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jasntodds · 2 years ago

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Caving In [4]

Pairing: Gar Logan x Fem!Powered!Reader, Jason Todd x Fem!Powered!Reader

Words: 7,625

Chapter Warnings: Swearing, a nightmare, fluff, hurt/comfort, some paranoia, mention of torture, mention of abuse, Dick tries to kind of have “the talk”, Jason and reader argue (we all know sometimes Jason is an asshole, this is the only time this kind of argument happens btw), mentions of bruising and swelling, a mention of drug addiction, mentions of death

Summary: ❝Tell me Atlas: What is heavier, The world or its people’s hearts?❞ You never expected your life to end up this way, turned upside down by an infamous Gotham villain. It’s been a living hell, every single day, until Dick Grayson brings you to Titans tower where you meet Gar Logan and Jason Todd.

A/N: I’m really excited to post chapter 7 just so you guys know lol This feels kind of like a filler but this is the only one that feels like it I think?? I might try to post chapter 5 this weekend because of that lol I am easily motivated to post more often when I get feedback 😂 The first few chapters take place between season 2 episode 1 and season 2 episode 2. You can add yourself the tag list below, ask me to be tagged, or you can follow my library blog @jasntoddslibrary and turn on notifications if you prefer that!!

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Nightmares are a funny thing. They’re rarely anything realistic once you’re able to be calm enough to think about them. But they always contain some type of fear or traumatic event someone has experienced. Sometimes, it’s not rational or there is some deep hidden meaning behind the nightmare but other times, it’s just from trauma left unhandled. Those nightmares are the worst.

They make you revise the worst times of your life over and over and over like a broken record. No matter what you do, you lose in the nightmare. Years later, you might be happy and healthy but the nightmare comes back and you feel like you’re right back where you were. Trapped in the never-ending agony. Trapped inside a tilt-a-whirl made of panic attacks and broken hearts. And every single night, it’s a living hell.

And that’s where you are now, living your own personal hell with screaming so loud your throat is raw and ragged breaths beg your chest to finally cave in. The flashes of your “foster dad” scar the back of your eyes with every blink, like Freddy Krueger clawing his way to the surface. You might have escaped him physically, but mentally you’re trapped like a bear at a circus. Your hands shake as tears well behind your eyes and as the panic rages through your veins, the anger sets in. And you’re so mad that you’re allowing this piece of shit to haunt you even in your sleep, somewhere you might just feel safe. How are you ever supposed to be safe from him if you can’t even sleep? What if he finds you? What if, somehow, your nightmares are just a sign he’s coming after you? What are you supposed to do then? What if he has powers and that’s why he’s coming to finish you off?

A million what-ifs scramble through your brain as you sit in your bed, the bedside lamp still on. You get out of bed and it’s not even like you’re walking. With every worst-case scenario running through your head at once, you’re just moving through motions to exit your room. You need to make sure he isn’t here, need to make sure everyone here is safe from him, that you’re safe from him.

Your hands go up, right in front of you, slightly outstretched as if waiting for you to run into him. The palms of your hands glow green, ready for any type of attack you might come across in the secure tower while you tiptoe your way out of your room.

“Y/n?” A groggy voice from the right pulls your attention as you were just about to walk down the hallways. You jump and spin quickly, the glow of your hands intensifying in the dim light of the hallway. “It’s me.” Gar defends quickly, putting his hands up. “Gar?” His voice is still groggy but full of fear as he glances between your hands and your face.

You could see him with the dim lights of the hallway and the green glow of your hands but it still didn’t click, not until he said his name. You aren’t sure where your head was but a part of you is scared because of it. You were so lost in a state of fear and urgency to make sure everything was safe, you were blinded. It’s a bit terrifying.

You lets out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, dropping your hands as the green fades. “Fuck, what’re you doing?” You whisper-yell at him.

Gar takes a few steps towards you. “You were screaming.” He whispers back to you. “I heard you so I came to see if you were okay.”

The walls aren’t thin but Gar is pretty sure your scream could have woken up anyone. It was loud and pained, etched in terror. But, that’s a thing that happens here from time-to-time. Everyone has a habit of occasionally waking up screaming. It’s either childhood trauma haunting them or new trauma from Trigon. Gar figures that’s why no one else got up. They’re conditioned to be used to it.

You watch him carefully as the panic starts to cloud with feelings of regret and guilt. You didn’t realize you had screamed loud enough to wake anyone up. That’s not fair to anyone, to be woken by someone who can’t handle their own shit. And then to be standing out in the middle of a hallway at the crack of dawn with sleep still in their eyes talking about it. You look to the floor, shifting your weight on your feet and chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“Are you….okay?” Gar asks, coming a little closer.

When you fell asleep on him earlier, you looked peaceful. Normally, you kind of always have this look of fear. Your eyes always seem a little distant and you look behind whoever you’re talking to a lot. You don’t make eye contact for longer than a few seconds. But while you slept, you looked at ease and peaceful and calm, like you didn’t need to look over your shoulder anymore but then you shot up out of nowhere. Gar knew it had to have been a nightmare. He reacts the same way when he has one, maybe everyone does but he knows the signs. Wide eyes, ragged breathing, distant but sleep-filled eyes. And now, you’re awake again from a nightmare and it doesn’t sit right with the kind boy with green hair.

You nod. “Y-yeah.” You offer a fake smile. “You, uh, you can go back to bed.”

“Are you going to go back to bed?” Gar asks with a pointed look and he doesn’t want you to be alone. The shadows are a bit more haunting when you’re alone.

“Uh….I mean….eventually.” You answer softly, dropping your head slightly.

“I can stay with you until you fall asleep if you want.” Gar shrugs his shoulders, putting his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants.

You raise a brow at him, not looking pleased with the idea. You don’t want to inconvenience him or seem weak. You’re in a tower full of heroes and you can’t even sleep through the night. The last thing you want is for any of them to see you as the weak link. What happens if you can’t pull it together? Will they just drop you because you’re not strong enough?

“It-it’s okay.” You don’t smile this time, you just keep chewing your lip, pulling your sleeves over your hands, something Gar has been noticing you do.

“What were you doing out here?” Gar asks, his voice kind and not accusing but you shake your head, knowing it sounds ridiculous. “I won’t tell anyone.” He offers and there’s this sweet but subtle smile pulling at his lips.

Jason, a few hours ago, told you to talk to him. He said maybe it would help and the only way he’d know that, is if Gar knows Jason’s baggage, too. Jason doesn’t seem the type to wave the white flag and spill all of his secrets. Maybe Gar just cares about everyone and maybe it will help.

You sigh and cave. “I-I-I was….was just making sure….uh….he wasn’t….here.” You stutter but eventually get everything out and a part of Gar’s heart breaks at hearing it.

You aren’t looking at him, a sense of shame consuming you and Gar is not about to have you feeling bad for worrying that the person who tortured you is seeking you out in the one place you feel safe. It’s not fair and it’s not right. Gar knows whatever you went through was horrible but the fact you’re so worried that the person is in the tower? It’s unfathomable.

Gar starts walking past you, stopping a few steps ahead of you and offering you his hand. “We’ll look together.”

You look at his hand and then up at him with his words and you can feel your nose getting warm while your eyes burn. Your entire face softens and there’s something about the offer that makes you feel like everything in you is being warmed by a fireplace, warmed by a place one can only describe as home. He didn’t think you were crazy or that it was ridiculous or stupid. He just…offered to help.

So, you put your hand in his, following him through the tower.

As you walk, you hold his hand tightly noticing the soft callouses. His grip is tight but in a comforting type of way and he glances at you every few seconds as if making sure you’re okay. You walk from room to room, turning on the lights and verifying there isn’t anyone around before you end up in the comms room with the supercomputer. Gar takes a seat and shows you that everything is still secure and there hasn’t been a break-in. Everyone still needs their fingerprints to get in and the front door is done by facial recognition. According to the logs, no one has been in or out of the tower since nine the night before.

“I’m sorry.” You say quietly, standing to the side of Gar with arms crossed and eyes on the large screen in front of you. “I know this was stupid.”

Gar spins in the chair to face you but your eyes don’t move. “It’s okay, ya know? You’re scared and this is a new place. It’s not stupid.”

“It feels like it though, I-i-i….I see him anytime I close my eyes.” Your voice is so small.

You think maybe you should take Jason’s advice fully. Gar is awake with you anyway and you woke him up. He could have gone back to bed but he walked with you instead, knowing full well there wasn’t an intruder in the tower. It’s like you owe him some type of explanation.

“Foster dad.” You clarify. “He’s originally from Gotham, too, ya know? So him being a complete psychopath kind of tracks.” There’s a sharp bitterness in your voice but you keep your stare off of Gar, afraid that if you can see the look on his face you know he’s giving you, you’ll just shut down and go to bed.

“He just…did that to you?” Gar asks with furrowed brows and pain in his voice.

“Yep, he wanted powers. Some weird thing against Batman and Robin so he used me because ya know, the system doesn’t actually give a fuck about most foster kids.” You grit your teeth, your fists balling in your arms. “Then thought I was concealing my powers from him because he was certain his experiments were working so he’d try to literally beat them out of me.” You shrug a shoulder. “Guess he was right.”

Gar pauses, piecing it together. He was sure you would have tried to use your powers, but you didn’t? “Wait so….you never used your powers around him and—“

“Let him beat me until he thought I was dead?” You ask, just glancing at Gar long enough to see him nod. “Yep. If he knew it worked, he’d have killed me anyway. Letting him think he failed was…” You tilt your head side to side slightly. “Vindicating in a way. I, uh, I know it sounds so stupid but I was desperate to try and get out. Desperate people do stupid things."

“I’m so sorry that happened.” Gar’s eyes are glued to you, hating the idea of living through that.

He was tortured before and it haunts him every single day. He wasn’t even tortured for very long and it’s still hell. You were tortured for a lot longer. He gets your hesitance and your paranoia. He’d be paranoid, too if he were you.

“Yeah….” You sigh. “So, I might have escaped physically but the piece of shit really isn’t leaving my dreams alone, I guess.”

Gar sits on it for a few seconds. While he was kind of this weird experiment in a way, Dr. Caulder knew it would work and it would save him. He never had to fear for his life around him. He feared speaking up and being himself because sometimes the doctor wasn’t very nice. He didn’t really like other people being their own people, not if it contradicted what he believed or wanted. So, he can’t even fathom want horrors haunt your mind even in safety.

“I can check the tower for you every night if you want.” Gar offers. You jerk your head in his direction, surprise etched across every crease of your face. “And uh, if you have a nightmare, you can wake me up. I leave my door unlocked anyway…if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Y-y-you’d do that?”

Gar gains a sheepish smile as he shrugs. “Yeah, of course.”

You will never tell Jason, but maybe he was right about telling Gar. You feel a little better about it and he’s so nice. He’s offering to lose sleep when you have a nightmare which could be every night. You wonder how he’s chosen to be so kind despite whatever he’s been through.

“Thank you.” You look to the ground and then finally look at Gar. “Can you not tell anyone? Please?”

He chuckles softly. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks, it means a lot.” You suck in a breath. “Well, now that I know my delusions are just delusions, I’m gonna try and get some more sleep.” You give him a genuine smile this time.

“I’ll be up if you need anything.” Gar says, turning back to the computer to exit out of the security system.

“I’m so sorry.” You apologize again. “I didn’t mean to keep you from sleeping or anything.”

“It’s okay.” Gar assures you. “I should be getting up early anyway.”

“Okay.” You nod, offering him a closed and small smile.

It’s six now so Gar’s alarm would be going off in an hour anyway. But, you’re still going to go to bed. He didn’t hear you go to bed the night before and it was pretty late when you woke up from the first nightmare.

“What, uh what time did you go to bed anyway?”

“Uh….” You squint an eye, trying to remember the last time you looked at your phone. “Four? I think?”

“Wow, okay.” Gar’s brows raise quickly as he chuckles softly.

“I-I got talking with Jason last night so…” Your words fall off. “Couldn’t sleep and I ran into him.”

Gar nods slowly, ignoring the tint of a burn in his chest. You talked to Jason but not him? He’s been so nice to you and he feels like you trust him. All you do with Jason is this weird banter thing that Gar is slowly realizing maybe it’s flirting. Not that he’s actively trying to pursue anything because that doesn’t feel right either. But something about you talking to Jason, hurts. He’s always deemed himself a trustworthy person who’s a pretty good listener but you went to probably the worst listener on the face of the planet. He doesn’t really get it and he knows he has not right to assume you would tell him anything. Above everything else, he’s just surprised you got talking to Jason.

“What’d ya talk about?” Gar plays it cool, not digging but just asking.

“Uh….nothing really, I guess.” You lie and it’s at that moment you realize you lie a lot. Not that you intend to, it just feels like an instinct now either to protect yourself or other people. “I mean…not nothing.” You correct yourself. “Some of what happened in a very unserious manner.”

Gar nods his head again and you might be a little dense but you’re not so dense that you missed the way he stiffed in his chair. “Did it help?” He asked.

“Well, I, uh, I felt better after but then I had a nightmare so….not sure how much talking about it really helped.” You scoff as you roll your shoulders.

“Is it because it was unserious?” Gar asks, quoting your direct word.

You shake your head. “Nah, always been better with unserious ways of talking about trauma. When it gets too….emotional I don’t….” You look to the floor, tugging your sleeves over your hands. “I don’t like it very much, like it less than I usually do, I suppose.”

“You can talk to me.” Gar offers, looking back over to you.

“I know.” You smile at him softly, it’s almost a smirk that forms. “Can you get a little snarky and nasty about it?”

“Would it help?” Gar chuckles, his position loosening with the question and the burning sensation in his chest starting to dissipate.

“Yeah, you can’t give that look you do. With the big eyes and sad expression, makes me feel weird.” You scrunch the left side of your mouth upwards.

Gar laughs softly, putting his hands up. “Okay, I’ll try my best.”

“Thanks.” You look around the room and then back to him. “I do like talking to you and hanging around you. You make me feel comfortable here.” You admit and then realize you’re saying way too much. “Okay well, that’s enough for today. I’m actually going to bed.” You smile at him and it almost feels like you should hug him or something but that also feels like it might just get awkward so you opt for a small wave as if that wasn’t just as awkward.

“Sleep well.” Gar laughs softly, matching the wave with burning cheeks.

You finally get some much-needed rest, without a nightmare. It wasn't a lot of sleep by any means but it was a lot more than you’ve gotten in a long time and for the first time, you actually feel well-rested. You aren't sure if it's because you talked with Gar about what happened a little bit or if it's because you knew he was awake and wouldn't let anyone in your room if they tried. Or that he helped you look around the tower for Jerry like two crazy people. Maybe it's a combination of everything but you feel a lot better.

You find yourself walking into the kitchen once you’re fully awake, still dressed in pajamas. Your thing has always been you shouldn't need to get properly dressed if you aren't actively doing something or going somewhere. Why bother dirtying clothes?

When you walk into the kitchen, Gar and Jason are sat on the barstools while Dick is making some type of shake, Rachel is just coming in from the opposite hall. The boys look a little sweaty, devouring their food like they haven’t eaten in days. You assume they’d just gotten done with a training session and, apparently, were too hungry to shower first.

"Good morning." Dick chimes, bits of sarcasm in his words given it just being past noon.

You pause, glaring at him. "You're one of those aren't you?"

"What?" Dick chuckles, confusion in his face.

"Thinking the early bird gets the worm or whatever." Your voice is flat and you might be well-rested and it might be the afternoon, but you’re not a morning person.

Dick shrugs. "It's true."

"But the mouse gets the cheese, my guy." You give him a thumbs up, moving to the seat between Jason and Gar and sitting down. Gar gives you this gentle smile while Jason has this proud smirk pulling at his lips. "What?" You look at Dick who looks somewhere between amused and contentment.

Dick is looking at you with a sense of ease and accomplishment. He thought you’d be more...closed off longer. This is a new place, you’re traumatized and hurt. But, you seem comfortable, using sarcasm with him that isn’t hurtful and plopping down right between the boys whose expressions did not go unnoticed by Dick. Dick feels like he might be doing something really good here.

"Nothing." Dick's face settles with amusement. "Settling okay?"

"Mhm." You hum.

"Since she doesn't shut the fuck up, I'm sure she's fine." Jason states, his voice trying to sound menacing.

Gar and you look to Jason with annoyance. "You have not shut up for a single second I have been here and this is day three. You had no complaints last night." You look away, Dick looking between the two of you with his cup held to his mouth. He doesn’t even wanna know.

"You were whining, I wanted you to shut up and it worked." Jason mumbles and you let out a laugh. What is his issue?

"I don't whine, I complain. There's a difference." You hold your pointer finger up to correct him and Jason cracks a smile, Gar chuckles into his water bottle.

"Same shit." Jason fires back. "You could stop."

You roll your eyes and that's when the idea sparks. Jason isn’t winning this, this is your game to win. "Hey, Dick, question: What's your rule on dating? Ya know in the tower?"

Jason and Gar both stiffen in their seats, you catching it out of the corner of your eyes and it takes everything in you not to burst out laughing or break the stare you have with Dick. Gar is choking on his water and Jason's cheeks are turning red while Dick is stuck looking at all three of you wondering how the hell he got here. The last thing Dick wants to do is discuss this. Of course, he knew there was a chance of something going on, but he kind of assumed it would just happen. He didn’t think he’d get dragged into it, not like this at least.

"She's screwing with you." Rachel says from the other side of Gar. You give Dick a wide smirk, Gar and Jason looking a little displeased, Jason more than Gar who almost looks disappointed.

"Of course she is." Dick lets out a breath, his expression unamused.

"Sorry, you were a necessary casualty in getting Jason to shut up for a few seconds." You hold an apologetic smile.

Jason flirts a lot and in your experience, if you bring up dating out of the blue, it’ll shut someone like Jason up faster than anything because it’s out of left field. He’s caught off guard and it gets his brain going on if there’s something going on. You think it’s funny, you’ve won this bit.

"Well, since you wanted to bring it up..." Dick starts and all four of you suddenly look like you need seatbelts.

"No, not the talk, please." Gar begs with a groan.

Dick grimaces. "No, of course not. I trust you all know about that." Even if you didn’t, Dick isn’t sure he’d be able to give the talk. He’d call Donna and Dawn. They’re the responsible ones.

"Some of us more than others." Jason quips with a smirk.

"Gross." Rachel mutters.

"Dude." Gar looks past you and at Jason, shaking his head at Jason.

"Anyway, uh..." Dick fumbles for words, realizing he never had any intention of this conversation which was his fault given the Titans past of relationship in the tower. "Just make sure everyone is consenting and be safe?"

"You sound so uncertain about that." You raise a brow as your words are slow.

"I don't know how to have this conversation." Dick defends.

"We don't have to." Gar is grimacing in his seat. "We know, safety and consent, got it." It’s not that Gar is a prude, it’s just awkward and he’s not much of a fan of awkward conversations. If it were just him and Dick, it wouldn’t be awkward, but it's everyone.

"Don't bring drama into the training room or while we're out."

"Obviously." Rachel says, already tired of the conversation.

"That won't be a problem." Jason mutters.

You rolls your eyes at him before looking back to Dick. "You're doing great, bud." You give Dick a thumbs up.

"That's it. I don't care, don't do anything.....graphic..."

"God." Gar groans, making you laugh. But, everyone has gathered this look of disgust on their faces with Dick’s choice of words. "Please, stop talking." Gar pleads.

"In a public area of the tower." Dick continues.

All of your faces contort into a grimace, even Jason’s. That is such an odd and specific request. You did not think this is where that joke would go. You didn’t think it’d go anywhere, let alone here.

"I feel like there's a very specific reason you said that and I don't wanna know." You laugh. "I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd decide to have this conversation." You apologize to the room.

"And what did you learn today?" Dick asks, not too happy about feeling like he had to have the talk with the new Titans.

"You want me today something like pick my words more carefully next time but...I think I just learned not bring up interpersonal relations with you in front of other people." You scrunch your nose.

Dick lets out a sigh. "Well, are we clear then?"

"YES." Gar yells, dramatically. "Can we stop now? This is awkward."

"Come on, Gar. Surely this isn't new territory for you." You kick Jason under the counter. "Ow! What the fuck?"

"Shut the fuck up." You snip at him.

"Yeah? And What are you gonna do about it?" Jason looks you up and down.

You narrow your eyes and for a second you think about what you could do. You could give him a burn, something equivalent to a rug burn. But, that’s not right and you’d never actually try to hurt him, not like this. And you can’t punch him because that also seems a bit extreme. He’d probably see it coming anyway, block you, then hit you back.

"That's what I thought." Jason scoffs with a look of pride as he’s won.

You shove him with your hand, Jason falling off of his chair. He hits the floor with a thud, looking at up at you with a twisted face filled of anger and shock. For someone who can't fight and who's injured, you’re ballsy. Jason could fight you right now and you'd basically be defenseless but Jason wouldn't do that. He knows where the lines are when it comes to physical contact and he doesn't cross them. He crosses a lot of lines, but fighting people who can't fight back isn't one of those. So, he's even more pissed about it.

Jason gets back to his feet, closing the distance between him and you. "What the fuck is your problem, huh?" Jason yells in your face, Gar adjusting in his seat, ready to get up at any point and Dick is ready to step in if he needs to.

"You are, apparently. Why do you have to be such a fucking asshole? For no reason? Aren't you friends?"

"He doesn't need you to come to his fucking defense. I was fucking joking." Jason snarls, looking just past you at Gar before looking back at you.

"Right." You mutter. "Except it's obvious the whole conversation has made him uncomfortable so why don't you go cool the fuck off. You obviously need to." You sit straight in your seat, your face close to Jason's and you’re not backing down.

"You shoved me!" Jason flings his arm out in frustration.

"You asked me what I was gonna do about it! So I showed you!" You bark at him. "What are you gonna do about it?"

A dry laugh escapes Jason's throat and he doesn't want to actually fight you, but you’re making it a little tempting right about now. "Is that all you fucking have?" He taunts you instead.

"Wanna test me?" You open your palms, holding them just in front of your shoulders as they glow. Jason looks at the green and he doesn't get how people with powers are so willing to use them. He doesn't need powers. He's got his fists and those are plenty.

"Because you're just another freak, right?"

Gar gets off his seat at that comment, pushing Jason slightly and standing in between you and Jason. "Dude, go calm down. It's not that serious." Gar keeps his voice level, trying to diffuse the situation.

"You a team now, huh?" Jason looks in between you.

"Jason, come on. Cool off for a few minutes." Dick keeps his stance, choosing not to crowd the already heated area.

"Fuck you guys!" Jason yells, pushing past Gar and heading down the right hallway.

Gar sits down again and Dick's position relaxes with Jason out of the room. Gar's just surprised it went as far as it did but it's also Jason. He has buttons and pushing them sometimes leads to blow-ups. Jason is still his friend but sometimes, he really does not make it easy and this is one of those times. He doesn't understand why Rachel and now you are freaks but somehow Gar is never a freak. He has powers, too and as far as he's concerned, turning into a tiger is far more freakish than whatever you have going on. And he always acts like it's your fault, somehow. Rachel was just born like that, no one gets to pick their biological parents. And Gar and you were injected. How is that right? It hurts a little because Gar knows that if they weren't friends, he'd be the target one of Jason's freak rants.

"Is that what everyone meant by I'd get used to Jason?" You ask the room.

"Yeah." Gar answers and Dick nods. "He does that sometimes."

"Interesting." You hum quietly, your hands shaking slightly, Gar taking notice.

"Are you okay?" He asks, looking between your hands and your eyes.

"Oh..." You quickly move your hands under the countertop and tug your sleeves down. "I'm, uh I'm fine." You fake a smile at him.

It's not that you really thought Jason might hit you, him hitting you over a shove didn’t even cross your mind. You don't really know if he's the type that gets mad and hits people, you don't really know him at all. But, you'd think that would have been a warning from someone if that were the case. It was more that you don't like getting yelled at apparently. It wasn’t an issue before Jerry but, now it seems to be another trigger.

"He wouldn't have hurt you." Dick assures you, as if reading your mind.

"Jason doesn't hit people here when he gets mad, just yells a lot." Gar assures you, following Dick's lead.

"I didn't think he'd hit me." You tell them with ease. "Got that throbbing thing in the back of my head when someone's going to." You remind them. "And I just...I'm not scared of him. Guess I just don't like being yelled at when someone is in my face." You look to the counter. "I'm fine, honest."

"Are you sure?" Gar asks.

"Yeah." You give him a soft smile. "Thanks though. I'm gonna eat." You get down and find a bowl in a cabinet, moving around Dick.

"Okay, I'm gonna go check on Jason then, make sure he's cooling down." Dick gives Gar a look and a nod toward you. Gar nods in response while Dick leaves to find Jason.

You make your cereal while Gar watches you. Your hands are still shaking and he feels bad. It's not his fault that Jason blew up because it's Jason. He blows up at everything but Gar could have defended himself. It's nice that you did. He's never had someone defend him like that but it got you yelled at by Jason and after you had, what Gar assumed to be, a pretty nice conversation the night before. He just worries about you.

"Hey," Gar starts as you take your seat back next to him. "Wanna do something today?" Gar asks.

You furrow your brows at him, before taking a bite of your cereal. "Like what?"

"What'd you wanna do?" Gar shrugs, figuring maybe you should be the one to decide. He just wants to hang out with you.

"Mmmm." You hum and think for a second. "Dye my hair." You chuckle softly.

"That's what you wanna do?" Gar asks.

"Mhm." You hums. "Always wanted to and you have green hair, Rachel's hair is purple." You shrug.

You just want a change. This is a big change, being at the tower but that doesn’t have anything to do with your appearance. You like how you look but you want something different. Your mom never let you dye your hair even though you really wanted to. This place, this place allows you to do that and to change something about yourself. It’s a way to take control of something. The way you see it, with all the bruising and swelling, you don’t look much like yourself anyway. Might as well change the hair, too.

"Okay." Gar beams at you. "We can go get whatever dye you want today and I can help. I'm not sure how much help I'll be but maybe we can get Rachel to help if you want." Gar rambles off and he seems so energetic and happy about it.

"Uh..." You stutter. "Okay, yeah that'd be fun. Thank you." The smile you give him is wide and filled of joy.

"What color?"

You tell him your favorite color, beaming at him. "Always thought that hair was cool." You smirk at him.

"We'll go when you're done eating." Gar gets up from his chair. "I'm gonna shower first."

"Have a blast." You grin to yourself, going back to your cereal. "Meet me in my room after?" You look back to him and he nods with a cheery smile before turning on his feet, and quickly heading down the hallway. "He's so cute." You say to yourself, going back to your cereal.

After Gar's shower, he met with you in your room. You were already dressed and ready to go, you even asked Rachel for help when you got back which Rachel was more than happy to help. Once Gar was ready, he was the one that asked Dick for some money before you left and off you went with Rachel, you feeling more comfortable having both Gar and Rachel with you. You realize how great it is that Rachel was willing to help because you never would have gotten something everything you needed.

When you got back, Gar and you met with Rachel in a bathroom. Rachel got everything together and get to work with your hair. You explained to Rachel that you still wanted some of your natural hair color but the majority of it to be dyed. Rachel understood what you were explaining while Gar seemed a little confused.

As Rachel helped with your hair, the three of you got talking about past lives. You all avoided all talk about trauma and tragic backstories and instead talked about your favorite movies and shows, music. If you'd ever been to a concert, the best places you've ever eaten, random stories about family and friends you had before everything. And while these conversations are going on, there's warmth and comfort that consumes you.

This is the longest you’ve gone without thinking about how your face looks or how your body is sore or Jerry. It's just the three of you and you feel so at home because Gar and Rachel make it so easy. And you wonder if this is what real friendship feels like.

Sure, you had friends before your mom died. But that was then and this is now. You had a small circle of friends but only one that you really relied on and could tell anything to. But then your mom died and it all got so messy and heavy. You couldn't inconvenience even your best friend with your problems over it. Your best friend never really understood the person you started to become after. Vengeful and spiteful and angry. And desperate and cold and detached. It struck like a hurricane right through your friendship.

You couldn't handle anything and you were always running from CPS. What kind of friend would you be if you endangered your best friend's mom by getting in trouble with CPS? You knew it was only a matter of time before they threatened to take your best friend away if they didn't give you up. At least, that's how you always saw it. It was always such a big fear and you couldn't put them through that, on the chance it did happen so you just left one day and never came back. But you weren't a very good friend then either.

You had all these plans of hunting down the Joker and even though you'd probably die, too, hunting him down would have made it worth it to you. To look him in the eyes and just try to hit him or shoot him, if you had a gun anyway. You knew you would never make it out alive and that was something you deemed to be okay because you didn't have anything worth living for anymore. Your dad went off to choose drugs over you, your mom died, your best friend not knowing how to handle anything. A suicide mission seemed like a pretty sweet deal at the time. But, now you’re here with Gar and Rachel, in this bathroom getting the hair you’ve wanted to try and maybe you have more worth living for.

"Okay, what do you think?" Rachel asks, shutting the blow-dryer off, proud of the dye job she's done.

You look in the mirror and your face lights up. Stripes of the color consume the majority of your head and you could not be happier in this moment. "I love it!" You squeal before turning around. "Thank you!" You hug Rachel quickly before turning back around and there's a sweet and amused smile on Gar's face.

"It looks really good on you." Gar's smile turns shy as you look to him.

"Y-you think so?" You asks, your stomach swirling with his words.

Gar nods. "Yeah, I like the color." Gar’s smile is the softest thing in the world.

"How cute." Rachel giggles before cutting it short as Gar looks at her with wide eyes. "It looks good, yeah." Rachel agrees.

"Thank you." You look at yourself again and you’ve never had this hair before, but it makes you feel more like yourself. It's probably the self-expression it's allowing you to have but you really like it. "And hey, now people will have something else to look at that's not my face." You laugh softly.

"You're face looks good, too." Gar says so quickly, you and Rachel barely catch it, but you do and you both look at him with raised brows. Rachel looks in between you and Gar, waiting for something to happen. This is the most entertainment she's had since they got to San Francisco. "I mean..." Gar stutters. "The, uh, the bruises and stuff, they're healing."

"Mhm." You hum with burning cheeks. "Thank you, Gar."

Gar feels the embarrassment wanting to eat him alive. He can't believe he said that out loud. Now Rachel is looking at him with knowing eyes and he can't help it. Sometimes, things just come out and then he feels like he has to backtrack and now he's embarrassed even though you didn't seem bothered by it. Which then makes him think he didn't need to add in the last comment about the bruises. Surely, you know he didn't mean just the bruises are looking fine now and the meant your whole face but now he doesn't know and he has got to get his brain to shut up for five seconds.

"There you are." Dick says, looking into the bathroom, the door wide open.

"Yes?" Rachel asks.

"Training room." Dick says.

Gar checks the time on his phone, seeing they were in fact late for their last training session. Shopping with you took a little longer than expected since you stopped for food and were having fun together. Then dying your hair took a while but Dick doesn't seem mad about it.

The three of you follow Dick to the training room where Jason is already waiting, as if he hadn't left the room since this morning. You sit on a bench and watch as you’re not allowed to train yet. Dick mostly supervises after giving them some instructions on what to do and then gives pointers. You mostly watch Gar and Jason.

It's interesting watching them. Jason is clearly the aggressor. You can't tell if it's all his pent-up aggression or if it's just his experience as Robin that makes him the aggressor but you find it interesting nonetheless. Gar and Rachel seem to work together to go against Jason even though they're all supposed to be working against each other. Gar works more on a defensive tactic, going for Jason after Jason comes for him or while Rachel has him distracted and that's when Gar gets a hit it. They're being trained by the same person but they fight differently and it seems to match their personalities.

Dick walks over to you as the other three continue to spar. "Like the new hair." Dick compliments you.

"Thanks, Rachel did it for me." You beam up at him.

"Feeling more comfortable?"

"Yeah..." You sigh. "I give you shit 'cause it's fun but I think I'm gonna like it here. Thank you again for taking me in." You say candidly. You make a mental note to thank him regularly for it.

It warms Dick's heart to know his efforts mean something. He just wants to be the mentor he wishes Bruce was and he just wants to help. It seems to be working, with you and Rachel and Gar, jury is still out on Jason. But Dick knows Jason will not be an overnight success.

"Good, I'm glad." Dick offers you a smile before walking back to where he previously was.

The rest of the training session goes by, Gar and Rachel going to you when they had a water break and talking. Jason opted to be by himself, Gar noticing the concern on your face and assuring you that he'll be calm and be over it the next day. But it doesn't quite sit right for you. You don't want him mad at you, you do like to mess with him in a fun banter way, not him being pissed at you.

You like to push people's buttons but you’re not too fond of people being actively mad at you. If there's a line you aren't supposed to cross, all someone has to do is tell you and you'll respect the line. You aren't about making people unnecessarily uncomfortable or mad. But you nod along with Gar anyway and eventually training ends. You stay behind with Jason, Gar hovers a little more than he would given the events of the afternoon but he does eventually leave the two of you alone.

"So, you gonna stay mad at me forever?" You ask as you walk over to Jason who's seated on a bench, getting a drink and ignoring you. "Come on," You groan. "Can you not handle a shove from me?"

Jason glares up at you. "Just shut up." He groans.

"Nope." You sit next to him, your leg touching his. "I'm sorry I shoved you." Jason's brows furrow at you and he doesn't think anyone has apologized to him since he's been here, for anything. "Honest, I should have left it alone but I provoked you further than I should have." You are sorry for it. Sure, Jason owes you an apology, too but you can apologize first.

"Sorry for what I said." Jason mumbles, swallowing his pride.

He never wants to hurt someone's feelings, not really. In the moment, absolutely but then after he feels horrible about it. He hates when other people make him feel weak. You shoving him from his seat, it made him feel weak and he hates it. It’s how he’s felt his entire life. Weak. So, when he feels weak or when someone pushes the wrong bottom, he just starts talking and going off. It just flows out of his mouth before he can even think about it. It's not an excuse, he just can't help it and he is sorry.

"To you and Gar." Jason lets out a sigh.

The corner of your smile pulls up. "I forgive you."

Jason glances at you and he can’t stay mad at you. Normally, he’s very good at holding grudges. He still has a grudge against a kid who pushed him down a slide when he was seven. He’s very good at holding grudges but you’ve got this smirk that says you’re up to no good and this look in your eyes that sends this electricity through his blood. He can’t explain it but he can’t stay mad at you.

"Did you still wanna train tonight when everyone goes to bed?" Jason turns his head towards you, twitching his brows up and the grin starts pull at his lips.

"If you're still willing."

"Someone's gotta show you how to do more than fucking shove someone." Jason scoffs but a smile pulls at his lips as he chuckles softly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, got powers now and never had issues on the streets, okay? People happen to like my quick wit and quips.” You lightly nudge him with your shoulder.

"Yeah," Jason chortles. "That's why no one fucked with you.” Jason nods his head and lightly nudges you back, not believing you.

"I'd like to think so, yes.” You hold your head up with pride and Jason has this genuinely kind smile on his face. “What time, boss?”

Jason shakes his head. “Midnight. Everyone is usually in their rooms or asleep.”

“Okay, I'll meet you here then." You smirk at him as you get up and lick your lips. He knows deep down he doesn't have a shot with you but his stomach burns with the thought of you. You get under his skin like no one else and he hates to admit it but he really likes it.

"Don't be late." Jason quips, his voice taunting.

You shake your head, turning around to face him again. “Shut the fuck up.” You laugh softly. “I’ll meet you here at midnight, on the dot.” You widen your eyes, mocking him before exiting the room.

