#the post in question was the one about how getting revenge against your abuser is continuing the cycle of abuse | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

s-brant · 3 years ago

Text

Cherry

As Harry and Y/N spend more time together, untold secrets from her past come spilling out and catch him by surprise. But, in the end, it only brings them closer to one another. (or hitman!h part six)

18k (18+)

Warnings: strong language, detailed conversations about childhood sexual abuse that may be highly triggering to some, referenced pedophilia, violence/threats of violence, referenced murder/threats of murder, past self harm, substance use, referenced drug overdose, prostitution, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and implied sexual content.

The day after Harry came home to her, Leo called them to complete another hit.

It felt different this time, to say the least. Knowing the full truth about him after meeting Garrett left her shaken as she drove, her hands gripping the wheel with enough force to turn her knuckles white. And through his typical look of hardened indifference on nights they're forced to work for Leo, she picked up on his feelings of apprehension too. As of late, he hasn't bothered to mask his emotions from his face in her presence, and when he got the call while they were sitting on the couch, watching tv in silence, she caught the slight grimace on his face when the burner phone rang.

It's not as if it was a difficult one. It wasn't anything near as dangerous as when they thought they were sneaking into enemy territory to get revenge on one of "Perez's" men sent to kill Leo. Yet, it was harder than any job they'd worked on together. It was palpable in the little moments, like when she started getting in her head about it and he reached over to settle a hand on her bouncing knee. Or, when he got back in the car after finishing the hit and leaned back against the headrest with an exhausted sigh. Knowing which people he's having them silence would take a piece of them every time.

That was a week ago, however, and they've given their heightened emotions on the subject time to settle down through a myriad of distractions—most of which being sex and baking. Well, she bakes and he stands in the corner of the kitchen with a book flipped open to a page he pretends to read while observing her out of his peripheral vision.

It's about time that Leo calls them to work for him again, though, and it has had them both on edge. Depending on how eventful the week has been for their boss, they get anywhere from one to three jobs to complete per week, but it's frequently just one. Nevertheless, Y/N's anxiety was noticeable whenever they crossed paths in the apartment, and he decided for the two of them that her unspent anxious energy could be devoted to productivity instead of further agitating her with rumination.

She asks, "What are we doing?"

The car—his Escalade, not the precious Cobra—is parked in a front spot in front of the nearest gun range. It took him promising to take her to her favorite diner where she and Alanis frequently meet up to get her out of bed at two in the afternoon on a Thursday. Being the habitually early riser he is, that simply would not do.

Harry offers a blank stare.

"It's a gun range," he says, and when she doesn't say anything in the long pause that follows, he takes it as his opportunity to elaborate. "What else would y'do at a gun range other than learn to shoot?"

What else should she have expected from him? Whenever he feels tired, sad, angry, or anything of the sort, he must either come here to shoot and put all of his frustrations into the paper target or go to the gym to hit a punching bag for hours on end.

"If this is your idea of fun, I seriously might start to question your sanity."

He unbuckles his seatbelt with a soft click and asks, voice dripping with sarcasm, "Start to?"

That's all he leaves her with before he hops out of the car and slams the door shut behind him, reaching in the backseat for a small backpack she can only assume contains guns and ammunition. It takes less than two seconds for her to follow him up to the front doors of the building, pinching his arm in retribution for how he left her behind there. To that, he pinches her ass with one hand while the other opens the door for her. To the employees waiting at the front desk, he appears as a gentleman. To her, he's the same twisted, pervy murderer she knows and adores.

"Two people for an hour. Private range," he says and holds out two fifty dollar bills the second they teach the desk. "We don't need to rent anything."

Any of the tenderness or manners he has when speaking to her in the privacy of his apartment are nowhere to be seen with strangers. It amazes her, actually. His ability shut his emotions on and off at will, depending on the company he keeps and the stakes of the situation. For the sake of practice, he keeps the mask in place every time he steps out in public. It's already harder for him to shut it off as it is with him allowing her into his life more day by day and not having to hide his feelings from her. Perhaps if he weren't a hitman, he could find success as an actor.

The woman behind the counter plasters a fake smile on her face that anyone can see right through. It's the kind of smile that says, "Fuck you," with the sweetest voice you'll ever hear. Y/N offers an awkward wave as he takes her hand and drags her off down the hallway to the private range he's been likely familiar with for years now. If that smile the employee gave him revealed anything, it was that he's well-known and hated here.

Well, she thinks to herself and visualizes every enemy they've made along the way in the forefront of her imagination, get in line, lady.

His hand doesn't drop from hers for the entire walk. In fact, it squeezes tighter once they reach the room as a way of saying sorry before letting it go in favor of pulling the backpack off of his shoulder. Ripping open the zipper without a care, he reaches in and pulls out a pair of new ear muffs for her, which she takes without hesitation.

She breaks the silence, "I'm assuming I'm here to learn to shoot because of...you know...Garrett."

Much to her surprise, he shakes his head.

"Fuck no, he didn't tell me to teach you to shoot," he says, voice deep and scratchy from the joint he smoked on the drive over. "I'm teaching you because y'need to know how to protect yourself. Sooner or later, someone is going to try to hurt you, it's in inevitable in this line of work, and even though I try to be with you to stop that from happening..." He takes a heavy breath in. "Y'just need to know."

It's something she has yet to talk to him about, if she ever will: his obsession with protecting her. It never made sense at the beginning of their relationship, and though it makes more sense to her now, the reasoning behind it is still beyond her understanding. He said himself that killing people is as natural to him as breathing at this point in his life, so what made her different? What made him go so far in the opposite direction of his nature to continually save her life? Asking him to put his seatbelt on after he held her captive?

If he feels nothing for her other than sexual attraction, and, she suspects, minor platonic fondness, then why does he act the way he does? For the sake of keeping him in her life, she doesn't complain, but the mixed signals have begun to dizzy her. What fuck buddy leaves thoughtful gifts, gives forehead kisses, and makes breakfast every morning.

Speaking of which, she has been pretending to enjoy pancakes for the past few weeks she's spent living with him. That morning after she was drugged at the club, she assumed she'd never have to have breakfast with him again in the span of her life, let alone every single morning.

Around seven o'clock each day, there's a knock on the bedroom door and a head poking on to say, "Breakfast is out there if y'want it." It hasn't changed her stance on pancakes anymore than her opinion on the shifting from disgusting to tolerable due to the constant exposure. But, the thing is, it's the nicest thing he consistently does for her. The gift-giving is kind too, but she finds meaning in the little things, and when an otherwise closed-off, cold-hearted man makes her pancakes every morning and cuts them up for her, what else can she do but accept them?

She steps up beside him without him having to instruct her. The gun he pulls out of the backpack is the same make and model of the kind she attempted to use the night they met Garrett, so there's at least some familiarity established already. What she did with it that night was guesswork, however, and today is when she learns how to handle it properly.

"First rule," Harry starts, holding the semi-automatic pistol out on display for her. "Y'have to treat every gun like it's loaded, even if it isn't."

Leather-wrapped hands handle the weapon with the utmost care. He touches it the way one would a lover, in soft caresses and squeezes full of unspoken understanding. On the side of the hand grip, there's a small button, and when he presses down on it with the tip of his thumb, the magazine ejects from the bottom and into his waiting hand.

"When the magazine is empty, y'can press that to get it out and replace it with a loaded one. This one is already fully loaded, though, so, just push it up like this"—the heel of his hand guides the magazine back up into the hand grip—"until y'hear that click." The hand he used to push the magazine back in settles on the top of the gun. "Then, for the first round, y'just rack the slide once, and you're ready to shoot."

She nods along throughout his brief lesson in loading and unloading the pistol, but, at the tail end of the explanation, she plasters a sardonic smile on her face and says, "I have a question."

The silence that follows serves as her permission to continue as he stares at her.

"When you say to treat every gun like it's loaded, does that apply during sex too? 'Cause I kinda get turned on thinking about you having your gun to my head when we fuck."

When he first got her out of bed and make pancakes midway into the day, they followed it up with a lazy round of sex on the living room couch. It wasn't the typical situation of her teasing him into it or him bending her over the nearest surface in a frantic need for her, it was actually quite benevolent. Soft, even. She was still sleepy, and he had little energy as well, so he ended up pushing her onto her back and taking her like that. At one point, her hands were pinned above her head, but that was the extent of it. He thought she felt well satisfied, but apparently not if she's hellbent on teasing him now.

He won't do anything with her here. Although she'd likely pout about it, there are security cameras at every corner of the private range, and he doesn't have the power to go back and erase the footage this time. Like he said the other week, he doesn't like to share. The mere thought of another man touching her the way he does fills him with an irrational amount of rage. He has no doubts that he would find them and kill them. If that makes him a monster, so be it. She knows good and well that she belongs to him.

Harry doesn't give in to her siren song. Yet. Instead, he hands the gun off to her and gives her a pointed look she doesn't need to delve deep into to decipher.

"Show me you can do it, then we'll get started."

She takes the gun from him with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, but right when she turns in the direction of the target, she is halted in her tracks. One of his hands is squeezing her throat just enough for her to feel it without cutting off her oxygen supply, and he uses it to pull her into him, her chest hitting his with a gentle force. The surprise is evident in her eyes as he looks down at her with his authority over her shining through in his expression.

The heat of his exhales can be felt on her face with less than an inch left between their lips, and her stomach flutters with butterflies at the close proximity. If she manages to push forward against the strong force of his hand around her neck, their lips would touch. But, they've never kissed without it being a prelude to sex, and knowing him, he probably has refrained from it to make himself feel safer in being with her, so she won't push it on him.

He says, "If you roll your eyes at me again, you won't come for a week." When her brows raise at him, as if to question how much he means it, he squeezes down on the sides of her neck harder. Still, he's careful not to press on her windpipe.

When he opens his mouth to speak some more, something stops him.

Y/N's face scrunches up in confusion at his sudden silence, as well as how his arm falls back to his side shortly after as though he was burned by touching her skin. Any of the dominance burning in his stare has fizzled out, and he takes a short step back from her.

"Fuck," he mutters, shaking his head, "M'sorry. That wasn't..."

"What are you saying sorry for?"

Something inside of him breaks a little when she asks that. Did she really not regard it as a breach of their agreement? A breach of trust? Don't get him wrong, he enjoys the side of their relationship that indulges in kinks without shame, but what he just did wasn't that. It wasn't appropriate, and while he normally wouldn't think twice about it, the look on her face when she was having a panic attack in the closet those weeks ago flashed in his mind when he squeezed her neck harder.

She never explained what happened that night, and, despite his usual affinity for annoying the living shit out of her, he didn't want to poke at the apparent bruises that presented on her that night. By the nature of her reaction to being locked in a dark room, not recognizing that it was him she was with, he assumed it was too personal to share. He didn't wonder about it any further, though. If he let himself imagine the types of things that must have happened to elicit that response from her, he'd fly off the handle.

His gaze softens.

"I said I wouldn't touch you if y'didn't ask me to. Actually, I promised you I wouldn't." After a beat of silence, he says quietly, "I know how it feels, y'know? Having panic attacks like that, thinking I'm in the past when m'not. I feel that way every time someone touches my hand, so I don't wanna make it happen to you."

With how she sighs in relief and relaxes, one would think he said something far different than what he actually did. What he finds in her eyes isn't agreement. If anything, it seems like she's embarrassed, or, at the very least, shy, and he hasn't known her to be that way around him. Not at the beginning, not now, not ever. She reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ears with her eyes averting to the floor. Everything about her demeanor is so drastically different from how she acts, it begins to unnerve him.

She shakes her head.

"It's really not that big of a deal. Honestly, that was kind of a dramatic reaction. I just get a little anxious in confined spaces because of, um," she stumbles over her words, still not looking at him, "just because of some stuff that happened when I was little. You know."

No, he doesn't know. Whatever it is she has assumed about his childhood, it isn't true. His mother loved him fiercely, and she did everything in her power to make him feel the extent of that love from the moment he was born until the moment he lost her. His father, granted, came in and out of his life whenever he was sober from alcohol and subsequently began using again.

He leans back against the wall separating them from the shooting lanes and looks at her closely, in the way people study impossible puzzles and foreign species rarely seen by humanity. For once, someone has managed to throw him off balance.

"I didn't have that bad of a childhood. My mum ran herself into the ground trying to raise me on her own. My dad was kind of shit, and a drunk, but he never hit me or touched me or anything. So, no, m'sorry, I don't really understand what it feels like."

This causes her to go quiet and still unlike anything else he has seen.

A heavy sorrow is veiled over her face as she chews on her bottom lip in thought as if debating something within herself and weighing the options ahead of her. At last, she looks up at him. Decision made.

"I don't really think about it that often." A lie. He can tell just from the way she says it that it's a bold-faced lie. Whenever he says that about anything he's been through, it isn't true either. "I've actually never really talked to anyone about it because it never seemed like that big of a deal to me, but sometimes I get nervous in small spaces, especially with men."

His heart drops.

Slowly, carefully, he asks, "What do y'mean?"

It goes without saying that if she told him to drop the subject and never ask about what happened again, he would comply. He better than anyone knows how it feels to have people questioning and prodding at details of your personal life. Everyone he knows knows little about him, and the air of mystery that surrounds him only prompts them to dig their noses where they don't belong to uncover more.

After a deep breath, she says it.

"My friend's older brother. He always picked on me, and we went over there all the time 'cause our dads were close friends." A shrug. As if the words about to leave her mouth won't knock him to his knees. "He took me into the closet. It was just one time, and I try not to think about it. Honestly, I forget it ever happened a lot of the time."

On the inside, Harry is panicking. Not only because that fight or flight mode often set off by feeling like he can't protect her from something, but also because he hasn't had to deal with anything like this in a decade. When people tell him troubling things, he doesn't care. It rolls off of him like water, exactly like the lives of the people he takes and could care less about. But she isn't just anyone. Hearing her say something like that, something that sounds awfully a lot like one of the worst things that can happen to a person, awakens a fear he never knew existed in him anymore.

It's hard to fight the tears begging to form in his eyes. He tries his hardest for her sake to not show any signs of the distress roiling like a hurricane from the inside of him. He hates overwhelming displays of sympathy, and that's all he can think to keep himself from rushing over and hugging her. Telling her that she's safe, that he'd do anything for her, anything she asks.

There's nothing else for him to say but the obvious. A statement, she shortly notices, not a question.

"He molested you."

She lets out an awkward scoff and sets the gun down on the table.

"No, I mean, I don't even think it counts. It's not like he tried to have sex with me. People who were abused had it much worse. He just pulled down my pants and said we were playing a game. He just stood behind me the whole time."

It occurs to him as he listens to her that she isn't saying this for the sake of saying it, she believes it wholeheartedly, and he thinks this is what breaks him. This is what lands the killing blow and makes the tears finally well up in his eyes no matter how many times he tries to blink them away.

"Baby..." he trails off with a waver in his exasperated voice.

A warning fires off in the look she gives him. It tells him to cut it out. It begs him, "Please, don't," but he can't control it. After ten years of hiding behind a mask of numbness and cruelty, he can't force his emotions away no matter how hard he tries. Because he does try. He knows how terrified his reaction must make her feel because he's felt that way too and knows she has refrained from reacting to the details of what's happened to him to curb that feeling, but he can't. The silent tears are already rolling down his face.

"It's really not as big of a deal to me as you think. I don't really think about it."

The utter refusal to call it what it was...

"How old was he?"

She looks off to the side, needing to avoid the sight of his tears and frustration to keep herself from acknowledging it. The anxiety burns hot inside of her and emanates out to her skin in a tingly heat that seems to pulse with every beat of her heart. There's a sense of wrongness felt whenever she speaks of it aloud. This has always been the one topic from the past that she pushes away the second it comes to mind. There's always a voice, a finger-wagging side to side to scold her, saying, "We don't need to think about it. It doesn't matter."

"Um, like fifteen, I think."

He has to take a deep breath to prepare himself for the question he doesn't want to ask but must.

"How old were you?"

At this, she turns quiet and looks down at the ground, allowing her hair to fall around her face and protect her from the eyes she feels burning into her. That tingling heat has made its way up to her head, and she has to lean against the wall to keep herself steady amidst the strange sensations of her anxiety.

She says after a half moment of waiting for her mouth to follow the repeated instructions from her mind to answer him and not allow her throat to close up, "Five."

Harry's eyes shut as soon as he hears the word, his jaw clenching hard enough to give him a toothache as he tries to shut out the voice in the back of his head screaming at him to do something, anything, about it. All at once, he imagines holding her through the worst of it, kissing away her tears, and giving her a place to talk it out without judgment. But, at the same time, he also imagines what he'd like to do to this man she's talking about. He fantasizes about the different methods of torture he would gladly subject him to before ending his pathetic, worthless life. He doesn't care what it means about him if it'd be the first murder he'd enjoy rather than resent. For her, he would become the monster everyone believes him to be.

Don't, he tells himself. Don't do it. Please, just pull yourself together. Don't, don't, don't—

Fuck it.

He allows every emotion he feels to hit him when he opens his eyes to see her standing there with her arms hugging her body like a scared little child. If she was being this vulnerable with him, he would allow her in, even if it's just for a moment, to see the full effect her pain has on him.

"Tell me his name," he says, minding his tone but still allowing her to understand how serious he is about this. "Tell me his name and let me kill him."

Her eyes widen in surprise.

"No! What"—she takes a step back to meet him again and rests her hands on his arms—"You won't even be able to find him. Their family moved away after that, and I never knew where they went. It wasn't that bad—You can't, I can't—"

She is interrupted mid-sentence by him sinking down onto his knees, laying himself before her feet with his hands coming up to grab both of hers. His head hangs down, his forehead pressed into her navel, and she can feel his body jerking gently with his stifled cries. It makes no noise, but she senses it in his movements and the tears wetting the front of her shirt.

"Please," he breathes out, voice broken in a way she has never heard it before, "Let me do it."

When she tries to shush him and pull away to get him to look at her while she dissuades him from his current plans, he shakes his head and holds onto her hands harder.

"Baby, please." At this point, it has gone from asking to begging. "Tell me his name. Tell me I can do it. I need to do it."

Y/N wrenches her hands from his grip, and he assumes it is the blunt end to this conversation. A way of shutting him down and refusing his pleading without having to say anything. That's what he assumes until he feels her taking his face into her hands, guiding his head to tilt back to look at her. How this has turned into her comforting him, he has no clue, but when he tries to say something, she presses her thumb over his lips.

"Hey," she whispers, "I'm fine. I can handle myself, okay?"

"How are you not angry?" he asks. "Y'didn't deserve that. You were five. People like him deserve to die."

The thing is, she knows he won't do it unless she tells him he can. With something as serious as this, he won't go against her word and do it anyway, he has to treat it delicately. He has to treat it with as much care as he treats her. As much as he would delight in torturing the sick pedophile that preyed on her all those years ago, it's her trauma to seek retribution for, not his. Not unless she gives him the okay to make it his problem too.

She gets down onto her knees until she is face to face with him, not giving a shit whether the people sitting and monitoring the security cameras take notice of it or not. At this angle, he can now see her eyes shining with the threat of tears as well.

"I can't let you kill him." Then, there's a long pause, and she strokes the side of his jaw with the tip of her thumb. "Not right now. Okay?"

The last part places a kernel of hope inside of him. Not right now. Not right now, but eventually, right? Someday, even if it's ten years from now, she'll tell him his name and let him do what someone should've done to him years ago.

He mutters, unable to help himself, "When?"

