#okay i admit this is somewhat of a crack theory

[ririban]

You know, I kinda think that Kim Dokja had actually recognized Yoo Joonghyuk as the Punisher, if not at the beginning then at least later on, but he just… convinced himself that the two couldn’t possibly be the same. Because he considers the notion of Yoo Joonghyuk becoming a girl to be something that’s impossible. We see that early on when he met Kim Namwoon in the Underworld in chapter 113:

The Delusional Demon Kim Namwoon reflecting was as impossible as Yoo Joonghyuk becoming a girl.

Of course, Kim Namwoon was confirmed to be telling the truth about reflecting on himself right away (which was a really good foreshadowing for the Punisher, lol), but Kim Dokja still has a hard time believing it because it’s just something he considers to not be possible. And he puts Yoo Joonghyuk becoming a girl at the same level. That’s how impossible it is to him. Later on, he even says this in chapter 251:

A strange feeling entered my heart. Perhaps? I had a thought but it wasn't possible. It was impossible for such a thing to come true, no matter how I thought about it.

This is right after Aileen told him that the Punisher had disappeared at the same time Yoo Joonghyuk had departed with him. While he did momentarily consider the notion of the Punisher and Yoo Joonghyuk being the same being, he dismissed it as he was still convinced that it’s impossible. And this is at a point when not only has his favorite novel become reality, but he also knows that his male ex-boss had gotten pregnant and given birth. And even in the midst of all that, even with everything he’s seen possible under the Star Stream, the idea of Yoo Joonghyuk becoming a girl is still inconceivable to him.

Now that we have seen just how deeply convinced Kim Dokja is that Yoo Joonghyuk and the Punisher cannot be the same, let’s have a look at something else. Namely, Yoo Sangah’s POV in chapter 267:

A dazzling aura burst from Yoo Joonghyuk's body. Soft hair poured down like a waterfall while his large size became a smaller and sleeker body. He took the form that allowed him to practice the ultimate Breaking the Sky Swordsmanship. Yoo Sangah stared at the scene from behind and couldn't help opening her mouth. “…Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi?”

Yoo Joonghyuk slowly turned back, his long hair cut off by the Black Heavenly Demon Sword. The lines of the face had changed but it was clearly Yoo Joonghyuk. No, it was even more than before. Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze stayed on Kim Dokja's face for a moment.

Yoo Joonghyuk transformed into his female form during the 73rd Demon Realm’s demon king selection and Yoo Sangah witnessed the scene. The lines of the face had changed but it was clearly Yoo Joonghyuk—even in his female form, he is recognisably still Yoo Joonghyuk. Sure, early on the people at the now Yoo Joonghyuk - Kim Dokja industrial complex didn’t clock the Punisher as female Yoo Joonghyuk either, but they also weren’t too familiar with his looks at that point. That’s not the case with Yoo Sangah, and definitely not the case with Kim Dokja. Another point to note is how it’s mentioned that Yoo Joonghyuk has a smaller body in this form—a different skeletal structure, so to speak.

Now finally, there’s this bit in chapter 269 when Kim Dokja carries the dying Yoo Joonghyuk away from Surya and the other constellations:

Yoo Joonghyuk was barely breathing. The weight of his body was lighter than usual. He had suffered such severe pain that even the skeleton of his body seemed changed.

The bit I want to focus on here is “even the skeleton of his body seemed changed”. As mentioned, Yoo Joonghyuk has a smaller skeleton in his female form. So he’s a girl at this point. The main difference in his appearance at this point compared to the Punisher who Kim Dokja saw previously is that Yoo Joonghyuk cut his hair. And Kim Dokja recognised him. Even if he hadn’t actually subconsciously figured out who the mysterious Punisher was prior to this, he was definitely able to recognise Yoo Joonghyuk in his female form at this moment.

So the main conclusions here are that Yoo Joonghyuk is very much recognizable in his female form and that Kim Dokja is capable of recognizing him simply with a haircut. So I personally believe that Kim Dokja was fully capable of knowing that Yoo Joonghyuk = the Punisher, but he was just so adamant about Yoo Joonghyuk turning into a girl to be something completely impossible that he made himself believe that the two were different people.

[moonstruckme]

Hi, I hope you’re having a wonderful day, I hope I’m making a request properly as I’ve never done it before but would you write something where reader self isolates whenever she’s faced with conflict? It can be with anyone u write for <3

Hope you're having a wonderful-er day :)

roommate!Remus x fem!reader ♡ 558 words

Two days ago Remus got upset with you for letting your dishes pile up in the sink again, and he hasn’t seen you since. 

You’re so good at avoiding him that he almost wouldn’t suspect it if he didn’t know how you are. You hurry out of the house before he wakes up, and no matter when he comes home in the evenings you’re already in your room with the door shut. Last night, Remus could have sworn he saw your light on through your window as he was coming in, but by the time he got inside there was nothing but darkness coming from beneath the crack in your door. 

There’s almost no trace of you but for the periodic disappearances of your key from its hook by the door. The kitchen is spotless. Remus feels awful for getting so wound up about it. He suspects you’ve been bringing food to your room just to avoid being caught in the common spaces. 

Now, he’s decided enough is enough. 

“Dove?” He gives your door a couple of knocks. “Can I come in?” 

There’s a bit of shuffling around, soft, cautious footsteps, and then you’re opening your door in front of him. Behind you, evidence to his theory: a dirty plate and a glass on your floor. 

“Hey.” Your voice could be mistaken for casual if not for the hesitant undertone. “What’s up?” 

“I’m not mad at you,” Remus says plainly. It feels important to get out there. 

A pause. Your chest draws back slightly like you want to take a step away. “You’re not?” 

Remus can’t help the little laugh that puffs out of him, sad and ripe with sympathy. “No, honey. I’m not. And I would’ve told you that sooner if you hadn’t been hiding. Can we be okay again?” 

You look a short fall from bewildered, your brow scrunched adorably. “I wasn’t hiding.” 

“Oh, come on. Do me the credit of not lying to me.” Remus smiles to let you know he’s only teasing; ordinarily, you’d get there on your own, but considering recent events he feels some responsibility for making sure nothing is misinterpreted. 

When his arms come around your shoulders, you make no sign of displeasure. He holds each elbow with its opposite hand, kissing the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry for acting so cross over something as silly as the dishes,” he says softly. “It was completely out of proportion. You can tell me when I’m being a prick, you know.” 

“They were really gross,” you admit, settling your arms somewhat cautiously around his waist. “You were right, I needed to take care of them.” 

“I never said I was wrong about the dishes.” Remus hopes you can hear the teasing in his voice this time. “Only that I was wrong for getting so upset about them. Don’t hide yourself away from me, okay?” 

Your body relaxes a bit more against his, and he presses another kiss to the crown of your head. An encouragement, if you need it. 

“Okay,” you sigh. It sounds a lot like relief. “I’ll try not to. But you’re not a prick. I’m not going to call you one.” 

“So determined to lie to me,” Remus says fondly. “But fine, that’s up to you. I’ll try to be less of a prick so you don’t have to.” 

[spamtonloversanonymous]

🧃🪐: Hello, May I request a Spamton x reader where the reader dated him since he was a Addison (little theory, ya know?) But broke up when he became a [[bigshot]] BUT HAPPY ENDING! They get back together when Reader offers him a place because he lives in a dump :)

ok this got very long for this blog’s standards but it was a lot of fun to write! i only stopped it when i did to keep it somewhat short, i could probably write a part 2 of this if there’s interest. here u go:

you’re just cutting through an alley to dodge the crowd, and of all the people you were expecting to meet today -

“spamton?”

you recognize him immediately; how could you not? he’s changed a lot, but it’s undeniable: the short stature you had always found so charming, the dirtied messy hair (with sad vague suggestions of attempting to slick back or style) that he’d dyed black sometime around everything happening, those weird-ass glasses you recall from ad posters that had depicted a stranger you’d used to be so familiar with. you used to know spamton so well, and then it felt like you didn’t know him at all, and then it felt like nobody ever knew him — and here he is before you, the opposite of everything he was becoming when you broke off. digging through a trash can like a raccoon and muttering to himself about kromer and phone calls.

of course, not a moment after you say his name, his head snaps up and he ejects himself from the bin, as if you might not notice he was ever in there if he distances himself quick enough. his face is panic-stricken — is that just the face of a former success story humiliated to be seen at such a low point, or the face of someone startled to see his past lover? does he even recognize you?

“spamton,” you repeat, approaching him.

after a short pause, probably registering your presence, spamton takes only an instant to shake the deer in headlights look in favor of an overzealous salesman persona that would be painfully familiar to you if he wasn’t playing it so… oddly. it’s adjacent to the “big shot” that had been too “big” for little old you, but so, so off. it’s kind of unnerving, kind of sad; he’s not unlike a broken child’s toy.

“WELL WELL [Well]!!!” he booms in a voice you can almost recognize as spamton as you knew him. “WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE ?? IS THI5 THE [[Humble Small-Town Beginnings]] OF THE [[Watch This Heartwarming Reunion]] OF THE CENTURY?!?”

well, someone’s picked up some bizarre speech quirks since you last saw him. it takes you a second to process and make sense of what he just said.

“what?” you say. “spam..ton,” you hesitate in the middle of his name, the second syllable an addendum to save you from calling him by the nickname that came back so naturally, “you…” you have a million questions. “…are you okay?”

the facade he’s just thrown on is already cracking. the stretched-too-wide smile is fading from his eyes, his bold posture is receding back into slumping. his voice still has power behind it, but it’s more urgency than it is confidence: “iT S BEEN [[A real long time]] SINCE Y0U AND I L4ST [Click Here To Chat] !! YOU GOTTA GIVE ME THE [[LArge Ice-Cream Scoop]] ON HOW LIFES BEEN TRE ATING YOU”

he’s avoiding the question. even before… everything, spamton’s always been a little too prideful to admit the embarrassing, so you take that as not meaning well.

you want to be mad at him — he’s finally before you after all this time, after he just kind of disappeared from everything as almost soon as he made it big, but you can’t find it in you. he’s clearly not in a good place in any sense of the word, and you’ve always privately wished for a chance to reconnect with him.

“wanna catch up at my place?” you offer all too casually, despite every shred of common sense in your brain urging you to do, uh, not that.

he looks like you just told him he won the lottery. “IF YOUD BE!! WILLING TO LET ME IN2 YOUR [[Quality Living Space]] I WOULD LOV E TO”

“…and it wouldn’t have to just be for an evening or anything,” you add. “spamton, do you — do you have anywhere to stay?”

the deer-in-headlights expression flickers across his face for a moment, but he gestures to the dumpster in the alley with all the gusto of a used car salesman, telling you, “I HAVE A TOP OF THE LINE [[No Place Like Home]]”

“…spamton, that’s not…” you don’t want to kick his pride while its down; you choose not to finish your sentence. instead, you simply say: “i have a guest bedroom.”

“………REALLY?”

“do you want to.. stay with me?”

“CAN YOU PROMISE [[Not Clickbait]]”

“i’m being serious. promise.”

there’s a pause, and then:

“I COULD CERTAINLY [[Consent to the terms & conditions of]] !!!!! ….IF YOU. WOULD HAVE ME. OF COURSE.”

“spammy,” the name just slips out, “i wouldn’t have offered otherwise. now come on.”

[nerdzzone]

Only For A Moment: December

Summary: A series of shorter one shots from Chris and Whitney’s life together throughout the pandemic. Some happy times, some harder times, some fluff and some things a little more sexy - they work through it all as they try to get settled in their new and blossoming relationship.

Chris Evans x OFC

18+

Part of the Once Bitten/More Hearts series

Only For A Moment: November [part two]

Note: This is the last part of this section of the series! Thank you to everyone who has read, liked, reblogged and commented so far, I really appreciate your support and love reading all your thoughts! There will be more, focusing on their lives as the world starts opening up again, but I’m not sure when it will be posted.

-----

December 2020

December was a somewhat bittersweet month.

There were quite a few positives as Christmas always brought plenty of joy - and it brought Scott back from L.A. which was a nice treat for everyone - and there was also the big announcement of an approved vaccine. The roll out wouldn't be immediate, of course, but there was hope on the horizon and a clear sense of relief.

However, there were some negatives as well. I still had my concerns about how well we'd adapt our relationship to the realities of real life and, as excited as I was about Christmas, the holiday season was making me miss my family more than ever.

Chris' family was a great substitute - especially as the case numbers were low enough that we were allowed to have small family gatherings which meant they could all to stay over at our house on Christmas Eve as they had the year before - but I hadn't seen any of my own family in over a year and I missed them terribly. It made me so sad to think of how much Grayson had grown since they last saw him and knowing that I had a little nephew that I'd never even met was starting to break my heart.

In an attempt to ease the ache caused by the distance, we had a video call on Christmas Eve since my family were all together too and I was relieved that our friendly, confident three year old had no problem making conversation with the grandparents and uncle that he could barely remember. It was heart-warming and refreshing to have that time with them even through a screen, but it wasn’t the same and it left me wanting more. I wanted to see them, to hug them, to help my mom make Christmas dinner and beat my brother at the card games we always used to play. I wanted to be less than three thousand miles away and it was starting to weigh on me.

I held it together pretty well, not wanting to put a damper on the happy festivities we were having, but later that evening, when I was alone with my thoughts as I finished tidying up the dishes from dinner, it was suddenly overwhelming. I leaned on the counter as my chin dropped to my chest and the tears finally came. I wasn’t going to let myself have more than a few minutes to wallow in my sadness, but almost as soon as the tears started, a voice from behind me interrupted.

"Whitney?" Lisa quietly announced her presence. "Are you okay?"

I sniffled and quickly wiped my eyes before turning around to see her standing in the doorway with Scott, concern on both of their faces.

"I'm fine," I smiled weakly, but Scott wasn't going to let it go that easy.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "Why are you crying?"

"I just miss my family. It's hard not getting to see them at Christmas," I admitted. "I know I didn't get to see them last year either, but it's been so long now since I've seen them at all. I guess that's just made it harder."

"Oh, honey, that's understandable," Lisa assured me. "I can't imagine how I'd feel if we hadn't been able to be together at all for as long as you've been away from your family."

"Usually I'm fine," I insisted. "I think just seeing them all together and not being there got to me a little bit."

"Well their loss is our gain," Scott informed me. "Because we're really happy to have you here. I know it's not the same, but you're part of our family too."

"I know and I'm so grateful that I have all of you," I rushed to assure them, not wanting anyone to think I wasn't happy to be spending the holidays with them. "It's been so amazing how you've all taken me in and let me be a part of your family. I know things were complicated with Chris and I, but you've always been so good to me."

"You've been a part of this family from the moment we found out about Grayson," Lisa said firmly. "Whatever happened between you and Chris never mattered to us. We're glad you've sorted yourselves out now, but we've always thought of you as family."

Scott nodded in agreement and their kind words brought more tears to my eyes.

"That really means a lot," I choked out, blinking frantically to stop myself from crying anymore. It took a moment to compose myself, but eventually I let out a laugh and wiped my eyes again. "Sorry, I'll stop blubbering soon. I don't think I realized how much I missed them until now and once I get all weepy, it's hard for me to stop."

Lisa crossed the kitchen quickly and pulled me into a hug.

"If you need to let it out, then you go right ahead."

I returned her hug and was about to inform her that it wasn't necessary when Chris - who had been upstairs putting Grayson to bed - appeared in the doorway and interrupted our little moment.

"What are we letting out? Why is Whitney crying?" he asked. "What did you two do to her?"

"We were just letting her know that none of us would judge her if she wants to dump your ass," Scott lied, a smirk on his face. "And now she's crying tears of joy."

"Scott!" Lisa scolded despite the laugh that fell from her lips as she let me slip out of her arms. "That's a horrible thing to say."

"It's not true," I assured Chris even though I was sure he'd figured that out. "I just had a little sad moment. I miss my family so your lovely family members were reassuring me that I'm part of yours."

"You absolutely are," he agreed, coming over and slipping his arm around my waist before pressing a kiss to the side of my head. "I'm sorry that you're sad, but do you remember what I told you last year?"

I'd spent a lot of time trying to block out the memory of last Christmas in the months after it happened and apparently I'd done a good enough job to not know what he was talking about.

"No," I shook my head. "What?"

"There's no time for worryin' at Christmas!" He reminded me. "Let's get you a drink and turn that frown around!"

"Alright, that sounds good," I laughed as I slid out of his grasp. "Lisa, can I get you another glass of wine?"

"Oh, yes, that's actually why we came in here," she smiled. "We were sent to get everyone another round."

"Perfect," Chris grinned as he opened the fridge and started pulling out supplies.

He poured drinks for everyone, but held me back as his brother and mother left the room with as many drinks as they could carry. He pulled me into his arms again before I could pick my drink up off the counter.

"Are you good?" He asked, rubbing his thumb on the exposed skin just above my jeans. "I'm sorry that you miss your family."

"I'm fine," I smiled up at him. "It was just hard seeing them all together tonight and not being there. I do miss them, but I'm okay. I'm happy to be here with you and your family."

"As soon as things get better, we can go and visit," he promised. "I think I'll have to head to L.A. in the near future anyway. Now there's a vaccine and things might start to improve, there's more talk of starting The Grey Man."

While the thought of a trip to L.A. was encouraging in theory, it made my stomach turn. Travelling while the pandemic was still around seemed very stressful - if Scott's journey home for the holidays was anything to go by - and the thought of Chris returning to work was something I wasn’t eager to think about. I knew he was trying to make me feel better though so I stretched up and placed a kiss on his lips.

"That would be nice," I smiled. "I'd like you to get to know my family a bit more."

"I'd like that too," he nodded. "As soon as we can, I promise."

As I slipped out of his grasp, I tried to focus on that hopeful promise and push any sad feelings from my mind.

-

The rest of that evening was pretty lowkey. We knew that the kids would be up at the crack of dawn as they were the year before and went to bed early in preparation for that. It was a decision that I was very grateful for at six thirty the next morning when Grayson woke us up by launching himself onto our bed.

“Merry Christmas!”

His little voice cut through the silence of the room, ruining any possibility that we might have been able to sleep a little longer.

“Merry Christmas, Gray,” I heard Chris answer as I rolled over. Just as I turned to face him, Chris dragged him down from where he was bouncing on the bed and pulled him against his chest. “Let’s go back to sleep. Okay, buddy?”

We all knew that wasn’t going to happen and Grayson proved it as he giggled and wiggled around, squealing loud enough to ensure that no one in the house could possibly still be asleep.

“Gray! Shhh,” I laughed, pulling him out of Chris’ arms and into my own. “Merry Christmas.”

I kissed the top of his head and he pulled back, grinning up at me.

“Santa came, Mama!”

“Did he?” I gasped. “That’s so exciting!”

“There’s so much presents!”

“Wow, I guess we should go see who they’re for!”

“Probably me,” Chris teased Gray. “I bet they’re all for me and maybe one for your mom.”

“And for me?”

The hope in Grayson’s voice had me interjecting before Chris could tease him any more.

“I’m sure there are some for you,” I assured him. “I bet there’s some for everyone.”

“Even Uncle Scott?”

That question earned a howl of laughter from Chris, but I nodded.

“Even Uncle Scott,” I smiled. “He’s been pretty good this year, hasn’t he?”

“No!” Grayson giggled. “He scared Daddy! And me!”

I laughed, thinking back to the incident he was referencing. Ever since Scott returned from L.A., he and Chris had created some kind of ‘scare war’ where they were competing to see who could scare the other in the best way. They posted the videos on Instagram and their fans loved it, but it had gotten a little out of hand. Scott caught Chris off guard when he came home from a walk with Dodger the day before and got an excellent reaction from him, but he didn’t realize that Grayson was with him too. The poor kid was terrified and cried for almost fifteen minutes afterwards. Scott had been incredibly apologetic and tried to make it up to him, but apparently Gray wasn’t feeling particularly forgiving.

“He did scare us and that wasn’t very nice,” Chris agreed. “He’s probably on the naughty list!”

“Yeah!” Grayson grinned at his dad. “Let’s go see!”

He scrambled off the bed almost as quickly as he’d climbed up in the first place. Once the sound of his heavy footsteps faded as he ran down the hall, Chris pulled me into his arms.

“Merry Christmas, Win.”

“Merry Christmas,” I smiled up at him. “Crazy to think that we woke up like this a year ago too.”

“Almost exactly like this,” Chris smirked. “Until you snuck out of bed as if I wouldn’t know we’d been cuddling all night.”

My jaw dropped slightly.

“You knew?”

“Of course, I knew!” Chris chuckled. “I’d been awake for almost half an hour before you woke up, but it felt so nice cuddlin’ you that I didn’t wanna move.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” I laughed, burying my head in his chest as he assured me that it wasn’t. “But it’s so strange to think that if there hadn’t been that snow storm and I hadn’t stayed over that night, maybe we wouldn’t even be here now.”

“Do you really think that?”

“It’s hard to say,” I admitted. “I think we would have ended up quarantining together, but if we hadn’t had that slip up at Christmas, we wouldn’t have had the same incentive to talk about things during lockdown.”

“But that slip up showed that the feelings were there,” Chris pointed out. “So, maybe it would have happened while we were locked in this big ol’ house anyway.”

“I like to think so,” I smiled. “Either way, I’m happy it did.”

“Me too,” Chris placed a kiss on the top of my head as the sounds of excited children floated down the hall towards us. “I guess we should get up before they come looking for us.”

I reluctantly agreed and we dragged ourselves out of bed to join the festivities.

-

Christmas morning was much the same as the year before. The kids were overwhelmed with excitement at all the gifts, but very grateful and appreciative of everything they received. Chris bought me some new cameras that I’d mentioned wanting to buy before my work picked up again, but it was my gift to him that I was really excited about.

I watched as he opened the box that I’d carefully wrapped and pulled out the photo album that I’d put inside.

“Wow,” Chris murmured as he flipped through the pages with a soft smile on his face. “Are these all of me and Gray?”

“There’s some of Dodger too, but yeah, mostly it’s you and Gray,” I informed him. “I just thought, it’s been such a crazy year and there’s been a lot of stress, but there were some good moments too and I wanted you to have some memories of those.”

