#maybe this isn’t the worst possible timeline

[benedryl-hat-man]

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEW DESIGNS

YOU GUYS

[atlabeth]

dance until we're bones

pairing: aaron hotchner x fem reader

summary: you and hotch both confront a lifetime of things left unsaid when a case forces your past into the light.

a/n: so i started this. two years ago. got 1k in and left it, came back now for some reason, wrote like a freak until it was done. lol. this is quite heavy and different than most things i usually write and it is SO much longer than expected but im very proud of it 🫶 i didn't really pay attention to the canon timeline so just know that reader and hotch were in their early and late 20s in law school (90s) and early and late 30s in present day (early 2000s). title from i lied by lord huron and allison ponthier

wc: 17.2k

warning(s): a lot of angst. typical bau case stuff, murder (familicide), implied/referenced past child abuse, reader and hotch go at it basically the whole time, character death, kidnapping, slight mention of drugging, injuries, mentions of blood. i wouldn’t say a happy ending but a hopeful one

Hotch can barely stay awake. 

He got the call thirty minutes to 4 a.m, and if he hadn’t already been up, he would likely be in a much worse mood. He can only hope that the rest of the team has gotten used to rude awakenings at this point. 

It’s poor planning on his part—he already got out late due to extra paperwork, and once he got home, he found himself staring at the wall, and then staring at the ceiling. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to sleep on the jet. If things go the way they usually do, he won’t be out until their first night in a hotel. 

He started making calls to the team on his way to the office, but to no one’s surprise, he was the first one there. He had time to wash down a shitty office coffee and get started on a second one by the time everyone’s there. 

Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ all have coffees—JJ comes prepared with her own thermos, but Morgan and Prentiss fall victim to the BAU’s supply—Reid is fighting back yawns as he tries to fix a hastily made tie, Garcia is slightly less energetic than normal as she passes out files, and somehow Rossi looks the same as always. 

Hotch just hopes he’s put together enough to make the team feel better about being here at an ungodly hour. 

“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” Garcia greets, setting down the last folder in front of Reid before taking her spot next to Hotch at the front. “As lovely as it is to see all of you this morning, I’m afraid that we’ve got a grisly one on our hands, hence the hour.” 

“Great,” Prentiss mutters. “How bad is it?” 

“Three married couples have been murdered in St. Louis, Missouri in the past two months, with the most recent one happening yesterday,” Hotch says, and Garcia grimaces as she clicks onto the pictures. “Mom and dad are killed, but the children are spared.”

“Awful lot of similarities between the parents,” Morgan says dryly as he flips through the folder. “Looks like our killer has some family issues.” 

Reid nods. “The unsub likely stalks these families once they see the similarities. I’m guessing he was abused as a child, seeing as they kill the parents but keep the children alive.”

“Probably has a grudge against his father,” Prentiss remarks. “They make it out the worst every time.”

“There’s no method to the torture,” Morgan says. “It looks like he’s just trying to make it hurt as much as possible.” 

“Our guy probably isn’t trained in anything, then,” Rossi says. 

Reid flips to another page in the file. “Serial killers like to see their victims suffer. If he’s not torturing the mom physically, then he’s likely making her watch.”

“He doesn’t kill children, though,” JJ notes. 

“Maybe he thinks he’s doing them a favor,” Reid says. 

“The unsub sees himself in the kids?” Morgan suggests. “He’s doing what he didn’t get the chance to do.” 

“Whatever it is, we have to keep a tight hold on this,” JJ says. “The press eats this stuff up, and the last thing we need is a terrified city making it harder to do our jobs.”

“Especially with families being killed,” Morgan murmurs. 

JJ sighs. “I’ll draft something on the jet and make some calls when we land.” 

Hotch nods and he closes his file. “Wheels up in thirty. I hope you’re all ready for a long day.” 

-

The jet is silent the entire way to Missouri, full of sleeping agents trying to delay the inevitable—save for JJ scribbling down notes on a legal pad for the first thirty minutes, but even she knocks out sooner rather than later. Thankfully, Hotch manages to fit an hour in himself, though it doesn’t do very much for him. He spends the rest of the time reading through the case file. 

The team settles in quickly at the city’s precinct, and Hotch takes charge as usual. The uniforms are just as tired as they are, but he makes it work. Soon enough, JJ is off to work with the local liaison to craft a narrative, Reid has situated himself in an empty conference room to get to work analyzing maps with Garcia, and Hotch and the rest go to check out the crime scene. 

It’s brutal—much too brutal for this early, but Hotch forces the emotions out of it and gets to work questioning the present officers. Morgan follows suit, with Prentiss and Rossi going to investigate the rest of the house. 

They don’t learn much from the officers that they don’t already know. This is the most recent crime scene—George and Marsha Springfield, undeserving of such a grisly fate. Their two kids, 8 and 9, were off visiting their grandparents in Nebraska when it happened, and though they avoided the same fate, they’re going to deal with a lifetime of guilt. 

It’s all Hotch can think about as he examines the first body. The six children left to deal with the carnage, about their past and future marred against their control. 

All he can think about is Jack, and the dreary fate that awaits him if his father falls in the field.  

Hotch swallows his doubt and his guilt all in one and forces every thought out of his mind. He has to be unshakable for the team, for what’s left of these families, for a city on the brink of hysterics. 

They’ll find whoever did this. That’s what gets him through it. 

They spent early morning at the crime scene, collecting evidence and gathering information from the officers and trying to make sense of the killer’s motive. Progress is slow, partially because of the hour, but they make enough that Hotch feels comfortable moving onto the next job.

Their four a.m. start time was too early to go knock on doors and get interviews, but now it’s a more normal 10 in the morning. After a quick stop back at the station to share information with Reid, Garcia, and JJ and down a few cups of coffee, they get right back on the road.  

Hotch and Prentiss take one van and Morgan and Rossi take the other, splitting up to get what they can from interviews. It’s difficult working with kids, especially with such recent trauma, so they hold off on it for now, allowing the local uniforms that have been with them for a bit longer to set things up before the BAU tries anything. 

First they go to a neighbor’s house, then an alleged eye witness. They don’t get much other than personality reads, but it at least gives them the beginnings of a profile. The third place they hit is their earliest idea of a suspect. 

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss reads off the file one of the local officers had put together. “Thirty-nine, born and raised in St. Charles, Missouri. High school degree, but never got to college because he was in and out of jail.” 

“What has he been charged for?” 

“Booked a few times for public intoxication and convicted three times for assault. Once was for third-degree assault, Missouri’s version of aggravated assault,” she says. “He got out of jail a little less than a year ago, and it looks like he’s been living in St. Louis for some of that.”

“Assault and drinking is a far cry from serial killing, even aggravated,” Hotch says. “What makes him a suspect?”

“Both parents are dead,” she says. “And from the looks of it, it was not a happy home while they were around. He’s got a sister, so it fits the initial theory of trying to replicate his family.”

Hotch lets out a loose breath and nods. “We’ll start there. Try and get a story from this guy, build a profile, see if it matches the one Morgan and Rossi have made for their guy.”

“And hope we pin something down before more bodies show up,” Prentiss murmurs. 

They’re at their destination soon enough, and Hotch parks in an open spot on the other side of the road. His eyes dart around as they walk up to the front door, filing things away in the back of his mind. 

The house number and last name—1432, Hartford—on the mailbox plagued with rotting wood. What there is of a yard is poorly cut, and a small garden of wilted flowers has their own corner, victims of the winter weather. One car is parked slightly crooked in a small driveway—there’s no garage, so at least he’s probably home. Two potted plants sit on either side of the door, thankfully alive. 

“Remember,” Prentiss says as they come to a stop together, “be nice.” 

“I’m plenty nice,” he murmurs, and she huffs the slightest laugh. 

Hotch knocks on the door as Prentiss fishes around for her ID, and thankfully, they don’t wait long. The door cracks open after a few seconds to reveal a woman—certainly not their unsub, but something a whole lot more surprising. 

You.

Your brows furrow at the sight of him, and Hotch has to hold back his shock. 

You don’t live in St. Louis. And your last name certainly isn’t Hartford. 

“Aaron?” you ask in disbelief, and he doesn’t even have to look at Prentiss to know the questions he’s going to get later.

He says your name, able to control his surprise with only the slightest crease of his brows giving it away, then corrects himself just as quickly. “Miss Hartford. My name is SSA Aaron Hotchner, and this is SSA Emily Prentiss. We’re here with the FBI.” 

Your frown deepens as they show their IDs, and you actually take it from Hotch, skeptical eyes scanning over it for much too long. You glance back at him as you hand it back over. “What is the FBI doing here?” 

Emily clears her throat as she puts her credentials away. “We’re here investigating the latest murders in St. Louis. Can we come in?”

“The murders?” you ask with exasperation. “What— what murders? And what do I have to do with them?” 

Aaron notices the way your grip tightens on the door just the slightest bit, and a shred of sympathy strikes him before he speaks up.

“We’ll be able to explain everything if you let us in,” he says. 

You swallow thickly in your throat, your gaze darting back to Aaron before you finally nod. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”

You move and Hotch and Prentiss walk inside, gesturing with a hand towards your living room as you shut and lock the door behind them. “Take a seat. Uh— do you guys need anything? Water, or coffee, or…” 

You trail off, and Prentiss shakes her head. “Thank you, but that’s not needed.” She takes a seat on the sofa, but Hotch can’t stop himself from looking around the house. 

It’s a small place, one story—likely rented, seeing how paintings sit on countertops and mantels rather than hanging on the wall. It has a certain charm to it, but something is off about it all. 

Two styles clash—decorative pillows at odds with a filled and painted-over hole in the wall, an attempt at neutral tones ruined by dark articles of clothing scattered around, one person’s mess barely being held back by another’s cleaning efforts. You lived with someone else. Likely Lucas Hartford, possibly their unsub. 

“Are you gonna sit down, Aaron?” you ask, snapping him out of his profiling haze. “Or do you want to look around some more?” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, clearing his throat as he walks over and sits down in an open chair near Prentiss. “Just curious.” 

“That makes two of us,” you say, and you cross your arms as you look at him. He notices that you don’t sit down yourself, and there’s still a coldness in your eyes. “You’re FBI now?” 

He nods. “I had a change of heart.” 

You huff a laugh. “Thought at least one of us would be a lawyer by now. I guess not.” 

Hotch frowns, but Prentiss takes over before he can continue on that particular thread. “Miss Hartford—”

You interrupt by saying your first name, and it spurns something strange in his chest. It’s been over a decade since he’s heard your voice. “You can skip the formalities.” 

Prentiss nods and repeats your name. “As you know, we’re investigating the murders that have been occuring in the St. Louis area.” 

“And you think I have something to do with it?” you ask, the accusatory edge to your voice not lost on him. 

“Not you,” Hotch says. “Do you know a Lucas Hartford?”

“He’s my brother,” you say, and your frown deepens. “You’re not saying—”

“No,” Prentiss interrupts, “we’re not saying anything. We’re just asking.”

And just like that, your entire stance, your visage, it all changes. Hotch can sense the walls slamming up around you, and he immediately realizes two things: 

Getting information out of you is going to be much harder than planned, and you’re not anywhere near the same person you used to be. 

Hotch doesn’t know what he expects, really. He graduated with the intent to prosecute for at least a decade—now, he’s with the BAU. It’s not fair to assume you’re that same girl he met in law school. 

“My brother is not a murderer,” you state clearly.

“And we aren’t accusing him or you of anything—” she starts. 

“Me?” you interrupt, and you let out a harsh laugh. “I’m a suspect too?”

“If you would allow Agent Prentiss to finish her sentences, you would be less upset,” Hotch says. 

You glower at him, but you stay silent. 

“We aren’t accusing either of you of anything,” Prentiss finishes. “We’re just trying to gather information with what little we know.” 

“I know my rights,” you say, unflinching gaze still meeting Hotch’s. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Prentiss looks at him as well, but his eyes don’t leave yours. “That’s unfortunate to hear, Miss Hartford.”

“You know my name, Aaron. Use it.”

He does, and the letters feel strange on his tongue after so long. “This is a serious matter. This isn’t an accusation—we’re in the early days of this case and we need all the information we can get.” 

“Ask away,” you say. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.” 

“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss starts. “He’s your brother?” 

You nod. “He lives with me.” 

He lives with me, not we live together. Makes him think that you pay for the place, he came knocking, and you didn’t have the heart to turn him away. 

“Why is that?” Hotch asks. 

You look at him, those scrutinizing eyes attempting to peer into his soul the same way they did all those years ago. But Hotch has changed since law school, and he’s much better at guarding his emotions. It seems you are, too. 

“He’s a student,” you finally say. “He goes to community college. I’m giving him a place to live while he gets his associate’s.”  

“Community college and living with his younger sister at 39?” Prentiss is trying to get information out of you, even if it isn’t in the kindest way. Your jaw clenches, and he knows her words have some effect. You’ve probably heard it more than once, the way things are going. 

“He’s getting his life back on track,” you say defensively. “I’m the only one left that can help him, so I am.” 

“What about your parents?” she asks. “Surely they’re a better option than this.” 

“Both dead,” you answer. “And no one else cares enough to help him. Are you here to do anything other than dig up my past?” 

Hotch feels Prentiss’s eyes on him, likely because it’s a step in the right direction for a really shitty reason, but he can’t look away from you. 

“Really?” 

He knows your parents are dead—it was in your brother’s profile, and by extension it applies to you—but it still hits him. 

He met your mother, had countless lunches and dinners with her. Helped her move out of her old house. Spent two Thanksgivings and a Christmas with her. 

And he didn’t even know when she died. 

You shrug and wrap your arms around yourself, and for the first time you look something other than defensive or standoffish. You look— well… sad. 

“Mom went a few years after you graduated,” you say, looking at Hotch. “Dad went last year.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Prentiss says. 

You nod your thanks, the notion a bit numb. 

“You never told me,” Hotch says with a slight frown.

“We haven’t talked in ten years,” you say. “Sorry that I didn’t know you still wanted updates.” 

Hotch tries to think of something to say in response, but Prentiss starts getting a call and she stands up. “Excuse me.” 

His jaw clenches for a moment as Prentiss ducks into a nearby bedroom, but he’s recovered by the time you look at him again. Your arms are crossed, but your expression is even. 

“I take it this was as much of a surprise for you as it is for me.” 

Hotch nods. “We came here looking for your brother.” 

“Does your team know about our history?” you ask simply.

“No.” 

“Do you want them to?” 

“…No.” 

You huff a laugh, your eyes narrowing a bit. “‘Course not. Probably counts as conflict of interest.” 

You wait another beat, then ask another question. “How’s Haley?”

“Good, last I heard,” he says, and then he hesitates. “We’re… divorced.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”

He nods. “This job isn’t easy for anyone.”

You look like you want to say more, but once again, Hotch is saved by Prentiss as she walks back in. Her phone is closed in her hand and she looks at him. “Morgan and Rossi have a lead. The chief wants everyone back at the precinct to go over everything we’ve found.” 

Hotch nods again and stands up. Prentiss takes her card out of her pocket and holds it out to you. 

“Thank you for your time, Miss Hartford. If you find out any information, or want to tell us anything else, please give me a call.” 

“Pass that along to your brother, too,” Hotch says. 

You reluctantly take the card, but you don’t look at it. “You can see yourselves out.” 

Prentiss nods. “Thank you again. Have a good day, and stay safe.” 

She leads the way, and Hotch follows after her. He fights the urge to look back before he shuts the door. 

Prentiss looks at him as they walk back to the car, and he can only imagine what is going through her mind. But eventually she just shrugs and pulls out her phone again. 

“Garcia?” Prentiss asks after she picks up. 

“You’ve reached the office of all that is holy.” Penelope’s voice comes out through the speaker, and Hotch can’t help the smallest twitch of his lips. “What’s up?” 

“Dig up everything you can find on Lucas Hartford,” Emily says, and her glance at Hotch does not go unnoticed. “And throw in his sister, too. He’s one of our only suspects, and we need to know if she’s in on it.” 

“On it,” Garcia says. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.” 

“You’re the best,” she says, and then she hangs up. They get back to the car, and it only takes Prentiss all of five seconds after they get in for her to start drilling him.

“Alright,” she says, buckling her seatbelt with a click before she sets her attention on him. “What was that back there? You two know each other?”

Hotch busies himself with his own seatbelt and starting the car, answering as casually as possible as the engine revs to life. “We were friends in law school.”

“Sure,” Prentiss nods. “The way you were around her, that’s not just ‘law school friend’ stuff.”

Hotch is once again reminded of how, sometimes, it was a downfall to constantly be around profilers. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret. 

“It’s nothing,” he says as he pulls back onto the road. “We knew each other, we fell apart, we’re here now.”

Emily hums. “Is it too far to ask if you were together?”

“Yes,” he says sternly, maybe a bit too hasty. “It is.”

“Fine,” she says breezily, and she looks out the window. “But that tension was thick.” 

Hotch knows what she’s thinking. Hasn’t he been with Haley since high school, what kind of history did you and him have, were you together, would he be okay to work this case— 

He doesn’t really want to answer any of them. You were a part of his past he hadn’t expected to resurface any time soon—if Hotch is being honest, he didn’t know if he would ever see you again once he graduated. Not after the way he broke things off.  

You’ve changed a lot. So has he. 

And now your brother is a murder suspect, and you could be covering up for him. 

That’s the only thing that should be on his mind. 

-

“For the last time,” you huff as you storm down the stairs, “I don’t want to deal with this.” 

“Because you know that Mia is a lying bitch!” Cleo exclaims, following after you. “I’m sick of you stealing my clothes!”

“I’m not stealing your clothes,” Mia scoffs in your wake, just behind Cleo. “They’re too ugly for me to want anyways. I bet I wouldn’t even fit into them.”

“You are! And you’re stealing my fucking jewelry, too!” she yells. “All of my shit is going missing, and I know it’s not Little Miss Law School, so it’s got to be you!” 

Mia draws out a mirthless laugh. “You are not accusing me of this.” 

“I don’t have anyone else to accuse!” Cleo shouts. 

They both look at you, and Mia says your name. “You have to settle this before I kill her.”

“Oh, I’ll kill you first!” she hisses. “At least I’ll get all my stuff back!”

You clench your jaw as your nails dig into your palms, and you’re about to bite back when the doorbell rings. You don’t even try to hide your sigh of relief. 

“That’s Aaron,” you say as you grab your coat and your bag from the table. “I’m leaving. If you kill each other, don’t get blood on the furniture.”

You don’t give them a chance to say anything before you rush to the door, open it, and shut it behind you. 

“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” you breathe. 

“What’s going on in there?” Aaron asks, amused. 

“My roommates are fighting again.” You roll your eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You’re much more interesting.”

“You know this is a study date,” he says wryly, and you cut him off with a kiss. 

“Still a date,” you murmur against his lips. “And something seriously needed.”

Aaron chuckles as he wraps an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and the two of you walk to his car. “You’ve gotta get out of this house, honey.”

“I know,” you grumble. “But I can’t afford a place on my own.”

“Doesn’t have to be on your own,” he says as he opens the door for you. “It just has to be away from the girls that are making you miserable.”

“The lease ends at the end of the semester,” you sigh. “Just have to make it until then.”

“You know,” Aaron boxes you in against the car when you lean against the side of it, smiling softly at you, “I do live alone.”

“Oh yeah?” You ruffle his hair with your fingers and grin. “What are you proposing?”

He shrugs, letting his hands linger on your waist. “Just that you hate your roommates, and you don’t hate me. You could spend your time somewhere else.” 

“Careful,” you warn. “You keep saying things like that and we might not make it to the library.” 

“You keep saying things like that, and I might not mind,” Aaron muses. 

You grin as he leans in and kisses you again, once, twice, three times as your back hits the side of his car and you card your hands through his hair. Mia and Cleo are probably killing each other inside, but you don’t really care at this point. They’ve made your life hell for a semester and a half—they can bother each other for once. 

“Aaron,” you whisper against his lips, and he gets one more in between words, “I’ve got a test on Tuesday.”

“And today’s Sunday.” He nips at your neck and you laugh, your eyes falling shut as you lean your head back. “You’ll be fine, honey.”

“You have one on Monday,” you remind him, and he sighs. You feel his hot breath against your neck. 

“Ruining our fun in the name of schoolwork,” he says. “No wonder all your professors love you.”

“Everyone loves me,” you correct. “Including you.”

You steal one more kiss before you open your door yourself and get in, and Aaron lets out a breathy laugh.

“You’ve got that right.”

He closes your door then gets in the other side, and you’re already rifling through the glove box full of cassettes. You pull out the mixtape you made for him for your six month anniversary and pop it into the player, and Aaron smiles as the first few notes of Stairway to Heaven come on. 

“You’re a threat to my grades, y’know.”

“Maybe it’s all part of my plan,” you say. “Distract you with kisses to make sure I’m a shoe-in for this fellowship.”

“A dastardly plan,” he says with mock austerity. 

“I’ve been told I have to be more of a shark,” you muse. “Consider this me taking down my competition.”

Aaron laughs, and you find yourself smiling just at the sound of it. You love the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, how they soften just so, how he acts like himself around you, and not some perfected or stoic image that he thinks he needs. 

Falling in love with Aaron Hotchner has been the easiest thing in the world. 

“Don’t let anyone know,” he says, and he reaches over to intertwine your fingers together. “But I’ll happily fall to you every time.”

“As long as you don’t tell everyone how whipped I am for you,” you tease.

“Looks like we’ve both got reputations to keep up.”

“Looks like it.”

You share a smile, yours just on the edge of a grin as you try to bite it back. You hold hands the rest of the way, just soaking in each other’s presence with songs from bands you introduced to each other floating through the air. 

(It is a goddamn struggle to get any work done at the library with that face across from you the whole time.)

- 

You had sky-high aspirations when you were younger. 

Ones that would make your teachers offer a smile and tell you to shoot a little lower, that would make your friends’ eyes widen, that your father would scoff at and your mother would humor you on just to get you to move past it. 

You didn’t listen. You’ve wanted to be a lawyer since you went on a class field trip to a courthouse in elementary school and saw all the attorneys hustling about, dressed to the nines, making last-minute deals outside the courtroom.  

They were just… so confident. So smart, so stoic, always knowing the answer to everything. The good ones had money, sure, but more importantly they had the power to change lives for the better. And as a kid that had to cover up bruises before the school day, nothing sounded more appealing. 

All you’ve ever wanted to do is help people. 

And as you sit in a cold, empty interrogation room, you can’t help but wonder where the hell you went wrong. 

You don’t want to be here, obviously. But you know the FBI won’t stop bugging you until you give them answers—you know Aaron Hotchner won’t stop bugging you. 