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Tag list: @fairyofshampoo // @italiana-20 // @jasontoddsmentaldisorders // @purplerose291 // @lovelessamai // @makaelaseresin // @lenidaslenchen // @thatfangirl42

#gar logan #jason todd #gar logan x reader #garfield logan x reader #jason todd x reader #gar logan fanfic #gar logan fanfiction #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fanfiction #titans #titans fanfic #titans fanfiction #caving in

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aussie-the-hedgehog · 5 months ago

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My Hero Academia - Chapter 425 Thoughts (Spoilers)

I'm surprised I haven't done a post like this for the previous chapters. It's always healthy to get my thoughts out through posts, so I might look to do it more often! Obviously I left the spoiler tag here, so if you don't want to know what happens, don't click it! Peruse at your own risk.

I was not expecting this chapter to jump so quick back to the academia portion of the series. I was thinking we would get another hospital chapter or two. I guess when Horikoshi said after 424, "We're going back to the title," he really meant it. I'm honestly glad for it given what we got in this chapter. I dearly missed the school shenanigans and character interaction. It hasn't been since before My Villain Academia we've seen it.

It was cool to start with the graduation ceremony involving Mirio, Nejire, and Tamaki. It was delayed because of this war, so it makes sense for Horikoshi to start with this.

The boys of U.A. lamenting Nejire's graduation will never not be funny.

It's cool to see Nejire grow into a social butterfly from not having friends due to her quirk. I do wish more was done with her character. She screams like a Starfire clone and could have had an arc similar to the TT03 iteration.

I enjoyed Mirio's speech. It captures the essence of his character and shows what he desires to do as a pro hero. Honoring Sir Nighteye with his motivations sounds like a good wrap up to his character arc.

I liked seeing Mawata being an outspoken leader in this chapter. I hope we find out what her quirk is before the series ends. I wish she was more fleshed out earlier on in the narrative, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

It's so refreshing to see the kids in class together again (now as 2-A). Like I alluded to before, it's been a very long time since we've seen the "Academia" side to this series. I love how Horikoshi is dedicating a solid amount of time returning to class shenanigans before he ends it.

I love the ending for Aoyama's arc. I had a feeling Tsukauchi would grant him the ability to return to U.A., but the twinkling hero wants to redeem himself on his own terms. For that, I deeply respect him.

Aoyama giving Izuku cheese as a parting gift was too pure. It made me tear up.

Shinso will be Aoyama's replacement! Obviously we knew Shinso would come to the hero course at some point since the end of the joint training arc. We only didn't know which class he would join. It makes sense for him to join 2-A given Aizawa is his mentor. Speaking of that..

Aizawa remaining their homeroom teacher was a great choice. U.A. is still not at normalcy (and may not for a long time). so it makes sense for 2-A to remain under his tutelage.

Mawata makes it clear the upperclassmen of U.A. will play a major role in helping rebuild hero society. It is not a huge surprise given Endeavor lost an arm, Hawks is quirkless, Mirko has one limb left, Jeanist is working through legal trouble, and Edgeshot gave himself to save Bakugo (not sure about Edgeshot's fate atm). U.A. is a beacon of hope for hero society now, so it is up to them to carry the mantel.

Ochako still being flustered by any mention of her speech is adorable (and totally something I would do).

Many are calling out Ochako for hating Izuku's "haircut," but she recognized very quickly it had to be shaved because of the damage he suffered against Shigaraki / All for One. She hopes she sees him with a full head of hair again. I don't see it as teasing or hating on him. Ochako has always been one of the more blunt characters in the series.

Tokoyami's reaction to his new hairdo is amazing.

Izuku's concerned face next to Ochako's laughter screams seeing through her facade. They are best friends. He knows when she's struggling. He can see through that laughter.

Horikoshi is definitely using this as foreshadowing to a conversation where they unleash their feelings on the war. It's obvious from this chapter and the last that they are mentally struggling. I believe this eventual conversation will end in a resolve they will look to change hero society for the better and confess their love for each other.

The mystery character is quite interesting. Is it Tenko? Izuku's father? Someone totally different? We'll have to wait and see.

Shoto is not in a great place either. He looks so exhausted from the panels he's in. At the end we find out why.

Endeavor potentially sitting in front of where Touya is being contained. He has probably visited him every day since he was put in there. He provided Rei with flowers often while she was in the hospital. It doesn't feel too different.

It will be an agonizing wait to see what happens next, but I will patiently wait. I'm very excited to see what Horikoshi does next. My prediction is 426 shows us Touya's fate.

I'm hoping in the ensuing chapters after 426 we get an Izuku and Ochako talk. I've had my anxieties about it not happening. Yet, with the buildup we've had and Ochako confessing her love for him to Toga, I can't help but feel it would be bad writing if it doesn't happen.

Honestly, if I think about it, Ochako is probably intertwining her confession to Izuku with her failure to save Toga since she confessed her feelings to the villain. There is definitely lots of emotional tension there. We'll see what happens!

#bnha #mha #bnha manga #bnha manga leaks #bnha manga spoilers #bnha 425 #bnha 425 spoilers #my hero academia #boku no hero academia

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steepsheep · 1 month ago

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Completely knackered out due to all events today.

Our old man budgie, Ragnar, (10 years old) had to be admitted to emergency vet care this evening.

After a check up this afternoon at his usual avian vet where she (the avian vet):

- did a physical examination (everything was alright, Ragnar had morbid obesitas and was on a strict diet for 1,5-2 months, and he had lost enough weight to be considered healthy again),

- tried to clean out his nostril (his nostril was hidden once again, but it started bleeding, so she stopped directly with trying to open it up),

- examined his excrements (he has a bacterial infection in his body that doesn't react to antibiotics anymore so he's on a 'maintenance dosage' of F10 in his drinking water to keep the bacterial infection at bay) but except for the known bacterial infection nothing eventful is going on.

Everything looked alright so far.

Due to the bacterial infection and his personality, he's really afraid of hands, startled easily and then starts breathing very heavily, almost hyperventilating-like, he was breathing heavily after putting him back in his 'travel bag/cage'.

Everything seemed to be alright.

On our journey back home Ragnar started walking backwards, turning around in circles, screaming, flap hard with his wings, in his travel bag.

I tried contacting our avian vet multiple times but couldn't reach her. The only thing we could do was continuing traveling back home in the hope when we'd arrive home he'd be a bit better.

Back at home when I tried to put him back on his perch, he immediately fell down and continued the twisting and spinning in circles. Due to lack of better words the only way I can describe it is like he looked like he was having spasms/maybe a seizure but he didn't came out of it.

We tried contacting our avian vet a few more times to no avail and decided to contact the emergency vet. Who said to drop by directly so we did. The whole journey we were afraid Ragnar wasn't going to make it, but he did.

While Ragnar was in the care of the emergency vet we decided to wait for an hour to see if the treatments would help. They put him in an oxygen cage, gave him glucose and an anti-seizure medication which didn't helped a lot, we found out after an hour. But he still was reacting to his environment, to hands (anger!) and to us. He's still there mentally. All the time while still spasming/seizuring.

We made the decision to not give up on Ragnar because the emergency vet isn't an avian vet (we thought they were) and tomorrow morning (a few hours from now) an avian vet will examine him.

The emergency vet has been in contact with the avian vet and Ragnar's symptoms are the same as the symptoms of a heavy metal poisoning. So we decided to start treatment for heavy metal poisoning, as they said if it isn't that - it won't harm him.

Tomorrow morning we will hear more from the avian vet and we will be in contact with our own avian vet. Leaving Ragnar there is heartbreaking but we really hope he will pull through.

Normally I don't post about my pets here but I hope someone might read this and maybe know what to do in this situation.

I hope it's okay to tag a few bird blogs people here in the hope someone has an idea what we can do for Ragnar. I really don't want to give up on him.

@flock-talk @parrot-parent @birdhism

#budgie #budgerigar #Ragnar #pet health #parrot #bird #birb #pet health problems #bird care #parrot care #tw sickness #cw sickness #long post #potentially triggering #i really don't know the right tags sorry #birblr

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thelindenpapers · 18 days ago

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Thank you for the tag, @13thpythagoras !

Last song: It's so hard to put just one! 😖

(Admitting that I'm goofing around with writing lyrics for this. ^^; Because I got this idea for making a "modern" DND character who claimed it as her theme song.

Tall Black woman with gigantic blowout Afro, silver lipstick, white long-sleeved tunic with silver rings and light grey straps across it...some small pouches and potion vials secured to the hardware. Old school black leather motorcycle jacket, ripped white stonewash jeans, tall black leather goth platform boots.

Possibly paladin or bard/fighter?

She does mounted combat...just, on a motorcycle, not a horse, because she belongs to a "biker gang".

It's kinda tongue-in-cheek tho, because, the way they act, it's a biker gang as portrayed by the cast of a movie musical 😆... 🕺🏻💃🏾👩🏽‍🦽🤸👨🏼‍🦽🕺🏿💃

Also, she lives in an anarcho-communist-solarpunk-city, sooooo....

It's like, a biker gang, IF a biker gang were basically a group of street medics/nurses, construction workers, and varied laborers and carers riding around dancing and partying and hooting and hollering while offering all kinds of immediate no-strings-whatsoever free assistance to all their fellow city residents and visitors all day.

o.o Oh, and they're mostly comprised of disabled and mentally-ill folk...so, there's a heavy "cripple punk" flavor to them....i-it's this whole thing that, I just, I love it so much. 😂 Music gives me too many fun ideas to keep up with!

🗣️🎶✨

...

YO WAZZ UP?!?? n0n YO WAZZ UP?!?? >:3

We scream, "Yo wazz up!", Full of Mad Pride, And where we walk we fuckin' crack the sky-- Ooohh -- Working side-by-side Ooohh -- Our city's so damn bright!

We shout, "Yo wazz up!" Vibing day and night, And where we speak, our voices shatter lies, Ooohh! -- So, what makes you sigh? Ooohh! -- We gonna make that right!

...

[Bridge later in the song:] 🗣️"Yeah!!, we will dance and play...join us if you could use some bright to your day... *twirls a random kid*

🗣️🎶Annnd, if you ever neeed~? We are the bullies here to bully bullies!" ... >:} *cracks knuckles at a tourist harassing a little old lady* ✨)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Favorite color: Red ✨⚡🌹🍒🍓🐾🍷🌶️🦊🍂🌺💋❤️‍🔥🫖🛵🎈🎀🏮🪭👒🔬🪓🧰🎸🧵🍰❤️🫀❤️‍🩹🚩🏴🇵🇷💃🏾💅🏾🩸🌹⚡✨

Last book: The Word for World is Forest -- Ursula K LeGuin

Last movie: Identiteaze

Last tv show: KAOS [ And a re-watch of Star Trek Discovery 🌌🪩💃🏾✨ ]

Sweet/spicy/savory: I'd say "?porque no los tres¿" 😋, but I've had to cut WAAYYY down on the sugar these days, so:

Savory.

(...Punctuated with healthy amounts of spicy: because, not only is spicy delicious, but it's great for keeping the throat and lungs on point! ☝🏾😤👏🏾✨)

Relationship status: (Unfortunately) married. (Fortunately) no kids.

It is NOT a good relationship. In fact, it has been abusive and neglectful for over a decade, to the point of ruining my life and about 99.999999% of my opportunities, when I was already in a precarious position from a fucked up childhood to begin with...

The thing about that is, abusive people and families have a way of making SURE, that, either financially or physically(i.e. medically) or both -- via sabotage, weaponized incompetence, flat out lies, all sorts of things -- you get put into a corner where you can't leave and can't make any moves...so, as much as I'm starving to leave, I'm in no position to.

Last thing I googled: Autumn trees 🍂🍁✨ (for something I'm writing, though they're certainly a pleasure just to look at n_n )

Current obsession(s):

Casual stuff -- DND, music. Games: Fields of Mistria and Pacific Drive (let's plays for winding down, cause I don't personally have anything to ACTUALLY play the games on 😅).

Guava empanadas. Blackberry black tea. Swords.

IRL Goals --

Goal 1: Trying to figure out how to commission art for a children's book *without* cheating the artist out of the kind of funds they SHOULD get (as opposed to the funds I actually HAVE 😅😅😅)...may well be a pipe dream.

Goal 2: Wondering if I could use a family resource I've suddenly been given access to (🤯unintelligible squeaks of disbelief🤯), to create a private space where I can go to finally rest once in a while from my miserable home life and focus on rebuilding my health and my writing...it would probably take a GoFundMe and a ton of planning and some time...but it might mean that I get to do SOMETHING with my life that actually makes sense to me before all is said and done...

Best case scenario? If I can get the right materials and plan together, I could even plant a food forest nearby! 😳😭❤️‍🩹❤️‍🔥✨ And that could provide a way for me to subsist on very little money...and then I could offer excess produce to pretty much anyone in need!

( Goal ∆§∆???--

....And I've been wondering if maybe these two IRL goals could be combined. (⁠・°・)⁠ゞ

Like, maybe I could offer the children's book for free online, but any DONATIONS the book draws would get split 50/50 between the artist and me.

And then, whatever I get for my share, I could save towards building that private space that would make both my fucked up home life more bearable, and my creative work more... *possible*. .-.;;; )

Looking forward to:

✨🍂🎃👻🌕🐺🌌 Halloween 🌌🐺🌕👻🎃🍂✨

AZO: Absolutely Zero Obligation tags 🖖🏾✨:

tagging: @guthries-guitar @go-blackfeminism @queen-of-wisdom @disaster-cryptic @eldritchbeingisbored @batmanisagatewaydrug @bumblebeeappletree @wishiwasamallard @crowo08 @

ten people i'd like to get to know better

tagged by: @megkuna thanks <333

last song: the phantom of the opera

favorite color: muted green

last book: uhhhhhh oh man i really need to start reading books

last movie: phantom of the opera which i watched with a friend

last tv show: the original star trek which i also watched with a friend

sweet/spicy/savory: sweet, i love sugar too much

relationship status: single and not looking, i'd rather just have more friends

last thing i googled: "how to know if skincare routine is too harsh" my pimples hurt in a Different way now :(

current obsession: probably still mob psycho 100 but it's not what it used to be. yay depression

looking forward to: when my family finally moves into the new house

tagging: @scarecloud69 @disorganised-thoughtss @daneonrainbow @lawful-goof @officialkarinuzumaki @leo-probably @vychodocech @umkayonninay @mocha-blossom @spageddy29 no pressure though <3

#Tried not to TMI too much w/gory details but yeah. It's hard. ^^ it um. Hasnt been a particularly fun life. why I tend NOT to talk abt me #Doesnt mean that I dont see the incredible potentials inherent TO Life & Humanity or that I dont see at least a glimmer of hope for mysel #But in a capitalist system like this??? And given multiple vectors of marginalization...#😂No wonder Im like 'oh hi lovely 2meet you *would you like 2hear a song or maybe youd like to talk dnd have u seen startrek--?! :DDD*#Fuck cringe culture I dont fucking care about that stuff life is too short and Im too goddamn old 💀💀💀#Dnd OC overshare #Pls don't ask if I'm ok of *course* I'm not ok I'm still kickin tho that's all I know 😤 I will kick until I'm dead that's all I know ✊🏾🎶#And if I can't kick I'll punch and if I can't punch I'll bite and if I can't bite I'll curse #How are you tho 😳😅#Y'know I should probably write a philosophy book &offer THAT. 🤯👁️👄👁️🤯 Folk seem WAY more interested in that than in my literary stuff

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 29 days ago

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Painful Realization

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/bD1qsik by Moonlight1234 Damian makes it about a mile before the ground starts to shake slightly. Damian pauses, but the shaking only gets worse. Then the ground underneath his feet explodes, and plants fly out. It knocks him backwards, but he’s still able to catch himself on his elbows. Pain explodes up and down Damian’s arms, but he’s still quick to jump to his feet. He looks around quickly, and plants are everywhere. People are screaming, and running in different directions. Damian clocks each person in his head, then takes off to find somewhere he can change into his costume. It’s not hard to find somewhere, and he slips his comm into his ear once he does. He hides his backpack with his clothes in it somewhere that no one is going to look for it. “Is anyone on the line yet?” “Yep, I’m here, and Spoiler is here,” Tim says. “Batman went to the Watchtower right before this happened. So, he’ll hear about it eventually, and come help. For now though, we’re going to work with what we have, because I can’t reach him over comm.” Words: 2686, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 19 of Batfamily and Batman Fics, Part 15 of Whumptober 2024 Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: Gen Characters: Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake (DCU), Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown Relationships: Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake Additional Tags: Damian Wayne-centric, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Good Sibling Damian Wayne, Hurt Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne Has a Heart, Protective Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne Angst, Damian Wayne Has Issues, Damian Wayne Has a Bad Time, Damian Wayne Has Abandonment Issues, Damian Wayne Needs Love, Protective Bruce Wayne, Good Parent Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Tim Drake Needs a Hug (DCU), Hurt Tim Drake (DCU), Protective Tim Drake (DCU), Protective Stephanie Brown, Stephanie Brown Appreciation, Hurt Stephanie Brown, Hurt No Comfort, Character Death, Sad, Trauma, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt, Mental Health Issues, Healthy Relationships, Domestic Batfamily (DCU), Unhappy Ending, Whumptober, Whumptober 2024 read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/bD1qsik

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the caped crusader #the dark knight #dcu #ao3 #ao3feed

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burnedbyshoto · 4 years ago

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indulge me

indulge me: an arrangement

— Being a secret little girl in the modern world is rough, but it becomes much more chaotic when a classmate of yours offers to be your new daddy dom.

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pairing: todoroki shouto x fem!reader

warnings: 18+, smut, nsfw, ddlg dynamic, college!au, modern!au, daddy!shouto, little girl!reader, I am not well versed in this dynamic please do not use this as an educational source, dom!shouto, sub!reader, biting, marking, mating press, nipple play (both), spanking, oral, gagging, choking, praise, degradation, little space

word count: 13,547

a/n: this is a commission for @bakusbiatch thank you for your endless amount fo patience as it took me 100x longer than ever to write this

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If there was something you knew now that you completely did not understand at the age of eighteen was the entire dynamics of sex. To be fair, after an adolescence of watching porn, reading erotica, and even gossiping between friends, it was, without doubt, that you were entirely clueless about real, healthy dynamics.

First off, the first time you had sex was super uncomfortable.

There was no break or even space for pleasure to build in because you had been so tense, so awkward that you remained rigid and still the entire three minutes the guy fucked into you. You remember his sweat-soaked body collapsing on top of you, his eyes seeing galaxies in the stuffy, now smelly room as he breathed out a ‘Woah.’

You had smiled at him stiffly, letting his softening dick flop out of your dry vagina and curled in on yourself as he snuggled into you, praising the world and everything around it for this moment. It was without saying that you left his cum stained sheets and ran back home.

Sex sucked.

But that was when you were seventeen and made the terrible decision on fucking your friend with whom you had scary sexual tension. You avoided sex to your best ability after that, not so much as caring to allow anyone to touch you because that was disappointing. Why would you go through that when your fingers sufficed much better? Why go through that awkward tension when you didn’t have any moments of awkwardness when reading smut?!

Audios were better.

Words were best.

But, as one does, you fell in love against your will to a boy just a few months older than you. His smile was soft, and his words were kind, but oh, did his touch drive you hot and mad. You weren’t exactly sure how long you had lasted, how much perseverance you had kept when the two of you would fall onto his (thank fucking god) clean sheets, his strong hands and fingers keeping your hips close to his as you kissed him as if you couldn’t live without his touch.

“Are you… are you ready?” he had asked, his shirt thrown into the abyss of his room and the button of your jeans undone, revealing the simple set of panties you had on. “I don’t want to—”

“I’m ready,” you interrupt him, your body practically burning from the inside out with the desperate need and lust for him to fuck you. “I’m ready.”

He stills, his tongue peeking past his lips before a slow, chilling grin spreads against his mouth.

“Okay,” he nods, “can I ask you to do something, though?”

You, in your desperation to get his dick out of his sweats and buried deep into your throbbing cunt, nod.

“I have a daddy kink… I really, really like the daddy little girl dynamics,” he breathes, palms pressing to your knees and dragging down your inner thighs in a teasing, near authoritative way. “Can we… are you interested in trying it?”

Now, although you had largely avoided sex, toys and fingers weren’t nearly enough to replace the overwhelming need to be touched, fucked, and worshipped by another human being. You had fucked plenty of people who had always claimed to have kinks and fetishes. Most of the men you had in bed who said they had a daddy kink only liked being addressed as daddy; that was it. There was no true dynamic, just a play on the power the title brought them.

So, in the naive, childish way you were, you agreed.

You listened to his every command in bed, thrilled and keened under his praise for his princess, for his little girl, and you ate it up, thanking and praising your daddy. The sex ended with you cumming so hard you went blind for a moment, so dizzy from your high. As the both of you drifted off to sleep, you had no clue when you woke up in the morning he would present you with a little girl starter package made by him for you specifically. It was then that you realized that dynamics were an actual thing, and as he presented you a checklist of kinks, toys, and rules he laid out, you realized that nothing you had ever experienced — real or fictional — could have prepared you for this.

The two of you went through the list and rules together, your eyes widening and face blazing with embarrassment as he described his expectations and needs with this dynamic. You nodded, so completely lost in this entire thing that you agreed with most everything he offered and wanted.

The one rule you did have didn’t necessarily surprise him.

The dynamic was to remain a secret, you asserted, unable to budge on this thought. You could be his little girl, but it was to stay in private, never in public. And he tilted his head in thought but ultimately agreed with a smile. He thought you’d one day stop being in the closet over this kink, and you thought the opposite.

And time moves forward; it’s rigid and unforgiving. Two years into a relationship, a year and a half into the dynamic, you and your daddy break up, and you, against all odds, are left scrambling for a daddy you never realized you needed.

What was a girl to do?

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Your head is angled downward, and the hood that sits on your head is not concealing your face as well as you would have liked. It was without saying that you were a woman of pride. You took great care of what you did, how people viewed you, and how you presented yourself to the world. Most days, you always exited your small apartment as an excellent student who was always wearing properly done makeup and stylish outfits.

Your style screamed confident woman (not little girl, you absolutely refused to wear anything cutesy in public), and you walked with your chin raised and eyes on the horizon.

To see that you were in sweats, an oversized hoodie, no makeup on, and perusing the store's area made for young girls and toddlers, was a shock. You had made sure to come nearly thirty minutes before closing; no one would be here to accidentally see you, no one could see you in your embarrassing shame-picking for your dynamic. All because your newest daddy couldn’t afford to buy you new things since your old ones had your ex’s name or brand all over it.

This was for the best; you reminded yourself as you haphazardly threw the items within the basket, face flaming as you ignored the temptation to simply stand in the aisle and flip through the sticker book and coloring book you recently tossed into the cart. You were fine; you already had your plan of action on what to say when purchasing these items.

‘My sister is pregnant again, and she already has a kid,’ you mentally rehearsed, imagining an excited smile on your face because you are excited for this imaginary pregnant sister of yours. ‘It’s a present for the baby and the brat.’

Solid.

Perfect.

Beautiful.

Making sure to quickly take note of what was inside the basket, you spun on your heel and marched your way through the empty store to the deserted register.

You kept your head down as you placed the basket on the conveyor belt, easy peasy, you would be fine!

“Found everything you were looking for?” a voice asks, piercing through your mental rehearsal just in case you got questions.

You blink, head raising up, exposing your face to the person behind the register.

It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

Checking things out at the register wasn’t supposed to be all that embarrassing. I mean, what could top having to buy pads and tampons from a creepy, greasy old man during your very first period ever?! But you had to admit seeing a familiar face behind the register as he began to scan the items in your cart kinda made it a big deal.

Todoroki Shouto read his name tag, and ‘TODOROKI SHOUTO?!’ screamed your heart.

Oh, how to describe Todoroki Shouto, well you didn’t even know where to begin.

Shouto was one thousand percent a supermodel that has yet to be recruited. He could probably be a top star athlete, good enough to go overseas if he wanted. He was a genius. Someone who was somehow friends with everyone he came across even though he was a man of few words.

He stood tall behind the register, the tight black high collared shirt sitting beneath a light blue opened dress shirt. His distinctive red and white slightly wavy hair — all-natural, you believe — pushed back in a way that you would bet to hell and back that he had run his fingers through it. For the past three years in university, you had more than a few classes with this stunning man. You two shared the same major, and he often sat at the back of the classroom, but you were nearly hyperaware of everything he did because his voice was liquid honey and sex and everything that was —

“You can let go of the basket,” Shouto cut through your thoughts, and you gasped loudly, suddenly realizing that you had zoned out thinking about him.

Your hand lets go of the basket, and you slap your sweater-covered hands over your mouth; horror strikes through you like a blazing sword. You weren’t wearing makeup, you were in trash clothes, and you were in front of a man you had lusting feelings over!

NO!

“Sorry!” you squeak, your heart and bile rising up your throat at alarming rates as Shouto merely smiles at you in understanding. “This is all stuff for my sister!”

Shouto blinks, his head tilting to the side as he scans a sippy cup.

“Your sister’s quite young,” he remarks easily, trying not to make you feel stupider—probably.

Tell the lie, y/n, you chide yourself as you shift your weight.

“Ah, well, not actually my sister,” you explain, fingers scratching against your scalp. “My sister is pregnant r-right now, and she already has a little one, so I thought that this would be a good… present?”

Nailed it.

Shouto’s eyebrows quirk, a small smile spreading across his face as he scans the plush doll.

“That’s very kind of you; you must have a good relationship with your sister.”

“O-Oh yeah, we’re very close.”

“And would you say that this is something appropriate to give to a pregnant family member and their child?”

You froze and looked down at the items you had hastily thrown into the basket.

It was a pacifier, sippy cup, baby blanket, choker, coloring books, stuffed animal, candy, and stickers.

You choked, feeling heat exploding in your cheeks all over again; absolutely not. This was not something to give to a pregnant woman.

“My sister is pregnant,” Shouto explains, definitely sensing your poorly concealed stress, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m the youngest of my siblings, so I don’t really know what to buy her.”

“Absolutely the fuck not.”

Shouto blinked, and before you could start screaming apologies over your rudeness, he began laughing loudly. Your face continued to burn in your utter humiliation and shame, but Shouto only found amusement in this all as he began to place your items away in a bag.

“What are your recommendations then?” Shouto finally asked, his lips pulled back into an easy, teasing grin. “And that’ll be forty-eight seventy-three.”

You shoved your card into the chip scanner immediately, your gaze everywhere but on him.

“I think you should get whatever your sister wants or still needs,” you quickly say, eyes now focusing on the Approved message on the machine. “Every person is different.”

“I suppose,” Shouto agrees, his arms crossing against his chest, and you have to resist the temptation to ogle at the way his muscles become sinfully pronounced. “Well, I won’t hold you up. See you in lecture tomorrow, y/l/n.”

“Bye!” you squawk, grabbing your bag and racing out.

His eyes burn into your back the entire rush out of the store, but you find that you can’t seem to worry about that. You’re much more elated and somehow horrified at the realization that he knew exactly who you were.

Step zero of who knows how many to get Todoroki Shouto to fall in love with you, complete!

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“So, about the upcoming paper assignment, I’m sure you’re all eager to get started on,” your professor’s voice boomed throughout the lecture hall, his arms folding across his chest as he leans against the podium with an easy grin. “I decided that I would be nice and allow for some partnering up!”

Your eyes widened as excited murmurs exploded through the classroom.

Partners for a ten-page paper? You were going to thank god almighty.

But, at the same time, you frowned. This was a class where you didn’t exactly know anyone. It was a course outside of your own major, and with your usual friends not in this class, you knew that you were going to have to go out of your way to find a partner. You withered a bit in your chair, not entirely on board with that train of thought.

“There are an uneven amount of you guys in the class, though,” your professor continued, still sporting that easy grin on his face. “And I decided that instead of having too many groups of three, and because I was so nice to allow partner work, I decided to make the partners. Look at the pinned paper at the door for your partner or partners for the group of three! No, I will not allow trades, and no, I will not allow complaining! Be grateful!”

Hopeful and exasperated murmurs sounded through the room as the professor dismissed the class and frantic movement followed after. Even as old as they were, everyone was desperate and eager to see who a random generator assigned them to. Packing up swiftly, you threw your bag over your shoulder and began walking towards the list.

You wonder who you were gonna get.

“Y/l/n,” a voice spoke softly, lowly by your ear.

You whipped around — one part startled, a second part curious — and came to see Todoroki Shouto standing slightly behind you. His gaze was at the wall for a moment, dropping only when you were looking up at him. He smiles slowly, and you feel your chest tighten.

Oh boy.

“Todoroki,” you smile, attempting to relax completely in front of him. “Any hopes as to who’s your partner?”

“Well, as long as it isn’t Sero, I think it’ll be okay,” Shouto’s eyes crinkle with his deepened smile. “Last time I did a paper with him, we did it completely high—” you choke, eyes widening at the thought of trying to be eloquent enough to write a paper while high. “—It was terrible.”

“Oh, I bet,” you laugh, arms crossing across your chest as the two of you begin inching forward within the crowd, others leaving with proud laughs, curious frowns, or aggravated groans. “But at least it sounds like it was turned in?”

“It was,” Shouto nods, his teeth flashing as he finally tears his gaze from you. “Oh, would you look at that?”

You hum, eyes squinting as you try to read the list through the many heads before you.

Y/l/n, Todoroki S.

“Would you look at that.”

“Seems like we’re partners,” you laugh, relief and horror flooding your body.

“I’m glad it’s you.”

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So, it was decided that with the two weeks given to write the paper and taking Shouto’s job into account, this paper was to be written as soon as possible. The suggestion of working on it together in the same room and not just through google doc was brought up and agreed upon. So with consensus on that, the matter of where it was going to happen was brought up.

“We can do it at my place,” Shouto offered with a shrug, “my house is pretty big.”

“I don’t have a car,” you interject, a frown on your face — you wanted to see his house. “My apartment is five minutes from campus. Is that alright?”

A smile.

“That’s perfect.”

And so, on a Friday afternoon, you found yourself already apologizing profusely as you walked up the staircase that smelled just a tiny bit of cheese. You warned him about the mess of your apartment. About how not to judge you on any and all messes you might have made on your way out! That you would have cleaned up had you known this was happening!

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Shouto spoke, attempting to ease your anxiety as you push your key in the doorknob and turn it. “I really don’t mind a messy place.”

“Ha, well, this is it,” you say, your face feeling disgustingly warm as you breach the entrance to your small one bedroom one bathroom place. “Leave your shoes right there, and we can head in!”

Toeing off your own shoes, you scrambled into the apartment, eyes wide as you attempted to make sure that nothing was crazily messy or out of place. There wasn’t any dirty laundry or undergarments anywhere? No, good!

Shouto locks the door behind himself, a chuckle at the back of his throat vibrating in his chest as he watches you skirt about. He looks down at the shoes you were wearing, white sneakers, and smirks at how small they look compared to his. He never really thought he was that tall or big, to be honest. It was a decent size for someone from his family, but it amused him greatly to see his things pushed against yours.

He looked back up, eyes landing on your flustered face as you stood by a table in the kitchen area.

“Ready?” he asked, hands shoving into his pockets.

“I believe so!”

And for some reason, probably the very same reason that had him entranced by you, Shouto laughs and steps foot into your apartment.

The paper itself isn’t that hard.

It’s an argumentative piece mostly on a Green Act proposal that was currently being debated within the government body. A paper that was fifty percent argument was something you were elated to have, but the other fifty percent was using sources and articles to further back your point. It was now two hours into the paper writing, takeout filling the empty spaces between the table as Shouto’s laughter and your ranting filled the open air. It was nice; he was nice to hang out with.

“I’m just saying we are nearing a universal climate disaster, and I do not want to be wondering when I will die because some fat old men with huge wallets want to continue getting richer!” you yelled, your chest heaving with your lack of proper air. “It’s dumb!”

“I bet if you grabbed ahold of their favorite toupees, they’d fold and agree,” Shouto teases, his grin covered by the mug he’s currently drinking tea from. “I’ll bail you out of prison.”

“I wouldn’t go to prison for that,” you argue, arms folding across your chest as you shake your head in solemn understanding. “They’d murder me and make it look like an accident.”

“Dark.”

“You know it.”

“I’ll avenge you.”

“You better, or else I’ll blame you for my murder.”

Shouto’s jaw dropped, ready to retaliate with something else, but he was interrupted by a loud call from your phone. You frowned, head tilting as you pulled your phone out from your jean pocket and stared at the screen.

Incoming call from: dd.

“I have to take this,” you say apologetically, standing up as you answered the call. You waited until you were in your bedroom before placing the phone to your head, your heart hammering with the unknown. “Hello?”

Shouto heard the click of your bedroom door, and he sighed, leaning back into his chair. His eyes looked up at the ceiling, momentarily bored now that he wasn’t with you. He wondered who ‘dd’ was and if you were alright. He hoped it wasn’t anything serious.

Grabbing his water cup, Shouto frowned, seeing that it was empty. He looked over at the sink where you had initially filled up the water cups. You wouldn’t mind if he filled it up on his own, right? Shouto pushed back his chair and stood, the cup resting in his fingers as he walked over towards the sink with a light hum.

He filled the cup slowly, not wanting to make too much noise. But as he stared at the drying dishes on your dish holder, he frowned at the sight of the pink sippy cup you had bought from the store last week. It was cleaned, obviously used, and he tilted his head.

Weird.

The cupboard was open, and Shouto couldn’t help but look into the dark wood and startled once again when he took in the neatly folded bib and the nearly innocuous pacifier sitting on top of it. Untouched, undisturbed, but used — definitely used.

Frowning, he took a slow, long drink of his water as he stared out towards the small living room you had. There, sitting on the wood coffee table, was the coloring book you had also purchased. That wasn’t adding up… if they were for your sister’s kids, why were they here? It didn’t exactly seem like the place to be holding them.

Shouto thought, trying to figure out just why you had all these things for… well, children.

Was testing products on your own a thing people did?

Well, yes, he supposed so, but these were already licensed products. The coloring book, well, he guesses that was a pretty normal thing! Drawing and coloring were everyday stress relieves — his mother often used that to help herself. But a pacifier, a bip, and a sippy cup? The only thing he could rationalize with that was—

“You’re being fucking ridiculous, daddy!” your voice harshly whispered (maybe ridiculed and mocked) from your room, just loud enough that Shouto heard, and his eyes widened.

Oh.

Ohh fuck.

“You know what, this isn’t working,” you scoff, fingers pinching the bridge of your nose as you roll your eyes to the heavens above. “This was a good trial run, but I’m going to have to end this. This is not what I was looking for.”

“Come on, brat, you know you don’t mean that—”

You hung up, your fingers curled in a fist as you growled lowly at the screen. You wasted no time in blocking the number. What a fucking terrible daddy he was. Didn’t buy you anything, didn’t support you, or help you. There was no dynamic in this relationship. It was just a power-hungry dom with a streak for being called daddy.

A fucking poser at best.

Rolling your eyes, you tossed your phone onto your bed and walked out of your room back to the main area of your place. You looked at Shouto, who was sitting in his chair, his face bored, maybe a bit tired, and his face was concentrated on his phone — he was idly scrolling through it.

“Sorry that took so long,” you apologize, slinking back onto your chair, hands rubbing your face. “I tried to be fast about that.”

Shouto peered past the top of his phone, a comforting smile on his face, “Don’t worry about it; it wasn’t like we were intensely working on the paper anyways.”

You smile, slightly embarrassed.

“That’s true, um—”

“I think it’s time—”

The both of you spoke over each other clumsily, awkwardly — both of you obviously thinking of something that wasn’t quite in front of you. Your smile feels less forced now, “we’re done for the day?”

Shouto shifts in his chair, his head dropping slightly in agreement, “I think that would be best. We did a lot today, though.”

“We did!” you agree with a laugh, standing up and grabbing the items off the table, assisting Shouto with getting ready to leave. “We’ll meet back up in two days?”

