#like yeah 17 year olds seem like. younger? i guess than they did when i was the same age

[unconventiononthelawofthesea]

that post that's like actually no adult can tell the difference between different ages of child is so so funny like. maybe you're just stupid?

[kaontic]

*Long post*

They are recovering from being exposed to a p.o.j.

Megs. I’m talking about Megs. He’s my second favorite villain of all time rn (tied with Star actually), but he is the ultimate p.o.j (piece of junk).

In fact, this issue, def makes me want to change my pfp, use the Transfixatron on Megs in his gun mode, and bury his aft in the more than 200ft deep mine shaft at the bottom of this crater fr.

Obviously it’s not deep enough but still.

Or you know what scratch that—because I would just be vandalizing a cool site, wouldn’t I? With JUNK!

*Looks down*

Yeah. I said it. Why are you even here rn—? Do you want me to discuss the time you were responsible for Brawl m[REDACTED]ing a puppy?

Thundercracker: What?

DO YOU?!

Idc if he “just” wanted to capture the dog. He “just” wanted to capture the dog to make dog soldiers.

Not even Joker would do that.

And in this continuity and this issue, we find out that he has no problem with and is EAGER to recruit youngling soldiers.

Or in other words, Cybertronians who have not fully developed their brain chips yet who are thus easier to manipulate.

(God this is gonna be a long post—)

Optimus, Grimlock, any Autobot—you better have tried to talk/keep Bee out of fighting like you did with Carly. Or at least, be real with him and have the “Prime told me there’d be days like this!” conversation.

Cliff and Arcee too despite us knowing damn well that they will fight no matter what.

Because, after all, at least in the US, you can join the military at 18 (or 17 with parental consent). Furthermore, it’s a sad fact of life, but many underage people fight in conflicts all over. It happens and is happening and I’m glad this has finally been (at least as far as I’ve seen and remember) explicitly acknowledged in a franchise about war.

I’m gonna try to be more organized about this but here are more things to note:

. We don’t know any Cybertronians’ official age. That’s never been a thing, because you’d have to calculate, and Hasbro ain’t doin’ that math.

. That being stated tho, based on the dialogue, Star/Ulchtar in this flashback could be anywhere from 14-19 years old in human years.

. It seems like he has some part-time job. Mood.

. This is the first time in canon I’ve seen a youngling Starscream join the Decepticons. In G1, he was an adult (former full-time scientist right?). In the WFC games, an adult. In TF One, an adult (and even older than Megs? I mean Steve Buscemi’s voice does not age fr so—).

. Kup looks significantly younger here than he does in Issue #7. That is Kup up there, right? Like middle-aged I guess? ⬆️

(Oh man…how is Hot Rod going to react…RIP)

. Um…that information from Issue #1.

Ok ok ok—I really need to focus here—

. When Genvo gets blasted, he falls forward into Ulchtar’s arms. I’m no physicist, but this means he must have been shot from the back, right?

. Optimus to me seems to appear from behind Ulchtar (in the other direction).

. Optimus presumably does not hurt Ulchtar (or even notice him?), which makes sense (if he saw Ulchtar). He’s unarmed.

. Optimus doesn’t have the same gun he did in Issue #1 here, and he has no gun at all in the Energon Universe Special sh** how am I supposed to compare—

Holy scrap I scare myself. O_O

. Megs’ fusion cannon cools fast.

. Megs knows that Ulchtar has brothers (“brothers” can also refer to comrades. As in “brothers-in-arms”).

. To Genvo, it’s not a matter of “if” Jetfire and Ulchtar join. It’s “when”. He knew more than he was able to let on too.

. Megs was able to answer Ulchtar’s question…despite him asking it in a low voice to himself? And from farther away? What?

. Megs, why the hell were you smiling when you made that claim in the EUS? That was my first 🚩, I just forgot to mention it before. Don’t you care about Cybertron? What is your deal? How old are you? HOW OLD IS OPTIMUS? HOW OLD IS JETFIRE NOW??????? THEY DIDN’T AGE THE SAME DUE TO THE CRASH—Oh wait right Void Rivals.

. Like no wonder Skybound Star acts so immature and violent, and maybe even resentful of Jetfire leaving him (which explains his hostility that caught Jetfire off guard).

In G1 he acts bratty, but he’s always been portrayed as an adult, so I didn’t expect this I just thought—FRAG— 😭

. I think we can all agree here that this is still not an excuse to lash out at the innocent, so Carly still deserves to get justice/his aft (idk [insert theme about revenge here]). But also Megs. Frag Megs, like honestly (I didn’t even like TF One Megs by the end). 😒

. And this is exactly how I imagine Megs recruiting his victims followers, especially when he’s interested in particular ones (it freaking happens in my AU but anyway— 😀).

Step 1: Show up at the right moment, when they are at their lowest. Act nice, very nice, and make yourself look less intimidating, by changing into something that’s not only small, but also capable of protection. Hence, a gun (gun-tank hybrid whatever—maybe he’s a triple changer like my AU).

It’s his way of communicating that he trusts you/sees your potential, and that you better could trust him because he will protect you, and guide you, and care for you, etc.— He’s totally not luring you into a false sense of security so he could use you. 🙂🫠

Step 2: Use information you know (to get even more personal) and high emotions to your advantage.

Step 3: ?????????????

Step 4: Profit until you get what’s coming to you.

Dammit why is he so magnetic? Forget the fusion cannon, that’s the scariest thing about him people!

My overall theory:

Genvo tragically said too much. Maybe he was trying to impress and gain Megs’ favor (somebody who he already looks up to), so he mentioned their (or just Ulchtar’s) clan (part of the Cybertronian defense force? Oh boy).

They’re numerous, fliers, and most valuably of all, some are outliers (have powers). Skywarp’s teleportation. The Rainmakers’ acid. Sunstorm’s radiation. Oh, how destructive that would be in a fight…

So, he put a tracker/recorder on Genvo (with or without his knowledge), wanting to find out what the clan’s deal was. Or maybe he or Soundwave just straight up stalked them via their alt modes, I wouldn’t be surprised. Are they interested in a side? Apparently not, and for Megs that’s a problem. Let’s make them interested.

Akin to the Aligned novels, he blows their territory up, intending to blame it on the Autobots. Genvo, perhaps aware of Megs’ plan/true intentions, is merely one loose end to tie.

In the end, Genvo wasn’t special or that useful, but he made for good fridge stuffing.

Idk how Omega Supreme factors into this. Maybe Optimus did blast Genvo. Nevertheless, Megs once again proves that he is the biggest selfish douchebag who cares more about himself than Cybertron’s future (unless proven otherwise?).

And I hope Carly wins/finds happiness along with Spike. Peace out. ✌️

[luminianna]

Hey all! Welcome to my first fic! I won’t be writing constantly but I may have one pop up here and there. Feedback is always appreciated ❤️

Hugh Jackman x fem!reader (using Y/N)

Warnings: a bit of swearing, keeping it fluffy mostly

Summary: Hugh tells you he likes you! (That’s about it)

Hugh stared at me in awe. Yeah, I was 17 years younger than him, but it didn’t seem that way to him.

She’s such an old soul, he thought, as I was dancing around with my eyes closed, singing to ‘Runaround Sue’ by Dion.

I was so wrapped up in the song, I didn’t notice Hugh starting at me hypnotically until I came face to face with him.

“Shit, Hugh! You scared the living hell out of me!” I screamed, giving him a light shove in his chest.

“Y/N, you never cease to amaze me”, he said, his voice filled with joy and disbelief, while his hands slowly moved towards my waist.

Just as he did that, ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Righteous Brothers started playing. He looked down at me, with a smirk on his face.

“Don’t tell me you know this song, too?” He asked, his voice soft as he stared into my eyes.

“Of course! I think we’ve all seen the movie ‘Ghost’. It was such a 90’s classic” I replied, staring back into his eyes with a smirk of my own.

His grip on my waist tightened, and before I could react, he pulled me closer. I could practically feel the heat radiating off of him. Once I was pressed against his chest, I felt his feet start to move and his hips start to sway. He moved his hands from my waist to my own hands, placing them on his broad shoulders. He replaced his hands around my lower back and pulled me closer, never breaking eye contact with me.

Hugh and I had always had this sexual tension between us, like an unspoken attraction. We were friends, but it never stopped us from the intense flirting and sharing dirty jokes. He would call me ‘old lady’ whenever I sang along to an old 60’s or 70’s song, or when I would get excited about watching an old movie at the local small theatres. I always told him I felt like I was born in the wrong time, always wishing I had gotten to experience the older decades. I guessed it made him feel like he wasn’t so old around me, that there wasn’t a slight age gap. To me, 17 years didn’t feel so bad. I have my fair share of grey hairs and wrinkles right now.

Hugh held me close as we continued to sway to the song, the world fading away into the background. He then closed his eyes and placed his forehead on mine.

“Look,” he spoke, almost above a whisper, “I’m just going to come out and say this… I’ve grown quite fond of you the past few months. I’ve never met anyone quite like you”.

I kept my gaze on him while he was telling me this. A small gasp escaped my lips, which caused him to open his eyes to observe my reaction. Now, his eyes were filled with a mix of relief, adoration and a little bit of hesitation, as he wasn’t able to read my face in the moment.

I must have been staring at him hard for some time without realizing it, as he started to have a panicked look on his face. He suddenly stopped his feet and scanned my face.

“Y/N, please say something” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, but I needed to tell you. Look, I completely understand if you don’t feel the same, but I…..”

And like a light bulb going off, my brain finally registered what he just said. He likes you! Do something, you idiot, before he regrets it!! You can’t let Hugh Jackman get away!!

My eyes widened, and before I could think of anything and before he could finish what he was saying, I pulled him closer to me with my hands that were still on his shoulders and crashed my lips to his. A small moan escaped his throat at the contact. I moved my hands from his shoulders to his face, running my fingers at his grey scruff on his cheeks. His hands that were on my lower back pulled my body incredibly close to his, I could feel his tight chest against mine.

I pulled away and looked into his eyes breathlessly. His eyes opened, staring back into mine. A small huff escaped his lips, then turned into a half smile while his eyes were filled with adoration and lust.

“I… guess we are on the same page. I … might have always had a thing for you, Jackman”, I finally said, still trying to catch my breath and wrap my head around what happened.

The song in the background was coming to an end. Hugh was still tightly gripping onto me, just as my hands were still placed on his cheeks. He nuzzled my nose briefly before placing a soft kiss on my lips.

“So I guess there’s only one thing left to do”, he whispered as he pulled away but still hovered over my mouth.

I raised an eyebrow, not knowing where he was going with this, considering our sometimes perverted sense of humour around each other. He noticed the expression on my face and couldn’t help but giggle

“I was gonna say let’s go get supper”, he said, finding my reaction amusing. “ Get your head out of the gutter, darling. Besides, a proper first date, then dessert”, he smugly added with a wink.

[loregoddess]

sooo, because I don't have the Unicorn Overlord art book, I've been searching around to see if anyone's posted scans, or copied over character bio stuff, and found this list of ages, which is...hm! interesting. Mildly unsettling. Josef definitely has the "stress makes you go grey and then white real fast" gene or something, bc like, he's one of the oldest-looking characters (aside from Mordan who is? younger than Josef? what?) and yet he's only 52, which isn't as old as I was expecting him to be based on his design. Anywho, I arranged the characters into groups by age from youngest to oldest below, for viewing ease, so you can contemplate the ages too!

15: Yunifi

16: Chloe, Ridiel

17: Alain, Scarlett, Lex

18: Liza, Celeste

19: Travis, Auch, Nina (Millé is Nina's twin if I recall, so we can assume she's 19 as well), Melisandre, Umerus

20: Kitra, Tatiana, Leah, Gilbert, Govil

21: Sharon, Fran, Virginia

22: Ochlys, Primm, Dinah

23: Selvie, Miriam, Berengaria

24: Hilda, Gammel, Amalia

25: Monica, Aramis, Mandrin, Sanatio

26: Berenice, Adel, Gloucester, Raenys

27: Clive, Aubin, Rolf, Magellan

28: Bruno

29: Nigel

32: Fodoquia

33: Jeremy

34: Ramona

35: Morard

38: Bryce, Ilenia

40: Renault

41: Hodrick

42: Rosalinde, Eltolinde

43: Jerome

45: Colm

46: Bertrand, Gailey

47: Mordon

48: Ithilion

52: Josef

63: Railanor

82: Lhinalagos

85: Galadmir

88: Yahna

154: Alcina

Some interesting things here, it seems? that elves age at about 2.5x that of humans (if you divide any of the elves' ages by 2.5, and round to the nearest whole number, the "adjusted" age seems to match most of the characters as compared to the human characters of the same age, i.e. Rosalinde and Eltolinde would be 16.8 or roughly 17 in human years old which matches with Alain's age group fairly well).

But bestrals, despite the lore implying that owl bestrals live a long time and their shared ancestry with elves, don't...really seem to have spectacular age differences from humans, so perhaps something about the bestral anatomy puts them on an aging scale closer to that of humans.

Angels, unsurprisingly, seem to age at the same rate as humans, which makes sense given that they're just. Humans with wings. That most of them were childhood friends with Scarlett is wild though, there's an 8 year age difference between Scarlett and Sanatio and yet she was outrunning him on that bridge like it was no one's business (and yet Raenys was only a year older and serving as Scarlett's lady-in-waiting, I have so many questions about Albion).

Also I'm losing it at the implications that Ilenia had Alain when she was 19, girl what? Like okay, yeah sure, fantasy vaguely medieval setting, people had kids young, but 19? still seems so young...

Alcina though? Like, she looked that young in the prologue, before she teams up w/ local necromancer Baltro, so like? Did she cast an anti-aging spell on herself at some point? We know Yahna un-ages herself, and that this results in her looking young for the rest of her life, but did Alcina do the same spell? If so how did she manage to survive for...so long? Did Alcina somehow lengthen her own life with magic? From the rapports between Yahna and Rosalinde, we can assume that it's rare for even the most powerful of magic-users to live past a typical human lifespan (if Yahna's anything to go by, a healthy human in Fevrith can live well into their 80s, if not 90s, so we can guess healthy elves live about 200-225 years at their oldest). Alcina is an outlier, and her unhealthy obsession with Gerard does not explain anything about her weirdass aging, except maybe that she preserved herself as best she could so she could meet him again as he would remember her.

Anyhow local army is mostly not made of child soldiers which is, uh, nice compared to other srpgs, but the canon ages are...wild. Can't wait to get my hands on the heights and birthdates.

[crplpunkklavier]

obsessed with how klavier's canon timeline just fully makes no sense.

his trial against phoenix is his first, right. at this point, the gavinners are already famous enough to perform expensive concerts, due to their debut single hitting platinum overnight. we don't know when this happened, just that it had to be before the gramarye trial, because klavier talks about it there. ok.

when kristoph talks to him before the trial, in the flashback, we briefly see klavier's office, that already seems to have guitars all over the wall. that's not necessarily an inconsistency, it just means that even before he ever went to court, klavier had that office, and enough money to cram it full of guitars, which also suggests they aren't necessarily like a carefully curated collection, but were in fact just some 16~17 year old guy who just got a lot of money and bought 50 guitars at once in some sort of teenage frenzy.

we also don't know when exactly he took the bar exam, only that he took it in europe. obviously, it was before that first trial, so he might have even been younger than 17, but we don't know.

my favorite part, though, is that he says that daryan was the first detective he'd ever worked with, which can also mean a number of really weird things. clearly, the gavinners existed before klavier started prosecuting, so,

either he knew daryan before daryan was a detective, and they started the band together and then both also started into their law enforcement lives, in which case its hilariously strange of klavier to say that he was the first detective he ever worked with. like, i guess, but you also knew him when you were in high school.

or the gavinners existed without daryan for a short time, which seems unlikely, but would also be really funny given they had a platinum hit without this dude then. and then klavier starts working with a detective and is like hey you should join my glam rock band. yeah youve heard of us

or klavier worked with him on a case he just didnt prosecute, either because it didnt go to trial, or maybe he worked on it for school or something, which then implies that either daryan somehow made detective before he hit 20, or daryan is SEVERAL years older than klavier. which, according to canon ages, he is not. they're the same age. but maybe daryan pretends to be 5 years younger or something. wouldn't put it past him. or he pretended to be older with a fake ID so they'd let him into the force (also hilarious). because we know daryan didn't study abroad, since he canonically has never left the country.

and then lastly there's the fact that it is heavily implied that klavier just.... stopped prosecuting after the gramarye trial. or at least the judge hadn't seen him around in a while, and klavier doesn't deny that he was absent, allegedly because his band got so big. we're made to believe that he only returns once he hears of apollo, and yet his office looks the exact same, as far as we can see in pictures. which once again leaves us with two possibilities: klavier's office was left completely untouched for 7 years, or he moved out of there after one trial, and then came back 7 years later and decided, yep, i should put my guitars up again the exact same way i did when i was 17.

there's also a thousand other ways of reading all this really. i honestly think this was all just the writers sort of winging it, and it's not like the mason system doesn't fully fuck up the timeline in that game anyway, so i don't think any of these are any more or less canon than others. they're just fun theories to play around with. what the fuck was this guy doing.

[i-eat-worlds]

Whumpcember Day 11-Infection

@whumpcember

cw: whump of a minor (17), wound care, burns on wrist

Joseph softly knocked on Pat’s door before coming in. “You in there?” There were slightly panicked shuffling noises from behind the door before it opened.

“What do you need, sir?” Her eyes were downcast, hands collapsed in front of her.

“You don’t have to call me sir,” Joseph reminded her. “You can if you want, but you are allowed to call me Joseph, okay?”

She nodded. “ ‘m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you don’t need to be sorry.” He kept his voice quiet and calm to avoid scaring her. “I’m here to take care of your burns, if that’s alright.”

Pat swallowed nervously. “Okay. Thank you, sir.”

It was weird being called sir, especially by someone who was only five years younger than him, but she clung to the word like a lifeline and he wasn’t going to deny her that. “Do you want to use the bathroom or the common room?”

“Common room?” It seemed like she was guessing the answer he wanted to hear, not actually choosing.

“That’s great,” He’d decided that it’d be best to let her have her room to herself. Unless there was an emergency, he wouldn’t put a toe past the threshold.

Pat followed him to the bathroom, trailing behind him as they walked through the hallway. “Do you wanna get a stool and put it in front of the sink? That way you can sit,” he said as he snatched the wound care kit that Jennifer had put together for him from his bag on the couch.

She did as instructed, grabbing one of the stools and setting it down in front of the sink, before she climbed up. Joseph set the wound care supplies down beside the sink, then started to wash his hands.

“So, first, I’m going to remove your old bandages, then take a look just to make sure they’re healing properly,” he explained while he scrubbed his hands. “After that, I’ll apply the cream that the doctor prescribed, then rebandage them. Any questions?”

Pat shook her head, keeping her wrists protected in her lap. “No, sir.”

“How’s the pain?” There was no doubt that the burns still hurt, but he hoped that the pain was lessening as she healed.

“It’s okay,” she hummed.

“I’ll get you some ibuprofen afterwards to help, yeah?” He pulled on a pair of gloves as he spoke. “I’m gonna touch you now.”

She looked uneasy as he gingerly held her left wrist over the sink and started to unwrap the bandage. The burn was covered in blisters and obviously infected, though it was looking better than it had when she’d come in.

He held her wrist while he dabbed the cream on, trying not to put too much pressure on the blisters. “Hold that up for me,” he said, turning to open the sterile gauze. “You’re doing great.”

Pat whimpered a little when the gauze made contact with her skin, but she didn’t try to move her wrist away. He bandaged it carefully, minding the swelling. “Alright, next wrist.”

She protectively pulled the rebandaged limb back to her chest, but she let Joseph start working on the other one. The process went smoothly, Joseph trying his best to not cause any unnecessary discomfort. After he finished bandaging her wrists, he turned around to gather all the trash from the procedure.

When he turned around, Pat was crying. It was painfully quiet, tears rolling down her face while she tried not to make a sound. They started to fall faster when she realized that Joseph had noticed.