“This is amazing…”

He flipped through the pages that I’d filled - in order by month - of all the pictures that I’d taken since the start of the pandemic. There were some of him helping Grayson ride his bike, some of them reading together and doing puzzles, some of them playing in the pool, some of them raking leaves in the fall, carving pumpkins at Halloween, cooking dinner together, curled up on the couch watching movies and pretty much every other day to day activity that they did together through the lockdown. I was amazed by how many pictures I’d taken when I started compiling them, but I knew it was a gift that he would appreciate.

“That’s one of my favourites,” I giggled, pointing to a picture of bath time one night when Chris had fashioned them both beards made out of bubbles.

“I love them all,” he smiled, looking up at me with glassy eyes. “Thank you, Winnie. Thank you so much.”

I leaned in to place a soft kiss on his lips as Lisa moved to stand behind her son and sneak a peek at the album.

“That’s such a wonderful gift, Whitney,” she gushed. “Those pictures are beautiful.”

“Thank you. If you look through it later and pick out your favourites, I can make you some copies.”

“That would be great!” She grinned. “I would love that, if you don’t mind.”

I assured her that it would be no trouble and made notes of a few that I thought she might want as Chris and I spent the next half an hour flipping through the album and reminiscing on the happy moments we shared as a family during a very dark year. It was a rather odd feeling that such a bleak time had also been such a happy one for us. I was beyond grateful that our families had been relatively untouched by the virus plaguing the world and was more than happy to join Scott in his toast to all our continued good health when he brought out the mimosas as soon as all the presents were unwrapped.

-

The rest of the day was filled with plenty of love and appreciation of our little family and the opportunity to be together. As we had the year before, we called all the relatives who lived too far away to join us before spending most of the day playing games, drinking fancy Christmas cocktails and eating delicious food. We had learned something from the previous years celebrations though and didn’t let ourselves get quite as intoxicated as we had back then.

All in all it was a lovely day and my heart was feeling very full by the time we said our goodnights and headed to our room that evening. I was refreshed by the opportunity for such prolonged socialization and had a little extra pep in my step as I pranced off to the ensuite bathroom to brush my teeth.

However, when I came back out, I was surprised to find Chris sitting on the edge of our bed. He glanced up when I walked in, a soft smile on his face, but there was an air of nervousness around him that immediately put me on edge.

"You okay?"

My question was simply met with a nod as he beckoned me over. He grabbed my hand as soon as I was close enough and kept me standing in front of him.

"I have one more present for you," he informed me after a moment of quiet. "But I want to preface it with an explanation so you don't freak out."

I laughed nervously at that statement, wondering what kind of gift could possibly make me freak out. A car? A new house? A puppy? My mind was instantly running wild.

"Okay..."

"I know you're still nervous about things going back to normal and how we'll handle it - I can see it on your face every time it gets mentioned," he started, his words so far offering no explanation. "I've been trying to think of something that I can do to reassure you, something to prove just how committed I am to you because I am all in here, Winnie. From the moment I met you, I knew you were something special and it sounds a little cheesy and over the top, but you really are the love of my life. It took a little soul-searching and some brainstorming, but I eventually came up with something I think might help us both..."

He paused then and reached behind his back, pulling out a little box that made my heart start pounding in my chest.

"Oh my god," I gasped out as he slid from the bed to kneel on one knee in front of me.

He opened the box and looked up at me with hope written all over his face.

"Will you marry me, Winnie?" He asked, the question bringing tears to my eyes. I was biting my lip to hold myself together and didn't realize that I hadn't answered until he launched into some further reassurances. "We don't have to get married right away - we can wait as long as you want - but taking this step, making this extra promise and commitment, I thought it might give us both some comfort."

I was still stunned, completely blindsided by his proposal, but I took in his words and appreciated his reasoning as a grin slid onto my face.

"Yes, Chris! Yes, I will marry you."

Chris visibly relaxed at my acceptance and, with noticeably shaky hands, he took the ring from the box and slid it on my finger. As soon as it was safely in place, he sprung to his feet and pulled me into a breathtaking kiss.

"Holy shit," he let out a deep breath, moments later when we finally parted. "That was terrifying. I thought for sure you were going to turn me down and tell me that I'm insane."

"You kinda are," I smiled. "And everyone else is definitely going to think we've lost our minds."

"Well, we've never done things the traditional way and it just makes sense, doesn't it?" It was a question, but he didn't wait for an answer. "It hit me when we were talking in New York and you made a joke about me proposing, that it wasn't a bad idea, that it was something I wanted to do. I know we've technically been together for less than a year, but I haven't wanted anyone else since the day I met you so what's the point in waiting? I'm not gonna make decisions based on what everyone else thinks we should do - that would be crazy."

I smiled at his anxious rambling and stretched up to place another kiss on his lips.

"That would be crazy," I agreed. "And I don't care what they think. I don't want to be with anyone else either."

He matched my smile as he squeezed me even closer.

"And I mean it, we don't have to rush into anything or start planning a wedding right away," he assured me. "But I thought this extra step might make you feel better about things changing. I'm in this one hundred percent and I'll do whatever it takes to make this work for us."

I didn't need a ring to know that Chris loved me and wanted to make this work and being engaged wouldn't make any of the challenges that were ahead of us any less difficult to face. But there was something about how fearless he was in making such a commitment to me and something about the way he was so determined to reassure me of just how invested he was in our relationship that did put me at ease and fill me with confidence.

The fact that despite all the things we'd been through and all the things we still needed to work on - including my own insecurities - Chris was willing to marry me and make that lifelong commitment had my heart about ready to burst in my chest.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes too," I assured him. "I love you so much, Chris."

"I love you too," he grinned. "And god, I'm so relieved you said yes."

"Of course I'd say yes," I insisted. "You know I love you."

"I do, but I also know you're worried," he reminded me. "And I didn't want you to think I was using a proposal as a band-aid or something. I know that it won't always be easy and we'll have to work hard."

"We will," I agreed. "But now, at least when you're away, I'll have this pretty ring to remember you by."

I pulled my arm back from around his waist to look down at my finger. I was grateful that it wasn't a massive, showy ring, but it was beautiful and seemed fairly unique.

"It's alexandrite," he informed me. "It's one of the birthstones for June which I thought was fitting for both of us. I was gonna use Gray's birthstone, but apparently April is diamond and I wanted something different. There's diamonds on either side of the big stone though so he's in there too."

"It's beautiful," I smiled as he grinned proudly.

"I didn't think you'd want something too over the top, but I wanted it to be something nice."

"Well, you nailed it," I assured him. "I couldn't have picked a nicer ring myself."

He captured my lips in another kiss and I leaned into it, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.

"Have you told anyone?" I asked once he pulled away. "Does my family know?"

"I told them last night," he nodded. "I called them back after I tucked Grayson in to let them know. And my whole family knows because I was stressed about the whole thing and couldn't keep it to myself. Oh, and Hannah because she scares me and I thought she'd be mad if she didn't know."

I laughed, letting my head rest against his chest.

"She would have been mad," I agreed. "But I can't believe she scares you, she's like a little chihuahua. She's all bark, no bite."

"She cried on the phone when I told her," he admitted, earning another bubble of laughter from me. "She assured me they were tears of joy, but swore me to secrecy about it so let's keep that between us."

"Oh, no way!" I giggled. "That is too good not to tease her about."

"Well, it'll be your loss if she kills me."

"Again, all bark and no bite," I reminded him. "Did your family know you were going to ask me tonight?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking a bit sheepish. "I think they're all waiting in the living room to see what you said.”

“Then let’s go share the good news,” I smiled, moving to link my arm with his. “Then we can come back in here and celebrate properly.”

I shot him a wink to emphasize what I meant and he let out a low growl of approval before dragging me out of our bedroom.

-

Of course, his family were thrilled that I’d said yes, even though it didn’t seem like any of them were particularly surprised. I called my family and Hannah as well before sharing a celebratory drink with my soon to be in-laws.

But it wasn’t until we laid, curled up in bed after our more private celebrations that it really started to hit me.

Sure, some people would think we were moving a bit too fast and they might have been right, if we had any intention of actually getting married right away. But for us, it was just another layer of reassurance. The ring on my finger was like a little security blanket, a memento of support for when things got hard and our schedules grew busier. It was a reminder that we were determined to make this work no matter what happened and it had me feeling much more hopeful about the new year ahead of us.

Things would change, there was no doubt about that, but we could get through it and come out stronger in the end. I knew it wouldn’t always be easy and there would be times when we felt like giving up, but with a little love and perseverance, I knew our relationship - and eventually our marriage - would only benefit and grow from our efforts.

-

Tags:  @maggotzombie @moonlacebeam @mizzzpink @zaylaugh @flowery-mess @flowerjewels @njrronaldo7 @hockeychick10 @partypoison00 @theladybiers @sidepieces @firoozehmoon @patzammit @sparkledfirecracker @mytbel0st @chvntelle-99 @mjey12

[hesgunnalovethis]

Greenhouse Planet

Prompt : ( ty @write-it-motherfuckers ) 

“How the hell are you still alive?”

“Honestly, I’m just as confused as you are”

Leonard x Reader

 Word count: 2755

 TW: OC death, blood mention, medbay

 A/N: you ever make up your own planet and species? me too apparently.

  Greenhouse Planet:

“Jim stand still will you.” You watched as Leonard McCoy struggled through the small gathering in the transporter room completing his pre-mission checks. Usually he liked to be more prepared but with Jim Kirk - the worst patient in the fleet - leading the Enterprise, he had to make exceptions. 

 “Bones, please, I had a check-up last month.” Kirk said punching co-ordinates into the control desk, much to Scotty’s dismay.

 “You had 6 broken bones that month, Jim.”  

 “Yeh and I’m sure they’ve healed.” 

You watched Lee’s face curl looking at the results of the little readings he’d gathered from Jim before admitting defeat and sliding his tricorder back into his pocket. 

You followed the others onto the transporter platform ready to face whatever was waiting planetside when you felt familiar hands wrap round your waist. Instinctively, you let yourself relax into the curves of your partner. Every inch of you belonged together, bodies fitting seamlessly.

“You don’t have to come, Y/N” Leonard rumbled softly into your ear, sending a shiver down your back. 

 You wrapped your hand around his, turning to look into his incomparable blue eyes and throwing a playful look over his lips “Good to know you still worry about me even after all these years.”

 “Worry? Me? Never.” Leonard scoffed, “It’s just, part of me just thinks you’re too pretty to be doing this kind of dirty work” 

 “Maybe you can make it up to me later?” You said running your hand up his arm to rest on his bicep. An intimate moment positively overlooked by the rush of the room. 

 “You know I hate talking about ‘later’ before this kind of thing.” Leonard sighed more to himself than to you. 

 You had often spoken about the increasing dangers on recent fieldwork. 

 “Ah, my Southern pessimist.” You said giving Leonard’s arm a comforting tap. 

 “One of these days I’m going to be right.” The infamous grumpy doctor persona had returned. 

 “You’ll never be right, Leonard. Not while I’m around.” You smirked and joined the others settling on the transporter platform. 

 Leonard followed. You could feel his eyes burning into you while Jim finished conferring with Scotty at the panel. His gaze didn’t budge. 

 “Okay, Scotty” Jim said taking his place at the front of the crew “Standby.” 

 ***

 Once your body had reconfigured itself you were in a jungle like landscape. Surrounded by tall plants you watched as your crewmates looked around equally confused, some picking unidentified green out of their hair and clothes. 

 Jim addressed the group. “This planet belongs to Bokencams. Bokencams are known for their botany but also for their lack of humanity. That means stay on task, stay out of sight. Starfleet had cultivated a healing plant which was promptly stolen. It’s our job to get it back. I’ll go in to reason with them while Andrews, Clarke and Y/L/N look for a point of entry. These creatures aren’t known for their intellect which means the plant should be easy to locate once inside. Got it?”

 Mumbles of assurance rippled through the group. 

 “Doctor McCoy and Lieutenant Uhura you’ll be here listening in for language and translation. The rest of you cover ground and cover each other. Eyes everywhere and comm anything unusual in.” 

 Everyone began to prepare for their own tasks: Jim shirt off and wiring himself, the red shirts activating phasers and Bones looking high strung. He pulled Jim aside, “Don’t you think I should be closer in on this action, Jim? I don’t recall anyone else having years of medical training to hand?” 

 “I need your brains here, Bones.” Jim said clapping his back pointing Leonard towards his portable control panel. 

 “Come on you three” Jim said pulling his top back over his head, “The sooner we get out of here the better. I hate greens.” 

 You, Jim and the 2 others began towards the seemingly empty green dome which sat perfectly isolated amongst the greenhouse planet. Getting closer Jim signalled for you all to split off, Clarke taking east, you taking west, Andrews taking south and Jim taking north towards the front door. 

 The tall plants made it easy to slip into your assigned station unseen and to your surprise the entire building seemed unguarded.

 You could see Jim beginning his strut towards the front door of the dome with no attempt to conceal himself. He wanted the attention on him. That was how his plans often went. Very Aries of him. 

 After all three of you had confirmed your position Jim stepped into the building without any trouble.

 The comms were silent.

 Getting to work you ran your eyes over the immense building. It stretched for miles each way. You began looking for any entrance. The distinct lack of windows was the first thing to jump out at you. The second was the space between the dome and the moss covered ground giving the building the appearance it was floating.

 You waited what seemed like hours with the anticipation but was likely a plethora of minutes before emerging from your cover bolting towards the underneath of the dome. 

 Drowned in darkness on your hands and knees you dragged your hands across the underneath of the building. The material was nothing like you had felt before. Somewhere between glass and beads. 

 You crawled through the damp ground for miles every inch of the underneath feeling eerily the same. You were beginning to lose hope when you felt a crack. You froze and ran your hand back over the beaded glass. Definitely a space. You crawled again searching for the same space parallel which could suggest a door.

 “Y/L/N come in.” rang from your comm. You ignored it. “McCoy to Y/L/N come in.”

 Your hand ran over another definite space. Rolling into the centre of the somewhat door you lifted your feet and hands to the beaded glass and began to push. With very little effort the hatch lifted enough for you to climb inside.

 You appeared to be in a lab. Green seemed to cover the entirety of the inside as well. You grabbed your comm, and rang to all ground comms “Y/L/N, stationed West, inside dome. Repeat. This is Y/L/N, stationed West, inside dome. Over.” Leonard’s voice came immediately “I love you. Be careful.” You switched off your comm.

 ***

 Bones knew you’d be the first in. You were good at your job. He just didn’t let himself admit it until he heard the message through the comm. Uhura reached out to squeeze his hand but Leonard pulled away. He would detach and get on with the job. Or try. They listened into Jim’s meeting with the Bokencams,

 “You have nothing to collect. It’s property of this planet. Here it can be stored at its optimum.”

 “And how have you been storing it exactly?” 

 Jim was stalling. Giving as much time as possible to those working around the dome. And it could’ve worked. 

 ***

 The dome was silent. You couldn’t tell if it was empty or sound proof. You weaved in and out of the green rows scrutinising every plant. One seemed to have stories written on the stems, another with the softest looking leaves you had ever seen. You ran your hand over the soft looking plant which sent a searing cut over your palm. ‘Should’ve seen that one coming’ you thought. 

 Behind the soft plant was a small glass cube. Inside was the purest green your eyes had ever met. The edges of the leaves appeared whitened as if touched by a December morning. That had to be what you were here for. 

 You slid the top off of the cube and carefully removed a cultivation of the plant. Unsure how else to test your theory you picked off a leaf and placed it on your tongue. Instantly you gashed hand sealed without a scar. You pressed the plant into your pocket and headed back for the hatch when you saw a green creature sliding through the space you had made. His eyes fixated on you before you had a chance to move. His thick fingers reached towards your arm extending way past where they should’ve. He bound your arms with a vine and marched you out of the lab door. 

 You couldn’t be sure where he was taking you but you knew it couldn’t be good. The creature had moved you round enough corners to be totally disoriented. Every green wall looked the same and there was no way to retrace your steps back to the hatch.

 From the corner of your eye you saw a familiar looking red through a window amongst the green. Your head shot backwards making eye contact with Clarke. So you were east. Good to know. 

 “Y/N?!” Clarke mouthed through the window.

 A segment of wall opened. A disguised door. And Clarke stood phaser pointed, face stern. All around him identical green creatures materialised from walls and ceilings crowding him. The Bokencam guarding you extended his arm into the crowd and released a phaser shot. Several of the green creatures fell backwards. Dead. He shot again and Clarke’s body thudded to the ground. 

 Your chest tightened enough to double you over. You felt winded. You tried to call his name but nothing came out. Your feet could barely support your weight never mind fight against the direction you were pushed. The creature holding you continued to march not batting an eyelid. He had killed tens of his own for one of you. The lack of humanity brief truly was not a warning. You kept your eyes on Clarke willing the blood to spill back into his body until he was completely out of sight. 

 *** 

 Bones was barely listening to the conversation anymore. His thoughts were consumed by you. His mind immediately considering the worst possible outcome. Assuring himself he was overthinking he tuned back into the conversation. 

 “Guess I’ll pack it up then. Thank you for your time.” Jim began to close out the meeting. 

 “Now that you have wasted our time I think you should be offering some sort of penance. Would you not agree, Captain?” The green creature in front of him snarled back. 

 “I don’t think that’s necessary at all. I would actually argue that we’re now even.” 

 “Maybe we could change your mind.” 

 Bones sat up bracing himself for whatever mess Jim had talked himself into. 

 “No,” Jim said with no attempt to hide his own panic, “Y/N?” 

 Bones’ body went stiff. 

 “Y/N?!” Uhura asked, “Did he just say Y/N?” 

 Bones picked up his phaser and started towards to dome. 

 *** 

 “Y/N are you alright?” Jim asked as tears began to fall from your eyes, Clarke’s body falling to the ground replaying over and over in your mind. “Y/N what happened.” Jim took a few steps towards you as all of the creatures raised their phasers.

 “DON’T” you yelled to Jim, “They killed Clarke. They killed him right in front of me. They killed their own to do it.” 

 You watched as man who didn’t believe in no win scenarios calculated this in his head. 

 “So here’s what’s gonna happen.” Jim said to the creatures, a clear switch in his persona. “You’re going to hand over Lieutenant Y/L/N to me, right now. We’re going to walk out of that door and return to where our crew is stationed. We’re going to pack up and we’re going to leave.” 

 “No Captain I think that’s what you want to happen. But let me tell you how it goes here. First-“ The creature was cut off by the sound of doors clambering. 

 You looked up to see Leonard McCoy - hater of fieldwork - standing in the doorway accompanied by a plethora of red shirts, phasers charged. 

 “Hand her over. Now.” Bones said stalking towards you. 

 “Is this all about her?” The creature who had led you through the green corridors said kicking your back, sending your body forward and the leaf which had been resting on your tongue down your throat. Leonard’s face stiffened. “It is isn’t it?” The creature laughed “Well then let me make this very easy for you.” 

 The world went in slow motion.

 Your eyes focussed on Leonard, managing the weakest of smiles as the phaser behind you released and shattered into your side. 

 The rush of familiar coloured shirts flooded the room you were in. Phasers shot in all directions and your body seized. 

 You found yourself laying across Leonard’s lap, as if it had always been there. Together you lay as one. Fitting seamlessly.

 Leonard fussed over your side speaking words you couldn’t fully understand. You grabbed his working hands in yours. 

 “Hey,” he said brushing stray hair out of your face “You’re doing really well stay with me. Tell me something. Anything.” 

 “Maybe you were right.” you whispered looking up at him. 

 “I’ll never be right, Y/N, not while you’re around.” He placed a bloody hand behind your neck, thumb stroking your jawline. 

 “Bones!” Jim shouted through the fighting, “Help them!”

 But you could see on Leonard’s face, there was nothing he could do. 

 Leonard pulled you close releasing a gentle sob by your ear. 

 “I love you too.” You whispered into the darkness

 *** 

 Leonard McCoy stood in a private room in his medbay looking at his soulmates cold body. He half heartily picked up the chart which lay on the bedside as he had so many times before. He read over the details as he had so many times before. 

 ‘Lutenient Y/N Y/L/N 

 Time of death: 15:34

 Killed in Action’ 

 He checked his watch. 

 18:32. 

 Maybe it was time. 

 He brushed his hand over your forehead tucking your hair behind your ears. He had no more tears left to spill. He took your hand in his and placed a forceful kiss on your forehead.

 “I’m sorry.” He stated. Not remorseful. Not angrily. Just stated. 

 His pressed the buzzer by the bed letting the on duty nurses know you were ready to be collected. 

 A small team arrived flashing sympathetic smiles towards Leonard.

 He instinctively started to help until Nurse Chapel put a hand to his chest. “You don’t have to do this bit Leonard.” He nodded his head and stood back as the rest of the nurses wheeled your bed out of the room. “Go home.” She said squeezing his hands and then she left closing the door behind her.  

 Leonard knew he would still be expected to work. They were too far into deep space to get extra crew. But for now Chapel was right Leonard needed to go home. To his empty quarters you both called home. 

 Leonard began to cry again. Because now it was over. 

 He could hear a situation in the corridor. Biobeds going wild. Nurses shouting. But his instincts didn’t kick in until he heard them call out his name. 

 “DOCTOR MCCOY!” They shouted for the second time as Leonard drew a hand down his face picking up his medical pack and moved into the corridor were you sat upright on the bed. 

 Leonard was frozen for a minute. Legs stuck to the ground. Then he heard your voice. 

 “Move! MOVE!” He shouted as he rushed to your side his eyes flickering all over your face and then to the monitors beside you. “How the hell are you still alive?!”

 “Honestly, I’m just as confused as you are.” You leaped forward from the bed towards Leonard but he pushed you backwards lifting your top to look at your wound, brows knitted. 

 “Really, Leonard? You’re really killing the moment here.” 

 “It’s gone? How the hell is it gone?” He ran his fingers over your side. 

 You reached your hand into your pocket revealing the greenest plant with the crystallised leaves. 

 “You FOUND IT?!” 

 “Believe it or not Leonard I’m not awful at my job.” 

 “How did that- but how did it work?” 

 You cast your mind back to Leonard appearing at the dome doors, “I swallowed it. I had one of its leaves in my mouth, I accidentally swallowed it when they pushed me.”

 “Sorry, you ATE an unidentified plant you’d JUST found?” Leonard said, disgust covering his face. 

 “...Yeh.” 

 “Again. How the HELL are you still alive.” Leonard wrapped his arms around your back lifting you from the bed. You wrapped your legs around his body. 