This is where it gets tricky for her. Is there a right or wrong answer? Can she morally condone herself giving him a timeframe on cold-blooded murder when she herself hardly regards what happened to her as the assault it was? Every murder she has aided him in committing has been against her will, with the threat of harm toward those she loves should she not comply. The only person she's willing to help him kill is Leo. After what he did to Harry, she would gladly be the one pulling the trigger.

"You can do it before we do the job for Garrett. Whenever that is, you can do it." She takes a deep breath and says, "I promise you can do it someday, but not now. It'd be stupid to risk Leo finding out or having to pay off the cops for you. We need to be careful until his brother is out of the way, then we can do whatever we want. We can go anywhere."

And even though it hurts him, he nods.

That's a fair compromise. It's obvious to him that she disagrees but is meeting him halfway due to how distraught he is over it. She has no idea what it means to him for her to do that for him, though. She would be well within her rights to refuse and call him a psychopath for even suggesting anything of the sort, but she knows him now. She knows most of his kills give him no pleasure, in fact, late at night when he can't sleep, they haunt him. But this is different. This would be for her, and she knows how thoughtless he becomes when it's her he's concerned with.

"I should be the one comforting you," he murmurs. "M'sorry I go crazy sometimes. It's hard to stop it."

She shakes her head.

"Don't be. No one's ever cared about me enough to do something like that. Not even my parents. I know it's kind of fucked up, but so am I. I think that's what makes us work so well together," she says softly.

Part of her is afraid to feel anything about what she just told him. She fears that if she rips the wound back open and allows herself to dwell on it, to truly consider the memories she has and make the effort to work through them, she'll come apart at the seams. But one thing she knows is that she feels safe with him. With him, she knows nothing like that can happen to her again, not without them getting through him first. The night at the club proved it to her. It erased any fear she had in his presence and replaced it with solace.

She clears her throat, sniffling and trying not to let herself cry.

"So, are you gonna teach me to shoot or are we gonna stay here?"

A soft chuckle leaves him at this, and he smiles with tears in his eyes. Like this, he doesn't look intimidating or commanding as he usually does. He looks scared. Unsure. Out of control in the way a person is when there's something they desperately want to fix but cannot.

"No," he says, "I can't focus on anything but wanting to kill that asshole. M'gonna have to get high or something."

She smiles.

"Well, we can make that happen."

The trip they made to the grocery store was interesting, to say the least.

Harry isn't touchy outside of the frequent times they have sex, but the whole time he pushed the cart up and down the aisles in search of what she needed, he had her tucked under his arm, her arm bent up to hold the hand hanging off of her shoulder. It was so strange, she didn't know whether or not to say anything about it. She's never known him to be the clingy type in the month they'd been "together", but she suspected it had something to do with what they talked about at the gun range.

Other than that, it was relatively uneventful. There was an old lady who gave them a nasty look for the constant display of affection, but they both ignored her. If anything, it made his arm tighten up around her and bring her in even closer. The only times he let go was to let her grab the baking ingredients she needed, and when she put them into the cart, he was quick to pull her back in. It was a grocery store on Garrett's territory, so they didn't have to worry about any of Leo's workers spotting them and putting a target on her back for what they'd assume is a relationship between them.

She said to him—not asked—that the rest of their night was going to consist of nothing but laziness, baking, and watching movies. To make up for the bomb she dropped on him without warning earlier, she told him to pick one she hasn't seen before that he loves. Considering his previous dream profession of being a director, she has high expectations set already for whichever one he picks.

Now, the kitchen is filled with the scent of the chocolate brownies baking in the oven. The idea came to her as they were leaving the shooting range, walking past the confused woman at the front desk a mere ten minutes after they first came in, that she could use him wanting to be high tonight as an excuse to bake. Once they got in the car, she was already looking up recipes for pot brownies on her phone.

"Y/N," he calls out her name from the living room. "I'll do the dishes later, just come here."

The movie has been up on the television for at least fifteen minutes now, and he's been trying to lure her over ever since she put the brownies in the oven.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming, but I'm gonna have to get up for the brownies in like ten minutes anyway."

Her footsteps make a soft tapping sound on the hardwood as she hurries over to the couch with an overflowing bowl of popcorn in hand for them to share. On the top left corner of the screen, she squints to read the text written there without the glasses she never wears despite getting the prescription when she was sixteen. It isn't until she's settled into place beside him with the bowl balanced on her lap that she can see it.

"Titanic? Isn't that a romance?"

She turns to look at him with her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," he says, then asks, "Have y'seen it already?"

Actually, Y/N might be the last person on the face of this earth that hasn't seen it. She somehow went through every movie night with Alanis and Peter unscathed by the list of "classic" movies anyone born before the end of the millennium would demand she watches immediately. Seeing that Harry was born in '94 to her '01, that observation checks out.

"I haven't, but I never would've pegged you for that genre. I expected you to show me something like..." she stops and ponders it for a second. "Saw."

If she looks closely enough, she can see the apples of his cheeks flush a hue of deep pink. He shifts in his place to face her better, one leg crossing over the other at the knee and his left arm coming down to brace against the couch behind her head. It ends up making their bodies touch, the curve of her hip fitting into the side of his waist, and he reaches down with his free hand to pull her legs up over his lap. Somehow, the popcorn sitting on her stomach makes it through unscathed, short of a few pieces that fall onto her shirt.

Quicker than she can register the spill, he scoops up the stray pieces and pops them into his mouth. It isn't until he's almost through chewing them that he responds to her.

"Believe it or not, I used to be a bit of a romantic."

His face is stoic when he says it, as it always is whenever he does anything, and she has to force herself not to laugh. If she didn't know him as well as she does, she'd think he was being sarcastic.

"I have a hard time imagining that," she says.

Harry scoffs, then, an instant later, moves his arm from around her shoulders to reach for the hem of his shirt. When she asks him why the hell he's taking off his clothes, he gives her a murmured, "Be patient," and proceeds to tug it over his head. It's discarded to the side in seconds, sitting in a pool of worn cotton fabric on the hardwood floor. In its absence is an expanse of tattooed skin she knows better than her own at this point. In the times they've spent wrapped up in each other's arms in throes of euphoria, she has mapped out every ridge and soft curve of him beneath the palms of her hands.

She remembers the first time she saw all of his tattoos. It was the night after Tate drugged her, when they were playing that game to get information out of one another. Her fingertips slid down the tattooed musculature of his chest, inspecting everything from the swallows facing each other beneath his collarbones to ferns disappearing into the waistband of his pants. It still takes her breath away to see him like this, even after all this time.

When his shirt is out of the way, he grabs her hand and pulls it up to his chest. The cool leather of his gloves chills her skin to the bone, but the warmth of his bare chest, speckled with dark hairs that tickle her palm, makes up for it. He guides her touch up until her fingers are splayed across one of the matching swallows.

"These were my first tattoos. I got them right before I started working with Leo," he says, his face hardened with a feeling she can't quite place as she looks down at the tattoos. Their faces are a few inches apart. "My mum is one who put it all into m'head. This was her favorite film, and she showed it to me when I was a little boy. Since then, it was my favorite too."

His thumb rubs the back of her hand in soothing caresses.

"She used to take me to this lake near our town when I was really little, like five or six, and in summer, the swallows would be there. They migrated up from Africa every spring, and we'd have picnics on her days off work, she'd bring binoculars f'me, and we'd just watch them."

The whole time, her hand doesn't leave his chest. His deep breaths can be felt beneath her touch, a dramatic rise and fall that goes much slower than her own, and she almost stops breathing entirely. She's afraid that if she makes too loud of a noise or reminds him of her existence, he'll stop telling her about his mother and the birds they used to watch when he was a young boy. In his face, she sees the childlike joy and vulnerability he once had peeking through again as he speaks of it.

"Anyway, she'd tell me all these facts she knew about them. I got these for her too, but I mostly got them because I liked what she told me about them," he says. "Swallows mate for life. When one of them dies, the other stays with them until the end. When I was younger, before everything, I thought that was nice. The idea of someone staying until the end." The way his throat bobs with him swallowing the lump that has formed there catches her attention. "I got these on my birthday at some cheap place, but they did a nice enough job."

For a little while, all she can do is stare at his chest amidst the silence and savor the moment. There's a part of her that wishes she could bottle this feeling, the feeling of being allowed to look behind the curtain enveloping his heart that so few ever get close to touching, let alone pulling aside. It stuns her, to be honest. Just last month, she thought he wanted nothing to do with her except for her driving ability and meaningless sex. But, this...this is different, and while she wants to talk about it with him, she's too afraid of scaring him off to risk it.

Her hand slides down from the swallows, tugging his along with it, and she keeps going until she reaches the ferns peeking out of his pants. The tip of her pointer finger traces each leaf, memorizing the pattern and burning it into her mind until she could retrace it in her sleep.

In return, she says, "I've been wanting a tattoo for years but I just have never found the time or money to do it. First, it was Peter running through our parents' inheritance. Then, it was me not having enough money to feed myself, let alone go spend over a hundred dollars or more on a tattoo. Not to mention, my mom and dad would've killed me if I got one when they were alive. They were kinda strict like that."

"Strict enough to keep you from getting a tattoo, but not strict enough to stop you from learning to drive a race car?"

"Yes, exactly."

She rolls her eyes at their backward logic, even now, even when they aren't here to scold her for doing such a thing, and runs her finger along the fern tattooed over his other hip to match. Never having done it before, she starts to get curious about the logistics of being tattooed. She knows the general idea—needles dipped in ink puncturing the surface of her skin repeatedly—but she wonders how much it hurts. Surely, anyone with as many tattoos as him must be a closeted, or proud, masochist.

While her eyes are focused south, he allows a slight smile to cross his face as he watches her. The softness of her touch never ceases to amaze him. How she could ever treat someone as reprehensible as him like a creature deserving of care and warmth, he doesn't know. But she does it regardless. Despite everything she knows and has yet to discover, she touches him like he's deserving of it, and he doesn't know how to thank her without it turning into an uncomfortable conversation he's been trying to avoid at all costs.

Before he can stop himself, he says, "I'll take you to get y'first tattoo right now."

Her head pops back up to allow her to meet his eyes, and when she finds him void of any deception or sarcasm, she lets out a confused laugh.

"Are you serious? What about the movie?"

"Fuck that, we can watch it later. I know a good place that does walk-ins."

It's impossible for her to contain her excitement at this. A wide smile makes her eyes crinkle at the sides, the hand resting on the waist of his pants frozen in place. During every wasted conversation she has had with Alanis about finding a tattoo parlor and getting one on a whim, she never imagined her first would be with anyone but her. But, now that he's in her life, it could only be him. It feels right that he's going to be the one sitting in a chair beside her, holding her hand because she's a wimp, while she gets artwork etched into her skin for eternity.

She places the bowl of popcorn onto the coffee table and stands with a giddiness she hasn't felt in years, extending her arm and making grabby hands at him.

"Let's go," she says.

He grins.

"Yeah?"

His lip is bitten between his teeth as he looks up at her, and she could swear that the look in his eyes could almost be mistaken for love. Of course, she chalks that up to her protecting emotions onto him. He made it more than clear last month that he isn't interested in an actual relationship, but the way he treats her tells a different story entirely. It may be pathetic and tragic, but, recently, he treats her better than any man she entered fleeting relationships with. What good is a title if a man doesn't do any good with it? She knows she's his. She doesn't need a label to know that he'd do anything for her.

With her nod, he reaches for the t-shirt discarded on the floor and pulls it back down over his head, his favorite movie forgotten on pause for the foreseeable future. Well, until they're back from her spur-of-the-moment tattoo appointment. The keys to the Escalade are still in his front pocket, along with his wallet in the other, so there's nothing standing in the way of them rushing out right away.

"Oh, wait!" she exclaims, dropping her arm and turning toward the kitchen. "The brownies."

Harry reaches out to grab her hand before she can walk away. He's standing up from the couch when she turns back around under the guidance of the gloved hand molded perfectly to hers, making her tilt her head up to see what he wants from her.

"One condition," he says.

She should've known.

When it comes to him, there's always something unexpected hidden up his sleeve. There's always another shoe waiting to drop. But, rather than getting annoyed as she used to, it brings a flushed heat to her face because it's so irrefutably him that she can't bear to hate it. When she remains quiet, he takes that as a strict command to elaborate, and who is he to disobey?

"I'm picking what y'get."

The tattoo parlor is a tiny, run-down building with dead grass and chipped paint on its exterior walls, but if Harry says they do a good job, then they do a good job. With how much ink he has on him, she can't be one to judge seeing that she hardly knows anything about it. For how unpromising its curb appeal is, however, the reviews online were stellar when she stuck a peek at her phone on the walk to the parking garage.

But, before they went inside of the parlor, she stopped him from unbuckling and looked up and down between his eyes and the pot brownie sitting in the cup holder, one small bite taken out of it for the time being, until she worked up the courage to ask.

"Can I try it?"

At first, she thought he might say no. The look on his face was one of skepticism, and even as he picked it up and broke a sliver of a piece off of it for her, he eyed her up suspiciously the whole time. Before she could take the piece from his fingers, he yanked it back from her reach and put his hand down on her arm in a silent order to pay attention to him.

He asked, "Have y'done this before?"

Beneath the question laid a deeper, more prodding one he didn't dare ask: Are you okay doing any drugs after what happened to Peter? It hadn't been something as tame as weed to claim her older brother's life, but between her experiences with him and what happened at the club without her consent, he wanted to be sure. The last thing he wanted was to have her panic and not be able to bring her down until time allowed the substance to make its way out of her system.

She shook her head.

"I haven't, but, I mean, Alanis does it, and she seems to like it a lot. You seem to like it a lot," she spoke softly. "Plus, I feel safer doing it with you. If I freak out, you're the only one who can really calm me down." She pushed her bottom lip out and batted her lashes at him for a second before breaking and begging him through a laugh, "Come on, it'll be a really memorable night. The first time I got a tattoo and the first time I tried pot."

He watched her for another few seconds with narrowed eyes, then placed the tiny piece of the brownie in her waiting palm.

"Fine. But only that much, dosing homemade edibles is sort of guesswork, so I don't wanna give you too much."

There was an undertone of an herbal flavor to it, but it was mostly hidden beneath the heaping amount of chocolate baked into it. Not particularly fond of the taste of chocolate, she had to take a swig of from the water bottle sitting in the cup holder from earlier in the day to wash it out of her mouth.

Now that she's sitting face-down on the chair with her shirt raised to expose her lower back, twenty minutes from when she first ingested the piece of his pot brownie, she doesn't feel anything.

Harry is sitting in a rolling chair he snatched from one of the other closed-off rooms designated for tattoo artists and their patrons right beside her head, watching the same artist who he frequently requests placing the two stencils on the lowest points of her back and triple-checking to ensure they're lined up correctly. After all, they'll last forever.

That was another surprise she hadn't seen coming. The tattoo is technically two of them. He said they had to go together with the idea he had, so she simply rolled her eyes and told him he could do anything except tattoo his name on her back. Or a dick. With him, she could never know what to expect. To that, he just laughed and told her to wait until she sees the finished product. He and the artist walked off to discuss the idea quietly in the next room over. Since he's a friend of Harry's, or as close to a friend of his as anyone but her can get, he was game with the surprise idea after pulling her aside and asking multiple times if she was sure.

When the tattooist leaves the room to go get something, she reaches out and pokes him on the arm a few times to gain his attention.

"Why hasn't it hit yet?"

All he does is continue scrolling through the news on his phone and say, "Don't worry, baby, it will."

Before she can say anything, Rhett, the artist, walks back into the room and asks, "Alright, ready to go?"

"Yup!"

In actuality, she's sort of freaking out internally about whether or not it'll be too painful, as well as what the actual design he chose will end up being. The arm hanging off the side of the flattened chair reaches down for his hand without hesitation, and he doesn't think twice before entwining their fingers—hers bare, his wrapped in leather. Unlike the first time they held hands the night she got drugged by Tate, he doesn't tense up and resist her touch. He distracts himself on his phone and gives her hand a reassuring squeeze at the sound of the tattoo gun being turned on.

Harry watches her over the top of his phone, noting how she taps the fingers of her free hand on the chair to dispel some of the pent-up nerves. Right before the needle touches the skin of her lower back, she tightens up the grip of her hand around his as though preparing herself to endure the worst pain of her life. As it is most of the time, though, the anticipation of the event is worse than the reality of it, and when she feels it puncture her skin, her tense body gradually sags against the chair until he feels her hand fully relax around his.

"Oh," she mutters.

He leans forward a bit and rests his other arm against his knee, clicking off the screen of his phone to put his undivided attention on her sweet face.

"What?"

She looks up from the ground at him, a soft, second-long huff of laughter falling from her lips. As soon as he gets a good look at the uncontrollable grin spreading across her face, he knows exactly what she means.

"I think it just kicked in," Y/N whispers so the man leaning over her exposed back cannot hear, but she's a tad louder than she wishes to be.

Nevertheless, his friend doesn't stop or kick them out. Harry has gotten countless tattoos while high out of his mind because they know he overpays and never comes back around when he's sober demanding to know why anyone let him get anything tattooed in that state of mind. Given how many times she expressed her consent before the edible kicked in, he doesn't blink an eye at their little side conversation.

The sound of her giggling to herself, suddenly finding her vision blurred around the edges when she moves her gaze from one place to another or moves her head with too much haste, has him fighting a smile. His free hand comes up and brushes the hair from her face, and she nudges the side of her face into his hand with a sedated happiness taking hold of her.

"My girl."

It is said so softly, she almost misses it. His lips move just enough for her to catch that he's saying something, and she knows she isn't meant to hear it. Or, perhaps, he doesn't even know he was saying it outside of the impenetrable walls of his mind. In the current state of mind she's in, she doesn't have any filter to what she's saying. Well, that isn't necessarily true. She does have full control, but she's less inclined to care at the moment.

"My man," she says back to him with a gentle sigh.

It takes a few seconds for him to understand she's just responding to what he didn't realize he said out loud. Most of the time, people don't get as affected by weed as she does, but, since it's her first time trying it and on an edible at that, it makes sense. It's a lovely change of pace in his eyes. To see her relaxed, carefree even, is something he's only seen a few times in the duration of their partnership, and, to be honest, he expected her reaction to getting high to be one of panic more than anything due to her brother.

For the majority of the time it takes her to sit through the process of being tattooed, she doesn't say or do much other than rest her cheek on the headrest of the chair and look at him. Their hands remain intertwined, the buzzing of the machine serving as background noise alongside the few times they strike up conversation to pass the time. Other than that, there's a playlist playing faintly through the overhead speakers, but she doesn't pay it any mind.

It's relaxing, in a way. The steadiness of the pain that reminds her of a dull scratch, the sound of it is like a drum, and the hazy bliss she feels from the drug in her system keeps a smile on her face—she could fall asleep from it. The only time it genuinely hurts is when he goes back over spots he's already punctured a few times already for the sake of shading. Now that she's familiar with it, she can understand why he's covered in them from head to toe.

After what feels like hours but is actually just one and a half, she hears Rhett set down his tools and looks over her shoulder to see him pick up his phone to take a picture. He wipes away the excess ink with a paper towel soaked in what she assumes is sterilized water or a disinfectant alcohol of some kind. It stings her tender skin, but she considers it a price worth paying for something she's been looking forward to for the past few years.

Rhett asks, "Wanna see it?"

She looks up at him with pure happiness alight in her eyes.

"Is that even a question?"

