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norikuna · 2 days ago

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pick your love story °🍵⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ jujutsu kaisen edition (sfw)

gojo satoru ☆ childhood friends to lovers

loves to tease you, and he'll always poke your cheek, ruffle your hair, or steal your food just to get a reaction. if you're shy or quiet, he lives to make you flustered. buys the most ridiculous gifts, including matching sunglasses and designer items that cost more than your rent. acts like your personal heater, always draping himself over you, wrapping his long arms around your shoulders, or sneaking his hands under your sweater to press them against your skin. if someone flirts with you? well, he's throwing him arm around you so dramatically, calling you his 'beloved' in the most obnoxious way possible. if the person doesn't back off, his carefree tone disappears and he gives them a chilling smile. loves late night drives and cafe dates, he's so the type to blast music in the car and sing off-key on purpose, always laughs when you tell him to zip it. his love language is definitely physical touch and words of affirmation, and he needs to be touching you at all times, and he constantly reminds you how much he loves you in different playful and heartfelt ways <3 he's even softer when he's sleepy, nuzzling into your neck and shit, voice always dropping to a quiet murmur as he spills whatever's on his mind.

geto suguru ☆ best friends to lovers

pretty chill, protective and a faux deep thinker type of guy. gentle and attentive, always knowing what you need before you even ask. if had a rough day, he's gonna run you a bath and try to get your favourite drink. tries to sit still and listen patiently while you rant. lowkey a bit overzealous when it comes to jealousy, but never petty. he doesn't get outwardly possessive. but if someone flirts with you, he'll wrap an arm around your waist and give the person a pretty sharp look, enough that they'll back off and shit. always takes pictures of you, and he has an entire album of random shots of you reading, laughing or even just existing bc he really does think you look beautiful in every moment. loves bookstore and vinyl shop dates, and he enjoys those sweet peaceful moments with you (flipping through books, aka arguing about different genres). he's super big on quality time + acts of service, and if he sees you struggling with anything, he'll try to take care of it before you even have to ask. loves running his fingers through your hair, and he claims it calms him, and sometimes he just gets so lost in thought while doing it, that you have to snap him out of it. he's the type to whisper sweet things in your ear absentmindedly, like 'you have no idea how much i love you' when he thinks you're not paying attention. goes all red and dismissive when he realises you actually did hear that :D and he says he's not in gossip and drama but no one talks shit like he does, lets be real

ryomen sukuna ☆ prob sum weird enemies to lover shit

claims he doesn't date, but somehow ends up trying to figure out your favourite flower. calls you stupid shit like 'brat' or 'pet' more than your actual name, but if someone disrespects you, he tears them apart without hesitation. gets jealous easily, but he won't admit it, and if someone looks at you wrong, he'll grab your chin and kiss you (not that you mind <3) his love language is physical touch and dominance, expect him to always keep a hand on your waist, neck or chin because as much as he pretends otherwise, he loves feeling your skin against his. gaslights you over silly things for fun ('i literally told you that' 'no you didn't' 'oh, so you're forgetful now). also whispers absolute nonsense in your ear just from time to time, 'did you know that octopuses have three hearts? bet you didn't, but now you do. you're welcome'). will open a jar way too aggressively to try and show off his strength but breaks it, and now you're left with no pickles and a sulking sukuna with pickle juice on his hand. carries you like a sack of potatoes on his shoulders if you piss him off. pretends he doesn't gaf, but always shares his food with you and tries to order what you like.

toji fushiguro ☆ reluctant friends to lovers

grumpy but soft for you typa boyfriend who doesn't believe in using full words in texts. only texts in 'ya' or 'nah' and he accidentally replied 'k' to you saying 'i love you' and he called you immediately afterwards because he knows he messed up. loves pda but in the most lazy way possible, and will always drape himself over you like a weighted blanket and refuse to move. always steals bites of your food (half the meal) but will act offended if you do the same. once won you a stuffed animal at a carnival and acted like it was no big deal, but he actually used up all his carnival tickets trying to win you the biggest prize. spoils you in a reckless way, and he'll hand you a wad of cash and refuses to tell you how he got the money. he just tells you to go buy something nice. love language is acts of service and physical touch because he claims he's not amazing with words, but his hands always find their way back home to you. loves lazy mornings, and grumbles when you try to get out of bed, pulling you back in with an arm around your waist.

nanami kento ☆ love at first sight

exhausted but devoted you get me, and he claims that you energise him and light up his life. lectures you when you only sleep for three hours a night. replies to the tiktoks you send with corporate replies 'that was humorous. thank you for sharing. i love you.' he thinks you're absolutely the most beautiful person on the planet, and always lets you know. pretty gentle, mature and devoted. shows his love in sweet, meaningful ways. always puts your comfort first, and he tries to take things off your plate without asking. loves cooking for you, and believes cooking is its own love language. hates unnecessary, brash pda but loves quiet intimacy. holds your hand, brushes your hair against your ear. lingering kisses on your temple. reads to you at night, and he'll sit beside you if you have trouble drifting off. his love language is absolutely acts of service and quality time, and he doesn't just say he loves you, he'll prove it in every little action of his. loves taking you out to scenic parks and hikes, and just stares after you with so much love as he tries to adjust the focus of his camera lenses to try and capture you as well as he can.

choso kamo ☆ strangers to lovers

kinda awkward but genuinely, really quiet sweet. overthinks everything, and at the start of your relationship, he even started overthinking how you said 'goodnight!' and wondered if you were mad at him, because there was no heart or emoji. would die before making the first move idk, like you're going to have kiss him first or else, otherwise i fear he's going to have a stroke. holds grudges as long as he can, and will bring up little shit (like you stealing his lunch) six months later 'remember that time you betrayed me?'. but he can only really give you the silent treatment for two whole minutes when you tease him, and then immediately apologises because he feels bad. a lot of friends tease the two of you because they think choso is too quiet or a pushover but the truth is that he's actually pretty snarky, clever and observant. very determined and always sticks to his morals, even at times when you disagree with him, he's able to put his foot down. love language is quality time and gift giving, because he's the type to remember everything you like and surprise him with it. loves watching movies with you, and pretends not to care for 90s chick flicks, but he's digging them deep down. loves holding your hand, and even in public, he'll reach for you quietly.

higuruma hiromi☆ coworkers to lovers

overworked but loves you so bad. he sometimes reminds you of a tired, single dad but he's truly joyous to date. if you call him baby in public, he immediately malfunctions and blushes. you once kissed him in a courtroom (not even when court was ongoing!) on the tip of his gorgeous nose, and he almost choked. will 100% object to random things just to irritate you, with topics like takeout for dinner, 'objection. we had sushi two days ago.' takes everything pretty seriously, until you do something cute. then he just sits there, hiding his smile behind his hand like an adorable anime protagonist. tries to be strict or protective, but you just make him super soft. secretly likes pda but pretends that he doesn't. grips your hand so tight like he fears you might disappear. loves when you rest in his lap or against his chest as he reads over cases and paperwork. you told him that he'd look hot with glasses, and you caught him browsing through lens frames.

naoya zenin ☆ arranged marriage (kinda ooc naoya btw, bear with me)

sort of a menace who should have been left on read a long time ago, but this wasn't your first choice. somehow, he folds for you almost immediately but you think he'd rather dig his own grave and neatly fold his hands over his chest as he buries himself at his own funeral before he admits that he likes you. calls you annoying but will drop everything if you text him that you need help. always saying dumb shit to you, or trying to make fun of you, but if someone else does? they're gone, like he's going to stalk them, find where they work, and get them fired from their job. texts you the stupidest things like 'if i was ugly, would you still love me?' 'i just saw an ugly baby. damn' 'what would do if i got arrested? be honest.' saw someone flirting with you once at like a fancy event, and rolled his eyes, pretending that he didn't give a flying fuck. ended up at the bathroom mirror, gripping the sink and trying not to throw up. if you ignore his texts, he's gonna send vaguely ominous messages, like 'answer me' followed by 'this is how it ends?' 'i'm leaving btw, i'm going to pack up and leave you forever and go live on my own in the wild.' you check his location and he's still at home. naoya thinks he's the prize in the relationship, he's not. definitely a pda menace, and he loves just kissing you in public.

hajime kashimo ☆ enemies to lovers but in that 'we met when we were fighting' way

your relationship is just him being reckless with no survival instinct, and you trying to keep your boyfriend alive. aka trying to stop him from licking the power outlet. will randomly challenge you to fights for no reason, never mind the fact that he'll feel bad and back out at the last minute. has no concept of personal space, and will stand nose to nose with you just to make you uncomfortable. if you back away, he's gonna follow you and ask where you're going. if someone flirts with you, he's not even going to do too much, just laugh in their face and ask the offender if they really thought they had a chance. kashimo has no concept of an inside voice at all, so god forbid you try to take him somewhere quiet. energy level always at 200% and it's a mission to even take him someplace like a grocery store. if you said 'i love you' first, it might have been the only time that someone else has bested him in something. hajime physically can't process emotions and goes green and pale (he loves you so much btw) and he looks vaguely ill at your confession. stares for five minutes before throwing himself at you. definitely a words of affirmation type of guy, instead of actions, because sometimes, he's all bark and no bite.

noritoshi kamo ☆ sweet, rom-com crush

he's actually a bit traditional, but very sweet. unfortunately, he's also so formal that it hurts sometimes. but it's fun when he asks you things like 'would you like to accompany me for an evening meal?' or 'shall we go for a stroll?' if you hold his hand, for the first few months, he sweats profusely but acts as though he's totally cool (narrator: he was not cool). lowkey believes that he doesn't deserve you and he absolutely treats you, the love of his life, like royalty. super observant and determined to make you as comfortable as possible, so you're never really left wanting for anything. if someone flirts with you, he doesn't really get jealous, but rather gets philosophical. 'it is natural for others to admire beauty such as yours. however, they must know it's not theirs to claim.' a key forefront runner of the sassy men apocalypse, even though you wouldn't be able to tell at the start. super quick-witted, but he's the type to keep his thoughts to himself, but luckily, he gets more comfortable sharing his jokes with you as times go on. blushes super easily, and he hates it because he thinks it ruins his aloof/mysterious guy persona.

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avelera · 3 days ago

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So apparently, Fortiche shared concept art where Jayce's Hexcorization in the cave would extend all the way to his face:

And this is really interesting to me from a narrative perspective, here's why:

Much of S2 Jayce's arc is incredibly... punitive. Like, he is really being punished step by step for everything he did wrong in S1. From Renni terrorizing and almost killing him for the death of her son, to Viktor leaving him "for another woman" (the Hexcore as represented by Sky) much like Jayce left him for politics as represented by Mel, there's really a sense of the narrative not only tearing Jayce down to his bare essentials (something that's very common for TV writing to do, by the way, it's very common that you want to see characters reduced down to who they are for their "long night of the soul" moment before they learn the lessons of what they really stand for before going into the climax armed with those lessons), but Jayce's time in the cave really goes even further than that and not only does S2 take away his political career, his Hextech ambitions, his state as someone able-bodied, much of his strength, and certain other gifts, it looks like in this draft they considered taking away his beauty too.

I think it would have been interesting either way if they had, but I want to dive into the narrative structure of action and punishment in Arcane, why Hexcorizing Jayce's face might have been a step too far and not really addressed a lesson he needed to learn, and my thoughts on punitive character arcs in general in Arcane (or lack thereof), specifically with regards to Jayce and Caitlyn.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I always found it interesting that much of the hate directed towards Jayce by the fans was for his perceived incompetence in difficult moments, rather than at how naturally gifted he seems to be at everything.