Because god— what are the odds? 

What are the fucking odds of your ex-boyfriend from a decade ago showing up at your door with a badge and an attempted case against your brother? 

It’s ridiculous, and it’s such bad luck that you think it could only happen to you. You’ve thought about Aaron Hotchner more than you’d like to admit over the years, especially when you found your old GW crewnecks, and the box of school supplies you used for a decade, and those photo albums from what should’ve been your golden years. 

It’s not like any of it matters, though. You only agreed to come in and talk because you want them off your back and you don’t want them poking around your house. You saw it in Aaron’s eyes—he was profiling you and your place the entire time. 

If the cops want to invade your privacy even further, they can get a goddamn warrant. 

Your thoughts are interrupted when the door opens, and you hold back a mirthless laugh, because of course it’s Aaron. He greets you with your name, and he has a file in his hands. You wonder if it’s on you or your brother. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come in and talk with us.”

“Well, you seem to think my brother is a murderer.” You cross your arms as you sit back. “I’m not really gonna let that stand.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked for a lawyer,” he says as he sits down across from you. 

“I don’t plan to be here for very long,” you respond tartly. “But don’t worry—that can always change. I know my rights.” 

“I’m the last person you need to tell that to.” Hotch sets the file down and looks right at you. Though he’s obviously older—more grizzled, more hardened; harsher, sharper lines that define his face; lips set in a taut, unflinching line—you still see that young man from law school. The passion, the care he puts into everything, the penchant for striped ties. 

You wonder what he sees when he looks at you. 

“Your last name wasn’t Hartford when I met you,” he says. “Why is it now?” 

“Not one for small talk,” you remark. 

“I never have been.” 

“I remember.” You hold his gaze. “It’s my mom’s maiden name. I changed it to put some distance between me and everything else.” 

You can practically see the gears of his brain working, neural pathways branching off with every word you say to make sense of it and reason a thousand different meanings from it. Aaron’s always been like that, but it’s tenfold now. 

You suppose one has to be like that, to try and get anywhere with the types of criminals they face. 

“How long have you been living in St. Louis?”

“Seven years. I’ve had that house for three.” 

“Rent or own?”

“Rent,” you scoff. “I don’t make enough for a down payment, and I don’t want a place tying me down.”

“What inspired the move?”

“Close enough to home to be familiar, far enough to not be.” 

“And home is?” 

“St. Charles,” you say, and you purse your lips. “Shouldn’t you already know all this?” You nod at the file in front of him. “It’s either on me or my brother, and we share a lot of the same info.” 

“We prefer to get our information from the source,” he says. 

“Sources can lie.” 

Aaron doesn’t waver. “And we can charge you with obstruction if it harms our investigation.” 

Your lips twitch for a moment, not entirely without heart. “Ask your questions, Aaron.” 

He opens the folder and slides the first picture over to you—your brother’s first mugshot, taken when he was only twenty-one. You still remember riding your bike to the station in the sweltering August heat to drop off his bail and pick him up. 

You had to catch the bus home together, you had to pay his fare, and his bail drained everything you’d been saving from your waitress job. But your dad refused to pay it, and you refused to be alone in that house any longer than you already had. 

You swallow the memory. It still tastes as sour as the day it happened. 

“Lucas Hartford is our main suspect,” he says. “He matches our initial profile—in and out of jail since his twenties, his parents are dead and he has an unstable home life, and he’s got a sister.”   

“None of those sound like questions,” you say. 

“Where is your brother?” he asks firmly. He’s given you a bit of leniency, but you can tell he’s getting tired of you. Some things never change, you think to yourself bitterly. 

“I don’t know,” you admit. 

“You don’t know,” he repeats. 

“I let him stay with me, and my only requirement is that he goes to his community college classes and stays out of jail,” you say. “He’s done both, so I stay out of his business.”

“And you’re telling me you haven’t questioned it?”

“I called him the other day after you left,” you say. “He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t get a call back until the next night.” 

Aaron’s eyes sharpen. “What did you say to him?” 

“I called to see where he was,” you say evenly. “I think you all are wrong, but I wanted to make sure he was okay.” 

“You didn’t tell him—” 

“No,” you interrupt, “I didn’t tell him about your investigation. If I think you’re wrong, why would I need to let him know?” 

He still has that look in his eyes, and you know you’re getting on his nerves with the constant interrupting, the constant backtalk. But he probably deals with much, much worse. 

“Good,” he nods. “You could be putting lives in danger if you do—including yours.” 

“Please,” you scoff. “He won’t hurt me. He never has.” 

“Why do you let him stay with you?” Aaron asks. “You’re straight-edge, he’s a borderline alcoholic that’s been in and out of jail for years. You’ve got a law degree, he never made it past high school. You’ve got your life together, his is falling apart.” 

“That’s why I do it,” you say. “Our parents are dead. I’m all he has left, and he’s all I have left. I want him to get better, so I’m trying my best to help him get there. How can Luke put his life back together if he’s got no support?” 

“That’s an awful lot of faith to put in someone who hasn’t earned it.” 

“I’ve gotten good at that over the years,” you reply. 

Aaron stares at you, and you stare back. You let the moment linger. You hope it stings, even fleetingly. 

“And you’re wrong, by the way.” 

“About what?” he asks. Again, unshaken. 

“I don’t have a law degree,” you say. “I dropped out.” 

And for some reason, that is what gets him. He frowns, and you wonder what it means that this is the most unexpected thing he’s gotten out of you. 

“Why? You were only a year out. You had stellar grades.” 

“My mom got cancer,” you say. “Luke was serving his second stint, Dad fucked off to some corner of the country to drink himself to death a couple months before. I was the only one left to take care of her, and I couldn’t do that from DC.” 

“I had no idea.” This is the first time he looks taken aback since you’ve met him again. “And she’s—”

“Dead,” you supply without waiting for an answer. You know he already knows it, but it still seems to have some effect on him. “Went a couple months after I was meant to graduate.” 

“…I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. He’s just repeating what his agent said at your house, but it feels genuine, at least. 

“It’s been a decade,” you say. “I’m just sorry it was her instead of my dad.” 

Aaron’s brows knit together again, and less work goes into covering it up this time. “You seem to have something against your father.” 

You huff a mirthless laugh. “Excellent profiling.” 

“Child abuse is common for serial killers,” Aaron says. “We find it’s typically the root of their problems later in life, or plays a part in their MO.” 

You stare at him again. This isn’t just an interrogation with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—it’s revealing parts of your past that you never told your ex-boyfriend Aaron. 

“Yeah,” you finally say. “Our dad beat us. Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

“You know th—” 

Aaron cuts himself off before he can finish whatever he wants to say, and he lets out a short sigh with a nod. “It’s valuable information for the profile.” 

The room feels a lot colder all of a sudden. “Sure.” 

He still looks like he wants to say more, but he bites his tongue as he takes the picture back and closes the file. 

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Would you like anything? Water?”

You shake your head and remain silent. He takes the folder and stands up, and you watch him the entire way to the door. Just before he can open it, you find words escaping without you thinking. 

“Look, Aaron,” you blurt out. He pauses, and he turns to look at you. “I know this is your thing, and this is your investigation, but I’m telling you—my brother and I don’t play any part in it.” 

“The profile—” 

“I don’t care what your profile says,” you interrupt. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.” 

“He’s rough around the edges, I know. In and out of jail isn’t good for anyone.” You hold onto the edge of the table as you continue rambling, needing something to do with your hands. “But he’s working to get better, and he is not the kind of person to do something like this. If you believe anything I say, believe that.” 

“I suppose we’ll find out,” he says evenly. 

He leaves the room, and your hands fall into your lap as your nails dig into your palms. You don’t mean to be desperate, but you feel it. You’ve been defending Lucas at every chance, but you’re terrified of being wrong. You’re terrified that Aaron might be right—that he might be behind all of this. 

For his sake—and your sake, honestly, because you think you deserve to be selfish when he’s all you have left—you hope you’re right. 

You have to be right. 

The room feels even colder. 

Your stare drifts to the one-way mirror, where you know his team is watching. You saw the way Agent Prentiss watched Aaron when they came to your house—he said he doesn’t want them to know, but you think they already do. 

You wonder the kind of things they’ve come up with about you and him. 

-

Morgan whistles when Hotch walks out of the interrogation room. 

“She does not like you.” 

“Did you gather anything else?” he asks placidly. He sets your brother’s file down so he can fix his tie. 

“Abusive dad, dead parents, criminal background,” he says. “Lucas is looking like a stronger suspect. Oh— and she really doesn’t like you.” 

“If you don’t want to go back to building a file on your suspect, move on,” Hotch demands. 

Morgan shrugs, clearly unfazed, but he keeps his mouth shut. Reid, meanwhile, is still staring through the glass at you. You haven’t exactly relaxed, but you’re not as tense as you were while talking to Hotch. You pick at a loose strand of thread on your sweater, and when you pull it out, you let it fall to the floor. 

“Her brother feels like a prime suspect,” Reid murmurs. “I feel like I could just figure it all out if I could talk to him.” 

“I told Penelope to keep an eye on him,” Prentiss contributes. “She’s tracking his cards, the car registered in his name, even called the person in charge of the AA meetings he goes to to keep an eye out—everything. We’ll know if she gets anything.”

“Serial killers want to see the damage they’ve done,” Reid says. “Things are falling apart here—the whole city is terrified. He’s gotta be in St. Louis still.” 

“You’re sure that he’s still in the running.” Hotch glances back at you, and he knows he has to at least ask, for your sake. He doesn’t want to put you through anything more than he has to—not after what you’ve told him. 

And Hotch knows your past is your business—he just can’t believe you never told him. 

He’s turned over your relationship in his head just as many times in these past few days as he did the months after he ended things. 

“I’m sure, sir,” Reid says. “I’ve read over both their files, and Lucas matches with our preliminary profile. His stressor could have been his father dying.”

Morgan frowns. “Explain.”

“Family annihilators typically go after their own family for a myriad of reasons,” he says. “Paranoia, to cover up their lies, to free themselves from what they see as oppression, sometimes just pure jealousy.”

“He’s killing the parents but leaving the children alive,” Hotch says. “Sounds like a liberator to me.”

“That’s what I think,” Reid nods. “If Lucas has been banking on killing his father for that attempt at freedom, and then lost the chance?” He shrugs. “That could be why he started going for other families.” 

“Other fathers to take his place,” Morgan realizes, and he nods again. 

“You should talk to her, Spence,” Prentiss says. “You’ve got a handle on the profile, and you’re pretty good at conveying info. She seems like a reasonable person—just can’t accept her brother doing something like this.” 

“It’s typical for someone to deny their family member’s involvement,” Reid says. “No one wants to think their sibling is a murderer.” 

“If you lay it all out for her like that, with facts and the profile, I think she’ll listen.” Prentiss looks at Hotch. “She’s too closed off with you.”

“That’s how she is,” Hotch claims.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, “but it’s much easier to hate you than it is to hate Reid.” 

Hotch glares at her, and Reid clears his throat to insert himself back into the conversation. 

“I’d be happy to talk to her,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be in this kind of position—I can put her at ease, sympathize with her.” 

They all look at Hotch, and he wants to say no. He wants to be the one to get this out of you—some part of him wants as much time with you as possible. But he decides to swallow his ego. 

“Fine.” He nods, and he hands the folder to Reid. “I trust you to handle it.” 

Reid nods too, far too many times, and he takes the file. “Thank you. Uh— sir. I appreciate your trust.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, but it has no bite to it, and Reid walks inside. 

He says your name and sits down across from you. “I’m Spencer Reid. I know we’ve already said it, but thank you for talking to us. It may not seem like it, but it goes a long way towards figuring out this case.”

You nod. You already seem more at ease than you were with him, and it makes Hotch… 

Not jealous, because that would be insane. But it makes him upset that he doesn’t understand you the way he used to—that he doesn’t hold that key to you anymore. God, it feels like he doesn’t know you anymore. 

Hotch doesn’t get why a side of his brain still thinks this way about you. 

“They sent a new one in,” you say. 

“You looked like you needed a break from Hotch,” Reid says. “Don’t worry. We all do sometimes.”

You huff a slight laugh and your posture eases, your expression softens just so. Reid was right, as usual. 

“I can imagine.”

He starts talking to you about the case, laying out all the facts, and though you don’t look happy, you don’t cut him off like you cut Hotch off. 

“She’s pretty,” Morgan offers, glancing at Hotch. “And stubborn. I see why you like her.” 

“Shut up, Morgan,” Hotch mutters.

He chuckles and holds his hands up, and focuses back on the interrogation. 

The rest of it passes in silence, save for the occasional input from Prentiss or Morgan to elaborate on a point. You talk much more with Reid than you did with Hotch, and you don’t stare daggers at him the entire time. 

Time doesn’t always heal all wounds, he thinks. 

When Reid is finishing up inside with you, Morgan glances back at Hotch. “You think she’s part of this?”

He shakes his head. “No. She has no reason to kill, nothing to gain. She talks about her past too plainly—it hurt her, obviously, but it hasn’t taken over her life.”

“What about her brother?” Prentiss asks. 

“The more we learn, the more I suspect him,” Morgan says. 

She nods in agreement. “We just have to find him.”

Hotch isn’t sure yet. 

But for your sake, he hopes his gut feeling is wrong. 

-

Spring has finally sprung in DC, and you couldn’t be happier. 

It’s hard to feel down on your walks to class when the birds are singing and the sun is beaming down on you, when you see students sitting on blankets reading and talking and actually enjoying life for once. 

You’re two years into law school, and it feels like you’ve spent 90% of your time studying in either the library or your room. A bit of a sad existence, but it’s made better with Aaron. 

You’re laying down on a blanket—one you crocheted yourself in undergrad—resting your head on Aaron’s chest as he reads a book, the spring sun shining down on you. It feels like the first moment of relaxation either of you have had since classes started, and you chose to spend it together in the University Yard. 

You should probably be studying or doing some kind of homework, but you don’t care. It has been too damn long since you’ve gotten to just sit around and exist with Aaron, and you’ve got at least a couple days until your next quiz. That’s far enough away for you. 

It’s been a rough semester for both of you, between classes and endless homework, between your internship and your endless family issues—Luke is two years in, and his parole was denied, and your dad still insists on being the reason you stay on campus year-round. 

You don’t think you’re pushing it when you say Aaron’s support has been the only reason you’ve gotten through it, your grades—and your mental state—relatively unscathed. 

Aaron says your name, and you hum. 

“Are you listening?” he asks. 

“Of course,” you say. 

“Your eyes are closed.” 

“I don’t need my eyes to listen,” you say wryly. “What’s up?” 

You feel him tense for a moment, feel him adjust his position slightly. 

“I got a call from Haley,” he says carefully. 

Your eyes open and you frown. 

You know the name, but only in the way that you talked a bit about your past relationships while you were still getting to know each other. She was his high school girlfriend, and it was a big deal then, but they broke up before college because they both wanted different things.

It shouldn’t be a big deal now. But he’s treating it like one, and that makes you hesitate. 

“Yeah? What’d she want?”

“…She’s in DC for the weekend,” he says. “Some conference for school. She asked if we could grab a coffee or something and catch up.”

You finally sit up, his hands falling from where he’d been playing with your hair, and you look at him.

“Your high school girlfriend wants to catch up.”

“An old friend wants to catch up,” he corrects. “I haven’t really talked to her since we graduated high school.” 

“…Okay,” you say slowly. “Do you want to see her?” 

He shrugs. “I thought it would be nice.”

“Do you think she thinks it’ll be more than nice?” you ask. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t even know how she got my landline. I think my mom might have given it to her.” 

Your eyebrows rise. “Your mom gave your ex-girlfriend your number?” 

“It’s the only way I can think of her getting it,” Aaron shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to her since graduation.” 

You chew on the inside of your cheek, trying to think as you look at Aaron. 

You’ve met his mom a dozen times. You’re insistent that she doesn’t like you, despite Aaron’s assertions towards the opposite—it wouldn’t surprise you if she gave this girl his new number in an effort to push him in a new direction. 

But that train of thought feels a little crazy. You’re confident in your relationship with Aaron—you love him, and he loves you. God, he made an off-handed comment about marriage the other day. You’re not threatened by a girl from his past wanting to catch up. 

“Go for it,” you finally say. 

He frowns, like he was expecting the worst. “Really?” 

“I trust you, Aaron,” you say. “You say she’s just a friend, I believe it.” 

You lean forward to kiss him, your eyes fluttering shut, and it lasts much longer than it should. When you pull away, Aaron’s smiling softly at you. 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“‘Course,” you say, tipping a shoulder. “I’m known to be rational from time to time.” 

He chuckles, and you smile as you lay back down on his chest. Soon after, you feel the weight of his hand on your shoulder. 

“I love you,” he says. It feels more like a reminder than anything. 

You entangle your fingers together and press a kiss to the back of his hand. 

Sometimes you need reminders. 

“I love you too.” 

-

“Four more bodies,” Prentiss mutters. “God.” 

“You can say that again,” Morgan murmurs. 

Hotch is silent as he examines the father’s body. They’ve been so busy the past few days trying to nail down the profile, both on their unsub and geographically, that this happening again hadn’t been at the top of their list. There was a month between the first two, and two weeks between the second and third. 

No one expected this to happen so soon. 

The entire family was killed this time, and once again, the parents look similar to the other victims. It’s the work of their unsub, no doubt. 

Hotch and the team had already been at the precinct for an hour going over all the information they’d found when they got the call at 8 in the morning, the bodies discovered by the family’s maid when she arrived for work. 

An entire family, parents and children, senselessly slaughtered for one man’s deranged quest for liberation. 

Hotch has been in this business for a long time, seen things that most people only imagine in nightmares, and he still has to take a step back when children are involved. 

He sees Jack in every single one. He can’t help it. 

Hotch took Prentiss and Morgan with him to the crime scene—JJ has a kid, Rossi had a kid, and he just didn’t want Reid to see it. They’ll all be more valuable working together back there anyways, and it’s imperative that JJ controls the narrative before this can break to the press. 

Again, Prentiss talks to the officers at the scene and Morgan helps him examine the bodies. After all, there are double the amount. 

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Morgan says as he stands back up. “Our guy is killing surrogate parents to get back at his own, fine. Dad was tortured again, mom was killed with a bullet. But bringing the kids into it isn’t his thing.” 

He uses a gloved hand to gingerly lift the father’s arm away from his body so he can examine the underarm. “Look at this. He’s been stabbed at least ten times, and his arm’s nearly severed from his body.”

“And his neck,” Morgan mutters. “He’s half decapitated.” 

Hotch sets the arm back down. “The unsub always wants the father to suffer, but this is a new level.” He looks up at Morgan. “I don’t think he has a reason for killing the children. I think he’s getting sloppy—he’s getting overwhelmed by his anger.” 

“You think he’s devolving,” he says, catching on. 

“Something tells me we’re coming to the end of the line,” Hotch says. “Whatever he does next, he’s going out with a bang.” 

-

The mood in the precinct has fallen dramatically since the last hit. The uniforms aren’t happy that they’re working around the clock, the chief isn’t happy that the BAU hasn’t figured everything out yet, and the city isn’t happy that ten murders have been committed with what they think is no end in sight. 

JJ and Rossi have gone out to bring in the suspect that he and Morgan found together for the sake of covering their bases—they still haven’t been able to find Lucas, despite Reid calling you every day to check in and upping police presence around the city. 

The rest of the team sits around a conference table, over a dozen coffees between them, going over everything and racking their brains for information. 

“This just isn’t matching up,” Reid complains. “Lucas has just been at home for the first two, but for the third and the fourth he’s got alibis.” 

“What are they?” Hotch asks. 

“He was on the road all night when the third happened,” Reid says. 

“And how do we know?” Prentiss asks. 

“Garcia picked up his debit card being used a couple times from Des Moines back to St. Louis when the third set of murders happened,” Morgan contributes. “Must’ve been a road trip, because there are stops at a gas station, a restaurant, and a rest stop.” 

“The last one happened during an AA meeting he was supposed to attend,” Prentiss says. “I called the leader and she said he was there.”

“Do we have footage from any of those places?” Hotch asks. “We need to make sure.” 

Reid nods. “I asked her to check it all this morning, including the AA meeting. She must still be going through it—I can’t imagine it’s easy to get all that access.” 

“What about a second unsub?” Morgan suggests. 

Hotch shakes his head. “These are all meant to be personal for liberation—catharsis. Involving someone else would take away from the feeling.” 

“What about your suspect?” Prentiss asks, looking at Morgan. “Could he be the unsub?” 

“Patrick Fenton,” Morgan says, and he shrugs. “He fits it—dead parents, jail time, child of abuse. But he’s got two sisters, and his parents died when he was in his twenties from a car accident. I don’t see why he would start killing almost twenty years later.” 

“Maybe we’ll figure something out in questioning,” Reid says hopefully. 

Morgan’s phone suddenly goes off, and he hits the button to answer. “You’re on speaker, babygirl.” 

“I found the security footage from those three places, the ones that Lucas was at on his supposed road trip when the third family was hit,” Garcia says, voice slightly tinny through the phone.  

“And?” Hotch asks. 

“I was getting there,” she says. “Lucas wasn’t there. He wasn’t on any of the footage—his sister was.” 

Hotch frowns. You? 

“You’re sure?” he asks. 

“I’m always sure,” Garcia responds. “And I don’t know if Spencer is there, but he also wasn’t there at the AA meeting—I combed through the whole meeting, and he didn’t show up at any point. Just another guy that looked like him.” 

“And you’re sure about that, too?” Hotch asks again. 

“What is with this questioning of my abilities?” she asks, offended. “Yes. I’ve stared at so many pictures of Lucas Hartford over these past few days that I’ve got him burned into my brain.” 

“Thanks, babygirl,” Morgan says. “We’ll call back if we need anything.” 

“And you’re always welcome in this house of miracles,” she muses. Morgan chuckles before he hangs up. 

“Lucas gave her his card,” Reid realizes. “It’s an easy alibi, but it falls apart when you look into it even a little bit.” 

“Probably seemed solid to him at the time,” Morgan says. “He doesn’t seem like a detail oriented guy.” 

Prentiss frowns. “That means he’s back on the chopping block. We can put him at the scene of every murder.” 

Hotch leans over the table and grabs Lucas’s file, and he pulls out the page compiling his family. “His father died a year ago from liver failure. Hartford got out of jail nine months ago after a six year stint.” 

“If he’s been plotting some elaborate murder of his father for years, just to get out of jail and find out he drank himself to death?” Morgan shakes his head. “He’d snap. It doesn’t feel like justice.” 

“He thinks he’s saving the kids of these parents that he kills,” Reid says. “He sees himself in them—he can’t look past his own childhood, and he assumes those kids must want their parents dead too.” 