“Please,” she mouthed, unable to form the words. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, I’m not angry,” Joseph assured her as he peeled his gloves o. “Do you want to stay here or go somewhere else?” Jennifer was so much better at this than he was, but he’d do his best.

“My room please, sir,” she choked out.

“Okay,” Joseph said. He carefully helped her to her room. “You want me to stay?”

Pat looked around nervously, wrapping her arms around her chest. “I..uh…I…don’t…please, I’m sorry.” She cried harder, sinking into the wooden floor of the hallway.

“It’s okay, you didn’t do anything wrong, Pat,” Joseph said, squatting down in front of her. “You’re allowed to cry here, you’re always allowed to cry.”

Suddenly, Pat fell into his arms, crying into his shoulder. Joseph wrapped his arms around her. They stayed like that until she calmed, his arms encircling her, face tucked in his shoulder.

@pigeonwhumps @rainydaywhump

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 34- Part 8

Oh, Salazzle is the last Pokémon! Look at that, I guessed four out Aya's six Pokémon correct! And best of all, it seems like this Salazzle isn't holding an Air Balloon, so…there's nothing stopping Crater from using Earth Power on it! With Shimmer providing Psychic backup, of course.

Nevermind, only half that plan is working out!

Ah, okay, fair enough…and Nidoqueen’s just using Sludge Wave, that shouldn't do too much damage to-

…Wait, doesn't Sludge Wave hit all Pokémon? Even the ally? Wait, that means Salazzle’s gonna-!

HAH! Don't need to worry about doing that with Telepathy, baby!!

Alright, Shimmer being poisoned still isn't ideal…but instead of keeping her in like this, I'm gonna switch her out. Looking at my current team…the best bet would probably be Wulfrum. Nidoqueen is either gonna use Stomping Tantrum on Crater, in which case I'm about to Super Potion her anyways, or it'll use some other move to finish off Shimmer, in which case Wulfrum should be able to tank it. 

Man- poor Wulfrum. I brought him to this fight as extra immunity against Poison shenanigans, and I ended up not using him at all. He's just been sitting there, in the back of the party, waiting for his moment to join the fun, and he only gets to come out at the very end.

Anyways, like I said, Crater's getting healed too-

And Nidoqueen used Sludge Wave again, perfect! So Crater will use Earth Power, and Wulfrum will…um…use Double-Edge, I guess??

Wow, Wulfrum’s really not allowed to do anything in this Gym. I was thinking to myself “it's really nice to have a Steel-type this time, I didn't have that when I fought Corey”, and I- I actually could have just done this with a team of five.

Aya's bluntness aside…it has been three thousand years since this has happened, but at long last, after everything the last few chapters threw at me and Xera, I have once again managed to beat a Reborn Gym on my first try! And it was a Double Battle too!! Now that's character development!

And another upside to genuinely being able to win first try- spiting Fern, who didn't! Take THAT, you foolish fool!

Oh yeah- and besides, isn't losing battles as much part of a Gym Leader’s job as winning? They like- test challengers to see if they're truly worthy of the Badge and strong enough to take on the rest of the League, that sorta thing.

…Man, why did my first first-try win against a Gym Leader in…quite a few chapters have to be against someone with such deep troubles as Aya? This just feels bad now! It's like I said earlier, it's like a hollow victory- and I was feeling good about the win at first, too…

Oh hey that's the title of Chapter 17! Fascinating that this chapter has so many callbacks to back then.

Cain’s the younger sibling? Huh- for some reason, I assumed Aya was the younger one. Probably because I mistook her for being closer to a teenager, but if she's older than Cain, that's obviously wrong too.

But then…how old is Aya supposed to be, anyways? And how old is Cain, for that matter? I've been assuming he and the other two rivals are around the same age as Xera, whose own age was vaguely listed as “Adult” at the start of the game, so like- who the heck knows at this point.

Previous

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[chuuuvi]

Chuang Asia Thailand Episode 1!

It’s been too long since I got into a survival show lol. I mean my last one was Girls Planet 999 and that was 2 years ago! So anyway I’ll be taking you all with me on this journey by posting the notes I took while watching the episode plus my current top 9. Spoilers ahead!!

•First off before you ask where I’m watching: it’s on the Tencent Video app and it’s free. Ooh and if you’re also watching pls let me know so we can talk about it together!

•I’m happy to see Nene as a mentor! I loved her when I watched Chuang 2020

•This is produced by Jackson Wang? They’ve got TEN??? Okay Chuang Asia I’m interested.

•Looking at the contestant list and of course there are 14 year olds. Don’t vote for the 14 year olds you guys. My personal age minimum for voting is gonna be 17 so I won’t consider anyone younger than that. Contestants that are over 18 get my preference though. The idol industry is bad enough for adults, I’d prefer if we didn’t debut minors as well. I know ironic coming from someone who ults Yeseo lol. (She was the youngest active kpop idol when she debuted in Busters.)

•Also they're really going hard with this being international. This makes Mnet look pathetic for what they did in Girls Planet lol.

•Oh the flirting part with Jasmine was so akwarrrrrrd. 100% secondhand embarrassment.

•I felt bad for Elyn when she was crying and said “No Filming!” But they proceeded to just zoom in on her crying face :( TURN THE CAMERA AWAY FROM HER!

•The trip.com ads are so funny to me because these survival show ads where they pretend to use a product are usually for stuff like snacks or beverages or makeup. But they’ve got these girls pretending to casually book a flight lmao

•The barbie group having only one member thats older than 16 and then proceeding to perform Barbie World where they say stuff like “that pussy so cold” and “he spank me when I get bad” -_- Someone should have made them pick another song.

•OOOH the Avex group’s performance of Left Right was great. Maybe the best of the episode although Mindy was really impressive too.

•Ilene’s little fan moment with Jackson was adorable!

•They announced the first top 9 but I feel like we’re still missing some performances?? Is that an editing thing to get that ranking in the first episode and we ares still going to get more next episode or did they just skip some people? Like I don’t think we saw Ruan and I was waiting for her. I could have sworn there were some CSR members too and I haven’t seen them perform either. I guess we’ll see.

• I watched the theme song on YouTube and it’s so cute!! Weird that it’s all about summer when this is airing in winter though. Is it summer in Thailand?? I thought they were above the equator. Okay yeah they are so idk why they’re singing a song about it being summer. Also I got spoiled for Ruan center! Now I know they wouldn’t just skip her. There’s got to be more intro round performances next episode.

•Okay so my Top 9 picks will be based on who performed in this first episode only so I’m sure it’ll change a lot after ep. 2.

1. R-Jing - She blew me away in the extra performance. Her singing was so pretty! She’s so cute too and apparently trained at SM?? I always latch onto a girl first episode and this is my girl!

2. Akina - Maybe it’s bc of her experience in her past group but she seems really comfortable on stage. I like her vibe and she’s clearly very talented. She seems really nice and down to earth.

3. Rinka - I looked back at her gp999 performances and I can see why I didn’t remember her. She seems to have improved so much though! Her voice stood out positively and she’s got some star power I didn’t see in her old performances. I’m excited to see more of this new Rinka!

4. Lissa - I don’t know how to feel about her strange vibe but I liked her performance. Lots of energy and a nice voice. I’m very intrigued by her at this point.

5. MingMing- such a clear and pretty voice!!! Her and Pangjang together were both the vocal highlights of their team’s performance but MingMing is the only one of the two thats over my voting age limit.

6. Mamcú - Really interesting and beautiful voice. Apparently she competed on the Voice?? We’ll need to wait and see how she does with dancing but she seems really earnest about her desire to he an idol not just a singer so I’ll put my faith in her!

7. Shye - We barely got to see her performance but I was intrigued by what we saw. I don’t know if she can dance yet but I’ll find out soon enough. And lets be real, I have a lil crush on her and thats enough to get you in the top 9 at this point in the game. I mean look at her in her leather jacket!

8. Emma - Her dancing was great and she choreographs her own stuff too! I was really impressed by her dance skills both in her extra performance and the dance battle!

9. Tegan - gorgeous gorgeous deep voice! She’s so pretty too! I really liked her but I have no idea if she can dance. I feel like if she could she would have shown it since she got two performances so I’m hesitant.

Honorable Mentions:

Krista Shim - I’m not voting for Krista because she’s under the age I decided on being my voting limit but honestly I’d put money on her making it to the final group. You can just tell with these shows. It's in the way they edit it.

Mao Xiu Ling & Mao Xiu Ting - Of course we have a pair of twins! I’ve always loved this survival show gimmick. I love their look and their dance together was really cool! 

Kaylen - The other half of the Hawaiian Duo! Kaylen pulling Jackson Wang up to the stage with her was such a power move. I didn’t like her solo performance as much as her partner Tegan’s though

Praew- I liked her energy when she introduced herself and then her dancing was insane! I will not be voting for her because she’s 15. She's just a baby.

[lokislytherin]

hello again it’s me, the One who misses Jaeyeol LOL

thanks for answering my rant ask and i don’t mind if you rant back at me 😂 it feels good, like i’m not just talking to myself in my head but to a friend who feels the same way as i do.

like YES PTJ i love some of the new characters introduced like johan and samuel but with all these new characters added into the story, it’s like the old cast got thrown away (minus zack and vasco etc because they’re always in the mix for some reason, AND NOT JAY ahem i shall rein myself back for some semblance of sanity lol) and i’m like.. why so many characters man? UGH.

ALSO ALSO ALSO what’s with all these middle aged looking characters suddenly entering the scene with a [name] and [age] AND THEY DON’T EVEN LOOK THEIR AGE LIKE

new middle age looking man: blah blah

[name] [16] LIKE BITCH WHAT DO U MEAN THAT GUY’S 16??? HE LOOKS MORE LIKE A 40 TO ME LOL i feel like ptj just gave up making the characters look their age because these ppl definitely do not look 16, 17, etc. or did he even try in the first place? anyway

like this story just became all about gangs at the point where i stopped lol like what happened to his convenience store job (i guess he quit once he entered workers? maybe i missed that part), what happened to the mom visiting every so often (like wouldn’t she worry about her son when he disappeared god knows where?), what happened to attending school during the back end portion? WHERE ARE THE PARENTS/ADULTS? this is like tokyo revengers all over again 😂 idk.. i just wish that it didn’t have to be all about gangs? like i’m fine with the hostel and god dogs portion but after that it’s like i couldn’t give a shit anymore 🥲 and daniel doesn’t even seem like himself anymore 😭 i miss when all he had to care about was making friends, memories and letting his mom live a good life…

i wish ptj just kept it simple with a few gangs, having to keep the secret about having 2 bodies, why crystal has 2 bodies as well, normal school activities/relationships (i keep fantasising about a chapter with them playing some king’s card game where the person who draws the king card can do anything/order anyone to do anything they wanted for a turn like that Baka to Test episode, man that was hilarious LOL like if joy got picked as the king and she would probably have done something to daniel and jay had to step in HAHAHA oop my shipper is showing) and it would have still been a great series. now it feels all muddled 😩

yeah.. oh yes please let me join your prayers circle!!! PTJ U MUST BRING JAY BACK AND GIVE HIM THE ARC AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT HE DESERVES!!!!!!!!! I WILL NEVER REST UNTIL U DO!!!! 😤😤😤

good timezones anon who misses jay! i'm glad you find these convos fun hehe i only have one single friend who Gets lookism to talk to so this is really nice for me too

new characters: i think one of the reasons why characters like johan and samuel are so popular are bc they have a backstory that's actually fleshed out really well? like even jake and big deal they had like a redemption/backstory arc (personally i like jake more than samuel tho. i want to punch samuel but his tits would probably break my fists) and i think that's why they're liked more than new characters like, for example, ryuhei. personally i think ryuhei is decent looking but idgaf about him yk.

the age thing: YOU'RE SO RIGHT like no way samuel is 19?? no way that bitch is only one year older than me AT MOST. or maybe he's got the daddy energy coz he's tall, is The fanservice character at this point, and has muscles n big booba. still wanna punch him tho. the ogs being 16/17 international age i can believe, and the anime also made them look younger in a way? especially duke i miss that funky lil guy. i hope his music career is going well

all about gangs: i see what you mean but this is also Animanga Logic right. adults are kinda irrelevant if you're the overpowered protagonist but at the same time i get u honestly i feel like jay's own father has more plot relevance than him at this point 💀 jay vs h group arc WHERE. jay and crystal interaction WHERE. their parallel could be so interesting but i'm not getting into that today i'll like. explore it in a fic or something

plot: i think to us it feels like ptj kinda lost sight of the meaning of 'lookism' in relation to the plot, but i'm sure ptj knows where he's going with the plot, and i trust him to give us more good chapters. for now us jay hong stans are gonna have to make content to feed each other

welcome to the jay return arc prayer circle

ptj if you won't give jay the backstory and character development arc he deserves i'll do it myself 😤 i'll catch up to canon and write that jay vs h group arc myself 😤

hope this helped!

[truglori]

Homebody (Ch.1)

Summary: Amiyah is the younger sister of local drug dealer (Durkio). Shy and reserved she keeps to herself and stays out the way. But lately she began to find interest in his right hand man/ best friend (Erik Stevens). Wanting to get him to notice her she discovers that he already had her wrapped around his finger without even trying! There was only a few problems that kept her away from her fantasies , her brother that controlled almost every single breath she took and would kill anyone who looked at her that way and lastly Eriks girlfriend, Alexis , who they called the queen of the hood according to her lavish lifestyle as well as being with the next newest top boy in the making. While Alexis was his girl to the streets all Amiyah wanted to do was be his Homebody...

Durkio Faceclaim

Alexis Faceclaim

Amiyah Faceclaim

Pairing: Erik Stevens x Thick Black OC

Warning: language

Kicking off the covers from her legs for the fifth time that night Amiyah flipped over on the left side of the bed relieving herself from pressure that she felt on her right shoulder.

Picking up her phone she saw the time of 12:46 am. It wasn’t the discomfort she felt in her sleep or the extremely warm temperature of her room that woke her up. It was the blaring from her Durkio’s speaker that was gifted to him from himself as an early birthday present. She was cool with it the first couple of times, seeing as she used it as well to play music whenever she wanted to clean her room but this was starting to become annoying.

In the next five hours she had to be up early to open the clothing store she worked at. Durkio likes his music to be played loudly but for some reason tonight it was blasting.

Getting out of bed and slipping on her black UGG Tasman slippers Amiyah went to open the door and was met with the aroma of weed.

“Damn I guess the music isn’t the only thing that’s loud.” She tiredly giggled at her own humor.

Took Her to the O by King Von was the choice of song that woke her from her beauty rest. Shaking her head as she folded her arms she walked down the hall of their shared three bedroom apartment to see the dimmed living room foggy.

Swatting away the smoke she walked closer to the couch preparing to get onto her brother.

“Yo Durk, you know I have to get up for work in a few hours. Can you turn the speakers down or off please?”

Amiyah coughed through almost every word. She didn’t smoke so whenever she inhaled the air would hit her baby lungs causing her to react.

The music level turned down. Finally what seemed like forever the smoke was clearing the living room so she could see the face of her brother...or who she thought was her brother. It was Erik.

Leaning forward he put out his blunt on the ashtray, then he dusted off any remains of falling ashes from his dark grey Nike sweatsuit he rested his elbows on his knees.

Looking up at her with hooded eyes he licked his lips and the famous “sober up wipe” to the face followed after.

“Damn that’s my bad Miyah. I was in here just letting my phone play. I woke you up?” He asked with a small smile.

“Yeah a lil bit but it’s okay.” She spoke in a soft voice that was different compared to the tone she poke in before she found out it wasn’t her brother but her brother’s best friend and also..her crush.

Awkwardly standing there with her arms going back into their folding position making herself feel secured once she cover her tummy she decided to walk to the black leather recliner on the left side of him sitting down. She found herself being really close to him unlike any other times. Inhaling the air she could smell his cologne mix with the weed.

“Um, where’s Durkio?”

“He went out to the car to grab something real quick. He’ll be back.”

Erik got up putting everything that was laid out on the coffee table up. From the bags of weed by the pound to three glock 17s that was sprawled out everywhere. He knew this wasn’t new to her or anything but he wanted to be respectful to his partna’s lil sister. Even though he was the only child he knew that if he did had a baby sister he would want his boys to show the same respect.

Amiyah watched his every move. From the way he gave his sweats a tug around the inner thigh area giving him some room to breathe down there to then observing him pulling up the sweats before he sat down.

There she was doing it again, acting like a little stalker over this man. But she couldn’t help it. She found herself crushing on the best friend of her brother really hard. She was introduced to Erik at the age of seventeen. Just getting out of high school while her brother was already making a name for himself in the streets at twenty-three.

Durkio was coming up from being know for having the best exotics in the hood, some untouchable shit. He started to get more exposure and also more enemies. So along came his homeboy Erik, standing 6’3 and about 225 lbs solid. By the age of twenty-one he was already known to be a problem. Hot headed and a crazy mouth to match but also in a strange way quiet. It was like he knew when to turn it off and on. She notice that whenever she was around the duo he would be barely audible and sometimes completely quiet when she would walk into a room. Taking only glances at her and continued to keep it pushing.

Maybe that’s what she liked about him. Not only did they share the same characteristics when it came to not saying a lot while around others but he also didn’t try to put up a front in front of Durkio. His other homeboys did too much by just talking excessively to her about nothing while trying not to say the wrong thing too her to stay on the good side of her brother.

Amiyah wasn’t the only one doing some studying. Erik didn’t take his eyes off of her from the moment she stepped into the living room. He watched the twenty-one year old face turn from hard to soft as soon as she seen it was him in the place of where her brother usually sits.

Even through his hooded eyes he caught her covering her stomach and setting herself up in a defensive position, something he notice she always did when he was around. To Erik it seemed as if she was doing it because she wasn’t comfortable around him so he stopped his eyes from wandering over her body and other times not acknowledging her other than a head nod.

He already knew how his mans Durkio felt about his little sister. He was going to kill whoever did her wrong, let alone even looked at her like they had a problem. In Eriks eyes Amiyah was considered hood royalty. It wasn’t all talk either. A few months ago there was a young recruit that tried to get Amiyah’s number, who clearly wasn’t interested turned him down in the most modest way. Youngin tried to show out in front of his friends and slipped up and called her a fat bitch.

Once word got to Durkio he had the whole hood searching for the kid and when he found him, not only did he have the dude friends jump him my nigga literally fed him a bag of dog shit and made him eat it. Swallowing every drop.

“Yeah nigga you like to talk shit so you gon eat this muthafucka! You lucky I don’t get one of ya own mans to pop yo ass folk!”

Erik shook his head inwardly laughing about how the whole situation unfolded in front of him. Durkio was one crazy ass nigga! That’s why they was best friends though. Their personalities just matched.

Even though Erik to himself wasn’t official in the game a lot of people seem to think so. But that wasn’t the case, to him he felt he was just heavily associated with the ones surrounding it. Guess you can say his name got caught in the wrong mouth and they titled him without knowing the facts. He didn’t care though, he figured people was going to think what they wanted about him anyways so why try so hard to prove them wrong.

“Erik.” Amiyah looked over to seem him leaning back into the couch with his hands in his hoodie pocket. He was smiling to himself about something. She wondered what.

“Wassup.” He answered nonchalantly giving her his undivided attention

“Do you know how long he’s been gone?”

“Oh I’m not sure, I think five minutes or so. You want me to leave or something?” Erik asked on edge ruffling up his dreads a bit not wanting her to feel guarded in her own home.

Truth was Amiyah didn’t care so much about her brother’s whereabouts. She wanted to use these few minutes alone with him to feed her fantasies. Imagining just them two in his home not worrying about Durk busting in on them.

“No of course not. You’re good. I-I was just being nosy.” She tried her best laughing the nerves away while mentally face palming herself for stuttering.

Erik smirk. He could see the quiver in her bottom lip when she spoke. She was trying to hide it but it wasn’t working.

“Nah I feel you. You work tomorrow?” Deciding to spark up some conversation to help her relax with him.

“Yeah I open the store. So I have to be out of here by six in the morning.” Pushing her back against the recliner lifting one leg under the other she made herself cozy.

“Bella Ella Boutique right.”