When I first watched S1 on my own, I thought Jayce was a bit unbearable because everything comes so easily to him (after Viktor becomes his partner and Hextech takes off as a result, that is). He is naturally beautiful, he's built like a god but doesn't appear to do any sort of exercise routine to maintain this other than working in the forge, he becomes the Man of Progress and rockstar of Piltover pretty much without trying, girls are literally sighing dreamily as he goes by.

He's also naturally a genius, from what we see, revolutionizing multiple industries with one invention. Even his rescue as a child is a literal miracle and it spurs him to create an invention that makes him a rockstar. When he enters politics, he immediately dominates, to the point where he's able to get a unanimous vote to overthrow the founder of the city within weeks of going there. Even in battle he's naturally gifted and naturally lucky during the raid of the Shimmer factory (up until the death of Renni's son), even though he has no prior skills as far as we know. He also wins the love of arguably the most beautiful woman in the series, again, seemingly without trying.

Then, S2 doesn't just take all of this away from him, it seems to go a step further into actually punishing Jayce for how easy and miraculous his life was in S1.

I'm of two minds about the Hexcorization reaching his face, but I have a hypothesis. I think it would have looked fucking rad but, I kinda get why they didn't do it:

Because Jayce's good looks are not something he can control, unlike the other things the narrative punishes him for.

Insofar as he can control his looks, he gives up on the clean-cut, immaculate "Golden Boy" image. Even in the idealized astral plane, he keeps most of the marks of his time in the pit like his hair and beard. I think it's because Jayce likes who he became down there. The clean-cut version of him was always the mask of him trying to please others, Jayce's appearance after he emerges from the cave is him shedding the opinions of others (contrast this with how Viktor idealizes himself in the astral plane, removing all marks of his illness. This isn't a criticism, just an interesting point of contrast).

So basically, my theory is Fortiche may have pulled back on Hexcorizing Jayce's face on the one hand to soften the visuals a bit, but secondly because it keeps the focus on punishing Jayce for things he chose to do, rather than things he doesn't really have control over.

But make no mistake, the narrative comes down hard on Jayce in S2, for every little thing the fans could and often did hate him for in S1. He pays for all of them, arguably in excess of what he maybe deserved, since as he says he didn't ask for any of this. But he did go along with it, and there's where the hammer of consequence (quite literally) comes down on him, tears away all his privileges, drags him down to literally the level of Viktor when he first left the undercity and says, "You have to do it all again but now focused on what really matters, and it's going to be ten times harder than it ever was."

This, in my opinion, is why Jayce is so popular coming out of S2. It is a hell of an arc, it's a hell of a redemption! You gave the man everything any man could want, then you took it all away, and then as his crowning moment of showing he has truly learned these lessons and made up for his mistakes, he makes possibly the most loving gesture possible, puts his weapons down, and reaches out to the person he loves most and literally sacrifices himself on the altar of his mistakes to make things right and show Viktor he is loved, and to protect Viktor from the horrifically lonely fate of his future self. It doesn't get any more noble, loving, or self-sacrificing than that.

Because more than we like to see a character punished we like to see them learn from their mistakes and come back better. Jayce's S2 nobility is earned, perhaps even to excess, no one can question whether he suffered enough to make up for what he did in S1 but even the most uncharitable read of him in S1, his biggest hater, would have to agree his time spent starving to death in agony, alone in that cave for months, has got to be just about the worst punishment a human can face and live.

Which is one reason I must add that I find it a little puzzling that Arcane's creators didn't predict the hate that Caitlyn would get in S2.

Keep in mind, because this is very important, the Arcane creators did not make S2 in response to fan reactions to S1. S2 was already in production and the script was locked in and done before anyone outside their organizations saw S1. So nothing that happens in S2 is as a result of fan response.

But, the creators did understand that Jayce was going to need to suffer narrative punishment for what he did in S1 in order to be redeemed, whether they predicted how hated he would be after S1, they did predict that redemption would be necessary. And boy-howdy, did they give him a hell of a redemption arc!

But Caitlyn's S2 actions are almost in lock-step similar to Jayce's S1 actions, being manipulated (by a Medarda!) into accepting power, but maybe not having a choice in the matter, but still maybe expanding that power on their own because it is useful in its own right. Caitlyn also makes terrible mistakes. A child doesn't die but people in the undercity do get hurt during her rage-fuled raids, even if most of them are mob bosses and their goons. The narrative asks, does that make it right? Caitlyn like Jayce hurts the person closest to her who is from the undercity and uses bigoted language against the people of the undercity to Vi's face in much the same way that Jayce did to Viktor on the bridge, though in Jayce's defense, he apologized immediately after.

So, seeing how hated Jayce was coming out of S1, to the point where there's still barely any merchandise of him, I'm shaking my head rather ruefully that there was so much merch made for Caitlyn this time around. And I get it! Caitlyn and Vi were very popular after S1, they are intentionally THE main romance of the show and it was a very popular romance coming out of the innocence of their meet cute in S1.

But it's a romance that dearly needed a longer third act if you wanted Caitlyn to be as embraced after her mistakes as Jayce was after making up for his all through S2. You need to give her as long or at least as in-depth of a redemption act with as much suffering and acknowledgment of her mistakes if you want Vi and Caitlyn at the end to get celebrated the way Jayce making it up to Viktor is, because as much as I understand the choice to focus on pacing instead of exposition, and I do think Caitlyn's apology and realization of her mistakes are there on the page more than people complain, I do also agree that it is a bit "blink and you'll miss it" even if it's there. Jayce got a whole episode of being thrown into the Torment Nexus for his mistakes, real or imagined, if you didn't like him or his choices, you definitely got the sadistic glee of watching life kick the stuffing out of him for what he did in S1.

But besides her fight with Ambessa, which was a result of a confluence of many events in the story, not just Caitlyn's mistakes, Caitlyn doesn't really suffer much for the mistakes she made to those she loves. Her losing an eye to Ambessa didn't happen because she said bigoted things to Vi or became a short-term puppet dictator of Piltover. It was a result of Ambessa's actions and maneuvering more than it was a result of Caitlyn's personal mistakes to her loved ones.

In contrast, Jayce's time in the pit gave him the chance to reflect on and suffer for the the mistakes he made that led to the Anomaly that led to him being down in this pit, and what he would do to make it up to his loved ones like Viktor when he returned. Caitlyn never got a moment like that and from what I'm seeing of the vitriol directed towards her, so similar to what Jayce got after S1, it seems like she really needed it if we were going to like her to the same extent again, in a way uncomplicated by lingering questions about whether she ever truly learned the lessons her character needed to learn to grow as a person.

And it's just funny to me that a narrative that was so aware that this whole huge punishment arc was needed to rehabilitate Jayce wasn't aware that we'd need one for Caitlyn too, at least if they're going to move all that merch they made for her (please give us Jayce merch, Riot, I'm begging).

#arcane #arcane meta #jayce talis #caitlyn kiramman #caitvi #jayvik

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dcxdpdabbles · 1 day ago

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DC x DP Fanfic: Family bonding.

The Waynes, for all of their proclamation of being some of the best detectives in the world, missed the signs that one of their own was dating. Usually, that wouldn't have been so shocking, except that the person who dating made a point to tell the group he was dating.

He also somehow always stayed friends with his exes. Which was a superpower of its own, if they are honest, because not a single one of them was bitter about the relationship ending with Dick.

Another thing unusual about Dick having a lover was that he never brought them around or was seen in public with them. If anything, it felt like Dick was trying to keep the relationship a secret.

Which went against everything he cared about when dating someone.

That's why Bruce fully believed that the secret was being enforced by his partner. So it was up to the Waynes to find out who this mysterious lover was and evaluate if they were good enough for Dick.

So on a Friday night, when Dick was allegedly tutoring underprivileged kids but was actually meeting up with his lover, the Waynes piled into a shabby-looking minivan and followed.

It was cramped. It was dented, and it had tinted windows. Most importantly, the minivan belonged to John Constantine, who hadn't used it in over twenty years after learning to portal from one place to another.

Dick would never realize it was them.

"I think this is a terrible idea," Jason grunts from the back seat. He crosses his arms, refusing to pick up the binoculars Tim had passed around earlier. "Dick is a fully grown man. He knows how to properly talk to his partner about what he wants in a relationship."

"Shut up, virgin," Damian hisses from the passenger seat. He won the right to sit there after breaking Steph's skin with his teeth. Bruce had allowed them to brawl for a few minutes until Damian emerged victorious. He also let her use his phone to schedule a rabies shot, keeping eye contact with Damian in the rearview mirror. "Just because you never had a girlfriend-"

"-or a boyfriend. You fail to seducing both." Cass cut in from around her binoculars. She fist-bumped Tim as Jason threw her an offended look.

"Thank you, Cassandra. Ultimately, you have no experience and thus can not comment on what to do in relationships." Damian concluded.

"Neither do you!"

"Yes, but I am a child." Damian waves his hand in Jason's general direction. "It's expected of me to not have any romantic experience. You, on the other hand, are a loser."

"Unless you are Asexual or Aromantic," Bruce pipes in, leaning a little against the steering wheel, attempting to get a better view of the apartment building that Dick had walked into. He wasn't going up to any of the actual units; he remained in the lobby. "Then you are the are not a loser. But rather the closest thing to godhood."

"B, we know gods."

"That's why I said closest."

Thankfully, the lobby had huge windows. Dick was speaking to the receptionist, leaning on the counter with a little smile, and the man was grinning back.

However, Dick hasn't touched his hair even once. This was not the secret lover. This was a fool falling for Dick's charms, probably someone involved with a crime.

Ugh, so dull.

Jason crossed his arms stubbornly "I can get a date. I'm just busy."

"Doing what? Reading romance novels?" Steph laughs. Jason opens his mouth to yell at her, but the receptionist hands Dick a golden key that the eldest Wayne pockets. He strides out of the apartment complex, hands in his pocket and whistling joyfully.

The Wayns put away their binoculars, and Bruce carefully peels out of their parking spot. They keep a nice distance away from Dick as he scrolls around the stores, stopping every once in a while to admire a display before he sits on a bench, hand still inside the pocket with the key.

A person wearing a trench coat and thick sunglasses approaches the bench, sitting on the far end of it and not looking in Dick's direction. The van collectively gasps.

Despite the disguise, they can tell just who it is.

"Tatior," Jason hisses between clenched teeth as Duke slides a sealed brown package across the bench towards Dick. In return, the eldest places the key on the bench, back top, and strives away from the bench. Duke waits a few minutes before he stands, walking in the opposite direction of Dick, hand sliding out to grab the key nearly undetectable.

"Why does Duke need an apartment key? And one that was snuck to him," Tim asks, watching the two siblings walk away from each other as though they were strangers. "What's he up to?"

" We only have time for one family mystery today," Bruce answers, turning the wheel to the left and continuing to follow Dick. "I have dinner plans with Selina later."

Duke pulls out a red wig and slides off his coat. Underneath is a punk rock outfit, complete with spikes, the coat he throws into the trash and clicks his boots. Four-inch heels pop out from his shoes, and Duke struts out of sight.

Tim leans against the windows, face and palms against the glass, eyes wide. "Wait. Wait. I have so many questions. B, turn around!"

"Dinner plans, Tim!"

"But B!"

Damian points. "Look! Richard is twirling his hair! The harlot draws near."

Steph laughs, patting Tim's back, who is straining hard to open the door. Thankfully, Bruce was quick enough to press the child lock. "I love the way you talk, Dames. It's like a period piece villain escaped the TV."

"Thank you, Brown. I enjoy your existence as well." Damian smiles, pressing the binoculars against his face. "Oh."

