. THERE'S NO NEED FOR EXPLANATION BUT MY HEART DIED.

i was so happy cause i knew something would definitely happen on that bed. I MEAN TWO HOT PEOPLE WHO ARE ATTRACTED TO EACH OTHER OBVIOUSLY THEY WOULD FUCK🫶🏼🫡

here i knew why you said she's stupid 😭 LIKE GIRL OPEN THAT MIND OF YOURS PLEASE WE'RE DYING HERE

"You make me so fucking hard. Dreamt dreamt about fucking you in this bed." WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK??? MIN YOONGI CALM YOUR TITS WE'RE TRYING TO LIVE HERE😩😩😩😩😩

so fucking hot and respectful 😩 y'know idk when that happened but when you kept mentioning everything with "fictional" or "fiction" the other day THERE WAS NO NEED CAUSE THERE'S NO REAL MAN LIKE THE MIN YOONGI🤏🏼😊 i mean that "Can I go raw again?" made me come (kidding) 😜

who. is. ruining. who. WHAT???? I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO BREATHE AGAIN🥲 em i love you but please have mercy on us🫶🏼

yeah i discovered i have a voice kink after this part🫱🏽‍🫲🏼 i remembered that one yoongi live IYKYK with that orange hair damn😩💥

this scene actually killed me multiple times in a RAW see what i did there?😜 ahhhhh sooo goooddddd

ummmmm so he didnt win a grammy😭 i mean i love being right😜 idk why but i kind of loved the idea of him not winning😭 WE GOT CUTE SCENES PEOPLE!!!

ok, the disappointment he felt was truly heartbreaking for all of us👀 and if you ask me him not winning makes sense actually 🥲 but then they got wayyyy too drunk and y/n could witness agustd's tongue technology 😩 they sang and danced with each other💔🫂

damn em. THIS HIT HARD

the thing i absolutely adore in your writing is that in can be so relatable? it's sad but it's true🤍 for some reason it's comforting to me, your writing comforts me💜💜 i've noticed that in many of your books especially TSOYB (i'm so proud of you btw) AND I LOVE YOU FOR THAT 💜💜💜💜

SMOOTH LIKE BUTTER. BUTTER COULD NEVER. wait did that just rhyme??

i can't insert more photos unfortunately but the last photo is of his confession😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 IT MAKES SENSE NOW. IT ALL MAKES SENSE. they way he talked about jungkook and when he told her to date him was not him mocking or making fun of jungkook he was in love😭😭 i did NOT see that coming 🥹🥹 the fact that he was the one who confessed first has me screaming, crying, throwing up AND CURLING MY TOESSSSSS AHHHHWIDISBXISHSUXH

AND PLEASE WHEN HE SAID "STUPID" ?? BABY WE'RE ALL STUPID FOR YOU YOU DUMB SHIT

we got the best wet dream, soft yoongi, SQUIRT GOD MIN YOONGI, new lovely characters, one of the best smuts AND A FUCKING CONFESSION.

don't get me started on when she started to cry and when he thought he fucked things up cause i almost cried so hard🫶🏼💜💜💜

WHAT A MASTERPIECE 💜💜💜💜💜

thank you so much babyyyy for this!!! it's so well written and i can see you're improving so fast!! 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼 i absolutely adore you and your writingssssss MWAHHHH

hi sarahhhhh 🥺 thank you for taking the time to send such long and lovely feedback ahhhhh! it always means so much to hear what parts stick out to someone and why 💜

GAH the stupid black text on the screenshots 😩 tumblr why did u paint my whole fic black for no reason..... why is this website broken lmao. i fixed it now but i'm still mad about it hahdskjfdfg ANYWAY

LOLLLLLL airplane sex dream we had to do it 🤪 hopefully she wasn't loud enough for anyone else in first class to hear 🙈 but also if yoongi had heard maybe he would've realized she was down to share the bed 🤣 but he did instead take the brick!!!! it's funny for someone who has been labeled an asshole for the entire series, yoongi actually cares quite a lot about consent at basically every point of the story, and is always like.... overly cautious abt not overstepping boundaries 🤭 wonder when reader will catch on 👀

tiffanyyyyyy my girl 🥰 and not you comparing me to her GET OUTTA HERE that's too nice 🥺 sometimes the most honest/sweetest conversations happen with a girl you just met in the bathroom lmfao, it's like the rules of feminism! we look out for each other 😘