“He’s trying to get back at his dad,” Prentiss says. “We know that.” 

“But that’s not his main goal,” Reid insists. “If his dad died when he was a kid, the abuse would have stopped. His mom wouldn’t be the battered wife anymore, and he wouldn’t be the battered kid.” 

“His goal has always been protection,” Hotch realizes. “Yes, he’s getting his revenge by killing his father over and over, but ultimately, he’s trying to save himself.” 

“But he didn’t anticipate the kids being home this time,” Prentiss says. “He had to kill them too.” 

“If he‘s seeing himself in these children, recreating what he never got to do, then that means that he effectively died in this scenario,” Reid says. 

“He didn’t get what he wanted,” Morgan says. “That’s gonna take a toll on him.”

“He’s coming to the end of the line,” Prentiss nods. 

Hotch’s brain is working overtime as they work information off of each other. They’re so damn close—they just need the last piece of the puzzle. If they find Lucas’s next victim, they find him. 

“His next crime will probably be his last before he goes out himself,” Reid says. 

“You think it’ll be a murder-suicide?” Morgan asks. 

“It’s common with family annihilators,” Reid says. “Hell, it’s common with anyone who sees no future beyond their murders. It’s their way out.” 

And then the answer hits Hotch like a ton of bricks. Reid is still rambling next to him. 

“If his dad was still alive, I’d say he would be the target. But the only one left—”

“—is his sister,” Hotch grits out, and he’s dashing out of the conference room before anyone can stop him. 

“Hotch!” Morgan yells, and he turns to Prentiss with wild eyes. “Where the hell is he going?” 

“The last victim,” she says as she starts following him. “The one person he never managed to save.” 

“Goddammit,” Morgan curses, and he grabs his phone from the table, dialing Garcia as fast as she can while he runs. Reid is close behind him.  

“What’s up, sugar?” she asks. “Got anymore leads?” 

He laughs dryly. “We’ve got a big one, babygirl. Lucas has finally reached the end of the road — he’s going for his sister. I need you to call JJ and Rossi and—” 

“Send them the Hartford address and fill them in on everything?” she interrupted, and he could hear her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Already on it.” 

“What would I do without you?” he asks. 

“Be half the man and twice as sad,” she says. “I’ve got to call JJ. Be safe, my love.” 

“Always,” he responds, and he hangs up. 

Hotch distantly registers Prentiss stopping by the chief to alert him of what’s going on, because he’s in the fog of a rampage. He’s in the driver’s seat before he knows it, starting the car, and he sees Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid running out after him. 

Prentiss takes shotgun and Morgan and Reid file into the back, and they’ve all got Kevlar vests in their hands. He didn’t really think of that through his haze. 

“We’ve got an extra one for you,” Reid says, reading his mind. 

“Thank you. I— I know what you’re all thinking—” Hotch starts, but Prentiss shakes her head.

“Just drive.” Her lips set themselves in a taut line. “We’ve got a murder to stop.”  

And he does. 

-

You sit on the curb, surrounded on either side by a box of your things. Packing up everything made you realize how little you had at his place. You thought you’d integrated yourself into his life fully, but it really just took an afternoon while he was in a lecture to disappear. 

Summer has fully turned to winter, and you’re as morose as the weather. This side of town looks so depressing without the warmer months to pick it up—the sidewalks are lined with dead trees, the grass is shriveled up and yellowing, and you feel like you’re living in grayscale. 

A shiver runs through you, the weather only partly to blame. 

Amy is supposed to pick you up, but as usual, she’s running late. You don’t know if it’s a personal issue or DC traffic has just struck again, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’re stuck here, and your bad luck seems intent on making it worse, because you watch a familiar car pull around the corner. 

It parks a distance away—there’s no space in front of the complex, and he always complained that they didn’t do assigned spots—and you have to hold back a scornful scoff. 

Of course you have to deal with this now. 

Aaron picks up his pace when he gets out of the car, surprise—and what you think is shame—painted on his face. He says your name when he slows down. 

“You’re already packed.” 

You shrug. “I’m nothing if not efficient.” 

“I could’ve helped you with all this,” Aaron says, frowning. 

“Why do you think it’s done already?” you ask. 

His throat bobs and he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Let me save you the pain of chivalry,” you say. “I’ve got a friend coming to pick me up. I’ve already found a place. I called your property manager the other day and argued my way out of the lease, but I still paid my next month. You’re welcome.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says. 

“You know what they say about a clean break,” you intone.  

“I’m sorry,” Aaron tries again. To his credit, he looks like he means it. Against his credit, it’s about the fiftieth time you’ve heard it from him in the past two weeks. 

“I shouldn’t have let you get that coffee,” you say with a grim smile, “should I?” 

His lips pull into a taut line. “I didn’t cheat on you.” 

“I know,” you say. It’s the one thing you do believe. “I just don’t think you ever fell out of love with her.” 

Mercifully, you see Amy’s car pulling up in the distance. She’s your only friend with an SUV, so at least your boxes will fit. 

“My ride’s here,” you say as you stand up, and you pick up one of your boxes. Amy throws on her hazards and she gets out to open her trunk. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she breathes. “Traffic was awful, and Jake has been so annoying—” 

“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a slight smile as you put your box in the back. “You’re already doing me a huge favor.”  

“I want us to still be friends,” Aaron calls. When you turn back, he has your other box in his hands, his expression shamelessly desperate. Amy glares daggers at him. 

“Why?” you ask innocently. “So I can go without talking to you for ten years, ask you for a coffee when I’m in town, and then get you to leave Haley?” 

“That’s not what happened,” he says, but you’re already shaking your head. 

You take the box from him and smile thinly. 

“Have a good rest of your life, Aaron. I hope it doesn’t involve me ever again.”

-

You let out a noise of frustration as you struggle to get the key into the lock, gritting your teeth as you try to fit it in. It’s always been finicky, but you just don’t have the energy to deal with this tonight. Thankfully, just when you start getting annoyed, you get it open. 

You get a few steps in before your eyebrows rise, the sight of your brother at the kitchen table a surprise. He’s got his head in his hands, and your surprise turns to concern.

“Lucas,” you say with a slight smile, shutting the door behind you, “I didn’t know you were gonna be home tonight.”

His attention shoots to you immediately as he says your name, and he looks slightly out of it. “I was wondering when you were gonna get back.”

“Stole the words right out of my mouth,” you say wryly, and you ruffle his hair with your free hand as you walk past him. He swats your hand away in brotherly protest, and you snort. “This place has been quiet without you. Well— except for the cops. They were pretty loud.” 

“They haven’t been back, have they?” 

You look back at him and notice his leg is bobbing up and down insanely fast, and he keeps scratching at the soft wood of your table with his nail. 

Your smile fades. “Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking.”

“Of course I haven’t,” he insists, but you turn on the kitchen light, then move closer to peer into his eyes against his protests. 

“At least you’re not high,” you murmur, taking one last look before you pull away. “And stop ruining the table. I need it to last for the next ten years.” 

He huffs, and you can practically hear him roll his eyes, but he stops. 

“Did you go to class today?”

“You don’t have to act like Mom,” Lucas says, crossing his arms again with another huff. 

“And you don’t have to act like a child.” You roll your eyes as you set your tote bag on the countertop and begin unpacking the groceries you bought. “I’m asking you about your day—that’s definitely not acting like Mom.”

“Yes,” he mocks. “I went to class.”

“Good.” You glance back at him. “I’m proud of you, Luke. You’ve been making progress.” 

His smile is a bit thin, but he nods. “Thanks. How was work?”

You scoff and shake your head as you put a couple things in the pantry. “Don’t even get me started. I swear, Marie’s going to get me fired someday if she keeps her bullshit up.”

“She’s still on it?” Luke asks, and you can’t help but smile a bit. 

“Don’t act like you know what I’m talking about,” you say. “Just agree with me.” 

“I agree with you,” he says. 

“That’s it,” you muse. 

Your eyes fall back on your bag, and you’re reminded of what you meant to do next time your brother showed up. 

“Oh—” You go back over to the kitchen table for your bag and pull out your wallet. You slide a debit card out and hold it out to your brother. “Thanks for letting me use it while I was up in Des Moines. I finally got my bank to get rid of the freeze on my card.” 

“…Of course,” he says, and he takes it back. “Glad I could help.” 

“I’ll pay you back, obviously,” you say as you get back to your groceries. “I just have to wait to get paid again.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “And uh— you never answered me. Did the cops come by again?” 

You huff a mirthless laugh and shake your head. “You have nothing to worry about, Luke. I think they finally realized they were barking up the wrong tree.”

“…Good,” he says. “I can tell they’ve stressing you out.”

“Like that looks any different than my normal state,” you say wryly. “Besides, it wasn’t that bad.” 

You recall the shock you felt when you opened the door to Aaron, and how nervous you were on the drive to the precinct. It’s almost been a decade, and yet he still has an effect on you that he has no right to. 

“You remember that guy I dated when I was still in law school? Aaron Hotchner?”

“I think? I was in jail, so.” 

You roll your eyes. “I know I told you about him when I visited you while we were together.” 

“I remember you telling me how he broke your heart,” Luke says. 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” 

“Then what are you saying?” 

“That he’s with the FBI now. The BAU,” you enunciate, and you huff. “He’s one of the guys on this case, coincidence that it is. They came here—they even brought me in for an interview.”

He frowns. “What’d you say?”

“The truth.” You pull your cutting board and a knife out of a drawer and get to work washing your vegetables. “That I didn’t know anything, and neither of us are involved in either way.” You shake your head with a sigh. “They must believe it, because they haven’t come back.” 

“What have they said about me?” he asks. 

“I’m not supposed to say.” You roll your eyes. “I think you’re innocent, but I could get charged with obstruction, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that…” 

You trail off into a sigh as you finish washing the peppers and set them on a towel. “I hope they find whoever’s doing it, though. It is freaking me out that there’s a murderer out there.” 

You pick up your knife and start cutting them up—they’re not the freshest, but it’s all Kroger had after work—and you glance back at Luke. “You really shouldn’t be going out so often with this going on, y’know. I don’t want you getting hurt.” 

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m careful.” 

“I doubt that,” you say wryly. “Still, though. I worry about you.” 

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” he asks. “I’m your older brother.” 

“I worry about everything,” you say. “It’s my thing.” 

You hear him huff a laugh and you smile a bit to yourself. You get through your first pepper before you remember what’s been nagging at you your whole ride home. 

“Oh— can you get the TV?” you ask. “Channel 8, I think. Marcy is getting interviewed for something with her nonprofit, and I told her I’d record it for her.”

Lucas doesn’t respond, though you hear the scrape of the chair as he gets up. 

“Thank you,” you say. “I think they have a fundraiser coming up or something…” you trail off and shake your head as you scrape the cut peppers onto a plate. “God. I need to start paying attention in the break room.”

Another few seconds pass, and you don’t hear the television switch on. You huff and turn your head slightly. “Luke, I’m making dinner tonight. This is the least you could do.” 

“I’m sorry.”

The words come out as a murmur, but you can tell he’s much closer than he was before. 

You don’t even get the chance to turn around before something crashes against your head and your vision goes dark. You feel yourself fall to the ground, and your head hits the floor hard. 

Then, there’s nothing. 

-

Hotch has been breaking every speeding law there is. 

The station isn’t too far from your house, but it’s still too far. All he can see is your body, crippled and lifeless just like every other victim they’ve had to look at. 

It should never have gotten to this point. Lucas has been a suspect for the first day, but they looked to other suspects, got caught up in statements from neighbors and the kids of the victims. 

If Hotch just found him and booked him on the first day, this wouldn’t be happening. Your life wouldn’t be in danger. 

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. 

“I seriously think we’re looking at a murder-suicide if this gets to play out,” Reid speaks up from the backseat. “This is his way of ending this for both of them—the ultimate protection of his sister.”

“No one can hurt her if she’s dead,” Morgan mutters. 

“Hotch,” Prentiss starts, treading carefully, “are you sure you’re okay to lead this?”

“Yes,” he says, though he wants to say what kind of question is that?

You were together a lifetime ago in law school, yes, and he might still have feelings for you that he didn’t even realize were there, yes—but he’s an agent and a professional before all of that. 

It doesn’t matter that you have history. It doesn’t matter that you likely hate him. 

It doesn’t matter that he thought he was going to marry you one day, and then was watching you drive out of his life after he got back with his high school girlfriend another day.  

Aaron Hotchner is not going to let you die. It’s as simple as that. 

Hotch’s phone rings and he picks it up and flips it open immediately. “Talk to me, Garcia.”

“JJ and Rossi are on their way,” she says. “Are you headed to their place?” 

“Yes,” he says, and he puts it on speaker. “I’ve got Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid with me still.” 

“Do you think there’s anywhere else he could be?” Morgan asks. “If he’s going to kill her, he might not want to do it in this house.” 

“Already a step ahead of you, my love,” she says, and he can hear mouse clicks through the phone. “They grew up in a house in St. Charles—it’s abandoned, from the looks of it, some place on the outskirts. Never got another buyer after the past owners moved out. I’m sending the address to Emily right now.”

Prentiss gets a buzz on her phone and she nods in confirmation after flipping it open. Hotch immediately switches lanes and makes a U-turn, his jaw clenching. 

“Tell me how to get there, Prentiss,” he says. “He’s there.”

“You need to get on I-70,” she says, and then her brow furrows. “How do you know?”

“He’s killed everyone else in their homes because he sees it as the source of it all. His sister’s rented place isn’t personal enough.” Hotch shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t he want to go back to theirs to end it all?”

“Hotch.” Penelope’s voice rings out in the car, and he doesn’t even realize he forgot to hang up. 

“What?”

“Be careful,” she says, and he rushes to turn it off speaker and press it to his ear. “I… I know how important this is to you.”

Hotch’s throat bobs and his eyes burn with the beginnings of tears. He blinks them away—he can’t be weak now. He can’t let his team see him be weak now. “Dare I ask how?”

“I found an article about GW’s mock trial team,” she says. “Kind of went down a rabbit hole from there.”

Somehow, he huffs the slightest laugh. It feels like a lifetime ago—it honestly is, at this point. Before he saw carnage and gore on a daily basis and tried to solve it, when he thought the DA’s office was the endpoint, when he came home to your smiling face every night. 

And now… 

Hotch’s spine somehow stiffens, and he knows the other three in the car are watching him. He can’t decide whether he cares or not. 

“Thank you, Garcia.”

“No problem,” she says, and he can almost hear her blink in the pause. “Uh— for what, exactly?” 

For the memory, he wants to say. But he doesn’t. He can’t, not right now, so he tries his best to snap out of it. 

“Keep a watch on the patrol cars,” he says instead. “Update JJ and Rossi on our plan, but tell them to stay on their path. I’m sure I’m right, but we need to cover our bases.” 

“Of course, sir.” He hears her fingers flying across the keys. “I’ve got yours and the squad cars’ locations up—I’ll call them now.” 

“Thank you,” he says. 

“Good luck, Hotch,” Garcia says softly. 

Hotch hangs up before he gets too emotional. Penelope has a way of bringing that side out of him. 

“We’ll get him,” Prentiss assures. She’s been watching him this whole time, he can feel it—she’s been attuned far too keenly on this entire part of the case involving you and him. “And we’ll save her.” 

His knuckles go white around the steering wheel, and for once, Hotch can’t find the words. 

-

It feels like your head is slowly being cranked in a vice when you eventually wake up, a dull but insistent pain. Your arm stings too, but you don’t know why. 

You blink a few times as you try to figure out where you are, a low groan slipping out as you fully come back into consciousness, and you move to rub the grogginess out of your eyes. 

Your arms don’t move. You try again, panic spiking your heart for a moment, and that’s when you realize you’re in a chair—tied to a chair, your wrists bound together behind you and your ankles bound to the chair legs. 

Now the panic fully sets in. There’s a murderer in St. Louis, but you don’t fit the victimology from what you’ve seen, but does any of that fucking matter when you’re stuck in something out of a horror movie?

Lucas was the only one there with you. So either he’s in the same situation, or he—

“You’re finally awake,” a voice murmurs. When he comes into view and sits down across from you, your heart stops. 

For a moment, all you can do is stare at your brother with wide eyes. You see the gun in his hand through your peripherals, but you don’t look away from his gaze. 

“I was worried I was too rough,” he says softly. “But you’ve always been resilient.” 

“Lucas,” you breathe. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s finally going to be over,” he says, ignoring your panic. “We’ve been hurting our whole lives because of that bastard of a father, and I can finally make it all stop.” 

Your brother is fucking crazy. He’s fucking crazy, and he’s going to kill you.

You’ve spent two weeks telling Aaron he was crazy and your brother was innocent, and now he’s going to be proven right when he finds your dead body. 

You try to tamp down on your panic. You don’t have a law degree, sure, and you never officially practiced, but you’ve been a good speaker, a persuasive one, all your life. 

And if there’s ever been a fucking time to be persuasive, it’s now. 

“You don’t have to do this,” you whisper. “We— we can talk if you want to talk.” You tug at your ankle restraints. “This is unnecessary.” 

He shakes his head. “I know you. You’d run.” 

“Come on.” You manage as much of a smile as you can. “I’ve always been there for you, Luke. Why would this be any different?” 

“…You’ve always been too nice,” he says, and he sets the gun down on his leg. At least he doesn’t have his finger on the trigger. “Anyone rational would’ve kicked me to the curb when I asked you for help.” 

“You’re my brother,” you whisper. “I— I love you, Lucas. I’d never do that to you.” 

“Family’s supposed to be everything, right?” He shakes his head. “You were the only one of us that understood that. You were there to pick me up every time my sentence was up.” 

“I’ve always believed in you,” you say. 

He huffs a monotone laugh as he stares at the ground. “You’re definitely the only one.”

You shake your head. “That’s not true.” 

“Mom didn’t care enough to stop anything,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And Dad wished I was dead every goddamn day. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself, but he definitely tried.” 

You can’t defend your parents. Your dad’s a piece of shit, and your mom didn’t stop anything he did—but you could never find it in yourself to fully hate her because he hurt her too, with more than just bruises. 

“I’ve dreamt of killing our dad every day for twenty years,” Lucas says. “And that old bastard had to fuck me over one last time and die while I was in jail.”

You remember when you got the news. You were next of kin—your mother was dead, and your brother was incarcerated—so you got the call from the hospital. You deliberated for hours before you bought a plane ticket to Montana—apparently that was where he fucked off to drink himself to death—and you don’t know if you’ve ever felt more numb than when you were sitting in some lawyer’s office, listening to him drone on about his will and how his estate would be divided. 

“So you killed all of those people?” you asked. “Because you didn’t get to kill our dad first?” 

“I was saving those kids!” Luke yells, and you shrink in on yourself. “Saving them before their parents could fuck them up like ours did to us!” 

“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat. “You’re just letting Dad win. Proving every shitty thing he said about you.” 

“And that’s the zinger, isn’t it? Luke laughs and shakes his head. “He was right. We’re a whole family of fuck-ups. An alcoholic abuser, a battered wife, a nonstop jailbird, and you…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “You should be out there prosecuting people like me.”

“He ruined us,” Luke murmurs. “And I’m finally going to fix it.” 

All you can do is stare at your brother, wide and teary eyed. You can’t find the words, but you don’t have to. 

Police sirens begin to filter through the air as they get closer, and Luke huffs. “Of course.” He eyes you. “Don’t go anywhere.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” you say weakly. 

When he leaves to peer out the front door, you take a second to look at your surroundings. It takes a second because they’re so decrepit, but you could never forget. 

Luke brought you back to your childhood home—the place in St. Charles, rotten down to its bones. It’s abandoned by now, but the atmosphere is nothing less than oppressive. There’s a reason you graduated high school a year early, why you never came back once you got to college—except with Aaron, to help your mom move her things out. 

You refuse to die here. Even if you have to claw your way back through the gates of Hell inch by inch—you will not die here. 

You hear footsteps, and when Lucas comes back in, he has a crazed glint in his eye. He shakes his head as his finger returns back to the trigger, and you can’t help but flinch. He won’t. Not now. 

“Looks like your friends the FBI are here,” he drawls. “You said you didn’t tell them anything.” 

“I didn’t,” you insist. “They’re profilers—they figure things out.” 

He shakes his head. “They don’t realize that I have to do this.” Luke kneels down in front of you and takes your chin in an iron grip. “This is the only way to end our pain.” 

He lets go of you then stands up, moving behind you—you want to protest, but you don’t get the chance. He presses his gun to your temple and then the door is broken down. Four agents rush in, guns at the ready. Aaron leads them, and he’s got fire blazing in his eyes.

“FBI,” he barks. “Hands up.”

Lucas doesn’t seem fazed, his breathing staying the same. You stare right at Aaron, unfiltered fear in your eyes, and you feel torn bare. He’s going to watch your brother put a bullet in your head. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he says smoothly. “This is a family matter.” 

“Put the gun down, Lucas,” Aaron says. 

“You know my name,” he says. “I know yours too, Aaron Hotchner. My sister told me you were with the feds. She also told me you broke her heart.”

“Put the gun down,” he repeats. 

“I don’t think I will,” Luke says. “You see, I don’t go around just kidnapping people for fun. I have a purpose here.” He tilts his head to the side. “But you know that, don’t you? You’re all profilers.” 

“You’ve been targeting families that look like your own,” he says. “You think that killing them will end the pain inside you, and protect those kids in a way that you never got.” 

“I don’t think it,” he bites, “I know it. If my dad had been shot thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be here right now.” 

“This isn’t going to bring you peace,” Aaron says. “Your sister has been the only person to stay by your side through every part of your life. Do you really want to lose that?” 

“Trust me,” Luke says. “I’m not losing her.” 

He flicks the safety off and you flinch. He’s going to kill you. 

“Put the gun down,” another agent warns. 

“If you all don’t leave right now, I’ll shoot her.” Your whole body stiffens as he presses the gun harder into the side of your head, your breathing going off kilter. “Except you, Aaron Hotchner. You can stay.”

“We’re not doing that,” the woman says. Agent Prentiss, you think. 

“Really?” Luke chuckles. “You think you hold the cards here?” 

“It’s okay,” Aaron says. “Go.” 

Agent Prentiss frowns, and the other two men look different levels of puzzled. They obviously doubt the decision, but they don’t doubt Aaron, because one by one, they leave. 

“Wow,” Luke muses. “They really trust you.” 

“Because I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Aaron says. “Deep down, you know you’re not protecting her. Not by hurting her.” 

“I’m not hurting her,” he says. “She’s always been the one to keep me safe over the years—I’m finally paying the favor back. I’m finally taking her pain away.”

