#the helicopter did nothing wrong

[chariot-to-somewhere]

So Corday told Romano she didn't want to date him so he went and stopped sponsoring her.

Every episode makes me hate that weird little fucker more than I already did.

[applebeebuck]

just finished the rookie's season 3 finale and oh my god I'm gonna eat glass. For several reasons

[antivivziepopparade]

Vent: I live in a helicopter family (due to my disabilities) where 90% of my life, my social media access, my political access, my clothes, all of my ssi money (I havent gotten my own money for MONTHS!), my information, and everything else is controlled and I cant do anything about it because im schizophrenic, autistic, and have chronic pain.

Without a way to bypass parental blockers, I would be without anyone to relate to personally and I would feel alone, uninformed, and afriad of the outside world. Especially after my dad took my phone and looked through it without my knowing, etc.

I hate this feeling. I just want to have my life back.

Im more stable now! Why are my parents trying to control EVERYTHING!? IM ALMOST TWENTY ONE I SHOULD BE MOVED OUT BY NOW! I HATE LIVING THIS WAY!

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[shadow4-1]

I'm just imagining the 141 looking for a medic because all of the ones they sign on keep dying or getting poached by other task forces. And you're a baby medic who is shadowing your higher rank and well esteemed teacher (who is actually the one on the 141's radar). But something goes horribly wrong...

You've done everything you possibly can but he's still drowning in his own blood.

He's tried walking you through everything through wheezing, wet breaths. He has a knowing look in his eye, this isn't working and it won't work. You're in the EVAC helicopter, but the time it'll take to get you back to base is too long.

"I-I'm sorry." You whimper, tears forming on your lashes. "I'm not a very good student."

Your mentor smiles sadly, his eyes glassy. He was always sweet to you when he was no nonsense with everyone else.

"You're doing great, kid." He huffs, blood leaking out the corner of his mouth. He winces and sputters up more but you're there. You try to fill up his vision and give him something to focus on. "People crash. Don't give up on 'em till it's over."

You cradle his head, memorize every wrinkle, scar, and patch on his kit. And then, it hits you.

He's right, its not over yet.

You rip through your medical supplies with shaking hands. It feels like it takes forever but it's merely seconds before you're sticking a needle from your vein into his. You watch the bag as it quickly fills with your blood before entering into him.

Your mentor chuckles and shakes his head weakly. This is nowhere near anything he taught you. But he knows it might just save his life since you're both the same blood type.

You go through multiple more needles releasing pressure on his lungs until he's even more stable than before. He finally has a shot and that's all that matters.

You're so close. Fifteen minutes out when he starts to crash again. You've exhausted everything. Your medical supplies are dwindling. You have no more blood to give. Your teacher just continues to smile at you. And he keeps smiling at you and he keeps smiling at you. You rub at his face, his eyes are far away. You feel for his pulse.

You scream.

It's not one of fear, but a deep, mournful cry. You turned your comms off forever ago but you know everyone could hear you, even through the wind. It carries your scream off and away as the heli's motors clip around you. You feel empty. He was supposed to teach you more. He was supposed to live.

You scream again and throw yourself over him. You sob and scream and grab at him, trying desperately to look for vitals. You know you won't find one but you're delirious. He's supposed to live! You did everything right!

Tears blur your vision but you notice someone out of the corner of your eye. It's one of the members of a different task force assigned to help your squad with this now terribly failed mission. He's their Captain, you think. He tries to reach down but you hiss at him. You don't care about rank. You don't care about the social ramifications. You scream to be heard over the wind.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

The man's eyes soften. You don't imagine what you look like. You probably look wild, feral, gnashing your teeth and growling. You don't care. He's YOUR teacher, he's YOUR responsibility. Quite frankly, you don't trust any of the other strangers watching you. You hiss at them too. Then you cry again.

You bury your face into your now dead mentor's chest and sob.

- - - - -

The look in your eye is like nothing he's ever seen before in a medic.

Price had watched you exhaust every possible avenue to save your superior's life. When all else failed you gave him your own blood. And when he finally succumbed to his injuries you threw yourself over him, not allowing anyone or anything to get close.

Even when they arrived on base, when your other superiors tired to swoop in, you stood your ground.

"I don't care! Even in death he's MY patient!" You yelled at your own Captain.

And surpisingly, they let you take care of him to the end. They even let you escort his body to the morgue. It's where Price finds you hours later.

You sit in a rusty old folding chair just outside the morgue doors. Your eyes are glazed over, far away, and still brimming with tears. He kneels in front of you to get on your level. He doesn't say anything, just waits for you to finally see him. You blink slowly and look up at him.

"I-I'm sorry..." You apologize. "I d-didn't mean t-"

"It's alright, Love." He hums and offers you a tight smile. "I understand."

He pats your knee in a fatherly way before standing up. His knees pop and he winces. You immediately stand up, your eyes searching him up and down.

"S' alright, I promise. Just a lil' stiff s' all." He soothes. "I need you to come with me."

He notices how your pretty lil' eyes widen. He shakes his head and offers a hand to help you out of the chair.

"You're not n' any trouble, sweetheart. I just want to talk with you."

He looks down at you with a knowing, sweet smile.

Your commitment is exactly what he's looking for.

[miniwheat77]

Can’t hide. (141 x Reader.)

!NSFW, smut, sex pollen, 141 hunting reader, p in v sex, gang bang, you know the drill no minors!

“You ready for this?” Captain Price raises a fist up to you. “Born ready cap.” You smile. Bumping the side of your fist into his.

“Nothing to it anymore. Clean sweep, be back by lunch time.” You smile.

Those were your famous last words, before all hell broke loose.

It started out normal.

Infil went excellent. Quick and easy. Nik found a good spot for the Helicopter to land, left without a problem. He wouldn’t be too far away when Captain Price called on him.

Sneaking in was easy too, everyone laid low and stayed quiet. Eliminating every single threat on the small base was also just as simple, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Until something went wrong.

Gaz was the first to come across it. The massive underground bunker full of huge vats. Full of a mysterious liquid. Vials upon vials, syringes full. It seemed endless. Nobody knew what the mysterious liquid was until you stumbled upon the paperwork for it. And than. It was go time. The five of you worked for a couple hours destroying every bit of it, each of you even having fun with it.

Until Soap tripped over a notebook and stumbled into a large pool of it, he catches himself with the edge.

But not before his hand dips into the liquid.

It burns immediately. It absorbs into his skin almost instantly and his body soaks it up like a vitamin. “Shit.” He gasps. “That can’t be good.” Captain Price laughs. Just after he finishes speaking, they hear Gaz let out a hiss. “Shit- it soaked through my boots!”

“Well that’s really not good.” They laugh. “Let me get Nik on exfil, Laswell will know what to do.” He mumbles.

He doesn’t announce it, but it’s soaked through his boots as well.

That leaves Ghost and you who haven’t been infected and he wants to keep it that way.

“Nik, we’re ready for exfil.”

“I’m worried about these storm clouds Captain.” Nik calls back through the radio. “Shit… bloody fucking…” he hesitates before speaking into the radio back to Nik. “ETA?”

“Maybe tomorrow morning if it’s clear Captain, I can get someone to come in with a vehicle.”

He sighs. “It’s alright, we’ll wait it out.”

He walks back into the bunker, Gaz and Johnny have shed a couple layers, a sheen of sweat glistens off of them. The drug is starting to set in. It wouldn’t be long now. “I got myself with a Syringe, Price.” Ghost mumbles. “Bloody hell. Who isn’t infected now?”

“Just Y/N, sir.”

He sighs.

“Did we destroy all of the paperwork?” He asks. “Yes sir.”

He groans. You’re fucked. Royally fucked.

“Well. Suppose we wait it out and see what happens because I have no clue. Nik can’t get here until morning becaus-“ a loud burst of thunder hits and cuts him off.

“Of that.” He sighs.

He paces for a few minutes, doing the old man things that he usually does, but as the minutes tick by, everyone gets more antsy.

“Let’s go find somewhere else to stay, it’s cold and dangerous down here.” He mumbles. His own heart is pounding in his chest. The five of you make your way back out of the bunker, walking through the mud and pouring rain to get inside the building completely. You split off and look for a good spot to stay for the night but the only thing anyone finds is a conference room.

Everyone picks a chair around the table, and it’s a waiting game after that.

You’re off in another world daydreaming, not paying too much attention to anything. Thinking about the hot shower you’ll take when you finally get out of here. It’ll be so nice, washing away the blood and dirt.

You don’t see the 4 stand up, gravitating toward a specific corner. You don’t see them conspiring.

You’re not expecting it when Soap grabs a hold of you. Holding you much tighter than he normally would for any reason at all. It pulls you out of your thoughts and that’s when you see that there’s something wrong. The four of them surround you. “W-woah!” You mumble, trying to tug your arm away from Soap. He doesn’t budge. “Let go Johnny- what’s wrong?” You ask, eyes darting around the room. You’re only met with hungering eyes. None of them make a move to stop him.

Before you know it, they’re lifting you up, the four of them slamming you down on the large oak conference table, a hiss leaving your lips when your back hits it. Only then do you see your Captain coming at you, Syringe in hand. “Woah! Hey wait! You don’t have to do this! What’s going on?”

“It’s a sex drug sweetheart. And we’re all infected.” He chuckles. His voice is far darker than before.

The syringe stabbing you in the arm has you hissing out, teeth clenched. He presses the back of it, injecting the liquid into you. “You now too.” He smirks. His gaze is dark as he looks at you. The four of them looming over you like a storm. Gaz reaches for your waistband and that’s when you know this is about to get serious. They’re like a pack of hungry wolves ready to tear you to shreds.

“Fuck.. smell so good.” Johnny groans. You get a good grip on the table and slam your heel into Gaz’s chest, making a mental note to apologize to him when all of this is over. You force yourself back, rolling off of the table and making a break for it.

You bust through the metal door at a full sprint and don’t look back for even a second. The rain is coming down fast and it’s hard to run through the mud but you manage. The dense forest around the compound will shield you from them, or so you hope.

Branches of pine needles and leaves slap past you as you sprint, your heart pounds in your chest but you know what awaits you if you stop.

“It’s alright!” You hear them yelling out to you. Clearly coming after you. “You can run but you can’t hide!”

The deep roar of Simon’s voice has chills rising up your spine. The drug is working its way through your veins now. You had to create as much distance as possible from them. You notice a stream and decide to take another way. Walking into it to conceal your footprints and using it for a while. It feels like you’ve been walking for miles when you finally step out of the freezing water. You’re sure there’s no way they’ll find you, so you settle down between some bushes.

You lay low and quiet. You’re freezing cold and it’s hard to hide but you manage it. The rain never lets up, and you never hear anything else, settling down to try to warm yourself up before you died from hypothermia. You have nothing, having taken all of your gear off in the conference room you had found. Bad move.

You wait. Shivering with cold feet covered in mud. When this was all over you were going to take the hottest shower you’ve ever had.

Once again, your mind fucks you.

You’re off in space somewhere when arms wrap around you. His deep laugh has you squirming. “You’re not getting away this time sweetheart.” He laughs.

It’s Ghost. You slam the back of your head into him, bloodying his nose. He’s dizzy from the hit, he lets you go and you take off again. This time there’s four sets of footsteps chasing after you, right on your heels. Like something out of a horror movie. Your lungs burn and your legs ache but you don’t make it far, a hand on your ankle has you colliding with the forest floor. You cry out when whoever had tackled you moves on top of you. They’ve got you pinned. You’re thankful that it’s just pine needles under you now, much nicer than the mud.

Your shirt is soaked and stuck to you.

You’re horny from the stupid drug and you know you can’t keep yourself away from them any longer. You’re still panting as they stare down at you. “Fine. You caught me.” You breathe.

