#reopen the fucking schools holy SHIT

[jinxpologist]

arguing with someone on tiktok about whether or not viktor committed eugenics (???????) and they described viktor’s actions in season 2 as “pretty ww2”. hey do you wanna say that to me again. say it to me again. i’m daring you to say it to me again. are you fucking insane

[raisethe-velvet]

please do tell me about your ocs.....

hi holy shit i was not expecting anyone to actually ask me about my ocs but um. hello oc lore be upon ye I have a few OCs. a lot actually. my main set of OCs is a group of magical girls (well. two of them are guys) and like. the story is somewhat complicated but basically Zoe (main character) runs away from her fucked up boarding school in which she's been stuck at for most of her life and finds this mansion in which she finds a magic mirror that she accidentally shatters and gains magic powers from. and like. there's others. also she was separated from her two sisters at a very young age but has no memory of them she meets the other 4 of my main OCs who are also magical girls (using this term gender neutrally) and it kind of goes from there. There's Melody (hyperactive 14 year old music prodigy) Eli (could be a shoujo love interest if he wanted to, secretly the most insane person you will ever meet) Towa (literally just some guy who got dragged into this all this all because he took up a part time job at the wrong store) and Camilla (was a magical girl in high school, just graduated university, ends up becoming a magical girl again. while trying to manage her career as a fashion designer.) as for like. the actual plot. yknow how i mentioned Camilla was a magical girl in high school. She actually failed to save the other world she became a magical girl in an attempt to save the first time, with said entire world being cursed into an eternal slumber except for the person who like. cursed the place. the portals between the world were sealed off until Zoe accidentally reopened it. so its like. they need to figure out how to lift the curse as in its current state it cannot be reversed. i. dont have many drawings of them like at all that arent really old, ive mainly been working on lore in the past couple of years so the designs of a few characters are a little.. outdated. and i dont wanna post art from two years ago here because it is uh. Not Good.

except this reference sheet of Zoe and another OC i havent mentioned until now called Jordan (who is. another character in this same storyline) that i made for artfight last year which arent terrible i guess (though slightly outdated)

im planning to actually make this a whole series at some point, probably after i graduate high school this year. ive been working on this since i was about 12... though i've changed a lot since then. like the entire storyline. this version of the story line is like.. the third rework of it. My plan is to make this a comic book/manga series and potentially have it adapted into a tv series. Which is highly unlikely to happen but i can dream... (i have the soundtrack planned and everything i think i made a post ages ago detailing the exact personalities and stuff of the main characters so i'll try to find it and add a link in the reblogs <3

[mxnhoo]

holy shit guys im so fucking stressed cos of my school life and school hasnt even reopened yet BYE.

i think after i release my riki "like you" fic, ill be taking a break for a while until my semester ends which will be in like.. march? probs earlier

thank you guys so much for the support ya'll have given me, ill probably still be logging in but wont be posting actual fics! happy new year and stay safe yall ♡

[cibolasburn]

me: man i wonder why i never reread the gregor the overlander books after middle school! they were some of my favorite books 

me, 30 minutes later reading the summaries with tears in my eyes: oh this is why

[dvckssauce]

((SPOILERS AHEAD))

YES I know DELTARUNE has been dissected at EVERY angle possible and reading it all in the past five hours has not helped…

because I think I know who the Knight is.

I BELIEVE that the Knight is Father Alvin who is Gerson’s son.

- So here is what we know:

- Gerson was old as fuck and knew everything about anything whether it be in the world of Deltarune OR Undertale. He even knew what the Delta Rune symbol was in Undertale.

- The bench commemorated to Gerson states the following about his stories and inspirations coming from DREAMS.

- Both Noelle and Susie have recalled trips to the dark world, unknowingly, as DREAMS.

- Therefore, Gerson has been to the Dark World, specifically inside the “UNUSED CLASSROOM” that he had when he was a teacher at Kris’s school. There’s even the picture of him on the wall by Alvin!!

- King in the Dark World was the ONLY King that was allowed to remain in the kingdom, with the other three kings in the dungeon.

- King also has unused text for a failsafe enemy message that states, “Fall before the Chain of Justice!” Who ELSE has a weapon that ends with “Of Justice?” Gerson and his Hammer of Justice.

- SPAMTON, when questioned about the Knight, as stated above, says “SPEAKING OF COMMUNION” as the first line of dialogue. Communion is a religious thing!! The end line mentioning Hell is also intriguing.

Now this is the part for speculation.

- I believe that Gerson has been to the Dark World and told these stories to Alvin while also telling the story of the Rune and/or prophecy that came with it. This could’ve impacted Alvin to the point where he romanticizes the Delta Rune. So he is a priest now.

- Along with that, it seems Father Alvin believes the Delta Rune’s Angel figure is a good figure! Always blessing Kris with some statement about the Angel or light guiding them in some way. We know that in Undertale, the Angel was a bad figure, the Angel of death, specifically. (take a look at Asriel’s god mode)

- In the Undertale prophecy, it’s generally understood that the Angel can be a good, but probably bad thing. With the Deltarune prophecy, it’s recognized to a similar level where we’re presented with both good and bad things about it as well. They want to BANISH the Angel’s Heaven, at least according to what Ralsei says. (sus little shit)

- All in all, Father Alvin is doing some PRETTY questionable things. Opening Dark Fountains, disrupting monarchies, standing in the computer lab closet that is spacious enough for a “big person.” He is pretty large, considering the tortoise shell.

THE QUESTION IS WHY? I propose several theories…

- COMMUNION. The definition of Communion is to exchange thoughts and feelings on a certain subject, specifically RELIGION and I bet my ass that Father Alvin was opening different Dark Worlds and spreading the holy word of the Delta Rune, as both King and Queen have spoken of the Knight fondly, it seems like a good deal right? More dark worlds sounds like a good thing to them, even though Queen had NO idea that too many fountains, as per Ralsei, could be very BAD for everyone involved.

- He wants to be an Angel, driven by a glorification of an old tale lost to time. BUT what he does is for the good of the Light world, in his head, and maybe not so much for the Dark World in reality!

- Perhaps he took on a task to keep a “balance” between the Light and Dark World.

- ANOTHER CRUCIAL DETAIL to both the Roaring Prophecy and the decrepit state of the first area of the Dark World in Ch. 1 would be the symbols that appear on the walls, the star-like, SAVE-LIKE SYMBOLS. Gerson or Alvin may have reopened the dark fountains in the unused classroom TOO MANY TIMES. Maybe, at some point, the Titans were awakened and (per the roaring prophecy of the world falling into chaos) The one “Chaos” King was left to rule the mess. (literally his title)

- I would like more suggestions because there are just too many puzzle pieces!!! Also please point out anything that doesn’t add up or any errors, because there are many other candidates for the Knight.

It sounds pretty farfetched, but the religious connotations between the Knight, the Delta Rune, and this GUY are just too juicy to ignore. A lot of people have developed upon this, so I apologize if you’ve seen it before but it needs more awareness!

[homoose]

Weird is Good

Summary: A story about two people tryna make it through the age of COVID-19 in a country where people are fucking dumb lmao. My hc is that Spencer would be like wtf at all these science-denying anti-maskers. Also, two teachers just tryna make it through quarantine and remote teaching in a one bedroom apartment (this is taking place during a mandatory leave/lecture cycle).

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff

Warnings/Includes: no warnings. reader is both a kindergarten teacher and a bruh girl with a pirate’s mouth. lots of Spencer x factz.

Word count: 3.1k

———

“We’re home for the next two weeks. ”

Spencer looked up from his desk to see Y/N kicking off her shoes, dropping her bag, and walking directly to the sink. “Starting when?”

“We get to go in on Monday to say goodbye to the kids and get any materials we might need. Then we’re home for two weeks. They’re calling it an early, extended spring break.” Y/N began her hand washing routine. As a kindergarten teacher, she’d always been a strict hand-washer. In the time of COVID, she had only become more zealous. She looked at Spencer. “Have you heard anything?”

“Since we’re so close to the end of the semester, the department head thinks they’ll try to finish out the year as normal.” He set down his pen. “I honestly don’t know. It will all depend on whether people follow the CDC guidelines. The spread of any virus is deducible mathematically, and SARS-COV2 is no different. Based on the outbreak in Italy prior to their lockdown, we can accurately describe its reproductive number, or Rt, to between 2.43 – 3.10.”

Y/N shut off the water and dried her hands on a paper towel. “In layman's terms, Dr. Reid.”

“The Rt tells how many people are infected by the contagious host,” he explained. “In the case of this strain, each infected person is infecting between two and three others. For comparison, the standard seasonal flu has an average Rt between 1.4 and 1.7.”

“So in other words, fucking yikes,” Y/N groaned. She moved to perch on the edge of Spencer’s desk.

“Indeed,” Spencer agreed. “We know how fast the flu can travel through an office or a classroom, so imagine if it was two times as transmissible. But it's also really important to understand that this number changes depending on the mitigations in place. Even prior to full lockdown, mask wearing and social distancing was somewhat common in Italy, so it’s likely the uncontrolled Rt is higher.”

“Jesus Christ.” Y/N scrubbed a hand over her face. “We’ll probably never go back.”

Spencer rubbed his hand up from her ankle to the inside of her knee. “The good news is there’s nothing special about this virus compared to others in terms of how it spreads— it’s just aerosols. So if everyone wears their mask, we’ll be able to keep the spread low.”

⧭⧭⧭

“It’s safe to say that everyone did not wear their fucking masks,” Y/N snapped. She watched from the couch as Mayor Bowser delivered the news that DC Public Schools would remain closed for the remainder of the year. “This is crazy. I mean, I knew it was coming because people in this country are absolute buffoons.” She looked at Spencer, fingers pressed to her temple. “But holy shit, are we ever going to be able to go outside again?”

“With schools and universities closed, people working remotely, and lockdown orders in place, the Rt in the US could stay low. But masks have to be worn at all times, and social distancing has to be strictly followed.” Spencer pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I just— I can’t believe people are refusing to wear masks. The empirical, peer-reviewed data clearly shows—”

“This is ‘Murica, boy.” Y/N mocked. “Ain’t no tyrannical government gonna tell me what to do!” She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, your choice to abstain from social media is paying dividends to your sanity right now.”

Spencer looked truly dumbfounded, setting his newspaper down in his lap. “But that’s just it. It’s not just in social media circles.” He gestured to the article in front of him. “This economist just argued for ‘reopening’ the economy using the justification of herd immunity. Herd immunity can be a plausible option for less lethal diseases. But this virus is not like varicella—the chickenpox,” he clarified at Y/N’s raised eyebrow. He waved his hands around in exasperation. “Putting aside the fact that one facet of herd immunity is vaccinating as many people as possible, its success completely hinges on the Rt of a disease. If you model a population based on an Rt of 2.5, herd immunity wouldn’t be achieved until approximately sixty percent of the population has been infected. Consider that the US population is currently 328 million, and sixty percent of that is 196.8 million. The current mortality rate for SARS-COV2 is 3.06 percent. 196,800,000 multiplied by 0.0306 is 6,022,080. Over six million people would die. It's simple mathematics.”

Y/N let out an exasperated breath. “It used to be that simple math and facts were enough. Now you’ve got basement scientists who think they know better than actual, literal scientists who’ve spent their entire lives studying these things.” She ran a hand over her face and gestured at the news conference still playing. “How long do you think it’ll be before we’re both trying to teach from this tiny ass living room?”

⧭⧭⧭

“Goooooooood morning, kindergarten! It’s Friday, and no Friday is a bad Friday!” Spencer smiled. As he poured his first cup of coffee, he hummed along with Y/N and 23 six-year-olds as they sang their morning song. Observing fourteen days of remote kindergarten from across the living room had given Spencer a new appreciation for elementary school teachers, particularly Y/N. She sang, danced, conducted science experiments, held puppet shows, read stories, led art projects, and fielded questions for four hours a day— three hours less than when they were in the school building. He was exhausted by proxy.

But he was also grateful for the opportunity to watch Y/N in her element. Even though they were at home, she still got dressed every day in bright, patterned sweaters and dresses— her Ms. Frizzle attire, she’d told him once. She was able to channel her personality into a kid-friendly version that her students clearly adored, never afraid to be silly or strange to get their attention and keep them engaged during the long days. He worked from home whenever possible, strangely happy to have the background noise of kindergarten over his quiet university office.

...

“Okay, but where do I put the biiiiiiiiiiiig number?” Y/N made a wide gesture with her arms. “Ariah, where should I put it? In the big box, yes! But oh no, my small number needs a friend. My three is soooooo lonely!” Y/N drew her mouth into a pout. “DJ, how can I help my three not be so sad? You’re absolutely right, let’s put that two right next to him in our number bond.”

…

“I’ve been waitin’  for a girl to mute,” Y/N sang into the gold karaoke mic. “I said, muuuuuuuuuute, I’m blinded by loud sounds. No, I can’t hear the friend who’s tryin’ to talk.”

…

“Oh boy. Kev, honey, we can— we can see you. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. We can see all of you. I can’t turn your camera off, buddy. You gotta— there we go.”

…

“Mute please, I need— I need everybody to mute, please. Oh my goodness where is that music coming from?” Y/N frantically searched for her index card with the picture of the mute icon, as the sounds of a highly inappropriate song blared through the computer speaker. “I know it’s so loud, guys. Why is my mute power gone?! This is why we need to make sure we keep our mute button on, kindergarten.”

…

“No sweetie, it’s not time to log off yet. I’m sorry, I know it’s such a long day. We have about an hour left. Do you guys wanna do a countdown? It’s the fin-al count-down! Do-do doo dooooo. Do-do-d-do-dooo…”

…

“Annnnnd, I should see all my friends on mute. William, hang on just a second. All my friends need to look at my picture, it’s an oval with a line through it… Okay, William, what did you bring to show us?” Y/N leaned toward the computer screen. “Grandma Kathy? O-oh, she’s— she’s in the—“ Y/N’s eyes widened. “Is that— is that an urn? Oh wow. Um, well, wow. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, William. Grandma Kathy, may she rest in peace.”

⧭⧭⧭

A week into Y/N teaching kindergarten from their living room, the university had announced its transition to online coursework for the remainder of the academic year. Spencer had to host his first zoom lecture, and he was absolutely dreading it.

“Spence, it’s going to be fine. It’s not like you’ve never been on a video conference,” Y/N assured him. She sat cross-legged on the couch, waiting for him to let her in to his practice zoom.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t running those meetings. I just showed up.” He squinted at the computer screen. “Are you in?”

Y/N barely resisted the urge to make a joke, knowing that Spencer probably wouldn’t appreciate the innuendo. “No, you have to admit me.”

“What do you mean? How do I do that?”

“There should be a box with a button that says admit.”

Spencer gestured at the computer. “Well there’s a bunch of boxes— which one should I be looking at?”

Y/N sighed and got up from the couch. “IQ of 187 and can’t find the box.”

Spencer dragged a hand through his hair. “I know I shouldn’t find this so difficult. I’m sorry you have to waste your time on this.”

“Hey, it was a joke.” Y/N grabbed his hand from where he was frustratedly pulling on his frazzled curls. “I’m sorry. That was mean and you’re already stressed enough.” She used her free hand to smooth his hair back into place. She scrunched her nose. “I love you and your limited technology skills. And honestly it’s kind of nice to have one thing I can actually teach you about.” She squeezed his hand, leaning over him to peer at his computer screen. “All right, let’s find that elusive admit button.”

When the day of his lecture rolled around, Spencer thanked all the atoms in the observable universe that Y/N had a break during his class. Within the first ten minutes, he’d managed to accidentally kick himself out of his own meeting and then somehow lose track of the screenshare button.

“No one can see me and I don’t know what happened to the screenshare option. It was there and now it’s just… gone,” he told Y/N.

She leaned over his desk, eyes tracking over the screen and mouse clicking around the desktop. “How in the world did you manage to block your camera?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t even touch it!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand how it’s even possible to be this bad at this.”

Y/N bumped his knee with her own, pulling up his camera settings and preferences. “Relax. You can’t be good at everything. It’s a refreshing reminder that you’re a mere mortal like the rest of us.” With a few rapid clicks, Y/N unblocked his camera and located the screenshare bar. “There. Crisis averted. I’m just going to share your whole screen in case you want to toggle between application windows. So just be aware that they’ll be able to see everything. And then you just click here when you’re ready to stop sharing.”

When Y/N turned her head toward him to check that he understood, Spencer grabbed the side of her face and caught her lips in a kiss. Y/N smiled against his mouth, heart speeding up as he traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue.