“You were abused as children. Both of you.” Aaron looks at your brother. “Your sister always tried to protect you, but it never worked. It just made it worse for her, and it made you feel worthless. You’re her older brother. You’re the one that was supposed to protect her.”

“My sister said you’re profilers,” he says, and though his tone is lazy, you know your brother. You can tell it’s starting to get to him. “Is that what you’re doing right now? Profiling me?” 

“You would never be good enough for your father, and your mother would never do anything to stop it,” Aaron continues. “All you had was your sister, and even that wasn’t good enough—you hurt her just as much as your dad did. At least your dad didn’t think he was a good person.” 

Luke growls, and he puts a hand on your shoulder to pull you closer to him. “Shut up.” 

“Your sister has told me you can be more than this,” he says. “And I think she’s right. You’re better than this—better than living between the margins and jail.” 

“I’ve had a hole in my chest since I was born,” Luke mutters. “And I’ve tried to stop it, but it’s just grown and grown and grown. This— this aching pit of pain, and he caused it. You’ve got it too— I know it.” 

“I— I do,” you say. And you’re not lying. You’ve had a pit of despair in you for as long as you can remember. The only difference is that you’ve fought every goddamn day of your life to keep it from consuming you. “And it hurts, Luke. Trust me, I know. It took me so long to even be able to deal with it, but I know how to. I can help you—we can both walk out of here.” 

“No,” he whispers. “No—we can’t.”  

“Yes, we can,” you plead. “I love you, Luke. I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life helping you if that’s what it takes to get rid of that hole.” 

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. For a moment, you think you’ve gotten through to him. Aaron never takes his eyes away from you. 

“I’ve never been able to protect her,” Luke murmurs. “Not from our dad, not from the world, not even from you, Aaron Hotchner.” He presses the gun harder than ever into your head, like he wants to bury the metal in your skull along with the bullet. “But that all ends now.” 

You screw your eyes shut. You don’t want to see Aaron’s face when your brother kills you. 

And then it happens so quickly you barely process it. 

There’s two gunshots, almost at the same time. You scream, first because of the gunshots, then because of the sudden roaring pain in your side. There’s a thud next to you, your eyes shoot open, and you see your brother’s lifeless body fall to the ground. 

You scream again—you can’t even control it, it just rips out of you at the sight of the hole in his head and the blood pooling beneath it—and Aaron drops his gun to rush forward. The rest of his team thunders in after him, all in guns and bulletproof vests, and they’re talking, but you can’t focus on a single goddamn thing because your brother’s dead body is right next to you. 

Aaron pulls out a pocket knife and begins to cut through your restraints, and the instant he finishes you collapse. He catches you without a second thought, and you immediately wrap your arms around him. 

Torrential sobs wrack your entire body as you bury your face in the crook of his shoulder, every part of you shaking as the reality of it all hits with full force. 

Your brother is a serial killer. He killed ten people, he tried to kill you. And now he’s dead. 

The only part you had left of your family—gone, just like that, with four other families ruined in his wake. 

Aaron’s soft voice in your ear is the only thing bringing you back from the edge of hyperventilation, his own hold on you the only thing keeping you from collapsing.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs and he shrugs off his windbreaker to wrap it around your arms. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

“He’s gone,” you choke out, voice muffled as you speak into his chest. “He’s gone, and he tried to—”

A fresh round of emotions hit you, unable to get the words out, and you fully break down in Aaron’s arms. 

“I know.”

Aaron’s fingers linger on your side and you feel some dull pain, but you feel his breath still for a moment. 

“You were shot,” he says with your name. “We have to get you to a hospital.” 

You don’t even feel it. God, you don’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing in your ears, an insistent pain in your skull, and you finally realize Aaron is right when you pull away and see the blood on his fingers. 

But black spots start to fill your vision. You may not feel it, but your body holds the score. The pain intensifies in your side as your adrenaline starts to slow down, and you collapse against Aaron. 

“Get an EMT in here!” he yells, keeping an arm wrapped around you. “We’ve got a GSW— she’s losing blood fast!” 

You can feel Aaron’s rapid heartbeat, can feel his steady arms as he keeps you propped up. You feel the warmth of his body, feel the warmth draining out of yours. 

“Aaron,” you whisper, your strength fading. You don’t think he hears you.

He helps you up and you’re suddenly hoisted onto a stretcher, and he’s beside you as the EMTs run you out of your childhood home. The night is a blurry canvas of red and blue lights, and your eyelids feel like they’re made of concrete. 

“Aaron,” you try again, and you have enough left in you to grasp his cheek. “Thank you.” 

And as the world goes black around you for the second time, you see his lips form your name. 

It’s not a bad thing, you think before darkness overtakes you, for Aaron Hotchner to be the last thing you see before you die. 

-

You wake up in the hospital alone.  

You don’t know what you expect. You have few acquaintances, fewer friends, and the last part of your family is dead after he tried to kill you. 

The real surprise is that you wake up at all. 

Lucas is dead. 

He tried to kill you. You thought he succeeded. 

You let out a slow, even breath, accompanied only by the sounds of beeping machines. It still doesn’t exactly feel real. 

You’ve spent the last two weeks defending your brother against every accusation, and you ended it in the hospital—well and truly alone for the first time in your life. 

You look at the television. Some muted soccer game is playing, and you’re thankful. You were worried that you and your brother would be the topic of the day. 

Who are you kidding? You’re going to be the topic of the year. He killed ten people. He tried to kill you, and you think he nearly did. He shot you, after all. 

You let your head fall back against the pillow. All of your limbs feel insurmountably heavy, your side aches like hell, and you’ve got the worst headache of your life. 

And you can’t stop playing it all over in your mind. 

He was going to kill you. 

Your own brother, your flesh and blood, the only person you had left, tried to kill you and would have killed you had it not been for the BAU. 

Had it not been for Aaron Hotchner. 

The door opens and someone walks through, your eyes following the movement, and when he sees it, he pauses. And so do you—apparently the devil appears even when you think of him. 

“You’re awake,” Aaron says after a moment. It’s the third time he’s sounded surprised since you’ve met him again. Seeing you, finding out your mom is dead, seeing you. 

But there’s relief there, too.

He has a coffee in his hand and his tie is undone, the sleeves of his white undershirt rolled up to his forearms. It makes you realize his suit jacket has been slung over the back of the chair near your bedside. 

“How long have you been here?” you ask, your brows furrowing ever so slightly. 

Aaron closes the door and sets his coffee on the table before he answers you. “Three days.” 

“And how long have I been here?” 

“Three days,” he says. “You suffered head trauma, they discovered drugs in your system, and… you were shot. You had to go into emergency surgery.” 

You frown, and he answers before you can ask any of them. “…Your brother. After he knocked you out, he used something to… keep you out. And after I shot him, he still got one off—thankfully, as he was falling. The bullet hit you in the side instead of the head.”

“How bad was it?” you ask. 

Aaron glances away. “You died on the table. They managed to bring you back, but…” 

“I guess Luke did succeed,” you say absentmindedly. Aaron doesn’t laugh, and you glance away too. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes.” 

He shakes his head. “If anyone’s allowed to joke about this, it’s you.” 

Your lips twitch for a moment, but then you look back at him as he takes a seat at your bedside again. He looks— god, he just looks tired. Tired and ragged and downtrod, and you can’t imagine you look much better.  

“You were out for two days after,” he explains. “This is the first time you’ve woken up.”

“Why are you here, Aaron?” you ask quietly. “Why have you been here?” 

Aaron frowns. “Where else would I be?”

Your throat feels like it’s closing up, and you feel the telltale pinpricks of tears. You blink them away before they can start. 

“My brother was a serial killer, Aaron.” Your hands clench into fists as you stare at the wall. “He killed ten people while he was living with me and I— and I didn’t even fucking notice.” Your gaze moves back to him. “I went against all of you because I thought I knew him, and look where it got me.” 

“It’s not a crime to want to see the best in people,” he says. “Especially your family.” 

“It’s a crime to fucking murder people,” you huff, and it’s only slightly unhinged. “I— I thought I knew him, and I didn’t. And if I did, maybe none of these people would’ve had to die.”

“Don’t blame this on yourself,” Aaron demands. “Lucas was lost. Mentally ill. He was on a path for revenge, for his deranged idea of protection—nothing you could have said or done would have stopped him.” 

You shake your head. “It might be easy for you to say that, Aaron, but I— I can’t. He’s my brother. I gave him a place to live, I gave him easy access to families— god, I fought with you all for two weeks about his innocence, all while he was planning his next fucking murder!” 

“It is not your fault,” he repeats, slower and enunciating the words. “He was the only member left of your family, and you loved him. You were just stubborn, and that’s nothing new.” 

“I just don’t know what to do.” You’ve had these walls up for so long, especially this past week, and now that everything’s come to a head and you’re in the hospital and your fucking brother is dead, the floodgates have opened. “I have to plan a funeral because I’m the only one left to plan one, but— but does he even deserve one? He’s a serial killer, and he tried to kill me for god’s sake, but he’s my brother and even though he’s gone he’s still all I have left and—” 

You break off as you suck in a huge breath of air, the notion shaky as you clench your hands into fists to keep the rest of your body from doing the same. 

“And I just don’t know what to do,” you repeat, barely a whisper. 

You meet Aaron’s eyes, almost desperately. You feel like you’ll shatter into a million different pieces if you even breathe wrong and he might be the only solid thing in your life. 

“Whatever you do,” he says, “you don’t have to do it alone. Not if you don’t want to.” 

“Aaron,” you start shakily, but he continues. 

“I know what you think, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.” Aaron pauses for a moment, and it’s obvious how carefully he’s crafting his words. “I’ve… always regretted how we left things. And I regret losing touch with you. This isn’t the way I would’ve liked to meet you again. But I’m thankful I have.”

He pulls a card out of his shirt pocket and holds it out to you. You realize it’s his business card, and it’s got his number. 

“I’m sorry for the formality,” he says dryly, “but I don’t exactly go around prepared to give out my number for purposes other than work.” 

You take it without giving yourself the chance to think about it. You run your finger around the sharp edge of the cardstock, pressing the pad of your thumb against the corner. 

“Years ago, you wished me a good life, and that you didn’t want to be involved in it,” he says, still treading carefully. You can’t believe he remembers the last thing you said to him. “But— but a lot has changed since then, and I hope that has as well.” 

“I’d like you to be a part of my life again,” Aaron finally says, “if you want to be a part of mine.”

For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. Two and a half years of law school flash behind your eyes—coffee shop dates and endless hours spent studying at the library. Movie nights cuddled on his couch, hauling boxes out of your house at an ungodly hour to get away from your roommates. An unhealthy amount of all-nighters immediately followed by going out to celebrate a miracle of an A on an exam. Getting through every soul-sucking part of earning a J.D. together, falling apart before either of you could make it to the other side, and somehow…

Somehow, you’ve ended up on a completely different side together. 

“My life isn’t going to be easy,” you say faintly. “Especially… moving through this.” 

“My life isn’t easy either,” he says. “I’m divorced with a kid and I try to solve murders every day.” 

“It’s not a contest.” An attempt at a joke, but it falls flat for you. Aaron’s lips still quirk at the edges the slightest bit. 

“Getting through this certainly won’t be easy,” he agrees. “But I have more experience than most in these sorts of things. So if you ever need anything, call. Please.” 

“I imagine you’re pretty busy,” you murmur. “Unit chief and all.” 

Aaron shrugs. “I make time for the things I care about.” 

Thankfully, you don’t have to figure out how to respond to that, because there’s a knock on the door, and a nurse walks in after you call a come in.

“It’s good to finally see you awake, sweetheart,” the nurse says with a smile. It warms you from the inside out. 

“It’s nice to be awake,” you say. Her smile widens and she moves over to the computer in the side of the room—to add some things before she makes her checkup, you assume. 

“I’ll give you some time alone,” Aaron says.

Before he can stand up, you grab his hand. It’s fully on instinct, and he looks just as surprised as you feel.  

“Don’t go,” you plead, and it’s almost a whisper. “I— just— please.” 

Aaron stares at you for a moment, that shock glinting in his eyes before it transforms into something a lot warmer. He nods and sits down. 

“Okay.” 

And he stays. 

This time, he stays.

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: For Your Own Good, Ch. 8

Summary: A few years after moving to Gravity Falls and having his lab built, Stanford Pines happens upon his estranged twin brother, Stanley. He mentally prepared himself to be suffocated by his brothers neediness all over again - what he wasn't prepared for was Stanley walking right past him like he didn't even notice him.

Rating: M for language, violence, and adult implications

Preface: Dialogue only, but some actions will be annotated for clarity. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here

First - Prev - Next

CH.8

“You’ve been down here forever PhD. Maybe you should… I dunno, leave your evil basement sub-lab? Maybe eat something other than an entire tube of toothpaste?”

“This isn’t toothpaste. It’s a calorie-rich blended solution formulated specifically for daily nutrition, in a convenient tube to avoid the need for cutlery.”

“Doc. Read the label.”

“...”

“You should probably sleep too if you mixed those up.”

“You’re just trying to get me to leave so you can escape.”

“I’ve broken out of county jail, the trunk of a sinking car, a shipping crate, cement shoes, and even my loan sharks book club meeting. But this? A forcefield? A real, no-shit forcefield? I don’t have anything for that… anymore.”

“What was that last part?”

“I said I can’t break out of sci-fi prison. Go to bed already, Doc - it’d be a lot easier for me to sleep too if you weren’t hovering over there, looking at me all sad like I’m some stray at the pound about to be put down.”

“Fine, but don’t go anywhere.”

“Well there goes my plans for the night.”

“...What plans?”

“For the fifth time, it’s called sarcasm.”

“Now that I think about it, I think I still have an invention I need to calibrate…”

“Specs was right; how did you survive out here by yourself?”

(...)

“Thanks for helping me clean the place up, Fiddleford. I’ll admit, I’ve been putting it off for a while now.”

“You don’t say… You know, you still haven’t told me what that extra level in your basement is for.”

“I’ve already told you, it’s a private study.”

“You’re so secretive about it.”

“Private study.”

“Alright, alright.”

“After we’re done here, I have an anomaly in the woods I need to check out; would you be willing to keep an eye on the house and the lab while I’m gone?” 

“I have no problem making sure your brother doesn’t disappear into thin air, of course I’ll stay back for your peace of mind.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s what you meant - oh don’t make that face at me. I’m not trying to make fun of you, I think it’s… Endearing, that you care so much even if you have the worst ways of showing it.”

“...Just keep an eye on the house. And maybe go down there every so often to interact with him, the isolation isn’t doing him many favours.”

“How did your last talk with him go?”

“He’s still convinced that I’m grieving over my ‘real’ twin, and using him as a substitute because we look alike. He can acknowledge that the timeline and traits line up, and that he himself has a missing past, but he still thinks he’s a ‘Malone’ and not a ‘Pines’. I don’t know why he’s being so resistant to the possibility…”

"You know... 'Stan Malone' sounds mighty similar to 'Standalone'. 

*Ford facepalms*

“I thought it was clever.”

“It is, that’s why I’m mad.”

(...)

“-and it’s actually called ‘Backupsmor’? That’s its name?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. They didn’t even bother hiding what they were huh?”

“I suppose so. What about you, Stan?”

“Pft, I didn’t go to college. I’m… pretty sure? I didn’t graduate high school.”

“You’re not fully sure?”

“F, I can only remember back when I was 17, and I was already living on the streets. I don’t think I could have graduated by then. Not like it would have helped me.”

“17, you say? Interesting…”

“What about you? Your whole family full of geniuses like you?”

“Everyone’s… smart in their own way. I’m the only member of my family to attend college, however. The rest of my family works on a hog farm.”

“That’s pretty cool, striking it out on your own.”

“Mighty kind of you to-.”

“Good-looking, smart, and independent? I like that in a-.”

“I’m back!”

*Fiddleford hastily presses the mute button on the containment unit*

“Stanford, you’re back! How was it?”

“I was hoping it was something new, but it was just the gnomes trying to utilize the size changing crystals. How were things here?”

"I was just getting more information on what past he does remember- didn’t rightly get much because he is such a flirt."

"He's only doing it to a) make you uncomfortable, b) make you let your guard down, or c) charm you enough to convince you to free him."

"Well he hasn't quite succeeded on any of those. Does he flirt with you?"

"That's disgusting, Fiddleford. I don't know how you do things in Tennessee, but here it is improper for siblings to-."

“Genius, didn't you just say he doesn't believe you're related?"

“Somewhere in there he must still know I'm his brother. Which is a good thing for us because his memories can't be buried too deep."

TAPTAPTAP

*Fiddleford presses the mute button of the cell to unmute it*

“No, that's not it. That motherfucker is ugly.”

“Ugly? We have the same face!”

“Yeah, but on you it doesn't work.”

To be continued...

[merwgue]

Let’s talk about the impossible feat of loving Nesta while simultaneously shipping Nessian. Yes, it’s possible to admire Nesta’s fierce, complex, and deeply troubled character, but it becomes a mental gymnastics routine when people insist on pairing her with Cassian, the very character who consistently undermines her healing and mental health.

There’s a fundamental issue here: Nesta is on a self-destructive spiral for the majority of her arc in A Court of Silver Flames, and Cassian, the supposed "love interest," isn’t helping—he’s actually worsening the situation. Cassian doesn’t just harm Nesta emotionally; he’s also not great for himself, which turns this into the classic case of two people who are absolutely not ready for a relationship but are shoved into one for the sake of drama, attraction, or—let’s face it—trauma-bonding. So let’s get into why loving Nesta means rejecting the idea of Nessian, because at its core, this relationship is toxic.

Cassian's Actions: Love or Harm?

In what world is it okay for a man to force a woman into an intervention-style imprisonment because she’s hurting? That’s not love; that’s coercion. The moment Rhysand, Feyre, and Cassian decide to lock Nesta up in the House of Wind without any real professional help is the moment you realize how warped their perception of "helping" is. Cassian actively participates in this isolation, and no matter how it’s spun, that’s not caring for someone’s well-being—that’s control. Realistically speaking, throwing someone with severe PTSD, depression, and a ton of guilt into a glorified prison doesn’t scream "let’s heal together"; it screams "I don’t want to deal with your pain, so I’ll just shove you into a corner."

The thing with Cassian is that he keeps asserting dominance over Nesta under the guise of tough love, which, at best, is misguided and, at worst, is abusive. There’s emotional manipulation here that people often overlook. He’s constantly undermining her boundaries, trying to force her into situations she’s clearly not ready for. This isn’t about "challenging her to be better"—this is about someone refusing to accept where she is in her emotional journey and trying to rush her into healing on his timeline.

Relationships Aren't a Band-Aid for Self-Destruction

You can’t ship someone who is in the throes of their own personal turmoil into a romantic relationship and expect everything to work out. It’s not the 90s where "love heals all wounds" was a plausible relationship arc. Let’s get real: both Cassian and Nesta are deeply flawed, emotionally scarred people who are not in a position to bring out the best in each other. Cassian has his own guilt, his own trauma, and his own unresolved issues, which means that he is self-destructing in his own way too. How is a relationship built on two crumbling foundations supposed to thrive?

There’s this common trope that "relationships make people better." And sure, sometimes that’s true. The right partnership can encourage personal growth, offer support, and provide a stable ground for emotional healing. But here’s the kicker: that only works if both parties are in a place to actively support one another. Cassian and Nesta are both drowning in their own emotional baggage, and what happens when two people are drowning? They pull each other down.

It’s Not the Right Time—Or Maybe It’s Just Not Right

Let’s entertain the idea for a moment that Cassian and Nesta could be meant to be. Maybe, in another universe, under different circumstances, their dynamic could work. But in this current context, it's not just that it's not the right time—it's that Cassian is fundamentally bad for Nesta's mental health. Relationships take effort, mutual respect, and understanding. What Cassian offers is a kind of pseudo-support that's wrapped up in his own unresolved issues. He’s often dismissive of Nesta’s pain, or worse, he actively exacerbates it by belittling her coping mechanisms (however flawed they may be).

Cassian pushes her physically and emotionally when she’s clearly not in a place to handle it. This isn’t the "right person, wrong time" situation—it’s the "this relationship is unhealthy for both people" situation. To claim they’re good for each other is to completely disregard the damage they do to one another.

Cassian's Behavior: Emotional Manipulation or Love?

Cassian fans often try to justify his actions by claiming he’s trying to help Nesta get out of her destructive cycle, but let’s be real here: a lot of what he does is emotional manipulation. Cassian constantly tries to mold Nesta into the person he thinks she should be, without giving her the space to figure out who she actually is. Yes, Nesta is angry, grieving, and hurting, but instead of letting her process that pain on her own terms, Cassian’s solution is to insert himself into her healing journey as if he’s the one with the answer to all her problems.

The power dynamics here are wildly skewed. Nesta is at her most vulnerable, and Cassian—who should recognize that and proceed with caution—does the exact opposite. He forces her into situations she’s not ready for, whether it’s physical training or emotionally confronting things she hasn’t yet processed. This kind of forced "healing" is toxic. It's not love; it's domination.

Abuse Isn’t Just Physical—It’s Mental and Emotional Too

It’s easy to point out physical abuse and say "that’s wrong," but what people fail to recognize is that emotional and mental abuse are just as damaging. Cassian’s emotional manipulation—his constant pushing, his refusal to respect Nesta’s boundaries, his belief that he knows what’s best for her—are all forms of emotional abuse. He might not physically hurt her, but the way he chips away at her mental and emotional health is just as harmful.

Nesta deserves a partner who supports her healing in a way that’s compassionate and understanding—not someone who forces her into situations she’s not ready for because he thinks it’s the best course of action. Cassian, for all his good intentions, isn’t that partner. At least, not now, and maybe not ever.

Conclusion: You Can’t Love Nesta and Ship Nessian

Here’s the bottom line: you can’t claim to love Nesta while simultaneously shipping her with a man who actively harms her, emotionally manipulates her, and refuses to respect her boundaries. If you love Nesta, you want her to heal, to thrive, to grow—on her own terms. Cassian, in his current state, doesn’t support that growth. In fact, he stunts it. So no, you can’t love Nesta and ship Nessian at the same time. To do so is to fundamentally misunderstand what it means to love someone like Nesta: fiercely, without conditions, and with a respect for her autonomy.

Cassian might be good for someone else, or maybe even for Nesta in a different life. But in this one? He’s not the hero of her story—he’s the obstacle.

[thebroccolination]

But that is the magical joy of Be My Favorite, isn’t it?! That Kawi learns how to choose himself and joy instead of what Kawi thinks will make him happy because it’s what the world values. And then he’s told Pisaeng about the time travel but Pisaeng doesn’t quite believe him until Kawi is sick and maybe dying and tries using it. And Pisaeng wonders if Kawi is compromising his dreams for Pisaeng’s happiness, but they’re just choosing their own happiness. And I want to cry just thinking about it.