Shouto nods, “that sounds like a plan.”

You help him pack up, insisting that you could clean up the kitchen without his help. It takes a few minutes, but finally, you have him walking out of your place, a light wave on your hand before he exits onto the staircase. You close the door with a sigh.

Jesus Christ.

Shouto stands in the stairway, his eyes concentrated on his phone where he has a single question typed into his browser.

ddlg dynamics ↳ Let’s talk DDLG, also known as Daddy Dom Little Girl. It’s a submissive/dominant relationship where the dom is known as a “Daddy,” and the submissive is known as a “Little Girl.”

...Interesting.

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Now, you were a pretty paranoid person; you could admit that.

You didn’t like being paranoid, but you were. Most days, you always triple-checked you weren’t being followed, quadruple-checked you had your school assignments turned in and your things in your bag. With your sex life and part of your social life being introduced to the ddlg dynamic, your paranoia grew even more.

Most people weren’t understanding — they weren’t. They assumed this dynamic was simply calling your dom daddy in bed and getting called princess in return! They always believed that, allowed for that. It was socially acceptable to call your dom daddy in bed, but god fucking forbid any other part of the dynamic come into play.

You remember reading comments in articles about grown women sitting in frilly skirts and diapers as part of her dynamic and watching grown adults tear her apart — skin and bones. That was the reaction you feared, you hated.

There was a reason why you enjoyed sitting in your frilly skirts, in your white and baby pink clothes. You loved having your dom come home, tired and stressed, and ask you, his little girl, to sit on his lap while he distressed. You enjoyed the sippy cups that helped to melt your anxiety, and you enjoyed doing chores under your doms watchful eye.

The praises, the rewards were always so uplifting, and the sex was always on an intensity that made you tremble with explosive satisfaction. If your dom wanted you in diapers, you would negotiate appropriately, and you sure as hell didn’t need a fucking stranger’s opinion on whether or not that was ‘normal.’

But no amount of confidence you had in your dynamic had ever eased the bottomless paranoia and anxiety.

Hence why after Shouto had left your apartment and you realized in horror that you had left out some damning evidence to your dynamic. The coloring book on your coffee table and the sippy cup that was obviously used were on full display. You wondered for a few hours, nearly spirling with anxiety if he had noticed — if that was why he was partially stiff as he left for the day. You had only managed to calm down when he had sent you a text later that night that he had enjoyed being over and was looking forward to working together the next day.

The praise was needed, seeping warm into your bones as you rolled over in your bed and knocked out.

You thought that you were in the clear. That that was as far as things were going to go, but your paranoia came back the next day in full force as you sat in a group with Shouto.

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“Do you want a sticker?”

That was the beginning of it all.

You had accepted the sticker without a second thought. Your typical barriers down because the lack of a dom in your life was throwing you for a bit. God, you were pathetic. You had smiled brightly, eagerly nodding as you thrust your hands out towards Shouto, waiting to receive a sticker.

“Good job,” he had said with an endearing smile, “you deserve it.”

It was only then that the weight of what happened settled on your bones, and you froze.

Fuck.

Smiling stiffly, you pressed the sparkly pink star to your shirt and returned back to your assignment, unable to speak up again for some time.

You had hoped that it was going to end there, but it seemed that nothing about your life was going in your favor right now.

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“Do you have a bedtime?” Shouto idly asked one late night when he was over, and you could not stop yawning to save your life. “I think everyone should go to bed at 10 p.m. on a school night, don’t you agree?”

You had choked on your saliva before disagreeing vehemently.

“I don’t sleep until… like, um, three in the morning?” you make up, teeth tearing into your lip as you avoided eye contact.

“Such a bad girl,” Shouto murmured, much too low for you to pick up.

“What?!”

“That’s bad for your health,” he recovered with a smile.

“Oh… yeah, I suppose so.”

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“Y/l/n is a sub; she’s a brat about that,” Shouto said to the group you both were assigned to in yet another class the two of you shared.

You had been idly drinking from your coffee cup and was utterly zoned out when he said that. So when you had picked up his words, you nearly choked at the sentence, your eyes watering and your throat burning with your drink and humiliation as the entire table turned to look at you.

“Oh shit, are you okay?!” Mina asked, eyes wide.

“I’m a what?!” you splutter instead, eyes focused on Shouto and your cheeks beginning to burn with unsaid fear.

“You’re a substitute babysitter for your sister,” Shouto remarked, his head tilted as he feigned innocence. “You were telling me about that the other day, remember? Sero is trying to get into the babysitting gig too.”

You wanted to believe him, you wanted so desperately to believe that Shouto was just somehow landing a missile into every paranoid corner of your life without meaning to, but this was getting out of control. This was too on the head, too obvious to not say that he somehow saw your little things and pieced together the dynamic you’ve come to love and thrive in. But you couldn’t fess up; you wouldn’t give yourself to the wolves of embarrassment and shame over something you knew wasn’t wrong.

“Oh,” you say stiffly, smiling over at Sero, “I’m on an app that is used a lot by small families; I can text you the name?”

“I’d appreciate that!” Sero laughs, blissfully unaware of the rising tension between you and Shouto. “I didn’t think that high school girls had some type of business turf thing; they’re scary and aggressive!”

“It’s a serious job for high schoolers,” Mina waved him off, “this is the only thing most of them can do!”

The conversation between Sero and Mina began to drift off as you were staring at Shouto, unable to break the eye contact the both of you found yourselves connected by. You didn’t want to pull away, too bitter and anxious to. You were currently two weeks without a daddy dom in your life, and you knew that you should be able to have a better grasp on your life than this — you knew you couldn’t lean on this dynamic at every point in your life. But you were sad to admit that you were struggling to keep your head afloat. You felt like you were almost drowning, struggling to keep your composure as you needed a play or a simple scene.

But the confidence in Shouto’s eyes that were hidden behind the sheer curiosity and wonder was making your skin itch, making you want to grab him by the collar and bring him in close and demand to know exactly what he was thinking.

He would not embarrass you.

He would not.

“Can I talk to you, Todoroki?” you asked, practically demanded of Shouto as the group of you began to stand at the table, readying to leave.

If you noticed Mina’s and Sero’s eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling, you didn’t say anything as Shouto paused in putting things into his backpack. His head tilted, but he nodded his head, “yeah, about what?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you smile stiffly, tossing your own backpack over your shoulder as you turn on your heel and immediately begin walking. Uncaring if he was following you or not. “Bye, Mina, Sero.”

There’s silence behind you before the heady sound of a chair scraping against the floor is heard and the long, quick strides of Shouto following after you. You exit the cafe you had been in, eyes squinting when the harsh rays of sun fall on your face, but you don’t hesitate or pause even once.

There’s no one outside right now; it’s just you and Shouto.

You feel him at your shoulder, and you keep your gaze straight ahead, unwilling to look at him just yet.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” you finally whisper, your voice low and angry. You nearly spat them out at him, utterly humiliated and horrified that you were probably outing yourself should he just be that dense and annoyingly able to pick at your anxiety. “Stop it.”

“I don’t—” Shouto began, eyes wide and screaming of innocence that could make you cry.

“I know you saw my things, and I know you pieced it together,” you cut him off, your lips pursed tight. You suddenly stop in your tracks, tears burning at the back of your eyes as you turn to face Shouto. “So if you have a problem with that, I suggest that you kindly fuck off!”

Shouto stands next to you, hair hastily swept backward, hand on the strap of his bag, and his face telling you that you had miscalculated something. You prayed it wasn’t about how he knew about you being a little.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Shouto admits, his hand raising to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t think you’re weird or strange or bad for being into the ddlg dynamic. I’m actually… I take part in it too. I was trying to subtly tell you that I was into it as well, and well, I heard that you and your last dom broke it off… I wanted to tell you that I was interested in becoming your new dom.”

You blink.

“Eh?!”

“I’m interested in forming an agreement with you?” Shouto tilts his head; there’s a sense of seriousness to his face, his eyes innocent. “I need a little, and if you’re looking for a dom…”

He lets the silence fill the rest of his sentence, and your mouth gapes open as blood rushes to your face at the straightforward request.

“I… I barely know you!” you splutter, your heart in your ears as you can barely comprehend what was going on.

Two weeks ago, Todoroki Shouto was practically a stranger. You knew him about as well as a person knew the barista at their favorite coffee shop. Friendly, but not close. Definitely not close enough for you to say that you would allow for him to see you in your little space, for him to give you a list of rewards and punishments — for possible sex?!

“Most caregiver contracts like this are done between people who know even less,” Shouto shrugs, his arms folded across his chest. “You don’t have to say yes now or even agree, but I like you a lot. I want to pursue a relationship with you, and I assumed that this would be a good starting ground especially if you need it.”

Your tongue sweeps across your lips, unable to come up with a single rationale thing to say.

“I don’t need an answer right now; indulge me, though,” Shouto smiles softly, his gaze dropping for a moment. “Take as much time as you need. We can do a single scene to test it out, and if it doesn’t work out, no hard feelings. Let me know when you’re interested in it, though.”

You can’t say anything; you can only numbly nod as Shouto smiles at you once again.

“Let me know.”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

Todoroki S.: ↳ If you need a list, I’ll send mine over whenever you want. I have my rules, rewards, punishments, and kinks all supplied in it. [received Today 23:44]

Todoroki S.: ↳ If you need a list, I’ll send mine over whenever you want. I have my rules, rewards, punishments, and kinks all supplied in it. [seen 7 Days Ago 23:44]

You: ↳ Send your points, we can see if we’re compatible. [seen now]

Todoroki S.: ↳ I enjoyed the scene we did today; I hope you did too. I’m interested in making this a real thing if you are too. [received Today 20:44]

You: ↳ I did, too, actually, lol. Um, thank you, first of all! We can work on the contract now. [received Today 20:48]

Todoroki S.: ↳ Okay. I’ve already made the first draft of one; if you’d like to look it over, let me know what you think, and we can edit some things around. [seen now]

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

It has been two months since the contract was signed.

Two months.

Two months of Shouto practically living in your apartment with you, a once stranger seeing you at your most vulnerable. He was a steady hand on your back as you slipped into your desired little space, a constant warmth at your side as you went about your day at home.

It had been weird at first; your anxiety still wouldn’t let up, nearly convincing you many times that this was all but a prank. That Shouto would pull away from you when you least expected it and would expose you to the world. There had been many times where he would hold you on his lap, his arms warm around your back, your favorite stuffed animal sitting on your lap as he promised you that you were wrong.

“Daddy is here to protect you, sunshine,” Shouto murmured in your ear, his warm lips pressing to the small behind your ear. “Daddy would never do that to my baby girl. That wouldn’t make me happy.”

“I-It wouldn’t?” you sniffled, your nose face nuzzling further into his neck as your sobs had finally stopped.

“No, not at all, sunshine,” Shouto smiled against the crown of your head. You felt his lips press a soft kiss there, his warm hands stroking up and down your back. “Do you remember what makes Daddy happy?”

You blink, your wet eyelashes heavy and sticking together as you peer at his jaw as if it could possibly tell you.

“I can’t… I can’t remember, sorry, Daddy,” you sniffle again, suddenly terrified that he would be upset with you. You were such a terrible baby girl.

“What makes Daddy happy is seeing his baby girl smiling, happy, protected, and safe,” Shouto easily relays, pulling you away from his shoulder, his calloused fingers rubbing the tear streaks that still stain down your face. “I promise that I will never do anything to cause you harm, sunshine. I only want you to be happy; you being happy makes me happy like nothing before.”

There’s no stopping the way your bottom lip trembles with the pleasant weight of his words, the way it warms you from your belly and curls to your toes.

“Pinky promise?” you whimper, somehow out of breath.

Shouto looks at your curved pinky that is extended out for him to hold, to seal the other half of a promise he has no intentions of ever breaking.

Smiling softly, Shouto wraps his pinky with yours and twists it gently, locking the promise.

“Pinky promise,” he affirms, placing a kiss to your knuckles.

He was so good to you.

So sweet, gentle, patient, and kind.

He tended to spend the night Mondays through Fridays, giving you the weekend to be on your own. He only ever slept in your bed with your given consent (which was every single time), and there was just something about wearing the silver chained choker on your neck that he bought for you. Dainty and cute, nothing too crazy to draw overwhelming attention.

It had a tiny cherry blossom that was engraved with Shouto on the back.

It was a constant and calming reminder of what you had during the day.

The arrangement was going better than you had assumed it was going to be.

Shouto made for an excellent daddy, but there was one grievance you had. With two months of extreme kinship, so many nights of being curled into his side, getting near-daily cuddles for following his orders perfectly, and a few spanks because you were careless even after he warned you — you had assumed that the sexual part of the dynamic would come out.

You had okayed for him to be able to fuck you, regardless of whether or not you were in little space! You reached your little space more often than not around him because he was so well, but now you were bordering desperation. You wanted your daddy to please you more, to give you the reward you wanted most: his cock.

“I’m home, bunny,” Shouto called out, his voice hinting exhaustion but mostly satisfaction at being home again.

Per your rules and regulations, greeting Shouto with a cheerful ‘welcome home, daddy!’ when he arrived home was a must. It was a clear indicator that not only were you home but that you wished to indulge in the dynamic for the rest of the day.

But you sat at the coffee table wearing an unapproved, not chosen outfit for home.

You were wearing an off-the-shoulder white cotton shirt that was big and soft, pink lace shorts that barely covered your ass but was hemmed with lace and pretty frill. You had thigh highs on as well that were the same pink as your shorts. There was a pacifier in your mouth, your gaze focused on the Disney coloring book in front of you as you colored in Sleeping Beauty.

You turned your head, eyes looking at your daddy with a vague look of disinterest before turning back to your coloring.

“I said ‘I’m home,’ bunny,” Shouto restated, giving you the benefit of the doubt of whether or not you heard him. Typically you were excited to have him home, going to his side immediately and asking a million questions as to what he had been doing and why he was home so late.

“Hmph,” was your response as you placed a sticker onto the coloring page.

Shouto’s eyebrows furrowed; he toed off his shoes and began walking towards you, assessing what was happening.

“Is my bunny mad that I was a bit later than I had promised?” he asked, sitting on the couch behind you, his fingers brushing across your clothes as if he was trying to remember if he had selected this outfit. But the sudden touch that you were craving in a way like no other made your head spin just so, and you resisted the motion of caving.

You wanted to be a brat! Your daddy should be taking care of all your needs! He promised he would be taking care of you better than you took care of yourself! He should know when you wanted his cock!

“Hmph!” you hrmph again, and you lean out of his touch even though you craved it.

Although you couldn’t see him, you could feel the slow, calculating blink Shouto took at this action. There’s a moment of silence before the couch sounds under his shifting weight. You freeze at the feeling of his warm palm on your spine, a whisper of danger. It feels partially like a threat, a reminder of impending consequences.

“What did daddy say about bunny using her words?” Shouto asks, his voice stern, low, commanding.

It should scare you, but the threat in his voice makes your heart stammer and your cunt wet. So, instead of doing what’s right, you stand up, ignoring him yet again as you stick your nose up to the ceiling and try to walk away.

Well, you try to, that is.

Before you can go too far, Shouto’s fingers are wrapped around your wrist, keeping you in place.

“You know I don’t like it when you don’t speak, right?” Shouto asks, his eyes digging into your cheek as you refuse to look at him. Yet another rule he has in place. You had to look at him when he spoke to you or when you spoke to him. It was to help make sure that you behaved properly in public — to make you the best baby girl ever. “Use your words and look at me, princess.”

The word princess rolled off his tongue, and you bit down on your tongue to keep the breathy moan from expelling from your lips. He typically only used princess when you were on the verge of genuinely displeasing him, when he was warning you one last time before a punishment was given. Your daddy was two months without jacking off, exhausted from work, and now dealing with you, his bratty baby girl. There was no way this wasn’t going to end with him forcing you to suck him off or to use you as an onahole (something you had said was okay unless you used your safeword, of course).

You shook in his hold, teeth biting your lip as you stared at the wall, refusing to heed his command.

“I’ll give you to the count of three to look at me and address me,” Shouto says, his thumb stroking the innard of your wrist. “One.”

There was no way you would cave.

“Two.”

The silence between the two of you was heavy.

“One.”

Excitement shot through you at the thought of him finally fucking you into your mattress.

“No dessert tonight,” is what Shouto said instead, and you froze.

You whipped your head towards Shouto, fury, and humiliation painting your face as your jaw drops, the pacifier falling onto the floor.

“No!”

“No?” Shouto repeats, his eyes narrowed, unhappy with the challenge. “Do you want me to take away your video games too?”

“No!” you shriek, hands clawing at your face because this was not going the way it was going. “I want my dessert and my video games!”

“Too bad, princess,” Shouto states sternly, unaffected by your growing tantrum. “You lost them both for tonight.”

“No! Give them back! I haven’t done anything wrong, daddy!” you scream, throwing your arms in your hysterics as Shouto stands up to his full height, looming over you without a single issue. Tears prick at the back of your eyes because you’ve messed up somehow; your daddy doesn’t want you — doesn’t love you the way you love him.

“You’ve been misbehaving this entire time I’ve come back home,” Shouto retorts, his other hand grabbing your wrist and managing to place them both close to his chest, limiting your thrashing actions. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the new outfit.”

“I don’t want those punishments, daddy! I don’t want t-them,” you wheeze, your eyes locked on your hands that are bound so tightly in his hands, and you whimper loudly. “You’re hurting me, daddy!”

“And you’re trying to hurt me,” Shouto calmly points out. “I can’t have you doing that, so I’ll hold onto you until you calm down enough. I’m doing this because I care for my little brat.”

“You don’t care! You don’t c-care!” you sob finally, unable to keep the hot tears from your eyes. “Daddy doesn’t care about me!”

The effect is evident and instant.

Shouto’s grip on your wrist lessens altogether, and your pounding fists finally connect with his chest as you collapse against him.

“Daddy doesn’t c-care…”

“That’s not true,” Shouto breathes easily, his fingers brushing against your sides before his arms wrap around you. “I care so much for you, baby. What’s wrong? Tell me what I can do to make things better.”

A loud sniffle emits from you, and you fist your hands in his shirt, your head shaking.

“It’s been two months, and daddy won’t let me have his cummies,” you whisper, terrified that he would reject you. “Am I not good enough? Attractive enough that daddy wants to reward me with his dick?”

There’s a shift in the air.

“My little doll wants her daddy’s cock, is that what?” Shouto murmured against the top of your head. “My precious, innocent baby girl wants something filthy like that.”

“Mmn,” was all you could manage, your face burning at the implications, the suggestion in his voice.

“And instead of using her words, as we practice, she decided to act like a little brat to get her way,” Shouto’s voice is low, raspy, and deep. Its tenor is just right that it makes the room instantly hotter, your body brimming with excited energy. “I think… my beautiful doll has broken too many rules for me to just give her a good reward. She deserves to be my little doll as punishment for now. I thought she was grown enough to ask for things she wanted.”

You gasp as Shouto’s warm, calloused hands drop down to the minimally exposed flesh between your booty shorts and your thigh highs. It sends an entire wave of goosebumps down your skin, and you shudder as they rise upwards, slipping under your shirt and resting on the soft skin of your stomach.

“Your punishment will be what daddy wants it to be, doll,” Shouto states, his fingernails brushing over your clothed nipples, and you mewl at the touch. “You’ve given up your right to speak right now, and because daddy can’t trust you to not be a brat, you will suck daddy’s dick until I see it fit. You will stand on your knees like the beautiful doll daddy knows you can be. Silent, obedient, and so beautiful.”

The words are a goldmine you’ve wanted to hear this entire time, but you’re upset — rightfully upset — that it took your daddy so long to figure it out! He needed you to spell it out for him to act on it!

“I don’t like sucking dicks!” you complain, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. “That’s yucky!”

Shouto raised an eyebrow at that, his eyes flashing dangerously as he absorbed the implications of your actions. He knew he was going to earn this just as much as you were.

“Excuse me?” Shouto says calmly, a single eyebrow arched. “Do you want to repeat that?”

“You heard m-me,” you stammer, trying to remain steady under his steady stare. “If daddy couldn’t catch that, maybe I should be the one giving out the punishments.”

A hot, predatory smirk pulls across his face as his grip on your wrist tightens, and he yanks you just slightly closer towards him.

“Oh really?” he chuckles so coldly you shiver. “So you think you’re in charge here?”

You nod slowly, your pupils wide and blown. Your eyes were transfixed on his mouth, his pretty plump lips practically calling your name.

His tongue swipes across his front teeth, and you watch him in awe, horror, and damning horny anticipation as he sits back on the couch and takes you down with him. You struggle for a bit, terrified as you feel unbalanced, ready to tumble to the floor. But your stomach is pressed heavily against his knees, pleasurable discomfort spreading through your body as you recognize this easy, beautiful spanking position.

“I’m going to give you ten spanks,” Shouto announces, his hand rubbing smooth circles over your soft shorts. “You will count every one of them and thank me for each one. If you mess up, if you misbehave, you will get more until you do as I demand.”

You struggle against his hold, thrashing and twisting as his fingers push the shorts higher up your ass, exposing your flesh to him. But as he did so, you remember that you’re not wearing panties, and Shouto sees that too.

“Mm, you’re not wearing panties,” Shouto says, his voice trying to keep the undying want and lust from bleeding through his tone. “My precious doll is that desperate she couldn’t fully dress herself?”

“I can d-dress— aahhh!!!!”

Your interjection was interrupted by the sharp, well-practiced spank that Shouto delivered to your round ass. You arched against his lap, your skin tingling and feeling pathetically good.

“I said you were my doll right now, and dolls don’t speak unless given permission to,” Shouto clipped, his hand circling your now tender flesh. “You didn’t count, so let's try again.”

SLAP.

“Oh my god!” you shriek at the contact, your head spinning at the craved touch. It wasn’t like his typical spanks, the ones that came down not to hurt but to remind you, to correct you to be better. These stung with power, reminding you that you were getting what you craved, and you felt your toes curl and your cunt beginning to seep with the knowledge.

Fuck, you wanted this.

THWACK.

“Again.”

THWACK.

“Daddy can spank your pretty little ass all day, doll. Do as you’re told if you want daddy’s cock.”

SPANK.

“O-One, thank you, daddy!”

WHACK!

You threw your head back at the sensation, your eyes crossing and your hips bucking backward as you shriek with pleasure. You don’t count, your head swimming with unfound energy, and Shouto tsks.

“You’re so terrible at following directions, aren’t you?” Shouto asks, his mouth hovering by your ear, and you nearly melt when his teeth tug at your cartilage at the same time he serves another heated spank to your perky ass. “Such a dirty brat, getting off on her punishments. But let me tell you, if you don’t start following what I instruct of you, I’ll fuck your mouth and leave you without any cummies.”

You gasp loudly, sobbing as he delivers yet another solid spank for your undoubtedly bruising ass. And so, with a pathetic, desperate nod, you agree.

You count to ten, thanking him each time with a beautiful sob that makes the bulge in his pants obvious to you. Your lips are swollen, bruised, and sheen with saliva from holding back your louder sobs. Your ass seems to be imprinted with the shape of his hand against your skin, and you tumble off his lap at the final thank you.

There’s slick gathered on your shorts, soaking through the pretty pink fabric turning it dark.

“I forget that my beautiful baby girl is a masochist,” Shouto sighs as he stands up in front of you. You gasp on the floor, your head swimming with the building heat between your legs, and you hear an all too familiar, always exciting, sound of a belt being undone followed quickly by a zipper and rustling fabric.

“God, you’re so wonderful, doll,” Shouto sighs as he pulls out his hardening cock to where you’re already on your knees with wide, curious, hopeful eyes. “Already on your knees, ready to choke on daddy’s cock even though this is a punishment.”

You can barely register his words, your eyes focused and fascinated — scared almost — of the cock Shouto has. It’s fucking huge, and it’s thick, slightly curved upward with a pretty flushed tip and bulging veins. You were sure if you could even manage to take more than a few inches in!

“I think I remember something about how you don’t like deep throating,” Shouto hums contemplatively. You freeze, your heart stopping for just a moment at what he’s implying. “Well, it’s a good thing this is a punishment.”

His fingers press into your mouth, making you choke, and with your lips spread wide, mouth open for taking, Shouto guides his cock into your parted lips with a dangerous moan.

There's an immediate ache in your jaw, the size, and girth of his cock overwhelming you without so much doubt. You gag immediately at the weight of it pressing on your tongue, filling your mouth. Heat hammers in your cunt, and you heave against him.

Shouto sighs as if he was in heaven, his hands grabbing the back of your head and slamming your head as far down his cock. So far that your nose brushed against the skin of his stomach, before pressing against it completely.

Shouto moans louder than your panicked gags and chokes, his hips swirling and twisting as he looks down at you with lovesick eyes. “You’re so good at this,” Shouto praises, his fingers wiping away the tears that prick at your eyes. “So good. Daddy’s so pleased with you, taking my cock so well. So beautiful even when you cry on my dick.”

Your throat spasms around his cock, your lungs burning severely from the lack of oxygen. Not a single part of your body able to relax as you desperately sought to breathe. It hurt, but it felt so good. Saliva began to pool from the corner of your mouth, dripping down your chin and drooling on your clothed breasts.

Shouto took notice and hummed contently.

“Daddy’s going to count to the number ten,” he informed you, rolling his hips further into your mouth, shoving his cock even further down your throat than you thought possible. “If you can keep your pretty nose pressed to daddy’s stomach the entire time, daddy promises you he will give you the best orgasm you’ve ever received.”

You made a squeaking noise around his cock, your fingers that were buried into his shirt gripping tighter as he suddenly lets go of your head.

“One.”

Resisting the urge to pull off him completely was a near-losing battle.

“Two.”

Your body shook with intensity, the scorching need to properly breathe slamming down on you.

“Three… four…”

Shouto’s hands began to pet your head, soothing the worried lines on your face, brushing away your tears.

“Five… six… fuck, you’re so gorgeous, baby girl.”

You whimper around his cock, and Shouto moans liquid gold in return. He smiles deviously, fingers brushing down your throat.

“Seven… eight…” you choke loudly when his fingers press against your throat, tightening your already spasming throat around his cock, furthering the burning sensation all throughout your body. “Nine…”

You look at him with pleading eyes, wordlessly begging for mercy, for something as he pauses for more than a second between nine and ten. His hips lazily jerk into your mouth, his free hand combing his hair back, messily styling it as he smirks. Your saliva was dripping uncontrollably now, pooling at the back of your throat, on your tongue, past your lips. Shouto sighs, his eyes bright with power, with the knowledge that you were so obedient.

“Ten.”

Immediately, you collapse from his cock. Saliva and pre-cum connecting your coughing mouth to his hard dick still. Your lungs ache, and your breathing is frantic as you try to regain a sense of composure. Your tears meaning nothing so long as the inferno between your thighs is tamed.

“You did so well, baby girl,” Shouto praises, and despite the pain in your lungs, you puff up at the praise. “You did exactly what daddy asked for you, so daddy believes you deserve a reward. Do you agree?”

Unable to speak, your belly tight and warm, and your throat aching slightly, you nod eagerly.

“Use your words, angel,” Shouto coos; he steps out of his pants before squatting before you, his fingers grazing your chin. “Daddy loves it when he hears you speaking.”

“I would love a r-reward, daddy,” you whimper softly.

Your eyes swim with want, with inexplicable needs and desires. Shouto softens when he notices you nosing into his palms; he brushes a strand of hair out of your face.

“Look at how politely you asked that,” Shouto praises, kissing you softly on the corner of your mouth. “Daddy’s so proud of you, sweetheart.”

You keen some more, your wet eyelashes batting in your excitement and undying love for him.

“Now, daddy wants you to go to your room and take off all the clothes you want. Once you’re ready, I want you to call me in, and then daddy will take excellent care of you, okay?” Shouto commands you, his lips pressing softly onto your cheeks, eyelids, and finally softly onto your lips.

You gasp loudly at the touch, your eyes wide but looking incredibly drunk at the touch.

“Okay!” you giggle, pressing forward and taking his lips into another kiss.

He hums before assisting you to your feet, and you breathlessly laugh as you turn around and skip away towards your room.

Your room is neat, as is required of Shouto. Your bed is neatly organized; there’s nothing on the floor or on your chair. Everything is put away correctly and cleanly. Grinning, you take off your shirt followed by your bra, shimming off your shorts, you toss away your clothes into your hamper, leaving only your socks on.

Hopping onto your bed, you grab a stuffed animal before turning to face the door and sing.

“Daddy, I’m ready!!!”

You squeal after saying that, excitedly staring at the closed door, eagerly anticipating the way Shouto would walk in. Your eyelashes flutter when you see the doorknob twist and in comes Shouto, who, unlike you, is completely naked.

Now you knew he was fit, even with your mind beginning to sink into your little space, you knew that Shouto was a handsome, fine man. He was built, muscular, and toned. He was tall, his head nearly hitting the top of the door if it wasn’t for the fact he was leaning against the doorframe. There is a slight smile on his face that screams of his pride, his joy of seeing you like this. And his eyes rake like hot coals against your body.

You shudder.

“Aren’t you cute,” Shouto murmurs, pride evident in his tone. He walks towards you, tongue slipping between his lips as he reaches the foot of the bed. “Such a beautiful princess, but now… what does princess need?”

“I need my daddy to take care of me,” you whisper, eyes hooded and mouth turning dry as he begins leaning onto the bed. “I want my daddy.”

“Such a dirty girl,” Shouto says with a chuckle as you begin to lean back onto your bed, your legs spreading for him. “Such a dirty, gorgeous girl.”

Your breathing stutters as the bed moves under his weight, and you’re practically panting as you watch his body slowly crawl over yours. Shouto looks down at you, his eyes deceivingly bright even with the shadows, and your eyes flutter as he leans down.

You’re expecting a kiss, craving the feeling of his smooth, plump lips on yours. But you gasp in shock, betrayal, and in lust when his lips press against your earlobe. He trails his kisses everywhere, kissing every inch, every centimeter of your face, but never once your lips.

“Daddy, stop teasing!!” you whine loudly, feet kicking on the mattress and hands burying into his hair.

“I’m not teasing you,” Shouto objects, but the grin on his face says otherwise. “Why do you think I’m teasing you? What do you want?”

“I want daddy’s kisses! Give me your kisses!” you cry with a pout.

With a burst of cheerful laughter that warms your heart and makes your belly flip, Shouto presses downward, capturing your lips with his. The contact is blissful, everything and more that you need. You eagerly kiss him back, making noises that are both sinful and so blessedly innocent as your arms wrap around his neck.

Shouto kisses you back with matching intensity, one elbow resting by your head, the other resting on your hip as he allows your tongue to press into his mouth. He lets you greedily take what you want, his thumb on your hip drawing nonsensical pictures. But as you shudder against him, completely overwhelmed by this all. Shouto probes his tongue into your mouth, gliding his wet, hot muscle against the roof of your mouth and the back of your teeth until your panting, unable to do anything but absorb him.

“So pretty, so cute when you’re like this. A beautiful doll for her daddy,” Shouto whispers into your mouth, and you can only moan in response.

“I need daddy,” you speak, your glazed eyes unable to even look at Shouto. “I need daddy so bad.”

“Where does my princess need me?” Shouto speaks, his lips trailing down your slick chin and neck. “Right here?” he asks, sinking his teeth onto your neck and sucking softly.

“A-Aahhh~,” you shudder, your eyes rolling to the back of your head as he continues to place hickey after hickey on your neck, your collarbones, and the spot right behind your ear that makes you melt. “Yes, I need you everywhere… I need daddy’s mouth and cummies in me.”

“Your boobs are so cute, baby girl,” Shouto whispers, and you nearly jump out of your skin when you notice that he’s nosing against your breasts. “So pretty, better than anything I could have hoped for.”

You whine loudly, your body arching off the bed as his hot tongue dips out and licks a pebbled nipple. You pant as he licks again, your fingers burying into his hair.

“Such beautiful nipples, you make your daddy so happy,” Shouto praises, and you gasp loudly as his mouth envelopes your nipple. Your cunt throbs with intriguing want, your socked feet traveling up the line of his leg as his teeth graze and move your nipple in his mouth. “You make me the proudest daddy ever.”

His fingers card down your stomach, trailing and lingering around your cunt, and yet never once touching it. It’s tactical, teasing, and mind spinning. Your clit spasms with needed attention, angry with the teasing, desperate for contact — for attention. You make a noise, something not quite human, unable to pull yourself from your growing fuzzy head as Shouto moves from one nipple to the next.

Shouto chuckles, his eyes of blue and grey flashing up at you dangerously, knowingly.

“Don’t tease me, daddy,” you whisper, hips circling, thrusting into the air where you wish his fingers were.

“Okay,” he promises, and as if he could read your thoughts, his teeth gently bit down on your untouched yet demanding nipple. Your head slams against the mattress, your chest once again feeling alive as if you had been electrocuted. He sucks your nipple, teeth tugging on the sensitive flesh, warm tongue, and spit sinking into your nerves. His fingers taking care of your lonesome nipple, keeping it company with gentle, purposeful rolls as he has you sobbing his name. And when you thought the teasing couldn’t get worse, his fingers finally land where you want it most.

On your clit.

“You’re perfect, angel; I love you so much.”

It happens then, like a warm blanket being placed over you — comforting, warm, making the pain in your body hum with only pleasure, and your body trembles with peaking need.

“I wanna… I wanna do more,” you coo, eyes heavy and feigning intoxication as you look up at your daddy. “I wanna please my daddy!”

Your daddy blinks at you, head tilting before a knowing look flashes across his eyes, and he smiles softly, fingers abandoning their spots to press gently against your cheeks. You don’t even mind, so excited and happy that he’s holding you.

“What do you want, sunshine?”

“Can I please suck daddy’s nipples?” you ask with a hopeful face, “He made me feel so good, and I — I wanna make my daddy feel good too!”

“You wanna suck daddy’s nipples? Okay.”

You giggle loudly as the world spins, and you gasp when you’re suddenly sitting straight up, your wet cunt pressing against his hip bone. You laugh lightly, a bell-like giggle, and your hands press to his chest. “That was so fun!”

“Was it—?”

Your daddy can’t finish his sentence because you caught sight of his dusty brown nipples and launched forward, capturing the soft tissue in your mouth.

It tastes like your daddy, the salt and unique taste he has. And your tongue lashes at it, your cheeks hollowing as you suck at it some more. It hardens in your mouth, a sensation that has you breaking away from him with a beautiful gasp.

“Am I doing a good job?!” you ask, looking at the pretty pink flush on your daddy’s face as he heaves slightly, flustered and a bit out of breath. “My nipples do that when you do a job, daddy!”

“You’re doing so well,” your daddy informs you, and you laugh excitedly. “Do you want… do you want daddy’s cock now?”

“Daddy’s cock?” you question, heat rushing to your face at the naughty word. “W-What does that mean?”

“Daddy’s cock is how I can make you feel good,” daddy explains, his fingers trailing up and down your thighs, playing with the hem of your socks.

You giggle as he snaps at it playfully.

“You’ve been doing such a good job, sunshine, and daddy’s cock hurts and wants to be in you.”

“In me?”

“Mmhm, and when it’s in you, you can get daddy’s cummies,” daddy smiles softly. “You want daddy’s cummies, remember?”

You think about it, unsure if you had wanted it, but then you remember that you had said it.

“Will daddy’s cummies help me? My stomach feels funny, a-and I feel wet.”

Daddy nods fast, his body shifting so that he’s in a sitting position and your wet chest presses against him. It’s a sensation you’re unfamiliar with, and you make an embarrassing squeaking noise at the feeling.

“I promise it’ll make you feel better, sunshine.”

You think about it some more, your arms wrapping around his neck as you think. But soon enough, you find yourself giggling and nodding, “I trust my daddy!”