They laugh. “Nice little game of cat and mouse, lass. Now it’s time to pay up.” Soap chuckles. He grasps the hem of your pants, fighting them off of you since you’re soaked to the bone. You roll your eyes at him. “You’re nothing but a bunch of pervs.” You roll your eyes. “Before, you were fighting us. Don’t see you fighting me now.” He chuckles. He’s right, you’re not fighting him. The ache you feel in your belly is begging for relief. “If I’m such a perv, tell me to stop.” He looks down at you. The moonlight illuminates him just enough. You can see his hand gripping his throbbing cock. He’s got himself lined up with your entrance. Legs pushed apart. The others have let go. Seeing you’re not putting up a fight anymore.

You shake your head.

“Do it.” You grit your teeth. He laughs. Pushing himself into your dripping hole. You take in a sharp breath, whining out. Hearing him chuckle at how pathetic you are. Captain Price raises your shirt up, thumb brushing over your nipple. You reach up and grasp his hand. You guide it down to your clit, hearing him scoff, shaking his head with a smirk. “Looks like the drugs working on you too. Little slut..” he laughs.

“Not gonna work, I like when you’re mean to me.” You look up at him, smile playing at your lips. He rolls his eyes, laughing when your eyes screw shut as he starts drawing circles into your clit as Johnny fucks you. “Such a bad girl. Ran away for nothing but fun hm? You like the chase sweetheart?” He chuckles. You wanted him to shut up, so you grasp his exposed cock. Hearing him sigh. “Shit…” he mumbles. He’s hard and throbbing. His body begs for some kind of release.

The primal need they feel to have a pussy on their cocks. It’s unbearable.

Soap is like a wild animal as he fucks you. Groaning out as he fucks you like a madman. Captain Price doesn’t stop circling your clit and it leaves you a writhing mess. Ghost looms over you, pumping his cock with his hand. They’re so pathetic and desperate, you feel bad almost. You look back at him, through your eyelashes. Eyes locking with his. It sends sparks shooting through him. The look you have, it’s nothing but filthy. You lick your lips and he knows immediately what you’re implying. He wastes no time scooting further toward you and you part your lips as he lines his dick up with them. They part as he slides into your mouth, nearly crying out as you take him down your throat. “Oh fuck…” he whines. You toy with the tip, tonguing it as he nearly cries from being deprived. They’re all so pathetic. “Come here, Kyle.” You draw away from Ghost for just a second to wave Kyle over to your free hand. He all but scrambles to you. The attention you’re giving them is more than they’ve had in months. “Oh fuck..” he whines. Your hands wrapped around them, it’s nearly too much. You take Ghost back into your mouth, your captains fingertips still dancing across your clit. Ghosts hand moves to pinch and toy with your right nipple, Gaz takes the hint and does the same to your other. You mewl at the stimulation. Feeling more at once than you’ve ever felt, but you can’t help but want more. You give them a few minutes before you fight against them. They worry you’ll run again but you prop yourself up onto your hands and knees, pushing Johnny down and climbing on top of him.

He’s surprised for a second. You move over him, sliding back down onto him. He gasps out. You grasp your captains hand and guide him behind you. “Oh shit..” he mumbles again. Realizing what it is you want. He spits into his hand, gliding it up his cock. Lining up with your ass. He teases your hole with his tip, getting you slick enough to handle him. When he slides into you and both of your holes are filled, you’re almost satisfied. You need just a little more.

Ghost stands over Johnny, cock lining back up with your lips and you take him into your mouth.

Johnny’s hands find your nipples as he fucks himself up into your pussy. You whine out, hand reaching out for Kyle’s dick once more. You wiggle your right hand free, gliding it down the front of you, finding your own clit. And finally, it’s enough.

You’re shaking after just seconds of being stimulated. To the point it’s almost too much. “Ah fuck- gonna cum.” Soap hisses.

You draw away from Ghost and the words leave your lips before you can stop them. “Cum in me- fill me up.” You gasp.

The drug doesn’t make him think twice before he’s filling your pussy. Crying out and bucking his hips until he’s too overstimulated to think straight, drawing away from you. He switches places with Gaz.

He steps away, obviously trying to clean himself up. The clarity is there now in his brain, the realization of everything going on is becoming clearer.

The other three still remain, all desperate to feel your walls clamping around them. Gaz has nestled himself beneath you, surprised when you move right up to him, raising yourself up with your knees and lowering yourself onto his cock. You’re close, you just need that final push to reach an orgasm. He starts thrusting up into you, once against feeling that same intense pleasure as before. He cups your breasts and your breath hitches in your throat. The knot is building, getting bigger and bigger.

“Oh f-fuck!” Captain Price gasps, hips stuttering as he reaches his high. He fills you up, wrapping his arms around your front and burying himself inside of you. He’s panting. Relaxing for just a second. Feeling the way your body lurches as Gaz thrusts up into you. Captain Price regains his composure and stands up. Taking a deep breath as he creates some distance. Ghost is quick to take his place. Your knees are tired from the hard ground.

Ghost lines his fat cock up with your ass, sliding into you. Filling you to the hilt with his big cock. You whine out, nails digging into his arms. He takes a deep breath. Lips right by your ear. “Deep breaths doll.” His voice is deep, sending chills up your spine. He pulls you flush to his chest, his shirt is wet and cold against you. His cargo pants are too, the only warmth you feel from him is his cock pulled through the zipper hole. He glides his hand over your chest and stomach, trailing it down your front to your nub, rubbing circles against it. Your breaths get more ragged and unsteady, a sob is clawing its way out of your throat. You’re shivering from the cold, the rain has never subsided. Your hair is completely soaked, Ghost moves it onto one shoulder so that he can leave kisses against it.

You clutch Gaz tight, his hand entwined with yours as he thrusts into you.

“Agh, I’m so close!” You cry.

“Me too…” Gaz breathes.

Rocking your hips into him, meeting his thrusts. He’s not going to last. He hisses, his pretty white teeth showing in the moonlight. You lean down, letting your head rest forward as they ravage you. “Ah- gonna… gonna- ugh!” Gaz moans out, hips jerking up into you as he fills you, not stopping for even a second as he rides out his high. He finally stops when he’s overstimulated and Ghost draws himself out of you. Lifting you off of Gaz. Gaz stands up, and moves to join the others in the building. You’re nearly fucked out, so close to being on the edge but just short each time. You’re desperate at this point.

“Hold on.” Ghost hesitates. He tugs his soaking shirt off, fighting with it for a second. He uses it to clean off his shaft.

“What are you doing?” You ask. “I.. I didn’t want to give you an infection or anything. Don’t worry about it.” He mumbles. When he’s gotten himself completely wiped off, he lifts you up onto him. “They’re so selfish aren’t they? Leaving before you’ve even cum.” He’s got a grip on your hips, guiding you down his shaft. You whine out. You’re fucked out but still want to cum so bad. It feels like your heart is going to beat out of your chest any minute, you want it so much. “How about you cum with me hm?” He breathes. “Deep breaths darling, hold onto me.” He pants. His grip on you is tight.

He keeps a steady pace. You’re right on the edge again.

“Cum with me.” He breathes. “Show me what you can do darling, go on.”

You bury your head into the crook of his neck, crying out as you finally reach your peak. It washes over you like a tidal wave, shaking against him. He grits his teeth and whines as he reaches his own high, filling your pussy.

He rides out your highs, raising you up onto him by your hips. You’re nearly sobbing when he lowers you from him for just a second. “Fuck…” you whine. “Here, it’s cold but it’s all I got. Put it on.” Ghost passes you his soaked jacket from earlier. It is cold but it covers you. He lifts you up, beginning the hike back to the building.

———

“You all look exhausted.” Nik notes as everyone climbs into the chopper.

You exchange glances, resting your hand over your neck. There’s been a number of love bites left there the night before. You pretend like you’re rubbing your neck. Hiding your pink cheeks. “Uh.. yeah. It’s been a long night.” Captain Price avoids his gaze. “Ready to be back at base.” He laughs.

Nik notes the extremely quiet and awkward ride back to base. Ghost sitting a tad bit closer to you than normal.

“Does it hurt?” You mumble to Ghost. “What do you mean?” He asks. “You said you poked yourself with a syringe and got infected yesterday, does it hurt?” You ask again. “What syring- oh.. oh uh… yeah. No it doesn’t hurt.” He mumbles. “Where was it again?” You ask. “Oh uh. It was somewhere on my hands but the needle was so small so you can’t see it.” He lies.

You don’t catch the lie that he’s so clearly hiding.

His dirty little secret.

[louisferrignojr]

since the show is coming back tomorrow (!!!) and people seem to be a little bit confused about Tommy Kinard's canon character traits, as extrapolated from the source material, let's review, shall we?

Tommy put everything on the line, risked his job, not to mention entire life, by agreeing to fly Hen and Chimney and two more guys he's never even met before through a hurricane to maybe find (the wreckage of) a cruise ship that his old captain was on. He did it because Chimney called him and asked for a favour (also seen in 2x14, Broken) and because he trusts Hen's instincts (evidenced in 2x09, Hen Begins)

Tommy lied through his teeth to his co-worker when he stepped in to save Hen's unsuccessful bullshitting and made fake mouth static at the fire chief pretending the connection is bad before disconnecting the call. If there was nothing wrong with the cruise ship, he would have been fired, or at the very least suspended.

okay, what do we know so far? Tommy is loyal to his friends even if they haven't talked in years, he is dependable and will come through in a crisis.

we also know Tommy is a very skilled and competent pilot (given he's able to operate both the plane in 2x14 and helicopter in 7x03) and he flew said helicopter through a hurricane, landed it on the belly of a capsized ship, rescued the survivors, and flew everyone back to safety. and given the extremely dangerous conditions of the rogue rescue mission, I'd say he's also brave and/or a little bit reckless; when the situation calls for it, at least.

he's also super cool, an opinion shared by multiple characters (Buck, Christopher, and Chimney).

that being said, let's move on to 7x04

Tommy agreed to give Buck a tour of Harbor station, meaning he had to go to work on his day off, and then offered him flying lessons. So he's either super nice or he's interested in the cute guy (i think it's a little bit of both)

Tommy invited Eddie, a guy he barely knows, to a sold out big reunification bout, with ringside tickets that he got from the organiser, who he's apparently friends with, and flew them in a chopper! He's just a super nice dude.

Tommy offered to drive Eddie to the hospital, and talked about The Incident with him, because when he gets to Buck's loft, he says "he [Eddie] feels bad, in fact we both do" and honestly, he had no obligation to do any of that. He could have let Buck drive Eddie since he offered and wiped his hands clean of that mess. But he's a caring and considerate person, further evidenced by the fact that...

Tommy went to Buck's loft before he had to go to work, to talk to him in person and clear the air, saying he didn't want to do it on the phone or in a text. Tommy starts by apologising and stating very clearly that he never meant to come between Buck and Eddie and that neither of them meant to exclude Buck. He also easily reciprocated Buck's vulnerability. I think the loft scene alone does a great job at showing us that Tommy doesn't shy away from confrontation or a difficult conversation, is emotionally mature, values open and honest conversation, and owns up to his flaws and insecurities. (Yeah, I'm trying to be concise. There's meta upon meta about the goddamn loft scene)

He's also a little bit insane because why does hearing that the cute guy maimed his best friend make you want to kiss him. Tommy Kinard will see a red flag and pretend to be colourblind. (-> for tumblr purposes this is a joke)

anyway, moving on, Saturday rolls around...

Tommy noticed that Buck was a little tense, reassured him that no one's looking at them, and sympathised with him. He doesn't judge Buck, like, at all. I don't need to list all the ways Buck made an absolute fool of himself on their very first date. He also paid for the dinner.