When he hands the phone off to her, her reaction to the image displayed on it is delayed due to her altered state of mind, but once she registers what got tattooed onto her lower back, her face goes blank. It keeps Harry on edge the whole time. He wonders while she zooms in on the small design to inspect it if she is disappointed, or if he may have taken things too far this time, but she doesn't say anything to give her feelings away yet. Rather, she stares in awe at the picture of herself she hardly recognizes.

The woman on the screen isn't a broken girl who can barely hold herself together anymore. She's proud. She's strong. She looks over her shoulder at the camera with a certainty she never knew she could possess and, on the other side of the photo, if one were to look closely, she and a man cut off from the frame of the camera hold hands. Over a month ago, she wouldn't recognize the person she's become, but she doesn't resist this change. Not anymore. When she met him, she was seconds away from losing herself forever. But, now, she's been reborn. No longer does she look for any excuse she can to tear herself down or scar her skin in a punishment blossomed by her own self-loathing, by her frustration at being the only one who survived her family's downfall.

"Y/N?"

Hearing Harry's voice has her head snapping up from the screen. For a moment, she forgot the two men were standing there on either side of her. All that existed in the world was her and the picture. Her and the realization of all that has changed in her life, and the surprising sense of acceptance she feels surrounding it.

Before saying anything to him, she looks over at Rhett and smiles.

"It's amazing, thank you so much." There's a heavy pause, then—"But, um, could we have a minute alone?"

"Sure, let's just get it covered up first."

It's difficult for her to keep her words to herself as he takes his time cleaning off the tattoos to the best of his ability, applying a moisturizer, and sticking the clear bandage over them one at a time. He explains the aftercare to her as he does it, but it goes in one ear and out of the other for her. She spends this time looking at Harry, studying the knowing expression worn on his face. It appears to her that he's studying her right back, egging her on in her exploration of him.

This is how it has always been between them—too much power and passion housed in their respective bodies to allow them to exist without butting heads—but she finds that that too has been changed in the time they've spent together. Now that they know how to work with one another, how to work around the sheer size of their personalities that beg to go to war whenever they're placed in the same vicinity, she realizes that he isn't her opposite. He's her mirror.

The hellish void she has crawled her way out of is the same one he was created in. Not from birth, but from rebirth. People like them start one way and, then, somewhere down the line, something happens. Something defining and despicable happens, something they don't expect to escape from unharmed, and they come out of the other side made anew. There are few people in the world like them, made with the resilience and natural understanding of suffering built in, but the few who exist attract each other with a magnetism stronger than anything. And, right now, something she's been waiting for her whole life clicks into place.

Rhett bids them goodbye the second she's covered with her bandages and ready to leave whenever they decide to, and she shifts around in the chair so she sits normally in it. Her legs dangle off the side, her fingers curling around the soft cushion to keep herself steady, and he stands up from the rolling chair to meet her there.

They don't do or say anything yet, instead, he settles between her legs with no ulterior motives and gives her the opportunity to speak up first. His lips twitch with the urge to smile at her, but he forces it away just in case she's infuriated with him and demands he takes her to get it removed in a month or so. Based on the way she begins to smile up at him, however, he's willing to bet that none of that will be happening.

She shakes her head at him.

"You're trouble."

It's the only thing she can think to say. The second she was shown the picture, every thought that had been floating around in her addled brain was whisked away.

Harry just smirks at her, his hands sliding around her waist and descending until they reach the two bandaged tattoos etched into either side of her lower back, right above the hand of her pants. His fingertips caress the matching swallows he chose for her as he nudges his nose into hers affectionately.

"Swallows mate for life," he whispers.

Thanksgiving passes with little fuss.

As per their tradition since her family passed, Y/N and Alanis spend the holiday together a few days after she went with Harry to the tattoo parlor. After they got home, they spoke nothing of it, and she preferred it that way. She didn't want things to get muddled the way they used to whenever they tried to talk about what they were to each other at the beginning. His explanation for the choice of putting his first tattoos on her was more than enough.

Since he isn't too fond of holidays, Harry had no qualms with her celebrating it without him. Before she left, dressed in her Sunday best to meet her best friend for a homemade dinner at her parents' house in Baton Rouge, he shrugged and told her he hasn't celebrated many holidays in the past decade.

He did make her take a gun, as well as a thigh holster to hide it in, just in case anything happened. Weeks ago, she would have laughed and asked what possibly could go badly enough for her to need a gun at her friend's Thanksgiving dinner, but, after everything, she took it and thanked him. The next day after she got her tattoos to match his, he took her straight back to the gun range and gave her a beginner's lesson. By the time the hour was up, she managed to wrap her head around the basics and hit the target a few times, so he felt confident enough in her to not ask to tag along. Besides, it's not as if Alanis can know about whatever is going on between them anyway.

Much to his delight, she returned without a scratch, nor a single bullet fired, and set both the gun and holster down on the coffee table for him to take back before walking off in the direction of the bedroom. When she later emerged from the shower in her pajamas, she relayed her night to him with equal amounts happiness and frustration. Happiness because she got to spend another holiday with her dear friend. Frustration because Alanis's parents get under her skin unlike anyone else can. They were harassing her for details about being her roommate—at the college Alanis doesn't even go to—and she could hardly handle it for ten minutes before she needed to go to the bathroom and take a breather from the secondhand helicopter-parenting stress.

Harry made up for it by going down on her right after she finished telling the story, though, and she writhed against the couch cushions with her fingers tugging on his hair as she came undone.

Unfortunately for her, nothing as thrilling has happened yet today.

The frequency of the jobs she and Harry have been called upon to complete on Leo's behalf has risen out of control in the week following the holiday. What used to be two or three hits a week at least jumped to six, and every single time they got a new call, they became increasingly more alarmed, wondering what has happened to necessitate Harry killing so many of his enemies. And though neither of them wanted to, they found themselves calling Garrett up as soon as they got home from the sixth late last night.

That's what brought them here—to the address Garrett texted Harry after he called to let him know that something, though he didn't know what, was going down with Leo this week. It's a private, five-story warehouse building long since emptied out for the purpose of serving as Garrett's base of operations. As soon as they arrived they were escorted upstairs until they reached the door to the rooftop and left there to wait until he arrived.

Harry is the first to break the silence.

"They're smart."

She turns her head around to look over her shoulder at him. He stands to her left, leaning against the wall to the rooftop and breathing out a large cloud of smoke through his nostrils with his vape pen raised in his hand. His hair is messy from when he woke up on the couch late this morning, too exhausted from last night's work both emotionally and physically to bother with his rigid morning routine. When she follows his line of sight, it's locked onto the closed door to the stairwell they arrived from.

Y/N walks the few paces left between them to get a better look from his perspective, their shoulders bumping with the movement of her standing back against the wall by his side.

"Not that I disagree, but why do you say that?"

He holds the pen out to her in a silent offer that she rejects with a shake of her head, then gestures with it in his hand at the door before slipping it back into his pocket.

"They've got us trapped," he says. In response to her raised brows, he continues on, "M'serious. That door is locked from the inside. If y'look closely, there's a man guarding it." Now that she is straining to see past the small window pane placed above the doorknob, she catches sight of someone's shoulder poking out from the center of the door. "The only way out is to wait for them to open it and kill them all to get past or to turn our guns on ourselves. Either way, we'd be fucked 'cause they outnumber us. It's exactly what I would've done too."

"You don't think they're gonna try anything, do you?"

He scoffs, turning to face her with a look he hopes will settle her obvious nerves. Just in case that alone does not work, he reaches out and rests his right hand on the forearm she has braced against the short wall. Whenever words have failed them in their relationship, touch has never led them astray. At one point, it was the only way they knew how to communicate with one another, but, nowadays, new paths have been traveled too.

"Fuck no, they need us too much. We're worth more to them alive than dead," he says. "But, I want y'to stay close. Keep your guard up. I trust him more than Leo, but I don't trust anyone aside from you. No one in this world keeps you safe unless they want something from you, so keep him wanting."

Morbid yet true, she finds. If it weren't for her being an asset to Harry as his getaway driver when they needed a person to fill the spot, she would've been tortured, dismembered, and fed to gators at the start of October. The only person she's met in this line of work that saved her without personal gain to be had was Harry. Even now, there's little she can do to understand why he let her live if he didn't originally intend on keeping her as his driver. It would have been smarter to kill her and dump her body in the lake he dropped her off at. A lesser man would have.

Her asking him to put his seatbelt on wasn't her giving something of value to him. Unless, perhaps, what he sought out from everyone and never received in the ten years he worked for Leo was kindness. Her chest aches at the thought, but, in that case, the advice he gave is the truth. Everyone wants something. As does she. She had multiple chances to dispose of him when he put himself into positions of weakness in front of her, but she didn't. In part, it had to do with her morals, but she wanted something from him too. She wanted it so badly, she was willing to sacrifice her good heart for it.

The sound of the door to the rooftop opening breaks her from her thoughts.

It causes Harry to side-step in front of her on instinct until he's confronted with the sight of Garrett approaching by himself. No guards, no backup short of the man watching the door. Either he's the bravest man they've ever met or the dumbest. Both of them are armed, and one of them is the most experienced murderer in the country. All it would take is one wrong glance in her direction and Garrett would be on the ground bleeding out with a round from Harry's pistol in his head in seconds.

They stand side by side and wait until he stops across from them, leaving a safe bit of distance for the sake of the man acting as her personal guard dog at the moment. The threat of death is imminent should anyone touch her, which everyone here has been briefed on time and time again.

"I had my guys look into what might be happening," Garrett says by way of greeting.

Much better than Leo and his rambling theatrics in her opinion. Short, straight, and to the point. She wonders in response to this thought if living with Harry groomed her to be more curt and intolerant of people's minor quirks. Is his "no bullshit" attitude contagious?

He asks, "What did y'find?"

Although the day is mostly warm in late November, there's a subtle chill in the air that bites at her exposed skin with how high up they are. It makes her tuck her arms closer to her body to conserve the heat emanating off of her skin, wishing she could lean up against Harry's side for comfort. Unfortunately for her, their agreement to keep their fondness for each other under wraps extends to Leo's enemies too. Simply because they're working in harmony with Garrett now doesn't mean things can't change, he reminded her before they left, so, even though it was made obvious the night they met him, they keep their distance.

Garrett turns his head to look out over the city's skyline rather than meet either of their stares.

"More people in power are taking notice of him, and he's getting sloppy trying to keep his tracks covered. Hence the increased amount of jobs for you. The only thing keeping that asshole from being sentenced to life is his brother. Soon enough, he's gonna be ordering you to kill people in congress," he says with a heavy exhale. "You know better than anyone that he won't give in. Ever. He'd rather die than give himself up, and he'll take both of you down with him."

She assesses him closely as he speaks, searching for any sign of dishonesty and finding him utterly truthful. Knowing Harry has given her a masterclass in reading people, and there isn't a person in the world, save for him should he decide to shut her out again, whose face she can't read.

"So, what do you want from us?" she cuts Harry off before he can be the one to ask it.

Garrett's gaze hurries back from the skyline to find her staring daggers at him. Keep him wanting, keep him on his toes. A soft huff of laughter leaves him, shaking his head at how the two criminals mirror one another with their glares and impenetrable masks of calculated indifference.

"The hit has been moved up. We're aiming for the days between Christmas and New Year's," he explains. "Tonight, I've arranged for you both to go undercover at a gentleman's club that Ryan"—Leo's snake of a brother, she gathers—"is meeting Leo at."

The mere suggestion of it has her stomach churning with dread, and she can already picture Alanis restrained to a chair with a knife to her throat exactly like what was done to her. The alarms sounding off in her head beg her to resist for the sake of saving herself but also those she cares for. Picturing the things Leo would do to Harry should they be found out...It would make the burns on his hand look like a mercy by comparison.

Before she can even think about rejecting it outright, Harry steps forward and says, his tone deep and unflinching, "No. Absolutely not." His jaw clenched tightly enough to make his teeth ache. "He'll recognize us both."

"Do you think I don't know what I'm doing?" Garrett counters with blood rushing to his face. "You are going to be in one of the private rooms where he can't see you. We'll have a live camera feed on the tables at all times for you to watch while she plants a recording device on one of them for us." He holds up a hand to stop the anticipated interruption and moves closer to them. Harry takes a step closer too, guarding her and sizing the shorter man up should he try anything. "Settle down, we have a wig to disguise her and we'll try to make sure they're well distracted when she visits the table."

At this point, Harry doesn't care who the man is, federal agent or not, he knows he bleeds the same as every other man he's killed. The look on his face is nothing short of lethal as he warns him, "If she gets hurt, you and every one of your men is dead. Y'got that?"

Y/N stands by and watches them go head to head from around the side of Harry's back. Where no one else can see it, she rests a hand on his upper back in the hope that it'll calm him down. Beneath it, she can sense the tension evaporating from his muscles upon her making contact. She knows him better than she knows herself, though, so she doesn't risk it. Rather than give him the opportunity to do something they'll both regret, she steps around him and places herself in front of his body.

"Just tell us where and when," she says. Her commanding nature leaves no room for further questioning, and Garrett can hear the underlying message telling him to get lost without her having to speak it. "We'll be there."

"I don't like this."

The dressing room of the club is nicer than she thought it would be. For some reason, she thought it'd be dim and dark and filled with workers doing drugs like every other strip club she's seen in movies or TV shows, but this is surprisingly nice. As soon as they walked in the back entrance, it became clear to her that this is an upscale club, although, the first sign of it should've been Garrett calling it a "gentleman's club". The high-class aspect does little to overshadow the debauchery, though.

She sits in front of the mirror and stares at her reflection, scarcely able to recognize herself with how they've directed her to get ready for the night. Two of the other girls helped her with the wig since most of the women, whether they're servers or dancers, wear them to prevent repeat customers from being able to recognize them out in the real world. It's a shade of pale blonde, cut with wispy bangs in the front to further conceal her features, and the makeup she applied takes it a step further. With the dim lighting in the part of the club she'll be serving, they can afford to get away with more drastic methods of altering her features. For one, her eyes are hidden behind contacts to change the color, as well as dramatic false lashes decorated with gems serving as her eyeliner to alter their shape.

Harry stands against the table with her products scattered atop it with his arms crossed over his chest. He's said the same thing roughly five times since they arrived, and she refuses to give him a different answer no matter how many times he brings it up.

She shrugs.

"Listen, I don't like it either, but what other choice do we have? It's either this or jail, so, if you don't mind, I'd like to keep us away from that option."

Tonight is his worst nightmares all wrapped up in one—being unable to protect her, risking her life, being forced to do dangerous things against his will, and, of course, having other men look at her when she's hardly wearing anything. The uniform here would offend even the worst of feminists. All there is to cover her breasts are a pair of star-shaped nipple pasties covered with gems that glitter in the light galling the mirror like a field of stars. Mercifully, the club's owner, paid off by Garrett for the night to allow her to step in for a sick server girl for the night, would have allowed her to wear a thong that matches rather than go bottomless as the other women do, but she refused.

"Please, just wear the fucking underwear," he says. "I don't want either of them to see y'like this."

The sound of her sighing again has him shutting his eyes in restraint. It's taken multiple moments like these to keep himself from throwing her over his shoulder and bringing her home. The audacity of Garrett to force her into something like this, to walk around nude for hoards of men to leer at and hit on like she's a piece of meat, almost drove him to the point of murder when the other girls briefed her on what she'd have to do to cover their friend's shift.

She shakes her head.

"You know that if I stick out or act different than any of the other girls, it'll attract attention. You said that earlier, not me, so I'm just doing what I was told."

With that, she pushes the chair away from the vanity and stands with the intention of following the other ladies out of the dressing room, but he stops her. He reaches out and wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her around until she's pressed against the table and forced to hear him out. This whole time, she's been thinking single-mindedly about the job they have to do without considering what he's been saying. She never stopped to wonder that it wasn't a matter of him being in control, but instead something that truly bothered him.

He presses his forehead against hers, his eyes shutting again to savor the moment before she's to leave him and potentially risk her life for the cause.

"Don't go."

It's a phrase spoken so softly, so weakly, that she can't help but melt into his arms with concern visible on her face. She cannot lie to herself and say this is something she's comfortable doing. It isn't. If anything, it triggers memories and feelings she wishes she could repress forever, and the last thing she wants is to allow any other man to look at her in this state, but it isn't as if they have a choice. Whatever Garrett or Leo says is what goes.

Her hands reach up to cradle his face between them, her thumb caressing up and down the edge of his cheekbone.

"It'll be okay. I won't be in there for long," she says softly enough that only he hears, "just a few minutes to bring them drinks and plant the recording device. They'll hardly notice me."

"Trust me, everyone notices you."

She doesn't understand how he manages to do this, to turn her bashful and giddy and hot in the face like she's experiencing her first crush again. In the time it took her to do her makeup and get her wig secured to her head by the other girls working tonight, she promised herself she wasn't going to cave and bend to his demands. But, looking at him now, she can't help but want to give him whatever he asks. Not only because of his compliment but because of how much it must mean to him if he's asking this kindly. Now that they've gotten familiar with one another, he knows which ways are most effective in getting her to listen to him, and plainly asking for what he wants is the one he has found works best.

The sound of music playing through the walls fills the gaps of silence in their speech, thumping with enough bass for it to be felt beneath their feet. She tries not to pay it any mind. Instead, she pulls her face back from his and tries to memorize every one of his features in case something goes south tonight.

He mutters, his face overcome with a sadness few ever see him have, "You've been taken advantage of too many times, baby. Wear them for yourself."

When they first met, she would've assumed this to be a manipulative act aimed to get her to do what he wants, but not now. The ability to tell when he's being genuine or not is ingrained in her, and her heart aches as she watches him walk off in the direction of the doors to the club. Ultimately, she knows it's her choice, and that if she wanted to, they could argue about it when they get home, but it clearly means a lot to him after the past week or so they've spent together. Not to mention, he wasn't wrong in what he said. None of this is her choice, and if there's a chance for her to take back any of her power and agency, why shouldn't she?

She looks in the mirror one last time before reaching for the thong sitting on the tabletop and putting it on. It isn't modest by any means. The flesh-toned color matches her skin, and where she'd be exposed by the thin lace, gems similar to those on her nipples and eyelids cover any bits of her that might show through. Once it's on and she knows there will be a layer separating her and the men who may grope her on her way past, she can't deny the relief she feels. She may have tried to put up a fight about wearing it, but Harry is the only person she wants to look at her or touch her like this.

A voice from down the line of vanity mirrors and tables set up for the women to get themselves ready makes her jump in surprise.

"Don't worry. Just look at all of them with bedroom eyes, keep a smile on that pretty face, and everyone will love ya."

When she turns to get a good look at the woman with the heavy southern accent speaking to her, she finds one of the most beautiful women she's ever seen. Her hair is brown, cut like a seventies movie star and styled by rollers to give her luscious curls, and her amber eyes shine in the vanity lights. What makes her face particularly striking, Y/N supposes, are her bleached brows contrasting the darkness of her hair.

Y/N offers her a fake smile as a means of thanking her for the advice, but it does little to soothe her nerves. Charming men has never been an issue for her. She'd do well at this job if it were what she set her heart on, but what she's here to do is far different. It's far more dangerous.

"Thanks," she says, walking down in a pair of stilettos that click on the tiled floor with each step until she reaches the beautiful stranger. "I'm Y/N."

A delightful little giggle invades the empty room at this.

"No, what's your real name? Out there they call me Sugar, but my real name's Dani. Short for Danielle, but that was my mom's name and that bitch split when I was ten, so..."

