#like if sonny finds this somehow i will simply Die

[lokislytherin]

PSYCHO.

pairing: yandere student council president!sonny brisko x vice pres!reader

summary: sonny brisko is adorably loyal, attentive and loving, which makes him the perfect boyfriend... right?

word count: 1166

a/n: taichou saiko? no, only taichou psycho. to all briskadets freaking out over this exact moment (gut spilling zatsu yandere moment), this one’s for you! 

fic title from 'psycho’ by red velvet, and banner made by me (unbalanced divider also made by me lol art is not my strong suit and i didn’t have a ruler)! hope you enjoy! wrote it in lower case to fit the Sonny Brisko Aesthetic 

disclaimer: this fic is for your indulgence! reblogs are nice and if you recommend it on twt i’m fine with that too (as long as you tag me so i know) but please PLEASE don’t post it under any official tags 

today marks the one-month anniversary of your relationship with sonny brisko.

you still can’t quite believe it, to be honest. to think the two of you started off as the bitterest of enemies through the entirety of grade school (he ate the ant you helped cross the road! how dare! you overcame your fear of insects for that!), then desk-mates and grudging friends as you went through middle school, and by the time the two of you reached high school, you could no longer deny that he was your best friend.

even if he ate ants.

at some point in time, you developed feelings for him. 

it was terrifying, trying to straddle the line between ‘just friends’ and ‘hey i’m trying to test whether you feel the same, goddammit’.

things became even harder when he asked you to run in the student council with him, him as president and you as vice president. you spent hours and hours together, coming up with ideas, planning, rehearsing, convincing. 

you fell more and more for him as you watched him grow out of his shell, becoming a leader people would look up to and admire. he was better at leading the crowd than you were, although you were better at one to one conversations with people than he was. people found him intimidating to talk to individually, but your persuasive words and gentle demeanor swayed them onto your side.

against all odds, the two of you won, solidifying your positions. 

to celebrate, he invited you to an arcade to play games with him after school. just you and him, in an old-school arcade, with nobody else but the old guy manning the store and the weirdo playing pac-man a few meters away.

he watched you kick his ass and beat his high score in a shooting game, and told you without hesitation: hey, y/n. i like you. i’m pretty sure you like me too. so can we call this a first date?

at the time, you’d been too stunned to do anything but agree.

one tentative date turned into two, turned into you and sonny secretly holding hands under the table during student council meetings, sharing quick kisses in between classes. 

every now and then, you catch him staring at you intently. when you tease him about it, he flushes, looking away with a i can’t help it, y/n. you’re so cute. and cool. i like you.

that gets both of you flustered, giggling to clear the air.

the past few days, you’ve seen him come into school with cuts on his face or bloody knuckles. it’s nothing new, technically, you’ve seen him with bruised fists before, but it worries you.

he tells you it’s nothing. he’s a boxer, he just trained a little too hard and didn’t realize he hurt himself. 

you bandage up his wounds. “silly sonny, take better care of yourself, yeah?”

he grins, slightly crooked. “i mean, if you’re going to kiss me better every time, i might actually get hurt more.”

you boop him in the nose. “next time you get hurt, i’m not going to kiss you. how about that?”

he pouts. “nyoooo!”

god, he’s cute.

jump forward a few days later, you’re discussing meeting plans with the school council secretary. “how about we discuss this further over lunch later? my treat, if you’re interested?”

you’re about to politely decline when the secretary flinches violently. “on second thought, um, i think it’ll be better if we continue this tomorrow. i’ll. um. talk to you later!”

he flees the meeting room.

you would say it’s strange, if you didn’t see sonny standing in the doorway with the most frightening glare on his face.

he wipes the frown off instantly once the secretary is gone, but his dark expression stays. you’re so stunned you don’t even notice him lock the door behind him.

he walks towards you slowly, purposefully. almost predatory.

your mouth opens and closes, but you can’t speak, like you’ve been muted by the overwhelmingly threatening aura sonny is exuding.

the dark look in his lilac eyes makes you feel like you’re being hunted.

before you know it, he has you backed into a corner. his fist slams into the wall next to your head. you don’t know when you started shaking, but here you are, trembling like a leaf, sonny towering over you.

“don’t talk to any guy but me anymore, okay? i only love you, and you must only look at me. you understand?”

he’s so close, you can’t look away even if you wanted to. “y- yes. sonny.”

he smirks, his free hand cupping your cheek and stealing a kiss that leaves you dazed and breathless. “good.”

sonny steps away, and it’s like all the energy from before had disappeared without a trace. “haha, sorry, y/n. i guess i’m just a little insecure. anyway, wanna go for lunch?”

“sonny brisko, what the fuck is up with you today? that was really scary!” is what you want to ask.

but what comes out instead is “sure! sushi and negi, right? i’m in the mood for some aburi engawa.”

OMAKE: A FEW HOURS BEFORE SONNY ASKED YOU OUT...

sonny stepped into the alleyway behind the school, hands in his pockets. two other boys were standing there, smoking and laughing to themselves. 

he greeted them with a smile. “so, i heard you were talking shit about my y/n.”

“oh fuck,” whispered one of the two boys, dropping his cigarette, “it’s the commander! shit, man, i’m sorry, i’m taking it all back! i said nothing about your crush!”

the other boy laughed disbelievingly. “why are you so scared? he’s just some pretty boy, right? i bet we could beat him up easy, it’s two against one. i don’t believe in that commander bullshit.”

he tried to walk past sonny, but sonny stepped into his path, blocking the exit. the angelic smile stayed on his face. “i didn’t say you could leave.”

the boy sneered. “who are you to order me around? maybe you’re the head of the student council but you aren’t the boss of me.”

“tsk.”

sonny sighed, his lips curling up in a savage, deranged grin. he rolled up his sleeves, clenching and unclenching his fists like he was warming up. “i’m meeting y/n in a bit, so i better make this quick.”

less than a minute later, sonny stepped back out of the alleyway, leaving two bruised, bloody and unconscious bodies behind him. he whistled merrily to himself as he cleaned the blood off his knuckles. he couldn’t let you find out about his little side hobby, could he?

you’re the light of his life, after all, and he’d like to keep things that way. 

even if he had to slaughter the rest of the world for you to belong to him forever.

[shotgun--rider]

Daylight

 A Dean x Reader oneshot

Dean finds a letter addressed to him from Y/N, and finds a lot more in her honest words than he was expecting. 

Word count: 4100

Warnings: Brief mentions of blood, extraordinarily fluffy smut, Dean panics a lot

*Female reader, she/her pronouns used in Dean’s POV

A/N: This wouldn’t leave me alone, so here it is, and boy is it aggressively sweeter and softer than intended.

Dean tears open drawers with panicked abandon, hearing the crashing sounds of Sam doing the same to the other side of Y/N’s bedroom. There’s no time to worry about sending her research notes flying, about the haphazard pile of her underwear when he dumps her drawers on the floor. It has to be here. It has to be. 

“Dean, there’s nothing here!”

A glance over his shoulder shows Sammy’s eyes wide with the same terror that’s eating up his chest, her room looking like the aftermath of a hurricane and nothing to show for it.

“Damn it, keep looking!”

The image of Y/N doubled over the bathroom sink, choking up blood, is burned into his brain, and the knowledge that Cas is staying with her is the only thing keeping him here, instead of at her side. 

“Who the hell even got in here with a hex bag?” Sam demands, one of his arms snaking under the mattress desperately. 

“I don’t know, okay? We’ll figure it out later. After we save Y/N.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got nothing.” Sam’s hands fly up to his hair for a moment, turning a slow circle as his eyes rake the bedroom for anything they haven’t been through yet. “Dean, there’s nothing here.”

“There has to be,” Dean retorts shortly, running his hand along the upper shelf of the closet. He flat-out refuses to consider any other option in front of Sam, but his brain isn’t getting the message. It’s entirely too easy to picture her sprawled out on the tile of the bunker bathroom, blood staining her mouth with her E/C eyes staring up at nothing. And it’s not like he’s lacking in material for inspiration, having seen her in all manner of near-dead positions on hunts before, giving him a heart attack every damn time. 

But Cas has always been there to heal her, to brush his fingers against her forehead and melt away every life-threatening wound. And this time is infinitely more terrifying, because even an angel can’t just undo witches’ spells. Dean swallows hard, turning to attack the bedside table even though Sam had already dumped out the little drawer. 

“Dean!”

Dean’s head snaps up, almost tripping over himself trying to get to the doorway. “Cas? Cas, is she--”

The angel is suddenly in front of him, holding the familiar looking small brown bag. “It was in the library,” he says simply, catching it on fire with a simple flick of his hand.  His hand lands on Dean’s shoulder, then, smiling with a gentle look in his blue eyes. “She’s fine, Dean.”

Relief first, and then the familiar ache of guilt. There wouldn’t have ever been anyone coming for her if he hadn’t been the one to let her start hunting in the first place. Wordlessly, he throws his best attempt at a smile in Cas’s direction, turning back into Y/N’s bedroom. 

“Go check on her,” he tells Sam roughly, an unidentifiable catch in his throat. Y/N certainly doesn’t need him hovering around at the end of a mess he hadn’t even managed to fix. “I’m gonna clean up.”

Sam stares at him like he’d grown a second head. “You’re gonna...clean up?” he echoes. 

“What?” Dean shrugs, trying his best for an air of nonchalance. 

Sam just shakes his head, apparently giving up on his brother’s weirdness and following Cas back in the direction of the bunker’s bathroom. 

Dean clears his throat roughly, in a vain attempt to get rid of the lump that seems stuck there, and sighs. The bedroom is a complete mess, and, truthfully, cleaning it is the last thing he's interested in. Still, in the moment, it feels like a safer option than facing Y/N, so he bends forward, gathering up some of the scattered papers he’d knocked out of the closet. 

There’s a sheet of notebook paper on top of the haphazard stack when he taps it against the edge of the desk, trying to get them in some semblance of order. It’s folded in half, off-center, and would have been completely unobtrusive but for the scrawl of his name on the front, in her familiar handwriting. 

Dean pauses, setting the stack down on the desk and lifting the sheet slowly, glancing once over his shoulder out of habit before unfolding it. His face scrunches up in surprised confusion almost immediately, smoothing out into something that matches the gut-punch feeling in his chest as he continues reading. 

Dean,

I know you don’t want to hear this, but I needed to get it out of my head and put it down somewhere. I don’t know why I’m explaining this to you, anyway. It’s not like you’re going to read this. 

You break my heart, Dean Winchester. (I can hear you laughing, telling me to stop being dramatic. “It’s not a chick flick, Y/N.” Shut up.) You are strong and kind and selfless in so many ways, and you put yourself last to save everybody else and you always find some way to take the blame. But it’s not your fault, Dean. It’s not. You’re good enough, as you are, and the fact that you can’t see you the way we do breaks my heart. 

Everyone around you loves you so much, Dean--me, Sam, Cas, you’ve even grown on Meg. And you don’t have to save the world. I know experience would beg to differ, but I promise, you don’t. Not at your own expense and not by yourself, and it’s okay if the only person you can save right now is you. 

It’s okay to choose yourself. It’s okay to want someone else to choose you. And I promise you that you won’t hurt them, Dean. Seriously. You won’t. 

I hope you find something that makes you happy. And I hope I get to be there to see it. 

Love,

Y/N

Further down, the writing is  slanted and rushed, a desperate addition, an afterthought, maybe a prayer. 

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Let it go, Dean. There’s still daylight here, let it go. 