Tommy cut the date short (abruptly, because this is a drama show) but before he left, he told Buck he's adorable, but not ready - and this is right after Buck forcefully shoved him back in the closet in front of their mutual friend, and especially after Tommy told him about his own difficult journey coming out of the closet.

Tommy showed up at the café, told Buck he has nothing to apologise for, and explained that he cut the date short because didn't want to pressure Buck.

Tommy asks Buck if he's absolutely sure, about Tommy being his date at his sister's wedding. Then says okay.

more character traits for Tommy Kinard: generous, non-judgmental, sympathetic, patient, and once again, a little bit insane.

night of Chimney's bachelor party/day of Maddie and Chimney's wedding:

Tommy shows up to the bachelor party even though he's on call for work, you know, as a firefighter pilot, and he could have spent this time sleeping or resting in case he gets called... and he does, to a wildfire! Before he goes he promises Buck that he'll try his damndest to make it to the wedding.

Tommy shows up as promised, after spending at least half a day fighting a wildfire? In his turnouts, covered in soot, but he shows up as promised.

I think this shows he is selfless first and foremost because he made time to show up to the (failed) bachelor party and he is honest and keeps his promises. Even if that means bringing a biohazard (himself) to a place full of vulnerable sick people (the hospital). Because, as previously established, he's a little bit insane.

these are the core Tommy episodes of season 7.

as for 7x09 and 7x10:

Tommy tenses up when confronted with his old captain Gerrard - who then subtly throws a slur at his face

Tommy is quick with the sass and will not indulge in his nosey friends' inquisitive questions

Tommy notices Buck's mood and checks in with him - he's caring and attentive

Tommy once again does not hesitate to admit to feeling jealous

Tommy doesn't really talk to his dad

Tommy likens his dad to captain Gerrard

Tommy admits that having Gerrard as his captain did not make him a better person (and okay, sidenote to talk about something that annoys me about this, because Tommy had different captains, including Bobby, while at the 118, and I think s7 canon seriously overestimated how long he worked under Gerrard, but let's say Gerrard was his first captain as a probie and influenced him to a certain extent)

some odd tidbits ~

Tommy has a sarcastic, deadpan sense of humour

Tommy is a goddamn flirt and unbelievably smooth

Tommy came out after he transferred from the 118 to the 217/Harbor Station

Tommy used to be a pilot in the army

Tommy flies for fun on his days off

Tommy plays basketball every other Thursday with Eddie and other first responders

Tommy knows muay thai

Tommy has a car lift and knows his way around an engine

Tommy likes watching half-naked pummel each other

Tommy likes karaoke trivia

Tommy likes craft beer, monster trucks, and the movie 'Love, Actually' (provided canon doesn't forget about this and/or retcons it for some reason)

[dycefic]

Tom Saves The World

Everyone knows that it’s super-heroes who save the world. They fight the aliens, or the monsters, or the bad guys. And mostly, that’s true.

But not always.

I’m a psychic. The thing is, my range isn’t that great. I don’t have much detail more than about 36 hours out, 48 for something really big. I’d had a nebulous sort of bad feeling for about a week before this one finally hit, and it was big. Something very tough and very supernatural was going to come up out of the harbor of Nova Roma, and the death-toll was going to be high. Crazy high.

I did all I could. I told the Unaligned Supers Job Placement Agency, and they put the word out to everyone on both sides of the Line. The Henchman’s Union don’t like natural disasters any more than anyone else, and they’re often quite helpful against eldritch horrors and stuff like that. Things that don’t hire henchmen and ruin the property values.

The trouble was, nobody big was around. The only really big team of heavy hitters on the West Coast were away dealing with some sort of doomsday cult - I never was clear on what that was about - and Guarde and Dog Fox were out of touch and even Mx Frantique was out of town at someone’s wedding. It was going to happen in less than two days and we couldn’t find anyone to help and I was seriously considering calling in some kind of bomb threat or something to get people away from the docks, at least.

And then, about eighteen hours out, it just… went away.

Which never, ever happens.

My powers might be short range, but they’re reliable. I don’t get stuff wrong, and I hadn’t been able to find any way to prevent what was going to happen, or even been able to identify anyone who could. But someone did. Someone had done something to stop the threat, something that happened literally while I was opening my car door. When I reached for the handle, thousands of people were going to die. By the time the door was open, there was no threat at all.

At first I thought it must have been a ranged thing. Like, whatever I’d been seeing (all those teeth, I saw them in nightmares for months after) had been distracted by something tasty on its way here and gotten off track, that it’d come up somewhere up or down the coast. My range isn’t that big, either. Anything outside about thirty miles might as well be on Mars for all I know about it. So we kept a watch out, and warned the chapters of the Union and the Agency in other cities.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all. I couldn’t explain it, and I was really unpopular for a while. Supers do NOT like people who cry wolf. There’s enough freaky shit we have to deal with without someone panicking everyone with a dire prophecy that fizzles out.

Thank all the gods that Tunny showed up. Nobody’s really sure what Tunny actually is - sentient fish creature, some kind of really mutated human, an alien, or what. She changes her story a lot. But she’s pretty friendly, especially for a twenty-foot-long horror-movie-mermaid-thing with four arms, so when she came into harbor to pick up some supplies a guy from the Agency went out to tell her what I’d seen. I’d gotten a wharf and dock number, so she went down to check.

I don’t think anyone had ever seen Tunny scared before. Her English wasn’t good enough to really explain what she’d found hibernating down there, but it was something very old and very powerful and very dangerous, and if it’d been woken up my vision would just have been the start of the crisis.

She rounded up a bunch of whales to help her move it, once she was sure it hadn’t been agitated and wasn’t likely to rouse if moved carefully. They towed it out before dawn, not wanting to scare the civilians, and when I saw the footage from the helicopter the Union sent up, when I saw how big the swell was, how many whales were pulling, I swear I nearly crapped myself. No wonder I’d been getting hints a week in advance. Somehow we dumbass humans had built a whole fucking city almost on top of some kind of Ancient Old… THING, and eroded the sea-bottom until it was exposed, and if someone hadn’t done whatever it was we’d all have been dead long before Tunny arrived. And not just all as in ‘all of Nova Roma’, it could have taken out half of the continent... or all of it.

It took me years to find out what happened. YEARS. It turned into a kind of hobby, tracking everything that might possibly have come into contact with Wharf 38 on that particular day.  

And what I found, eventually, was a city employee named Thomas Briggs.

I’d found out early on that 38 wasn’t in good repair. Not that bad, but not great. It was old, things were getting a bit saggy in a few places, but there’d been no sign that anything was likely to fall off on the day. It had sat there for a couple of years after the crisis that never happened,, doing its job without problems then been rebuilt without any drama at all.

Entirely, completely, and totally because of Thomas Briggs.

The story, when I finally pieced it together, went like this.

There’d been some project or other to build some sort of high-budget science project over on the other side of the harbor, hanging it off’ve Pier 8, the furthest out on that side. Something about tracking sea-life or ships or something. My conversational English is near perfect, I’ve been here for years, but I don’t speak science nerd in ANY language. It’d all been approved, some university was covering most of the cost, it was all gonna be fine. And it was gonna be over on 8 because that side of the harbor is the shallow end. It’s where the sailboats go. All the big stuff that would block visual sensors and deafen the thing with engine noise was over in the thirties, in the real deep water.

They were almost ready to install the thing when a bunch of rich dudes suddenly got their panties in a bunch over having a big sciency tower thing ruining the view from their yachts, and tried to get it moved.

To, and I’m sure you guessed this, Wharf 38.

Which was completely insane. It wouldn’t be able to do its job over there, it’d be way more in the way, and (although they couldn’t have known it) the installation would definitely have woken up the Thing sleeping by the wharf and we all would have died. But rich dudes with yachts don’t care about that stuff. They’d bitched out and bribed up their friends on the city council, and those friends had done their thing, and the scientists had been left in the dark, and it’d almost gone through. They’d figured to install it right away, so that when the science guys found out it’d be too late and they’d either have to pay a lot to move it or just use it where it was.

Enter Thomas Briggs.

Mr Briggs, Tom to his friends, didn’t give a crap about the yachts or the science. He was a senior money guy for the commercial wharfs, the one who figured out things like how much money they’d take in in a quarter, and what the repair budget should be, stuff like that. He found out about this thing two days before the disaster would have happened, and sat down and did the math.

Then he sent out an email to the guys trying to push this through, and he ripped into them like they’d threatened to knife his mother. I got my hands on that email, and I didn’t understand a lot of it any more than the council guys would have. It was ALL numbers. But at the top he wrote it out in plain English. Pier 8 was new, and rated to handle the weight of the thingy. Wharf 38 was going to be scrapped in a few years, and it was NOT rated for that kind of structure. Pier 8 had plenty of room around it. Wharf 38 was already a tight fit for the big commercial ships, and adding a structure sticking out on one side would block off at least half of the wharf to those ships completely.

Bottom line, putting the thing on Wharf 38 would cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more per year than putting it on 8, AND the city would have to eat the cost if 38 collapsed under it which it could easily do, AND the city would have to pay to move it in a couple of years anyway when 38 was due to be rebuilt.

And he cc-ed every important person he had an email address for, including the mayor, the anti-corruption people, and several reporters.

He must have sent that email right when I was opening my car door.

The whole plan collapsed right there, and some people got fired. There was no news story because the whole plan got killed before the reporters even got to the right office. The installation was started on Wharf 8 a few weeks later and I never connected it to a commercial wharf on the other side of the harbor.

One email, and a man who I never could have located in time, a man who had no powers at all, a man who was just conscientiously doing his job looking after the city’s money saved the city, and the continent, and maybe even the world.

Who could have predicted that? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

I can’t deny that I went home and got drunk off my ass that night. Just thinking about how close that had been made my hands shake. One man. One honest man who’d done the math.

I put the word out, once the hangover wore off. What had happened. That Thomas Briggs was the reason we were all alive and everyone better make his life real nice from now on, because he’d done what none of us could do and nobody but the supers would ever even know it.

He’s got a lot of luck coming to him, I can tell you. We don’t forget debts like that.

And I knew that’d freak him out, because honest men don’t like it when people start doing them a lot of favors for no apparent reason, so I tracked him down at the little bar where he likes to have a quiet beer on Friday nights before he goes home. Hell, I was the one who’d gone through it all, back then. I should get to tell him.

I sat down beside him at the bar and looked at him. I saw a thin, small, balding man who looked like he worried too much and didn’t get enough sleep, with lines around his eyes. Yeah, he looked like a man who’d do the math. “Thomas Briggs?”

He blinked at me through his glasses. “Yes? Do I know you?”

“No, you don’t. My name’s Barkhado Omar, and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” I offered him my hand and he shook it, still looking confused. Which was fair, ‘cause I doubt a lot of seven foot tall Somali women came up to him in bars even when he was young. He’s got to be close to retirement now.

He frowned. “Looking for me? Why?”

I smiled at him. “Tom, let me buy you a drink and tell you about the day you saved the world.”

It’s usually us who save the city, or the world. We have all the intel, all the advantages, all the powers.

But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s someone like Tom Briggs, doing the right thing at the right time and never knowing that he changed the course of history.

Wild, huh?

--

This story is a direct result of me and my ex chatting about how different the entire Marvel Universe would have been if Jean’s first ‘resurrection’ - being found in a life pod under a wharf, IIRC - had happened at like... any other time. Earlier. Later. It would have changed SO MUCH.

And we speculated about how it could happen, how someone just puttering around in middle management might have unknowingly saved countless lives, prevented Madelyne’s corruption, the legacy virus, all of it, just by postponing that particular set of repairs a bit longer.... and I couldn’t resist writing a version of the story in which Tom does, in fact, save the world.

