#rob booth

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

The Librarians 3x1 - "And the Rise of Chaos"

[brokehorrorfan]

Terror Threads has released four House of 1000 Corpses shirts designed by Yannick Bouchard, Toto6, Casey Booth, and Sam Coyne. Priced at $32, they'll ship the week of August 12.

[angelmichelangelo]

sometimes i think about the time in the 2012 series donnie called mikey ‘michael’ and then they never said it again. like, he was Done with him and decided for wrongly full name him like, that’s just really funny to me idk why

[mryaksalot]

Okay, but can we all admit what an absolute savage Yakko was in this?

"You know what I like about you, Plotz? Absolutely nothing!"

[cryptocollectibles]

Deathmate 6 Issue Lot (1993) by Image and Valiant Comics

Written and drawn by various.

[zenzeroruletheworld]

Feel like Jack and Valerie would go to the cinema and start arguing at the ticket booth because Valerie wants to see Oppenheimer and Jack wants to see Barbie.

[wearenotswans]

There’s gotta be thousands of dollars in candy sitting in my living room.

[batgeance]

good morning to bruce absolutely eating shit after obliterating tons of gothamites in his squirrel suit

[schismusic]

THE DISCOGRAPHY PRINCIPLE, Episode 1: Autechre - or, Into Battle with the Art of Noise

The discography principle may be defined as an objective way to determine whether or not you're worthy of calling a band or artist "your favorite" or "one of your favorites". A possible enunciation of it goes as follows:

"Let u ≝ some asshole, B ≝ {b|b is a band}, n ≝ #({x|x is a record by b}); let p = #({y|y is a record by b in u's possession}) = p1 + p2 wherein p1 ≝ number of physical records by b you own in any format and p2 ≝ number of records by b you have downloaded. If p ≥ n ∨ p2 = n (for n → +∞), then ∃b∈B such that b is one of u's favorite bands."

When u = me, this subset of B (which we might call Bf) is comprised of six bands, off the top of my head: Autechre, Godflesh, Shellac, Kraftwerk, Fugazi and Coil, listed in no particular order.

If you want to read the prologue to this series, go here. Otherwise, let's get going.

The concept of usefulness in the context of art criticism is very slippery and, one could argue, absolutely toxic and painful to the development of artistic expressions of all kinds. I have, in the past, been one of the leading proponents of it, but you have to understand: I routinely dealt with people who would add Arctic Monkeys and late-era Caparezza to their end-of-year lists. Drastic measures were in order, I'm sure you guys get it. In virtually all other instances, defining a record "useless" falls into one of the earliest trappings of retrograde art criticism, which is the supposed non-functionality of bad art, or more punctually the quality of non-functionality as inherently bad - wherein I am rather ready to assure you all that most of my favourite records of the past six or seven years fall into the category of absolutely unapproachable crocks of shit OR are records absolutely no one felt the need for except me (and even then, sometimes I didn't even know I'd love them, see Yellow Eyes' recent neofolk foray Master's Murmur).

A similar argument could be made for the concept of incomprehensibility. There are records that are just cryptic for the hell of it - and it would be unfair to label power electronics as such, in that power electronics is usually very direct with what it is about and how it takes it across, but early Brandt Brauer Frick records might very easily fit the bill: who, really, feels the need for live-played techno with classically trained interpreters except for people who like to groove but also have to pretend they know their shit about music and don't want any of that fake computer shit? Or even, why would anyone legitimately give a shit about a Stephen O'Malley record without guitars? - but Autechre I think are simply a different beast. Wherein the vulgata concerning their production essentially revolves around the idea that their first three are the best, then it's all noises and "self-serving experimentation", whatever the fuck that means, and for as many autism jokes people like to make about their music because they simply don't want to even try to give their music a fair chance to stand on its own and just pretend like "wow these guys sure are making computer farts haha", one of the best conversations about music I've had in a while revolves around something that binds Autechre and another dearly-beloved of all obnoxious music people, and later also featured in this series: Coil. And I'm not talking about the (very openly stated) relationship of most-likely-mutual influence between the two groups, but it does stem from that, or more specifically from the aborted collaborative record they toyed with in the early 2000s. This aforementioned collaborative record (which, in the early 2000s, would have probably sold like pre-sliced and pre-Nutella-coated bread to the admittedly very specific audiences the two projects had, regardless of its actual outcome) was shelved, and I quote verbatim, for "not being good enough", which is simply something that you do not do in electronic music unless you are really, really good at what you do - the best at what you do, even. Which would explain why no one ever shuts the fuck up in that particular world and everyone has like a full record and three splits/EPs out every year.

Autechre is something you have to want to waste a lot of time (and money, if you're an obsessive like me) into. There's a number of very cute cheat codes to getting Autechre but the gist of it is that just about nobody I know actually followed the advice literally everyone hands out - i.e. to start with Incunabula. I know I absolutely didn't. The first Autechre record I listened to was Confield, which I later purchased at a certain particularly well-known record shop in my city: my first thought was I really didn't know what to make of it. In retrospect, it's no surprise: literally any other Autechre record would have been better. There are more accessible ones and more inaccessible ones, but either of these options probably would have given me a different shock that would probably have hit me harder. Had I picked up a record like Amber, or Tri Repetae, I probably would have been like "damn this is very '90s but at the same time it still sounds very futuristic in terms of approach and arrangement choices, there's like a billion albums-of-the-month on Pitchfork that sound exactly like any one of these tracks but stretched to forty minutes to one hour" and maybe give it another listen, and then two, and then before I know it Rsdio becomes my most played track of the year (unfortunately, as you might have guessed, this isn't autobiographical, but that's because I ultimately got Tri Repetae on vinyl and mostly play it from there - it's "incomplete without surface noise", after all). If I had picked elseq, or - God forbid - the NTS Sessions, which at that point had been out for like a year or something, you know for a fact I would have tried to get absolutely fucked up by listening to the full four-hour thing while doing something really stupid, like taking a walk around in a blizzard or while in sleep deprivation or while studying linear algebra hoping that my brain would increase in mass all of a sudden. I would not have gotten it, obviously, because I was and to a massive extent still am an idiot who got lucky. Anyway, the point is that Confield felt and in part still feels to me like it's unexpressed potential, but not in the way a record like Radioactivity by Kraftwerk is: Confield looks at you, the listener, and goes "there's a whole other world where we already are. Too bad you can't see any of this shit, because we most definitely do!". Its second half gets noticeably more focused if you listen to the whole thing in sequence, though.

My second attempt was with Oversteps, bought on the same day as Confield, and again - at that point I was already kind of expecting Autechre to just fucking smoke me right then and there. Of course it did not happen, because Oversteps is a fundamentally easier record to approach than Confield is - and in buying it, I also missed the chance to buy Exai, which promptly disappeared from the record shop the very second I managed to go back there, and which would have probably gotten me in a whole ass elseq loop, but let's not dwell on the past, what the fuck did I know then? It's not like anyone has the idea to start with a two-hour-and-a-half impenetrable wall of glitching after all. Whatever. Oversteps is pretty cool though, because it gave me a pretty neat access into a number of other Autechre factory-seals like their stark sense of melody and a style of compositionl development recalling more the idea of a place than it would an actual track (and not even in the Ambient 4: On Land way, where it's "music that describes environments" inspired by the anything-goes bombastic mnemonic approach of Federico Fellini's Amarcord, but rather in its own way of "music that is the environment it describes": spatially organized arrangements, something meant for you to explore, and as such something that you need to spend time in, perhaps repeatedly). Obviously articulating this train of thought was absolutely out of the question and I therefore kept saying "damn, I need to get to this record and listen to it in full", which I later found out doesn't fly more often than not. Autechre is something you want to get back to and waste a shit ton of time on, every track approached like a little world or some sort of escape room even, where all the clues are there and everything you need to do is look (listen) more intently than you did before. I like to think of Autechre as a challenge and I'm assuming that Sean Booth and Rob Brown kinda see it like that too, but not as a challenge to the listener as much as they do it to challenge themselves.

There are absolutely going to be Autechre records you like more than others, some are not gonna speak to you at all, some might be more approachable or just more stylistically in line with what you do (and the best part is that you're gonna find it changes from person to person), but the best part is that there is never an Autechre record that feels thrown out for a quick buck or rushed or forced to develop old ideas and intuitions - for better or for worse, that is. At the same time there definitely is a form of continuity that makes it especially rewarding to listen to Autechre sequentially, the way some people like to watch and rank a director's filmography.

After the pandemic ended, and as people were beginning to go out again albeit maybe wearing masks and gloves, I dropped out of Mathematics and started watching a ton of movies. I fell in love with Nicolas Winding Refn, a director that makes it really easy to put on a movie and let it slide over your skin bathing you in thrills and aesthetics, but is pretentious enough to make that stuff at least try to have something to say (some people argue that it's detrimental to Refn's work, and to an extent I agree; I, for one, simply can't help but appreciate a man who very gleefully declares that the female experience is a mystery to him and at the same time that there's a sixteen-year-old girl within him and that he plays dolls with his daughters and that he never had a girlfriend until he met his current wife Lia Corfixen. The Neon Demon feels like it'd be just one step away from being a male-gaze-glorifying flick if it wasn't for its inherent absurdity and absolute lack of understanding of human relationships that makes it that bit less relatable and more forcefully estranging). Anyway as I was fixating on Refn's movies and downloaded all of them to watch and rewatch them, I also found myself back onto Autechre and decided to take a step back. This time I picked Amber - Incunabula being described as their masterpiece still sort of intimidated me. In retrospect, if I had heard Incunabula without a clear picture of what Autechre would evolve into, I'd have had a hearty laugh and thought something like "man, this aged horribly". Amber has a bit of an edge to it, despite what Booth & Brown say about it, and the elements left over from Incunabula are turned into a less rigid, more impalpable version of themselves that isn't afraid to, for instance, remove all drums and toy with the listener's sense of rhythm in a way something like Kalpol Introl never really did (see: Nine) or face a horrifying creeping darkness that Incunabula's more clearly urban/cyberpunk sensitivities more swiftly dealt with, for instance on tracks like Teartear.

Not one to be easily discouraged (at least when I feel like it), at the first opportunity I decided to buy a record I didn't already know: the choice fell on Tri Repetae, in that it was the next step in the Autechre canon (EPs notwithstanding) and I knew it'd be a step closer to Confield. I wanted to see what the story went like, on its own terms, because the key to this whole ordeal was that I needed to let the record do the talking before I had an opinion on it. And Tri Repetae really did talk to me, because it was exactly what I expected: it had the more discernible elements of early Autechre but also, again, an edge. It's that edge for me: that's the point of interest I end up into, the sort of liminal in-fieri elements that all Autechre releases imply to an extent, and the fact that something as fundamentally ungraspable as C/Pach or Rsdio feeling like it got back home after a whole sleepless night out walking in the cold could coexist with a veritable banger like Eutow (still the one track from Tri Repetae that elicits the most powerful emotional/elated reactions from me) simply blew my mind. Dancing to Eutow in my room and immediately finding myself bobbing my head to, of course, C/Pach and then Gnit led to the next realization in a long series: after everything that's been said about them, the being a four-dimensional object, the being famously impenetrable to all but the most dedicated nerds, the truth about Autechre is that they are a band about rhythm.