----

You’re in the kitchen when Dean walks in, in search of a sandwich and trying in vain to fend off Cas. “There you are,” you smile brightly at him. “I thought my closet might have swallowed you. Sam said you were cleaning up, I don’t know what possessed you to even try--” You cut yourself off, annoyance creeping onto your features as you reach up to knock Cas’s fingers away from your forehead for what has to be the fourth or fifth time. “Cas, I’m fine. But I am hungry. So move,”

The angel fixes you with a concerned look in his blue eyes. “I just want to be sure--”

“Cas,” you stare hard at him, unblinking. “Go do some research or something before you drive me crazy,” 

He leaves in a flutter of wings with an expression of mixed confusion and frustration as he vanishes, and you sigh, calling a half-sarcastic, “I love you!” to the empty room before turning your attention to Dean. 

“So, to be clear, the closet did not eat you,”

Dean’s mouth twists like he’s trying to smile but it’s gotten stuck somewhere. “Nah,” he says, his voice an octave lower than you were expecting. “Are you okay?”

You shrug, letting out a quiet victory squeak when you finally find where someone has jammed the loaf of bread, all the way in the back of the fridge. “Cas burned the hex bag, I’m good.” And to you, that’s all it is. You’ve been hunting for years; a little hex bag encounter is far from the worst that’s happened to you. And once you caught your breath and wiped the blood off of your lips, it was done. 

“I wonder if there’s a hidden health benefit to puking blood,” you muse absently, debating between mayo and mustard. “Like, they say crying is actually good for your skin, so…” 

Dean is staring at you with a pained expression, and you trail off, blinking at him. “What’s up with you?”

“You almost died, Y/N,” his voice still sounds rougher than usual. 

“Yeah.” You smile at him in a way that you hope is reassuring. “Kinda. But I didn’t. This is a typical Tuesday for us, Dean, what are you...” You let the question hang in the air, unfinished, as you study his face. “Oh, and don’t go thinking it’s somehow your fault. I know you,”

“Yeah, I...kinda got that,”

“What?” 

Dean’s hand reaches into the pocket of his jeans (which, incidentally, do amazing things for his ass) and then he’s pulling out a folded up piece of lined notebook paper and oh. Oh, damn.

His tongue slides out to wet his bottom lip nervously, and you have to make an effort not to watch like a hypnotized creep, and then he flashes you that smile that he sometimes tries on the diner waitresses. The one that says I’m trying to be confident but I’m actually awkward as all hell right now. “It, uh, had my name on it,” he says after a beat, offering it to you like he thinks you’re going to want it back.

Well, it was always for him anyway. Even if part of you wanted to shrivel up and die in embarrassment now that you knew he knew. “You can keep it, Dean. It’s for you.”

He sets it down on the table anyway, leaning one hip next to it and blinking like a deer in the headlights. “Y/N, I--”

You clear your throat. “I hope it wasn’t too awful. I don’t really remember what I wrote.” That’s kind of a lie, especially when it comes to the later two additions, but oh well. 

“No, it-it was good,” Dean’s hand twitches like he’s about to reach toward you, and he curls it into a fist instead. “When did you…”

The question trails off but you know what he’s asking. Blowing out a breath, you abandon your half-made sandwich and reach for the paper on the table instead, unfolding it and sliding closer to Dean. “I wrote this the night after the case at Sonny’s,” you tell him quietly. “I was so damn mad---you were a kid, Dean, you didn’t--” you shake your head, refocusing your thoughts. “I had all these thoughts running around my head and I knew I was going to end up screaming them all at you in the middle of the library one day if I didn’t put them somewhere. I didn’t ever expect you to actually read it.”

 You suck in a breath of surprise as Dean moves to stand behind you, one arm sliding around your waist. It’s entirely unexpected and sends a shiver at the contact running though your entire body, but somehow it feels natural. It’s as if some barrier between the two of you has broken with this letter, and you can’t find it in yourself to mind. By the time his chin finds its way to the top of your head, peeking down at the letter with you, you’ve relaxed into his hold, the solid warmth of him at your back. 

You tap the sheet of paper with one short fingernail, over the words you’d scrawled on repeat, echoing the prayer in your head. Hold on. “That’s from when we were looking for you. Demon you.” You can joke about it now, sort of, so you smirk, wishing you could see his face. “Your little summer of love with Crowley?”

Dean huffs petulantly and tightens his arms around you, and you can picture his pink lips turning into a pout. “It was not,”

��Uh huh, whatever you say,” 

Dean stays silent for a moment, absorbing the information and continuing to hang onto you, and then poses one last question. “What’s the daylight thing from?”

That one’s never going to be funny, and you exhale. “The Mark, after Charlie...you wouldn’t talk to any of us and I just wanted you to know it wasn’t all darkness, you know?”

Dean shudders on a breath behind you, and suddenly you need to see his face. He lets you turn around in his arms, now with the kitchen table against your back, and some bolder part of you slides your hands up to link behind his neck. His green eyes are shining with not-quite-tears as he looks at you, biting off words before he can start speaking. Finally, he settles on familiar ground. Teasing. “So I break your heart, huh?”

You smirk back at him. “Only when you’re stupid.”

He pouts, adorably, and you resist the urge to kiss it off of his face. “When you don’t accept that you deserve good things,” you clarify, leaning closer because Dean is like a goddamn magnet and what are you doing. “That’s just not correct.” The words are spoken a hair’s breadth from his lips, your breath ghosting over them, and Dean closes the gap a heartbeat later.

It’s a hesitant press of his lips on yours, feeling you out like he’s not entirely sure he’s going to be welcome here, and it still feels like being lit up on fire. You’re fully aware that five seconds of kissing this man has turned you into a goddamned cliche, but as you push up on your toes to kiss him back harder, you can’t bring yourself to care. 

Your enthusiasm is all the encouragement Dean needs, and you squeak against his lips as his hands find your hips to boost you up onto the tabletop, parting your legs for him to stand between them as his hand comes back up to tangle into your hair. His other slides up your thigh, thumb grazing over the inside seam of your jeans, and you shiver in spite of yourself. 

Finally breaking away to breathe, Dean moves down to press open mouthed kisses in a trail down your neck, pulling a gasp out of you. “Dean,” you murmur, your fingers raking through his short hair. “Dean,”

“Yeah, sweetheart?” The words are more a vibration against your skin than anything spoken aloud.

“I don’t--mmmh--want to be having sex on the counter when your brother walks in,”

Dean pulls back to look at you, all messy hair and blown pupils, and even though it’s what you wanted, you can’t help but already miss his touch. “Good point,” he rasps out, and before you have any time to react, slides his hands under your thighs to lift you off of the table and into his arms 

“Don’t drop me,” you manage, your ankles locking automatically around his back and your hands tight on his shoulders. “Please,”

Dean chuckles, low, and catches your mouth in a messy kiss that leaves you breathless. “Wouldn’t dare,”

Somehow, you both make it to the door with the gold 11 on it without running into any walls or any of the bunker’s other occupants, which is no small miracle, all things considered. Dean wrestles the door open with his other hand still supporting your weight, dropping you onto the mattress with a hungry look that says he’s going to claim every inch of you. 

You reach your hands out to him impatiently, wanting him closer, wanting to touch. You’re certainly not complaining about the view, but you’ve been looking at him for years. An annoyed noise comes out of your throat when he doesn’t immediately comply, instead smiling down at you with an expression that’s no less passionate, but somehow more gentle than a few moments before. 

Dean comes to sit on the edge of the bed, his hand tracing an aimless path up your ankle and calf, apparently ignoring the sizeable bulge in his own jeans. “Shh, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.”

He pulls you to sit up and peels you out of your clothes almost reverently, discarding them across his bedroom floor until you’re left in just the plain underwear you’d put on that morning, and you can hear his breath catch when he looks at you. 

Every other guy you’d ever slept with got both of you naked like it was a speed competition, treating the whole thing as purely physical. Which you supposed it was, given that every other guy you’d slept with had been briefly vetted over the course of a few beers and then picked up out of whatever bar you were in that night. Hunter-style hookups. No strings attached.

But Dean is looking at you like you’re something otherworldly, and while you’re not sure you deserve it, it brings a warm feeling to your chest that has nothing to do with the sensation of him licking his way over your breasts and down to the line of your underwear. He pauses there, his fingertips sliding just under the waistband, and looks up at you with those reverent green eyes for permission. 

“Dean, just hurry up,” you tell him, impatience running through your voice. You’re already flushed and panting, probably looking like a complete wreck spread out over his sheets, and he hasn’t even done anything yet. 

Then suddenly his tongue is licking a stripe directly over your cunt without any warning and an involuntary cry escapes you at the sensation. So much for not scarring anyone else in the bunker, you think wryly, and then all rational thought flees your brain as Dean slides a finger inside you, busying his tongue with rapid little flicks over your clit. “Oh god, Dean, fuck,” 

Your hand flies down to clutch at his head as he slides a second finger in to join the first, just enough sense left to remind yourself not to mindlessly suffocate him against your cunt. The sensation is overwhelming and still somehow not enough, keeping you right on the edge without sending you over, and underneath it all there’s still an undercurrent of gentleness that takes your breath away in a whole other way. “I can’t--please, I--” you pant out, no longer sure if you’re even making sense. 

Dean hums softly, the vibration running through you, and your hips buck up involuntarily in search of more friction. His mouth moves to suck your clit between his lips, his fingers curling inside you at the same time, and you fly apart with a shout, your head falling back and your entire body tensing through what has to be the best orgasm you’ve ever had. Not that you’re going to tell him that.

“Jesus, Dean,” you breathe out when you can see straight again. “Just...Jesus.” 

Dean chuckles softly, his lips and chin still glistening with your wetness, and he seems perfectly content in spite of narrowly surviving being squeezed to death between your thighs. A few more of your brain cells come back online, and suddenly you’re staring at him in puzzlement. “Why are you still dressed?”

He takes that as his cue to climb off of the bed and strip, and all of those damn layers end up making it a teasing show for you even if that wasn’t his goal. Dean shrugs out of the flannel first, then strips off the shirt underneath and unbuckles his belt. By the time he’s left standing in just his boxers, you’re unashamedly two seconds from drooling and he’s painfully too far away from you. 

Dean drops the boxers before coming back to kneel over you, his cock rock hard against his stomach. You’d never thought about a man’s junk as “beautiful” before, but it’s the word that comes to mind as you reach out to wrap your hand around him, thumb swiping over the tip and watching him shudder in response. Instead of letting you continue, though, he pulls your hand away, lacing his fingers in both of yours and resting your linked hands above your head as he leans forward to kiss you. 

It’s sweet, unexpected but perfect, and when he finally slides inside you, leaving you both gasping at the feeling, it seems dangerously close to making love. Dean gives you a moment to adjust to the size of him filling you up, only moving after your hips have rocked up into him, urging him on. 

Somehow you’d thought that being carried through the bunker, all tangled tongues and occasionally teeth, had set the stage for something wild. Or maybe that was just you projecting your assumptions of what Dean would be like in bed. And you had no doubt he could be, but this was...soft. Slow, no matter how much you tried to urge him faster, and you lost yourself in the slide of his cock, the rhythm of his body against you, the feeling of his hands holding onto yours.

He was watching you with an expression that was half lust and half love, the slow roll of his hips hitting just right inside you, and a low groan rips out of his throat when you tighten your walls around him. “Come for me, baby,”

Dean releases one of your hands to slip between your bodies, his thumb flicking over your clit in time with a sharper snap of his hips, and it shatters you. The slow build has you flying apart screaming, clinging to Dean like he’s the only thing left holding you together as your orgasm breaks over you in waves. 

He follows you over the edge a few moments later, falling forward to press his lips to yours with an expression of pure, blissed-out pleasure on his face. For a while, neither of you move, lost in the moment and not quite capable of higher brain function. 