[eddiegettingshot]

no because like his parents assigned him sonhusbandfather when he was just a little boy. growing up was out of his hands. he liked a girl and then she got teenage pregnant and what the fuck do you do about that really. he made his choices as a husband and they were wrong. he decided to go to war because what the fuck else is there except war and ended up shot and broken and with a medal for pulling people out of a helicopter who all died anyway. he asked for time and his wife abandoned him and his child for three years. he worked himself to the bone and his parents thought he was a failure regardless. his wife came back and then he made a choice that didn't matter because she wanted a divorce and then she died in a freak accident. he tried helping his best friend only for him to face a literal tsunami with his child who ended up deeply traumatized in a way he could do nothing about. his best friend filed a lawsuit so they couldn't even talk about it or anything else. he chose to fight and almost killed a man. he went down into that well to save a child and lightning struck at exactly the wrong moment. he chose to try to date again and couldn't love her. he got shot in broad daylight because he happened to be there in uniform. his child ended up even more traumatized so he chose to leave his purpose and his calling behind but that wasn't right either. his best friend got struck by lightning and literally died. he chose to be friends with some guy and his best friend went bonkers. he chose to go to therapy but ended up in a situation the dsm could not have possibly accounted for when he saw his dead wife's lookalike. he chose to end the affair with her but she got fucking bangs and his son walked in even after he did the right thing. his son is rightfully angry at him so he chose to let him go except he can't stop his own parents from keeping the wound open instead of letting it heal. his beloved captain and mentor had a parallel breakdown and now he and his friends are stuck with some other guy who sucks and he can't do anything about it. and there was a fucking beenado as well. Seriously who is getting through all of this except for eddie diaz, who smiles and claps and cheers when he is forced to bear the cross eternally

[natalievoncatte]

2. Courage

Her breath came in fits and starts as Kara knelt on the floor of her apartment. She told herself it wasn’t real, that it wasn’t permanent, that Mxyzptlk was creating illusions, but it felt real. It felt more real than the wood beneath her palms. She still gasped as if cold hard fingers closed around her throat and another woman’s broken heart bathed her in a murdering light. She was sure that if she looked over at the stand up mirror she’d see sickly green lines slicing through her skin, but when she looked that was nothing.

“Well,” said Mxyzptlk, “that was a close scrape, then. Shall we have another go? Perhaps a bit more carefully worded this time.”

Kara looked up, red sun fury boiling in her eyes.

“Get out.”

“Kara, perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Get out,” Kara snarled, her voice chasing dust from the ceiling thin streamers. “Your gifts are poison. And stay away from Lena, do you hear me?”

He threw up his hands. “Fine then, fine then, I’ll go, but if you ever need me… I still owe you a favor.”

“Out!” Kara raged.

After he vanished, Alex stumbled back into the room, looking at Kara with shock and alarm. She glanced at J’onn, who formed a fight frown and said, “Kara, when you’re ready, if you want to talk, we can talk.”

Kara nodded with a dismissive wave. The door closed a moment later and Kara glanced over to see Alex still standing there.

“Sis?” she asked, her voice small.

Kara swallowed.

“What did he do?”

“He cheated,” Kara snapped. “He twisted things. He said he would help me fix things with Lena but made sure it wouldn’t work. He… it was hell, Alex, he showed me hell. Everyone kept dying. You, my friends, her. Every choice I made set off some… some dick genie bullshit that made all my wishes go wrong. The last one almost got me killed. For real. I was so stupid.”

“What did you ask for?”

“I asked him to make so we never met so she could be happy without me, and instead she died in the helicopter attack and her mother brought her back as Metallo to kill me.”

Alex blinked. “Jesus,” she whispered.

Kara began to shake, hugging herself. As the righteous fury faded, the towering grief swept in to take its place, a freezing wind following the setting of a tyrant sun. She crumpled, falling back into the couch.

Alex was there in an instant, wrapping Kara in a protective hug as she began to sob.

“What did he want to show me? That it wasn’t going to ever work? That we were just doomed from the start?”

Alex tensed, sucking in a sharp breath.

“He came to you and said he’d fix your friendship?”

“No, he said he’s grant me one gift, and that’s what I asked for.”

Alex went slack for a brief moment. When Kara turned to look at her, there was an expression of absolute shock on her face.

“You… you didn’t ask for your parents. Or to save Krypton. You asked for Lena.”

“Yeah,” Kara sniffed, “why?”

Alex looked thunderstruck. Kara had seen this expression before, when her sister had grasped something difficult or complex. It was the look of an epiphany, a realization.

“I don’t think he was trying to tell you there was never a chance,” Alex said, softly. “Maybe he wasn’t trying to tell you anything at all. Maybe the only thing that matters is what you took from it.”

“All it took from it is that it’s over,” Kara whimpered. “It’s all over. I never had a chance.”

Alex rubbed her back for a while. She seemed conflicted, opening her mouth to speak several times before closing it again.

“Why Lena? Why does she matter so much to you?”

Kara choked back and swallowed, hard. “She was my best friend before I ruined us. She made me feel like a whole person, and she loved me, she loved Kara in a way that nobody ever has. I felt this peace with her, and she made me so happy and contented when I was with her protected her. I just want another five minutes of that feeling.”

Alex was quiet again.

“You could have had Krypton back, or your parents, or… or Jeremiah… and you picked Lena.”

Kara heard the way her voice hitched and tensed, a cold knife running down her spine.

“Alex I’m sorry, I didn’t think, I was so stupid…”

“No,” Alex smoothed her hair, “no, kiddo. Shhh, it’s okay. I understand.”

There was an unspoken even if you don’t.

“What are you trying to say?”

Alex swallowed hard, tensing.

“I think you need to hear this, Kara, and you might have to hear it from me. Buying CatCo was not a friendly gesture. One does not drop almost a billion dollars to chitchat and gossip with a buddy. Filling your office with flowers was not a simple thank you, and Lena did not take learning about your identity the way a close friend would. At all.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you do, you just don’t want to see it because of what it means.”

“What?”

“Kara,” said Alex, “one does not burn their one wish on another person’s happiness unless they deeply care about that person. I don’t think I would have made a wish like that for Maggie.”

Kara’s head snapped up, almost dangerously fast. She stared straight ahead, past Alex, an electric fusion of terror and elation smashing together inside her like water on rocks. How could she be so blind?

“You think I’m in love with Lena.”

Alex nodded.

“Don’t think…”

“Office full of flowers,” said Alex.

Kara bolted to her feet, gently disentangling from her sister, and headed for the door.

“Kara?!” Alex demanded. “Please don’t do something you’ll regret.”

Kara paused at the door.

“I already did.”

When she touched down on the balcony, Lena was at her table in her kitchen, staring at a glass of scotch. The change in her heart rate and slight shift in her posture told Kara that she knew she was there.

Kara waited.

Lena rose, swallowed the last of her drink in a dramatic flourish, and stalked to the door. She swept it open and stood on the threshold, leaning against the frame to bar Kara’s way.

“Make it quick, I’m not in the mood.”

“I’m sorry,” Kara began.

“Not this again,” Lena sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Listen to me, God damn it,” Kara snapped.

Lena’s eyes widened at the profanity, and she didn’t move. She didn’t let Kara in.

She didn’t close the door, either.

“I’m listening.”

Kara swept her hands through her hair. She didn’t know where to start, so she just blurted it out.

“A fifth dimensional imp just gave me a chance to change history any way I wanted. Any way I wanted.”

“And this was the best that you could do?” Lena said, arching her eyebrow. She seemed so sharp and yet so lost and tired, the freighted eyes of a lonely girl hiding within her austere, cold beauty.

Eyes that Kara saw as a mirror of her own.

“All of the things I tried turned into monkey’s paw bullshit,” said Kara. “It was never going to work because getting a do-over was the coward’s way out. I can’t fix this unless I admit what I’ve done.”

“Oh, here we go,” said Lena. “Not the ‘I was only trying to protect you’, speech again.”

“You killed your brother for me and I was too cowardly to tell you my real name,” said Kara.

Lena’s face fell.

“I was too cowardly to tell you the truth. I was too scared that I might lose you. That wasn’t the worst part. I didn’t give you the faith that you put in me. I told myself over and over that you were the most important person in my life, and you know what? You are. I had a chance at anything, and I didn’t pick my birth family or my foster father or my culture or my entire planet. I picked you.”

Lena stared at her, visibly stunned.

“You matter more to me than anyone. If it was you or the chemicals I would have saved you and fuck the reservoir. If it was you or the city it would be you. If it was anyone or anything it would be you. Always you. But I didn’t treat you like that. I treated you like a threat, like spending to be scared of, and I took from you without giving, and I’m sorry.”

Standing up, Lena hugged herself, gaze locked with Kara’s.

“What do you want?”

“I want to fix it.”

“How?”

“We can fix it, together. I know you want to. You have a good heart, full of kindness. I just want to hold it in my palms and shelter and protect it and care for you always. I want it more than I want air to breath. If you want to fix and I want to fix it we can find a way. Not right now, not in five minutes, maybe not for years, but I will do anything to bring you back, and I don’t care what you do, I will never treat you like a villain.”

Lena licked her lips and looked away. Hot tears glittered on her cheeks as she pressed her eyelids shut and Kara ached with the pain of her revelation.

“If you don’t want to fix things with me, it’s okay. Just don’t do what you’re planning to do. Don’t hurt anyone, even with good intentions. Don’t let yourself become something you’re not because I didn’t have the courage to help you be all that you are.”

“Get off my balcony,” Lena choked out. “Go. Now, get away!”

Kara stumbled back as if struck, the force of those words crashing into her chest like a hammer, and she didn’t breath as she took off, careful to ascend slowly until she gained enough height.

Then she went hypersonic, her speed dragging out her shriek of rage and anguish behind her, Kara outrunning it even as she couldn’t outrun the fury and grief choking her chest. She flew and flew, past the clouds, flew as the air thinned, blasted into the very embrace of space until the air was gone and no one would ever hear her scream again.

She could hold her breath, she thought. Hold it for hours until she passed out and by the time her orbit decayed she’d be gone and her empty shell could tumble somewhere into the ocean and be forgotten.

A tiny voice whispered, you must live, Kara, so that we are not forgotten.

Kara let herself fall. She tumbled through the air, burning a crimson wake as she made reentry, slowing somewhere over the Pacific.

There was no hurry to get home. When she descended from her roof and walked down the stairs to her loft, she stumbled. There was not one heartbeat in her home, but two.

In a daze, she stumbled through the door and froze. Lena was sitting across from Alex, and for a wonder, Alex wasn’t trying to arrest or shoot her. They both had a beer in front of them and looked to be in mid conversation when Kara walked in.

On the table between them was Myriad. It looked so small, so inconsequential, this ultimate weapon built by her people to enslave their subjects.

Alex rose swiftly. “I’m going to get going. You two clearly have a lot to discuss.” She turned to Lena. “Hurt my sister like that again and next time I’ll fire the orbital fusion cannon at you.”

Lena glared, but said nothing.

Kara slowly pulled out a chair and sat down. Tentatively , she reached across and placed her hand on it, to pull it in. She froze as Lena’s hand settled on hers, fingers curling around Kara’s wrist.

“I’m sorry, too,” Lena offered, in a harsh whisper. “I’m sorry, Kara. I want to try, too.”

For the first time that night, Kara smiled.

It was not an easy or quick thing. A monument is not built in a day and things that last a lifetime are not easily forged. It took months, then years, for the trust to be rebuilt, its foundations made of bricks like lunches and sister night invitations, quiet shared meals and tentative questions that had already been answered, but in the end a wall rose, taller and stronger than ever before. Not a barrier that stood between them but a fortress that encircled and endured, made of stolen kisses and frantic nights and a pair of matching bracelets.