This question used to frustrate her when she used to go out to get drunk and hook up with random guys, but she soon became accustomed to people assuming she was giving them a fake name. Especially in an environment like this in which everyone is branded with aliases to protect them from any overly attached patrons who may try to find them outside of this place. Unlike the other girls, though, Dani's hair is her own. She wears her own identity like a badge of honor worthy of being praised by droves of drunken, rich men.

"Y/N is my real name," she says.

Dani smiles wider and wider as she continues speaking, and she pays no mind to the manager beyond the doors yelling for them to hurry up. Somehow, this smile settles her nerves and lures her into a sense of calmness she didn't expect to feel until the night ends without a problem.

She stands at a height an inch or two above Y/N when she pushes herself out of her spinning chair with a pair of long thin legs glimmering from the powder she was dusting on her mostly nude body while she and Harry were speaking amongst themselves. The tips of her fingers brush against the side of her arm until they reach where her blonde wig ends at her collarbones and twirl the synthetic strands around her middle finger. Up close, she smells divine. Whatever she wears must be heaven in a bottle.

"Well, I know you've got that handsome fella of yours to keep any of the customers away when ya leave, but nobody goes out without a new name. Management rules, not mine."

"We aren't together like that," Y/N says too quickly.

This brings a certain smugness to Dani's face as she fiddles with the loose waves of the wig to style them to her liking. No amount of fussing will make it as pretty as her hair, but she tries her best to fix the new girl up before sending her off to live among the wolves. Everything else is deemed acceptable on a quick glance from top to bottom, so she allows her arms to fall back to her sides and looks at her in a way that cuts right through the facade of carelessness surrounding the topic of her relationship with Harry.

All she says is, "You will be."

Dani leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek, leaving a barely-there lipstick mark behind in the shape of her full lips, then turns on her heels and struts off toward the double doors serving as a divider between them and the rest of the club. Before she can push them open, she turns partway to look at her again. Her eyes narrow as if she's thinking something through to herself, and it's hard for Y/N to keep her eyes where they should be seeing that she isn't wearing anything but the same star-shaped, bedazzled nipple pasties she wears too. Well, those and her heels.

The banging on the other side of the door increases in frequency alongside the man's voice telling them to come out, but she just stands there for a few seconds and looks at her.

She smiles.

"You're sweet. Call yourself Cherry out there."

With that, she slips out through one of the doors and leaves Y/N to summon the courage to go out there on her own. The club looks packed based on the glimpse she got from the crack in the door before it swung back shut. Men were sitting around the tables in party sizes anywhere from two to six, smoking, drinking, and watching the dancers on stage while the nude server girls walked around them taking orders.

She takes deep breaths to keep from working herself up into a panic and starts to clench and unclench her first, muttering words of affirmation to the part of her that remains hesitant.

"You can do this," she whispers to herself and paces back and forth in the space between the doors and mirrors. Her breasts, unbound by any clothing or undergarments, bounce with every step, and she has to force herself not to think about the fact that they will be on display for a room full of people in less than a minute. "You can do it. It's just a few minutes, and he won't let anything happen to you."

The final part seems to do the trick. Hearing herself say it relaxes her tense shoulders and balled-up fists. She latches onto this small comfort and uses it to make herself walk the rest of the way up to the red doors. If anyone else were left in here, they'd think she's gone mad with how she's muttering under her breath to no one, but she doesn't allow judgment to seep through and stop her. Whatever it takes to get the job done is what she'll do.

Her trembling hand lies flat against the door, and she takes another deep inhale once more.

She whispers, "He won't let anything happen to you," and pushes the door open.

The interior of the lounge dizzies her upon a first look at it. In contrast to the simple dressing room she was ushered into from the back door, the high ceilings give it an enormity that towers over her. A large chandelier that hangs down from the ceiling sits as a centerpiece above the circles of tables placed around the round stage where women strip, pole-dance, and flirt with the customers in winks and smirks.

Unsurprisingly, there isn't a single woman sitting at one of the tables. She was briefed on the type of clientele the club gets, as well as what specific table Leo and Ryan would be sitting at, so it was expected. Most men come with coworkers under the guise of "working late", or at least that's what they tell their wives and girlfriends, and treat the club like their own personal brothel. Few girls are okay with being pimped out to clients, so she was told not to worry about anyone assuming her body is for sale. That particular comment got a glare from Harry directed at Garrett.

This place is a step below what Leo does, in her opinion. As she looks around, it's difficult to ignore triggering memories from the past at the sight of the other girls on display in front of the men. Every time she senses her thoughts going in that direction as she walks around to scope out the floor she's on, she redirects herself to Harry. Whenever anything bad pops up, she remembers that day when she panicked in the closet and how safe she felt with him, and the pain of it lessens.

She makes a beeline for the bar first to have a place to stand/hide while she gets control of herself.

"Hey," Y/N says to the bartender and braces her hands against the counter. "Can you tell me where table two is? I'm filling in for Angel tonight."

The bartender is a young man compared to the company she often keeps. Based on the baby-faced appearance, she guesses somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-four. He almost reminds her of Peter a little bit, and, for the first time since he died, the ache in her chest doesn't flare up at the sight of someone who resembles him. He places a reddish-hued drink in a short cup on the bar top with a muted smile.

"Table two is the closest to the stage"—Of course—"and his buddy isn't there right now, but this is for him, so just put it in front of his seat."

"Thanks."

She takes the drink from the bar top and is careful not to spill a drop of it as she tries to copy the confidence Dani had when strutting in her heels. If she's going to stick out because she's the only woman here wearing underwear, she'll make sure that she looks the part in every other way. As expected, she can feel pairs of eyes on her from every corner of the room, and she tries not to let it get under her skin. Every time she feels one of them leering at her, she goes back to that moment in the closet with Harry and allows him to calm her speeding heart rate.

Other servers weave in and out of her path, either carrying drinks or plates on trays or leading one of the men to the back for a private dance. It's a tad disorienting with the blue and red lights flashing on and off around the room, spotlights cutting through the changing colors to shine on the three dancers on stage, but she keeps her focus on the table she was told to deliver the drink. In her other hand, the small recording device is ready to be planted onto the bottom of the table. It has a sticky side for her to adhere to the table, and she already went over how she was going to do it.

She'll place the drink down and steady herself with one hand wrapped around the lip of the table to secure the device before saying she'll be right back after she completes another drink order.

A slow, thrumming song plays over the speakers for the women on stage to strip and sway to in a sensual dance that lures the eyes of the men away from her as she nears the table. Good. The fewer witnesses who can confirm her presence here, the better. Although, she admits to herself with a sinking feeling, the witness who matters most in identifying her underneath the attempts to disguise her appearance could return at any moment.

She tries to emulate the sultry attitude she sees many of the women, most of all Dani, adopt as they're making their rounds to different tables when she finally reaches table two.

"Here's the drink your friend ordered," Y/N says, leaning over the table to set it down on the coaster in front of the empty seat.

When she puts it there, she holds the edge of the table exactly as they planned and sticks the recording device to it, not allowing her hand to leave it until she's certain it's properly adhered. As she stands up to her full height, she moves the hand she used to plant the recording device to rest on Ryan's left shoulder and caress it the way she would a lover. It feels wrong to touch anyone but Harry this way, but she ignores it for the sake of the performance she must put on.

Right when she turns to leave, he catches her by her wrist and doesn't allow her to go any farther.

There's no calming herself down this time. Imagining she's with Harry does not work because, logically, she knows how deep of shit they'll be in if he keeps her here until Leo comes back from whatever "distraction" they procured for him. The lighting may disguise her for a moment, but she knows it'll only work for so long before he recognizes her. She can only imagine how worried Harry is watching her over the cameras right now.

Ryan says, "Wait. I haven't seen you around before. You new?"

She wills herself to remain calm as she turns around to face him with a smile and bedroom eyes just like Dani told her to. He's not as handsome as his brother is, but he's easy enough on the eyes. With the same jet-black hair cut short and styled with gel, he must resemble one of their parents more than Leo does, because that's about all they have in common. Their facial features differ to a degree that would have her questioning if they were cousins or brothers had she not already been informed.

The sensual dance going on less than a few feet away from him is forgotten in the wake of her arrival.

"Yeah, I am," she responds in her most realistic attempt at a valley girl accent, drawing up the pitch at the end to finish the statement sounding more like a question. She's sure not to overdo it, but if Leo comes back, she can't speak in her real voice. "My name's Cherry."

It's hard not to jump away from him when she feels his hand sliding up the back of her leg. His fingertips brush against the skin until he reaches the thong barely concealing her naked crotch from view, running the bejeweled fabric beneath his touch and allowing his palm to cup her ass cheek, and she thinks it might be one more minute before Harry comes storming in to beat him senseless over it.

His thin lips spread into a smile that threatens to make her sick to her stomach.

"Cherry," he says as if trying out the word for the first time. "They probably call you that 'cause you taste sweet, huh?"

How he manages to take something so innocent that started with her and Dani in the dressing room and turned it into that is beyond her. And she decided right here and now that no matter how many times he asks, she won't tell Harry what he said to her until the time comes to kill him. If she does, he'll snap and kill him sooner. Perhaps he's already considering it if he can see how he's touching her like she's his property within less than a minute of meeting her.

The hand not squeezing her ass lifts from his lap to reveal a folded-up hundred-dollar bill. One of his fingers hooks around the thin edge of her lacy thong to stow there between the garment and her skin. His other hand roams up from her ass to skim the small of her back, and she must resist the urge to smack it away from the healing tattoos. Having this creep touch something that holds such a deep meaning surrounding her and Harry's relationship increases her urgency to flee at a dramatic rate.

Yet, she doesn't let it ruin her performance.

She leans down until she's face to face with him, allowing her forearms to rest against his shoulders.

"How about the next time you come here, you hang with me in the back and find out?" she whispers, barely letting her voice be heard over the music and chatter around them.

It's so easy to pull men. One little flirt and he's already melting in her hands, turning starry-eyed and pliant for her to manipulate him any way she pleases. He tries to lean forward to give her a kiss, but she jerks away whenever he gets close enough. She plays it off as her being a tease and drawing out the anticipation for "next time", but there will be no next time. The "next time" will be her hitman putting this piece of shit down like the animal he is.

"Why not right now?" he asks.

She winks at him.

"Good girls don't give it away on the first date, do they?"

Hoping that'll be enough to satisfy and shut him up in time for her to make an escape, she stands back up and walks away from him without saying another word. As she turns her back to him, she shuts her eyes and silently prays that he doesn't call her back to the table. The sound of her heels hitting the hard floor is swallowed up by the music that shifts from the slow-paced song that was on to something lively and raucous. It gets a few men out of their seats to dance with server girls in the space between tables, and, as she passes by the table next to Ryan and Leo's, she sees Dani tipping her head back in laughter in the arms of a handsome older man.

It appears that they're in the clear, she realizes, now that she's made it halfway across the room without hearing his voice yelling her fake name to summon her back like a dog. That is until she sees the man walking straight at her from one of the back rooms and feels her heart drop into the pit of her stomach.

Leo.

She changes direction as quickly as she can without drawing attention to herself by looking like she's running from something and finds herself headed back toward the bar. Her mind is not in control of her decisions anymore. Pure instinct takes hold, and her legs have a mind of their own in regard to where they'll be taking her tonight. Right now, the sole requirement is that it's the opposite direction to wherever Leo is.

The bartender's eyes light up in recognition as she approaches, then widen at her slamming the one-hundred dollar bill Ryan stuffed in her thong down on the counter.

"A shot of fireball," she demands, then peeks over her shoulder with her faux blonde hair concealing her face from table two's view to see Dani dancing with the same man who embraced her seconds ago. "And leave whatever's left of the cash to Sugar."

"You sure?" he asks.

Her eyes narrow at him as he pours the shot and slides the glass across the bar to her.

She says, "Yeah, I am," then throws back the two ounces of liquor without a single grimace shown on her face on its way down.

The last thing she wants is to keep that bill knowing the disgusting hands that'd touched her while she "earned it". At least it'll be money free of exploitation and shame for Dani. A gift from a would-be friend. In another place or time in which they ended up in the same line of work for more than fifteen minutes. Perhaps it'll be the only cash she's received here without proverbial strings attached at every end.

Y/N slams the empty shot glass back down hard enough for it to rattle around in a circle on the varnished wood and departs with a quiet, "Thanks," past the rest of the tables to reach the staircase to the upper level.

The private rooms, Garrett explained to them on their way in, are located upstairs for privacy. Depending on the comfortability of the girl, private rooms are either used for one-on-one dances or prostitution. On the other side of the upper level, however, is a closed-off section of rooms interconnected by a hallway for staff. Mostly for security. They informed her that Harry would be waiting for her whenever she planted the device in the room at the very end, and she didn't think it'd feel as far as it does now.

Every few seconds, she looks over her shoulder with a paranoia strong enough to make her body tremble on her way up the stairs. Tears blur her vision, the contacts irritating her even further, and she tries to hold in the sound of her crying.

She thought she could handle it. She figured that men have done whatever they've wanted with her as far back as she can remember, so what's another night of being subjugated to this objectification again? What's another wound to add to those that fester and refuse to close unless she banishes them from her memory? She thought she could bear it, but, as she stumbles up the stairs and allows her tears to ruin her makeup, she is forced to recognize her limits.

When she reaches the locked door that separates the private staff section of the upper level from the rest, she mistypes the code on the pin pad multiple times before it finally opens for her.

She doesn't have to look up at his face to know it's Harry waiting for her behind it. He likely saw her leaving, crying as she ascended the staircase, and came down the hallway to get her before anyone else intervened or, God forbid, Ryan followed her up here. The second he appears, she rushes forward through the doorway and collapses into his embrace with a loud sob.

His arms pull tight around her shoulders, his hand cradling the back of her head where it burrows into his neck and stroking the hair of her wig down as he whispers soothing words to her.

This only worsens the cries coming from her and weakens her body enough that she leans on him for full support from her overwhelming anguish. Everything comes back to her in full force in the aftermath of what she was forced to do tonight—what happened to her when she was a child with her friend's brother, the man who left her unconscious on the sidewalk outside of that club after Peter's death, her multiple near-death experiences—it all comes rushing back.

"Hey," he whispers, pulling back and reaching for her face to ensure she actually looks at him. There are tears in his eyes too. "S'okay. You're safe, baby. I'm right here."

The mascara on her lower lash line smudges under her eyes when she wipes the tears away with her fingertips and tries to force herself to breathe deeply to keep from hyperventilating. She does way better than she did last time when he had to calm her down in the closet, and, for that, they're both thankful. Nevertheless, it still hurts him to see her this way, broken and clinging to him for any scrap of stability she can find. That was why he pushed her on wearing the underwear. Part of it had to do with his own territorial jealousy, yes, but he was mostly thinking of her. Of this. Of every man from her past and future that he wants to hunt to the ends of the earth for making her feel bad, himself included.

Guilt crushes him in moments like these. They make him reflect on every time he yelled or manhandled her in the beginning, every time he hurt her for the sake of pushing her away that had more to do with his own insecurities than it herself did "keeping her safe". But maybe the guilt is his punishment. He'll gladly stomach it for the rest of his life so long as he gets to keep her in it until the end.

He asks, "What do you want me to do?" His brows furrow as he blinks the tears away from his eyes, and he tilts her head back to keep her looking at him. "What can I do?"

Her bottom lip quivers, wet with saliva and tears that trickle down her cheeks onto it. There's nothing she can think to say.

"I don't know."

To this, his face hardens. And after a few seconds have passed of them not breaking their intense stare-down, he leans forward to press his forehead to hers and holds her in place there by the back of her neck

He promises her, "When I kill him, I'll cut off the hand he touched y'with."

The old version of her would've blanched at such a violent statement, but the version of her that exists today is calmed by it. She knows her lover now, and with that understanding, she knows that this is his way of solving things and showing how much he cares. He doesn't enjoy doing the things he's been groomed to from adolescence, but she is the only one he would willingly do them for without her holding anything over his head for leverage.

"Thank you," she mutters back.

For a minute or two, they remain frozen in time and never want to leave the sanctuary of each other's arms. Face to face, chest to chest, they stand here and breathe in each other's air in silence. They savor it. Because the second they leave, everything could change. Depending on the information Garrett picks up from the recording device, the hit could be anywhere between one day and one month away. It could either be their freedom or their damnation.

Unfortunately for them, the vibration of his phone buried deep in his pocket interrupts the peaceful moment far too soon. He doesn't let go of her as he fishes it out and checks it to see what's going on, and he doesn't need to. Upon a quick glance, he clicks it off without reacting and stuffs it back into his pocket.

"Garrett says the device is up and working," he tells her. "We can go home."

On their way down the hallway, he steals one of the coats left hanging on the rack mounted on the wall and drapes it over her shoulders to shield her body from anyone's prying eyes, as well as the colder temperature that has set in now that it's nighttime. She ties it around her waist as tight as the fabric will allow and leaves it alone. The neckline plunges deep enough for anyone who pays attention to notice her lack of clothes underneath, but, honestly, if anyone dares to say something, she might just steal his gun and pistol-whip them with it.

The path they take to the back door blurs together in her mind. Turn after turn until they reach the open air, she stays tucked under his arm and squeezes his hand with enough strength to cut off his circulation. Neither of them says a word. All they do is walk side by side in silence and know that no matter what happened tonight, once they get back home and lock themselves inside, everything will be okay again until morning.

His Escalade is parked around the side of the building, so they make for the vehicle as swiftly as possible and try to keep their heads down should either of the brothers they came here to spy on take it upon themselves to step out for a minute.

The keys are in his hand, his thumb ready to press down on the button to unlock the doors, when the sound of someone shouting his name from behind causes him to freeze.

"Harry!"

In seconds, the keys are in her possession and he's already resting a hand on the gun strapped to his hip should they try anything, but there's no need. He doesn't know how, but, somehow, Y/N picked up on who it was and he didn't. Blinded by panic, he didn't think to question whether it was a friend or enemy before reaching for a weapon to defend her with.

She slips out from underneath his arm to turn to face the man, and when he follows her lead, his shoulders sag with equal parts relief and dread.

Drenched in the rain beside a running vehicle, Zayn stands before them with an accusatory stare.

A/N: HOW ARE WE FEELING? WE AREN’T QUITE NEAR THE END YET BUT WE ARE GETTING INTO THE REAL SHIT NOW! let me know your thoughts, i’d loveee to hear them :)

#harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #getaway car #fanfiction

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flightfoot · 3 years ago

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I don't understand, why writing "revenge fantasies" is a form of projection that can be really harmful and that can't really be justified? These people are just externalizing they feelings without any real repercussions. I don't understand the "can't really be justified", they are literally doing nothing, so what they should justifie something? You think people just have to live with suppressed bad feelings and only externalize good feelings? So people just have sit down and suffer in silence until they hurt themselves or worse, take their own life?

This is the post the anon is talking about, if anyone's wondering.

It's better than actually committing the revenge or self-harming. Mind you, I don't think that the level of revenge fantasies or the way that that group tends to actively push for extreme vengeance as being not only something that is permissible, but is in fact the morally correct option above attempting de-escalation and understanding, is particularly helpful.

The bit about it not really being something that can be justified refers more to the way that the revenge fantasies in ML fandom salt have taken on a decidedly racist tone, with the way that Alya's targeted in particular, and just how baked in some really nasty stuff is into the Saltdom in general. It gets pretty offensive, and makes me think of the "Finn tries to sexually assault Rey so that Kylo Ren can beat him up" kind of racist fics I've heard about with the Star Wars fandom.