Her eyes flickering at the fact he knew where she worked.

‘So he must pay attention to me.’

Is what she thought. If it wasn’t for her golden brown skin complexion she would be sure that Erik would know that she is blushing.

Along with a head nod she gave a small smile answering quietly. “Yeah that’s right.” She shifted her eyes not wanting to keep to much eye contact.

“You like working there? How long has it been by the way?” Resting his elbows on his knees once again, facing her, he gave her all his attention.

Placing her hands between her thick thighs to help calm her nerves she put her eye back on him.

“It’s okay...it’s just I wish they would hurry up and hire some new people already. Like I’ve been working so many hours and-“

She stopped mid sentence once she heard him chuckle.

Lightly giggling herself she shook her head. “What’s so funny?”

“You.” Erik swiping his bottom lip with his tongue before giving her a small smile.

This was the most he heard her talk this much in a while. Usually she would only say hi and bye and then every now and then ask about her brother but tonight she was keeping conversation like they were friends.

“Why am I funny? What I say?” Curious to know the reason.

“It’s nothing bad mama I just never heard you talk this much before. You be acting mad quiet around me.” Leaning back putting one arm at the top of the couch and resting the other on top of his crotch area.

Amiyah took in his form.

Did he just call me mama?

She couldn’t help catching his nickname.

Hit Different by Sza started playing softly in the background.

“Okay but you can talk to me too. I’m not the only one with a voice Erik.”

“You right and I’m a change that for you. When I come around I’ll start addressing you more. Is that good?” Staring into her soft brown eyes searching for an answer.

Playfully rolling her eyes trying her best to subdue her smile.

“Whatever-“

The front door open revealing her brother. Holding a bag of Burger King eating some fries.

“Aye my bad nigga I had to get sumn to smack on- Miyah fuck is you doing outta bed?” Durkio stop rummaging through the food once he saw her.

Erik scooting down further away from her towards the middle of the couch not trying to give his crazy ass any ideas.

“Uh Durk last time I checked I’m grown.”

He looked at her like she had four eyes.

“Girl you better quit acting like I ain’t raise damn near by myself. You bet get yo ass back in that bed fo’ yo ass miss work then you gon want me to pay you for the hours you miss.” He sat the bag of food down next to the ashtray that held about four roach blunts.

“Nigga she only out here cause I was blasting the music. I woke her up.” Erik winking at her defending her.

Her thighs clenched up at the small action.

I know he did not just make me wet by winking at me?

Of course this was only due to her inexperience. She never got pass kissing a guy and even that she felt needed some work.

Knocking her out of her thoughts her loud brother spoke again.

“Erik I don’t need you sticking up or lying for her and nigga where the fuck my weed at?”

He got up checking the cabinets pulling out a half ounce before looking back to see that his baby sister in the same spot.

“Miyah why you still here?” He asked breaking up the bud.

To people on the outside it may seem like Durkio was a mean brother but he really didn’t mean her any harm. That was just always how he was. He had a rough demeanor, so when he spoke it could come off offensive if you didn’t know him but both Amiyah and Erik knew that was just his mannerism. But all in all he loves his baby sister.

She smacked her lips. “I can’t hang out with y’all?”

“No. Hell is wrong with ‘dis girl?” He asked his friend chuckling.

Erik silently laughing at the bickering siblings. He unwrapped the whopper that he got from the bag before taking a bite while closing his eyes and savoring the grilled burger. Fast food always hit different when he was high.

Shaking her head she decided against arguing back and forth with her brother. She had to get up in a few anyways so it was time for her to head back to bed.

“Whatever I’m going back to bed. Night. Night Erik.” Getting up from the couch making her way out the living room area she turned to look at the duo one last time.

She caught Erik looking her up and down before giving her a head nod acknowledging her and mouthing a good night.

Disappearing in the hall and back into the room she sat on her bed replaying the conversation over and over which brought back the memory of his scent. Somehow she could still smell him as if he was right in front of her.

Smiling to herself she got up checking the time on her Apple Watch on her nightstand that read 1:34 am.

She had a few hours to get some sleep. Taking a last glance at herself in the mirror she realized she still had on her light blue silk bonnet the whole time in front of Erik.

Nooo.

Laughing at the embarrassing thought she shrugged it off before sleep took over her body again.

___________________________________________________

Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight Part Nine Part Ten Part Eleven Part Twelve Part Thirteen

Hey guys this is my first story on here. Haven’t wrote in a while and so I just wanted to try it out again just to see if I still have it in me lol. I have a few ideas for this story but I’m not sure...anyways let me know what you guys think. Constructive criticism is allowed here.

P.s If I tagged you I probably read your work or I just want to see if you would be interested in this story. If you don’t like it I can take you off so sorry if you might not be interested.

Please excuse any mistakes if there are any. Thanks!!

@supersizemeplz @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @hearteyes-for-killmonger @artisticestheticreads @uzumaki-rebellion @blowmymbackout @chaneajoyyy @thehomierobbstark @thiccdaddy-mbaku @curls-and-crosses @madamslayyy @goddessofthundathighs @eriksjournal @erikslulbaby @wakandamama @wawakanda-btch @wakandas-vibranium @wakandaforeverwrites @ghostfacekill-monger @killmonger-dolan @killmongerkink

[embrassemoi]

Surrounded by the Moon and Stars ✷ 17

Pairings: Sirius B, Remus L, [F]Reader  Content: Language, possible errors A/N: slight head-hopping

Masterlist: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Chapter 17: The Stalking Map 

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January 31st, 1976 | 11:30 pm

“Move your arse over!” Lily whispered. Moments after the lights went out, she crawled out of bed, her silky nightgown dragged across the floor as she walked over to Y/N. In one hand, she held a pillow, the other, Toulouse.

Y/N giggled, scooting over. “Can't get enough of me?”

“Hush! You know what I mean,” she blushed. Lily slipped in, the bed dipped as she wiggled around, making herself comfortable. But the small size didn’t help as they were slightly cramped together, leaving little space for either girl to move. Y/N made a note to herself to charm her bed so it’d be larger.

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February 2nd, 1976 | 12:23 am

“You really shouldn’t cram studying like this.”

A candle burned brightly inside their closed curtain drapes as Y/N continued to stress over an upcoming test.

“You’re smart — but you’re lucky if you manage a troll.”

“Be anymore encouraging, will you?” Y/N muttered out sarcastically.

Lily rolled her eyes, getting up from her pretzel seated position as her hand reached out, disappearing beyond the curtain drapes. Leaning over and supporting herself by gripping the bed frame, she grabbed a coffee pot and two teacups, pouring a steaming amount into each. She handed her one, Lily’s eyes squinted, her tongue poking out in thought before beginning. “So, five birds will be ejected from the wand with a blue light…”

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February 4th, 1976 | 1:12 am

They stared at each other for a moment before Lily’s mouth twitched upwards. The silence only lasted for a few beats before they both erupted into roaring laughter so strong that they had to lean into each other to prevent themselves from rolling off the bed.

“No. You. Didn’t!” Y/N exclaimed.

“What was I supposed to do? Not punch him?!” “Precisely!”

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February 5th, 1976 | 10:59 pm

Lily danced, jumping around on her bed. Her bright hair bounced around wildly whilst Y/N held her wand, pretending it was a microphone. One earbud was in Lily’s ear, the other in hers.

‘Yes, I’ve been brokenhearted!’ They mouthed to each other, despite there being a silencing spell around Lily’s bed.

‘Blue since the day we parted,

Why? Why? Did I ever let you go?

Mamma Mia now I really know!’

Y/N took her hands, pretending to play chords as if she were in front of an actual piano, mimicking the erratic backtrack. Lily shook with laughter before she slowly sank onto the bed as her hair sprawled out.

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February 9th, 1976 | 12:17 am

“Ginger —”

“I consider that harassment and bullying. Do you know how many detentions I can give you?”

“Haha — ginger.”

“Ten points from Gryff —” “No —” “TWENTY POINTS FROM —” “I’M SORRY!”

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February 11th, 1976 | 1:37 am

“What do you wanna know?” She whispered.

Speckles of starlight slipping through the cracks of their drapes. Lily, for whatever reason, seemed restless. It always seemed like whenever it was extremely early in the morning, there was a change in Lily’s demeanour.

Lily averted her gaze, biting her bottom lip, “Tell me a secret.”

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February 12th, 1976

After almost two weeks of their almost nightly rendezvous, they’d gotten closer than they have in the past six months and it seemed like Lily knew her better than she did at times.

Lily was practically bouncing off the walls. Every day, she seemed to become more radiant, happier, bubblier and Y/N couldn’t help but wonder what caused such a spike in her mood.

The redhead wove their way out of the bustling crowd, her arm linked with Y/N’s. She’d caught a few times, Lily looking at her every now and then before she seemed to stare for a little longer than what was considered polite. She’d forced a cough, fiddling with a strand of hair with her free hand; looking everywhere — or at anything, but her.

Sometimes Y/N felt and sounded like a broken record.

Repeating her thoughts over and over again, analyzing herself and the people around her; overthinking causing loads of unanswered questions… It was a problem that she didn’t know how to switch off.

Sometimes, it’d become too overwhelming, even to the point of tears in frustration and the constant overthinking. It would start with a flicker of interest, morphing into a spiral of questions, then irritation before spreading through her veins like a wildfire, spiking with anxiousness or fury. But recently, her over-thinking wasn’t necessarily overwhelming or maddening, this time it was purely curious. It was as if she blinked an eye; suddenly Lily would be acting fine — normal to becoming strange and skittish within mere seconds.

Perhaps it was stress?

February began and the workload for the OWLs was beginning to wear down on everyone. To be dramatic, every day became a blur, all merging into one blob: wake up, head down to the hall, class, lunch, class, study — then become too overwhelmed from studying and have the urge to cry or yell, dinner, study more, then sleep. With hardly any time to retain the information and the OWLs set to start late May, Y/N’s main goal was to memorize every bit of information rather than learn what it meant; that was for another time.

Whenever the fifth or seventh years weren’t in class, they were studying in the library, the hallways, even at dinner or lunch. It was so busy that the Marauders made it a point to swing by — even Mary and Marlene were becoming frequent visitors too. Mostly, they studied, but other times it ended with Lily constantly threatening James with detention (which he already received one and lost around forty house points after starting a small fire — which nobody knew how it even happened), Peter brought baked goods but ended up spilling a cup of tea over his notes and robes; Sirius and Marlene often mucked around while Y/N and Remus begun migrating to the common room after Pince threatened to throw them all out (and honestly, they were tired with everyone else’s shit).

And it had been taking a toll on Lily. She’d lost sleep and was slightly more agitated when it came to those around her and overall seemed to become quieter than usual.

Yeah, it was probably stress, but it didn’t answer her happy mood. Whatever it was, it looked good on her.

That day, they decided to eat lunch away from the Great Hall. They sat on a nearby window ledge, watching students idly as they passed back and forth, all having their own little lives. Y/N’s back was pressed against the window, her knees bunched together as Lily guessed the lives of people around them.

Young students, old students, some smiling, some frowning. Usually, Hogwarts was almost too overbearing. The swarm of bodies clung together like magnets, hard to separate, hard to pull yourself away from because soon enough, you’ll be roped into another set of magnets. While Hogwarts had been smaller in size and population compared to Ilvermorny, you could never catch a break here.

But, in times like these, they were able to come down from the high. It was fascinating and oddly calm; the noise, the chatter, it all became background noise.

And like a magician, Remus popped out, walking towards them. Lily waved Remus down, inviting him to sit with them. Although, Peter wasn’t that far behind as he came bouncing up behind. A few people waved to him, he’d even stopped a few times to catch up with a few students that passed.

Remus took the free seat next to Y/N, Peter next to Lily.

“Bloody cold here,” Peter said, rubbing his shoulder up and down, handing each girl a muffin before Remus, but he declined, waving around a small bag of blackberries.

Lily and Peter quickly fell into a conversation while she and Remus turned to talk. His leg brushed against hers before ripping away quickly. Even with just the slightest touch, Remus was a furnace. Y/N quickly looked up to him, their eyes meeting shortly. Her eyebrow curled up at him, wondering why he was so warm; had he been sick? He didn’t look bad…

She hadn’t been spending that much time with him as of late, aside from the study groups. But he smiles broadly. There was a weariness on his face that seemed to have chased away immediately. “Noon.”

“Noon! How have you been?”

His smile turns even brighter, so much as he could rival the stars. There’s a certain playfulness in his eyes, devilishly and sly. He looks too eerily like James, but it only tells her that he’d come up with another prank recently.

“Great,” there is amusement in his voice, so smug, so confident. “Came up with a new prank idea.”

Bloody knew it, as he’d would say.  

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, let’s just say that there’s going to be a lot of dungbombs, Polyjuice potions and probably explosions.”

“Explosions?!”

“You’ll see.” Again, sounding so confident and smug. It put a smile on her face. “So what about you?”

Her mind racks around for a while; nothing much has happened recently; she’s stumped.

He considers her for a moment with a soft gaze, completely understanding. “We’re planning to mix in Polyjuice potion with pumpkin juice on Valentine's day at dinner. When the person drinks it; they should turn into who they fancy.”

“So where do the explosions come in?”

Remus gives a deep chuckle, “Now I can’t give away all my secrets, can I?”

But before she could make a witty retort, perhaps even convincing him to spill his deets, Peter calls out to Remus, pointing discreetly to a girl looking at them directly from the other side of the corridor. They all recognized her from the study group, a fourth year that comes on Wednesdays. She waved over to them — well, actually just at Remus as her other hand grasped an item behind her back.

He waves over, hesitantly getting up, “I’ll be back.

This wasn’t unusual — since he ran most of the fifth year groups, Remus constantly had younger students approach him in the halls. Although, they were all starstruck; after all, he was tall, a bit scary and a part of the oh so intimidating Marauders.

Their eyes were glued to his back as they watched the interaction play out. The girl tipped back and forth on her feet, swaying as she shyly looked up to him. She went on to a small monologue before pulling out a heart-shaped box of chocolates and holding it in front of herself.

Lily sucked in a sharp breath, a hand flying to her mouth to prevent giggling to seep out and the young girl overhearing, but it was out of entertainment rather than any malicious intent. Remus, however, did not look too phased, however, gave a pitiful smile, thanking the girl for her confession but letting her down softly. Within a second, the girl’s face contorted, her eyes swelling up with thick tears as she threw the chocolate box at Remu’s chest — but missed, scattering to the ground, as she bolted down the corridor.

“Blimey,” Peter breathed out, “That’s the third one this week. He’s going to beat Sirius for Valentine’s day confessions at this rate.”

“Well this is awkward,” Remus said, coming back to the group. He had picked up the box, an uncomfortable grimace on his face as he turned it around. Y/N looked up at him; he was flustered, unsure what to do. So, she patted his shoulder, gaining his attention and slid the box out of his hands and cracked it open; they were all sorts of different chocolate, milk, white, dark, truffles, shavings, even some had coconut while others were biscuits covered in it. It was intended for Valentine's day judging by the intricate and soft velvety packaging but she assumed that poor girl simply couldn’t refrain.

Yeah, she definitely should’ve waited — or not have said anything, but at least she had nerve. It felt like Y/N lacked the so-called Gryffindor trait often, so if anything, she applauded that fourth year.

The group looked at her oddly as Y/N shrugged, plopping a piece into her mouth. “What? Expensive chocolate is still expensive chocolate.”

She took the box, stretching her hand out, offering it to the group.

“Nu-uh,” Lily blurted, her wands waved out in front of her, “There’s no way I’m eating that.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you feel bad?! And that must be bad mojo! You broke her heart; why did you take the box?”

“Surely you saw her throw it at me! You didn’t expect me to throw it back at her?”

Lily stopped her scold, suppressing another fit of giggles before letting out a very loud snort. Y/N and Peter howled together at careless, ‘improper’ lady laughs that Lily usually didn’t make. Y/N liked the change, she seemed freer.

“Well, do you fancy anyone then?” Lily retorted as she composed herself.

Remus snorted too, scooted over to Y/N as she offered him the box. He nodded, grabbing a small bite-sized chocolate piece. He rubbed at his collarbone in a sheepish manner, cracking it which made Y/N and Peter's face scrunch up. “What do you think?”

“You should go and date around. Honestly, you have all these women at your feet and you’ve never gone on one.” Peter added.

“Yes, yes!” Lily urged, “Listen to him!”

“You guys care more about this than I do.”

If James and Sirius were the most popular students, James being goofy while Sirius was a playboy, and Peter had the most friends, Remus was definitely the most well-liked Marauder and the one with the coolest reputation; something that James was certainly jealous of. But the fact that he seemed oblivious to it, Y/N found hilarious and humbling, very unlike his friends.

His head shook. “Well then, what about you two. Do you fancy anyone?”

They both went red immediately. Peter bit the inside of his cheek before Y/N shoved the tray of chocolates his way; he grabbed a handful, eating them in complete silence. Lily, well, she went completely still, almost as if Remus had shot a spell at her. She coughed, looking away uncomfortably as a nervous chuckle embedded its way out.

Y/N’s eyes widened and she and Remus immediately whipped their heads to look at each other. Their mouths gaped, closing and opening like goldfish. Both of their minds reeled, thinking about the same thing. Remus snapped his head back to Lily, his finger pointing at her. “Godric! You do!”

“I-I do not! I don’t fancy anyone!”

“Spill! What’s he like?” Remus asked. They kept probing her for questions, in hope of an answer but she wouldn’t budge.

“Is it Potter?!” Peter asked, his happy mood dimming but he forced a chipperly grin.

Remus was choking on air itself, “You’re taking the piss!”

They all looked at her in burning anticipation. If it was true, James was going to have a field day. Lily’s eyes widened, reaching over to grab the lid of the chocolate box and wacked Peter with it.

They were a mess of giggles, particularly Remus and Y/N who watched Lily berate Peter for the sheer mention of James. They basked in the safe feeling of the sunlight on their skin, the warmth spreading through them and rivalled the bitter chill.

As more laughter erupted, memories created, chocolate eaten, the bell eventually rang. Lily parted off with Marlene and Peter, both in the small class, as Y/N joined Remus.

“You think it’s Potter? Can’t be, can it?”

“I think he’d cry if it was.”

“Truly, he’d go mental.”

“Or maybe Lily’s gone mad.”

Remus shrugged, a smirk tugged at his lips, “Perfect match then.”

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

Y/N slumped over her textbooks, watching as Bowie the Bowtruckle climbed into her hand. She hardly paid attention to what Kettleburn droned about.

“Alright! My pupils, listen up; next week, we’re starting a group project for the OWLs. But, I will be the one assigning the partners — oh don’t give me those faces! I have picked your partner based on grades and strengths. Ultimately you will both work together on hatching a Puffskein and care for it. It will be ongoing alongside the rest of your OWL studies and other projects I will assign.

“You will be graded on the overall health and happiness of your Puffskeins. We have gone over their care for a while and I think we’re ready to start. Remember to refer back to your books and do not hesitate to ask me. I have all your equipment ready to go next week.”

Kettleburn coughed, unfurling a piece of parchment with what the class assumed was a list of names.

“To start, Dorcas Meadowes and Lucinda Talkalot —”

Great.

Kettleburn continued to list name after name. Y/N brought a finger to Bowie, letting him touch her gently.

“ — Crabble and Evan Rosier.

“Amita Patil and Edmud Brown.

“Sirius Black and Y/N L/N.

“Susan Chang and Agnes —”

Wait.

Her eyes widened, sharply turning to Sirius who already stared back. Both of their mouths were agape. She hadn’t heard wrong.

“Now, don't ask me to change partners. I will do no such thing. We'll talk more about this next week. Class is dismissed — don’t forget about your paper due on Tuesday!”

Y/N watched as the class got up from their seats, her shoulders slumped dejectedly. Quickly, she stood, walking to the door and pushed the assignment quickly out of her head. But once reaching the door, a Slytherin knocked into her. His hands were pushed out, causing her books and notes to sprawl over the floor as he scoffed down.

“Sorry,” she groans out, “I didn’t mean —”

“Watch where you’re going, stupid Muggle.” With a sharp turn, Crabble walked away with a nasty smile.