OPEN THAT MIND OF YOURS WE'RE DYING LMAOOOOOO..... i'm dead 💀 she really can be so dense sometimes like HELLO.... 2+2=4 MA'AM..... LET'S GET IT TOGETHER.....

eeeeee i'm glad you enjoyed the smut 🥵 i love writing these two together especially now that it's started to get softer (but just as dirty 😩 need me a min yoongi like this lmao)

ohhh thank you for calling out that yoongi line bc it's one of my favorite bits 🥺 him actually being nice for once instead of laughing at her for not figuring jk's crush out sooner..... bc he does get it (AND TALK ABOUT WANTING TO AVOID AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH HELLO..... THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE LMAO) and i'm so honored that you find my writing relatable and comforting!!!! that really means the world wow 🙇‍♀️💜

THE CONFESSION 😩 AND YES YOU GET IT!!!!! he feels like jk is the more obvious/better choice for her bc mans has no self esteem 🫠 and even at the end we can see him starting to worry about if he should've told her or not.... somebody come get this man and tell him he's a prize!!!

thank you so much for reading sarah my love 🥺 i'm so glad you're enjoying this series and these twooooo, i love them so much and can't wait to show you what's next!!! 💜

#sarah-217 #mbox 📮#fic review #look down on me like that #LDOMLT spoilers #queue what you want ㄱ -ㅅ-ㄱ

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unbridgeabledistances · 4 years ago

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ian + mickeys neck (was thinking of the drunk ian fic and wondered if you would be interested in pursuing this idea further?) <3

anon i am CRYING thank u so much for this!!!! i have been feeling like i need to make my contribution to the “mickey’s neck” discourse for a while lmao and this is my opportunity (esp bc ian holding mickey in the 11x12 stills wrecked me)

in the spirit of following up 11x10 i decided to write this based on an amazing post @mickey-millagher made/a prompt that @pombby sent me about ian teaching mickey to swim at a public pool during lockdown at some point early s11- i hope u enjoy<3

(this is the tiniest notch steamier than what i usually write but it isn’t smutty fyi- tw for descriptions of choking😌)

There was no one at the park— the air hung heavy and humid over the empty picnic tables and wooden benches that punctuated the fields of dying grass. As much as people on the Southside were definitely not taking any part of this lockdown shit seriously, it didn’t surprise Ian how silent the public park was— there was still a scarcer number of people out on their stoops or lounging on street corners this summer. Ian guessed that the few people who didn’t think that this was a hoax realized that this COVID shit was serious enough that they couldn’t afford healthcare if they got it, or whatever— but regardless, that meant that this Southside summer was weirdly stagnant somehow, and felt different from the noisy and crowded rhythms of summers past.

It was the late morning, just as the air started heat like a convection oven as the sun rose over the skyline— and Ian had his heart set on teaching Mickey to swim today. The conversation had come up last night at dinnertime, when Debbie was complaining about the heat wave— and they had all started reminiscing about the rickety, tin-sided pool they used to put up in the backyard years ago until Carl had taken a hatchet to it when he was 11 when he was trying to tear it down. Sitting next to Mickey at the kitchen table, thighs pressed where their chairs were scooted close together, Ian had suddenly remembered his words from their road trip to the border, years ago now:

“You could try swimming across the border.”

“I never learned how, man.”

And he’d immediately opened his mouth, not catching the words before they moved from his brain to his mouth, and asked Mickey in the middle of the dinnertime chatter: “Hey Mick, did you ever actually learn to swim?”