It's not like it's just a few people or like it's been a short-term thing, there's been this entire mindset and worldview that's sustained its own separate vengeance-based fandom these past few years and that has been re-enforced over and over again, which does make me fear that, say, the people deeply embroiled in the saltdom genuinely think that if you're in a position of power and you're pissed that like, your friend didn't help you to attack someone you hate to the degree that you'd like, that you are totally within your rights to abuse your power in order to set it up so they get sexually harassed, knowing that they can't do anything about it, purely for your own satisfaction.

In the beginning, I shrugged off the saltfics because I thought it was just a few people venting and that they'd get it out of their system, that they were just being written to explore a plotline, but that they didn't mean anything deeper. I've been in a lot of fandoms for a long time, and I've read all sorts of fics, even things with questionable content.

All these years later, with not only the fics, but the arguments I've seen pushing for punishment for people who simply doubted Marinette or fell for manipulation, I can't really say that it's just a bit of venting. I'm afraid that if I was one of the friends of someone who was advocating for Marinette to get to hurt anyone who got in her way, and I didn't agree to attack some random person they didn't like, that they'd turn around and try to make callout posts against me and try to dox me, while saying that I deserved it for not being a good enough friend to them, because that's the sort of argument I've seen pushed over and over again by the salter group.

#ask #ml fandom salt

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verycharismaticdragon · 2 years ago

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(!!! posted this before noticing the pollrunner remade the poll to a week-long one. so the correct poll to vote on is here !!!)

Last time I wrote Binghe-ganda for this poll I was in the shadow jail but this just means I can reuse it, right?

So, where to start... oh, right, some of you may be wondering: what the hell is a Heavenly Demon? And, well! That's only the most special type of demon there is, in Luo Binghe's world! Unlike normal demons, heavenly demons trace their origins to fallen and corrupted gods. This gives them a bunch of unique abilities, including can-fix-a-broken-bone-in-seconds healing and using their blood as a GPS tracker and/or torture device if they make someone ingest it. Among just general natural talent. Because of how damn OP they are, they became a de-facto imperial bloodline of the Demon Realm... though by the time Luo Binghe's story takes place, no one had been on that throne for a while, as his Heavenly Demon dad happened to get himself into a Situation (imprisoned under a mountain by human cultivators).

Speaking of human cultivators! For those not in c-fandoms, cultivators are ppl cultivating their internal energy/qi/chi to have magic-like abilities. How magic-like those are depends on the genre and particular work; the important thing is, internal energy powers both spell-like stuff (like summoning fire or turning tree leaves into weapons) and general martial arts stuff (moving fast punching hard cleaving mountains with your sword etc). And Luo Binghe's mom happened to be a very gifted cultivator! Meaning that in addition to OP demonic abilities he inherited from his dad, he can also cultivate like a human, and has a great natural talent for it as well! Making him the best of both worlds in terms of power.

Does he sound like a Mary Sue yet?.. Well, he should!

You see, Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, the webnovel Luo Binghe comes from, is a transmigration-into-a-book story. Meaning, the main character of SVSSS is a guy from the modern world who woke up in the world of the book he read. The book in question? A male power fantasy about a downtrodden orphan who discovered his secret powers, took bloody revenge on everyone who wronged him, and got allllllll the girls.

Yep, Luo Binghe is the protagonist of that book. That's why he has the most special boy heritage ever... and a tragic backstory. You see, not only was his dad imprisoned (without ever knowing of Luo Binghe's existence and also led to believe it was Luo Binghe's mom who betrayed him...), Binghe's biological mom also died in childbirth while fleeing the person who set his dad up. And then his adoptive mom died too. And then he managed to get accepted into a cultivation sect (like a school for cultivators) only to be apprenticed under a child abuser who developed an especial grudge against him. So basically, tragic as hell childhood, then a metamorphosis/power up arc, then revenge (and wife collecting).

Of course... this is only a story of Luo Binghe from the original book. In SVSSS, one day, his cruel shifu inexplicably changed his mind about him. (Yep, the MC of SVSSS had woken up in the body of the protagonist's evil shifu. Hence the 'scum villain' in the novel's title.) And started helping him. And protected him at a great cost to himself...................

Long story short, SVSSS Luo Binghe's greatest life ambition is becoming a househusband (he cooks! he cleans! he needs kissies to live!). Unfortunately, the narrative has other plans for him. (Luo Binghe, sitting on his throne in the Demon Realm, aura of darkness around him: "How do you make your intentions clear to a ~special someone~?.." His court of demons: 👹?👹??👹?👹?? ?) (dont worry though, he gets his guy. this is a BL webnovel they get married and all.)

Now, the last bit of propaganda: a picture of a half-demon in his natural habitat (his husband's lap)

Look at he. Could u vote against him be honest

So, tl;dr: 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 a vote for Luo Binghe is a vote for half-demon malewives everywhere!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

(and also for chronically online fans who end up marrying blorbo from their books. Luo Binghe's husband would vote for him in an internet poll and he would not be normal about it.)

(!!! posted this before noticing the pollrunner remade the poll to a week-long one. so the correct poll to vote on is here !!!)

#polls

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dangraccoon · 2 years ago

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Hell's Comin' With Me

Request for @error6gendernotfound

The Bad Batch (post-order 66) & You

“I'm thinking bad batch angst and eventual fluff (bc I have fragile feelings) with 12 and 28 from the prompt list. One of the batch finds something out about the reader (sickness, past coming back to bite them in the ass, idk) and tries to get them to tell the rest of the batch. Tysm!! I love your writing!”

12. “Just…just don’t upset them. Not now.” 28. “Do they know?” “I don’t know how to tell them.”

Summary: It took years to push your past behind you, but when a new mission leads the Bad Batch back to your old stomping grounds, you're forced to confront your past.

Warnings: past abuse, violence, TW: religious trauma/abuse, TW: poor living conditions, revenge, canon-typical explosions, non-canon-typical murder (I believe I got the worst of it, but please, please, let me know if there's something you feel I should add!!!)

Author's Note: @error6gendernotfound, Garden, darling, thank you so so so much for requesting this! It was an incredible journey to write and I'm so glad that this was my first request! I also want to thank all of you for your continued support; it really means the world to me 💛

It had been a long time since I left “home”. The little outer rim moon I was born on was dry, dusty, and dilapidated. It took 18 standard years to get off that damn rock, and I didn’t exactly leave on good terms with the people of my settlement.

But that didn’t matter; I was off on adventures with a ragtag crew of rogue clones that had taken me in. We all had the same goals: stay away from the empire, and eventually disappear. That was all fine and dandy, until Cid gave us a new mission.

“You’re goin’ to Vel,” she rasped. “There’s a little village called Tirra where you’ll touch down. Pick up the goods and bring them back here.”

“V-vel?” I stammered, doing everything I could not to look as frazzled as I felt.

“It is a moon in the outer rim; part of the Regasta system,” Tech informed, barely looking up from his data pad. “It is not the most…advanced society.”

“That’s nice, Goggles, now shut it,” Cid scowled at him.

The rest of the briefing flew by, and I barely caught anything. We were going to Vel. And worse, we were going to Tirra.

It had been years since I’d left, and I wanted - no, I needed to keep it that way. I just couldn’t go back.

“Oh, I forgot,” I mumbled as the Batch and I began making our way to the Marauder. “I have another mission to take care of.”

The squad stopped in the tracks to look at me.

“Another mission?” Omega asked, quirking up an eyebrow. I hated that I was lying, especially to her.

“You didn’t tell us you were taking solos from Cid again,” Echo questioned, obvious concern crossing his face. Kriff, I should’ve known they’d remember that part of my history.

“Th-that’s because it isn’t for Cid,” I blurted out. Idiot, I thought to myself.

Hunter stepped toward me now. “You’re going behind Cid’s back?” His voice was full of the skepticism that was shown on his face. “You’re not one to make stupid decisions like that.”

“Tough times,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Must be,” he replied, stepping away from me, but squinting his eyes a little, the way he usually did while using his other senses.

He could hear my heart hammering against my ribcage, I know he could.

“Yours have a deadline?” Hunter asked after what felt like a lifetime.

“Well, no, but I need to-”

“You need to assist this squad, like you said you would.”

I glanced around at the others, hoping for some hint of support. Most weren’t looking at me, save for Omega, who was showing her usual curious look, only now it was mixed with something unfamiliar. Her family was uncomfortable, and she was certainly picking up on it.

I could feel the anger rising in my chest, first at the way Hunter was ordering me around, rather than just talking to me, but then it was mainly as a defense mechanism; I was scared but I couldn’t- no, I wouldn’t show that. Not to them.

“Fine,” I spat, hating the feel of venom on my tongue as I brushed past all of them to board the ship.

The entire journey through hyperspace would take nearly a week, and about four days in, I had hardly said a word to anyone that wasn’t Omega. I couldn’t deny her my attention; she was simply too sweet.

“Why don’t you want to go to Vel?” she asked one day, having just entered the gunner's-nest-turned-bedroom, that she liked to let me sit in when I needed to be away from her brothers.

I didn’t know what to say aside from the truth. Omega was fairly mature for her age, but she was naive and innocent and still a child. I couldn’t lie to her.

“Because I was born there. I was born in Tirra, on Vel.” The words felt like gravel pouring out of my mouth, rough, jagged, difficult, but once they were out, once that fact was fully revealed, I did feel lighter.

“What?” Omega nearly shouted, causing me to wince. “That’s amazing! You’ll be able to show us around, and we can meet your family and see where you grew up!”

I shuddered at the thought, and Omega, observant to a fault, noticed.

“Aren’t you excited to go home?” she wondered, the excited smile beginning to fade from her face.

“I…wouldn’t exactly call it ‘home’,” I started, feeling, but not becoming fully aware of the way my fist clenched, pressing my fingernails into the meat of my palms.

Omega didn’t respond, just scooted closer to my side.

I took a deep breath. I’d gotten this far, I might as well tell her the rest.

“I didn’t have the best childhood,” I explained. “My parents died not too long after I was born, so I was sent to an orphanage - um, that’s a place where they take care of all the kids who don’t have any family anymore.

“It was bad; everything was dirty, the beds, the rooms, the clothes, us. And the food was worse than ration bars, when there was any. The grown-ups in charge claimed to be righteous, holy people, but they didn’t care about us. Some kind-hearted people would give money to try and help us, but it would just go right into his pockets.

“When I was a few years older than you are now, he noticed me. He’d hold me up as this example of a disgusting sinner even though I never did anything wrong. He had this…this power over people, and even though I was just a kid, they believed him.

“18 long years of being beaten and spat upon by the people of that town. I had enough. I told that man that I was leaving and he had the town stone me and he banished me from ever returning. I went to Indus, the capital of the whole moon, because finally I was old enough to book passage off-world for myself.”

Omega was quiet for a long time after my shaky words had tapered off. Silent tears were rolling down both of our faces, something I worried Hunter could sense.

“Do they know?” she asked, the sorrow evident in her voice. She was such an empathetic child and the weight of the guilt I felt for unloading on her like I had? It was suffocating.

“No, Omega,” I answered. “I don’t know how to tell them.”

“But they can help,” she scowled at the floor, her belief in her brothers shining through. “They can protect you.”

I took another breath. “I know you trust your brothers, and I trust them too, but I don’t think they trust me. I don’t think they even really like me.” I left out the part of how they probably only tolerated me because of my skill set and Omega’s affection for me.

“They do like you!” Omega protested, having no intention of allowing the idea that her friend and her family weren’t friends as well.

“Omega-”

“I’m sure they trust you. You should trust them.”

Omega left me on my own, climbing down the ladder.

“I wish I could,” I whispered to the streaking lights of hyperspace racing past in the window.

Day six was finally coming to an end. I needed to get off of this ship, even if that meant stepping foot in Tirra again.

The moments before I’d left for Indus were replaying constantly in my mind. The way the townsfolk had cornered me, hurtling rocks, bricks, insults. What I’d told them, my rage taking over my brain in the moment.

I shook my head. None of that mattered right now. There was a mission to complete.

“Entering the atmosphere,” Tech called from the cockpit.

I could feel my nerves rising again, and I clenched my fists, forcing myself to breathe calmly.

We touched down without incident, kicking up a few swirls of dust. Some of the townspeople walking around looked towards us, but ultimately decided to mind their own business.

As we all stepped off the ship, taking in our surroundings, Omega appeared beside me, pulling at my sleeve so I’d bend down towards her.

“Did you tell them?” she whispered as softly as she could, side eyeing Hunter.

I shook my head. Hunter was watching us, suspicion across his face.

Omega scowled at me a little, which despite causing a bubble of guilt to rise into my chest, did little to make me want to talk to her brothers.

“You should tell them,” she said, walking away from me to go ask Tech questions about the moon.

“Tell us what?” Echo asked, suddenly right behind me.

“It’s nothing,” I muttered. I started to walk away, but he grabbed my arm.

The look on his face was heartbreaking; he was so worried about me. “Taking jobs from someone other than Cid? Keeping secrets? It’s not like you.”

Part of me felt touched. He was right, the lies I’d been telling weren’t like me. I preferred to be somewhat of an open book to those around me, especially those I trusted, like the Bad Batch.

“I know, and I want to tell you, it’s just…really hard,” I breathed, the tiniest bit of relief dripping into my brain. At least that wasn’t another lie.

Echo didn’t reply, but his expression of worry didn’t disappear either.

We set out to the rendezvous point where we’d meet with Cid’s contact, walking the edge of the town.

Wait, the edge of town?

“We have to stop,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. Four helmeted heads turned back towards me. I could see the confusion on Omega’s face, but I could practically feel it on the rest of them.

“This is the fastest route to the rendezvous,” Tech explained, lifting his data pad to my view.

“I know, but if we go this way then we’ll-”

I clamped my mouth shut. Damnit.

“‘We’ll’ what?” Hunter pressed. I could tell he was fed up with my antics.

I could feel myself shaking and my heart hammering in my chest. I opened my mouth, hoping that more explanation would come tumbling out, but nothing did.

Omega stepped towards me, taking my hand in hers. She beamed up at me, her smile supportive as she nodded.

I took a long, deep, shaking breath in and out. “If we go this way, we’ll have to pass the preacher’s house. If he’s there, and he sees us, he will start trouble. That’s not trouble you want. If we double back and take the main road, the townsfolk will alert him to our presence if they didn’t already when we landed. We need to go up into the woods along the northern side of town. The woods are thick, but easy to navigate. It’ll take a little extra time, so we’ll have to pick up the pace.”

There were four sets of eyes on me, and even though I could only see Tech’s, I knew they all reflected the same thing; full confusion.

They looked between me, Omega - who was smiling kindly at me, hand still in mine - and each other.

Omega, with a slightly irritated tone I’d rarely heard from her, tugged at my hand. “We have to go quickly, right?”

I nodded.

“Lead the way,” she smiled again. A took a deep breath, eyes scanning her brothers’ helmets again, before putting on what I hoped was a determined expression, and turning to lead the group on the alternative route.

Omega eventually let go of my hand as we walked, giving it a supportive squeeze before she did.

As I’d told them, the woods were thick, but I knew them well.

“You going to tell us how you know so much about this place?” Hunter asked slightly behind me.

“That is simple; this is where they were raised as a child,” Tech called from the back of the group. I froze in my tracks, the rest of the group stopping behind me.

“This is your home?” Wrecker asked, lifting his helmet to look at me. My mouth formed a tight line as I fought the tears threatening to pour down my cheeks.

“This is where they were born,” Tech corrected. “However, given the lengths they have gone to trying to avoid this very conversation, I would say their memories of living here are rather unpleasant.”

Echo stepped towards me, lifting his helmet from his head. “Is that true?”

He placed a gentle touch on my shoulder and I was done for. A few tears slipped down my cheeks and Echo’s expression softened.

No. No, we had a mission. I couldn’t do this right now.

I pulled away from Echo, turning my face.

“We’ll be late if we don’t get going,” I explained, beginning to continue our trek, walking briskly.

The rest of the mission blurred by without incident. Wrecker heaved the cargo container up from the ground, and Tech turned to me. “Shall we return the way we came?”

I nodded, unable to really say anything. My nerves were still keyed up, and I had a terrible feeling in my gut. My fists clenched into tight balls as we began our walk back to the ship.

The walk back was uneventful, Tech occasionally looking over his shoulder at me to confirm that we were still on the right path.

“Stop,” Hunter ordered as the town started to come into view.

He pulled a pair of binocs out, looking over the town square we’d have to pass through.

He grunted, passing the binocs to Tech and Echo.

“It’s a trap,” Echo concluded.

“Someone’s not happy we’re here,” Hunter agreed.

“Perhaps it is the religious figure you mentioned before,” Tech added, turning to look at me. The rest of the group’s eyes fell on me as well.

“I don’t know your history with this place, or with this preacher, but you need to tell us what we’re walking into,” Hunter said, his voice quiet. There was less bite in it than there had been before.

“He- He’s powerful. He’s got some kind of dark magic.”

“Like the Sith the Jedi would mention during the war?” Echo asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He’s never had one of those weapons they all have.”

“What’s his problem with ya anyhow? We like ya just fine,” Wrecker told me, warming my heart a little.

I never knew the answer to his question of course, not when I was kid. I could feel myself falling into my memory of that last day.

“You pathetic child,” the preacher spat. “The weight of your sins will follow you all your days, but you are no longer welcome on Vel. Leave Tirra once its people are done with you, and never return.”

That’s when the rocks began flying. Most of them missed me, or only grazed me, at least at first. But then a chunk of brick caught me straight in the gut. I tried to back away, but the alleyway they’d cornered me in had no alternative exit. I was trapped. Insults were hurled in my direction, hitting almost as hard as the rocks and trash that bruised and bloodied my skin.

I had fallen into a heap on the ground, barely able to keep myself conscious, let alone protected.

As I lay there, the people began to grow bored, only the preacher’s inner-circle lackeys remained.

I gathered my strength as they laughed, pulling myself to my knees, wiping the dirt, blood, and tears from my face.

“You’re going straight to Hell,” said the preacher, rejoining his henchmen.

“I’ll be back,” I warned, my voice shaky. “I’ll come back one day, you’ll never see me coming. You’re gonna regret this, cause I promise you, when I come back, Hell’s coming with me.”

My attention snapped to the present as Echo called my name, his hand and scomp on my shoulders.

A firefight with the locals had broken out, and it wasn’t going well. Wrecker was hit and knocked out on the ground with Omega kneeling over him. Hunter and Tech were behind the cover of the trees, peeking out to fire back on the townsfolk. And Echo was in front of me, holding my shoulders tightly, gently shaking me back to reality.

“You need to get your head back right,” he instructed me, his words coming out more worried than upset. “You almost walked into the line of fire.”

“I- I didn’t- I wasn’t-” I stuttered.

“I know, but we need you,” Echo insisted.

I took a steading breath, wiping away the tears I hadn’t realized were flowing. “Right, right.”

“We need a diversion,” Tech called.

“We need Wrecker to get back up,” Omega responded.

“Stop firing and stay out of sight,” I ordered over the comms. “Don’t make a sound.”

They hesitated, but ultimately did as I told them. After a few moments, the enemy blasterfire slowed, and then stopped altogether. Wrecker was slowly coming back to consciousness, much to all of our relief.

“Wreck,” I whispered. “I need you to do what you do best; we’re going to need a big boom.”

His face split into the grin of a menace and he nodded, clearly fighting the urge to shout his excitement.