“Um, Dr. Reid? Your um— your camera’s working now.”

Spencer nearly fell out of his chair, his cheeks about the color of the Leave Meeting icon. Y/N dropped her head, debating whether she wanted to laugh or let the earth open up and swallow her whole. She ultimately decided to compose herself, stepping back and giving a little wave to the sea of tiny, grinning zoom faces before slinking out of frame, miming sorry to one very mortified professor.

⧭⧭⧭

“Would you want to be our mystery reader next week?” Y/N asked, bookmarking the page of her novel and reclining back in bed. “You just have to pick a story to read. Oh, and think of four clues about your identity to give the kiddos.”

Spencer raised his eyebrow, continuing to read. “Any story?”

Y/N laughed. “Well they’re six, so maybe hold off on the Chaucer and Bradbury for now. A picture book would be preferable.”

“Did you know that the first picture book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or Visible World in Pictures, was published in 1658?” He looked up from his own book. “Czech educator John Amos Comenius wanted to create a book that would be accessible to children of all levels of ability. The educational theories he explored are actually still in practice in the field of early childhood education.” He turned toward her from his spot under the covers. “For example, when you have your students make a hissing sound and slither their arms when they produce the sound represented by the letter s? Comenius included an alphabet chart with various animal and human sounds representing each letter. He wanted to demonstrate that the incorporation of multiple senses could help increase learning.”

“I guess you don’t fix what isn’t broken,” Y/N mused. “300 years later, and we’re still using the same methods.”

“362, actually,” Spencer corrected.

She gave him a look. “Maybe we can save the Comenius for another time.”

“The genre of children’s literature encompasses some of the most profound and philosophical story telling of all time.” Spencer returned his attention to his reading.

“...So is that a yes?”

Spencer smiled. “I’ve got a book in mind.”

“And clues,” Y/N reminded him, snuggling down under the covers and reopening her book. “We need some fun clues, mystery reader.”

…

“Kindergarten, we have a very special mystery reader this week. Oh man, are you ready for the first clue? The mystery reader loves jell-o! Raise your little hand if you love jell-o, too. Okay, kindergarten, I see you! Lots of jell-o lovers in the house.”

…

“Okay, clue number two! Our mystery reader works as a community helper— remember we learned about all different kinds of community helpers; firefighters, nurses, police officers. But if the mystery reader could be anything, they’d want to be a cowboy! How cool is that?”

...

“Clue number three for our mystery reader!” Y/N sucked in a gasp. “You guys. The mystery reader can do magic. Oh my goodness, I am so excited for Friday,” she sing-songed. “Will they show us a trick? Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe if you ask nicely.”

…

“Okay, my friends, the last clue. The mystery reader loves reading. They read every day, and they’ve been reading since 1983! Yes, that was a very long time ago.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Okay, any last guesses about who our mystery reader might be?” Y/N questioned.

“I think it’s your dad,” a little voice called out.

Spencer made a choking noise from where he sat, slightly off camera. Y/N laughed. “The mystery reader is decidedly not my dad, Keyshon. Remember I showed you guys the picture of him— my dad’s a farmer, so he’s kind of already a cowboy.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, without further ado, drumroll please... Our mystery reader is…” Y/N pushed her desk chair out of frame to allow Spencer to roll in, holding her hands out. “Spencer!”

He gave a little wave, smoothing his hair, suddenly painfully self-aware and nervous about the opinions of two dozen six-year-olds. “Hi guys.”

“You’re the boy on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone.”

“Your hair is so fluffy!”

“Do you have a cowboy hat?”

“I like your sweater.”

“Can you really do magic?”

“What’s your favorite jell-o?”

“Whoa, okay, let’s remember our mute button,” Y/N, holding up her index card. “I promise you’ll get to ask Spencer all your questions after he reads the story.”

Spencer smiled at the excited faces beaming through the screen. “Yes, I’m on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone; I don’t own a cowboy hat, yet; yes, I really can do magic; and the red jell-o is my favorite.”

Y/N watched with interest as Spencer pulled out his book. He’d been secretive about his choice, so she was as curious as her students.

“This is one of my favorite stories. It’s written by Munro Leaf, and illustrated by Robert Lawson. It’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer held the cover up to the camera. “Ferdinand is the bull here on the cover. This story was written in 1935, which was a long time ago! Okay are you ready?” Spencer looked out on a sea of thumbs up, turning the page to the beginning of the story. “Once upon a time in Spain, there was a bull, and his name was Ferdinand.”

Y/N smiled as she listened to Spencer read each page, recounting the story of the peaceful bull. He was an excellent storyteller, changing the inflection and expression of his voice to match each sentence. He held each page up for just the right amount of time, panning it so her students could see each detail of the black and white pictures. He added his own wonderings and exclamations here and there, and her students were decidedly enthralled. Her heart ached at how comfortable he was, how natural this was for him. She rested her chin in her hand, trying to keep her mind in the present— ignoring the persistent little mental image of Spencer as a dad.

“So they had to take Ferdinand home. And for all I know, he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly. He is very happy… And that’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer closed the book with a soft smile. “I love this story. Ferdinand is a very special bull. What do you think makes him so special?”

“Ferdinand didn’t fight,” a little voice piped up.

“Yes!” Spencer agreed. “He practiced pacifism in the face of the persistent, ingrained militarism of his country’s culture.”

Y/N placed a hand on Spencer’s knee and gave a quick squeeze. “Right, Ferdinand chose not to fight, even though everybody else he knew wanted to.” Y/N winked at him before turning back to the screen full of kids. “All his friends thought he was kind of weird, but he just really wanted to hang out in the shade and smell the flowers, huh? Sounds pretty good to me.”

“He wasn’t bothered that the other bulls thought he was strange for wanting to be peaceful,” Spencer added. “Sometimes being different can be a good thing. The Story of Ferdinand reminds me that it’s okay to be yourself, even if other people think you’re weird.” His eyes met Y/N’s. “Because there will always be people who love and appreciate you for who you are.”

[stilldani24]

I Am Here

corpse husband x reader oneshot

words: 1233

request: “Corpse x reader where they’re married and no one knows and they’re a Broadway actor/actress and they come home and surprises him when he’s streaming” from anonymous

a/n: the title of this oneshot is a song title from the musical Come From Away, and if you haven’t listened to the soundtrack yet, you definitely need to. Also look for the documentary You Are Here: A Come From Away Story for an amazing dive into the real events and creation of the musical. 

You picked an unconventional career from the get-go. From the instant you told your parents what you wanted to do and where you were moving, they were skeptical but supportive. At eighteen, you moved to America to attend school for musical theatre. Not only were you out on your own for the first time, you were in a completely new country with no friends. Well, no. That was a lie. You had made many friends all across the country. Alex in Virginia, Rachel in New Jersey, Jade in Michigan, and a kid named Corpse in California you had met on Reddit. 

You learned his real name soon after you both developed feelings for each other and began a long distance relationship, but you were more keen in calling him Corpse. 

It suited him better. 

Even after you had officially met, you moved across the country for him, and had gotten married after three years of dating and one year of engagement. You still called him Corpse, especially since his YouTube career took off and that’s all anyone called him. You didn’t want to be caught saying his real name while he was streaming. 

None of his new friends he met playing Among Us knew he was married, or even in a relationship for that matter. He wasn’t at that point with these people yet, they only knew him for his voice and impressive impostor skills. He had gained a following over the years for his Reddit reading videos, so his fans already knew his voice and new fans immediately simped. You found it absolutely adorable, but it was even more reason to keep you a secret. Despite being married, you didn’t mind. 

While his YouTube following was increasing, your career was steadily climbing. Broadway had just been reopened following the pandemic and thus a new wave of auditions. You had since graduated and had an agent, and she sent you every audition that fit you. And surprisingly, you were cast in Come From Away, a musical about Operation: Yellow Ribbon following the 9/11 attacks. The cast only consisted of twelve actors, no ensemble, so you were front and centre every night. It was a dream come true, and you had a blast. You hated being away from your husband, but he understood completely and wanted you to chase every opportunity life gave you. 

After six consecutive weeks in New York City, you were granted a full month off from the show so you could go home and be with your husband. It was rumoured that Come From Away would be opening in Los Angeles so you were hopeful you would be able to transfer from Broadway to LA. But until then, you had a month off and were excited to go home before having to return back to your NYC studio apartment. 

You slowly opened the door to your shared apartment in San Diego, your huge suitcase of luggage behind you as you moved through the apartment. You didn’t call out for your husband, wanting to surprise him completely wherever he was. You were certain he wasn’t streaming, as he wasn’t talking or anything, so you looked around the apartment. When you deduced he was in his gaming room, you thought he was deep in the zone of editing something.

You swung open the door excitedly. “Honey, I’m home!”

Corpse was definitely streaming, just in the lobby as everyone was afk probably grabbing food or using the bathroom. He jumped in his seat, eyes wide as he made eye contact with you. You were frozen as you noticed he was streaming. He was probably speaking the entire time, just quietly so you didn’t hear him, and you had just revealed this huge secret.

Corpse didn’t care.

He threw his headset aside, a huge grin on his face, as he ran to you and scooped you up in his arms as best as he could. “Holy shit, you’re home! Holy fuck!”

You laughed as you hugged him tightly, burying your face into his neck as you just took in his warmth. You didn’t care about the fact that he was streaming anymore. “Hi, baby,” you murmured to him lovingly, then grabbing his face in your hands and planting a fat, juicy kiss on his lips. 

“Why didn’t you call me or text me, I could’ve picked you up at the airport!” he laughed, just holding your face in his hands and looking at you. 

“I didn’t think you’d be streaming today, so I wanted to surprise you,” you replied, laughing now as he gave you soft kisses on your forehead and cheeks. “Sorry, uh, I ruined our secret.”

“I don’t give a fuck, not a single one, you’re home,” he gushed happily, before looking back to his set up. He let out a low chuckle as he watched the chat scroll by quickly. “Come on.”

He led you to his set up, sitting down in his chair before pulling you down onto his lap. He placed his headset back on, one hand on his mouse while the other arm wrapped around your waist with his hand resting on your thigh.

“Chat, this is my spouse, Y/N. They, uh, they’ve been in New York on Broadway for a month and a half and I’ve missed them so much. Say hi, babe,” he smiled at you now.

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you replied shyly, thankful there wasn’t a facecam so they couldn’t see how flustered you were. Or how fucking beat you looked after your long flight. 

“Woah, Corpse, you’re married?!” Sean’s excited voice sounded from Corpse’s headset, making you giggle. “Dude, why didn’t you tell us?”

“Jesus, Corpse, you had me here really thinking I had a chance,” Sykkuno then said, making the both of you laugh now. 

“It never came up, sorry, guys,” Corpse replied, giving you a slight squeeze. “Yeah, we’ve been together for four years, and we got married last year.”

“Don’t worry, you can still simp over my husband. But if you dare think of actually stealing him from me, I’ll tap dance all over you,” you warned. 

“Wait, Corpse said that you came back from Broadway? What show?” Rae then asked. Corpse had moved one of the ears off of his own and turned up the volume so you could actually hear. 

“Oh, uh, Come From Away. I’ve only been there since Broadway reopened, but I kinda got lucky getting cast,” you replied sheepishly, curling into Corpse a little bit more. 

“That’s bullshit, you have a gorgeous voice,” Corpse replied, pinching your thigh slightly.

“Sing, sing, sing!” his friends began chanting, making you blush heavily and bury your face into his neck. You could perform for hundreds eight times a week but as soon as you were in front of his close friends and over two hundred thousand viewers on his stream, you got incredibly flustered. 

“Alright, guys, relax, they just got home and probably need to rest,” Corpse came to your defence, kissing your cheek softly before letting you get up. “Before you leave, babe. I love you.”

“Awww, I love you too,” you cooed softly, leaning down and giving him a soft kiss. You heard his friends taunting him from his headset, making you giggle softly and leave the room as Corpse turned back to his computer to continue his stream.

“Shut the fuck up, guys.”

[broadwayandnetflix]

OMG- BO FIC REQUEST

a fluffy fic where he takes you out to a fancy dinner. picks you up at your house & meets your parents, driving to the place, all that pizazz- and more if you decide to write! Im a big fucking sucker for the romantics as you can see LMFAO.

Meet The Parents - Bo Burnham x Reader

Warnings: Language

Theme: Fluff! Slight bit of Angst.

Word Count: 2.6k

A/N: picture this as like his what tour cause it fits up with the college timeline hoes. also, I hope you like that I added an airport, cause rom-com shit amirite? I’ll stop. wooooooo this is so long. I hope y’all like essays cause fuck.

It had been too long since you had last seen your boyfriend, Bo. The two of you had met in college at NYU briefly before he dropped out to pursue his comedy career.

Of course, you have been supportive. Why wouldn’t you be? You just really missed him, especially when he went on long tours, you in school, and him touring the world.

The two of you kept in touch. Bo often taking the time to call you before or after a show to hear your voice and call himself down. You knew what they did to his anxiety, and not being able to hold each other was difficult for the both of you.

He’d do the same for you, without a shadow of a doubt. Especially when school was stressing you out, and exams and essays were becoming a pain in the ass to handle. Even if it was just little funny texts or messages, he helped you.

It’s what you did for each other. You were a team, even if it was states away from each other. Except, luckily for you, his tour was ending soon. Or it should be, judging by the tiny calendar of dates that he gave you.

It was nearing Thanksgiving Break, and it just didn’t seem applicable that you’d be able to meet up in time. Given the short week window and Bo riding down from nearly a year of touring.

So you didn’t say much, as you packed your bags for the week and left for your home state.

The airplane ride wasn’t that bad. You wished that you had Bo beside you, cracking jokes to calm the inevitable way that your heart would jolt when you went up in the air. Unlike Bo, you absolutely hated flying.

Earbuds in, you strolled into the airport a tad bit jet-lagged and went to grab a bite from a small coffee shop. Slipping the cashier a twenty, you walked the airport in search of your luggage.

Through a sea of people, you trudged, already feeling fatigued and just wanting a nap. You didn’t even realize that you were gonna run smack dab into someone. That is until their hand shot up and held you steady.

You laughed pathetically and cringed quickly, going to apologize, hoping that the person who caught you would just keep moving on. Except, they still stood in front of you, silent as ever.

“Hey man look I’m so sorry, I’m just so tired I didn’t even see where I was going.” you mumbled before realizing just who you were speaking to.

Bo.

You froze, staring at the man in pure confusion. How was he here when he was supposed to still be on tour? You rubbed your eyes, wondering if he’d still be there when you reopened them.

News flash, Bo was still there. Fuck.

“Holy shit,” you murmured, realizing your hands were still full with your bag, phone, and lunch.

God, you were gonna cry; this wasn’t happening. He looked so fucking good, the glasses, the hair.

He watched you quietly, a soft smile resting upon his lips. While you clumsily pull on his arm to get out of the ongoing traffic of people around you, preferably a spot with a place to put your stuff.

Your tall boyfriend lumbering after you unbeknownst to you, trying to compose himself. It had practically been months since he had seen you last, and you had never looked more beautiful.

Once you set them down gently, you practically ran into the man’s arms. His bags gently fall to the floor as his arms are securely wrapped around you. Nearly lifting you off the ground.

The two of you rocked gently in the embrace, completely lost in each other. Bo resting his head on top of yours, pressing soft kisses upon your head. Tears softly pour down your cheeks and onto his shirt. Giving him enough time to wipe them away and plant a soft kiss against your lips.

“Bo, what are you doing here? I thought you were still on tour.” you sniffled, still wrapped up in his arms.

“Managed to make things work, I wanted to see you. Or I was gonna try and surprise you at the gate, but you kinda…ran into me.” Bo smirked, looking down at you.

“Well you definitely surprised me, man I really missed you.” you said quietly.

“Honey, you don’t understand how long I’ve waited for this moment. I swear my agents are probably sick and tired of me talking about you.” he exclaimed, causing you to smile.

This long-distance was really starting to get to the two of you; of course, his tour was gonna be over soon. Except, especially two different states away from each other, it made your heart hurt.

Moments like these, you wanted to just pause the time and exist in them forever. It seemed like between the two of you, you were running out of time. Just how much time exactly?

It was almost as if he could sense the hesitation as he swept up his bags and yours in the process.

“Just realized, we’ve got places to be.” he chirped, and you eyed him curiously.

“Like where?” you said, grabbing your coffee and bag from the coffee shop.

“Patience is a virtue my dear.” he tuts and slips his hand between yours. “Now, where’s your luggage terminal?”