 An intimate moment that was positively seen by the room. Neither of you cared. It made sense. Every inch of you belonged together. There you stayed, fitting together seamlessly.

[cardiophileanonymous]

Late Night Errands Chapter 1

Mulder x Reader

Summary: The reader is a paralegal preparing to help defend her client on trial in a week. The stress has finally convinced her to go out and get a stethoscope to help calm her down. Little does she know a certain agent was watching her out while she was out late at night, and it makes her a prime suspect in his eyes.

Y/n= your name

Y/f/n Y/l/n= your first and last name

B/f/n= your best friend’s name

...

Y/n slammed the door shut then started to punch the sides of the steering wheel. What in the world was going through her mind? Of course this store wouldn’t have any stethoscopes! Even if it was a pharmacy. People don’t have stuff like that lying around in their homes. Not normal people, anyway. What was she gonna say to the employee when they inevitably asked why she was looking for one? “Oh, I don’t need one, I just want it for my weird-ass heartbeat kink!” Yeah, that was one conversation she didn’t want to have.

She silently stared at the moon for a few brief moments. Why couldn’t she have a normal kink like everyone else? Like feet, maybe. It still would’ve been weird, but dammit, at least she’d be able to find porn of it. The best she could find easily was cardiophilia fanfiction, and even then, it was scarce.

She snuck glances around the parking lot. Nobody in sight. So hopefully, nobody would notice the blush on her face when she brought up an hour long “asmr heartbeat” video for the sake of calming herself down.

She smiled in bliss. When a heartbeat was in the background, it was like everything melted away. She groaned in frustration when she heard a text from her friend, B/f/n.

Don’t forget we’re having lunch tomorrow! I’m taking your mind off that trial if it’s the last thing I do!

She was double pissed now that the stress of last week filled her head. She was a paralegal, and one of her clients was set to go on trial less than a week from now. It was the oddest case she’d ever seen. The case of Bill Brown.

The man had killed exactly one-hundred people in the span of less than half a year. And the details he gave were chilling. They were vivid and graphic. So, he must’ve been a sociopath or something, right? Well he was super remorseful. And upon turning himself in, that’s right, turning himself in, he sobbed for three days straight. What’s strangest was he claimed he didn’t know they happened until the memories came back to him that night.

She wouldn’t have believed it either, if he didn’t point to bodies that hadn’t been found yet. He helped officers uncover at least a quarter of his victims.

It gave everyone working in his defense a headache. Argue innocence and a false confession? He flat out admitted details the public didn’t know. Did they argue insanity? He seemed pretty fucking sane during interviews and psych evaluations. Self defense? Not in a million years.

What got at her was the genuine feeling he was innocent, and that someone, or something, could be out there. The idea of being out there in the city alone with it out and about gave her the creeps.

“Whatever,” she whispered, turning the audio up so she could return to her blissful ignorant state. Where everything melted away. Where she was actually pretty happy with a smile on her face. With that, she began to drive away.

…

All she could think about when she finished getting dressed was the trial. The trial, the trial, the trial. This was gonna be the biggest train wreck she would ever see in her career, and she had only become a paralegal a mere three years ago. She didn’t envy the defense attorneys she was working under.

Her thoughts were interrupted by three knocks at the door. Strange, she wasn’t expecting anyone today, except for B/f/n, and she was always late for everything.

She looked through the peephole to see two people in fancy clothing outside. She opened the door just a crack.

“H-hello…?”

“Y/f/n Y/l/n,” the man asked. Y/n nodded hesitantly. The man speaking held up the badge and the woman behind him did the same. “Agents Mulder and Skully, FBI. We have a few questions about your client. The one who’s set to go on trial next week.”

She turned her head to the side.

“I’m sorry, I think you might be mistaken. I-I’m not an attorney, I’m just a paralegal.”

“Oh, we’re not mistaken. That’s exactly why we wanted to talk to you.”

She looked inside her apartment real quick, then back at them.

“Okay… come on in. Just come in quickly so the cat doesn’t get out. She has a habit of running outside.”

She was internally grateful that her friend talked her into going out for lunch. She would’ve felt embarrassed if she had had to talk to these well dressed professionals in her pajamas. Skully knelt down, petting Y/n’s cat that had just walked up to the two.

“Um… would you like tea or anything? I’m about to make some for myself now.”

Skully lifted up one of her hands while she let the small animal nuzzle into her other one.

“That won’t be necessary. We plan to be out as soon as possible.”

“O-okay… um... I’m guessing you’re here to ask about Bill Brown?”

Mulder nodded.

“That’s correct.”

“I… don’t really understand. He’s set to go on trial less than a week from now. Why is the FBI getting involved? I thought this was settled, more or less.”

“We think he may be the wrong guy. We’re investigating a series of murders strikingly similar to the ones he supposedly committed a year and a half ago. We need to look at some of the previous evidence and cross examine it with the crimes happening now.”

She still seemed unconvinced.

“Why haven’t you gone to my firm? Or better yet, the police? I-I’m sure they have everything on file.”

Mulder shook his head.

“The lawyers won’t speak to us. And the police department doesn’t want to reopen the investigation when they’re so close to closing it. They don’t want to cause panic.”

She nodded. That actually wasn’t that hard a story to believe, considering the people she worked with on a daily basis. She just looked around the room.

“Okay… you might want to rethink my offer about the tea, then. And have a seat. Because this’ll take a long time.”

...

She presented them with a long list of documents. Some images, most legal papers. She pulled out the two things that were most of interest to her, a map of where the killings took place as well as a few images of supposed murder weapons.

“I’m not really sure what you’re looking for, so here's everything, I guess.”

Skully started flipping through the legal papers, reading passages of the man’s confession. Y/n’s cat slipped under Skully’s arms and laid on her lap as she continued to read. Mulder took a keen eye to the map.

“When did these murders take place?”

“Um, September 14th through February 10th, sir.”

“And he moved here the day these murders started, correct?”

“C-c-correct. You… didn’t already know this?”

“Oh I did. I just wanted to make sure you did. Encyclopedic knowledge of a case is the sign of a good paralegal, don’t you think?”

“Oh!” She let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Thanks…”

“Tell me, Y/n. What do you think happened?”

“Well, the evidence clearly shows he’s guilty, so… we are going to be arguing that he did these crimes due to mania and insanity.”

“No, Y/n. What do you really think?”

She looked down, and started to get finicky. She sat up straight.

“I think he’s innocent… and I have a theory about what happened. But… I don’t think anyone would believe me.”

Skully raised an eyebrow.

“Why haven’t you brought it up with any of the defense attorneys?”

She looked away, then back at the both of them.

“You won’t… tell anyone, right? I don’t wanna lose my job because everyone thinks I’m crazy.”

Mulder nodded expectantly.

“Of course not. Now, what did you find?”

She flipped through the papers.

“While they were at his house… they found a lot of these DVDs.” She was somewhat mumbling under her breath. When she pulled out the image she presented it to Mulder. “I’ve looked them up and they’re all from a lesser known hypnotist.”

Mulder read the bottom of the DVD covers.

“Hannah Martin?”

“...yes. I’ve tried to find those specific DVDs myself, on her website or Amazon or whatnot, but, uh, I can’t find them.”

“Why do you find these significant?”

“Um… Skully, was it? May I please have the written interview?”

She handed it to her. Now that her hands were free, Skully began to pet the cat sitting on her legs, who purred in appreciation. She cleared her throat and began to read.

“Bill said ‘I moved to start a new life, I tried to smile every day, I helped my neighbors, I listened to hypnosis videos every night before bed to make me a better person. I did my best to turn my life around… but I guess I was a monster this whole time. Last night, my memories came back to me in my dreams. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…’”

Mulder nodded.

“So you think that the hypnosis videos he watched before bed may have mind controlled or influenced him into committing these crimes overnight?”

Her face began to turn red and a wave of feeling stupid hit her.

“I’m sorry! I know that sounds insane!”

“No, not to me.” She was in awe. He was actually entertaining her insane supernatural idea? “How far have you looked into this Hanna Martin?”

“You have to pay at least five-hundred dollars for her to create a hundred and fifty custom sessions to send to you personally through DVDs. Um, the first alleged murder was one hundred and forty-nine days before the last alleged murder. That day he confessed would be day one hundred and fifty.”

Mulder seemed incredibly interested. He gazed down at the image he was holding.

“Thank you for bringing this information to my attention. Can you please scan this and make a copy for me? I want to see if I can track down these DVDs.”

“O-okay!”

She was a little excited that her idea was being entertained. And, aside from that, this agent was very cute! So he was cute and as conspiracy crazy as she was?! She smiled like a dope when she was no longer being watched, her back to the two. She began making the copy.

“Another question for you, Y/n.”

She gulped. Something about this man saying her name made her stomach drop.

“Y-yeah…?”

“Do you go out at night often?”

The feeling of her stomach dropping was now from fear.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw your car parked outside the local drugstore late last night, any reason for it?”

She swallowed, hard. She was going for ulterior motives, but she was relieved she had something to fall back on.

“I was getting my medication. Um, I can show you if you want proof?”

“There’s no need to. But midnight is fairly late to be running errands like that, don’t you think?”

She breathed in.

“I couldn’t sleep. So I thought I might as well do something productive.”

He nodded. She turned to look at him, but she couldn’t quite read his face. Was he insinuating what she thought he was? Or was this all in her head? If he thought she was involved, he was probably crazy. She just laid out all this evidence to prove her client innocent, and possibly even helped point to the real killer, yet he thought she might be the guilty one?

“Did you happen to purchase anything from this hypnotist?”

“No, I don’t have that kind of money… and besides, i-if I am right, I don’t know if I would want to get anything from her.”

“Mhm.”

Her dopey smile and blush was gone by the time she handed the copied image to Mulder.

“I’m not sure about the legality of this…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll deal with it.”

She was a bit angry when they left. B/f/n was a bit confused walking in.

“What happened?”

“Ugh! The stupid FBI is involved in the case now. They wanted to see some stuff.”

She tilted her head to the side and her nose crinkled in disbelief.

“The FBI?”

“I don’t know either! Just… help me pick up these papers. Actually, don’t! I need to make sure they’re all in order before court in a few days!”

She nodded as Y/n began to put everything as they were supposed to be.

“...that guy was kind of cute.”

She sighed.

“I thought that, too. But actually, he’s a dick.”

[hopefullystillatheatrestudent]

okay so i’ve been going crazy these past few days. all about cockles/jensmish and obsessively watching their panels or reading the transcripts BECAUSE. THEY ARE LOUD. LIKE. i saw some fancams on twt and i thought people were just exaggerating but noooooooooo!!!???? so, getting to the point. you said that how do we know that jensen is performing masculinity? because jared isn’t and THAT IS A BIG BRAIN MOMENT. ON POINT. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. a particular moment from gag reel that jumps out (which you’ve talked about) when jensen goes ‘cas, you are my baby daddy’ and misha goes, ‘i know i love you too’ and jensen goes, ‘i didn’t say i love you’ and misha goes, ‘i know you wanted to’ and jensen says, ‘i love you’ WHAT THE FUCK! that was NOT a joke. yes, people took it as a joke and had a good laugh BUT I HAVE WATCHED IT TOO MANY TIMES AND IT LIVES IN MY MIND RENT FREE BECAUSE IT WAS NOT A PERFORMANCE. THAT WAS JENSEN. THAT WAS MISHA. jensen has a had trouble with the pda and being all touch feely (the breakup theory) and he gradually grew into it, accepted it and misha was right there all along, never pushed it. it was like a deancas au but tbh, 99% of destiel is because of cockles and we all know it. i just. jensen has latched onto dean as an emotional support because he tunes with it. understands it. projects on to it. yeah, i just had to say it and get it off my chest. (and what about those poetry pages on instagram? alma? what is your opinion?) btw, you have a lovely blog and your analysis are right on target.

so there is a LOT i’m going to address here(how dare you bring up [gunshot] i HAVE to talk about it now) so again!!!! under a cut it goes but i hope you appreciate my rambles anon it seems like you do :,)

1. jared vs. jensen and performing masculinity. hell yeah man. jared and jensen are both just ‘guys from texas’ but they are still so vastly different. today i actually had a revelation that i’m pretty sure has to do with me being bi. and it’s that i have a group of straight friends(that i love dearly but they care too much about hockey and pitbull imo could not be me) and i have a group of queer friends(who are also batshit[affectionate]). and it’s like whichever group i hang out with a different side of me emerges? they’re both me, it’s just that certain aspects of who i am as a person only surface depending on who i am around. however, i will say i feel like i watch what i say around my straight friends more. i see that very clearly in jensen as well. around jared during panels and on set, he’s definitely putting on an air of machismo and engages in typical guy talk. i do think an element of it is performative, because he wants validation from jared that they’re still just two dudes from texas taking on the world together despite his sexual identity. does that make any sense??? i hope so. but when he’s with misha he is an entirely different person and his sense of humour becomes wildly different. the machismo fades away, he’s way less caught up in what people think about him, lets his guard down, etc. to go back to my original point which is how j2 are different in that regard....jared does not do this. he is a constant. he does not flip a switch between ‘performing masculinity’ and ‘not’ because he isn’t performing any part of who he is. he just IS. so yeah these two are similar in many regards but there’s somewhat of a dissonance between them when it comes to how they perform masculinity because one of them is putting on a show and the other is merely being.

2. that crypt scene blooper(here just in case you need to see it again. do it. as a treat.) when i tell you i have easily seen this over thirty times??? since it first came out??? i mean it. it is such an overlooked(r*mantic) moment and it means so much more than people think it does. i’ve talked about the context behind it, and i think that’s why this blooper was so meaningful, so i’ll mention it again. jensen and misha had a LOT of trouble with this scene. the reason is that jensen couldn’t wrap his head around why dean would be saying these things, if i remember correctly, and both of them sat down and scoured over how they should play it for a while before filming(teamwork ;) teammates *ahem*). [to be honest we all know why jensen had a hard time with that scene and it is because it is blatantly romantic. rip to him but i would simply give in to it at that point but oh well] so anyway, their heads were scattered going into shooting, which is NEVER a good headspace to be in for a scene, ESPECIALLY not a pivotal one. but they had each other to help them through said weird energy on set that couldn’t possibly have invoked the best feelings, especially considering jensen STILL doesn’t think he played that correctly(but he praised misha on his performance :,) ). and with that context every single part of that video hits haRD 

-’stop pulling my face towards your crotch’ i think this is objectively hilarious because it really really looks like jensen is pulling HIMSELF towards misha’s crotch. again, you’re fooling no one, jensen. misha’s wheezing laugh and the way he wraps himself around jensen is also,,,sweet??? like i don’t know how else to describe how i see it but this moment really reads as jensen, in his weird ‘constructing elaborate rituals’ way is asking for security through a physical touch from misha and he happily obliges and gives jensen what he needs. because i mean...watch it again. jensen ‘fights back’, but not really at all, actually. pretty wimpy counterattack. he literally lets himself be smothered by misha, and i would literally describe what they end up doing as cuddling. 

-’i need you, cas. you’re my baby daddy’ i love having an actor’s perspective on things bc i think i can explain what’s going on here. jensen just delivered what was(in his own mind) a rotten take of the lines he’s most scared of delivering. so the scene was already messed up. therefore; ensuing fuckery is warranted to help him feel better. but there’s also for sure more than meets the eye for what he says here because of misha’s reaction after??? like he seemed genuinely touched. first of all, he’s saying ‘you’re my baby daddy’ as half-jensen, but not necessarily dean either(because he didn’t say the previous lines as true to his character...you get it), to misha, not cas. i think i’ve made this point before, but every single innuendo in the gag reels is to misha specifically, never once cas. therefore; logical conclusion: ‘you’re my baby daddy’ was for misha and it meant something deeper than we think because of what follows it

-this part. jensen’s giddy ass smile after he sees misha crack and then misha says ‘yeah, i know’ (can i just say his voice when he says this is so intimate???? like am i intruding guys??? sorry i’ll let myself out) also he is smiling SO BIG

- ‘i know’ ‘why are you laughing?’ ‘no i know i love you too’ this analysis is already so long but i still want to get into what THAT whole exchange means. ‘why are you laughing?’ to me sounds like jensen’s pretending to be affronted by misha laughing at something that is serious. and it’s serious because he quite literally meant ‘i love you’. he did. misha knows it. misha’s really REALLY good at cutting the bs and just getting to what people are actually trying to say. he has an innate sharpness to his sense of humour. so yes, misha is being 100% accurate when he says ‘i know, but you wanted to say it.’ misha isn’t lying here. jensen did want and mean to say ‘i love you’. and then he actually does say it(in a jokey way but not really). 

- so yeah. it is actually so romantic??? like in a weird way jensen was professing his love for misha here?????? and that’s why this clip will NEVER. ever. get old. 

3. jensen having trouble with pda and projecting onto dean: we can all call ourselves dean coded cas girls but NO one deserves that title more than jensen ackles himself. he is dean winchester but marginally less repressed because he actually did admit he was in love with his best friend and let himself be happy, and pretty early on too. one year and two months as opposed to twelve years. so. happy deancas au is correct. and yes about the pda thing: one day i want to write my own post about both of their body language when it comes to each other, but all i can tell is jensen, even in the early days, couldn’t help himself from flirting with misha, but if misha ever crossed a line, jensen would not be happy. clearly he’s come around, however. what i find sweet is that misha always follows jensen’s lead when it comes to how much affection they’re allowed to show each other onstage. it touches my soul

4. destiel is cockles fault. yeah. and the thing is everyone knows it, too. even non-cockles shippers will explain early destiel as entirely dependant on jensen and misha’s wild chemistry. and that chemistry is easily explained by the fact that misha and jensen are literally just wildly horny bisexuals who were crazily attracted to one another and were falling in love on screen before our very eyes. and when you have THAT insider info(which sounds cray doesn’t it!!!! the destiel actors are in love irl??? huh???) everything really does click into place. why destiel got SO popular when the show and actors never ever intended for it to happen.(i know some people think misha was playing cas as gay the whole time for shits and giggles, and i won’t deny that[especially considering he found out early on that destiel was why he was staying on the show], but i don’t think he really wanted it to amount to anything, nor did he care??? i mean he has the real thing with jensen, for one, so their characters aren’t really as important. for two, he loves joking about destiel because it’s a cultural phenomenon and it’s fascinating, and i’m sure he did ship it because he’s unhinged, but i don’t think it was vastly important to him either way.) destiel got popular because everyone was and is unintentionally reading into the real deal. i could pull up countless gifs that people have used as destiel proof that is actually just jensen and misha being messy. mainly jensen. if i’m being honest.  the symbiotic relationship between destiel and cockles is why i’ve stayed onboard the destielcule and shellerscape for three solid months now; because it is utterly fascinating to witness and kind of super beautiful, too. 

5. alma(and others). so. i do NOT want to really REALLY get into this in its entirety here and now so i will just give you my opinion on if i think alma is misha or not. also; i don’t want to mention the other poetry accounts here bc i feel like that’s a bigger breach in privacy, but a lot of people do know about alma now. way too many, actually. this is why we can’t have nice things. anyway-to answer your question-there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that yes, misha is running that alma poetry account. i am 100% certain. some people think it’s actually three people and they’re all connected to misha in some way but that is so needlessly complicated. as it goes in psychology; the easiest explanation is probably the right one. it’s just one person running that account, and it is misha collins. i don’t know why it’s so hard to believe KNOWN POET misha collins(who is known to spend most of his free time writing poetry anyway) would have created a secret poetry account to write about his intense secret relationship under an alias and also get legitimate feedback since no one used to know it was him. oh and the handwriting is identical??? you are blind if you do not see that i am sorry. and a million other things prove it’s misha too but yeah all you need to know is yes. it’s him. it would take a literal livestream from a random woman on that account to convince me otherwise. and honestly not even that because a random woman could technically still log in if misha asked her too. so. it would take a hell of a lot to convince me otherwise, clearly. that said DO NOTTTTTTTTTTTT GO ONTO THAT ACCOUNT WITH A SUPERNATURAL RELATED USERNAME AND COMMENT THINGS THAT ARE COCKLES RELATED. ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT’S OKAY. sorry i got heated but god please just don’t be dumb so many people have already gone way too far 

6. thank you for your lovely compliment on my analyses!!! i love doing them but i don’t know if people actually like reading them so i really appreciate it

[roscoe-dream]

Science Partners || Peter Parker

A/N: this fic gives me major peter & mj vibes.. also, in order to write this i had to do a lot of google searching to get somewhat accurate information on how peter makes his web shooters!!

word count: 1872

WARNINGS: none :)

⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀* * *

Ever since you transferred to Midtown High for your sophomore year of high school, you found yourself lacking something that was considered vital to your high school experience — friends.

You weren’t shy, just that most people didn’t seem to spark your interest enough to start a friendship and although you didn’t mind being by yourself, you always wondered what it would be like to have one or two friends to talk to in a few classes, or at lunch. Something other than sitting with the librarian who often sent you pity glances when she thought you weren’t looking, you always caught them though.

You only seemed to be completely content with not having someone tap at your shoulder to whisper something to you while the teacher spoke in one class — chemistry. The love for science you had was overwhelming, you absorbed every ounce of information given to you in each lesson, but of course, you knew bits and pieces of what was being spoken.

“So!” The teacher clapped her hands together to bring your class’s attention to the front. “For the remainder of the period, you all will continue our stoichiometry lesson in groups of two, which will be your lab partners, on the relationship between moles and mass with the today’s experiment. The guide is already taped to your tables.” She announced, eyes scanning over the students who quickly began working on the lab assignment before stilling on you. “Y/N, I know you enjoy working on your own, but I would like for you to join Peter for this assignment.”

Your eyes bulged at the mention of his name. Peter. As in Peter Parker. As in the boy you’ve had a silly little crush on since you started school at Midtown. It wasn’t anything serious, you’ve never spoken to him, but you always thought he was cute — and incredibly intelligent, which was a plus. Swallowing thickly, you scooped up your things from your lab table and shuffled towards the front lab stations, where Peter was located. It was almost as though he was in his own little world, unaware of the fact that the teacher had paired the two of you up together as he scribbled in his notebook. “Excuse me.” You muttered to catch his attention, placing your notebooks on the edge of the table to avoid touching any of Peter’s papers that were sprawled out all over. “Hi.”