Sirius had seen the entire ordeal go down, finding himself stuck at a crossroad; it took all the effort in the world to prevent himself from walking straight up to the boy, hexing him beyond belief, but casting a glance at her, struggling to process what just happened caused him to reassess his thoughts. Instead, he took a deep inhale, noting to himself to take care of that later, and strode towards her, dropping down as he picked up her books, shoving them neatly into her bag while collecting any loose sheet of parchment.

“You okay?” He asked with a voice so gentle it could have been mistaken for a whisper. He turned his head upwards to look at her.

Her eyes were foggy, a faraway look in them, completely in shock.

Sirius wasn’t sure what compelled him to, but his hand reached over, picking up her hand delicately in reassurance. His thumb stroked over her soft skin and helped to pull her to her feet.

The touch broke Y/N out of her daze; the physical contact caused both students to have a fuzzy, odd feeling settling at the pit of their stomachs. 

His touch was so soft, so gentle despite his eyes brimming with rage that almost seemed feral.

But, she hardly noticed it as she nodded weakly, jaw clenched. Her mind reeled, attempting to process her emotions — completely baffled and shocked. It was so sudden she felt like she hadn’t had time to digest the situation. Muggle… the Slytherin used it in such a derogatory manner. A word meant to simply describe her sounded bitter — disgusting and low.

Sirius pulled back quickly, the hand flying straight up to his hair. A thought passed through his head, he wanted to reach out again, but he squashed it for more important manners.

“Are you okay?” He repeated.

“Why are you helping me?” She blurted out before she could stop herself. It was the only coherent thought she had at the moment. Sirius out of all people should be laughing at her, shouldn’t he? Being a Pureblood and all…

The comment and the way her eyes judged him quickly told him all he needed to know. A panged sigh went through him.

“Look,” Sirius grew stiff, “I —” he paused, “I may not particularly like you, but I don’t like blood purist arseholes who push women more.”

With another once over, Sirius checked for any scratches or injuries before calming down. “I can take you to the Hospital Wing. It was a nasty fall.”

She shook her head again. The last thing she wanted was for them to get along only out of pity. Sirius understood, handing over her bag and walked away. She watched as his hand clutched the straps of his bag; his grip was so tight that his knuckles were white. His other hand, the one that he touched her with, flexed several times before curling into a fist.

━━━━━━━━━༻☽༺━━━━━━━━━

Currently, she sat by the window ledge in the common room, writing a letter to her mother. Although, her mother hadn't responded to her letters since December. In fact, her mother had only responded to two of her letters throughout her stay; about six months. It made Y/N bitterly press her lips into a thin line. For once, it’d feel nice for her own mother to prioritize her, to make her feel more important than her work.

Blood-red silk curtains nearly swallowed her whole, letting in the little light from the stars outside. The fireplace and chandelier were lit and she could scarcely make out the familiar figure of messy hair, two tufts sticking out like always, swinging an arm over her shoulders. He whined, “Oi! Evans has been stealing you! I feel like I’ve hardly talked to you the past week!”

“Jealous much?”

“Of course,” he said sarcastically, “Anyway, I, the James Potter, your best friend —" "Right." "— am inviting you on a prank. In or out?”

“In,” she said without hesitation. After the Muggle situation, she would do anything to get it out of her head, even for just a few hours. She immediately got up from her seat, walking out the portrait hole. James threw his invisibility cloak over them.

“What are we doing? Is it Remus’ prank we’re doing now?”

James turned to her, his eyebrows deep in confusion. “He told you about that? He hardly tells us before the day of the execution. Anyway, anything you want.”

“Anything I want? What about your boy band?”

He looked over to her in confusion, sliding out a small bag filled with both of their favourite snacks, tossing it to her. “Not coming, just us. Although Remus is on patrol tonight and his mini-gift to you — or er — us, he’s making sure that the Gryffindor and Slytherin floors are cleared from teachers. Should go off without a hitch. So, I’ll ask you again, what do you have in mind?”

“Pranking the Slytherins,” she said without a pause which caused James to grin.

“Atta girl! Learning from the best!”

The prank itself was small in comparison to the prank she helped with on Halloween. Y/N decided on having the prank in the Great Hall for everyone to see. James produced about a dozen dungbombs from his bag, setting it under the Slytherin table and placing a timer on it, ready to be set off in the morning.

But she insisted on the one Slytherin from earlier. Crabble, was it? She asked James to help her give him a little bit more misery than the others. They placed a dozen hexes and jinxes on his usual seat: hair lost jinx, jelly legs, horn tongue hex, Engorgio, twitchy ears, bedazzling hex —

Right now was not the time for Y/N to forgive and forget — revenge was beautiful, fulfilling; she couldn’t wait.

But, their only downfall was that they weren’t on the floors Remus had cleared out for them. So when Mrs. Norris came up to them, only to dash out of the hall, it caused the two pranksters to finalize their escapade before James grabbed her hand and fled the scene.

They ran throughout the empty corridors as the clicking of their shoes echoed throughout the corridor. They were both laughing, smiling brightly. They ran past the Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick, woke up most of the portraits before they heard the vague sound of Filch’s screaming.

“COME BACK HERE!”

“YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO CATCH US!” Y/N shouted, which had James snickering.

He whipped his head around and placed two hands around his mouth to make his statement louder, “YOU MUST BE LOOKING FOR A GALLEON, EH?! RENT BOY!”

After an abundance of sharp twists and turns, passing by countless hallways and secret tunnels, James seized a blank piece of parchment from his back pocket. He muttered a few words, opening it and ran down another set of corridors, through a tunnel and outside of the castle.

“What are you doing?!”

“Just trust me!”

There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation: Y/N had grown to trust James a long time ago.

They ducked under an overhead from the castle, far away from Filch. Their ragged breaths filled the air before Y/N snatched the parchment from James’ grasp. “What is this?”

A panicked look flashes through James before he reaches over, trying to pry it from her grasp.

“Nu-uh!” She waved in front of her.

He sighed, realizing that he wasn’t going to get it back and that lying was the worst possible option. “You can’t tell anyone — my chaps will have my head if you do —”

“Who do you think I am?! Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course,” he rolled his eyes at her guilt tripping, “It’s a map we all created — er — Moony was the one to create it. He came up with it and did most of the work. Anyway, it tells us where everything and everyone is at every minute of the day.”

On the front, it read in maroon colours of the boy’s code names, Moony at the very front.

Moony — Remus… always a surprise.

James opened it, flicking it open as he pointed to a pair of animated footprints sprinted around the page hurriedly; Filch's name appearing overhead. His name travelled across the paper at a fast pace, running and zigzagging down the halls in the opposite direction. And by the looks of it, Peeves was following him. Above, they could see Remus’ name close to where they used to be, his name moving quickly in what both assumed was him trying to look for them. He must’ve heard the screaming.

It truly was amazing their little map. She marvelled at the classrooms, every hallway, every inch of ground that covered the surrounding area. Passageways, hallways, doors and abandoned classrooms were all there. Although, a few areas were missing. She noticed how the little nook underneath the tapestry nor a large plot of land close to the left-wing of the castle had yet to be mapped out.

“I proudly present the Marauder’s map.” James boasts.

Her face scrunched up, “You mean the stalking map — perv.”

James faked an offended expression, a hand came to clutch his heart. “I was raised to be a gentleman!”

“Sure thing.”

He was about to make another joke before his face slowly fell upon realization, “Wait, really? Is that why Lily doesn’t like me?” He tugged down on his hair in distress, his eyes looking as if they were to pop out any second. “Do women think I’m perving around?!”

Y/N chortled, prying the map from his hands and slipped back into the castle while having a panicked James follow, completely freaking out in the background, spurting out concern after concern.

She followed the map, walking over to Remus who stood underneath a large painting. He escorted them back to the common room to prevent them from getting any possible detentions and not needing the invisibility cloak. But James continued to babble on about his (alleged and false) creepy behaviour, his emotions spiking while Remus watched the two.

“Okay,” he sighed, observing James have a meltdown as he clung to Y/N’s arm, spewing apologies if he had ever crossed a line. “What did you do? You broke him.”

"Nothing.” 

He didn’t question it but his nostrils flared as he attempted to press his lips in a thin line, his face going as red as Lily’s hair.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Pt. 17 | S.R.)

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

Summary: Spencer is concerned about Reader’s growing impulsiveness, but Reader is the one who gets a call from JJ asking if she can come get her boyfriend. Couple: Spencer/Fem!Reader 
 Category: Smut (NSFW, 18+) 
 Content Warning: Discussions of drugs, death/dying, suicide, overdose; Alcohol, addiction, oral (male receiving), handjob, fingering, Daddy Kink, fights, PTSD, hospital talk, drunk smut w/ blanket consent Word Count: 12.5k

MASTERLIST

—————————————————

When I opened the front door, I realized that I had returned to an empty home. I wasn’t sure which was weirder; the realization that the house was empty, or the fact that I was referring to her apartment as my home. It certainly had started to feel that way.

It never stopped being a shock that I would find a home in someone so quickly and with such little self-awareness. I'd certainly never suspected   that the house we’d be in would also be shared with several other people, all of whom were significantly younger than me and shared almost no similarities with me beyond our love for (y/n).

And even if it wasn’t the weirder of the two realizations, the fact that she wasn’t there was definitely the more troubling one. I tried to gather at least a little evidence before I called her; I wasn’t exactly excited about being blindsided again. Judging by the red solo cups that were scattered in the kitchen, I had an idea of how her friends had spent the night. The fact that no one was here led me to another conclusion that I desperately hoped was inaccurate.

Her phone rang four times before she picked up, which was strange in itself. When she did pick up, she sounded like I expected her to. Tired. Groggy.

“Hello?”

“Hey little girl, where are you?” I hoped she couldn’t hear the fumbling of my keys in my pocket, or any other sign of just how anxious I’d gotten in the last three minutes. “Oh. I’m sorry, Spencer, I forgot I was supposed to see you today.” She mumbled, sounding genuinely apologetic if not a little confused.

“You… forgot?” I repeated, quickly making my way over to the calendar hung on a bulletin board outside the kitchen, noting the nothingness over both the current and following week.

“Yeah, I guess I got carried away with school.”

She was lying. I couldn’t be for sure about what, but it was obvious. If she was really having that much trouble with classes, she would have told me. We’d gotten past the whole insecurity over me thinking she was stupid thing a long time ago, and she knew I would always let her learn it on her own if she didn’t want my help.

“... What are you not telling me?” I tried to make the words playful, although my hand was now nervously patting the side of my hip at an alarming rate.

“Nothing! I just got distracted. I’m... a little busy today so we should just meet up again next weekend.”

“A week?” I knew she was probably getting tired of me parroting her words, but that just seemed like a ludicrous amount of time. Usually, we went barely a day or two without seeing each other when I was in the city, cherishing the time together when I wasn't called away to attend to crimes halfway across the country.  

“What’s going on?” My voice was quickly falling into that register that warned her I was about to start profiling her, whether I wanted to or not. And unfortunately, she chose the worst possible reaction to that warning, further tipping me off to the fact that something wasn't quite right.

“Spencer, stop being weird.”

But I wasn’t. I knew that I could be weird; it’s kind of my thing. If you looked up weird in the dictionary, you wouldn’t find my name, but you’d definitely find a description that perfectly characterized my personality.

“You’re the one being weird. Turn on your camera.”

“I can’t. It’s dark in here.” She shot back her answer so quickly, I knew that she had already anticipated the request.

“Then move.” I ordered more than suggested. She understandably didn’t take kindly to my reaction, but I know she also knew why I was doing it. The excuses she was giving weren’t even well thought out.

“What is this? An interrogation?” She scoffed, “Do you think I’m cheating on you with barely dissolved stitches in my intestines?”

I took a deep breath, sitting down at the kitchen table still sticky with leftover sugary liquor and turned the phone onto speaker. “Turn it on.” This time, my voice broke with the order. As much as that didn’t make it sound authoritative, it did make her feel guilty.

As the screen lit up, it all made sense in the worst possible way. She was forcing a fake smile, her other hand resting against her face in a failed attempt to draw attention away from the the mottled skin of her left eye.

“I’m not cheating on you. Happy?” The words were sharp on her tongue, an anger in her features paired well with the understanding that I wasn’t wrong to be worried. I honestly think that was what bothered her the most – that she wanted it to be nothing, for me to be overreacting, but knew that it was a little more serious that she let on.  

“I’m definitely not happy. What happened?” I was already at the door by the time the sentence ended... She shut off her camera just as quickly, hearing the commotion from my side. “Where are you? I’m coming right now.”

She sighed, and I could see it clearly despite the fact that she wasn’t on my screen anymore. “I don’t want you to come here. Spencer, I’m fine.”

I might have believed her. I might have honestly given her the benefit of the doubt – let her lie to me a little, and just accept that a black eye wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Eventually, she would tell me how she got it, so I wouldn’t need to worry about it.

But it became very obvious very quickly that it was not just a black eye.

“Ms. (Y/l/n)?” A third voice announced in the background, accompanied by the distinct sound of an alarm sounding in the distance.

“... Are you in a hospital?!”

“For fucks sake. I hate dating a profiler.” She grumbled, implicitly admitting that my conclusion was right. She wouldn’t let me have another word, speedily slurring her goodbye. “I have to go, Spencer. I’ll call you later. Love you!”

—————————————————

Anyone who has spent a long time in inpatient knows that nosy nurses are both the best and worst kind of people to be assigned to your stay. They were the best because they always had the best gossip and would spend their precious little free time sharing stories about their lives that were always more entertaining than whatever poorly budgeted gameshow was on the old, staticky television.

They were the worst because one wrong move meant that you were the subject of gossip. And boy, were they good at getting it out of you.

“Trouble in paradise?” She sweetly hummed as she pushed my bed down the hall.

I wanted to tell her that there was trouble, and that it was through no fault of my own. If the other people in the hospital didn’t have the audacity to be sick at the same time that I needed a CT scan, then I wouldn’t have even still been here. I could have been back at home, where… well, I guess Spencer would have figured it out either way.

“Yeah, I guess.” I sadly admitted, playing with the string of my gown. “He’s just a worrywart.”

The woman had that glimmer in her eye, the kind that came from years of seeing the same stories over and over again. Although, I had a hard time believing she’d ever been in this exact scenario, I guess they were all kind of the same after a while, semantics aside.

“Well, that makes sense considering your current state.” It was more of a reprimand than anything else, and I audibly groaned to try and get her to stop there. She didn’t, though, having spent enough time with me to know I needed to hear it. “You were very lucky, you know. If things had been even just a little bit different…”

Couldn’t you say that about everything? If things had been even just a little bit different, I never would have met Spencer in the first place. We never would have fallen in love or fought or done any of it at all.

I didn’t like thinking about that. I didn’t like even considering a life without Spencer. No matter how much pain I’d been through, or what traumatic memories were dug up, they were worth it.

That’s what she wanted me to realize, and she had succeeded. Suddenly, as we turned into the room, I was overcome with guilt at the way I’d ended my conversation with him.

The nurse knew it, too, because as she transferred me onto the scanner, she smiled. “I’m just saying, sweetheart. If he woke up next to your hospital bed last time, I understand why he’d be scared.”

Chewing on my lips, I thought about the last time I was in a hospital. I thought about how Spencer had curled his giant lanky body onto the bed and barely slept for 2 weeks. I could see the way his eyes got more sunken by the day, but never stopped shining with relief. I could hear him chewing on ice because he didn’t want to leave to grab food until after I’d woken up, and the cold would distract him from just how hungry he was.

“He must love you an awful lot to be that worried.”

I hated when they did that; when they read my mind and said exactly what I was thinking.

“Yeah, I know.” I tried to smile. It was hard with the stabbing pain in my stomach and the aching in the entire left side of my face, but I managed. It was just one of those things where if I thought of Spencer, my body had to react. It was as natural as breathing.

Which, speaking of…

“Take a deep breath in.” The technician alerted me from the speaker.

The high pitched whines of the CT scanner weren’t as obnoxious as the MRI machine. I was silently grateful that they were still too scared to use the giant magnet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be stuck in a confined space, listening to loud banging that sounded too much like gun shots for my comfort.

Even just the thought made me nauseous. I felt like a baby, to have such a strong reaction to something so stupid. I’d been in an MRI before. I was a in a hospital. Nothing bad was going to happen to me, and I knew that.

But even now, in a machine that made virtually no noise and barely covered half my body, I wasn’t able to hold in a breath. Each time I tried, it felt like I was choking on Spencer’s lap again. The stinging in my stomach felt so much stronger, even though I knew it was healed.

The world felt like it was closing in on me, and every second that passed felt like days. I couldn’t even trust myself to guess how long it took for them to get images that should have taken no longer than 5 minutes.

I felt like such a burden. Like I was in their way. Like I was doing it wrong. Like I was a little kid, thinking that she knew what she was doing and could do it on her own.

I wanted Spencer.

That was the only thing I could think, and although it should have been comforting, it just left me feeling empty. The thought of him wasn’t enough to stop the tears streaming down my cheeks. The hands of the nurses trying to calm me down didn’t help, either. They felt wrong. They felt cold.

I just wanted Spencer. I wanted him to be there to hold my hand and distract me from my own thoughts. I wanted him to replace them with other things, like he'd promised me. I wanted to make new memories far away from here.

But I couldn’t. I was an idiot and I’d gotten myself back in the hospital, and he wasn’t here because I told him I didn’t want him to be. Why had I told him that? There was no reason that made any sense.

Once we finally did get out of the damn radiology department, I could still only barely function. The ride back to my room was much quieter, and the nurse didn’t meddle anymore. Gossip was only fun when it didn’t hurt like this.

Again, I couldn’t trust myself to guess how long I’d been in the CT scanner, but as we crossed back into my room, an overwhelming sensation of relief washed over me when I saw his satchel in the seat beside my bed. I hated the knowledge that I’d wasted 45 minutes of the technician’s time, but I was just so fucking happy that he had actually come.

Being alone in my room wasn’t a big deal anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. So as soon as I could, I sat up and waited patiently for my favorite mop of curly brown hair to peek around the corner.

He didn’t disappoint. He rarely did.

“Hey little girl.”

All the tension melted from my muscles, my head finally resting against the pillow with a dopey smile on my face. “Spencer.” I sighed, holding my hand out to him to usher him closer.

He gladly took the invitation, taking wide steps so he could be with me sooner.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I grumbled, flicking him on the arm while I locked our hands together. “But I’m glad you are.”

It was obvious from the way he let out a deep breath that he was also relieved to see that I wasn’t angry at him for coming. However, that’s also where his relief stopped. Because he’d seen me an hour prior and knew that I hadn't been crying then. But now, on top of the black eye, he saw the red rimming my sclera.

Taking my hand into both of his, he pressed a hard kiss against the back of it. Without looking up, he muttered into the skin a sad plea.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?” I asked, pulling back on my hand so he would stop with the shameless display of romance in such an awful place.

“Whatever’s going on.” He paused, but was clearly unhappy with the open ended question, and just as quickly specified, “What happened last night?

Unfortunately, I still wasn’t in the giving mood, even when it was information, and even if the person begging me for it was the boyfriend that I’d just cried for in the CT Scanner. If anything, that almost made it worse.

I hated feeling like this. Vulnerable.

“Nothing.”

Spencer was getting fed up, but it was like I couldn’t stop myself from fighting with him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell him that I needed him to take care of me and ask him to hold me while I cried on his shoulder about nothing at all, but I couldn’t. He would do it in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t ask him to. I couldn’t ask him for anything.

I couldn’t need anything without feeling too horribly guilty.

“Please don’t lie to me.” He was begging again, looking up at me with those impossibly warm amber eyes. He smiled when he saw the way my lips curled at the sight of him, unable to be angry for too long.

“Am I not allowed to have any stories for myself?” I joked, reaching forward to poke his face. Instead of moving away to avoid my hand, he leaned into the touch.

“You can. I just...”

“I know. You’re worried.” I responded with an exasperated sigh, rolling my head back. I could still feel him watching me, though, with a precarious smile, happy to see my spirits relatively high while also being deeply unhappy about the circumstances.