I don't exactly expect anyone to be surprised by this, really, but the conscious realization that what I had read on Wikipedia in passing (that Sean and Rob actually met up in the '80s while in the tagging/hip-hop/electro scene in London) actually had bearing on the duo's production was the key to unlocking the rest of their music. Every single thing Autechre have ever done has a form of pulse in it and it takes movement for it to be fully tapped into. Some hacks have recommended listening to Autechre on headphones (deep cuts on YouTube, I see you!) but as for me, I recommend speakers, possibly big, possibly hi-fi, possibly equalized for techno/dance music, and I recommend listening to them with a lot of free space around you. The inherent exploration of space that dancing entails very easily translates into an exploration of the underlying structures in Autechre's (whatchamacallit) songwriting, and from there the rest follows. Even Incunabula, which I finally tackled in summer 2023 and appreciated for what it is: provided you can deal with outdated sound palettes, an excellent record that stands as a true high mark in the exploration of analog instrumentation possibilities, a true forward-looking and forward-pushing debut outing on whose shoulders all future Autechre releases stand, even the most radical.

But Autechre could never stand still and simply replicate Incunabula all over n billion times; that's simply not the cloth they're cut from, and if that was the case I'd be very hard-pressed to think they'd feel as relevant as they do with every subsequent release. That they could drop, in sequence, Exai, the whole five records of elseq and the NTS Sessions boxset and still elicit the electrified reactions they did, both positive and negative.

One of the first serious conversations about music that I had with my old band's bassist was about electronic music, which was actually somewhat foundational to my appreciation of this particular art form (I was a die-hard Daft Punk/Justice guy, Waters of Nazareth and Genesis were to me what Metallica or System of a Down to a number of other people I know: a show of force that made me conscious of the physical impact of sound on a human's body, not just pleasant vibrations to the ears). She told me - and I'm willing to bet that was an old idea that she has since discarded - that she really didn't feel like electronic music was alive, and with music being "life" to her that was a true oxymoron that rendered her incapable of objectively judging electronica. At the time I would have never showed her Autechre, if anything because I did not know them if not by name, but my current understanding of them makes them the most serious counterargument to that affirmation. Autechre's music doesn't try to measure up to the feel of live band jamming because it doesn't need to, despite it often being (according to Booth and Brown) the result of lengthy, additive improvisations that the duo trade back and forth. It simply takes a step sideways, making all analysis on those terms essentially unserviceable and useless. And if it wasn't as massively pretentious as it is, this shit simply wouldn't fly: any tension to a conventionally-imaginable sense of humanity would make it clear that the duo aren't into it really, and ironically it ends up feeling less believable; it starts breathing weird, it turns into a captatio benevolentiae to the listener. And Autechre is meant to challenge us, or rather it's meant to challenge me, and Sean Booth and Rob Brown.

Ironically enough, Autechre's records feel more and more rewarding the more you get familiar with them, and therefore it turns into its own peculiar brand of process music, so to speak. And it's a hell of a process, granted, but it definitely has something to say to you as a listener, if you're willing to give it a shot. Autechre's music is incomprehensible and useless, if you don't know what to make of it, but the only way to know what to make of it is engage in it and make up your own mind about it.

[glampacked]

jumpscare of a lifetime seeing a picture of myself in a video glenn howerton posted on instagram :(

[mitjalovse]

Some standalone singles do not interfere with the usual modus operandi of their musicians thanks to the latter always being themselves and they continue to do so there. Autechre, for instance, do their thing, so their standalones do the same with one of them being one of their more intriguing works thanks to the way they presented the piece. You see, they didn't specify the speed on which the tune is played on the vinyl. The song does sound intriguing on a variety of RPMs, but this gives a strangely democratic feeling to what they did. However, this release also cause one to notice Autechre are more than this monolith many made them to be, though I presume their fans made them this way. I assume they do feel baffled over their whole reputation.

[leviabeat]

Rob stuck in a phone booth

Via his Instagram story

[deadsetobsessions]

Danny used to be a vigilante, firmly on the side of good. Like, illegally, but morally good.

Danny’s 100% sure that whatever he is now, it’s not good.

Is Gotham’s influence just Like That?

He was homeless when he got to this thrice damned city (literally, because Lady Gotham was so cursed) and now he’s… here? In a mid-level penthouse with a rotation of homeless kids going in and out of his kitchen and eating out his pantry??

Danny adjusted the cuffs of his dress shirt, making the conscious decision to ditch the tie. He’s a tall 6ft 4 now, taking after his Dad. His head smarted all of the time, hitting doorframes when he was being a bit clumsier than the normal ghost-like grace he had learned to channel as The Phantom.

The Phantom instead of just Phantom. Why? Because Phantom was the name of a teenage vigilante in another dimension. The Phantom, on the other hand, is an intimidatingly tall, deceptively kind, extremely dangerous kingpin.

Honestly? Danny didn’t even want this life. Like, he had no idea it would snowball like this??

He supposed that it all started when the Penguin was trying to snatch kids off of his block on Crime Alley. Not officially his block, of course, because Danny didn’t actually enter this city to be a crime-shadow thing. But he hadn’t lost enough of Phantom the Vigilante to ignore kids getting hurt. He still hasn’t, if he’s being honest. He flew into a frantic search, tracking down the missing kids to Penguin’s bar. The Iceberg Lounge. Apparently, he wanted the kids to do some menial tasks and what not. Danny, rage flickering through his core, intangibly went in and robbed Penguin of every coin and secret the man kept.

Then? Danny blackmailed the Penguin to guarantee his kids a measure of safety from the Rogue. That began the slippery slope into whatever it is he does now. Penguin was being kept in line by Danny’s threats, the grip he had on the Rogue’s weak points, and a wonderful bit of intimidation.

——

“What, you stinking phantom? I’m stickin’ to yer rules!” Penguin snarled, forced to his knees by invisible blob ghosts.

Danny, salty and pissy from the lack of sleep he’d experienced trying to keep Penguin’s men in line as a result of Penguin trying to test where Danny’s lines were, dropped the temperature to the point where Penguin started shivering. Considering the place was already cold- the Iceberg lounge lived up to its name- it meant that Danny was standing nonchalantly in a room that was negative twenty five degree Celsius in a sweatshirt, Danny was already making good on his natural intimidation factor.

“It’s The Phantom to you, Oswald.” Danny said, in the tone of someone saying “it’s the shit, to you.”

Danny narrowed his blue eyes, letting a tiny tint of ectoplasm make his eyes glow a bit in the suddenly icing over room.

“Your people have been getting on my nerves, Oswald. Roughing up kids is so… uncultured. Are you sure you’re a Cobblepot?”

Penguin snarled, the effect of which was rendered ineffective due to his increasingly violent shivers. Plus, Danny loomed over him without even trying.

Danny, annoyed and asking himself “What Would Dan Do To Intimidate This Guy?”, gripped Penguin’s shoulder and hauled him up one handed. He dragged the mob boss over to one of the booths, avoiding the bodies he’d dropped (non-lethally) when Danny first walked in to ruin Penguin’s night. He shoved Penguin in chair he iced over, because Danny’s petty and if he saw one more bruise on his kids at Penguin’s hands, Danny was gonna go full Dan the Murderer.

He at least allowed to room to warm up before laying into Penguin, though. He stayed standing. Hey, he had the height advantage to use. He could have kept Penguin kneeling, but it was probably god the best that the mob boss got some sense of pride back.

(Danny had no idea that sitting as someone loomed over you to lecture and threaten you was even worse than kneeling. At least with kneeling, you knew where you stood. But sitting? It leaves you horribly off kilter.)

“I told you to keep your people in line. Kids are off limits, Oswald.”

“I kept them in line!”

Never let it be said that Oswald Cobblepot had a normal functioning sense of self preservation.

“Really?” Danny jabbed his pointer finger lightly on top of Penguin’s trachea and allowed his fingernails to sharpen into Phantom’s sharper digits. Penguin tried to lean away. “Then why did they start a gun fight when there were kids visible on the street? Why did I see one of my kids get hit by one of your poor excuses of a bouncer?”

“I-”

“Don’t care much for your excuses, if I’m being honest. I let you mess around with the little projects you have, without even breathing a whisper of your secrets. Sionis would love to know how you double crossed him the last deal, yeah?”

“I- I’ll keep them in line!” Penguin stuttered.

“Well, I believe in second chances,” Danny bullshitted. Ancients, how was this even working? “So I suggest you make an example of the guy that smacked Hailey around before I make an example out of you, Oswald.”

“Fine! Fine!”

——

And with that, he got access to Penguin’s resources and men and more importantly, the corrupt police officers. He made Penguin “boot out” the pedophilic ones (in a very violent way) and kept the rest.

Then? Mr. Freeze froze over the god damn pipes and Danny had to intimidate and make a deal with the Rogue so he and his increasing roster of orphans had access to warm water.

In exchange for Danny’s restorative and, more importantly, unmelting ice, Mr. Freeze was now Danny’s… on-call enforcer?? When he’s not researching cures for his frozen in a pod wife, that is.

Danny was satisfied with that. He was! But then Black Mask happened, with the man trying to engage in a battle of wits with Danny over the control of Crime Alley which, at that point, was firmly Danny’s territory.

The thing is, Danny doesn’t play nice anymore. Why bother with pointless mind games when he could just…

——

“So, you’re The Phantom.”

“And you’re Sionis.”

Black Mask twitched at the name, gloved hands pulling out his guns. Danny sat on the counter, head touching mid cabinet, and sipped out of Sionis’ favorite mug.

Because Danny broke into Black Mask’s safe house and stole his quality coffee. The man’s eyes were wary.

“How did you get in here?”

Danny shrugged. “Walked.”

Danny held the coffee out of the way as Sionis unloaded a clip into his chest and lunged forward to slap a mask onto Danny’s face. After waiting a bit, as Black Mask’s smug triumph bled into shock, Danny laughed and, using a bit of his natural strength, tossed the guy off of him. He casually took the mask off of his face.

“Jeez, I’m trying to be nice, here.”

“So, you’re a Meta.”

Danny grinned. “Eh. And you’re a cult leader with a mask fetish.”

Danny tuned out the rant about the “true face of Gotham” or whatever, already bored, and sipped at Sionis’ coffee. The ass might be a psycho, but his coffee tastes were wonderful. Danny stood up, rinsed his mug, and turned back to Black Mask.

“You’re trafficking people. Kids.” He said, cutting through Sionis’ chatter. He was sly about it too, committing violence and torture in a way that would ensure obedience and fear. Danny probably would have never caught on, Black Mask’s schemes being so ingeniously created and executed, had he not kept a hawk’s eyes on the more vulnerable members of Crime Alley’s community. And the rest of Gotham’s vulnerable communities, of course.

“My, a wonderfully obvious conclusion. Now, Phantom, I have a proposition for you.”

Sionis seemed to have gotten his bearings back. Danny tilted his head at him, looking down.

“You can work for me,” Sionis said, before opening a laptop with video feed to one of his masked men or whatever holding a knife to one of Danny’s more fearless kids. Danny snarled.

“Or, refuse, and your kid will lose a finger for every instance of your defiance.”

“I told you not to touch the kids, Sionis. I don’t allow trafficking either.”

Black Mask chuckled. “Cut off a finger, Sadness.”

“Yes, bos- ARGHHHH!”

Danny watched as Mr. Freeze froze the goon’s arms before breaking them.

“I’ve got her, Phantom.”

Danny nodded at Freeze, keeping an eye on Sionis in case the fool bolts.

“So, what are your cards now, Sionis? You’ve sure pissed me off with nothing to show for it.”

And that was the last night anyone heard from the one that was supposed to be the King of Crime.

But Gotham knew the head mounted on a pike at one of Black Mask’s hastily abandoned bases was a warning, that The Phantom was watching.

——

Then he somehow got a gaggle of more orphans that were undead zombie “Talons?”

From there, he just obtained influence over the crime bosses of Gotham. Because his Talons kept bringing him heads and blackmail and his crime alley kids and Gotham orphans kept bringing him information for food and safety?