-

It was roughly a forty-minute drive from the airport to your place. Bo had rented a car for the next couple of days, so it was smooth sailing from that point on.

Bo behind the wheel, and you are sitting in the passenger trying to figure out what music to play.

It didn’t help that you were in the car with a comedian, as whatever song you picked, Bo would pretend to critique it. Only sending you into a fit of hysterics.

“Oh okay, well you pick the music then!” you cried, pretending to stare daggers at him.

“I’ve got something for you, it’s this brand new artist I found while on tour.” he grinned, looking over at you briefly before focusing back on the road.

“His name is….Bo Burnham I think? I could be wrong? He was good-“ he said nonchalantly before earning a quick swipe to his arm from you.

“God, you look cute when you’re angry. You’re missing out on that Bo Burnham guy, he’s got potential.” he said.

“I hate you.” you giggle before finding a more comfortable position in the car.

“Oh shit you know what I just realized?” Bo yelped, causing you to slightly jolt in your seat.

“What?”

“Isn’t this the first time I’m meeting your parents?” he asked, causing you to slightly stiffen in your seat.

Technically, yes. It wasn’t like your parents didn’t know, it’s more so that there was never really a good time for them to meet. You wondered what they’d think, dating someone who dropped out of college to pursue comedy.

Not that your parents were judgmental. They wanted you to be happy, as any parents would. You just were worried if they wouldn’t respect and love Bo as much as you did. It had been close to two years at this point; what else did you have to lose?

“You are right, oh dear god. I wonder how that’s gonna go, hopefully well, right?” you ask, more so to yourself than Bo.

“Oh please, I’m great with people’s parents. Plus, they raised you, I’m sure they are great people. Babe, you’ve got nothing to worry about.” he reassured before continuing on the route.

-

It wasn’t long before he pulled into your family driveway, pulling the car into park, quickly placing a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“You ready?” he says quietly, looking at you sweetly.

You eyed the front door before looking back and meeting his eyes, nodding, as he leaned in to give you a quick kiss.

God, you missed those.

“Here goes nothing.” you smirk before slipping out of the passenger side and gather your bags.

Bo now follows suit as you knock on the door, his taller frame towering over you. One hand pressed on the small of your back, holding you steady.

The front door opens with a swing, with your mother greeting you at the door. A firm grin upon her lips as she rushes out to hug you, your father appearing behind her.

“Oh I’m so glad you were able to come home! We missed you so much!” she exclaims, squeezing you tighter.

Before giving you a slight nudge and knowing look towards Bo, who had remained oblivious, while he shook hands with your father.

All of you gather inside your house, Bo taking control of the conversation when acceptable.

Sitting down at the kitchen table, your parents are engulfed in his stories and laughing at his jokes. All the while getting to know the man that you loved so much.

Bo was pretty much a natural when it came to impressing others, and you knew it wasn’t gonna be an issue with your parents.

The two of you answering almost any questions, Bo excitingly telling the story of how the two of you met.

-

“Oh I almost forgot, I need you to do me a favor.” Bo murmured when the two of you had a moment to be alone.

You looked up at him in confusion before he mentioned something about dressing up nice. A knowing look upon his lips before giving you a slight wink and walking off towards the guest room.

There you stood, gaping like a fish in wonderment at what he possibly could be planning. Slowly walking into your childhood bedroom, looking for anything that would meet his description of nice.

You settled for something that you wore to a formal gathering that still managed to fit you. Giving yourself a quick look in the mirror, you left your bedroom to find Bo standing there.

You had to hold back a gasp; the man looked rather handsome in a dress shirt and pants. His hair was nicely done, and his hand gestured out for you to take.

“Bo what is all this for?” you exclaim, as he only smirks and leads you towards the front door.

“Shut up, I’ve been wanting to take you out for months.” he says as he opens it and leads you towards his car.

The man practically doing the whole nine yards, all the while you looking at him in pure wonderment. Of course, the two of you had been on dates prior, but never like this.

You had to practically stop yourself from grinning as he suavely got into the driver’s side of the car., Giving a quick glance over at you unbeknownst to you, trying not to melt at how gorgeous you looked.

“Where are we going?” you ask as he starts the car slowly pulling out of the driveway.

“You ask a lot of questions my dear.” he says, keeping his eyes focused on the road.

“Oh shit is this my execution?” you smirk as he dramatically nods.

“Babe, how the hell did you find out? Who told you? Was it my manager? I knew she’d rat me out!” he exclaims.

“You know I had to be certain, you did make me dress up all nice and all.” you play along, grinning ear to ear.

“Oh well, I can’t give away the entire surprise so zip it with the questions sweetie.” he quips as he continues the drive.

-

It’s not long before he pulls into a fancy Italian restaurant, way out of your usual pay range. You could feel your stomach do somersaults, giving the man an incredulous look.

Bo simply grins as he gets out of the car, rushing over to open yours for you. Eyes wide, still staring at him like he was fucking insane. He shakes his head and carefully pulls you out of the car.

“Now no complaints. Or whatever you plan to do. I’m paying, I’ve been wanting to treat you like this for over a year now. I’m doing it, and I’m gonna enjoy doing it.” Bo huffs, all dignified.

You simply nod in disbelief before he slips his hand within yours. While he enters the restaurant, he mentions his reservations to the hostess, and they seat you at a table.

Once the butterflies subsided in your stomach, you took the attention of the man in front of you. Never had anyone done something like this for you. You were trying to not look like a genuine fool with the smile you wanted to express.

You knew he was the one for you, but the way that he had looked at you. The pure adoration in his eyes and how he had planned everything, you were practically melting.

“I love you.” you whisper, wondering if he could hear it.

He did.

Bo looked up from his menu, a blush now practically kissing his cheeks. He dimples, rising at the declaration before reaching across the table since he was large enough to kiss you gently.

He was quick enough as the waitress came over to take your order. That goofy lovesick grin still plastered across his face as he straightened up in his seat.

The two of you ordering whatever looked best on the menu, clinking glasses when they arrived and looking dreamily into each other’s eyes.

“Man, I missed you. Like I know I say it a lot, but I mean I did. Going on tour is….well it’s lonely. I know you’re still in school, but sweetie. When I’m done, you’ll be sick of me. I promise.” Bo said insistently.

“No I won’t, I’m sure it’s gonna be the other way around. I don’t know if I say it enough, but I really am proud of you. I am so proud to call you my boyfriend, to call you mine. I don’t mind waiting.” you say quietly.

“How did I get so lucky?” he paused, eyeing the plates of food that were coming your way.

“Thank NYU, they did all the work.” you joke, thanking the waitress before digging into the meals.

The food was excellent; it was incredibly worth the price. Even if it was steep, the dinner was lovely. Bo is cracking jokes and telling you his favorite fan encounters that have occurred since his tour began.

It was hard to believe that the man who was often so quiet and shy could be so loud and brave enough to yell at hecklers. Except you could believe it, you had obviously been to one of his shows.

It made your heart begin to flutter at the fact that he wasn’t afraid to be himself around you; it made you feel secure.

The way his stage presence dominated the scene, it was practically impossible to keep your eyes off of him. No matter the situation.

Even now, his eyes glimmer while he tells you whatever story he had dug up. This was his passion, and you reveled in it all.

The night went well as the two of you caught up, knowing it would be quite some time before he’d meet up with you again. As he too had Thanksgiving to celebrate with his family in Massachusetts.

You shared a nice dessert, and he left a rather hefty tip simply because he could. Bo never made it necessary to note that he had money, but you knew he was excited to spend it.

All the while, you spent the night in a dizzying smile. Not giving a shit whether anyone knew it or not, even in the parking lot. The two of you waltzing messily towards the car, giggling and sputtering like a bunch of fools.

He was your fool, and you were his, who knew how long you’d have with him for now. You were destined to make the most of it.

Even as the ride home dwindled and you knew he’d have to catch a flight soon. You weren’t surprised or shocked even; days with him tended to be like this.

As the two of you reached your front door, Bo carefully leaned down to a comfortable position and kissed you softly. Not desperately, just tenderly. As if by the time he’d kiss you again, you’d simply wouldn’t be there.

His lips grazing yours, hands pressed carefully against your cheeks. You reciprocating all the while leaning into him in a warm embrace.

When you finally pulled away to catch your breath, he gave you a look that you knew all too well.

“I’m not saying goodbye.” you whisper into his arms.

“I’ll be back soon don’t worry.” he murmurs into your embrace.

With one last kiss on the forehead, you watch as he walks back to his car. Judging by the way his schedule worked, you knew he’d be back sooner than he would in the past.

Yet, with the soft ‘I love you’ said between the two of you couldn’t help but shed a tear and just hope that the next time would last longer.

[i-left-my-room-tidy]

my (warring clans era) naruto DR as stuff i sent/said this afternoon

·❆·

sidenote: kyō is me. any unfamiliar names mentioned are non-canon people I've met in my DR.

- - -

Hikaku: hold on lemme just finish my self essay thing

Hikaku: i gotta pass it before 7 or i might actually pass away

Hikaku: brb i'm on my last paragraph

Hikaku: *my last rites

- - -

Izuna: (to the general gc) hi everyone!!! please vote so we know which group you belong in ((: and if i missed anyone in the class please add them here as well

Izuna: (to Madara) i feel like throwing up jesus fuck

- - -

Kyо̄: (writing an essay)

Kyо̄: I believe that I am a selfish person—one who uses what is given to her when the time is right or convenient. I easily tire of sympathy and moralities, eager only when the concept of grey areas are explored.

Kyо̄: (sent to Hikaku for approval)

Hikaku: isn't your school christian

Kyо̄: the professor is already done with my bullshit and it's only the first day the least i could do is make a statement

Hikaku: sorry wrong question

Hikaku: isn't your prof a pastor

Kyо̄: LET ME LIVE THE COFFEE'S ALREADY MAKING ME PALPITATE ENOUGH AS IT IS

- - -

Hikaku: want some starbucks

Izuna: sure

Izuna: what kind of goat piss is this how the hell is this milk

- - -

Hisa: r u doing chores or u wanna listen to me struggle

Kо̄sei: i'm still doing chores

Kо̄sei: i'm just keeping my notifs on bc ppl have been messaging me nonstop and i'm scared my professor might be one of them

- - -

Hikaku: Wanna rain check

Hikaku: Can’t u hide ur phone past 10

Izuna: no my dad takes everything away

Izuna: they actually bolt their door now

Izuna: :'D

Kyо̄: ngl that's embarrassing for all parties involved

Izuna: IK

Izuna: don't remind me

- - -

Kagami: (sending a formal apology message)

Tajima: I reopened the submission assignment. Submit now.

Kagami: submit now-

Kagami: it's so,,,, fucking ominous

- - -

Yuna: HOLY SHIT THEYRE ARGUING IN THE CALL

Jikichi: who and what over

Yuna: KYO AND IZUNA

Yuna: KYO SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THE ELECTIONS AND IZUNA JUST BUTTED IN AND TALKED OVER HER N D PROF

Yuna: deadass izuna just went like "ok but what if i dont agree with that what now wanna fight me kyō" LIKE HE ACTUALLY SAID FIGHT ME IN FRONT OF THE TEACHER

Hanayome: yea literally the class rn is just those two fighting

- - -

Kagami: i think i just manifested my food

Kagami: i haven't eaten lunch so i decided to watch a kfc asmr and like i alr felt my hunger dissipating lol

Kagami: my parents bought those fun shot chicken things

- - -

Madara: go bad bitch go bad bitch go

Madara: go bad bitch go bad bitch go

- - -

Sue: i didn't read the tags on this oneshot i just read

Sue: CHRIST

Kagami: f

Sue: the tears aren't even the choked up kind of crying it's the free flowing no control type oh my fucking santo niño

- - -

[ignisgalaxia]

My dad shared some news today that I think needs to be mentioned.

One of his former coworkers from back home went with his son to a weekend summer camp a couple weeks ago (which is already a terrible idea). They shared their tent with another father and son they were friends with. After a while, the other dad started coughing. He asked if he was okay and he replied with yeah I think I just got strep throat or something. My dad’s friend told him maybe he should go get tested just to be safe, to which the guy refused and insisted it wasn’t that serious.

Two days later, he was in the ICU in critical condition, having tested positive for coronavirus.

Hearing this, naturally my dad’s friend got tested. But since that shit takes forever to receive he got stuck there and mulled over what a stupid decision he’d made taking his son to a summer camp where people were cramped in tents. Meanwhile his friend’s condition continued to deteriorate to the point where he was put on life support.

He died a few days later.

My dad finally got in touch with him just yesterday and was told the whole situation. Luckily, his friend tested negative so he and his son were able to go home, but the other father didn’t make it.

I want to make something very clear. This man was very healthy. He was middle aged, didn’t smoke, didn’t have diabetes, or any of the other typical traits of people most susceptible. And unlike most cases, he didn’t go weeks without symptoms. He went two days before being so drained he had to be on life support. Two days. This virus is no joke. It is unpredictable and extremely contagious. AND YET people continue to think that it’s being made more serious than it actually is.

Hence why I’m making this post.

If you think that the coronavirus is a hoax or a conspiracy to push political agendas or an inconvenience that keeps you from having your precious summertime get-togethers, get the fuck off my blog.

If you believe that wearing a mask in public infringes on your rights or makes a political statement, get the fuck off my blog.

If you think that the amount of deaths occurring worldwide is not that serious and reopening schools is a genuinely good idea, get the fuck off my blog.

Because this entire situation has exposed just how petty people are willing to be when told to do something so simple that even a toddler can do it. These people are so selfish and so inconsiderate that they are willing to endanger not just themselves, but everyone around them because they don’t want to be told what to do.

Well guess what? It’s real and it will come for you if you don’t wake the fuck up and use your goddamn brain.

I truly don’t understand how people can be so ignorant and uncaring of their fellow man to just ignore this situation like it’s one big joke. BECAUSE IT’S NOT. PEOPLE ARE DYING AND YOU ARE THE REASON IT KEEPS HAPPENING.

So if you want to live a long life and have friends that actually use their common sense, then stay the fuck inside, wear your goddamn mask, and for the love of all things holy, DO NOT TOUCH PEOPLE.

[symphonic-scream]

Digimon au Group 4: Mylene, Ivan, Nathaniel

Yeah there's still more to this I have spent far too much time thinking about this au and here we are

So when Alix reopens the portal, Nathaniel was doing some drawing at his computer, Ivan was reviewing some of his poetry, and Mylene was watching those animal saving videos. All was peaceful, then blip-

Digital World

Ivan and Mylene know eachother already, probably already dating. Nathaniel doesn't know them, and he doesn't know any of the others either- he goes to a small arts school here

So this group lands in the desert, woo hoo. Specifically at a little grotto with trees and a little lake. Mylene and Ivan are under a tree when they wake up, but poor Nathaniel is like face down in the sand

They introduce themselves and Nath joins Ivan and Mylene in the shade under their tree, wondering where the fuck they are and how that happened. It's getting hot and Nath gives in and tries to drink from the lake and wow holy shit why does it taste like tap water??

Someone takes out their phone eventually and woah that's not a phone that's a digivice damn. Mylene gets orange, Ivan gets light purple, and Nathaniel gets pink

The screens glow and they get their partners woo! Training stage. Little pals yeah

For Mylene, Tanemon

Ivan gets Tsunomon (kinda looks like him ngl)

And Nathaniel has a Dorimon

They get spooked, lots of screaming, then explaining just like the others. They've been chosen, they're partners, but they can't remember what their goal should be. Then they get attacked-

It's probably that scorpion from the Dark Masters arc in Adventure? If anyone knows what I'm trying to say. But it causes their partners to digivolve up to the Rookie stage oh boy oh boy

For Mylene, Floramon

Ivan gets Elecmon

And Nath has Dorumon

They trick it into jumping into the lake and start dashing through the desert. They find some rails for what looks like a train and decide to follow those in hopes of finding non-hostile life

Let's talk crests

I gave Mylene Courage. Definitely has one of those scary episode type arc where she's totally scared but tries to wave it off to not slow them down but learns that admitting you're scared is still brave and starts to overcome her fears gradually with her partner at her side

Ivan got Kindness. Gentle giant. He's always worried everyone sees him as big and scary and after too many friendly digimon shy away from him he almost tries to become what he thinks they see him as? But he ends up going back to Kind Ivan the Gentle Giant basically, cause once they get past how he looks he's just so kind and makes everyone feel so comfy so yeah he's Kindness

Nathaniel has, of all things, Dignity. He keeps making a fool of himself from his outfit to falling and knocking shit over. Plus he thinks he's a shitty guy? He sees himself as the Nice Guy evillustrator kinda person but that's not him? He works on having an accurate self image and accepting that he's deserving of his friends' kindness and love

Outfits time

Mylene's got those jean shorts, the ends cuffed a little bit, some tall socks and pink converse with little painted flowers and skulls (she and Ivan painted them themselves). She got her shirt volunteering at the local animal shelter, light blue with a paw print design maybe, a white cat and dog logo on the back. She still has her bandana but I'm thinking it's around her neck like a little scarf, and she totally tries to make a matching one for her Floramon

Ivan totally still wears cargo shorts with those Timbs looking boots, and he's got a big black muscle shirt with the Kitty Section design inked on in white. Ooh and a big clunky watch that's always broken but it can flash different colours

Poor Nath wasn't expecting to go outside so he's stuck in a wild ass outfit. He's got one of those really tacky souvenir tshirts from one of his dad's deliveries as a truck driver, probably violently purple with yellow words or something just as awful. He's wearing pj pants, probably with different cartoon heroes posed all over em. Oh, and he's wearing crocs. Bright red ones, Lightning McQueen themed maybe, or something just as weird

--

Yeah that's this one, only two more groups left. That's only four characters hot damn. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Forty-Seven) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of PTSD, Dom/sub relationship, death, etc-- everything Criminal Minds.. I think that’s it???