His head snapped up in your direction, hand now still instead of writing, and blinked in surprise. You let your gaze drifted down to his papers that were covering what was now your side of the table. “H-Hi. Oh,” Peter gasped, hands reaching out to quickly clear the lab table of his papers. “I’m sorry.” He murmured sheepishly, his cheeks taking up a pale pink color.

“That’s okay, you’re fine.” You dismissed him, sliding into the stool and setting your bag on the floor, looking over the instructions for the lab. A smile appeared on your face once you finished reading and you looked over to Peter, who’s eyes were already on you expectantly. “This lab is fairly easy,” You said, grabbing ahold of your pencil and writing both of your names onto the given worksheet. “We just need to compare the theoretical values to the actual experimental mass once we react the sodium hydrogen with the hydrochloric acid.”

You felt the blood rush to your cheeks when you caught a glimpse at Peter’s stunned expression. His lips curled into an impressed grin before laughing lightly, a teasing tone in his voice when he said, “You sound like you know what you’re doing.”

A let out a few chuckles while turning to face him, a bashful look on your face. “I, uh- I just really love science.” You shrugged, although you made that fact very clear to him with your ramble. “I can work on this while you work on whatever you were before.” You offered, eyes trained on your paper while you calculated the formulas from the lab guide. You were already halfway through, managing to hold your conversation with Peter while getting the work done. Your head shook in disbelief at the thought, you were actually talking to him, not snagging sly glances at him from the back of class or in the hallways. It felt good.

Peter immediately declined, closing his notebook and leaning in closer in attempt to try and help you with the lab. “No, no, it’s fine! It’s nothing anyway.” He insisted, but you watched as his fingers were tapping against the wooden tabletop, itching to go back to writing in his notebook. You scoffed, setting down your pencil and putting the now completed worksheet to the side, crossing your arms over the table. “Yeah, right. Besides, the work is done, so maybe I could help?” You suggested, lips quirking into a smile that he nervously returned.

The brunette opened his mouth, stammering on his own words as he tried to figure out what the tell you. He couldn’t exactly say that he was working on a new web fluid formula for the shooters in his suit, because that would be doing the most irrational thing — exposing himself as spiderman to a girl he barely knew. Peter chewed on his bottom lip as he weighed out the pros and cons of you helping him figure out what he was missing in his formula. You’ve proven yourself to be incredibly smart, and quick when it comes to figuring out formulas.

He eventually nodded, cracking a smile that you eagerly returned. “Okay. Okay, yeah.” He agreed hesitantly, pulling his composition notebook from his side of the desk and in between the both of you. When opening the book, your eyes widened at the multiple formulas scribbled on the lined paper, some crossed out and others not, with the title of the page being ‘Web Fluid’

“‘Web Fluid?’” You read aloud, looking up from the page and to Peter, who was shifting about in his stool, bottom lip worried between his teeth. He felt his heart plummet to his stomach when your eyes narrowed at his anxious state. She knows, Peter thought underneath your suspicious stare. He opened his mouth to try and form some sort of excuse until you interrupted him to ask, “Are you into cosplay?”

It was safe to say that your question caught Peter off guard, with the way that his eyes practically popped out of his head and his cheeks flushed in what seemed like embarrassment. You couldn’t help but laugh at him, the thought of Peter actually being into cosplay and wearing a makeshift spiderman suit made your smile grow larger — it would be too cute.

Peter’s slacked jaw tightened to a grin as he watched you laugh, laughing a little himself and heart warming at the sound. He thought you had a beautiful laugh.

“What?! No, I’m not- I’m not into cosplay!” He cried, though the grin on his face didn’t fade, and neither did yours once your laughter died down. Peter shoved the notebook further into your direction and pointed to the unfinished equation. “Can you just help me, please?”

With a playful roll of your eyes, you slid the notebook in front of you, looking over his scribbles. You let out a hum while writing over some equations, brows raising at his overall impressive work. “I know what you’re missing,” You scooted your stool closer to Peter and tilted the page in his direction so he could see what parts of the formula you tweaked. “Whatever Spider-man’s webs are made out of, is relatively close to nylon. Flexible and durable. So since you don’t want to bring nylon to your cosplay parties,” You paused, giving him a pointed look, a few giggles following shortly when he sent you a playful glare. “You need to figure out a component mixture that that forms a tough, flexible fiber when it contacts air, yet doesn’t interfere with the foaming agent it mixes with for the inflation capacity you’re using here.”

You inhaled deeply, catching up on the amount of air you lost from explaining your theory and giving yourself a brief nod of approval before meeting Peter’s gaze. Feeling the blood rush back to your face once again, you couldn’t help but notice the way his brown eyes were swirling with something — admiration. “What?” You asked shyly, your hand finding its way to your face in attempt to cool down your heated skin. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Peter’s face held a dazed smile, dark brown eyes gone soft, and his chin was in the palm of his hand as he propped his elbow on the table. He looked straight out of a rom-com — and you really liked it. He simply shrugged, brown locks bouncing slightly at the movement.

“You’re really—”

Pretty. Peter had the urge to say pretty.

“Smart.”

Your lips parted to speak, but the shrilling sound of the bell cut in on you, signaling your lunch period. You slouched in your seat, not wanting to leave chemistry — not wanting to leave Peter. It was the most interaction you’ve gotten in a while, that was actually enjoyable, with someone you really liked and you didn’t want it to end. When you looked to the teenage boy next to you, he was wearing a similar solemn expression.

As you began to collect your stuff and shrug on your backpack, Peter’s hand quickly reached out to grasp your arm, making you almost immediately stop in your tracks. Turning on your head, you were met with Peter’s wary gaze and nervous smile.

“Do you- Do you want to go to lunch with me?” Peter asked, his thumb jutting over his shoulder towards the direction of the cafeteria, rocking on the back of his heels. You found yourself beaming at his invite, laughing lightly at how flustered he was. Deciding to have a little fun, you raised a teasing brow, asking, “Why?”

Instantly, Peter’s nerves visibly worsened, his hands going to grip on the straps of his backpack as his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “To, you know, help with the web-cosplay-thing?” His voice rushed and raised barely an octave at the end, his lips then pursing in regret at his choice of words when your face lit up with amusement.

“So you admit it? You’re into cosplay?” You asked eagerly, a laugh threaded in your words that made Peter’s shoulders seemingly relax. He let out a noise similar to a whine, throwing his head back while taking a few short steps in the direction all the other students in the hallway were going. “I’m not into cosplay, Y/N! Do you want to go with me or not?”

The smug smile on your face waved into a gracious one, and when your playful teasing was finally put to rest, your heart swelled at the settling reality — Peter wanted to spend more time with you, outside of the chemistry lab.

So, readjusting the books in your arms, you sent Peter a nod, catching up to his retreating figure and nudging your elbow against his arm with a crooked smile.

“Lead the way, Parker.”

[heyheydidjaknow]

Okay, so the official update deadline for me is now every Sunday before I sleep. This is the second part. If the formatting is off, I apologize. Also, if you want to read the first bit, the link’s at the bottom. And the third one. I know there’s a way to make it so that touching on underlined text or something links you to the link, but I dunno how to do that.

Chapter 2

Surprisingly enough, the easiest one to convince of your legitimacy is Hamato Yoshi.

As soon as you walk into the lair, all you have to say to Ratman is that his daughter “was” named Miwa (obviously, dropping a bombshell like, “Your daughter is alive,” is somewhat bad form) and that he was going to give her a fan/knife thing, and he is convinced. Maybe it is to do with his natural compassion and/or naivety, but it allows you the option to sleep on the couch and not have to wander around to find exactly where the hell that address is.

You pull your knees to your chest as you stare blankly at the dead television screen, mind wandering as you listen to the accumulative sounds of the others. You are used to being awake at ungodly hours, of course, but typically they are spent alone; this is an uncommon occurrence. Now, anyways, you wish you had a way of contacting people. You already feel homesickness writhe around in your stomach, and your dread for what is going to happen next is outmatched by your gnawing curiosity regarding the fate of your family in the fire. Of course, you know their chances for survival was close to none, but—

“Y/N?”

You almost jump out of your skin, having not noticed the sinking of the couch next to you. You look over at the speaker, relaxing slightly. You put your hand on your chest. “Sorry,” you breath to Donatello as you try to calm your beating heart. “I uh, kinda zoned out.”

“It’s alright.” His posture is awfully stiff. “I just figured—ya know, since we’re going to be interacting more—we should uh, get to know each other a bit.”

You nod as you stretch your legs back out. “Sounds like a plan.” You turn your body to face him, shaking a little from the start but getting over it relatively quickly. “Oh, by the by, you’re the one that can kill me with your bare hands. You can and should relax.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Was it that obvious?”

“A little,” you shrug. “But, in your defense,” you smile playfully, “if some random bitch walked up to me and started telling me every detail of my past, I’d be hesitant to get too friendly too.”

“Oh, it’s not that!” He put his hands up, talking oddly quickly. “It’s just that you’re the first human I’ve ever met, and really the only person I’ve ever really talked to that isn’t one of my brothers or Splinter—”

A memory slaps you across the face. “Oh! Right!” You grab his hands, making sure his full attention was on you. “I gotta tell you something really important.”

He went red. “W-what?”

“I don’t think it’s wise to tell you outright exactly what’s going to happen,” you start, impulsively running your thumb over one of his knuckles, “but if you run into a triceratops man, or if you hear about a triceratops man, you have to kill him immediately.”

“I- huh?”

“Three or so episodes before the season three finale,” you repeat, “you or someone else is going to run into a triceratops man, who you have to kill. If you let him live, the world as you know it will be destroyed and sucked into a black hole.”

“Black hole?” He blinks. “So, in a few months, we—what?”

“Well, they call it a black hole, anyways.” You roll your eyes. “It’s pretty weak sauce for a black hole. I’d hasten to call it more than a portal, but, I guess, technically, it’s a black hole.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about this sort of thing.” He smiles awkwardly. “You know, for someone who just kinda popped out of the blue.”

“Well, yeah.” You smile back. “People like you inspire me to learn more about how the world around me works.”

His pupils dilate, and he breaks eye contact. “Wait, but you said that we had at least until the season five finale, right?” You feel his thumb wrap around yours slightly. “If that’s the case, how can a black hole destroy our world? We’d die with it, wouldn’t we?”

“See, you would think that.” You shrug, letting his hands fall between you two. “But the show is already playing fast and loose with science in general, so.”

“I am legitimately so confused right now.”

You sigh, patting him on the shoulder. “Me too, buddy.”

“I just—“

“Honey.” You stifle a giggle. “No combination of words will make any of this make any more sense than it already does.”

“I know, but—“

“Listen, if you ask me any more questions, we’ll start having to deal with more time travel bullshit then we’ll already have to.”

He sighs. “Okay, I’m dropping it.”

You nod, already feeling the sting of guilt. “But, hey,” you nudge with your shoulder teasingly, “if it makes you feel any better, you definitely got the most sugar than your brothers.”

He blinks. “What does that have anything to do with that?”

“Compensation? I dunno.” You pull your legs under you. “Just trying to make up for the fact that it’s really not a good idea for me to give out too much info about an uncertain future.”

There is an awkward pause.

“So,” Donatello asks gently, “if you don’t mind me asking, you said you died, right?”

You nod.

“So, uh, how did you…?”

“House fire.”

He blinks. “You… you remember—?”

“Yup.” You chuckle tightly. “Every excruciating detail.”

He tenses slightly. “I’m sorry.”

You sigh. “Don’t be. Not your fault.” ‘My fault, actually.’

He rests his head on his hand. After a pause, “Do you know, then?”

“Know what?”

“You know, what happens after.”

You shake your head. “I blacked out and now I’m here. I’m guessing you don’t run into a ton of people like me.”

He cracks a smile. “I don’t really run into a ton of people period.”

You try to help lighten this stifling mod you have created. “Well, I’m glad your first introduction to humanity proper is through some psycho pseudo-Cassandra.”

“Less Cassandra and more just general prophet.” He grins. “If Raph believes you enough to go off the handle—well, I guess that’s just Raph in general.”

You chuckle. “Hey,” you whine teasingly, “lay off your brother. Obviously he’s a very levelheaded man.”

“Totally.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly. “Cool as a cucumber, that guy.”

“Speaking of, where is everyone?” You look around the noticeably empty living room.

“Sleeping, probably. I tend to stay up later than they do.”

“And why’s that, Bill Nye?”

He shrugs. “It’s easier to work when people aren’t asking for help with things.”

“That is very fair.” You close your eyes as you lean against the back of the couch. “I must say, I’m not envious of your position.”

You hear him shift closer. “Why’s that?”

“If you don’t already, you’re probably—at least, from what I’ve seen,” you clarify. “Well, it seems like, sometimes, you have the world on your shoulders. It can’t be a good feeling.”

A pause. “I guess you could say that, yeah.”

You stretch upwards. “But” you continue, moaning softly as you feel your muscles crack, “if it makes you feel any better, I have—or at least had— access to the internet. I will gladly explain google.”

He clears his throat. “The internet search engine or the number?”

You grin. “Either or, although I would most certainly lose track if my zeros halfway through at best.”

He laughs. “It took me so long to figure out how to say it,” he sighs, “The trick is to just say zero for a long time and eventually just kinda zone out. You can really just stop after fifty and people won’t notice.”

“See,” you open your eyes, wrapping an arm around his shoulder—he certainly stiffened up quick— “that is why I like you, Donnie. You always know the score.”

He relaxes quickly. His speech is slurred a little. “You like me?”

“Hell yeah I do!” Your voice is noticeably lighter than it was before, more relaxed. “You are totally awesome, if you’ll pardon my candor.”

“N-not at all!” He smiled bashfully. “I’m flattered, really. I just—I’m surprised is all. I didn’t think you’d—uh—_like_ someone like me.”

“What? Why?” You are, apparently, extremely dense. “You’re the coolest guy ever!”

“Well, I’m not really a guy.”

“Wait, is this the whole turtle thing again?” You roll your eyes, leaning into him as you close them. “Dude, legitimately? I don’t care.”

His voice softened. “You what?”

“I don’t care. You’re smart, reliable, funny… I mean, what isn’t there to appreciate?” ‘I didn’t expect him to feel warm.’ “If I’m being honest,” you shrug in an attempt to stay casual, “and, if you promise not to give me shit—”

“I won’t,” he promises, almost eagerly.

You smile. “I will admit that I had a thing for you, along with many other people where I’m from. Fictional crush, you know.”

“You’re joking,” he challenges.

“Scout’s honor.” You raise your right hand, already starting to zone out. ‘Really warm…’

“You’re serious?”

You hum in confirmation. “I don’t…” You yawn, the weight of the incredible stress admittedly starting to take its toll. “I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable after what I just said,” you mumble, curling into him, admittedly not in your right mind, “but do you mind staying here until I fall asleep? Sup… surprisingly enough, you are ridiculously warm and comfortable and warm.”

He tenses up a little, but slowly wraps an arm around your shoulder. “Yeah. I’ve got nothing better to do.” His voice is gentle, soft.

“I owe you cupcakes.” You nod off.

--

You could tell you boosted his confidence if only a little bit. He stood taller the next night; admittedly, you feel a sense of pride at his pride. At least, it makes up for the verbal abuse from his brothers when they find you asleep together.

As you walk down the street that next night with Donnie shadowing you, you consider the pros and cons of revealing more about what you know; although there were certainly more items for pro, the chaos theory was sort of a big deal, and, knowing the reputation of this franchise and its post-apocalyptic bullshit, the last thing you need is to tempt fate. Still, something about this felt wrong, like not telling someone to get out of the way of a moving car. ‘Wish I were Cassandra,’ you think bitterly. ‘At least I wouldn’t feel bad.’

You stop in front of the offending building. ‘Finally.’ You look around for your chaperone and, after not seeing him— ‘Fucking ninjas, man.’—sigh and give in. “Good night,” you said to the open air.

You look back at the door, startled to see someone looking back at you. ‘You are fucking with me right now.’ You wave awkwardly as the man holds the door open for you. You step inside the building, making a beeline for the elevator. ‘A doorman? Really?’ The lobby was entirely too hotelish for your liking, the warm lighting bouncing off the smooth tile cleanly. ‘How much is this place, anyways? It’s fucking New York.’ You press one of the buttons. ‘If I’m the one paying rent, I am royally fucked.’

Somehow, via some sort of divine intervention, you find the apartment. You take the key out of your pocket— ‘Note to self: scavenge up enough money for a keychain.’—and stepped inside.

The apartment made you do a double take. It is so… familiar. Nicer than usual, more polished, yet somehow exactly how you’ would have used the space. The floors are hardwood, the walls painted a relatively neutral color that is easy on the eyes. As soon as you enter, you see the kitchen to your left; small, but considering it is only you, it would be perfect. To your left, down a short hall, is a bathroom—bright white surfaces with black countertops. And in the only other room in the apartment, in front of you, is a bed, a couch, some chairs, a table, a chest of drawers, a closet, a television, and a coffee table with a phone and an envelope on it.

You walk over to a large window overlooking the street, shutting it and sitting down on the couch. You pick up the letter first, carefully breaking its seal and pulling out a note and a card. Your heart leaps as you see your name in white lettering. ‘Well, having a credit card doesn’t sound too bad.’ You place it back onto the table as you start reading.

“Dear Y/N L/N:

We understand that the transition between your previous life and this one may be difficult, and we at The TIS are more than happy to provide for you and your needs during this transition period. Your questions are likely numerous. That is the purpose of this document, to address any concerns you may have.

Finances/Personal Belongings: The most noted concern of those just beginning in our program is to do with housing. We understand that it is incredibly important to the mental health of our members to have relatively stable housing, especially considering the strange, new environment they have been thrown into. Your residence is paid for by the TIS. All necessary emergency services (repair costs of any sort, medical bills, phone bills, etc.) and any utilities that may be included in said residence are also covered by this plan. In addition, your TIS assigned debit card will receive a daily balance of $300 (balance will change with inflation), which can be used at your discretion. Your residence has been pre-furnished to what our experts believe to be your taste, and your refrigerator and cupboards are filled with a variety of raw food items. Silverware, crockery and cookware has also been included. You have also been provided with various detergents and whatever hygiene products you used before your transition. These things will be replenished biweekly unless, for whatever reason, you start using different food/hygiene products. In this event, your inventory will be adjusted accordingly.

You are currently in position of one (1) weeks’ worth of clothing, including any undergarments applicable, which includes 7 pairs of pants and 7 shirts taken from your wardrobe, along with any clothing you are currently wearing.

Cell Phone: Your TIS assigned cell phone is, practically speaking, identical to your previous device. Any streaming services you were previously subscribed to, along with any you may decide to subscribe to, are covered by the TIS. Your login information is included with your banking/personal information, all of which is included in this envelope. If you wish to upgrade your phone as the years go by, or if you wish to purchase a second device, these log ins will still be available to you, although you will be required to purchase any additional software/electronics through our website: www.TISShop.org/FU. A charging cord and block are located by your bed. We recommend purchasing a case for your device.

Please note that all websites/services/apps previously available to you are also available via TIS approved electronic devices.

Employment: Employment has not been taken the TIS. We do not offer employment, although minors have been provided with a permit in the event that you chose to enter the workforce. If you choose to enter the workforce, aid will continue to be provided.

Enrollment: All minors are required by the TIS to enroll in their local school. Any documents required are provided in this envelope. If you are currently attending a college/university, or are thinking of enrolling/reenrolling, any credits you have accumulated will be transferred to whatever college/university you choose to attend. If you are currently a minor considering attending college, your funds will be provided by the TIS if applicable.

Identification: Any websites/services/products that are age restricted will be available to you, regardless of age.

Death: We at the TIS assure you that unnatural death, in your current situation, is not a matter that you need concern yourself with. While it is certainly possible to die, it is extremely unlikely, and we have the policy in place in the event of your death.

We at the TIS are aware of your awareness of the place you are now in. We wish to stress the importance consuming any media associated with the world in which you find yourself. If you gain nothing from this letter, please remember that we at the TIS are here for you, if only indirectly.

We wish you luck.”

The letter ends there. You check the envelope to see the other documents listed.

You stand up, picking up your new phone and laying down on the bed. You are left reeling from the little information you have been given. ‘So I was brought here. Well,’ you sigh, closing your eyes, ‘I guess I already knew that, but…’

You start scrolling through your device. Everything is still there, except for your contacts. You try to call what numbers you had memorized; they are apparently invalid.

You curl into a fetal position, clutching onto your jacket. “Well,” you mumble to yourself almost bitterly, “at least I know I won’t starve to death.” You decide against even turning the lights off as you hug yourself tightly. “This,” you decide, “is going to majorly suck.”

You nod off, already dreaming of smoke.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

[arcticdementor]

I recently had Robin Hanson on the CSPI podcast to talk about futarchy. It’s one thing to spread knowledge on a particular issue, it’s another to invent a new technology to create more knowledge in the world, and help apply it where needed. That’s what I see Robin doing. He convinced me that although it may take a very long time, one day humanity will give less of a role to systems like peer review and unaccountable bureaucracy in determining how we understand the world, and more of a role to prediction markets. The logic is just too compelling. But sooner is better than later, and if you want to be involved, please reach out.

…

The first step towards this glorious future is convincing people that a world where more decisions are made based on prediction markets is desirable and achievable. In that spirit, below is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity. To read more about futarchy, see here.

…

Robin: Right. This conditional market mechanism hasn't actually been tested out in the world outside of the laboratory tests in that we haven't been able to get people interested enough to try it. We've had a lot of tests of speculative markets that aren't conditional in the sense that we've had markets on deadlines, whether you make a deadline in sales and things like that.

We've probably had 100 different trials like that over the last few decades. Typically what happens is that if there's enough support for the market in order to induce an affectivity then again the price is about as accurate or more accurate than the status quo and most users are satisfied. The costs are modest. That's been the history for many decades.

However a key problem is usually the market gets killed in the sense that an organization says to stop and doesn't continue it. The main reason is that it's relatively disruptive. These markets are politically disruptive. The way they are disruptive is analogous to, imagine you put a very knowledgeable autist in the C suite, that is somebody in the C suite that knows a lot about the company and they go to the meetings. They just blurt out when they know things that it's relevant to the conversation but they have no political savvy.