Eventually, Dean pulls back to look at you with a goofy grin on his lips, pulling a startled laugh out of you at the expression, and you clean up and rearrange yourselves smiling like a pair of fools, which, you suppose, you kind of are. 

Afterward, you lay curled into Dean’s side, legs tangled together and your hand resting over his heart and his anti-possession tattoo while his fingertips trace random patterns over your hip. He’s the first one to break the silence, tilting his head to look at you with warm green eyes. He’s close enough that you could probably count the freckles dashed across his face, but he’s distracting you with words instead. “You make me happy,” he says, voice low, and you’re suddenly reminded of the last wish you wrote in that letter.

“Good,” you say stoutly, warmth ballooning in your chest at the words. Dean already looks awkward and slightly red at the little confession, though, and you’re not going to drag more emotions out of him. You lean up briefly, planting a quick little peck on his lips, and snuggle back down against him, just existing in your own little world for a brief, precious moment. 

----

Dean wakes up alone. Instinctive panic is choking him as he scrambles up, his still half-asleep mind wondering automatically if she’s safe, if something has gotten to her. 

Closer inspection of his bedroom floor would have shown him that wherever she was, she was wandering around without any of her clothes, and thus probably hadn’t gotten that far, but Dean doesn’t bother thinking that through. He shoves his legs into a pair of sweats that are slung over the back of the desk chair, almost falling flat in his rush, and bursts out into the hallway. 

His green eyes are wild and his hair is still styled with the aftermath of sex and sleep, and Sam’s startled reaction to seeing him tear his way into the war room shouldn’t come as a surprise. 

“Morning,” Sam says dryly, looking over his brother from head to toe. “Dean--what?”

“Have you seen Y/N?” Dean gets out through the panic that’s suddenly thick in his chest. 

“She’s outside,” Sam gestures up the bunker stairs to the door, shrugging in a way that suggests that all of this is completely casual. “Dude, what--”

Dean’s already gone, up the bunker stairs and out the door still shirtless and barefoot, and there she is. All of the knots in his stomach are washed away in an instant, looking at her on the bunker’s concrete front step. She’s safe. She’s okay. 

She’s just wearing his flannel, the material drowning her hands and falling to her thighs, and she’s barefoot too. She turns at the sound of him opening the door, coffee mug in hand, and her eyes light up when they land on him. “Look, Dean,” she says with a sunny smile, and he can breathe again. Y/N tilts her head to the sky, hair stirring in the breeze against her borrowed flannel collar, and she’s looking at the peach and purple sunrise painting the sky when she speaks. “Daylight.”

He’s looking at her. 

[set-phasers-to-whump]

“look at me”

prompt: “look at me” 

whumpee:sonny carisi

fandom: Iaw and order svu

hey several disclaimers - i have never seen the episode (18x07) i based this on, only gifs. idk what actually happens after the scene at the beginning so who knows if this could even happen in canon. i also have not seen a whole lot of the show, certainly probably not enough to get his characterization down at all. nonetheless the idea for this fic came to me like last week and then earlier today i wrote the whole thing in my head and decided i had to get it down. surprisingly i really like how it turned out but i have no idea if it is like. good for the show or not so. keeping it out of the tags and such :)

He thinks that he should probably pray. The gun is pressing into his forehead and his knees are aching against the floor and he knows there’s only one way this ends. But he can’t make himself pray and in fact can’t make himself do much of anything at all except stare forwards at the man who currently holds his life in his hands. Maybe he should try something - try and escape, knock the gun away, something. Because if he’s dying anyway, he might as well die trying to save himself. But he doesn’t move. Can’t move, maybe. He is going to die, and there is nothing he can do about it. He doesn’t want to. But the metal is against his skin, cold and unrepentant, and he is dying. It’s just a matter of when. 

Bang. 

He flinches, closes his eyes. His ears ring with the shot and he still can’t really think but he must be dead. Right? Except he didn’t think it would feel like this. Like his knees still hurting against the hard floor. Like something wet and warm on his face. Like him still breathing. 

He opens his eyes. 

There is so much around him. Movement and light and noise and his brain refuses to focus on any of it. He looks around and tries to work out whether he is still on Earth when a shape draws his attention and answers his question. 

It’s Tom Cole. He is lying facedown on the ground and there is a hole in the back of his head seeping red blood into the ground and his gun is still in his hand and he must be dead but he still has his gun, the gun that had very nearly killed Sonny, but hadn’t (because if he is dead, he’s pretty sure Tom Cole wouldn’t be here with him, so he must be alive). He reaches out and pushes it away and then sits back hard and stares at the dead body that is not his. 

Another shape approaches him, and he backs away out of instinct. But the shape stops moving, then bends down so that they are at the same level, and he recognizes it as Liv. He relaxes slightly, because if she’s here then he must be safe, but then he raises a hand to his face and wipes away the wetness and his fingers come away bright red with fresh blood and it doesn’t hurt but there’s blood on him and maybe he hadn’t gotten so lucky, maybe he really is dead, maybe - 

“Carisi? Carisi. Sonny. Can you look at me, please?”

Liv’s voice breaks through the ringing in his ears, and he slowly looks up at her. She smiles at him - soft, comforting - and he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t think, he can’t - 

“Breathe,” Liv says, and there’s a hand on his chest and he leans into a bit without really meaning to. He tries to breathe but he’s aware that he’s not really doing it right. His lungs feel tight and the air feels thick and choking and - 

“Look at me. You’re safe. He’s dead and he didn’t hurt you and I know it’s a lot to process but you are okay. Sonny. Can you look at me?”

He does. “You’re okay,” she repeats, and he nods, jerkily, and breathes just a little easier. 

“Do you wanna get out of here?”

He nods again. He really wants to get out of here. Away from the blood and the body and the voices of everyone else and the way that they are trying not to pay attention to him, trying to pretend like he’s okay, which he’s grateful for but also hates because he knows that they know that he’s not okay. And he hates that he’s not okay, because this shouldn’t be a big deal, right? He’s alive and not even hurt so he shouldn’t feel like this. 

But that’s all entirely too much to be thinking about right now, so he stops thinking about it and simply lets Liv pull him to his feet. For a second everything starts to spin and he worries that he’s about to collapse, but then the spinning stops and Liv’s hand is on his back, steady, supportive, and he doesn’t bother to try and pull away.

They walk slowly out to the car, and then he’s in the passenger seat and neither one of them says anything and he thinks that he kind of wants to lock himself away and cry and he kind of wants to scrub at his face until it bleeds, because then at least the blood on his face will be his own (he knows, now, that it’s Tom Cole’s blood - it has to be - and he wishes it wasn’t). But neither of these thoughts are very rational or helpful so he decides that mostly, he would like to sleep. Just sleep for a long time and forget that this whole thing has even happened. 

--

When they get back to the station, he shrugs off Liv’s attempt to help him out of the car. He feels bad about it, but she looks like she understands and she doesn’t look mad. She lets him walk back inside on his own, even though he’s sort of stumbling - he’s trying to focus on walking, but everything is just so much at once and it’s distracting and disorienting. Still, Liv lets him walk apart from her - he imagines that she knows that he needs this, needs to do this one thing. 

On the walk in, he gets a few curious stares and well-meaning questions (there is blood all over his face, after all), and he decides that actually, what he wants right now is to disappear, just sink right through the floor and never come back. At least then no one would be looking at him.

And then they’re in Liv’s office and she’s closing the door and he wonders for a second if she is going to yell at him. 

She doesn’t. He sinks down onto the couch and she disappears - he doesn’t know where to - and when she comes back, she is holding a washcloth, and she sits down next to him and places it in his hands. It’s warm and wet and he imagines that he is supposed to be doing something with it but he can’t make his hands work.

“Can I touch you?” Liv asks, and it’s not quite her victim voice, but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood, and he thinks he should hate it a little, but he doesn’t. He nods, and she takes the washcloth from him. 

“Turn towards me?” she asks, and he draws his right leg up onto the couch and turns his torso towards her. She smiles at him and takes his hands - he realizes that they’re shaking. He hadn’t noticed that before - and cleans them of the blood that he’d streaked across them earlier. 

She moves to his face when his hands are clean, and he can’t stop himself from leaning forwards into the warm and gentle cloth. He closes his eyes, and only opens them when Liv again asks if he can look at her.

The washcloth is gone now, and the dampness it’s left behind feels different than the blood had, but not different enough for him to be completely sure that the blood is really gone. He asks her, tentative, slightly aware that he’s probably being paranoid. It’s the first words he’s said since all of this, and Liv gives him a careful once-over, even though she must know he’s being paranoid. 

“It’s gone,” she confirms with a nod.

He nods back, satisfied with the answer, and then turns away, putting both legs back on the ground. He rests his freshly-clean chin in his freshly-clean hands and tries to think of something other than this but finds that he can’t. All he can think of is the gun and the shot and the body and the blood and above all, the fear, raw and intense and unwelcome and unyielding, and then there is a hand on his shoulder and Liv says, “look at me,” for what must be the fiftieth time that day. 

He turns and looks at her, and he isn’t really sure what he expects to see on her face, but it's definitely not the sheer understanding that he’s greeted with. It startles him for a second, but Liv keeps looking at him, and he can’t make himself look away, and then he breaks. 

He’s crying and he can’t stop and the tears on his face are warm and wet and feel horribly like blood, and he sobs, once, and then Liv is pulling him close and somehow his face fits perfectly against her shoulder, and he thinks that there are probably a thousand people who have had that exact same thought. She holds onto him, softly, gently, and he knows it’s so that he won’t feel trapped. He doesn’t. He feels safe, actually safe, for the first time in what feels like forever. Liv doesn’t say a word, and he knows that she will let him stay right here for as long as he needs. 

Eventually, he falls asleep, exhausted, still leaning against her shoulder.

thanks if you read this! i haven’t been this nervous to post a fic since i posted my first work to ao3 lmao. maybe that nervousness is justified maybe not. we will see. anyway like i said i have only seen a couple gifsets of the beginning scene and not that much of the show with him in it. this might suck. idk. 

[theparanormalperiodical]

31 Celebrity Ghost Stories You NEED To Read On Halloween Night (Or Any Time Of The Year, Screw The System)

*Puts on old professor glasses*

For generations we have been in awe of the celebrity.

*strokes beard*

For generations we have trodden their paths, followed their scents, and watched with wandering eyes exactly what they do - and all in the name of escapism.

Since the conception of humankind we have sought to understand what makes the rich and famous both rich and famous. Our philosophers decode mannerisms, our magazine editors calculate their every mistake, and the rest of us simply gaze up at the stars wondering how, why, and what we share in common with the glorified among us.

But you see-

*walks across the Ted Talk stage*

-they are just like us.

They make mistakes, they compare themselves to others, and yes, they even suck in their stomachs when trying on their new TopShop crop top and then shove it in the back of their sock drawer convinced their lower belly will always have too fat.

But even more than that, they have experiences with the paranormal.

*pulls up a chair and sits on it backwards cause for some reason people think it looks actually idk how people think it looks but whatever back to the imagery*

And so, on this Halloween night, we celebrate what brings us all together - no matter how much cash nor clout one has.

Shall we?

Miley Cyrus

During her 2009 Europe tour, Cyrus stayed in a flat in London - a flat that she claims was haunted.

"It was seriously so terrifying. It used to be an old bakery and they turned it into an apartment building, and I was having really crazy dreams and really scary things, and one night my little sister–it sounds crazy to tell you–but she was standing in the shower and all of a sudden I hear her scream.

I run in there and the water had somehow flipped to hot but it was still...It wasn’t like the water had just changed, the knob had turned but she hadn’t turned it and it was burning her.”