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 12575

Timeline: Season 7 Episode 01. Three months after part forty-six.

For the past three months, the team had worked dozens of different cases across the country, but none of them mattered except for the one that Morgan, Garcia, and I had been working on privately. Since I came back to work and was deemed the temporary unit chief, I decided to reopen the Ian Doyle case. At first, it was just me. When I wasn’t at work, I was at home, hiding in the upstairs office, working on trying to piece all of the evidence together to figure out where the hell Doyle could have possibly gone. But then it was just too hard to keep doing it on my own, and all of my resources were wasted. There was only one person who had access to more information than I did. Garcia. So, I asked if she would be willing to help me, but it was impossible for her to keep a secret, so we invited Morgan to help us. From there, we managed to find Declan, but we didn’t tell anyone about it outside of our small group of three.

Finding Declan was an interesting process. I had hit a wall with it, hence why I acquired Garcia’s help, but she managed to find him almost immediately after she told Derek what was going on and he helped profile Emily in order to profile Declan. He figured that she had been the one to move him considering how she died protecting his identity and location. Before joining the team, apparently she lived in Reston, Virginia, something I didn’t know about her, but he managed to know. From there, we decided that it was probably to be close to Declan. So, we started narrowing it down. We knew that she liked cul-de-sacs, so as Garcia was going through the school system to find kids that looked like Declan, she compared if their guardian looked like Louise, his nanny, and if they lived in a cul-de-sac. Then, bam. We found them.

Morgan had been the one to offer up the idea of looking for Declan before Ian because if we found Declan, then so would his father eventually, which made our job easier. After that, it was just a waiting game. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do beyond searching all of the footage to see if Ian ever showed up, which he never did. When Morgan and I were away on cases, Penelope kept an eye on him; and when we were in town but not working on anything, Morgan was driving baby Emily out there and taking her on walks around Declan’s neighborhood to scout the place. I think it was also just an excuse for him to have Emily more.

On our way to work one morning, Morgan and I stopped to get sandwiches for lunch, as well as some donuts from Leonard’s for the office since we were feeling generous, I suppose. At work, we split off so that he could sit in the bullpen while I dragged my feet up to my office. I didn’t understand how Hotch did it. Being away from the team all day, every day was so… isolating and exhausting. There was no joking with Morgan, teasing Reid, or… well, when Emily was around, there was no more chatting with her and gossiping about Hotch. I missed the way she used to slide in veiled threats into the conversation about how she would hurt him if he ever hurt me. So, then again, maybe it was a good thing that I wasn’t down in the bullpen anymore. Sitting at my old desk would have just given me a reason to sit there and stare at her desk all day, reflecting on what it was like to have her around, wishing that I could bring her back.

By lunch time, Morgan rescued our sandwiches from the fridge and brought them up to my office. He closed the door behind him and sat down across from me. I caught my sandwich as he threw it at me, then tossed him a water bottle from Hotch’s secret stash in his bookshelf behind the desk. I hadn’t really changed anything. For the most part, the office was still exactly how he left it. From the artwork to the family photos, to the stacks of case files that he practically left for me on his desk to work through, to his computer wallpaper of us, it was all still Hotch. The only difference was that I was finding all of his secrets now, like the water bottles, and totally taking advantage of them.

Morgan kicked his feet up on the desk, something Hotch would’ve never let him do in a thousand years, and dug into his lunch. I picked at mine for a moment while thinking. I was doing too much of that nowadays. Without my “other half” (or some cliché shit like that) around, I didn’t really know who to talk to 24/7 about what I was thinking and feeling. Sure, I could’ve talked to Morgan, but it was different. When I talked to Morgan, it was like we were brainstorming for a solution; but with Hotch, it was just like he was there to listen, and I could go on and on for hours, and he would hear me out, and he would only offer up a solution if he felt it were necessary. Sometimes I just liked ranting my thoughts to him. I liked watching how he would slowly get lost in the details of my face as I would be talking, and how he it looked like he was falling in love with me over and over again with every minute that passed. Skype and calling on the phone every day didn’t do that look justice anymore.

“Oh, my god—Oh, my god—Oh, my god!” Garcia came running into the office with a laptop balancing on one of her arms. Morgan and I turned to face her. “It’s him! It’s him!” She quickly set her laptop down on my desk and pressed play on a video. Morgan and I both leaned forward in our seats to watch the security footage from Declan’s house. “It’s Doyle—” She paused and pointed to a driver in a car passing by. It was kind of hard to see, but when she zoomed the image in and enhanced it, it was undeniably Ian Doyle.

“When was this?” I asked, jumping into action by standing from my seat and started collecting everything we had on this case thus far.

“Two hours ago.”

“He could have Declan by now. Fuck.” I looked at the two of them to say, “Okay, I think it’s time. I’m going to call Hotch to let him know, meanwhile, I need you guys to get the team together and start explaining everything. I want Reid and Rossi to go retrieve Declan and Louise after they’re briefed.” I grabbed my phone from my desk. “Go.” Just as they were leaving, I dialed Hotch’s satellite phone out in the Middle East.

Hotch and I had still been calling each other every day and Skyping as often as we could. The longer he was there, however, the busier he and I got with our two different jobs, which made it increasingly complicated to keep up with each other. But we made the effort. We knew that if at least one day passed where we wouldn’t talk, one day would inevitably turn into two, then three, and so on. I didn’t want to stop talking to him. As boring as the conversations could get at times, at least I got to see him. He was growing out a beard that I happened to love, but Jack hated. He claimed that it made his dad look old. When we could talk in private a little bit later, I told Hotch that I thought it was hot, and that I couldn’t wait to pull at it while he towered over me. He disliked when I teased him like that, though.

When I called, he picked up almost immediately.

“You’re calling awfully early,” Hotch said over the phone, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Do you have a minute?”

“For you? I have all the time in the world.”

I blushed to myself and looked down to watch the toes of my shoe dig into the ground over and over again. “There’s something you need to know, baby, and you have to promise to not get mad.” He didn’t say anything. “Morgan, Garcia, and I have been looking for Doyle while you’ve been gone.” Still, nothing. “We found Declan.”

“What?!”

“Hotch—”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Y/N? Do you know how stupid that was? Your whole career could—”

“I don’t care about that, Hotch. I really don’t. I knew that finding Declan was the best way of finding Ian, so I asked Garcia to help; and you know her, she couldn’t keep it to herself, so she told Morgan, and he insisted that he help us. He’s basically the one who found Declan. Without the two of them, I wouldn’t have any leads.”

Hotch sighed quietly. “Is Declan safe?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Morgan’s still surveilling him—But, Hotch, listen, we were right. By watching Declan all this time, we got eyes on Ian.”

He hesitated for a moment. “You’re sure?” He sounded more scared than angry now. I hummed a “yes” in response. “Baby, listen to me right now.”

I bit my lip. “I’m listening, Sir.”

He chuckled slightly. “If you get eyes on Doyle, you need to take the shot. Got it? Don’t let him get away again.” He sounded out of breath now like he was running around. “I’m coming back to help.”

I felt my heart skip a beat and the air leave my lungs with one shocked gasp. He was coming back. After three months, I was finally going to get to hold him in my arms again, and I was going to get to kiss his lips again. Holy shit. He was coming home. My husband was coming back to me. I almost wanted to dance and cheer, scream from the top of my lungs how happy I was and that I couldn’t wait to see him; but I had to show a modicum of respect still, so I buried that feeling until I would get to see him again.

“You can do that?” I questioned cautiously. As happy as I was, could he really just abandon his post to come back like that? It sounded almost too good to be true.

“I put in the request to transfer back to Quantico about two weeks ago.” And he didn’t tell me? “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up on anything; but they don’t need me here anymore, so it’s not a big deal if they find a replacement.” I hopped slightly with joy and giggled. Hotch chuckled at me. “I can’t wait to see you, baby.”

Even considering the circumstances, I couldn’t wait to see him either. “Call me when you’re landing.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

----

By the time Garcia followed traffic camera footage across the state just to see where Doyle was hiding out, we had a SWAT team with snipers on call, and the team was ready to head out there. Just as I had ordered, Rossi and Reid headed to get Declan, but the drive was pretty far, so I didn’t expect to hear from them for a while, especially while we were in the early stages of staking out Doyle’s place. Morgan, JJ, and I were trapped in a van across the street from his apartment while SWAT was just down the road, and they had two snipers up on separate roofs. All of it was my call, though. The second we had reasonable cause to believe that it was actually Ian Doyle up there, I would be the one to dictate if the snipers or Morgan would be taking the shot, like Hotch said.

“That’s all Hotch said? ‘Take the shot’?” JJ questioned warily. I nodded and shrugged. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Why?”

She shook her head. “Nothing…”

I eyed her suspiciously for a moment, taking into account how her gaze wasn’t resting on one thing, but instead a thousand different things, like she was too anxious to focus. It was odd, but I shrugged it off with the excuse that finding Doyle was a big deal. Since he killed Prentiss, we had all been itching to find him and avenge her. Out of everyone, I knew that JJ would want to know that Doyle was dead because of us. She wanted that justice. I couldn’t exactly tell why, but she had always been like that, especially since getting promoted to being a profiler.

And then my phone started ringing with a call from Spencer who had just arrived at Declan’s house. I figured it was just an update. I mean, him and Rossi were there to simply pick up Declan and Louise, that was it. But then something worrying happened when I picked up the call: Reid sounded concerned.

“Reid?”

“Declan’s missing,” he answered quickly.

“What?”

“We just searched the house, and he’s gone, so we called the school to see if he even made it home, and they told us that his mom picked him up early.”

“Louise?” I speculated.

“I doubt it.” He sounded annoyed now. “She’s dead.”

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, then looked up at Morgan and JJ to tell them what was going on. They also cursed, and he hit the side of the car. “Okay. Reid, you and Rossi should meet us here in case we end up seeing—” The sound of a police car’s siren flew past our van, catching our attention. It was just a squad car. No, no, no, no. Fuck. That was going to scare Doyle off. Fuck.

“He’s inside!” Morgan exclaimed. We all turned to face the window to see the drape in Doyle’s apartment window shaking like it had just been disturbed. “I saw him!” Morgan was already fiddling with the door handle and pushing his way out of the car.

“Shit…” This wasn’t at all how I imagined this going down. We were supposed to just monitor the situation, get legitimate confirmation that Doyle was in there, not just Morgan claiming he saw him— But what choice did we have now? “Go, go, go,” I made the call, following Morgan out of the van and hanging up the call with Reid.

JJ, Morgan, and I raced inside first, the SWAT van pulling up behind us and the team moving in, too. When we reached the apartment number, JJ and I stood our ground in the hallway with our weapons raised, and I gave Morgan the signal to kick the door down, which he did without hesitating, and then he dashed inside. The three of us took turned towards different sides of the apartment in order to clear it. Morgan went straight into the living room/bedroom, JJ went into the bathroom on the left, and I stepped into the tiny kitchen on the right. He wasn’t there. Neither was Declan. Reid said that they couldn’t find Declan, so I only assumed that Doyle got to him first. Fuck! How the fuck did he—

“I’ve got something!” Morgan called out. I hurried into the living room/bedroom to see him peeking up at the ceiling inside of the closet. I cocked a brow and carefully approached. “He’s climbing to the roof.” There was a hole in the ceiling for some kind of secret tunnel that led upwards.

“Follow him,” I ordered. “I’ll take the steps. JJ, watch the door downstairs to make sure he doesn’t get out, and coordinate with SWAT to make sure that the block is locked down just in case. Get a crime scene team here to see if Declan was ever here.”

Morgan holstered his weapon then quickly pulled himself up into the tunnel to follow Doyle, meanwhile I hurried out into the hallway to start sprinting up the rest of the stairs, and JJ ran down them. How the fuck did this happen? How did we lose Declan like this, and how was Doyle actually planning on getting out of this?

And then I burst out onto the roof to see Morgan chasing after Doyle who was running for the fire escape on the side of the building. Morgan aimed his weapon, but didn’t shoot. Instead, he tried commanding Doyle to stop. Like that would help.

“I’ve got the shot,” one of the snipers said over the comms.

“Don’t shoot!” I exclaimed. “Don’t!” I knew what Hotch said about taking the shot if given the chance, but things were different now that we couldn’t find Declan in the apartment. Our only way of getting him back now was by keeping his father alive. Asshole. “Hold your fire!” When nothing came, Morgan tackled Doyle and spun him onto his stomach so that he could be handcuffed. “You got it?” I asked him. He nodded while slapping the cuffs on Doyle. “I’ll have JJ take him back to the office while we start going through everything downstairs.”

Morgan groaned as he yanked Doyle up onto his feet. “You’re not gonna let me take a crack at him?”

“Not yet.”

Doyle chuckled. I squinted at him while searching his eyes for a reason that he could have possibly found this funny. He noticed my curiosity. “Lauren was right about you.”

Morgan tugged on Doyle’s restraints to make them hurt. “Shut up.”

Doyle kept laughing as Morgan pushed him towards the stairwell so that JJ could take him to the office like I had ordered. My only question, however, was, what the hell did he mean by that? Lauren was right about me? Right about what? The question lingered in my head as I sighed and moved to walk downstairs, too.

Afterwards, hours passed while we were combing through Doyle’s apartment, trying to find clues about where he must have taken Declan, as well as compiling evidence connecting him to Valhalla and Prentiss’s death. For someone in hiding, there was a lot he had with him. Usually, people in his situation would stay minimalist and wouldn’t have all of their condemning evidence in one spot, but Doyle was so cocky that he wouldn’t get caught that he didn’t bother to keep any of his current business elsewhere. There were so many guns in that one apartment that we could have started another small army. I couldn’t understand how on Earth someone would need all of that. Then again, Doyle already had a small army, and the reason they needed to smuggle all of those weapons out of the state was so that he could maintain power in Europe while he was underground. Well, looked like all of that was worthless now.

I sighed as I stepped outside of that tiny, dirty, smelly, cramped apartment for the first time in over ten hours. It really took that long. Doyle had been sitting at the office the entire time, brewing in his own thoughts, which was our strategy to break him. If he was left in darkness and silence long enough, he would open up. Hopefully. At least, Morgan and I would give it a shot when we would head back to the office. For now, we were down tearing the entire apartment to shreds. The bastard even had papers hiding behind the wallpaper.

When my phone started buzzing in my pocket, I sighed again and dug it out. “Hotchner,” I answered.

“Mmm… I could get used to that,” Hotch’s voice echoed over the phone, making me melt.

I perked up within an instant while looking down at my watch, spotting the time and how long it had been since he last called me, and how he promised he would call when he was close to landing in Virginia. Finally, I thought. “How close are you?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes.”

It was almost morning already. He was probably going to be landing just as the sun would start to peek over the tall buildings of Quantico. “I’m coming to pick you up.”

“Y/N, you should stay—”

“Nope,” I interrupted adamantly.

Hotch chuckled. “You’re really going to be a brat about this right now?”

“Mhm. You can scold me for it when you see me.”

“God, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Hey, sunshine,” Morgan said, sneaking up behind me, “you ready to go?”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, baby,” I told Hotch. Before he could say anything in return, though, I hung up on him. I hid my grin as I buried my phone in my back pocket, then turned to face Morgan. “Can you handle the interrogation for a bit while I head to the airport?”