“I’m so glad you do. Daddy’s so glad his baby girl trusts him.”

And the next thing you know, you’re back on your back, and your daddy looms over you, spreading your legs wide apart. You look down at gasp at the sight of daddy’s cock.

“It’s so big!” you shriek, “Where is that going, daddy?!”

“This is going right… there,” daddy emphasizes, pressing two fingers into a part of your body that has you speechless. It’s an intrusion you’re almost unfamiliar with, and yet it makes your head spin and your body hot with need and action from him. “I promise it’ll feel so good; I’ll make you feel so good.”

“O-Okay,” you whimper, watching your daddy pull something against the length of his cock before pressing the swollen head to the entrance that made you feel funny in a good way. “I’m ready, daddy.”

“I’m so glad,” your daddy smiles, and with a gentle kiss to your temple, he presses his cock into you.

“DADDY!” you shriek as his cock pressed into you, filling you out and stretching you out completely. The sensation is overwhelming, piercing pleasure slamming through your body as your arms and legs wrap around him in a vice-like grip.

Daddy’s arms wrap around your waist, pulling you in close as his hips begin rutting in and out of you. The sensation, the rhythm, is constant and is intoxicating. The creak of the mattress and the loud, grateful cries of your mouth into the crook of his neck fills the room. And then he shifts you just a bit, his hips able to thrust further, more profound, into you, and a wanton, nearly voluptuous noise escapes your mouth.

“Kiss me, daddy!” you cry, head thrusting back into the mattress, pleasure saturating so deep in your brain you can’t think anymore. “Kiss me, please! Kiss me, kiss me, kissmekissmekiss—”

His mouth is over yours, hot pants and wrecked breathing is passed between open parted lips. Your tongue pushes against his teeth, unable to find his tongue as your hips swirl and thrust up into his thrust cock. Every thrust sends daddy’s cock deeper into your pulling, demanding cunt, stretching you out, sending you further out in an unimaginable way. Your walls spasm uncontrollably, clenching and tightening without a single input.

But soon, daddy’s shifting up onto his knees, and you can only wildly cry out for him when his arms shift from keeping you close to pressing behind your knees and shoving your knees into the mattress by your shoulders. The most primal, deranged moan rips from your mouth as the stretch sends his cock to a place in your cunt you never could imagine existing. You shake like a child against him, fingers scraping at his back, tearing his skin as your heels dig into his back. The head of his cock buries and brushes against your cervix, making you cry and see colors you’ve never seen before in your life. Your praises for your daddy are endless, and his powerful pounding sends the headboard of your bed crashing against the wall harder and harder.

“How are you feeling, bunny?” Daddy grunts, his face contorted with pleasure and the need to look at you. “Do you feel my cock in you? Can you feel daddy’s cock hitting your cervix?”

“D-Daddy, I-I — ohhh my god!” you sob, your hips pathetically rutting up and down against his cock, stupidly furthering how deep his cock can go, your cervix melting with pleasure, making you oh so dizzy. You can only blabber. “Daddy’s cock is so big, it’s so good! It’s making my stomach feel so funny! I’m so scared!”

“Don’t be scared,” your daddy pleads against your neck, though his speed and strength doesn’t lessen. “Your stomach feeling funny is a good thing; it’s supposed to happen! I promise you, this is how it's supposed to happen. Okay?”

“Okay, daddy, okay, okay, okay,” your voice lessened to a senseless babble. Your sentences blurring together, and your cheek pressed into the mattress, and drool pooled from your lips.

His pace is completely irreplicable now; every maddening powerful thrust of his hips sends the headboard into the wall. The wet slapping echoing throughout the room when he pierces into you almost drowned out both of your senseless cries.

It almost scared you, the sensation foreign, but his gentle reminder that this was normal, that you would be okay, kept you from spiraling. Slick erupts in your cunt, an overwhelming heat that throbs right in your core, coating your thighs and your stomach, and with every slam of his hips, it grows only more.

Intensifying.

Exhilarating.

The temperature of your body sizzles off you in immense heat. His lips press against yours, a maddening escape of lust and need exchanging between your parted lips. Your saliva is everywhere, covering both of your faces — connecting them even when you part. But that didn’t stop him; it only fueled him to kiss you entirely, wordlessly praising you, engulfing you with his mouth, daring you with his tongue.

You were barely keeping up with his snapping hips, your mouth begging for more when he suckled on your tongue.

“It’s feeling so funny!” you suddenly cry as your daddy’s fingers pinch and rub against something between your legs that sends electric waves throughout every nerve in your body. “I feel like Imma pee, daddy! I can’t stop it! I can’t stop!”

“It’s okay, let it happen,” your daddy grunts into your ear, and with that, the calming steady of his voice, you let the heat, the tightness in your stomach you feel like is piss, slam through you.

A tingling, white noise power sensation slams through your entire body. You arch into your daddy, your scream dying on your tongue as your body thumps with a full-body heartbeat. It sends your toes curling, your fingernails scarring his back, and a pathetic, pleasure-derived sob released into your daddy’s sweaty neck.

His thrusting keeps up for a bit, letting your clenching and relaxing cunt finish him until his thrusts border sloppy, and with a final thrust that has your fingers trembling, he stops, collapsing onto you.

You don’t know what happens next, only that for one moment too long, it’s silent with only heaving breathing and incredibly warm body heat. Your eyes close, and you’re out before you even know it.

You open your eyes to a dark room.

Shouto is next to you, his eyebrows furrowed slightly as he holds a wet, warm cloth to your body, gently cleaning you up.

“Holy shit,” you murmur, your voice scratchy and nearly blown. “Did I drop and pass out after cumming?”

Shouto jumped at your voice, looking up at your face with a tired but satisfied grin, “You did.”

You laugh softly, not quite humorlessly, not entirely because you were amused. You sit up, groaning at how your lower body screams in pain; well, it seemed that your drop really did hide any pain.

“That was fun,” you grin, eyes closing as Shouto presses the cloth to your neck, cleaning the sweat and saliva there. “Glad I decided to speak up on that — ow!”

You pouted as Shouto retreated his pinching fingers from your ribcage.

“You didn’t speak up; you acted out and then spoke up,” Shouto chuckled, sighing as he leaned backward, allowing for you to stretch your tired limbs.

“I still managed to say my truth,” you grin, taking the wet cloth from his hands and focusing on his body. Shouto sat there, still and silent, as you gingerly cleaned… everything off him.

“Well, if we’re saying our truths, can I ask something?” Shouto murmurs, so unlike his typical confident demur. You pause for a moment before nodding, continuing to clean the broken skin on his body. “Would you like to be my girlfriend? I-I know this is cheesy and all, but I feel like I want you outside of our arrangement, outside of the dynamic.”

You can’t help but laugh, making Shouto look panicked, even if for a bit.

“I thought I was the only one.”

“Sero, psst, Sero!” Mina whispers loudly, hitting her friend in the back of the head with an eraser.

“Shit, what?” Sero hisses, a slight annoyance in his face from being hit.

“Look!”

Sero follows Mina’s pointed finger over where you and Shouto sat, in the middle of your own world despite it being smack in the middle of the lecture. He scanned your bodies more intensely and froze at the sight of purple and red bruises on both your necks.

“Is that—?!”

“YES!!!”

“HOLY SHIT! WE CALLED IT!”

“Sero!” boomed the voice of Aizawa, their scariest professor ever. “Is there something you would like to share with the class?”

Sero freezes, an awkward smile blooming on his face as he shrugs, “I’m just noticing some hickies today, that’s all!”

There could have been no casualties in this admittance; after all, Aizawa didn’t give two shits about hickies on university students. But the loud, panicked “shit!” coming from you was undoubtedly damning.

Shouto snickered, his fingers tugging at the collar of your shirt as his fingers brushed against the collection of bruises, “I think they look nice.”

#todoroki x reader #todoroki smut #bnha #bnha x reader #mha

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zyana-wyvern · 2 years ago

Text

I have a few... well, many things to add to this. This might get very long, so bear with me.

First of all, just to get this off the table, I do agree with pretty much all your arguments and of everyone else who offered their perspective.

I too have been through many things and saw all the possible palette of situations going on in this fandom, from some of the most wonderful, to some of the craziest and repulsive. I'm in this fandom since the beginning of 2021, so in two full years I've seen some stuff. Add the fact that this is the first time I got so deeply involved in a fandom, this will probably carry a lot of significance in my life as I go forward.

With that in mind, everything bellow comes from my perspective and filtered through my experience, so if you don't agree with something, keep in mind that your experience may have been different, which doesn't make it less valid. I will though be very candid and opened because one of my goals this year is to speak my mind more, regardless of consequence, and that mainly for my own mental health. Keeping things inside isn't healthy at all for me in the long run.

I've always likened the dawn of this fandom to a little eden. Everyone was getting along, being kind to each other and just overall having a good time. then it slowly degraded, which is not surprising. All the groups I have been in, wether at school, uni, or work start out like this. It takes some time for people to get accustomed to each other and decide with whom they have affinities and with whom they don't. The big difference is that in real life we see each other face to face, we communicate more readily, see body language, *feel* everything better, which leads to less overthinking. Personally I have to constantly remind myself this so as not to take things personally. In this respect it has been a learning experience for me because I can apply it in real life as well.

There was a time when I was also hurt by all the things here and I recognize them very well, but then upon a deeper introspection I realized maybe I too was guilty of alienating the ones who made me uncomfortable, rather than trying to bridge that gap. An eye for an eye doesn't really work.

Yes, I do reblog the lesser known creators personally, but I also reblog my friends and my friends aren't my clique. I do not only talk to them or gather in a conniving circle of cackling witches, praising each other and despising every one else. I reblog anyone and anything I like, or moves me in any way, but I also try to curate my content.

Also, I had the experience of reblogging a lot from people who I loved and who were lesser known and I got nothing in return. The same for certain friends. Not all give back the same way I do and the reverse might be true as well because time is sadly so, so limited. The reasons are varied, either my oc wears something from a friend with which another friend has beef with, or my post, or rather the npc in my post triggers them etc. It's not easy to bear, but if that is their choice, there's nothing I can do.

To me the message and feelings that this situation gives me takes precedence over the number of notes. When I take the time to offer my energy to someone and I get nothing in return, or very, very little, I feel used and silly, like a little groupie screaming and cheering for their idol, while being utterly ignored. Not a nice feeling to have.

I think being honest with ourselves and realizing our own mistakes is the first step. Others will do the same and will give back what we offer. Those who don't, ideally fall on the wayside.

Another important factor is Tumblr itself. I am surprised no one mentioned this site's algorithm, because it is one of the main reasons people don't have exposure on their creations. I know its patterns quite well after two years and it will hide your posts, it will shadow ban you, oftentimes posts won't appear in the tags and so on.

I am someone who takes periodic breaks. I have quite the busy personal life and I need that time away, not only for the well being of the people in my real life, but also for my fandom experience itself. I get burned out and bored after a while and after a break my passion is renewed. Well, after these well deserved and normal breaks that rarely last more than a week, my reach is to the floor. I barely get a few notes and friends tell me they didn't see my posts.

So many, many times, it is the AI's fault, not the human's.

Just a few days ago I wrote a drabble about one of my personal gripes, which relates to gatekeeping and feeling silenced from showing my otp and hc as they truly are, by the general direction of the fandom and the judgement from others and my post was pretty much ignored. It's great yours got so much traction.

Truth is we do not know each other AT ALL. No one truly knows the other in this fandom. To protect ourselves we must always remember this and either connect and give people the benefit of the doubt, or retreat, regroup, release.

It is also a very small fandom, where everyone nows everyone and there's only a limited number of people who might react and see our creations.

As for cliques... I only know of one which really hurt this fandom deeply, but I won't get into that. The other groups, or circles of friends are an inevitable part of human nature. People gather into groups, "clans" since the beginning of time. It cannot be stopped and it isn't a bad thing, unless it gets malicious as we saw it happening in the past. Discord indeed strengthens these connections and the only places we see each other better, the Town Squares or so to say, are Tumblr and Twitter.

My solutions to this and how I coped until now are to always remember that there's a real human being with feelings behind that OC, or that PFP, that this isn't my job, but a hobby, a passion that should be enjoyed and not become a chore, that yes, my hc and otp are very valid and I love them dearly, but others feel the same for their hcs. Most importantly, that sometimes I need to step back, I need to detach, I need to soar above it all and have a view from above, gather my thoughts and myself, before I plunge back in. We risk becoming "cyberpsychos" if we don't remember who we are and what our goals are here.

I think after solving our own internal issues and learning self love, we can more readily open to others and understand them, put ourselves in their shoes better, but also remember our own independence and not let all this play with our heads.

I love this fandom with the bad and the good. It is exactly like the game and deeply life changing in many ways.

I also appreciate you opening this discussion which gathered so many people and made them speak up. That is I think another solution - communication, honesty, openness.

There are more people with good intentions in this fandom than the opposite.

The Cyberpunk Fandom on Tumblr

After being away for a while and being able to step back and watch from afar, I can easily say that the fandom/community here on Tumblr is dying. Not surprising when you consider how competitive it's become. Not surprising when you consider how toxic and clique-y it's become.

If you're not in a clique, good luck getting notes.

If you're new, good luck getting notes. This place is horrendous for welcoming newcomers.

If you don't have an elaborately modded character and don't have the VP skills of a god, good luck getting your work seen.

Better watch your step or else you'll start an argument. Whether that's about mods or an NPC or headcanon. Better yet, don't share mods or headcanons at all. You will draw the wrath of somebody out there.

But make sure that you're posting new content every three days or else people will forget about you.

And don't make it too creative and different or else people won't like it. Just remix the same old picture in a new way over and over again.

And don't even think about sharing things other than VP of a hot person because nobody cares. All everyone wants to see is a hot person for 5.5 seconds. Put months and months of effort into developing a character? Too bad. Put a lot of love and time into developing lore and writing for your character? Better save it for yourself. No one on this app cares. Your character will be whittled down to how hot they are or not. That's a toxic community.

You have people who've been in this community for months that are hurting. There are people who are losing something they love when their work that they put effort into isn't being noticed. It stings when they're overlooked because they don't meet the ridiculous criteria in this community on this app. You have people that are scared to share their work. You have people that are struggling with their mental health because of this community. Because it's a toxic community. How do I know this? Because I've seen it happen, I've heard them say it aloud.

You have some people here who managed to make it to the top and the rest struggling to keep up. Do you really think it's healthy to have that kind of structure? Do you really think it's healthy that people are buying entire PC set ups just so they can take modded pictures and feel like they belong? That's a toxic community.

Do you really think it's a good thing that those who don't have elaborately modded V's and high end PC set ups aren't getting seen? 30 notes is hardly enough for some of the talent that I see around here. But they're overlooked because they aren't in the right clique or don't create the content that the fandom is demanding or don't use every mod in existence. That's a toxic community.

So what can you do to make it better? Share work that doesn't belong to only your friends. Leave nice notes on shares even if they aren't in your clique. Take a moment to appreciate it when people share something other than VP. Take a moment to appreciate those Vs that aren't elaborately modded. Take a moment to appreciate the talent of people here. Everyone here, not only the same 20-ish people.

This is something that is happening even on Discord servers. I've watched it happen, watched the interaction fade away. But it can be fixed if enough people put an effort into it. That means a real effort, a genuine wish for this community to continue on. If not, then we'll just have a handful of people sharing their VP into a void and nothing more. That isn't a community.

Put an effort in. Look beyond the scope of only what is in arms' reach. Appreciate what people create. Appreciate the effort that is put into their characters. Share things. Reach outwards and see the good in what people create even if they aren't what you've been brainwashed into thinking is good. Because we have been brainwashed. We've been brainwashed into thinking that we can't interact with anyone outside of our clique. We've been slowly made to think that only one set of criteria for VP and OCs are "good" and that is hurting so many people. Simply announcing that you 'think all work is good!' or 'I just do it for myself!' won't mend the hole that's being ripped into people when they aren't acknowledged.

Who is going to share your work when everyone is gone? Who's going to like your work when there's nobody to like it anymore?

And I don't mean that you need to spend hours on Tumblr sharing everything you see. That will only lead to more burn out, so please don't think that's what I mean. I mean that the toxic community practices have to end. I mean leaving the brainwashing behind and acknowledging the talent and skill of all people. I mean acknowledging all people who are here.

#fandom things #fandom culture #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk2077

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randomshyperson · 4 years ago

Text

Sorry for your loss - Final Chapter

Summary: When your wife Natasha passes away in a car accident, a part of you dies with her. It takes a few months of mourning for your psychiatrist thinks the best alternative is for you to join a grief group. And there you meet Wanda Maximoff, and learn to live again.

Warnings: (+16) mentions of death, panic attacks and anxiety, grief, self sabotage, mentions of abusive family background, mutual attraction pining, explicit consent, therapeutic conversations about death, self-deprecation, healthy methods of coping with grief, possible triggers about anxiety, domestic Wanda, hurtful behaviors.

Chapter Warnings: Mention of Smut, Brief Smut.

Tag list: @mionemymind / @abimess / @stephanieromanoff / @yourtaletotell / @tomy5girls / @justagaypanicking / @thegayw1tch / @idek-5 // @myperfectlovepoem // @imapotatao // @aimezvousbrahms / @ensorcellme/ @helloalycia // @myperfectlovepoem

Author’s note: I don't know what to say exactly, just good reading, and sorry for any spelling/translation errors. I hope you enjoy the ending, and who knows, maybe a second season?

Read on AO3 || Serie Masterlist here

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Chapter Five - I will love again

You were up early on the weekend.

Since you were going to travel to New Jersey for Wanda's father's wedding anniversary, you didn't want to keep her waiting.

When you arrived at Wanda's house, she was already on her feet, running back and forth through the house, trying to find Tommy's lost toy, who kept crying that he wouldn't travel without it.

"Make yourself at home, I just need to find that bear." She said to you as she opened the door. You placed your only luggage on the floor as you looked around. Billy was watching television, and Tommy was sitting on the kitchen counter, crying.

You walked over to him.

"Hey, Tommy, why are you crying?" You asked stopping beside him, keeping your voice calm so as not to make him more nervous.

"I want my teddy bear!" He cried out between tears.

"Mommy will find it for you." You reply. "What is the name of your teddy bear?"

"Star Lord." Sniffles the boy. Your distraction is working, because he stops crying to talk.

"Wow, that's an incredible name!" You say. "How did you get the Star Lord?"

Tommy sniffles again, wiping his tears with his forearm.

"I got it for my birthday." He counters. "Billy got a skateboard, but Star Lord is cooler."

"Is that so?" You retort with interest in your voice, realizing that Tommy was barefoot and his socks were on the countertop, you show him that you are interested in hearing him talk as you help him finish getting dressed for the trip.

"Yes, it came in a huge, red box." Tommy counted with a smile as he gestured at the size of the object. "And he sleeps with me every night, so I need him to go to Grandpa's house."

"Oh, yes, of course you do." You agree with a smile as you tie the boy's shoelaces. "Do you remember the last place you played with Star Lord?"

Tommy sniffles thoughtfully.

"I don't know." He replies tearfully, you rush to ask about his favorite memory with the bear to avoid him to cry again, and it works.

When you finish tying the child's shoes, you pick him up on your lap as he tells you about the day he took Star Lord swimming, and then you sit him down in the living room next to his brother, and he is distracted enough by the cartoon on the TV to forget about the teddy bear.

Wanda joins you in the living room a minute later, looking nervous and with her hands empty.

"Hey, I think I have an idea." You tell her as you mentally review the things Tommy said. "Finish getting them to the car, I'll go find the bear."

You found it.

Ten minutes after you left the room, inside the pool.

Wanda couldn't hold back her laughter when you arrived in front of the car with your wet clothes up to pool height.

"Your idea was to get into the pool instead of using the cleaner to reach the bear?" She teased as soon as you handed her the toy. You laughed awkwardly, watching her give the bear to Tommy and seeing the boy celebrate excitedly. "You're not getting in my car wet like that."

You laugh, and then you have an idea. Approaching Wanda with open arms, you see her raise her finger in warning, but you are already hugging her with wet clothes, making her laugh.

The joke only ends because Pietro is parking the car in front of the house next, looking at you both curiously.

"Should I let dad know we're going to be late?" He teases putting his sunglasses up. You let go of Wanda as both of your giggles slowly stop, the two of you looking like children who have been caught up to mischief. "Come on girls, we have a road ahead of us."

"Shut up Pietro." Wanda grumbled humorously, starting to push you into the house by the shoulders. "Watch the boys while we get changed."

"Yes, ma'am." He retorted wryly as he took off his seat belt and got out of the car. You let Wanda push you inside.

Upstairs, you had smiles on your faces as she searched for clothes that would fit you.

"Are you sure it isn't better if I grab something I brought in my suitcase?" You ask distractedly as Wanda rummages through the closets.

"I don't want you to be one change of clothes short, I don't know what we'll end up doing over there." Wanda retorted. "And don't worry about it."

Wanda eventually handed you a set of very soft sweatshirts and underwear. You smiled in appreciation, looking away from the clothes in your hand to the woman in front of you.

As you turned toward the bathroom, Wanda spoke.

"You can stay."

Swallowing dryly, and ignoring the unregulated beating of your heart you turned to her again, one eyebrow raised not sure you had understood correctly.

Wanda sighed heavily, as if she was gathering the courage to say it again. But her gaze said it all. She was inviting you to change in front of her.

You felt your face heat up, but you gulped dryly, forcing yourself to reason correctly.

"I... I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not?" Wanda retorted in defiance, and you let out a breathless laugh. She seemed to misunderstand your reaction, because her expression immediately fell. "Oh, you don't want to. Damn it, I..."

"What?" you interrupted quickly. "No, Wanda. I want to." You confess half breathlessly. "I really do."

"Oh."

You shift your weight between your feet, feeling your stomach turn with the way Wanda looks at you.

"But not like this." You say, swallowing dryly to confess correctly. You approach Wanda slowly as you speak. "Not in a hurry." Wanda breathes heavily, leaning back against the cabinet. You stop walking just inches from her body. "I want to be with you, with enough time to kiss every inch of your skin.” You confess again her lips. “Touch every spot that will make you lose control and scream my name."

"Fuck." Wanda gasped against your mouth, almost near enough to touch while closing her eyes.

Ignoring the tightening sensation at the tip of your stomach, you fought your baser instincts and pulled away, sighing.

"Let's hurry before your brother comes to get us."

You smiled at Wanda, ignoring the urge to kiss her. She just nodded, trying to normalize her breathing. You took advantage of her lack of reaction to turn around and walk towards the bathroom. You had better get out of there soon, because you feel that you couldn't resist that woman again.

//-//

Tommy and Billy were singing in the back seat as you drove to New Jersey. You laughed at the scene, thinking they were adorable.

Your gaze was watchful on the road, following Pietro's car to his father's house.

When Wanda began to murmur the song, you looked at her for a moment. Absolutely stunning, with her red hair flying in the wind, the smile in the corner on her lips. The sunlight making her eyes sparkle.

Turning your attention forward because Wanda caught you looking, you bit back a smile, feeling your heart race a little. But neither of you commented, and you didn't care that Wanda was looking at you now.

//-//

When you arrived, you whistled impressed at Erik's residence. It was practically a mansion, but really it was just a very well built summer house. The neighborhood was very nice too. Wanda smiled playfully at you when she noticed your reaction.

The boys ran out of the car, excited to hug their grandfather who was already waiting for them at the door. They also hugged Charles, who was a short, balding man, very friendly.

"Grandpa, can we go ride the horses?" Tommy asked excitedly, and the man laughed lightly.

"Go wash your hands and get something to eat first okay, boy?" Erik said to the boy, ruffling his hair.

The child agreed, entering the house along with his brother and his cousin, who had gotten out of the cars shortly after.

You were unpacking the bags from the car after parking and felt your breath catch when Wanda picked up one of the bags and caressed your hand with her fingers as you handed it to her. She smiled innocently, passing you to walk toward the door, and you cleared your throat before closing the trunk and following her.

"You must be Y/N." Erik greeted you as soon as you came to the door. "It's very nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too, Erik." You replied with a smile. "And you too, Charles."

The man smiled, giving you room to pass him and enter the house. Wanda was standing in the living room next to Pietro and Monica, who had their suitcases on the floor.

"Papa, which rooms are empty?" She asked the man who had entered behind you.

"You can occupy any one upstairs." Erik warned closing the door as he and Charles entered.

You accompanied the group upstairs. Wanda placed the boys' backpacks in one of the bunk rooms, since the children always slept together.

"You can have the room down the hall." She said, showing you the direction. "Next to mine."

She whispered the last part like a secret. You wanted to ignore how your stomach churned at the suggestion. Pietro and Monica passed you both, the man gave you a playful look, but made no comment. They would be in the room across from yours and next to the children's.

You guessed that the other door at the other end of the hall belonged to Erik and Charles

After putting your suitcase on the bed, you left the room. Pietro opened the door at the same moment.

"Come on, Y/N, I'm going to give you a full tour of the Maximoff residence." He announced excitedly and you giggled, following him around the house.

//-//

The Maximoff residence was much larger than you thought it was. There were even stables and a large wooded area that was part of the place, but Pietro didn't take you there, he just pointed you in the direction. You eventually discovered that the place used to be a simple farm, inherited from Pietro and Wanda's paternal grandparents, and when Erik married Charles, they renovated the place with money from the Xavier family, who were British and had a fortune built up in the vineyard area.

Pietro led you back to the kitchen when he finished showing you the property, patting you on the shoulder as he sat down on the kitchen counter, grabbing the jar of candy on the counter.

"The guests will be here soon, Pietro, get down from there." Warned Erik noticing his son's position. He was in the kitchen too, finishing sorting out some of the appetizers. During the tour, you noticed the decorations set up in the gardens, some tables and chairs and party decorations.

"Yes, papa." Grumbled Pietro as he obeyed. He reached over to accept the tray of food his father handed him.

"Take that outside please." Erik asked and you moved to get out of the way of Pietro, who gave you a wry smile as he passed, making you laugh slightly.

"Can I help too?" You asked noticing that there were still things to be carried.

"Thank you, dear, you are very kind." Erik said as he handed you one of the trays. You nodded and then turned around.

The garden was really nicely decorated, you noticed now that you were up close, placing your tray on one of the tables. There was also a small stage, which you imagined was meant for Erik and Charles to repeat their wedding vows. You smiled, remembering how your marriage to Natasha had gone. It was just nostalgic to think of her now, and it didn't make you unhappy anymore.

"I think you're all set now." Erik said behind you, arriving with a tray and placing it on the table next to yours. Pietro who had left earlier, was stealing one of the candies and received a disapproving look from his father. "Really, boy?"

Pietro laughed, raising his hands in surrender.

"I'm hungry, papa." He playfully retorted and you laughed at the interaction.

"Go help the ladies with the kids." Erik commands with a grimace, and Pietro laughs as he walks away. When he leaves, you feel slightly anxious about being alone with Wanda's father, but his posture is friendly. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you properly, Y/N. Would you like to take a walk with me before the party?"

You ignore the nervous feeling in your stomach when you agree. And Erik takes one last look at the decorations before leading the way.

//-//

A few minutes of walking later, where Erik asked you several questions about your life, your job, your age, who you lived with, that sort of thing, you reached a plantation area. You imagined it to be the vineyards of the property.

You could see the manor house in the distance, and the backyards, and a lake many meters away. The landscape was breathtaking.

"It's beautiful here." You comment beside him.

"Yes." Erik agrees with a smile, also looking at the scenery as you do. "I enjoyed your conversation, you are as lovely as Wanda usually tells us."

The comment makes your cheeks warm, the image of Wanda talking about you makes your heart soar. Erik seems to appreciate the way you react to it, smiling gently as he adds, "It's nice to know she's found someone nice to love."

You swallow dryly, glancing quickly at the man next to you, but he has his gaze on the landscape. You feel a warmth in your chest, mixed with embarrassment and happiness.

"Thank you, Erik." You say clumsily.

"For what?"

"For accepting me here I guess." You retort with a smile. "For having me into your home. And well, for saying those things about me and Wanda." You say and he makes an understanding noise through his mouth. You are silent for a moment, until he speaks again.

"You know, when Magda, their mother, passed away, I thought I would never love anyone again.." Erik tells nostalgically. He keeps looking at the field in front of you, but you stare at him, attentive to his words. "But then I met Charles. And well, it did. It's different from what it was before. And I wouldn't change it for anything."

You nodded in understanding, letting the words echo in your head. You also think about how Agatha said you could move on. There was no problem in loving again, as intensely as before.

"I figured I'd be uncomfortable talking about someone marrying my daughter, but here we are." Erik comments humorously a moment later, making you chuckle awkwardly. "I guess it must be the way you look at her. You look like a lovesick puppy. "

You scratch your neck awkwardly, looking at the scenery, making Erik laugh at your blurriness.

"Don't get upset, I'm just teasing you." He comments with a smile, patting you on the back. You laugh clumsily.

"Do you guys have a garden around here?" You ask trying to change the subject, just as you notice the glass structures in the distance, capped by the vineyard. You figured if you turned around you would find your way to them.

"Oh, yes." Erik confirms. "Charles loves gardening. We have two greenhouses over that way. Would you like to see them?"

"Yes." You confirm with a smile. "But it can be after the party."

"Oh yes, I should get back and welcome the guests." Erik agrees as he checks his watch. You start walking back to the area of the house next.

//-//

You meet a lot of people at the party. It's a little overwhelming, because you really didn't expect Erik to invite so many people, and although you're glad that they had so many friends, your anxiety has increased a little. You were smiling politely at two ladies who said they were Charles' college friends while trying to pay attention to the story they were telling when Pietro rescued you.

"I need to steal my sister-in-law for a second ladies." He said and you widened your eyes. He only realized the mistake of his words when he noticed the looks on the women's faces in front of him. " Shit, I don’t mean like she got married to Wanda... I..."

You snuck out from behind Pietro when the ladies started attacking him with questions about the wedding, and when the ceremony had taken place and why the family wasn't called. You took the opportunity to escape when Pietro was convincing the ladies that you were not Wanda's wife, and that there was no secret wedding.

Walking over to one of the far tables, you frown in disbelief as you watch Luna run under the food table, clearly looking for a place to hide from her cousin, who is looking around a few feet away.

You crouch down, pulling the towel up to speak to the child.

"Luna, honey, maybe that's not the best place to play." You tell her with a smile. She looks around.

"Sorry, Aunt Y/N." She asks. "I'm hiding from Billy."

"Oh, is that so?" You ask extending your hand to her. She accepts, and you help her stand, taking care that she doesn't hit her head on the table. "Do you remember the path we took when we first got here? Try to hide behind that tall statue, I'm sure Billy won't find you."

"Wow, that's right, Auntie. Thank you." She mumbles, leaving with her head down next, watching for any sign of her cousin. You smiled, knowing that everyone at the party would get a glimpse of the children playing if she stood where you spoke.

You noticed that the two women who were talking to Pietro looked at you, and not wanting to be dragged back into that conversation, you made your way back to the house.

Bumping into Wanda on the way, you giggled.

"There you are." You remark.

"Where were you?" Wanda retorts with a mixture of curiosity and humor, noticing your "escape mode" posture.

"Well, apparently all of your father's friends like to meet everyone, so I've spent the last thirty minutes being introduced to everyone at the party."

Wanda gave a pout of pity.

"Sorry, dear." She says and you smile awkwardly, feeling your cheeks flush. "I'm looking for the boys, they need to change for the suits."

"I saw Billy in the gardens." You tell her as you gesture briefly in the direction. "I'll go find Tommy for you."

Wanda smiles, biting her lips. You nod but when you make mention of moving away, she holds your forearm and moves forward, depositing a kiss on your cheek.

"Thank you, sweetheart." She whispered, smiling mischievously at you before she turned away and left the kitchen. You bit your lip, feeling your heart racing. You didn't understand why Wanda was teasing you, but you weren't complaining.

//-//

Non Readers Pov

Wanda laughed affectionately when Billy launched himself onto her lap as soon as she found him in the backyard.

"Luna, dear, your mother is calling you too." Warned the red-haired woman to her niece who nodded turning toward the direction her aunt pointed.

"Mommy can I play after I change my clothes?" Asked the boy as the woman carried him back to the house.

"Of course honey, but you have to be careful, okay? You can't get your suit dirty."

Just before she reached the entrance, someone called her name, causing Wanda to turn her head curiously.

"Sweetie, I need to ask you something." It was Ruth Eisenhardt, a nasty distant cousin of Wanda's known for gossiping, and lots of it, about all her relatives. "I just heard from Aunt Susan that you are dating that pretty girl you brought over."

Wanda felt her face heat up, but kept her expression impassive. Before she could add anything else, the woman was speaking again.

"Of course we are all happy for you, but when I went to share the good news with Uncle Jeff, he said that Pietro had already denied this affair. Now I'm left not knowing if you're really going out with that beefcake."

Wanda let out an awkward giggle, frowning slightly at the way her cousin spoke.

"We're not exactly together, cousin." The redhead replied. "But that's not really your business."

Ruth grimaced in surprise, but then her expression changed to one of malice.

"You know, I'm just confirming it. Because after all, we don't have pretty things like that lying around in New Jersey."

Wanda clenched her jaw. Ruth was exactly the kind of girl who had a mania for taking what didn't belong to her.

"Cousin, don't flirt with her." Wanda said. "I'll only warn you this once."

Ruth giggled, surprised at the reaction. But Wanda didn't continue the subject, turning and continuing toward the entrance of the house.

"Mom what's flirt?" Billy asked next, drawing Wanda's attention away from her own not-so-pleasant thoughts about someone taking what was hers.

"It's a way adults talk, honey." Wanda explained, biting her lips thoughtfully briefly. "When they want to be more than friends."

"Like best friends?"

Wanda laughs briefly, denying it.

"No, Billy. Like lovers."

Billy makes a noise of agreement. "Why can't Aunt Ruth flirt with Aunt Y/N?"

Wanda sighs lightly, forcing a friendly expression so as not to confuse her son.

"She can."

"But you told her..."

"I know." Wanda interrupts with red cheeks. She takes a deep breath, smiling at her son. "Can I ask you something sweetie?" Billy nods in agreement. "If mommy started dating someone, would you be upset?"

Billy frowns, denying it.

"Mommy, you want to date Aunt Y/N don't you?"

Wanda's eyes widen in surprise.

"Where did that one come from?" she asked.

"You didn't like it when Aunt Ruth flirted with Daddy either, I remember Aunt Monica's birthday." He tells, and Wanda sighs slightly, remembering when she caught Ruth complimenting her husband as she ran her hands through her hair, and Wanda might have gotten a little carried away by accidentally flipping a wine glass in her cousin's lap. On the way home, when the twins asked, she said that she was upset with the way Ruth spoke to their father, and now Billy was able to understand everything. "And now you don't want Aunt Ruth to talk to Aunt Y/N like that." He concluded as if it was obvious. Wanda smiled as she went upstairs, careful not to trip on the steps with Billy on her lap. "Mommy, if you date Aunt Y/N will she move in with us?"

"I don't know dear." Wanda replied with a shy smile.

"If she lives with us, will you let her sleep in my room?"

Wanda laughed, looking at Billy curiously.

"And why is that?"

"Because she knows how to play dragon. And also tell fairy tales." He says counting on his fingers. "And she also helps Tommy with his headache, so she can sleep on our rug and when he wakes up at night, she helps him."

Wanda smiles fondly, shaking her head slightly.

"Those are very good reasons indeed." She says. "But I think Y/N would like to sleep in a bed, no? The floor is uncomfortable."

Billy looks thoughtful and Wanda laughs briefly as she sets him down on the floor, already inside his room. She helps him out of his clothes to put on his party suit that is already on the bed.

"I can sleep in your bed mommy, and then Aunt Y/N sleeps in mine next to Tommy so he won't be alone."