But like, Danny never wanted anything in exchange for the safety he provided. His core could give less of a shit whether he got anything in return. But he couldn’t convince his kids of that! They’re putting themselves in danger and ugh-!

Danny checked himself once more in the mirror. Ready, he stepped out into the night to wait for the Bats at his new favorite VIP spots.

On the way, he passed Ivy and Harley, who he waved to. Pamela worked under him because he controlled Gotham’s criminal underground (which also mean the official parts of the city considering the sheer amount of corruption) and influenced them into more plant friendly methods. His dominion over Undergrowth also helped immensely.

Harley? They’re friends. He beat up and crippled her abusive ex. She gave him therapy and stopped torturing people for fun.

Danny stepped into the back door of the Iceberg Lounge. No one stopped him. No one dared to.

He settled onto a velvet couch, nodding respectfully at the server that had immediately and nervously set down his mai tai. He glanced around for cameras and wire taps, before giving up and upping his ectoplasmic output to short any recording devices out.

He sipped his drink as he waited.

“Batman.”

“Phantom.”

“Oh, good. You didn’t bring Robin,” Danny said, watching Batman tense. “Kids shouldn’t be in places like these.”

Batman stayed silent.

“Come on, sit.” Danny gestured to the couch across from him.

“This isn’t a social call. I’ll stop whatever you’re scheming-” Batman growled.

“Oh my god, you’re so dramatic. Is this where Nightwing gets it from?”

Batman snarled.

“Sit, sit.” Danny rolled his eyes.

Batman stayed stubbornly looming. Danny sighed, allowing his voice to slip into velvet danger.

“I told you to sit, Bruce Wayne.”

“You-”

“I won’t repeat myself again, Bruce. You’re testing my patience.”

Bruce sat, wary and hyper vigilant. Danny sighed, settling back in his chair.

“You’ve heard of Red Hood, yes? Don’t answer that, it was hypothetical. I know you’ve heard of him.” Danny waved a hand impatiently. “I don’t really care why he’s setting up shop in my Alley, but he’s upsetting the other crime lords. They’re asking me to interfere.”

“I don’t work for you.”

“No,” Danny acknowledged with a nod. “But I could make you, if you push it. Politeness would serve you much better right now, Bruce, seeing as I am doing you a… favor. And since I’m not shouting to the world who you are under the cowl.”

Danny gave Batman a pointed, patented, mom glare.

“… Apologies.”

“Now, you might be wondering what that favor is.” Danny watched Batman’s cowled face carefully. “I thought you should know that the Red Hood is your “Jason Todd.’”

Batman was still. And then Batman leapt at him, snarling, “How dare you-!”

Danny caught the vigilante by the throat and squeezed.

Batman’s flurry of punches- which, mildly ow, those gauntlets kind of hurt- quickly changed to clawing and maneuvers to get out of the choke hold. Danny held steady, cutting off the vigilante’s air supply until he began to go limp. He’s not Superman. Danny will bruise and kill, if he had to.

“Are you going to listen to me now?” Danny asked mildly, emulating both Black Mask’s drawl and Dan’s effortless psychosis.

Batman gave a weak nod. Danny plopped him unceremoniously back onto his couch. He sipped on his drink once more as he waited for Batman to cough some sweet air back into his lungs.

“I’m telling you to get your little birds in line before I have to go hunting, yeah? Keep your kids out of danger, Bruce, and I won’t have to step in.”

“He- how do you know..?” The growl isn’t there anymore, and Danny felt a smug sense of vindication of having smothered it out of the guy. Woah, no, that thought was too Dan and too little Danny. Danny handed him a cup of water, which Batman didn’t drink.

Danny rolled his eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Drink. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it by now. And as for how I know…”

Danny held up a beat up copy of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, filled with Jason’s writing. He tossed it to Batman, who caught it with blank eyes.

“Water,” Danny reminded him firmly, feeling like a mother hen. Batman gulped down his water, eyes flicking between the pages of Jason’s annotated book. Ancients, Danny couldn’t believe he annotated his book. A crime lord, like that? Well, it’s not like Danny could say anything.

Batman looked up at him, a silent demand- no, plea, because he’s not in a position to make demands- for an answer.

“Broke into his safe house. You should contact your fling, Talia. Seems like she dunked him into these “Lazarus pits” and told him you replaced him with the current Robin.”

Danny could see Batman’s emotional gears hard at work and honestly, he doesn’t have time for that.

“Now, we’re done here. You owe me one for the information. I’ll collect later.” Danny grabbed the Dark Knight, who stayed oddly unresisting (shock, maybe?) , and hauled him up.

“Tell Tim Drake to eat more. He looks too skinny.” With that, Danny dragged the Dark Knight to the window and punted him out. His kids were waiting on hot chocolate night and Danny had to go shopping for quality ingredients.

——

“YOU COULDN’T HAVE TOLD ME THE BIGGEST CRIME LORD OF YOUR CITY WAS THE FUCKING HIGH KING OF THE INFINITE REALMS?!”

“Hn.”

“BLOODY HELL, DON’T YOU GRUNT AT ME, YOU BROODY BASTARD!”

Constantine let out a scream. Shite, the king who held his soul contract was a crime lord. Great.

——

The reason intelligence and convoluted schemes and genius doesn’t work against Danny is because he’s got weird standards of what he’ll tolerate and the fact is that his normal dumbassery and mother hen tendencies cancels out and coherent thoughts or plans he might have had.

[rafescvntyclubgf]

𝓕𝓮𝓫𝓻𝓾𝓻𝓪𝓯𝓮𝔂

​🇹​​🇭​​🇪​ ​🇱​​🇴​​🇻​​🇪​ ​🇨​​🇴​​🇦​​🇨​​🇭​

𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝚐𝚕𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚑

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡!𝐑𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐱 𝐂𝐄𝐎!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

+18 𝓜𝓲𝓷𝓸𝓻 𝓓𝓝𝓘

𝙲𝙴𝙾!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚜 𝚙𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚏𝚞𝚕. 𝚂𝚑𝚎’𝚜 𝚋𝚞𝚒𝚕𝚝 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚏𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝚗𝚎𝚐𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜—𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚊𝚌𝚑 𝚁𝚊𝚏𝚎 𝙲𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚕𝚎𝚜, 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚌𝚛𝚞𝚜𝚑 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚎𝚔 𝚕𝚊𝚠𝚢𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚕, 𝙿𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝙷𝚎𝚢𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍. 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚁𝚊𝚏𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛, 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚕𝚞𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚖.

cw | smut, swearing, older!rafe, pet names, jealousy, possessiveness, unprotected p in v, choking, oral female receiving, squirting.

𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙

Reader’s POV:

You look out the window of your glass-walled office, adjusting and smoothing the fabric of your blazer nervously, watching as the city bustles below you—people rushing around with somewhere to be and someone to see. Expect you…

You would be lying if you said you were proud of how fast you climbed the ladder, but rightfully so; that ascent didn’t come without a cost. Your life was full of staff meetings, high-stress phone calls, and negotiations. On paper, you had it all: money, power, and influence, except for one thing: someone to share it all with. Romance. What the hell is that, anyway?

Walking over to your desk, you crash down in your chair, blowing out the breath you didn’t know you were holding in, letting your shoulders fall for a beat. You take in the silence around you momentarily, your thoughts robbing you of that peace fast.

You were focused so much on your career that everything else seemed to fall by the wayside. Until recently…

Pope Heyward.

The handsome lawyer across the hall in your highrise. He was everything you found attractive: handsome, intelligent, kind… You first noticed him when you shared an elevator ride. He greeted you with a polite smile and a warm and rich ‘Good morning.’ You tripped and tumbled over your words, avoiding eye contact entirely. Each morning since has been a compilation of the world's most basic gestures: finger waves and nods in passing.

It was maddening. You could hold a boardroom at your command and negotiate multi-million dollar deals without breaking a sweat, but a simple smile from that handsome lawyer had you tongue-tied and flustered. You felt ridiculous. Even worse, you felt helpless.

One particularly lonely night, you poured yourself a glass of wine and grabbed your phone, pulling up every magazine article and self-help blog you could. It wasn’t long before you stumbled upon a man promising you precisely what you were looking for. Romance. All achievable with the help of Matchmaker and Love Coach Rafe Cameron…

His website was professional–Its pages filled with testimonials from executives, lawyers, doctors, and other high-powered professionals who had forgotten about their love lives along the way.

You were hesitant, fingers hovering over the contact button, digits drumming on the arm of your couch, holding yourself back until you broke. Hiring Rafe to fix all the problems with your love life felt absurd, but it was broken… You would do the same to any other thing or aspect of your life that needed fixing. Why not this too?

The next day, you sat in a private booth, looking out onto the cafe you were waiting at. Your lips trembled as you took a few sips of coffee. You looked down at your watch, clocking the time–two minutes until your planned meeting time. Your heart started to pound in your chest, your body felt like it needed to flee—

“Miss?”

You looked up from your seat, startled and wide-eyed. Rafe was younger than you expected: light hair and striking blue eyes that twinkled in the warm cafe lights. He smiled, making your heart skip a beat.

“Rafe Cameron,” he said, extending a hand. Your cheeks warmed at how clammy your grip was. He had been in your presence for no more than 10 seconds, and he could already tell you were a mess when it came to this. He reached for the button of his tailored navy blazer, unfastening it before sitting across from you.

“Thank you for meeting me,” you said, trying to steady your voice.

“Of course. Of course. So, what can I help you with?” He asks as he tilts his head slightly, the sight of the beautiful man before you sending you into a tailspin.

“Umm… I – I don’t have time for dating.”

“Of course, you don’t; you’re very successful,” he praises. “You didn’t get to the position you’re in by accident.”

You shake your head and smile softly, taking in his compliment. You glance down at your coffee, finding yourself slightly overwhelmed with his full focus as you come to terms with the fact that this is the longest conversation you’ve had with a man in years that had something to do with anything other than business.

“Well, when I meet someone, I tend to overthink it and freeze up… It’s frustrating.”

“And you’re not used to that in your career, so why is your private life so different?” He asks earnestly, voicing all your concerns like he’s reading your mind. “It’s not uncommon... You’re so used to excelling in every aspect of your work life–you’re so used to being in control–that dating feels like that one thing you just can’t seem to get right.”

“Exactly,” you sigh.

“We just have to get you out of your head, yeah?” He asks.

“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” You whisper against the lip of your coffee cup before taking a sip.

Your heart starts to race as Rafe smile stretches along his pretty lips. He leans forward, lessening the space between the two of you. “The basics first: confidence, connection, clarity.”

“Sounds easier said than done,” you chuckle weakly.

Rafe grins and nods in agreement. “Once you get that little bit of confidence and find something you really want, everything will fall into place, I promise. Is there someone you want?” You bite your lip, stifling a smile. “Great,” Rafe said, his grin widening.

“He’s a lawyer across the hall from my office,” you gossip; your voice is soft and meek.

“Really? That’s perfect. Tell me about him.”

⊹ 💌 ⁺ ˳ ✿ . ♥️ ࿐ 𝒶 𝒻𝑒𝓌 𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓀𝓈 𝓁𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓇…

“You’re quiet,” Rafe hums during your afternoon session as his beautiful blue eyes continue to study your movements. “What’s on your mind?”

You take a deep breath, rolling out the tension in your neck. “Nothing… You know how I am.”

“Talk to me,” he answers simply, leaning into the arm of the oversized office chair.

“Just work,” you answer. “It’s nothing really–boring “me” stuff.”