In the same bathroom Cyrus was convinced she saw a little boy sitting on the sink whilst she was showering. A series of other unexplained events took place until they delved into the family history of the bakery: it was passed down for generations from father to son. Cyrus believed she saw the last son to be left the bakery.

Cher

Turns out Cher doesn’t just believe in life after love but life after death, too.

The music legend herself is convinced that her late husband, Sonny, who died in 1998 is still making his presence known to her.

She claims his spirit has a habit of turning lights on to remind her he is there and often does this to her chandelier - even when there is no power.

“I love ghosts, I prefer ghosts to some people.”

Anna Nicole Smith

This late Playboy bunny was known for her bombshell sex appeal and scandalous career - but what about her forays into the supernatural?

"A ghost would crawl up my leg and have sex with me at an apartment a long time ago in Texas. I used to think it was my boyfriend, and one day I woke up and it wasn’t. It was, like, a spirit and it—woo! [miming a ghost flying from her bedsheets]—went up!

I was freaked out about it, but then I was, like, 'Well, you know what? He’s never hurt me and he just gave me some amazing sex so I have no problem.'"

When the interviewer asked her whether it was merely a dream Smith replied that it was happening every single night.

Kesha

Just like Smith, Kesha’s own experience with the paranormal is rather more sexual.

In her own words she went to the “bone zone” with a ghost.

"I don't know his name. He just started caressing me. It was a sexy time, it wasn't, like, sex."

Emma Stone

Back in 2014 Stone revealed on a late night talk show that the spirit of her grandfather often leaves quarters for her to find.

In fact, she claimed her family has a history of the small change - and its legacy clearly goes beyond the grave.

La Toya Jackson

Michael Jackson’s death is one of the most striking moments in modern history - but it turns out the King of Pop might also be the King of the Paranormal.

La Toya often claims she feels strong presences in the Jacksons’ childhood home and frequently shares about the supernatural activity coming from MJ’s old room. Many visitors, staff members, and family members have heard tap dancing coming from the room, even when they didn’t know who it used to belong to.

It was in this room that Michael would tap dance for two hours every sunday.

Susan Boyle

Boyle often recounts that she lost several members of her closest family within the span of a few short years and felt abandoned by her family. But in a 2011 interview she claimed she sees her mother’s spirit around her house, believing it to be a reminder from beyond the grave that she is not alone.

Megan Fox

"I was just in Mexico at my hotel and it was a bedroom, living room, bedroom...I had pre-ordered breakfast for 7:30, and at 7 a.m. I hear them come in with the table, I hear them pouring the coffee…

30 minutes later, at 7:30 I went in there, no table, no coffee, no food, no nothing, no one there. Door bell rings, I open the door, it's room service with my food...Brandy the nanny comes out later and says, 'Why did room service come at 7 when we told them to come at 7:30?' So you can't tell me I'm crazy, because two people heard it."

Ariana Grande

This paranormal enthusiast was visiting one of the gates of hell - Stull Cemetery - when she felt a sudden surge of negative energy around her. Flies suddenly appeared in the car and she smelt a strong odour of sulphur.

Both are symptoms of dark, demonic energy.

As they drove off she ‘apologised’ to the spirits for disturbing the peace and took a couple of pictures of the area before they left. She saw clear demonic faces in the image. When she tried to send it to her manager as proof of the strange goings on, the picture couldn’t be sent.

Why?

Because it was 666 megabytes.

Joan Rivers

This comedian’s old Manhattan apartment might be worth $28 million but it's far more famous for the supernatural entities within its walls than its price tag.

In one iconic episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories Rivers claims she even brought in a voodoo priestess to help a former resident, ‘Mr Spencer’, pass on.

Marilyn Manson

Just like Rivers, Marilyn Manson told his own paranormal experience on CGS. But his story had less spirits and more, you know, Satan.

Pressured by his peers into reading demonic incantations in a supposedly haunted basement, Manson claims he then heard demonic whispers around him asking if he believed in Satan.

Alyson Hannigan

Hannigan might be known for her Wiccan ways on the TV screen in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but her encounters with the paranormal aren’t just captured by our favourite streaming services.

Back in 2003 Hannigan claimed she lived in a haunted house - but she believes the spirit is friendly.  

“My friend saw him first one night. She said, 'I don't mean to alarm you, but I just saw a man follow us out of the house.' “

"Later that night I saw this silhouette of a man standing in the bathroom doorway. I was like, 'Sweetie, what are you doing?' I thought it was [fiance] Alexis [Denisof]. But then I looked and Alexis was asleep next to me.”

Nicolas Cage

Yes, the most memed actor in Hollywood has faced a series of paranormal experiences, too. In 2007 Cage purchased one of the most haunted houses in America in a bid to get inspired to write the latest horror novel.

He bought the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans, a house belonging to one of the 19th century’s most infamous serial killers.

Many believe the slaves tortured by Delphine LaLaurie still haunt the mansion. Perhaps Cage heard the wails and moans of her victims, or maybe he felt the demonic presence rumoured to have taken part in a murder of a tenant in 1894?

Demi Lovato

Lovato often makes mention of her beliefs in the paranormal - especially when it comes to her haunted house in Texas. She claims a young girl named Emily haunts her home in the South, and has even mentioned that she was a childhood ‘friend’ when she was growing up.

But this tale has to be the most terrifying:

"One of my friends, Tucker, came over one time and he asked, 'So your house is haunted?' I said, 'Yeah, just watch. Something will happen. Something always happens.' We started to watch a movie when all of a sudden a laptop in my kitchen started to play a movie also. It was a black screen before, so it was a question of who turned it on and hit play.

And after that Tucker texted a friend saying, 'I think this house is haunted, a movie just turned on by itself,' and there was a 'glitch' in his phone that kept texting him back the word 'definitely' over and over again. That happened about 30 times."

Peter Jackson

Jackson might be known for putting mystical and magical creatures on the big screen, but he’s seen similar things in real life, too.

"One night I woke up and there was a figure in the room. She was really scary—her face was like a silent scream. She glided across the room and disappeared into the wall." He told Fran in the morning and she said, "'Was it the woman with a screaming face?’ We had never spoken about it. 

She had seen the same ghost two years earlier. So I do believe in some energy, a spirit or a soul..."

Kendrick Lamar

From one famous rapper to another:

Lamar told Home Grown Radio that he had a dream about Tupac Shakur - a dream he believed conveyed a message from beyond. In the dream Tupac told him “Keep doing what you doing, don’t let my music die.”

Keanu Reeves

He’s one of the internet’s favourite celebrities - but what isn’t so famous about this Matrix star is his paranormal experience from when he was living in NYC.

"I'm probably like six, seven years old, we'd come from Australia. Renata, [our] nanny, in the bedroom, my sister is asleep, she's sitting over there, I'm hanging out. There was a doorway and all of a sudden this jacket comes waving through the doorway, this empty jacket — there's no body, there's no legs, it's just there. And then it disappears..."

The nanny saw the exact same thing.

Adele

Ghost nuns are not only on-trend but also terrify-ing. Adele can testify to that. In 2012 the singer moved into a plush Sussex mansion which used to be a convent.

A couple creepy noises later and she hired around-the-clock security to protect her against the paranormal activity. Who knows what she might’ve seen in her new $6 million home?

Matthew McConaughey

McConaughey claims his Hollywood mansion was haunted by an unhappy female spirit by the name of Madame Blu.

"I was not even under the influence and she was there. She wasn't that happy, it didn't seem like she was going to be much fun to hang around or have in my house, so I went ahead and stood my ground. I opened the door and said 'You can move around all you want but I'm not going anywhere.'"

"For weeks everyone that came to the house said the same thing: 'There's someone down in that hall, there's somebody down in that hall.'"

Ryan Gosling

Most of the celebs that made this list whip out their charming ‘lil spooky story to pique interest in their latest career venture. Gosling’s story, however, is actually pretty f*cking scary.

One day, in his childhood home, he saw a ghost of a young boy.

"He just sat. And I knew from a very young age that he was a ghost, too. He scared me. I told my mother, but she couldn't see him. Nobody could. And I learned to live with that. I had to…

Then, a few years later, [my mother] thought she saw him, then almost right away my cousin saw him, and then my uncle. And we were outta there in fairly short order."

Laura Linney

Linney is one of Hollywood’s most cherished actresses - and even on the stage she has witnessed something from the other side.

She became a believer in the paranormal after working in the Belasco Theater on Broadway.

"I had forgotten this, and I was doing a play with Jane Alexander, and I turned to Jane Alexander, and I looked up to the upper balcony—there are two balconies there—and the upper balcony you can only get in from the outside, and those doors were locked; and I looked up, and there was a woman standing in the front row looking over with a blue dress and blonde hair.

I just thought, 'Well, hello!' I looked back at Jane, and I looked back up, and she was gone. I went to the house manager and I said, 'Joe, I think I saw a ghost.' And he went, 'male or female?' I said, 'female.' And he went, 'blue dress, blonde hair?'"

Megan Mullally

Another famous ghost that haunts a famous face features on this list. But this time the paranormal activity described by Mullally is certainly the most tragic.

She claims she lived in a house haunted by the spirit of Nicole Brown Simpson who was murdered in 1994. She believes that only when her husband watched the American Crime Story series about her death did the strange occurrences (most of which were odd and unexplained sounds) settle.

Kristen Stewart

Only last year our very own Bella Swan opened up not just about her own experiences with ghosts, but her own spiritual connection with other people.

“If I’m in a weird, small town, making a movie, and I’m in a strange apartment, I will literally be like, ‘No, please, I cannot deal. Anyone else, but it cannot be me.’ Who knows what ghosts are, but there is an energy that I’m really sensitive to. Not just with ghosts, but with people. People stain rooms all the time.”

Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher lived an extraordinary life. She was one of the few a-listers to openly discuss her struggles with mental health and drug use before it became so accepted in mainstream society. Unfortunately, these topics would haunt her in a rather more supernatural manner, too.

Following the overdose of a friend sleeping next to her in her mansion, Fisher claimed she would often feel their presence around her.

"Lights would go on and off, and I had this toy machine, that when you touched it would say, 'F*ck you! Eat sh*t! You’re an asshole!' And it would go off in the night, by itself, in my closet.”

She later hired an exorcist to cleanse the house of the spirit.

Halle Berry

Whilst filming Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Berry would experience intense paranormal activity she believed was down to her dress.

A dress formerly owned by the woman titling the film.

"I'd come home and the housekeeper would say she'd heard my vanity chair moving upstairs in the bathroom. When the film was over, I desperately wanted to keep her dress, but it had to go. And then everything was fine."

Lady Gaga

Just like Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga has had her own dealings with the spirit of an icon. But instead of rap legend Tupac, she got the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

"Right after he died, I wrote 'Born This Way.' I think he's up in heaven with fashion strings in his hands, marionetting away, planning this whole thing…

I didn't even write the f*king song. He did!"

Melissa McCarthy

Comedian Melissa McCarthy revealed in 2016 that she believed in ghosts - and gave insight into where her beliefs came from.

"I grew up on a farm and I didn't have any real friends,

I have a very strong belief that people are out there, because I was certainly talking to someone in those barns. Otherwise I'm just crazy. I really strongly believe in ghosts."

Jessica Alba

In 2008, Alba told US Weekly about her own encounter with the paranormal when she was a child.

“I felt this pressure and I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t do anything

Something definitely took the covers off me and I definitely couldn’t get off the bed, and then, once I did, I screamed, ran to my parents’ room and I don’t think I spent many nights in that house ever again.”

Jenna Bush Hager

The White House already has a reputation for its paranormal activity (Abe Lincoln often makes a reappearance during times of crisis) and this former first daughter has evidence to support such a claim.