Wanting to see that full, confident smile again, I realized I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m sure that whatever he’d come up with in his head was much more sinister than what had actually happened.

“Fine. Stop looking at me like that.” I mumbled, gesturing to the childlike pout and laughing when he sucked his lips into his mouth in an attempt to follow my direction. I was glad he was still in a joking mood, because I had a feeling it would disappear as soon as I started talking.

I took a deep breath, looking up and away before I began my explanation of the stupidest night.

“I went out for drinks with my friends–”

“Drinks?!”

It hadn’t even been five seconds and he’d already cut me off. I couldn’t blame him, but it was so freaking annoying. This was exactly why I hadn't told him. Well, that and the fact he could get in serious trouble.

“I didn’t have any! Geez. Chill out.” I yelled back, chuckling a little bit at the conflicting looks of terror and relief. Because while he obviously believed that I didn’t drink any myself, it gave ugly context to the nightmarish guesses his mind had concocted.

“And everything was fine. We were on our way home. But then some asshole started messing with my friend. And she was way too drunk and started crying.” I was groaning internally the whole time, thinking about all the different ways this whole situation could have been avoided. Honestly, I don’t know why she had decided to try and square up with a cat caller when she knew damn well that she would start crying the second he raised his voice.

Which, of course, he had.  

“So, I told the guy to fuck off. And he did not like it.”

There was a powerful rage boiling under the surface of Spencer’s skin, which was only betrayed by his clenched jaw and the sheets scrunched under his hand. “Did they arrest him?” He said, trying to calm the trembling in his voice. He wasn’t angry at me for being a victim, even if he was probably a little annoyed that I went out without telling him.

Not like he was even in the state, anyway.

“I didn’t press charges.”

He took a deep breath, clearly about to tell me that I was stupid for not holding him accountable. That I could’ve gotten hurt and he would’ve gotten away with it. That I could’ve died if he’d hurt me the wrong way.

I didn’t want to hear it.

“Stop. I didn’t want to go to court, and I’m fine. I didn’t even need invasive surgery again.”

Spencer was still angry but trying to settle himself down before he spoke. He could hardly even look at me, his hand leaving the bed to run through his hair and shake his keys in his pockets.

I wanted to tell him that the tension of silence was worse than if he’d just raised his voice at me, but I couldn’t even gather the energy to do that. My body and mind seemed resigned to their current state; they’d just given up.

“(Y/n)...” He started, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at the use of my name. They didn’t retreat, especially not when he dragged a chair over to my bedside, sitting down and placing a gentle hand over mine again.

“Are you okay?”

It was so sincere. So pure, so unforgivably kind. My hand that had felt paralyzed seconds earlier twitched under his. “I just told you.” I shrugged, fighting the urge to pull my arm away again. I wanted him here. I wanted him to touch me.

So why did it hurt? Why did everything hurt?

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” His voice broke, and I saw the way he was holding back tears with his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. He was biting back so many things he didn’t want me to know.

But again, I was too tired to fight it. So instead, I said nothing.

“It doesn’t take a profiler to see you’re hurting.” He continued, urging me to give him anything to work with. “How can I make it better?”

He just wanted to help. Why couldn’t I let him help?

“I’m fine. Nothing even happened to me.” My throat tried to reject the words, my brain screaming at me that they were fundamentally untrue. But my heart hurt, pounding louder in my chest to tell me that the logic was wrong. Because I was a big girl, and I shouldn’t be scared by things that already happened.

I’m safe, right? I don’t need to be scared, right?

Spencer could see the panic on my face because I couldn’t even have hid it if I'd wanted to. And my brain was telling me to not to. It told me that I needed to talk to him, to let him listen.

“That’s not true. You’ve been through a lot.” He bargained, trying to locate that little voice in my head with his offerings. He wanted to pull that small part of me out and force it to talk so that we might finally be able to start to move on.

“You go through worse every day.”

‘It’s common for patients suffering from PTSD to minimize their suffering or compare it to others. It’s a completely normal response, but I want you to try to resist belittling your own feelings. They’re yours, and no one else’s. Okay, sweetheart?’

The voice was so clear in my head, my body jerked in response. I looked around the room, looking for any sign of the man who’d told me them first. But he wasn’t here; he hadn’t been here for some time.

“Do you know how many profilers I’ve seen leave in my time at the bureau?” Spencer distracted me from the thought. He probably figured my flashbacks were more sinister than what they actually were. As upsetting as they had once been, hearing my dad’s voice in my head was usually oddly soothing.

“No.” I answered blankly, trying to pay all attention to the man who was still here.

“Four. And I’ve considered it myself.” There was a soft chuckle to hide the guilt in the admission.

I didn’t know why he felt bad for it; his job was so ridiculously difficult. On top of constantly having to rearrange his life on account of the various inextinguishable evils in the world, he had to face those evils every day and try to figure out their inner workings in order to thwart them. The only time I'd ever done that, I'd killed all three of them. Not the best track record.

“The first one, she... she reminds me a lot of you.” The soft twinkling in his eyes, much like emotional music in the movies, alerted me that a backstory was coming. Based on the extent of just how nostalgic he was coming, I guessed that whatever he was about to say was deeply important to him.

However, I was fragile enough as it was, and I didn’t need to add jealousy to my current emotional repertoire. “Is this another JJ origin story? Cause I don’t think I can handle it.”

He laughed, shaking his head at the frustrated pout that formed on my face. “No,” He said quietly, taking a pregnant pause to formulate the story. “Her name was Elle.”

The story he told was woven well, although I expected no less. He told it passionately and with absolute sincerity. He told me about the woman who was one of the first people he'd bonded with on the team. The playful relationship he described was painted so vividly in my imagination.

I wanted to meet her. But by the end of the story, it was obvious that it wasn’t an option. He didn’t say anything about it, but from the far off look I could guess that he hadn’t seen her since that last day.

“She was like a sister to me, and to see her fall apart and not be able to do anything to help her... it was one of the worst feelings in the world.”

And I understood then, why he was worried about me the way he was. He was projecting his previous experience on me, but things were different with me. At least, that’s what I told myself. Realistically I should have been reminding myself that she'd had the training and resources to overcome her obstacles, whereas I was basically still a stupid kid. The prospect of facing the reality was too difficult though; I just shrugged it off.

“Well, I already killed the people who did this to me.” I chuckled.

Spencer did not appreciate my humor. There was an even stronger concern that flashed over his features, worried by my flippancy over the death of three human beings.

Fuck, I should feel worse about it than I do, shouldn’t I? But if I thought about it, then it hurt so badly. If I had to pick one, I would pick apathy every time. I would choose the emptiness before the ocean of remorse.

“I’m not worried about them.”

I had drifted away from him again, and the sentence forced me to look at him.

‘I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you.’

I’d said that before. Those were my words.

I pulled my hand back from Spencer, rubbing my forehead with both hands before wincing at the sharp pain around my eye socket. It took me a minute to focus on the sentence and dive deeper into its implications. But once I remembered why it instilled such a visceral reaction, I nearly gagged on the words.

“Wait, you think I’m going to kill myself?”

“I didn’t say that.” He quickly responded in the most defensive manner possible. If that was his attempt to calm me down, it did not work. It only pissed me off even more.

Because there was only one reason why he would think I was going to kill myself. I hadn’t given him any reason to believe that was a risk. Yeah, sure, I was being reckless and impulsive, but I was a teenager!

“Why would you think that?” I demanded an answer, and he was immediately hesitant to provide one. It was all the evidence I needed to reach my conclusion. “Don’t lie to me, Spencer Reid. You asked Hotch, didn’t you?”

He sighed, leaning back in his chair now that it was obvious, I wasn’t going to want him to touch me. “Yeah, I did.”

“You told me you wouldn’t, Spencer! You promised!” I ground the words out between my teeth, hoping he understood just how much I was holding back my volume.

He looked over at the screen monitoring my heart, noting the way the spikes appeared at an exponentially faster rate. “I know.” He whispered with an evident guilt.

“What did he tell you?” I hated the way my voice shrank with my shoulders, my body insisting that I assume to the smallest position I could. Because as much as I hated that Spencer had asked when he told me he wouldn’t, I was desperate for the information.

I’d always wanted to see the files, to hear the story as they knew it. I wanted to know what happened, and this was probably the closest I’d ever come to that, unless that whole Ouija board thing is real.

“Probably the same stuff that you already know.” He knew he was disappointing me. He shouldn’t have felt as bad about that as he did, but I’d take the implicit apology for what it was.

“Tell me anyway.”

Spencer should have been delighted to have the opportunity to talk at me for such a long time, but I also understood why he wasn’t. They weren’t the best topics of conversation, your ex-best friend and your girlfriend’s dead father. But he was a trooper and a skilled conversationalist, despite people not being able to understand that.

“He told me that there were several missions your father was a part of that ended controversially. That… he reported several violations that were never followed through on.”

The words so easily unlocked memories I had tightly and resolutely locked away, it was unsettling. I could hear my parents arguing about the philosophy of blame and responsibility. My dad always arguing that he couldn’t stand aside and let innocent people get hurt. My mom reminding him that he couldn’t save everyone.

‘We also get to see a lot of good.’ Spencer had said on our first not-a-date.

‘Yeah, but which do you see more of?’ I’d asked, and he’d avoided the question. I remembered seeing the question dance across his vision before he shut it out. He'd wondered why I was so confident in my conclusions.

“And the last mission…”

He didn’t have to wonder anymore.

“I saw the report.”

My breath was knocked from my lungs by an invisible fist to my damaged gut. I swallowed, trying to regulate my heart that was at risk of setting off the damn machine next to me. “What did it say?” I whispered, clutching onto the sheets and my gown, hoping it would be enough to keep me grounded.  

“Killed in action.”

“That’s fucking bullshit.” I barked, my brows furrowing regardless of just how badly it hurt to contort my face so badly.  “He didn’t– H-He wasn’t–“

“I know.” Spencer responded, a note of pity in his voice that made my face twitch in annoyance.

I turned to him with the same snarl, years of repressed anger resurfacing and wreaking even more havoc on my already destroyed life. “Do you? Do you know?”

“I mean, I can’t ever know for sure but… You weren’t the only one who felt that he...” He couldn’t say the word suicide, and for once, I was grateful. “It seems like all of his team had the same concerns.”

He was trying so hard to calm me down, to placate my fears and rage. He was sympathizing the best he could, but the truth was he would never be able to understand just how fucked up it was. He hadn't been there when it was happening, so the only thing he could do was try to slap a band-aid on a well-settled scar and hope that my not being able to see it made it hurt less.

“I’m sorry.” He uttered the two words cautiously, his heartbreak clear in his eyes. He had nothing to apologize for, but there he was, doing it anyway.

“For what?”

“That you’ll never have your answer.”

I don’t know what I expected him to say, but his answer took me by surprise. Of all the explanations I’d heard after an unnecessary platitudinous apology, I’d never heard that. And even worse, I’d never heard it in such a broken way, sounding for all the world like he believed he'd failed tremendously.

“I’m sorry that... that I couldn’t find it for you.”

I couldn’t stand the sight, and my hand found his cheek like it did so often, returning home to find that it was just a bit more stubbly than I remembered it. “It’s not your job, Spencer. We’re not one of your cases.” I assured him, running my thumb over the rough skin and remembering that he’d only just gotten home from exactly that: a case.

He did so much for me every day, but in the past few months he’d had to do so much more. And as much as I tried not to, I took him for granted so often. It was never as obvious to me as it was in that moment, when a tear slid down his cheek at the tenderness of my touch.  He always expected anger and pain. I didn’t want him to feel that way with me.

“But thank you for trying. I appreciate you.” I tried to throw my soul into the words as they formed on my tongue, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. “I love you very much.”

“I love you, too.” He sighed into the small embrace, leaning his weight more heavily into my hand. Still holding back, he grimaced at the words he shared. “If I’m going to be honest, I looked something else up myself. Not on any FBI database just... old school research”

I wanted to act surprised, but it was the least shocking thing I’d heard in a while. So instead I just stared at him, with the closest I could come to boredom while still being interested in what he had to say.

“Yeah? What’d you find?” Finally settling into the inevitable resignation, I moved my hand up the side of his face to tangle in his hair. It was so soft despite not having been washed for a few days. I could tell he hadn’t slept much. I wondered why he'd bothered digging into my past in the precious little free time he had.

But then he said it, reminding me of the pain of the cemetery and the events that both preceded and followed it.

“Trent Loughton.”

My fingers stopped in their exploration of his curls for a second, but eventually continued. “I see.” I hummed, trying not to push the conversation any further than he wanted to take it. As emotional as the topic was for me, it must have been harder for him. After all, he was the one who shared the nasty habit with Trent.

“I-I saw how he died... and I think I can fill in the rest myself.”

“Mrs. Loughton did give a lot of clues.” I laughed, mostly to stop myself from crying. That woman didn’t deserve any more of my tears. It was because of her that I’d spent years trying to convince myself that Trent’s death wasn’t my fault. Deep down, a part of me still believed her.

But honestly, it wasn’t my opinion that really mattered to me. It was Spencer’s. If he thought I was a failure, or that it was my fault for what happened, I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to move past it. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to move past it.

“The drugs he overdosed on... they weren’t yours.”

Relief washed over me, but my mind told me not to get too comfortable, yet. “No, they weren’t.” My body had such a strange reaction to the words being said without an argument. I didn’t need to convince Spencer; he already knew. He not only believed me – he had come to the conclusion himself.  

“So why did you say they were?”

It was such an easy answer, I knew he had to know it already. His hesitance to come to conclusions on my behalf, while appreciated, wasn’t necessary in this situation. “Pretty little girl with no record and a batshit war hero dad stood a better chance in the criminal justice system. I didn’t ask my dad to protect me, but he did.”

Spencer clearly sympathized with my father more so than me in that moment, which made my heart flutter in a remarkably inappropriate manner. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that those damn psychologists were right – We really do sometimes pick men that remind us of our fathers.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Spencer said under his breath, and I wondered which one he was even talking about. It honestly could have applied to my whole life. He would have meant it each time, too. Because to him I couldn’t do anything wrong. I tried to take solace in that, but it honestly caused another voice to creep into the back of my mind.

I’d never be as good as he saw me. I’d never be worthy of his love.

Shoving those anxieties away again, I nodded in solemn recognition of the years I spent working to come to that same conclusion. “I know. It just took me a while to figure it out.”

My hand finally fell away from his face, although he grabbed my wrist to stop it from going too far. There was another hesitancy in his body language. His face turned down and his leg bouncing so gently I almost missed it.

“Is he the one you were talking about? The one you loved?”

Ah, nothing like a subtle hint of jealousy to boost a girl’s ego. I chuckled at the sound, swaying a bit in place to let him suffer a millisecond longer. “No. Not exactly.”

But then I genuinely couldn’t figure out how to say it. How could I describe what we had shared, when I'd spent so long trying to forget it? Had I loved him? Probably. No, I'd definitely loved him, just not in the way Spencer was thinking. Not like I loved Spencer.

“It was like, he always liked me, and I always thought we’d end up together because that’s how it happens in the movies, right? I was supposed to fall in love with him.” I ranted, trying to move my hands that were currently wrapped up in Spencer’s. “But I didn’t, and then he was gone and...”

We both stopped, his eyes trailing after me with questions he didn’t voice yet. He wanted me to finish before he decided whether or not they were worth it. I wanted to explain to him that they weren’t. As important as Trent was to me, he was gone.

“It’s fine. I’m sure he would be glad I found someone who makes me happy.” I was confident in that, at least. Because as I stared into those big hazel eyes, forcing themselves to stay open just to listen to me talk about my life, I was glad, too. “Even if that someone snoops too much for his own good.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

There were many reasons, most of which I didn’t want to go into. But the way he was looking at me shattered my heart into a million pieces, and I knew that if I lied to him now, it would only make it harder to put those parts back together.

He just wanted to help. I knew I should let him help.

“I didn’t want to think about it.” I admitted for the first time out loud. “I didn’t want to consider all the similarities. I didn’t want you to think I was just looking for a man to replace the ones I’ve lost.”

I couldn’t tell when I started to cry, but it was even more exhausting and painful than normal. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to accept Spencer’s offer when he stood up, wrapping his arms around me just tightly enough that it wouldn’t hurt.  

“I didn’t want to lose you, too.” I whined, the comforting scent of his cologne filling my lungs and reminding me of all the beautiful moments we’d shared so far. We had so many more to go.

“You won’t lose me. I’m here to stay.” He said, reading my mind like he always did.

“I know.” I started to laugh, but this time it wasn’t held back by secrets. “You’d think a girl could lose you by getting in a bar fight an hour away and going to an unnamed hospital but nooo...”

He laughed too, although his was much more reserved. Spoilsport.

Spencer’s arms tightened around me briefly, holding me closer to him before he backed away, his hands finding home on my cheeks. I anticipated a kiss, which was usually what happened when he held me like that. But he didn’t kiss me, instead giving me a gentle instruction.

“(Y/n), look at me.”

My eyes, bruised and dry, still opened at his command.

“No jokes. No lies.” He asked, clearly enunciating each word. “Should I be worried about you?”

All I could hear was the sound of my heart and the humming of the machines. I was brought back to the CT scanner, the way it felt to be choking on air. Flashes of other men I loved were racing through my mind. I couldn’t save them, I remembered, before my eyes landed back on Spencer.

My stomach twisted at the memory of a wooden box, a check, and suddenly all I smelled was the pine of the forest.

“(Y/n)?” He asked again, although I saw he’d already received half of the answer.

“No. I’m fine.”

The most terrifying part about it was that I believed what I said, but the look on Spencer’s face told me that I was lying. And I believed that, too.

—————————————————

The thing about coming back from a gunshot wound to the stomach is that it takes a ridiculously annoying amount of time. Like, yeah, the pain is something awful, but the wait for things to return to normal was even worse.

I didn’t even know how long it’d been, my brain blocking out anything that reminded me of that day. If I ever really needed to know, Spencer could tell me. I was basically only keeping track of the days by deadlines for school and the dwindling prescriptions I had left.

My follow-up appointment was next week, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Spencer told me he would come with me, but I hadn’t really heard from him in a couple of days. He didn’t even have time to tell me about the case, although I could tell it was one of the “bad” ones – not that there were really any “good” ones.

But still, it was almost 11pm and I was about to go to sleep, but I wanted to wait a little bit longer before I called it a night. I was just hoping that I’d be able to talk to him, even if it was just to say goodnight. I missed his voice like crazy.

So when my phone lit up, I didn’t even look at the caller ID. There weren’t many people who would call me this late on a Friday – my friends were all already out for the night.

“Hello?” I sang into the receiver, already excitedly spinning around in my chair.

But the voice that responded was decidedly not Spencer.

“Hey, (y/n), right? It’s JJ.”

Her voice rang like a record scratch through my head, and I halted in my chair. “Oh, hey JJ... Why are you calling me?” Suddenly, my enthusiasm morphed into an overwhelming anxiety and darkness that threatened to crush everything in its path. “I-Is everything alright?”

But then I heard it. The sound of terrible music, loud laughter, and the general bustle of a restaurant. It was followed by an even more nervous JJ, “Uhh, yeah. Everything is fine. I was calling because Spencer might have had a few too many drinks and—“

Above the chaotic noise that I just described, I heard Spencer Reid loud and clear. Well, maybe not the clear part. His inaudible slurring sounded vaguely like a rant I’d heard before. Then again, hadn't I heard them all at this point? ?

I hadn’t put it together yet, though, and once I did, I couldn’t help but laugh. “My boyfriend is drunk? Cute.”

I was already standing, gathering my things and tossing my jacket on to head out when I asked, “Do you want me to come get him?”

“Please.” I’d never heard a more relieved woman in my life. The very thought of him driving his best friends insane with his drunken lessons was enough to combat my exhaustion. The poor thing was probably humiliating himself one sip at a time.

But for every chuckle, I was really just hiding a deeper concern. Spencer wasn’t supposed to be drinking. Spencer wasn’t allowed to drink, and he knew that. Out of the two of us, he was the one who put himself at risk more often, and I had a goddamn bullet wound.

“Sure thing. Just send me the address.”