“Bullshit,” he laughs and shakes his head. “Lay it on me. You know you can talk to me–” And that’s the problem. You could talk to him for hours, without hesitation–without stress. Talking to Rafe was the opposite of speaking to the Pope, his presence making you crumble before him. Still…

“It’s discouraging,” you whisper, the words barely escaping your lips. “With you, I feel like I can do it–”

“It?”

“Be me. I don’t know why it’s so hard with him.”

“Do you think you’re trying to be the kind of woman you think he wants instead of showing him who you are?”

Your lips draw to the side as you take in his words. “Maybe…”

“Well, there’s no need for that… You’re more than enough,” he praises.

Rafe crosses his arms over his broad chest, reading you like a book. The material of his linen shirt strains as his muscles flex unintentionally; a playful smile plays on his lips as he looks back at you.

Your lashes flutter as you feel butterflies swirl in your stomach. You break eye contact, feeling the weight of his stare.

It’s nothing…. Rafe is good at what he does—reading people and making them feel seen. That’s why it was so easy to talk to him. That’s all it was.

It wasn’t just the praise that lingered… It was the way he said it and looked into your eyes that had your heart racing. You bite your lips, hanging your head momentarily, pulling yourself back to reality.

He’s the man trying to help you… Stop.

“Let’s run through a scenario, hmm?” Rafe asks, breaking the silence. Your eyes lift to his in annoyance, making Rafe snorts out a laugh. “C’mon. It’s your favorite,” he teases as he pushes himself out of the chair, rolling up the sleeves of his button-down shirt. “Elevator.”

You poke out your bottom lip as you look back at him, stepping out from behind your desk before walking toward him. “Elevator again?” You sigh.

“Mhmm…” He breathes as he looks down at you, taking a step closer. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’d ask him about his day… Maybe ask if he had plans for the weekend.”

“Good,” he smiles. “And what else?” The corner of his lips curl into a smirk

Your breath catches in your chest as his rich cologne fills your nose. “I–I…” You swallow hard, trying to gain the confidence you lost in a moment.

“I?” He asks as his brows lift, urging you to speak and recall anything he taught you.

“I–” You swallow the lump that formed in your throat. “I’d probably panic and say something stupid about work,” you breathe, letting your shoulders fall as you look up at him with hopeless eyes.

Rafe laughs deeply, sending a warmth straight through you.

“You’re overthinking it… You’re not trying to impress him, remember? You’re just talking. You’re not trying to change yourself. It does not have to be him, aight? If he’s not a good fit for you, someone else will be. Pope Heyward is not the end all to be all… But, if he is, he’s a lucky man, okay?”

“Okay,” you whisper.

"You've idealized him in your mind, and now you are worried you’ll fall short of this ideal. You don't have to prove anything— not to him, not to anyone. He should be so lucky. So just speak to him like you’d speak to me.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“That’s because it is,” Rafe hums, his voice softening. “You’re incredible. You just need to believe it and let him in.”

Ring. Ring.

Your phone buzzes, breaking the tension between the two of you. You walk over, looking down at the notification for the three o’clock meeting. “Can we finish this conversation on the road? I have a meeting.”

Rafe follows you to the elevator, stepping inside with you. Your heart skips a beat, and your body freezes as you notice the two other people in there as well: Pope and Alexis Johnson, his partner at the firm.

“Are you going up?” Pope’s baritone voice fills the lift. You look up at him and smile, nodding your head as you feel your anxiety rise. He lets out a breathy chuckle, giving you a sweet smile. “Floor?” He mouths the words inaudible.

“Oh, umm, twenty-five,” you smile as you lean forward simultaneously, bumping hands before letting him select it for you.

You look out of the corner of your eye, catching Rafe’s half-focus as he looks down at his phone, trying to act nonchalant. Your eyes shift in the other direction, Pope’s eyes greeting yours.

“How’s everything going across the hall?” Pope asks as he turns toward you slightly.

“Oh, uh–um… It’s great,” you say brightly. You feel Rafe’s fingers push against your lower back, urging you to say something else. “How’s it going for you?” You ask, surprising yourself as it comes out, your voice more level than before.

“Keepin’ busy. We’re on our way to a meeting… I can’t even tell you how many I’ve had today,” he sighs.

“Same.”

Silence fills the elevator as the two of you stare at each other, smiling and nodding–not quite sure where to take the conversation next, considering you were two floors away from his stop, and honestly, you didn’t think you’d get much farther than this.

“I… Uh–” Ding. The elevator cuts you off.

“Were you gonna say something?” Pope asks as he leans in a little closer. His partner steps out of the elevator, accepting a phone call. Before you can respond, the elevator door starts to shut, adding to the awkwardness and making you feel like you could die from embarrassment right then and there as Pope catches it.

“No. No, it’s fine,” you assure as he looks over his shoulder at you.

“Okay. Have a great night.”

“You too,” you smile. Your eyes stay locked on the hallway ahead, avoiding eye contact with Rafe, just knowing what he would say next. The door skates closed, your eyes pinching shut with it.

“Rafe, I’m sorry. I–”

Beep.

“Hey,” Pope's voice makes your eyes open, your heart falling into your stomach as he catches the elevator door. “M’sorry if this is too forward, but are you free tonight?”

Your brain freezes again, unable to process his words.

Did Pope Heyward just ask me out after that?

“Tonight?” You repeat shakily.

Pope chuckles lightly. “Mhmm… It’s been on my mind for a while. Figured I might as well ask. I think we could both use a night out.”

You blink fast as you feel your heart hammer in your chest. “Yeah… Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Great,” Pope answers as his smile widens on his lips. He reaches into the breast pocket of his suit, grabbing his card. “Text me? Just tell me where you want to go. Anywhere you’d like.”

You take the card off him, clutching it in your clammy hand as he gives you a nod. “See you tonight.”

“Can’t wait,” you answer as the elevator doors close. You bite your lips, holding back an all-to-wide smile, your eyes wide like saucers, processing what just happened. You turn towards Rafe, meeting his eyes, a mixture of surprise and disbelief painted all over your face. “Did that just happen?” You ask excitedly. Your hand slaps over your mouth, unable to fight it any longer.

“It did,” Rafe answers, his tone light, lacking his usual warmth.

“I mean, he just—out of nowhere—asked me out,” you continue, half-talking to yourself. “I didn’t think he even noticed me like that.”

Rafe adjusts the collar of his shirt, his movements a little more clipped than before. His lips turn upward as he gives you a forced smile. “Why wouldn’t he? You’re brilliant, successful; it would be hard not to notice you.”

You tilt your head, studying him this time.

“Are you okay?”

Your words seem to snap him out of his daze. His eyes and smile get a little brighter, recovering in an instant. “Of course. This is what you’ve been workin’ for. This is what you want. I’m… I am happy for you.”

The two of you exit the elevator and walk toward the meeting rooms. Rafe keeps his eyes locked on the path ahead, his silence unheard of up to this point. His quick wit and notes always seem to be at the ready. You couldn’t help but think that maybe that didn’t go as well as you thought it did…

Rafe looks over at you, trying to keep himself composed.

He’d told himself from the beginning that this was just a job like he had done with so many other people before you without any issue…. His role was to guide you, not feel anything for you.

For weeks, he had helped you build your confidence— to pursue someone else… But there he stood, hearing your excitement over your date, feeling nothing but jealousy, realizing how deeply he miscalculated it all.

He hated the way Pope looked at you… He hated how his chest tightened whenever you mentioned his name or smiled at the thought of another man. But, what he hated the most was the realization that he had already lost you before he ever had the chance to tell you how he felt.

He was dishing out relationship advice and not taking a word of it for himself.

“I’ll see you at our next session,” Rafe smiles, his tone polite but distant.

“Thanks again, Rafe. I’ll let you know how it goes,” you answer as he walks away. He lifts his fist, giving you a thumbs up, his body still turned, unable to even look back at you now.

⊹ 💌 ⁺ ˳ ✿ . ♥️ ࿐ 𝓁𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉…

Knock. Knock.

Your heart flutters as you hear Rafe on the other side of your apartment door. You stand up, smoothing out your dress, feeling your excitement rise.

He had said, ‘he’d see you at your next session.’ but a few hours after he left the office, he called, letting you know he would stop by to send you off. ‘One last pep talk before your big date.’

You open the door with a smile, your breath hitching as you see Rafe—his muscular body hugged in an all-black tailored suit. His black button-down is opened slightly, showing off the gold chain glimmering on his tanned chest.

He looks equally as surprised to see you, his eyes falling down your body as your heart pounds in your chest, your black dress practically painted over your curves. Rafe takes a shallow breath and smiles before looking back at you. “You look… Fuck. You look stunning.”

“Thank you,” you answer bashfully as you step to the side, letting him in, your eyes following the sleek lines of his suit as well. You bite your lip, trying to hold back everything you were holding in. “You look great,” you smile. “Very handsome.”

Rafe grins as he leans back into the counter, a rosy blush washed across his cheeks. He looks down momentarily, collecting himself before returning his attention to you.

“How are you feelin’?” He asks as he relaxes a little more—his eyes still drinking you in.

“A little nervous,” you giggle as you step forward in your sky-high heels, feeling your ankles wobble slightly from your nerves.

“Got no reason to be. But, I get it–” He sighs. “I get that way too sometimes.”

“Really?” You ask.

“Mhmm…” He hums. “I brought you somethin’.” You glance down, noticing the little red bag in his hand.

“You got me a gift?” You gasp.

“A few… Yeah,” he says as he beckons you closer. You take the bag off his hands, pulling out the paper. “You can put this in your ear if you’d like. I think it would be good for me to hear what’s goin’ on. I’m sure it will go just fine, but I think I can give you the best guidance for our next session if I hear it all.”

“Oh?” You ask as you look up at him, pressing the little piece in your ear before covering it with your hair. “Are you coming?”

“That okay? Besides bein’ in your ear, you won’t even know I'm there. Scouts honor.”

Rafe reaches up, rechecking it, letting his rough hand fall slightly to cup your soft cheek. Your heart swells at the contact between the two of you.

“Do you do this for everyone?” You whisper through a slight smile.

He doesn’t answer quite yet, fighting back a smirk as he gives you a little shrug, letting his silence answer your question for the moment.

You lean into him a little, making his heart melt.

“Every client is different…” he mumbles as he pulls out another gift. “Some perfume–Baccarat Rouge–my personal favorite. Romantic, sexy, decadent… everything you are, okay? I want you to feel good.” You feel your cheeks pool with heat, hearing those words fall so easily from his lips.

Rafe reaches out, holding your hand to spray the elixir on your wrist before drawing it to his nose, taking in your scents paired so beautifully together.

“Beautiful.”

You smell it as well, taking in all the rich notes as Rafe reaches into the bag, pulling out one last gift with a smile. A blood-red box with Cartier embossed in gold.

“Rafe-” You start, but he clicks his tongue, stopping you fast.

“Every client’s different…” His voice falls a little more. Rafe steps closer, resting his hands on your hips before turning you around. “Hold your hair for me.”

The warmth of his breath fans along your neck as he wraps the jewelry around your throat before clasping it shut.

“You ready, sweetheart?”

⊹ 💌 ⁺ ˳ ✿ . ♥️ ࿐

You glance around the elegant downtown restaurant, your heart pounding beneath the fitted bodice of your dress. The table is set with fine china and sparkling glasses; candlelights dance softly between them.

This was your chance… This was the moment you’d been working toward for weeks, but all you could think about was earlier. The gifts… Rafe’s sweet words and the moment you shared at your place.

“Relax,” Rafe’s voice comes through softly, calm and reassuring. “You’ve got this. Just be yourself.” You look up at Pope and smile before shifting your attention just over his shoulder, catching Rafe’s sparkling blue eyes as he sips his martini.