Bruce's grip on the wheel tightens. He had chosen to stay really far behind Dick once the man had walked into a narrow street, making it harder to blend into the traffic. "What is Damian?"

"You will not like it, Father," Damian says lowly. Behind him, Steph and Tim also reach for their spying gear. Jason and Cass were grimacing from the back seat, one taking pictures and the other working on getting the listening device's antenna out the crack of the window to aim at Dick.

Bruce's knuckles turn white as he steeled his resolve. "Go on. I can take it. What do you see?"

"It's Danny Fenton." Tim, Steph, and Damian all say at the same time. "The person he is dating in secret is Danny Fenton."

Bruce felt his heart stop. "The man who makes bread in the shape of hero logos?"

"Yeah. Otherwise known as "The Happy Baker," Steph says gravely. "The only Gothamite who is unreasonably happy without drugs or Joker venom."

"I once saw him making up songs while setting out a display of animal-shaped bread. He rhymed Gotham with awesome." Tim practically spits. "I should have known. All those animals were circus-themed. The elephants were incredibly tasty."

"You bought some!?"

"Excuse me for being hungry B!"

Damian slaps Bruce's arm aggressively. "Father! Father! Richard is getting on one knee."

"WHAT?!"

Jason pressed one hand over his headphones and attempted to listen closer before his eyes widened. "Wait! It's not a real marriage. Dick's investigating a possible trafficking ring, who been using Gotham baking supplies as a cover. He wants Danny to help him infiltrate the front by pretending to be baking husbands!"

"He just asked him to get married," Jason reported, much to the horror of the general van. Cass' camera starts clicking aggressively, either to capture the moment or have something to hang over Dick's head and force him to call off his marriage.

It's hard to tell with her perfectly impassive expression.

"Oh, thank the gods." Bruce breathes, only to have Steph ruin the moment.

"They're frenching right now."

"Oh, come on!"

"This is fun," Cass says over Bruce, swearing under his breath. "We should spy on each other as a group more often."

"Can we find out what Duke is up to next? The heels will haunt me until I know everything." Tim pipes up.

Damian, Tim, and Steph do not lower their binoculars even though they are close enough that they become a nuisance rather than helpful. He hasn't seen them so engaged in a family outing in a long time. "Yeah, we can spy on Duke next."

There is a moment of silence as Bruce considers the request before he merges lanes. In doing so, they drive by the kissing couple, too caught up in each other to notice the people staring at them through spying gear.

"You're the best adoptive dad ever!" Tim cheers as the rest of the kids let out whoops. Fenton's ears twitch, breaking the kiss with Dick to look right at them over their eldest shoulder.

Bruce slams a foot on the pedal the second Cass starts yelling, "Go go go! He saw us!". They peel away, screaming while Dick throws them a finger, and Fenton laughs silently.

The happy little freak.

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #Family Bonding #death defying #The Waynes spy on Dick #Fluffy fmaily outting #Bruce doesn't like Danny #He's too happy #The other don't like him either for the same reason #Duke is also undercover but he's day shift so his stuff is crazier #Danny is a baker

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astroyongie · 2 days ago

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✗♡✗♡ +18 Next Partner Reading ✗♡✗♡

Note: Hey everyone! February is the month of love and for that I have prepared some special readings and also games! We will start this one with this incredible reading! next up with be soft love, which will be the opposite and focused on romanticism <33 Please enjoy!

-> Reading done with: The Magical Erotic Tarot

Warning: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

-> Take a moment to breathe and focus. Choose the image you feel the most attracted to and enjoy!

ᴘɪʟᴇ ᴏɴᴇ- ᴛʜᴇ ꜱɴᴀᴋᴇ

-> 9 of wands, the chariot, 6 of wands

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: The first thing that strikes me in this reading is the fact that they are obsessed with you in all shapes and forms. They love your lips, your tummy. The way you, speak the way you move. Your future partner will love to show you off to the people yet he keeps things between the two of you quite discreet. They perceive you as someone so soft, so innocent. Might call you "little dove", "my bird", "bunny". You truly are someone they cannot leave without, as they have been manifesting you for longer than you have been.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: There's definitely so much passion in here, and your dynamic has a fun side of two coins. In one moment your partner will be the type to take you everywhere with them, long car rides, soft talks, pillow talks. Them drawing soft patterns in your back while you are relaxing. Yet, they would also not be scared to punish you, push you right into the bed, on your tummy when you are acting like a brat. Spanking your ass if you dare to raise your voice at them. They excel domination and respect and your dynamic would show exactly that.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: A ass person. They won't hide it and their kinks would all be around that. For the dynamic of your intimate sessions there's a lot going on. Body worshiping, spank play, ass dropping, anal, punishment play. but also overstimulation and denial depending on their mood and liking, soft degradation as well. The dynamic in the relationship also shows inside the bedroom. But this person truly would have always their hands one your, as they can't keep it to themselves

ᴘɪʟᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ- ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴇʀʀʏ

-> 8 of swords, 2 of wands, the magician

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: They probably desire you much than you desire them, and that's because their need of emotional connection is linked to their physical connection. They perceive you as someone who is seductive, someone who has caught them and now they have no issue out of this relationship, this passion, this desire. They perceive you as someone they need to possess, to own, to keep away from prying eyes. That's how much obsessed they are over you

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: You both actually have a very good dynamic, one that is flirty, teasing despite also being able to be serious when its needed. You would be the type of couple that share food, cook for one another. when you go out to eat, you can rub your feet/leg on them and they would respond. there's so much chemistry, passion and romanticism. there's no secrets, you both are able to speak to one another without hiding things

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: This is all about learning things with each other. There's a possibility that this person will have your virginity and you theirs in most cases. in other cases, it indicates someone with a lot of experience, and they will make are to show you everything they know. Threesomes, exhibitionism, voyeurism, body worship, exchange of roles and kinks related to pushing forward and exploring without boundaries. that's how much comfortable you are with them.

ᴘɪʟᴇ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ- ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴏᴍᴇɢʀᴀɴᴀᴛᴇ

-> The Lovers, The Knight of swords, The Sun

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: I think they perceive you as the one that will fix their heart, their ego. The one person that they found that will make it all go away and make it feel right. It feels like they would be obsessed with your style, the way you dress and act. they love your chest/breast area as well. For some of you, this person is probably in a relationship but they will leave their partner for you because the chemistry and the attraction toward you is way greater than with who they are currently.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: Okay this dynamic is quite interesting, we have here a partner that is quite dominating in the relationship. the type that will take command on things, that will dictate the relationship and provide for you. It seems like they want the other people know you belong to them, and that they are here for you. It's a dynamic where you are mostly being babied, cared for.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: There's such a good dynamic here, the sex is so hot, so passionate where you feel yourself like the happiest person in there. Some kinks I am able to perceive is hair pulling, whips, voyeurism as well. perhaps some loving missionary, naked skin agaisnt skin smash, because they need to feel you close and there. It's a sex that is truly connected and where you both take care of one another.

ᴘɪʟᴇ ꜰᴏᴜʀ- ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀɴᴅʟᴇꜱ

-> 9 of swords, The Priestess, 10 of pentacles

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: You are someone they finds very broken yet so sensual. They probably have this idea of "I need to fix them" as they see you as a little person who just needs to feel loved. They get protective of you rather quickly in the relationship, they want you close and crave you. They love your scent and your hips/waist. they would always want to have their hands in there

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: The dynamic is beautiful and the way they put you in a pedestal, you have honestly won this one. To them, you are everything, innocent and young, soft and so fragile. They would are for you, while also giving you your independence and the space to make decisions for yourself. You would mostly lead In the relationship. It's a dynamic where you both respect and learn with one another.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: Definitely calls you "kitten" in the bedroom, very "pussy drunk" type of person when it comes to you. they love to strip you naked, have their mouth in your neck and mark you up. They will worship you, kiss your body up and down for their own amusement and pleasure. feed you fruits, buy you the prettiest sets of lace. Mirror sex or like having a mirror in the roof would be also a thing it seems

ᴘɪʟᴇ ꜰɪᴠᴇ- ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏꜱᴇꜱ

-> knight of wands, the judgment, 7 of cups

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: Their perception of you is quite interesting Ig I must say. the cards show that they see you as someone they can grow old with, someone they want to adventure in the world with, someone they want to share their life with. They love your voice, your breasts/chest area as well. The type to think you are a precious diamond that can only be polish by their own fingers

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: ah, "ride or die" type of thing it seems. Like I said earlier they are the type of person who want you for life so they have made sure they treat you as the mother/father of their children, like a husband/wife material. This person treats you right, provides to a certain extent but their love for you is priority. they will always defend you, no matter what.

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: there's a lot of riding sex in here, also you against their chest with they use their hands and mouth. Breeding kink, bondage and age play can be things they are into. They love making out before and during the sex, their lips on your as there's thrusts coming in and out. they are quite romantic as well inside the bedroom, slow passionate sex is preferred by them than the rough one.

ᴘɪʟᴇ ꜱɪx- ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴘꜱᴛɪᴄᴋ

-> 3 of swords, page of cups, 10 of swords

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 How Do They Perceive You?: they see you as the person that saved them after a heartbreak. It feels like this person has been wishing for love and a partner after a huge disappointment, and the moment they saw you everything made sense. they are obsessed with you. their hand always on your thigh as they talk to you. they will serenade you because to them, you are someone who deserves all the efforts

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Dynamic: Such a romantic dynamic honestly, this person and you are the type to write hand letters, notes, texts often and leave them around/send them when you least expect them to. They might call you "kitten" in some cases. A dynamic where they would stay up late until you come home, until you need them. the type that is jealous and would try to be around you every time, because there's some trust issues alongside the desire they have for you

ﾒ𝟶ﾒ𝟶 Your Smash Dynamic: mutual masturbation can be a thing inside the bedroom, soft music in the background as well, voyeurism or exhibitionism (the fear of getting caught is what I am sensing). Threesomes can be a thing or like you being attached while your partner smashes someone else (this only in certain cases). there's a lot of make up sex, making your cry during it, forcing yourself to look at your reflection as well. boob play, a intimacy that can so times get a little rough depending on both your energy

#tarot #tarot readings #tarot deck #tarot reading #tarotcommunity #reading #valentine reading #love reading #tarot pick a card #pick a card #valentines day

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boypied · 3 days ago

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Crush

[best friend] clark kent x male reader

summary: you've been crushing on your best friend for a while now, he is the oppitome of perfection so before his date with lois lane he wants to try out his eating out skills and you are in no position to object his offer.

wc: 1.3k

notes: FDNI, MDNI, ass eating (r!receiving), fingering, body worshipping, hand jobs (r!giving&receiving), ass slapping.

You sit on Clark's bed waiting for him to finish up in the shower and actually acknowledge you since he was the one that invited you over. “Clark, can you hurry-” You start to mutter out until he stumbles into his bedroom where you're sitting down on the corner of his bed, your eyes wandering all over his body but completely staring at his extremely low and loose towel. You gulp down some spit that was gathering in your mouth, and if anymore formed, you would've been drooling over him in a more obvious sense. Clark struts into his room, chuckling quietly to himself as he picks up on your obvious gawking over him. “Bro, I am dying for your help... and I wouldn't ask you to help in this way, but it's urgent” he scoffs out, his voice laced with nervousness with an underlying hint of excitement. Your eyes wander over his body as you watch the water droplets drip down his gorgeously muscular body, “whatever you need! You know you can count on me for anything, you know that.” You mumble out in a soft tone as you gulp quietly.