[chariot-to-somewhere]

Romano so obviously hitting in Elizabeth and her obvious "ew fuck no" reaction 🤣

I know cordano is a popular ship but gods I can't stand it

[cjlouwho]

can you do a fic based on the idea that athena and tommy will team up to fly the plane to safety? idk if it doesn't really happen in the show, I'd love a fic version!

disclaimer: I know nothing about planes, nor do I pretend to. we're all just going to smile and nod as we read through this, just like we do when we watch 911. the idea for this fic comes from @mannafromtevan's theory, which is incredible and I hope is true! Also, while looking for the link to this theory, I saw where @bibuckkinard already wrote a fic based on this theory as well. I haven't read it yet, but everything they write is incredible and will definitely be better than this. Anyway, enjoy!

A small aircraft hit the plane. Co-pilot was ejected. The pilot enabled autopilot, but she's unconscious. There's no one to fly the plane!

That was the call that Athena had with air traffic control just after the incident. It had sent more than half of LA's emergency personnel to the nearest airport, the 217 taking lead on the operation.

Everyone was hovered around, listening as Tommy spoke to Athena and tried to get as much information as he could in what little amount of time they had.

“And you said a window was blown out?” Tommy asked.

“Yes. A window and then some.”

“Wide enough for a person to fit through?”

“The co-pilot did.”

Tommy was quiet for a moment. Long enough for Athena to come back over the radio. “Tommy? Are you still there?”

“I'm here, Athena. I'm thinking. Just hang on a sec.”

“Oh, sure,” she answered, the sarcasm in her tone was clear. “I've got nowhere else to be.”

Jameson, a pilot who'd been working with Tommy for nearly five years now, stared at him. He knew that face. “You have an idea.” It wasn't a question.

“Yeah, I do.”

“How stupid is it?”

“It has potential.”

“To work?”

Tommy shook his head. “To be the dumbest thing I've ever done.”

*****

“You cannot be serious right now!” Buck exclaimed as Tommy strapped on his gear. The rest of the crew was working on the helicopter behind him, getting it ready to go as quickly as possible. Hen, Chim, and Eddie were there too, standing back while Tommy and Buck spoke.

“It's the best plan we're gonna get. It's the only plan we're gonna get.”

“It's not even a plan! It's a death sentence.”

“Not if I succeed it's not.”

“Tommy-”

“We've done crazier things, Evan. Like flying through a hurricane.”

“Intermittent showers,” Buck corrected. “And I'd say repelling from a helicopter and into a torn apart jet to try and land the thing when half the controls aren't working is a little crazier than flying through bad weather!”

Tommy placed his hands on Buck's shoulders. “Breathe, Evan. The rescue mission was fully approved by all proper authorities.”

“You sure you didn't fake mouth static your way into approval?”

Tommy gave him a look. “There might've been a few omissions. I cannot confirm or deny that though.”

“Tommy.”

“Hey, what's our motto?” he said, looking past Buck and pointing to the rest of the 118.

“Who cares?!” They chanted.

“Me!” Buck exclaimed. “I care!” He followed behind Tommy as he headed for the chopper. “Tommy, please don't-”

Tommy turned on his heels, nearly running straight into Buck as he did so. “Evan,” he started, his voice calm and assured, “If you knew how to fly, you'd already be up there.”

“But-”

“Am I wrong?”

Buck pursed his lips, eying Tommy closely before replying. “No.”

“I've gotta go. I will do my best to make it back to you, Evan. I promise that.”

That was it for Buck. He didn't care who was around. He tugged Tommy by his gear, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Be safe.”

Tommy nodded, giving Buck's hand a squeeze before running to the helicopter. Buck took a deep breath, holding back his tears as he watched them take off.

*****

It took time, and a lot of precision, for Tommy to finally reach the opening of the plane. There were a few close calls along the way, but once Athena had ahold of his legs, he allowed himself to relax a little.

“Good to see you, Athena,” Tommy said with a smile once he had successfully made it inside the plane.

“I'm not sure if good is the correct word to be using right now,” Athena replied. “But I am glad you're here.”

“Happy to be here.” Tommy disconnected himself from all the wiring he was attached to, guiding it back out of the hole so the helicopter could return to base.

Athena moved some debris out of the way, making room for Tommy to sit in pilot's seat. There were lights flashing everywhere, some repetitive beeping from alarms, not to mention the giant hole that was allowing wind to whip through the cockpit.

“What do you think?” Athena asked as he pressed some buttons, his face scrunched up tight.

He flipped a switch on one of the control panels, which caused the entire thing to fall off the dash.

“Well, that's not helpful,” he said, tossing it aside. “So, got any plans this weekend?”

She glared over at him. “Wasn't really thinking that far ahead.”

“I was thinking about taking Evan for a helicopter tour around the city... May be in bad taste now though.”

Athena sat beside him, a light sheen of sweat across her forehead. “Tommy, give it to me straight here. How screwed are we?”

He shrugged, keeping his focus on the controls that were still connected to the plane. “You believe in God?”

“I do.”

“Mind praying for us both then?”

“That bad?”

Before Tommy could respond, his captain's voice was coming over the radio in his helmet. “Give me a rundown, Kinard. What's going on?”

Athena listened as Tommy went through a (very long) list of everything wrong with the plane. He went over controls that were damaged, and the very few that weren't. She heard something about autopilot still working well, and something else about a manual landing, but most of it made no sense to her.

“I'm gonna need you to repeat all of that,” Athena said once he was finished, “but in a way I'll actually understand.”

He glanced over at her briefly, the plane jumping with sudden turbulence. Athena grabbed onto the the broken panel in front of her and Tommy focused his eyes back on the controls. “We're running low on fuel. We're gonna have to try to land after the next turn, and we'll end up dropping pretty fast. Basically, I can land us manually, but I can't promise the breaks will work.”

“That seems like a pretty important part of landing,” she deadpanned.

“I'd definitely say it's a favorite of mine.”

Athena took a deep breath before asking her next question. “And if the breaks don't work? What happens then?”

“There's a very high chance this thing will blow up if we can't stop by the end of the runway.”

“Oh dear God.”

“There is good news though.”

“Hm.” She eyed him skeptically. “What's that?”

“We won't feel a thing.”

“Oh, well, that's a relief. Don't know what I was ever worried about in the first place,” she replied sarcastically. “How much time do we have before you land her?”

“About ten minutes. Intercom system is out, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can you go make sure everyone has their seatbelts fastened?”

Athena headed back to the passengers. Tommy took the moment alone to breathe deeply and steal himself for whatever was about to happen. Part of being a pilot required confidence and, even if he didn't have much of it at the moment, he knew how to play the part.

Fake it til you make it.

He'd done that a lot over the years. It worked in a professional sense, not so much in a personal one.

A couple minutes later, Athena returned. “All buckled in,” she informed him as she went to sit in the co-pilot's seat again.

“It's actually probably better if you sit in the jump seat behind me,” Tommy said.

“Why? So when we explode my arm doesn't knock you upside the head for getting me killed? Nah, I'm good here.”

Tommy smirked. Even after working with Athena on and off for over twenty years, he'd never spent much time with her. The few dinners he and Evan had with her and Bobby didn't give them much time to banter back and forth. He'd have to make sure and change that once they were on solid ground. “Suit yourself.”

“Can I borrow your helmet for a second?” she asked.

“Sure.” He handed it over and she put it on, clearing her throat.

“Can I speak to Hen Wilson from the 118, please?” she asked over the radio.

A few seconds later, Hen was on the line. “I'm here, Athena. You're on an open channel.”

“Hen, Bobby isn't at the airport, is he?”

“No. He's on his way, but he hasn't made it yet. You want me to put him on with you?”

“No, no!” Athena answered quickly. “No. What I need to say, I can say to you.”

Tommy focused on keeping the plane steady while Athena spoke. It felt wrong to listen in to something as personal as a possible goodbye.

He took the time to think about Evan. The short but wonderful time he'd had with him over the past few months. They'd been the best of his life.

He briefly wondered if he should tell Evan that before he attempted to land, but he decided against it. Evan wouldn't need those thoughts running through his head for the rest of his life if they didn't make it out of this.

“Hey,” Athena's voice brought him out of his thoughts. She nudged his shoulder with the helmet. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

Tommy paused before taking the helmet back. “Go for Kinard.”

“Kinard, this is Buckley of the 118.” Tommy smiled at the sound of Evan's voice, even though he could hear it breaking ever so slightly.

“I hear you, Buckley.”

“I just, um, I wanted you to, um. Tommy.” He cleared his throat. “You've got this, okay? We're all down here waiting. N- Not a single doubt.”

“Good to know. No doubts up here either.”

He ignored the raised eyebrow look from Athena.

“Good. Um, Tommy?”

“Yeah, Evan?”

“I love you.” The words escaped him quickly, but with a confidence that wasn't there before.

Tommy smiled, his heart fluttering. He didn't realize he hadn't spoken until Evan's voice came over the radio again.

“T- Tommy?”

Tommy shook his head, blinking to rid himself of the tears in his eyes. “Chschschsch,” he said, bringing back his renowned fake mouth static, thank you very much. Athena stared over at him in confusion. “Sorry, Buckley, you're cutting out on me. You'll have to repeat that last sentence when I'm on the ground, okay?”

“Yeah,” Evan answered, and Tommy was sure there was a faint smile in his voice. “Yeah, o- okay.”

*****

About a minute later, Tommy was in position and ready to land. He got in contact with everyone on the ground, letting them know where and when he'd be landing. They were all getting into position near the runway, ready to help no matter the outcome.

“You ready?” Tommy asked as Athena tightened her seatbelt.

“Let's land this bastard.”

“Coming in for a landing.”

The closer they got to the ground, the shakier things got. Tommy held tightly onto the controls, trying to ignore the burning in his eyes from all the wind coming in through the hole.

They dropped rapidly, just as he expected they would. Athena kept quiet, and Tommy wondered if she was praying.

A part of him hoped she was.

As the runway got closer and closer into view, Tommy could feel every muscle in his body tightening. “Brace yourself,” he said a few seconds before they hit the ground with a thud.

Screams could be heard coming from the passengers, many of them crying or calling out to whatever god they believed in.

“We're going too fast.” Athena watched as they flew past all the emergency vehicles waiting for them.

“We're okay,” Tommy replied. Fake it til you make it.

They started to slow down, but the end of the runway was drawing near and it was becoming clear they would not be able to stop in time.

“Tommy.”

“We're okay,” he repeated, although it sounded more like a demand.

Athena could see the details of the signs at the end of the runway. “Tommy!”

Suddenly, Tommy turned the plane to loop around to the next runway. As he did, the wing hit a sign that flung backwards, eliciting more yells from the passengers.

The plan, or lack thereof, seemed to work. The plane slowed until it came to a stop.

They were alive.

They were actually alive.

Before he even had time to let it fully sink in, Athena was next to him, wrapping him in an unexpected, but very needed, hug.

“You might be clinically insane,” she said, both of them laughing from all the adrenaline coursing through their bodies. “But I'm so damn glad you are.”

“Why don't we get everyone off this plane?” he asked. “Then go see our guys.”

“I like the sound of that.”

*****

Athena and Tommy made sure they were the last ones off the plane. Athena spotted Bobby first. He had apparently arrived just before the landing and saw the whole thing. Tommy watched them reunite as his eyes darted around looking for his own person.

“It's been decided that I have the coolest, most badass boyfriend in the entire world,” a voice said from behind him.

Tommy whipped around to Evan standing there, arms already open wide, a bright smile on his face. Tommy practically fell into him. They held onto one another so tight that Tommy could have sworn they were melding into one.

“I was so worried,” Buck breathed out, his face pressed into Tommy's neck.