This is from a Be My Favorite post I made last month that still makes me emotional.

Like!!! One of my favorite parts of the series in terms of the writing choices Waa made is that Kawi doesn't actually see dozens and dozens of potential futures. As a writer, I think that would be tempting to play with. But instead, the story is framed so that Kawi doesn't know how many times he can use the crystal ball, so he has to be extremely cautious. Structure-wise that heightens the stakes, but that also means that Kawi as a character has to think very deeply and thoroughly about everything he does that might have repercussions.

Which, as we see in the series, drives him into Panic Mode about possibly fucking up everyone's lives around episode 10 after seeing The Worst Timeline in episode 7.

I love love love that he and Pisaeng don't actually talk that much about Kawi's whole time-travel experience because 1) once Kawi has what he needs (a loving relationship and found family), he doesn't want to look back, and 2) it leaves Pisaeng to grapple with his own insecurities about their relationship.

Like, the Pisaeng we see in episode 12 who offers to be a Dirty Little Secret if Kawi wants to pursue a publicly famous life is not the same Pisaeng from any of the Terrible Futures that Kawi saw. He's the fortunate one, the one who crushed on Kawi for a few months in their first year of university, confessed to him, got an initial rejection followed by a reciprocation a few days later, and then dated Kawi consistently for the next twelve years.

What I love about that is that the Pisaeng in episode twelve, the one who won by all possible metrics, still has the seeds of self-destruction in him. He would closet himself and their relationship for Kawi, and Kawi knows from experience that 1) he really doesn't want the fame, but also 2) he's seen Pisaeng destroy himself for his sake before, and he promised never to let that happen again.

And he doesn't tell Pisaeng that either!!! Adult Kawi who has Learned Things from time travel doesn't want or need credit for the person he's become. He doesn't tell Pisaeng how horrible fame was on both of them, how selfish it made him. He doesn't want to relive it for himself for sure, but I also think he wants to spare his Pisaeng any sliver of the pain he put another version of him through in another life.

So what we get is that Pisaeng sees Kawi put aside singing professionally, which he seemed to love, and become a lyricist instead. He thinks Kawi could have a better life and he's denying himself for Pisaeng's sake. …WHICH IS WHAT PISAENG DID FOR KAWI IN THE WORST TIMELINE.

And when Pisaeng goes back in time and limits changing the past to just correcting their terrible amusement park date and nothing else, he does so without all the information Kawi could have given him. He only has Kawi's word that he's happy with the life they have, and he doesn't want any more than that. And he trusts in Kawi, because they've been together for twelve very happy years. :')

I'm never gonna get over this show.

~The End~

[homestuckreplay]

In Another Timeline, I Found A Good Title For This Post

(page 1196-1219; timeline theories)

The pacing of this intermission is kind of unbelievable – double digit pages for the past five days in a row. With that, all four members of the Midnight Crew have been introduced, so I’ve put together this quick table showing some of the patterns we’ve seen so far. About 75% of the time I spent making this was researching hat styles.

Page 1211 was the moment I really bought into this intermission. Up til now it’s been fun, but I have been missing the beta kids. But ‘You're gonna jump to a timeline where he's dead’ has really grabbed me, because this is new – as far as we know, Acts 1-3 took place in a single timeline, where loops are closed and everything’s stable. Now, the possibilities are anything. Calling it now that we’ll learn in Act 4 that a critical earlier event actually happened in a different timeline to everything else.

Also the two of spades turning into Slick’s licorice scottie dogs between panels is a really good bit. It ALMOST makes up for the ‘jack king off’ joke on page 1197, which is probably the worst joke in Homestuck so far.

This page is another highlight! Slick literally did build this town, and it looks totally different from the green-tinged complex architecture of now. I guess this is the flaw in Die’s powers – he can travel to a timeline where somebody is dead, but he can’t choose which one. He’s equally likely to get a timeline where Slick died today as one where Slick died before ever building the town. And maybe more importantly… this page looks kind of like a color switched version of page 248, another wasteland with a city in the distance (although this new one has other planets circling overhead).

So, most likely, Spades Slick and Jack Noir are versions of the same character from different timelines, and that’s why they’re not aware of each other. In the HS timeline, the character becomes a prominent agent of the dark kingdom, while in the MC timeline, he becomes an underground criminal/architect/construction worker on a planet that probably isn’t Earth, and might not even be in the Incipisphere. A city planner would fit right in with WV, PM and AR’s civic infrastructure theme. So the question is, what determines if a NPC leaves the game and returns to the outside universe? And does this mean Jack Noir could also leave, go to Earth, and be the future character who starts off in Dave’s location and flies to join the other three?

It does seem significant that on what’s apparently an alien planet, there is so much human paraphernalia. As well as the Crosbytop and Foxworthy photo, Deuce has a Stretch Armstrong doll. Surely this planet has its own celebrities to draw from. Alchemy still seems likely – Dave definitely has the components in this house to alchemize this doll. And there is a strong suggestion that appearification and sendification could work between planets or into/out of the Incipisphere – page 733 gives a good look at the screen on WV’s appearifier, which could be adjusted to the Incipisphere with the right key. That key isn’t Slick’s spade key, but someone has it. Maybe Snowman or Lord English or Diamonds Droog (who seems a fair bit more competent than Slick). And obviously we know there’s lots of Skaian technology on Earth, but it’s now possible there could be items from this other alien planet, too. Say, rocket boards.

And as a final red string theory (‘Red Strings’ title of DD’s magazine??), Boxcars hypothesizes that ‘you've got to alter the flow of time itself’ to open the Felt’s safe (p.1218). This is a story where one specific time of day has been really important, and has come up over and over again, and now there’s a whole mansion and group of previously unknown characters whose whole deal is controlling and changing time – among other things, these people can decide when it is 4:13 and when it isn’t. Clock faces are the same on this planet as they are on Earth, and the current time is 12:13pm – also the time on Jade’s island at the start of Act 3, for what it’s worth – and Boxcars’ plan to blow up this very important clock feels significant when we know that some places are outside the flow of time of the universe, AND there’s multiple timelines here, which could potentially converge if time is otherwise stopped.

I’m out here getting my head all tangled over this timeline stuff, but the Midnight Crew are not at all. Droog, especially, has this ‘just another day at the office’ familiarity with time travel. He and his crew don’t engage in it at all, but they know what’s up, and it’s no different to knowing what type of disguise or getaway car a rival gang uses. What a fucking idiot, they’ve totally given themself away with this ‘punching me from the future’ move yet again. This moment on page 1203 looks like a stable loop, even if nothing else is – Deuce has arrived after being radioed for backup, and Droog’s trail leads up the stairs, where we know he went after being punched.

Droog and Deuce are both great characters. Droog is like the second in command who’s actually way more competent than the leader. He has clear parallels with Dad Egbert, sort of Dad’s dark mirror, with the same attention to suits and to backup versions of his clothes. Dad also has multiple backup hats, although some are in different styles (p.72), multiple backup pipes, and lots of identical shoes and ties (p.948). We haven’t actually seen a DD analog on the ominous planet – only SS (p.953) and HB (p.957) – so either Dad is going to meet this DD analog, befriend him and be sheltered by him now that he’s escaped prison, OR (more compelling), he’s going to disguise himself as an ominous citizen and BECOME the DD analog in the HS timeline.

As for CD, I just think he’s neat. I love that he’s wearing two hats and one of them is a bomb.

[rendawngrimes]

Yandere Harry Potter Alphabet! <33

Dark (ish) themes below the cut!

I’m so so sorry if there’s any grammar or timeline mistakes :(( (He’s a cutie pie :3)

A-affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

- Harry loves holding you, he’s almost always touching you and he tends to keep close.

B-Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

- He could possibly have to get rid of a few people, but he wouldn’t really try to go out of his way. Perhaps using the unforgivable curse, but I doubt it.

C-Cruelty: How would they treat their darling?/ are they cruel to them

- he’s never cruel! :(( he loves you!! Harry would never be cruel, he’d probably tease, but nothing that bad!

D-Darling: Aside from (possible) abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

- I honestly don’t think he would make you do a bunch against your will, maybe a few small, simple things like making you eat your food, He wants what’s best for you!

E-Exposed: How much of their heart do they bear to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

- He bears his whole heart (and more) to you! He is a little vulnerable, so you can use it to your advantage….but why would you want to!??

F-Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

- He’d be a little annoyed, sad even..he’d tease you about it a little though!…he’d most likely end up casting some sort of charm to make you shush up

G-Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

- NO!! absolutely not! This isn’t some kind of sick, twisted game to him! And he hates seeing you attempting to leave!! :(

H-Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

- I honestly think your worst experience with him would be when he first kidnapped I mean.. saved you!

I-Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

- He’d probably just want to be happy with you….forever and ever and ever and ever….

J-Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope? 

- Harry is honestly a jealous behind! before he “saved” you he would see you talk to other boys and he’d complain to both Ron and Hermione..!

K-Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

- He’s really clingy and overprotective, you’d be sitting on the couch, relaxing a little and he would come along and just plop down with you! Too many hugs!

L-Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

- Ever since you both first met, you became friends, he obviously liked you…so he would do small, tiny things to get your attention..

M-Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

- Not really, he’s just a lot more touchy.! sorry this one’s short :(

N-Naughty: How would they punish their darling

- Nothing mean, he’d probably just scold you a little, if you still don’t listen..he’d smack you around a little bit (GENTLY…ish)

O-Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

- I think the main one is….the right to being alone!! Its gone! You can kiss it Bye bye!!

P-Patience: How patient are they with their darling? 

-Harry tries to be patient, but sometimes you make it hard..! Why would you do that to him?? he just wants to make you happy!! :((

Q-Quit: If their darling leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on? 

- i don’t think he could ever move on..he loves you!..but that’s ok because he has a trusty map that’ll always tell him where you are! (It’s his elite employee!! Hehe)

R-Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go? 

- Whenever he sees you cry over it, his heart cracks a little and he tries to comfort you, but letting you go is a big no no :((

S-Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc.)?

-When he first met you, he was in the library, with Ron and Hermione, you asked if one of them could help you find a section of books, and you all became friends, over time Harry noticed how Professor Snape would yell at you, how people would laugh at you, he needed to get you away from those meanies!! >:(

T-Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

- as I said a little earlier, it would make him upset, he’d do his best to comfort you!!

U-Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

- Nothin much besides the fact he’s a wizard! 🤠 (yehaw!!) but in all seriousness, Not really, he’s on the gentle side though!

V-Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

- Honestly, I don’t think there is anything you can do, with all the magic, and the map :( although there’s a tiny chance Ron or Hermione would save you!

W-Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

- gently! He’d gently hurt you, he’d feel bad!..you made him do it anyways! :(

X- Xoanon How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

- Harry probably wouldn’t worship you, just love you!..a whoooleee lot :)

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

- maybe a few years of being one of your best friends

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

WHAT!? NO NEVER!!

Whooo yay that’s my first time ever writing on an app!! I’m so proud >:3 thank you sm for reading🫶 if you have any requests or tips on how to get better please tell me<33

[bellysoupset]

i’d actually requested this a while ago, and iirc it didn’t really fit with the timeline back then? when luke and vince weren’t talking.

i’d asked for a fic where lucas and vin watch leo take care of jon during a vertigo episode. like maybe they’re at jon and leo’s place and leo isn’t back from work yet when jonah gets hit with an episode. and both of them are lowkey freaking out. and leo comes in and takes over effortlessly and manages to calm jonah down so much better than either of them did

but if you’d not written this for some other reason then please feel free to ignore it! 🍄

This is probably my favorite fic so far. Maybe. Possibly. It's also long.

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

“Hey, Monacelli,” Vince raised his head and saw Max tapping lightly on the half open door of his classroom. It was halfway through the day and Vince’s classes were already over. From what he had glanced at the overall teachers’ schedule, Daniels still had two more classes to teach, but Vince could go home… But that just seemed a little depressive. 

His parents were busy and his sisters were in class, so going home just meant being alone and he’d much rather stay in school and finish going over the kids’ papers. 

“Yeah?” Vince lowered his red pen and the blonde man pointed over his shoulder, to the sunny patio behind him. 

“Your boyfriend’s here,” Max said in a smug tone and Vince’s blood immediately boiled over. 

He could count in one hand the amount of transphobic shit he had witnessed with Wendy, but Vince wasn’t stupid. He was aware Doveport was fairly conservative and had been bracing for a bigoted comment for a while now.

“I don’t have a boyfriend, you asshole, I have a girlfriend,” he said sharply, dropping the pen immediately and Max jumped back, startled. 

“Uhm, okay, sorry for assuming? But there’s some guy in the parking lot waiting for you,” he shrugged, seeming offended, “geez,” the blonde turned around with an exasperated eye roll and power walked away, leaving a befuddled Vince behind. 

Vin grimaced, realizing he had assumed the worst for absolutely no reason and making a mental note to apologize to the other teacher, before the reality of some dude caught up with him. Weird, but a good surprise, Vince thought, packing up his bag and locking up his classroom. 

He fully expected to find Luke in the parking lot and was not wrong, the guy was sitting on the hood of his green jeep, sunglasses on and chuckling about something. What Vince did not expect was to see Jon standing right next to him, also wearing sunglasses and a jacket, smiling. 

Hell must have frozen over, Vince thought with a smirk, watching the two laugh. It wasn’t rare to see Jonah and Lucas laughing together, even if the two wanted everyone to think they hated each other, but today they looked particularly relaxed. 

“What is going on…?” Vince asked, opening a huge smile of his own when Luke promptly jumped from the hood of the car in order to tackle him into a hug. He squeezed the guy back, half hugging Luke with one arm as they pulled apart, in order to look at Jonah, “Jon?” 

“Hi,” Jonah gave him a small wave, “so uhm- Wendy showed me your birthday gift to her and uh- I wanted - I was wondering-”

It was so weird to watch Jon fumble with his words. Vince frowned, confused, then looked at Luke for an explanation. His best friend was blushing on Jon’s behalf, with a smile so gigantic Vince could see his molars. 

“Oh my god, Jonah!” He exclaimed after a minute, “he wants to buy Leo a ring.”

It took Vince a second, but then he let go of Lucas, all but yelling “YOU’RE GONNA PROPOSE TO LEO!?” and rushing to pull Jon into a hug. 

The other man stiffened, but he had no chance to fight Vince off, nor did he even want to and he melted into the hug for a minute, muffling a chuckle and mumbling a little sheepish “yeah… And I wanted your jewelry recommendation. I really liked Wendy’s birthday present and I think Leo would have my head if I got him a Cartier.” 

“And he wants our help to pick,” Lucas completed the unspoken truth and Jonah glared at him, turning a shade darker with a blush. 

“Shut up-”

“Yeah! YEah, of course, of course!” Vince interrupted the bickering, all but bouncing on his feet, his voice breaking and going up a note,  “Leo’s going to explode with happiness-”

It took Vin a moment to calm down and then yet another moment as they figured out the logistics of it all. Vince still had his motorcycle, so they decided he should just stick with it and drive ahead of them, Luke and Jon following in the jeep. 

The local jewelry shop where Vince had bought Wendy’s birthday was also owned by Italians. The old owner was a friend of Vin’s mom and he lit up as the three men walked into his store. 

“Back for more so soon, Vicenzo?” he asked in a thick italian accent, “I told you, there’s no coming back from the first diamond you get her.” 

“No,” Vince shook his head, planting his hands on Jonah’s shoulders and shaking him like a rattle toy, “today I’m here just as a helper. My friend wants to buy his man a ring.” 

“Hi, I’m Jonah,” Jonah tried to shrug Vince off, offering his hand to the owner.

“Niccolo Fanucci, it’s a pleasure.”

Luke was already inspecting the rings on display, crouching down to get a better look at them, “Leo wouldn’t want anything too flashy,” he said, tunnel vision fully on, “so what are you thinking? Yellow, silver? Tungsten?” 

Jonah wrinkled his nose, “tungsten?” he scoffed, “I’m not buying my fiance a tungsten ring.” 

“What’s wrong with them?” Vince frowned, completely out of his depth. Buying Wendy her birthday gift had taken him hours and he still wasn’t convinced he had done a good job. Probably had, Jonah wouldn’t be there if he didn’t think the quality and design were good enough. 

“Tungsten is extremely durable, almost impossible to scratch-” Luke shrugged and Jonah glared at him. 

“And cheap,” he said sharply, “I want a real ring for Leo.”

“How real?” Vince raised his eyebrows, noticing Niccolo — the owner — visibly perk up as it became clear Jon was down for purchasing the whole store if needed. 

“The best. I want a diamond. Or a bunch,” Jonah leaned over the display, as Niccolo hurried to get his best stuff out of the safe, as well as his design magazines. 

“You want personalized, son?” the man asked and Jon shook his head. 

“No time, I want to propose before his birthday,” he explained, “and that’s next month.”

“We could design something in time,” the man shrugged, opening the bunch of magazines, “how’s this boy of yours? Flashy? Shy?”

“Shy,” Luke got up from his crouched down position, “Leo would rather die than walk around with a huge sparkly ring, Jon, you know that.”

Jonah pouted, “but I want it to be a wedding ring,” he stressed, “I want everyone to know he’s married from across the court.”

“Lawyer?” Niccolo raised an eyebrow, shutting his magazine and throwing it to the side, opening a much older one, “is he traditional?” 

“More or less…” Jonah shook his head, while Vince interrupted him, nodding. 

“Yes,” he flicked at Jon’s ear, “he’s shy and not flashy at all. He also doesn’t wear jewelry, so it has to be comfy.”

“It has to be yellow,” Jon didn’t argue with Vince, despite grimacing. 

Luke frowned, “he’s blonde and super pasty, white gold would look prettier-”

“I want yellow gold, I want it to be clear it’s a wedding band.” 

“Don’t be silly,” Niccolo shook his head, “it can be white gold or platinum and still look like a wedding band.”

“He’s in a straight dominated field where men wear rings, if he has a silver band people will assume it's just some ring,” Jonah groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, “this is pretty.”

“Absolutely not,” Vince and Luke chorused, looking at the yellow band Jon was pointing at, with three baguette diamonds in the peak. 

“Alright, so yellow gold,” Niccolo flipped through the pages, “and not flashy, but flashy enough people know.”

“It has to be something he likes,” Jonah sighed, studying the rings, “he’s gonna wear it until he dies, so.”

Luke let out a snort, “or not,” he mumbled, only to immediately recoil and jump back as Jon turned to face him like a snake, “because he might get a new one!” he exclaimed, hands raised as if his friend was gonna hit him, “relax!” 

“Shut up, you don’t know Leo enough. What do you think, Vin?” Jonah turned away from Luke and Vince grinned, noticing the other man pout behind Jon. 

“I think I agree with you about the yellow,” he shrugged, “but the diamonds are a bit much, man. Let’s focus on how thick it is, how about?” 

Jonah didn’t know it could take so long to pick a ring. He had expected it would take more than a couple of minutes, after all he was a perfectionist and not willing to compromise in this matter, but at every little thing he said, Luke and Vince had twenty different arguments. 

Finally, after about two hours of back and forth, they settled on a yellow gold ring, with a brushed finish instead of smooth polish and with a baguette small diamond sitting in the middle of it. 

“Now you need to pick the thickness,” Niccolo said, “wait a minute while I get my kit. Sit around, Vincenzo knows where the coffee is. Have a torrone.”

Jonah snorted quietly to himself, he had never been to a jewelry shop that offered a torrone or any type of sticky, sweet food. But then again he had never been in a locally owned shop. 

He walked outside, hearing as Vince and Luke bickered over the gem cut — Vince still thought the pear one was prettier, Luke was team no gem and partial to some design fussiness on the band — and then pressed his forehead to the brick wall outside the store and picked out his phone. 

There wasn’t a text from Leo, they had last spoken that morning, when Jonah had lied through his teeth that he had a surgery to watch that evening and so they couldn’t have lunch together. 

Jonah rolled his shoulders, letting out a breath. He felt stiff all over from stress, the huge weight of picking something that could make or break his proposal making him sweat. He felt nauseous too, but in all truth he had been feeling sick to his stomach with nerves ever since Leo got his promotion and Jon made up his mind about proposing. 

That had always been his plan, after all. Wait until his boyfriend got the promotion that would put them on equal pay, so Leo wouldn’t have a breakdown over wedding prices or feeling like he was being given anything when Jackie inevitably tried to hijack the bill…

“You okay?” Luke planted a hand on his elbow. 

Lucas was almost levitating with how happy he was. It was like he was the one getting married, the dude simply didn’t seem able to stop smiling, even now looking a little concerned and holding a paper cup of coffee. 

“Yeah,” Jonah wiped the sweat off and straightened up, “Niccolo is back?”

“Yep, we’re just waiting for you,” Luke chugged the rest of the coffee that his hyper ass definitely didn’t need and squeezed Jon’s bicep in a cuteness aggression fit, shoving him further inside the store. 

The old owner was holding a large hoop, with a bunch of silver rings on it. Upon Jonah arriving, he opened the hoop, so he could remove the rings one by one, “you said he’s traditional and shy, but not so traditional —” the man said, barely looking up, with that certainty of someone who’s been doing their job their entire life, “and you’ll have a diamond on the band, so you need some thickness, especially if you don’t want the bling to stand out that much…” 

He carefully pushed two bands towards Jon, “try these on and tell me what you think, son.”

Jonah went to grab it, only for his hand to completely miss it. He blinked a couple times, feeling Vince grab him by the elbow.

“Jon, hey- You wanna sit down?”

“No, I’m fine,” Jon shook his head, swallowing down the heightened nausea and grabbing the ring on the left. It was too large on his hand, he had thinner pianist fingers, but the important part was the width, “looks a bit bulky… What size is the rock again?”

Niccolo grabbed a tiny piece of sticker paper and measured, cutting it out and then planting the paper in the middle of the band, “this size.”

“Yeah, no…” Jon shook his head, “not this one.”

“That’s a 5.5mm, try the 4.5mm one,” Niccolo took the ring back, once again doing the paper trick, “that’s a more old fashioned groom width.”

“I think it looks better,” Luke said, as if someone asked him, poking his head in. Jonah nodded, suddenly feeling too woozy. He darted out a hand to grab on something… Anything… Then landed on Vince’s forearm and squeezed. 

“That’s the one,” Jon determined, dead set on getting the bloody ring before vertigo took him out, “uhm- Luke, can you…?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can,” Lucas stepped in front of him, smiling to the confused old man, “I’m buying.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Jon overheard Niccolo say, but there was a ringing in his ears starting to drown everything out. He squeezed Vince’s arm, “help me outside…”

Vince helped him the couple of steps it took for them to get to the door, then he wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled Jon almost off his feet, dragging him to a bus stop bench. 