It was funny, and arbitrary, and stupid; they were married now, but for some reason this small fact about Mickey, the fact that he used to not know how to swim and by now he might have learned without Ian’s knowledge, made something warm pool in Ian’s stomach. He’d known Mickey, and had been itching to be closer and closer to him, for a full decade—and there were still so many things that he didn’t know. And this was proof, this question that Ian still didn’t have the answer to about some weirdly fundamental aspect of Mickey’s identity— he was always going to want to keep asking things about Mickey. And he was always going to get to.

Mickey had looked him with daggers in his eyes, then flickered a defensive glance at all the smirks growing on Ian’s siblings’ faces. “Fuck you. I was doing plenty of other shit in Mexico, didn’t really get the chance to lounge on the fucking beach.”

Ian had reached under the table and placed a hand on Mickey’s knee—a peace offering, an apology for whatever Mickey-can’t-swim quips Carl and Lip would inevitably think up as a low blow the next time they all butted heads at breakfast time— but as the chatter about backyard pools and heat waves continued at the dinner table, Ian felt an idea stirring.

Which is why the next morning he’d woken his husband up by pressing a tender kiss to his jawbone, both of their skin damp and clammy from the heat in the stuffy bedroom, and whispered into his neck:

“I wanna try something today.”

Mickey’s mind had immediately veered in… other directions, his eyebrows raising in vaguely disappointed disbelief when Ian had explained his idea to go to the public pool and teach Mickey to swim with an exuberant grin on his face; but after some very enticing morning persuasion that had a lot to do with the fact that Mickey was still half asleep while Ian had pressed kisses down his spine and dragged him out of bed and handed him a pair of swim trunks, now they were at the public pool in the nearest park at midday, with Ian leading the way and Mickey dubiously and sleepily straggling behind him.

Ian slid open the lock on the chain-link fence that surrounded the pool, the same pool that was usually crawling with groups of teenagers smoking weed and toddlers in floaties who were sticky with melted ice cream on a summer day like today. And maybe he was just all hopped up on nostalgia, but Ian was feeling cheerful— there was a lightness to the blinding summer sunshine, radiating through him as it pooled on his skin, that made him feel weirdly exhilarated and giddy about teaching Mickey to swim in this grimy Southside pool, just because he could.

“I still can’t believe you never learned how to swim.” Ian said it over his shoulder as he strode through the gate, holding it open for Mickey.

Mickey just flipped him off, following behind him and setting down two towels and the 6-pack of beers he’d grabbed from the fridge as they’d shuffled out the door minutes before. Ian grinned. He knew the beers would be warm and syrupy in minutes—the air was muggy and humid, without any hint of a breeze for relief. Ian could already feel the sweat dripping down the back of his t-shirt; he peeled it off as he walked over the sunwarmed concrete towards the pool’s edge, crumpling the shirt and throwing it on top of the pile with the beers and the towels. Mickey was hesitant, not following Ian to the border of the water just yet.

“Seriously. I can’t count the number of times I was shoved into our bacteria-infested backyard pool when I was a kid. I’m pretty sure that Frank tried to drown me in there at one point.”

Mickey just shrugged noncommittally, his fingers slack around the bottom hem of his shirt and his eyes zeroing in on the pool of water. Ian thought Mickey would say something in reply— but the only sound in the air was the faint shouting of kids playing a basketball game the street over.

Holy shit. Ian had been so buoyant and excited about his nostalgia-fueled idea of going to the public pool on a summer day and teaching his husband to swim, dragging Mickey out of the house without a second thought, that he hadn’t realized it until now— Mickey was scared.

Ian swallowed down the grin that was threatening to overtake his face— one he knew that Mickey would immediately notice and hate, because he it drove him crazy when people gave him shit in vulnerable moments like this, when Mickey couldn’t do something. So instead Ian kept talking, hoping his chatter would loosen some of Mickey’s nerves.

“Didn’t you and your brothers ever go down to the other pool over on Trumbull?”

Mickey met Ian’s eyes then, raising an annoyed eyebrow. “Clearly not.”

And, okay. This was understandably bringing up some childhood shit. Ian tried to snap Mickey out of his head— he strode over to where Mickey was standing, a good six feet from the poolside, and snaked a hand onto the back of his neck, squeezing gently in what he hoped was a grounding and comforting touch that would drain the trepidation from Mickey’s defensive stance.