“This is so embarrassing to ask you, but... can I practice my eating out skills?” Clark asks you with his eyes practically closed, and you stare at him in shock, but hearing those words sends a warm tingly feeling down your body heading right towards your growing aching cock. Your mouth gaped open slightly, taking a moment to process what your best friend of many years just asked of you, “it's just that I'm meeting Lois later and I've been getting the feeling that she's been wanting to take things a step further and... I just don't want to embarrass myself to her, cause I like her a lot” Clark says in a slight whiney tone as he begins to ramble on about how much this will help him out and improve, “This can be like when me and you use to practice kissing with each other before you figured out you liked men, except it will be me figuring out how to eat someone out in the most pleasureable way.” Clark walks closer to you as his ramble continues on and on until your hands reach out and pull open his low hanging towel to reveal his girthy, long and monstrous cock to you. Your eyes widen and Clark gasps at the sudden feeling of being so exposed.

Clark's eyes widen as he stares down at you, “I-I'm only suppose to be eating you out!” His voice extremely shaky from nerves however his cock springs up in excitement revealing how he truly feels about the whole situation. “If you're going to be eating out my asshole then I can ATLEAST see you naked, it's only fair!” You say with a small chuckle which causes Clark to burst out laughing and cover his face to hide his embarrassment. You stand up and keep eye contact as you act all flirty as you slowly strip off naked, you laugh throughout this to hide how excited you really are about this but Clark just stares at you, he slowly nibbles at his bottom lip and you notice his cock leaking like a facet. You reach your underwear as you take a deep breath and pull them down in one swift motion leaving you naked, you both stare at eachother and the awkwardness of being naked in front of your bestfriend slowly slips away and this feeling of comfort and safety crosses over both of you. You turn around and crawl onto his bed shoving your ass into the air revealing your tight, pretty pink and hairless asshole to him. You take a deep breath “I'm ready...” You mumble out as you feel Clark's presence come closer to you as his hands grip against your cheeks spreading them open more giving him a better look at your hole, “w-woah...” he scoffs out nervously.

Clark slowly leans in and hesitantly licks a wet strip up your hole. His eyes slowly flutter shut as he relaxes his body, and his hands forcibly shake your asscheeks creating a jiggle. You gently bite down on your lower lip, feeling the warm from his tongue caressing back and forth slowly but surely pushing past your tight muscle ring and into your soft velvet walls that are clamping around his tongue. Your eyes flutter back and your cock hardens against Clark's bed, “Mhm!” He grunts out until he pulls away and he leans upwards to shove his fingers into your mouth “Suck.” Clark commands of you, his tone dominant and rough, his nervous exterior slips away as his hidden fantasy comes to light. You feel his fingers push into your mouth, swirling around to get them all soaked in your spit. Clark pulls them out of your mouth and gently rubs them against your wet asshole, gently pushing them past your loosening muscle ring and into your velvet feeling walls.

Clark fingers curl inside of you as he reaches his knuckles as your muscle ring tightens around it. You lay your head against the duvet as you slowly sink into it, “C-Clark~” You whimper out in agonising pleasure as his fingers curve against your sweet spot, with each curve he milks your sweet spot sending shivers down your spine and causes your body to jolt. Clark pulls away and sits down next to you, “Do you wanna J-Jerk me off?” Clark asks you nervously as you roll over and continues to breathe heavily. “Mhm-hm.” You nod your head with excitement. You lean back up and wrap your hand around his girthy monstrous cock that you've been dreaming of for some time now, and you slowly begin to beat his meat feeling his pre-cum drip down your hand and you lean down to lick it up grazing your tongue against his tip causing his body to jolt upwards into your hand. You gasp in shock as Clark wraps his hand around your cock and he matches the rhythm in which you're beating his meat in a swift motion. “F-Faster!” You both whimper out simultaneously, and you both turn your heads to make eye contact as both of your hands pratcially move on their own.

“C-Clark, is this too mu- ” You begin to talk as you breathe heavily until he leans in and slides his tongue into your mouth and your eyes flutter shut enjoying the feeling and taste of his tongue in your mouth. Both of your hands go up and down in a swift sultry motion, and you whimper as you feel Clark's other muscular arm wrap around your waist, pulling you closer to him as you both thrust your into each other's hand. “M-MHM!” You whine out into his mouth as you nearer your release “N-Ngh!” Clark grunts out into your mouth as the simultaneous feeling of both your hands moving in a rapid motion beating each other's cocks becomes too much for you both and you shoot your load. The spurts of cum from both of your tips shoot all over each other's bodies, Clark pulls away and breaks the kiss leaving a string of spit from his mouth onto yours.

“Woah” you mumble out as you watch Clark's face redden, and he chuckles nervously. “So did this prepare you for your date with Lois?” You ask him softly with an undertone of jealously, and Clark just stares at you and smirks “There wasn't ever a date with Lois, I just really wanted you.” Your eyes widen in shock, and you jump up from laying on the bed, and you wrap your arms around Clark's neck as his hands travel down your body, and he grips your asscheeks “You should've just said you wanted me... I've liked you for a long, long time.” You whisper in his ear, and he chuckles “I was too embarrassed, but I guess I don't need to be anymore.” You lean back, and Clark smiles softly at you, pulling your naked body closer to his muscular one as he leans into a kiss, passionately feeling his tongue swirl against yours. “I am going to fuck you... extremely hard.” Clark whispers in your ear and you just giggle, you jump up and wrap your legs around his waist ready for a night full of lustfilled pleasure.

taglist ~ @starboye @mailmango @ghostking4m @kingchaospostsstuff @crispysoup318 @inhumanshadows @its-ares @gayaristocrat @cronasluvr @irlsamcarpenter @lucerothings1 @gaefaeyae @dqrkhold @sluttyhusband @sleep-0-deprived

#clark kent #tom welling #tom welling x male reader #clark kent x male reader #gay #x male reader #fanfic #x male y/n #male reader #smut #gay smut #tom welling x male reader smut #clark kent x male reader smut #lgbtqia #boypied #boypied fanfic

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wonryllis · 1 day ago

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PREVIEW2 : the hot dad next door (m) | park sunghoon.

﹙ 🎬 ﹚ ぃ ────𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝗱 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂?

preview. the ever quintessential first time dad moves in next door with his five year old and finds it impossible not to fall for you, the pretty girl who gives his daughter cookies and him; the doll eyes. obsessed with your entire being, unable to keep his hands off you, park sunghoon questions if he's just crazy or he's crazy over you.

or where, he notices the way you look at his hands a little too long for it to be innocent.

meet the cast. single dad!park sunghoon with his pretty neighbour fem!reader.

genre. DILFF AUU !!, SMUT MDNI, fluff, neighbours to lovers, sunghoon is quite literally yes insanely crazed over you and for the sake of god can't keep his dick soft, domestic a little bit i guess, i want to make her my wife trope EEEKKK, slight age gap (hoon in late twenties and reader in early twenties) more to be added.

word count. 1.2k for this preview and around 20k for the whole fic.

warnings. inaccuracies about parenting cause i aint a parent, i got no idea. some hot making out in this one, dad sunghoon tired bothered from work yes it's a warning. more will be mentioned in the actual post.

check out the first preview!

"is ji— " sunghoon stands again at your door, few days later on the weekend. this time more formally dressed than normal, adorning a sleek tight fitted vest and a navy blue blazer with buttons fastened at his waist. hair styled and glasses sitting prettily on his nose bridge. the sweat trickling down his forehead and the heaviness in his breath making you feel things despite knowing it's because he's worried about his daughter with how late he got back.

"she's here don't worry, just fell asleep while waiting for you," you reassure his distraught self. being a single and new father took a much harder toll on him at times like these when he couldn't be with his angel and he honestly didn't know how he'd survive if it weren't for you.

his job asked a lot of him and he couldn't always asks his friends and family to look over her, to have someone like you beside him was a breath of relief.

"i'm sorry, the meeting lasted longer than i thought and then traffic—" he tries explaining, wishing you aren't fed up of him and his daughter yet.

"it's okay sunghoon, everything's fine. do you wanna have some wine before you go?"

in hopes of easing his stress and let his mind have a rest, you offer in a feeble tone of expectation.

sunghoon nods, sighing as he takes off his shoes slow and tired. trudging behind you as you walk over to the fridge to bring out the heavy bottle. you look up to smile at him across the counter while he slips off his blazer and folds up his sleeves, there's no way he does not know what he's doing. but then loser clueless sunghoon really is not aware of the effect his exposed arms have on you. his friends and colleagues have told and he probably remembers it at the back of his mind, but the thing is, he is not really trying at this moment, he's just tired from work.

hot and bothered. and being alone with you in a room like this is just making him feel hotter.

it takes him a second but when he notices you struggle to get the wine glasses from the shelf, he does not think much before walking over and grabbing them for you. his body behind yours, chest touching your back and with his hands stretched out it's like you trapped between him and the counter. the scent of your shampoo hits his nose and that's what makes him realize just how close he is to you.

he stands still for a moment, trying to inhale as much of you as he can, but when he feels you shift, about to turn around, he's immediately snapping out of it; stepping back in an instant.

"i-i'm sorry, just noticed you needed help so," he mumbles apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck in shyness like usual and yet again unaware of how much you did not want him to be sorry.

"yes, thank you sunghoon," you smile at him despite the little tinge of frustration at the back of your subconscious.

leading him to the couch, and sitting awfully close to him on purpose you put the glasses on the tea table, pouring in the wine as you discreetly watch him shift nervously beside you. sunghoon feels distressed and troubled, once again he can smell you the tingles of white musk playing his nostrils. and he can also feel your thigh rubbing against his, albeit obstruct by the fabric of his suit pant, still very much obvious. perhaps the wine will help him calm down.

"so how was your day?" you hand him the glass, taking your own and staring at him as you take a sip, waiting for him to answer.

you listen in patience as he rants about how all that could go wrong went wrong at work. gazing over features, and the way his clothes hugged him right. at some point, his brows furrow and he starts to frown, looking towards the balcony as he speaks.

it bothers you for some reason, you don't want him to be so stressed. with the slight intoxication of the wine in your system, you reach forward to take his glasses off, putting them away on the table alongside your empty wine glass. and tugging him closer by his wrinkled tie leave a little wet kiss, a spilt second of a first move and sunghoon swears he feels all his hesitations disappear.

his breath slows down and his face relaxes for that short moment your lips touch, internally malfunctioning at the situation, short circuiting in stillness, wide eyes and unmoving lips.

however as soon as he sees at the dazed look in your doll eyes when you pull away, all his nervousness flies out, for all he can think of is the way your lips moved on his, and how addicting it felt, like something he wanted to feel every single moment he possibly could.

"fuck," he pulls you back by the back of your head, quite literally engulfing your lips in a sloppy kiss, going berserk over the feel of you. his hands are quick to slip to your thighs carressing up and down a few times before grabbing them to haul you onto his lap. it's a mess. he can't seem to stop, kissing over your lips over and over again in soft nibbles, sometimes dragging a moment to suck on them. hands once again carressing from your thighs to your waist, holding you tight in his arms by there, yanking you closer.

it takes everything in him to pull away but it's only to catch and breath and there's no way he's letting this chance go. tucking a strand of hair behind your ear while your sweaty foreheads rest against each other.

just as he's leaning back in, still breathless,"dada?" the sound of jia's voice down the hall has you both immediately pushing away and sitting back down on the couch properly. sunghoon brushes back his wet hair and tugs at his tie before standing up to get his daughter.

"yes baby, dada's back. come on, let's go back," the way he picks her up and walks over to you makes your insides tingle, still not over the kiss.