Jonah crumpled, spreading his legs and grabbing on the plastic of the bench with all his force, breathing through his mouth, “Fuck,” he sighed, cold sweat spreading down his back, “of all days…”

“I’m sorry, man,” Vince squeezed his nape, “help me here, what do I do?”

“No-nothing…” Jonah leaned forward even more, as his stomach rolled, the world turning into a complete blur. He let out a whimper, feeling like he was falling forward, except the ground never met his face, he just kept falling, falling-

“Should he be lying down!?” Vince’s voice broke through the fog, “I don’t know what to do, you’re the one who’s good with sick people!” 

“Not sick like this!” Luke’s voice answered and Jonah groaned, blindly trying to grab at Luke and shut him up.

“Ssssstop-” Jonah slurred, realizing his mouth felt super sticky and his pants humid. Oh no. Had he wet himself? 

Mortification caused Jon to open his eyes, only to realize the wet spot was just the fact he had puked the McBacon he had had with Luke on their way to Doveport all over the ground and his pants. 

The sight of the chunky brown mess caused his stomach to flip again and Jonah heaved once more, the movement ruining the sliver of balance he had regained and sending the world spinning on its axis once more. 

“ — My place?” Vince, his voice much closer now, as if he was talking in his ear. Jon let his head roll towards the sound and his cheek met something soft- Vince’s thigh? Stomach? 

“I guess!?” Lucas, sounding more than a little nervous, “should we call Leo? Wendy? Hell, your mom?!”

Jon groaned. He wanted none of these people, except maybe Wendy. He desperately wanted Leo’s comfort and the fact his boyfriend wouldn’t be freaking out like the two idiots, but that would mean telling Leo what he was doing in fucking Doveport and-

“Noo,” he slurred, his voice muffled by something, probably Vince’s shirt, “no k- no calling-” his stomach was done with his words and Jonah coughed again, as liquid rushed up his throat and world tilted completely to the left, then right-

“I’m calling Leo,” Lucas, all decisive, “there’s no way this is normal, right? I’m calling him.” 

“The fuck will Leo do if this isn’t?” Vince, sounding far away now. Jonah tried to cling to his voice and make himself responsive, but he just… Couldn’t. When he tried to open his eyes again, he realized he was in a completely different place. 

A pink room?

The black spots clumped in front of his eyes and Jonah let out a whimper, scared and humiliated, and then darkness swallowed him up.

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

“Where is he?” Leo’s heart was hammering in his ears. He didn’t suppose anything was scarier than hearing the person you loved the most was completely down for the count, hours away. 

Luke’s call had come at the very end of his day, just as he was packing up to go home. Leo had never made it home, he picked it up on the elevator and felt his heart plummet down to his stomach. 

During the four hours of drive he had plenty of time to think, but had actually done none of that. His head was spinning, nothing made sense, but he didn’t actually give a shit about puzzling things together until he got a look on Jon, because from the way Luke described it, all panicked, it sounded like his worst case yet. 

In fucking Doveport.

He hadn’t been to Vince’s new place yet and for a second Leo felt completely out of place, standing outside of the small one bedroom apartment. Then Luke stepped out of the bedroom, the front of his shirt with a huge wet spot on it and looking visibly worried and Leo’s confusion melted straight into worry.

“He’s here, but he’s really out of it,” Luke leaned on the doorway as Leo walked past him, storming into Vince’s bedroom. 

Jonah was a sight to behold. His six foot tall boyfriend was curled up on his side, almost in a fetal position and looking terribly tiny.

“God, Jon…” Leo walked closer, sitting on the bed and touching the other man’s naked shoulder. Luke and Vince had stripped him down to just his boxers, but he had no fever, in fact he felt cold and clammy to the touch, “why did you dumbasses remove his clothes?”

“Uhm- He kinda, hurled all over ‘em?” Vince scratched at his cheeks, seeming embarrassed, “we didn’t know what to do, once we got them off every time we tried to move him to get him dressed he just seemed to get worse…”

“Great, that’s just fucking great,” Leo scoffed, scooting closer and stroking Jon’s cheek, pushing his tight curls back, “did you get any water in him? When did-”

“It was around 4 PM,” Luke answered, while Vince shook his head to the previous question. 

Leo glanced at his watch. 9:26 PM. Amazing.

“Get me some water, the meds that are in my car, in the glovebox, and a straw. And an empty bowl. And a big sweater, he’s fucking freezing,” he glared at the two, before returning his gaze back to Jon, stroking his head again, “Jonah…” he whispered, leaning in, “angel, I need you to wake up.”

His boyfriend was completely out. His breath smelled sweet, causing Leo’s nose to wrinkle, and he was shivering violently. Leo smoothed a hand down his naked back, moving even closer and feeling Jonah’s steady heartbeat. 

“Hey, Jon,” he pressed his hand in, instead of shaking him, “baby, wake up.”

It took another minute of gentle pushing and calling until Jon’s eyes slipped open. He was out of it and his eyes rolled back, taking another thirty seconds to fully focus on Leo.

“Oh no,” he groaned, curling up more, “not you.”

“Yeah, me,” Leo rolled his eyes, pushing the flash of hurt he felt at Jonah’s words away and grabbing the items Luke had planted on Vince’s bedside table, “I need you to drink some water, okay?”

“Won’t stay down…” Jonah whispered, closing his eyes again, a wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows as if he was in pain, “Leo, I don’t feel well…”

“I know, angel, I know,” Leo’s heart squeezed in sympathy and he leaned in, planting a kiss on his boyfriend’s brow, “trust me here, okay?” he squeezed Jon’s arm, before turning slightly around in order to dissolve the little pink pill that was supposed to help with the vertigo episodes in the glass of water. 

Technically speaking, Leo was aware he shouldn’t do this. Wendy had scolded him once about it… But so far it worked like a charm every time and Leo was not about to listen to Wendy when the matter was Jon. 

“Okay, just a tiny sip,” he held the straw between his fingers, pushing it in Jonah’s mouth and grabbing the man’s pillow in order to tilt his body up just enough he could swallow without choking, “just one, baby.”

It took some prodding, but eventually Jonah took what Leo counted as a fourth of the water. He glanced at his watch again. 09:41 PM. 

“Try to keep this down and we’ll try the rest in a bit,” Leo whispered, draping Vince’s older sweater around Jonah’s naked shoulders and continuing to pet his hair. 

Luke entered the room, every bit like a dog with his tail between his legs, “is he okay…?”

“He will be,” Leo rolled his tense shoulders, then turned his head until his jaw clicked, holding all the tension on his mouth, “what the fuck is he doing in Doveport?”

Luke and Vince exchanged a look, then they both shrugged.

Leo squinted at them, “well?”

“I called him,” Vince said, his whole face turning red, “I called them both, I’m sorry, I just- I was having a bit of a breakdown over Wendy and Jonah just came over to say I’m stupid and-”

“And he brought Luke?” Leo didn’t buy this for a second, but most importantly, the fact Vince was lying to his face only made him feel more furious, “okay.”

“He did! Because he knows I’m the only one who can get through Vince!” Luke sounded so smug about the lie, Leo stared at him, unimpressed. He let his eyes drift away from the dark haired men, looking around the room. 

Jonah’s clothes were folded on top of Vince’s little office table, alongside other papers and all sorts of school items, like stickers and scissors. One of Vin’s bedroom walls was painted dusty pink. 

“You called Jonah first?” Leo asked, feeling his blood turn to ice in his veins, as Vince nodded enthusiastically. 

“I mean, it was about Wendy,” he said, as if that explained everything. Leo nodded, looking over his shoulder. Outside the window he could see Luke’s green jeep parked all crooked in front of the place.

“Yeah, of course,” he agreed through his teeth, turning mechanically and grabbing the glass of water, “Jon, let’s try another sip, baby.”

It took nearly one hour to have Jon fully draining the glass and by then Leo was in full automatic pilot. If he thought too much about the lies, then his thoughts turned a dark, spiraling path that he didn’t enjoy and he didn’t want to indulge. 

Because lies or no lies, he knew Jonah would never do any of the things his brain kept sprouting up. Break up with him. Cheat. 

“I’m fine,” Leo overheard Luke say across the house, as Vince ordered all of them food from the living couch, “no, Bell, I’m really fine, I promise. I’m with Vin, Leo and Jon.”

Leo gulped down the knot in his throat and glanced down, to Jonah napping near his thigh, still all curled up. At least now he had quit shivering violently and none of the medicine had made it back up, so it was well into his bloodstream. 

They were out of the woods, as soon as Jon woke up he’d feed him another round of meds and then- 

“Leo?” Jonah whispered, curling up even more and pressing his forehead to the blonde’s knee, “Leo?”

“Hey,” Leo leaned in, folding in half and forcing his voice past the lump in his throat, “I’m here.”

“Uhm,” Jon let out a little pleased noise, then opened his eyes, “I wanna go home.”

“In a little bit,” Leo kissed his cheek, squeezing his arm, “let’s try sitting up first, okay? It’s a long trip, you really don’t wanna be in the car in case you’re not feeling your best-”

“Leo,” Jonah frowned at him, pushing himself up and letting out a moan, getting a gray cast as he paled, “what’s wrong?”

“My boyfriend is sick?” Leo rolled his eyes, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice, “how’s sitting up?”

“It’s fine,” Jonah raised a shaky hand to his face, rubbing the sleep off his eyes, “I wanna go home.”

“We’re leaving in a bit,” Leo said more firmly, pushing back and collecting his dignity. He felt terrible, equal parts worried and furious and intrigued and terrified – “drink some water, will you?”

Jonah obeyed, frowning, but he was right. He really was as fine as he was going to get so soon, even if weak and shaky, clearly nauseous still. 

Leo managed to keep him down for another one hour and a half, but by the time midnight rolled on — Vince flipping through the TV channels clearly trying to be a decent host, while Lucas had passed out on the floor next to the couch, his head tipped back as he snored —, Jonah glared at him and said in a firm voice, “I wanna sleep in my bed. Can we please go home?”

Leo nodded, rubbing his eyes and trying to feel a little less sleepy himself. He wasn’t so sure he could drive, but he was feeling too proud to admit to that. 

 “Are you sure?” Vince yawned, stumbling up as he saw Leo helping Jonah put on his clothes – they had already been washed and dried long before, “you can stay the night, guys, take my bed and I’ll take the couch and-”

“No, we’re leaving,” Jonah shook his head, holding tightly on the wall to stay upright, “thank you, for everything, but no.”

Vin didn’t look one bit pleased, “this is a horrible idea, it's super late... Leo tell him it’s a horrible idea-”

“We’re going,” Leo couldn’t feel a shred of sympathy for Vince. He was trying, but failing miserably. Now that Jonah was up and stubborn as ever, concern was quickly getting replaced with simple, unmitigated fury. 

“Please call me when you get there,” Vince hung at the door, “please? I’m gonna be up.”

“We’ll call,” Jonah agreed, stumbling to Leo’s car and bracing against it, breathing through his mouth. For a split second Leo considered staying, ignoring Jon’s stubbornness and his own pride and the anger and fear bubbling at the pit of his stomach and just stay and think all of this through in the morning- 

“Goodnight guys,” Vince said in a small voice and Jonah waved, opening a little secret smile to the guy and Leo’s second thoughts burst like a bubble. 

They needed to head home and only then he’d be able to think things through clearly.

Leo’s fingers drummed nervously on the steering wheel as they hit the road, Jon curling up against the window and watching the cars zoom past them. Headlights turning into lines of yellow and white and red.

“Why were you there?” Leo asked, one hour into the trip, when he could no longer hold it in. He turned up the heater, just a bit, noticing Jon was trembling again.

His boyfriend shrugged, but didn’t say anything, and Leo squeezed the steering wheel with a bit more force. 

“Jonah,” he said, his voice dropping, “I need you to talk with me, because I’m freaking out-”

“I can’t tell you,” Jonah’s voice was shot, “I can’t, okay? You just have to trust me-” 

“You already lied to me today, so cut the crap and tell me what were you doing in Doveport and not in surgery like you said-”

“Vince told you!” Jon exclaimed and Leo looked away from the road, his eyes wide in complete shock and anger. 

“You mean the lie he told me!? Do you think I’m stupid?!” Leo forced himself to look ahead, “Vince cannot lie to save his life and you want me-”

“It wasn’t a-”

“He called you first, but it was Luke’s jeep outside, not your car. In his story, you picked up Luke,” Leo hissed, starting to see red, “you lied to my face this morning, Jonah, so this was not some random, panicked call you got in the middle of your day. This was premeditated and-”

“Can’t you just please trust me?” Jonah glared at him, “Leo, what reason do you have not to trust me-”

“The fact that you’re LYING!?” Leo exclaimed, pulling the car to the dust shoulder and causing Jon to let out a whine at the sudden motion. He couldn’t drive like this, barely paying the road any attention. 

Jon was breathing through the dizziness when Leo turned to him, panting as he tried to keep his emotions at bay, “Jon, just be honest with me-”

“Please, please just drop it. It’s nothing bad-”

“Are you cheating on me?” Leo said without thinking and felt pathetic as he heard the words said out loud. He knew this wasn’t it, he knew it deep in his bones that whatever Jonah did, it would never be that. 

It didn’t stop the intrusive thought from continuously sprouting up.

Jonah’s head snapped and he glared at Leo, all vulnerability slipping away for a second and being replaced with anger, “oh my god, listen to yourself, Leo! You really think, I- God, you’re being fucking- You’re ruining everything,” he pushed the passenger door open and pushed himself out, causing Leo to jump out of the car as well. 

“I don’t know what to think! You’ve been acting weird for days and now you’re lying to me and your little buddies are all helping in the lie and I’m here, fucking nursing you-” 

“I DIDN’T FUCKING ASK YOU TO COME!” Jon yelled, hitting the car with a hand and Leo jumped at the explosion, his eyes wide and his heart speeding up, only to suddenly stop as Jonah’s shoulders shook and he folded in, grabbing on the top of the car with both hands and letting his head hang. 

Leo took a second, trying to make any sense of the scene in front of him, but then his body was moving before his mind caught up. Grabbing Jon by the shoulder, feeling his whole frame shake with sobs. 

“Jon- Shit, shit, shit, Jonah I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Leo mumbled frantically, his thoughts clearing up due to the searing certainty he had just messed up severely, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby, shit-” he cupped Jonah’s face and tried to wipe away the tears, only for the other man to shove his hands away. 

“Stop- Stop fucking t-touching me-” Jonah groaned, stumbling and falling sit on the passenger side, his legs still out of the car, covering his face with his hands as he continued to cry, “I can’t be-believe you think I- I would never- I-”

“No, I know, I know,” Leo sunk to his knees, mind reeling as he ignored Jon’s plea to stop touching him and grabbed his boyfriend’s wrist, “Jon, I’m so sorry, I’m an ass, I know you wouldn’t-”

Jonah’s whole frame shook with a sob and he angrily shoved Leo back, but in his movement the blonde got a decent look at his face and his heart broke in a billion pieces. Jonah looked genuinely hurt, tears streaming down his face and clinging to his chin, green eyes all red due to the crying-

“I’m so sorry,” Leo leaned in, pressing his forehead to Jonah’s and cupping his face, “baby, please stop crying-”

“I- I was-was,” Jonah pulled back, angrily wiping the tears and Leo let out a whine at the loss of contact. 

“I don’t wanna know,” he cut him off, “you’ll tell me later, a- another day,” Leo forced himself to say, “it’s fine, I don’t wanna-”

“I was buying your fucking proposal ring,” Jonah spat, glaring at him, his voice raspy, “and now you ruined it.”

Leo’s ears rang and he fell back on his ass in the humid grass, feeling like suddenly he was the one who had vertigo. He opened and closed his mouth, then felt tears springing up, “my proposal ring?” the question didn’t even sound like his voice.

Jonah scoffed, nodding, “yeah. You jackass, your proposal ring. Happy now? I was gonna propose at your birthday and they were just helping me and now you fucking ruined it and-”

“Yes,” Leo answered, without thinking and causing Jon’s mouth to snap shut, then open again, then shut in a tight line.

“No,” he glared at the blonde, “I’m not-”

“I’ll ask then,” Leo rolled his eyes, moving forward so he was resting on just one knee in front of the car door, “you can’t un-propose, you bought me a ring, I- I’ll ask. Are you gonna say no?”

Jonah frowned, clearly stuck between the rock and the sword, because he really didn’t want to propose on the side of the road, with his head throbbing from crying and puking, still wanting to strangle Leo and feeling wounded as fuck- With the ring on the pocket of his jacket… But there was simply no world or reality where he said no to Leo asking him to marry him. 

“You can’t steal my proposal,” Jonah scoffed, grabbing the box in his pocket and grossly sniffling, wiping the tears with the back of his hand, “you’re such a dick,” he opened the box. 

“You’re a romantic,” Leo grinned, then chuckled, “I can’t see the ring, it’s too dark.”

“SEE!” Jonah exclaimed, angry, “it’s a horrible proposal and you’re the one who ruined-” he never quite finished the complaint, as Leo leaped and kissed him, pushing Jon flat on his back inside the car. 

“I don’t need to see the ring,” Leo groaned, kissing him again and again, "the answer is always yes, Jon. Ring, no ring, it's always yes.”

[maybeiwasjustjade]

The Tragedy that is the Vanserra family

*I just want to preface this by saying that I’m well aware that this might be a controversial opinion. My issue is simply with how that particular pairing was written, because clearly not a lot of thought was put into it when SJM changed canon to fit this pairing in. This was also not written with the intention of victim blaming. Only that this plot genuinely sucks ass because it makes everyone out as uglier than need be.

For such minor characters (sans Lucien, and Eris to an extent), the dynamics SJM has blessed us with paints such an interesting family coated in absolute tragedy. It also doesn’t help that almost all of it was seen through Feyre’s pov—who’s not exactly reliable nor capable of introspection most times.

All we know so far of Beron and his relationship with his children amounts to:

Aside from Helion and Rhysand, Beron’s the only HL that was active during the war 500 years ago.

He abuses his wife, though when it started is still ???

He routinely tortures Eris, and more than likely all his remaining children

He LOATHES Lucien

And it’s so easy to paint Beron as this needlessly cruel, manipulative 2D bastard who only exists to cause pain and carnage over everyone that breathes near him. The male tortures his children and sentenced one of them to death for falling in love with someone ‘lesser’—that alone makes him the worst male to come out of acotar by a landslide.

But there’s an art to Beron’s cruelty that SJM could have fun with. Routinely siccing and manipulating his children against each other, forever ensuring that they’d be too busy fighting and hating each other over him so that they’d be unable to overthrow him. And maybe he does have his reasons. Maybe he thinks that this is the only way possible to raise an heir that would be ruthless and merciless enough to overthrow him and destroy his competitors—probably the same thing Beron did to claim his throne. And if the children are too busy with each other to go after him…all the better.

Show them no compassion. Torture all the disobedience out of them to make them strong. Pit them against each other to please him. Heinous tactics, but evidently it works when Eris and Lucien are the results of it.

But this dynamic only works if that was who Beron is, and how he was raised to be. I don’t suppose we’ll ever really know, not unless a large chunk of Lucien’s future storyline revolves around his roots in Autumn. But knowing sjm and how dirty she did Spring, Lucien’s arc will be about Day.

But back to Beron and the LoA:

Curious how the LoA is still nameless, but SJM purposely and canonically provided a timeline to show how much of a poor victim the LoA is. I want to make it clear that I am not condoning the abuse the LoA is facing from Beron. I don’t think anyone deserves to be abused or tortured the way Berons does his family, nor will anything justify it.

However, I am side-eyeing the way she WROTE Helion and LoA’s affair. I think what she little she wrote yet specifically gave painted them both as absolute fucking morons.

Canonically, we have no idea if Beron knows without doubt that Lucien isn’t his. Hell, we have no proof that he even knew about Helion at all; only that Helion certainly believes so, and what Feyre perceives as the truth. And that truth is ugly.

My opinion is that for the story to work, Beron can’t have known about Helion specifically. An affair perhaps, but not specifically who. Why? Because I wouldn’t doubt Beron would have killed Helion for it the moment he found out. Helion wasn’t High Lord until <50 years pre-Acotar. If Beron wanted Helion dead for having an affair with his wife, I doubt even the previous HL would have stopped Beron from lobbing of Helion’s head. Now assuming Beron knew about the affair specifically, but not about Lucien, I can see canon coming to fruition.

The only issue is Lucien’s features. He needs to look very, very similar to the LoA and not at all Helion. If Beron knew it was Helion, he’d be paying double attention on Lucien’s features to see who sired him. But say he doesn’t care who did it, only that it did. Lucien was screwed from the getgo as a possible affair baby. But that’s hardly the biggest issue with how the affair was written.

According to Helion’s recount of his affair, it started during the war when he rescued the LoA. Sure, rumor has it they met before her marriage, but it wasn’t until then that it became an actual affair. And it lasted decades. We don’t know how old Lucien is. Most have guessed that he can’t be older than ~400 at series starts. Following the timeline provided by Helion, there’s about 130 years age gap between Eris and Lucien, and five sons between. The LoA had at least two more kids born before the war started, leaving three sans Lucien to be born after.

See where I’m going with this?

If the affair only ended because Beron found out, preferably before Lucien was born or he’d be dead at birth, then on-off or no, that affair lasted a century. My question is: did Beron begin tormenting his wife before or after he found out about the affair? And was he already torturing his children before he found out, or was that punishment for what their mother did?

If Beron only began abusing and assaulting the LoA after Helion, then there’s a chance he only started hurting his sons around that time too. It also begs the question on whether or not Helion sired more than one Vanserra child. Even if the answer was no, it’s not like Beron would believe the LoA. Not after she cuckolded him. So he hurts her as punishment, doubling that pain by going after all their children too.

Lucien especially, for being mama’s favorite. I doubt Beron ever had to do much to encourage the torment Lucien faced from his brothers. He never had to; she did it to him all on her own by loving him best. And in a household where everything is a competition and love a weakness, Lucien was weakest by being the most loved. Oh, how they must’ve loathed him for it. His birth was the reason their lives became a living hell. A mother that perhaps loved them, but not enough if she outright favored the youngest, knowing his existence was their punishment.

But that’s the kinder story, if you can believe it. A female who was never happy, who found happiness outside her wedded husband, and was punished for it terribly. Her cold husband turned cruel bastard, who punished her for the crime of finding joy outside of him and their children. She didn’t know this was going to be her future.

Yet, the alternative is so much worse.