“He’s back already?”

“Yeah.”

Morgan nodded. “Go get him.” We smiled at each other. “No detours, though, sunshine. There and back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I responded half-heartedly while already walking away from him. “Just remember, when this is over with, you and Clooney are going home!”

----

To say I was nervous would have been a drastic understatement. I had gone four months without seeing him. Four months without his touch, his kiss, his hold, his love. A lot could change in four months. People could grow apart in four months. I was absolutely terrified that even though we called each other every day, we might not have been the same Hotchners who said goodbye to each other at the airport a few months ago. I knew that I still loved him endlessly— maybe even more now that I had been starved of him for so long. But I didn’t know what happened to him out there. I didn’t know what new experiences he had that could have possibly changed him. For all I knew, he could walk off that plane in a few minutes and walk right past me without a care. I just prayed that he was still Aaron. That the man I fell in love with would walk off that plane and know exactly how to hold me again. It was like I could already feel his touch, even though the plane’s engines hadn’t died out yet. He was so far, but he was so damn close. This was the closest we had been in four fucking months, and I was just so ready to see him already.

The plane came to a slow and steady stop on the runway. With every second that passed, I felt a growing need to throw up everywhere. He was probably sitting in there, watching me through the window, grinning ear to ear because I looked so nervous and sick. He could likely see me, yet I couldn’t see anything but the sun in my eyes. He was always an asshole, but he even had to beat me to the first look. Asshole x2.

The door of the jet popped open, and it started slowly falling down towards the concrete, the stairs on the inside making a slow appearance. I thought about what was going to happen. How was I going to react? How was he going to react? Was it better to stay where I was or was it better to meet him at the bottom of the steps? I felt like even if I wanted to move towards the plane, I wouldn’t have been able to. I was frozen in place as my mind raced with questions and endless possibilities. But there was one thing that was consistent: I was going to hold my husband in my arms, and I was going to tell him that I loved him over and over again until I passed out.

The second I saw a foot step out of the jet, I started sprinting as fast as I could without stopping to think. The rest of him emerged, and Hotch looked around for me. After spotting me from the top of the stairs, Hotch jumped down the steps, dropped his bag on the runway, and started running towards me, too. He held his arms out, an invitation for me to jump and hold him tight, so that was exactly what I did. Our bodies clashed, but he still managed to catch me, even though the force sent him stumbling back a few unwanted steps. My arms flew around his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his hips, my face buried in the crook of his neck. It didn’t matter that he smelled like sweat, sand, and cheap deodorant, because he was finally home with me and that was all that mattered. Hell, I even enjoyed the smell since it just meant that I had him in my arms again.

I squeezed him tight with my arms and legs after he nuzzled his face— beard, sunglasses, and all— into the crook of my neck. The aching in my chest, my broken heart that had been falling apart during every second that he was away from me, slowly started to mend with every breath we took together. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry, scream, cheer, laugh, or all of the above. Every single emotion imaginable was flooding my body and the only way I could cope with it was by nearly squeezing the life out of him while repeating: “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over in his ear. I never wanted to stop saying it. I prayed that he would never let me go again and that we could say those three words until there was no more breath in our lungs.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” we kept whispering like we were records stuck on repeat. Fuck, I missed the way he said it to me. I missed the way he said my name and the way he called me “baby”. Nothing felt more right than how he spoke to me and how he kissed my neck in between words.

When his beard started tickling my neck, I finally paused to let out a giggle. I leaned back, his arms still around my torso to hold me for support, and I got a good look at him for the first time in months. There was no screen between us, no shitty computer cameras, no god awful Skype buffer, no speakers that cut out every other word. He looked so different than how I remembered him. His face was slimmed behind the scratchy beard he had grown, and his eyes were more sunken with exhaustion— if that were even possible. Aaron Hotchner always had dark circles under his eyes, that was no secret. Between work, the kids, and wrangling me, Hotch never had time to sleep; but Pakistan kicked his ass, and I could see it in every little detail about him.

He watched me with the brightest smile I had ever seen on his face as I brought my left hand up to his face and scratched my nails gently down his beard. “This is even hotter in person,” I smirked.

“It has to go the second I get an electric shaver,” he laughed.

My smirk fell and I pouted, “Are you sure?” He nodded. “But I have literally never wanted to fuck you harder in my entire life.”

He paused and gulped. “Okay, so maybe it can stay for a few days.”

I perked up again at my little victory and scratched it again. “Please don’t ever leave me again. Please.”

“I’d rather die than go away again.”

“Don’t be hyperbolic, Agent Hotchner.” I hit his shoulder playfully. He grinned before tightening his arms around me again to make me lean in for a kiss. I grabbed his face, the hairs on his cheeks tickling my palms as I did so, and I moaned into his mouth. “I love you so much.”

His eyes screwed shut as he slid his tongue into the kiss and claimed dominance. I missed that feeling so much. I missed how he tasted, how he smelled, how he felt, how he had to dominate me every second of every day. I missed getting lost in his eyes and staring at his lips all day until I could finally kiss them until our lips were chapped. If there weren’t a million and one things going on outside of that airport, I would have begged him to take me inside and fuck me in the bathroom. It should have been impossible to need him that much considering everything that was going on with Ian Doyle, yet there I was, only thinking about showing Aaron Hotchner how much I loved him.

Hotch pulled away from my lips, but he kept his nose pressed to mine. “Emily?”

“At home with Jessica.”

“Jack?”

“At school.”

“You?”

“The most relieved I have ever been in my life.” I leaned in and kissed him again. I thought to myself: “Please, never let this end. Let us stay trapped in each other’s arms forever. Never let us get tired of kissing each other, of holding each other, of saying ‘I love you’. Never let the desperation for passion die. Never let me miss him ever again. Keep him by my side until we die of old age. Please.”

And just like he could read my mind, Hotch loosened his hold on me ever so slightly, making me drop down to my feet, and he said, “We should get back to the office.”

I shook my head. “Just… One more minute… Please.”

“One more minute will turn into an hour at least, you know that.”

“Is that so bad?”

“No, it isn’t.” Hotch cupped my cheeks and kissed me as hard as he could. After a short minute of him kissing me like he had been starved of it for years, Hotch pushed me away. Our hands fell to our sides and I bit my lip while I tried to focus on not jumping on him again. “We have to go.”

I tried to catch my breath, my chest rising and falling at a dramatic pace. It took every ounce of strength and self-restraint I had stored away to not jump back on him and kiss him again. I felt like I was going to cry because he wasn’t in my arms again. I felt like screaming and kicking— throwing a tantrum like Jack would. I felt like at any moment, the two of us would break, and I would tackle him to the ground before showering him in kisses and pinning him down so that he couldn’t leave me again.

Hotch stumbled away from me to grab his go-bag from where he dropped it because he had the same look I had, and I knew that he was sharing the same thoughts. When he came back, he took my hand, and we walked towards the car. I started catching him up on everything we knew about the case thus far. Ian and Declan, all of Ian’s business papers that he had in his apartment. I realized then just how little we actually knew. Hopefully by the time we got back to the office, Morgan would have something out of Doyle that would help.

I drove the whole way to Quantico because he was too tired from the flight and the time zones. He had one of my hands trapped in his instead of on the steering wheel, and he kept kissing my knuckles again and again. He wasn’t listening to me. Not that I blamed him. If he wanted to just talk shop and I was sitting there, not distracted by driving, I would’ve been antsy to shower him in love, too. But Morgan said no detours. As much as it pained me, he was right that there really wasn’t any time to drive home, or even pull to the side of the road to fuck Hotch. I really, really wanted to, though; so, I figured the longer I distracted myself with work, the better off we would be. After this, though… Once this was all resolved… I wasn’t letting him go.

At the office, Hotch and I headed up to the sixth floor, somehow managing to go that entire time without touching each other. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to hold him again. While we were standing in the elevator, I stared at him and thought about pushing him against the wall, but it wasn’t worth it right now. I hated this inner battle I was having to fight between wanting him all to myself in that very moment and just focusing wholeheartedly on the case. The worst thought hit me suddenly… Maybe it would have been better if he didn’t come back so soon… I mean, he was just so distracting, I felt like I couldn’t celebrate this win as much as I should’ve been.

And then we stepped onto the floor.

“Hey.” Hotch grabbed my hand, tugging me back a few steps towards him. “You trust me, right?”

I furrowed my brows as I turned to face him. Of course I trusted him. Why wouldn’t I? He was my husband, and we made a promise to each other a long time ago to not keep any secrets from one another. I had no reason to doubt him. I wouldn’t have met him at the airport like that if I didn’t trust and love him wholeheartedly.

“You know that I do everything for a reason?”

What was he on about? Was there something I missed between meeting him at the airport and walking into the building with him? Why was he suddenly acting so weird?

I put my hands on his biceps. “Listen. I know that you told me you were in an all guys unit. If there’s something you want to say about it, I’m all ears. And I’m going to support you no matter what.” I bit back a smile.

Hotch cracked a smile. “No,” he shook his head, “that’s not what I mean.”

“Phew.” I rolled my eyes playfully. “I thought I was going to have to give you the birds and the bees talk, and how love is love—”

“Shut up.” He laughed before kissing me.

I pushed him back gently. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to cheat on me, it should at least be with a guy so that you get to experiment a bit.” I patted his chest.

He was still laughing quietly. “What am I going to do with you, Agent Hotchner?”

“I don’t know, Agent Hotchner,” I responded as I let him pull me back in for another kiss. “I’m sure you’ll think of something before we get home after this case, though.” I pecked his lips again, then escaped into the board room.

Everyone was standing behind the round table, huddled together as they discussed something about the case. It seemed as though Morgan had just finished his first attempt at getting information out of Doyle, to no avail. They were discussing how he was going to approach the second try, but no one’s ideas seemed to stick since Morgan had an excuse for why none of it would work. It was like we had hit a dead end, even though Doyle was the end, technically. He was the one who took Declan, and he was the one who took our sister from us. Prentiss was dead because of him, and we weren’t going to let him get away this time.

When Hotch walked into the room, everyone fell silent and turned to get a look at him. Hotch really didn’t seem to care about our no PDA at work rule now, because as everyone’s eyes lingered on him and his beard, Hotch came over to me, took my hand in his, and kissed my cheek. A lot changed for him in the Middle East, I guess. He missed me and he didn’t care what rules we had. He wanted to just have me around all the time, and I couldn’t blame him. But, technically, I was still the unit chief until Hotch could officially come back, and I couldn’t let us break the rules. Now I understood why Hotch was always so adamant about me behaving while at work. It was excruciatingly painful to not touch and kiss him just because I was the boss and had to set an example.

I moved away from Hotch, taking my seat at the round table. Everyone followed my lead warily, their eyes still trained on Hotch. Him and JJ didn’t sit, though. They were the only ones who stayed on their feet at the front of the room. Hotch had his arms crossed, a frown hiding under his facial hair, his eyes wandering around the room as he thought nervously about something. This had to do with him asking about my trust, but I didn’t understand how. Him worrying about something and not telling me almost immediately was only making me worry, too. He needed to spit it out fast or I would go insane.

“Everything alright, Hotch?” Morgan asked, also taking notice of Hotch’s clear unease.

Hotch didn’t nod or give any kind of reassurance that everything was alright. Instead, he shifted his weight on the balls of his feet— a silent tell that something was definitely wrong. He kept his head down now, only glancing up through his lashes occasionally to look at me. A thought struck me that maybe my joke wasn’t really a joke in the hallway. Four months was a long time to go without me, and it probably didn’t help that all he got was shitty phone sex. Maybe he really did change out there in the desert. Maybe he was showering me in love because he was going to drop a huge ass bomb that said: “I’m leaving you” or “I’m quitting the BAU and running away forever” or “I’m taking the kids and you’ll never see them again.” Every shit scenario possible was racing through my head. Like I said, if he wasn’t going to spit it out soon, I was going to start screaming for answers.

“Nine months ago,” Hotch began, “I made a decision that affected this team. As you all know, Prentiss lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. We told you that she succumbed to her wounds…” He hesitated a beat. “That’s not really the case.”

Shock filled the room as it dawned on each of us what Hotch was really saying. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions because I really, really didn’t want to get my hopes up… but it sounded like he was telling us that Prentiss was alive. That over the past seven months, we have been led to believe that she died in that hospital.

“The truth is, the doctors were able to stabilize her, and she was airlifted to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration.”

My shoulders fell. So, it was true. Emily Prentiss was alive. The woman we mourned the loss of for seven months was… still around all along? That was why Hotch asked if I trusted him. That was why he was being so handsy. He knew that I hated it when he kept things from me. He knew that I hated it when he would betray my trust like this. I yelled at him for weeks the last time he did it— which was our suspension over two years ago. He was asking about trust and touching me as often as he could because he didn’t know if this admission of the truth was going to break us apart. This wasn’t like him lying and going to ask for a transfer out of the BAU. This wasn’t like him lying to me about his health. This was Emily Prentiss. This was our sister we lost in the field. We buried her. Why did Hotch… What… I— My thoughts were too scrambled to form another cohesive thought other than: “How could he do this to us?”

“After she got better, she was reassigned to Paris, where she was given multiple fake identities so that she could be safe,” Hotch continued.

“She’s alive?” Spencer finally asked the clarifying question we were all dying to know the answer to.

Hotch nodded shortly, keeping his eyes lowered. He wasn’t even looking at me now because of the shame and guilt he likely felt.

“But we buried her,” Spencer croaked.

Hotch nodded again. “If anyone has any issues with the executive decision that I made, then they can take it up with me.”

“Issues?” Morgan asked angrily. “Issues, Hotch? Yeah, I’ve got a few issues, but why don’t you start with the fact that you let your own wife believe that Emily was dead and let them name your daughter after her because of it, hmm? Don’t you think that you owe Y/N an explanation?”

“Morgan,” I hissed quietly. It was neither the time nor the place to discuss my daughter. I had a few choice words for Hotch running through my head, but I fully intended on keeping them to myself until Hotch and I could speak privately.

“Emily’s alive, Y/N. How are you going to explain that to your daughter as she grows up?”

“Stop it,” I demanded more harshly.

There wasn’t anything Morgan could say to me that I didn’t already know. Hotch had betrayed everything we believed in and promised each other. He had told me countless times since meeting me that he would never lie to me, and every time he ended up breaking that promise, he would tell me that it wouldn’t happen again. But there we were. Another promise broken. Even worse, though, was the fact that he made a vow to me on our wedding day that he would always be honest with me. Always. And yet he kept this a secret from me. Did he not trust that I could have kept it a secret? Morgan was right, I was owed an explanation. Hotch kept this from me, his wife for nine months. What else was he hiding? How was I ever supposed to trust him again?

I stood from my seat and turned for the door. No one said anything as I took a step but came to a sudden halt when I discovered that my path was blocked by someone in my way. I felt like I was going to pass out. There was she was: Emily Prentiss… standing right in front of me. Back from the dead.

She let out a sigh of regret, but also relief, when our eyes met. She looked sorry about how all of this happened. And she should have been. Morgan sat on our couch for months, crying because he missed her so much. I named my daughter after her because I missed her so much and I wanted her memory to be remembered. What was it all for, though, now that was standing there? What was the point now? Morgan was right to be vocally angry because he knew that I couldn’t. But as mad as I was at Hotch, I felt an overwhelming need to hug her. I crashed into her. I didn’t hesitate. Nine months without her. Nine fucking months.

Emily caught me as I embraced her as tightly as I could. She rubbed small circles on my back as she held me close. “I am so sorry, Y/N.”

I sniffled into her shoulder while I hugged her tighter. She was there. Like, really there. I wasn’t dreaming or hoping anymore. It was her. Our family was back. And I was just so relieved. I couldn’t even be mad at her. But I could tell as I pulled away from Emily and turned to look at the room with her that Morgan was pissed beyond compare. Everyone was crying because they were so grateful for the fact that she was still alive. However, Morgan wasn’t. He was standing there, pouting with disbelief, his hands curled into shaky fists that were holding in all of his anger.

She carefully let go of me and approached Morgan. “Derek, you have to believe me when I tell you that not a day went by where I didn’t think about you guys and how sorry I am that things turned out this way. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t deserve to know that you were alive?” he questioned through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t deserve to hold a dying friend in your arms.” Prentiss extended her arms for another hug, a silent offer for him, which he took slowly, as if he were afraid that he would fall right through her like she was some kind of ghost. When they embraced, however, I saw Morgan’s anger wash away. Now, he was just broken. “I’m so sorry.” He squeezed her waist as tight as he could for as long as he could before she tapped out and parted from him. She turned to face me again. “I want to meet baby Emily, if you’ll let me, once this is all over.”