"I was asleep, there was a fireplace in my room and all of a sudden I heard 1920's music coming out. I could feel it. I freaked out and ran into my sister's room. She was like, 'Please go back to sleep, this is ridiculous.'"

Lucy Liu

This Charlie’s Angel - like so many of the people included in this article - claims she had sexual relations with something supernatural.

“I felt everything. I climaxed. And then he floated away.”

Bella Thorne

"I was lying in bed when I saw a shadowy, silvery figure of an old woman creeping across my room, then it slipped into my closet…

I panicked and ran out of bed and swung open my closet door only to see she was in there. But she was gone. I was sure I had seen her ghost! It was really freaky."

Do you believe ‘em?

If you liked this post be sure to like, reblog, and hit the follow button! 

Got your own paranormal experience to share? Head on over to the peoplesparanormal.com to read real ghost stories and submit your own!

Happy Halloween, lads.

[rawresparza]

It has been a crappy past few days, and I turn out to be not very good at being supported and/or comforted. But I suspect I'm not the only one. May I please prompt you to show us Rafael learning to be loved by Sonny? I bet it wasn't easy for him. Please and thank you?

HI, anon! I’m so sorry you’ve had a rough few days and I hope things have at least started to look up. I totally understand what you mean because I have a hard time in that regard, too, and sometimes I still struggle with it. I definitely agree Rafael would, as well. I hope this is at least a little bit along the lines of what you were thinking and if not, I hope it’s still okay. May the rest of your week be brighter

–

Rafael has had a grand total of approximately seven hours of sleep, forty-eight hours of a migraine, and zero hours of patience over the last three days and if anyone would bother to ask, he’d say he’s very much fed up with it.

Well, no, that’s not true at all. A number of people have asked, Sonny has asked him so many times he’d lost count, and he’d only responded with increasingly gruff versions of “I’m fine.” Sonny knows damn well he’s not fine, he hadn’t been fine when the defense had dropped a surprise fucking witness on this case and he hadn’t been fine when he’d popped prescription ibuprofen for the umpteenth time, even though it hardly ever works to get rid of the pounding in his head.

But he can’t slow down, he doesn’t know how, that’s not in his blood. Always keep moving, keep busy, that had been his philosophy as a kid because it’d meant maybe, just maybe, he could avoid a bad evening at home or a run-in with some older boy or another he’d mouthed off to that day. Either way, slowing down would mean risking getting caught in someone’s snare, and coming up with new excuses for his bruises for concerned teachers or the school nurse or even the ER doctors was never worth the trouble.

Upon deeper reflection, he supposes one could make the argument that at this point in his life, he’s really just running away from the very thing that could help him: taking a break, taking a breath, letting someone take care of him. He’s just not used to that and seven months into this relationship with Sonny, Rafael is a little concerned he never will be. Comforting other people has never been his forte and he’s even worse when it comes to being comforted but that’s why he’s never made any real effort to make friends. He’d had Eddie and Alex and even Yelina as a kid; but with friends like them, why would he dare pursue anything like that as an adult? Getting close to people had only ever led to getting hurt, in his experience.

Sonny had somehow managed to evade the walls he’d carefully built up around himself over the past couple decades, Rafael has no idea how he’d done it. A few invitations out to coffee then drinks then dinner, that absurd Staten Island accent murmuring sweet nothings in his ear, a kiss on a rooftop with a half-decent view of the Manhattan skyline, these are all things that had led Rafael down the path to his own demise; that is to say, he’d let himself fall in love. He doesn’t regret that, he could never regret that, but sometimes, Rafael feels like maybe he doesn’t deserve it.

This is one of those times.

With Buchanan and his piece of shit client looking all kinds of arrogant on the evening news, Rafael’s mood has taken a turn from bad to awful. He’d popped another two ibuprofen against the advice of his boyfriend–

“Did you finally hit up Fordham for your medical degree while I wasn’t looking?”

–and now he’s feeling especially petty because Sonny had been right, he shouldn’t have done it, especially not on an empty stomach. He’s had seven coffees and half a stale granola bar he’d found buried in his office desk drawer today. When Sonny had asked what Rafael wanted him to bring home for dinner, Rafael had lied and said he’d already eaten.

Why? He doesn’t know. Maybe he’s just always been a sucker for self-sabotage, old habits die hard. It’s easier to push people away than admit he could use the help.

He can feel Sonny watching him watch the news and it’s unnerving. His body betrays him, works against him, tenses up even though he doesn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he’s getting more and more irritated by the second, by virtue of the fact that Sonny is simply existing beside him. That isn’t fair, he knows that, but he also knows Sonny will earnestly try to offer any form of assistance possible and that’s the opposite of what Rafael wants. What he wants is to be left alone to wallow in his frustration, he wants Sonny to go back to his own damn apartment so he can get sufficiently buzzed off a few pours of the good scotch he saves for shittier days before hopefully getting another hour of sleep.

Instead, Sonny’s hand finds its way to the nape of his neck, fingertips playing with the ends of Rafael’s hair. It feels good. He’s not used to feeling good. Before Sonny, he’d barely remembered what it was like to feel at all. On better days, things between them are incredible, it’s like living in fantasy world compared to what Rafael’s previous, much more short-lived romances; but on days like this, he wishes he was still alone. At least he has the decency to feel bad about that, he supposes.

“You should turn that off,” Sonny says, tilting his head toward the TV screen. Rafael purses his lips, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening, but Sonny doesn’t heed the warning. “And you should eat something. Carmen told me she only saw you guzzling coffee during recesses.”

“Carmen’s not my mother and neither are you,” Rafael says. He doesn’t bother to hide his bitterness but Sonny doesn’t even flinch. It’s a little infuriating.

“No, I’m your boyfriend,” Sonny says patiently. Sonny’s fingers travel up over Rafael’s hair, webbing out over his scalp and pulsing just slightly at just the right pressure points. It sends a shiver down Rafael’s spine and his eyes flutter shut as a relieved sigh escapes him. “I’m your boyfriend, and I love you, and I really wish you’d just let me do something to help you. Feed you, hold you, tell you nice things, whatever. Anything.”

Rafael slowly blinks his eyes back open, still reeling a bit from how much tension has already left his body just from one gentle massage. But it’s not the massage, it’s Sonny. Of course it’s Sonny, it’s always been Sonny. “Okay. Tell me something nice.” It’s conceding without conceding, he’s really just testing the waters, but he turns the TV off anyway and his heart flutters in his chest when he’s met with a pair of dimples.

“I got the recipe for your favorite dish from your ma.” Sonny hesitates, studying Rafael for a reaction. “She said she used to make it for you when– well, when things weren’t so good at home. I’m sure it won’t be as good as how she does it but…” He trails off when Rafael straightens up in his spot on the couch, shaking Sonny’s hand from his head. “I’m sorry, did I overstep?”

Rafael catches Sonny’s hand before he can pull it away, shaking his head, a look of awe taking over his expression. “You called my mom? You did that for me?”

“You’ve just been so stressed out,” Sonny says, lowering his eyes sheepishly. “This case has been rough, I know, but you’re barely sleeping and I’m sorry, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life, but Raf, you seriously look like you might keel over any second. I just figured, if you won’t take care of yourself, I can do it for you until things get back to normal.”

Swallowing hard, Rafael considers Sonny’s words, turning them over in his mind, examining them piece by piece. It’s not a hard bargain Sonny’s driving, he suspects most people would be thrilled to have their significant others say something like that to them. It’s just that over the years, he’s developed a habit of being suspicious of those who extend kindness his way. He’s not proud of that but it is what it is.

Maybe it’s time he starts to unlearn that. Maybe it’s time he starts trusting Sonny not just with the good but with the bad and everything in between. It’s time he starts getting used to the idea Sonny isn’t going to run when things get hard

“It’s hard for me,” Rafael admits. “I’m not great at the whole asking for support thing.”

“No kidding,” Sonny teases, arching a brow.

Rafael’s smile reaches his eyes, genuine but brief before he takes on an air of sincerity again. “I want to be better at it. That might take time, but I want to let you in.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m very patient when it comes to gorgeous, green-eyed ADAs. Especially ones with really short fuses.”

“You’re going to take a dig at me while I’m opening up to you?” Rafael asks, huffing with mock indignance. Even as he does, he settles in next to Sonny, lowering his cheek to his boyfriend’s shoulder and smiling against the soft fabric of a Fordham Law shirt while Sonny’s arm drapes over his shoulder.

“To be fair, I complimented you in the same breath, so those clearly cancel each other out.”

They laugh together and it’s like the air has cleared. The room feels different. Sonny kisses his hair, and Rafael doesn’t even consider pulling away. He’s found an anchor in Sonny, a happy place in Sonny’s arms. Somehow, he’d stumbled into this, having no idea what to expect. Rafael had never imagined he’d be this fortunate.

“By the way,” Sonny says, “I picked up some kung pao and fried rice for you at the Chinese place we like. I’ll heat it up for you if you want it.”

God, he loves this man. With every last part of himself, Rafael loves Sonny more than he’d thought he had the capacity to love someone. It surprises him, every single day, the ferocity with which he feels for this one person because he’s never felt that with anyone else before. Sometimes he cringes at himself for throwing the word “soulmate” around in his head because that’s not like him, that isn’t a concept he’s ever believed in, but Sonny has a way of making Rafael believe in the impossible.

Tomorrow, when he’s back in court, he’s sure he’ll be pissy and snappy and anyone who crosses his path will suffer his wrath; but at the end of the day, he’ll remember he has this. He has Sonny.

That makes it all worth it.

[yes3blondesabrunette-blog]

Blog Post 1 ENH110

Melisa’s View-

             In the three short stories that we had to read, “A Hunger Artist”, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, and “Sonny’s Blues” each of the main characters are being made spectacles of in their own way. In the case of “A Hunger Artist” the artist himself is put on display to show everyone that he can starve himself, though he comes to find that the general public does not appreciate nor believe that he is really starving himself. In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the old man that lands in the front yard of the fisherman is actually an angel but when the townspeople and others come from different parts of the world to see him, they do not believe he is one due to his appearances. In “Sonny’s Blues” Sonny is isolated by the world and also by the people he is around. He wants to be a jazz player but does not want to be doing what every musician is-drugs. All three stories have a sense of isolation shown in them through their central characters.  

           Beginning with Franz Kafka’s short story “A Hunger Artist” the starvation artist is miserable with his life, because no matter how hard he tries to show everyone that he can do the act of not eating for longer than 40 days, people still believe that he is sneaking himself food during the night time. Even the watchers that are assigned to him during the night do not seem to believe that he is actually starving himself, and they turn their backs so they can let the artist eat what he wants, “nothing annoyed the artist more than these watchers; they made him miserable; they made his fast seem unendurable; sometimes he mastered his feebleness sufficiently to sing during their watch for as long as he could keep going, to show them how unjust their suspicions were. But that was of little use; they only wondered at his cleverness in being able to fill his mouth even while singing” (Kafka, 1). During the story, the artist only gets more frustrated, being the one who has decided to have a career as the one he has and not having a choice to change it due to his old age. He only wants the approval and appreciation of the public who comes to see him in his cage, but that is not something that he receives. With this, the artist only ends up pushing himself away from the world as “such suspicions, anyhow, were a necessary accompaniment to the profession of fasting. No one could possibly watch the hunger artist continuously, day and night, and so no one could produce first-hand evidence that the fast had really been rigorous and continuous; only the artist himself could know that, he was therefore bound to be the sole completely satisfied spectator of his own fast” (Kafka, 2). When the artist decides to join the circus in hopes of getting more attention, he is only left more disappointed, “when the public came thronging out in the intervals to see the animals, they could hardly avoid passing the hunger artist’s cage and stopping there for a moment, perhaps they might even have stayed longer, had not those pressing behind them behind them in the narrow gangway, who did not understand why they should be held up on their way towards the excitements of the menagerie, made it impossible for anyone to stand gazing for any length of time” (Kafka, 4). The artist makes himself more isolated from the world, both by putting himself in a cage, and by also getting angry with everyone due to their suspicions. In the end, he gets overshadowed by the panther, who everyone gets more interested in seeing.