Because it implies that Beron already was a cruel and abusive bastard, who already hurt his wife and children immensely, and the LoA went and had an affair anyway. I can’t blame her for wanting to escape from Beron. Perhaps she was actually happy with Helion. But she did it knowing that the punishment would be so much worse if Beron found out, and he did.

Helion couldn’t have protected her. Claiming Lucien as his son would’ve been a death sentence to both from Beron’s wrath. And with a century long affair, there was no proof that Lucien was the only one that wasn’t Beron’s child. Not unless most of the Vanserras look like their father more, and we don’t even know that because they have no names or features described. And even then, the LoA was lucky that Lucien’s skin tone and features favored her instead.

I don’t care that a woman cheated on her abusive husband repeatedly. You do you, and all that. I care that the LoA is written as knowing what an absolute monster her husband already was to their living children, and clearly not thinking of what he’d do to them if she’s caught. This is Beron—he could’ve killed all their children as punishment. The man tortures his son bloody—I wouldn’t put it past him to kill them all and start fresh. She put them in so much danger by having Lucien.

I don’t like the way Helion knows what a bastard Beron is, yet not caring when he had a century long affair with a HL’s wife, knowing that she might be killed if found out. And he would be powerless to stop it.

I don’t like how neither of them even considered that she might’ve gotten pregnant from their affair, especially knowing that the LoA already had SIX CHILDREN.

I hate how their affair is going to be spun into some kind of romance of the ages, mates who were forcibly separated by a monster, when in reality it’s more like the love story of two morons who didn’t spare a single braincell to actually think before going back to each other often enough to have a whole ass CHILD.

Jfc, SJM definitely didn’t think through enough when she decided to add this into the story. Too many plot holes, and not enough sense to justify the absolute stupidity of cuckolding a High Lord with someone who couldn’t even protect her if they were caught. She wanted drama but spared no thought to logic, per usual.

[ladylucksrogue]

For the holiday fluff drabbles, may I request Fox and Riyo finding out that she’s pregnant with their first baby? 🥹

I'm just going to say that I'm glad you like angst. These are supposed to be fluffy drabbles, and I swear it gets fluffy at the end. But this just turned out far more angsty than it should have.

I was tempted to do them in my fix-it timeline, but that reveal is part of a specific storyline and I couldn't figure out a way to make it a one-shot drabble. So...this takes place post-order 66, in the same timeline as my two angstpril foxiyo stories, where Fox survives his encounter with Vader.

Hope you enjoy!

Fox sat on the couch, his shoulders hunched, staring into the dimly lit room. The faint ache in his neck was a phantom reminder of how close to death he'd actually come.  Nights were the worst, when the silence stretched and the nightmares bled into waking hours. He’d given up on sleep, spending his nights in the living room, not daring to invade the space of the woman he had already hurt too much.

Riyo. She deserved better than a ghost haunting her life.

He told himself he was giving her space, but deep down, he knew it was avoidance. If he stayed on the periphery, he couldn’t hurt her more than he already had. His days passed in a fog, a blur of tension and guilt. He barely ate, barely spoke. He told himself she had a life to lead, a purpose as a Senator, a voice that mattered. He was nothing. A fugitive. Dead on record. And maybe that’s what he should have been.

The sound of her footsteps drew his attention. He straightened slightly. He didn’t need to look to know it was her, he’d memorized the rhythm of her steps long ago.

“Tea?” she asked, stepping into the doorway, a mug cradled in her hands.

He nodded, not trusting his voice. She walked over and handed him the mug. He took it, feeling the warmth in his hands, but he didn’t drink. Instead, he stared into it, as if it could give him all the answers.

She sat down beside him, close enough but leaving enough space for the unspoken distance between them. He knew she was trying, but he felt the gap widening every day.  And he didn’t know how to begin trying to mend it, or if he could anymore.

“You’ve been quiet,” she said after a moment.

He forced a shrug. “Nothing to say.”

“Fox.” She said, a touch exasperated. “This isn’t… you can’t keep doing this.”

He let out a hollow laugh, shaking his head. “Doing what?”

“Avoiding me,” she said simply. “Avoiding everything.”

He placed the mug on the table, regretting it immediately, trying to hide the shake in his hands. “I’m not avoiding anything. I’m just… not trying to get in your way.”

“You’re not in my way,” she said, trying to meet his eyes. “You’re part of my life. I want you here.”

He shook his head. “For how long? Until you go back to Coruscant? When are you leaving?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure if I am.”

That made him pause. He turned his head to look at her, confused. “What do you mean? The Senate needs you. You’ve been fighting for so long, for everything you believe in. Why stop now?”

“I’ve been thinking about resigning,” she admitted.

He frowned. “You’re stepping away? You’ve sacrificed so much for this fight. Why would you give that up now?”

She took a deep breath. “Because sometimes, you have to step back for something bigger.”

“Bigger?” he asked. “What could possibly be bigger?”

Her hands curled in her lap, her eyes dropping before she looked back at him.  She was nervous. “The work I've done, everything.  It's dangerous.  And it’s not just my life on the line anymore.”

“What are you saying?” he asked, trying to sort her words.

There was a flash of a smile as she stilled her hands, trying not to fiddle with the hem of her sleeve.  “I’m pregnant.”

The words hung in the air. His breath hitched, his pulse pounding in his ears. Pregnant. His mind raced. 

Of course. Of course, she’d moved on. 

It explained everything, the distance between them since he'd arrived here, the strain, the way she kept herself busy.  He hadn't seen anyone around, which meant the person in question was most likely on Coruscant, waiting for her to return.  Or to come to her.

“It figures,” he said finally, his voice low and bitter. He forced a hollow smile, though it felt like his chest was caving in. “You deserve to be happy, Riyo. I’m glad you found someone who could give you what I never could.”

Her brow furrowed, confusion flashing across her face. “Fox—”

“Just tell me when you need me gone,” he said, standing abruptly. His movements were quick, uncoordinated, as if his body couldn’t keep up with the chaos in his mind. “I’ll call Rex, figure something out. I don’t want to make this harder for you.”

“Stop it,” she said, standing and stepping into his path. Her voice was sharp now, urgent. “Just stop.”

“What else is there to say?”  His throat tightened as he spiraled further, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. “I just... I need to know one thing,” he said, his voice raw and breaking. “Does he care for you?”

Her gaze softened as she looked at him, and he couldn’t even begin to decipher the meaning behind it. “He does,” she said softly, with a faint, teasing smile, “even if he’s being a little dense right now.”

His brow furrowed in confusion.

Her golden eyes locked onto his. “The baby is yours.”

The room seemed to tilt, the floor dropping out from under him. He stared at her, his breath shallow and uneven. “What?”

“Where were you six weeks ago?” she asked softly.

The answer came to him immediately. The ship. The few nights together where everything had almost seemed normal between them.  Raw passion, emotion, tears. His knees buckled, and he sank onto the couch, his head falling into his hands. Something inside him broke, and the tears came in a rush.  Weeks, months of pain, all at once.  Shock, fear.  Everything was all too much.

She moved to him, wrapping her arms around him and holding him tightly. “It’s okay,” she soothed, her voice thick with her own tears. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

He clung to her, his body trembling as sobs wracked through him. The weight of everything, his failures, his guilt, his grief, poured out of him in waves. Slowly, his breathing steadied, and he pulled back just enough to look at her.

His hand moved on its own, shaking as it rested against her still flat stomach. “This is real,” he said hoarsely, his voice full of wonder and fear.

“It is,” she said, resting her hand over his.

"I don't... I can't..." he started, his breathing still  uneven. "Ri, what if I… fail?" His voice broke, and he couldn’t look at her. "I’ve already failed so much. I’ve hurt you. I don’t deserve this."

Her heart ached at his words.  She’d never seen him unravel quite like this. She reached up, touching his cheek and turning his face back to hers. “The only thing that has hurt me has been your silence.  I gave you space, for weeks to work things out, to hope that you would find your way back to me.  And it's clear I shouldn't have done that.  I'm sorry.  I should have been there for you more."

"You brought me tea,"  He said with a hint of a smile.

"I did."  She agreed, smiling almost sadly, her own guilt just under the surface. 

"What happened wasn't your fault.  To think you don't deserve a life, a chance of happiness?  That's unfair, Fox.  You deserve all that and more.  You’re not the man you think you are. You’re better than that. You’re strong, kind, and loyal. And you are going to be a wonderful father.”

He stared at her. “You really believe that?”

“I do,” she said. “I see it in you, even when you don’t. And I know you love this baby already.”

He stared at her, his throat tight. Her words broke through the fog of his guilt. His hand pressed more firmly against her stomach. He let out a shaky breath and whispered, “I want this. I want to be here. For you. For the baby.”

Riyo’s eyes filled with tears, as she smiled. She reached up, brushing her fingers against his cheek. “I know you do,” she said.

Fox leaned into her touch. His eyes moved between her eyes and her lips before closing the distance. The kiss was tentative at first, careful, but it deepened quickly, carrying with it all the emotion he had been holding back, love, gratitude, need.

There he was, the man Riyo had fallen for, no longer a shadow of himself but fiercely protective and undeniably loving. The smile he gave her was devastating, a glimpse of the man she hadn’t seen in so long.

"A baby."  he said, awed.  "Our baby."

Her smile was watery as she kissed him again.

Eventually, they both broke apart. “What now?”

She smiled faintly. “Now, we rest. And then we get ready.”

“For what?” he asked, cautiously.  He seemed steadier as she pulled him to his feet, leading him towards her bedroom.  Their bedroom.

“A Life Day party,” she said. “At my parents’ house.”

He blinked, his brow furrowing in disbelief. “You’re serious?”

“Completely,” she said, with a hint of mischief. “You’ve spoken to them on holo. Now you’ll meet them in person.”

A small, incredulous laugh escaped him, and he shook his head. “No pressure, right?”

“None at all,” she teased, lacing her fingers with his. “They’ll love you.

[just-horrible-things]

'Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Pre-main-story, Ariadne is a senior interrogator

Protected Sources

The first taste of the whip is one of the points where people change their minds about their commitment to silence or to anger. If the sight of it isn’t enough, and the ritual of stripping their back and cuffing them to wall or floor isn’t enough, sometimes the revelation of exactly how much this will hurt is the tipping point.

For this reason, Ariadne typically leaves a pause between the first stroke and the second, or the second and the third. A chance for wait, wait wait, I’ve changed my mind.

This time the tune’s a little different. After the yelp and the gasped curse word, the witch blurts out, “Agent Thompson. I want – to talk to Agent Thompson.”

Ari coils the whip loosely, and walks round in front of her to meet her eyes. There’s still brazen fury mixed with the fear, but there’s more fear than there was before.

“What’s your name?” she asks. “Did you hear me? I’ll talk to Thompson. Not to you.” “There’s more than one Thompson in this building,” Ariadne points out. The witch looks thrown by this concept. Ari can practically see the dread taking hold of her, battling with the anger. This was supposed to be her way out, the one she didn’t want to use but was keeping in her back pocket – and she’s just now considering the possibility that it might not work. “I don’t – know his first name,” she flounders. “He didn’t say.”

“Give me your name – or whatever name he knows you by – and I’ll look you up. If you’re on our books, it’ll tell me which Thompson you’re looking for.” “What so you want to help me now?” There’s the anger, still. “If you’re on our books,” Ariadne answers levelly, “it should never have gotten this far.” A vague gesture with the whip – not towards the prisoner. “You should have said something sooner.” “I … don’t know if I’m on your books,” the witch admits in a small voice. Then, more hurriedly, “Maybe I want to be. Is, is that a thing?” “Of course it is.”

She could be stalling. Giving her the benefit of the doubt won’t do any harm though. At worst, it will lodge the possibility of better treatment in her mind. Ariadne drops the whip into the sink to clean later, and crouches to unlock the witch’s wrists from the floor. She tries to yank her hands out of Ariadne’s grip, but when it doesn’t work she gives up and lets herself be hauled up and led back to the table. 

Ariadne had been thinking about leaving her unattached, but after that show of resistance, she thinks better of it, and locks the cuffs to the edge of the table once again. The witch glowers up at her.

“Give me your name,” she repeats, “and I’ll look you up. If you’ve already got a file, I’ll match you to your Agent Thompson. If you haven’t, I’ll open one, and… I’ll see what I can do.” The witch barks a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Am I supposed to believe you’re reasonable now?” “You can reason with me. I’m not nice, but I can be reasonable.” The witch shudders. Ariadne hopes it’s the realisation of her own helplessness sinking in.

“Name,” she prompts. “Come on, what do you think I’m going to do with your name? Put a curse on you?” “... Tansy.” “Tansy.” Ari waits. “More name? Am I supposed to look you up with just that?” “I didn’t tell your agent my last name.” “He should have asked.” “I, I think I lied.” A little flinch at the admission, but a defiant stare follows it. “I don’t remember what name I told him.”

Ari resists the urge to sigh. “You’re not making this easy for yourself,” she notes. “... I’ll see what I can do.”

She leaves Tansy – if that’s her name – cuffed to the table, while she goes to find the documents. The other interrogation room is still free, the witch shouldn’t be in anyone’s way. And they can move her if she is. Ariadne doesn’t offer her her shirt back. She hasn’t been cooperative enough for that kind of consideration.

On the way through the security room, she pauses to check the camera feed. Prisoners often forget about the cameras, and show more candid emotion when they think they’re no longer observed. Tansy just looks shell-shocked, staring into the middle distance. Fine.

One first name and one last name isn’t a lot to go on, but there aren’t that many protected sources in the city. If Ariadne has to leaf through all the files by hand, it should be doable. She does know one Thompson personally though, so she sends him a quick email with a snap of the witch’s face before she gets stuck into the paper records.

Connor doesn’t get back to her before she’s numbed her brain checking document after document. There is a supposedly central list of protected sources, and of course she checks that first, but people don’t keep it up to date.

Every file with a photo she can discard pretty rapidly, and every male. Tansy is not androgynous, no one’s likely to have gotten that much wrong. The dead and in custody are stored separately, so she doesn’t need to worry about those. The rest she has to skim for any notes regarding cooperation. If they were officially off-limits they should be stamped… but Tansy said she might not have an official relationship, yet. And she can only check out so many from storage at a time.

It’s not the most exciting work in the world.

Hall saunters into the office to print out some forms, and does a double take when he sees Ariadne’s stack of files. “Looking for someone?” “Yeah, my latest reckons she might be down as a source already but she’s not sure… or what name she’d have given us last time.” “That’s a bad start,” Hall observes. “Oh, who cares about fake names, they all want fake names. It’s the least important thing. She can have her fake names.” “So… you’re trying to find a file that may or may not exist, that could be under any name.” “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Why don’t you just draw up a new one? The paper pushers can sort it out later if they find the duplicate.” Ari leans back to give him an incredulous look, then rolls her eyes. “Just draw up a new one,” she echoes. “This is the exact reason the system’s such a mess in the first place.” Hall shrugs a not my problem shrug, and takes his forms to a desk to start filling out.

Ariadne checks her email. Connor’s gotten back to her – and he recognises the witch, thank god. Yeah, he knows her, he’ll make time to talk to her but he’s not sure when it’ll be. Good enough. Ari emails back to ask if “Tansy” has a file and if he remembers what name it might be under – then she takes the ones she has out back to storage.

She checks herself back in the cell block, checks that Tansy’s still where she left her, then fills out her action plan to reflect the new circumstances. She marks her on the rota for two meals a day and full water rations, and makes an extra note of “no violence” to stop anyone getting too eager with her.

Then she goes back to the interrogation room. The witch glares knives at her, but the fear is unmistakeable. Her brush with the whip has left its impression.

“Good news. I found your Thompson. That means he’ll be deciding whether you get to walk or whether you stay with me. So if I were you, I’d make it worth his while.” She picks up the witch’s t-shirt, still discarded on the floor, and hands it back to her, freeing her cuffs from each other and the table long enough for her to put it on. 

“Are you going to walk back to your cell, or will I be dragging you?” Tansy doesn’t answer, but she gets up, and when Ariadne takes her arm to lead her, she walks where she’s directed.

She’s not terrified enough to need reassuring that she won’t be hurt if she cooperates, and not compliant enough to deserve that comfort. Let her stew, wondering if Thompson’s coming to talk to her, wondering if they’ll keep beating her until then. Maybe it’ll do her attitude some good.

“On your knees, give me your hands. What, you don’t want them unlocked? You can stay like that if you prefer.” The witch offers her hands without getting down on the floor. Ariadne waits. Reluctantly, the prisoner sinks to her knees. Ariadne unlocks her wrists from each other again. “Stay down until I close the door.”

So far she’s resisted every time they’ve moved her. She’s familiar with the consequences. But this time, with the nebulous chance of getting out of this in the balance, she stays down. There’s naked, venomous hatred in her stare, but she stays down.

She looks for a moment like she has something unwise to say, but when Ari pauses to hear it, she thinks better of it and presses her lips together. Ariadne nods acknowledgement, and closes the door. As the lock clicks, she hears a single wordless sound of frustration from the cell.

[aliorsboxostuff]

Idk if u will do this request but! Miguel’s time is like futuristic set right? ( trans people would just transition and be more accepted in this timeline sí right? 😭) so Miguel He went to college at a high prestige science university and so did reader for he is too an smart as him with his own creations in robotics and chemistry. Miguel had tried to get alone room accommodation but failed and got partnered up with transftm!reader and they became roommates. Reader fell in love with Miguel but he didn’t notice cuz he was too focused on his work and whatever. Years go by aka spider verse but suddenly miguel needs help from his old college roommate. Angst fluff maybe…smut??? Sorry English isn’t my first language 😭😭

Hey anon! I appreciate the idea and i love how much you fleshed it out! Dont worry, i completely understand your vision, and i get it english is hard for me too lol i hope i got your ideas right tho, sorry this turned into angst more than what i was aiming lmao enjoy all!

History

Tags: Miguel O’hara x FTM!Reader, Villain!Reader, Lyla, Past Relationship, Angst, Falling Out, Fighting, Arguments, Dirty Thoughts, Meet-Cute, Pining, Secret Crushes, Miguel is as dense as ever, poor reader on this one HAHA

They had a history. Of living together, spending time with each other, but despite all of that it all went downhill. Who knew your ex-roommate turns out to be Doc Oct

(Takes place before Post Credit Scene in into the Spiderverse)

—

"Miguel, I hate to tell you this but we can't-"

"There has to be another way, you designed this Lyla!"

"Hey! Don't blame the AI, blame the maker! I only followed what you said!" 

Lyla huffs and glitches to another part of the console. Miguel is currently hunched over a table in the corner of his lair, the only light illuminating his project is the light rod over his workbench and the monitors around him. 

The girl busies herself with schematics, working out equations and trying to find where they went wrong.

Miguel's latest work on the multiverse brace is to eliminate the glitches that it makes whenever someone uses it. It could potentially lead to wounds from the cells traveling to a different world, and even the healing factor won't fix it. Worst-case scenario, it would lead to a fatal wound, possibly death, and Miguel can't risk that if he's gonna start interdimensional travel. 

His eyes scan over the chip connected to his computer, adding and removing codings that might've gone wrong. He's wearing the headband Lyla gifted him, or mailed to him when it was his birthday months ago, to be exact. 

"I swear the shell is all good, Miguel. It should all contain the molecules needed for the portal bracelet,"

"Can you please stop calling it that?" 

"What? 'Portal'?"

"Yes. It's not a portal, we already have that," Miguel rolls his eyes, gluing them back to the screen.

"Then what are we calling it?" Lyla pouts, adjusting her heart glasses.

"Transdimensional Pathfinding Wristlet."

Lyla pauses her work, and turns to Miguel, her brows raised, the blinks once, twice. "Wh- seriously?" 

"Y'know what, I'm not even gonna try," He shakes her head before glitching to another monitor. "Leave it to the crazy scientist to name his things,"

Miguel ignores what his AI had said, instead focusing back on the chip. If this succeeds, it’ll be the first dimensional trip the prototype could make, and he’d prefer not to be a piece of burnt toast once he comes out of it. He coded another line, before he ran a diagnostic. The screen glares red, the annoyingly big letters of ‘ERROR’ pops up.

Miguel blinks, before he feels his claws coming out, promptly making him stand and throw his chair across the room. It shatters, the metal pieces clinking to the concrete floor. He heaves, sharp fangs bared, barely causing anger at his fingertips. 

Lyla fixes him with a look. “That your fifth chair Miguel,”

The man takes a steady breath, wiping his hand across his face, working at his jaw. He tilts his head sharply and something pops. He faintly hears Lyla clicking her tongue. 

"There's a guy I know,"

—

"What do you mean there isn't any- I booked a single room last week," 

"I'm sorry but there must've been a mishap in the system. I'm going to have to put you with an available roommate," 

"I don't want-" Miguel sighs, tapping his foot insistently. "Look, is there any way I can register for another single room?" 

"You can wait a couple of weeks for a vacant room, but you'd need to consult with the head of the faculty." She nodded to him, a regretful look behind those blonde bangs. Miguel huffs, hands on his hips, thinking out a decision. 

"Fine," He groans. "Who's still available for a roommate then?" 

The girl's brows raise before she quickly types something into the computer, reading out what looks like a list with numbers and names. "Oh!" She smiles. "Room 304, on the third floor is still awaiting a roommate,"

"Great, thank you," Miguel grumbles, already picking up his boxes where he left them on the floor.

"If you'd like-" The girl calls for him again. "I can talk to the faculty member, see if I can help you with the room situation," 

"Sure, I'd appreciate it," Miguel's back is already turned to her as he makes his way to the building's elevator. With his gym bag slung over his shoulder, and the boxes of his unfinished work, traversing the hallway takes a bit of an effort. Students were not mingling around because most of them were already in their rooms, with the time turning just after 5 PM. 

Finally, he reaches the elevator doors. Miguel shuffles the boxes into one hand, struggling to press the button before he is beaten to it by another hand reaching for the ascend button too. 

"Here man, let me help you," The person says, already picking up the two boxes that cover Miguel's vision even before he said anything.

"Hey don't-" He begins, before he finally gets a good look at the person that dared to touch his scraps. The man in front of him, standing just inches taller than him, hair with an unintelligible style, captivating eyes and the faintest smirk on his lips. 

Miguel's brain stutters a bit. "I'm- nevermind, thanks," 

"Of course dude," And Miguel's interest plummets. "What floor?"

"Third please," He nods, pressing the button once he and Miguel get in. The door closes and leaves the two in silence, only the faint whirr of the elevator's machine. 

"So, late to dorm assignments?" 

"Nah, they messed up my request," 

"Shit, really?" He turns to Miguel, his brows furrowed. 

"Yeah, now I'm stuck with a damn roomie,"

"Oh yeah? What room?" 