“They’ll be coming up to look for our bodies any minute now; the rest of you need to sneak back to the Marauder. Split up and loop around, Wrecker will meet you there once he’s done helping me.”

“What about you?” Omega worried.

“I’m the diversion. The townspeople might not have recognized me when we landed, but I know he will.”

“Are you sure?” Hunter asked, and despite his mask I could feel his eyes staring into mine.

“Yes. It’s going to work,” I assured him. Hunter nodded at me, and then again at the rest of the squad. I watched them disperse, as Wrecker began rigging together what he had in his kit.

The end result was a tangle of wires and explosives. “Good work, Wrecker,” I nodded to him. “Set this on the east side of the town - there should hardly be anyone there - I’ll tell you when to set it off. Now get back to the others, tell Tech to get the ship running as soon as I get into the square.”

Wrecker nodded, dashing off into the trees. I unholstered my blaster as I heard a few townies begin to make their way into the thick forest. I spared a glance around the tree I was using for cover. Just two men were stalking up towards me.

I quickly fired off two shots, hitting each of them square in the center of their chests.

With the coast clear, I moved down the hill towards the town, pausing behind a tree just at the edge. I could hear another man - one of the preacher’s lackeys - shouting after the two who were now laying dead in the middle of the woods.

I could see him. He was still dressed in her overly-ornate robes. He’d gained weight since I last saw him; unsurprising given how skinny the orphans likely were.

I knew I should have waited just a moment longer, but my anger, my hatred of this man was overpowering, and I ran into the middle of the square.

“They said to start the ship now,” I heard Wrecker breathlessly instruct Tech.

“Well, well, well,” the preacher said, stepping towards me. He dropped my name into the dirt beneath his feet. “I believe I told you all those years ago that you’d overstayed your welcome in this town.”

I said nothing, my jaw clenching and my grip tightening around my blaster.

“Still a disgusting delinquent I see,” he mused, looking me over. “I’m certain you still haven’t cleansed yourself of your wickedness.”

I began slowly walking sideways towards the large tree that grew in the center of the square, the townspeople watching in repulsion.

“If you think you’re going to make it out of here alive, you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.”

I lowered my blaster, bringing one hand up to my comm device, “Now, Wrecker!” I shouted, and perfectly on cue, a giant ball of flame burst from behind me, smoke, ash, and debris flooding the streets and square. I used the distraction to climb as high as I could into that big old tree.

I felt myself losing my tight grip on my control, and suddenly it was like I was watching my actions from outside of myself.

I attached the grappling extension to my blaster, and held it up, aiming it at that damned preacher. I fired and it hit, plunging half way into his chest. I used the branches of the tree to steady myself as my grappler began to reel itself in. I wrapped the end of my extension to a sturdy branch, ensuring that the corrupt, evil man would hang before the town.

I jumped down from the tree, surveying the town. The people were at their knees, screaming, crying, begging for mercy.

“I promised I’d bring Hell with me,” I snarled. “But I’ll show you the mercy you never gave me.”

I walked towards the Marauder, not followed, simply watched. I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms but I didn’t move them, longing to feel anything but the rage that was coursing through my veins.

From the moment I boarded the ship until the jump into hyperdrive, it was deathly silent. No one uttered a single word, not even Wrecker and Omega were boasting about the successful mission.

I tucked myself away into a corner in the cargo bay. I felt hot tears streaming down my face, cutting through the dust and grime that coated my face, but I did nothing to stop them now. I let my mind wander away a little, only coming back to myself as I heard talking nearby.

“Omega, where are they?” Hunter asked, seemingly again, his voice filled with paternal scolding.

“I don’t think they want to talk to anyone right now,” Omega replied, her voice firm.

“We just want to help,” Echo pleaded, his voice a little louder so he knew I could hear him.

“Fine,” Omega relented. “Just…just don’t upset them. Not now.”

I expected Hunter and Echo to come across me now, but was surprised to see the whole Batch before me, waiting patiently.

“Are you okay?” Wrecker asked, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it before. He had his little tooka doll in hand, and was offering her to me.

I accepted Lula, pulling her tight against my body.

“A lot happened back there,” Echo started.

Tech continued “We will fully understand if our presence here makes you uncomfortable.”

“We’ll leave if you tell us to,” Hunter added. “But you’re part of this squad.”

“This family,” Omega corrected, scooting close to you.

“We’re here for you, if you want to talk about it,” Wrecker finished.

They all looked at me, somewhat expectantly, Omega, placing her hand on my arm.

A fresh flood began to pour from my eyes as I gasped and panted. “I-I’m so-sorry,” I managed between sobs.

Before I knew it, Wrecker scooped me up into a tight hug, Omega joining it as well, standing on a crate to reach around my shoulder. I felt her send looks towards her other brothers, who relented, coming into the group hug as well.

The warmth and pure familial love that surrounded me now was overwhelming in the best possible way. Eventually it had to come to an end, but for now, all I could do was let myself be swept up in the fraternal display of outright affection.“You do still have a family,” Omega whispered. “We’ll always be your family.”

Thanks for reading! - Dang

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ellicler · 3 years ago

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izzy hands is a sad and desperate little man futilely struggling against the systems he hates, yet unable to escape their conditioning. he constantly recreates the very power structures that he’s trying to destroy because a. he thinks they’re effective, b. they’re the only thing he knows and c. he’s inherently someone who likes existing inside of very ordered and familiar lines and he’s afraid of the chaos of change, of stepping into the disordered unknown. (in that way edward is very complementary and very healthy for him.)

there’s three major areas where he exhibits the same dynamic (they’re all interconnected of course). first is obviously patriarchy with its toxic masculinity, its cycles of abuse, its denial of true intimacy. a lot has been said on this point by people more eloquent than me. it’s stede who has the idea to propose an idiotic and visionary question, ‘and what if it wasn’t like that?’ (stede who has more leisure and more intellectual breathing room as a member of the privileged class. this show is so good.) other pirates (even the ones from blackbeard’s crew) accept this freedom of emotional expression, izzy vehemently rejects it.

second is the (british naval) hierarchy, and probably more generally western colonialism as a theme. it’s great we got to see how much izzy despises the british (’do you really want to lick the king’s boots?’) and yet his intransigence about the hierarchy on blackbeard’s ship is something weirdly parallel to the inhumane discipline on the british fleet. what are you even a pirate for, if you don’t have workplace democracy and a preestablished code of conduct? all right, a ship needs a certain amount of discipline to function, and you want to beat you enemies at their own game, but leaving no freedom for your crew makes you honestly indistinguishable from the system you hate. (it does make me wonder if izzy has some past background in the military fleet.) this is also a perspective that best explaines the rather odd scene of izzy as captain of Revenge lording it over the crew. he’s pointedly having dinner while they work (very much a parallel to the ep1 dining scenes with the british officers, a caste who hold themselves above the simple sailors serving them and get killed for their arrogance) and he also chooses to put to physical work the three men of color from the original crew (who doesn’t love to add a bit of racism to their classism). from the POV of the audience (and the crew) izzy is achieving precisely nothing with this show of symbolic power, but for him it’s probably the natural way to display and reinforce his new status (he wants to establish new boundaries quickly). a hilarious values dissonance. (mate just take a page out of blackbeard’s book and threaten someone with a knife through the eye, even that would’ve worked better.)

third is christianity with its ideas about love, servitude and virtue. (as @knowlesian hasn’t yet written the Weird White Jesus post, i’m forced to muddle through on my own, but i didn’t notice it before their game-changing izzy meta. unfortunately christian insanity is background noise to me, i was raised and bred on dostoyevsky.) there’s a very specifically christian emotional tone about self-sacrifice and suffering as the Greatest virtue, about self-abjection and self-negation due as service to your idol who is the quintessence of all perfection and power. the worship and unquestioning obedience due to White God Jesus and his proxies on this earth are trained into you and that's something that leaves a permanent impression on one’s sense of self. so once you rebel against the corrupt and selfish authorities you still carry that expectation of the Perfect Incarnation of Authority in you, an empty place inside your soul. you’ve learned that joy in acceptance of suffering is the highest form of love. you must not only submit willingly to the pain inflicted on you but also find happiness and fulfillment in it. ...i’m sure it’s plain to see the more extreme of izzy’s kinks have a lot of themes in common with this, but it’s also about the general psychological need to find the perfect leader and submit oneself wholly and entirely to his cause. you can’t just respect and follow a good man: you have to make a God out of him. (again, from edward’s POV being objectified in this way is just a colonisation narrative, again as @knowlesian pointed out here).

so anyway. izzy hands season 2 challenge. if your violent defiance of these systems is to be worth a damn, you have to stop letting yourself be defined by their narratives

#ooof this went in certain directions i didn't expect #izzy hands #our flag means death #ofmd meta #yes YES i'm gonna watch black sails as soon as i have time I KNOW I SHOULD #my ofmd meta

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1kook · 5 years ago

Text

A COLLECTION [ updated: 8 . 23 . 21 ]

—NETFLIX & CHILL.

summary If you planned things right, you could rain down your raging displeasure on Jeon Jungkook right after the meal but before this proposed ‘Netflix and chilling,’ maybe dramatically throw your glass of wine at him, before storming out of his place and reporting him to the authorities (Namjoon) for his douchebag personality. warnings smut in the forms of grinding, oral (f), cum eating, vanilla unprotected sex, dirty talk misc use of the oldest trick in the book (“your hands are sooo big”), shy oblivious AND gentleman jk? pick a struggle, brief ment of app developer kook, evil and conniving oc word count 10.2k posted june 12, 2020

—HULU & WOOHOO.

summary But there’s more important matters to attend to than Jungkook’s Jersey Shore boner. warnings slight feelings of insecurity, smut in the forms of fingering, cunnilingus, cum eating, squirting, hand jobs, unprotected sex, riding, slight praise kink misc if you’re not a Jersey shore fan honestly GET OUT, mentions of capitalism😡, more kind/understanding kook, basically a “what are we?” fic but silly, irresponsible emailing habits, its so dumb just read word count 6.3k posted july 4, 2020

—IMAX & CLIMAX.

summary The occasional dark horse candidate among Barbie movie binges— Jungkook gets weirdly horny and fucks you to the tune of a classic Barbie movie soundtrack. warnings smut in the form of blowjobs, tit play, praise kink, standing sex, unprotected sex, reverse cowgirl (? kinda), daddy kink that morphs into ily kink misc jk is an avid history channel viewer, jk hates Barbie movies ik we took an L today girls 😔, jk goes thru like 4 personality changes (commanding > soft > mean > in love), honestly idk what to tag it’s a mess, he’s still cheesy and romantic but also 👀 just read word count 9.8k posted august 5, 2020

—KISSANIME & FOREPLAY.

summary You get a glimpse of the KissAnime screen for a good two seconds before about seven ads pop up. Another tab to a raunchy hentai website opens, and Jungkook groans. warnings mentions of hentai, smut in the forms of cunnilingus, masturbation (f), oral (f), use of a sex toy, fingering, nipple play, face sitting/fucking/riding idk (f), praise kink, hints of dumbification, cum eating, jk is like passive aggressive in this one, 4 (f) orgasms, this is the kicker: sub kook at the end😳, like 2 sec of dom yn lol, & u get 0.002 sec of adams apple kink misc more dumb story lines, made up sex stores bc my creativity knows no bounds, Jungkook plays nice but is actually mean for the majority of it, once again doyeon plays a pivotal role in the furthering of women empowerment, internal love monologues about jk best boy<3 word count 8.2k posted september 1, 2020

—DISNEY+ & BUST.

summary There’s a pounding on your door a little past noon, so hard and rough, that you almost think it’s the police finally coming to catch you for all your years of illegally pirating Phineas and Ferb. It’s not. It’s just a really drunk boyfriend wailing for your forgiveness at the door. warnings arguments, feelings of insecurity, bit of asshole jk, smut in the forms of humiliation, dumbification, choking, fingering, spit kink, self punishment (? idk lol), unprotected but [ passionate ] sex, jk losing his cool, the return of mean jk, desperate jk, he is actually an emotional mess in this one wtf misc angst, anniversaries, the L word😳, app developer kook, rip ‘pretty girl’ </3, we all become phineas and ferb stans word count 13k posted september 9, 2020

—ESPN & BDSM.

summary You would like to personally thank every loud-mouthed, ESPN commentator out there for saving you from Jungkook’s dangerous seduction skills. warnings smut in the forms of brief femdom, handcuffs, nipple clamps, blindfolding, flogging/use of a riding crop, soft dom kook, cunnilingus, spitting, unprotected but passionate, degradation, as always it starts horny n then turns into I love u kink misc kook has a swollen ankle so idk how he did all this, jk abuses the fuck outta pet names part 7, revenge gone wrong tbh, this was honestly a beginner’s intro to vanilla bdsm word count 12.7k posted september 14, 2020

—YOUTUBE & USE LUBE.

summary You can’t believe this is Jungkook’s preferred sick day treatment; YouTube, cuddles, and an ugly amount of lube. warnings smut in the forms of nipple play, handjobs, spit kink, face riding, unprotected, flavored warming lube, riding, praise kink, soft femdom, missionary bc his eyes are pretty, tit sucking, tit fucking, more jk has an impreg kink, oh and this is all subby kook misc domesticity baby!! fluff, soft scenes /.\, jk is sick:((, doyeon is A Doctor, yn sees an opportunity and she grabs it, surprise ending <3 word count 8.7k posted september 30, 2020

—VIKI & HICKEYS.

summary Just like in those Viki dramas Jungkook likes, the world around you is enveloped in shades of pink and red, kisses and hearts, so many goddamn roses it makes you sneeze. It’s absolutely perfect— nothing could possibly go wrong when there’s so much love in the air. warnings a little hurt + a lot of comfort, mentions of cheating!villain!jin, insecure!kook, emotional breakdowns, mentions of jk’s lonely past, jk cries :( smut in the forms of making out, eating out, fingering, clit play, hickeys, jk likes cum, double orgasm, squirting, tiny praise kink, blindfolding, rough + unprotected sex, doggy style, choking!!!, breeding/impreg kink, JEALOUS KOOK, mini hand kink, a lil bit of spanking, degradation, he gets progressively meaner lol oc cries, jk is a good boy n I want him to be happy misc there’s a lot of fuckin plot omfg -_-, it’s Valentine’s Eve!, doyeon makes Some Points, mentions of park seojoon juicy ass, they go on a d8 😳, oc like rlly wants to marry him, oc commits double phone homicide word count 16.3k posted january 14, 2021

—PEACOCK & SWEET TALK.

summary “I wanna watch Solange in Bring It On,” Jungkook smiles, and you have to wonder who exactly this blond man is and what he did with your teen-movie-hating boyfriend. warnings smut in the forms of kissing, cunnilingus (eating out + fingering), light praise, a lil body worship, jk fat cawk, brief nipple play, playful jk, unprotected sex, riding and missionary, the jk hand kink, I love you kink, jk wants nudes, jk’s cheerleader fantasies mentioned, spit kink, light choking, jk has like a scent kink (?), mention of collars and pet play misc app developer jk becomes even MORE app developer-y, oc is anti-google, there's plot, a 2 year anniversary, Solange knowles appreciation, BLOND JK!!!, gets sappy for a sec, seahorse marriage mention, doyeon x joon side pairing, jk is disgustingly dreamy and oc is threatened by that fact word count 10.7k posted march 23, 2021

— CRUNCHYROLL & RAIL.

summary Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket. warnings smut in the forms of making out, jk nipple play, some 69 action, cunnilingus, blowjobs, brief choking, jk trying his best to listen to oc but he doesn’t rlly :/, fingering, missionary bc his eyes are pretty, unprotected fuckin raw, its romantic but when is it not… misc fluffy and domestic <3, weekend getaway <3, the Big Question, shy jk, sailor moon supremacy, jk makes this big elaborate speech about the sun and moon, mentions of 240p YouTube quality word count 8.7k posted may 21, 2021

—FUNIMATION & PROCREATION.

summary Never mind your upcoming wedding, this was perhaps the greatest moment of your life— the day Jungkook sought out an anime on his own. warnings kissing, smut in the forms of cunnilingus, cum eating, mentions of anal, doggy style, unprotected sex with the intention of pregnancy, spitting, hand holding<3 misc the wedding night, Doyeon strikes again, jjk watches jjk, oh no not twins word count 9.1k posted july 31, 2021

—BOOMERANG AND BANG.

coming soon

—COOKIES & CREAM.

summary Jungkook will watch a thousand cheesy Christmas movies if it meant making you happy. (And maybe having his dick sucked.) warnings smut in the form of blowjobs, face fucking, cum facials, fingering, overstim, double orgasm, r*mantic sex, riding, unprotected, cream pies, jk does this weird thing where he licks her face yeah idk, jk loves seeing his gf cry, jk has an obsession with jizz misc jk pov !!, eggnog slander, jk hates xmas movies, oc dresses like a sexy mrs claus, Elf !!, jk is in loooove word count 7.1k posted december 23, 2020

— TUTUS & TIARAS.

summary your first pregnancy through the lens of your husband warnings smut in the forms of penetrative sex, sex while pregnant, unprotected sex, tit play, cunnilingus, mutual masturbation, sticking the tip in and jacking off/cockwarming?, creampies, nose kink (? like she grinds against his nose), infatuation with scent, frottage/grinding, lactation kink, titluvr jk [bass boosted] misc married ncouple <3, domesticity, jk pov, mood swings, pregnancy, GIRLDAD!JK, DILF!JK, pregnant!reader, jk’s kids are virgos its true word count 10k posted august 23, 2021

— one.

summary Maybe Jungkook wasn’t always as cool and composed as you initially believed. But that’s okay, because you love him all the same. word count 1.3k posted September 10, 2020

—two.

summary Even after all these years, all these doubts, and all this solitude that was really no one’s fault but his own, he still finds himself hoping that maybe you’ll be the one. word count 1k posted september 11, 2020

—three.

summary But Jungkook loves the sun. word count 1.5k posted september 12th, 2020

—four.

summary For the last ten minutes or so his mind has been bothered by one thing and one thing only— the hair that hung in his face. word count 800 words posted september 22, 2020

—five.

summary Startled and inexperienced, he can’t do anything but rub his hands over your back. “It’s fine, it’s fine,” he murmurs, even though it’s not. word count 1.3k posted september 22, 2020

—six.

SUMMARY Jungkook enjoyed pushing you down, indulging you in all your little fantasies, but he too had some he wanted to live out. WC 1.8k POSTED september 25, 2020

—seven.

summary And lastly, Jungkook will bring it full circle by indulging you two in some good old fashion spooky sex where he nuts inside you because the only thing scarier than a scary movie is a pregnancy scare. It’s a perfect plan. word count 2k posted october 30, 2020

—eight.

summary You always do this— always ask for more. You take and you take until there’s nothing left for Jungkook to give. But Jungkook is the same. word count 1.9k posted december 28, 2020

—nine.

summary “I think that, like— me and you? We’re like, totally destined,” you ramble, “you should, like, take my number! And maybe we can, like— Netflix and chill one of these days?” word count 2.2k posted january 8 2021

—ten.

summary See, there’s no one in this world who ignores his house rules more than you. Even worse, there’s no one on this planet who can make Jungkook ignore his own rules like you do. word count 1.4k posted february 14, 2021

—eleven.

summary You’re too bright, too… there. His shell is too small. word count 1.2k posted may 3, 2021

—twelve.

summary Anyway, if it was up to Jungkook, Kim Doyeon would not be a member of the Engagement Ring Committee. word count 1.4k posted may 8th, 2021

—thirteen.

summary Because for as much shit as you let him get away with, Jungkook is certain you’ll draw the line today. word count 1k posted june 13, 2021

—fourteen.

summary Jungkook needs you to know that you can always count on him. word count 1.3k posted july 6, 2021

—fifteen.

summary It’s Jungkook’s teenage fantasy— being pushed down by a cheerleader. word count 3.1k posted august 9, 2021

— sixteen.

summary Your skin is warm and smells like sunshine. Jungkook can’t really explain it. (And also like the sunscreen you had doused him in earlier, but that isn’t as romantic.) word count 1.9K posted august 11, 2021

—seventeen.

summary She looks his way and suddenly Jungkook is nineteen again, in his dorm, listening to the first person he ever thought he loved telling him he’s too much to handle. word count 1.6k posted august 18, 2021

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cute and cozy gif by the lovely @ladyartemesia

LASTLY:

#jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jjk smut #jungkook fic #jeon jungkook fic #ncml #mine

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black-n-white-wings · 1 year ago

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As long as it stays in good fun, I'm good. I can appear blunt and then defensive. And I think that's a good way to roundabout to your main argument. So many people are defensive of Jiang Cheng because the hate I, at least, see in Tumblr for this character is out of line. Vile. And it's sometimes used against the fans themselves.