“I thought you had no doubts?” Tommy's voice was muffled against Buck's turnouts. He made no effort to move.

“Like you believed that for a second.”

After holding onto each other a little longer, Tommy pulled back just enough to look Buck in the eyes. “If I remember correctly, you were in the middle of telling me something when my radio started to go out,” he said with a smirk on his face.

Buck brought his hands to Tommy's face, his thumbs stroking Tommy's cheeks. “I love you, Tommy,” he said, and that confidence was back in his voice. “I really, really love you.”

“I love you too, Evan.” He pulled Buck in for a kiss, deep and passionate and filled with all the love they'd been keeping to themselves for the last few months.

The sound of a throat clearing had them, reluctantly, separating from one another. Bobby and Athena were walking up behind them, smiles on both of their faces.

“Athena!” Buck exclaimed, immediately going to her for a hug. “Are you okay?”

“All good,” she answered, “thanks to your man.”

“Thank you, Tommy,” Bobby said, bypassing a handshake and going in for a hug. “You saved a lot of lives tonight.”

He took a deep breath. “All part of the job, right?”

“I think you went far above and beyond the job tonight,” Bobby replied. "Probably have another medal in your future."

Buck's proudly returned to Tommy's side, their arms wrapping around each other's waist.

“You've got a good one here, Buck,” Athena said, patting Tommy on the shoulder. “You should keep him.”

Buck smiled, leaning in for another kiss. “That's the plan.”

[basketonthedoorstepofthefbi]

Spencer Reid x Read fic. Reid and Reader are friends, like best friends. Reader is always offering Reid donuts and listening to his fun facts and info dumps. It's one of those, they both like each other, but also are convinced the other doesn't like them.

Spencer is taking care of a slightly drunk reader whose grandmother called and asked why they're not engaged when they're younger sibling is married and expecting a child. At some point Spencer makes his ever classic comment about how it's safer to kiss and drunk reader, before being able to think, kisses Spencer. I hope that made sense.

OOPS I DID EXACTLY THAT

Safer to Kiss (Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader

Word Count: 2899

Warnings: Mentions of food, drinking alcohol, mild cursing, outdated expectations of women, and lots of pining

A/N: Hi I wrote this in 2 hours and was extremely entertained, please enjoy and if you send me a fic request I'll probably do it bc this is my hyperfixation hobby right now and very much keeping the demons at bay xD @bxm-1012 thank you for dropping by my inbox! I am VERY tempted to make a part 2 of this, I hope you enjoy! c:

-----

The whole expiration date thing that women faced was, in your humble opinion, complete and utter bullshit. Here you were, slowly approaching thirty (definitely still told people you were twenty-five, when, in fact, you were actually twenty-eight), and the biological clock was ticking. No, you didn’t want kids. Not right now, anyway. Not when you were only two years into your career as a profiler for the FBI’s prestigious Behavioral Analysis Unit. Not when you still had tons of things to check off your bucket list - go to Europe, visit an independent bookstore in every state, pilot a helicopter. 

And you didn’t buy into that whole ‘once a woman hits thirty, her stock plummets’ crap. Not usually, anyway. 

But Nan’s phone calls always left you questioning your existence. 

Back home in Ohio, your little sister, Kendra, had just announced her pregnancy. Three years younger than you (ironically, the age you told everyone you were), and married to a power plant manager, Kendra was living the dream of a woman from the 1950s. You tried your best not to look down on it, to wish for more for her - but Kendra was happy. She’d always wanted to be a mother, and you couldn’t imagine anyone better suited for the role. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be a wife and a mother, to devoting one’s life to it. You reminded yourself of that every time you spoke to Kendra. You especially reminded yourself of it every time you spoke to Nan. 

That sympathetic tone your grandmother used when she said, “Oh, Button, you’ll find someone eventually, and you’ll be just as happy as Kenny” was like nails on a chalkboard. You resisted the urge to gag into your speakerphone and simultaneously rip your grandmother a new one. You wanted so badly to explain to her that you were perfectly fulfilled with your life. 

You helped lock up bad guys on a weekly basis, you wanted to remind Nan. Your brain was one of few that had been chosen for a task force that caught criminals based on their behavior. It was amazing, working for the BAU, bouncing ideas off of your colleagues, finding a family within this small group of people that spent more than forty hours a week together. 

Nan didn’t see it that way. She wanted you to be just like Kendra. She wanted you to have that white picket fence in the suburbs, with a broad-shouldered husband and two little tykes running at your feet. Domestic bliss just wasn’t in the cards for you, you’d decided. And that was okay.

You were still reeling from your conversation with Nan the night before when you walked in to work on Monday morning. It was Derek who caught the raging RBF first. “Woah, pretty girl. Pump. Your. Brakes.” He said, halting you just as you entered the BAU’s bullpen, holding a hand up to stop you. 

“Good morning to you, too, Derek,” You flashed him a phony grin, and he rolled his eyes. 

“And you’re grumpy this morning… why, exactly?” Derek asked, turning to walk beside you, essentially escorting you to your desk. 

“Because I’m allowed to be?” You proffered, shrugging your shoulders, not really wanting to talk about it with him. You loved Derek - hell, you loved all your coworkers - but he was not the person you wanted to go to with these thoughts. You didn’t really want to talk to anyone about it, actually. You just wanted to ride the cranky train until it came to a complete stop. 

Emily was returning from the kitchenette with a fresh mug of coffee and decided that the conversation concerned her as well. “What’s going on?” she asked. 

“Y/L/N’s wearing her cranky pants this morning,” Derek filled her in. 

“Oh, those so don’t match your blouse, Y/N,” Emily teased, winking at you with a smirk before looking at Derek. “Cut her some slack. No one likes Mondays.” Derek held up his palms defensively. “Alright, alright. Forgive me for being a concerned citizen.” 

“It’s appreciated,” You told Derek genuinely before setting your bag down at your desk. “But unnecessary.” 

It wasn’t until later in the morning, around ten, that anyone bothered you about your obvious bad mood again. This time it was Spencer, the one person you couldn’t possibly be annoyed with. He rolled on his desk chair around the partition that separated your workspaces, holding his hand out expectantly, like he usually did this time of day. 

Without speaking, you opened the bottom drawer of your desk and pulled out the white bag of mini powdered donuts that you always kept in stock. They were your guilty pleasure snack, and one of the first things you and Spencer bonded over when you started at the BAU two years ago. That, and the fact that you were the closest agents in age, was how you got along so well so quickly. Over several cases, varying in degrees of intensity, you and Spencer became really great friends. Best friends, actually. 

There wasn’t anyone else in your life that you trusted more than Spencer Reid. 

You opened the bag of powdered donuts and shook one haphazardly into Spencer’s palm, then grabbed one for yourself. Silently, you cheers-ed your donuts together, and ate them simultaneously, making weird-but-comfortable eye contact as you did. 

“Derek says you’re in a bad mood today,” Spencer pointed out with a teasing smirk on his face. A smirk, and white sugar blanketing his upper lip.

“Derek’s full of shit,” you grinned after swallowing your snack, the smile on your face totally facetious. “I’m extremely happy.” 

“I can tell,” Spencer snickered as you set the powdered donuts back in your snack drawer, closing it with a clank. You watched as he brought both of his legs up into his desk chair, crossing them like a kindergartner. 

The action made your stomach flutter. You’d felt strongly about Spencer for a really long time, probably a year and half, if you had to try and pinpoint it. But there was no use in going down that road with him. For one thing, he was your best friend, and you didn’t want to risk flushing the best relationship in your life down the toilet. For another thing, you knew it was one hundred percent impossible that he could feel the same way. 

“What’d you do this weekend?” Spencer asked, and you could tell by the question that he was trying to discover the source of your poor attitude. 

“Stayed home, caught up on chores,” You said, crossing your knees and leaning back in your seat, your expression telling him that you knew exactly what he was doing. As much fun as playing mind games with Spencer was, you decided to throw him a bone. “Spoke to my grandmother on the phone last night.” 

Spencer nodded understandingly. “Say no more,” he said with a chuckle. “She gave you the whole ‘when are you going to get married’ spiel again?” 

You nodded. “Unfortunately. I usually don’t let it bother me, but for some reason it’s just, like, lurking in the back of my mind today.” You shrugged your shoulders and exhaled through your nose. “What about you?” You asked. 

“What about me?” Spencer arched a brow, and you rolled your eyes playfully. 

“What’d you do this weekend?” 

“Oh,” Spencer began, pursing his lips for a moment, like he was hesitant to tell you. “I actually went on a date.” 

Your stomach flipped. “Oh yeah?” You choked out, forcing a smile. “Who with?” 

“That girl, Lisa, from the coffee shop, the one you told me wouldn’t stop ‘ogling my boy band hair’,” Spencer held up air quotes when he repeated your words from memory.

You recalled the cute barista from the coffee shop just down the highway from Quantico, a popular morning stop for agents on their way to work. You tried to stop the jealousy from turning your blood into fire. “How was it?” You asked, trying to resist the urge to sit on the edge of your seat, trying not to hang on his every word. 

Spencer shrugged his shoulders. “It was okay. She was very nice, but there just wasn’t…” he trailed off, gesticulating as the words failed to come to that supercomputer brain of his. 

“It was like a donut without powdered sugar on it?” You suggested with a small chuckle.

“Yeah,” Spencer agreed, nodding, meeting your eyes and smiling, mildly amused. “Exactly.” 

Spencer went back to his desk a few minutes later, and the rest of the day went on. It was quiet, especially for a day at the BAU. There were, weirdly enough, no open cases right now, so you spent the day catching up on paperwork, which there was always plenty of. 

You caught the elevator about ten minutes after five with Spencer in tow, and you held the door open for him. It was just the two of you as you made the descent from the sixth floor, and Spencer leaned against the back wall. “Plans tonight?” He asked. 

“Not really, no,” You said, shaking your head. “Why, you want to do something?” You asked. 

Spencer nodded. “There’s this landscape and nature photography exhibit at one of the galleries downtown,” he said. “Might be fun. There’s this artist, Milton Harvell, who takes photos of renowned locations around the world but zooms in on an obscure detail and gives the framed photograph to the person who correctly guesses the location.” 

You smiled slowly at that. You loved it when Spencer went off on one of his tangents. You found it completely adorable. “It’s actually quite fascinating,” Spencer went on, an amused tone lining his voice, making it sound lighter. “Kind of like a Where’s Waldo, but in reverse. There was this one photograph he took of the Louvre in Paris, but he zoomed in really tightly on a young boy enjoying an ice cream cone. He even went so far as to edit the photograph to make it look like it was a different time of day. The four thousand and eighth person to view the photograph was the person who guessed the correct location.” Spencer’s head bobbed and he was smiling like an idiot. 

God, you were down bad. 

“Was the four thousand and eighth person… you?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him scrupulously and allowing a teasing grin to cross your face. 

“The photo’s hanging in my living room,” he confirmed. 

You laughed softly. “Will there be alcohol at this function?” You asked him, and he nodded. 

That was all you needed to hear. 

— — —

You and Spencer went straight to the art gallery from work, sharing a cab rather than bothering with your cars. You immediately bought a glass of red wine, and began to follow him around the gallery. You weren’t an art aficionado, not by any means, but you enjoyed looking at beautiful things, and you especially enjoyed spending time with Spencer that wasn’t hunched over a dead body or trying to map out a killer’s comfort zone. It was a rare occurrence, so you tried to soak it all up as much as possible. 

Plus, your Nan’s words were still lingering in the back of your head. It’ll happen for you someday, Button. Men just don’t find you strong, career types attractive. Maybe you should soften up your look a little. 