Wanda laughs again, denying with her head. She bends down to button her son's shirt.

"Tell you what. Y/N sleeps in my bed, and if Tommy feels bad, she goes up to his room, how's that sound?"

//-//

Reader pov

"I think it sounds amazing." You spoke as you entered the room, a mischievous smile on your lips. Wanda startled slightly, surprised that you arrived at that moment, but she smiled shyly as she looked at you before turning her attention back to her son.

"Yay, mommy!" Billy spoke excitedly. Wanda sat him down on the bed again, helping him put on his shoes. You guided Tommy gently by the shoulders to the bed, and as soon as he had a look at the suit he began to undress.

"I didn't know you were going to live with us, Aunt Y/N." Tommy comments as he removes his sneakers.

"I didn't know either." You retort, biting back a smile at the sight of Wanda's reddening cheeks. "I guess your mother forgot to invite me."

Wanda mumbles at you to shut up, making you smile.

"Mommy, you have to let Aunt Y/N know that she is going to live with us now." Billy said making you cross your arms, and turn to Wanda, joining in on the joke.

"Yes, Wanda! You need to let me know about these things." You say with false seriousness, and Wanda rolls her eyes in amusement, finishing putting on Billy's shoes and getting up to face you.

"Y/n, honey, you're going to move in with me when we get back home, okay?" Wanda asks in the same tone. You bite back a smile, ignoring how your heartbeat has quickened. You can't help but look at Wanda adoringly however, and her expression goes from playful to shy in microseconds.

"Okay, Wands. I'll love living with you." You say to her next, sounding slightly affected. The twins let out an exclamation of excitement, and break the bubble you are in. You clear your throat slightly as you turn your attention back to them, looking away from Wanda.

"Wow, you guys look great." You comment as you see the boys properly dressed next. The suits are very nice indeed.

"You can go back to the party, but be careful not to get your suits dirty. No playing in the dirt!" Wanda warns the boys, who are already running excitedly outside.

"Okay, I'll go get ready too." You say next, thinking to check your cell phone as well, since you haven't turned it on since you left New York. "See you at the party?"

Wanda nods in agreement and you turn to leave.

At the door she stops you, pulling you by the forearm lightly and raising her hand to your neck, then bringing your lips together.

You both sigh and you feel your whole body tense up and heat up all at once. Wanda pulls away in the next moment, breathing as out of rhythm as you do.

You want to ask her why she did this now, but you think the question can wait until later, because she brings your lips together again, in a kiss far less innocent than before. Wanda closes the door with one hand, and with the other she pushes you against the wood.

You gasp, letting your tongue run across her lip, and she gives you passage.

Her taste intoxicates your senses quickly, your hands moving up to her waist as hers move to your hair, deepening the kiss. You both gasp for air against each other's mouths, unable to separate.

Panting, you feel your head spin as Wanda moves her tongue against yours, slow and sensual, and you can't help but squeeze her waist tightly, enjoying the feeling of her sighing against your lips.

You switch positions next moment, pressing Wanda against the wood of the door, your knee coming up between her legs.

"Oh." Wanda moans breathlessly breaking the kiss. You move your kisses down her jaw to her neck, sucking on the skin and releasing just before marking. Your fingers play with the hem of her blouse, and Wanda brings your head up, kissing you again.

You press your body against her, wanting her to be touching you everywhere. The sensation makes you breathless, and hot in all the right places, causing you to moan.

You think you could kiss Wanda forever if she'd let you. The feeling of having her in your mouth is the best you have ever felt.

There are noises of footsteps coming from the stairs, and you both sigh when you hear them. It's Monica coming up with Luna, who is chatting animatedly. It's just what you need to snap back to reality, and slow down the kiss.

You keep your foreheads together, and your hands around Wanda until the sound becomes distant, signaling that Monica has entered their bedroom with Luna.

You let out a giggle, and Wanda follows you. You look just like two teenage girls making out in secret. When you stop laughing, you kiss her again. Calmer this time. Before you let go, she bites your lip, tugging lightly, and making you gasp before letting go.

"Come on, go change." She commands, pushing you lightly. You smile because she keeps her grip against your blouse as she tells you to leave.

"It is you who are keeping me here, Maximoff." You tease with a smile. Wanda smiles too, and steals a kiss from you before letting go. You stumble backwards out of the room, grinning like an idiot, but you don't care, because Wanda looks at you just the same.

//-//

Wanda looked stunning in her party dress. You wanted to kiss her again, but you knew that if you did you would smear her lipstick, and she would have a lot of inconvenient questions ahead of her. So you just smiled, and breathlessly confessed how beautiful she looked, enjoying her flushed cheeks.

By the time you joined the party, the guests were arranging themselves at the correct places, and you joined a conversation circle with Wanda at your side, greeting a few more people.

As the sun set, Erik and Charles signaled that the ceremony was about to begin.

//-//

It was all very beautiful.

Maybe you cried between one confession and another, but everyone was emotional, so no one really cared.

Your cell phone had lots of pictures on it when you came back to the house, after saying goodbye to the guests who left when the party was over. You were holding Tommy by the hand, while Billy went with his mother, and the boys looked very tired.

"Let's go to bed, okay?" Wanda warned the kids as they followed her upstairs.

Erik wanted to open a bottle of wine, so after the kids were in bed, all the adults were outside on the balcony. Wanda sat very close to you, and you resisted the urge to put your arm around her.

"I guess I'll never get used to parties." Erik then comments, smiling nostalgically, making the group smile.

"I hope you're looking forward to the twenty-year anniversary one, papa." Pietro humorously retorts, and Erik laughs, looking at his husband tenderly.

"I look forward to it."

You smiled at the passionate way the couple looked at each other. You wondered what it must be like to stay married for so long.

"I know we are all tired, but I had something to tell you." Erik then says, exchanging a look with Charles before continuing. "It's about the farm."

"What about the farm?" Pietro asked curiously.

"It 's yours."

Pietro frowns in confusion, looking at Wanda, who has the same look on her face.

"Papa, what?" Wanda asks, and Erik lets out a short laugh.

"You know I've always wanted to remodel this place, ever since you were kids." He recounts. "And Charles and I finally did it. But now we're old. And you two have your whole lives ahead of you, and well, you are our family. So Charles and I agreed that the house should belong to you both."

Wanda and Pietro exchange incredulous laughter.

"Papa, what? Are you sure?" Wanda asks looking from her brother to her father and stepfather. The older men just smile and the next moment they are hugging their children. You and Monica exchange looks of amusement.

"So, does this mean we're moving?" Monica comments once everyone is seated, and elicits a giggle from the group.

"Let's save all this serious talk for tomorrow, shall we?" Erik asks with a smile. "Today, let's just enjoy the stars."

"Someone is feeling romantic." Charles jokes making the group laugh.

"Papa, tell us some of your stories." Pietro asked with a smile, and Erik sighed, taking on a thoughtful expression.

"Um, let's see." He begins. "Have I ever told you about what happened in Budapest...?"

//-//

It was quite late when you and Wanda were finally alone, after Charles and Erik came in, you stayed talking to Pietro and Monica for a few more minutes, until they walked in as well.

You smiled at Wanda as she leaned back in her armchair to face you cross-legged, and you mimicked her position.

"Hey." She called out to you with a smile.

"Hey."

"Did you enjoy the party?"

"Yes." You assured her tenderly. "It was pretty good actually."

Wanda nodded slightly, her gaze falling momentarily to your lips.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything you want, Wanda." You retort, making her smile.

The redhead looks intently at you.

"Did you mean it?" She asks and you blink in confusion. "About moving in with me."

You feel your cheeks heat up, but you smile.

"You're not even going to ask me out first, eh?"

Wanda laughed, looking away with flushed cheeks. You swallowed dryly, lifting your hand to turn her face toward you again, stroking her cheek lightly. God, Wanda was beautiful. Her bright green eyes looking back at you, the way her hair fell around her face, every part of her.

"Don't you think we're happening too fast?" Wanda asks insecurely, you don't put your hand down, enjoying the feeling of her skin.

"It depends." You answer letting your gaze wander to her, your free hand searching for hers in your lap, twining your fingers together.

"On what?"

"If you care about me..." You whisper as you bring your faces closer together, stopping when your lips are almost touching, and you and Wanda both close your eyes in anticipation. " As much as I care about you."

You kiss Wanda before she responds. Sweetly and softly. The sensation makes you smile against her lips, and you ignore the urge to deepen the kiss to pull away.

"Is that your way of saying you're in love with me?" Wanda teases half breathlessly a minute later, her tone playful and confident, but her rosy cheeks give away how affected she is. You think she's irresistible.

You laugh lightly, brushing a strand of hair from her face before looking into her eyes.

"I'm in love with you." You confess simply, watching her blink in surprise and amazement. "So, you still think it's too fast?"

Wanda smiles, denying it, and then approaches you.

"I'm in love with you too" She confesses as a secret against your lips. You feel your stomach rumble with nervousness and excitement, but you don't say anything else, because Wanda kisses you again. She asks for passage with her tongue a second later, making you sigh.

You hold your mouths together in a passionate kiss for long minutes, panting against each other' lips as Wanda moves to sit on your lap with her hands on your neck while your hands move up to her waist. You feel hot and bothered, squeezing her skin as if you want to merge with it. It is only when your kisses begin to move down to her collarbone that Wanda gasps saying that you two should go upstairs.

She moves off your lap, breaking the kiss, and you bite your lips, chasing her mouth again. Standing up, Wanda slides her tongue against yours one last time, making your head spin, before she pulls away, smiling at you as she pulls you by the hand into the house.

She signals with her finger for you to be quiet as you enter, and you swallow dryly as you observe the way her eyes are dark.

Getting to your room seems to take forever, especially since you can barely breathe, but finally you arrive.

Wanda locks the door after you enter. And then the atmosphere changes, because you both know what is about to happen.

She smiles shyly at you and you hold out your hand to her, leading her to sit on the bed beside you.

You exchange a glance before you sigh softly, slowly moving closer to her face. When you kiss her, much more tenderly and gently than any other time, Wanda melts.

She raises her hands to your neck, deepening the kiss as she falls onto the bed and takes you with her. You kiss her firmly, swirling your tongue around hers slowly, making her shiver.

There is no rush in what you are about to do, and you certainly want to enjoy every second of it.

You rest your weight against Wanda, enjoying the feeling of having her beneath you, and the sound that escapes her throat. Your mouth separates from hers only for you to move your kisses down her collarbone, causing Wanda to close her eyes and sigh.

Your hands reach behind her back to pull down the zipper of her dress. When your fingers make contact with her exposed skin, Wanda bites her lips, entwining her legs together in search of more friction.

Your kisses move down as you pull the dress off her body, Wanda shifting on the bed to help you undress her. You move away from her neck to remove the piece completely, your gaze falling to her exposed skin the next moment. The redhead blushes at your stare, but all you can do is admire. The sight of her bare breasts makes your core throb, and you feel the urge to touch and kiss every inch.

You kiss her again in the next second, but part your mouths again quickly to move your lips down her body.

At the first touch on her breasts, Wanda gasps loudly. You smile, controlling the urge to tell her not to be so loud, but you are distracted by the growing heat in your core when you suck on her nipple and she whimpers, bringing her hand to your hair to keep you there.

Dividing your attention between the nipples, you kiss, bite, and suck the sensitive skin, keeping enough of it in your mouth for the skin to be marked red, which elicits a hearty moan from Wanda.

As your kisses begin to descend again, Wanda's body tenses. You kiss at the height of her navel before looking up, and already find her looking up at you with darkened eyes, biting her lip.

"Everything okay?" You ask in a sigh, trying to reason properly out of the bubble of lust.

Wanda's hesitation causes you to raise your face back toward her again, keeping your hands by her side so as not to fall against her body.

"What's wrong?" You ask gently, trying to find any sign of discomfort.

"Nothing." She says with a shy smile. "It's just... it's the first time I... since..."

"Yeah, I know." You interrupt half breathlessly, knowing exactly what she is referring to. "Mine too." You confess, but at this point, you knew she should have guessed it too. You have been grieving partners for quite some time, after all. "Do you want to stop?"

"No." Wanda quickly denies, biting back a smile. "I feel good."

You smile, nodding in agreement.

"Me too."

You kiss Wanda gently again, but before the kiss gets more heated, you pull away to whisper against her lips. "Let me know if you feel uncomfortable at any time."

Wanda nods, bringing your lips together next.

//-//

When you awake, it is probably the best sleep you have had in months. Wanda is curled up on you, her clothes spread across the room lit by the sunbeams from the window.

You mumble that you have to get up because the children will be up soon, but Wanda says that her father will take care of them, and kisses you until you completely forget where you are.

When you finally get up, and go downstairs for coffee, neither adult comments at all on the way Wanda's hand remains in yours throughout the meal.

//-//

While Wanda is talking to Pietro and Erik about how they are going to organize the inheritance of the farm, and the children are playing in the backyard in front of the veranda, you decide to call your mother.

You end up learning that she got a buyer for your apartment, but you tell her that you would deal with these matters when you get back. After checking email and that sort of thing, you turn off your cell phone again.

Taking one last look at the children, you walked back into the house, catching a small piece of the conversation of the others in the living room about what would be done about Wanda's flower shop, but you didn't intrude.

"We know a lot of people around here, Wanda." Charles was counting. "I'm sure we'll be able to find a new location for the flower shop."

Wanda looked slightly apprehensive, probably considering all the consequences of the relocation, but she relaxed her posture completely when you entwined your hand with hers.

When the conversation was over, it was decided that the families would move to the farm. Selling the properties in New York would take some time, but they would still move to the city during the vacations. It was going to be a rush, but Erik and Charles were willing to help too.

Since you guys were leaving that afternoon, you went back to your room to pack. And Wanda joined you a moment later, kissing you on the cheek before sitting down on your bed.

" All good?" You asked as you folded your socks.

"Yeah." She confirmed with a smile. "I'm just trying to believe that all this is really happening."

"It's not every day we get a farm, is it?" You joke making her laugh. Wanda bites her lips next, looking at you fondly, and you look away to your bag, feeling your face heat up.

"I forgot to ask you something yesterday." She begins somewhat shyly. You frown slightly, muttering for her to ask. "Are we dating?"

You laugh in surprise, throwing your folded party clothes into your suitcase, before approaching Wanda, raising your hand to her chin.

"What do you think, love?" You ask against her lips, dragging your mouth down her jaw to the height of her ear. "After what you did with your tongue yesterday, you're not going anywhere."

Wanda gasps, clenching her hands in the bed. You smile because you know the memories have hit her all over again. But you turn away next, smiling innocently at the woman in front of you before turning your attention back to the suitcase.

"I don't get a ring?" She teased next, making you laugh briefly. You looked back at the door before advancing against her, kissing her firmly, completely overturning her confident posture. When Wanda sighed against your mouth, you pulled away, and she grumbled, her hand reaching up to grab your belt and pull you back to her, but noises of footsteps made her give up.

Soon the boys came running into the room, talking excitedly about living on the farm and riding every day, and you wanted to laugh at the way Wanda had to disguise how affected she felt by your small make out session to answer her sons' questions.

//-//

After saying goodbye to your hosts with hugs, you sat in the back seat with the boys, because Tommy insisted that he wanted to show you a video game. Wanda drove you to your apartment, and after getting your suitcase from the trunk, you waved goodbye to the boys, and approached the driver's window.

"I'll call you, okay?" You tell her with a smile, Wanda nods, and you kiss her. Tommy and Billy make disgusted noises in the back of the car, and you and Wanda laugh as you part.

Waving to everyone in farewell one last time, you wait for Wanda to leave with the car before you go into the house.

"Kissing girls on the doorstep, heh? Looks like high school all over again." Your mother teases from the kitchen just as you enter. You laugh as you close the door.

"Spying through the kitchen window, Mom? And I thought I was a grown-up." You retort in the same tone as you walk to the kitchen to greet her with a kiss on the forehead, tossing your suitcase on the counter afterwards.

"Are you really dating then?" Your mother asks and you murmur in agreement. She smiles. "I'm so happy, honey. I can't wait to prepare for the wedding."

You roll your eyes humorously, picking up an apple from the countertop.

"We need to talk about your apartment, by the way." She starts again, looking through her briefcase for something. "I've found buyers, and well, I'm already looking at some houses for you, too." She says as you take a seat next to her at the table. "Of course I love having you here, but we both know you can't wait to have a place of your own again."

You sigh lightly.

"Yeah, Mom." You confirm. "About that..."

//-//

"You're late." Agatha remarked as soon as you stumbled into her office. You gave her a lopsided smile, closing the door as you entered.

"Sorry, I had a date and lost track of time."

Agatha raises her eyebrows at you.

"A date, hm? Let's talk about it then."

//-//

You had just deposited Melina's share of the apartment in the bank when your cell phone vibrated.

A message from Bucky, asking if you were coming to therapy with him today, as he was already at the station. You reply with an emoji, and a text saying coming.

//-//

"I am immensely happy for your progress, even though I am upset that you will not be continuing with us." Stephen says to you and Wanda, in your last group session.

"Well, New Jersey has its support groups. But this one is always going to be special." You tell him as you lightly tap his arm. Stephen smiles as he hands you the progress brooches. Wanda has her hand intertwined in yours, and the man in front of you looks at that before commenting.

"You know, I always find it curious the way pairs develop in the group." He comments. "We never ask that the activities be romantic, but still, many of them end up falling in love."

You and Wanda exchange a mixed look of embarrassment and happiness.

"I guess we have you to thank for that." Wanda says next, but Stephen smiles, denying it.

"Not at all. I'm happy for both of you. After all, I always thought you would get along together." He hints last, making you and Wanda laugh softly.

//-//

"I just need to lock up and grab a few last things in the office, and then we can go." Wanda told you when you arrived at the flower shop. The establishment was now empty, as the moving crew had already passed by.

You waited for her in the reception area.

With the key to the flower shop in hand and the last files that were there, Wanda hesitated. You looked at her, standing in the center of the place, eyes watering, and smiled as you approached.

"Everything okay?" You asked as you touched her arms, stroking her to calm her down.

"Yeah." She sighs, looking around one last time before looking back at you. "It just feels like I'm ending something. Like a chapter in my life."

You swallow dryly briefly, nodding.

"Are you scared?"

Wanda smiles.

"Terrified." She confesses. "But I have you, so I know I'll be all right."

You smile, lifting your hands to your neck to kiss her. It's brief and sweet, and it's exactly what you both need to be sure you're doing the right thing.

"You're a flirt, aren't you Maximoff?" You tease with a smile, and Wanda giggles lightly against your lips.

"And you are breathtaking, love."

You felt your face heat up, kissing Wanda again.

"Are you sure about what we're doing, Wanda?" You let the words escape your anxious brain next. Wanda raised her free hand to your face, caressing your cheek.

" Absolute." She assures. "You are my future."

You swallow dryly, affected by the intensity of the confession. A shy smile escapes your lips in the next moment.

"And you are mine."

#wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda x you #wandaxreader #wandaxyou #wanda maximoff x reader #wandaxyn #wanda x yn #marvel imagines #sorry for your loss

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spiderling-space · 3 years ago

Note

Hey so this thought has been on my mind for like ages and I think that you'd be able to write a headcanon about it in a wonderful way, so I'm presenting this idea to you hehe ( I love ur blog so so so much btw!)

So let's say that whatever miracles of seven happened, that Yuu overblots. Being constantly pushed around by other students by being magicless, solving the idiot trio's problems, trying to survive overblots and dealing with Crowley's neglectful ass cheeks sure is not easy. With all the piled and bottled up negative emotions, Yuu like the previous boys, overblots. Yuu wasn't that hard to defeat cuz you know, they're magicless, but the twst boys did struggle and Yuu's quite the challenge too. So what if, after Yuu's overblot, they had a full on mental breakdown. Not like crying mental breakdown, they're full on SCREAMING, their voice are cracking too, and very painful to hear. They started to unconsciously harm themselves so they have to be tied down to prevent to hurt themselves further. How would the dormleaders react to that?

(Sorry for my English and if I ever break a rule, it's OK if you decide to not do this too. Btw I got this idea when I watch ATLA aka Aang the last airbender, for reference of the breakdown of Yuu just search "Azula's breakdown" that practically how their breakdown looked like :D)

I cant write headcanons because you basically wrote everything. I will just make comments and additions to this. first I mention the background, secondly Azula’s breakdown so non ATLA watchers can understand a little and lastly, MC having breakdown like Azula. For the record, I could write about ATLA for pages since it is something I love since 2005. LOL This became a bit meta xd

You can join the discord server here 😉🤣

Firstly, the back ground:

I was 7 years old when ATLA started airing. I’d be excited to get back home to watch ATLA after school. Azula’s breakdown was awful back then when I first watch it as a kid. And of course, when they aired the episodes again and again. I rewatched again because I remembered the show being dope when I was in 12th grade which was stress relief while studying for university exams, and then I rewatched last year and even founded a Zutara server. Now I’m getting back to the point. In the last two rewatching, I saw Azula in a different light and her breakdown at the end of the show was understandable. I can recommend some ATLA meta that you might like.

Secondly, Azula’s breakdown:

Azula lost everything. In the flashbacks, you saw she was getting along with Zuko, laughing and playing tag until Ozai’s influence on her grew while Ursa showed more affection towards Zuko since Ozai basically hated Zuko. These two triggered each other and it grew like snowball effect which came to the point that Ozai-Azula and Ursa-Zuko. She didn’t get love from Ozai, she was just a puppet, someone to empower him more, not his daughter meanwhile to Ursa, she was a monster. Azula was 8 years old Ursa disappeared. Imagine how this would affect the child. After this, she had estranged brother that she was jealous of because of Ursa’s love, a father who manipulated her, and an uncle who was too in pain to do anything and he was more focused on Zuko. She only had Mai and Ty Lee as “friends” but it was toxic and Azula used fear to control them. After Zuko got banished, Mai and Ty Lee went to their own places, leaving Azula alone with Ozai. Just when Zuko got back, she was being like the last times, cruel teasing, Mai and Ty Lee with her. Later, Zuko went away and probably got lectured by Ozai for her lie. Mai and Ty Lee stood against her. In the end, she had no one. Ozai didn’t want her with him either because he only wants power. Being alone drew her to the edge. In the Royal Hair Washing, the girl sje fired had her face. Her self hatred was palpable. She started to reflect this via Ursa, the mother who thought her as monster and didn’t love her like she did Zuko. I believe she would have had breakdown if she actually killed Zuko. At the end, she couldn’t handle it anymore. Being all alone, not being loved, self hatred and finally failing at something which is something she knows Ozai would never tolerate like he did with Zuko. This 14-year-old wouldn’t be able to handle it anymore and had breakdown.

Now last section, MC having breakdown like Azula’s:

Let’s see the things MC went through:

Stripped away from home

Doesn’t have much memory of it

Is thrusted into a world so foreign to them, where everything is foreign to them. There is no familiar thing that can make them recall home or feel at home

Is forced to study things that they have no prior info where the others have prior info and they are expected to ace the tests. This puts on pressure on regular students, can’t imagine the pressure they would feel since they barely understand the magic.

Is treated like trash by everyone at least once. From the first moment they came to Twisted Wonderland, they were like dirtbag. Dire gave them a house where they could get Hepatitis A to C, tetanus, hypothermia and any other disease. They have lived in that state for months and the house barely got fixed by the end of exams. They got belittled or used by almost all characters at least once. Examples: Vil calling them nobody; Azul trying to take the only thing they have from them, the dorm; Riddle calling them uneducated because not having magical parents; Leona acting like they are a toy in E2; Jamil literally manipulating their choice; sometimes NPC characters talked; Cater making them do his work etc.

They are given more than a person should handle. They are not certificated psychologist, they aren’t superhuman, they don’t have super healing... They are just human but has to fight enemies than can easily kill them if it were not the magic users around them. They are given the task of dealing with the emotional breakdown of the other people.

All of these are building up more and more. Maybe they started to get along with people after the belittlement and being used but every new character does this. At one point, it will be too much and they will think “they are only nice to me because I did a favor to them. If not for that, they wouldn’t be nice to me” which would lead to self doubt. When one starts doubting themselves, everything else starts to go down. Also, new characters treating them that way adds salt to the wound.

MC isn’t a professional psychologist. They can’t handle other people’s issues without taking a toll at themselves. They don’t even catch a break between everything.

Dire is deliberately keeping them away from home as they all do the errands he say. To him, what MC wants doesn’t matter much. The game doesn’t show but if MC has family and friends or pets, you can’t tell me that they wouldn’t miss them once or see, hug them or know their state, alive-dead, healthy-sick etc.

Lastly not being invincible. The end of Episode 5 shows this well. They couldn’t stand against Grim who isn’t as powerful as the other overblot characters. They are mortal who can get hurt easily.

Now all these build up meanwhile we don’t see an MC centered chapter, how they are etc. It’s all about the others. Maybe there were a few chapters asking if MC is okay after everything but it feels like it is in the second plan.

Everything that I mentioned can lead to a breakdown like Azula’s. Everything is just too much to handle and they don’t talk with a professional about it. When they finally let out everything, it feels much better, screaming out their lungs, lashing out like all of them did. They are finally letting out all of their emotions, crying and screaming; yet still feels better than bottling everything up. They think maybe that’s how overblot characters felt.

All in all, everyone in NRC needs a counselor.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst mc #twisted wonderland mc #MC/Yuu #twisted wonderland meta #twst meta #twst yuu #twisted wonderland Yuu

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sazandorable · 5 years ago

Text

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

#ao3 #fandom history #aaaaand that's all im going to tag

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thegreatestofheck · 3 years ago

Text

dark of the night [A. Hotchner]

word count – 25,555 (its so long im so sorry) warnings - a lot, blood, torture, mentions (but no descriptions) of sexual assault/rape, murder, canon violence stuff, this is essentially a hurt/comfort fic so expect a lot of hurt to come before the comfort, also a slow burn. synopsis - an agent gets taken in the middle of an investigation. in a race against time, the team at the bau must find her by diving into her deepest secrets. when a video tape arrives with horrible images of the state of their friends, aaron hotchner realizes just how terrified he is of losing her. tagging: @magicalbluepanther (i hope you don’t mind the tag lol) a/n – did anyone order an extra long aaron hotchner slow burn? Because here you’ve got one. so my mental health is declining again and that means I have to write a criminal minds one shot that involves a lot of hurt/comfort. also I gave y/n a name because i don’t really like y/l/n or anything, but you’re more than welcome to replace it with your own! please dont be mad at me. anyway, stay happy, healthy, safe, and groovy!

The moment Agent Hotchner realized that she wasn’t coming back, his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. It had happened once before, this feeling, the day he was in his car and he got that call from Foyet and heard Hayley’s muffled sobbing over the phone. Panic settled into his bones, unable to shake it away even as the terrified eyes of the rest of the team looked his way.

“Did we just lose her?” Emily Prentiss asked, her words wavering ever so slightly as she tried to keep herself calm.

At the sound of her voice, Hotch finally found himself able to look around the room.

Morgan had shifted his eyes back to the door that his friend was supposed to come through. Reid stared at Hotch, wide eyed, lips parted. JJ was chewing on her thumb nail, waiting for Hotch to do something, say something. Emily was looking between the door and Hotch. Rossi was standing behind him, so he couldn’t see the look on his face, but Hotch couldn’t imagine he looked any different than the rest of his team.

Agent Evelyn Caro had walked into the meeting, undercover, in hopes of baiting a serial killer into a quick and easy arrest. After three years of horrific killings, the BAU team was so close to catching him and Agent Caro was more than willing to be the one to take him down.

Hotch knew this particular case was a sore spot for Caro, as all torture/murder cases were. But during this entire case, she had been far more on edge and far more eager to tear their suspect to shreds. He shouldn’t have let her go to the meeting, he knew it was too personal for her, even if she had never told him why.

She had refused to take in a ear piece, said that the stories that would be told at the meeting were personal and their privacy was to be respected. Hotch trusted her. He agreed. They all stood outside and waited. The meeting should have been only two hours, Caro promised that she would be back with the suspect in less than three hours.

But it had now been three hours and almost thirty minutes. The door hadn’t opened a single time since the last of the members of the meeting left, all except Caro and the suspect.

She fit his physical appearance preference and possessed the confidence he appeared to have deep hatred for. It should have been an easy job.

“What went wrong?” Hotch murmured out loud, more to himself.

His words seemed to trigger something in Morgan, who pushed open the van door and unholestered his weapon before anybody could stop him.

“Morgan!” Rossi yelled after him, but there was no slowing down, and once Morgan was running toward the meeting building, Emily and Reid were on his tail.

“Hotch, what do we do?” JJ asked, turning toward him as Rossi hopped out of the car to go after his peers.

Hotch ran through every single protocol that he knew like the back of his hand. They flitted through his brain like smoke, a flurry of useless words and numbers that meant nothing to him. Not a single one told him how to deal with this. Tightness squeezed at his chest as the rules and regulations he clung so tightly to began to fail him once again.

“We find her.”

Gun drawn, Hotch entered the building with JJ on his tail. His heart pounded in his chest, but he kept his composure about him. The same couldn’t be said for some of the others.

“Evie!” Morgan called out, kicking down a door.

“Evelyn?” Rossi’s voice echoed through elementary school.

Hotch was seconds away from calling out her name himself, but he kept his jaw clenched tight. JJ followed every move he made. If he lost himself now, so would JJ. He needed at least one person on his side whose head was still level.

They scoured the entire grounds, but they could find nothing. The room where the meeting had taken place was empty. Not even the leader was there anymore. This dark room was where the team met up after searching every inch of the grounds.

There was silence for an eternity as they passed glances between each other, wordlessly asking if anyone had found anything.

“There’s not even a footprint,” Morgan said helplessly, his eyebrows pulled together in concern.

“I didn’t hear her scream.” JJ’s voice was weak and her eyes downcast.

“None of us did,” Rossi replied.

“We have to find her quickly,” Hotch said, finally trusting himself enough to speak. “He only keeps his victims for five days and if he knows she’s FBI, it’s probably less than that.”

“I’ll call Garcia, track Evie’s phone,” Morgan said, pulling out his phone and turning away from the group.

“We start from the ground up,” Hotch instructed. “Right now, Agent Caro isn’t our coworker but a victim and we have to treat her as such if we want to find her. Dig into her life, figure out what connects her to the other victims. Did he take her because she’s FBI or because she’s connected to the others. Morgan?”

“Her phone’s off,” Morgan said, pulling the phone away from his ear.

“Tell Garcia to look for a connection between all of the victims. Dig and dig deep. Hold nothing back.”

Morgan paused for a moment. They all remembered when they had to do this very thing to him, when he was a suspect all those years ago. He knew what it was like to have his friends digging into a personal life he long wanted buried, how they looked at him differently after they knew, even if they didn’t mean to. He didn’t understand then, that they were trying to help, but he did now. There was no time to hesitate. This was Evelyn they were talking about.

“Garcia, give me everything on Evelyn Caro that you can find. Dig deep. She needs us,” Morgan said.

“Got it.”

“Call me when you get anything.”

“Yup.”

She ended the call and Morgan turned back to the team.

“Garcia’s on it.”

“Okay, then we need to get back to the station and look at everything again. We have a name. We know it’s him. We just need to find them.” Hotch turned away from the team and started for the exit. “No one goes home until we find her.”

___

Hotch meant what he said, but no one needed to be told twice. Red rimmed eyes scanned the same files over and over and over again as they waited for any amount of information from Garcia.

“There has to be something here,” Morgan said with a frustrated sigh. “Something we’re missing.”

“Why did he take her?” JJ asked as she set down her file. The woman rubbed her eyes before crossing her arms and looking up at the rest of the room. “I mean, what changed in that room that made him want her?”

“He found out she was FBI?” Reid suggested, leaning back in his chair.

“How though?” Rossi piped in from his position leaning up against the wall. “Caro isn’t dumb enough to reveal herself, we were careful.”

“She must have said something in that meeting that convinced him that she was a good target,” Hotch said. He could feel all eyes on him as he watched the ground, unable to meet any of their gazes. “Maybe this is how he finds his victims. At these group meetings.”

“So we sent Evie into a death trap.” Morgan shoved his chair away from the table and stood, hands on his hips as he breathed heavily.

“We have to figure out what connects her to the other victims,” Emily said. “Just like any other case.”

“But this isn’t any other case is it?”

“Morgan-”

“This is Evelyn we’re talking about!”

“Morgan, I need you to calm down,” Hotch said, standing from his place.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Hotch.” Morgan trembled with rage, his eyes glazed over with water. “You can’t expect me to sit here and-”

“I expect you to do your job, Agent Morgan, seeing as that is the only thing that will get Caro back home.” Hotch struggled to keep his voice low. He curled his fists so the others couldn’t see how badly his hands were shaking.

“You think we’ll get her back?”

“If you do your job.”

Morgan breathed in deeply and nodded his head. Before he sat back down, Morgan put his hand on Reid’s shoulder. The kid had his hand covering his mouth, his eyes glazed over like Morgan’s had been.

Hotch knew how close Morgan and Caro were. Ever since she signed on to the team, the two had been nearly inseparable. Hotch wondered if it was something he needed to discuss with them. Every time that he seriously considered it, he had to question his motivations. Was it to keep complications out of their team or was it something else, something he wasn’t ready to admit?

Turning his eyes away from Reid and Morgan, Hotch opened his mouth to address the team when Garcia stepped into the open doorway. They all turned to look at her only to see that her cheeks were streaked with tears as she clutched a file in her hands.

“Garcia, what is it?” Emily stood and walked toward her, a hand out open for her.

“You...you told me to dig deep so I did,” she stammered. “I...I did and I found...oh, God.”

“Come in,” Hotch said, trying to smooth the furrow in his brows.

Garcia took Emily’s hand and shuffled into the briefing room, sniffling through her tears.

“Our poor baby girl,” Garcia said, setting the file gently onto the round table as if it was fragile. “She never told us-”

“Garcia.”

Garcia cleared her throat and nodded her head, flipping the file open. The team crowded around the table. Staring up at them was a picture of a young girl, her face purpled and bloody. Morgan clenched his jaw, Reid turned his face away from the picture.

“Is that Caro?” JJ asked, her hand hovering over her mouth.

Hotch had seen this picture before, attached to the file so covered in black redacted lines that he barely gleaned anything from it. But there were no more black lines. Everything about Agent Caro was there for him to read. Her life was an open book for him. This was his job, the only way to get her back, so why did he feel so dirty doing it?

“When Evie-”

“Evelyn,” Hotch corrected. “She can’t be our friend right now.”

Garcia nodded, her eyes still glassy.

“When Evelyn Caro was 12 years old, she was kidnapped from her front lawn. She was held captive by her...by her uncle for four years. He did...he did horrible things to her...I’m sorry-”

Garcia choked, turning away from the file. Morgan put his hand on Garcia’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“She was held by her uncle,” Hotch continued, eyes scanning the page, when it was clear that Garcia wouldn’t be able to. “There were clear signs of r-pe and physical violence, even though she never spoke about it afterward.”

“She was held captive by her uncle?” Morgan asked. “How did no one know it was him?”

“Police talked to everyone in the family,” Garcia said, turning back into the conversation. “He was never on their serious list of suspects.”

“How did she get out?” Rossi asked from his place near the back of the crowd.

“She broke out,” Garcia said, her voice like iron even as her lower lip trembled. “She stabbed that son of a bitch the moment she got the chance and she ran until someone found her.”

“She killed him?” JJ asked.

Hotch let out a heavy sigh. Something like pride blossomed in his chest. Maybe it was vindication. He would have killed the bastard himself.

“Why wouldn’t she tell us?” Reid asked, looking up at Hotch like a lost dog.