"we're gonna be going then, thank you for—" sunghoon's eyes linger over the wine glasses and how messed up you look and he gulps before he continues,"having us over," his words sound deeper yet more innocent than the seductive meaning behind them.

you watch them walk out the door, waving jia and sunghoon good night as they unlock their front door and go in.

inside, his blazer still hung over the edge of the couch. a testament to the reality of all things that happened in the room. of it being more than just a dream. you enjoyed having jia over and taking care of her, it was never a nuisance and the fact that if you were to be together with sunghoon she would be your daughter too sounded more of a gift than a burden. you understood his situation, and despite not yet knowing of how and where jia's mom is, you trust him.

it was the start of a something sunghoon never wanted to end. and he could only hope you'd feel the same way. if only he knew how you felt.

#( 🍒 ) 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫!#thdnd #enhypen smut #enhypen hard hours #enhypen hard thoughts #enha smut #enha hard hours #enha hard thoughts #enhypen imagines #enha imagines #enhypen sunghoon smut #enhypen sunghoon imagines #enhypen oneshots #sunghoon smut #sunghoon imagines

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andhumanslovedstories · 3 days ago

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The critical care unit is where the sickest people in the hospital go. Those patients need a nurse completely dedicated to them, and the unit needs to keep "code beds" open in case a patient in a different part of the hospital urgently needs a higher level of care. That means critical care is always under pressure to decompress (i.e. to turf their less sick patients somewhere else so they can take even sicker patients.)

In the last weeks before we went on strike, I was floated repeatedly to the critical care unit to take care of boarders. That's what we call medsurg patients who have graduated from critical care but don't yet have a bed on a medsurg floor. Personally, I hate floating to critical care. On the floor, you would (ideally) never get a patient assignment of three patients who were critical care status an hour ago. That's going to be a very heavy assignment. But that's how many I can take when I'm helping out in critical care. And it's dangerous. It's SO dangerous. The scariest shifts I've had have been with patients who should be in critical care but aren't. People with massive strokes, or GI bleeds, or respiratory failure, that are technically able to be downgraded because if you say they're less acute, you can give more of them to the same nurse.

Last June, Oregon passed a law mandating certain nurse to patient ratios on units. While critical care is ideally a one to one ratio, medsurg (where I work, which is the general hospital population that isn't maternity, emergency, maternity, or behavioral health--so, almost everyone) has more patients per nurse. This is good and makes sense! Most people in the hospital do not need dedicated one-on-one care with someone outside their door. As a night-time medsurg nurse, I expect to take four patients a night.

And by the way? There are a lot of medsurg nurses in America who would KILL for four patients a night. I know some nurses reading this are like "four??? are you kidding me?????" Night shift nurses in states with less protections can average seven or eight patients a night. I've seen some go as high as twelve. When I have five patients, I feel like I'm running like crazy. I truly cannot understand how I could possibly give good care to more people than that.

What this means in an understaffed hospital is that patients who should be critical care get classified as medsurg instead, so instead of needing another nurse to treat another ICU patient, you can give that patient to a medsurg nurse instead. This is so common. I'm in float pool which means I work in almost twenty different units in the hospital. I have seen this happen on every single unit. Critical care patients become medsurg patients. Medsurg patients become observation class. Whatever it takes to maintain the legally mandated ratios without actually increasing staffing.

One of the major things ONA (the Oregon Nursing Association) is striking for protection against decisions like this that put patients and their caregivers at increased risk so that the hospital can save money. Even when laws are put in place protecting workers and patients, companies will work as hard as they can to circumvent those requirements. It's not enough to get legislation passed. We need the power to enforce that legislation. And baby, there is power in a union.

#nursing tag #nurseblr #labor rights

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lotuseaterconference · 16 hours ago

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I agree that people are sometimes too hung up on language choice over substance, and you also make a good point that you can express anti-trans ideas in perfectly polite and measured-sounding language. But I do think it says something that I've never heard someone express take one in the kind of "un-PC" register you wrote it in. I've never heard a cishet person who uses "tranny" in mixed company express the belief that trans women are women or that trans men or men, or express confident support for trans people's right to access HRT or use whatever bathrooms, or really any other pro-trans position you could name. And I have heard them say much the opposite, or otherwise offensive things (which I understand you're not arguing with). I expect if you google the word "tranny", you will not find many takes by cis people who use that word and express the sentiments you did in your example. Not just fewer pro-trans than anti-trans, but I would honestly be surprised if you found any.

If someone goes around using slurs or whatever "un-PC" terminology, it isn't a perfect indicator of willful malice or support for harmful policy positions or whatever, and you can definitely argue they should be given more leeway w/ language choice so long as their heart's in the right place so to speak. But... for the most part people don't actually develop their politics and sense of social norms independent of social context, and the social networks and subcultures that give people exposure to a "trans women are women" or "HRT access for everyone" or "let trans people use whatever bathroom" stances also generally expose you to "tranny is a slur" and "don't say slurs*, they're hurtful". Some trans people don't care and that's legit too... but enough trans people care that you know, you'd think they would hear it gives a lot of people a flinch response, esp if they use it so casually.

So if a stranger throws around "un-PC" language, they are genuinely less likely to hold pro-trans views as a whole, and imo it's not unreasonable for trans people to think that hey this thing is highly correlated w/ anti-trans views what's going on here, even aside from the moral case against saying "tranny" or other slurs. And if you're a cis person who doesn't want to be perceived as clueless and/or bigoted by random trans people, you'll have a better chance if you avoid that particular word at the least. I'm not saying it's fair to write strangers off as bigots or go in guns blazing rather than going hey what's up, but you know, it's information.

(*W/ the standard disclaimer re: reclamation.)

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

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darkmatilda · 3 days ago

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𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐤𝐞 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: two years ago, completely by accident, you helped catch a serial killer. now, as mysterious events start to pile up around you, you begin to suspect that someone is after you, seeking revenge. terrified, you're willing to do anything to save yourself—even if it means reaching out to your ex, who wants nothing more to do with you. 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: [these warnings only apply to part 3!] spencer reid x criminal(thief)female!reader, stalking, mention of dismembered bodies, serial killer targeting women, mention of abduction, decomposing body, violence, kidnapping, drowning, physical injuries 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 8.7

𝐚/𝐧: part 3 FINALLY!! thank u to everyone who has been here since the first part of this story. thank u andy @reidingandallthat for agreeing to appear here in the role you play. erika, darling, i apologize in advance 🫶🏼

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟑

Driving in a car next to your ex, after practically throwing yourself at him and pressing a sudden, still somewhat incomprehensible kiss to his lips, was a little, let's say, awkward

You were heading to the apartment pinpointed by one of Spencer's team members, which allegedly belonged to Clinton Richardson, the man you suspected to be the previously elusive accomplice of The Waterside Butcher. Given how easily Garcia had tracked him down, you hadn’t expected to actually find him there. However, you had to search the place, find out anything more about him than the scant information Rosas had provided. Get inside his mind. Figure out where he might be hiding, where they were holding Rebekah.

In the silence that settled between the two of you, you tried to maintain a straight, dignified posture. To play it completely cool about what had happened. One simple thought helped you with that—maybe it had been your impulsive initiative, but it was fully picked up by Spencer.

The way he cupped your face as soon as he realized what was happening. The pressure of his lips on yours, hungry, insatiable, and unrelenting with time. A sigh when he pulled away, the confusion creeping into his soft eyes.

A gentle shake of his head, as if he was already starting to regret it.

You regretted it too. It only thickened the atmosphere, which was already sharp enough to cut with a knife. In your apartment, you had made a bet—the first person to find Richardson would get one of what you considered the most beautiful and genuine photos from your time together. After what had happened, however, you couldn’t imagine just handing it to him without a word, so you simply kept it in your jacket pocket.

There was still some way to go ahead of you, the heavy midday traffic causing terrible jams, and you could no longer bear the silence nor the unreadable, fixed expression on his face as he stared at the road.

"Well," you started, clearing your throat. It felt like he flinched at the sound of your voice. God, when did you both turn into such idiots? "Just to be clear, it wasn’t...personal. You know what I mean. Kind of like checking if your favorite dessert from an old favorite restaurant still tastes the same."

If it weren’t for the fact that he glanced at you for a moment, you would’ve slammed your forehead into the dashboard. It was one of the worst things you could have said, but well, you couldn’t take your words back now.

“Favorite dessert. Checking,” he repeated in a disbelieving tone. His eyebrows shot up high, and he looked back at the road. Only then did they fall, and he shook his head from side to side. There was a trace of amusement in that gesture. Well, at least he wasn’t angry about the choice of words. “Okay.”

Not knowing what to do with yourself, you pretended to examine your nails.

“And does it still taste good?” Spencer asked after a long pause.

“What?” You shifted, distracted in your seat.

“I’m asking if it still tastes good.”

You hesitated for a moment before answering, and then a laugh gathered in your chest, a burst of it you didn’t let out loud. Instead, you held back, offering only a brief smile, a flash of teeth. Spencer glanced at you from the corner of his eye, seeming less tense than before. Some things were probably easier for you to talk about in metaphors, even if they were simple ones.

“Well, it was favorite for a reason," you said after a moment, gently, though you tried to sound casual.

The photo in your pocket.

Spencer smiled in that subtle way, where only the corners of his lips moved, his eyes remaining unchanged, thoughtful. And with that, the stage of pretending it never happened began.

The apartment that was supposedly owned by your suspect was located in a fairly decent neighborhood—at least nicer than the one Rebekah lived in—which filled you with a bitter sense of injustice. After you dealt with the lock, you both stepped inside cautiously, scanning for any potential occupant, but the place was empty.

"Not exactly how I pictured the place of someone they call The Butcher in the media," you muttered, stepping lightly on the birchwood floor beneath the bright walls.

Spencer hesitated for a moment, that familiar analytical look crossing his face. You stopped a few steps from him, hands stiff on your hips, unable to stop watching him instead of the surroundings. The slight crease between his brows as he crossed the kitchen, probably already knowing what your unsub had for breakfast every Thursday, just from one greasy, barely noticeable stain on the wall. His lips pressed together, and you realized you couldn’t ignore that part of his face anymore. You sighed, annoyed with yourself. Seriously, now?

“Did you expect a torture chamber instead of a bedroom?” he asked as you both crossed the threshold into the room. It was less tidy than the rest of the place, a sign that he spent more time here. Some things were out of place, and there was a pile of loose papers building up on the desk.

While Spencer was analyzing the papers, you walked over to the window, squinting as the midday light hit your eyes. You gently traced your finger along the leaf of the plant on the windowsill before dipping your finger into the soil.

“It’s dry,” you noted briefly, suddenly focused. He must not have been here for a few days. “Damn, maybe my imagination is just really poor, but I can’t picture a guy who does that kind of thing to women calmly watering his plants every morning. It’s just...grotesque.”

He shrugged in response, Reid’s eyes never leaving the things on the desk.

“Lots of violent, serial offenders lead lives that we’d consider normal,” he began. A lecturer's expression, you thought to yourself immediately. You’d always liked it when he explained things to you—he was the only one who could do it in a way that didn’t make you feel dumb for not understanding a concept. And, well, you liked listening to him. “Well, we once had a case with a cannibal who had a bunch of teddy bears in his house,” he added.

You couldn’t help but snort.

“Stuffed with human guts instead of fluff?”

Spencer finally looked up at you, slowly.

“No,” he replied shortly, raising an eyebrow. “They were perfectly normal teddy bears. And, you know, I’m starting to be glad that your criminal activities haven’t gone beyond robberies and theft.”

“And stolen goods trafficking.”

“Oh, right. Sorry for leaving out one of your...key specializations.”