           In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, the old man is found in Pelayo’s and Griselda’s courtyard, being described by both as “..dressed like a ragpicker. There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away any sense of grandeur he might have had. His huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud”(Marquez). When the neighbor woman informed them that he was an angel, they were in disbelief with the rest of the townspeople. At first “when they went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal”(Marquez). As soon as the old man enters, he is being isolated by being locked into the chicken coop. He is then not believed to be what he is, an angel. The people do not treat him like an angel because he does not look or act like one, in fact, he cannot even fly. Instead they “..threw stones at him, trying to get him to rise so they could see him standing. The only time they succeeded in arousing him was when they burned his side with an iron for branding steers, for he had been motionless for so many hours that they thought he was dead. He awoke with a start, ranting in his hermetic language and with tears in his eyes, and he flapped his wings a couple of times, which brought on a whirlwind of chicken dung and lunar dust and a gale of panic that did not seem to be of this world” (Marquez). The angel is not only isolated because of his being put into the chicken coop, but also because of not interacting or responding to the people. In the end, the angel gets overshadowed by the woman who was turned into a spider. However, he proves himself by surviving a cold winter, growing stiff feathers, and flying away. 

        In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator speaks about his younger brother Sonny. The narrator is worried about Sonny, his health, and his life decisions/choices. The two have been in and out of touch for some time, and the narrator comes to find out that his brother has been picked up because of a heroine addiction. This was brought into Sonny’s life along with his love for music, specifically speaking, jazz. The narrator and his brother have completely different lives, with him being an algebra teacher, and Sonny trying to become someone famous in the music industry. The narrator does not understand Sonny when it comes to his wanting to become someone in the jazz industry. He tells him that he needs to finish school and doesn’t pay much attention to his brother’s wants and dreams. He says, “I just looked at him and I was probably frowning a real frown by this time. I simply couldn’t see why on earth he’d want to spend his time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other around a dance floor. It seemed---beneath him, somehow. I had always put musicians in a class with what Daddy called “good-time people” (Baldwin). Sonny feels isolated in this story because his brother does not understand nor support his love for jazz. He wants to become someone but anytime they talk about it, his brother is questioning him. Sonny loves jazz but with it comes drugs, as people during this time frame are using heroine to intensify their performance. Sonny does not want to do drugs. In fact, he even tried to escape them by leaving home, specifically Harlem. He says, “I was all by myself at the bottom of something, stinking and sweating and crying and shaking, and I smelled it, you know? My stink, and I thought I'd die if I couldn't get away from it and yet, all the same, I knew that everything I was doing was just locking me in with it” (Baldwin). When Sonny came back he hadn’t really escaped, but he tried to. He still wants a life where he is playing jazz music, but at the same time he feels isolated from it. 

        In conclusion, all three stories have their fair share of isolation that is present in their own way. In “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” and “A Hunger Artist” the similarities are more obvious between the two. Both of the main characters are put on display for the general public. They are both made fun of, and not treated righteously. This can be a life lesson to speak up. The old man does not say anything to any of the people that throw things at him. He does not show them who he really is until the end, where he proves everyone wrong by flying away. The hunger artist does not have to keep his job just because of his old age, but even though he does he does not have to make himself angry because of people’s suspicions. After all, he is the only one who knows he is not cheating himself. He does not need everyone else’s approval. This could be a life relating issue because a lot of people seek the public’s approval, and they end up disappointed because everyone will always judge. “Sonny’s Blues” relates to real life situations by showing that even when you attain the fame, things do not magically get better. There are still troubles that a famous person goes through, their lives are not amazing just because they are famous. 

Alma’s view-

       To begin with, in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the central character being the old man, is made a spectacle of when he lands in the courtyard of the fisherman’s house. In Franz Kafkas story “A Hunger Artist” the main character, the starvation artist has put himself in a cage to show off his skills of starving himself only to not get the appreciation and recognition that he wants. In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” the character we pay most attention to, Sonny, feels separated from the world. He wants a career in jazz but can’t seem to not be a part of the drugs that come with it. In all short stories there is a sense of isolation that takes place, with each character being put to test by their specific audience or world.

      Starting with the story “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” the old man who is the main character is meant to be an angel who is found in the front yard of a couple’s house. However, he is not believed to be one because of the way he looks, “..he was much too human: he had an unbearable smell of the outdoors, the back side of his wings was strewn with parasites and his main feathers had been mistreated by terrestrial winds, and nothing about him measured up to the proud dignity of angels” (Marquez, 166). The angel is put on show in a chicken coop for everyone to gather around and see. There are people from around the world who decide to come see him. The townspeople and others “..tried to make him eat some mothballs, which, according to the wisdom of the wise neighbor woman, were the food prescribed for angels. But he turned them down, just as he turned down the papal lunches that the penitents brought him, and they never found out whether it was because he was an angel or because he was an old man that in the end ate nothing but eggplant mush. His only supernatural virtue seemed to be patience” (Marquez, 167). The angel is put to test by his audience who wants to see and know what he can really do. No one believes he is a supernatural creature because of his appearance and because of that they treat him poorly. The angel’s audience fades away when they turn their attention to the woman who was turned into a spider, leaving him be in his chicken coop.

      Continuing onto the story “A Hunger Artist” the main character, the starvation artist has decided to make a career by putting himself in a cage and showing everyone that he can starve himself for up to 40 days, or longer. He is already isolating himself from the world and his audience by starting out with living in a cage. The hunger artist then feels as if he is not being recognized nor appreciated by his talent. He wants to show everyone he can do more and..”he made no secrets of this, yet people did not believe him, at the best they set him down as modest, most of them, however, thought he was out for publicity or else was some kind of cheat who found it easy to fast because he had discovered a way of making it easy, and then had the impudence to admit the fact, more or less” (Kafka, 245). Because of the disbelief that the artist receives from everyone, he decides to join the circus, which leaves him to be more miserable than he already was. It seems that he becomes even more invisible, “..at first he could hardly wait for the intervals, it was exhilarating to watch the crowds come streaming his way, until only too soon---not even the most obstinate self-deception, clung to almost consciously, could hold out against the fact-- the conviction was borne in upon him that these people, most of them, to judge from their actions, again and again, without exception, were all on their way to the menagerie” (Kafka, 249). A panther ends up replacing the artist, getting all the attention that he wanted and deserved.

       For the last story “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator speaks about his brother Sonny, who has gotten himself in trouble by being on heroin and getting picked up by the cops. Sonny had always had a certain love for jazz music in his life, and he speaks on how he wishes to become a famous artist one day. His brother, the narrator, does not seem to understand why he wants to be a jazz player, stating that he “..simply couldn’t see why on earth he’d want to spend his time hanging around nightclubs, clowning around on bandstands, while people pushed each other around a dance floor” (Baldwin, 44). This creates the isolation for Sonny because he feels he is not being understood. At the same time, Sonny is also knows that part of the music he wants to get into includes getting into the drugs that come along with it. He is struggling to keep himself away from it, “I’ve been something I didn’t recognize, didn’t know I could be. Didn’t know anybody could be. Sometimes, you know and it was actually when I was most out of the world, I felt that I was in it, that I was with it, really, and I could play or I didn’t really have to play, it just came out of me, it was there” (Baldwin, 55). It is obvious that Sonny is not feeling right with his life and where he is at. He wants to be someone in the jazz industry, but he is not there quite yet.

         To conclude, the 3 short stories display isolation in their own way through the main characters. The stories “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” and “A Hunger Artist” show their isolation through their characters very similarly. The old man is locked up in a chicken coop, and the hunger artist is in a cage, and they are both put in a public place where others can view them as they wish, and for who they are. The old man proves his worthiness in the end by flying away. The hunger artist sadly does not realize that people will have their suspicions either way, and if he wouldn’t be happy with himself, that neither would others. In “Sonny’s Blues” the narrator is able to show us how Sonny feels isolated through his relationship with his own brother and also with the world. All of the stories can teach us that we need to approve of ourselves first before trying to get to bigger and better things. It is hard to become successful when we put ourselves down at the downfalls of things.

Kaleigh’s View:

We were tasked to read three short stories, “Sonny’s Blues”, “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” and “A Hunger Artist. They’re victims of people making them a spectacle; which causes them to feel isolated.

In “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, our main character Sonny suffers from a heroine addiction. Sonny is involved in the Jazz scene. During, that time jazz performers would use heroine as an enhancement to their performance.His older brother, the narrator of the story disapproves of his life style. This causes Sonny to feel isolated. Sonny wants to get away from heroine so much he moves out of Harlem, but is love of Jazz draws him right back into that scene.

Secondly we have, “A Hunger Artist “ by Franz Kafka. The main character is a performer. His performance involves him starving for 40 days. No one believes that he actually doesn’t eat for 40 days. This causes him to be discontent with his life. All he wants is acceptance for his so called “craft”. He is obviously a sick man from the beginning but the fact that he isn’t believed causes him to feel isolated and do self hate.

Lastly, we have a short story by Garcia Marquez, “ A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings “. The old man is found by a couple on the patio. The old man is quite tattered looking. A women lets them know that this man is a angel. The couple and the townspeople do not believe this statement. So he is locked up in a chicken coupe and antagonized by the townspeople. He is isolated due to lack of communication and being locked away.

In conclusion, all these victims of isolation; were also the hero’s of their stories. This shows us how people’s ignorance and isolation can do to a person’s psyche.

Steffanie’s View-

From all three stories there is a different theme and meaning. But they all have similar meaning. “A very old man with enormous wings” he lands in the gentleman’s yard and s an angel but isn’t seen that way by others. “Sonny’s blues” the young kid does drugs but has his escape but is not seen as a normal kid by others. Lastly in “A hunger artist” the hunger artist thinks people want to see him starve but in reality they don’t and he comes to terms with that.

In the story “A very old man with enormous wings” the old man is seen in the courtyard and as described by Pelayo and Elisenda “they both looked at the fallen body with mute stupor” (Marquez) as the neighbor told the couple the old man was an angel they could not believe what they were being told by this lady. “He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down” (Marquez). The couple hold the angel in their house and their whole town knows it. Pelayo takes the angel out to the chicken coop and locks the angel there. The next day when the couple wake up they come to find that the neighbors are watching him and enjoying him through the fence. “... they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with he angel...”(Marquez). This alone shows how the angel is isolated right from the get go and the quality of life isn’t good from their perspective.

Moving on to the next story, “ Sonny’s Blues” as the story is told by Sonny’s brother the narrator is a math teacher with a typical life an goals he has accomplished, “I told myself sonny was wild but he wasn’t crazy”(Baldwin).  His brother sonny on the other hand have been sent on different paths, Sonny is hooked on heroine, “they’ll send him away some place and try to cure him” (Baldwin), but the one thing he loves most is music. Sonny wants to make something of his music career but its a tough industry to be in. Sonny didn’t always do drugs and he always wanted to quit doing them so his solution was to run away from Harlem and attempt to start over , but as seen in the story it didn’t work. Sonny’s love was not supported by him brother and he didn’t have the same love for it and thought sonny needed to make something of himself because the jazz industry can be hard. Sonny feels isolated in the sense that he’s not supported by his brother and his brother wants a different path for him.