So, to clear some things up. I don't think the Wen deserved to be killed more than the Jiang, or less. I think, however, pulling the events out of context give the misunderstanding. It is wrong, for us, for people to be killed after a war, we've got history with it and the Geneva convention. However, in a society where honour and basically the law of the Talion (not sure if it's the correct English phrasing, I'm french) it was a move that was not considered out of line. Extreme, definitely, and the Jin camps were nothing short of monstrous even in mdzs as seen by the reaction of the other sect leaders when wwx mentions them. They asked for proof, sure, but nmj looked bothered and lxc closed his eyes, so he didn't like it.

For Jin Ling, I'm sorry but we'll keep disagreeing. I don't see Jiang Cheng's attitude as abuse. He's rough around the edges, sure. He could gain by being more composed and polite, clearly. But again, mxtx showed several times that kids with such a strong character did not run toward their abusers for comfort. They tensed, fawned, shut down, lashed out, but never just happily ran toward them. And so, while I think that kind of parenting is not ideal, it is not *abuse* per se. Especially in a culture that did not do the whole gentle parenting. We must keep analysing in context, it's vital. Wwx is an absolute outlier. An anomaly. That's why he's at first admired and then despised. He does not fit in this society.

Lwj, I may be biased. I don't like that character and I found him lacking substance both and being pretty surface level. But I agree he was probably the one that worked on changing the Lan. But why should ljy insult jc to his face with no retaliation, speak badly with no repercussions in such a society? I love the sociopolitical aspect of stories and mxtx choosing not to develop it was a bummer for me. But jc is patient with the Lan's bullshit because he clearly has, post time skip, the means to "punish" them with trade deals and alliances. The Jiang are the only sect that thrived without any support from the other sects. He can fuck around without finding out. Would it be a dick move? Absolutely. But could he do it? No doubt.

About the denial of being a victim, I think the core of the problem is that no one in this book is able to see their own shortcomings. Therapy is not a thing in the Jianghu. But he tried. Trying to get answers was, in my opinion, his way to try to heal and move on. And he was denied that. By wwx. Multiple times. And wwx does not have the moral high ground about the Wen because filial duty, which is vital to their society, demanded revenge. For jc, even if for us it seems strange, not avenging his parents and his sect was out of the question. And even if he had decided not to do so, the Jin were after the Wen. A big, already respect sect leader such as nmj was not able to stand his ground in front of jgs, how could have jc who was a child and isolated?

I admit wwx was kind of tossed back to life without a breather, but he remembered being dead, it is said so in the book I think? I don't have an exact quote but he says something about being a quiet little ghost and not a vengeful spirit. Maybe he had time to think for a bit while being dead? I don't know for sure, it's just a mention and maybe I got it wrong, but it is a possibility.

Jiang Cheng changed. He's a parent, a good, respected leader. In my opinion, the problem is that 1) the book only shows him reliving his traumas with wwx coming back to life and he does NOT handle his issues gracefully, and 2) the book is wwx's pov 90% of the time. I thought you had CQL as main reference because of the comment but, since you read it, you can see the book is clearly biased. Many times it skips about parts that should be important. CQL is my favourite adaptation and I liked it more that the book but maybe that's for another time, I'm already rambling too easily as it is.

About wn being the one that delivers the news of the gc reveal and how he handles it, @insanefiercecorpse answered my post, and I think they raised a good point. The fact a creation of wwx, the only one able to understand what jc could feel, chose to hurt him so bad was insane to me. The blow that the core was not his was hard enough as it was with how little self-esteem he has.

Also, I don't disagree that wwx belongs to lotus pier and saw the Jiang as his family. But jfm was a bitch, and he never made it official, never clarified his position in the family. It HAD TO bring repercussions for how the children themselves saw their place in this dynamic. And wwx himself would rather fuck off, did it and said "it's for the good of the sect, okay bye" when jc begged him and then threatened him to come back home. And after fleeing, he's suddenly back as if nothing had happened. As if he had not chosen everyone but the Jiang several times. And again, as a reader, I don't blame him, I understand his point, but jeez he knows how much of a wounded animal jc is and still teases, pushes, breaks boundaries.

I never read other stories from mxtx because, honestly, I struggled to read mdzs in full. I don't like the main characters and that's tough to get through once that happens. For me, wwx and lwj are too far from the rest of society, too aloof and they just bypass most of their society's conventions with little to no repercussions. I think I did a previous meta on this, if you're curious, but that's really a personal opinion.

When I analyse a story, I try not to get out of its context, it's very important, and the logic of it. Reforms, changes, the work to make society better is a great plot, but it has to be done well. Wwx didn't try to change society. He tried to get what he wanted no matter which rules he had to break. He resurrected Wen Ning for himself, not Wen Ning. He freed the Wen because wq and wn saved them first and foremost. Not because he thought what had happened to the Wen was unfair. Hell, he probably killed a few that did not deserve it according to our modern standards a few times. And to just shimmy back to your main point not to get too far off again, that's why, I think, jc's fans are so defensive. He's easy to hate and wwx's fans give wwx the status of an untouchable saint when he's not really better. He's just the protagonist. If jc or jgy were the protagonists, that would be a whole other story, they would not be vilified as much.

That's the problem when the mains are above everything in a story. Every character of this fucking book are bitches that need therapy istg, but the spotlight is not flattering to all of them. That polarises the story, and surface level reading doesn't allow for subtlety.

So as a jc fan, I agree he's not perfect, but compared to some other characters? He plays his role beautifully. He has people that rely on him and he chooses them, every time. He has responsibilities and he never ran from them. He is a parental figure despite not needing to be one, and he fought to be part of his nephew's life, and in my opinion he did so well for a traumatised teen that suddenly became a parental figure. He's brash, harsh, trigger-happy but he's fair (maybe except to wwx), level-headed, a brutally efficient politician (because let's remember it's what he is!) and a leader that has the safety and well-being of his people as top priority. If not, they would not have loved him this much. They'd have left. They're not Jiang by blood. And the other sects would have crushed his when he was weak and instead he is SO STRONG in the game.

So yeah, I'm protective because the analyses are biased, pulled out of the context of the story. For instance, jc's presumed vile homophobia always makes me laugh. Wwx is homophobic ffs!! It's the norm! And I think he takes it pretty well, considering! It's just he hates lwj and has conflicted feelings about hating or loving wwx!! Everyone is homophobic! Lwj has a fucking mental breakdown at realising he is! You can't fault a character for being written as the context they're put in demands! And let's not talk about mxtx's writing on women. It's just atrocious, no wonder the analyses are batshit, there's nothing there.

I hope I was less off-track this time and that you see my point better about your confusion on why people can seem so protective of the character. Some just want to play with their blorbos but others just try not to get too frustrated fighting the windmill antis are!

I don’t think Wen Ning told Jiang Cheng about the golden core because he wanted him to know he owed Wei Ying or any of the sort. Like a lot of people seem to think that and therefore conclude Wen Ning was out of line. But it’s more likely that he did it to give Jiang Cheng the wake up call he needed. Because he has lived for 13 years in denial of the truth in that Jiang Yan Li’s death was not Wei Yings fault and he himself had a hand in his brothers demise. It was meant to be a reminder to him of who Wei Ying actually is and the made version he has in his head is a perception that has been warped by his anger and grief. It’s meant to be a reminder of how much Wei Ying loved him. Jiang Chengs anger is understandable but it doesn’t justify him treating Wei Ying the way he did and putting all the blame on him without ever trying to comprehend the choices his brother made and why he made them.

#jiang cheng #cql #mdzs #a meta about jiang cheng colour me surprised #am i too deep in now? and am i making a friend?

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boldlyvoid · 4 years ago

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Sugar, Honey, Ice Tea | Chapter 5-9

1Summary: Fix-it-fic: Dr. Y/L/N and Savannah Hayes have been best friends since their medical internship at Bethesda General. When she receives a frantic call that Derek's best friend is being transferred to the prison she works at, an unlikely friendship bubbles.

Eventually falling head over heels for the innocent man.

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Prison, Prison Violence, Assault, Blood, Depression, Murder, Self-Hatred, Hurt Spencer Reid, Canon-Typical Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Drug Addiction, References to Drugs, Drug Use, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Romantic Tension, Forbidden Love, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Strangers to Lovers, Requited Love, Falling In Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, past abusive relationship, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault

Word Count: 14.3K

1-4, 5-9, Epilogue

Chapter 5

Spencer agreed to a Thursday night game night in her office sometime last week, and she’s spent every day since then planning it out for him.

Learning that he really loved Tandoori chicken, making it from scratch at home and packaging it into a couple containers to bring into work. She followed a recipe from Pinterest, hoping it bared any resemblance to what he was used to, only changing full chicken to boneless bite size cutlets, because he couldn’t use a knife in the prison.

She got a chess set at the store, as well as a deck of playing cards for the Vegas boy. Rushing out her door early Thursday morning so she could stop and get a coffee and one of his favourite doughnuts too.

Deciding that she wasn’t going to tell him how she felt any time soon, just wanting to show him friendship and support until he was finally out of prison. Vowing to uphold her oath, he was a patient in her care, she would care for him as such until he wasn’t.

She carefully placed her lunchbox and the chess set on the security desk, letting them look through it as she waited. Taking out all the food from her bag, looking through the plastic to ensure she wasn’t sneaking in anything.

“It’s just my lunch for the next 2 days, I promise,” she smiled.

“I know, but I have to look anyway,” the nice man smiled. “Have a good day today Dr. Pat.”

“Thank’s, you too, officer Kyle,” she smiled, picking her things back up and heading past the gates.

Spencer was turning the corner towards the infirmary as she walked towards the door. Officer Wilkins holding him in handcuffs as he roughly walked Spencer to her office.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she stopped, looking at Wilkins like he was an idiot. “Un-cuff inmate Reid, he’s not a threat. Plus, he can hold some things for me.”

“Whatever,” he huffed, roughly taking the cuffs off Spencer's wrists before leaving. Not saying another word.

“What a dick,” she mumbled as she handed him the lunchbox.

“Good morning Spencer,” she changed her tone to match her growing smile.

He sighed, smiling back as he rubbed his wrists. “Good morning to you too, Y/N.”

She opened the infirmary door, walking past all the sleeping men in the care area. Unlocking her office before inviting Spencer in. “Sorry I was almost late,” she said softly, taking the chess set and a brown paper bag out of her purse.

She set it on Spencer's desk along with the coffee that was in her hand, “for all your help this week,” she smiled.

Spencer placed her lunchbox in her fridge, laying a hand on her back as he walked past her towards his desk. “You’re too kind to me,” he was bashful as always.

“I have something I wanted to talk to you about,” she closed the door softly, making sure the blinds on the doors window were closed as well.

“That doesn’t sound good,” he tried to joke as he sat down.

“I asked to help with your case, maybe give a fresh opinion, so Penelope sent me all the files but I haven’t opened them yet,” she sat on the edge of her desk. Trying to read his body language as he took out his donut.

He liked the pink frosting off his finger, nodding as he followed along. “Why not?”

“I wanted your permission,” she pressed her lips together in an awkward smiled. His eyes raising to meet hers, innocent as ever.

“Oh?”

“You’re very reserved, you have rules about what you share, I don’t want to break the trust we’ve built by looking into something so intimate,” she explained her thoughts. “It’s not fair for me to learn about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, without you being the one to tell me.”

“What do you know already?” He asked softly, blinking at her as he patiently waited.

She smiled at him softly, grateful that he understood. “I know the 3 charges that you’re in on, and that you’re being framed.”

“I think I would prefer it if you read the file and just asked me questions. I don’t think I have the mental capacity to recite it all back to you today,” he was honest. Taking a sip of his coffee and looking away from her.

Giving up so much of himself to her so early in the day, she felt like he was finally comfortable with her.

She found the key to his thoughts and it opened just right, she could see the hurt that flowed through him, but she could also see the happiness. The side of him that he was afraid to bring out, in fear it would get him in more trouble.

“Okay,” she agreed. Sitting at her desk and finally opening the email form Penelope.

She read through his tox-screens, his drug history, his mental state. His first-hand accounts, witness statements, clues and findings his team had made. It all felt like the plot to a bad movie about revenge, possibly even female rage. But for what?

“I finished reading,” she said softly, brows furrowed as she chews the inside of her cheek. “Do you know anyone other than this Mr. Scratch guy who you’ve put away, wronged, lead on, or just pissed off?”

“Why?” He asked, clearly attached to the idea this was all Mr. Scratch’s doing.

“It feels like revenge, but very well planed. Like a women is mad at you so she found your weakness, I’ve done mean shit to exes in the past but this is insane. They knew you’d do anything for your mom, they knew your drug history, and the fact you might get schizophrenia one day, they wanted to drug you and make you think you did all this.”

Spencer stood then, listening to her words as he scrunched his face. Thinking as hard as he could, “can you call Penelope?”

“Yeah,” she nodded as she dialled her number, putting her on speaker phone.

“Well hello there, Love Doctor,” Penelope teased as she answered.

“Um hi, Spencer wanted to talk to you,” she panicked.

“Oh, sorry, how are you Spencer?”

Spencer looked so confused, “I’m good… Y/N and I were looking at the case files you sent-”

“Good, did you find anything?” Penelope cut in, eager to talk to him.

“Have you looked into everyone I’ve ever encountered on a case? Specifically women?” Spencer asked. “I told my lawyer and Emily that I remember a woman being there and helping, she must know me from a case too, like the other prison escapees he’s helped?”

“On it pretty boy, any specifics about her that you remember?” Penelope asked over the sound of her keyboard clicking away.

“Long brown hair, but it’s probably different now,” he added. “Everything else is dark, I didn’t see her face or any other features.”

“Alright, call me anytime Spence, I miss you,” Penelope said softly, changing her tone to a more sensitive one. “Take care of each other, my loves.”

“Love you,” they say at the same time. Looking at each other awkwardly after she hung up, leaving them to sit with their words alone.

Spencer was leaning so close to her she could feel his body heat radiating off him. Spencer placed his hand on her shoulder as he stood straight, towering over her as she looked up at him.

“I have patients to talk to, but I brought chess for you to teach me later,” she smiled up at him.

“Can’t wait,” he beamed a smile back.

She felt his hand rub the back of her blue scrubs lightly, pulling away as he walked back around to his desk. She watched him with careful eyes, wishing he would have stayed longer.

—

Normally at 4:30, Y/N would bring Spencer a tray of whatever the kitchen was serving her patients for dinner that night. Tonight, however, she walked into her office at 5 pm on the dot, closing the clinic for the night and putting all her attention on Spencer.

“So,” she smiled as she leaned against her office door, excitement radiating out of her. “A little birdie told me that you really like Indian food, Tandoori chicken to be exact…”

“No way?” He gasped as he turned around in his chair.

She nodded with a cheeky grin, “homemade so I could sneak it in.”

She took her lunch box out of her mini-fridge, opening it up to show him the 2 Tupperware containers. One for him, the other for her. She took the lids off and dished it onto 2 plates she keeps in the cabinet above the fridge.

Spencer grew more and more excited as she warmed it up, filling the room with a familiar smell. He was so happy, “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you do for me?”

“Come here,” she said softly, watching him walk towards her carefully.

She wrapped her arms around his middle, holding him in a hug. He carefully placed his hands on her back, holding her against his chest as he snuggled his cheek into her hair again.

“I’ll take hugs as payment from now on,” she pulled back from him as the microwaved beeped.

Taking a plastic spoon from the cutlery jar, she opened the microwave and handed him a plate. “Did you want to stay in here or go to the break room? I never use it cause I don’t have any co-workers, but it has a couch and a coffee table?”

“Okay,” he smiled. Taking the plate from her and waiting for her to warm up her own meal before taking a bite.

He was ever the gentleman.

Y/N reached back into her lunch box, taking out the package of naan bread, seeing Spencer’s eyes basically roll into the back of his head. “You thought of everything?”

“Bread is my life,” she laughed.

When her food was ready, she placed it on top of the chess box and led the way down to the break room. Spencer holding every door for her.

She flicked on the lights in the break room, watching them strobe before making that awful powering up frequency. She groaned, putting her food on the table before turning on a few lamps instead.

The room went from bright and anxious to relaxed and personal, the amber glow bouncing off the cream walls, it was nice. As nice as it could be in a prison. She never thought she’d be having a date at a prison.

That’s basically what this was, a date.

She made him dinner, they were going to play games, he was going to sit right beside her, close enough to kiss. She really wanted to, she’s thought about it a lot, his pink lips were perfect and she just wanted to see how they’d feel between her own.

But she wont.

“Dig in honey,” the name rolled over her tongue like it was always meant to.

She felt his eyes on her right away, realizing that she called him honey in a situation where he wasn’t crying, where he wasn’t vulnerable. She said it as a term of endearment, she couldn’t stop the embarrassment form settling in her veins.

She sat beside his softly, picking up her dinner and pretending it didn’t happen. “Thank you,” Spencer cut into the awkwardness.

“You’re welcome,” she said softly. Feeling like she could flip inside out at any moment.

From the corner of her eye she saw him take the first bite, closing his eyes as he appreciated the moment. His shoulders settled as he chewed, she could swear he almost moaned as he ate it. She has had the food in the cafeteria before, she understood his reaction.

“That good?” She asked, teasing him softly.

He nodded, silent as he took it all in. He took another bite, and another, she felt like he was going to get the hiccups at this rate but it was too cute to stop. He was like a stray dog eating inside for the first time in months, it made her happy and then a little sad.

He stayed quiet the whole time. Crossing his legs as he sat on the couch, the plate pulled in close to his chest as he shovelled spoonfuls of food into his mouth. She sat there admiring him as he did so, falling more and more every time she glanced at him.

“That was delicious,” Spencer said as he stood, placing his plate on the counter across the room. “Are you done?” He asked, taking her plate as she reached it out to him.

“Yeah, thanks,” she watched him carefully, always wanting to help her in whatever way he could.

He didn’t sit on the couch when he came back, instead, sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, taking the chess set out and beginning to set it up. Not wanting to miss a moment of the freedom he felt when he was with her.

“So, chess is pretty easy to learn,” he said, looking up at her through thick eyelashes as he spoke. “Do you know any of the rules yet?”

“Um, I know where they all go, I know that you can’t go through other pieces and the horse gets to jump?” She tried to remember all the way back to grade 4, the last time someone explained the rules to her.