You won't even know I'm there…

“So,” Pope says, leaning forward slightly.

“So,” you smile and giggle, feeding off his excitement.

“What’s a normal day like for you?” He asks curiously before taking a sip of wine.

You hesitate momentarily before Rafe’s voice quickly cuts through your nerves. “Keep it light,” he hums.

“Ugh,” you groan, releasing an exhausted laugh that Pope quickly mirrors, lightening the mood even more as you say so much without a single utterance.

“Same,” he jokes.

“—Meetings, calls, and trying to keep up with my team’s endless stream of ideas.”

“Sounds like chaos,” he adds.

“Controlled chaos,” you reply with a smile as your confidence grows.

“Perfect,” Rafe praises softly in your ear. “You’re doing great. Don’t stop.”

The conversation continues to flow effortlessly, ebbing and flowing between you and Pope, sharing stories. You feel lighter, more comfortable than you’ve ever felt in his presence.

Rafe adjusts in his seat nervously as he watches you from afar.

This should have been a win for him–yet another happy client, yet another glowing testimonial he could add to his portfolio.

The knife to the heart was the date he helped you achieve. It’s twist was every laugh… Every beautiful smile stolen from him and gifted to Pope.

“You’re doing amazing,” Rafe says, keeping his voice steady. “Ask him about somethin’ outside of work—maybe a hobby or something he’s passionate about.”

You smile, giving the man on the other side of the earpiece a subtle nod as your eyes stay set on Pope’s. “So, what do you do when you’re not winning cases? Any hobbies?” Pope’s face lights up, the man launching quickly into a story about the language he’s learning and his upcoming trip to Paris.”

“No way,” you smile. “Tell me more.”

“Keepin’ the conversation going… Perfect,” Rafe praises, his words barely passing his lips, cracking with all the emotion he felt.

His heart aches. His jealousy weighed heavily on his heart. Every layer revealed to Pope just pulled you further and further away.

Rafe clenches his jaw, his blunt nails driving into the thigh of his dress pants. He tosses his head back for the moment, willing himself to stay focused–to stay rational when all he wants to do is storm across the restaurant and have you for himself.

“Do you date often?” Pope asks curiously. “Have you tried any of the apps or anything?”

“No,” you shake your head and smile. “Have you?”

Pope’s lip pulls, nose flaring slightly in disgust with his past experiences. “The apps are a mess. If I’m being honest, Raya, on the very, very rare occasion… For the obvious–”

Rafe perks up in his seat, his figure shifting to pull your attention to where he sits, projecting his sheer disgust like that was some out-of-pocket thing for an adult to say.

Umm…” You hum through a little nervous laugh at Rafe’s reaction, turning your focus back to Pope. “I get that,” you smile.

You listen as Rafe chuckles annoyedly in the earpiece, making the hair on the back of your neck stand straight.

Pope's smile widens at your response; a slight bite of his bottom lip gives you a pretty good idea of where his thoughts are drifting to.

“You travel?” He asks, throwing his voice a little lower than before.

“I haven’t had the chance to,” you sigh.

“Neither have I,” Pope smiles, “but I’m tryin’ to take better care of myself.”

“Are you going with anyone?” You ask curiously. “To Paris?”

“No one yet,” he smiles. “I’m hopeful though. I’m stayin’ at this beautiful boutique hotel by the Eiffel Tower, sightseeing, amazing food, great wine. It’d be a shame if I had to do that alone. Wouldn’t mind sharin’ that trip with someone… Someone who makes me laugh, smart, and hardworking who could finally relax with me.”

“Someone hardworking that could relax…” Rafe hums, his voice dripping with intimacy—filling your ear—making it feel like he’s surrounding you. “Think I could take care of her myself.”

Your eyes widen as you look back at Pope, hearing Rafe’s words. You try to keep your composure as both men shoot their shot; Rafe’s so unexpected that you question if you even heard him right in the first place.

“You’d like that, wouldn't you?” Rafe asks, making you flutter your lashes as your words get stuck on your lips. Pope shifts uneasily, making your embarrassment rise, knowing just how long you let his words hang in the air as you processed Rafe’s “Sorry,” Pope fumbles. “M’sorry if that was too forward. I-”

“Oh my god, no—no, you’re fine,” you assure.

“He’s not…” Rafe adds. “I agree with him. That was too forward,” Rafe taunts. “That’s date two talk, princess. He needs to stay in his lane.”

“And what lane are you in?”

“Pardon me?” Pope asks as you challenge Rafe, your stomach instantly falling at the realization you replied to Rafe's injection.

“Sorry,” you huff, trying your best to recover. “I worded that oddly. Uh… umm. What street is the hotel on? I meant street, not lane,” you ramble. “I’m still a little nervous.”

“No, please… Don’t be,” Pope softens his tone. The waitress walks over, setting a dessert down in the middle. You grab your fork, quickly taking a bite to avoid speaking and more. “I’m actually not sure of the street, but it’s in the Champs-Élysées neighborhood.”

“That sounds amazing.”

“Well, again, I’m hopeful,” Pope smiles. “How’s your dessert, sweetheart?”

“No,” Rafe warns as the first pet name leaves Pope’s lips. “Fuck no.”

“It’s delicious,” you answer

“Delicious, huh?” Rafe asks. “Careful, you. You’re makin’ me jealous.”

Your heart starts to race in your chest; the banging battling with Rafe’s secret conversation and Pope’s desperate attempt to compete with the man you wished you were sitting across from.

This should be a simple conversation with Pope, but at this moment, it feels nothing but. Your breathing tightens, body aching with want for Rafe.

“I feel bad, princess… he has no clue you’re mine.”

“Stop,” you whisper sharply to Rafe, though the corners of your lips twitch in spite of yourself.

“Stop what?” Pope asks, looking even more confused.

“Stop, I think I know them,” you nod to the entrance as an unknown couple walks in. Pope looks over his shoulder, and you take the opportunity to reach in your ear, digging out the earpiece before dramatically dropping it into your after-dinner coffee. It falls into the brew with a plop, the angle giving Rafe a clear view, catching your defiance. Your eyes drift from his back to your date as Pope turns back.

“Just can’t escape the office, can you?” He laughs. “Neither can I,” he sighs as you look back toward the door, seeing his partner from the firm standing next to her husband, waiting to be seated.

“It’s crazy, right,” you gossip as you lean in. The second you do, your phone vibrates in your purse. No question who it is. “I apologize,” you whisper, Pope quickly gesturing it’s okay.

Rafe: Now why did you do that?

You: You were distracting me.

Rafe: Maybe I’m meant to distract you sweetheart

Your fingers tightened around her phone, a small thrill shooting through you.

Maybe I’m meant to distract you?

You stuff your phone in your purse, determined to finish the date without Rafe wiping out every thought in your head until you’re done, but it’s useless.

Your mind was long gone. It wasn’t on Pope or the beautiful dinner, and at that moment, even without Rafe’s lust-laced words in your ear, everything started to blur. Your mind’s consumed with thoughts of only Rafe, Rafe, Rafe…

But most importantly, the realization that he wanted you just as much as you wanted him.

Your phone buzzes again. Then again. Then again. Five messages, back to back. “I’m so sorry…” You sigh.

“It’s fine. Truly,” Pope assures once more. You swallow hard before finally caving and pulling your phone out of your purse again.

Rafe: I just need to say this.

Rafe: I like you

Rafe: I can’t do this.

Rafe: I can’t sit here and listen to you flirt with him.

Rafe: Tell me you feel it too. Tell me this isn’t just in my head.

You: I don’t know what to do.

Rafe: Yes you do. You just have to choose it.

Rafe: Choose me.

Rafe: I’m going to call you in ten seconds. Take it, and I’ll get you out of here.

Rafe: I’ll take care of you.

You watch your phone tremble in your hand as he promised, your adrenaline coursing through your veins.

Rafe Cameron.

You stare at the screen for a second longer. Then, before you can think about it anymore—you answer. Rafe’s voice is all business, but you could hear the smirk behind it.

“Hey, baby,” he greets you smoothly, “we have a problem. I need you now.”

You exhale shakily and nod, forcing yourself to look apologetic and worried as you glance up at Pope. “I—I’m so sorry. I have to go. There’s something I need to handle.”

Pope looks back at you, surprised but concerned. “Is everything alright? I-”

“I hope so,” you whisper, quickly grabbing your purse. You reach into your bag, pulling out your wallet.

“Please, I insist,” Pope stops you, resting his hand on your arm, and you can’t help but feel a slight tinge of guilt, quickly overshadowed by the thoughts of the man waiting for you just a few feet away.

You walk toward the door, floating through the thick crowd, until you hit open air, and before you can take another step, you're pulled in, Rafe’s lips pressing against yours, taking your breath away.

This kiss isn’t soft… It isn’t hesitant, either. Deep, commanding, hungry, possessive, desperate, anything and everything you could have wanted, shattering the pressure built between the two of you with a single exchange.

You gasp into his mouth as he pulls you in closer, pressing his muscular body against yours, pushing you against the chilled brick wall.

Rafe groans softly, his grip tightening on your hip, his other hand cradling the back of your neck, needing you close. You melt into him, your hands gripping his Gucci suit jacket, barely aware of the city bustling around you—your thoughts still revolving around the man you had hoped for weeks would see you as more than just a client whose sweet words weren’t just there to raise your confidence, and prepare you for someone else, but because he genuinely felt those things… and wanted you for himself.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathless. Rafe lets out a low chuckle, his forehead resting against yours. “I knew you’d take the call,” he whispers. You hear the purr of Rafe’s BMW roll up to the curb. “Let’s get you outta here, huh?” He asks, his voice hoarse and deep as his lips brush gently against yours.

“You said you were gonna take care of me. Is that a promise?” You whisper, feeling him smile against your lips.

“I swear.”

⊹ 💌 ⁺ ˳ ✿ . ♥️ ࿐

“You’re so perfect. You know that?” Rafe asks as he kisses your neck, making your pussy throb.

“Fuck, Rafe,” you whimper.

He chuckles against your hot skin, that same laugh that filled your ears during your date—driving you crazy then—doing nothing but make your need for him worse now.

“Goddamn, baby…” He mumbles as his big hand roams your curves. “I don’t know how I lasted this long,” he squeezes your breast in his large hand as he sucks off your bottom lip nice and slow. “I don’t know how I went this long without hearing you say my name like that either… Say it again,” he taunts as his hand cups your sex, making you moan for him.

“Rafe, please…” You whine.

“So fuckin’ needy for me, huh… No one else gets to see you like this. No one.”

“No one else,” you whisper breathily through a smile as he glides two thick fingers up your soaked slit. “Shit,” you whimper as he traces his fingers around your entrance. “I need you…”

“I can feel how much you need me, sweetheart. You’re shit at hiding it,” he smirks as he moves his hand higher, teasing your clit with the pads of his rough fingers.

Rafe hisses out a breath as you reach between the two of you, wrapping your fingers around the base of his thick dick, making him hiss out a breath. You stroke your hand up, pull to his fat tip, watching precum glisten and leak out of his slit onto your body.

“Am I the only one that needs something?” You whisper, feeling his hard cock twitch in your hand. You drop the other, running your finger through the little puddle before bringing it to your lips, sucking it clean, watching Rafe as he watches you.

“I need you so bad,” he whispers. “I can’t tell you how many nights I thought about this.”

You grab his neck, pulling him down to your lips, bringing him in closer. “I’ve thought about you every night, Rafe.”

“Every night, huh?” He asks.

“Every. Night-” Your words get lost in a moan as Rafe plunges two fingers into your soaked core, making you throw your head deep into the pillow.