"304, apparently," Miguel huffs, looking down into the box he's carrying, the tape on it peeling slightly. The guy halts, now his brows are raised. 

Miguel's turn to look confused, before the guy chuckles lightly. "Funny you say that 'cuz," 

"I'm room 304," He smirks, readjusting the boxes. 

There's a pause, before he feels the red of embarrassment gathers on his cheeks. "You're-" 

"That damn roomie? Yeah,"

"Fuck, sorry I didn't-"

"No no, it's fine! Really," The guy laughs, shaking his head while Miguel tries to formulate a coherent sentence. "I don't mind man, I get wanting your own space though," 

"Hey, I hope I'll be a good roomie," He bumps Miguel's shoulder lightly, his smile not fading. Miguel finds himself mimicking it slightly. After that, he introduced himself to Miguel, his major and such.

The elevator opens just after that, the two make their way down the hallway. He asks about Miguel's major too, just as they reach the door. 

"I seriously didn't think I'd get a roomie," He chuckles, turning the key with a million other key chains. It jingles, before he pushes the door open and into the room. "I'll go check with the front desk-" 

"Oh!" He turns after putting down the two boxes he was carrying. "Just got the text, said they'll give you the key tomorrow," 

"Great," Miguel rolls his eyes, putting down his box on the vacant desk and his duffle on the chair. He turns, inspecting the room that he's been sent to stay in. One side is already cluttered with his roommate's stuff, plants and books and papers strewn about. He tilts his head when he spots a flag on his desk.

"You're trans?" Miguel asks, turning to him where he was still standing with his phone out. He hums and lifts his head, meeting Miguel's browns.

"Oh that old thing? Yeah," He scratches the back of his neck. "I know, I get it. No one really cares nowadays, the worlds moved on, whatever," 

He glances at the little flag, pink and white and blue adding color to the messy desk. He smiles. "It's a reminder, I guess," 

Miguel stares at the flag, just once, before he nods and shrugs, turning to open his boxes. "Sure, that's cool," 

He can practically feel the sunshine radiating from his roommate behind him. He crosses his arms, turning again to face him, and he's right because his roommate has a really bright smile. "I hope we'll be good friends, Miguel," 

—

"Miguel there's so many people in Nueva York how am I supposed to-'' Lyla stops, before she grins. "Nevermind, found him!" 

Miguel finishes his spider shot, cracking his neck again as he sets the syringe down. He turns towards Lyla, the AI already projecting the location. "Looks like our guy lives in… the slums? I thought you said he was a prodigy," 

"Yeah well not everyone gets a decent job even if they are a genius," Miguel huffs, running his hand through his hair as he looks at the mirror.

"Who's you said the guy was again?" Lyla begins to scroll through the data. 

Miguel sighs. "Old roommate, back in college," 

"Ooh, interesting," She giggles.

"Lyla don't-" 

"I'm not looking through his history! Just a peek, though," 

Miguel lets out another sigh, walking towards the large opened window. "Uh, hey Miguel, are you sure about this?" 

"Why what's wrong?" 

Lyla displays her screen as it glitches in front of Miguel. According to her research, the old roomie has been caught by the police stealing items from hardware stores and electronic stores, a handful of accounts of disruption of peace according to the other tenants in his old apartment. And he's currently deemed missing.

"Where did you say his location was?" Miguel reads through the file, his brows knitted. 

"Just here, some abandoned warehouse in the slums," 

—

“Miguel, man, you’ve got to eat,” A tray for warm food was suddenly placed between Miguel's paperwork. He huffs, pushing the plate away and to the edge of his already small table. He hears a sigh, before the plate is moved out of his peripherals, and Miguel is back into his work.

“Dude, you only ate like, one energy bar after going to the gym,” 

“I’m fine,” 

Another exasperated sigh, before his roommate goes back to whatever robotics he was working on. Miguel has been perfecting his latest assignment the whole week, going back and forth on his computer, writing down research papers and consulting with his professors. Meanwhile, the man that he shares his room with is tinkering with a recent robotic piece he’s been pouring his heart into.

It’s correct that they share most of their schedule together. Miguel would wake up before dawn, and so would he. They’d run a couple of laps around campus before hitting the gym just before it gets too crowded. He’d spot for Miguel while Miguel would comment on his form if it needs any improvement. Sometimes they’d share breakfast together, before they head for their different classes, though ever since Miguel has been engrossed in his recent paperwork, their time spent together has been blessed. It'd be a lie to say Miguel doesn't miss their shared time, but he supposes seeing him back in their room after a long day is enough. Though, it doesn't seem enough for his friend. 

Unbeknownst to Miguel, his roommates have been supporting a devastating crush on him. Stolen glances, longing eyes whenever Miguel's back is turned towards him. Times when he’d stare a bit too long whenever Miguel was doing his bench presses, times when he’d stand close just to feel the comforting warmth beside him. He’d fuss over Miguel, bringing food or drinks, bringing things Miguel might've forgotten with his busy schedule. Sometimes, when Miguel worked too late and too much, he’d fall asleep on his desk, at which he’d bring his blanket to cover Miguel’s back. In the morning, he rolls his eyes and says something about Miguel getting a bad back, which Miguel would promptly ignore. 

It’s currently Friday night. The man that's sitting on the opposite side of the room has seemingly lost interest in his robotics and decided to peer out of their bedroom window. Suddenly, Miguel is bombarded by a loud shout coming from outside of their room, and snaps quickly to the source. He sees his roommate has opened the bedroom window and is looking out into the campus’ courtyard. 

“Yeah, I'll join you! Be right down!” He hollers, before he shuts and locks the window. Miguel turns, blinking away the slight dizziness he got. 

“Who was that?” 

“A friend, they're having a party at one of the frat houses, you wanna join?” He grins, pulling on his leather jacket and pocketing his belongings. Miguel has never been to a party and he's not about to start going, especially when he has a deadline to push. He shakes his head, always swiveling back his chair. 

“No thanks,” 

He hears his friend scoff. “Come on Miguel! You’ve been working on that thing for ages now, you deserve a break, and the deadline isn't for another month!” 

“I’m not interested,” Miguel bites back, barely glancing at his pleas. 

“Just this once, I promise it’ll be fun! I’ll be there and I can take care of-”

“I said I'm not interested.” He spits out, already hunching into the part he’s soldiering. He doesn't hear anything, not an answer or another push for him to join. The air has changed, something heavy hangs between them. The tension is palpable, but despite it all Miguel only hears the shuffling of his friend's boots. 

“Sure, whatever,” His roommate fixes a stare at the back of Miguel's head, before he unlocks their door. “Y’know, one of these days that work of yours is going to destroy you if you're not careful,” 

And with that, he leaves Miguel alone for the night. 

—

“What the fuck!” Miguel jumps and manages to hold on to the side of the building. “Lyla searches for his weakness points!”

“Hah! You think this has a weakness, Miguel?!” The man shouts, a wide grin on his lips. “I’ve perfected these arms, they are practically indestructible!” 

“SO this is how you greet your old roommate?” 

“I’d prefer for us to meet for coffee, but after how you treated me, I think this…” He brings a menacing robotic arm towards him, as if to inspect it. “Is way better,” 

The arm suddenly lunges towards Miguel which he narrowly avoids. He jumps and entwines two of the appendages together as he lands behind the man, at which he growls and breaks free of Miguel’s red webs. “I never treated you badly!”

“No, not really huh,” He smirks. “But you never noticed the shit I did for you anyways!” 

He spears those sharp arms towards Miguel which he does a couple of doges before jumping down the rooftop they were currently fighting on. 

“All of those morning coffees, late dinners, all for nothing! None! All because you were so fucking focused-” He sharply turns, grabbing Miguel’s wrist and stopping him from dropping a punch. He suddenly pulls Miguel towards him, burning anger behind those eyes. “On combining a damn spider's DNA with yourself!” 

He throws the Spiderman across the street, breaking several walls until the momentum finally stops. Miguel groans, cracking his neck when Lyla suddenly pops up. “Boss, the control panel for those arms is on his back, if you could pull it apart from him, it’ll stop him from controlling it,”

“On it.” Miguel swiftly stands, running through the many rooms he passed before leaping into the air, catching the man off guard. He throws a punch that lands on his face, throwing him off balance and into the concrete street below. He grows, and fixes his jaw, before launching back to full force against Miguel. 

“It was all fine until you went out with that fucking brunette!” He shouts, throwing debris towards Miguel which he weaves and dodges. “Did I ever mean anything to you?!”

He’s got Miguel pinned to the ground, and pushes all of the arms to stab at him, but instead misses and gets buried in the ground instead when Miguel swiftly pulls away with his web. He struggles to get the appendages out of the strong concrete, suddenly finding them stuck, an opportunity for Miguel to rip the control panel off. He swings above the man, landing directly behind him where he quickly digs his nails into the seams of the panel. 

“I’m sorry,” Miguel manages before he pulls. An ear-splitting scream, before deathly silence. Miguel could only hear his heavy breath, before sparks of green ran through the man's body, and it jolted him. He shouts, before falling into the pavement. Miguel takes a beat to examine the control panel, before throwing it somewhere on the ground. He spots the bareback of his once roommate, a horrid sight of root-like marks growing around the man's back. Miguel furrows his brows, before he hears the faint police sirens, no doubt coming over to clean up the commotion. 

Just as Miguel was about to make his leave, he heard the man cough, a horrid groan behind him. Miguel glances slightly, as he hears him begin to speak. 

“I was right… Your work did destroy you.”

Requests are opened! Remember to reblog!

[fumifooms]

I’ve never really been into kabrin but the name of the game with them is angst anyways, right, and it clicked in an interesting way for me for a sec a while back while chatting with buddies…

The timeline where he likes her back but he pushes her away because he’s scared of hurting women, being unlovable and ruining people who decide to stay with him’s lives etc etc… The guilt yet the desire that make him act flip floppy and just push him further into "think about nothing else except your plans" mentality… But then the thing that made me 👀⁉️ is Kabru worrying he’s the child of a succubus/incubus in the context of them… He ISN’T but his anxiety that he might be, adds another layer to their angle and omg?

Like Kabru esp with Rin already has that condescending but caring "I can’t possibly give you what you want, because I know better than you do what you want and need (and I’m not that)", the "No, Rin, you don’t want to be involved with me, I won’t let you ruin your life by choosing to stay with me. I know what you really want and need more than you and I am pushing you away for your own good", but with the incubus insecurity slapped on top of it… It’s Kabru feeling even worse about Rin loving him and even more unfit to receive or reciprocate it. It’s Kabru feeling like there’S NO POSSIBLE WAY Rin’s love for him could be genuine, that she could love ~the real him~ or do so genuinely. Because he has his persona he puts on, first of all, and since he doesn’t let down his walls around Rin either imo he thinks he’s got her dancing to its tune, so first it’s like well ok she doesn’t love me she just knows this shell of me, she just latched onto me because we went through similar trauma at the same time and then she got attached to this persona of someone perfect who isn’t me- AND THEN THERE’S THE GUILT THERE’S THE DESPAIR BECAUSE AS AN INCUBUS HE THINKS ANY LOVE OR ATTENTION HE GETS IS INNATELY COERCED? Without mentioning how because he got chased out of his hometown because of his blue eyes, he knows how damning attention can be too, with how his mother was cast out because she stuck with him he knows how dangerous just someone choosing him as a priority can ruin them. Being in the spotlight is a curse and by being magnetic you can be a plague—

He holds back. Can never be too wanting. Too possessive, too intense. He has to be a gentleman—the furthest possible thing from a monster who ravishes. It has to all be calculated, so he stays in control. Feeling like a monster because even as he tries to keep her at a distance, he can't let her go. He is possessive, he does lead her on, even as he tries not to…

Rin’s love for him for years and years STILL can’t be true because it’s all just. Not real. Her love is coerced, it’s manipulated, it’s forced out of her by magic and cunning and I am the worst man alive for it, even if just caused subconsciously or unwillingly— and an even worse one for sort of wanting her love despite it all. He’s ruining her life having her follow him and help his cause like he ruined his mother’s. It’s not me, it’s the fake, it’s the surface, it’s the magic…. He feels unlovable so of course with his bestie he wants to protect who’s into him it’s like, no I can’t indulge her that because it’s fake love it’s manipulated it’s just magic or brain chemistry or infatuation, anything that discounts it because I can’t allow myself to think it’s real and true and genuine and for me and if it was then it’s scary in new ways.

And the thing is that NOOOO Rin DOES know him she’s tired of his fake ass! She nags him because she cares and part of her gets really frustrated because of how much he hides himself under layers of pretense!! She’s reaching in and he’s pulling away again and again further and further away! They’re childhood friends, the only meaningful one that we know of, maybe the only one they had, and yes they went through trauma that defined their relationship but what fuels Rin to follow Kabru is that she knows he ISN’T perfect, because she’s worried for him. And he wants her there too but he also wants to keep her distant from him, he just wanted to get her out of the elves’ grasp, wanted her safe and free too, and still he lets her orbit around him without ever letting her in almost at all and it’s all sooo frustrating and!! Kabru taking on this "your love for me isn’t genuine :/" spiel would make them have such delish convos and wake up calls and arguments and augh the hurt/comfort…………. Can a harsh self-critic who won’t trust others’ assesments of him and a harsh tough love-r make it work…

Kabrin is so so sad…. From what we see you could say Rin is Kabru’s best friend and to me that’s the saddest thing because that feels more qualified by an absence of more/better friendships rather than how great they get along. But yeah there’s familiarity, there’s "i don’t want to leave her behind/be left behind"….. Just…..

Just the lifelong fear like an itch at the back of your mind you try to push down, that you feel like a monster that can’t fit in and belong and something is wrong with you, but can never truly let go Kabru’s layered so many images onto himself to adjust to everyone else that even he wouldn't even know who's good for him, thinks there's no one he could belong with well I bet…

Honestly a timeline where he’s miserable about it but pushes Rin into the arms of someone else because he would never want to hurt her and he doesn’t think he can provide for her right etc would go hard. Not letting it show, all smiles and "good for you! 😊 I’m glad", but Rin knows him enough that she notices he’s not being fully genuine, in the way his back is tense when he walks away…. She’s watched him walk away a lot after all, she’s followed behind his back a lot, after all. She knows him, like how he knows her and it’s insulting when he thinks that isn’t twoway in this relationship.

[shrinkthisviolet]

I think what really gets me about the Mr. Miyagi storyline isn’t even the content itself, but the context.

Like…as has been pointed out several times on this site, this show treats its characters of color in an…odd way compared to the white characters (Miguel mostly being an exception, because he’s the protagonist, but his storyline is consistently tied more to his white Sensei than his Mexican mother and grandmother, so…). Every character of color has at some point joined Cobra Kai—and yes, so have a number of the white characters, but the one character who hasn’t is white (Sam). They’ve also been framed as aggressive at least once (even Kenny, who is the most sympathetic when framed this way, still retaliates against Anthony in a way beyond what Anthony did in the first place!). If they’re lucky, they’re either so minor that they’re never mentioned again, or shuttled off to Miyagi-Do later (and once they’re there, the writers usually write them better—Kenny in particular)

Also, notably, its Asian characters get the worst of it: Kyler sexually assaults Sam, Kim Da-Eun physically assaults Tory, Sensei Wolf physically assaults Axel.

(I would also like to list Zara here, but I will concede that with her being ethnically ambiguous, it’s only clear that she’s a character of color, not Asian—her name, Zara Malik, could be Pakistani or Arab (or possibly she’s from another country that I’m less familiar with culturally, like Malaysia). Her accent leans more towards Pakistani (except her first fight against Tory, during which her accent is a straight-up Spanish accent), but the latter possibility does exist. But anyway. Just wanted to say that)

And then…Mr. Miyagi. I see the writing on the wall with his storyline, I know how this is gonna go: he’s in grief, he signs up for the tournament to let off steam, he kills because he wants to make his opponent hurt like he does, and it shakes him so badly that he becomes a pacifist. At least…I hope that’s what this show is going for. But! It still sits badly with me because of the pattern described above…as well as the show’s other pattern of putting him and his teachings down at every turn…hiding behind “well, it’s Johnny, not us!” even tho it’s very clear that Johnny is their favorite (I mean…duh, aside from the way he’s allowed to never grow, they also wrote the show about him).

If the movie writers had chosen to do this, or a group of writers that had treated Mr. Miyagi with respect rather than derision, I wouldn’t be reacting so poorly. I imagine most of the Tumblr Miyagi-verse fandom wouldn’t be, because we’d trust that they’re trying to further the nuanced “Mr. Miyagi is human” message from KK1 without putting him down. But it’s because of the show writers’ clear attitude towards Mr. Miyagi that we’re reacting this way. A lot of us probably do see where the storyline is going! But that doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly tasteless given the show’s patterns.

Oh, and just for a cherry on top? Part 2, when we find out Mr. Miyagi killed his opponent, was released on November 15th. You know what else happened on November 15th? Mr. Miyagi’s death, as established in the show!

Maybe that’s a coincidence. These writers can’t keep their own timeline straight, so it probably is. But it sure lends to leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

[racinggirl]

You can tell that English isn’t your first language, it’s more to do with word choice and phrases used than anything grammar wise, it reads more formal than conversational. Similar to what would be expected in school/professional setting. You’ll get there, it’ll just take time.

But yeah the medical timeline was the major criticism for me, and the reason for my DNF. It made very little sense, I wasn’t sure if they had been in a coma for 4 years and then just suddenly died together or if they had been recovering and then just died. I felt like clarifications were needed, and maybe a little research if you’re going to be using something like this as a plot device. Being as polite as possible, while the idea was good, the execution was fanfiction in all the worst ways.



Look, ‘anon’. I can see where you’re coming from. As I said, it’s not my best work, I admit that. My writing has been on hold for a while due to some personal reasons.

However. That does not give you the right to be rude. You may not have wanted it to come across as rude. But the things you said were everything but nice, nor were they seen as a ‘tip’. It was straight up bullying what you did. I understand people have opinions, and you’re entitled to give your opinion, honestly, I get it. But you are not entitled to be rude about it to someone you don’t even know.

You have no idea how much I struggle with ‘hate’ because yeah, that’s what it was. You may like more ‘conversational’ fanfics, others don’t. That’s personal and that’s okay. But the hate you spit out on me is just not okay. I’ve always said my biggest fear is people not liking me, and that includes my work or the things I do.

Yes, I should have possibly put more thought into it, which is why I already mentioned the warnings and the fact I wasn’t sure if this was something I’d be proud of. But straight up saying it’s ‘poorly google translated’ or that it’s the worst fic you’ve read? That’s not okay. I’m trying. I really am, and next time, think before you slide into someone’s inbox and spit stuff like this out.

There’s so many people supporting me, which I highly appreciate. I needed that. Because even though I know I shouldn’t let some random anon determine how I’m feeling. I do. And it sucks. You don’t know my story, so stop being rude about it.

I absolutely have no intention to be rude, and this isn’t who I normally am. But honestly, if you have the guts, stop being an anon. It’s pathetic. If you hate on someone’s work, be clean about it and don’t hide behind that ‘anon’ button. If you really mean good, and you were just trying to give me tips (which I’d appreciate if you had done it in a more polite way, even if you came in as an ‘anon’), that’s more genuine doing so in replies, sending me a dm so nobody can hate on you for your tips if that’s what you’re scared of.

Just. Don’t. Do. This.

It happened now, you can’t take it back. I’m not expecting you to apologize, because I don’t need it. I’m just hoping you learn from this, because so have I. I will try to not let some anon come at me, calling my stories shitty, when all the haters can do is hide behind that anon button and name out the things that could hurt someone’s feelings. It’s. Rude.

As for this, I hope your day will be better than it was when you woke up or when you wrote that shitty ‘tip’, because I feel sorry for you.

Thank you.

[chaifootsteps]

I get mad thinking about Vivziepop’s questionable writing or dialogue choices sometimes—and then I just feel sad after because I really wish I could see her shows as something naunced and worthy of thoughtful discussion. I wish I could love these shows wholeheartedly like I use to, and its only the attachment I still hold for her works that keep me sticking around, but man, I feel so disheartened sometimes that I wish I could just let it go and move on already, but its hard.

I don’t see either of her shows being things that are going to be remembered as super amazing or have a fandom passionate about the work like 10 years down the line. I can’t look at her characters and think about their possible motivations or analyze them deeply based on interaction, or just general presence in the story, because there is no depth greater than a pond. With her antagonists she writes them in such a particular way that they serve less as actual characters and more as glorified plot devices and nothing more, and with her protagonists she leaves them as overdeveloped or underdeveloped at the same time.

What am I suppose to take when watching her shows? With Helluva Boss, I can’t tell what I’m suppose to gleam from it. Is the story about relationships and focuses on character interaction and characters more than the plot itself? Its not doing that great of a job at that. Theres no changes in character dynamics, characters dont really interact with one another meaningfully most of the time, and relationships arent explored enough outside of already established ones. Is it about fighting against a system that is rigged against you and standing up against the ones in power? No, it isn’t, because the opression our main characters face isnt relevant enough in the story outside of the ocassional reminder that, yes, Imps are the lowest in the system, yes, imps can be quite literally sold as property and serve as servants and the working force to the ones in power, and, yes, imps face discrimination. (Can you tell the supremacist line pissed me off yet.)

I.M.P—who are all apart of marginalized species in hell—do not talk about these issues they face. Crimson is literally a mafia boss in Greed and he doesn’t seem to have any problems being a imp in power despite the demons working under him being higher in status than he himself is. (Minus the money problems because it doesnt seem actually relevant to anything and isnt brought up afterwards) Why have our main characters be apart of the lower class at all if it isnt actually important to the show. By the end of this show, the hierachy isnt going to change because status quo is god, and the worst case scenario possible is that Blitz gets with Stolas and becomes a prince and lives a life where the same species he’s apart of literally serves under him.

And speaking of status quo, what on earth is season 2 of Hazbin going to even be about if season 1 ends in a literal war between Heaven and Hell? You don’t just change the status quo that drasitically in one season—unless if Hell and Heaven were at war since the start? But it doesnt seem that way. Would Season 2 focus on redemption—but if that’s the case, why make season 1 the war between hell and heaven when season 2 would be more fitted for it instead?

I never thought these shows would be on ‘Breaking Bad’ tier levels of writing, but I thought they were going to at least be something I could walk away from with a clear understanding of what message it wants to tell and how I can interpret it as part of an auidence, but maybe I was wrong to think the stories Medrano writes have something wonderfully insightful to give, and it really hurts to think about.

I know how you feel, Anon. A shame we can't all have just one day to look into the good timeline where Viv's the writer and person we hoped she would be, and these shows are everything we were looking forward to.