It dawned on me somewhere along the 20 minute drive that Spencer had not only finished his case, but also come home and gone out for a drink with his team. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but the fact that he hadn’t told me about any of it...?

I tried not to think about it, knowing that talking to him about it tonight would be a waste of time, anyway. From the way he'd sounded over the phone, he wouldn’t be in any state to talk about the deep nuances of addiction and our relationship.

So I pushed it away, trying to enjoy the fact that I’d be able to see him again. Now that we’d cleared the air about my past, things felt strangely calm. I told myself it wasn’t just the eye of the storm because I  wasn't sure I could handle much more excitement lately.

Showing up at one of the bars I used to frequent didn’t do much to convince me otherwise, either. The stench of cigarette smoke and alcohol hit me like a freight train as soon as I stepped out of my car. How did I do this every other night before?

As I approached the door, I didn’t even recognize the bouncer’s figure in the shade of the dim porch light. I recognized his voice, though, that’s for sure.

“Hey Jailbait, haven’t seen you around.”

Shit. Slower now, I hesitantly approached him with the most innocent and well-meaning look I could muster, knowing full well that another part of my life was going to be exposed tonight. At least this time, Spencer was the story and not the listener.

“Hey Tom...” I nervously laughed, drawing out the words while I came to a stop.

“Heard some pretty crazy shit went down to keep you off the scene. Must be bad if it keeps you away from me.”

It was weird to think that they talked about me. But I guess it was to be expected; we were all friends before Spencer Reid. And when someone in those friend groups goes missing suddenly, there’s usually reason to be worried. But in my situation, the worry wasn’t really necessary (aside from the whole being shot thing, I guess).

“Crazy is a good word for it.”

He leaned forward, beckoning for me to move in even closer with a wave of his hand. I complied, although I was a little confused as to why we were being so secretive.

“Hey, sorry, but... I can’t let you in tonight. You know I normally would, but the place is swarming with feds tonight.”

Then I remembered that I actually had to explain the reason for my absence, rather than just think about it in the abstract. “Oh no, I know.” I peered around him, trying to spot the man past the door. It wasn’t hard, considering how goddamn tall he was.

I pointed to him, causing Tom to turn with an amused grin before I explained, “I’m here for the drunk noodle man.”

The look on his face – hilarious, and a little insulting.

“What? Jailbait’s picking up a fed? Damn girl what’ve you been into?” He laughed, barely able to control himself. He laughed so hard, in fact, I’m surprised there weren’t tears in his eyes.

“Stop that.” I whined, but he didn’t listen.

“Does he know who he’s dating?”

The question hurt more than he could have anticipated. I didn’t want to confront those messy feelings, so I bundled them all into an annoyed exclamation. “Yes, he knows!” I huffed, crossing my arms and turning away from him as I stepped towards the door. “So can I go get him?”

He composed himself rather quickly after that, shaking his head and unhooking the rope that blocked off the door. “Please do. If I have to hear one more fact about Ancient Rome, I might quit.”

With the last obstacle gone, I happily skipped through the door, the excitement returning in a bubbling wave through my chest. “Thanks, Tom!” I chirped, barely giving him a glance as I raced through the door.

The only person more surprised to see me than Tom was Spencer. Although, to his credit, I did practically launch myself at his side. We both nearly toppled to the ground thanks to  our lack of coordination, but we were luckily stopped by the bar he was leaning against.

“Boo!” I shouted in his ear, hearing a small, surprised gasp from my boyfriend.

“(Y/n)?” He turned towards me now, stars quickly forming in his eyes as a big, goofy smile spread across his face. It took him a minute, but eventually he recognized me in the dim light.

“Hey old man.”

Hugging me back just a little too tightly, he began to gush, “Oh my gosh. What are you doing here?” Of course, before I could answer, he came to several other conclusions. “Wait! This is a bar. You can’t be here! You aren’t twenty one!”

He thought he was whispering, but he definitely, definitely was not.

“I’m here to pick you up, not party.” I actually whispered back, turning to see JJ practically hiding at the table. I’m guessing he hasn't wanted her to call me, although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t care at this point. He seemed pretty happy I was there.

“You can’t pick me up. You’re hurt.”

I didn’t even know where to start with that, so I just chuckled. “Smart as a whip, Dr. Reid.”

I ran my hands over his shoulders, smoothing out the wrinkled dress shirt he'd either had no time to iron, or had worn to bed the night before.  I didn’t like either of those options. Spencer must have noticed me analyzing the fact, because his hand came up to stop me.

Trying to quickly change the subject, I blurted out over the terrible music, “Even when I’m hurt, I can probably still pick you up. You probably weigh the same as me.”

He scoffed, looking down at his lanky body compared to mine before shaking his head. “That’s hurtful, (y/n).” He attempted a puppy dog face, which only made laughter burst from my pursed lips.

Grabbing hold of his wrists and pulling him away from the bar, I turned and waved to the few team members I could spot among the crowd before returning to my drunken idiot of a boyfriend. “Come on, love. It’s time to take you home with me.”

When the cool autumn air hit him, I felt the goosebumps ripple over his arm. He leaned a bit closer, resting too much of his body weight on me for my comfort, but I wasn’t going to tell him to stop.

“How did you find me?” He mumbled, trying to touch me more than he currently was. Pushing him away from me was supposed to serve as a gentle reminder that we were in public, but he didn’t seem to care about that at all.

“JJ called me.”

“They all like you a lot. So do I.” His fast responses were a little less impressive considering how spontaneous they seemed, but I let it slide. As long as he was saying nice things, it was fine by me.

Guiding him as gently as possible, which is to say not gently at all considering he was essentially a human giraffe, I sighed. “I’m glad to hear it, Spencer. Maybe I can actually hang out with them one of these days.”

The guilt appeared before I could stop it, but it was the least of my worries at the moment. More concerning would be getting him into his house and in bed without either of us doing something stupid. After all, he was usually the one who stopped me from being stupid. And so far tonight, he’d already done something pretty damn stupid.

As I pulled the driver side door closed, a silence filled the car. Spencer was stuck between staring at me with a lovesick smile and looking away, probably because of his pink cheeks making him look a perfect combination of embarrassed and plastered.

“So what had you drinking, Spencer?”

“A case.” He shot back with that voice he usually reserved for the bedroom. It was the voice that told me not to press, to take his answer and let it die.

Unfortunately, I couldn't really do that this time, concerning this particular topic. . “Good thing or bad thing drinking?” I asked quietly.

I think he wanted to snap at me, to tell me that it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t. The way my hands and words trembled told him that I was just as scared as he was that the answer might be the wrong one.

“I don’t know,” was what he said, instead.

“Okay.” I accepted that answer, understanding that it meant we could talk about it later, when his blood went back to normal and his mind was where it should be. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

And there we were, me sitting and staring at the indicators on the car as the engine turned, and him staring at me in the little light provided. After staring back at him for a moment, I had to ask the glaringly obvious question.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

That’s when Spencer Reid let out an honest to god giggle, his hands reaching out to massage my face that no longer showed any signs of the black eye I'd received a few weeks prior. “You’re sooo pretty.” He drawled, slumping over in his seat so he could rest his face against my shoulder.

I couldn’t help but laugh back, petting his hair for a second before returning my attention to the wheel. “Oooh, I like this.” I whispered, letting my heart skip a few beats as he nuzzled into the warmth that only I could provide him.

“I love you.” He mumbled against my shirt, letting out a deep breath before apparently trying to fill his lungs with the smell of my laundry detergent.

The sensation of his breath hot against my neck caused a familiar desire to stir in me, just barely beaten out by the even more powerful adoration I had for the puppy-like man who was already practically asleep on my shoulder.

“I love you, too, darling.”

He didn’t hear me, his soft breath indicating that he would be out for the drive. Taking my time to avoid the roads with potholes and curves, I managed to keep Spencer on me the whole way back to his apartment. Once we were there, though, I didn’t have any option but to wake him up. Unlike him, I definitely could not carry him out of the car.

It took him a surprisingly long period of time to realize that we were not, in fact, at my place. As soon as he did notice, he rubbed his eyes like it would transform the door in front of him. “Why didn’t you take me home?”

“This is your apartment, babe.” I explained, digging through his pockets to find his keys. He jumped at the contact before letting out a sound that was way too close to a moan for him to be making in the hallway.

“Yeah that’s not home.” He answered, swallowing down other noises that threatened to erupt by the time I withdrew my hand. “But home is–“ He hiccuped, patting his finger on my nose as he tried to stabilize his feet. “Home is where you are.”

“Mmm, so smooth.” I hummed, unlocking the door and shoving his drunk ass into the apartment before he could do something else that made me question whether I should just turn around and go home.

But he just looked so proud of himself, spinning around on his feet and crashing into the table beside the door. “Thank you!” He chirped, reaching forward to grab my hand and pull me closer.

When our bodies pressed together, the first thing I noticed was the fact he was clearly much more excited to be home with me than he was letting on. The thin fabric of his slacks left little to the imagination, and when my hand slid over the tent in his pants, there was nothing left to wonder.

“I brought you here... because I didn’t want to have to be quiet.” I purred, palming his erection over his clothes.

Through his broken moans, he still managed to ask the silliest question: “Why are you going to be loud?”

He was so fucking cute; so remarkably innocent in his drunken stupor, it was hard to remember that he was the same man that once finger fucked me on the metro.

“Why do you think?” I asked just as sweetly, making quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

Spencer still just stared, mesmerized by the way the buttons slipped from the fabric between my fingers. Once they were all open, I ran my hands over his chest before wrapping my arms around his neck.

He was the one to close the gap, coming down to deliver a feverish kiss against my lips. He tasted like honey and whiskey, and I wanted nothing more than to drown in him. His hands were on my lower back, sneaking under my shirt and spreading goosebumps all over my skin.

I moaned into his mouth with the utmost desperation, murmuring words against his lips. “Take me to bed, Spencer,” I begged.

The words awoke something in him, and suddenly, his hands were off of me and raised in the air.

“Wait— I can’t.” He concluded, drawing in heavy breaths.

“Why not?”

I wasn’t sure which part of this situation did him in, although I had my suspicions. As much as I wanted him, I would suppress those urges if he was really, truly uncomfortable. I almost felt bad for a second, but then he spoke again.

“I have a girlfriend.”

With a few slow blinks, I tried to figure out how the hell I was supposed to return a serious answer. Deciding that was impossible, I deadpan replied, “I am your girlfriend, you absolute idiot.”

I took his stunned silence to be permission enough to start leading him into his room. He honestly looked like I’d just told him all the answers to the universe, and he trailed after me like my hand was a leash. Still, once I sat on the bed and pulled his body against mine, he paused again.

“My girlfriend can’t— she’s hurt. She can’t have sex with me.”

I got the impression he was trying to reason with himself more so than with me, which explained the third person. But it was deeply unsettling, because I really needed to know he was here in this moment with me.

“Stop saying 'she'. It’s me, babe.” I gently reminded, and I watched it dawn on him again, his eyes lighting up in the darkness. Sliding my hand up his arm, I pulled him forward to hopefully convince him to climb into the bed with me. “And we don’t have to have sex.”

Funny enough, Spencer was the one who had enough sense to strip off most of his clothes before he stumbled onto the mattress after me. His lack of coordination was even worse with the alcohol, and it reminded me of the virginal teenager I’m certain he once was.

It was strange to consider, that if we’d met each other under different circumstances, at a different time, our roles might have been somewhat reversed. To picture him as an innocent little thing was... kind of exciting.

But he was anything but innocent now, his face hanging over mine while he helped me disrobe, trying to focus his analytical abilities on me in his haze. Finding no pain or hesitancy, he crashed his lips over mine with an energy I hadn’t seen in some time.

And it was so invigorating, to feel his skin against mine without him having to constantly worry about whether or not he was hurting me. It’d been far too long since we shared a bed together like this, and now that it was happening, I could hardly breathe.  

“God, I love her.” He whispered against my skin, before quickly correcting himself, “I love you.”

I laughed, the kind that sputters from your lips when you try to hold it back. Pushing the hair from his face, I ran my fingers over his scalp. “How drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk, I’m stupid.” He replied with a cheeky smirk, diving back down to kiss me again. I wasn’t going to argue with the brilliant Spencer Reid, even if the point he was making was that he was, in fact, stupid.

Maybe it was stupid, the two of us tangling up in his sheets despite the fact that I hadn’t been cleared for it yet by my doctor. I knew that it was coming soon – probably at my appointment in a couple weeks, actually – so why wait? I knew that Spencer would never hurt me. Even now, his hands were gentle in their insistence, raking over my hip and stopping just short of the place where I really wanted him.  

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” He groaned, his hips rocking forward and pressing his erection against my leg.

“Touch me.” I ordered, louder and more forcefully than I intended. I was expecting an argument, but I didn’t get one. In fact, Spencer’s finger had already breached my folds before I even finished talking. Unwilling to let him be the only one to enjoy himself, I reached down to grab his cock.

“Shit.” He hissed, biting down on his lip while he rutted against my hand. “I just want to hold you down and fuck you until you cry.” The restraint was obvious in the fingers slowly sinking into me, his jaw clenched and his eyes barely able to stay open. “But I can’t.”

Through my heavy breaths, I panted out another request. “Tell me more about it.”

He immediately realized why I’d asked, and his fingers began to pump in and out of me faster and with more force, his lips trailing kisses over to my ear. While I tried to keep up the pace of my strokes, it became more complicated when his breath fanned over my ear.

“It’s been so long since I bent you over and had my way with you like I did that morning over your kitchen counter...” He moaned, and I could almost feel the sensations as he remembered them. Although his fingers would never be the same, just having him inside me in any capacity felt like pure bliss.

But he wasn’t done, continuing to speak his thoughts into my ear. “I just want to—fuck, I want to fill you up.” I went to respond, but I choked on a sob, instead. The lewd sounds between us only aided his descriptions.

“God, I love the way you feel. You’re always so wet for me.” He whispered, beginning to make small thrusts with his hips. The movement essentially allowed him to use my hand to stroke himself, and he let out another unsteady moan at the contact. “Think about what it feels like, little girl.”

“I-I am.” I could barely make the words come out; my body too sensitive to his touch after being starved of it for so long. And Spencer was ready to take full advantage of that.

“I still have so much planned for you. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that little stunt you pulled when you got all riled up.” He growled, using his free hand to grab a fistful of my hair. He yanked my head further to the side, laying sloppy kisses along my jaw. “I told you I’d give you triple the marks you left on me, and I can’t wait to cover you with me.”

“Fuck. Please, Spencer.” I hoarsely begged, my hand on his shoulder tightening so that my nails dug into his skin. If his grip on my hair wasn’t so tight, I would have thrown my head back. Instead, I just squirmed underneath him, crying out, “I’m so close, Spencer, please!”

He did not disappoint, his fingers curling inside of me with each thrust, and by some grace of God, he was able to coordinate his thumb over my clit. As if that wasn’t enough, he pulled back to look me in the eyes.  

“I want to feel you come on my fingers.” It was more of a demand than a desire, as evidenced by the way his hand tugged on my hair. “Come on, little girl. Make daddy proud.”

Just like that, my body responded to his call, my muscles trembling from the tension as my orgasm hit me like a fucking freight train. It was such an overwhelming experience, to remember exactly how Spencer was capable of making me feel.

And he knew it, too. “Oh, good girl,” he cooed, continuing his kisses against my neck and murmuring the words as they came to him. “That’s my pretty little slut.”

After taking my time coming back to earth, I struggled from the overstimulation still burning between my legs. Spencer hadn’t stopped his fingers, which were diligently stroking inside of me while he continued to buck his hips against my hand.

“I want you to finish inside me.” I slurred in my delirium, withdrawing my hand from his dick while he whimpered.

“I-I can’t. I can’t fuck you.” He was asserting a necessary and understandable hard limit, and it was clear I wouldn’t be able to convince him to fuck me that night.

But that wasn’t the plan, anyway.  

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” I said between gasps, struggling against his fingers still inside me. “Come up here.” I whined, rubbing my hands on his shoulders while simultaneously trying to sit myself up.

The movement and the words made him withdraw completely. “(Y/n)...” He warned, running a hand through his hair while he sat up on his knees. “I could hurt you.”

“That’s always been a risk with us, Spencer.” My retort was both quick and persuasive, judging by the way he almost moved, but stopped himself yet again.

“Please. Please, do it. I want you to do it so fucking bad.” There was an obvious and deep desperation. I was literally begging him, to the point that I swore I almost cried. It felt stupid, but I needed him like I’d never needed anything in my life before. He’d spent months taking care of me, and I couldn’t do anything in return.

I just wanted to make him feel good, to give him something like we used to share.

Of course, I think those thoughts were also visible on my face, and they were obviously worrying him. With tender touches, Spencer’s fingers lightly trailed over the side of my face. The brief flashes of clarity alerted him of my struggle, and he let out a shaky breath at the war inside his own mind.  

“I want to feel you inside me, and this is the only way.” I concluded, trying to lead him to the simplest conclusion. It was the safest, easiest way to solve both of our current problems. And although I could see how hard the decision was for him, my pleading eventually bested him.

“Fuck.” He mumbled, leaning forward to grab the headboard, staring down at me as I shimmied further up the wood.

“Fuck!” He repeated, rolling his head back with a light groan when both of my hands reached forward to grab his hips. “Fine. You’re lucky you’re so fucking cute.”

A giggle bubbled through my throat, and my body actually bounced in excitement as he slowly positioned himself in front of me. I wasn’t even sure which I was more excited for, my own orgasm or getting to finally give him one again.

As soon as my mouth closed around the head of his dick, I got my answer. Spencer’s moan filled the room, his hands holding so firmly on the headboard that the entire bed creaked. Although I figured he’d been taking care of himself in my absence, it appeared that wasn’t entirely the case. He seemed just as starved as I was.

“Holy shit.” He groaned, dropping a hand to the top of my head. I had to remind myself that he was drunk, which explained why he seemed so much more responsive than normal, with whimpers and pants flowing steadily through his mouth. He only got louder as he began to slowly push himself further into my mouth, stopping every few inches to retreat before pressing further.

“God, I need to do this more often. No back talk, no whining.” He said in a low tone under his breath, beginning to settle on a steady rhythm.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t think of anything except how fucking good it felt to be useful again, to feel him struggling to hold himself back as he started to more aggressively fuck my mouth. My eyes could barely stay open, but I needed them to. I needed to see him in the dim light of the streetlights that peered through the window.

He looked so beautiful, so perfect, and so mine. Feeling him slide back and forth against my tongue revived memories from long before and reignited my longstanding desire to do anything to please him. In all his caretaking, I was worried he might have forgotten how to control me.

But he hadn't.  Thank god, he hadn’t.

“Come on, little girl. Earn your fill.” He whispered, burying himself in my throat and holding me against the headboard. I only lightly choked on the intrusion before my body complied, swallowing him further until my lips were pressed against the base of him.

Suddenly, Spencer withdrew, beginning a brutal, dizzying pace. Now, my eyes couldn’t stay open, rolling to the back of my head as I used my hands to steady myself against his thighs. The sobs trying to escape felt more like moans, and they shoved Spencer over the edge he’d been riding in his caution.

“That’s it. Take it.” He barked the instruction, looking down at me and smiling, “Don’t you dare spill any of it, do you hear me?”

My answer was stifled against him, just the way he wanted it to be. And with a few more rough thrusts, Spencer buried himself as deep as possible. I swore my heart synchronized with the pulsing against my tongue as his seed spilled down my throat.

I hollowed my cheeks, trying to drain every last drop from him as he finished. It had its desired effect, and Spencer grabbed my hair and forced himself deeper one more time with a growl. “Good girl.”

Once he had enough, he pulled out of me with a satisfied grunt, waiting just a second before clumsily falling onto the bed beside me. I laughed as he hit the pillows, obviously too tired to even reposition himself in the disastrous sheets.

“Thank you, daddy.” I spoke in the silence, gingerly cleaning the spit that had dripped down my chin.

“Fuck.” The curse was muffled in the pillow, but I understood it well enough. He seemed more concerned when I started to sink down into the sheets again, reaching a tentative hand out to him.