Last in the story “A hunger artist” the starvation artist wanted to show the world that he could actually accomplish something and that i starving himself for a long time as amusement for the watchers. People don’t seem to believe he is starving himself and that he is sneaking food when all the watchers are gone. “It used to pay very well to stage such great performances under one’s own management, but today that is quite impossible” (Kafka). People would stop by at least once a day when the hunger artist first started because the suspense and excitement was so built up. “There were people who bought season tickets for the last few days and sat from morning to night in front of his small barred cage”(Kafka). The hunger artist wanted the attention and acceptance of the community but as he sat in his cage he began to grow further and further away from the town because people started to become disinterested. “... since it was not the hunger artist who was cheating; he was working honestly, but the world was cheating him of his reward”(Kafka).

In the end all three stories share the isolation theme and its clear how the characters face that. Both “ a man with enormous wings” and “a hunger artist” share the similarities more than “Sonny’s blues”. The hunger artist groans old and eventually begins to realize he doesn’t need the peoples approval but that’s what he has been longing for and he’s the only one that know he is not cheating himself. He stayed true to his beliefs and followed through till the very end. “Sonny’s blues” gives more of a real life outlook as far as dealing with addiction but having an outlet of a hobby, and when things turn up right not everything follows. These stories share great similarities, and real life story.

[therandomfics]

AMA Pt12

It was bright when you opened your eyes, so bright that you shielded them and scowled. You sat up in your bed and drank in your surroundings: a hospital room with a television on low volume, a rolling bed cart with a sweating pitcher of ice water and one solemn chair in the corner. Your things were in the chair - but they weren’t the clothes you remembered wearing last. Instead of a dirty sweatshirt and blood stained jeans, your favorite shirt dress and boots were waiting for you. You changed and observed yourself in the mirror. Somehow, despite however long you’d been in bed, your hair was perfect, your makeup was done, and you looked well. 

Pulling open the door to your room, you were greeted by an unusual scene. You stepped not into the hallway of the hospital, but into the dilapidated park that you had been found in so many years ago. Even more unusual was the smaller version of yourself, crying on the bench and shivering from the cold. You reached out to comfort your child self, but the moment you made contact with her, you felt a jolt and fell backwards. 

You sat up and looked around. No more hospital, no more park. Now you were in one of the many foster care homes you’d spent time in. Your 8 year old self sat in her room and cried, incessantly, from loneliness and from isolation. Your foster parents, you remembered in that moment, had been very negligent - and often dangerous. Your eyes scanned the bruises on her arms and you recalled the times that you’d fought of the advances of the older kids in the home. You shook your head and reminded yourself that it was in the past. It was over. 

Suddenly you were walking into the home of your now parents, watching your 14 year old self glow over wonderful grades. You looked upon the teenage you and smiled - you were safe. Lonely, but safe. Your parents looked upon you with loving eyes, but your adoptive aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather didn’t share the same affection. You were a parasite to them. Obviously, you’d remembered hearing, if there was something wrong with you that would have been why your parents neglected you and left you to die. “No one simply abandons their child,” your aunt had said. It was comical now in retrospect, as her own daughter - your cousin - had spent the majority of her youth with anyone but her parents. 

Flash forward again and you were graduating from Hudson. It was probably the best day of your life at that point. It was the first time you’d felt successful. No one got you into that school; you’d worked hard and earned it. You had a career path lined up and you were dating someone who you just knew was the one. You rolled your eyes, remembered how you’d broken up two months later when he’d accidentally called you while having a heavy petting session with someone else. Oops. 

Then, it happened. You were watching your adult self, your professional adult self, swoon over Sonny Carisi. He was everything to you, and he was the reason you weren’t with the conscious living. Well, no, you corrected yourself. It wasn’t really his fault, you were just a victim of circumstances. 

“Not everyone can handle the shit you’ve seen.” A voice that you didn’t recognize was in your ear, focusing your attention away from the scene in front of you. When you turned to the side you were greeted by a woman who looked like you, but maybe if you’d taken a few wrong paths and hadn’t slept in a few weeks. “I regret what I did to you, Y/N. I do. But, I’m glad to see you’re okay.” 

It took you a second to realize you were talking to your own birth mother. “I can’t say I forgive you, Diane. But, I can say that I’m not exactly okay. Look, I’m watching the highest and lowest points of my life over. It’s not exactly entertaining.” 

When she opened her mouth again, it wasn’t her voice anymore. It was the voice of your adoptive mother. “Maybe if you’d never been together, this wouldn’t have happened. I do not give you my blessing. My husband doesn’t approve, either, if you’d like to know. He knows people, so if you ever think you’re going to move on to something else in your life, you’d better think about what I’ve said.” 

Nothing was making sense. You suddenly felt like you couldn’t breathe, like gravity was much stronger and focused solely on crushing you. 

You heard Sonny’s voice, and how sweet it was. “Listen, Mrs. Gardella, with all due respect, I didn’t intend for your daughter to get hurt. You need to understand, I love her and I stopped at nothing to find her. I am sincerely apologetic for all that has happened but I think that if Y/N woke up right now and I wasn’t here, you’d get the opposite effect you were hopin’ for.” 

The continued pressure was becoming too much to bear. You shrieked at the tops of your lungs and clenched your fists at your side, but suddenly there was something in one of your hands: sheets. Your other arm had ceased to work. You sat up and looked around wildly. You were back in your hospital room, but this time Sonny was there, along with your mother and the doctor. 

“Sonny’s not going anywhere, god dammit,” you snapped, ripping the sheets from your body and reaching for him. “Don’t leave, please. Don’t leave me.” 

“How long have I been here?” you asked Sonny after you’d finally demanded that everyone leave the room unless they were a medical professional, or Sonny. 

He couldn’t stop touching you. His hands were on your face, your hands, your thigh. “Three days. You’ve been here three days. You were missing for nearly two weeks.” 

You frowned and grasped onto his hands. “Thank you for finding me, Sonny. I owe you my life.” 

“I thought I was gonna lose you, doll. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t woken up, or if I hadn’t found you,” he muttered and pulled you into a careful hug. You were bruised, sore, tired, everything. “When I found you in the back of that car you’d lost so much blood you were on the fine line between life and death. You had a blood infection, a stab wound, internal bleeding, nearly crushed larynx, and your arm was.. still is broken.” Suddenly he was crying, his face buried against your lap as he begged for you forgiveness. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t been in your life.” 

You patted his head gently and fumbled with the cup of water next to your bed. You were so thirsty it was painful. “I don’t blame you, I promise, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I realized that when I was taking my exceptionally long nap,” you soothed, rubbing his back idly. “I love you. Look at me, Sonny, and tell me that even when I look like this, you still love me.” 

He sat up and placed his hand against your cheek. “I love you no matter what, you know that. But I need to tell you something.” 

“What?” 

“We didn’t get Nicole. I.. I don’t know where she went, and I was focused on getting you help that I stayed at your side. Someone said that they heard she’d gone into hiding.” His poor eyes were misty and tired. “I’m gonna kill her when I find her.” 

“Not if I find her first,” you warned - only have serious. You were obviously in no position to go after anyone, and what skill set did you have beyond the severe desire to survive? 

Weeks passed and you found yourself settled in a new apartment, with a new roommate. Sonny had asked you and you agreed, for safety and for the simple fact that you loved one another. You awoke in the middle of the night quite often, but he was always there to console you and keep you under his wing. You went back to work a month after your hospital stay, and you were pleased to see how well everyone had adjusted to your trauma. At the suggestion of Olivia, you began seeing a crisis counselor. It seemed stupid for you at first, but you soon began to realized that you needed to work through your fears and your concerns about what had happened. Sonny said that they’d done a full exam and there was no sign of sexual assault, but you’d come so close so many times it felt like it might have actually happened. 

Sonny had taken it upon himself to share some of his old family secrets with you in the kitchen. It was a good way to bond and an even better way to make sure that you were able to focus on something beyond your thoughts. 

“Sonny!” You screamed suddenly, turning to him and grabbing his arm. “I just thought of something. Oh, I’m so sorry I just remembered!” Things came back in pieces as your therapist had said they would, but this one was massive. “Paulie said that he’d raped someone in Connecticut and they’d never run the kit, but he said it was him. Is there anyway to use that against him, somehow, to get him to crack? He knows where that psychotic little bitch went, I’m telling you. He knows.” 

He cupped your face and kissed you. It tasted like tomatoes and garlic, and you’d never felt more in love. “Give me two minutes,” he urged and ran from the room, phone to his ear. You heard him telling Olivia what you’d just told him, and he ran back into the room still on the phone. “Did he say where?” 

You shook your head and sighed. “No, just that he always broke his play things.” Without knowing it, you’d told Sonny that not only had Paulie sexually assaulted these women, he killed them. 

He relayed the message and ended the call, putting his phone on the counter. “C’mere,” he said softly and pulled you to his chest. His head rested atop yours and he swayed you back and forth slowly, dancing to some inaudible music in his head. “I’m leaving SVU. I got offered a position with the DA’s office in the Bronx. It’s safer. Better hours, I’ll be with you more.” 

“You didn’t need to do that, angel. I’m fine, you know? I really am.” 

He shushed you and kissed the top of your head. “No, you’re not, and you don’t have to be. I got no expectations for you to turn your feelings off, so you better keep going to therapy and you need to tell me anytime you need me - I don’t care what it is.” 

The next time Olivia sat down with Paulie, she presented him with more evidence than he’d expected. He was facing life without parole for the murder of Arabella Gardenza, in addition to your aggravated assault and kidnapping. “Connecticut, however, offered the death penalty, and she was sure the ADA would push for that.” A lie, but it was effective. 

Nicole Santoro was found several days later in Vermont, not too far from the town you were born in. Medical officials said she had been dead for nearly three weeks when they found her. It was ruled a suicide and the elation on Sonny’s face was undeiable when you saw him later. 

He met you for lunch to give you the good news and told you he needed to ask you something very important. 

“Ask way, Sonny.” You were slated to get your cast off in a few days and had fought the urge for so long to pick at the gauzy, chalky material. It was irritating you and getting in the way of you finishing your lunch. 

“I...” he was hesitating. His face was red and he was sweating in the cool air of March. “Y/N.. it’s just, it’s really important.” 

You nodded and set your sandwich down. 

He knelt in front of you and pulled a box from his pocket. “Marry me, Y/N?” he asked, opening the velvet keeper to reveal a princess cut ruby on a white gold band. 

You said yes and cried happy tears, a thing you hadn’t experienced before. It was a blur, but somehow he convinced you to marry him at the Bronx courthouse that afternoon, surrounded by family and friends. It was beautiful, just like you knew it would be. You were Mrs. Sonny Carisi. 

Paulie stood trial and you testified against him for your case for what felt like decades. He was given four consecutive life sentences without the option for parole once the trial was finally over. A little bird told you that shortly after he was sent to prison, he fell victim to a gang initiation. 

That night, you slept peacefully for the first time in nearly a year, which was good, because you were expecting baby Carisi in only five short months. 

[[THANK YOU GUYS! Your support has been nothing less than amazing! I hope you enjoyed AMA and I am looking forward to the next adventure. <3]]

[2dap-blog]

“The Mask”

EDIT, 3/31/17: i noticed a few errors / typos and fixed it

TW: Death mention. I think that’s it?

Word count: 2,691

so i had this assignment in class to write a narrative about anything and... well i might’ve taken it a lil too far.

the title has some form of significance but now?? it’s slightly less relevant. u know what im sayin? but yea i hope yall like this read.