You downed your first glass of wine within ten minutes, and caught one of the catering staff passing out champagne almost instantaneously after. The champagne fizzled down your throat as you strolled with Spencer through the art gallery, listening intently as he went on about each piece, rattling off whatever contextual knowledge he had. But you were a little bit biased; you could listen to him list different types of soil and find it interesting. 

After the glass of champagne came another glass of champagne, and by the time you made it to the main exhibit Spencer wanted to see, your cheeks were flushed. It wasn’t that you couldn’t hold your alcohol; rather, it just made you a little bit silly. Your inhibitions were lowered, just like it would affect anyone. But with your arm looped through Spencer’s and your Nan’s nagging message still in the back of your mind, you were perhaps a little more loose than usual. 

As Spencer examined the exhibit, you tapped your foot, unable to keep still, and scanned the open space. Your eyes landed on another patron of the gallery, a conventionally handsome man about your age, and you found yourself unlooping your arm from Spencer’s, subconsciously not wanting to appear taken. 

“Are you gonna go talk to that guy?” Spencer asked, and you snapped your eyes back to his. “Because you can, if you want to. Don’t let me stop you.” 

It was almost like he was daring you to. Spencer’s jaw seemed tense as you examined his expression, the way his gorgeous brown eyes darted from the man and back to you. “You don’t mind?” You asked, arching a brow, almost like a challenge.

Spencer shook his head, his lips pursed. “Not at all. I’ll wait here for you?” 

You nodded, and turned towards the man. There wasn’t any harm in getting a guy’s number, right? Your feelings for Spencer were a lost cause, anyway. Plus, as Nan liked to point out, you weren’t getting any younger. 

The man’s eyes locked on yours and he seemed to understand that you were about to speak with him. He met you halfway, and you shook his hand. “Malcolm Greene,” he introduced himself, and you spouted off your own name in return. “You’re not here with that guy?” He asked, jerking his chin over to Spencer. Your eyes followed Malcolm’s, and you saw Spencer with his body turned towards the photography exhibit, but his head turned to the side, as if he were keeping an eye on you with his peripheral vision. 

“Yeah, I am,” you said, and Malcolm’s head inclined to the side. “I am. I’m here with that guy,” you panicked, suddenly realizing in that moment that you weren’t interested in speaking with Malcolm. No, you had absolutely no interest in spending your time with any other man but Spencer Reid. “I just, uh…” Your cheeks flushed, and you stifled an awkward laugh, anxiously trying to come up with some excuse. “I came over here to tell you that your shoe was united.” 

Your eyes followed Malcolm’s down to his shoes, which were loafers. Laceless loafers. Malcolm’s mouth opened as if to point this out to you, but you managed to stammer words out first. “Ok, well, have a great night, goodbye!” You turned on your heel and marched back over to Spencer, your cheeks red as you reached out for his arm. 

Spencer furrowed his brows down at you as your arm gripped his. “I need another glass of wine,” you confessed. 

Twenty minutes later, after two more glasses of wine and a very watchful eye out for Malcolm, you and Spencer left the art gallery. You were awfully giggly on the cab ride back to your place, cracking puns and humming along to the radio intermittently. Spencer seemed to be amused, but more so concerned with getting you home in one piece. 

As he walked you up the stairs to the door of your apartment building, he was teasing you about your conversation with Malcolm, which you still hadn’t told him completely about. “I still can’t believe you didn’t get his number. You were talking with him for exactly two minutes and twelve seconds. What, in that short of an amount of time, could have turned you off to him so quickly?” He pondered aloud, a playfully mocking tone lining his voice. 

“Listen, I shook his hand! I had my fun!” You exclaimed, bursting into laughter as you leaned against the handrail of the stairs that led up to the door. “Good, clean fun!” 

“You know, the number of pathogens that are passed during a handshake is staggering. It’s actually safer to kiss someone,” Spencer rattled off, and your eyes snapped to meet his. 

You don’t know what took you over. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the way the street lamps reflected in the irises of his eyes, or how you stood just a few inches away from him. Maybe it was his stupid tweed blazer, how he looked like a tenured art history professor despite barely being thirty years old. Maybe it was the way he smelled like pine and printer ink, a combination you wouldn’t have ever thought was attractive. 

But when Spencer said that, you stood up on your toes and kissed him. It was slow and innocent at first, until it passed the border into lingering, and Spencer’s hands found your hips, pulling your body closer to his. There was a cool night breeze that filtered through the space between your bodies, and by the time you pulled your lips away from Spencer’s, and slowly opened your eyes, you were completely red in the face and breathless. 

No, that certainly wasn’t the safest choice you could have made.

——

read part 2 here

[cosyvelvetorchid]

💍💍💍 please!!!

Thanks for the prompt

🩶

**********

They both lay naked on their bed—Tommy vertical and Buck horizontal with his head rested on Tommy’s stomach. Tommy’s hand was on Bucks clavicle with Buck delicately playing with his fingers and occasionally lifting them up to kiss.

They were enjoying the post-sex come down with the breeze from the open window across the room cooling their hot skin.

“You did not know that early!” Tommy accused him.

Buck laughed. “Okay, okay I didn’t know know. But I definitely knew something changed when I met you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I knew that I had to see you again, and that I needed to know you.” He said in that sweet and earnest way that always melted Tommy. His lifted Bucks hand to his mouth to kiss. “What about you? When did you know about me?”

“I was endeared when you were excitedly shouting about the new 118 motto in the back of my helicopter.” He said and Buck laughed. “But what really solidified it for me was standing in your kitchen and you just being so honest and open about how you thought you did wrong.”

“I did do wrong—I acted like a child and got my best friend hurt.”

“I know, but not many people are so quick to admit when they’re wrong—you did it immediately. Plus, you said some really nice things about how cool I was and how could I possibly resist that?”

“Was? You’re still the coolest person I’ve ever known!”

“Evan, you literally had to clean up my puke couple of weeks ago.”

Buck laughed. “So? I’d do it every day if you needed me too.”

He said it in such easy way and Tommy knew he meant it. After all this time together Evan still surprised him with how simply, and easily he loved him.

“Come up here.” He said gently and Buck immediately shifted upwards; arms and legs wrapped around Tommy like an octopus. He adored how physically affectionate Buck was. Very early on in their relationship he’d found himself not being able to sleep without Buck attached to him like a limpet.

He placed a few soft, long kisses to Bucks lips before Buck nuzzled into his usual place in the crook of Tommy’s neck.

“Well shit!” Tommy said after a while.

“What?”

“The sun is coming up.” He told him. Buck lifted his head up to see the beginnings of pinks spreading across the sky through the window.

“Shit. We stayed up all night talking?”

“And other things.” Tommy whispered playfully kissing his temple. “Are you going to be okay today?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? Evan I love you, but I know what you’re like when you have little sleep.” He teased. Buck leaned up on his elbow to look down at Tommy.

“On any other day I would agree, but not today.” He smiled and ran a thumb across Tommy’s jaw.

“No?” Tommy smiled.

“Nope.” He kissed Tommy softly.

“What time is Eddie picking you up?”

Buck reached back to look at his phone. “In about an hour.” He snuggled back into Tommy’s body.

“Last chance to change your mind, you know.” Tommy told him lightheartedly.

“Not a chance. You’re stuck with me forever, Kinard.” He smiled into Tommy’s neck and squeezed tighter into him. “What about you? You’re not thinking about making a run for it, are you?”

He pressed 2 fingers into Bucks jaw to gently guide him up to meet his eye-line. “Nothing in this world could make me walk away from you.”

After more warm and lazy kisses they eventually dragged themselves out of bed to get ready for the day. Buck finished packing his bag while Tommy showered.

“I made you a coffee.” Buck called out as he heard Tommy walking towards the kitchen.

“Thanks babe.” He kissed Bucks temple and picked up his mug, leaning against the counter. “Have you packed everything?”

Buck scanned his bags in the table. “Uh, I think so, yeah.”

“Suit?”

“Hanging by the door.”

“Shoes?”

“Check.” Buck replied patting one of the bags.

“Ring?”

“Eddie has it.”

“Only thing left is vows.” Tommy said.

“I don’t need them—I know what I’m gonna say.” Buck closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around Tommys neck.

“Yeah?”

“Easiest thing in the world.” He said as the sound of Eddies horn blasted outside.

“I guess it’s time.” Tommy said.

“I guess so.” Buck smiled. He turned to begin picking up his bags but Tommy reached out and held his shoulder to stop him.

“Wait a second.” Buck turned back around and Tommy held his face gently. “I love you, Evan. And I can’t wait to be your husband.”

“I love you, too, Tommy and I can’t wait to marry you.”

If Buck left the house 30 minutes and an orgasm late, well that was his business.

[azaharinflames]

Sorry I need to rant for a tiny, little bit, because...

You know what I find particularly funny?

Their version of Buddie simply does not exist.

And I am not talking about how it is not canon, that is a given. But their version of it. The things they've claimed they do, or feel about each other, or think of each other.

(Disclaimer: I have my own opinion of their friendship and I do believe there are way better friendships within the show, including for Buck. But I do acknowledge they do love each other as friends and deeply care about one another. And that Chris is important for Buck. That is not up to discussion here. Okay, we can go on)

They have this whole "Buckley-Diaz is a family" that consists of Buck spending 99% of his free time at the Diaz house, of them having weekly movie nights, and of Buck taking Chris to school almost as much as Eddie does. And this is simply not true.

We do see Buck spending time at the Diaz house, of course. When he's hanging out with the Diazes (something that, might I point out, has not really happened since Season 4, as the few scenes we got of them hanging out since have been at Buck's loft - correct me if I'm wrong), helping Eddie out, in a group setting, and hiding from his sister and her helicopter babysitting. Movie nights- when is it even mentioned this is something they do weekly? Not once. And please correct me if I am wrong. Buck does not take Chris to school almost daily, not because he did after Eddie's breakdown does it mean this is a normal and usual occurrence. It doesn't mean it isn't, to be fair, but nothing in canon tells us otherwise. I will give them the zoo, however, because in canon we do have Eddie saying Buck takes Chris there all of the time.

What we got, however, was scenes showing how Buck has his own independent life. He has lots of scenes in his loft, as much as Buddies hate it, as we have never gotten an off-handed comment on how little he's spending there because he's at the Diazes all the time. We've gotten scenes of Buck reaching out to people who are not Eddie for help. And oh, of course - we have gotten scenes of his family (whether you like the Buckleys or not) having a family dinner. And guess who was not invited? Oh, right.

(We have, also, gotten enough scenes with Tommy that we know post-going official, they spend most of their free time with each other. Thank you to Bobby for also confirming this. We love you, king)

With the Diazes, we got scenes that showed how Eddie and Chris exist on their own, without needing Buck there to complete their family. We got a whole ep where Eddie was dealing with Chris's new crush, and instead of making that be a Buckley-Diaz 'family' storyline, Carla was the one accompanying Eddie and being the other adult in the situation. We can say whatever we want about the dating debacle at the end of Season 6 (I also think it was a mess, but for the way they rushed it), but Eddie did not say: oh, Chris and I are fine, we have Buck. And he did not say it because it simply would not have made sense.

And oh, I could go on and on on how the Eddie they have in Fanon is also not the one we have, but this is way too long already. Do let me know if anyone wants to hear it though. Although I will probably write it down whenever I am bored enough.

Short story very long: Buck and Eddie are good friends. They respect each other and clearly enjoy each other's company. And the show has definitely played with the concept of family for them (looking directly at the elf from season 2 here), but never too serious. Never in canon. Outside of the 118 being a family (which I am not denying), at least for me, it has always been obvious how Eddie and Chris were very valued by Buck, but his close-knit family (nuclear family, if you will) is and has always been Maddie (now extended to Jee-Yun and Chim as well), and Bobby (something he's admitted in canon, before someone comes at me for this).