They have no sense of, what does anybody want to hear, or who will be bothered by anything they say. That sort of an autist would not last long in the C-suite. They would be shunted aside and become an advisor to someone perhaps, trusted advisor to their side but they wouldn't be allowed to speak in the boardroom. But that's what a prediction market is. It has no idea who wants to hear what it has to say.

It will often say things that people do not want to hear, and that embarrass them, and that contradict what they've said. Then all the worse of course it will be proven right.

Richard: Yeah. But what's stopping the autist, or I guess what's stopping them is nobody has just done this yet? But theoretically you could imagine the autist setting up the rules for the corporation, right?

Robin: You might if they were in charge at the beginning sure.

…

Robin: Now we move to the question of like, what fraction of companies out there are actually maximizing profits?

Richard: Yeah.

Robin: It’s a very basic question in economics and in our world. We economists tend to assume as a simple initial working model that organizations that are for profit actually do maximize profits. That's the thing they usually do. If you give them a choice of A or B, and B is higher profit they'll choose B.

Here if you apply that model you say, “Well, this looks like it would give them key information to make key decisions like, ‘Will we make the deadline,’ and it will be valuable. The cost is relatively low so of course they would do it.” That's what you would say if you were applying that theory. Then here we have a case where it looks like, well it hasn't happened yet.

You might think, “Okay, innovation is slow. It takes a while,” but we’ve been waiting several decades. Honestly if I look across a wide range of other areas of corporate behavior I can't fully support this profit maximizing theory. I think I can find a lot of other places where what they do does not maximize profits.

I could give you a long list of examples. We could go through some of those but then the question is, “Well, how do I come to terms with it? What theory do I have affirms in the absence of profit maximizing to explain the behavior?”

…

Robin: I mean I think in fact the correct response is to say the free market version is probably the best. You just have no idea how much worse things can be. People often look at the status quo of a business world say that is relatively free market. They look at this up close and they go, “This looks terrible how could you possibly be defending this?”

The argument has to be, “Well, it would just be so much worse without this.” And in fact often if you look to large stable organizations like universities and government agencies, or churches that have been around for a long time it is in fact worse. I think that's roughly right. Another story might be we've hobbled some of the competition between firms that might solve some of these problems.

I honestly think one of the biggest wins we could do is to just allow stronger hostile takeovers. The laws at the moment make it harder to do hostile takeovers. They require a substantial tax on them in essence. If you see a badly run company and you have an idea how it could be run better the problem is how are you going to profit on that? But if you could just buy up the company, change its management and then sell it again after it was better that would be a big, powerful engine for making it better.

There have been times when that mechanism has been allowed to do more and it has made huge changes. That's what inspired people to lock it down and prevent those changes because they were scared it was coming for them.

…

Richard: I've seen stuff like who will win the tip off in basketball, and who's going to win the coin toss in a football game? Who's going to win first quarter?

Robin: I once looked onto doing this for war college war games. As you may know many war colleges have war games where they put teams on different sides and give them various equipment in a simulated war. They have them go to war. You could imagine, well letting everybody else who’s watching the war game give advice about particular strategies in the war game. That seemed plausible to me but then when I talked to people at war colleges I found that most of these war games are kind of fake.

Richard: Yeah.

Robin: They have a predetermined outcome that’s some lesson they want to tell, and so they aren't really letting it be open to winning one side or the other.

Richard: No, that's funny because you'll see headlines every now and then that'll say, “Oh, my God. The US loses to China in a war game,” and yeah I always thought that that’s…

Robin: I’m sure there probably are real war games somewhere. They just aren't at the war colleges. That's where I was thinking I could convince somebody to try this sort of thing.

…

Richard: What is the advantage of the blockchain? What is the difference between a blockchain say market versus just something like PredictIt?

Robin: Well, that's an excellent question. Initially the story was that blockchain was out of control, that it couldn't be regulated so you could set up a system on a blockchain. If the regulators didn't like it they didn't have anybody to go to stop it. The blockchain just kept going regardless of who didn't like it.

That was a big selling point. People said, “Well, look at all this financial innovation we can do because we are free from existing regulations on the blockchain.” That's what they said, and then a lot of companies formed on this basis.

But these companies didn't take personal strategies to match that rhetoric. You would think if your plan was to put a product on the blockchain and that you were going to say nanny nanny to the regulators because, “You can’t get me,” you wouldn’t have a big public presence with the headquarters, and your picture in the magazines, and show up in person at conferences right? Because…

Richard: Yeah. Sure.

Robin: ...well, that makes you more obviously a target right? That's what they did though, and then they sort of back pedaled and said later, “Oh, we're following all the regulations.” But you know people don’t really believe that. It's been this big question, to what extent will governments crack down on these blockchain things that at least from the government regulators point of view are not following their rules?

Richard: Yeah. Do you have in mind the Coinbase news that had come out the last few days, or was it today or yesterday that-

Robin: This is just a continuing issue. I don't have any particular recent event in mind but there are lots of stories about regulators thinking of doing a lot more regulating and cracking down more. This is a big question about blockchain is how far will they crack down, and what will be the consequences? Of course people say, “Well, in principle Bitcoin can keep chugging along even if they do crack down,” and no doubt that's true to some degree.

But the question of how much activity there'll be is still somewhat open. You could have it chugging along with a far lower activity because a lot of people have been discouraged.

…

Robin: Let me at this point admit what I would say is the biggest problem with futarchy and with some of these other decision markets, which is that they make hypocrisy harder, which is actually a problem. You might think, “Well, hypocrisy is a bad thing. Making it harder is good right?” Well, let’s walk through that.

At the moment, say ordinary people can claim to love trees and they just care a lot about trees. Trees real estate wonderful and they certainly wouldn’t want to have fewer trees. But then they elect politicians who have to make choices about trees versus other things. Those politicians can probably read the public and say, “Well, they say they like trees but they don’t really like trees that much, so I’m not actually going to go save some trees by interfering with something else.”

Then if the public ever finds out that somehow not everything was being done to save trees, the public can complain and say, “That damn politician! They’re corrupt! They were bought out and I sure hate them. Let’s throw them out of office,”right? Because the politician is allowing the public to be hypocritical, to pretend they care more about trees than they do.

…

Robin: The pandemic was not a big enough crisis that we fired people who did badly on it. Neither was Afghanistan. We’re in a world where we have these big things we do wrong but they somehow just aren’t bad enough to really scare us into trying different things. The question is where will we ever see some nation or big organization that’s scared enough about losing to be willing to roll the dice and try some big changes?

Richard: When you look at the American Military established under World War II I mean the military establishment was a new thing. You were building basically something from scratch. Now you have all these vested interests. You know it’s funny. The places, the countries with the most US Military… the most military personnel in the world are actually Italy, Germany, Japan, and South Korea right?

Robin: Those are risky, dangerous spots. You’d want troops there wouldn’t you?

Richard: Yeah. Well, maybe but if you notice they have something in common. Those are the Axis powers and the Korean War right?

Robin: Right.

Richard: Basically they’re the exact same place they were in 1945 to 1950 and so-

Robin: Hysteresis right? Enormous path dependence?

Richard: Yeah, exactly. Enormous dependence. Yeah, Italy. Is that obvious? The most dangerous place in the world. Maybe, maybe not.

Robin: No, and it’s not remotely obviously the most dangerous place in the world.

Richard: Yeah. Do you look around the world, and right now do you see variation in the extent to which countries are willing to not only take risks but take risks specifically along the path that you suggest?

[flowerfan2]

Love Is The Seventh Wave

McDanno, A03, 2400 words

Written for the H50 Writers Club Discord “Danny Deserves Better” challenge

“Are you serious?”  she says, and all eyes in the writer’s room turn towards her. “That’s just cruel.  And it makes no sense.”

 “It’s dramatic, Lola.”

 “Lilla,” she corrects, surprised that the douchebag even came close, given that he hasn’t spoken more than those three words to her since she started working for him a month ago. “Just hear me out.  What if instead of having totally out of character bathroom sex with Joanna....”

 *****

 Danny’s sipping idly at his drink when he notices the woman sitting nearby.  She’s pretty, her dark hair a contrast to her light silky blouse, and she’s about as out of place at this bar at ten o’clock in the morning as Danny is.

 She looks up at him, and Danny cracks a smile.  “You looking at me?”

 The woman shakes her head.  “The television’s behind you.  And I desperately need a distraction.”

 Same here, Danny thinks.  “Well, if you’d rather have a live distraction than whatever’s on the news, I’m happy to oblige.”

 The woman smiles and moves over to the seat next to him, bringing her coffee with her.  “At this point I’m willing to try anything.”

 “Buy you a drink?  Wine, beer, scotch on the rocks?”

 “Nah, I’m good.  Not quite desperate enough to drink the hard stuff before noon.”  She glances at Danny’s glass.

 “Club soda,” he admits, and she grins.

 “We’re practically twins.”  She sticks out her hand.  “I’m Joanna.”

 “Danny.”  Her hand is soft, but her grip is firm and doesn’t linger.  “It’s nice to meet you.  So, what do you want to talk about?”

 “Oh, anything but my love life.”

 A laugh bursts out of Danny. “Get right to the point, do you?”

 “No sense wasting time.  For all I know, you’re a reporter doing a story on bars that open before noon and you’ll have to dash off to the next one any minute now.”

 “No chance.  I’m a detective, actually.  But I’m taking a personal day.”

 She gives him an appraising look. “A cop?  But you seem so nice.”

 “Ha, ha, ha.  Very funny.”

 “So,” Joanna says, “why a personal day?”

 Danny takes a moment wondering how to answer this – he’s not really sure himself – when his phone rings. It’s Steve, of course, and the fact that hearing his voice makes his whole body light up just adds fuel to the giant dumpster fire that is his life.  He hangs up after a few minutes and turns back to Joanna.

 “Who was that?”

 “My partner.”

 Joanna looks at him appraisingly, and then nods.  “Yeah, I’ve got one of those.”

 “You’re a cop too?”

 She snorts.  “Um, no, that’s not what I meant.  I’m a lawyer, actually.”

 Danny’s confused.  “So you have, what, law partners?”

 Joanna takes a packet of sugar and adds it to the fresh coffee the bartender has set down in front of her. “You’re a little oblivious, aren’t you?”

 It’s said with such amusement that Danny isn’t mad, and he’s happy to play along.  “Oblivious about what?”

 Joanna sighs and takes a careful sip of her drink, then stirs it some more.  “You’re telling me that guy you just spoke to is your work partner?”

 “Yes, who else would he be?” Danny has his own answer for this, but it’s a fantasy he hasn’t entertained in, oh, at least an hour or so.

 Joanna shrugs noncommittally.

 They slip into a more or less comfortable silence, and Danny contemplates his club soda.  It’s just as boring as it was when he started it. He’s not even sure why he’s here, at a random bar on the north shore.  When he woke up this morning, knowing he had a day free to do anything he wanted, a day off from work and all of its headaches, the first thing he thought of was checking the weather report to see what the waves would be like – because surfing with Steve is one of his favorite things to do to de-stress.  But then he realized that Steve didn’t have the day off too, and it all seemed pointless.

 A day without obligations is hard to come by for a single working dad, and Danny knows in theory he should be enjoying it.  But he’s not.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push.”

 Danny is drawn out of his thoughts by Joanna’s comment.  “No, you’re fine, it’s not you.”

 Joanna leans back a little and runs a hand through her hair.  “Want to know what I’m doing here?”

 Danny takes in her flattering outfit, her carefully done make-up.  “Waiting for a client meeting?”

 She laughs.  “Nope.  One with my partner.”

 “Your law partner,” Danny clarifies.

 Joanna laughs again.  “Yes.  Except that’s the problem.”

 “What’s the problem?”

 Joanna takes a deep breath.  “The truth is, I’d like it if my law partner were a little more than that.”

 Danny feels a rush of shame, and looks quickly around the bar – still empty, except for the bartender.  “Is this some kind of joke?”

 She reaches out and puts a hand on his arm.  “Relax. I’m really not pulling your chain. I’m telling the god’s honest truth.” She takes her hand back and swipes at her phone.  “Here, see? We go out for drinks every Thursday night, everyone in the office.  Thirsty Thursday kind of thing.  Last night went on a little longer than usual, since we just got some really good news on a case.”

 Joanna shows him a photograph of a tall, blond woman with her arm around Joanna, both of them in business suits and holding glasses of champagne.  Several other people are crowded around them.  All of them are making happy faces at the camera, except for Joanna, who has eyes only for the woman at her side.  

 “Oh,” says Danny.

 “Yeah,” says Joanna.  “And I’m pretty sure Jasper – he took the picture – sent it and about twenty other equally embarrassing ones to everyone who was there, including my partner.”

 “Is that good or bad?”  Danny asks.

 “I’m not sure.  But I’m going to find out.”

 “What do you mean?”

 Joanna taps her fingers on the bar, clearly a little nervous.  “Okay, you’re probably going to thing I’m nuts.  I went for my usual run this morning, through my neighborhood and down to the beach.  It’s the same route I’ve run hundreds of times, and there isn’t much beach there, just some scrubby trees by the water’s edge, but you know any bit of beach is beautiful here, so it’s all good.  And this morning, for the first time ever, I saw a honu on that little beach.

 “A turtle?”

 “Yeah.  I’ve never seen one there before, but today there was a honu right there, a really big one.”

 “Okay…”

 “Honu are a symbol of good luck, right? I’ve realized that if I don’t say something to my partner soon, I’m going to lose my mind, or have to quit my job, or both – and once I saw that honu, I knew I could tell her how I feel. I’m going to do it today.”

 “Wow,” Danny said, feeling buoyed by Joanna’s excitement.  “You really are?”

 “I really am.”  Joanna stands up from her chair and straightens her skirt. “I finally realized it’s too important to keep hiding from.  The way I feel about her… I think I love her, you know?  And I can’t believe I’m telling you all this, maybe it’s easier because I don’t know you…”

 “No, I get it,” Danny says, and he does.  Sitting in this random, sunny bar, with a woman he’s never met before, with no preconceived assumptions, no rules or requirements, Danny suddenly feels like he’s opening up, too.  

 “I just don’t want to let a chance for love pass me by, not any more,” Joanna continues.  “Not if we could really be something, and I think maybe we can. So I asked her to meet me at one of our favorite restaurants for lunch, in Haleiwa.  Away from the office, somewhere private… and I better go, I don’t want to be late.”

 “Of course not,” Danny says, standing too.

 Joanna regards him for a long moment, and Danny squirms a little.  “I think today is your lucky day, too,” Joanna says.

 “Why’s that?”

 “Because you met me,” Joanna says, grinning as she leaves.  Danny thinks she’s right.

 ****

Joanna’s excitement is infectious, and Danny feels himself standing a little straighter as he leaves the bar. Maybe her plan would work for him, too. He hasn’t wanted to say anything to Steve for all the obvious reasons – he doesn’t know if Steve feels the same way despite how close they are, he’s never heard Steve express any interest in men at all, and he doesn’t want to ruin their friendship.  But this constant pining is wearing away at him, and he isn’t getting any younger.  What if he waits another ten years and then it turns out Steve was up for something more after all – what a waste that would be.  Or what if he doesn’t have ten years to make up his mind – what if Steve’s conversation with Eddie’s veterinarian this morning turns into asking her out for a date, and they hit it off and live happily ever after?

 There are millions of ways that Danny can miss his chance with Steve, and only one way to find out if he’s still got one.

 Danny makes a few stops on his way back to Steve’s place.  He texts Tani a few times to keep tabs on the team and make sure he knows when Steve’s heading home.  He’s got a caprese salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar on the table and wine opened and breathing on the counter when he hears the front door open.

 Steve appears in the doorway to the kitchen, and Danny’s jaw falls open.  Steve’s wearing a dark gray button-up shirt, collar open at the neck, and black slacks that hug his ass like his cargoes never quite manage.  He even looks freshly shaved.

 “Hey, Danno,” Steve says, voice low, and Danny shivers.  He takes a step towards Steve but somehow trips over his own feet and the carving knife in his hand goes flying to the ground.

 Steve sucks in a breath, and they both stare at the knife, stuck in the floorboards about an inch away from Danny’s bare right toe.  “Huh,” says Steve.  “Lucky.”

 Danny sucks in a breath and shakes his head, trying to grab on to anything at all that makes sense. “Why’re you dressed up?”  he finally comes up with, which isn’t particularly witty but is somewhat better than oh my fucking god what is going on here, which is a close second.

 Steve smirks.  “I’ve got a date.”

 Danny’s heart sinks.  He’s too late, he’s just one goddamn day too late, this is his life every single time.  He was a fool for thinking otherwise.

 “With that vet?”

 Steve looks determined.  “No, not with the vet.”  Steve crouches down at his feet and retrieves the knife, then places it in the sink.  He’s right up in Danny’s space.  “You look nice too,” Steve says, and at first Danny think’s it’s a non sequitur, but then he takes in Steve’s expression, that cocky confidence with an undercurrent of uncertainty, and the way Steve is lining up his own very nicely clad shoulder with Danny’s, and suddenly the clouds part and all is clear.

 “Wait,” Danny says.  “What do you think… How did you…?”

 Steve’s face does something that seems to be a cross between a smirk and a hopeful grin.  “Tani said you texted her a few times today.”

 “So?”

 “She said you were buying wine.”

 Danny bites his lip.  “Again, so?”

 “You never buy wine, unless you’re cooking a fancy meal.”

 “I buy wine all the time.”

 “When was the last time?”

 Danny has to think pretty hard about it, and that’s when he knows he’s losing this particular argument.  He still has hope for winning the war, however, so he stops talking about wine.

 “Can we go back to the part where you said you had a date?  Because you’re not acting like you have a date.”

 “No?”  Steve asks.  “How should I be acting?”  Steve somehow moves even closer to Danny, tilting his head, waiting for Danny’s answer.

 Danny can feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he thinks he might be getting light headed.  

 “Come on, Danny,” Steve says, his breath puffing against Danny’s skin.  “How should I be acting?”

 Danny just blinks up at him, and then he’s saved from having to come up with an answer by Steve’s lips pressing against his own.  Danny thinks he lets out something like a moan as his mouth opens under Steve’s, and he slides his hands up Steve’s back under his ridiculous shirt and pulls him close.

 ****

 “You can’t possibly have known what I was going to do just from Tani telling you I was buying wine.”

 Steve flops over onto his back. The sheet is pulled up just over his stupidly attractive hip bones, and Danny sneakily reaches out a finger to slide it back down again.

 “Honestly, all I knew was that it seemed like you were getting ready for a date,” Steve says.  “And it made me realize that I could lose my chance with you, anytime.  You could meet someone, maybe even that woman you were talking to at the bar this morning, and it would be too late for us.  So I changed into the spare clothes I keep at the office, and figured I’d give it my best shot.”

 Danny pushes up on an elbow. “Have you eaten a radioactive spider lately?  Drank some kind of serum?”

 “No…”

 “Because the mindreading shit is frankly disturbing…  I literally – and I mean the actual meaning of literally, not the one the kids are using these days – I literally had that same thought today.  That you’d finally get up the nerve to ask out that vet again, or fall in love while buying ammunition, or save some gorgeous lady’s pet parakeet from terrorists, and I’d lose my chance with you.”

 Steve turns towards Danny, his face brimming with affection.  “I guess today really was our lucky day, then.”

 Danny grins into Steve’s kiss. He’s gonna send Joanna a fruit basket. And maybe give a great big donation to whatever organization looks out for the honu, because he owes them, too.

[kaito-pls-txt-back]

Fuyuhiko, Nagito, Gundham, and Kazuichi w a S/O who sacrifices themselves in the funhouse so everyone else can get out?

Fuyuhiko, Nagito, Kazuichi, and Gundham who’s S/O sacrifices themselves so they can escape The Funhouse

Sounds like angst, I’m down

I got a little carried away writing this so I hope you don’t mind the length

Gundham’s is probably the longest because he’s somewhat my muse and I kind of tend to project onto him

TRIGGER WARNING: THESE HEADCANONS CONTAIN DESCRIPTIONS OF SUICIDE AND GORE AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS

Fuyuhiko

-It had been several days since you all had been trapped within the funhouse

-The only way out was to kill one of your classmates, which you all refused to do

-But it’s an easy thing to say when you have a full stomach

-Fuyuhiko had never been so hungry and thirsty

-His tongue felt swollen from dehydration

-But as long as he had you he’d endure anything

-He was on his way to visit you that day but had to take a break on his way over

-His stomach growled with frustration as he sat on the floor, back against a wall

-He took deep breaths trying to soothe his throbbing head

-The room moved around him as he struggled to focus

-He stared up at the ceiling and watched Gundham and Hajime make their way past him to the elevator

-He waved them off when they asked if he was okay

-It felt like hours as time trickled away but in reality, it was only a few minutes when Sonia stepped out of the elevator looking frantic

-As if timed with her arrival the body discovery announcement sounded

-She made eye contact with Fuyuhiko, the tears and terror in her eyes telling him all he needed to know

-All the hunger pangs were gone as he got to his feet and raced to your room

-Gundham and Hajime were in the process of lowering your body down from where it hung

-Fuyuhiko didn’t realize he was crying until he saw the tears staining your clothes

-First Peko and now you

-The world just loved to be cruel to him, didn’t it?

-In the class trial it was immediately apparent you had committed suicide

-Fuyuhiko found himself yelling, tears pouring down his cheek

-“WHY WOULD THEY DO IT?! THEY WERE ALL I HAD LEFT! WHY?!”

-“They probably did it for you Fuyuhiko.” Hajime stated, hand on his chin.

-Fuyuhiko paused, “for… me?”

-Hajime explained the likely theory that you had braved The Final Dead Room to get the rope you used to hang yourself

-“They’d been watching us all waste away, Fuyuhiko you hardly had the strength to stand, it was probably more than they could take.”

-After the trial Fuyuhiko stayed in his cottage for a while, Sonia and Hajime would leave meals at his door for him that he would pick over

-It took him a while to start interacting with his classmates again but once he did he had made a vow

-He would escape this island

-He would survive for you and all the friends who had been lost during this cruel game

 Nagito

-Nagito wasn’t worried when you all became trapped in The Funhouse

-He wasn’t worried at all

-After all, he knew someone would kill somebody and hope would be born from that!

-A hope that could conquer any despair!

-So, as he lay on his bed, hunger clawing at his stomach and mind he wasn’t worried

-The only thing this situation could breed was hope

-His thoughts were broken by the sound of a gunshot

-Wow! That happened sooner then he thought it would!