When I was little, my older brother used to scare me all the time with a mask he made. Well, it wasn’t really a mask— it was a cardboard box with a face on it. He usually chased me around the house, right on my heels. I remember how much it had shaken me up, especially when he tackled me. He used to laugh about it all the time behind my back.

I had nightmares about it. The mask always was on the face of a man— someone I didn’t know. He carried a huge weapon—often a scythe— that seemed weightless in his hands. The only noise he made was from the chains rattling around him. He used to chase me down a hallway, with an end that I couldn’t see. The sequence always ended in my brother’s laughter. These nightmares occurred often, and I’m glad they stopped.

Time moved on. We grew older, our interests changed, and my brother didn’t find the “joke” very funny anymore. He handed the cardboard box over to me and told me to do something with it. He didn’t want it, and neither did I. I threw it somewhere and never looked back.

Before my brothers and I even realized it, our 18th birthday came around. Our mother told us to pack up and move out in a week. I remember being really stressed and trying to find anything that could hold what we might need— this was completely new. My younger brother found a few containers scattered around the house to start us off.

“Golly, Joey,” my older brother joked as he watched him lug everything around, “Mom said that we’ll have to move out in a week, not a day.”

“Shut up and help me,” Joey grumbled, who was busy packing whatever he could fit into the boxes. He threw one at my brother’s face, which he looked at and grinned. He put it on and slowly turned towards me. It was the smiling cardboard box.

I didn’t see it for very long, though, since Joey walked over and yanked it off his head. “Take things seriously,” I remember him saying, giving him a death glare. My brother just laughed and nodded.

The box began to pop up more often. In the shower, in my room... anywhere that my brother thought I’d go, he put it there. It shocked me when I first saw it, but it didn’t bother me all too much after a while. This lasted for about half a year until spring cleaning came by.

I saw my older brother carrying out a heaping pile of materials in the smiling box. I stopped him in his tracks and asked him if he was throwing the container away too, in which he replied, “Yeah.” He was making his way through the door when he added, “Thing takes too much space and doesn’t do anything. Joey wants it out, anyways.”

Joey’s word was surprisingly final, despite me and my brother being the older triplets, but I tried to make a deal with him anyway. We settled on cutting out the side where the face was drawn on. I took the piece and cut out the face to fit mine before attaching a string on it to make a mask. The rest was thrown out with the other stuff.

The mask surprisingly came in handy later on. Reality came fast, and my brothers and I had to find jobs. I decided to work as a truck driver, but the pay wasn’t enough. I couldn’t find a part-time job with a schedule that I could work with except...

I became an executioner. In the beginning, the whole ordeal didn’t sit with me very well. I kept having second thoughts and was wondering about how the felons’ families would feel after they died. Now, I just tell myself to swing the axe— no deeper thought required. But I still feel guilty for doing it.

That’s why I wear the mask. I can somewhat see the person’s face, but they can’t see mine at all. I don’t want to watch their faces twist with horror as I decapitate them. But why do I care? Those people deserved it— they’re proven killers. They deserved to die...

I never expected to become an executioner, but we live in a pretty rough part of town. Plenty of crimes going about— theft, arson, and murders— so the state found it necessary to find one. But lately, there’s been less and less. The police has been cracking down on the criminals and has been throwing them in jail. There had been a serial killer on the loose, but the department hasn’t found him yet.

Well, not until a few months ago.

It was on a warm Tuesday afternoon. Joey was working overtime, so I was alone with my older brother. I remember him making dinner while I was sitting at the table cutting coupons out of the paper. The windows were wide open— the kitchen was always hot whenever he cooked. I heard a car pull up into the driveway.

“Is that Joey?” my brother asked, looking at me. “He said he’d come in... two hours. He’s early.” I shrug and lean back in my chair, putting my feet on the table. “We’re eating on that, J.”

“Sorry—”

When we heard a knock at the door, we both knew it wasn’t him. I put my feet down and walked over to the door and looked through the peephole.

There was a policeman standing at the doorstep. I felt a nervous jolt go through me. Why were they here? I reluctantly opened the door. “Hello, Officer,” I said, trying to be polite as possible.

“Hello. Do you know this man?” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, showing me a picture.

I felt sick to my stomach. “Yes, he’s my brother.” I saw the officer’s expression change ever so slightly.

“We have to take him into custody. Where is he?”

And speak of the devil. My brother had walked over and was standing by me. “Here, Officer.”

He was smiling. It didn’t look grim, it didn’t look snide, it just looked... happy. I still don’t understand why he was smiling. Didn’t he regret anything?

The policeman took him away, and my older brother flashed me a grin as he was escorted to the back of the car. Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t I say anything? I had so many questions then, and they’re still unanswered.

The next few weeks after came as a blur. Court, hiring lawyers, the trial— I don’t remember much at all. I don’t remember what he said to the judge, what I did those days... I sometimes wish that I did, but at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t.

What I do recall is that Joey had been even quieter than usual. Still is. He didn’t speak to me for a long time after I broke the news to him, except for one single sentence: I don’t believe you. I wouldn’t have believed me either. After all, for what reason would our brother be arrested?

Even though this was answered about a couple of days after, it just didn’t make sense to either of us. Why did he do it? What was his reason? Joey didn’t know, and nor did I.

Joey is working harder now that our brother’s gone. He’s beginning to stay at the warehouse into the late hours of the night. I worry for him. He’s going to kill himself that way. I don’t know what to tell him, though, because he doesn’t listen to me, only our older brother.

It’s been two months now. Today, I was called down to the office. It was early in the morning, but I was alone in my house. Joey had already left for work.

I sleepily went through my morning routine, with a coffee brewing in the meantime. When I was done, the coffee was piping hot. I grabbed the pitcher and poured it into a thermos, then headed outside to the car.

Another execution. What a shame, I think to myself blandly, trying to blink the tiredness away as I sipped on my coffee, it’s such a fine day, too. Sunny. I don’t feel like listening to music, so drive’s going to be a long, silent one.

I arrive at the building. It’s tall and a little intimidating, with the worn-down brick. I park off somewhere and walk inside.

The sudden cold’s like a slap to the face. It isn’t usually this cold in the place, but I guess it’s a little reasonable, considering the temperature outside.

I head down to the office and see the chief sitting there, leaning back with her arms folded. “Jason Dixon, how are you doing this morning?” she asks me, a smile on her face.

“Fine, thank you,” I tell her, avoiding her gaze. I always feel a slight sense of unease whenever I look at her; I don’t know why.

“That’s fine and dandy. Now, we have another prisoner on death row. We’re expecting you to execute them today.” She’s still wearing that smile. I feel a chill come down my spine— maybe the building is a little too cold. “Can you do that?”

“Of course,” I say. I lied. I never want to do this job again, never want to see another dead body again, but I have to support my family somehow.

“Good! I wasn’t going to take no for an answer anyways.”

“May I ask who I’m executing?”

“Sorry, sonny, law forbids it. You know the drill.”

“Of course. I apologize.”

“It’s no problem. You’re still young.” She points me over to the outside. “A prison officer’s going to go drive you to the jailhouse. He’ll be here in a moment. Sit down and wait.” I nod and sit down in the chair in front of her desk, a little awkward.

A few awkward minutes later, her phone rings. She picks it up and listens for a bit before nodding at me. “He’s here.”

“Thank you,” I say quickly, heading out the office.

The officer’s sitting on a bench outside, looking occasionally from left to right. He’s smoking a cigarette. I open the glass doors and go back into the humid outside world, clearing my throat.

The man turns to look at me and gets up from his seat, putting the cig out in an ashtray beside him. He doesn’t say a word to me as he walks over to his car and unlocks the door.

I make my way over and slide into the shotgun seat. The whole car smells of cigs, and I struggle to not cough as he starts the drive.

It’s been an excruciatingly long time— I can’t stand it anymore. I quickly ask him if I can roll down the window. “Yes,” he says simply, never tearing his eyes off the road. When the window was down and fresh air rushed in, I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to feel wind in my face in my whole entire life.

After long trip of silence, we arrive at the jailhouse. It’s big and pretty bland-looking— a huge building of tannish concrete. The officer gets out of the car and motions for me to follow.

The place is just as boring on the inside as it is outside— white floor, ceiling, and walls— and as cold as the department building. This was nothing new to me, of course, but I shiver anyways. I hear a woman laugh scornfully, probably at me. The man shouts at her to shut her mouth, and I try to keep staring ahead.

After a long walk, he turns to me and tells me to go to set up. As I walk past him, he stops at a cell and barks, “Wake up, you’re getting out of here!”

I was about finished with sharpening my axe when another officer walks in. “Prisoner’s ready for you.” I nod and tell her that I’ll be done in a few minutes. She says okay and leaves.

I put on the mask that I brought from home and head out once I finished. I walk down the white halls and head into the execution room. Inside laid the prisoner.

I walk over to him and see his expression change from crazed to shock.

“It can’t be,” I hear him whisper, his voice familiar. His eyes are wide. “It can’t.” I don’t know what to say; everyone else I’ve executed never reacted like this when they saw me.

The prisoner’s looking at me from head to toe, his eyes darting up and down. I hold my axe tighter in my hands as I do the same. He looks disgustingly unkempt— hair everywhere, emaciated, bags under his eyes... like all the others.

He has dark brown hair— or black, I didn’t know— with brown eyes. It reminds me of Joey, but Joey isn’t in jail.

“Jason?”

My eyes widen. He says my name again, and I feel something in my throat. It’s him. He looks so different now.

Why him? I can remember what happened two months ago now, after his arrest. He was found guilty of first degree murder and petty theft. He was sentenced to death. It felt so long ago, but now the day is here...

“It’s really you, isn’t it?” he asks quietly, stopping my thoughts. I see the pain and confusion in his eyes. “Take that mask off...”

But I don’t want to.

“Why?” I manage to choke out. “Why did you do it?” My brother doesn’t reply. I drop my axe to my sides. “Please, just answer me,” I beg, struggling to keep calm, “why did you do it?”

“I had to,” he says to me. I could see him look away.

I stare at him. “You didn’t have to kill anyone!” I nearly scream, my face hot, “Why do you think that— that killing and stealing was the right thing to do?” I feel my body shaking from anger.

“... It was for money.”

“Money, money, money!” I blurt. “Is that all you think of? What about us? What did you think we’ll do once we found out that you’re a criminal?” My vision blurs. “Why are you so— why are— w-why are you so damn selfish?”

“It was for the both of you— not just me.” He looks back at me, tears in his eyes. “Now you got me crying, huh, Jason?” He grins at me. “I— I didn’t expect this to affect you both this much. I’m still as stupid as ever. Guess some things don’t change.”

“You aren’t stupid,” I say to him, “you— you just don’t think things through. You don’t think about the future enough.” I don’t think I worded it well. I take a deep breath and try to settle my nerves. “God, please don’t call yourself stupid...”

“Well,” my brother begins after a moment of silence, “I know what to expect right now. Come on, J.”

“Come on, what?” I ask him, trying to avoid the topic.

“Hey, now you’re being stupid,” he jokes. “You’re stalling. Aren’t I supposed to do that?” His eyes move down to the axe.

I sigh. He’s right. I have been stalling. “It’s only because I— I don’t want to kill you,” I mutter, looking down.

“But you have to. Or someone else will.”

He’s serious. I hold back a sob, then nod. “Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll do it.”

I try to gain my composure again, tightening my grip around the axe’s handle. “Any last requests?” I ask him.

“I want to see your face again.” I hesitate before I take off my mask. He smiles at me again, and I feel myself smile back. “Ah, there’s the Jason I know.” He then grins, this time without scorn. “I’ll miss you two when my ass is in Hell.”

I snort, then lightly hit him. “Don’t make this funny,” I say to him.

“Alright.”

And that was the last word Steve said to me.