Finally rolling over, he grabbed my arm and guided me closer. “Come here.” He said with the tenderness I’d grown used to over the past few months. He turned towards me, apparently not ready for me to sleep on my side just yet.

He brushed my hair from my face, lifting the sheets to look at the now mostly healed wound. I hated it when he looked at it. It just reminded me that I’d never be the same girl he first met. Every time he saw it, he would remember that day. I didn’t want to think about it.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

But even with the insecurity and anger in my gut, I wasn’t lying when I answered. “No, I’m fine.” My heart was so full, my body relaxing for the first time in so long. I was just so unbelievably happy to be together again. Even if it wasn’t like last time, it was still just as wonderful.

“I’m a little better than fine, actually.” I admitted with a bright smile.

Spencer hummed something in thought, but then winced. “Do me a favor.” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes and wiping a heavy hand over his face.

“Anything.”

“Kick my ass in the morning.”

He was caught off guard by my response, which was a full-hearted laugh that was too loud for how close the two of were. But I couldn’t help it, it was just so Spencer to still be punishing himself despite the fact that nothing bad had happened.

Once I calmed down enough to talk, I turned to him with a devilish grin. “I don’t wanna.”

Then were both laughing, and Spencer pulled me close to him until he could rest his chin on the top of my head, curling up against my side. “Spoiled brat.” He whined, running his hand through my hair and down my arm.

When I smelled the whiskey on his breath, the guilt hit me just as hard as any of the pleasure. I'd been so excited to get to experience this with him again, I almost forgot the reason he didn’t want to do it in the first place.

He just didn’t want to hurt me. He just wanted to make me happy.

“I just wanted to be with you again... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” I whispered, pulling the covers up so that I could hide my shame beneath them.

“I wanted to be with you, too.” He reassured me, half asleep and barely able to talk but wanting to get the words out. “I know it’s important to you, but I need you to know I would be with you even if I never got to touch you again.”

“Please never stop touching me.” I quickly replied, a genuine worry in my eyes.

But when Spencer glanced over, he just laughed, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

“No? Even when I get pregnant and have a big ol’ belly?” I playfully answered, bringing his hand to my stomach and pressing it against the side that still remained intact.

The familiar position caused a shift in Spencer’s body language, and suddenly he was even more insistent on being impossibly closer. “You’ll still be irresistible to me.” He said against my hair, running his fingers lightly over the unmarked skin of my lower stomach.

“We’ll see, I guess.” I mumbled, not realizing that I said it aloud until I heard his confused reply.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” The defensiveness in my voice was terrifyingly transparent, and I hoped that if his drinking made him forget anything, it would be this conversation. “Go to sleep, drunk ass.”

“I need hugs and kisses first.” He complained, rubbing his nose against me in a way that should have been irritating instead of adorable.

“Spoiled.” I grumbled, reaching a hand up to play with his hair. I turned to kiss his cheek through the smile that was plastered over my cheeks.

Already half snoring in his sleepy state, he got out one more cringe worthy joke before he succumbed to his exhaustion. “What’s good for the goose...”  

“...is good for the gander.” I finished for him, before taking the advice and following him to sleep.

 —————————————————

| Part 18 |

[masterthespianduchovny]

The counter argument to people being against Sam/Rebecca for legitimate reasons are claims that Sam is being “infantilized.”

These age gap conversations in general are difficult to have because one side won’t acknowledge that just because two people are adults doesn’t mean they are in the same place emotionally and mentally. And this is a very important thing to note.

Someone being 18, a legal adult in America (I think you can date adults at 16 in the UK), doesn’t mean they are able to date a significantly older person, say 38, without a problem. Because, more times than not, which is an understatement, there’s a lot of fucking problems in an age gap relationship even if the older person isn’t dating the younger for nefarious reasons.

It is not infantilizing Sam or any young adult to say, “hey, this relationship may be detrimental to them because of their age.” That is just…facts.

Many people on tumblr and other SM sites often talk about how they still feel like kids at 22 and are still figuring life at, despite having jobs, kids, and shit. Despite being in full blown relationships, these young adults don’t feel like adults and that’s because you aren’t magically mature just because you’ve reached an arbitrary age to be declared a legal adult.

You just aren’t.

And being mature in one aspect of your life or regarding emotional development doesn’t mean you’re mature in other aspects. At 17, I was mature enough to understand this.

Because maturity isn’t just something you obtain like your degree or license, it’s an ongoing, ever evolving thing.

It’s life experience. As in how you learn and grow from it.

Acknowledging that someone doesn’t have significant life experience isn’t infantilizing them, it’s giving an important perspective to a crowd of who is essentially arguing “age ain’t nothing, but a number.”

If you’re all for an 18 year old dating a 38 year old, why not a 16 year old and a 36 year. It’s only a two year difference, right? And what if that 16 year old is really mature? Most would have an issue with that. People are justifying a significantly older person dating a younger person due to legality and not they are actually mature and on the same level. But there’s not much difference between a 16 and 18 year old or an 18 year old and a 20 year old. But guess what, there is a significant difference between people between the ages of 18-22 dating people a decade or more.

I literally just turned 30 last week and, even when I was 25, after a while I could tell when I was speaking to a teen or someone in their early 20s. Because, whether or not you get along with them, there are just some things that, because they haven’t had enough life experience, they don’t have the nuance or perspective to engage with you a certain way and this is even on a non romantic level.

And, in some cases, the younger person is more “mature” not because they’re actually that mature, but because the older person is that immature.

So before I get into the issues with Sam and Rebecca, let me give you four examples of age gaps relationships:

1. A friend of mine dating an older man when she was 23 and he was 38. She was a manager at a gym and he was a gym member. They would have sex and hang out, but she wanted commitment. Whenever she asked him about it, he’d get weird on her. After finally breaking it off months later, he “loved” her and finally wanted commitment, but she’d moved on. While she dated him, I told her my two cents on the situation and left it alone. Last month, she recalled this conversation as she groaned in displeasure hearing about an age gap relationship. She’s now skeptical of older people dating significantly younger people.

2. A friend of mine was 18 dating a 28 year old. We all worked at a pizzeria. He watched her on the cameras from the back when he became a manager—got mad if she talked to male coworkers. Used to gaslight her, controlled her via manipulation, and other gross toxic shit. After emotionally tormenting her for a year or so and pressuring her to live with him, which her parents allowed due to some issues they didn’t want to exacerbate, he cheated on her. They’re broken up now. She was always stressed out while with him.

3. A girl got into her first and only relationship when she was 19 with a man who was 32. They’re now married 23 and 36. She wants to wait to have kids and on her birthday he gifted her baby clothes. Make of that what you will.

4. A girl, 22, dated her 37 year old professor. At 28, she feels like she’s outgrown him and is disturbed about how and when they got together. And one night she heard him advise his friends to date younger girls so they can mold them. Yeah…

Sure you have marriages that have age gaps that lasted, but even then, very few of those are actually healthy. The younger person is usually taking orders from the older partner, can’t do certain things, doesn’t have any true agency, skills to survive on their own, etc. What typically happens is after that person becomes older, they begin to question their relationship because what seemed okay when they were younger, is unsettling after becoming older.

Like I said, take out the nefarious shit, and there is still a significant life experience gulf between Sam and Rebecca and that is one of the many issues with this pairing. Despite what some romantics and media loves to say, “love does not conquer all.” Most of the marriages that end in divorce isn’t because they couple fell out of love, it’s due to finances. Love couldn’t conquer that. Some marriages end because one of them changed or they could’ve overcome their vast differences.

I’m not saying Sam and Rebecca are on a path for marriage or are even in love, they aren’t, however, they idea that just because they get along and have some things in common means it would be a great relationship is very shortsighted. There isn’t even enough significant interaction to prove this. Getting along on an app isn’t the same as connecting face to face. And none of this can overcome Rebecca’s life experience and, relatively speaking, Sam’s lack thereof.

And I’d argue that, on average, athletes tend to be immature because they live in such a bubble where people constantly kiss their ass. Which makes Sam look more mature than he probably is.

Even then, being with an older person ages you. This younger person misses out on so much, many of which they regret, because they’re trying to be mature enough for their older partner. They don’t want to seen as immature for doing young shit when that’s exactly their age range.

But let’s get into the real consequences for Sam here:

1. Sam has to keep his relationship a secret. The media will tear him up about dating/fucking the owner of the team. And so will fans. People love to mention he’s being infantilized because he’s young and black, how do you think that is going to go if anyone finds out about them? Racism, baby. He won’t suffer from sexism, however, they will question his place on the team and if he deserves to be there. This will taint him and even cause issues with his parents. So secret relationship it is.

2. If his teammates found out, this will fracture his relationship with them. Whether or not it’s true, Sam will be blamed for shit outside of his control. They’ll think he only got more playing time, more pay, or whatever because he’s fucking Rebecca. OR they’ll try to ask him for favors and get upset if he won’t do it. His team will think he’s getting favoritism and believe there is a power imbalance between them and Sam as a result. Don’t believe me, Google dynamics once students realize a classmate is dating their teacher or an employee is dating their boss. It usually doesn’t go over so well.

So even if the relationship is loving and healthy, Sam will suffer from being with Rebecca. Because if it's a secret, it’s going to bother him eventually that they have to sneak around and the anxiety of being caught. If it’s out in the open, he will suffer harassment, alienation, his play will suffer because his teammates probably won’t pass to him, etc.

Which leads to, 3: transferring teams. But how is that fair? Sam is developing well under ted and now that may delay his development and stock just so he can be with Rebecca? We want this young, black man to succeed, but his career will be kneecapped due to his relationship. Sam is serious about football and this would be a major blow to him.

Like I said, take out nefarious shit and this relationship is still detrimental to Sam. And even with a healthy relationship, there will still be a disconnect that will lead to their relationship ending because they are in two vastly different places in their lives.

That is not infantilizing Sam, that’s reality.

And, again, that power imbalance is massive. We saw how easy it was for Rebecca to send Jamie back to Man City. She has so much power, control, and influence over Sam’s career and livelihood. She can dictate how much or how little they offer to pay him during contract negotiations.

And this is the ship people are getting upset at others rightfully taking issue with?

It doesn’t even make sense for Rebecca to go along with this either. She played a part in Keeley breaking up with Jamie, which age, Jamie being younger, played a key part in it. She’s even disgusted by Rupert dating a significantly younger woman. I doubt her opinion centered on maturity. She’s not going to suddenly support this relationship if she found out that Bex is super mature.

Rebecca would stand to lose a lot of she were to get involved with Sam and others found out. She’d get dragged through the mud worse than she did after her divorce. She’s lose them support of her staff. And it would fuck up the relationship she has with her players.

Now some Sam/Rebecca supporters have called bullshit on people who are against this relationship, yet support Ted and Rebecca. They claim it’s the same power imbalance or that one exists.

1. It’s not the same power imbalance.

2. Yes, one does exist, but it’s not nearly as wide as it is with Sam and it wouldn’t destroy her either.

Ted has the authority to hire and fire people. He has the authority to facilitate trades, call up people, and send them down. He has a lot of influence that Sam does not. They aren’t equals, but there also isn’t a massive power disparity either.

Rebecca also can’t completely fuck over Ted like she can Sam if she went all scorned woman. Because, doing so, would entail her own demise. Even if you don’t include that, Ted is only attached to Richmond. He doesn’t care about having a career as a football coach in the ways coaches from non US countries do. He can go back and have a career as an American football coach and still be massively successful. Or, if Rebecca did want to fuck him over, he has that bomb as to why he was hired. Ted doesn’t even have to play that card for it to be played by either Higgins or Keeley.

Because one of them will if they feel it’s necessary.

We have no clue what’s going to happen with this storyline. But the idea that people against Sam and Rebecca being a thing, romantically or sexually, being fueled by racism or sexism is misguided, hypocritical, and flat out wrong. If this entanglement is pursued, it stands to harm Sam from various angles and that’s MY objection.

People think this is all about Ted/Rebecca when, personally, I’d lose (some) respect for Rebecca if she got involved with Sam. That would taint her for me. Because let’s be real, many of us are grossed out by Rupert dating, marrying, and then impregnating Bex. Yet, some are okay with Rebecca and Sam getting together and those who are against it are sexist? And I truly believe the same people supporting this ship are also grossed out by Rupert’s relationship.

How is Rupert’s relationship gross, but we shouldn’t obsess over age with Rebecca and Sam? People say Sam is mature enough to date Rebecca, which implies that Bex isn’t mature enough to be with Rupert and that IS sexist.

Even if the writers confirm tomorrow that Ted/Rebecca will never be a thing, I wouldn’t object any less to Sam/Rebecca. If Sam was Roy’s age and in Roy’s position, I’d have way less of an issue.

But you’re going to have a tough time convincing me that a young man who is 20/21 and employed by a 47 year woman who can heavily influence his career isn’t a massive power imbalance that shouldn’t be explored by fans.

I’m really curious to see how this post ages once the storyline plays out. But this post is about exploring what it means for Sam and Rebecca to get involved and how the accusations of infantilizing Sam doesn’t pass the sniff test.

[imonthinice]

The Criminal Psychology Majors, Jason Todd x Fem!Reader Part 8/?

Word Count: 1.6k

Author’s Note: Y/N - Your Name, A/N - Any Name (Your Best Friend’s Name)

This one is shorter because of the last one’s length.

Hi everyone! By the time you see this, I will probably be out and therefore cannot update the other parts with this one’s link, so don’t worry about that if you notice it.

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Jason’s Trauma and his Death, Lightning, no beta bitch we die like Jason Todd

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9)  (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18) (Part 19) (Part 20)

Going on day 5 of knowing each other, Jason and Y/N would spend the day apart. Why? Because they gave each other the chance to have family time, Jason got it by playing around with his baby siblings, playing Assassin.

Fluff Head canon came from frownyalfred on Tumblr, who wrote about Jason playing Assassin with his brothers 

He would go running through the halls playing the game that he and Dick knew all too well, it had been the only ‘no contact’ game they were allowed to play at a summer camp Bruce had sent them to all those years ago when they weren’t adults with a bunch of other siblings, and girlfriends. But here they were, explaining the game to their younger siblings while Alfred and Bruce hung out with Barbara, who wished she could play, but was paralyzed.

Everyone missed playing games with her like they used to, but with the video game consoles in the house they did transfer a lot of their gaming to online so they could relive memories with Barbs. It was bittersweet, and everyone remembered when she became paralyzed like it was yesterday, but she always wanted them to play games like they used to, with or without her. 

Jason admired his, hopefully, one day older sister for how she treated her disability, like it was a gift, not something that impacted her everyday life and made her have to hang up the cloak of Batgirl.

But running around chasing after Dick, because of course, he got Dick, the universe wanted them to play again, was something he missed so much. They hadn’t had so much of this time, family time, ever since they all became vigilantes, and they never realized how much they missed the thrill of running around with each other.

Jason ended up getting Dick and throwing him out of the game, calling it a ‘selfless act of brotherhood so you can hang out with your girl’ and they both laughed at it. Titus, Damien’s dog, ended up barking up a storm at Jason when he killed Dick, like the big dog was rooting for Dick to win the tournament.

“Down boy! It’s a game!” Jason would whisper-yell at his dog.

“Yeah! Good boy, Titus! Get him!”

“No!” Jason would yell while running throughout the house, Titus on his heels. Passing by Alfred, Bruce and Barbara, where Titus would stop and go lay at Bruce’s feet, but Jason didn’t know that.

Jason would end up coming in just 10 minutes later, with a green slash on his neck. Tim, who had pulled Cass but killed her, Cass, who had pulled Jason. Tim now had two kills in the game and both were to people who could have easily overpowered him. 

“Jase! Welcome to the land of the dead,” Dick greeted him.

“God dammnit I’ve already been here,” Jason whined in a joke.

“You and your ‘I died pity me’  jokes,” Barbara said.

“It’s called a coping mechanism, Barbs. And hi dad, Alfred,” Jason said as he waved slightly at both of them, Alfred waved back and Bruce nodded at him.

“You could just to go therapy, Jase,” Barbara said, seeming concerned for someone who she considered her baby brother. She remember when he came into the Manor, she was older than him, sure . But he had nightmares and she and Dick would switch between who would sleep at his door at night, they both had terrible backs until the nightmares calmed down. Jason never knew they did this.

It also happened when he was resurrected, but the nightmares were worse and he’d wake all sweaty and upset. There were too many nights where batkids would be in Jason’s bed with him from 12am to when Alfred would greet them in the morning. The nightmares had slowed down a lot in the past few years with the introduction of his Goddaughter into his life, but they still came by to remind him of what happened.

He didn’t talk about it much. They would always try to edge him on about about really happened, but he was stubborn. It made sense, sure, trauma is trauma. But they all wanted to help him get better. It hurt them all that he was hurting and they didn’t know how to help him get through it.

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

Y/N would sit on her bed that morning and finally finished organizing her criminal psychology and regular psychology notes when she came across her printed copy of Dr. Barry Allen’s dissertation she had studied so hard. She found it so weird that she was so close to someone who she looked up to in the field while also being so far in the same breath.

She didn't dote on it for long, she stocked it away with her forensics notes in their place. This, the relationship she had with Jason that intertwined her with so many people, was something she was getting used to by the minute, but it was never something she’d get fully used to as time goes on.

She would put on a JCS - Criminal Psychology video in the background as she worked and tried to make her journal look nicer when Jason texted her,

Good morning. He said.

Good morning :)  She said back.

I just lost a game against a 16 year old.

Huh?

My brothers and 2 of my sisters were playing Assassins with me right? Well my 16 year old brother, Tim, he ended up getting the better of me and beat me. 

Oh! So you suck!

What!? No, I’m literally so cool what do you mean? He said, it clearly had sarcasm undertones to it, so Y/N wasn’t worried if she offended him with saying he sucked.

Oh yeah? Then why’d you lose?

Well, I killed Dick.

Okay so you didn’t lose, Dick lost.

It started raining a little bit, the sounds of it hitting lightly against her window, and she felt at peace. It was never hard for her to feel peace when she was by herself. She only had one roommate because she liked the silence, to be alone to collect her own thoughts in her head.

Her parents said it was because she probably had underlying mental illness that they never had the money to diagnose. She agreed. But she still didn’t have the chance to do it.

Jason and her deserved so much more than what the world have given them up to this point, so when they found each other it was, in a way, the universe saying ‘I’m sorry, you deserve this’ and with each passing day it made the pain they had both felt in their lives just a little bit more tolerable.

No, I guess Dick sucks at the game more than me.

Where’d you even get the concept for that game?

Dick and I used to play it at a Summer Camp before we got kicked out.

For playing the game?

No, for being unruly children.

You seem like you were a handful back in the day.

I was, I was the worst kid to raise, my dad has a shirt that says ‘Proud parent of a kid who is sometimes an asshole but that’s OK’ and he wears it all the time.

What a dad moment. Don’t tell my father that shirt exists, he’ll get one for my mum and himself to represent my sister and I.

Were you an unruly child as well?

I was a troublemaker. Getting into arguments with my authoritative figures about dress codes, rules, why girls couldn’t carry chairs, literally anything that was unequal, I was at their throats about it.

I mean, as you should. My older sister, Barbara, and my younger sisters, Stephanie and Cassie, they would like that about you.

I feel like in someway I’ve won over every part of your family.

The rain would get more violent as time went on. Strikes and hits of lightning would strike all around the city, hitting those gargoyles on every building, she always figured they were decorative, but A/N explained that their horns were made out of copper so people wouldn’t get struck by lightning. Bruce Wayne actually made that a thing, A/N said.

Y/N got a message from the dance competition that she signed up to, turns out, California was hit with a hurricane and most people evacuated. No one was allowed in or out. She guessed weather was being funky everywhere. It sucked, but she already was wishing she could spend time at home instead of out in the world.

A feeling she hated.

She would spend the rest of the day on and off the phone with Jason while it stormed. She would go to bed early that night.

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

Jason slipped on his vigilante uniform, the Red Hood was going to be on patrol over this night, stormy or not, it was his duty and he knew that. Did he want to go? Yes. He was killing for some action and he was going with Dick. They would probably have some ‘Bro Time’ which Jason wanted. 