He kisses your chest as he starts to fuck his fingers into you, wrapping his lips around your nipple, sucking harshly, making your back arch off the mattress.

He curls his long fingers inside you, pulling out moan after moan from his hand alone.

Rafe kisses down your body, making your heart pound in your chest as he gets lower and lower. Your legs draw in, but he grabs your thighs, pushing them into the mattress, holding you open to look down at your glossy cunt.

Rafe leans down on the mattress, biceps, and shoulders flexing from the angle of his body, his eyes set on yours from between your thighs as he gives you a few teasing licks.

“Holy shit,” you squeal, and just as you do, he wraps his big arms around your thighs, pulling your warmth toward his face.

Rafe kisses your clit before sucking down, making your lace your fingers into his hair, pulling at the root, guiding him closer. He drops one arm, making you gasp as he pushes his fingers inside your pussy— his mouth works on you as well.

Your head starts to spin—lightheaded from the sensation of his skilled tongue and digits.

“I’m close,” you whimper, making him moan into your heat.

The vibrations make you fall apart in an instant.

Rafe sucks down harshly as you flutter around his fingers, your vision blurry as stars dance in your eyes. “Rafe, fuck!” You cry, fighting against him slightly, but he only holds you closer, finger and tongue fucking you through your orgasm, straight into overstimulation ‘til tears start to cloud your eyes.

“That was beautiful, baby,” he mumbles against your heat, pressing teasing kisses on your clit, watching your body jump in response.

“Rafe…” You whimper as you look down at him. He looks up at you and smiles, lips glistening with your slick.

“Yeah, pretty?” He asks teasingly as he kisses your inner thigh.

“Fuck my pussy.”

Rafe’s eyes roll back at your demands and your taste lingering on his tongue. He grabs your body, guiding you without effort to your hands and knees, lifting your ass into the air.

He spanks you, the loud crack of his palm against your supple flesh filling the room. You arch your back, making him release a desperate groan as he looks down at you, eyeing your slick, watching your wetness leak down your inner thighs.

Rafe grips his thick dick in his hand, slapping it against your ass before running his velvety head up your thighs, sopping up the mess.

You gasp as he presses his tip in, feeling him stretch you out already. Your thighs trembles, your breathing shaky as you do the math, realizing how long it has been since you’ve had sex, let alone with anyone Rafe’s size.

Rafe pushes in, inch by inch, making your mouth fall open as your body stretches around him.

“Pussy’s just made for my cock, baby,” he mumbles as he presses his body flush with your ass when you’ve finally taken all of him.

You circle your hips, adjusting to his size, feeling his thick dick hit all the right spots. “Feels so damn good—”

“Can’t believe he almost got this…” He pulls his hips back, drawing out nice and slow, letting you feel every ridge and vein as his big hands find your hips. “All fuckin’ mine-”

“Fuck!” You scream as he snaps his hips forward, the two of you moaning in unison as your pussy sucks him in.

Rafe starts to work him cock in your cunt at the perfect pace—his skin clapping against yours with every thrust, the sounds of your wet pussy squelching.

“Mmpfh…” You whine as your head falls forward. “Right there, baby.” Rafe picks up the pace, hitting your sweet spot again and again.

”Yeah, sweetheart? Right there?” He asks through a smirk. “What else does my girl want, huh?”

“Harder,” you whimper.

“Shit, baby,” he laughs breathlessly as he starts to drill into you. Your fingers claw at the sheets as you feel yourself just seconds away from your climax.

You feel an unfamiliar heat in your belly, and before you can think, your pussy releases, squirting all over the mattress and Rafe’s cock.

“Fuckkk,” he moans, dragging out the words as his body sloshes through the wet mess. “So good for me… Tell me, princess. Tell me no one else has ever fucked you like this. Tell me no one else will.”

“No one, Rafe,” you whimper. “Only—Oh god. Only you.”

Rafe pulls out fast, making you gasp as he tosses you to your back, thrusting himself back in before you can even come down from your high. “I wanna watch your face when you take my cum, baby,” he whispers against your lips.

You gasp as his fingers press against your clit, too, rubbing little circles on top as he throws his hips into you; your nails digging into his muscular back as he pounds your wet cunt.

Rafe pulls back slightly, looking down at you underneath him, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth as you both get closer and closer to the edge.

Rafe presses his palm against your chest, feeling your heart hammer against it, the beat echoing his own. His hand slides higher, wrapping around your neck, squeezing tightly.

“Rafe-” You gasp, letting out a choked moan. You grab your knees, pulling them up to your chest, making him stroke impossibly deep. “Please, Rafe. Fuck. Make me cum.”

“Say my name like that again, and I swear, I’ll never let you leave this fuckin’ bed again…” He groans through gritted teeth. “Cum for me.”

Your eyes roll back in your head, and your pussy pulses around his big cock. Rafe moans your name; his muscles strained as he cums deep inside.

Rafe rocks to a stop, his grip softening on your neck as his soft lips find yours. Rafe catches your whimpered breaths in his mouth, smiling softly against your lips before letting his tongue slip inside.

His tongue swirls with yours, making you feel like you could float away. You gasp again, his kiss as he rolls you quickly, pulling you onto his broad chest, his cock still throbbing inside.

“Holy shit,” he sighs breathlessly.

“Mmm… You're fired,” you giggle airily between soft kisses, making him chuckle.

“You’re firing me, princess?” He asks playfully as his hands smack and squeeze your ass. “How about this. I’ll work for free…”

“Oh yeah? You gonna make office visits?”

“Dirty fuckin’ girl,” he mumbles as he cups your cheeks in his hands, pulling you in for a passionate kiss. “‘Course I will.”

“Mmm… You can stay,” you whisper.

“I can stay? You found the one, huh?” He asks sweetly as he looks up at you with love in his eyes.

“I found everything I needed, Rafe…”

“So did I.”

⊹ 💌 ⁺ ˳ ✿ . ♥️ ࿐

tags: @rafesthroatbaby | @marleymarleymarleymarley | @chelzaa | @rafesheaven | @nemesyaaa | @starkeysbabygirl | @littlelamy | @cameronsprincess | @lottalove4evelyn | @yasmin-oviedo | @vanessa-rafesgirl | @watchmerora | @rafeslovergirly | @buckybarnessweetheart | @anamiad00msday | @namelesslosers | @cades-outsider | @romaescapes | @starkeysprincess | @lish-0 | @oxpogues4lifexo | @unrealmirrorball | @lilithblackkk | @sleepiibunniiii | @gri959 | @rafesgiirl | @daryldixon83 | @akobx | @hyperfixationgirl | @lhhlver | @rrafeswhore | @slut-4-gojo | @blair-bears-blog | @loveesiren | @rafescorpsebride | @rafegf-real | @alphabetically-deranged | @ariana2saucyy | @rafestoothbrush | @hauntedfawnn | @laniirackssss | @wtfdudesblog | @sabrina-carpenter-stan-account | @jkrafe | @alejstarkey | @rafe-cameronswife | @rafedaddy01 | @st8rkey

dividers | @animatedglittergraphics-n-more

[darkmatilda]

𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐤𝐞 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: two years ago, completely by accident, you helped catch a serial killer. now, as mysterious events start to pile up around you, you begin to suspect that someone is after you, seeking revenge. terrified, you're willing to do anything to save yourself—even if it means reaching out to your ex, who wants nothing more to do with you.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐰: [these warnings only apply to part 1!] spencer reid x criminal(thief)female!reader, stalking, mention of dismembered bodies, serial killer targeting women, mention of abduction, mention of mental issues and addiction of the victim, reader is kinda morally grey

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 6k

𝐚/𝐧: HUGE THANKS to my beloveds from the server who have been listening to me yap about this fic for the past few days!!! a few of my dear girls show up here as characters, in this part it’s @esote-rika i hope you like the role i chose for you <33

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄

You hadn’t dreamt about it for almost a year now.

Before, that image had returned to your dreams regularly. A small, wooden vacation cabin in the woods—far enough from the bustle of the city to feel like a retreat, but close enough to avoid the unease that comes with complete isolation. An operation that had required you and your then-partners to meticulously study the owner’s weekly routine, gathering as much information about him as possible. There was no pressure of time—it was a place for vacations or lazy weekends, not for everyday living.

You had no trouble breaking in without even damaging the lock. You had your methods. The owner was due to arrive soon and discover that the painting in the small living room was gone. You wondered if he even understood its historical value. Wealthy people often liked to fill their properties with expensive works of art to catch the eyes of their guests and dazzle them with their price tags. But they rarely cared about the context or the circumstances of their creation. Often, if the artist was foreign, they could barely pronounce their name.

You liked labeling every person you robbed as ignorant. It gave you more motivation.

Your partners had immediately located the painting, while you started looking around the interior yourself. There could be more valuable items—jewelry or antique furniture. Once, during a robbery, you had been about to retreat when you found a hidden door leading to a basement, which turned out to be practically a vault. That year, you booked your dream vacation.

This time, you were heading down the stairs again, shining your flashlight ahead. The beam of light didn’t fall on a bust, a leaning painting, or an Art Deco dresser. It illuminated the battered face of a woman, bound as though she weren’t a living being, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

The waitress set a plate of pancakes in front of you, but you suddenly regretted ordering them. Your stomach was still in knots after seeing that image again in your dreams. You’d gone out for breakfast because you had no plans for the day and didn’t want to spend it entirely cooped up in your apartment. You adjusted yourself in the leather booth. The place had a 90s vibe, with its black-and-white checkered floor, red seating, and curly straws poking out of milkshakes topped with double whipped cream.

A cop slid into the booth next to yours with a sigh, ordering waffles with bacon. Out of habit, you tensed up slightly. As a member of the criminal underworld—a thief and active dealer of antique goods—you weren’t a fan of even fleeting interactions with people who carried handcuffs on their belts. You much preferred gold bracelets.

"...abandoned body parts of an unidentified woman were found along the shore of Neabsco Creek in Prince William County. This exceptionally brutal crime immediately sparked panic within the local community, following a series of murders that had occurred here just two years earlier. It was right on this riverbank that the limbs of the last victim of the killer were found before his capture…”

“The Waterside Butcher,” the cop to your left muttered, mouth full of waffles. “I don’t know if you heard, but that guy’s a real piece of work. Fuckin' psycho. But it ain’t him now—they got him locked up good.”

Thank you for sharing that unsolicited nugget of information I didn’t ask for, officer, you thought, as you remained silent. You didn’t want to engage in any confrontational interactions with the police. In fact, you couldn’t physically speak—you had a chunk of pancake stuck in your mouth, swelling up like a soaked sponge, and you had to spit it out onto your plate.

The cop shot you a look of disgust before turning his attention back to the waitress, bragging about his knowledge of the crime details. He even mispronounced the killer’s name. Robert Miller, not Roger. The man whose vacation cabin you broke into two years ago. The one whose basement you found a woman imprisoned in. The one you reported to the police, even though that meant exposing what you’d been doing in his house. Your case quickly ended up in the hands of the BAU profilers, who used your testimony and connected it to a serial killer they had been hunting for a long time, one who always dumped his female victims along the banks of water sources.

They even offered you a deal. Your testimony, and in exchange, you were only charged with one burglary, one attempted theft. They completely ignored the dozens of others that had happened before.

So, it could be said that you helped them catch The Waterside Butcher.

The cop was right about one thing. Thirteen murders, and he was locked up for the next few lifetimes. So, it had to be either a copycat or...

But if someone like that escaped from prison, would the public even know about it?

Your nightmare hit again. Right on that night. A bad feeling?

Your phone rang.

"Hey, Mrs. Hemingway," you greeted your older neighbor from the floor below, the one you’d swapped numbers with when you were helping her settle in after her hip surgery and taking care of her poodle. You were surprised she was calling you. "Everything okay?"