I nodded, still too hesitant to say anything.

She smiled. “Okay… For now, I just want to focus on finding Declan and bringing him home safe. What do you guys know so far?”

Reid immediately jumped to his feet like this was his moment to shine, and he started asking her questions about Declan, Ian, and Louise, but I couldn’t hear anything. Everything seemed so washed out and distant. The only thing that was clear to me was the shame on my husband’s face as I stood there, staring at him, silently letting him know just how badly he had fucked up this time around. He could hardly look me in the eyes.

“Can I see you in my office?” he asked.

Everyone watched us silently, wondering if I would correct him on the fact that it was my office now. Or maybe they were waiting with anticipation to see if I was going to blow him off considering I had been glaring at him the entire time since I found out that Prentiss was alive this whole time—and he knew! But that was exactly why I indulged him. I didn’t correct him, I didn’t argue with him, I didn’t embarrass him. I simply followed him to his office.

I sat in my chair at my desk, which all used to be his before he left. He sat down across from me in one of the seats I would sit in whenever I was called to meet with him in his office. He seemed so out of his element in that chair, and, honestly, I was glad. I wanted him to be uncomfortable. I wanted him to be physically and emotionally uneasy because that was how I felt every day while he was away, and that was how I felt since finding out that our daughter’s namesake was actually alive and well.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I inquired, reclining back. He shook his head. “You were going to just let me think that she was dead in order to, what, make me feel better about naming our daughter after her? Why didn’t you try to stop me—”

“I did try. I asked you if there were really no other names you could think of, but you were so adamant about it and I couldn’t tell you the truth; so, I just had to let it happen.”

“Is that why you left?”

Hotch froze for a moment while searching my eyes, and before he even began nodding, I knew the answer. He sighed. “It was hard to keep lying to everyone, but it felt impossible to keep lying to you specifically, especially since you took Emily’s death so hard… So, I just… I ran.”

“So, you would have stayed if I knew the truth?”

“Yes.”

I scoffed and let out an exasperated chuckle.

“Baby, I am so sorry, you have to believe me. I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.”

“Yeah, well, you had a choice in that, didn’t you?”

“Y/N, that’s not fair. I was just trying to protect her—"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, proceeded by Garcia cautiously stepping into the office. “Sorry, ma’am, but I found something.”

I nodded her over, holding my hand out for the file of information she put together. Hotch eyed me. Usually, it was him sitting in my current seat, ignoring me in his seat as he accepted another file from Garcia who had addressed him in the first place. Everything felt so backwards. But, then again, maybe that was what he deserved now that I knew that he had been lying to me this entire time.

“I was narrowing down a list of Doyle’s top ten enemies from what we know and what Morgan’s getting out of him. The only one who’s been in the states recently is Mr. Richard Gerace. He’s been here for the past two weeks with a work visa.”

“Is there any way to connect him to this?” I asked while flipping through the file.

“The guy who cut off the camera feed at Declan’s house had a scar on his neck...” She turned the next page for me and pointed to a mugshot of Gerace. He had the same exact scar on his neck, meaning it was definitely him who took Declan.

“Get me everything you can on him, please, Penelope,” I said while closing the file and setting it down on my desk. She hesitated. “What is it?”

“That’s everything I have.”

I sighed. “Can you call Prentiss in, please?”

“Sure…”

“Thank you.”

When she left, I sighed and looked at Hotch again. Neither of us said anything as we stared at each other uncomfortably, a barrier of trust broken between us now. I didn’t like it when he lied to me. Every time I told him not to lie to me, he promised he wouldn’t, and then he would, and I would be mad for a few days before forgiving him and moving on. How much longer was I supposed to put up with it? I couldn’t even count how many times he lied to me on my fingers anymore. Meanwhile, I could count the number of times I lied to him on one hand. At some point, enough was going to be enough, and if he wasn’t careful, it was going to be soon. As much as I loved him, I couldn’t keep living with the lies. What was more important to him? Me or protecting his secrets? If the answer wasn’t immediately me, then there was an entirely different conversation we needed to have at some point that included what our future was going to look like.

“We’re going to talk later,” I finally told him.

As we were coming back to the office together, Hotch stopped to ask if I trusted him, and at the time, of course I did… But now? I wasn’t so sure. Then again, I’d said that a dozen times before when he pulled this shit. The worst part was, that I knew that I was going to end up crawling back to him, and it was going to be an excuse for him to lie to me all over again.

Hotch nodded. “Yeah…”

There was another knock at the door, this time from Prentiss, who seemed too shy to invite herself in, even though I had requested her presence. I waved her in.

“Gerace,” I said, holding the file out for her. She slowly walked over and accepted it. “Garcia thinks that he’s the one who took Declan.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she insisted before even looking at the file. I waited for her to explain why she thought that. “Gerace gave up on Doyle a long time ago, and he’s too much of a coward to pull something like this off. Not to mention how meticulous the abduction was. Gerace doesn’t have that level of patience and organization.”

I scoffed and wiped my palms over my face. “He was our only suspect and lead.”

“I mean…” She flipped through the file. “That’s definitely Gerace’s scar… So, I suppose he had something to do with it, but I wouldn’t say he’s solely responsible. If he’s working with a partner, he’s definitely the submissive.” She flipped another page. “Hold on—” I looked up at her. “Look at this.” She turned the file to show me one of the shots from the security footage of Gerace turning the cameras off. “Look in the background.” There was a woman standing there, watching Gerace while cocking a gun at her side. Prentiss’s jaw dropped as a realization dawned on her. “This might have something to do with Declan’s birth mother, considering the overkill towards Louise, who was Declan’s mother figure throughout his entire life.”

“Do you know who she is?”

She shook her head. “No. Doyle never told me.”

“Would you be willing to go in and get the information out of him now?”

She looked between me and Hotch, almost as if she were waiting for permission from him, but then she recalled that I was calling the shots right now until Hotch could be reinstated into the unit by Strauss and Cody. She finally gave in. “I don’t mind giving it a shot.”

Since Prentiss was still just a visitor, she couldn’t technically be allowed to wander the floor on her own. Even though she knew exactly where the interrogation room was and how to get there the fastest, I still had to usher her there. So, without saying anything to Hotch, I started walking out. Prentiss watched him silently for a moment before deciding to follow me.

“You know,” she said while catching up to me on the ramp outside of my office, “unit chief suits you.”

“It won’t last long. It’s just until Hotch can come back.”

We continued on towards the interrogation room in silence. When we stepped into the mirror room, I saw that Morgan and JJ were there, watching Doyle who was sitting on his own, staring at the wall while he silently thought and worried about his missing son. With others around to “officially” watch Prentiss, I took my leave almost immediately, heading back to my office so that I could sit down, catch my breath, and have a moment to think.

When I got there, Hotch was already gone. I glanced across the bullpen to see that he was in the boardroom with Rossi, Reid, and Garcia, all of them working on finding who Declan’s mother was in case that was the next fresh lead we would get from Doyle. They were fine on their own. For just a few minutes, I could disappear, and no one would notice. So, I closed the door, spun the dial of the blinds until they were shut tight, and I immediately broke down. I didn’t even make it to my chair or the couch. I just fell right then and there.

I started crying with my face hiding in my hands. Getting Hotch back should have been the best thing in the world, and yet it felt so shitty. I hated that he lied to me again. I hated that things went down like that. I hated that our daughter was mixed up in the drama of it all now just because of her name. I hated that I was mad at the love of my life after just getting him back, because instead of wanting to hold him close until our last breath, I wanted to kick his ankles until my anger was gone—If my anger would ever go away.

And then there was a knock at the door.

I tried catching my breath and calming down enough to wipe my tears away, but the door opened before I could collect myself entirely. I hid my face in the shadows. It didn’t matter who it was because I was just hoping that they would leave me alone now that they saw me collapsed on the floor and hiding my face while sniffling.

“Sunshine?”

I let out a choked sob when I realized that it was Morgan who had followed me from the mirror room to my office. “What?”

He knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Come here…” He turned me slightly until I was facing him, and we immediately pulled each other in for a tight hug. I hid my face in his shirt, letting my tears soak the fabric without care. “It’s okay. I promise. Just breathe.” He rubbed circles on my back to help me calm down slowly.

I started to catch my breath by sucking in deep breaths and letting out short ones. “You shouldn’t have brought up Emily earlier,” I whispered.

He had been completely out of line when he brought up my daughter in the context of Prentiss still being alive. That was a conversation for me and my husband to have at a later time when we could talk privately. It didn’t give him permission to put our predicament on blast. I was sure that everyone had been thinking it, too. I mean, they were all probably wondering the same thing I was, which was what the hell were Hotch and I going to do now that Prentiss, our daughter’s namesake was back? But, honestly, it was none of their business. Yes, Morgan was her godfather, but he wasn’t her father, therefore, he had no say. He would be the first to know when a decision would be made, of course, but not before then.

I slid out of his arms and fell back against the wall carefully to just sit there and stare into the darkness. “It wasn’t fair,” I continued.

“I’m sorry, cupcake…” He slid down the wall to sit beside me, then took one of my cold hands in his. “My emotions have just been all over the place, and I snapped when I didn’t mean to. I know that’s not an excuse, but…” He sighed.

“I get it.” I rested my head on his shoulder. Of all people, I understood the most how Morgan felt.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Kind of…”

“Are you going to forgive him?”

“Unfortunately.”

Morgan swung his arm around me so that he could hug me close to his side. “Do you ever just miss the old days when things were so simple? Gideon and Elle were still on the team. Pretty boy was still dorky and quiet all the time. Hotch actually talked to us and trusted us.”

“You mean talked to you and trusted you.” I chuckled. “He didn’t talk to me when I first joined the team.”

“Yeah, because he had a schoolgirl crush on you. That doesn’t mean he didn’t trust you. But wasn’t it so much easier back then when you two weren’t together, and everything was just about putting the back guys away, and nothing was ever personal…” He sighed. “I think we just haven’t been the same ever since the Fisher King.”

He was right. That was the first case where we were all effected personally, and an Unsub got under our skin, and tore our family apart. I mean, I assumed that it was because of Randall Garner that my sister left the BAU. If we had never gotten mixed up in that case, maybe she and Gideon would still be around. But then again, if that were the case, then we wouldn’t’ve had Rossi or Emily on the team, and I was genuinely happy that I knew them and that they were apart of our family now. Rossi was Hotch’s best friend who liked to help me pick on him from time to time. Emily was one of my closest friends… At least before she left. I didn’t know where we stood now. That was what Morgan meant by things being easier back in the day, though, I supposed. Things weren’t so messy.

“I think you’re right,” I agreed quietly.

----

Not even an hour later, Prentiss had already convinced Doyle to tell us who the mother of his child was and how to find her. With Garcia’s help, we managed to track her down. Her name was Chloe Donaghy, and she was a notorious crime lord who ran a human trafficking and prostitution ring. She and Ian had met about eight years before Prentiss met him. When she found out that she was pregnant with Declan, she tried to kill herself to make sure that his son would never be born, but Doyle stopped her before she could even swallow a single pill, and from that point on during the pregnancy, she was his prisoner. He kept her locked away. She was chained to a bed in a locked room in his heavily guarded home for seven months straight. She was given a healthy diet for herself and the baby, and Doyle had a doctor go to check on her every other week or so to make sure that they were still okay. Once she had the baby, however, she left. She wanted nothing to do with Declan, and everyone knew it, so Doyle practically paid her to stay away and to never tell a soul about their son.

However, once she found out that Ian was a wanted man and was in hiding, she decided that she wanted a piece of him in the name of revenge. So, she got the same idea as us. Knowing that Ian would try to find Declan, she waited until someone found him first—which happened to be us—and once she knew where her son was, she jumped at the opportunity to take him when everyone was too distracted to notice. We managed to track her down to Baltimore. It looked like she and Gerace took Declan down there, and they were planning on selling him to another one of Doyle’s enemies, a man by the name of Lachlan. That wasn’t good. If Declan left U.S. soil, there was nothing we could do. It would be left up to the CIA or another agency similar to them, but they wouldn’t care. So, I made a call.

I decided that the best way to ensure that little boy would never die at the hands of a revenge driven monster like Lachlan was to have our team pursue this. I knew the risks involved with the choice. I knew that my career was on the line, and that I would inevitably be demoted as unit chief—if I were lucky. Worst case scenario, actually, was that I would be fired. But I didn’t care in the moment, because all I could think about was the fact that there was a little boy out there, wondering why his own mother was doing this, and why he was facing danger again. And then I thought about Jack. Declan was around Jack’s age. I couldn’t bear to think that it could have been Jack in Declan’s shoes, and that if that were the case, I would want someone to fight for him until he was safe at home.

So, I made the call to use Doyle as a pawn in our game. We loaded Doyle into an SUV with myself, Hotch, and Morgan, and we drove down to the airstrip where Garcia found out that Chloe and Lachlan were catching a flight at together. Emily was against the idea. She was concerned that Doyle was going to get away, or that Chloe was going to get Declan and Ian, and all of this was for nothing. I wasn’t going to let that happen. We were going to get Declan back, and we weren’t going to let Doyle get away. After everything that happened over the past few months, I was going to die before fucking this up.

“You wanna do it, or should I?” Hotch asked as we pulled up to the jet on the runway. I gestured that he could go for it, but I didn’t look at him or say anything in response. I still wasn’t ready to do that much. “Okay.” Morgan handed him the megaphone, and Hotch stepped out of the car to announce, “Lachlan McDermott and Cloe Donaghy, this is the FBI. We know that you have Declan Doyle. To ensure his safety, we would like to make a trade. Declan for Ian Doyle.”

That was our cue to show off Doyle to the world, so Morgan and I pulled him out of the car, making sure that our grip on him was strong enough that he couldn’t wiggle out. And then we heard a gunshot, and I saw a muzzle flash from within the jet. No. No, no, no. There was no way they just killed Declan. I refused to believe it, but just in case it was true, we kept Doyle close to the car so that we could stuff him back in and drive off if we had to.

Suddenly, the door of the jet started falling open, revealing the steps that Lachlan started storming down with Declan in front of him. I let out a quiet sigh of relief at the same time as Ian. It didn’t last long, however, since Lachlan immediately put a gun to Declan’s head.

“Bring him here!” Lachlan demanded, referencing Doyle.

Hotch looked over at me. “You’re still the unit chief. It’s your call.”

I sighed quietly while trying to quickly weigh the pros and cons. It certainly wasn’t ideal to put Doyle in Lachlan’s line of fire, but if it was the only way to get Declan…

“Now!” Lachlan yelled.

Within an instant, I was pushing forward, Morgan following lead by helping me move Doyle towards Lachlan. When we were close enough, we pushed him onto his knees and waited for something to happen. Lachlan smiled wickedly. He said something to Doyle, but I wasn’t listening while my attention was trained on Declan and trying to figure out how I was going to grab him on time while Morgan made sure he still had a grip on Doyle. I just had to trust the process, I supposed.

When I heard movement from the jet again, I looked up to see Chloe limping out, holding her stomach from the shot she took from Lachlan. They must have argued about taking our deal. Before I could tell her to stay back, though, I saw how she was raising her arm and aiming at me, Ian, and Morgan.

“Gun!” Morgan shouted, tackling me out of the way just as the sound of a gunshot rang through the air. I groaned as the wind was knocked out of me. Morgan rolled off me to check to see if I was okay. “Are you hit?” I shook my head. “Doyle—” He spun around on his knees to see Ian falling to the ground while holding his bleeding neck. “Shit.”

Another gunshot fired, this time from Chloe aiming directly at Lachlan, instantly killing him. In retaliation, Hotch, Reid, Prentiss, and JJ all shot down Chloe as fast as they could. Hotch ran over to me, putting his hands on my cheeks while scanning my body with my eyes to make sure that I was alright, the same way Morgan had. I inhaled sharply as I caught my breath. I got that Morgan was just trying to protect me, but did he have to go all high school footballer on me? Fucking hell. We were on concrete. The tackle was worse than getting shot, in my opinion.

“Next time, I make the call. And it won’t be this one,” Hotch whispered to me, brushing my hair out of my face.

“Ha. Ha,” I responded sarcastically. “Help me up.” We clasped our hands together, and he pulled me to my feet, letting me stumble into his chest somewhat before I caught my balance. “Thanks.” I patted his chest. “This is why you’re the unit chief.”