-His classmates must be really eager to create an impenetrable hope!

-As he made his way towards the sound the body discovery announcement rang out through the building

-He smiled to himself before coming to a sudden halt, Chiaki had positioned herself in the stairwell

-She stuck her arm out in a halting motion and Nagito looked at her confused

-“What are you doing Chiaki?” He asked, not letting his smile falter

-“Nagito, I don’t think you should go any further.” She told him, her voice holding an uncharacteristic amount of authority.

-“And why’s that? Unless…” As he spoke the smile dropped off his face and he forced his way past Chiaki

-She chased after him, trying her best to stop him from encountering the grizzly scene

-Blood and brain matter was sprayed across the floor behind your collapsed body

-Nagito found himself laughing and sobbing as he tried to make his way to your body

-Hajime grabbed him by his shoulders to stop him from getting any closer

-He struggled against his friend to get to you

-His sobbing laughter grew louder, “Hajime let me go!”

-“No Nagito, you need to step away.”

-The class trial was over quickly

-Kazuichi and Chiaki witnessed you exit The Final Dead Room and put the gun in your mouth, ending your life

-Nagito couldn’t understand

-This was supposed to create a stronger hope

-Separate the weak from the strong

-It would create the ultimate hope

-He should feel happy

-But why did he feel so alone?

 Kazuichi

-Kazuichi couldn’t lie

-He was starving

-What he would give for a meal right now

-Gundham’s hamsters were starting to look appetizing

-He was having difficulty making his way around The Funhouse

-His hands and legs were always shaking from hunger

-And every step felt five times harder than it should

-He made his way slowly down the stairs and jumped when he heard Monokuma’s voice

-“A BODY HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!”

-Kazuichi caught himself before he could finish the thought of “Thank God, finally.”

-He continued down the stairs and towards the elevator when it opened and Sonia stepped out

-“Kazuichi!” She waved, a very forced smile on her face.

-“Miss Sonia? Why are you here? Wasn’t there a murder?”

-“Ah! Yes, sort of… there is a body, but I… I don’t think you should go to grape house!” She sputtered making her way over to him on shaky legs

-“Why not?” He asked her, his head spinning from exhaustion.

-“I-I ummm…” She sweated.

-Kazuichi’s eyes widened in realization, “It’s S/O isn’t it?”

-“Kazuichi I-” Sonia started.

-He began sprinting towards the elevator Sonia shouting after him

-He’d almost made to the doors when he felt himself falling

-He’d overexerted himself

-When he came to they were already at the trial grounds

-His friends were gathered around him, varying looks of concern on their faces

-“Where’s S/O?” Were the first words out of his mouth, “I had this awful dream that she di-”

-He trailed off when he saw the faces of the others

-”It wasn’t…?”

-“I’m so sorry dude,” Akane mumbled, looking at the ground.

-Kazuichi let out a wail that broke even Fuyuhiko and Gundham’s hearts

-He was inconsolable through the whole trial, hunched over his podium sobbing

-The trial didn’t last long, you had made sure to make it apparent that the bullet hole in your head was put there by you

-Akane and Nekomaru took your devastated boyfriend back to his cottage

-He faded in and out of consciousness for several days he could remember his friends coming and going and trying to get him to eat

-Sonia left crying when Kazuichi, in his daze mistook her for you and started gushing about how much he missed you

-It was as if without you Kazuichi just didn’t know what to do with himself

 Gundham

-Gundham wasn’t worried one bit

-Obviously, a supreme overlord like himself wouldn’t fall to starvation so easily

-You, however, weren’t faring well

-So maybe he was a little worried

-Your power levels weren’t as high as his own

-With nothing else to occupy his time he found himself by your side during most of your unwilling stay in The Funhouse

-Worrying about you drew his mind from the current situation

-Not that he would admit it

-He was on his way to visit you

-The trek to your room was difficult, his legs were weak and exhaustion was pulling at his eyelids

-He rapped his shaking knuckle against you door

-There was no response so he knocked again this time calling out to you.

-“My Dark Queen/King are you within the walls of your sanctum?”

-The Devas popped out of his scarf in confusion

-Were you sleeping? Too tired to answer the door or call to him?

-He looked down at the ground and his eyes caught on a piece of notebook paper

-Written across it in your handwriting was, “Gundham don’t come in.”

-He felt an awful feeling of dread wash over him, goosebumps erupting on his skin

-“Angel, I am going to enter, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

-He pushed open your door and his eyes widened

-Your body was suspended only a few inches of the ground by several bedsheets you had tied together

-He fell to his knees, opening his mouth to say something but no words came out

-Your classmates began to search for you two when Chiaki pointed out that no one had seen you two in a while

-When they came to your room the door was cracked open

-Gundham was found slumped against the wall in your room, frozen in shock

-The Devas were huddled together under his arm trying to stir him from his daze

-Your body had been lowered from its hanging position and lowered onto the floor tenderly

-Gundham was strangely quiet during the short class trial he only nodded or shook his head in response to questions

-Once the trial was over and your sacrifice was made clear he walked to his cabin and shut the door without saying a word to anyone

-And Gundham stayed like that for several days, he didn’t sleep, he hardly ate, all he would do is take care of his beloved hamsters and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling

-A knock sounded on his door after four days of this

-He shuddered, his own knocking on your door echoing through his brain

-He made no effort to answer it and the door opened, Hajime and Sonia stepping into his residence

-He imagined he looked poorly, his hair stringy and down, his eyes red from lack of sleep, his clothes wrinkled and stale, but he couldn’t bring himself to care

-“Gundham, we’re really worried…” Sonia started.

-“It’s been four days and we haven’t seen you so we thought we’d check up on you.” Hajime added, his brow creased with concern.

-Gundham didn’t say much, his scarf has concealing most of his face, all that was visible were eyes which drifted away from his friends and to a wall

-Sonia and Hajime took a seat on either side of him and helped him sit up

-Gundham sat silently, glancing at his friend’s worried faces

-No words were exchanged as the two helped their grieving friend straighten himself and his cottage up

-Before he knew it he was showered and in a new change of clothes, his faux scar washed away and his eyes both their natural shade of gray

-He felt very exposed but safe at the same time

-He found himself speaking plainly for the first time in years, his eyes looked to his companions as tears poured down his face, “I don’t know what to do.”

-Sonia and Hajime wrapped their arms around him and they stayed like that for a while, it was slow going but Gundham felt himself beginning to heal

[uservillanelle]

Killing Eve ― 3x06 (Review)

The time has finally come for yet another review. I can’t believe we only have two more episodes and it will be the end of season 3. Seriously, Killing Eve should AT LEAST have 10 solid episodes per season as most of other shows do. It would be just enough content (more than we get now) and without having to stretch things out. Now, theres A LOT to talk about, so I’ll try my best to touch upon as many things and details as I can! So sit back, grab your tea/coffee and let’s get started!

Title cards

I covered this topic back in 3x04 review, but they did it again, and this time the title card game is somewhat different. It’s really apparent that they are experimenting with editing and trying new things and that’s good, because we know that not only they want characters to develop, but to improve and change the editing and production of the show itself.

It was a bit unusual when they swapped from location titles to character names back in 3x04, but this time it was actually fun. I mean “PISS OFF FOREVER?!” This cracked me up sooo bad, I had to rewatch it several times lmao!! And don’t even try to tell me that they left Niko alive for THIS. It’s not the first time he rejects Eve and wants to get away from her, so what is the point of that scene with him? We didn’t get any new information or knowledge. So... I’ll call that waste of precious screen time which, in this case, should be dedicated for Eve’s personal character story because hell, she’s the one who deserves it the most.

Then they did it again with CUBA/NOT CUBA and honestly it cracked me up, AGAIN! I actually loved they did something like this, even though it kind of gave this comedy type of feel knowing how dark and complicated this show actually is. And of course the “THIS IS BULLSHIT” was exactly what Oksana said at the meeting with Helene not so long ago, so them reflecting on that and showing the phrase as a title is so relatable and at the same time kind of expresses how Oksana feels and what she thinks. 

So far they haven’t really decided as to what kind of editing style they are going for, but I do hope that at the end of this season they realize how they will carry the show onwards starting with season 4, because them keeping this up and changing things constantly is not a good thing. Many people find it annoying and really, they aren’t used to any of that, so I hope season 4 will have a more consistent style when it comes to editing and carrying the main storylines, ect!

Niko (ft. Eve)

There isn’t really much to talk about here, other than... Niko being alive makes NO sense, whatsoever. I personally wasn’t expecting to see him being killed off or anything similar to that, but since they basically PITCHFORKED him, just let him die, okay? There is NO way he could’ve possibly survived something like this and that means they have to have a VERY big reason that would, you know, justify him surviving so fans can “ignore” the fact that it doesn’t make sense to begin with. So far, they didn’t provide any reason for that. Niko didn’t say anything useful to Eve... nor did Eve. She was just rejected again and had a confrontation with Niko’s uncle, I believe. Wow, someone of his family members don’t like Eve. What a shocker, right? 

One of the very few options that I could see happening and making sense is for Niko to be alive and for Eve to make a decision and choose Villanelle over him. Not because she lost everybody and she’s the only one she has left, but to be able to choose her because she WANTS to. Instead, what did we see? We saw a very desperate and determined Eve who’s willing to go that extra mile to find whoever hurt Niko. Despite everything, a part of her still has hope for them even now so maaybe, after those fancy “PISS OFF FOREVER” words, Eve will finally come to her senses? Even though most of following scenes had her feeling the same way. So I really have no idea what else to expect and why Niko is still there. 

There’s also a theory going around about how Eve should pull the plug and kill her husband lol. I mean, that way, their conversation from the very first episode about how Eve could kill Niko and that storyline could come full circle, but given what we saw of Eve and her values and mental state.. yeah I don’t see her doing that anytime soon, or ever, in fact. She’s still clinging to Niko somewhat and she must go REALLY wild and dark in order to do something like this. Though, I must admit... I kind of would love to see it as well! At the end of the day we all want dark!Eve to rise... and she is getting there, believe me!

Villanelle & Helene

I’m very conflicted about this duo. Especially after watching the promo/preview of upcoming episode. Yeah... I’m just going to throw it out there. I think Villanelle will end up killing Helene. The meeting wasn’t exactly successful, as Dasha of course lied to Villanelle about having all the control or probably, the description of a Keeper is quite different to Helene and Dasha than what Villanelle already knew about it thanks to Konstantin. So.. could it be that back in 1x07 Konstantin lied to her? Or that Dasha told Helene something different to get Villanelle in line and believing she is actually “moving up” in the world? Honestly, still much to think about.

I LOVED Villanelle’s, or should I say, Oksana’s outfit during the meeting and especially how big of a mess her hair was. I mean the hair perfectly reflects her inner state and yeah, she IS  a mess and she has every reason to be. Someone previously mentioned how Villanelle was the one who went to Russia, but it was Oksana who left it and now I’m starting to really see and feel just how true it is. I mean this episode was almost all Oksana, except a couple of moments where she tried her best to keep her defenses up, for instance being sarcastic with Helene. “Are you trying to seduce me?” I mean... I wouldn’t mind them getting some.. buut, it’s not going to happen. Still, those lines were hilarious as much as they were iconic and yeah, in that moment she was trying to play her main character, which is Villanelle but as soon as she spotted the post card it was over. Oksana took over and she freaked out. The bad thing about this is that she is very emotional and very vulnerable right now, her mind and emotions are all over the place and that could be why she didn’t really think about Dasha being the one who lied to her? Or maybe she did think about it but we aren’t aware of it yet? This can’t mean anything good and I am honestly concerned for her. 

What else I noticed from that scene is that Helene was quite open in terms of deciding to speak to her daughter I’m guessing, in front of Villanelle while not really you know, feeling like she could be in danger? Despite the fact that she is literally standing in front of a killer. I guess she is really used to that and her job is meeting a lot of assassins and other dangerous people? And then there is Villanelle who keeps asking her all kinds of questions, silly or not, she did ask whether Helene was her real name and yet she didn’t answer. In fact, she didn’t answer any of Villanelle’s questions and that is again, concerning. So maybe Helene isn’t her name, but that’s kind of ironic, knowing that Villanelle isn’t really her name either. So yeah, seeing Helene be so...cool around Villanelle especially while she was freaking the fuck out should say something and that probably means she knows exactly how to handle such people and situations like this. I’ll definitely keep my eyes on her from now on. 

Eve

Our precious Eve is finally getting some quality screen time. Not enough, but at least she’s getting some. What I absolutely LOVED about her in this episode is just how confident and sure she is about Villanelle not being the one who hurt Niko. Yeah, let’s remember that the last time she and Villanelle saw each other was on the damn bus where they had a major fight and a kiss. That was Villanelle and she was such a smug asshole there and everything and thinking about this now, it’s completely different person from who Oksana is and it’s mindblowing actually. So to think that Eve didn’t consider Villanelle being the one who hurt Niko, despite there not being ANY evidence that state that is just... their connection is simply incredible. No matter how many times Villanelle and Eve end up hurting each other, they STILL have this hidden trust within each other that I find extremely fascinating and then Eve gets the photos of Bertha Kruger and of course, that’s what Villanelle was doing while Eve was in Poland coming to visit Niko. I’m glad that there is this alibi in Villanelle’s defense to show that she was doing something else, KILLING someone else at the time and the fact that Eve thought that it was Villanelle who killed her, even if she did it in a “nice” way... is beyond me. There is really no one else who knows and understands Villanelle/Oksana better than Eve. Period. 

Another important aspect that is worth mentioning is the fact that the writers are kind of robbing Eve of screen time and character development. We haven’t seen her much this season and especially during the previous couple of episodes and even in this one it seems like Carolyn got more screen time than she did and Villanelle as well, who JUST had her solo episode, which is kind of unfair. However, I do think Villanelle deserved to have her own episode now since her character is going through such a huge change, meanwhile Eve is going through her thing, but it doesn’t feel like it’s as huge and as extreme as it is for Villanelle. At least that’s what they’re showing us. But yeah, I think season 2 was way more about exploring Eve’s inner darkness than this season, which is more about acceptance of her dark self and her feelings for Villanelle. Let’s just trust the writers and see how they will handle Eve’s character during the next remaining episodes and only then we can actually judge the crew and the lack of screen time Eve received, because really, what I noticed this season is that Suzanne really wanted to show EVERY character and so far she has been sucessful in that for the most part, with one flaw, that is the screen time management and yeah, we shall see how that aspect is handled in the next episodes!

Villanelle & Konstantin

So we got the hockey game scene. I’m glad to know that Konstantin didn’t set Oksana up by sending her to some strangers. One of the highlights of their conversation was Konstantin’s comment about Oksana’s mother who he thought was INSANE rather than evil and was hoping for Oksana to awknowledge it instead of killing her. Guess she didn’t really consider it as an option? But does that mean then that Oksana as just as insane and isn’t aware of it just like Tatiana wasn’t? At the same time we know that Oksana KNOWS there is something wrong with her, at least that’s what everybody else keeps telling her, so I wouldn’t call her insane. At the same time seeing that Konstantin wanted to give this chance for Oksana to get some kind of closure by being with her family and especially her mother does show just how much he cares about her. Until... their conversation shifts. Again.

So apparently Oksana knows about Konstantin’s plan to “get out” and she is suddenly interested in joining him. Now this part of the conversation PAINFULLY reminds me of their last interaction of season 2 finale. Especially the part where Konstantin chooses his family instead of Villanelle, who is ALSO his family, whether he admits it or not. They might not be related by blood, but he IS her father and seeing not only her own mother reject her but her father as well will do things to you. So again, Konstantin leaning towards choosing to leave with Irina and leaving Oksana behind only to promise her that he will come and get her is not enough. He betrayed her several times... he left her at the prison in season 1 even though he “tried” to get her out of it. He betrayed her at the end of season 2 by choosing his family over her, and now... now it feels like ANOTHER betrayal is coming and to be completely honest I don’t think Oksana can handle so much rejection at the moment. Of course, Konstantin can’t just pick Oksana over his own daughter, but it’s wrong to play with her like that. She killed her own mother and left her blood family in order to get back to her REAL family who is Konstantin and Irina and neither of them show enough of determination to bring her along which really saddens me. I mean Oksana went through enough as it is... I’m not sure how she will get through this if Konstantin will leave her again... and I won’t have it either. They better not do it again.

Villanelle & Irina (ft. Konstantin) 

I just love, love, LOOVE these two together. I mean 1x08 is one of the most iconic Killing Eve episodes and they are the biggest reason why. I’ve been waiting for them to get together again and those a couple of scenes they got to spend together didn’t disappoint. I LIVE for their interactions. I mean what can be better than two sisters bonding? Especially when it’s Vasiliev sisters. Them fighting like true siblings do, having fun while both of them having this insanely chaotic driving session and at the same time touching upon going to CUBA as well as finding out Irina’s feelings towards her own mom and her boyfriend, who Villanelle doesn’t see any reason NOT to encourage her to kill him lmao! I mean, first Irina sarcastically calls Villanelle a “real role model” and 15 seconds later she is literally driving over her step-father LOL! I mean... I am SO proud of her. She really did take her sisters advice on this without much of thinking and at the same time I am kind of concerned about her. We all saw Konstantin’s reaction to her driving over the guy and well... that’s not exactly the best thing to do.

In Oksana’s defense, I do think she was trying to be helpful in giving Irina this advice, since we all know that’s how she normally chooses to solve problems. By killing. Plus, I don’t think she actually expected Irina to take her advice either way. Let’s take Tatianas case for example. Yes, it’s a lot different because she was mentally abusing Oksana for years and there was lack of affection and all that, so Tatiana definitely deserved it. In Irina’s case... she’s just “disgusted” of seeing her mom with her boyfriend all the damn time and I don’t think she should’ve killed anyone for that. Besides, she was already preparing to leave with Konstantin so what’s the point? She wouldn’t have to put up with them anymore, yet she did it anyways. And what stands out for me about this is that we see Oksana not wanting to do any of that anymore, no more killing, just wanting to get out of this assassin thing meanwhile Irina just had her first kill. Kind of beautiful in a way, of having one of them ready to quit this way of life while having one of them indirectly influence and push the other into the beginning of such dangerous path. And from the looks of it, Irina didn’t seem to feel bad for driving over her step-father, like AT ALL. So I wouldn’t blame Oksana for the whole thing. Yes, she planted the idea in Irina’s head but it was her who actually did it and didn’t feel bad about it.

This whole dynamic just makes me want to remember the lunch scene in 1x08 where Villanelle asks Irina “Are you a bad person?” “I don’t know yet” well, guess now we are starting to see the person she is becoming and yeah I don’t think any of us saw this coming, that their previous conversation could be a foreshadowing in this way!. I’m VERY glad they decided to bring Yuli back this season since she is one of fan favorites and like I said, the dynamic between Villanelle and Irina is just great!

Konstantin, on the other hand... guy is in serious DEEP shit this season and now having to witness his actual daughter kill someone... yeah, I think having to handle Oksana is complicated enough and she alone manages to drive him mad so now the idea of having TWO mentally unstable daughters... yup, it’s time to do something about this. At the same time I kind of see the parallel between Oksana and Irina and how they could be reflecting one another. Tatiana wasn’t there for Oksana most of the time and didn’t show her any affection, ect. Konstantin is of course not as bad as Tatiana was, but the fact is, is that he is not really there for Irina. She’s not really getting as much of his attention and love as Oksana gets from him since she’s so demanding. So it makes sense for Irina to become more like Oksana, having them both be neglected by their parents in a way.

ALSO!!! Is it just me or is Konstantin the FATHER of the entire show lol?! A lot of people thought that he might be the one who killed Kenny. Now, all out of sudden he might actually be his father?! Yes, the thought did cross my mind but I never expected them to address it in that way. So... based on Carolyn’s forried look and silence that followed afterwards... this is the confirmation? Konstantin is Kenny’s dad then? Or maybe Carolyn isn’t sure of that either? Life is SO much more complicated in Killing Eve, I swear lol! Then there’s the thing with Geraldine... not sure where they are getting with this yet. Feels like we don’t really know anything about Geraldine just yet and really.. so far it just seems like she has daddy issues which could explain her amazing bond with her father and him not being there anymore. (I assume he died). Funny enough, we see Oksana having mommy issues. Yes. It is a thing now. And I’m not very excited to see where Konstantin/Geraldine thing is going... 

Carolyn (ft. Geraldine)

We finally get to see Carolyn uncovering more information about Kenny’s case and actually it brings more questions than answers if you think about it. Kenny calling Konstantin, him possibly being his father, Geraldine kissing Konstantin and so on. This is suuch a mess. 

The long awaited conversation with Geraldine gave us more insight as to why Carolyn is so cold towards her daughter and I get it. Really. What I don’t realy get is the fact that Geraldine decided to not mention Konstantin coming to visit her while insisting her mother to talk about Kenny. If she wants them to be truly open about things and just have a honest conversation, she has to open up about other things as well. That includes Konstantin. And gosh, she better tell the truth in the next episode because I’ve had enough with all the lies. Plus the season is almost over and we hardly know anything about her. Please, Suzanne, don’t let us down on this!

Eve & Dasha

I just love how easily Eve teleported to Barcelona lol! I’ve been also waiting for their face off and it happened. I was expecting something a lot more... crazier, physical, but all they did was basically annoy each other by fighting over VILLANELLE and their importance in her life while having this bowling match. The fact that Eve has NEVER done it before makes the whole winning aspect sooo much more delicious and come on, Eve just HAD to notice how Dasha missed one of her strikes as soon as she mentioned that Niko was still alive. Makes me wonder if its THAT easy for someone to throw Dasha off her game, yet she’s soo narcissistic and so ahead of herself. 

Eve’s trust in Villanelle continues to AMAZE me, like no matter what Dasha told her she STILL denied all of her bullshit as if it was nothing and that is coming from someone who had only met Villanelle a handful of times. This is such a nice parallel to season 2 finale where Carolyn told Eve that Villanelle wouldn’t do the same for her. Not only did Eve figure out who Dasha was and that Villanelle was working for her, but she actually went to Barcelona to confront Dasha like that and call her out without much of hesitation. Again, Dasha mentioned “killing” Eve and that is concerning. There is a reason Carolyn told Eve that Dasha ended up killing one of her own... and that, I feel, is huge foreshadowing for upcoming episodes. Dasha IS the problem and she will cause even more. Honestly, I’m afraid she might do something to Villanelle or Konstantin for that matter. After all, she DID kill one of her own to save her own ass and I bet she can and will try to do it again.