"Sweetheart, I told you to just call me Erika," she said gently on the other end, her voice carrying a note of tension. "I’m just calling to let you know you're flooding my floor again. Haven’t you fixed that sink yet?"

"Shit," you muttered under your breath. "I’ll be there in a sec. Sorry, Mrs...Erika, that this happened again."

You left the almost untouched pancakes on the plate and walked out of the restaurant, heading toward your building. You’d been moving around a lot because of your line of work, and this place had been home for maybe three months now. For about two weeks, something strange had been happening with the sink in your kitchen. You’d return late at night to find the floor completely flooded, leaking down to the apartment below, where Mrs…Erika lived. It happened every few days, almost regularly. After the second time, you hired someone to fix it, but he said everything was fine with the faucet. Either you kept forgetting to turn it off, or…you just couldn’t come up with a better explanation.

Oddly enough, that wasn’t what occupied your mind on your way back to the apartment.

Your thoughts were consumed by the murder case. You couldn’t help it; everything related to it made you uneasy. During the trial, you’d heard all the details of the crimes he’d committed. You’d seen photos of torsos of women, abandoned in various places, along with their legs and arms. You’d listened as the handsome profiler explained the psychology behind it all. How he lowered his voice with a comforting care, assuring you there was no chance he would ever get out of prison. You nodded, having no reason not to believe him. It was him who proposed the deal you took – keeping your earlier crimes under wraps in exchange for your testimony.

You made a mental note to check in on how Rebekah was doing later. You were the one who saved her, though you didn’t particularly like using that word—after all, you’d ended up there by accident. You kept in touch, but it was hard to call it friendship. You were bound by the situation in which she almost became just another limbless victim. You didn’t have much in common, but she had struggled a lot after that event, and you wanted to make sure she was okay. It was kind of like womanhood. 

The first thing you did when you got back to your small but quite stylishly furnished apartment in a nondescript neighborhood was to turn off that damn sink. And then, you offered a heartfelt apology to Erika. In return, you promised to walk her poodle for a week.

“No need, darling,” she assured you, standing in the doorway of her apartment. She was an elegant woman, a fashion enthusiast. Dressed in a gray plaid skirt and a cleverly cut blouse with a tie at the neckline, large black earrings dangled from her ears. Sometimes when she went out, she wore a matching black bowler hat. Behind her, the poodle was frantically wagging its tail, excited to see you. “The doctor recommended I get plenty of walking. I take Coco out every day at eight for an hour. Just the cost for the flooded ceiling is fine.”

You agreed, silently promising yourself that you’d order her a massive bouquet of flowers in the coming days. But for now, you headed back to your apartment, walking straight to the bedroom where you kept a locked chest of drawers… and inside, an album of photos. And within those photos, a substantial amount of cash. Since your income didn’t come from legitimate sources, you steered clear of banks like the plague. You counted out the sum you planned to give Erika—more than she probably expected. But before you could lock the chest again, your fingers automatically grabbed the album. It wasn’t just money in there; you liked to capture moments in photos, and you had plenty of them. You always took them with you when you moved.

The first page showed several pictures from your early childhood, chubby cheeks, dreamy eyes. You quickly turned the page, then another…

Your fingers clenched tightly, even though your mind hadn’t fully processed what you’d just seen. You shook your head, thinking it was just your imagination playing tricks on you.

A photo of a little girl on her first bike. Her face should have been expressing joy, a toothless smile. Instead, all that was there was white, emptiness. A cut-out section.

With furrowed brows, you continued flipping through the album, almost in a trance. If every photo had missing pieces like that, it would’ve been easier to understand. But this was just one photo out of hundreds, one little girl without a face…

A graduation photo. You should have been smiling, hugging your friends. But your face was missing. Your breath caught in your chest. A trip with friends—your face cut out. A beach day, devoid of your face. Not every photo had been altered, but almost every stage of your life captured in that album had at least one case like this. It was as if someone was trying to erase you completely.

You stopped at the point where you had stopped taking as many photos. The last few were from your previous relationship. It hadn’t lasted long, but you had particularly enjoyed taking pictures of Spencer Reid, the profiler who had worked on your case. His brown hair, wide eyes in surprise because he hadn’t known you were sneaking up on him with the camera, the dimple in his cheek when he smiled, filled several good pages. There weren’t many good photos. He looked amazing in spontaneous shots, but in posed ones, his smile was always awkward, stiff.

That photo wasn’t one of your favorites. It had been taken by some stranger during your little vacation in Rome. Spencer had been wearing a light linen shirt, his arm wrapped around your waist. You remembered exactly how you’d stood on your tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, only to cringe a moment later—having just slathered him with sunscreen, you tasted that bitter aftertaste in your mouth. A smile flashed across his face at that, and he adjusted his arm around you, smoothing your heat-fluffed hair behind your ear. So many perfect angles for a picture you could have stared at for hours, but that stranger had only snapped one. You both looked like an engaged couple who had never spoken to each other before, and to make matters worse, it looked like the family expected six kids from you both.

Your face had been cut out of it.

You slammed the album shut and tossed it into the drawer. A gust of wind blew the money meant for Erika onto the floor, but you didn’t care. What did you care about? There was nothing in your mind. A temporary, filling emptiness, growing with every beat of your heart.

Your body moved toward the window on its own, discreetly peering behind the curtain. A black car pulled away from the driveway, followed by a red one, and then a gray one. Could it be…?

No, you hadn’t looked at that album for several days. At least not to review the pictures. They might have been damaged before, and you only noticed it now. You didn’t know which version of events scared you more.

The voice of the news anchor played in your head like a true-crime podcast, describing a recently discovered body with far more gruesome details than in reality. The return of The Waterside Butcher, the one you helped catch. A break-in at your apartment (you hadn’t done it yourself, had you, in your sleep?) almost at the same time?

A twist of fate? A stupid coincidence?

For a moment, you paced around the apartment, thinking. Robert Miller was a serial killer of women, whose capture had been made possible by a woman who broke into his home. If—purely hypothetically—he escaped prison, wouldn’t he be driven by a certain kind of hatred directed specifically at her? A desire to destroy her, more important than anything else?

But that was absurd. You hadn’t cut ties with the case, but surely someone would have informed you if he had escaped. Though…Spencer had been your source of information, and you hadn’t spoken to him since your breakup, over a year ago. You hadn’t been in touch at all since then. So maybe…?

You realized you were standing in something wet. The floor was still flooded from a tap that had been left running.

For the second time this week.

The self-turning sink, this tension, this dream, the cut-out faces, the next murder.

Another brutally killed woman left on the riverbank.

The thought was improbable, yet it refused to leave you alone. It was far more likely that you were dealing with some deranged copycat—after all, it wasn’t uncommon for serial killers to have their admirers. However, that prospect didn’t fill you with nearly as much dread as the idea of being in the crosshairs of this particular man. 

You had to find out if there was even the slightest chance that he was out there, free.

*

“Hands up and turn around, slowly.”

Quick disclaimer—you and Spencer Reid didn’t break up on the most peaceful terms.

Aiming at your head was a bit much, though.

Without a hint of fear, you calmly closed the cabinet in his kitchen, from which you had just taken out a package of brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts. You immediately shoved one into your mouth, chewing the sweet bite while staring into the eyes of your ex, who was pointing a gun at you from about four steps away. His hair was longer than you remembered, and there was a trace of stubble around his mouth that caught you off guard. Or rather, how good he looked with it.

“I preferred your old place,” you declared, leaning back against one of the kitchen cabinets. Another bite of Pop Tarts, and a crumb fell onto your clothes. Oops. “Do you even have a microwave here? I could warm this up.”

“How did you get in here?” he asked, clearly irritated.

He still hadn’t lowered the gun, and you were starting to suspect he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see you.

“It’s always how did you get in here?” you sighed, rolling your eyes. “Never what’s up? how are you? your hair looks amazing, did you know that? and that outfit?”

"You wouldn’t be yourself without all that pretentious talk, huh?" he scoffed, finally easing up a bit. His stiff posture, caused by holding the gun, relaxed, and after a beat, he lowered it and tucked it into his waistband. He accidentally pulled back part of his black blazer, revealing a dark purple shirt underneath.

You shoved the rest of the snack into your mouth, wiped your hands off, and swallowed.

"I’d be boring without it. And you wouldn’t be yourself without this overdramatization, right? Aiming at my head like I’m some criminal..."

"You broke into my apartment," he interrupted, folding his arms. It was evening, and if you hadn’t turned on the light before coming in, the place would have been drowning in cold darkness. A little of it slipped through the window that wasn’t fully covered. "I think that’s a pretty good reason to point a gun at someone. So what are you doing here?"

"You were right," you said softly, helplessly spreading your arms. "The path of crime doesn't lead to anything good. I should have listened to you, thrown it all away, and become a model citizen."

Spencer gently nodded, listening to your words. Then, he let out a laugh.

"And seriously?"

"Was I not convincing enough?"

"Did you get yourself into something again and need someone to cover your back? Because there's no better alibi than the words of an FBI agent?"

"Stop acting like I ever forced you into it. You did it on your own."

"Because I didn't want my girlfriend ending up in prison."

A tired sigh escaped you, not expecting it to take just three minutes from the start of your reunion to begin bringing up things from your relationship. Well, the fact that you even got together two years ago still seemed incredibly absurd and enigmatic, especially to outsiders. Let's be honest. An FBI agent and a criminal caught during a break-in for theft. Then, still a criminal, though with good intentions.

You couldn’t help that you didn’t see an end to that career, and you were pretty sure Spencer secretly hoped you'd give it up. During the less than six months of your relationship, you felt as though you were constantly on the police radar, even though he’d never turn you in. What’s more, once or twice, he vouched that you were somewhere else when you weren’t. To put it simply, he gave you a fake alibi.

That was roughly when everything started falling apart, as it slowly dawned on him that he couldn’t change you. Things got even stormier, and one day, after one of the many unpleasant exchanges of words at that stage, you just walked out, slamming the door behind you, and you hadn’t seen each other until now.

 End of the story.

"Listen," Spencer began after a moment of silence. "You broke in here for a reason, and I highly doubt it’s to reminisce. I should just tell you to leave, but out of some remnants of respect for you, I’ll let you say what this is really about."

"Oh, look at you, how gracious," you scoffed bitterly. Remnants of respect. He was right, though. You hadn't come there to reminisce; you were only interested in getting an answer to one specific question. You cleared your throat. "I’m assuming you’ve heard about the discovery on the shore of Neabsco Creek?"

Spencer took a step forward, furrowing his brows slightly. He still kept more than a necessary distance, as if you were the one pointing a gun at him.

"Your assumption is correct," he replied slowly, cautiously. "I just don’t understand the purpose. Do you have any information related to the case?"

Although it didn’t quite fit the topic, the corner of your mouth twitched.

"Are you hoping I’ll help you catch another serial killer?" you asked, immediately shaking your head. "No, I don’t know anything that could be useful to you. But I do have some bad feelings about it."

You saw him gently press his lips together in thought. Almost immediately, he understood where you were going with this and gave a slight nod. His eyes were still analyzing you carefully and distrustfully. You also noticed how carefully he chose his words, as he always did in the presence of someone who could mean trouble.

"Spencer," you said his name for the first time during this conversation, pausing for a moment to think about how it felt on your tongue. You’d almost forgotten. "Is Robert Miller still in prison?"

 "He murdered thirteen women, of course he’s still in prison," he replied with conviction. "And he’ll stay there forever. The body we found... the modus operandi is the same, but only because we’re probably dealing with a copycat."