“One summer Debbie was so afraid of getting drowned at the public pool that she learned how to hold her breath for 4 minutes.” Ian grinned at the memory of Debbie dunking her head in a tub of water in the kitchen, making him and Lip time her. “Honestly, it was probably for the best you never went to the public pool. It was a shit show.”

Mickey scoffed, but the lightness was back in his eyes. “If I knew how to swim back in the day I probably woulda been the one doing the drowning.”

Ian barked out a laugh— and why did he immediately turn back into his 15-year-old self, with a god-awful crush on Mickey Milkovich, whenever Mick said shit like that? He pressed his lips into a smile, squeezing Mickey’s shoulder once more for good measure.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, king of the Southside. You ready to get in the water?” Ian’s hand trailed down from its grasp on Mickey’s shoulderblades, dropping to encircle Mickey’s wrist and guide him towards the water.

Mickey immediately recoiled, yanking his hand from Ian’s hold and taking a step back, squinting and holding up a hand to block the bright rays of sun out of his eyes now that he wasn’t standing in Ian’s shadow.

“Fuck d’you mean? I’m not just gonna fucking hop in there and drown. You gotta show me what to do.”

Ian grinned again, without being able to hold it back. He knew what Mickey was like when he was afraid of something— defensive and grumbly and avoidant to touch. He rolled his eyes. “Can’t really teach you to swim when we’re not in the water, Mick. C’mon.”

Ian walked over to sit on the edge, then slid his torso down into the pool. The water was lukewarm and tepid, barely providing any relief from the sticky air— but it felt nice. Ian let out a little breath of relief from the heat as he waded over to the shallow end. Mickey was still standing by the mound of the towels the ground, watching him warily. Ian raised his eyebrows.

“You coming?”

Rolling his eyes, Mickey aggravatedly pulled off his shirt, tossing it behind him— sunrays bounced off of Mickey’s pale skin, owing mostly to the fact that Mickey had barely left the house in the last few weeks because of their prolonged “honeymoon.” He slowly walked to the very edge of the pool and, in a movement that made Ian’s heart grow ten sizes, hesitantly dipped a toe into the water like a cat trying to paw at something. A corner of Mickey’s mouth flickered downwards almost imperceptibly, a worry line sprouting on his forehead.

“I don’t know, man.”

Ian breathed out a laugh. Leave it to Mickey Milkovich, shit-talking king of the Southside, to be afraid of the shallow end of a public pool. Ian reached out a hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, still smiling like a sappy motherfucker at his painfully endearing husband.

“C’mon Mick, just stand here with me first.” Ian was waist-deep in the shallow end, the water pressing against his upper thighs— he knew that at this height the water would be at Mickey’s waist, right where his swim trunks met his hipbones.

Mickey’s brows furrowed from where he was still perched on the concrete lip of the pool ledge, his two feet firmly rooted. “Explain what I gotta do first. To swim, or whatever.”

Ian blew out a breath, still grinning like an idiot. “It’s not that hard, Mick. You just gotta circle your arms and circle your legs. But you have to get in the water first.”

Ian treaded over, pushing through the water to where he could rest his upper arms on the edge of the pool beside where Mickey was standing, staring up at him with what he hoped was a convincingly pleading face. Mickey’s eyes were still fixated on the water, lapping at the pool’s edge from where Ian had rippled through it. And suddenly Ian had an idea.

With a teasing grin, he reached a wet hand out from the water and encircled it around Mickey’s ankle, splattering the concrete with drops of water. Mickey immediately jerked like an electric shock had jolted through his body.

“You gonna come in, or do I have to make you?”

Mickey tried to shake his ankle out of Ian’s grasp, but Ian had hold of him with an iron fist. Mickey leaned over and tried to swat at Ian’s arm without losing his balance on the pool’s edge.

“Cut that shit out right now, Gallagher.”

Ian just grinned, squeezing Mickey’s ankle like he was about to tug him in. “Come on, Mick.”

Mickey’s eyes widened and, just as Ian had imagined he would— he started to freak the fuck out.