“We all have secrets we’ve kept from each other,” Hotch told him, even though he was wondering the same thing. “Now we need to figure out if this is somehow related to why he took her.”

There was a moment of silence hanging over the room.

“Garcia, look into the lives of the other women again,” he continued. “See if there is any kind of connection.”

“I’m on it.”

There was a new kind of determination in her voice, like a fire was lit underneath her.

“Videos of the other victims were sent to the families of the victims,” Hotch said, looking back at the rest of the team. “JJ, contact her brother, see if he’s received anything and tell him to contact us as soon as he is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the rest of us?”

Once again, all eyes were on Hotch, expecting him to have all of the answers. But he didn’t. He didn’t know anything.

“Do your jobs.”

___

When the video was sent to her family, it wasn’t her estranged brother who received it.

“Hotch.” Morgan’s voice was shaking as he picked up the yellow envelope on his desk. “Hotch!”

As soon as Hotch saw the package he knew what had to be in it. He had seen four of them before all from the previous victims’ families. His heart constricted in his chest. He knew what they were about to watch. Their team member, their friend.

Grinding his teeth together to keep his face straight, Hotch took the package from Morgan and started back for the briefing room.

“Do you want me to round up the team?” Morgan asked.

“You guys shouldn’t have to watch this,” Hotch told him.

“You’re not watching it alone.”

Without another word, Morgan went to collect the others.

Once they were all in the briefing room, Garcia put the recording onto the big screen.

“You don’t-”

“We’re staying,” JJ said, her fingers laced with Emily’s.

Hotch nodded once before looking over at Garcia and signaling her to start the video.

As soon as Garcia hit the play button, Morgan put an arm around her shoulder and she put a hand up to her mouth. Hotch leaned against a chair, his knuckles going white.

The screen was black for a few moments. When it turned on, Agent Evelyn Caro was sitting half naked on a cot. Bruises littered her body, her ribs on the left side blackened. A cut ran across a purple cheek with dried blood running down her face. One of her eyes was black. But Caro stared straight ahead of her, eyes made of steal.

“Oh, baby,” Garcia breathed.

The room was small, bland. It looked cold.

A man stepped into the frame. Caro didn’t even look at him, she just kept staring straight ahead. Before he even said anything, he raised a hand and slapped her across the face. Reid flinched, but none of them turned away. Their attention needed to be on this video, gleaning as much information as they could to get her home. Hotch refused to let her suffering go to waste. He would watch every second of it, no matter how much his stomach burned with hatred.

Caro barely reacted to the backhand, her head snapping to the side, but the rest of her body stayed in the same place, her hands clasped together in her lap. When she straightened her head, blood trickled down from her lip. She lifted a hand to wipe the blood away before looking up at the man. Her eyes carried the heat of a thousand suns as she looked at her assailant, almost as if daring him to touch her again. That was the Caro that Hotch knew. She would never back down, never give in.

“What do you want?” She asked.

Hearing her voice so raw sent a chill down Hotch’s spine. Everything about this was wrong.

“I know what happened to you when you were young,” the man said, walking in front of her.

Caro clenched her jaw and turned her face forward once again, seeming to pretend that he wasn’t there.

“Does this feel familiar to you?” the man asked, spinning in a circle. “The room, the bed, the chain.”

Hotch’s eyes shifted away from Caro and he looked more at the bed. There was indeed a chain attached to the metal of the bed frame. Caro’s jaw tightened again and Hotch watched as she ran a finger over a scar he had seen on her wrist a million times before but never asked her about. He could only imagine a young Agent Caro, chained to a bed. She carried that scar around with her and he had never even cared enough to ask her about it.

“It’s exactly the same,” Caro said.

The man sat next to her and still Caro didn’t flinch. Not even her breathing changed. Amidst his anger and his fear, Hotch felt pride. Damn right she would not even acknowledge him. Hotch expected nothing less from her. Though he wouldn’t fault her if she did.

The Unsub put his hand on her knee and Hotch’s eyes went red. His ears rang, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. He watched Caro look down at the Unsub’s hand and Hotch noticed a slight tremble in her body. Her shaking was rage, not fear. He knew her well enough to know that.

“What do you want?” The tremor reached her voice. Hotch could see her holding back from killing the unsub then and there. Her restraint told him that her captor was the only way out of her room. If she killed him now, she would be trapped.

The unsub sighed and tilted his head to the side, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“I want to break you,” he said.

Hotch clenched his jaw, but still Caro’s face stayed straight. She didn’t even blink. The words ‘I dare you to try’ never even passed her lips, but it was a clear challenge in her eyes.

The image cut and Hotch almost thought that was going to be the end. But then it suddenly clicked on. Caro was slowly sitting up from laying on the bed. The unsub was halfway in the frame, buckling his belt. Hotch heard a quiet ‘oh’ come from Garcia and when he glanced over at her, he noticed tears in Morgan’s eyes.

Caro seemed stiff as she sat up. The chain that had before been only attached to the bed was now shackled to her wrist. Hotch watched her grimace as she moved her feet to the ground. Her toes curled, telling Hotch that the ground was cold. The entire room must have been freezing.

A silence hung over the team as they waited for something to happen.

“You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” the unsub said. Caro refused to look at him. “The other girls gave in at this point.”

“And then you killed them.” Caro looked over at him, moving slowly and clearly despite the pain that was obvious settling into her bones.

The unsub shrugged his shoulders, a proud smile on his face.

“Some girls seem to think that death is better than what I did to them,” he said. “But maybe you kind of like it.”

Caro pulled harshly against her chain, shutting her eyes and turning her face away from him.

“Son of a bitch,” Rossi breathed. Hotch refrained from looking back at him.

“How does she not strangle him?” JJ asked. Her words were tight from the swelling in her throat.

“He’s her only way out of that room,” Hotch told her. “She kills him and she starves in there.”

“Not if we find her.”

They fell quiet again, just soon enough to hear a low rumble of a laugh from the man.

“I see I struck a nerve.” The unsub said.

Caro steadied her breathing and straightened her shoulders.

“I’m not surprised you’ve lasted longer than the other girls, being an FBI agent and all. I wonder how your friends are doing.”

Caro pulled against the chain again, her eyes squeezing tighter.

“Ah, another nerve. Should we poke at that one a bit more?”

The unsub stepped out of the frame. For the briefest moment, with his back turned on her, Caro’s eyes flicked toward the camera.

“She knows it’s there,” Reid said. “She knows about the camera.”

Caro sucked in a deep breath and gave a short nod of her head. She knew her taker’s MO. She knew about the videos and the envelope. She knew they were watching her, and she was telling them that she was okay.

When the unsub walked back into frame, he was holding something in his hands. With his back to the camera, they couldn’t get a good look at what he was holding.

“I am aware that your brother is the only remaining relative of yours who will speak to you, is that correct?” The unsub said.

Caro breathed deeply in once, her eyes staring straight through the unsub.

“This is him and his wife, their two daughters. Beautiful family. When was the last time you spoke to them?”

Agent Caro’s eyes moved from the unsub to the object in his hand and her eyes immediately welled up with tears. The unsub clicked his tongue.

“It’s the shame, isn’t it? It eats you up inside. You can’t bear the thought of tainting your brother and his perfect family with your past.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“This is Penelope Garcia, yes?”

Garcia straightened her back, surprised at hearing her name.

Caro opened her eyes and Hotch noticed a drastic shift in her breathing. Once steady and calm, her chest now rose and fell at an uneven pace. Her eyes darted between whatever the unsub was holding and his face.

“Jennifer Jareau?”

The unsub tossed something onto the bed next to Caro. And then another.

“David Rossi?”

For the first time, Caro flinched as he flicked what Hotch was starting to realize was a picture in her direction.

“Emily Prentiss. Spencer Reid.”

Two more pictures were thrown at her and Caro flinched twice more.

“Derek Morgan.”

A fire lit in Caro’s eyes as she stared up at him again.

“Aaron Hotchner.”

Before he could even throw the picture her way, Caro jumped up from the bed and charged at him, pulling on the chair.

“If you touch them, I swear I’ll kill you,” she seethed.

The unsub shoved her backward onto the bed, but she scrambled up again. He hit her across the face, sending her back with a yelp. Breathing heavily, she turned to look at him, like a rabid dog.

“That’s a hard promise to make seeing as you are chained to a bed and I am not.”

“She has to know that he can’t hurt us,” Emily said, looking to Hotch for answers.

“She’s panicking,” Hotch replied. His knuckles tightened over the chairs.

“You think I won’t go after them?” the unsub said as he dropped a hand onto her shoulder.

Caro turned her face away from him and shook her head.

“You can’t,” she said. Her voice was growing weak, shaking more. “They’re FBI, you can’t just-“

She didn’t get the chance to finish before the unsub threw a fist across her face.

“I won’t even have to hurt them though, will I?” The unsub sneered, bending down close to her face. “I bet by now they know every dark secret about your past. Every skeleton in your closet. They know about the blood on your hands.”

Hotch had read her file that Garcia dug up a thousand times over in the last few days since she found it. Something in him told him he had to, though another part of him wanted to wait until Caro was there to tell him herself. But she deserved better than for her story to go unknown. She deserved to have someone know.

“No,” Caro whimpered.

“You really think they’ll accept you after that?” The unsub let out a laugh.

“Evie, we love you,” Garcia said as she took a step forward. “Evie-“

“Garcia, quiet,” Hotch said, putting out a hand.

“Sir, she has to know, she has to know.”

Morgan put his arm back around Garcia and pulled her in for a hug.

“She knows,” he whispered to her.

“You lost your family once because of what you did to your uncle,” the unsub said. “Now you’ll lose another.”

“No!”

Caro threw herself at the unsub once again, her fists flying. Hotch had seen her fight before. She was well trained, and she was calculated, confident. But this was animalistic. This was pure instinct. Her punches were weak and light, hitting the places of the unsub where very little damage would be done. The chain prevented any real effort from her, though the bed shook and rattled as she yanked against the metal. It didn’t take him long to wrestle her onto the bed, pinning her down by her arms.

Her face was clearly displayed to the camera. She breathed sporadically, panting and gasping for air. Sweat beaded down her battered face. Her eyes were wide and flitting back and forth, terrified.

“How would you feel if I paid one of them a visit, huh?” The unsub asked, his nose brushing against her cheek.

Caro struggled, a growl of frustration strangled in her sore throat.

“That Spencer Reid lives alone, doesn’t he?”

Rossi put a hand on Reid’s shoulder, who had suddenly gone pale.

“Don’t touch him!” She thrashed again, trying to throw the unsub off of her. She tried to kick her feet, but they were effectively pinned under her by the weight of the unsub. She grunted and groaned in the effort it took to try and get him off of her.

“I doubt it would take much to strangle that skinny neck of his.”

Caro suddenly stopped struggled. The sweat that pooled down her cheeks suddenly started to look more like tears as her body went still.

“Please don’t hurt them,” she said, her voice quiet.

“What, you don’t want me creeping into Emily’s apartment tonight, pay her a little visit?”

Caro let out a quiet sound, something that was almost like a sob.

“Please.”

“What will you do for me in return?” He asked, pressing still closer to her face.

Caro rolled her head back and forth on the bed and Hotch could see the tears that pooled in her eyes.

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

She just nodded her head, lower lip quavering.

“Don’t give up, baby girl,” Morgan whispered. Garcia clung tighter to his hand.

“Well, well,” the unsub said with a sigh as he sat up, releasing Caro from his hold. Her body sagged even further into the cot. He stepped away from the cot and bent down to pick up some of the pictures that fell to the floor. “There isn’t really anything I want from you just now, so I might go and visit one of your friends just to keep you on your toes.”

“No!” Caro leapt from the bed and attached herself to the unsub’s back.

He threw her against back against the cot. Hotch could see him lift his hand to deliver hit after hit to his agent, but he was grateful that the unsub’s back blocked the view of the camera. He didn’t think he could stand to watch her get beaten.

Caro was surprisingly silent as the unsub hit her.

It was over relatively quickly. The unsub straightened himself out, squaring his shoulders. Without a word, he turned to the camera and walked toward it. Caro let out a quiet groan just before the unsub picked up the camera and shut it off.

There was a heavy silence that fell over the team.

“What the hell did we just watch?” Emily asked, setting her eyes on Hotch.

They were once again expecting him to have all the answers, but he had nothing to say. His hands were cramping from how hard he was clenching onto the chair. It took all the strength in him not to throw it across the room. Caro should be here with them, not in that room, not with that man.

“Garcia, can you play the end again and turn up the volume?” Rossi asked.

“No offense, sir,” Garcia said, teary eyed. “But I can’t watch that again.”

“Just the very end, as he’s walking toward the camera. Agent Caro said something.”

“Did she?” JJ asked, crossing her arms.

Garcia pressed a few buttons on her laptop and the video returned. Hotch was almost tempted to look away. The audio was louder as the unsub heaved out an exhausted sigh and started walking toward the camera. And then they heard it, the quiet groan. But it wasn’t a groan at all. She had said something, just a quiet name.

His name.

Aaron.

___

Sitting at his desk, Hotch couldn’t seem to lift his heavy head from his hands. The window, which was almost always closed, was wide open. His office was too stuffy, too hot. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t get the sound of his name from her lips out of his head.

A knock came to his door and he finally lifted his head. Rossi was standing there with his usual “something is wrong and I’m going to fix it” face. Hotch wasn’t sure if he was in the mood for this conversation.

“What can I do for you, David?”

“We have to talk about what just happened,” Rossi said.

“I don’t really think-“

“Aaron, listen to me,” Rossi said, walking into the room. “Evelyn needs you right now.”

“There’s nothing I can do that the team isn’t already doing.”

“She said your name.”

“I know that. You think I don’t know that?” Hotch’s tone was a little sharper than he meant it to be. He let out a sigh and stretched out his fingers.

Rossi sat down across from him.

“Why? We all know that she’s closest with Morgan, so why say your name?” Rossi asked. Hotch squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. The exhaustion headache that was plaguing him wasn’t helping the fact that thinking about who Caro was and wasn’t closest with lit a fire in his gut. “And why your first name? She only ever called you Hotch, like the rest of us.”

“That’s not true,” Hotch said, memorizing the lines on his hands so he wouldn’t have to look at Rossi.

“What isn’t?”

“She’s called me Aaron.”

“When?”

“When she was angry with me,” Hotch said. The thought of it pained him. He could hear her sharp tone, the way she hissed his name like venom. When she thought he was too cold, too apathetic.

“Or….”

“Or what?”

There was another time when she called him Aaron. Three other times.

On the worst day of his life, when he held Hayley’s body in his arms, Caro had sat next to him on the floor. People were calling his name. “Hotch, Hotch, Hotchner.”

She sat there on the ground and whispered his name just once, “Aaron.” It was quiet, like a pin dropping during a storm. But still he heard her.

“Aaron, your son,” she said.

That decision, to stay with Hayley or go find Jack, tore his soul into pieces until she spoke again.

“I’ll stay with her.”

The second time was a few weeks after Hayley’s death. Hotch wasn’t handling it well, or at all. She saw right through the façade that he had put forward. He was at the office late one night and so was she. Even when he tried to send her home, she politely refused, saying there was a lot of work she needed to get done.

He spent hours in his office, the grief and the sorrow and the shame building and building and building until he was suddenly standing over his desk. Everything here reminded him of Hayley. The baseball, the picture of Jack, even the piles of papers that were stacked high, shaming him for not being there for her more.

The only way to keep himself from crying was to let the anger take over. Anger at Foyet, anger at the job, anger at the world, anger at himself. Forgetting where he was, Hotch had dumped everything off of his desk with one sweep of his arm.

Collapsing to the ground, Hotch didn’t remember how long he sat there, leaning against his desk, hyperventilating, until Caro walked in. She didn’t say anything to him. She just lowered herself to the ground next to him, letting out a long sigh. She just sat there, breathing louder than Hotch was used to her breathing, but he found after a few minutes that his breathing began to match hers. A calmness returned to his body, at least enough to breathe normally.

“Aaron?”

He turned to look at her, the edges of his eyes lined with red.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Hotch nodded his head. He pushed himself to his feet before helping Caro to hers.

“I’ll drive,” she said, stepping around all of the things on the ground.

“What about-“

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” Caro had said. “Come on.”

She talked to him all the way back to the car. She asked if he wanted to talk about what made him dump all of his stuff on the ground. When he said no, she asked him about Jack instead. It felt comfortable to talk to her about his son, even though he tried to keep personal life and business separated. He had never really talked to her about anything other than work, except for the times when the team would go out to eat, back when Hayley would come with them. She would talk about her brother, his family, but very vaguely.

Now he supposed he knew why she was always so vague.

The third time she called him Aaron, they were on a case. Young girls being kidnapped, assaulted, and dumped. This was one of many cases just like it. Hotch couldn’t even remember what town they were in now. All he remembered was walking by Caro’s hotel room and feeling like he needed to go inside. Something pulled him to a stop outside her door that night and he couldn’t ignore it.

He knocked on the door, but didn’t wait for a respond before he opened in.

Caro was still up, even though they had left hours ago. She had skipped the meal they all shared together, which was unlike her. She sat at her desk, the lamp on but not the overhead light. The case that they were working was laid out in front of her. When she looked up at him, startled that he had come in, her eyes were red and he couldn’t tell if it was all of the reading or if it was something else.

“What can I do for you, Hotch?” Caro asked, one of her legs propped up on the swivel chair.

“I….” He hadn’t really thought this far ahead. “….wanted to check on you, see how you were doing.”

Caro’s lips pulled into an amused smile.

“You never check on me.”

“Maybe now’s the time to start.”

They were quiet for a few moments until Caro let out a sigh. She patted the bed, signaling for him to sit.

“These cases, the ones with the young girls, they’re hard,” Caro told him after he sat down.

Hotch felt like a foreigner sitting there and talking to her, awkward as he sat on her bed, like it shouldn’t be him here doing this. But she seemed so eager to talk, like she was just waiting for someone to ask.

“I understand,” Hotch said finally, looking at the carpet. “They’re hard on all of us.”

“Aaron.”

At the sound of his name, he looked back at her and he could see the tears in her eyes. He didn’t realize it then, but she had been begging him to understand so she didn’t have to say. She didn’t want to have to say it.

He couldn’t sleep that night and he didn’t know why.

“She called you Aaron when she was mad at you or….” Rossi’s voice pulled him back to the present.

“Or she needs me to listen.”

“So, what does she need you to hear?”

___

“He knows her,” Hotch said suddenly, startling the life out of the half sleeping agents.

“What?” Morgan asked, sitting up.

“The unsub knows her. There is no way that he learned all of this about her at the meeting they went to. No way he could have replicated the room that she was kept in when she was a child unless he had personal information.”

“He knew everything about her…and us…before he even took her,” Rossi said, his voice laced with awe. “Which means….”

“All those other murders were about getting her here.” Hotch felt his heart restrict in his chest. “This has all been about her. She was the piece we were missing.”

“Sir?” Garcia hurried into the room, meaning she had found something. “The link between all the victims, I think I found it.”

The team turned toward her.

“Evie is the link.” Garcia swiped up on her laptop, a couple different screens popping up on the big screen. “Sarah Jordans went to kindergarten with Evie. Paulette Bobin was the daughter of the police officer who found Evie after she escaped her uncle. Robin Everard was her high school drama teacher’s niece. Celia Hough was the sister of a woman she walked dogs for in middle school. They weren’t close enough to Evie for her to recognize them, but they were all a part of her life in some way.”

Hotch looked over at Rossi and shook his head.

“It’s been about Caro all along. All of it.”

“That means that the place she’s being held is about her too,” Morgan said. “More than just making the room look the same. He’s holding her somewhere that means something to her.”

“Garcia,” Hotch said, turning his attention back to the tech analyst. “Who owns the uncle’s house now?”

“You think he took her back there?”

“She said the room looked exactly the same. Maybe because it was the same.”

“The house passed onto his wife’s son when he died,” Garcia said.

“Where is the son now?”

“He is….” They all watched her carefully, waiting for the last piece of information. “…. He changed his name just after his father’s funeral to….”

Hotch turned back to the screen, where the picture of the unsub was plastered so none of them would forget it.

“Ralph Bennet,” Morgan said, venom in his words. “The unsub.”

“How did she not recognize her own cousin?”

“His father and mother got divorced when he was young. He didn’t even know he had a step-dad who was still alive until he was dead,” Garcia said.

“So, Ralph Bennet was the step-son of Caro’s uncle. He feels like he has to punish her for taking another father figure away from him,” added Reid.

“He wants her to pay. He wants to hurt her in any way possible.”

“He’s got her at her old house.”

___

Evelyn could barely see. Her eyes were weak and tired, partially from the crying and partially from the lack of sleep. She was terrified of letting her eyes shut, of letting her guard down. She needed to stay awake, to keep her guard up. But she couldn’t take her eyes away from the red stain on the floor.

The cot mattress was itching her skin. If she could ignore the itching, she would begin to feel the sting of the metal chain against her skin. She preferred the itching.

A thud from downstairs echoed to her room. The attic. Pretending like this wasn’t that room she had been kept in for all those years was the only thing that was keeping her from breaking down, but that wall between what she pretended was real and reality was growing thin.

Breathing in through her nose, Evelyn shut her eyes and imagined herself back in her apartment, safe and warm. In her hands was a cup of tea, chamomile with only one sprinkling of sugar. It was raining outside. Not too hard, but hard enough that she could hear it pattering against the window. Her dog slept at her feet, breathing softly. In her lap was-

Another thud from downstairs, tearing Evelyn from her fantasy. She opened her eyes and looked toward the door.

“Ralph?” She called out, voice hoarse. There was no response.

When the door burst open suddenly, Evelyn yelped and jumped backward, curling her legs in on herself.

Ralph stood there, his face red and sweat beading down his forehead.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asked, curling up tighter.

Ralph let out a growl of frustration and started toward her.

“Ralph- no!” Evelyn kicked out at him, but he grabbed hold of her ankles and dragged her to the edge of the bed. “What are you-“

“Shut up,” Ralph snapped, unlacing the chains around her wrist. “We’re leaving.”

“What-“

“I said shut up!”

He tugged down hard on the chain, making it dig deeper into the wound around her wrist. Evelyn hissed in pain, but she quieted as he told her. There was another thud from downstairs and Evelyn snapped her head in the direction of the sound. Things were slowly starting to come together; Ralph’s shaking hands, his red face, the thudding downstairs.

Evelyn looked between Ralph and the door. She sat a still as she could while his trembling hands, waiting for the just right moment. As soon as the chains were loose, Evelyn slipped her wrist out of the chain, kicked Ralph over with as little strength as she had, and ran for the door.

“Aaron!”

Her cry echoed through the house just before Ralph grabbed her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He hissed, dragging her back into the room.

“Caro?”

Evelyn gasped through Ralph’s hand at the sound of Hotch’s voice, trying to shout back. She struggled against Ralph as he pulled her back to the bed, thrashing her shoulders to try and break free.

“Agent Caro?”

I’m here, Hotch, I’m here.

Ralph threw the weak Evelyn onto the bed and backhanded her across the face so hard that her head started to spin. She stretched her jaw, blinking away the blackness in her vision.

“Evie!” From somewhere far away, she thought she could hear her best friend, Derek Morgan, calling for her. She opened her mouth to call back, but all she felt was numbness.

By the time she finally felt like she could see again, there was someone else in the doorway. At first glance, she thought it was Ralph, but he was still there in the room with her. The man in the doorway had a gun, the man in the doorway was Aaron Hotchner.

“Ralph Bennet, step away,” Hotch said.

Evelyn watched, head blurry as Ralph did as he was told, backing away from her. But he was going the wrong way. There was something wrong that way. Something she needed to tell Hotch about.

“You came for me,” she said, trying to smile.

“Are you okay, Caro?”

Evelyn could feel the headache behind her eyes begin to fade. She nodded her head once, letting her eyes close. There was something she needed to tell him, something really important.

“There’s something,” she said, shaking her head to try and clear it. “Over there-“

Before Evelyn could even finish, Ralph stepped forward and swung a bat at Hotch, the bat that Evelyn knew was in the corner. The bat that broke her ribs. That was what she needed to tell Hotch about. But now it was too late.

The bat knocked Hotch’s gun out of his hands and onto the ground. Hotch wasted no time in jumping into action, springing at Ralph without a second thought. Evelyn tried to shake herself out of her stoper. She would be no help to anyone weary. Even if malnutrition and the beating she got that morning were the cause of her exhaustion, she wanted to be of more help.

Hotch knocked Ralph backward, but Ralph held tight to the bat in his hands, using it to push Hotch backward. It was hard for Evelyn to follow the fight, her eyes not able of following every hit and swing. When her eyes finally caught up with what was happening, the ringing in her ears starting to fade, Evelyn found that Hotch was on the ground, Ralph standing over him with the baseball bat, ready to bash his head in.

Evelyn pushed herself off of the bed, her legs weak and shaking, and ran toward Ralph.

“Don’t touch him!” She growled, reaching up to grab hold of the bat.

“Let go, bitch!”

It didn’t take much for Ralph to throw Evelyn’s grip off the bat, but only by throwing the bat out of his hands as well. She hit the ground with a thud, the force rattling through her bones. Ralph immediately turned his attention back to Hotch, who was still on the ground but in a less vulnerable state.

On the ground with Evelyn were the bat and the forgotten gun, but they were all the way on the other side of the room. She didn’t know if she could make it there and back before her legs gave out.

She was laying on the ground by the edge of the bed, hearing Hotch and Ralph go at it. There had to be something that she could do. She had to do something. As she pushed herself up, Evelyn’s had grazed over the chain, the chain that had been used to keep her tied to this bed for days. Looking up at Ralph, Evelyn dug into all that bitterness and all the rage that she had been brewing for the past twenty years of her life and found some ounce of strength.

Strength enough to wrap her hands around the chain. Strength enough to pick to chain off the ground. Strength enough to stand.

With Ralph paying attention to Hotch, his back was left exposed to her. He didn’t think she had the strength left. He thought he broke her.

But she was unbreakable.

Wrapping the chain around one of her hands, she walked up behind Ralph and swung the chain around his neck. He let out a startled gasp, lifting a hand, but not before Evelyn grabbed the chain with her open hand and pulled. Ralph stumbled backward into her. He slapped at her hands. He tried to hit her with the back of his head.

But the adrenaline coursing through her veins kept her strong. She pulled tighter, tensing her hands.

Ralph gagged and Evelyn scrunched her nose. He let out a gurgling sound and Evelyn groaned as the muscles in her arms began to cramp from the tightness. But still she did not let go.

Hotch stood, his lip bleeding and his eye beginning to bruise. Ralph and Evelyn stumbled over; he fell to the ground and she landed on the bed, never once letting the chain go slack.

“Agent Caro,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

Evelyn only pulled tighter. Ralph smacked at her hands lamely, choking sounds gurgling from his throat. His legs kicked out, struggling in the same way that she had been. His legs kicked and his body twitched and his arms flailed out and he maybe felt an ounce of the terror that Evelyn had.

“Caro.”

Evelyn’s face twisted she breathed heavily, pulling tighter against the chain until Ralph’s eyes were rolling.

“Evelyn.”

She froze, looking up at him. All the tension in her face faded as her eyes met Hotch’s. She always used his first name when she needed him to listen to her, but now it was her turn to listen to him. Ralph gasped for the air that was slowly entering his lungs.

“You can let him go.”

Evelyn remembered that scared little girl she was all those years ago. There had been no other option then. It was just her, her uncle, and the knife in her hand. It was kill him or live the rest of her life in a prison. She felt like that again. Alone, terrified, trapped, cornered. There was no other way out.

“You’re safe now, Evelyn,” Hotch said. “You can let him go.”

She wasn’t alone anymore. Hotch was here with her. She wasn’t that terrified little girl with no way out. She was an FBI agent. She had grown and she had learned and she was no longer alone. Her team had come from her. Her family had found her.

She let go of the chain, pulling her legs onto the bed. Ralph heaved in lung fulls of air, but Evelyn kept her eyes on Hotch. He took a step toward them, pulling out his handcuffs. Evelyn flinched away, pulling her legs in tighter.

“These aren’t for you,” Hotch told her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Relaxing her muscles as best as she could, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

She sat there on the bed while Hotch roughly rolled a still coughing Ralph onto his stomach to handcuff him. Once the handcuffs were on, Hotch turned back to Evelyn, who was still staring at him. Her eyes were full of tears.

It was hard for Hotch to say that he didn’t enjoy beating Ralph into the ground. He shouldn’t want to keep beating the shit out of the man now that he was in handcuffs, but seeing those tears in her eyes made Hotch want to. He had been tempted to let Evelyn kill Ralph. She deserved that bit of closure. But he knew the guilt that she already carried, the guilt she would carry on top of that. He knew because he carried that same guilt.

Still, he wanted to see that monster dead. He wanted to wipe those tears from her eyes before they even had a chance to fall.

“Caro-“

“Evie!”

Morgan burst into the room, his eyebrows pinched together in worry. Evelyn tore her gaze away from Hotch at the sound of Morgan’s voice.

“Derek.” The relief in her voice as she said his name made Hotch’s stomach drop.

Morgan rushed toward the bed and dropped to his knees in front of it. He reached forward and pulled the tattered blanket on the bed up and around Evelyn’s shoulders, covering her. Evelyn just stared at him, the tears threatening to fall from her lashes. Morgan brushed hair from out of her face as a smile began to pull at his lips. His smile made her almost able to break a grin too.

When Morgan first put his arms around Evelyn, het body immediately tensed. She expected to be surrounded by Ralph’s smell, feel his clammy skin on hers. But it was Morgan’s smell; that expensive cologne she had bought for his birthday mixed with the laundry detergent he always used. He held her tight. Even when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t able to look down enough to see Ralph, which was probably Morgan’s intention. She would have done the same thing.

The adrenaline had succeeded in keeping her heart rate steady, but now that Morgan was holding her, her heart started to pound.

Hotch grabbed Ralph off the ground and hoisted him to his feet. Evelyn listened as he shoved Ralph down the stairs, Ralph grunting and groaning all the way down.

It wasn’t until they could no longer hear him that Morgan pulled away. She didn’t want to let him go, afraid that she would begin to crumble without him there. Morgan put a hand on her cheek and leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Let’s get you home.”

___

The first worst part about walking down those stairs was remembering the last time she had done this. That red stain on the floor had been there for twenty years. Evelyn had left her uncle bleeding out on the floor while she stumbled down the stairs, dazed, terrified. She knew the blood was the same because she had been covered in it too.

The second worst part was when everyone turned to look at her.

JJ, Emily, Reid, and Rossi were all in the downstairs of the house. They had holstered their guns, but Emily still had her hand on hers. The stairs were too narrow for Morgan to walk alongside her, so he held her hand as he walked in front of her. She was almost hesitant to take that final step, terrified of how the others would look at her.

When they heard the stair creak, they all turned their heads toward Evelyn. She froze, her blood running cold. She expected the concerned stares, the pitied eyes, it was all she got last time. Tightening the blanket around her shoulders, Evelyn couldn’t bring herself to look them in the eyes.

JJ walked toward her, stopping only a few feet away.

“Can I hug you?” JJ asked.

Evelyn looked up to see that there were tears in her friend’s eyes, but a smile on her face. There was no pity, only relief.

Slowly, Evelyn nodded her head. JJ didn’t need to be told twice. She closed the distance, wrapping her arms around Evelyn’s neck. Emily was next, pressing a gentle kiss against the side of her head. Reid’s hug was awkward, shaky.

“If you ever need to talk,” he said quietly.

Evelyn nodded her head. She knew that he understood what it was like, to be taken and held against your will. She gave him a gentle smile that he returned. Rossi was the last to approach her. He had teary smile on his face as well. He didn’t hug her entirely, but instead put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her toward him to press a kiss against her forehead.

“C’mon,” Morgan said. “Ambulance is out here.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Evelyn said, looking over at him and giving a shake of your head.

Morgan raised his eyebrows, a hint of a smile on his face.

“Same old Evelyn.” He put an arm around her shoulder, as he always did. The action was simple, but it was enough to make her smile, to make her feel normal. “But yes, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes but let him lead her outside to the ambulance. Hotch was already out there, talking quietly to the EMT. Ralph must have gone in a different police car. He was nowhere to be seen.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital?” Morgan said once she had a quick once over by the EMT.

“You’re not going to ride with me?” She asked. Evelyn hoped that the fear of being alone again that she was feeling didn’t show through in her voice.

“Hotch’ll go with you.”

Morgan dropped a hand on Hotch’s shoulder, who wore his usual scowl, his arms crossed. He turned toward Morgan, who raised his eyebrows and walked away.

“I’ll be right back,” the EMT said before turning and walking away.

Evelyn sat on the bed, still wearing the blanket Morgan had wrapped around her. Her stomach twisted as Hotch walked toward her. She kept her eyes at the ground, chewing on the inside of her lip. She could feel only shame as he looked at her. Maybe it was because he could see the bruises and the cuts and the blood. Maybe it was because she was at her lowest and he was her boss who should only ever see her at her best. Maybe it was because he had to talk her down from choking the life out of a man. Maybe it was some combination of everything.

“Are you okay?” He asked her, leaning up against the ambulance.

Evelyn nodded her head slowly. She would have responded with a decisive yes, but her mouth had gone too dry to talk.

“That’s a stupid question, of course you’re not okay,” Hotch muttered and looked down at his feet.

“I’m okay,” Evelyn affirmed. “I’m okay.”

When he looked back up at her, Evelyn was surprised to see his eyes were watery.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get you sooner.”

Evelyn shook her head as aggressively as she could manage.

“I knew you would come, Hotch,” she told him. “I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault.”

Hotch let out an almost bitter laugh.

“I should be saying that to you.” Hotch looked at her in such a way that made Evelyn’s stomach squeeze. “All this time, and you’re still looking after me.”

Evelyn gave him a small smile in return.

“Thank you for coming to get me.”

“Of course.”

The EMT returned, telling Hotch that they were getting ready to go. He pulled himself into the ambulance and the EMT followed after him.

“Lie back,” the EMT said. Evelyn did as she was told, feeling a suffocating feeling settling on her chest as she stared up at the white ceiling. The sting of tears returned to her eyes and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to hold them back.

Her hands tensed at her side, clenching around the blanket of the gurney. Hotch, now sitting in the chair beside her, reached out and took her hand in his. She turned her head to look at him, sniffing in deeply.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hotch told her before giving her a sharp nod.

Evelyn nodded back at him, breathing in deeply. She let go of the blanket and shifted her hand around until her fingers were laced through his. She didn’t know how comfortable he was with holding her hand, but at the moment she didn’t care. She needed someone’s hand to hold. She needed his hand to hold.

She wasn’t in the hospital for very long, which she was grateful for. Garcia got there as soon as Evelyn was released and put a pair of shaking arms around her, already dissolved into tears. Evelyn laughed, grateful for her friend’s antics.

“I love you so much,” Garcia said, her tears watering Evelyn’s neck.

She had ditched the gross blanket and was currently sporting a wonderful hospital gown and Hotch’s coat.

“Are you staying somewhere? Do you need somewhere to stay? I’ve got some clothes and a warm bed and I can make you some tea-“

“I really appreciate it, Pen,” Evelyn said, “But Hotch offered me a bed already.”

Garcia stopped her rambling to stare at her, glancing behind Evelyn to where Hotch was talking to the rest of the team.

“Hotch offered-? Right, okay. That’s good. I still brought you some clothes to wear. Come with me.”

“O-okay.”

Garcia led Evelyn to the bathroom to put her in some clothes.

“As soon as they went to get you, I went home to grab you some clothes.” Garcia dropped her bag on the ground. Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from laughing. It was sweet of her friend, but Evelyn didn’t think she needed that many clothes for a few nights. “I hope it’s enough.”

“Thank you. It’s perfect.”