He kissed my forehead. “You thought you were doing the right thing, and that’s all we can ever do.”

I glanced over to Doyle who was reaching out for his son, knowing that it would be the last time. A part of me broke somewhat. As much as I despised Doyle, I had nothing against his son, and seeing a bond between a father and his son, even though they hardly knew each other at all, made me think about Hotch and Jack. It could have been Hotch instead of Haley who died in our house two years ago. We were beyond lucky that he was still with us. That I had a husband who loved me, that our daughter had a father who wanted nothing more than to raise her away from all of this chaos, that our son still had a father who would protect him no matter the cost. We were, by some definition, “lucky” that it wasn’t Hotch and Jack there instead of Ian and Declan.

----

By the time we cleaned up the mess at the airstrip, I had called Jessica and asked if she could bring Emily to the office to surprise Hotch, but also because Prentiss asked if she could meet her, and I felt like after the long day we had, we all deserved that. I mean, she was our little sunshine. If anyone could change the mood entirely, it was her.

So, when we all returned to Quantico, I told security to keep an out for Jessica and the baby—to which they all cheered about how excited they were to see her. The team went up to the boardroom to start tearing down all of the photos and evidence on the walls. Another chapter of our lives closed. Over months, we had been working on a case where we only had a fraction of the pieces. The only person who knew every part of it and could end this once and for all had left, but when she came back, it ended, and now we could just breathe again. We had our family back. That had to count for something.

When I saw Jessica arrive in the elevator, I met her there so that I could still surprise Hotch and Prentiss. “Thank you for bringing her,” I said while crouching down in front of the stroller to see my lil’ bug. She was half awake, but just lucid enough to play with my finger as I wiggled it in her face. “I owe you.”

“It’s no big deal, I swear. I was on my way to pick up Jack from a playdate, and this was on the way, anyhow.”

I glanced up at Jessica. “We can pick him up later. You don’t have to race around for us like this.”

Jessica smiled lightly. “What else am I going to do?”

I stopped to think about that for a moment, considering how we were her only family around now that Haley was gone, and Roy was… Well, Roy didn’t like having Jessica around because she was a very hands-on and task-oriented person when it came to family, and he didn’t like how overbearing and protective she was of him. So, we were the only ones that were around and in need of help. I just felt bad sometimes because it felt like she was our nanny or something. Then again, every time this conversation came up where I would tell her that all of this was unnecessary and that I felt bad, she would always argue that she loved doing it and that it was no big deal. If it really were a problem, she would have ditched us months ago.

“Okay,” I gave in. “We’ll see you at home, then.” I stood to hug her.

“See you at home.”

When we parted, she leaned over to say goodbye to baby Emily quickly, then waved to me as she walked towards the elevator. I waved back shortly before pushing the stroller up the ramp towards the boardroom. Inside, I could see and hear everyone chatting and catching up with one another. Rossi was hogging Aaron. He was so happy to have his buddy back after all this time, but he was still trying to convince him to shave the beard. Over my dead body. I loved that beard, and after everything that man put me through today, I was going to get the chance to scratch my fingers through it as he fucked me. Come hell or high water, I was going to make that happen.

I pushed the stroller into the room, and everyone fell silent. This was the first time Hotch had seen her in… months, and this was the first time Prentiss was going to meet her. Everyone wanted to be witness to it, and no one wanted to disrupt the moment. So, when I spun the stroller around, everyone held their breaths. I tried to ignore them as I pulled the top of stroller back to reveal Emily.

“May I hold her?” Prentiss asked, looking up at me with the brightest smile I had ever seen from her before. I nodded. Prentiss reached into the stroller, buried her hands under Emily, and lifted her up. “Hi, there, baby girl…” Prentiss cooed. Emily kicked and fussed in Prentiss’s arms.

As I watched Prentiss rock Emily side to side in her arms, I felt someone’s arms snake around my waist and pull me backwards into a hug. I smiled and rested my head on Hotch’s shoulder. His beard scratched my cheek slightly as he pressed a gentle kiss against it. I giggled and nuzzled into his touch as much as I could while thinking about how I missed this feeling so bad every single second he was away from me. All those rules we had for so long before he left didn't matter anymore. Not when he had been away and all we wanted was to hold each other and love each other.

“She has your eyes, Hotch,” Prentiss said while Emily giggled. “Yes, you do,” Prentiss teased with the same kind of baby-talk voice everyone used around kids. “You are just too darn cute.”

“I missed you so much,” he whispered in my ear before kissing me.

“I’m still mad at you, Aaron,” I whispered only for him to hear. He loosened his grip on me somewhat. “And I don’t know when I’ll stop being mad.” He hid his face in the crook of my neck to hide his disappointment from everyone else. “But I know that I love you, and that, with time, I’ll learn to forgive and forget about this. Until then, I just need you to bear with me while I navigate rebuilding what trust I had given you, and asking you to give me answers, or asking that you give me some space—whatever it is, I just need you to understand. Can you do that?”

He nodded against me.

“We’re going to be okay,” I sighed, almost like I was trying to convince myself, too. “We’re going to be okay…”

-----

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22 @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc​ @Braty-angel

[lokilickedme]

Submitted by @fudgemuffinanon

Ok I think I’m up to date….

1. HOLY SHIT WOMAN! You had Covid and just learned about it? How did you find out? Was it with a test? And you handled the asshat at the grocery store way better than I would have. I’m not patient, nor diplomatic, and I have major RBF syndrome… The temper goes with the face more ofter than I care to admit…

2. Your grandmother’s story was incredible. I know you don’t need another project but this could be a beautiful book. No fandom incorporated, just her story.

3. As @mollage said, the Universe is after you! But you may be one of the strongest woman I know, going through all your adventures with that attitude. Thank you Elizabeth for passing down your fiery spirit!

4. With everything that happened to you in the last few weeks, I can’t expect you to write anything. I’ll just wait and take what you give us. Fuck, I just have to deal with Baby Girl’s online school - Big Boy is responsible enough to deal with his class mostly alone - and I have to tell her to go back to the computer every 5 minutes and I’m going NUTS! And we have one more month to go…

Ontario has been in stay-at-home order since April 8th, and non-essential stores MAY reopen mid-June at 15% capacity and outdoor activities in small groups MAY resume IF we have 60% of population vaccinated with their first dose. We’re about 58% now according to Health Minister but they stopped giving Aztra as first dose, so all the pharmacies that could give it now can’t. There’s a lot less Pfizer and Moderna doses available so I don’t know how fast it will happen. But it means I will most likely get my second dose quicker than August. Yay me! Second phase won’t happen until we get 70% 1st dose vaccination. So we’re stuck for a while. We’re going out in the woods for walks once in a while so we don’t get too close to people but I want to go to a fabric store sooooo bad!! I’m done picking ticks off hubby everytime we get out.  And I’m running out of crafts to learn on youtube. 

Ok, enough ranting…  gotta go finish knitting Baby girl’s bday gift. A 6" turtle. With clothes. And a shawl. And boots. Yeah… Love ya!

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

Fudgey!!

Yup. All four of us had covid back in November of 2019, before it broke wide and before anyone really knew it was in the US. Husband was able to track it back to a coworker who’d returned from a family visit to China (he works with a large community of Asian Americans who travel back and forth a lot). The coworker came home sick, and shortly after that our household got the worst “flu” any of us have ever had (that was what we thought it was, a weirdly violent flu that hit each of us differently). I’ve never been sicker in my life, my husband thought I was going to die and he claims I told him to just let me go if it looked like I wasn’t going to make it. I’m pretty sure I meant it…it was that bad. I may have actually requested an assist to the other side at one point.

So anyway, a little while later it broke wide and when the symptom lists started coming out we started wondering if that wasn’t what we’d had. Husband finally a few weeks ago went and talked to the guy that had come back sick from overseas and the guy said “Oh yeah, I had the covid, did you get it too?”

By that time there had been approximately 150 known cases at husband’s workplace and six confirmed deaths from it. Grrrr.

At this point it was too late for us to get confirmed, but husband contacted a friend in Colorado who is a covid specialty ER nurse and described our symptoms and the timeframe of our illness to her. She said we absolutely had it - she’d had it too during that same timeframe, before it broke wide and before anyone knew what it was.

So now all my lingering weird-ass symptoms make sense. Big and Little are fine, they don’t seem to have any long-term problems, though I’m keeping an eye on them (especially Big). Husband is fine as well. Me? I took it in the seat of the pants, but like I was telling someone the other day, as soon as one of the longhaul clinics sets up here I’m gonna be there.

The putz in the grocery store was nothing unusual for here. What really gets me is the way people glare at us for continuing to wear masks - it’s almost scary. WTF is wrong with people.

Glad you liked my grandma’s story. Honestly I don’t know enough to write a book about her without having to speculate on a lot of in-between stuff because she was a very secretive person (probably for a good reason tbh) but what a tale it would be. She was a mess :D My mother has always been mad at me for taking after her - she never liked my grandmother much, there was some bad blood between them from decades back, and yeah that’s kind of a good story too lol

Ah, speaking of writing, I’m going to toss out a short chap of that silly self indulgent side-thing for The Department tonight (probably as soon as I send this reply off) and then I’m shooting for a chapter of the actual fic tomorrow at some point. Taking advantage of the husbandary absence (yes I know that’s not a word but it works)

I feel ya on the homeschooling - the boys finished their semester two weeks ago and the stress of that final week for Big (9th grade) was insane.

I wish we were under a stay-at-home order, but where I live hardly anyone obeyed it when we WERE. I love living here but I swear sometimes the people make me want to move off-planet just to find a higher intelligence demographic.

Anyway, I gotta see this turtle when you’re finished with it. You mentioned it so now you gotta show it. I’m going to bug you every day until you provide pictures because even though I can crochet a blanket like nobody’s business I cannot crochet a doll to save my own ass. Gonna have to rely on you for that ;P

@fudgemuffinanon

[transheadcrab]

can we jus cancel school at this point until we get our shit together abt covid. like i know they wont bc we live in a capitalist hellscape that values profit and conformity to a murderous system but holy fuck schools should not be the canary in the coalmine for reopening

[bluesey-182]

We Hate to Stop Meeting Like This

Chapter 5

wrow i wrote another chapter??? lookit me go. being productive for once lol.

i hope you like it!

chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, or read it on ao3

—-

Classes were cancelled the next day due to a surprise snow storm that happened overnight and given that Jude’s hangover hit her like a speeding train the second she woke up, she was grateful for the reprieve the weather granted her in her pitiful state. Getting drunk on a school night was admittedly not the best idea. An added bonus to the weather was the snow muffling the rest of the world. If there was any traffic outside Jude couldn’t hear it through the snows insulation. Her room was blissfully quiet and wonderfully dark since the dreary weather blotted out the sun. Rolling over in bed she reached for the bottle of Ibuprofen on her nightstand but found herself consumed in a cloth wrapped around her that didn’t feel like any of her blankets. She realized she had fallen asleep in her clothes from last night with her jacket still on.

No. Not her jacket. Cardan’s jacket. She had forgotten to give it back when he dropped her off last night. And if she now bunched the cloth against her face and inhaled his scent–well there was no one there to prove it, and she wasn’t about to admit to anything.

His jacket wholly smelled like boy and brought back memories of his laugh. Jude’s heart fluttered. 

Not good. 

She flopped backwards, spread-eagle, onto her bed and released a long, drawn out breath. 

Her moment of relaxation was interrupted when the smell of bacon began to waft through her room. Her hungover body demanded she take part in the breakfast that Taryn was clearly cooking so she threw off her covers, zipped up Cardan’s jacket to combat the chill, and located her discarded socks on the floor. When she stepped out of the hallway and saw Taryn in the kitchen though, she stopped. 

Taryn wasn’t alone. Next to her, giving Jude a taunting smirk, was Locke.

Her first thought was, I’m not wearing a bra and there’s a boy in the apartment. Her second thought was, I’m going to kill him.

She hadn’t realized she took a step forward until Taryn was suddenly blocking her way. “Jude, don’t.”

“What is he doing here?” It was a stupid question, as it was obvious what he was doing there, but Jude’s thoughts had disconnected from her brain.

“He stayed over.”

“He’s been here all night?!”

“Jude, chill.”

“No! I will not chill! This guy’s a fucking prick and I’m not going to chill out about it!”

“Jude–,” Taryn was cut off when a knock came from the front door. Both girls stopped in stunned silence as they looked to the door then back at each other with identical looks of ‘are you expecting anyone?’

Confused and a little suspicious, Jude made her way to the door, stopping to grab her keys from the kitchen table with its pepper spray attached to it. For a moment she considered spraying it into Locke’s eyes (he was still looking at her in that amused sort of way) but ultimately decided he deserved worse. She paused at the door, held her breath, and looked through the peephole on the door.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she grumbled before pulling the door open with enough force for it to crash into the hallway wall. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Statistics,” Cardan said like this explained everything. When she didn’t immediately reply he laughed that goddamn laugh and she imagined what it would be like to punch him in the throat. “God, how drunk were you last night?”

Those few words brought back every detail of the previous night. Drinking, dancing, confessing things she shouldn’t have, dancing, dancing, dancing with Cardan. His promise to help her with statistics. And, most damning of it all, asking him to come to bed with her.

Jesus. Jesus.

“Classes were cancelled,” she said lamely as heat creeped into her face at the memory of being in his arms. Remembering suddenly her lack of a bra she crossed her own arms over her chest in an attempt to hide her boobs even though Cardan’s oversized jacket was enough to sufficiently cover them.

Cardan’s in my apartment and I’m not wearing a bra, she panicked.

“And?” He asked, leaning down so his face was inches from hers. The challenge was clear, the person to look away first lost. Unfortunately for Jude the intensity of his gaze mixed with her still-pounding head caused her to look away first. Through the corner of her eye she saw his smirk before he brushed past her into the apartment.  “Still got my jacket on, huh?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled. 

“Cardan?” Came Locke’s voice from the kitchen moments before his head poked around the corner to see into the entryway. “Jesus Christ dude, what are you doing here?”

It might have been her imagination–mostly likely was her imagination–but Jude thought she saw Cardan’s shoulders tense ever so slightly before they relaxed again.

“Tutoring dear Jude here,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder to look at her still standing in the doorway. There was a question in his eyes but she couldn’t decipher it. Before she even had the chance to, he was turning back to Locke. “I’d ask what you’re doing here but I frankly don’t care.”

“Ouch,” Locke said, clearly not hurt, “why the cold shoulder, man?”

Not bothering to acknowledge Locke’s question Cardan turned around fully to face Jude. “Are you going to close the door so we can do homework or are you going to stand there with the door open until you catch a cold?”

“You know,” Jude shot back, “Just because you said that I’m going to leave the door open.”

Cardan, not missing a beat, rolled his eyes at her and grinned before taking a measured step towards her to close the distance between them. Still smiling that smile and still looking at her with those dark eyes–face hovering just above hers–he reached over her shoulder and closed the door. She was frozen to the spot, unable to stop him. Her paralysis caused solely by her heart beating way too fast.

Was she dying?

“Shall we?” Cardan asked, sweeping his arm out behind him to indicate the rest of the apartment. It was clear he wasn’t leaving.

Shit.

———

“Wait out here a sec,” she said at her bedroom door, attempting to block the view of it even though the door was still closed.

“Gotta hide your delicates?” Cardan teased.

“I really do hate you, you know that?”

Cardan replied with a noncommittal hum but leaned against the opposite wall to wait for her like she asked. She slipped into her room and stared at the mess of dirty clothes and unmade bed and–as he had predicted–underwear and bras strewn all over the place. Quickly she slipped on a bra and shoved the rest of the undergarments into her closet before slamming the door. That was a little better, but the remaining mess still stared back at her like a taunt. For a second she considered studying in the living room instead but the reminder that Taryn and her weasel of a boyfriend were out there was enough to squash that idea. Defeated, she reopened her closet door, shoved the rest of the dirty clothes in there–she’d have to sort through all her clothes later to figure out what was dirty and what was clean–and turned her attention to the mess of her bed. In her sleep she had pulled the sheets out from one corner and the rest of the blankets lay halfway off the frame. She didn’t have time to make it and for a second debated opening the window and tossing the whole thing out to the ground two stories below. 

Which was ridiculous. What was wrong with her?

Cardan rapped on the door. “Did you die in there?”