“It’s fine. Got anything?”

You joined him in searching through the desk, standing so close that your shoulders brushed briefly. You told yourself it was only because you didn’t want to miss any clues.

“There are a few sketches here,” Spencer informed you, his chest rising slightly, which you noticed because he turned to face you sideways. There was barely a step between you. “They look a little...chaotic.”

You flipped open a random notebook, spotting the mentioned sketches—simple drawings and doodles. You kept flipping, not giving them much attention.

“Probably drew them when he didn’t know what to do with his hands during phone calls,” you said. You shrugged at his look. “I know, because I do the same.”

“I don’t recall ever seeing you do that,” he remarked.

When we lived together...the unfinished sentence hung in the air, settling lightly on your shoulders.

You took a deep breath.

“Well, back then, I was more into sending messages than having actual conversations,” you admitted, and it was true. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed him slightly parting his lips, about to say something, when suddenly your gaze landed on something on the last page of the notebook you were flipping through. “Look, a phone number,”

Spencer leaned in to take a closer look, tilting his head a bit, which brought his slightly too-long hair into your reach again. The familiar scent slowly drifted to your nose. Spencer probably didn’t even realize how close he’d gotten, too absorbed in his thoughts. Still, you couldn’t help but find it amusing. After all, just a few days ago, he had pointed a gun at you and kept the greatest distance possible.

He straightened up, and you noticed the change in his expression. You stayed perfectly still, not moving, not backing away. It might sound strange, but you wanted to see how you affected him. Would he have done what you did on the staircase if it hadn’t been for you? Did he genuinely want to do it too, or was it simply the conversation over the pictures that had lured you both into the trap of sentimentality, the nostalgic need to revisit an old dessert?

“You know this number?” you asked, surprised.

You hadn’t expected such a thing to happen, yet here it was. Spencer nodded.

“I remember it,” he admitted. At the same time, his voice carried a note of readiness, excitement about moving the investigation forward with this newly found clue... and an unexpected hint of awkwardness, as he briefly scratched his forehead before placing the notebook back on the desk. “It’s a brothel’s number.”

Your eyebrows shot up mockingly.

“You remember the number of a…”

“You have no idea how often the FBI uses their services,” he blurted defensively.

A beat of silence followed, then his eyes widened, and he quickly shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant, for God’s sake. I mean, prostitutes often have a lot of information about different people and can be useful…”

“Tsss…” you silenced him with a playful swirl of your finger near his lips, amused by his rushed, nervous reaction.

Spencer glanced down at your finger, his lower lip jutting out slightly as if he wanted to add something, but his brilliant mind failed to produce anything coherent. Even if it had, you wouldn’t have cared.

You couldn’t let go of the topic anyway—you always enjoyed teasing him too much, loved seeing that faint blush color his stubbled cheeks.

“You don’t have to explain yourself, seriously.”

You had the strange feeling his gaze lingered a little too intently as you slowly swallowed, forcing you to cross your arms over your chest, creating a small barrier to keep your focus. You blinked slowly, mischievously.

“I’m not interested in where you sought comfort after our breakup.”

He literally gasped.

“This is…” he began with a deep sigh, taking half a step back from you. “This is…I swear, this is the most narcissistic thing that has ever come out of your mouth. And there have been plenty.”

You gave a mock salute.

“See, I like breaking my own records,” you muttered.

Spencer’s gaze suddenly shifted from you back to the desk. He sighed, like he was grounding himself after drifting somewhere else.

“We should…we should call that number. Maybe set up a meeting. See if we can learn something more about him than the fact he doodles in the margins when he’s on the phone.”

You nodded in agreement, sliding your hands into the pockets of your jacket.

“Didn’t think I’d ever say this, but you’re right. Let’s meet your hooker.”

Spencer rolled his eyes.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Want me to dictate the number, or do you remember it?”

“I get the feeling you’re not letting this go anytime soon.”

“And you’re absolutely right, Spencer,” you agreed. “Absolutely right.”

“He made you do… what?!”

Your raised voice filled the car.

Quick recap—you’d managed to set up a meeting with a prostitute, whose services, after a few hours of digging, you’d confirmed Clinton Richardson had used. By now, it had gotten dark, and you were seriously starting to wonder if this wasn’t just a complete waste of time. You knew the rest of the BAU was busy searching for Rebekah using other methods, but the nagging feeling that you could be doing more refused to let go.

On top of that, the fact that Robert Miller had completely vanished since his escape from prison weighed heavily on you. No one had seen him filling up the stolen car at a gas station, wearing a baseball cap. No one had heard him break into a nearby house seeking shelter through the cold night. They must have had a plan—one that played out well beyond your reach.

Though you tried to push it away, a rising sense of dread filled you.

The escort slid into the backseat of the car, introducing herself briefly as Andy. Distracted by your own worries, you couldn't stop the words that escaped your mouth.

“Andy’s not exactly a very hooker-ish name”

The woman shrugged indifferently. She seemed only slightly tense about speaking with the cops (or, well, with one cop). She wore a light white fur coat draped over her shoulders, and, to put it plainly, she was stunningly beautiful.

"Well, I didn't pick it," she shrugged.

"How old are you?" Spencer suddenly asked, turning slightly in his seat.

You exchanged a look. She did seem alarmingly young despite the heavy makeup on her face.

"Are you doing some kind of interview or what?" she scoffed. "Last I checked, you were supposed to ask me questions about one of my clients. So, I'm waiting. And for the record, I'm twenty-three."

You’d asked her the first few questions to confirm if the man she’d met was indeed Clinton Richardson. Garcia had even sent over his photo, and after a quick glance, Andy nodded, confirming it was him.

And now, back to where we left off.

“He made you do what?!”

Andy grimaced. You would’ve done the same if you weren’t absolutely stunned. You glanced sideways at Spencer, who had straightened up in his seat, his brows furrowed deeply as if he thought he’d misheard. Honestly, you’d thought the same at first.

You drew in a deeper breath, trying to steady yourself. Spencer shot you a glance, his expression tense. There was no doubt anymore—this was the man you were looking for.

“Chop off chicken heads,” the woman repeated reluctantly, pulling her fur coat tighter around herself. A flicker of discomfort crossed her face—one that hadn’t been there the first time she’d mentioned it. Apparently, saying it again brought the memory into sharper focus, and you felt a pang of guilt for making her relive it. She sighed. “While he was mastrubating”

Andy had nothing more to offer, no leads to help you track down his current location, and that realization sent a wave of frustration crashing over you. Not at her, of course, but at the fact that this case was moving forward at a painfully slow pace. Sure, you knew it was Richardson now. But what next? How were you supposed to find him before he and Robert hurt Rebekah?

You scrubbed a hand over your face, then clenched it into a fist to stop the trembling. Spencer's gaze dropped to your hand, and he tried to catch your eye, but you didn’t want that—not right now.

“Andy,” you called out just as she pushed the car door open, stopping her in her tracks. Your voice came out rough, an edge of desperation bleeding through. An impulsive decision bloomed in your mind, taking root before you could second-guess it. “We...took up some of your time. Would you have had a client during it?”

The woman looked at you with a skeptical hesitation, unsure of what you meant.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Instead of saying anything else, you reached into your pocket for the cash you’d taken from your apartment and shoved it into her hand, her perfectly manicured nails catching the light. At first, her face remained neutral, but when she saw how many bills were stacked together, her eyes widened.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. It’s for you. Payment for your help.”

“But this…” she started, meeting your gaze. You nodded seriously, confirming she could keep the money. Andy blinked, hesitated for a moment, then slipped it into her pocket before clearing her throat. “I…thank you. Seriously. It’s way more than I’d have made in that time. So... good luck finding that freak.”

“It’ll come in handy,” you muttered under your breath.

Andy closed the door behind her, and you followed her figure, wrapped in white fur, as it stood out against the night’s dark expanse. The interior of the car was filled with silence, the orange light from the overhead lamp casting shadows on both your faces. When you saw the grimace on the woman's face as she talked about Richardson, you immediately thought of Rebekah. About how her fate rested in the hands of the same man who had made Andy do things like that. You were also filled with sympathy for her, knowing she must have gone through it. She most likely didn’t have the option to refuse.

“It was a lot of money,” Spencer said after a long pause.

There was this heavy feeling of helplessness hanging in the air. What now? Where the hell were you supposed to go? Who else did you need to talk to? It hurt in your chest, and you sighed.

“Well, who knows,” you said, bitterly, not looking at him, your eyes on the windshield. “Who knows what’s gonna happen. That girl could really use the money. If something happens to me...it’d go to waste...”

You stopped, freezing when you felt a touch on your knee. A gentle pressure, filled with some kind of concern. You lowered your gaze, almost in a trance, watching his fingers spread out over the fabric of your pants, holding onto it.

“Don’t think like that,” he said, swallowing hard, his voice pleading.

You forced yourself to pull your gaze away from his hand and look straight into his eyes. He held your gaze, and there was something warm in it, something you almost wanted to sink into. You could have just nodded, let him take care of everything, let him protect you. But from the very beginning, you knew that wasn’t how this was supposed to go. You didn’t want to be just a passive part of the story, waiting meekly for the tragedy that was about to unfold. You wanted to stop it.

“Spencer, we’ve practically got nothing,” you said quietly, but there was a frustrated silence in your voice.

“That’s not true. We have...we have a profile.”

“We have Miller’s profile from two years ago, practically nothing new, and fragmentary info about Richardson. You can’t build a profile just from the fact that he had a prostitute decapitate chickens…”

“I can,” he interrupted with sudden confidence. His hand on your knee tightened, and he probably didn’t even realize it. You didn’t ask him to move it, even though the whole scene—the car, the night, his hand placed like that—was taking you back two years, to when all of this felt natural, a part of your everyday life together. You started to stop thinking about it with simple sentimentality. Since your kiss, there had been this indescribable longing you wanted to get rid of, but every interaction seemed to just intensify it.

Spencer took a breath before speaking slowly.

“Well, maybe not just based on the chickens... but we know so much about his childhood. He grew up across from the Millers, him, the poor kid. Dysfunctional parents, Joseph Miller was like a father figure to him. He had to respect him, idealize him, which is why he visited him recently when his condition worsened. His relationship with the rest of the Miller family… it had to be complicated with Robert. He was probably jealous of him, but because he was able to easily manipulate him, he never saw him as a threat. Robert, on the other hand, treated him like an older brother he never had, trusted him completely. So Richardson had his perfect picture after his parents died. A father, a younger brother, their shared sailing trips, the time spent together. The only thing that bothered him, the only thing he saw as a problem was...

“Robert Miller’s mother,” you finished, already seeing exactly what he was picturing in his mind. The pieces were falling into place, like the image on a puzzle box showing what it should look like when it’s put together. “Unlike her husband, she didn’t treat him like her son. She was part of all their trips, their cruises…during one of them, he pushed her off the boat. But why…”

“Robert took the fall for it,” Spencer answered the question you hadn’t asked, but one he could see had formed in your mind. “He did it to protect someone he saw as an older brother. They...they’re a classic example of a duo working together. One is clearly dominant, here, Richardson, and the other follows his lead, lets himself be manipulated. That’s Miller. And I think... I think...okay, these are just my assumptions...Richardson is responsible for all thirteen murders.”

For a moment, you went silent, furrowing your brow deeply.

“But...but you said you interrogated Miller. And you were sure he committed the murders.”

“Or he believed he committed them,” he added.

You shook your head in confusion, waiting for him to explain.