Evelyn stepped into one of the stalls and pulled a thin sweater on over her head and a pair of sweatpants. It wasn’t the cutest outfit, but it was comfortable, and it covered her ill looking body, so it would do.

Penelope was wiping tears away when Evelyn stepped out of the stall. Evelyn smiled at her and put her hands on her friend’s shoulders.

“I’m okay, Pen.”

“Evie-“

“I’m really okay. I promise.”

Penelope let out a heavy sigh and nodded.

“Can I have a smile? It’ll make me feel better,” Evelyn said in a sing-songy, letting her hands fall back to her side.

A smile tugged at Penelope’s lips and she turned away, letting out a little laugh.

“There you go. Now the world’s right again.”

Evelyn and Penelope left the bathroom and rejoined the group just as Hotch was finishing his little speech.

“Go home, everybody. Get some sleep. We’ll come back to work on Monday,” Hotch was saying.

“Thank you,” Evelyn piped up before they turned to go their separate ways. “For everything.”

___

Hotch opened the front door of his apartment. It was dark inside, only one of the lamps were on. It was silent, still. Part of it was reassuring, the stillness. Part of it was unsettling, the quiet.

She looked back at Hotch and he nodded his head, so she stepped inside.

It felt better once she was inside. It was warm, warmer than the attic.

She had never even imagined stepping into Hotch’s home. She expected it to be stiff and cold like his office was, impersonal. But it was lively, with pictures hung on the walls and décor covering shelves full of books. Evelyn wondered absent-mindedly how much of it was Hayley’s sister or if Hotch had a secret interior designer in him somewhere. The thought made her smile.

“You’ll sleep through here,” Hotch said, his voice in a hushed tone. Jack was probably already in bed.

“Your room?” She asked, keeping her voice equally as low.

Hotch nodded.

“I’m not going to displace you,” Evelyn said. “I can sleep on the couch.”

On the couch, there was already a blanket and pillow set up.

“No, Caro. I can’t let you sleep on a couch your first day back,” Hotch said, giving his head a shake.

“Hotch, seriously-“

“Agent Caro…”

Evelyn tilted her head down and raised an eyebrow.

“Now you’re using your boss voice on me.”

To her amazement, Hotch actually smiled. He was looser here, less uptight. Something about passing into his house must have been some kind of release. Domestic Hotch was very different than at work Hotch.

“Fine,” Evelyn said. “But only for tonight.”

“I’ll be out here if you need me.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She turned down the hall as Hotch walked toward the couch. Evelyn stopped, turning to say one last thing to him, but she decided against it. He sat with his back to her, taking off his shoes. She watched him let out a deep sigh and roll tension out of his shoulders. Evelyn couldn’t help but think that she was the cause of that tension and the sooner she was out of his hair the better.

It was strange, standing by Hotch’s bed. This would be the first warm, safe bed she would be falling in to and it wasn’t her own, it was Hotch’s. It felt wrong to touch. It wasn’t hers. Even if he had said she could, it wasn’t hers. This bed belonged to someone else. Hotch’s permission didn’t feel like the only permission she needed.

On the bedside table, there was a picture. Hotch, Jack, and Hayley, all huddled together and smiling. Evelyn felt herself smiling as she looked at it. Reaching out her hand, she ran a finger along the picture frame.

“I hope it’s okay with you,” Evelyn whispered, looking at the picture of Hotch’s late wife.

They’d met a few times in the past and she was just the gentlest woman. She loved Hotch and she loved her son. There she was, staring up at Evelyn and smiling. But the only image that Evelyn had of her in her mind was Hayley’s limp body, the blood that stained her shirt.

Turning away from the picture, Evelyn pulled the blankets back before she kept overthinking. She dropped the bag that Garcia had given her onto the ground, flicked off her shoes and socks, and crawled into bed.

The warmth of the blankets was strange to her. Even her own bed wasn’t as warm as this one was. Still trying not to over think it, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut and rolled onto her side. She breathed in deeply and was overwhelmed by his scent. With a heavy sigh, she rolled back onto her back and opened her eyes.

“Get over yourself, Evelyn,” she whispered to herself.

Breathing in slowly and steadily, Evelyn let her brain relax. She went to that safe place in her mind, that place far away. She didn’t even realize she had fallen asleep, safe and warm in that room where no one could reach her.

It wasn’t until blood started to seep through the walls that she realized she was asleep.

She woke up to someone screaming. The sound echoed off the walls of the bedroom. Someone was crying.

“Caro. Caro.” Someone was calling her name. Someone close by. Someone far away.

“Evelyn!”

Her eyes snapped open, her heart pounding so hard she thought she might be having a heart attack. The room was still dark, but the bedside lamp was turned on. The blankets were half on the floor. She had been throwing them off when she kicked her legs. Hotch was sitting in front of her. Not just sitting in front of her, but holding onto her shoulders. He had been shaking her. There was worry on his face, his eyes wide. Behind him was Jack, tears rolling down his face.

He was the one who was crying. That must have meant she was the one who was screaming.

“You’re okay,” Hotch said. “You were just dreaming.”

Evelyn lifted her hands to her face to find that there were tears on her cheeks.

“I…I’m sorry,” she said, a scowl in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Hotch shook his head. He looked tired. She must have woken him up.

“Is she okay?” Jack asked and sniffled.

“She’s fine, Jack, go back to bed,” Hotch said. When Jack hesitated, Hotch gave him a smile. “It’s okay. Go back to bed.”

Jack nodded and shuffled out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn whispered again, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Hotch said again and dropped a hand onto her knee. “You’re safe here, no one can hurt you here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

Her hands were shaking too badly for her to say anything else. She already couldn’t remember the dream, but there was blood, so much blood. And she remembered she couldn’t breathe, like there was a chain wrapped around her neck.

Evelyn shut her eyes and put her shaking hands up to her head.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

Hotch let out a sigh. He was frustrated with her. The thought made tears sting her eyes.

“It’s not your fault.”

Even with her eyes closed, the tears still managed to slide down her cheeks. Hotch reached out his hand and rested it on the back of her neck. The contact only made her tears fall faster. She moved her hands to cover her face, ashamed of her reaction. Hotch pulled her in toward him and the closer she got to him, the harder she started to cry.

He put his other arm around her and she lowered her forehead to his shoulder, the sobs shaking her shoulders. But Hotch held her tight, one hand on the back of the neck, the other on her back.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sure what she was really sorry for. Sorry for waking him up. Sorry for sleeping in his bed. Sorry for invading his space. Sorry for getting kidnapped. For getting in the way. For making his life harder. For setting them back from work for days.

“It’s okay, Evelyn. It’s okay.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped her apologies. She heard her first name come from his mouth so rarely, she didn’t want to talk over him. She just wanted to hear him say it again. Finally letting her hands fall away from her eyes, she let her hands fall into her lap.

“It’s not your fault, Evelyn,” he whispered, hesitantly letting his fingers lace through her hair.

She sniffed.

“It wasn’t your fault and none of us are upset with you,” Hotch told her.

Slowly, her breathing started to return to normal, sucking in short, gasping breaths of air, but they were steadier.

He pulled away from her, brushing her damp hair out of her face and resting a hand on her cheek. She wouldn’t look at him, still taking shallow breaths, tears still rolling down her cheeks, body still shaking.

“None of us blame you for any of it,” he told her, leaning down to try and catch her eye. “And there’s nothing that could have ever happened to you or that you could have possibly done that wouldn’t make us come for you.”

He brushed a tear off of her cheek as it slid from her eye.

“Evelyn, look at me.”

It took her a moment, but she finally managed to lift her eyes to meet his. They were wide and terrified, trembling like the rest of her body. Hotch tightened his jaw.

“We’re not going anywhere. I know your last family left you after what happened, but I promise you, we are not going anywhere.” Evelyn let out another shuddered breath and nodded her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

It took a few more moments to calm her down and by the time she had stopped crying, her eyes were getting heavy.

“Sleep now,” Hotch said, slowly standing up from the bed. She was still sitting up, her head hanging and her hands in her lap.

“Aaron?” He paused at the door and half turned toward her. “Will you….”

She scowled and cleared her throat, shaking her head.

“What can I do for you?”

She breathed out heavily and looked up at him again.

“Would you stay, here, with me?” She felt stupid, asking.

But he wasn’t looking at her in pity or loathing. He nodded his head before walking to the other side of the bed.

Evelyn laid back onto the pillow, pulling the blankets up to her chin. She closed her eyes, embarrassed to see him, as if her request was ridiculous and gross. But she didn’t think that she could have fallen asleep if she was on her own.

She felt the other side of the bed dip in and the blankets rustle.

“Do you want the light on?” He asked.

“You can turn it off if you’d like.”

The light flickered off and they were shrouded in darkness.

“Goodnight, Evelyn.”

“Night, Aaron.”

___

When Hotch woke up the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. He got used to the empty bed a long time ago, but there was a pit in his stomach this time. Evelyn should be there. She should be-

There was a smell coming from the kitchen. A pleasant smell.

Sitting up and stretching, Hotch made his way to the bedroom door. He heard laughing coming from the kitchen. When he opened the door, he had a direct line of sight to the kitchen. Jack was already awake, sitting happily at the table. There were usually only two chairs at that table, but Jack had pulled up a third.

Standing in the kitchen with a smile on her face was Evelyn. Jack was saying something to her, barely incoherent through all his laughter. Evelyn was just laughing along with him. Hotch shuffled through the hallway, leaning his shoulder against the corner of the and crossing his arms.

“What is going on here?” He asked with a smile on his face.

Evelyn and Jack both turned to him, both smiling.

“Eggs, bacon, French toast,” Evelyn said. “Want some?”

Hotch couldn’t help the smile on his face. He nodded, walking toward Jack and sitting down at the chair next to him.

It was strange, seeing Evelyn this way. She was generally serious at work, like he was. She would laugh and tease with Morgan and the girls and Reid, but Hotch was so used to her being solid, so stoic, so ready. But here she was, smiling and laughing and making jokes with him.

Evelyn walked over to the table carrying three plates of food and set them onto the table. She sat down, the biggest grin on her face.

“Dig in,” she said.

Hotch and Evelyn both knew that this happiness on her face went only so deep. Her suffering and her pain were just starting to bubble to the surface. But for now, she could eat this breakfast, laugh with Jack, pretend everything was okay.

“Would you like to watch my soccer game today, Evie?” Jack asked as they took the empty plates back to the kitchen.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, hesitant.

“That would be great, buddy,” she said before looking back at Hotch. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course not.”

Jack’s grin was the brightest Hotch had seen in a long time.

Hotch knew of course about Evelyn’s competitive nature. They had been working together for years. He had seen enough games between her and Morgan to know that she liked to win. He still somehow didn’t expect that much competition to come out of her during his son’s soccer match.

She yelled from the sidelines, cheering for Jack and shouting at the ref and even exchanging glares with other parents. It was hard not to be distracted by her as Hotch tried to coach his team, trying to keep his laughing to a minimum. When the game ended, after Hotch had a word with the players, Jack ran straight for Evelyn. He stopped just in front of her, remembering what his dad had told him about not getting too close, and grinned up at her.

Evelyn put her hand on his head and ruffled his sandy blond hair.

“You were great out there, kid,” she said. “You got the most goals on your team.”

“We, uh, don’t usually keep score,” Hotch said as he walked over.

Evelyn looked up at him with the brightest smile.

“Well, I did and your team did a great job.”

One of the other moms walked over, her daughter and Jack immediately engaging in teasing and chatting about the game as they tried to kick each other in their still guarded shins.

“My name is Mary,” the mother said, reaching a hand out for Evelyn to shake. Evelyn startled, her heart rate spiking at Mary’s sudden movement. She recovered quickly, shaking Mary’s hand.

“Evelyn Caro.”

“Are you and Aaron-“

“We work together,” Hotch said.

Mary nodded her head.

“That explains the….”

She gestured toward Evelyn’s face before pausing and forced a smile.

“Right.”

Evelyn had forgotten how horrible her face must look. She had been absently rolling the scab on her lip between her teeth all day. Her bruised and cut cheek was sore, her other eye throbbing every now and again. The battered shape of her face hadn’t even crossed her mind while she offered to go to Jack’s game.

Evelyn looked over Hotch for assistance. His smile was still there, but thinner.

“Mary, how is your husband?” Hotch asked, clearly trying to direct the attention away from Evelyn. She was grateful for it.

She listened to their conversation with a smile until Jack walked back over to them and grabbed her by the hand. She turned to look at him with a smile. He beckoned for her to bend down and she did. Jack even stood on his toes so he could whisper in her ear.

“Can you ask Daddy if we can get McDonald’s on the way home?” He asked, his voice so quiet that Evelyn barely heard him.

Still, she let out a laugh and straightened her back.

“I can do that.”

Jack grinned and ran back toward his friends. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him run away. She had met Jack only handful of times in the past, but he was such a light. He meant so much to Aaron that it was impossible for Evelyn not to love him, too. The poor boy had been through so much already.

“What did he want?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn turned back around to find that not only was Mary talking to Hotch, but three other unaccompanied women were hanging around as well. She resisted the urge to tease him about it right there. Teasing Hotch was also something new. She never would have done it before. Their relationship was strictly professional.

“Jack wants to go to McDonald’s on the way home,” Evelyn told Hotch.

“Ah,” Hotch said, his hands on his hips.

“The kids always do,” a blonde mother said, no ounce of amusement in her tone as she glanced at Evelyn.

“I suppose he thought you asking would make the likelihood of me saying yes higher?”

Evelyn shrugged. The other moms stood there, laughing joylessly, but Evelyn didn’t even see them.

They did stop at McDonald’s on the way home. Jack happily sang a song to himself in the backseat, munching on his apple slices and French fries. Evelyn was sitting in the passenger seat with one of her feet propped up on the dash.

“This feels like cheating,” Evelyn sighed, staring at the fries in her hands.

“How?” Hotch asked with a short laugh.

Evelyn shrugged, shoving the fries in her mouth.

“Something about it. They’re too good, I guess. There’s gotta be a downside.”

Hotch opened his mouth to say something but she held up her hand to stop him.

“You don’t have to profile my eating habits, Hotchner,” she said.

Hotch simply laughed.

When they got back from the game, Jack went to take a nap, leaving Evelyn and Hotch alone in the apartment.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I invited the team over to watch the game this afternoon,” Hotch said.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Evelyn said. “This is still your home.”

“Right.” Hotch nodded his head.

She dropped herself onto the couch, her eyes tired, but she had no desire to sleep, especially if the team was coming over.

But her eyes were beginning to droop against her better judgement. The apartment was quiet, she could barely hear Hotch moving around until there was the soft sound of music flitting through the room.

Hotch sat down at the table, trying to be far enough away from the sleeping woman on his couch to help her feel comfortable. Light music floated through the room as he sat, flipping through a book that he wasn’t really reading. It seemed like every three seconds, his eyes would move from his book to where Evelyn was sleeping. He justified it to himself, trying to tell himself it was just to make sure she wasn’t having another nightmare. Last night had been hard on all of them and he didn’t want a repeat. But there was something else that kept drawing his gaze to her.

She just looked so at peace. Like none of the thousands of terrible things in the world could touch her. Her breathing was short, but steady and there was almost a bit of a smile on her face. His hands were tense around the book, just waiting for her breathing to change to signal to him that she was going to a place in her mind where she didn’t want to be.

He was almost tempted to ask the others to not come to allow Evelyn the chance to sleep. But Hotch thought it was best to allow her the time to socialize with the people she loved. She needed to be surrounded by support at this time and Hotch knew he couldn’t possibly provide enough of it to be any help.

An hour and a half later, fifteen minutes before the others were due to arrive, Hotch walked over to where she slept on the couch. Again, he was tempted to just let her sleep. But he put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a light shake in hopes of rousing her.

“Caro,” he whispered.

She woke with a startled gasp, her eyes snapping open. Hotch was prepared for some kind of emotional response. He was ready in case she needed his help, but after the initial shock of being woken up, she sat up normally. Rubbing her eyes, Evelyn let out a yawn.

“Are they here?” She asked.

“Not yet,” Hotch said. “Soon. I’m going to wake up Jack. Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” There was a little bit of a scowl on her face as she continued to try and wake herself up. “Anything I can do to help get ready?”

Hotch was already halfway to Jack’s room, but he shook his head.

“Everyone else is bringing food. We’re off the hook for this one,” he told her before slipping into Jack’s room.

Evelyn forced herself off the couch, even though her bones were still stiff and tired. She straightened the cushions she slept on before rubbing her eyes again. She didn’t think she had dreamed, which was the first time she hadn’t in a very long time.

She was rubbing tension out of her neck when there was the first knock at the door.

Evelyn started and reached for the gun that should have been there but wasn’t. Her heart pounded in her chest, her hand still on her hip where her gun should have been. She wanted to move, but her muscles felt frozen. Eyes wide and body tense, Evelyn struggled to breathe. There was a tightness in her chest she couldn’t shake.

There was a knock at the door again, but she still couldn’t move.

“Caro, you okay?” Hotch asked as he came back from Jack’s room. “Evelyn?”

He stopped on his way to the door. She saw him standing there, staring at her, but all she could do was watch the door. Her body began to shake ever so slightly from the tension in her muscles.

“It’s just the team, Caro,” Hotch said, slowly putting his hands out toward her. “They’re not going to hurt you.”

Evelyn heard what he was saying, but something in her bones told her that it was a bad guy, someone who wanted to come in and hurt her, hurt Hotch, hurt Jack. She wouldn’t let that happen.

“Caro, I need you to look at me and just breathe,” Hotch was saying, taking a step toward her. There was another knock at the door and she flinched. “Look at me. Breathe.”

Evelyn sucked in one deep breath in through her nose before flickering her watery eyes away from the door and toward Hotch. He titled his head to the side, taking on a non-offensive stance. Her eyes strained to look at him.

“I’m going to open the door, okay?” Evelyn gave a sharp shake of her head, her body jerking forward but her feet not going anywhere. “I’m going to open the door. It’s going to be okay.”

He took a step toward the door and Evelyn shook her head again. Hotch turned away from her and kept walking toward the door.

“Hotch,” Evelyn said, her words just barely above a whisper.

When his hand touched the handle, Evelyn shook her head again, staring at the door unblinking. The door unlocked and the handle turned.

“Hotch-“

The door opened. Evelyn’s eyes widened even further, waiting for Ralph to be standing there on the other side.

But it was just Penelope and JJ and Emily, all grinning wildly.

Evelyn blinked her eyes hard and shook her head, dropping her hands back to her sides and relaxing her defensive stance.

“Come in,” Hotch was saying.

Evelyn forced a smile onto her face and went to greet her friends as they came in. She helped them set up the table with the food and drinks they brought.

“How are you doing?” JJ asked as she tore into the chips.

Evelyn sighed, still trying to smile.

“I’m doing okay,” she said.

“I might not be as good a profiler as any of you guys,” JJ said. “But I know you well enough to know when you’re lying.”

Evelyn turned to face her, leaning her hip against the table and crossing her arms.

“I am doing as well as you can imagine I’m doing,” Evelyn said. “But most of the time I’m doing okay.”

JJ put a hand on her friend’s arm and offered a small smile.

“If you ever need anything-“

“I know you’re always there for me, JJ,” Evelyn said. “I won’t ever forget it.”

JJ nodded and they turned back to the table. It was only a few more minutes before the boys arrived. After greeting Hotch and Emily, Morgan came straight for Evelyn, who was still at the table rearranging everything for the fifteenth time.

“I swear I’m going to lose it if you ask me if I’m okay, Derek Morgan,” Evelyn said, moving the napkins off the plates where she had just put them.

Morgan let out his signature laugh before throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“I know how you’re doing, so I don’t need to ask,” Morgan told her. “I just came over here to give you a hug.”

Evelyn let out a breath and turned toward him, eagerly putting her arms around his waist. There was safety in his arms. Her muscles were still tense from her moment before, and it felt impossible for her to relax and fall into normalcy with her friends. But with Morgan there, everything seemed to be at least a little bit okay.

“Keep fighting,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s how you win.”

Evelyn nodded her head. She pulled away and quickly swiped away a stray tear before wiping her hands on her jeans. She back at Morgan briefly with a strained smile, glad to see him smiling back.

“Let’s go sit,” Morgan said to her.

Evelyn sat herself on the very end of the couch, knowing how much her team loved to cram in together and not really feeling comfortable being stuck in between Morgan and JJ as they shouted back and forth at each other about their opposing sports opinions. She sat with her feet up on the couch and her knees pulled up to her chest.

Reid sat next to her, still and quiet.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey, Reid.”

He didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t really want him to. Still, she leaned toward him and put her head on his shoulder. Reid tensed for a moment, but then he relaxed.

“It’s good to have you back,” he whispered to her.

“It’s good to be back,” she whispered back.

A few minutes before the game had started, there was already yelling going on between Rossi and JJ about something Evelyn couldn’t really follow. Jack came out of his room, hair a mess and eyes looking tired.

“Hey, buddy!” Hotch said. “Come for some food?”

The newly awake Jack shook his head and hobbled over to Evelyn. She dropped her feet to the ground as he struggled to crawl into her lap. He dropped his head to her shoulder.

“You okay, kid?” she asked him, rubbing her hand up and down his back. He nodded and yawned.

A chip flew over her head that Morgan had definitely thrown at Rossi who sat in the chair next to Evelyn. Penelope was watching the commercials eagerly, shouting at everyone to quiet down. JJ had roped Emily into her argument with Rossi and Reid was telling Morgan something about some sports statistic that Morgan was desperately trying to refute.

Evelyn looked over at Hotch, who was watching them with a look in his eye that she couldn’t really read. She was usually good at reading Hotch, but every now and again, he’d get this look that she didn’t understand. When he noticed her looking, he gave her a smile and nodded his head.

Part way through the game, Jack left her lap to go and grab some food. She offered him her seat when he came back so that she could go over to the table for some food and a breather. Hotch met her there, scooping cheese dip onto his paper plate.

“Intense game,” Evelyn said, popping a grape into her mouth.

“Very.”

“Oh, come on!” Morgan yelled.

Evelyn laughed quietly to herself.

“If you need to step out-“

“I’m fine, Hotch, really,” she said, turning toward him. “Everything’s good. What happened earlier-“

“Was a completely normal reaction.” Evelyn was startled by his rebuttal interruption. “You’re allowed to have bad moments or even bad days.”

“I know that.”

“You’re also allowed to have fun.”

“I know that, too.”

Morgan stood up quickly from the couch, letting out half a expletive before remembering Jack was there and switching it up half way through.

“I really missed this, though,” Evelyn said through a laugh.

Hotch looked at her and then looked over at Morgan and let out a sigh.

“He was really worried about you,” Hotch told her, his hands tightening around the poor paper plate in his hand.

Evelyn nodded her head, looking down at the grapes in her hand.

“I thought I’d never see him again. I thought I’d never see any of you again,” she told him.

“You didn’t think we’d find you?”

“Oh, I knew you would,” she looked back over at him. “I just didn’t know if it would be soon enough.”

“Evelyn-“

“Evie, come look at this!” Penelope called, waving her over.

“Pardon me, Hotch.”

Hotch watched her walk away and kneel on the ground beside Garcia. They laughed about something. Smiling looked good on her, but he knew that it only ran so deep. He couldn’t wait for the day that smile would be real again. He just hoped he was there to see it.

By the time everyone left, the sun was almost down. They stayed long after the game, talking and laughing and throwing things at each other like a bunch of children. Penelope was the last to go, always asking for one last hug while Morgan waited for her just outside.

“I’ll see you soon, Pen,” Evelyn laughed, trying to push her friend toward the door.

“I hate leaving you,” Penelope said.

“I think I’m in the safest hands I can be.”

Penelope pulled away at that.

“You’re right.” She looked over at Hotch. “Hotch won’t let anything happen to you. You’re perfectly safe here.”

Evelyn gave her a smile.

“Exactly. Now, go. Morgan’s waiting for you.”

Penelope straightened her jacket and nodded her head.

“Right.” She turned and walked out the door. “Let’s go, Derek.”

Morgan offered one last wave, tossing an arm over Penelope’s shoulders. He sent a look Evelyn’s way that she read perfectly. If she needed anything….

Hotch shut the door and the apartment was silent. Evelyn let out a heavy breath.

“That was fun,” Jack said, laying on the couch.

“Time for bed for you, buddy,” Hotch said.

The team was generally good at cleaning up after themselves and taking the food that they had brought with them, but there was always a mess to clean up afterward. The few times Evelyn had one of these gatherings at her own place taught her this well enough. Hotch walked Jack toward his room while Evelyn turned to start cleaning.

“You don’t have to do that,” Hotch said, emerging from his son’s room as Evelyn pulled the full trash bag out of the trash can.

“I won’t be able to sleep knowing this place is a mess,” she told him.

It was these quiet moments when it was just the two of them that Evelyn felt the most exposed, the most terrified. Not that he would hurt her because she knew he never would, but just knowing that all of his attention was on her made her almost sick to her stomach.

“I’ll take the trash to the can outside,” Hotch said, walking toward her.

“Alright.”

She handed the bag off to him, his fingers just barely grazing over her hand. Evelyn elected not to look up at him as electricity crackled up her arm. She breathed in deeply and turned toward the couch.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. He took a few steps away from her and Evelyn just nodded her head.

She didn’t look at him as he left the room. With a pounding heart, Evelyn sat slowly onto the couch, shutting her eyes and breathing deeply until she dropped her head into her hands.

What was wrong with her? She had always been able to keep her emotions under control around Hotch. Always. Even when he was talking about Hayley, even when he cared so deeply about people it made him rage, even when he did that thing with his eyes that silenced even the haughtiest narcissist, even when he gave her a look that put all other looks to shame. She had always kept her cool because that was what she had trained herself to do.

But now her training was backfiring on her. Her training was making her think danger was there when it wasn’t. Her training was making her question the movements of everyone she loved. Her training was taking her sleep from her. Her training was crumbling and slowly revealing that terrified girl that lay underneath.

Evelyn opened her eyes, hoping to think of absolutely anything else than the heat in her cheeks and the pounding of her heart in her stomach.

Maybe keeping her eyes closed may have been better because as soon as her eyes were open, they landed on Hotch’s bag propped up against the coffee table. Someone must have moved it during the game. Sticking out of the top was a file. There was no name on the file, but Evelyn knew it was hers, or at least from the last job they’d done, which was hers.

Instinct took over and she bent down, snatching the yellow folding from his bag. It was thick, thicker than she’d have liked. Laying it on the table, her suspicions were confirmed as she flipped open the first page. It was this last case and the very first picture on it was the one they took in the hospital when she first arrived.

Evelyn didn’t realize how terrible she looked until just then. She was thin, trembling. Her hair was matted with blood. She looked dirty, covered in blood and bruises. Evelyn gagged, covering her mouth with her hand. That was how all of her friends had seen her that day. The thought made her shiver.

The picture just underneath it was the one they had taken when she was a kid. The similarities in the pictures made her even sicker.

She shuffled through the files, eyes scanning the pages just like Reid had taught her, until she found Hotch’s report.

She pulled it out, hands shaking as she held it in front of her. She had always wondered how Hotch managed to write these reports, summing up everything they went through during the case in just a few short pages.

Her throat swelled as she read through the beginning. She read about the women Ralph killed, how they were assaulted and murdered, how the team discovered it was Ralph. She read through them deciding to send Evelyn into the meeting to find Ralph and lure him in. She didn’t know then that he was the step kid of her uncle. If she had, she wouldn’t have gone in there empty handed.

Then she read how they had found out she was missing and what they did to find her. Her heart plummeted into her stomach, dropping from her chest like a ton of rocks. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth, hoping swallow the sob that was threatening to come from her mouth. Sitting in that attic, Evelyn had wondered what the point of killing those other women was. She had spent hours pouring over ideas. She thought him running into her was an accident, pure coincidence. This case already put her on edge, seeing as it took place in the very same town she grew up in.

But the team had solved it. They had figured it out. All those women that Ralph had killed….

Tears clouded her vision, but she refused to blink. A quiet moan of distress came from her. She didn’t even hear the door of the apartment open.

“Evelyn?”

She didn’t jump at the sound of Hotch’s voice. Instead, she turned toward him slowly, those same tears gathered in her eyes.

“It’s my fault,” she said, holding the report in her hands. The tears dropped from her lashes, hitting her cheeks with the strength of a butterfly.

“It’s not.”

“It is!” Hotch let out a defeated breath. “It says right here that-“

“That report says Ralph Bennet made the decision to assault and murder those four women.”

“Because of me!”

Hotch walked over to her and sat on the couch beside her, but not too close.

“Did you kill those women, Caro?”

“No, but-“

“No, you didn’t.”

“Hotch, he killed them because I knew them. He killed them because he knew it would lure me in. If I hadn’t-“

“What? If you hadn’t what?” She was quiet. “If you hadn’t killed your uncle? You did what you had to do to survive, Evelyn. No one will fault you for that.”

“If I hadn’t….” she trailed off, staring at the paper with her teary eyes.

“If you hadn’t come with us to solve this case? More women would have died.”

“I fell right into his trap,” she whispered, her hands tightening around the paper. “I didn’t even know he existed, and he knew me well enough to set the trap and just wait for me to walk right into it. I can’t believe I was that stupid.”

“Do you want to know what that tells me?”

She looked up at him.

“You returned to a town where you had been traumatized to help bring justice to these women. You went into that meeting trying to catch a killer. You stayed alive long enough for us to find you using clues that you gave us.” Evelyn sniffed, wiping the underside of her nose with the back of her hand. “You’re not stupid, Evelyn. You’re the bravest person I have ever met.”

She looked over at Hotch again, her lower lip trembling.

“They died for me,” she said and took in a shaky breath. A tear slid down her nose. “How do I repay them for that?”

Hotch was quiet for a moment and heaved out a sigh, just allowing him time to think of a proper answer.

“You live,” he told her. “You survive this and carry on for them.”

Evelyn closed her eyes. She was hearing him and her brain was telling her that he was right, but her heart wasn’t believing him. She couldn’t believe him.

Without saying anything, Evelyn pushed herself off the couch and made for the door, hoping to escape before he could see the tears that were threatening to run from her eyes again.

“Caro, where are you going?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“I need some air,” she replied as she struggled with the lock on the door.

“I’ll come with you.”

“I need to be alone right now,” she said, finally getting the door open.

Hotch put his hand on the door and pushed it shut. Evelyn froze, keeping her hand on the doorknob.

“You’re not going anywhere by yourself.”

Evelyn turned around slowly. Hotch was looming over her, his hand still on the door to keep her from opening it again.

“Let me out, Hotch.”

“You’re not a prisoner here, but you’re not going out there alone.”

She stared at Hotch unblinkingly. Evelyn’s breathing started to speed up, her chest rising and falling rapidly, but it wasn’t anger or fear that made her heart rate spike.

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not?”

Evelyn knew she was poking the bear, but she felt like she had to. Poke the bear yourself, make it roar on your terms before it decides to do it itself.

“Why can’t I go out there alone? You think I can’t handle myself?”

“No, I know you can-“

“Then why won’t you let me leave?”

“Because I want you to be safe.”

The calmness of his voice made her even angrier. It made her want to poke harder.

There was a gaping wound in her soul and it was still gushing blood. Hotch was trying to patch it up, help her to heal, but he was getting too close to the only thing that kept her breathing. He was getting too close to the wound and she was terrified of the idea of him seeing her, feeling her, so she recoiled. She would snap at him until he left her alone. Until he left her wound bleed in peace.

“Why did you come for me?”

“Why did we come for you?” Hotch repeated, astounded by her question. “You’re part of the team. Why wouldn’t we come for you?”

“I’m not asking about the team, Aaron. I’m asking about you.”

Hotch straightened at the sound of his first name. She knew why. She’d done it on purpose. She needed to convince him she was angry. That was the only way to keep him at bay.

“I couldn’t just let you rot there; the team needs you.”

“The team?” She let out a bitter laugh before pushing past him and stalking into the middle of the room. “It’s always about the team with you, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“I could have died in that house, Aaron, and all you can come up with is the team needed me and that’s why you came?”

She hated the taste her words left in her mouth. She hated saying them. But she had to. She had to push him away if she had any hope for surviving. She had tied her heart to his and if she didn’t severe it now….

There was real anger in his eyes at her words. Finally, an emotion. A chink in his armor.

“If you had died in that house, I would have killed that bastard myself!”

Evelyn sucked in a sharp breath. It was so rare to see an emotion on Aaron Hotchner. In the last few days alone, she had seen more from him than she had ever seen in all her years working with him; fear, joy, grief, anger, relief. And it was mostly because of her.

“Enough with the team needs me bullshit.” Evelyn dropped the tone of her voice. “I’m going for a walk.”

She turned her back on him and walked toward the front door. She made it all the way there, her hand on the doorknob before Hotch spoke again.

“I need you.”

Evelyn froze, her hand glued to the doorknob as if it was ice and her hand was burning hot. Her blood ran cold and her heart stopped in her chest.

“What?”

“You don’t accept that you’re a vital member of the team as a worthy reason for us to come and help you? Fine.” There it was again, anger in Hotch’s voice. His dark eyebrows were pulled together. “I need you.”

Evelyn had started this argument because she needed to keep his hands away from the wound she was nursing, the wound that every breath seemed to tear open a little bit more. His kindness and compassion were just insult to injury. But his sincerity in this moment punched through every wall around her wound that she had been attempting to build up in the last few minutes.

He said it like he would say any other truth. He said it like he would say anything during a case; without a hint of uncertainty.

She turned toward him. For the first time in a while, she felt no shame as tears glimmered in her eyes.

“You mean it?” She asked, pulling on the edges of her sleeve.

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

“I mean when, Emily-“ Evelyn stopped herself and cleared her throat. “No. You haven’t.”

Hotch stood there, clearly not wanting to say anything else that would set her off. Evelyn bowed her head, let her hand fall away from the doorknob, and she crossed the room, putting her arms around his waist before he even realized that she was coming toward him.

Hotch was frozen for a second, her change in mood so rapid that he almost couldn’t register it. Evelyn’s eyes were screwed shut as she prayed that he wouldn’t reject her embrace, though she could understand if he did. But, eventually, he put his arms around her, pulling her in closer and she could finally relax.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, letting the tears stream down her face, fast and hot. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” he told her, his words just as quiet.

“Please don’t give up on me.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m trying.”

Hotch knew from the report what happened with her parents after she had escaped from her uncle. He knew how they turned their back on her in the following months. She had come back to them after four years, after killing her father’s brother, and she wasn’t the little girl they had lost anymore. They reported anger issues, lashing out, screaming and hitting and breaking things. They told authorities they couldn’t handle her anymore. They just didn’t know what to do.

But Hotch also knew that she was a child who was cut so deeply by someone she trusted and that she deserved to be loved and protected by her family no matter what. No matter how loudly she screamed, no matter the mess she made, they should have loved her. They should have fought for her just as hard as she was fighting to survive. He wouldn’t abandon her like they did.

“I promise not to give up on you if you promise me not to give up on yourself,” he told her.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Promise,” she said.

___

The following months were hard. Moving back into her own apartment where it was quiet and the silence was deafening was the hardest part. When there was no one to wake her from her nightmares or hold her while she cried, when there was no Jack to make her laugh even when she wanted to cry, when there was just her and the mirror. She hated being back home. She wanted to back at the Hotchner’s, but she knew she couldn’t impose on them any longer.

There were days when her promise to Hotch was the only thing that kept her going. He had made her promise not to give up on herself and she would be damned before she disappointed Hotch again. So, she fought, tooth and nail, just to stay afloat. Some days, that looked like lying in bed and letting the tears fall. Some days, that looked like calling Morgan or Penelope and asking them to play a board game with her. Some days, that looked like running until she couldn’t breathe. Some days, that looked like dancing around her apartment at 3 am.