Villanelle/Oksana (ft. Dasha)

To put it lightly, Oksana is a mess. She is going through a LOT. We’ve never seen her this vulnerable and emotional before and she has EVERY reason to feel this way. Now, it is sad that people seem to be struggling to separate Villanelle from Oksana. Like I’ve mentioned in my previous post, this episode was almost 95% Oksana and the rest 5% of her trying her best to look somewhat like her old self mostly at the meeting with Helene and during her next kill. After killing her own mother, she doesn’t see or feel the same way about killing. At least not right now. It’s a lot more difficult for her to turn her emotions off now that they are so intense and she can’t focus clearly. She is becoming sloppy at her job and she doesn’t want to do any of it anymore. Now that I’m thinking about it, we’ve seen more of Villanelle so far than we have of Oksana. The previous two seasons we saw only this confident persona that Oksana has created with several occasions where her real self comes to surface. And this season it’s all about peeling those layers, of slowly peeling away Villanelle and getting to meet Oksana. So, we are sooo used to seeing Villanelle in action, her interact with people that we can’t see her being emotional, let alone crying. It’s not like her. Because it’s NOT her. It’s Oksana and don’t know her enough to know what she is like and what is in character for her. Truth is, she is vulnerable, hurt and in pain. She is going through the death of her mother, the loss of her family, the loss of control and being manipulated (again)  by others in doing something for them. It all was building up and now she can’t escape those feelings anymore and she wants to quit. 

I feel like this time she REALLY means it. She really wants to quit and she is willing to give away EVERYTHING. The apartment, the clothes.. and EVE. The first time I’ve watched the scene I got really concerned and scared... because that means Villanelle is willing to leave Eve like that. At the same time I started to realize that this is sooo much bigger than Eve or them being together. This is Oksana wanting to have a new life... and she wants it so bad, she is willing to leave Eve behind. This, right here.. it called CHARACTER GROWTH and I am soo proud of her for reaching this point, of wanting this life, wanting something for HERSELF even if it means giving away everything she loves. That’s when you know she is being serious about it. So maybe this will turn out to be a good thing... maybe when Eve will notice and find out about this... she will be even more willing to accept her feelings for Oksana and they might end up just running away together because they can and because both of them want for this bullshit to end.

Now, Konstantin told Villanelle to NOT tell anyone about their escape plan. She promised not to do it but then she had a breakdown and ended up telling it to Dasha.Such a BAD move. I mean.. Dasha is the last person she was supposed to tell this to... and I’m sure it will cause major problems. Dasha will get someone killed and I don’t blame Oksana. She’s not in the right state of mind and really, if she haven’t told it to Dasha, we probably wouldn’t have as much action and drama happening in the next remaining episodes. So will see. But I really do hope Dasha will fail at whatever she will try to do.

I’ve probably said it plenty of times but Jodie Comer’s acting STRIKES AGAIN! So many powerful performances delivered each single episode, I am speechless and I really don’t know what else to say. Just see it for yourselves. She deserves another Emmy and more! 

Villaneve screen time

This is not really a part of a specific episode review, but more like me wanting to point something out. It’s been 6 episodes already and we only got ONE Villaneve scene. The bus scene. The kiss scene. Yeah, it was mindblowing and amazing but that’s not enough. And something tells me they might not even meet in next episode.. only see each other at the very end of the episode and that’s on it’s own upsetting... I mean I dare to say, even season 1 had more Villaneve screen time than season 3 has. I’m not even talking about season 2, where literally they spend together half of a season together occasionally meeeting up. This show IS about them and their dynamic and how can we have it if they are not interacting together? I get that this season is more focused on character development and them evolving separatelly, but Villaneve still has to be a thing... and they better give us the entire finale filled with Villaneve quality content or else... after all, they ARE the main plot of the show for me and there’s that. 

Overall Thoughts

Another solid Killing Eve episode. Since they have only 8 episodes, they can allow themselves to make such rich, intense and filled with information/action type of episodes and it shows. There were a couple of weaker episodes, but overall this season is getting stronger with each episode and I am very nervous as I am scared and excited for the remaining two! 

As always guys, if you have any theories or thoughts about this episode, Killing Eve in general or anything else, feel free to jump in my ask box or message me directly, I’d love to chat!!

[yellowocaballero]

Cod(a) Monkey

Forgot to post this earlier. Epilogue to my Half-life story Code Monkey , which is a 90s stoner comedy flick except Black Mesa. Probably understandable without it, though. Not canon to that story, but consider it a sort of alt ending. 

Written because my friend was upset that Barney and Gordon never got that beer, so it’s dedicated to @magickkart. The Half Life 2 story is still in the works! It’ll be a bit long. 

Rest under the cut. 

“I don’t feel pain,” Gordon said. “So no. But I went to a concert, and it was very heavy on bass and drums. Good vibrations. Kind of like a gun’s vibrations, but more purposeful.”

“The symphony of violence,” Barney said with a straight face, using the sign for ‘abuse’ and passing the finger past the fist very empathetically, several times, as he always did whenever he felt the need to describe the way Gordon killed things. “Is the mosh pit where you learned the Rambo thing?”

“Sure, Barney. Sure it is.”

“Because I really don’t think you were born a superpowered killing machine -”

“There’s no superpowers involved. I really don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

“You cannot just be a genetic assassin -”

“Guns aren’t hard, Barney. You just press A.”

“What does that mean -”

“What I don’t understand,” Barney said that night, over clammy mugs of beer and sticky wooden tables, “is what Black Mesa was going to do with the world once they took it over. I mean, they were already a shadowy government agency in the most powerful government in the world with unlimited funding that basically did whatever they wanted. What were they going to do, increase our salaries?”

If it wasn’t for the fact that Barney had learned a lot of esoteric vocabulary just to be able to talk to Gordon for hours about his alien and Illuminati conspiracy theories, Gordon reflected, then they really would have been in trouble at Black Mesa. 

“That would have been nice,” Gordon said contemplatively, gently sipping at his beer. He was far from a lightweight, but he had to be careful not to overdrink when he went out with Barney. Guy could drink the entire bar under the table and barely even get dizzy. It was almost unnerving, and raised the question of if anybody who was an ex-employee at Black Mesa was a normal human being, but some Pandora’s Boxes should just stay shut. “I liked my salary.”

“Yeah.” Barney sadly chugged more beer. “I’m not going to miss that job, but I feel like I’m going to miss having a job, you know?”

Mittens licked one of the onion rings sitting in a basket on the table. Gordon stroked Mittens on her head as she pressed up against his hand affectionately. 

This wasn’t their usual bar. Their usual bar was on Black Mesa property, and Black Mesa was currently having a bad case of the crabs right now. When Gordon casually mentioned that to Barney his shoulders started shaking from laughter, but he refused to explain what was funny. So far, Gordon already missed their old bar. It was well-lit, making it easy to talk, completely sterile and anti-bacterial, and had hazardous waste bins. And everyone always knew your name. 

But it wasn’t too bad, for a random bar. They let Gordon and Barney sit on the patio with Mittens in a secluded corner, and it was well enough lit that they could still talk. Random people kept on staring at them, sometimes for an uncomfortable amount of time, and while Gordon was fairly used to it Barney wasn’t. Barney had hesitantly asked if it was because the white lab coat Gordon still wore was dyed half-red with blood, but as that was the natural state of a theoretical physicist’s labcoat Gordon really didn’t see the issue. 

“What other job can I even get?” Barney griped. “My degree isn't good for anything. I was just a rent-a-cop for the last three years. I’m homeless, at least for right now, since my dorm is infested with murderous aliens. I can’t even go back there to get my stuff until the military kills off all the aliens. This sucks.”

“It’s a common Gen X problem,” Gordon said, with a straight face as he scratched Mittens’ ruff. Her purr vibrated happily under his hand. “Divorce, MTV, and reduced adult supervision made us incomplete adults.”

“I miss MTV,” Barney said. “Man, that was just like, high school. The memories, man. We’ll never get the 80s back.”

“I was never really into MTV.”

“Really? You never watched it? Not even for the babes?”

“I never really understood the appeal of babes,” Gordon said, with a straight face. 

“Yeah, I forgot, sorry.” They sat there for a little bit, not talking, as Barney both chugged his beer and seemed to be thinking really hard about something. Finally, he said, “Cute dudes on MTV too. Like, uh...Prince.”

“Prince.”

“Michael Jackson, you know.”

“Yeah, I know Michael Jackson.” Gordon gently freed an onion ring from the cold embrace of Mittens. “College roommate at MIT showed me Nirvana, actually. I liked it.”

“Really? I can see that. Very inner pain.” Barney squinted at Gordon. “Do you have inner pain?”

“I don’t feel pain,” Gordon said. “So no. But I went to a concert, and it was very heavy on bass and drums. Good vibrations. Kind of like a gun’s vibrations, but more purposeful.”

“The symphony of violence,” Barney said with a straight face, using the sign for ‘abuse’ and passing the finger past the fist very empathetically, several times, as he always did whenever he felt the need to describe the way Gordon killed things. “Is the mosh pit where you learned the Rambo thing?”

“Sure, Barney. Sure it is.”

“Because I really don’t think you were born a superpowered killing machine -”

“There’s no superpowers involved. I really don’t know how else to explain it to you.”

“You cannot just be a genetic assassin -”

“Guns aren’t hard, Barney. You just press A.”

“What does that mean -”

It was at that moment that a waitress, looking somewhat startled by Barney’s incredibly expressive and sweeping signing, approached them and asked Barney something. They chatted for a bit - judging by Barney’s smile and the woman’s easy grin, he was flirting with her again, like he did with every waitress. 

“She wants to know if you want a refill,” Barney reported. 

Barney tilted his fist, pushing the mug that he hadn’t realized was empty to the waitress and giving her his best polite smile, which made her flinch in fear and take the cup, disappearing quickly. Was it the lab coat, or was Gordon really just that bad at looking polite?

“But you’re changing the subject,” Barney said, when she ran off, seemingly uncaring that Gordon had torpedoed his flirting attempts. “Why would Black Mesa make a deal with the alien armies to take over the world? And what musicians did you have a crush on as a kid?”

“That question is so esoteric and obscure that the answer is almost unfathomable.”

“Stop using complicated signs, asshole, this is my fourth language.” After a second of translation, Barney followed that up with, “Okay, which question was that in response to?”

“Yes.”

“Now you’re just being an asshole,” Barney accused, and Gordon surprised himself by barking a laugh. 

“Maybe I am an asshole,” Gordon teased, unfamiliar with the concept but willing to give it a shot, “but I’m your asshole.”

For some reason, that made Barney flush very red, and finish his beer very quickly before moving Mittens aside to stuff some onion rings in his mouth. Finally, after Barney seemed to collect himself, he weakly offered, “Never thought I’d see Gordon Freeman admit that we were friends.”

“Some things you can’t experience together without admitting that you’re friends, and defeating an alien hoard is one of them,” Gordon joked. Wow. Two jokes in one day. Might as well put on the face paint and the red nose, he was becoming a comedian. Maybe all of the crowbars to the skull had cracked him. 

But Barney just squinted at him. “Are you quoting something?”

“That kid’s book that everyone’s talking about?”

“What?” Barney snapped his fingers in thought, before lighting up. “Oh, Harry Potter! I keep meaning to check that out. My little sister keeps talking about it.”

“They’re pretty good.” Gordon read it in case someone asked him what bonding activities he did with his fake son. “I’ll lend you my copy.”

“When your dorm’s no longer full of aliens.”

“Yeah. When my dorm isn’t full of aliens.”

“But that’ll be soon,” Barney said, smiling hesitantly and hopefully and fearfully, “right?”

“You know, Barney,” Gordon said, picking up Mittens and putting her in his lap as she purred gratefully, “I really think all of this will just blow over. And everything’ll go back to normal.”

“That’s good to know.”

And it was. 

[pikapeppa]

Professor Solas/Lavellan: Oceanic

Chap 4 of Inadvisable (professor Solas modern AU) is posted!

In which Nare Lavellan throws caution to the wind when she officially meets Professor Solas for the first time. 😏 Featuring both Nare and Solas POV!

~4300 words; read on AO3 instead. 

*********************

- NARE -

Nare tapped her fingernails on her empty glass as she scanned the bar. I don’t see him, she thought in disappointment, then turned back to face her new labmates with a somewhat perfunctory smile. 

Merrill was in the middle of telling a story. She covered her mouth with one hand as she giggled. “After that, Professor Abelas has never eaten any of the baked goods I bring in. It was only the one time, though. I don’t usually put a tablespoon of salt in my cakes, I swear.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Tamlen said. “Professor Abelas doesn’t even eat storebought baked goods that are brought into the lab.”

“I think that’s how he got so tall,” Dagna said. “Not eating baked goods.”

Tamlen smirked. “Dagna, you think everyone is tall.”

She tutted and poked his hip. “Silly. I’ll let you get away with that comment since you always get the files down from the top shelves for me.”

Athera tilted her head quizzically. “Is Professor Abelas going to come to this mixer?”

“He already came and went,” Merrill said. “He always comes right when it starts and leaves within the hour.”

Athera’s eyebrows jumped up. “He came right at eight o’clock? I bet no one was even here yet!”

“That’s why he comes on time,” Tamlen said dryly.

Athera snorted. “That makes so much sense, actually.”

Nare briefly stopped scanning the room to grin at her. “Are you going to gossip about him now since you know he’s not going to show up?”

Athera scoffed. “I’m not going to gossip about a faculty member at the campus bar. I’m not stupid.” Then she smirked and elbowed Nare. “I’ll keep the gossip for when we get home.”

“Oh good,” Nare said brightly. “I still can’t believe you told Tamaris about your day while I was in the shower.”

Merrill clapped her hands. “Athera was so impressive today. You didn’t cry once!”

Nare looked at Merrill and Athera in genuine alarm. “Cry?” she exclaimed. “Why would you cry?”

Athera rolled her eyes, and Tamlen helpfully replied. “Professor Abelas is, uh, stern.”

“I think his face will crack if he smiles too much,” Merrill said. 

Tamlen cocked his head thoughtfully. “His frown does kind of look like a golem, doesn’t it?”

“Yep, it really does,” Dagna chirped, “and I would know. Golems were the focus of my undergrad thesis.”

“Were they really?” Athera said keenly. “I only had one single lecture during my undergrad that even talked about golems. What can you tell me about them?”

Dagna launched into an excited explanation of the role of golems in ancient Orzammar, and Nare took the opportunity to scan the room once more, even though she knew she shouldn’t be. Really, if she saw Professor Solas at this mixer, it would be better if she stayed away from him. 

But at the same time, if she stayed away from him and he saw her, that would be worse, wouldn’t it? She was his new Master’s student and they’d run into each other earlier today, even though he didn’t know who she was. If he saw her here tonight and she didn’t talk to him, it would be weird when she formally met him tomorrow in his office, as if she’d been avoiding him. And she had no real reason or excuse to avoid him.

Aside from the juvenile but persistent fantasies she kept having about his height looming over her and his gorgeous voice curling out of those plush full lips. 

She nibbled the inside of her cheek and tapped her empty glass. Then Athera nudged her. “You’re starting to make me nervous now,” she murmured. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Nare smiled at her. “I’m fine, I promise,” she said. Then she looked at her new labmates. “Does Solas — er, Professor Solas usually come to these mixers?”

Merrill nodded. “He does, yes. He’s probably here somewhere talking to someone.”

“Being told off by someone, you mean,” Tamlen drawled. 

Merrill tsked. “They only tell him off because they’re jealous.”

Dagna giggled. “Or because he embarrassed some Orlesian professor in one of their lectures by pointing out something wrong.”

Nare looked at him with wide eyes. “He does that in the middle of other people’s lectures while everyone is watching?”

“Yep,” Tamlen said smugly. “It’s kind of awesome, actually.”

Nare laughed, and Athera sighed happily. “I’d like to see that sometime.”

“You can, if you want,” Tamlen said, to Nare’s surprise. “Solas is insistent that all his lectures be open for anyone to audit. The administration almost had a fit at first because his classrooms were so packed that it violated fire regulations, but it’s calmed down a little bit in the past couple years.”

Nare stared at him. “Open for auditing? Wow.” That basically meant that Solas was doing his world-class lectures for free for anyone who wanted to listen. 

She sighed to herself. As if she needed more of a reason to have a crush on him. 

Merrill seemed to agree. “I think it’s brilliant. He’s trying to share the knowledge of Arlathan so openly! After so many years of their borders being almost completely closed to outsiders!” She sighed wistfully. “I hope I can go on an exchange to Arlathan someday.”

Dagna nodded enthusiastically. “That would be pretty amazing. Can you imagine how much we could learn?”

Nare smiled in agreement and glanced around, and her heart stopped.

There he was. Professor Solas was standing near the bar in a fitted blazer and a collared shirt, smiling politely as a dark-haired man spoke animatedly to him. 

Her frozen heart bolted into a galloping pulse. Oh gods, she thought. Oh gods oh gods. He was here. She was hoping he would be here, and now that he actually was, she thought she might pass out from excitement. Or from anxiety. One of the two. 

She tore her eyes away from him and smiled idly at Athera and the others, but she could barely pretend to be paying attention anymore. Professor Solas was there, standing right there not twenty feet away and drawing her attention more readily than a lighthouse beam.

All of a sudden, she couldn’t resist the beacon anymore.

She held out her glass to Athera. “Can you take this? I’m going to the washroom. I’ll be right back.” 

“Sure,” Athera said, but Nare was already walking away.

She twined her way through the crowd and slipped into the washroom, then stepped in front of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, but that could be chalked up to the crowded bar. Her hair looked good, half pinned-up and the rest spilling down her back in loose waves, and her makeup was surprisingly unsmudged. 

She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but it barely helped; her anxiety was burning away and being taken over by excitement alone — a kind of reckless excitement that Nare was not accustomed to feeling. But then again, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this kind of spine-tingling excitement about anyone. 

Honestly, she couldn’t remember ever being this desperately attracted to anyone. Too bad he had to be her fucking supervisor. 

It’s fine, she thought. I’ll just introduce myself and talk to him a little bit. It’s fine. It’s perfectly innocent. 

She smiled at herself, then pressed her lips together to quell a stupid little giggle. Then, before she could lose her courage, she swept out of the bathroom and back into the bar. 

- SOLAS -

Dorian raised his eyebrows winningly. “Come now, Solas, you have to admit that a collaboration would be a huge opportunity. An exhibit developed and created by both of us focusing on the interplay between Tevinter and Arlathani culture over the centuries? People across Thedas will be discussing it.” 

“I will consider it,” Solas said. 

“You should,” Dorian said. “At most, a collaborative project could garner patrons and sponsors for several years’ worth of funding for both of our departments. At the very least, it will get people talking.”

“That’s not something I have had particular difficulty with over the past few years,” Solas said wryly.

Dorian chuckled. “True, true. You and Abelas and your controversial theories. Come, my friend, your glass is dry.” He leaned over the bar and signalled the bartender. 

Solas hastily held up a hand to stop the bartender’s approach. “Thank you, but no,” he said to Dorian. “And I’m afraid I will have to cut our conversation short. This mixer is intended for mingling with the students, after all.”

Dorian sighed playfully. “I hear your message loud and clear. You’re sick and tired of me nattering your ear off.” He stepped away from the bar. “I will let you be. But promise me at least that you’ll consider a collaboration.”

“I will,” Solas said. And he meant it. But just because he considered a collaboration with Dorian didn’t mean he would agree to one, even if it did mean more sponsorship and funding. The Ancient Elvhen Studies program wouldn’t need funding beyond the next couple of years, after all. 

Dorian clapped him on the shoulder, then wandered into the boisterous crowd. Once he was gone, Solas let out a sigh of relief. He was far more adept at these sorts of gatherings than Abelas was, and truthfully, Solas didn’t mind coming to these events; he was always willing to engage in a rousing academic debate or an in-depth discussion of art over drinks. But just because he enjoyed the debates and the discussions didn’t mean he wasn’t exhausted by the time the night was done. 

And tonight was only half-done. He’d only arrived about a half-hour ago, and he really ought to stay for at least another hour. It was simply unfortunate that tonight’s mixer happened to fall on the sort of lazy weeknight that Solas would have preferred to spend on his couch at home with a book in hand and Fenor purring happily in his lap. 

He sighed and glanced around the room. Then his heart flipped in his chest.

A beautiful young elven woman in the crowd was smiling at him. A young woman he recognized, actually. Long russet hair, big blue eyes, long bare legs in a dark red dress…

It was the woman he had bumped into this morning on his way to the library. 

Collided with, more like, he thought ruefully. He really should have known better than to read while he was walking, especially when he’d forgotten his reading glasses at home and had to squint hard at the page. 

He nodded politely to her. Her smile widened, revealing a dimple in her right cheek, and she slipped deftly through the crowd until she was standing in front of him. 

“Hi,” she said. “We meet again.”

“So it seems,” he said. He was a bit taken aback by her confidence; it was a contrast with how shy she’d seemed earlier today.

“I didn’t realize that you were a student here,” he said. As soon as the words left his lips, he felt foolish. How could he have realized she was a student? They hadn’t even encountered each other on campus.

Thankfully, she didn’t point out his inane comment. “That’s okay,” she said. “I wasn’t heading toward campus, anyway.”

He blinked. “That’s right, you weren’t. Where were you headed?”

“I went to the modern art museum to see the neo-Avvar exhibit.”

Solas raised his eyebrows. “Ah. It’s a fascinating display, isn’t it?”

“It is,” she said enthusiastically. “I love the range of mediums they use in their work. The textiles were especially beautiful. I don’t know anything about textile art, but I feel like it would have been so hard to dye the tapestries in that kind of colour blending without any modern tech.”

“The textiles are truly impressive, aren’t they?” Solas agreed. “Incredible that such meticulous weavework could be done with bare hands. The Avvar are known for not using machines for their weaving.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? I just assumed that they used a loom of some kind.”

“No looms,” he confirmed. “Those tapestries were made entirely by hand.” He chuckled. “I believe my fingers would seize if I ever attempted such a feat.”

Her smile curled mischievously. “I can’t imagine that. I think you have the right kind of hands for weaving.”