“I don’t think this was a typical murder duo. They didn’t kill together. Richardson kept the women in Miller’s vacation house. When Miller was arrested, he wouldn’t turn over someone he thought of as a brother, so he took the blame. And over time, through manipulation, he started believing he’d actually committed the murders himself. Just like he believed he killed his own mother. That’s why the polygraph always showed he was telling the truth, why we thought he was the killer. All this time, he truly believed he was The Waterside Butcher—he was stuck in a deep delusion. Meanwhile, our real unsub was still out there.”

You sighed in admiration at how he connected all the dots. You knew he was a brilliant profiler, you knew it well, but you were still shocked at how one person could dive so deeply into the psychology of crime.

“I wanna kiss your brain,” you blurted out.

Spencer’s breathing came out in irregular bursts as he rattled off sentence after sentence without pause. After your words, he paused for a moment—a small, tired smile tugged at his lips.

“You're welcome,” he replied, then slowly easing his grip on your knee before pulling his hand back. He looked at you uncertainly, as if wondering what you made of his gesture. “Although, that would require a surgeon.”

The dry joke broke the tension, adding a strangely sweet awkwardness to the moment. You snorted.

“I’d manage,” you said, mentally giving yourself a little nudge on the forehead. “But you need to update your team about all this. You have to pass on the profile.”

Spencer nodded in agreement. You could feel the air between you cool slightly—as if a splash of cold water had just run under your shirts on an unbearably hot day. With the same hand that had been on your knee, he reached for his phone, though he didn’t dial a number immediately.

“It’s pretty late,” he began, nodding toward the cars outside the window—as if you hadn’t noticed it was night. Well, you had, for a moment, forgotten. “No offense, but you look exhausted. You should probably get some sleep. I’m just wondering…do you have somewhere to stay? You shouldn’t be sleeping there alone.”

He put an emphasis on the word sleeping. It’s one thing to stay there fully awake, weapon in hand, but quite another to let yourself fall into that vulnerable state of unconsciousness.

You slowly shrugged your shoulders.

“I’d probably rather go back there,” you admitted, even though the idea didn’t really appeal to you. You sighed, and his face twisted in confusion. “You know, I have a lot of neighbors. And a lot of women, too. I’m afraid one of them might run into him…if he came for me.”

For a moment, he looked like he wanted to talk you out of it—he even opened his mouth, only to close it almost immediately. It was hard to argue with that.

“Alright,” he said slowly, turning his phone in his hand. “But in that case, let me stay with you.”

A surprised sound escaped your mouth.

"Seriously? You want that?"

"I just don't want anything to happen to you."

You knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink in your own apartment, yet you still felt a hint of hesitation. Things had already taken a wild turn that day—everything was changing. The verbal barbs between you weren’t laced with resentment anymore; they’d turned into a playful game that often ended in genuine bursts of laughter and smiles. You’d literally kissed. He’d touched your leg, shown care. And now, on top of it all, you were going to spend the night in the same apartment. Quite an odd situation for two exes.

The direction all this was heading remained somewhat unclear. You were so preoccupied with the case—the murderer hot on your heels—that you barely considered what would happen when it all came to an end. How would you say goodbye once more before both of you returned to your separate, opposing lives?

Spencer noticed your hesitation. His jaw clenched ever so slightly as his mind worked on a way to convince you—but he didn't really need to. As a criminal, you often thought about the consequences of your actions. You saw them clearly, analyzed every detail. Yet even the clearest vision of those consequences rarely stopped you from carrying out your plans. After all, if it did, you wouldn’t last long in this line of work.

You nodded in agreement, allowing him to stay with you.

You knew how it would play out.

First, you'd both slowly cross the threshold of your apartment, arguing about who should sleep in the bedroom and who on the couch, but in the end, you'd both end up side by side on the couch, trying to keep the conversation light and casual, along with your body language, and a second later, you'd start kissing, letting go of everything that had been hanging between you all day.

It was really predictable. Which didn’t mean you didn’t enjoy it.

“You know…” Spencer started when your lips gave him a chance to open his own. “I think there’s a certain question…” he was silenced. “...that we should both ask ourselves.”

“If it’s what are we? I’m leaving.”

"It's your apartment. Just saying."

"We’d be having a lot more fun if you shut up. Just saying."

With a soft sigh, you pulled away from him, moving your face just enough to be able to talk freely. But not enough to make him stop feeling threatened by the prospect of you shutting him up at any moment. Just saying.

"You wanted to ask about that, right?" you asked quietly.

He shrugged slightly, and because you were leaning against his chest, you felt that little shiver.

"Maybe in different words. But with the same general meaning."

With a thoughtful look, you ran your hand over the buttons of his burgundy shirt. Spencer followed the smooth motion of your hand with his eyes, gently tightening his grip around your waist. The position, the way your bodies were arranged, the closeness—it felt so natural. It was how it should be.

"Did you miss me?" you asked suddenly. "All those nearly two years."

"And you?" he shot the question back at you. You tilted your head, staring at him. You weren’t going to answer, not until he did first, though your answer wasn’t really dependent on his. You were honest with your feelings, even with yourself. Even if he said he hadn’t thought about you once or never missed you on the other side of the bed, it wouldn’t change the fact that you missed him. You’d had no trouble admitting before that, in some way, you'd always love him. "I missed you. How could I not?"

The soft question thrown into the space between you made you pout your bottom lip slightly. His gaze drifted to it briefly, but didn’t stay there—it landed somewhere else. A tiny spot just below your collarbone, a mark in the shape of the number pi. He leaned in to brush it with his lips, first briefly, then more deliberately, and you placed your hand in his slightly too long hair.

“I want to know what’s gonna happen with us when all this finally ends,” he muttered, his breath tickling your skin. You lifted your eyelids, which had fluttered shut in drowsiness and pleasure. “I missed you, that’s true, you missed me…I’d dare to bet that you did too. Correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t know…I just don’t know if that’s enough. For us…for it to work, something would have to change…”

Of course, he meant the different life paths you had chosen, your involvement in crime, your long-standing ties to the criminal underworld.

"Spencer," you said his name slowly, cupping his face in your hands so you could look into it. Okay, bad move. His brown eyes made it harder to focus. "It’s...it’s not that simple, you know that. It’s practically my whole life." You paused, swallowing. "I can’t think about it right now. Not with everything going on. My mind...I just can’t tell you anything right now. Except that I want you."

For a moment, he hesitated to answer, a sigh escaping from his chest. It sounded disappointed.

“I want you too,” he admitted, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, a statement that applies to every possible case with no exceptions. “Exactly like I did back then. And you know it wasn’t enough.”

You pressed your lips together.

“I know.”

For a moment, you both just stared at each other, neither of you moving in any way. The silence was overwhelming, making your breaths perfectly audible. You felt tired of everything that had been happening—not just around you in the last few days, but also inside your head. You needed... you probably just needed to rest your head on his chest, inhale his scent, think seriously about the two of you, then step outside for fresh air and reconsider it, sober. Then compare both conclusions. The corners of your mouth trembled. You wanted to suggest you both just lie down and sleep when his phone rang.

“They need me,” he explained when the call ended, rising from the couch, detaching himself from your body. You nodded in understanding. But he didn’t head for the door. Instead, he paused, staring at you. “You shouldn’t stay here…”

“I’ll find a hotel,” you cut him off. He raised his eyebrows, clearly not convinced by the idea.

“I won’t get a wink of sleep here, and I’m exhausted. I’ll make sure no one’s following me. Trust me, if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s that,” you snorted softly.

Of course, you were a little worried about your neighbors' safety, but you couldn’t figure out a way to protect both them and yourself. Part of you wanted to stay inside, fueled by caffeine with a loaded gun in hand, waiting for the moment someone tried to mess with the lock. But you didn’t even mention that to Spencer—you knew exactly how he’d react. Not a chance.

He pulled you into one last, lingering embrace before leaving. It seemed like an unspoken agreement to temporarily abandon the topic of what would happen between you two later.

Reluctantly, you made your way to the bedroom. The last time you’d been there, you’d taken almost all the cash hidden in the photo album, which you later gave to Andy. A few bills still remained between the pages—just enough for a night in some hotel and a cup of coffee. You snapped the album shut, but one of the photos slipped out, drifting down like a leaf on the wind, sliding under the dresser.

You sighed. You felt too exhausted to even bend down for it, but after an internal struggle, you finally gave in. First, you dropped to your knees, then sprawled flat on your stomach to reach under the furniture and retrieve it. But as soon as your face got close to the floor…you noticed a strange smell.

Faint, yet distinct. You thought it might be a figment of your imagination, but after inhaling a few more times, you were certain. Sickly sweet in a way, unfamiliar, but it reminded you of an odd mix of rotting meat, damp earth…maybe even mold?

Ignoring the photo, you got to your feet. The smell was coming from your elderly neighbor Erika’s apartment. You realized you hadn’t seen her in a while—not even heard her poodle barking, which was usually relentless with its evening performances. Dark thoughts raced through your mind. She had a bad hip—maybe she’d fallen…

Before you even realized it, you were pulling on your jacket.

The door wasn’t even locked, which only heightened your sense of foreboding.

“Mrs. Hemingway?” you called out, stepping cautiously into the apartment. The hallway was dark, but a yellow light glowed from an old-fashioned chandelier in the living room. You quickly corrected yourself. “I mean, Erika? Are you here?”

The smell had become unbearable. A wave of nausea hit you, doubling you over, but your head remained upright—you couldn’t tear your eyes away from what you saw.

Right next to a long beige leather couch lay a rolled-up light-colored rug. There were dark, bloodstained patches scattered across it, but that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the head, not wrapped in the rug. Your neighbor’s eyes were wide open and empty. Black earrings still dangled from her ears—you didn’t know why you fixated on them. Maybe your brain was starting to short-circuit, latching onto odd details instead of focusing on what it should.

Like the sound of footsteps right behind you.

You heard them too late.

There was no time to turn around before something struck the back of your head with brutal force.

It wasn’t like in the movies—it didn’t knock you out. The blow was too weak, too unskilled. It only sent you crashing to your knees, from which you desperately tried to push yourself back up, feeling your heart pounding furiously in your chest. But you were too dazed, your skull filled with a deafening roar, just before it absorbed another hit—this time stronger, harder.

As you collapsed unconscious to the ground, a shadow of a male figure hung above you.

The buzz.

A slowly forming image before you. Its small fragments connecting in incorrect combinations, as if someone were trying to piece together two mismatched puzzles.

The pain in your head.

Oh, it was terrible.

It intensified when you tried to open your eyes, so you spent a long moment in darkness, even though your body was slowly beginning to wake. You tried to press your hand to your temple, to massage it, perhaps to ease that furious pounding...when you realized you couldn't.

You opened your eyes despite the head-splitting pain, as if someone had driven a spike into it.

You were in a dimly lit room that reeked of wood and blood. It made you nauseous, and it wasn’t just because of the injury you’d sustained. At least, not entirely.

Fighting the bitter taste of vomit gathering in your throat, you began to look around the interior. Made of light-colored boards, small, with only one window covered. It resembled more of a cabin than a house, the furniture inside arranged in a way that could give an interior designer a heart attack. A rust-covered fridge stood right in the middle of the room. The floor was covered with a blue tarp that rustled with every movement of your body. The place looked as if someone had built it by hand.

Eventually, your gaze landed on your hands, chained tightly to the wall, causing pain in your wrists. You were half sitting, half lying on the floor, unable to move much. At first, you were too confused to feel fear.

Terror only hit you when you glanced to the side.

"Rebekah," you barely managed to say.