“Ian stop that shit right now, I swear to god I will fucking murder you if you—”

They were at the 6-foot marker in the pool, right where it was deep enough for Mickey to stand on the very tips of his toes; and with this knowledge, Ian tugged at Mickey’s calf— causing him to falter, his arms circling like a cartoon character before he lost his balance and crashed into the water on his side.

Ian immediately placed his hands on Mickey’s hips, standing him upright before his head even fell under the water— but Mickey was still sputtering and splashing, like the drama queen that he was. Once Mickey regained his composure and realized he was easily standing on the bottom of the pool, his head bobbing just above the water, he swiftly splashed healthy burst of water into Ian’s face, the chlorine stinging his eyes and nose.

“Fuck you, Gallagher!”

Ian coughed at the water that had shot up his nose, but immediately splashed Mickey back—and then, because there wasn’t any way this whole pool situation was going to go anyways, he and Mickey were immediately engaged in a life-and-death splash battle, circling each other in the middle section of the pool.

Ian was laughing so hard he felt a stitch in his side— and Mickey was finally grinning again, water dripping down his cheeks and clinging to his hair. After a few minutes Ian threw his hands in the air in surrender, the water cresting at his shoulders.

“Truce!”

Mickey splashed one more surge of water at Ian’s chest for good measure, grinning like a kid in a candy store— then he took a step closer to Ian, eyebrows raised.

“Truce.”

Ian beamed down at him, pressing a quick peck to the top of his damp hair. “Sorry for throwing you in the pool.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“But in my defense, it had to happen eventually.”

Mickey shoved him squarely in the chest, taking a step back. “You ruined the fucking truce.”

Ian gave a smug smirk. “Do you wanna learn how to swim, or not?”

Mickey flicked another burst of water at him, just enough to cast a slew of droplets onto Ian’s cheeks. “Alright. Get coaching, Michael Phelps.”

Ian hadn’t really considered how he was actually going to teach Mickey to swim— but it couldn’t be that hard, right? He tried to think back to when Lip had taught him how to tread water, on an equally as sweltering day in the backyard pool, when the yard was packed with lawn chairs and drunk neighbors and smelled of ashy barbeque smoke.

“Okay. So you’ve gotta move your arms in circles, kinda, to stay floating. And your legs too.”

Ian swam over to the deeper end of the pool, just an arm’s length away from where he and Mickey’s feet could touch, and tried to demonstrate how to tread water. “I feel like the easiest way for you to learn is just by doing it. C’mere.”

Mickey looked at him reluctantly, brows furrowed again in an outward display of his bundled nerves. “No fucking way.”

Ian sighed in exasperation. “C’mon, Mick. I’ve got you. I’m not gonna let you drown, you can hold on to me the whole time.”

Mickey raised an eyebrow— but then hesitantly took a step towards Ian, the water reaching up to the bottom of his chin.

“Alright, good. Now step where you can’t reach and try to tread water like I did.”

Mickey stepped forward again, then started to circle his arms under the water— and he was doing great, for a second, before he seemed to get too in his head about the mechanics and started to grit his teeth.

“Little help here, Gallagher?”

Ian grinned and stepped forward. “Here, you can hang onto me.” He stood where Mickey could reach and grab onto his shoulders if he needed to— but Mickey seemed to regain his confidence, and was starting to steadily, if a little bit clumsily, tread water.

He kept it up for a while, until Ian could see that he was overexerting himself— waving his arms under the water with a little too much gusto, brows furrowed and his teeth digging into his lower lip in concentration.

“Mick, you’ve got it. Chill out for a sec.”

Ian reached an arm out, a branch for Mickey to grab on to— because he had been joking before, yes, but he really didn’t want Mickey to fucking drown— and when Mickey grasped onto it, Ian pulled Mickey towards him in the water, kicking backwards so they were suspended in the deeper end of the pool with Mickey clinging to Ian’s neck.