Slowly, she began to remember what it was like to feel alive. And she started to love it again.

The day she came back to work, the smile on her face reached deep into that wound in her soul. It wasn’t healed, but it was better. It didn’t hurt to breathe anymore.

The team acted like she knew they would on her first case. Hotch didn’t let her go anywhere by herself. Someone had to be by her side at all times. It was suffocating, but she knew it was for the best.

By the time the case was finished and the guy arrested, Evelyn almost felt like herself again. This is what she was meant to be doing. She wasn’t supposed to be sitting by herself in her room all day, wasting away. The field was in her blood. It was part of her.

They all went out to dinner that night and everything was right in the world again. Evelyn used to sit in her apartment, Hotch and Morgan and Garcia sending her updates as they went. She knew when she got the triple text that the case was over that they’d be going out to eat, celebrating, having a laugh to cope with everything they had seen. And she would sit in her dark apartment.

But now she was in the right place. They went to a pub downtown. She ordered fries and a coke with a little cherry on top. Morgan made fun of her for smothering her fries in ketchup. She stole a bite of Emily’s pasta as she talked to Rossi. Life had returned to normal, and it was just what she needed.

The next few cases went the same way. Hotch began to trust her being alone again, allowing her to have the space she needed to do her job. There were cases where she needed to step into the bathroom and cry. There were times when she stayed behind with the local police because she couldn’t even think about going in without panicking. And the nights in her apartment alone were the worst.

But as long as she was on a case with her team, things were actually okay. She could push away her fear and the anxiety that made her bones rattle and her muscles freeze. She could go back to be Agent Evelyn Caro, where she was at her best.

Almost a year passed. Evelyn knew that the anniversary fear was a thing, but she was determined to be fine. The case they came in for was the farthest away from anything that could remind her of what she went through. Men were being taken and killed. The pattern was easy to solve, the profile quick to figure out. Everything was going to be okay.

Until Hotch and Evelyn were hunting the killer on their own. Evelyn was walking through a suspect’s house with her gun drawn, knowing that Hotch was upstairs doing the same thing. There was a thud coming from the second floor.

“Hotch?” Evelyn called out. “You okay?”

There was no reply. Her heart started to seize.

“Hotch?”

Walking toward the stairs, her gun drawn, Evelyn told herself to breathe. She would be no help to Hotch if she was panicking. She took one step up the stairs before a sudden and sharp pain exploded against the side of her head, sending her into the wall, knocking her unconscious.

When Evelyn woke up, she was in a basement. Her head squeezed and ached, jaw stiff. She shook her head and forced her eyes open.

Sitting across the room from her, still unconscious, was her boss.

“Hotch!”

Evelyn scrambled over to him, barely standing at all before she dropped to the ground next to him.

“Hotch, hey, you good?”

She saw him breathing, so that was something, but he was unresponsive to her voice. She shook his shoulders, but still he slept.

“Please don’t fire me,” Evelyn whispered before pulling her hand back and slapping him across the face.

Hotch gasped and his eyes flew open, his body falling over to the side.

“Oh, thank God,” Evelyn breathed.

“Did you slap me?” Hotch asked her, sitting back up.

“You wouldn’t wake up.”

“So you slapped me?”

Evelyn shrugged as Hotch rubbed his jaw with his hand.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he told her. Evelyn felt herself almost smile. “Where are we?”

Evelyn looked around the basement and let out a heavy breath.

“Not sure,” she said. “We got the profile wrong, didn’t we?”

Hotch nodded his head and used the support beam in the middle of the room to push himself upward.

“There was a woman. I thought she was hurt, but….”

“She got the drop on the mighty Aaron Hotchner? I’m impressed.” Evelyn teased, needed to joke about something before her brain exploded from the pain or the panic she felt growing in her bones took over completely.

Hotch looked down at Evelyn with a stern look that told her maybe joking wasn’t his favorite way to cope with being kidnapped. Evelyn pursed her lips and pushed herself onto her feet.

“Lions got me, I think,” Evelyn told him, using the support beam to keep her standing.

“So there are two of them and one of them is a woman.” Hotch breathed out a sigh. “How does that change the profile?”

“We know that the men were chosen because Lions wanted something they had.”

“Position, status, money-“

“A certain woman.”

Hotch turned to look at Evelyn, who was scanning the basement as if it would hold the answers. There were blood stains on the ground. This was definitely where the victims were killed. There was a door at the top of the stairs, but if these guys were any good at what they did, the door would be locked.

“You think his partner could have been the wife of one of the victims?” Hotch asked.

Evelyn looked back at him and shrugged.

“A wife, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter. Maybe the person he wants to take her from isn’t even dead yet, but he’s the reason Lions is killing.”

“Why would she help him?”

Evelyn breathed out again.

“Maybe she feels trapped where she’s at and he’s got her convinced this is the only way to save her? If she feels completely dependent on him, she might just do whatever he says.”

“Even kill?”

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders again, but they both knew that the answer was yes. A woman caught in a corner was just as capable of killing as anyone else.

“Well, that’s good then,” Hotch said, putting his hands on his hips.

“How is any of that good?”

“It means I’m the one they want, not you,” Hotch said.

Evelyn’s eyebrows pinched together.

“That really doesn’t sound good, Hotch.”

“You can get through to the partner, Caro,” Hotch said, walking back toward her. Evelyn narrowed her eyes even further at him.

“Maybe, yes.”

“Good. That will get us out of here.”

He turned away from her again. He pulled off his blazer and loosened his tie and the temperature in the room raised about fourteen degrees. Evelyn had to shake away her imagination before responding.

“And what are you going to do?”

“What they brought me here for.”

___

“Please, stop!”

The female unsub, Rosalie, held tight to Evelyn’s arms, holding her back as the male unsub, Jeremy Lions, pounded his fist into Hotch’s face.

“You think you’re so strong,” Hotch laughed, taunting Lions. “Don’t you?”

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“You have to stop him,” Evelyn said to Rosalie. “No one else can get through to him.”

“He’s doing what he has to to keep us safe,” Rosalie whispered to Evelyn, but despite the strength in her arms, her voice was weak. “Your friend just needs to give in. It’ll be easier that way.”

Lions hit Hotch again and Evelyn cried out, pulling against Rosalie.

“Shut her up, Rose!”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie whispered in Evelyn’s ear, holding her right from behind. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“No!” Evelyn struggled against the woman holding her, jerking her shoulders in hopes of breaking free.

“You really think that any of this will earn you manhood, Lions?” Hotch said with a laugh, turning the unsub’s gaze back onto him and away from Evelyn.

Lions hit Hotch in the face again.

“Stop it, damnit!”

Lions whirled around and backhanded Evelyn in attempts to get her to quiet down. Rosalie gasped and let Evelyn fall to the ground.

“Jeremy! You said we wouldn’t hurt her!”

Lions let out a growl and grabbed onto Rosalie’s arm, dragging her out of the basement and leaving Hotch and Evelyn behind.

“You need to get through to Rosalie, Caro,” Hotch said as soon as she took a single step toward him.

“I am,” she huffed. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “She doesn’t want me to get hurt, that much is clear. If she associates you getting hurt with me getting hurt, she’ll push for Lions to hurt you less.”

Hotch nodded his head once, stretching out his jaw.

“You trust me, right?” Hotch said.

“Of course.” Evelyn’s response was immediate.

“Good.”

That night, they slept in the basement on opposite sides of the room, even though it was freezing cold. Saying they slept was an over exaggeration. Evelyn could barely even close her eyes. It was the cold that kept her eyes frozen open, but it was also the reality of it all. She was trapped, once again. She was a prisoner, once again. She was at the mercy of a man, once again.

And Hotch was here but she had never felt more alone.

The door creaked open and Evelyn sat up with a gasp. She shuffled backward, away from the door, but it was just Rosalie walking down the wooden stairs. The woman locked the door behind her, but still flinched.

“Hi,” Rosalie whispered as she neared. There was a cup and a plate in her hand. She watched the sleeping Hotch as she walked by, only turning her attention back to Evelyn once she passed him.

“Hi,” Evelyn whispered back, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“I…I’m not going to hurt you,” Rosalie said. She lowered herself to the ground a few feet away from her. Rosalie set the cup and the plate down and scooted it closer to Evelyn.

Evelyn looked between the food and the woman.

“You need to eat.” Rosalie’s voice was soft. Kindly.

Evelyn straightened her back and lifted her chin, giving a slight shake of the head.

“I’m not hungry.”

Rosalie let out a sigh and turned to look over at Hotch, who still slept soundly.

“Saving it for him won’t do anything for either of you,” Rosalie said, almost sadly. “Only one of you is making it out of here. I think you know which one it’s going to be.”

___

“Here, eat.” Evelyn pushed the plate of cold potatoes and toast in his direction, the cup of water sitting on top. Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “Rosalie came in last night. Brought us some food.”

“Did you eat?” He asked her, sitting up from his sleeping position.

Evelyn nodded her head.

“Caro-“

“I ate, Hotch,” she said, a little more harshly than she meant to. “You need to keep your strength if we’re going to have a repeat of yesterday.”

Hotch almost laughed as he hooked his finger over the edge of the plate and slid it toward himself. Evelyn watched, her stomach gurgling as he took a bite out of the bread.

“Stale toast is just ravishing, isn’t it?” Evelyn asked as she leaned up against the wall he also sat against. Hotch hummed his response. He ate slowly, took a sip of water.

“How are you?” He asked.

Evelyn rolled her head against the wall to look over at him.

“Just peachy, Hotchner. How are you?”

“I’m serious. How are you doing?”

Evelyn let out a sigh, looked up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

“Taking it one breath at a time,” she said. “I’ll deal with the aftermath once we’re out of here.”

Evelyn looked over at him again and attempted a half-cocked smile. Hotch wasn’t smiling. He was staring at her, staring right through her smile and her outer shell of calmness and straight into her soul where her wound was, her wound that was slowly starting to heal.

“I’ll be okay, Aaron,” she said, dropping her smile. “Promise.”

Hotch nodded his head and turned away from her.

“Don’t do anything stupid today, Caro,” he told her.

“Do I ever?”

___

“I told you not to do anything stupid,” Hotch sighed as Evelyn let out a hiss of pain.

“I didn’t realize that trying to stop you from dying was considered something stupid.”

“It is when you get put in harm’s way.”

Evelyn held a strip of her shirt against her bleeding nose. Hotch rolled up his sleeves.

“We’ve got two days left here,” Hotch said, pacing back and forth in front of Evelyn.

“The team will find us,” Evelyn replied. She lowered the piece of her shirt and scrunched her nose before stretching it out again.

“I don’t doubt it.”

The sun went down sooner than Evelyn thought it would, meaning she had slept longer than she thought she had.

“You should sleep,” Hotch said.

“I’m not tired.”

“He won’t hurt you, Caro.”

The dark concealed Hotch’s face from her, even though he was only a few feet away. Evelyn shifted uncomfortably.

“I know.”

“If I don’t make it out of here-“

“Hotch, stop. We’re both going to walk out of here just fine.”

“But if I don’t, promise to take care of Jack.” Evelyn breathed in deeply, ready to shake her head and tell him again that they were going to both survive this. “Promise me.”

Instead of arguing, which she knew would get them nowhere, Evelyn nodded her head.

“I promise.”

Hotch didn’t say anything else. Evelyn didn’t sleep. The change in his breathing after a while told her that he had fallen asleep.

She didn’t know how long it was before the door creaked open. Evelyn startled and sat up straighter, gasping in a breath. But it was just Rosalie, coming down with more food. This time, she didn’t say anything. She sat right next to Evelyn and set the food between them.

“You have to eat,” she said finally.

Evelyn reached out and took the cup of water and brought it to her parched lips. She drank some, but set it down before it was finished.

“You don’t have to save it for him.”

Evelyn turned her head to look at Rosalie.

“He’s my friend. I’m not going to let him starve.”

Rosalie was quiet for a moment.

“I think he’s more than that.”

“How did you meet Jeremy?” Evelyn asked. She thought she saw a smile on Rosalie’s lips.

“I lived with my brother and his wife as their live-in nanny of sorts. Jeremy worked for them as a gardener. My father kept me locked up my entire life and when he died, my brother took over. His sister’s keeper or something. But Jeremy he…. he made me feel free and alive and seen. And so, so loved.”

Rosalie stopped there, her smile lingering for a few moments before falling.

“But he changed, didn’t he?”

Rosalie nodded her head slowly, her lower lip curling and tears starting to run down her cheeks. Evelyn just let her cry for a few moments, until the woman collected herself. She sucked in a sob and stuffed her hands full of her dress.

“He took me from my brother’s house, brought me here,” Rosalie said. “Said he needed my help.”

“He used you to lure in men that he saw as superior to himself so that he could kill them.”

Rosalie nodded again, tears still rolling from her eyes.

“I never wanted to…I tried to tell him that I love him as he is…that he doesn’t need to-“

“Rosalie, listen to me. Nothing you could ever do will convince him of that because his issues have nothing to do with you,” Evelyn said, turning to face her.

“I don’t….”

“Jeremy Lions may love you, Rosalie, but he is very sick. He is not killing people to be a better man for you, no matter what he has told you. He feels inferior so he thinks he has to kill to be superior. That’s why he wanted Hotch.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

Evelyn heaved out a breath.

“Hotchner is everything Jeremy thinks he’s lacking. Confident, strong. He’s got a high-ranking job. He’s respected by his peers. He’s good looking and has a nice home and great friends. Jeremy doesn’t think he has any of this and he wants it, which is why he wants to hurt Hotchner.”

“To take something he doesn’t think he has.”

Evelyn sucked in a breath and reached forward to take Rosalie’s hands in hers.

“No matter what you do, Rosalie, you will never be enough for him, do you understand? He has you, he has love, but that will never be enough for him.”

“No, no!” Rosalie stood up quickly. “No. Once we’re married, everything will be okay. We’ll buy a new house. Live a happy life.”

“Rosalie-“

“No! You’re wrong.”

“Rosalie….”

“You’re wrong!”

Rosalie hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Evelyn shut her eyes again. With a growl, she pounded her knuckles into the hard concrete ground.

“You okay?”

Hotch was barely awake, his voice gravelly and tired.

“I’m okay, Hotch, go back to sleep.”

He grumbled something and was soon asleep again. Evelyn could do nothing but sigh. Still, she didn’t sleep.

The next day went no better than the last. It was night again before Evelyn knew it. She sat on the ground, head between her knees. Hotch stood, leaning up against the support beam in the middle of the room.

“You’re not sleeping,” he said. Evelyn didn’t move. “Talk to me.”

“I told you, I’ll deal with it after we get out of here,” she told him, her words muffled by her knees.

Hotch walked toward her and let out a groan as he lowered himself to the ground.

“You can sleep,” he told her, his words even quieter than they were before. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

Evelyn lifted her head finally to look at him.

“That’s not why I’m not sleeping,” she said, which was partially a lie. She didn’t sleep because she needed to be aware at all times. She couldn’t risk nodding off and letting her guard down. But there was another part to it.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked her.

“I thought I was going to die alone in that house, Aaron.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Twice. I stay awake because I can’t stand the thought of dying alone. And if you die while I’m sleeping-“

Hotch reached out and took her hand in his. When she looked over at him, he was staring straight ahead, not looking at her. She let out a shaky sigh and let him lace his fingers through hers. It was all the comfort that she needed.

“You’re not going to die alone,” Hotch told her. “You’re not going to die here at all.”

Evelyn nodded and let a few of the tears in her eyes fall, grateful for the darkness to cover her face. She lowered her head slowly to his shoulder, damning all protocol to hell, if there even was protocol for maybe dying in a basement with your boss. When Hotch didn’t immediately pull away from her or shake her off his shoulder, she settled in and shut her eyes.

“You’re not dying here either,” she said. “Not if I can help it.”

For the first time in days, Evelyn slept.

She awoke to someone grabbing hold of her hand. Her first thought was that it was Hotch squeezing her in his sleep. But when she gasped and opened her eyes, she found that it was just Rosalie sitting in front of her. It was still dark outside. She thought that the woman had brought her more food, but she turned out to be wrong.

“We have to go,” Rosalie whispered. “We have to go.”

“What?”

“Shh, shh,” Rosalie put a shaking finger to her lips and pulled on Evelyn’s hand. “You were right. We have to go now.”

Rosalie pulled Evelyn to her feet, dragging her toward the door before she was even fully awake.

“Wait, stop,” Evelyn whispered, trying to shake herself awake.

“No, now! This is the only chance you have.”

Rosalie dragged Evelyn out of the basement doors and up the stairs into the house above. It wasn’t the same house that Hotch and Evelyn had been searching before, she could tell that even in the dark.

“Where are you taking me, Rosalie?”

“You have to get out of here, now! Jeremy doesn’t want to kill you, but he will,” Rosalie said, pulling her through the rundown and dirty home.

“Stop. Stop!” Evelyn dug her heels into the ground and forced Rosalie to stop. “I’m not leaving Aaron.”

“You don’t have time!” There was nothing but pure desperation in Rosalie’s voice. “Jeremy knows I left. He’s coming here. You have to go now or you’re not going at all.”

Evelyn wrenched her arm out of Rosalie’s grip.

“I’m not leaving him.”

“Jeremy will kill you.” Rosalie sounded desperate, terrified.

Evelyn shook her head and took a step backward.

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving him.” Rosalie’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Go. Call the police. Tell them where we are.”

Rosalie nodded her head.

“Go.”

Without another word, Rosalie turned around and ran from the house.

Evelyn watched her go. Her heart rate spiked when headlights flashed through the front window. All she could do for Rosalie was hope that she found some place to hide until Lions entered the house. If Lions was here, this was it. He was coming for Hotch.

Evelyn ran back to the basement as quietly as she could. She shut the basement door, hearing it lock with a heart wrenching click, just as the front door opened. She hurried down the stairs and dropped to the ground next to Hotch, startling him awake.

“What’s going on?” Hotch asked, still sounding stuck in sleep.

“Lions is here,” Evelyn whispered to him. “Rosalie is gone, she’s calling the police.”

“How-“

“We need a plan and quick,” Evelyn told him.

“We don’t know how long it will take for the police to respond,” Hotch replied quietly, his voice surprisingly calm. This might be his last few moments on earth, and he wasn’t terrified or angry or anxious. He was just calm. “All of his attention will be on me. You can escape then.”

She shook her head.

“I’m not leaving you here.”

“This isn’t a time for heroics.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

Before Hotch could argue, Evelyn pushed herself to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Hotch asked, standing after her.

“Like you said, Lions’ attention will all be on you. He won’t be expecting me.”

“Caro-“

She sunk into the shadows just as the door of the basement opened. Lions trudged down the stairs, grumbling to himself.

At the bottom of the stairs, he turned toward Hotch.

“Where’s the girl?” Lions asked, his voice low and gruff.

Hotch was silent.

“Doesn’t matter,” the unsub grumbled to himself. With his back to her completely, Lions started for Hotch. Evelyn would make sure he never reached him.

She crept out from her shadows, walking toward Lions. The ever present ache in her head from when Lions knocked her out didn’t even stop her. She was silent as she moved until she was right up behind him. In one quick motion, Evelyn kicked the back of his knee, dropping him to the ground before wrapping her arm around his neck.

Lions struggled against Evelyn. He was strong and she was weak from days with little food and water as well as the head injury. But she held on as tight to his neck as she could.

Hotch ran to check the basement door, but Lions had closed it, leaving it locked.

As he did so, Evelyn was so focused on keeping her grip on Lions, that she didn’t see his hand moving toward his pocket. He pulled out a knife and rammed it into her shin. She cried out, falling back and away from Lions.

“Evelyn!”

Hotch turned away from the door and ran back toward her as Lions stumbled away. Evelyn fell back against the support beam, lowering herself to the ground as she pressed her hands against the cut on her leg.

Hotch ran toward Evelyn, but Lions intercepted him. Fire spread throughout Evelyn’s leg, dark blood seeping through her fingers. She clenched her jaw in hopes of easing the pain. Hotch and Lions tumbled, a blur of bodies that Evelyn once again couldn’t distinguish. This scene was all too familiar to her.

Hotch was trained, but he was weak. Lions relied mostly on his size and strength, but lacked any formal training. Evelyn needed to get back into the fight, that was the only way Hotch would win this.

With a groan of effort and a sharp stabbing pain shooting through her leg, Evelyn forced herself to stand. Using the support beam as her support as well, she allowed herself a few moments to breathe through the pain before lurching forward.

Lions had Hotch pinned against the wall, his arm across his chest to keep him there. Evelyn hurtled toward Lions, pushing through the pain in her leg and barreled into him. This knocked him off balance. Being unable to stop herself once she started, she and Lions tumbled over each other until they were both on the ground. Hotch started forward to help Evelyn to her feet, but Lions had an arm around her waist and the knife pressed to her neck before either of them could really react.

“Back off,” Lions said, his voice even more gruff than before. Blood dribbled down from a broken nose and he wheezed, telling Evelyn that Hotch had hit him enough times near the diaphragm to knock the wind out of him.

The cool of the metal knife pressed against Evelyn’s throat didn’t scare her. Especially when she met Hotch’s gaze. That dead calm he always put forward she now felt flow through her veins. Everything was going to be okay, she could see it in his eyes. Evelyn breathed as shallowly as she could, trying to keep her throat from extending too far into the knife.

Lions pushed himself off the ground and brought Evelyn up with him. The knife cut into the first few layers of her throat and Evelyn flinched, feel the cool of her own blood dribble down her neck. Hotch put his hands in the air, trying to show that he meant Lions no harm.

“She’s not a part of this,” Hotch said. “You know that, Lions.”

“She’s a bitch is what she is,” Lions snapped, pressing the knife harder against Evelyn’s neck.

Hotch flinched forward and Evelyn shut her eyes.

“You want me, Lions, not her.” This was the calmness that Evelyn had never understood before. Her negotiation skills had never been good. Hotch said that she was too emotional. She cared too much and it was too easy to read in her voice. But Hotch was too good at pretending not to care at all. “Let her go and I’ll go with you.”

“No, Hotch-“

“Shut up,” Lions seethed in her ear. “You don’t get to talk.”

“Is that how you treat Rosalie, huh?” Evelyn asked, her hands on his arm that held the knife to her throat. “You call her a bitch and tell her shut up?”

“Be quiet!”

Evelyn could feel blood soak into her shirt, weighing it down.

“Lions, look at me,” Hotch said, pulling his attention away from Evelyn. “You can let her go.”

Evelyn felt her wounded leg start to grow numb and her balance shifted. In not too long, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to keep herself standing upright.

The door behind them burst open and Evelyn let out a gasp. Lions flinched and loosened his grip on her just enough that she broke free from him and stumbled forward, right into Hotch.

“Jeremy Lions, drop the knife and put your hands in the air!” Emily Prentiss said, her voice deep and commanding.

Evelyn’s leg gave out, every ounce of weight put on it causing a shooting pain up and down her entire body. Hotch held her up by her arms, her back pressed against his chest. He was the only thing keeping her standing and she could barely even do that.

Lions didn’t turn around, but he put his hands up in the air.

“Rosalie did this,” he said, his voice deadly low.

“Drop the knife, Lions,” Emily said again.

“You turned her against me.” Lions shifted his angered eyes away from Hotch and onto Evelyn. “You did.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, Lions, but I will.”

“You turned her against me!”

Lions took half a step toward them, the knife now facing her. Hotch turned Evelyn away, preparing to step between them, but Emily fired a single shot, the bullet tearing right through Lions’ shoulder. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain, the knife falling out of his grip.

Evelyn, still unable to stand on her own, turned to Hotch, her neck still bleeding.

“Are you okay?” she asked him, noting the bruises on his face.

“Are you guys alright?” Emily asked, her gun trained on Lions.

“We need a medic,” Hotch said. Emily nodded her head, her eyes flickering down the cut in Evelyn’s shin and neck.

Emily relayed the information through her earpiece, as well as saying the offender was down. Evelyn stayed leaned up against Hotch, his hands clinging to her arms to keep her steady, as Emily took Lions away in handcuffs.

Morgan and Reid came running into the basement along with the paramedics.

“Evie,” Morgan stepped toward her and she just smiled.

“We’re okay,” she told him.

“Ma’am,” the paramedic said. “Let’s get you to the ambulance.”

The paramedics stepped forward, one taking hold of Evelyn. The other moved toward Hotch.

“How are you feeling?” the paramedic asked him.

“Can you make it to the ambulance?” the paramedic asked Evelyn, who nodded her head.

“I can carry you,” Morgan said, stepping forward. Evelyn let out a quiet laugh.

“I can manage on my own, Derek,” she told him. Still, he followed her and the paramedic, his hands out just in case she started to fumble.

They helped her up the stairs and she looked back at Hotch, to find that his eyes were still on her. He nodded her head and she smiled at him.

The pain that flared throughout Evelyn’s leg was white hot, but with the paramedic taking most of her weight and Morgan just behind her, Evelyn was able to make it to through the house and to the ambulance without letting a single tear fall from her eye.

Hotch came out of the house a few minutes later, the paramedic still trying to get him to sit for a moment while Reid filled him in on everything they missed in the case.

“I’d like to speak with Rosalie,” Hotch said.

“She’s over here,” Reid said.

Hotch tried not to look over at the ambulance where he knew Evelyn was. He still had a job to do and he couldn’t focus on that if all he could think about was whether or not she was okay. He knew she was okay. She was always okay.

Rosalie sat in the back of one of the cop cars, her eyes closed and silent tears running down her cheeks. Hotch popped open the door, but she didn’t look at him.

“Is he alive?” she asked.

“He’ll survive,” Hotch told her. Rosalie let out a shaky breath and slowly opened her eyes. “Why did you help us?”

“I didn’t help you,” she said, looking away from him and toward the ambulance. “I helped Evelyn.”

Hotch scowled.

“She loves you, you know?”

Her words startled him and Hotch felt ice run through his blood.

“What?”

“She loves you. I gave her food at night but she’d only eat part of it, saved the rest for you. And last night I came to take her somewhere safe before Jeremy came back to kill you, but she refused to leave. I almost had her out of that house, but she ran back in. For you.”

Hotch looked down at his feet. He didn’t really expect anything less of Evelyn Caro. She always put everyone’s lives above her own. He shouldn’t expect her to act any different toward him.

But anger still bubbled up inside of him. She could have gotten herself killed and for what? She should have left him there and ran to get help. She should have….

“You better be damn sure you’re worth it.” Rosalie’s words were venom and Hotch could feel their sting deep in his blood.

Hotch shut the door, leaving Rosalie to her silence and grief. He turned to look at the ambulance, just as Morgan was stepping into the back. The paramedic shut the door, closing Hotch off from Evelyn. The siren started to blare, and the ambulance rolled out of the driveway.

“They’re taking her to the hospital,” Prentiss said, walking over to him. Hotch nodded his head. “Lost too much blood to just let her come back with us.”

“She kept antagonizing him,” Hotch said as he placed his hands on his hips. “If she had just let me go with him-“

“Caro was protecting you, sir,” Prentiss said. He looked at her, scowl deepening. “She knew that as soon as Lions had you, he would kill you. She had to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Hotch watched the ambulance as it drove away, the sirens ringing.

He never got the chance to ask if she was okay.

___

Evelyn lay back in her bed at the hotel, staring at the ceiling. A bandage wrapped around her leg and it itched, making it impossible for her to sleep. There was something else keeping her awake. Her mind reeled, the last few days playing over and over in her head. Trapped in a room with Hotch for days on end was the perfect time to talk to him about all the things that were bothering her, but even then, she couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t even know where to begin because she didn’t even know what she was feeling anyway.

Sitting up with a huff, Evelyn glowered into the darkness. She threw off her blankets that were making her too hot, lowering herself onto the ground and landing on her good leg. She hobbled over to her discarded clothes and threw them back on.

Air was what she needed. A breath of fresh air. And then she’d be okay. She could go back to pretending that everything was fine and normal, like she always did.

As she pulled a coat onto her shoulders, she opened the door and froze.

Hotch was standing there, wearing a broken down version of his usual suit. His tie and jacket were discarded, his shirt buttoned up sloppily. She wondered if he had ever even gone to bed. And he was standing in front of her door, his hand not even raised to knock. He was just standing there.

He looked at her with wide eyes, shocked to find her there.

“Um, hi,” Evelyn said, dropping her hand from the doorknob.

“I just wanted to check to see how you were doing,” Hotch said.

“Hotch, it’s like three in the morning.”

He looked down at his hands. He was actually fidgeting. Something had made him motivated enough to come here, but nervous enough not to knock.

“I know. I can go-“

“No, wait.” He froze. “I never got to ask if you were okay.”

Hotch nodded his head.

“I’m okay.”

“Good.”

They stood there in silence. Evelyn felt her throat tighten every time she wanted to say something. Hotch wouldn’t look at her. The silence seemed to drag on for eternity before Hotch finally broke it.

“I talked to Rosalie, after everything, and she said something,” Hotch said. Evelyn finally put her eyes on him.

“What…what did she say?”

There were a thousand terrible things that Evelyn could think of that the woman could have possibly said to land her standing in front of her boss at three in the morning.

“She said that you had a chance to leave that house and you came back,” he told her. Evelyn straightened her back. This was going to be a lecture, she could just feel it coming. She just didn’t know why it couldn’t wait until morning. “Why?”

Evelyn scowled and looked at the ground, her hand still on the door.

“Why?” She repeated. “Because I couldn’t leave you there.”

“You should have.”

Evelyn felt her temper begin to rise. What was it with this man?

“A ‘thank you for saving my life’ would suffice,” she said, her tone harsh. “If I hadn’t come back, Lions would have killed you. From where I’m standing, I made the right decision.”

“And got yourself hurt in the process.”

“I’ll survive.” Hotch fell quiet again. “Listen, Aaron, if you’ve come to pick a fight, I think it can wait until morning.”

Evelyn took a step back and started to close the door, but Hotch lifted his hand and stopped it from closing. She looked over at him, jaw tightened, and found him staring back at her.

“I’m not here to pick a fight with you,” he said.

“Then why did you come?”

She could see the question rattling around in his brain, as if he had been asking himself that very same question ever since he left his room.

“I’m sick of this, Aaron,” she said finally, when he didn’t answer. “I’m sick of neither of us being able to say what we really mean. I’m sick of running in circles around each other. Just tell me why you came here.”

“I came to make sure you’re okay.”

“Mission accomplished then. I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She started to close the door again and this time he didn’t stop her.

“Rosalie also said you loved me.”

Evelyn froze, the door almost shut so she couldn’t see his face anymore. Which was good because it meant that he also couldn’t see hers and the fear that was etched into every feature. Her breathing became heavy, like every breath took so much more work. She closed her eyes, and slowly started to open the door again.

“Rosalie said that?” Hotch nodded his head once. “Did you believe her?”

He was quiet for a moment, letting out a long but quiet sigh.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a profiler. Tell me, what do you think?”

He took a while to answer.

“I think you’re a deeply compassionate person who cares for the team. I think you would give your life for any one of us in a heartbeat.” Evelyn looked down at her feet and Hotch tried to follow her eyes with his. “I know that you would never do anything to jeopardize the dynamics of this team because we’ve become your family.”

“Okay.”

“So, I don’t know how much of what you say and do is because the team is your family and how much is because-“

“-I love you.”

The words came from her mouth like any other fact would. She had known it for so long, never said it, not even to herself, but she knew it. And she managed to say it so casually. She was just completing his sentence after all.

Hotch stood still, as if trying to decide whether or not she was finishing what he was saying or confessing. He searched her eyes, but she stayed motionless. It was time he figured things out for himself, she decided. They’d both spent so long trying to figure the other out, it was high time someone just made the first move.

“When you were at Ralph Bennet’s house,” he said finally, “I had these horrible dreams about finding you there already dead. I was too late to save you.”

Evelyn could have sworn there were tears glimmering in his eyes.

“You did though, Aaron. You did save me.”

“But was I too late?” He asked. “Did I wait too long for…everything else?”

“What do you want, Aaron?” Her voice was just at a whisper, her hand still on the door.

It was the last time she would ask. This was the last time and then she’d let it go, let him go. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life, however short that might be, pining after one man.

Hotch surprised her then. He didn’t say anything else, he didn’t try to talk. Talking was clearly getting him nowhere. Everything he said somehow came out wrong. Instead, he took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. Putting a hand to her cheek, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.

His answer was clear. It took her a few moments to over come her shock, but when she did, she reached out to grab hold of his shirt collar, pulling him in closer.

She pulled him into her room and shut the door, leaving the hallway empty and quiet.

Her room was still dark as he moved her backward, his hands never leaving her. He thought he had lost her. But here she was, with him, and that’s all he needed.

“You,” he whispered against her skin. “Just you.”

Every raging fire that made up Evelyn Caro met the calm seas that built Aaron Hotchner, burning and boiling and soothing in every possible way.

He kissed her lips, her bruised cheek bone, her jaw. His hands rested against the side of her neck, gently though, so as not to irritate her wound. She tugged at his wrinkled shirt, trying to pull him closer.

Hotch knew this was breaking protocol. But he left behind every rule in the book when he left his room two hours ago. Every inch of contact with her made his stomach twist, every time her teeth grazed his lip made his heart pound. For so long he had wanted her and for so long he had pretended otherwise. He was so, so tired of pretending.

He was pulling off her shirt and she didn’t stop him and he didn’t stop himself, but he couldn’t. He just needed all of her.

Evelyn gasped, her intake of breath so sharp that Hotch pulled away. She breathed raggedly, her chest rising and falling.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes moving to her neck.

Consumed by her, he had forgotten the shape she was in. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.

“I’m not that fragile,” she told him. There was a smug look on her face, her lips twitched up into a smile.

Hotch leaned forward to kiss that smile, soft and gentle. His hands dropped to her waist and he kissed her again. He intended to pull away, leave her be for the night, but every time he tried, he came back to her like a magnet.

Evelyn had just as hard as a time keeping away from him. His calloused hands were grazing over her sides, her waist, her stomach, her back. Her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Her heart pounded like a drum beat in her chest, so hard that she could hear it in her ears and it made her hands shake.

She expected him to stop her, to realize what he was doing and take her hands a politely decline, but when the last button came undone, he pulled away from just long enough to take the shirt off himself.

Hotch put his lips back on hers as soon as he could. Evelyn smiled against his kiss.

As if she had burned him, he suddenly stepped away, leaving Evelyn leaning against the wall, heaving for breath. He stared at her, his own breath ragged, his dark eyes smoldering.

“Is something…did I…?”

Shame pooled in Evelyn’s cheeks, making them burn. There she was, completely and utterly exposed, barely able to stand well enough on her own to scurry away.

“You’ve had a very hard year, Evelyn,” he said.

She tilted her head to the side and looked at the ground, locking her jaw.

“Hotch….”

“And I can’t take advantage of-“

“Aaron!” She said with a laugh, forcing him to look at her. “I’m fine. This is fine, more than fine.”

“Is it what you want?” he asked.

She gave a small smile and heaved out a sigh.

“Aaron Hotchner,” she said. “Have I ever done anything I haven’t wanted to?”

Lifting a hand, she curled her finger, beckoning for him. He stepped toward her until he was just a breath away.

“I’ll tell you if I need to stop,” she said to him, just above a whisper.

Evelyn reached up and kissed him again. It took him a few moments to respond, but once he accepted what she said, he leaned into her.

He placed a hand on her chest, right over her heart.

And for once, in a very, very long time, that wound in her soul didn’t feel so gaping.

#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #ssa hotchner #aaron hotchner x oc #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner fic #hurt/comfort #tw: abuse #tw: violence #hotch #ssa aaron hotchner #idk what else to tag this so that more people see it #because it took me three weeks to write #this is literally a quarter of a novel what am i doing with my life #anyway #i hope you guys enjoy

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