She was sitting next to you, tied to the wall in the same way you had found her in Miller's basement two years ago. Her head was lowered, eyes closed, and you prayed she'd look at you. That would mean she was alive…

She did, but very slowly, and you felt no relief at all. Her hair hung in greasy tangles on her face, her lip looked swollen, and her cheek was covered with blood trickling from a wound on her temple.

Rebekah opened her parched lips, but said nothing. She simply let her head drop again.

"Rebekah, listen to me," you begged in a hoarse tone, instinctively trying to get closer to her, but of course, you couldn't. You started to frantically look around once more. You were searching for your captors, searching for a way out. There had to be one. "Listen to me... you have to focus, I'm here, together we can figure something out..."

"You're here," a weak grunt came from the woman. "Finally. At least now it will end."

You didn't quite understand the meaning of her words, but you sensed some hidden depth to them that you decided to ignore. Instead, you nodded affirmatively. Bad idea. The pain intensified.

“Yes. That's right. Now it will end, we'll escape. You have to tell me everything you know. Where are they? When will they return..."

She grunted again.

"No," she simply said. You could barely hear her rough, quiet voice. "It will end because you're here. He was waiting for you, and now, finally, he will kill us." There was a strange, suffering longing in her voice. The prospect of impending relief lightened her face. Suddenly, though, a brief sob overtook her frail body. "Just like those other women..."

"You're wrong," a male voice cut in suddenly, making you flinch. Rebekah didn't even move. Focused on the conversation, you didn't notice the tall man dressed in a black hoodie and cap approaching.

Instinctively, you pressed yourself back into the wall. You hated your own body for showing fear, even though it was completely understandable in that situation. Before you stood Clinton Richardson. You recognized his face with the unevenly trimmed beard. Before you stood real The Waterside Butcher.

“This way, I'll only kill you,” he said in a neutral tone, staring at Rebekah with an odd look, as though she were the least interesting thing in the world to him. He didn’t blink. Not once. Slowly, his gaze shifted to you, and only then did his expression change ever so slightly, seeming more present in his own body. The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’ve got something else prepared for you.”

Your heart pounded painfully in your chest. Sometimes you’d talk to Spencer about his work, sometimes you simply listened to his long monologues with your chin resting on your hand. Did he ever tell you what to do in a situation like this? How to talk to a full-fledged psychopath?

His voice began to echo in your head, gently calming you. You took a deep breath.

“Clinton...” you began, in as soft a tone as you could manage, though your body screamed to rip those chains off the wall, lunge at him, and wrap them around his neck. That desire only grew when you remembered poor, innocent, murdered Erika. You had to close your eyes to get rid of that image.

“Shut up,” he snapped, cutting you off.

A man entered the cabin through the narrow door. You had already met him personally, though the two years he’d spent in prison had significantly changed his face. His features had become sharper, his head shaved clean. When the door opened for a brief moment, you noticed… water. Since it must have been the middle of the night, the moonlight gently shimmered on its surface. The cabin had been placed right on the edge of some kind of water source.

“Take her to the boat,” Clinton ordered, not specifying exactly who he meant.

Your body knew, though. It tensed uneasily, then frantically, as Robert Miller moved toward you. At first, you tried to fight back, kicking, but he immobilized your legs. He reached into the pocket of his fleece jacket and pulled out cable ties. After freeing you from the chains, he used them to try to restrain your hands again. Surprisingly…ineptly.

“Stop playing with her,” the second man growled, crouching next to Rebekah, lifting her chin to examine her battered face. “Hit her, she’ll stop struggling.”

Robert followed the order.

Holding your restrained hands tightly, he dragged you like a slaughtered animal. Your jacket and the clothes beneath it pulled up, and your bare skin unpleasantly scraped against the tarp material, causing abrasions. You hissed as your cheek brushed against the wooden platform outside. Before the cabin door closed, you threw one last terrified glance toward Rebekah, huddled against the wall.

Robert decided it would be easier to do it this way. He threw your body over his shoulder, despite your protests and last desperate jerks, and in just a few steps, he tossed you into the small motorboat by the lake’s edge. You collapsed onto it heavily, wincing from the pain and the ringing in your head. You exhaled through clenched teeth. You didn't know what force kept you from simply going numb, waiting for whatever was coming. What force made you keep fighting.

“Robert, you don’t have to do this,” you tried weakly, trying to make it sound like anything but a sob. You felt powerless, but you knew that this was the weak point of the duo. This was where you had to strike. “Robert...I know it wasn’t you who committed those murders.”

“It was me.”

“No, it wasn’t you. It was Clinton, you just took the blame. You believed you did it. You still believe it. He manipulated you, you have to see that...”

You stopped when he aimed the gun at you.

“Robert,” you said again, though you knew how risky that had become. You could barely force your mouth to open, but you knew it was your only chance. “I know you didn’t kill your mother.”

The hand holding the gun trembled. So, his mother was the weak spot.

“You’re lying. I...I pushed her out of the boat…”

“Why the hell are you even talking to her?” Clinton joined you in the boat, rolling his eyes. He looked at your hunched form with some contempt, and you tried to straighten up, holding onto whatever dignity you had left in these final moments.

As the engine of the boat roared to life and it began drifting farther out, toward the center of the lake, you started to doubt you would ever get out of this.

You sat still, staring at the two men. Clinton had his arms crossed over his chest, seeming to relax, his eyes taking in the surface of the lake. He even closed his eyelids, as if meditating. You noticed he wasn't carrying a gun.

You caught Robert's gaze, tilting your head to the side.

Please.

He blinked, as if trying to focus. To keep his thoughts from drifting away. He looked into your eyes once more, for a long moment. Suddenly, it seemed like he was looking through you. His eyes registered your battered body, but his mind saw another woman, one who had also drowned in the lake. The woman he had loved. The woman who had been his mother.

“Here,” Clinton muttered under his breath.

Robert quickly stopped looking at you.

“Do it,” Richardson said to him. “Come on. Get rid of her, get rid of the problem.”

But Robert didn’t move. Your breath caught in your chest, a flicker of hope.

“She’s the reason you ended up in prison,” Clinton reminded him, emphasizing she. “Get rid of the problem, brother.”

When he still didn't move, Clinton grabbed you by your clothes and lifted you to a standing position, holding you so tightly by the shoulders that he must have left marks. In that moment, you could no longer feel fear.

"Fine, I'll do it myself," Clinton sighed, pushing you closer to the edge of the boat.

You twisted your neck to glance at Robert one last time. In the hand that hung at his side, he still held the gun, his grip uncertain and nervous.

“If he were your brother, he wouldn't have killed your mother,” you said loudly, no longer caring about the consequences. “Was she a problem to you too?”

The body of the man holding you tensed even more, this time in... unease.

“Robert…” he began, dragging out the syllables of his name. Hearing the fear in his voice gave you a sense of fulfillment. You felt like you needed to experience it before you died. You lifted your gaze to the night sky above, to the stars and the moon. These were the things you wanted to see before your body sank into the abyss. “Robert, no—”

Several gunshots rang out, all aimed at the boat’s deck. He wanted to drown them all. Clinton released you and lunged at his partner. A struggle over the weapon broke out between the men, everything rocking dangerously, sparking as water began filling the boat.

You looked at them one last time. Clinton yanked the gun from Robert's hand and shoved him aside. He didn’t manage to aim it at you, though he tried. You saw his eyes searching for your face. Though you were in the middle of the lake, your hands were bound, and you couldn’t swim... you leaned over the side of the boat.

The bullet pierced the water’s surface just next to where your body fell.

When it hit the water, for a moment, you felt free. No one could reach you there; the cold of the lake protected you, surrounding you like a shield. A rush of adrenaline urged you to move your arms, to push yourself to the surface, to swim toward the shore. It wasn’t far, you could swim. But you couldn’t do it. Your hands were tied.

You began to sink.

Water burst from your lungs.

The first thing you felt was that your hands were free. Then the piercing cold, sending your whole body into a tremor. Then the stabbing pain in your chest, but you slowly stopped caring about what you felt. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what you saw.

Around you, blue and red lights of police cars flickered, reflecting off the surface of the lake where you lay. A man with dark skin, performing CPR, pulled away when you finally took a breath, his sharp gaze scanning your condition. He had just quickly checked your pulse when someone almost shoved between you.

“Derek, I need a thermal blanket,” Spencer said, kneeling in front of you. His gaze was frantic, only locking on yours when you made eye contact. You wanted to say something, but all you could do was cough. “Quick. She's shaking.”

You pressed your hands to your chest, waiting for the coughing fit to pass. You didn’t help yourself, still trying to say something, not tearing your gaze away from Spencer. You couldn’t. It was all too unreal. A harsh sound escaped your lips.

“Hey, take it easy,” he said, as gently as he could. His voice was soft and weak, and you heard him swallow with relief as he carefully placed his hands on your shoulders, just resting them there. Trying to understand that you were even there. Alive. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“You found me,” you finally managed to say.

Spencer nodded eagerly.

“I did,” he admitted. Suddenly, he furrowed his brow, as if in disbelief. Without caring about your soaked clothes, you pressed yourself against him, burying your injured cheek in his chest. You felt his heavy sigh. “I-I did,” he mumbled.

You probably shouldn’t have heard those words, but he pulled you so close that they grazed the shell of your ear.

Around you, people were moving, busy with the aftermath. The investigation didn't end with your rescue; the night wouldn't quiet down. They had to follow procedures, secure the scene, get inside the cabin where you'd been held...

Like being jolted by electricity, you pulled away from Spencer. The fear on your face mirrored in his eyes.

"Rebekah..."

"She's alive," he reassured you immediately. Your shoulders dropped, and an unidentified sound of relief escaped your lips. "They didn’t have time to do anything to her. They planned to after they…" He trailed off, shaking his head slightly. "She's alive. They drowned."

For the first time, your gaze shifted towards the dark waters, hiding its secrets.

"Both of them?" you asked, needing to be sure.

Your breath began to quicken again, unease taking hold. Spencer gently reached for your cheek, guiding your attention back to him, away from the lake.

"Both," he confirmed. He stood still for a moment, watching you with those dark eyes, his concern echoing with every shiver that ran through your freezing body. Once again, he didn’t care about your soaked clothes, pulling you tightly into his arms.

You closed your eyes as his chin rested on top of your head.

"You’re safe now."

In the ambulance, they attended to your injuries.

Everything that was happening reached you through a haze. They told you to lie down, but you didn’t want to. It was only someone’s soft, familiar voice that convinced you. You felt a bit pitiful, lying on your back. You wanted to get back up, to return to normalcy after everything that had happened. But when you tried to move, Spencer turned his head slightly, silently instructing you to lie back down. There was an undeniable firmness in his gesture.

Both of his hands held one of yours, enclosing it tightly, like a shell around a pearl.

They told you it was okay to sleep, but you were a bit afraid. You feared that when you closed your eyes, all the warmth would fade, and you'd find yourself back in the icy depths of the lake. Every time you felt yourself drifting away, you squeezed Spencer’s hand tighter. You turned your head slightly to look at him, and he gave you a small smile.

“Spencer,” you murmured suddenly, a hint of worry in your voice.

“What’s wrong?”

Then, something came to your mind. You reached into the pocket of your jacket, where you had the photo you promised to give him. The water had ruined it completely; all you had now was a white, torn piece of paper instead of the image of his hand gently holding your cheek as he placed a kiss on it.

“I’m sorry. I know you wanted it…”

Spencer took the remains of the photo from you, glanced at it without much interest, then crumpled it up. Surprised, you furrowed your brows.

“We’ll take more,” he assured you lightly.

For a moment, you just stared at him in silence. Did that mean…?

“Really?”

“We’ll take hundreds of them.”

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