Mickey looked nervous as Ian veered them towards deeper waters, his eyes darting from side to side where they were floating, his fingers digging into the back of Ian’s neck— and Ian smirked at how freaked out he seemed, standing only a few feet from where they could both confidently stand on the tiled pool bottom. But Mickey didn’t resist, or try to propel himself back into the shallower waters— he let himself cling on to Ian, fingers interlaced behind the tops of Ian’s shoulders, as he kept them afloat. Ian laughed softly in a warm, wet gust across Mickey’s cheek. “You okay?”

He could feel the heat radiating off of Mickey’s body, squeezing up close against him— and Ian couldn’t help it, the wave of fondness that came over him as he looked down at where Mickey was pressed against his chest; trusting Ian to keep them above the water, trusting Ian enough to go along with his stupid plan to teach him to swim in a public pool on a random morning just because Ian wanted to. Ian couldn’t help but feel warmth in his stomach at this simple moment, at the two of them bobbing in the pool— at teaching his husband to swim, something Mickey’d never gotten to do as a kid but something that they had the rest of their lives to do together.

“Maybe we could teach Franny to swim next summer. If we have our own place.”

As he said it, Ian hoped that Mickey could see the flood of hopes that he had for them in his eyes— that he wanted a place with a pool, and a balcony, maybe a backyard, and maybe even a fucking garden—he’d always wanted to grow tomatoes. More than anything he wanted to build something sturdy, that could stand up to whatever ground would inevitably shift beneath them in the years to come— he’d been thinking about that a lot these days, especially with all of the pandemic shit that had pulled a rug out from under this entire neighborhood.

Mickey’s gaze flickered up from where it had been boring a panicky hole in Ian’s sternum, meeting Ian’s eyes at the phrase “our own place”— and Ian instantly knew that he got it, that he could see the dreams that Ian was building for the two of them right in front of their eyes. That after months and years of obstacles and chaos and other voices infiltrating their heads, now it was just them— now it was just Ian and Mickey, clinging to each other and drifting through the calm, chlorinated waters.

And maybe it was their proximity, or the intensity Ian knew he was pouring out in his gaze, but instantly the air between them shifted as Mickey looked up— starting to hang heavy like the press of the humidity in the air. Their faces were centimeters apart— and Mickey’s lips parted slightly, his eyes now cast downward at Ian’s lips. Ian could smell the sweet, warm beer on Mickey’s breath, mingling with his own; he looked at Mickey, whose arms were still wrapped around his neck, water dripping down his face from the hair that was fanning over his forehead—and Ian just had to pull him in, had to place a hand in the damp hair at the nape of Mickey’s neck and tug him closer, backing them against the tiled wall of the pool.

Ian could taste the faintest bitterness of chlorine on Mickey’s lips, from the water droplets lingering there, as he took Mickey’s bottom lip between his teeth. Mickey’s hands were still limply wrapped around Ian’s neck, keeping himself afloat— even though Ian had backed them against a wall in the shallow end of the pool again, and Mickey could probably touch his toes to the ground if he wanted to.

Ian raised his hand from under the water, wanting Mickey closer— he pressed a hand to the side of Mickey’s neck, slick with water, and slid a thumb over Mickey’s collarbone, pressing down with the pad of his fingers.

And Mickey gave a little involuntary noise from the back of his throat, sending a jolt down Ian’s spine.

Ian’s hands circling Mickey’s neck was definitely not a foreign concept while they were kissing— it was something they did a lot these days, especially as their hours in bed had taken a turn from the crazed, I-missed-your-body-so-fucking-much sex they were having in the beginning days of being in prison together and those early months after Mickey had gotten released— but both in prison and during this fucking quarantine, they’d gotten a bit more experimental, and a bit more reckless—especially before Ian had gotten his warehouse job and they were still on their structureless “honeymoon,” spending entire days lounging in bed.

It was those days of lazy, languid kisses, after years and years of already knowing each other, that Ian realized that he was maybe a little bit obsessed with Mickey’s neck. He’d always joked about liking Mickey’s legs, and that was true too (if he was being honest, there wasn’t a part of Mickey’s body that didn’t make his blood run hotter)— but the first time Mickey had grabbed Ian’s hand and put it up to his neck while they were tangled together, pressing down until Ian’s hand covered most of his throat, Ian knew that they’d opened Pandora’s fucking box.