He looked at her sharply, amused and surprised by her boldness. “Do you, now?”

He was further amused when she blushed. “I just… I can tell you’re an artist by your hands,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows, and her cheeks flushed even further. “I just mean that your… you have beautiful hands.” She laughed and patted her pinkened cheeks.

Solas smiled helplessly at her. There was something utterly charming about her confidence combined with her embarrassment, and… fenedhis, he knew he shouldn’t be encouraging this. He had no idea what department she even belonged to. But regardless of department, she was a student, and he shouldn’t be encouraging any kind of flirtation.

His wayward mouth opened of its own accord. “Do all artists have beautiful hands then, in your estimation?”

She waved her hand haphazardly. “No, no. I’m just being silly. Mine are nothing special, for example.”

He studied her with fresh interest. “Are you an artist yourself, then?”

“I… yes, actually,” she said. “I’m, um… I’m a painter. Digital and traditional.”

A painter as well? That was a happy coincidence. “As am I,” he said. “If you are a painter, you should know that you ought not discount your hands as being nothing special. A person’s hands speak of their character, whether the hands themselves are considered classically beautiful or not.”

She tilted her head. “Can you tell me more about that, professor?”

A warm feeling bloomed in his belly, and he eyed her carefully. Her tone and her expression were innocent, but there was something about the way she said his title that felt… not entirely innocent, somehow. 

Against his better judgment, he held out his hand. “Certainly. May I?”

Her eyes widened. But before Solas could retract his unwise words, she lifted her left hand and placed it in his. 

He studied her palm and her fingers for a moment, then turned her hand over. “You are left-handed.”

She let out a breathless little laugh. “I… yes, I am. How did you know?”

“A writing bump, right here.” He brushed his thumb over the small callused bump of skin on the knuckle of her fourth finger. “Incidentally, you may want to reconsider the way you hold your stylus or your brushes in order to avoid fatigue.”

She gave him a teasing little smile. “Oh please. You should know better than to mess with how a painter holds her brush.”

He chuckled. “You make a fair point.” He studied her the back of her hand. “No nail polish, tidy short nails: also indicative of a painter.”

“Nice try,” she said. “You knew that already.”

He looked up in surprise at her drawling tone, then grinned and released her hand. “You have caught me. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything of note about your hands.”

She laughed. “Don’t say that. You figured out that I’m left-handed.”

He bowed his head politely. “You are overly generous with your praise.”

“Maybe you can make it up to me,” she said.

“What do you suggest?”

She cocked her head. “You could draw my hands sometime.”

His belly flipped. Her eyebrow was quirked, and there was no mistaking the coquettish angle of her head.

He cleared his throat and folded his hands behind his back. “I… don’t think so.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I… anatomy is not…” He faltered before he could tell the lie that anatomy was not a specialty of his. “It has been a long time since I did any anatomy studies,” he said instead. 

“Really?” she said. “I got the feeling that you’d be an expert at handling anatomy.”

The warm feeling in his belly flared hotly — and perversely. He gave her a chiding look, but he could feel his traitorous lips curling into a smile. “This is… hardly appropriate,” he said in a low voice.

Her cheeks flushed once more. She smiled at him, then dropped his gaze and tucked a stray strand of hair over her ear. “I know. I’m terrible, I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave you alone?”

No, he thought. Truthfully, there was nothing he wanted more than to continue this conversation with this alluring young woman. But he couldn’t keep this up. It was against university regulations. 

“It would be inadvisable for this conversation to continue,” he said carefully.

Her answering smile was sheepish this time. “You’re probably right.”

“The faculty handbook confirms that I am,” he said dryly. 

She laughed. “I guess so. Well, will you have a drink with me? Just a drink,” she said quickly. “A collegial drink, I promise.”

Her sky-blue eyes were wide and innocent – deceptively innocent. Solas eyed her shrewdly for a moment, then gave in. “I suppose one drink can’t hurt.”

She beamed at him and leaned over the bar to signal the bartender, and Solas idly studied the shape of her spine. Then his disobedient mind conjured an image of her bending over the desk in his office with her spine curved in a similar shape. 

Mortified by his own thoughts, he hastily tore his eyes away from her, but her voice instantly called back his attention. “Professor, what would you like?” 

Professor. She couldn’t keep saying his title. It was doing things to his imagination that it shouldn’t be doing. 

He looked at the bartender. “Half a pint of Arlathan pale ale, please.” He looked down at his overly-tempting companion. “And for you?”

“Vodka tonic for me,” she said, and she pulled her wallet out of her purse. 

Solas held up a hand to stop her. “Allow me.” 

A slow smile began to curl her lips. By the time she was grinning, Solas’s heart was pounding in his throat. 

She laughed softly. “Buying me a drink? That’s very collegial of you.”

Her tone was suggestive, and he liked it far too much. “It is collegial, in fact,” he said. “I can charge it to my department since this is a university-hosted gathering.” He gestured for the bartender to add the drinks to his tab.

 “Ooh,” she said teasingly. “That’s a clever loophole.”

Vixen, he thought incredulously. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought she was shy. She was bold and beautiful and tempting, and she made him want to be bold as well.

And that thought – that wish to meet and match her boldness – was one that he absolutely could not entertain.

He forced himself to hold back the flirtatious comment at the tip of his tongue. “It is not a loophole. It’s the truth,” he said instead. 

She nodded and sipped her drink. Her expression was pleasantly neutral, but her eyes on his face were sly and warm, and Solas knew he ought to look away. He ought to break from her gaze and look at something else – anything else, really, aside from this beautiful woman that he absolutely should not be thinking about in increasingly carnal ways.

But he couldn’t look away. Her eyes were so clear and bright, and even in the dim light of the campus bar, he could see that they were an unusually lush shade of blue: not quite sky-blue like he’d originally thought, but a deeper, richer shade closer to cerulean. 

Solas gazed into her cerulean eyes and sipped his ale, and she stared back at him as she sipped her vodka-tonic. By the time Solas had finished half of his drink, he still hadn’t broken from her steady gaze. Neither of them had said a word, and as he stared into her eyes and mindlessly sipped his drink, he slowly realized that not only were they not talking, but that they shouldn’t talk.  

No, he shouldn’t talk to her anymore. If he said another word to her, he would only be digging himself deeper into the hole she’d started. 

He finally broke from her heated gaze to drain the last drops of his ale, then placed his glass on the bar and leaned toward her slightly. “This is an impossible situation.”

She blinked at him – such an innocent gesture, but her pinkening cheeks betrayed her. “What do you mean?”

He lowered his voice. “You know precisely what I mean.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she grinned at him again: a bold, beautiful grin full of mischief and heat that made him want to sink into her right here on the spot. 

He licked his lips, and her cheeks flushed even more. Then her purse chimed loudly. 

He hastily stepped away from her, and she exhaled loudly. “Damn,” she muttered. She pulled her phone out of her purse and checked the screen. 

She wrinkled her nose, then looked up at him once more. “I have to go. My friends are leaving and I said I’d leave with them.” 

He sighed – with relief, of course, certainly not with disappointment. Truly, he should be thanking whoever had sent her such a timely text. “I see,” he said. He nodded politely. “It was nice talking with you.”

“You too,” she said. But she didn’t step away. She was studying him thoughtfully, and as Solas met her gaze, he realized what her eyes reminded him of. 

They reminded him of the ocean: the perfectly clear ocean off the coast of Arlathan. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to drown himself in her oceanic eyes. 

He stared at her, his heart pounding and the blood thrumming through his body in a way that was really not appropriate for such an event. Then she stepped close to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. 

He froze. She was lifting herself on her tiptoes and leaning in close to him. Her heated eyes were coming closer, and his lungs were frozen and his brain was completely paralyzed with excitement as she raised herself higher and nearer to his face…

He parted his lips – to tell her to stop, to back away, certainly not to invite a kiss – but before he could say a word, she brushed her lips over his cheekbone in a demure Orlesian greeting.

She lowered herself slowly back to her heels, and her hand left his shoulder. “Goodnight, professor,” she murmured. 

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t reply. The sound of his title in her voice and the brush of her lips on his cheek had left him utterly stunned. 

She smiled at him one last time, then turned away. His hand moved involuntarily to reach for her, but he stopped himself in the nick of time. 

A second later, she had disappeared into the crowd. 

Solas stood stock-still at the bar for a long moment. His pounding heart was a drumbeat in his ears, drowning out the cacophony of conversation and music and laughter in the bar. Heat and disbelief and desire were thrumming through his limbs and into his cheeks and — fenedhis, he couldn’t ignore it any longer: he was hard. Shamefully hard and throbbing, his mind totally preoccupied with the feeling of her lips on his cheek, brushing over his cheekbone so close to his mouth — such pretty smiling lips. Ah, to imagine those smiling lips wrapping around his shaft and taking him deep into her throat…

He rubbed his hand over his face. He couldn’t think like this. He didn’t understand why he was so deeply affected by this particular woman. It wasn’t like this was the first time a student had come onto him, and it had never been a problem before to tactfully rebuff them while making it seem as though he was unaware of their intentions. 

So what was it about this particular young woman — this particular student — that had so captivated him that he was suffering from all sorts of tawdry thoughts that he really shouldn’t be having?

I should avoid her, he thought. If he avoided contact with her, he could avoid having any further carnal thoughts about her. Perhaps if he asked the administration to look up her name, he could…

Suddenly he realized something: he didn’t know her name. 

She hadn’t introduced herself before launching straight into a conversation with him. 

He laughed softly at his own sheer idiocy. Had he even introduced himself to her? Had his wits entirely left him the second she’d graced him with that mischievous smile?

He drew a deep breath, then exhaled heavily and stepped away from the bar. Enough of this, he thought. You must stop thinking about this. He ought to spend more time speaking with the students; he hadn’t even spoken with any of the students from his own lab yet tonight. What he really should be doing was looking for his new Master’s student, Nare. Surely she was here tonight. Perhaps she had found Merrill and Dagna. 

I should have stayed home with Fenor after all, he thought morosely. With one last sigh, Solas stepped back into the crowd. 

[myheartrevealedocs]

Untouchable Ch 8- Keeping a Secret

Warnings: mentions of death (suggestion of suicide?), discussion of graphic injuries for like two lines, discussion of mental illness

Ch 7 | Ch 9

~ ~ ~

“You nervous?” Lydia whispered as she walked past her fidgeting date for the evening. “The-always-punctual-Dr-Reid?”

He jumped, looking at her with rounded eyes. “Uh… hey!”

A smile tugged at her lips. God, he looked so small sitting there. He was actually terrified.

“Hey.”

“How’s, uh… How’s your schoolwork going?” He was blinking at a rapid rate as if he couldn’t believe she was there. As if any minute now, she’d disappear and he’d once more be alone at a table for two.

“It’s been good. I’ve been putting off on stuff for the past few days after… everything. So, I’ll need to catch up. Hopefully, by then, I’ll have your help again.”

“You don’t need my help,” he argued.

She could tell he was new at this. So was she, of course, but she’d known Spencer for some time now. It’d been almost a full year since she met him and they’d been working together for over seven months. She figured this would be like any other time they’d met. She just had to show him that them going out together didn’t change anything.

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe not. But I enjoy being with you.”

Finally, he let go of some of his jitteriness. “I was so happy you wanted my help,” he admitted. “I couldn’t wait to hang out with you.”

“Me too.” She stuck out her tongue, teasingly. “I’m glad we can hang out now without the pretense of me needing help.”

“Lydia is this all… I’m just not sure I really believe that you wanted to go out with me.” He fumbled over his words, a pink flush gracing his cheeks.

“Spencer, I’m pretty sure my exact words were ‘I’m not going out with you unless-’”

“‘I’m not going to get food with you unless it’s a date’,” he corrected. “I know, but maybe you knew I wanted to ask you out and only said that to make me feel better.”

Before she could think better of it, she reached across the table to grab his hand and said, “You gave me a book of Sherlock Holmes stories and told me I reminded you of the main character. Believe me, you’ve had my whole heart since that moment.”

His words caught in his throat and his eyes travelled down to their piled hands. Just as he had when she’d done that the last time, he slowly flipped his hand over, so that her fingers rested in his palm and his thumb could slide over her knuckles. For a moment, he hovered over the ring that she wore when she was off work. The one she’d told him belonged to her father.

“Have you read any of them?” he asked, softly.

“Of course. I was going to call you to discuss them, but you were on vacation so I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You couldn’t have bothered me,” he insisted. “I was happy to get your call… until I found out what it was about.”

“Yeah… that last case was tough. But at least some good came out of it!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Like…?”

“Hotch offered me a job.”

His jaw dropped. “He did? You're going to be working with us full-time now?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. But I won’t be an intern anymore and I’ll have more freedoms. I still have to convince Strauss I’m fit for the team, but after that, I’ll be contracted out for cases. I’m like your guys’s hireable forensic expert!”

He squeezed Lydia’s hand gently. “That’s amazing!”

They settled into comfortable conversation for the rest of the night. The food was great, as she figured it would be since Spencer liked the restaurant so much, and when they were finished, he offered to walk her home.

The spring air was still cold and she wasn’t used to the temperature compared to California. They walked in silence for most of the night, Lydia looking around at the buildings. All the months she’d been living there and she really hadn’t taken the time to commit anything nearby to memory. But now that she was planning on taking up Hotch’s offer, Virginia could end up being a permanent home.

Oh god, Rebecca was going to kill her, she thought suddenly. She was going to insist she was abandoning her like their parents had.

Abandoned. She hated to think of it that way, but that’s why her and her sister had always stuck so close. They were all they had left.

“Hey, Spencer?” she began, nervously. “Do you want to know what happened to my mom?”

“Lydia, you don’t owe me-”

“No,” she interrupted. “I’m okay with telling you, I promise. There’s no… pressure on me to say, but I…” She sighed. “I feel like someone should know. And I don’t mean ‘know’ as in read the new articles Garcia came across when she did a background check on me. I mean understand.” She looked down at her hands and Spencer knew without even looking, that she was twisting her ring around her finger like she was winding up a toy. “It was kind of a… complicated matter.”

“Complicated?”

“My mom was bipolar. I don’t remember a lot about her, but of what I do picture, it’s almost like I had two mothers. When she was on a decline, she wasn’t anything like my mother. She was hollow and distant and I couldn’t understand it.

“And, when I was ten… I was the one to find her body. She’d overdosed on her meds. Bupropion to be exact. And it became somewhat popular around town, because no one could tell if it was a suicide or an accident… I don’t even know. Local papers were speculating about it and some people even thought it could have been a murder.

“People wouldn’t leave us alone for the longest time, trying to find evidence that proved their theories. It was really hard on my dad and, of course, that’s approximately when my anger issues started to manifest and I was acting out and being a real piece of shit. So, you know, no help. And the doctors basically said that that was the first sign of her giving her depression to me.”

His eyes started to water. “Lydia-”

“I’m not telling you this because I think it makes us even, Spencer. Sharing your past isn’t like trading cards. But, after finding out about your mom, I wanted you to know that I understand. I really do. You’re terrified of turning out like her. And you feel guilty, because you love your mother, even with her disorder. But watching her live with it for all those years and-” She stopped herself, feeling her own emotions get the better of her. “I don’t think I’m strong enough. If I turn into that… I don’t think I’ll survive.”

She shut her eyes and stopped walking, waiting for him to tell her that she was wrong about him. Maybe she didn’t really understand. She’d assumed a lot and there were so many different factors, but it felt the same. When he talked about his mom, she recognized those emotions.

“Lydia?”

His voice was controlled. Almost forced. She worried he was holding back anger. But after cautiously cracking an eye open, she realized it was tears. He was close to crying. And to be honest, so was she, although none had fallen from either of the pair.

“Can I hug you?”

She tried to muffle a little gasp, before nodding.

His arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her into his warm chest and she snaked her arms underneath his jacket to hold him closer. He smelled clean, like detergent, and she had to keep herself from rubbing her face into his soft shirt.

Telling someone about her mother’s death was never going to be easy for Lydia. She hadn’t expected it to be. But Spencer was one of the first people who wasn’t treating her like an alien. She’d lost someone. People die all the time. It hurts like a bitch, but 12 years later and she still could feel a weird air around the topic. No one wanted to bring up what her mother’s death meant for her.

“Thank you,” she breathed. “For listening. And for putting up with me before this when I dodged the subject.”

“When I found you sitting on the floor of the conference room, listening to my mom,” he said, his hold on her not letting up, “I was blown away. I’d never seen anyone other than her doctors be able to talk to her so cleanly. When people realize she’s different, they tiptoe around her like she’s dangerous. And really, she’s not. She never has been, not to anyone else. She’s just… strange.”

“We’re all a little strange,” she comforted, pulling back to look at him, but neither one of them dropping their arms around the other. “And she was absolutely brilliant. No wonder you turned out to be a prodigy.”

He grinned. “She used to be a great literature professor before her mental state began deteriorating. She’d read me historic poetry and writings. I didn’t think anyone in the world could be as amazing as my mom.”

“I can believe it,” she told him sincerely.

They stood there for a moment, then walked the rest of the way to her apartment, arms still wrapped around one another like they were a life raft.

“Do people normally talk about their moms’ mental illnesses on their first date?” Spencer asked, his tone completely serious. “I feel like we jumped the ‘what’s your favorite color’ questions.”

“My favorite color is green,” she informed him. “And this is just a guess, but I don’t think anything about our relationship is or will ever be normal, Spencer. Romantic or not.”

He glanced at her, questioningly. “Is that okay?”

“Perfect.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia’s meeting with Strauss was set a few days later and it went well. At least, according to Hotch, it did. Strauss was… terrifying.

Lydia was ready to collapse from stress as she followed Hotch out of their superior’s office, but once they were a few feet away, he confided that she’d answered all of Strauss’s questions appropriately and fully which was all they could ask for.

“She looked so annoyed,” Lydia admitted, quietly. “I thought I was on trial, not applying for a job.”

“Strauss is…” He hesitated, not sure how to put it lightly. “She can seem like that at times,” he decided.

She nodded, the two of them finally reaching the bullpen. “Well, call me if you hear anything.”

“You too,” he replied before walking away to his office.

Lydia stepped down into the bullpen, deciding to stay a few minutes before heading home. She had something to ask Spencer and if she got this job, she might have to do some more training, which would mean a little while out of the field.

“Hey, kiddo,” Morgan called with a smile as she stepped down.

“Not sure I appreciate the nickname, Derek.”

Spencer spun around at the sound of her voice, but didn’t say anything.

“I call pretty boy here ‘kid’ all the time and technically, he’s not the youngest anymore,” Morgan argued, Lydia stepping up next to them at their joined desk. “You’ve got him beat by three years.”

“Two,” Lydia fired back. “I turned 22 two months ago.

“Oo, a big girl,” he teased. “Tie your own shoes and everything?”

“Why? Do you need help?”

“Sugar!” Garcia cried, entering the bullpen from the opposite direction. “What are you doing here?”

“Spice!” Lydia held out her arms to pull her in for a brief hug.

Garcia gasped in her ear. “I love the nickname,” she said, pulling away. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh,” Lydia sighed, brushing her hair back. “I’m not sure if this is on the downlow or not, but I was interviewing for a job!”

“What?” Morgan demanded, setting his mug of coffee down firmly. “You’re thinking about leaving us?”

“No!” Garcia argued too. “Who wants you? I’ll sabotage your chances!”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s scary, because I’m certain you could. Quite easily. But if you don’t want me getting this job, you’ll have to take it up with Hotch or Strauss.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You mean it’s a job here? At the BAU?”

“It’ll be no different than before,” Lydia promised. “I’m not here for every case. Hotch just thought it was time I had more freedoms and he’s trying to convince Strauss of that too. I don’t know why anyone would entrust me with that, but if Strauss agrees, I get to carry a gun, so that’s cool.”

“That sounds terrifying,” Morgan disagreed. “Don’t act so excited about getting to use deadly weapons.”

“Noted.” Lydia winked at him and he smirked back. “How’s Elle doing?”

“She’s back home,” Spencer said, speaking up for the first time since she got there. “She won’t be allowed back in the field for a few months, though.”

“That really sucks,” she grumbled. “I saw her place and there was no getting that blood out. She probably had to get the carpet replaced and the wall repainted. And I told Hotch this, but it must have been excruciating.”

“Why’s that?” Morgan asked.

“He wrote on the walls in her blood,” Lydia cried. “How did he get that blood?”

“You think he stuck his fingers into the bullet hole?”

Garcia’s face paled. “Oh no, please don’t say it.”

“He had to.”

Garcia’s hand covered her mouth at Lydia’s words. “Oh god, you said it. I’m gonna be sick.”

The woman scurried off, leaving Lydia with the two profilers. “Sorry, I wouldn’t think Garcia would be squeamish.”

“Very,” Morgan informed her, standing up. “I need more coffee. Be right back.”

Lydia gave him a halfhearted wave, letting him leave before turning on Spencer.

“You’re quiet,” she said, bluntly. “What’s up?”

“I didn’t think I’d see you today.” He shrugged, but Lydia could see straight through him. “I thought you’d be too busy.”

“Yeah… Or you were hoping you wouldn’t see me,” she accused and he panicked.

“It’s not because of you-!” he blurted out.

“You don’t want to tell the team we’re dating,” she figured, interrupting him. “You thought I’d spill the beans.”

“I’m scared!”

“Of telling them? Or of them knowing?”

“Both? I mean, what if you decide I’m a bad boyfriend? I’m not sure I could face the humiliation of them knowing you broke my heart.”

“I doubt you could be a bad boyfriend if you tried,” she argued. “But okay, we can wait as long as you’d like. They are profilers, though. You think they’re going to know?”

He shook his head. “As long as we aren’t holding hands around the bullpen or anything… Everybody's already super close, so us talking is totally normal. They might think I’m crushing on you, but Garcia already caught onto that.”

“Garcia what?” Lydia clamped her teeth shut over her lips to keep from laughing at him, but it didn’t help much. “She profiled that you liked me?”

“Yeah…” he mumbled, embarrassed.

“How long has she known?” Lydia demanded. 

“Since… our first case together.”

She didn’t even try to stop her laugh this time. “Dude, there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide this from the team. But I mean, I’m more than happy to try.”

His face turned bright red. “You really think they’re going to figure it out?”

She shrugged, calming herself before Morgan could get back and ask what she was laughing about. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll turn out to be great at keeping a secret.”