Even if it was silence, having Dick nearby him meant enough and gave him peace of mind.

He grabbed his guns and loaded them while packing a few extra magazines in his belt, when Dick placed a hand on his shoulder, “You have to be careful tonight, Jase,” Dick said as he gulped down tears, “Just come back to me alive if you break off from me, okay?”

“Alive but bruised,” Jason joked.

“I’m serious. I can’t lose you again and tonight is going to be massively dangerous.”

“You won’t.”

[sillyguyhotline]

17. “How is any of this ok?” with Joe and Sara maybe?

dude im gonna be completely honest i havent written anything in like a month so i think the quality isnt gonna be great but here goes nothing

God, Sara missed the feeling of home.

Every semblance of familiarity and comfort she’d once found in the town she’d grown up in, the house she’d spent her childhood running through, now felt chillingly foreign.

Perhaps it was the heavy burden of knowledge weighing fresh upon her shoulders: ASUNARO’s corruption seemed now to peer slyly around every corner, no matter where she went. She still didn’t know how much of the town had rotted away under its grasp, how much of the town its poison had pervaded… but she was probably better off not knowing.

Whatever was left of Midori, that miserable mix of pulsing blood and electronic emotion, had been ground to bits inside that coffin… but Sara couldn’t ignore the creeping fear that his burning, ever-present gaze would appear out of nowhere and terrorize her again.

But he wouldn’t. The death game was over, and they’d promised they would never hurt her or any of her loved ones again.

Most of the loved ones she still encountered day-to-day, gruesomely blood splattered and sitting like corpses propped up hastily in a corner, would be safe no matter if ASUNARO was fresh on her tail or a thousand miles away. What a cruel price to pay for safety, to never be hurt again.

They still lived on if Sara closed her eyes tight enough, if she listened to the twisting words of the hallucinations and let them convince her she was monstrous. But the second she dared to open her eyes, she knew they’d be dead again. Life worked in terrible ways, and that was all there was to it.

Joe’s house had always been a second home to her, ever since the two of them became friends. Joe was the farthest cry from Sara in terms of social interactions- it had taken at least 3 months for Sara to trust Joe enough to invite him over, but Joe had insisted she hang out at his house the very same day they became friendly enough to exchange more than a sentence with each other.

There was a certain sort of comfort to the warmth of his house, the constant scent of cooking food pervading the air and the little trinkets scattered in every corner. No surface of his house went without decoration, in its silly little way. It was full of pictures, too, some carefully framed and some dangling from the wall by pushpins, but Sara got the sense that none of the photos went unloved. Most of them were occupied by an orange-haired man, often carrying a younger Joe (back when he was still sporting that atrocious crew cut). Sara always assumed it was his dad, but thought it would be impolite to ask… particularly when the weeks stretched on and Sara had yet to meet that mysterious orange-haired man.

Eventually, pictures of Sara began to join the collage on the wall- pictures taken as she butchered yet another pop song during karaoke, or when they went out to get food, or when she mistakenly sat down on a traffic cone during gym (after many protests from Sara, he took that one down). As silly as the pictures were, and as obvious as it was that Joe had waited for the most embarrassing moments to take them, it was sort of sweet in a way.

Joe’s mother was always kind to her, though there was a constant weariness in her eyes that Sara always felt a bit uneasy about questioning. Sometimes she’d let the two of them cook things in the kitchen, but more often than not they’d go up to Joe’s room and screw around in there, with video games or music or the 50 times Joe tried to persuade Sara to climb out the window and sit on the roof with him before she finally agreed.

As rare as it was for Sara to agree to sit on the roof, it was even rarer for Joe to agree to study with her, much to Sara’s chagrin. Joe had always walked a fine line between passing and failing, but Sara had to admit he walked it well. When she did manage to convince him to study, though (usually the day before final exams), they’d sit on the cushy couch in his living room and somehow manage to bother each other as much as possible while feigning concentration.

The couch hadn’t changed after several years- Sara could tell that much the minute she sat down on it and avoided the urge to break eye contact with Joe’s mother. It was still well-worn, a couch that likely should have been replaced at least a decade ago but had never really been disposed of. Loose threads were protruding from the cover, drawn out from years of visitors fidgeting with them.

Sara shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the slight motion making her sink deeper into the couch’s soft cushioning. She’d only spent one minute in the house and was already sweating, whether from the heat of the home or the thousand-yard stare of the woman sitting across from her.

Ryoko was there, too, sitting to Sara’s left and gazing listlessly at the well-trodden carpet beneath her feet. …Ryoko.

Sara cast a hesitant glance around the room, duly noting the photos covering the walls. Not a single one of hers had been taken down, but several more photos had appeared with Joe’s beaming face featuring prominently in them. Joe’s presence was always enough to fill a room even when he wasn’t speaking; it took a lot to fill in the gaps left by his absence.

God, she missed him.

The wind whistled against the window-screen; Sara had memorized the familiar creak of the wooden window frame being lifted up to welcome in the mild autumn air. Sara had always thought of autumn as a beginning- she loved summer as much as any other kid, but as the haze of the weather began to wind down she was quick to grow impatient and look forward to the school year, to being productive again. Joe had always disagreed with her.

“Fall is the literal death of fun,” he’d complained once, walking home with Sara after finishing the first week of school. “Couldn’t they have pushed back the first day of school by, like, another week? You think if we got enough people to sign a petition, they’d give us an extra week of summer?”

“Oh, come on, we both know even if you had an extra week of summer you’d just be complaining a week later,” Sara had teased back.

The death of fun. It certainly felt like that, Sara decided. She’d never feared the looming darkness of fall and winter quite so much before. But now, she supposed, there was no sunshine who’d weather it with her.

“Well… Sara?” Joe’s mother spoke up, voice hoarse with the sound of repressed tears in her throat. Sara recognized the sound all too well.

There was no resentment in the woman’s eyes when Sara made eye contact with her. No anger, no frustration, nor had there been any in her measured motions when she welcomed Sara into the home. It didn’t take any words for Sara to tell that there was no blame to be foisted upon her.

She was still Joe’s best friend.

“I’m sorry to have dragged you out here on such short notice.” The woman’s voice was weak. “I don’t know all the details of what happened, of course. Haven’t heard anything, aside from the little tidbits the police told me when I dropped by the station.”

Sara’s shoulders stiffened at the mention of the police, at the idea of them pleasantly answering her questions as though they weren’t just as complicit in that tragedy as ASUNARO had been.

“And…” the woman glanced down at her hands, toughened from a lifetime of working. “I know something terrible happened to you. The circles under your eyes are darker than midnight, I know it’s so selfish of me to be dragging you out here, but… I haven’t slept a wink for weeks. Been so worried about Joe, and about you too.”

She nodded in the direction of the black-haired girl who hadn’t spoken a word the entire time. “Ryoko’s been worried about the both of you, too. Your parents weren’t answering the door, so she went to me. I hope you’ll forgive the two of us for disturbing you, Sara, but… you have the answers the police won’t give us, don’t you?”

God, her gaze was piercing.

“...Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

It was taking everything in Sara’s power not to look at the vacant seat to her right. If Joe was there, he would have been laughing and lightening the mood, completing the circle that had been left so jarringly empty.

But they wouldn’t have been having this conversation if Joe was there.

Ms. Tazuna nodded slowly. “This means the world to me, Sara. Don’t forget that.”

Sara did her best to muster a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

The woman gave another nod, eyes defocusing as though even now, she wasn’t quite sure why she was there. “Alright. Alright. Well, then…” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Guess I should get right to the point, yeah? Is he… is… how is he…?”

So she still hadn’t quite let go of that little thread of hope, even after seeing Sara return home safe and alive with no best friend in tow. Who was Sara to judge? When hope was the only thing to cling to, it only made sense to cling to it like a lifeline.

Sara twisted her hands, the same old nervous habit she’d had for years, and wondered briefly if she’d picked it up from Ms. Tazuna. How terrible it was, to carry the news that nobody, much less any mother, ever wanted to hear.

“I… I’m sorry, Ms. Tazuna. He didn’t make it out alive.”

Sara hadn’t expected the hush that immediately fell over the room. She’d expected immediate tears, the grieving cry of a mother in pain. Instead, the room became muffled, still as a painting captured in time.

Slowly, Ryoko looked up from her bitten-down fingers, eyes rimmed red already. Ryoko had always been an emotional person, the only person Sara knew who could fluctuate from full-on sobs to cheerful giggles in less than a minute. Sara was so unused to the look that was now filling her eyes- cold, solid misery. As though there were no tears in her eyes left to cry, no more tragedies to bemoan. Just a deep and horrified comprehension of just how many things in her life had gone wrong.

And, slowly, Ms. Tazuna began to cry.

Tears had become so uncomfortable for Sara to bear witness to. Was it selfish of her to look away? It couldn’t be, not when every raw sob reminded her of the art student seeing her first (and certainly not last) death, of the broken sibling openly weeping over apologies gone unspoken, of the unknowing siblings screaming their throats out with pleas for death so the other could survive.

Especially not now. Not when every tear rang in her mind as a reminder of cold tubes piercing her best friend’s chest, of his corpse slumping and falling in a pool of blood, because oh god he wasn’t supposed to have lost so much blood, how was he supposed to live without it, of the clickclickclickclickclicking rising in volume while her attempts to save him grew feebler and feebler.

Her hands were bloodstained, no matter how many times she tried to scrub them clean. Those dreadful hands of hers had failed her, failed Joe, failed the women sobbing openly in front of her.

She swallowed back the apologies that always rose in her throat as Ms. Tazuna rushed to sniffle back her tears.

“I… god, I… he’s really gone?”

Sara couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“Please… please tell me it was a peaceful death. He didn’t… suffer too much, did he?”

The resounding wave of clicks flooded her mind. “It was as peaceful as I could make it. I… he smiled at me, right before he died. I’d… very much like to think that means he was happy when he died.”

“What happened?” Ryoko’s voice came out rough, the first of it Sara had heard in weeks. “Joe told me, after our date, that he was going to walk you home, and then neither of you showed up at school the next day. And now… it’s been three weeks? And Joe… Joe’s dead? What the hell happened, Sara?”

“God,” Sara mumbled, mesmerizing herself with the twisting motions of her own hands. “I’m not sure if you’d even believe me if I told you. I don’t even know if I believe what happened myself.”

“I’d believe anything.” The sentence was firm. “I just want to know what happened.”

Sara nodded wearily. The familiar weight of her bright orange ponytail was notably missing- the day after she’d escaped, she’d demanded the hairdresser cut her hair short and crisp. She shuddered every time she thought about the ponytail brushing against her neck as she spent each argument screaming and protesting for her life. Even worse was the memory of how carefully Joe had styled her hair, forsaking his usual clumsiness to braid every strand with a remarkable tenderness. She didn’t want to remember any of it- even though, as the locks went cascading to the floor, she was reminded starkly of Keiji’s bleach-stained trauma response.

“For some reason, something to do with the mafia, we were kidnapped. And pulled into a death game. There were twenty of us, including me and Joe. I- I’m not going to get into all the specifics. It’s going to make me sick to my stomach if I do. But… they made us play this sadistic fucking game to narrow down the competition. Based on cards. Joe drew a bad card, and… they executed him.” Something in Sara’s throat tightened as she finished speaking, and she fell silent.

“Just like that?” His mother’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “How… how’d they kill him?”

“I’d rather not say.” There came the gushing sound of blood pulsing through the tubes. “He didn’t suffer too long” - she hoped - “but it was a gruesome way to die. I don’t want to think about it, please understand.”

It took a moment for his mother to register the words and nod, face still painted with horror.

“Why… how did the two of you even end up there in the first place?” Ryoko spoke up again. “You said something about the mafia? How the hell are you two connected with the mafia?”

“I don’t know how I am,” Sara responded immediately. “It must be something with my family. I couldn’t control any of this, I swear, but… Joe wasn’t meant to end up there at all.”

Ryoko paused. “He… he wasn’t meant to end up there?”

Sara swallowed back the lump in her throat. “The game… it was something that was being prepared for ages. There weren’t just a few ragtag kidnappers behind it, there was an entire organization. Even the police were involved. They ran AI tests, hundreds if not thousands of them, trying to calculate who’d be the most likely to win. And… when all the numbers came back, the person most likely to win… was me.”

She spread her arms wide, baring her sins and her cruelties to the world, and in that moment felt distinctly like the angel of death Keiji had branded her to be.

“They needed something to drag me down, I guess. Make the odds more balanced. So they dragged Joe into this fucking mess. I guess they thought that him being there would keep me steady enough to make everything fair.” A cold hand, dripping with tendrils of phantom blood, caressed her chin with a lethal grip. “...They were right.”

Ryoko’s gaze had gone cold again. “So Joe died just because you cared about him? What the fuck kind of death sentence is that?”

Sara shook her head numbly.

“Why did it have to be him?” The heartbreak in Ryoko’s voice was clearer than day. “So many people love you, Sara, why did it have to be him? Hell, I’m your best friend too, aren’t I? Why couldn’t it have been me? I’m a much worse person than Joe ever was, I deserved to be in his place way more. Couldn’t they have killed me instead?”

Sara winced at the growing desperation in her best friend’s voice, the raw crack she knew all too well. It should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me. Sara could have almost fooled herself into seeing a crisp aquamarine when Ryoko’s hair flashed into the light.

“Ryoko… it could have been.”

The girl fell silent.

“They had files on you too. They knew how close we were, they knew how much you meant to me… but Joe was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they fucking killed him for it.”

Oh, how she wished she could go back to that balmy early-autumn night, see the smile on Joe’s face and listen to his lighthearted laughter again. The desire to keep one’s friend safe had become a crime deserving of a death sentence.

Ryoko’s eyes remained locked to Sara’s, devoid of any dullness. In the look they exchanged was a deep, sinking understanding, one that had nauseated Sara to the core the first time the realization struck her.

It was by no crafty strategy that Joe had died instead of Ryoko, no favoritism biased against the kindest person either of them would ever know. It was a simple, terrible twist of fate. Ryoko could have taken his place had she done something as inconsequential as offering to walk Sara home instead.

But she hadn’t.

It took everything in Sara’s power to avoid wondering what would’ve changed if she had.

“How is any of this okay?” Ryoko broke the silence weakly. “They killed him- they could have killed me, too. He was seventeen. Seventeen. How did anybody let this happen? How did this happen, Sara?”

“I- I don’t know.” Ryoko’s wrath was simmering; even though Sara knew truly that she wasn’t the subject of the anger, she still felt scalded. “I miss him so much, Ryoko. I watched him die, and nothing in my power let me save him. I miss him, Ryoko, I miss him every waking minute of every day. We were supposed to escape together and get out safe and pretend this never happened, but…” the tears were beginning to well up again. She couldn’t bear the thought of breaking down in front of anyone, especially not over him.

“I’m going to go make some coffee,” his mother interrupted suddenly. She’d been noticeably quiet, but the still-fresh streaks of tears painted down her cheeks told the story she didn’t need to vocalize. “Some coffee, and some snacks. And we’ll keep talking from there, alright? Do you guys have your phones?”

The two girls nodded uneasily.

“Please… find any pictures you have of him. I want to make this wall as bright as possible.”

Without any other words, she hurried out of the room, and it fell to silence once more. Outside the window, the cool autumn breeze began to stir the leaves in the air, gusting forward to brush against Sara’s cheek just as the hallucination had done mere minutes ago.

And the Tazuna household began to feel more like home again.

[fanboysfangirl]

Let Me In- Danny Williams

summary- someone from the readers past shows up on an already hard day and all her boyfriend wants her to do is open up. reader is steves sister

"You wanted to see me?" I asked Danny who was standing in the doorway of Steve's office. He moved aside and I saw who was inside. "Hell no." I turned to walk away. "Hear her out." Steve said. "I don't want to hear her out." "Oh come on I'm your sister." Mary piped in. "My sister who stole money from me multiple times and didn't come to our fathers funeral. Some sister you are Mary. In fact the last time I saw you was at moms funeral. Years ago! You should get the sister of the year award." "Y/n I was different when we were younger." "Really, because since then, I've bailed your ass out of jail one too many times." "Come on, I came to apologize to you." "I'm sure you did, but I don't want to hear it." I turned to leave. "Y/n you walk out that door, you lose your job." Steve said. I stopped in the doorway and then turned around. I took the badge that was on the ring of my jeans off and handed it to Steve. Steve knew what today was and he was really gonna fire me because I wouldn’t talk to my sister. "Screw this. I'm not talking to her." I handed him my gun out of my holster before walking out. "y/n wait!" I heard Danny yell. "Y/n!" "Agent McGarrett, is everything okay?" The secretary asked me. "Just peachy." I got in my car and drove to my apartment.

I never realized how much I missed work until I wasn’t there. It had only been a couple hours but I would rather be at work then here. I heard a knock on my door so I got up to go answer it. It was Danny. He was holding a brown bag of takeout. “Grace is at her moms, and you seemed pretty stressed today, can I come in?” I smiled at my boyfriend. “You always do know how to make me smile.” He followed me inside closing the door behind him. After he took the food out of the bags, which happened to be chinese food, he sat next to me on the couch. “So do you want to talk about why you don’t want to make up with your sister?” I looked at Danny, I never told him about my past, and I figured since I trusted him with my life on the job I could trust him with my past. 

“She didn’t show up to my dad’s funeral, and she lied to me. Do you really think I should give her a second chance?” “She’s your sister, I think you should at least try.” “Thanks Danny. While we’re talking about my past, six years ago today my fiancé died trying to save me.” He looked at me with a caring look on his face. He didn’t even know I had a fiancé to begin with. “I’m sorry y/n.” He pulled me into his side and wrapped his hands around my shoulder. “Thank you Danny, you really are a good boyfriend.” He smiled at me. “Wanna stay the night?” “I would love too” 

The next day Danny had told me that they were all going to Kamekonas today after work, so thats where I’m going to make up with my sister and get my job back.

“Look who decided to show up!” “Oh shut up Steve!” I walked past him and over to Mary. 

"Are you gonna yell at me again y/n?"

"No. I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier." "Wow you actually apologized. Didn't see that coming." "This is exactly why I didn't want to apologize to you." "I'm just messing with you y/n." I smiled at her. "Oh here before I forget." She put her hands in her pocket and pulled out an envelope. "What is this?" "This is all the money i've ever stole from you. All 200 of it." "Keep it. I never cared that you stole money from me. I was just upset because you thought I would say no if you asked to borrow some." She put the envelope back in her pocket and smiled. "I am sorry about not going to dads funeral." "I know." "It was good seeing you Mary." "You too y/n." I hugged her and walked away to find Danny now sitting by himself. "What's wrong with you? You look like a little kid who just lost their dog." "If you must know, I just got off the phone with my ex wife's lawyer. She's trying to get my visitation hours with Grace lowered." "She can't do that can she?" "Unfortunately she can." "I'm sorry Danny." "Yeah well." "Wait, I have a really good lawyer. She's great in family court and custody battles." "How would you know? Do you have a secret kid I don't know about." I laughed and shook my head no. "When my parents got divorced, they went to court to decide who would get custody of Mary and I." "They just didn't want Steve anymore? I don't blame them." "No, they got divorced when I was 16 and Mary was 17. Steve was already old enough to be on his own." "I'd appreciate that y/n." "I'll give her your number." "Wait Cole why are you doing this? Half the time you could care less about anyone other than yourself and if he's lucky sometimes Steve." "Danny your my boyfriend, I pretend not to care about anyone, because it's just easier that way." "What do you mean it's easier?" "That way when they walk out of my life or die I won't get hurt." "What are you talking about?" "Danny, Five-O are the only people I have left in my life. My moms dead, dads dead. My sister doesn't live in Hawaii. My fiancé's dead. So in reality you, Chin, Kono, Lou, and Steve are the only people left that I don't entirely hate, but I'm gonna pretend  like I don't care about any of you until I believe it myself." "Cole we're your family now. You don't have to pretend that you don't care about us." "I guess not." "Your not alone anymore. You've got me, and Steve, and Kono, and Chin and Lou." "I appreciate that Danny. I guess I should admit it. I do care about you." "I care about you too Cole."