By this point, Ian’s hand was pretty much always on Mickey’s neck at some point while they were fucking or even just making out— if he was being totally honest, Ian’s hand was on Mickey’s neck more often than not in lots of contexts these days, once they realized how much they both loved it. But there was something about this current moment, of Mickey wantonly desiring a point of contact there, right now, while they were very randomly and decidedly making out while floating in a public pool on a lazy weekday afternoon, that made Ian’s blood run hotter than usual, and rush quicker through his veins.

Ian let the pads of his fingers creep up the velvet skin of the side of Mickey’s neck, pressing a little deeper, a prelude— he could feel the vibration of Mickey’s heartbeat starting to flutter from where Mickey was still pressed against his chest, still clinging to his neck in the water.

They’d already extensively discussed limits and everything, Mickey would tap his wrist twice if shit got too intense— but even with that in mind, Ian pulled apart from Mickey for a second, trailing ghosts of kisses up the side of his neck and nipping at the underside of Mickey’s jaw. Mickey stretched his neck back and gave a little involuntary sputter of a moan, bubbling out of his mouth before he could stop it. He fisted a hand in Ian’s hair, at the nape of his neck, and leaned forward again to press their lips together with more fervor.

Ian pulled back again, his upper back resting against the concrete lip of the pool. Mickey looked disheveled and wrecked, half-dry chlorine-crusted hair sticking up from where Ian’s other hand had been cradling the back of his head, his blue eyes gleaming and catching the over-bright summer light. Mickey was still clinging his arms around Ian’s neck, holding on— they were in a fucking pool, and Mickey still couldn’t really fucking swim yet— and even though they were standing in a place where Mickey’s toes could certainly touch the ground, the whole thing felt weirdly insular and intimate, like they had to cling to each other.

Mickey raised his eyebrows at Ian, like he was daring him to keep going.

Ian leaned forward, breathing heavily into Mickey’s mouth, but not pressing their lips together yet—and he reached a hand up again, against Mickey’s tender skin. Mickey’s legs were wrapped around Ian’s hips now, locked like a vice to keep himself upright in the water— and he pressed a little harder, gently pulsing at the sides of Mickey’s neck, in tandem with their lips pressing together over and over again as the warm waters surrounded them—the whole thing, the whole combination, made Ian feel indescribably floaty and weird and warm and blissed out; his skin stinging like ice and fire at every point of contact, electricity zapping his nerve endings wherever his fingertips met Mickey’s skin. Mickey fisted his hand harder at the back of Ian’s hair, nodding slightly—and they were definitely not going to fuck here, in the filth of a Southside public pool, but this insular closeness, the knowing what they both wanted to right now, was equally as thrilling and fulfilling to Ian in the moment. He could almost feel his own heart beating, reverberating as it pressed against Mickey’s chest, vibrating straight through Mickey and back to him as they clung to each other in the water.

Mickey’s body was thrumming, letting out little gasps of breath between kisses and touches—and Ian pulled back and dragged his lips down the side of Mickey’s neck, inhaling the sunwarmed skin. Fuck. He was never, never going to get enough of this.

Later, they’d dragged their water-heavy limbs back through the still summer streets to the Gallagher house, their skin pink and their bodies exhausted from soaking up the sun— and they’d collapsed into bed, feeling the dried chlorine coating their skin.

Ian reached a hand up, rubbing a thumb over Mickey’s cheek, their bodies pliant and fatigued— and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“Thanks for letting me teach you how to swim.”

Mickey had smirked. “Yup, that was definitely the only highlight of today. Swimming.”

#a fluffy premise AND ian being obsessed with mickey’s neck??#what more could u want #*blows kiss to elias and stella* for u #also yes i did have a word document on my computer titled ‘neck fic’#what about it #ty for the prompt anon this was truly an experience to write #ily<3 #gallavich #gallavich fic #shameless #shameless imagine #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian and mickey #ian x mickey #ixm #gallavich fanfiction #cw choking

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