“No,” she replied hoarsely, her voice a few octaves too high. “Just a second.” She ran over to the full length mirror hanging behind her door to fix her bed head as best as she could and straighten out the rest of her clothes–oh god she hadn’t brushed her teeth yet, oh god–and finally swung the door open to omit the boy waiting for her in the hallway. He was now leaning his shoulder against her door frame and she didn’t miss how his eyes quickly scanned over her before he met her eyes.

“All cleaned up?” He asked.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she blurted out. Her head was still pounding ever so slightly and she was definitely too hungover for all of this. Her stomach was churning and she was sure that if she didn’t get away from him in the next few seconds she was going to throw up all over him. “You can go in and wait.”

In the bathroom she brushed her teeth. Splashed some water on her face, splashed more water on her face, stared at her reflection in the mirror, and tried to convince herself to go back out there before he started to question what she was doing in the bathroom for so long. As a last thought she ran a brush through her still untamed hair. Finally, she yanked open the bathroom door and stomped determinedly across the hall to her bedroom.

Cardan was lounging in her office chair with one of his arms slung over the back of it. Part of his stomach was exposed where his shirt had ridden up and it took all of Jude’s willpower to keep her eyes on his face instead of letting her gaze wander to that sliver of skin. It took all of her willpower not to wonder what it would be like to take the shirt off him completely.

As if he could read her less than holy thoughts, Cardan’s face morphed into that arrogant look and matching smile as he lazily looked back at her. “So where’s your homework?” He asked.

Not trusting herself to speak just yet, Jude flicked her wrist towards the mass of paperwork currently burying her laptop on her desk. Cardan spun the chair around and started digging through the papers until he found her half finished statistics work.

“Looks like you need more help than I thought,” he mused aloud as he scanned over her work.

“You’re such a dick.”

“Such language.”

“Shut up.”

“Or what?” Cardan finally looked up from the homework to meet her eyes and he smiled in the most wicked way. “You’ll punish me?” 

The timber of his voice made something in her stir. This was getting dangerous.

“Just shut up and help me with this stupid homework,” she shot back a moment too late. Cardan’s smile only widened but, thankfully, he returned his attention back to her homework.

“Grab a pencil, darling,” he said. “We’re gonna be here for a while.” 

——–

“Alright, let’s move on to probabilities.” The pep in Cardan’s words was grating on Jude’s nerves. He still sounded so damn chipper. Meanwhile she was contemplating throwing herself into a wood chipper. 

She flopped over backwards–quite dramatically–with a loud groan onto the plush rug on her bedroom floor and stared up at the ceiling. “Can’t we take a break?” She pleaded. “We’ve been at this for hours and I’m seriously considering murder.”

Cardan chuckled. “Who would the victim be?”

Jude shifted, turning her head to look at Cardan where he sat on the floor with his back against the foot of her bed. “Haven’t decided yet,” she said. “But you’re the one alone in a room with me so if I were you, I’d be a little worried about my safety." 

A laugh in response. A flutter in her chest. Eye contact held for a few too many seconds.

Jude looked away.

Cardan cleared his throat and brought his attention back to the sample problems he had found on the internet–basic high school questions, as Jude’s college papers were proving to be too difficult to understand the concepts. They had decided she needed to take it back a few steps before trying to tackle the more advanced work that she couldn’t understand. 

Not that this was much better. 

"Okay.” Did Cardan’s voice crack a little bit? He cleared his throat again. “Probabilities.”

“Break,” Jude demanded.

“After a few more questions." 

She groaned in protest but gave no further objection.

"What’s the probability of winning the lottery?” Cardan supplied from the paper.

“Too small for me to care.”

“Probability of getting bit by a shark?”

“Fuck off.”

“Probability of you passing this class?”

“Double fuck off.”

“Probability of you letting me kiss you right now.”

That definitely snapped her attention back to him. Was it her imagination or were his cheeks flushed? Eyes just a little too wide? For a moment he looked slightly undone, like he had lost his footing while on the edge of a cliff and only just managed to keep himself from falling. But then his face shifted back into its usual arrogant mask. Still, his eyes kept flicking away from her eyes to look at her mouth.

His question hung in the air and Jude’s answer was cut off by a knock on her bedroom door. 

Damn, Taryn. 

“Hey guys,” Taryn said as if they were all the best of friends while peeking her head around the now cracked open door. “I made some food if you guys are hungry.”

As if on cue, Jude’s stomach rumbled loudly. Her attempts at breakfast had been thwarted by stupid boys, she had missed lunch, and her body was demanding food. At least now that this morning’s hangover had passed completely she could eat without the risk of vomiting.

“I’m actually pretty hungry,” Cardan spoke to Taryn but still had his eyes on Jude. If his earlier question had been anything other than another one of his teasing jokes then there was no indication of it now. Of course it was a joke. Right?

The apartment smelled like heaven. Taryn had cooked up some delightful baked pasta dish and the aroma filled the space with the air of an Italian restaurant.

“God, I’m always a slut for pasta,” Cardan said, inhaling a deep breath with his eyes closed to take in the smell, oblivious to the weird face Jude was now making at him.

“You’re so goddamn weird,” she said. Cardan tilted his head to give her a lazy grin and winked at her as they finally entered the kitchen, which was a mess.

“We’re heading out to the movies,” Taryn announced.

“Clean up this mess first!” Jude said, appalled by the idea of having to do it herself.

“The movie starts in ten minutes, I’m sorry.”

Despite her avid protests, despite following Taryn through the apartment pleading with her to clean up until she was all the way out her door, Jude had no such luck convincing her twin to do the dishes. Great. 

Jude spun around to face Cardan, who was leaning back against the counter. “She did this on purpose!” Cardan laughed. “Don’t laugh, you jackass, you’re helping me.”

“I could just leave,” he purred in an empty threat. She gave him a look that he returned in mockery. His beautiful face twisted up to match her own glare. His black eyes shining with the smile he clearly wanted to crack in the face of her frustration. “Come on,” he said, pushing off the counter. Before she knew what was happening Cardan had Jude’s hand in his, lifting it into the air above her head, and he gave her a gentle spin around the kitchen like some kind of dance. “Let’s at least eat first.”

Jude, at a loss for words, only nodded.

“Where are your plates?” He asked. She indicated a cupboard with her hands. “Silverware?” She nodded in the direction of the drawer. Cardan loaded two plates with food, set them both on the table, wiped up a bit of spaghetti sauce on his finger from his plate, and smeared it down Jude’s nose. This finally snapped her out of her daze and she processed that he had made a plate for her. Her cheeks burned.

“Shall we?” Cardan asked with his mocking smile. Oh, how she wanted to smack it off of him. But her stomach growled again and hunger won over the desire to make his face stop doing that. Jude flopped herself down into the chair, Cardan sliding more gracefully into his own chair, and began shoveling food into her mouth without further acknowledgement of the boy sitting across from her.

When their plates were empty and Jude was laying halfway out of her chair so her overstuffed belly could stretch out, it was time to do the dreaded dishes. There was no more avoiding the mess surrounding them in the kitchen. Again, Jude cursed her sister, but nonetheless began clearing the table.

“So you and your sister don’t really get along?” Cardan asked as he came up behind Jude and set his own plate in the sink. The warmth of his body, still several inches from touching hers, sent a little thrill through her body. She spun around to face him and leaned her weight against the kitchen counter. He really was quite tall. At least a full foot taller than Jude. She felt tiny next to him and found herself subconsciously straightening her back in an attempt to make herself taller.

“We used to,” she finally answered.

“Let me guess. Locke?”

“Pretty much.”

A silence stretched between them as Jude stared off into the space near her socked feet. “Do you have siblings?” She asked with no memory of thinking to ask the question before it was out of her mouth. 

Cardan laughed softly. “Yes.” Before Jude could ask any further questions he said, “You have pasta sauce on your cheek.”

Jude was instantly embarrassed and made to turn away and wipe the offending food from her disgraceful face when suddenly Cardan’s hand was on her cheek and his thumb was gently wiping the mess away. It would have been mortifying, Jude realized distantly, if she hadn’t been so caught up in how gentle his hand was on her face.

“One-hundred percent,” she said out of nowhere.

“What?”

“The probability of me letting you kiss me right now.”

Cardan laughed and he nervously shifted his eyes away from hers for just a second before meeting her gaze again. It was hard to reconcile his nervous laugh and shifting eyes with the arrogance he usually presented. “Sorry, darling. The moment has passed.”

Jude’s cheeks were flaming hot and she fisted her hands into the material of her shirt. “Why do you always have to be such a fucking dickh—”

She was cut off when his hands were placed on either side of her face and he leaned into her to touch their noses together. A little pocket of space was created in that moment. Some place warm and terrifying and exciting and oh she wanted to kiss him. She wanted him to kiss her.

“You’re so easy to tease,” Cardan said softly. Jude found it hard to care about his words when his mouth was so close to hers.

“You’re still a dickhead,” she managed to say with her heart in her throat.

Cardan hummed in response and leaned in. His lips were centimeters away from hers, the space making her ache, and then

His lips 

Were on hers.

It was…

Incredibly awkward. She was definitely doing this wrong.

Without meaning to, she broke away from Cardan with a nervous laugh that soon possessed her entirely. She buried her face in her hands before she buried them in his chest, leaning against him as the anxious laughter brought tears to her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, “I’m not laughing at you, I swear.”

If Cardan was hurt at all by her display he didn’t show it. Instead he laughed with her. “First kiss?” He asked, like the answer wasn’t already obvious.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she laughed in her hysterics. Cardan gently peeled her away from her place against his chest and took her face in his hands again. 

“Relax,” he whispered. It took Jude a few tries but finally the anxiousness dissolved. She was fine. She was normal. She was absolutely not embarrassed about messing up her first kiss. Except all of that was a lie.

“My first kiss was a disaster,” Cardan said. “I opened my mouth too much. Like a sucker fish.” He proceeded to demonstrate, which made Jude laugh. Cardan smiled his rare goofy smile and Jude felt her heart melt a little bit. The anxiety from earlier was now completely gone and, feeling brave, she took his hand in hers.

“Try again?” She suggested softly. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.”

Cardan leaned in again, left hand still in her grasp, right hand cupped around her neck, and kissed her so very gently. It was still awkward but with each passing moment, each movement of their lips, it became less so. Jude lost herself in the feeling of his lips on hers. She lost herself in the comfort of his arms wrapping around her waist to bring her closer. She lost herself in Cardan.

When they finally broke apart for air, Cardan smiled and said, “That was better.”

“I hate you,” Jude said back.

“I know.”

[justjessame]

Put Me In Coach Chapter 42

Trey was adjusting well to hanging out with the littles at the Sanctuary school and I was enjoying interacting with not just the children of our little community, but their parents as well.  I was happy to see that no one was treating me differently than I had been in Alexandria.  Even as Negan’s future only wife, all of the people within our gates treated me like the person who taught their children, and who made Negan more agreeable.  At least that’s what one older woman whispered to me, a soft smile on her lips.  I was happy to know that people didn’t see me as an interloper.  

Negan spent his days putting out whatever fires that Rick and his people continued to cause, and I knew they were causing trouble because I heard about the woman who breached our security, but didn’t hear her name.  He’d brought Eugene back after his last visit to Alexandria, after he’d shown me the bullet ‘wound’ that Lucille had been afflicted with, a bullet that Eugene had made.  And I also knew that Daryl had gotten free, and that caused more upheaval simply because Negan hated looking weak or inept.  

These things I learned through whispers that ran like waves through the people that didn’t realize I was kept free from upsetting information.  It didn’t upset me, not in the sense that I thought Negan couldn’t handle it.  I was more confused about why they all couldn’t sit down like fucking adults and hammer out a reasonable deal that everyone could be comfortable with, but I didn’t think it was my fucking place to offer my opinion.  It wasn’t that I was a shrinking violet or a fully 50s housewife, but since I wasn’t a fucking soldier or fighter, why should I put my nose in it?

About a month after Trey’s second birthday, I was sitting on the couch reading him one of his new books when Negan came in whistling.  I grinned down at our little Boo who had his lips puckered in what he thought was the same way Dada had his and was blowing more spit than a tune.  I shook my head as Negan kissed my temple and tried to give our toddler pointers on how to whistle like his daddy.

“I think he’s a little too young to figure out the mechanics, Dada.”  Negan sat down next to us and pulled both of us onto his lap.  Breathing in the scent of my hair, and then kissing Trey’s curls his arms locked around both of us.  “How was your day?”  

“Long,” he sighed, tapping the book I still held.  “You haven't finished the story, Mama.”  

I reopened the book and read, smiling as Trey became engrossed and Negan’s hand was taking a field trip down my bare arm.  When I finished, Trey clapped, something he’d learned during storytime in class and Negan chuckled and put his own hands together.

“Boo Bear, why don’t you hop down and start building us something to play monster with?”  Trey slid off my lap, with my assistance and pulled his toy basket out from under the table.  Once he was occupied, Negan’s lips met my neck.  Moaning at the taste of my skin, he nipped with his teeth and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from making a noise that would cause Trey’s focus to lock onto us.  “Are you still prepared to fucking marry me, princess?”  I nodded and was rewarded with a harder bite.  “Words, Amara.”  

“Yes, Sir.”  Another bite.  “Daddy?”  His tongue flicked against the slightly tortured skin.  “When?”

“How does three days from now sound?”  I pulled away and locked eyes with him.  “Is that too soon?”

Kissing the breath out of him, I was shaking my head when I pulled back again.  “You STILL don’t know how to read the fucking room, Coach.”  

Eric, because of course it would be Eric, was in my room the day before my ‘wedding’ to Negan.  In the madness that happened when Negan and I were separated, I hadn’t actually shown him or Mary the dress.  And Negan, being an alpha male who cared nothing about clothing or the heft of a dress bag, didn’t realize that it wasn’t holding JUST my dress.  

Negan had taken Trey along for a meeting with his higher up Saviors, Steven was with them giving more ideas for increased security measures for the outposts, and that meant that Eric was about to see just what was in my wedding gown bag.

I pulled it out of the closet, hanging it from one of the twisted limb posts of our bed, and carefully unzipped it.  I heard Eric’s gasp and thought about how he hadn’t seen anything yet.  I removed the shoe box that was tucked into the bottom part of the bag and set them on the bed.  Then I took out the first part, my lingerie, the ONLY type I could wear with the cut of the dress.  The dress came out next and if he thought the first layer inside the bag was gasp worthy, I was rewarded with a whispered “holy shit”.  Hanging the dress on the opposite limb post, there was still one thing left.  The honeymoon set.  

“Are you trying to give Coach a fucking heartattack?”  He sighed, staring at the lace and ribbons that made up the present that Negan was going to get to open on our wedding night.  “Fuck, Amara, it’s gorgeous.”  

I sighed.  “Yes it is, now let’s fucking pray it still fits.  All of it.”  

Eric helped me into the dress once I had the undergarments in place.  “This dress is a fucking work of art.”  I knew it.  The cut was far more old Hollywood glamour.  Satin, lace, and silver accents, it fell down my length and was more draping than a stereotypical princess ball gown.  The shoes, heels with the same silver accented pattern along the back and heel, caused Eric to give up a low whistle when I pulled them on.  “He’s gonna want to fuck you while you wear those stilletos.”  

“No, he won’t.”  He raised an eyebrow and I laughed.  “Trust me, Negan learned just how fucking much stilletos can hurt if I wrap my legs around him.”

“You impaled Coach with a fucking high heel?”  I grinned, remembering how he’d powered through, but swore that he’d never be fucking tempted to repeat the exercise, and how he’d turned and begged me to tell him he wasn’t fucking bleeding or scarred for life.

“Well?”  I asked, standing up from where I’d sat on the bed to put on the shoes.  I bit my lip, knowing without a fucking doubt that I could count on Eric to tell me the truth.

“You look fucking amazing, Amara.  Shit, I kind of wish I didn’t love dick so much.”  Rolling my eyes, my hands went to the long braid I kept my hair in.  “You should wear it up,” I waited, wanting to hear the reason.  “The low cut of the back of that dress needs to be bare, Coach is gonna want to rush through the fucking vows, kick everyone out of the way, and screw you senseless if you keep it bare.”  

“Pretty I’d want to screw her senseless no matter fucking what,” Negan’s voice called from the other side of the closed bedroom door.  “I'm guessing it’s not safe for me to come in?”  

I was about to let him, but Eric glared at me.  “No, it’s not fucking safe.  Haven’t you two assholes tempted fate enough?”  Another eye roll from me and he snickered.  “Shut up, whore, you know I’m right.”  

“Let me know when you’re ‘decent’,” Negan called out, and I chuckled when I heard Trey mimic him by yelling ‘decen’ over and over.