Now, thankfully, we have Tommy to join in in there as well ☺️

[giveafike]

One where Jude and his girlfriend/wife go for a swim and she‘s scared? Thanks!

TLDR: Wife!reader x JudeBellingham on holidays, but he doesn't know about your fears.

Word count + info: 2.3k! Blurb! Tiny bit of Spanish incorporated, some dialogue too : )

Warnings + Content Ahead: SFW! Mention of Thalassophobia + a panic attack, if that is a trigger, proceed w caution!! Otherwise, nothing more : ).

Azzie Notes ✚: HI!! First ever Jude ask here! I'm sorry it took me a while to get around to this req, anon! I hope I did it justice for you, I was struggling with writer's block for this prompt for some time, thinking how to flesh it out.

Also, I made a twitter ( @azziegivesafike !!) Feel free to follow and msg me about non requests there, I'll be posting life updates, story + req updates and spoilers/teasers alongside other things, so it'd be nice to have a community over there!

————————————————————————

Waves - J.B.

The sun hung high and lazily over the quiet Mediterranean countryside, casting long shadows on the rolling hills of olive trees and wildflowers. You and Jude had stolen away from the world, far from the roars and pressures, to a little coastal town where time felt like it had slowed down and life felt more gentle. Jude’s off-season was sacred, a time for just the two of you, to reconnect without the distractions of football, press, and the ever-present hum of expectations. No obligations. No noise. Just love.

It wasn’t out of character for Jude to plan some sort of surprise during your time together. Sometimes it was a romantic dinner; other times, it was a helicopter ride over a city. But this time, he had gone a step further, maybe even a step in the wrong direction.

You walked hand in hand down to the dock, the scent of saltwater thick in the air. Jude was rambling on, his voice bright with excitement. He had planned a surprise: a yacht, just for you two, to spend the day on the open sea. His voice lilted with that familiar Birmingham cadence, thick and warm like the breeze that carried your laughter.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” he said, his eyes glimmering as he spoke. “Pre-season training camp’s gonna be intense, but I’m already buzzin’ for it. New lads seem sound, and we’ve got a proper chance at the title this year.” His hand squeezed yours as you neared the marina, the glint of the water stretching endlessly ahead. “But none of that matters now. Today, it’s just you and me.”

You smiled at him weakly, though your heart had already started its familiar, uneasy thud in your chest. The yacht, sleek and pristine, bobbed gently on the water. All you could see was the endless expanse of ocean beyond, that shimmering surface stretching far beyond the horizon.

You had been trying to get better, to be better, to manage your fear. But this was a step far out of your comfort zone. You're not really sure what or when your fear of water had really sunk into you but all you could remember was that prickly, hot, sickly feeling when you stood near a deep pool or saw videos of massive waves engulfing everything around it. The anxiety is all too familiar, the numbness in your body taking over each time.

With Jude, you’d started dipping your feet into pools, sometimes even wading up to your hips, standing at the shallow end of Jude’s villa pool in Spain. But that had taken everything, deep breaths, quiet pep talks, and the promise that you were safe. It made you feel awful seeing Jude splash around, wide-smiled and unafraid, while you sat by, fearing you might accidentally fall into the pool if you dangled too far in. You felt as though you might even hold him back in that sense. You had convinced yourself that in this bubble with Jude and his quiet and still pool, you were secure and okay.

But here, staring at the open sea, none of that safety was present. Still, Jude’s excitement was infectious, his beaming smile too bright to dim with your fears, his big brown eyes shining. You bit your lip, your fingers twitching in his as your pulse began to race.

Jude caught up in his excitement had barely noticed. He was a great husband, always attentive but his excitement overcame was overcoming all his senses and thoughts.

“Just wait ‘til we’re out there,” he said as you boarded the yacht, the sun catching the sea in dazzling shards of light. “You’ll love it. The water’s clear, you can see the coral and fish. It’s so perfect. No one or nothing around, just us.”

You stepped aboard, the fabric of your sundress flowing in the salty breeze, trying to focus on his voice, his plans for the afternoon, his talk of peace and quiet. But as the boat moved further from the dock, the tether to the land slipped further from view, replaced by the endless, glassy water that stretched on all sides. The small town grew minuscule in the distance as if it was swallowed entirely by the rippling waves.

The boat stopped near a small private swimming spot, the crystal-clear water below revealing hints of vibrant coral and fish darting below the surface. You could see Jude’s eyes light up as he gazed down at the water, his joy palpable. He blabbered on about all sorts of fish he could see, how quick they were, how clear the water was; all of it wasted on your deaf ears as you tried to slow your breathing for the umpteenth time. You could barely nod along, but your heart now thundered in your chest, trying desperately to ground yourself in the conversation.

“Uh-huh, and what’s the coral like? Pretty?” you forced out, voice thin and tight.

Jude grinned, already pulling off his shirt, his skin gleaming in the sunlight. “Yeah, proper beautiful down there. You’ve gotta come in with me, babe. You’ll love it.” He gestured to the water as he stood on the edge of the boat, his excitement undiminished. “Look how clear it is!”

You gently rose and glanced down at the water, the clarity revealing the depths below, a whole world of coral, fish, and sand. Your breath caught.

How far down does it go? What’s lurking beyond what you can see?

The distance between you and the ocean floor felt infinite as you stood a few steps from the edge, a chasm of the unknown. You tried to distract yourself, to hold onto the sound of Jude’s voice.

“I think I’ll stay here,” you called back, your voice small, like it might shatter if you pushed too hard. “I’m good on the boat.”

But Jude had already dived in, his sleek form cutting through the water, disappearing for a moment before resurfacing with a joyful whoop. He tread water effortlessly, his laughter echoing across the calm sea. “Babe, you’ve gotta feel this, it’s like bathwater! Perfect day for a swim!”

Your stomach churned as you watched him, so comfortable in a place that made you feel so small. The water cradled him, bright and blue and endless, while you stood on the deck, now tiptoeing towards the edge, gripping the railing like it was your last anchor to safety. Your knuckles were white and your hands clammy as you peered down. The gentle sway of the boat beneath your feet seemed to pull you toward the water, a slow, inevitable tug that made your head spin. It was almost as though it was mocking you, the waves teasing you, the fish swimming in hypnotic patterns to try to pull you to them, the gentle waves hitting the boat as a threat; it was far too much stimulation.

Your thoughts became your enemies. That clear water, once serene, now felt like a mouth, gaping wide, ready to swallow you whole.

It’s so deep. The ground’s gone. You’re so far from land.

You tried to push the thoughts away, focusing on the warmth of the sun, the distant cry of a seagull. But the waves inside your head began to build, crashing over your mind in relentless surges.

Your pulse skyrocketed, your heart pounding like a drum inside your chest, each beat louder, more frantic. Your breath quickened, short, gasping. The air around you thinned, each inhale shallower than the last. You felt that bundle of knots twisting painfully, feeling sickly and disgusting inside, the feeling of sweat prickling against your skin, tears burning your eyes. The sounds around you went mute as your ears rung loud; you knew full well what was coming.

The boat, once a place of peace, now felt like it was moving beneath you, rocking harder, tipping you toward the water. Your grip on the railing tightened, your knuckles bone white, but the world blurred as though the sun itself had turned against you. It was too bright. The horizon was too far. Everything spun as if the boat was dissolving into the sea.

“Jude...” The word barely left your throat, choking on the tightness that had coiled around your chest. When you moved, your legs gave way, useless, wobbling like they no longer belonged to you.

You’re going to fall if you stay standing here. You’re going to drown.

Panic seized you.

It crashed into you like a tidal wave, slamming you against the rail, knocking the breath from your lungs. You staggered, your knees giving out, collapsing onto the deck, falling onto the small step rather than off the boat. Your chest heaved as you gasped for air that wouldn’t come, the world shrinking to nothing but the wild, frantic roar inside your own head. The sensation was like drowning, without ever touching the water. You crawled and wobbled to the sunbed, digging your nails as you landed your hands on it. Your limbs were heavy and useless like they were trapped under an invisible current, the weight of it pulling you under.

Your cries felt muffled, swallowed by the sea of your mind. The world spun violently. Your vision blurred, darkening at the edges as your throat burned, air refusing to fill your lungs. The boat swayed, or maybe it was just you, thrown again and again against an invisible tide, your body curling in on itself. Your hair stuck to your face, tangled, distorting your vision as if the water had already risen up to surround you. You could feel it, cold, wet, suffocating, pressing in from all sides. Your limbs felt like dead weight, too heavy to move, too weak to fight.

You were drowning. Drowning on dry land.

The harder you fought to breathe, the more your chest constricted, the pressure unbearable, your vision narrowing to nothing but the dark tunnel in front of you. You couldn’t see. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. The sound of your own gasps filled your ears, and the world dissolved into nothing but the relentless, terrifying roar of the panic gripping you.

Jude’s laughter stopped, his voice barely piercing through.

“Babe?”

His voice felt so distant, a muffled echo in the chaos of your mind. You barely registered the splash of water as he pulled himself back onto the boat, the pounding of his footsteps as he rushed toward you.

“Hey, hey, love, I’m here. I’m right here.”

His hands found your face, cupping your cheeks with the warmth you desperately needed. His voice, once carefree, was now a steady anchor in the storm thrashing through you. He wiped away the tears you hadn’t even realised were falling, his thumb brushing your skin with gentle strokes.

“Shh, it’s okay, cariño. You’re okay. Breathe with me, yeah? Just breathe.” His forehead pressed gently against yours, grounding you, bringing you back to something real.

Your lungs ached, your chest still tight, but you fought to follow his words.

Breathe. Just breathe.

You struggled to match the slow, steady rhythm of his breath. His chest rose and fell against yours, a steady, calming presence. Slowly, painfully, your breath began to slow, the sobs leaving your mouth, the grip around your lungs loosening little by little.

“Eso es, my love,” he murmured, his lips brushing soft kisses across your forehead, through your hair. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.” His hands stayed steady on your face, never leaving, his voice a constant, unwavering presence, pulling you back from the edge. He swept your hair back, away from your face, rubbing circles on your back.

“I-I didn’t know that you were scared of- well I-,” he whispered, the guilt heavy in his voice. “I wish I had known. I should’ve known. God, I would never put you through something like this,” His voice cracked, and he hugged her tightly, pulling her against him, his arms wrapping around her like a shield. “I didn’t see it. I really didn't know. I’m so sorry, cariño. I should’ve seen it.”

She let out a shaky breath, her body still trembling, but the worst of the panic had ebbed, her head resting against his shoulder, safe in the circle of his arms. She could feel the regret and sadness in every breath he took, his chest rising and falling with the weight of it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I never knew how...” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “I didn’t want to ruin it for you, you were so excited, Jude.”

“You could never ruin anything for me,” he said softly, his lips brushing her temple. “Never. If I’d known, I would’ve never brought you out here, love. I’m such an idiot.” He kissed the top of her head, squeezing her tighter. “I should’ve realised. I was too caught up in everything…”

For a long moment, they stayed like that, her breathing finally steady, the calm returning as she clung to him, his solid, comforting presence pulling her back to herself. He kept whispering soft reassurances, holding her close until the panic had all but faded, replaced with the warmth of his embrace.

After a while, Jude pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and spoke softly. “I’m taking us back to land. Somewhere small, quiet, just us. Somewhere with your feet on solid ground, yeah?”

She nodded, breaking a small smile while tears still clung to her lashes, but she felt safe. “Somewhere dry would be nice.”

He smiled, kissing her one last time before getting up. “No more surprises, I promise. There's a little village close by, waiting for just the two of us.”

As the yacht turned back toward land, the pier coming into view in the distance, she knew that with Jude by her side, she could face anything.