 "Copycat," you repeated. "And not an accomplice?"

"He didn’t have an accomplice. We figured that out during the investigation."

 "Are you sure?"

 "What exactly are you getting at?" he asked, his voice tinged with genuine confusion, his brow furrowed deeply.

You set the Pop Tarts box down on the counter. You’d thought about it a lot. Few knew about your involvement in the investigation, it hadn’t been made public, just like the exact circumstances surrounding the capture of the suspect. He, however, knew. He’d seen your face in court, heard your name. The entire previous day you had been obsessed with the fact that he probably had the right to correspondence in prison. He might have found a way to inform his potential accomplice about your identity, convincing him to take revenge on his behalf.

"Someone's stalking me," you said casually, as if you were telling him about what you had for lunch that day. "It started right when that murder happened. Just before the body was found on the shore. Someone...cut my face out of photos in my album."

Spencer stood still for a long moment. A look of concern briefly flashed across his face, but it was quickly replaced by something else—skepticism.

"No offense," he began, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "but are you sure it’s not just someone from your circles?"

"Even if it is, so what? I'm still being stalked."

"Then, that’s not my problem”

Okay, that was cold.

“If someone from my circles wanted to kill me, they’d just do it. They wouldn’t be sneaking into my apartment, cutting my face out of photos, and turning the water on in my sink. The Waterside Butcher, as the media's calling him,” you tried to sound calm and logical, but your heart began to race as the memory from the dream you’d had two days ago—and the one that came to you last night—hit you. This time, however, you hadn’t found Rebekah in the basement of the house, but yourself. “Something’s not right. I can feel it. You guys should look into this. I mean, BAU. But not as a copycat. As someone connected to Miller."

You could see Spencer mulling over your words. His jaw tightened slightly as he processed what you said.

“Are you getting any real threats?” he asked. “Or is it just a busted sink and…”

“It’s not busted! Someone’s turning it on!” you cut him off, irritation creeping into your voice. “And not just someone—a serial killer I put in prison.”

“And who’s still there.”

You could feel yourself losing track of your own thoughts. Well, you’d barely slept the night before, and your brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.

“Or his accomplice,” you corrected yourself.

“Or?” Spencer picked up on it, raising an eyebrow.

You shrugged, frustrated by his calmness.

"Well, sometimes you catch the wrong person," you said uncertainly.

Spencer exhaled deeply, briefly staring at the ceiling. You didn’t see the seriousness, the readiness to act, that you’d expected when you showed up at his apartment. There was no declaration that they would take another look at the case, maybe reach out to Miller again and try to get more information from him. The thought crossed your mind—if something like this had happened two years ago, would he have reacted with more urgency?

“I interrogated him two years ago,” he began. “Personally, for many hours, even days. He confessed to everything, nothing in his behavior suggested he was trying to manipulate us. He had a motive—he selected his victims based on their resemblance to his mother, whom he also murdered by pushing her off a boat during a family trip. At the time, it was considered an accident.”

As he spoke, memories of the courtroom and the police station resurfaced, when everything was just starting to come to light. And as he slowly moved closer to you, probably unknowingly, you also recalled the first time you really interacted, when he drove you home. You weren’t innocent, but that day, you had heard some truly horrifying details of the crime, and you felt a distinct unease. For the first time, you talked about something other than the investigation. I’m like Robin, but not like Hood. I rob the rich, but I don’t give to the poor you said, making him laugh.

"Our profile didn't include a partner. Trust me, we've handled plenty of cases where there were two or more perpetrators, but this isn't one of them. One person is responsible for this," he continued, trying to catch your eye, making his words more direct, wanting to make sure they reached you. "If someone's stalking you, it's probably not even connected to this case. And normally, I'd recommend you report it to the police... but I get the feeling that's not really an option."

You scoffed, because he was right.

"Highly unlikely they'd do anything about it. You know, the faucet could always be broken, and the photos...that can be explained away," you said, sitting up suddenly.

"Are you calling me paranoid?" you asked sharply.

"You always have to label things so harshly," he muttered, shaking his head. "No, I’m not saying that. I’m just suggesting that the previous murder and the media panic could have influenced how you're perceiving things, making you more susceptible to suggestion. Your mind has connected it with past traumatic events and added..."

"So, you're saying I'm paranoid. Just in scientific terms," you shot back.

Spencer sighed in frustration.

"Call it whatever you want."

For a moment, you just stared at him in silence, a rush of angry words pushing at the back of your throat, but you realized they didn’t make any sense. Why had you even assumed from the start that he would believe you? Leaving aside the fact that your argument was admittedly a bit stretched, the truth was, you weren’t the person he chose to trust anymore.

You briefly lowered your gaze, letting out a sigh, then lifted it back up as you got closer. Spencer tensed, almost moved to pull away, but quickly realized you weren’t threatening him. You simply reached for his purple shirt, slipping something into the tiny pocket on his chest.

"My current phone number," you explained, tapping that spot on his chest. "In case you find out anything. Oh, and one last thing. Do you remember what shape my birthmark is?"

He tilted his head, surprised by the question, the sudden shift in topic. Without waiting for an answer, you pulled at your shirt slightly, exposing a patch of skin just below your collarbone.

"It’s in the shape of pi, like you once pointed out." It hadn't reminded you of that at all before, just a vague shape, but ever since he'd mentioned it, you'd seen it only that way. And from then on, every time he kissed you, he'd always lingered at that spot for a moment longer—it was his personal, favorite point. You let go of your shirt, and Spencer immediately locked eyes with you.

"I just wanted to make sure you remembered," you added, before turning to leave. "In case I end up dismembered on some shoreline and they need to identify my body."

Spencer’s mouth fell open, unable to say a word.

"You knew it very well," you added casually as you made your way out.

You didn’t need him to escort you. You had gotten there on your own, too. 

*

Three days later, when poor Erika was flooded once again, you decided to take action. You contacted the right people to have the locks in your apartment changed and to secure the place in a way that would make breaking in nearly impossible—at least for an average burglar. You knew, however, that someone with the right skills, like you, could still get in. With difficulty, but it was possible.

You also made sure to refresh your knowledge of handling a gun. 

And you called Rebekah.

You didn’t like scaring her, but you preferred her to stay vigilant. If someone was targeting you, they might just as well try to go after her too. The problem was, she wasn’t answering your calls, despite you trying every hour throughout the day. Shortly after being freed from the murderer’s grasp, she hadn’t taken up any work, and since you were doing relatively well, you had been supporting her financially. Recently, however, she had managed to find a steady job, and that could explain why she wasn’t responding.

Spencer was right about one thing—you were slowly becoming paranoid. That’s exactly why, later that evening, you decided to head over to her address to make sure everything was okay. It wasn’t just about outside threats anymore. It was simply that… Two years was a long time, but not when it came to rebuilding a life after being abducted by a serial killer. Those years had been especially hard for her—there was the added struggle of addiction—and you just wanted the reassurance that she hadn’t done anything to herself. At least then, you’d be able to sleep more soundly—as much as the circumstances would allow.

Her apartment was located in a truly awful neighborhood, on the second floor of a stairwell covered in graffiti. You knocked on the door several times, pausing between knocks, trying not to panic or come across as aggressive—you didn’t want to scare her.

"Rebekah, are you there?" you called out when no one answered.

You spent a moment leaning against a spray-painted cock on the wall, letting out a sigh as you reached into the pocket of your jacket. The lock on her door was a simple one, requiring only the most basic tools—tools you carried out of habit. You made a mental note to send someone over to replace it.

Even if she wasn’t home, you wanted to take a look around and gauge how she was doing based on the state of the apartment. It wasn’t exactly ethical, but sometimes our surroundings say more about us than words ever could. Besides, there was a good chance she’d never even know you were there.

You stepped inside, calling her name again. The light was already on. Her jacket was hanging on the coat rack, suggesting she was home—but it was also possible she’d just worn a different one. You slipped a wad of cash into the pocket of her jacket. She’d find it later and probably think she’d just forgotten it was there.

The interior had dark green walls, and the apartment consisted of three rooms: a modest living room, a tiny bedroom with just a bed and wardrobe, and a bathroom you’d never been inside before. When you glanced into it, your face reflected in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. You looked really sleep-deprived.

Finally, you headed to the bedroom, clinging to the faint hope of finding her asleep in bed. The fact that all the lights were on worried you—if she’d gone to work, she would have turned them off. Anyone mindful of their wallet would’ve turned them off!

The bedroom door creaked softly as it closed behind you, leaving just a narrow gap that provided a sliver of a view into the living room, specifically the apartment entrance. That was when you saw it swing wide open.

At first, you wanted to leave the bedroom, assuming it was Rebekah and that you could greet her. But it wasn’t the petite, feminine figure of your short friend—it was a tall man, or so you guessed from his stature, despite the hood obscuring his face. Instinctively, you leapt back from the partially open door, making sure you were out of sight.

Heavy footsteps cut across the apartment, heading, by the sound of it, toward the kitchen area. There, they paused for a moment.

You didn’t even try to convince yourself it was some friend of hers dropping by for a visit. Deep down, you already knew—instinctively felt—who it was. And that thought paralyzed you so completely that, despite the gun tucked under your jacket, you quietly slid open the wardrobe door and squeezed yourself inside.

The door creaked as it moved, and you cursed silently.

Whoever it was, you hoped they were too focused on whatever they were searching for to have heard it.

You listened closely to the footsteps in the room next door, your mind spinning with one relentless question: Where was Rebekah in all this? Was she at work, completely unaware that someone was in her apartment during her absence? You tried to recall the last time the two of you had spoken. Certainly not in the past few days—perhaps not even in the past week.

You squeezed your eyes shut, forcing your breathing to quiet, to steady.

Theoretically, her apartment could’ve been empty for days now.

But who was this man?

The footsteps suddenly grew louder. The bedroom door creaked open. You drew in a sharp breath and froze, halting your breathing altogether. You had no idea how much the tight, dark confines of the wardrobe muffled sound.

The footsteps stopped.

You could only imagine the figure standing in the doorway, his sharp gaze sweeping the room, taking in every detail. Did he sense someone else might be here? He couldn’t know for certain. But it was possible—likely even—that he subconsciously felt another presence, much like you did in your own home every single day.

Fragments of the nightmare that had haunted you over the past few days came rushing back. It felt as if you were descending those stairs into the basement again.

And then a smell wafted through the air—faint but distinct.

It was the same scent you’d inhaled back then.

Two years had passed, but you still remembered that mixture of dust, decay, and sweat.

Were you really smelling it now? Or was it just a cruel projection of your terrified mind?

The footsteps began to retreat.

You listened with your eyes closed, straining every nerve to track the sound. Your legs felt weak, and it took everything in you not to slide down the back wall of the wardrobe.

The sound of the apartment door slamming shut echoed through the silence. Even then, you couldn’t bring yourself to move.

And then your phone rang.

The sudden, sharp sound shattered the fragile quiet, making you choke on a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Your fingers acted on their own, quickly answering just to silence the noise.

“Hello?” someone said hesitantly, your name hanging in the air like a question. “...It’s Spencer. I’m calling because... something’s happened. And you need to know.”

No.

You tilted your head back, squeezing your eyes shut as if that could block out the reality creeping in.

The silence on your end must have encouraged him to keep talking. You heard the faint sound of him swallowing, the nervous gesture twisting your stomach into knots.

“Robert Miller escaped from prison”

You pressed the phone to your face, even though it was already on speaker. Words tangled in your mind, refusing to form. Spencer said your name twice more, his voice edged with concern, before you finally forced yourself to speak.

“You need to come here,” you croaked, your voice barely recognizable. “Please.”

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎

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