He was so soft with her, explaining the rules and showing her what to do. His hand would lightly brush over hers occasionally, eventually, he’d just guide her hand over the pieces that she should move. It was so nice to just be alone with him, knowing they were both allowed to be happy.

The room was mostly silent, only the sound of Spencer's advice and her giggle as she still wasn’t grasping the concept of the game.

“I just like, don’t care about the rules?” She couldn’t stop giggling at the fact she wasn’t picking up on anything he said.

Spencer laughed, it was deep and hearty, right from his soul, “then how do you want to play?”

She picked up the queen and moved it to a random spot, “I want to put this here and fight your guy. That’s why I don't get this, what is my XP? What are their skills? I was raised on Pokemon, honey.”

He made his way back to the couch, sitting closely beside her. “Well sugar pie, do you have any other games you want to play?”

She couldn’t stop herself from leaning in and pressing her lips against his. His hands wrapped around her waist on instinct as they connected.

It was everything she imagined. Soft, gentle, refreshing. Like a cold glass of ice tea on a hot summers day. She wanted more, never letting up as she kissed him.

Spencer was the one to pull off first, “shit,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand as she stared at him, horrified.

He laughed, smiling at her softly. “It’s okay,” he promised, “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

She doesn’t stop him from pulling her back in, holding her hand on his cheek as he kissed her again. Hungrier than before, Spencer’s tongue was on a mission. He tastes like dinner, but with his own Spencer difference.

Kissing him felt like a fairytale coming true.

She forgot where they were, his hands on the back of her scrubs and her hands in his hair as their mouths clashed. She started to lay back on the couch, pulling him down on top of her.

“We can't,” he pants against her lips. Regretting it as he pulls away from her.

“Sorry, this was unprofessional I know,” she tried to play it off.

Spencer pulled her back in, flush against his chest once more. “No, I don’t regret it. It’s just, I’m not ready.”

“Oh,” she says softly. Then it clicks, “oh, oh my god, Spencer I’m so sorry I forgot. I didn’t mean to push you into anything,” she worries, running her hands over his arms softly.

He shakes his head, “you didn’t. I want to, believe me, I just don’t think I can handle the after part…”

“I cried for 3 hours after I had sex again, after everything,” she told him in complete honesty. Not even Savannah or Derek knew that.

“You don’t have to-“

“I want to,” she assured him. “You shouldn’t have to be the only vulnerable one here, I want you to know about me.”

“You don’t have to tell me the details, I don’t want to think about someone hurting you,” he whispered, his eyes innocently studying her face for how she was feeling.

“Okay, so here’s everything else,” she was still holding his face in her hands. Rubbing her thumb over his cheeks. “I had 2 moms and a little sister, and I was raised in Boston. I met Savannah in 2004, I worked with her until a few years ago. She’s my best friend, Derek is like my big brother.”

She gave him the basics, “I don’t have a dad, my mom used the same donor for me and my sister, so I’ve never really felt safe around men because I never knew many.”

“Understandable,” he smiled softly. “what’s your mom like?”

“She died when I was 26,” she pressed her lips together awkwardly. “I haven’t talked to her wife since then, my other mom, she remarried not long after. I think she was cheating on my mom when she was going through chemo.”

“I’m so sorry,” Spencer whispered.

“I can relate to a lot of the stories I know about you already. My mom was my world, I don’t know my dad. I’ve been hurt by people, I’ve lost a lot of myself while trying to help others,” she brushed her nose against his softly. Letting him know she wasn’t pulling back any time soon. “Who you are is not what you did, or what you’ve been through.”

He kisses her again softly. Breathing in through his nose lightly, his hand on her back pulling her in closer and closer. He didn’t want to let her go, and she was more than happy staying in his embrace forever.

He pulled back softly, “I lied to you.” He whispered against her lips.

“When?” She asked, scared to know the answer.

“I do remember you from Derek’s wedding, he told me about you a long time ago. I told him I was ready for dating again when you told him about Mark,” he couldn’t look at her.

“That’s not a huge lie,” she smiled softly. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking at you all night, with that little blond boy. You two were so sweet, Mark got really mad at me for staring at you actually.”

“Derek told me when he hurt you, he came to my apartment right after so he wouldn’t go and kill him,” Spencer’s voice was so low she had to stare at his lips to understand him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she shook her head softly, kissing the tip of his nose. “Thank you.”

“I don’t want to go back to my cell,” he whispered as he pressed his forehead against hers.

Breaking her heart in the process.

She kissed his cheeks and his lips a few times, peppering kisses to his soft face to make up for it. “We can’t do this again until you’re free,” she whispered.

“I understand.”

“So you better think long and hard about this woman you remember so I can track her down and shove her in that cell instead,” Y/N’s stern voice made him smile.

“Thank you,” he replied again, hugging her the way he promised he would thank her from now on.

—

For being 9 pm on a spring night, it was rather warm in the Vermont parking lot. She left the prison a while ago, not able to leave Spencer’s gravitational pull yet as she sat there, staring at the prison thinking about him alone in his cell instead of pressed against her chest for the rest of the night.

Thinking about the feeling of Spencer’s hands on her body and his tender lips. Her hand over her mouth as she remembered how his bottom lip ghosted over her own, the anticipation was enough to light her on fire.

She took out her phone and called Derek, knowing he would put her on speaker if they were already in bed for the night. Really needing her best friends right now.

“Hey kick-ass, how are you doing today?” Derek’s voice was overly cheery, “Hey!” Savannah added in the background.

“I’m in love with him.”

Chapter 6

She barely slept anymore. Waking up at 6 am every morning without her alarm clock, her heart physically aching to return to Spencer's side after a night without him. She felt like a love-sick school girl, wanting to be with him all day even if they had nothing to say. Just looking at him was enough to make her happy.

A few weeks passed. Weeks filled with smiles and laughter, singing and reading, inside jokes and shared jello cups. She was so madly in love with him, hugging him every morning when he arrived and every night before he left. Keeping her word, kissing him on the cheek every so often instead.

She started a routine of picking up a coffee and a donut for Spencer every single Thursday, worried that he probably thought about his case all night, yet again. Which only kept her up worrying all night about him, wondering if he was doing okay all alone.

Only getting sleep when she remembered that he had a photo of her, his mom, Derek and hank with him. He’d be okay.

She walked into the infirmary to find Jerry and Mike waiting for her with a guard. Mike bleeding all down his face while Jerry held his clearly broken hand.

“You two are going to be the death of me,” she sighed. Putting all her things in her office before coming back to care for them.

She excused the guard, telling him she had it from here. They wouldn’t put up any more fights with her, they looked up to her like a momma bear, and they were her terrible cubs.

“It is 7:33 am, who the fuck did you have to fight this early?” She whisper yelled at them. Not wanting to wake Leo in the care ward, “who is worth this?”

“You don’t want to know,” Mike said under his breath.

“Well clearly he’s not here, is he dead or in violent crimes? If you two fucked up our plan of me helping you during parole next year, I’m going to be pissed,” she tried her best to entice the answers out of them.

“It was Shaw,” Jerry said softly. “He was planning to hurt the new guy, he’s all fake buddy-buddy with him.”

“Excuse me?” She panicked.

“He’s been talking to Milos at night in the locker room, Wilkins lets him out of his cell and into gen-pop,” Mike carried on the story as she tried to clean the blood off his eyebrow.

“What are they going to do to Spence?”

“Spence?” Jerry teased her, poking her side. “I didn’t know he had a nickname already. Why haven’t we met him yet?”

“I’ve kept him locked away to be safe, I’m going to find a way to keep him here at night,” She said softly. “He’s best friends with my brother, I can’t let him get hurt.”

“So you knew him in freedom land?”

She nodded, “a little.”

“All you need is a bandaid,” she changed the subject as she reached into her kit. “And Jerry I’m going to have to set your fingers back in place, if you scream in my face, I will kick you in the nuts.”

They laughed at her fake tuff guy act, never actually being able to hurt them. They were her buddies, giving her a big hug after she finished with them. Getting them both a pudding and telling them to stay put for the day if they wanted to.

Spencer found her in the lab when he arrived, she knew it was him when the door opened, no one else had a passkey to get in. She was writing down some numbers on a chart when he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

She dropped her pen and turned around in his grasp, holding his face in her hands immediately as she pulled him into a quick kiss.

“I thought you said I couldn’t do that again till I’m free?” He asked softly. Kissing her a second time as he finished.

She smiled against his lips, “you’re free when we’re alone.”

He kissed her harder. His hands around her waist as he picked her up slightly. Twirling her around as they kissed, she laughed against his skin. Unable to stop herself from smiling as she held onto him.

She kissed him one last time as he put her down on the floor, “I have a coffee and donut for you in my office.”

“You’re too good to me, Sugar Pie.”

“Anything for you, Honey Bunch,” she bit her lip as she smiled at him again. So absolutely overwhelmed with love for him.

“I actually have a serious question to ask you,” his tone changed, making her concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m still trying to figure out more about that night, and I think I want to try exposure therapy,” he explained. “I was wondering if you’d help me get high, so I can remember what happened in the same mindset.”

“Okay,” she nodded softly. “I can book you in for the night here, say you’re under observation, and I’ll stay here with you.”

“Are you sure?”

She kissed him softly again, looking up at him with a smile after. “If you’re sure about it, I’ll help you. But we need some ground rules.”

“Of course,” he agreed. Letting go of her as she stepped back, leaning against the counter now.

“No kissing, nothing like that, we’ll do it in my office so you can be alone and then later you’ll sleep in the observation room. Leo is in there, he’s harmless and sleeps all night on his morphine anyway,” she explained. “I’m not going to take advantage of you, I don’t want you to regret it. It’s going to be hard to sober up again once you get a taste of euphoria in here.”

He nodded along as she set the rules, “those are good. Thank you.”

“They drugged you with heroin, and while I know where to get some, I’m not letting you do that,” she laughed. “I have Dilaudid in pills and liquid morphine.” Letting him pick his poison.

“The pills will be fine,” he said softly.

“Alright,” she smiled. “And if you want, when you get out I can take you to a meeting? You’ll need to talk to someone other than me, someone who gets it.”

“You’ll stay with me after all this?”

“As long as you let me,” she felt her heart grow 3 sizes at the way his puppy dog eyes stared back at her. “Go have your breakfast and I will come to see you soon, okay honey?”

His smile was glorious, she could feel the love radiating off him as he looked at her. It felt wonderful, knowing at that moment her feelings weren’t one-sided. That he wanted her just as bad as she wanted him. He was going to be good to her.

—

She had mike and Jerry help her move the couch from the break room and into her office, allowing them to meet Spencer, finally. It was awkward at first, two big muscle men telling him how much they also loved their Sugar.

“Should we tell him?” Mike nudged Jerry.

“What?” Spencer asked softly, sitting at his desk on the other side of the room, really not enjoying their alpha energy.

“Shaw, Milos and Wilkins are all secretly buddies, they were planning to hurt you and so Mike and Jerry beat Shaw up in the yard,” she scrunched her face as she explained it, not ready for his reaction.

“How?”

“After they cut that kid's throat, they wanted to get you to run heroin for them. But you ended up in here, we heard them in gen-pop last night saying they wanted to get you,” Jerry explained as he played with the bandages on his hand. “He won't be out of the violent offender's infirmary for a while.”

“Thank you,” he replied to them with a pressed-lipped smile. “I need to call my team about the case.”

That was their queue to leave, Y/N patting them on the back for the help, telling them they could stay with Leo or go back to the yard, she didn’t care. They just couldn’t be in her office for this.

Spencer looked a little pissed off. “I didn’t ask them to do that,” she said, defensively.

“I’m not mad at you,” he shakes his head softly as steps into her space. “You’re the only person I can trust in here.”

She placed her hand on his chest softly, “call Penelope. Take your time on the phone with the team.” She handed him her cell phone, “FaceTime them if you want. See their faces, it’ll be okay.”

He hugged her, a silent thank you. She ran her hands over his back as she pressed her face into his neck. Holding back every instinct to tell him she loved him as she pulled away.

“I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Okay,” he smiled. Taking her phone, “how do I?”

She couldn’t help laughing, “here,” she dialled Penelope’s cellphone number and hit the FaceTime button.

Seeing her beautiful, bright and bubbly face smile as she answered. “Hey! Oh my god, hold on,” they watched as she got up and ran down a hallway.

Spencer was instant giggles and smiles, a side of him she’s never seen before. True, pure love. This was his family, these were his people. She could see herself fitting into his little world one day.

“Guys! It’s Spencer!” She yelled as she ran into another room.

“What’s wrong?” “Is he okay?”

Suddenly she turned the phone sideways to show all his co-workers. “Hi!” He waved to them.

“Spence!” Emily and JJ cheered, “oh you look so good.”

“I feel good, how are you all?” He asked softly, taking her phone and sitting down at his desk.

She watched him softly from the door, slipping out when she saw his attention was fully on his past life. She walked down the hall towards the lab, hearing his laughter through the walls.

—

She placed 2 pills in a plastic cup, taking an apple juice and jello from the fridge for Spencer. She placed it on his desk 20 minutes before his shift ended, giving him a little space to decide when he wanted to. He told her that he get’s cold when he comes down from a high, so she leaves a fluffy blanket and a pillow on the couch before slipping back out of the room.

She returned to the care unit, looking over Leo as he got ready for the night. Administering his meds and wishing him a good night. She closed his curtain, so when Spencer eventually went to bed he wouldn’t be disturbed.

When she finally settled into her office for the night, Spencer was in the dark. Sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. “Hey,” he said softly.

“How are you?” She asked softly. Closing the door behind herself. Locking it and making sure all the blinds were closed.

“It’s going to hit soon,” he said softly. Suddenly embarrassed and closed off, hiding from her as he laid down.

She didn’t want to bother him, sitting at her desk with her reports. The light from the computer is just enough to see what she was looking at. She glanced at him every few minutes to make sure he was okay.

He enjoys it at first, a blissed-out look on his face as his head is tossed back against the couch. She knows the exact euphoria he’s feeling, she understood perfectly why someone would want to escape like that.

Then his face changes as he starts to hate it, he mumbles to himself with his eyes squeezed shut, she could see him gripping the sheets as he tries to force himself to remember.

She’s uncomfortable watching it, feeling like an intruder. She tried to only focus on her work, flipping through emails and Twitter, scrolling through Facebook for the first time in months to preoccupy her mind.

He was like that for at least an hour.

She could hear his teeth chattering as he came down, just like he said would happen. “You okay, honey?”

“Y-yeah,” he tried to speak through the shaking. “C-can we cuddle?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, turning on her desk lamp before joining him on the couch.

She pulled him up into a sitting position, sitting where his head once was and letting him settle into her lap. She ran her hands through his hair, combing through the locks as she shushed him. Running her hand up and down his back in a tender motion, he snuggled into her leg.

“I’m not that high anymore,” he says softly.

“I know, it’s okay if you are. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

“I love you,” he whispers.

It makes her stop. Her whole body stills at the words, he wanted to clarify so she’d know it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. She closes her eyes and squeezes them shut, biting her lip as she tries not to burst into tears.

He felt it too.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, “sit up.” She instructs him softly.

She laid down against the couch then, waiting for him to snuggle into her side. Wrapping the blanket around them both as they found the most comfortable position.

“Sorry,” he whispered against the crook of her neck.

“It’s okay, it just feels wrong for me to say it back right now. I feel the same, believe me, Spencer.” She wanted to assure him to the best of her ability. “But you’re still an inmate in my care, I can’t. Not yet.”

“You don’t have to,” he pulled back to look her in the eyes, his own still droopy from how tired the drugs made him. “I’m going to love you regardless.”

She broke her own rules. Kissing him softly, holding him close to her, under the blanket where both their body heat was trapped. She had never felt safer in her entire life.

Spencer only crawling into that bed in the care ward when he woke up to her alarm the following morning.

Chapter 7

There’s someone banging on her office door just a little after 8 am. She was in the middle of putting a new pair of scrubs on over her long-sleeve undershirt, the banging on her door doesn’t stop until she opens the door.

“What?” She yells at them.

It’s Officer Wilkins. “Where is inmate Reid? We have a visitor for him.”

“No one is scheduled to see him today?”

“There is now. Where is he?” The man towered over her. Trying his best to intimidate her.

“Care ward. I’ll get him. You can go wait in the waiting room,” she pushes past him. Watching him stumble as he hits the wall.

“He’s not worth dying over,” he whispers under his breath.

She doesn’t leave Reid’s side as Wilkins attempts to escort him to an interrogation room. Y/N stands in the observation room as Spencer waits, cuffed to the table. Looking through the mirror at each other, only he couldn’t see her. He just knew she would be there.

“Mom?” Spencer’s shocked voice breaks her out of her thoughts as she sees Diana walking into the room.

A dark-haired woman she’s never met before escorting her in. Y/N whips her phone out to take a quick photo before running back to her office as quickly as she can.

Y/N: I need you to check on Cassie, Diana’s nurse. Someone I don’t know just brought Diana to the prison.

She attached the photo she took, setting her phone down to looking through the visitor's logs on her computer. Wanting to know the name of the woman accompanying Diana.

“I’m sorry,” the familiar voice says from her doorway.

She looks up at him from her desk. Wilkins is stepping into her space with a look of guilt, taking his baton off his belt.

“You don’t have to do this,” she backed up against the wall, trying to keep as much distance from him as possible.

“I have to,” his tone changed. Like a personality switch, his eyes darkened as he charged at her.

She ran around the desk, watching him follow. Punching her in the face, causing her to fall back against the couch, she didn’t want him to get on top of her. Dropping to the carpeted floor as he dove onto the couch.

She crawled on the floor towards the door as he tried to get up. Standing as fast as she could, roundhouse kicking him in the face with a grunt. Her foot hit his jaw at just the right angle, rendering him unconscious.

She reached for his cuffs as soon as he hit the floor, “Leo!! Help!” She screamed down the hall.

She heard bare feet running down the hall, followed by the sound of rubber on linoleum. “Sugar??” Mike and Jerry yelled as they followed.

“Watch him,” she insisted once the cuffs were on him. “Hurt him if you have to.”

She took the second pair of cuffs off Wilkins's belt before running out of the room, her lip busted and bleeding down her neck.

She ran down the hall towards Spencer, busting into the room and knocking the nurse to the ground. Struggling to get her onto her stomach, “stop struggling, who the fuck are you?”

“Get off me!” She screamed in return.

Y/N cuffed her and pulled her to her feet, pushing her against the stone wall.

“What is going on?” Spencer stood up, cuffed to the table so he couldn’t help.

“Wilkins just attacked me, Diana wasn’t supposed to be here,” she said over her shoulder in Spencer’s direction. “So I’ll ask again,” she whispered in the woman's ear as she pushed her against the wall harder. “Who, the fuck! Are you?”

“He knows me,” she spat out.

Y/N ripped her off the wall, making her look at Spencer who was shocked, speechless as he tried to remember her face. “Who is she?”

“She told me Cassie was fired, she’s been with me all morning?” Diana tried to explain, slightly freaking out.

“I sent her photo to Penelope, I need a guard,” Y/N said, hauling the unknown women into the hall with her.

—

The prison was put on lockdown as they tried to figure out this security breach. Wilkins and the nurse being held in prison custody as they waited for the BAU team to fly in.

Figuring out that her name was Lindsay Vaughn, Spencer remembered as much as he could about her. How he tried to save her dad, losing him to his carnal need to kill. Lindsay following closely in her daddy's footsteps.

Diana sat at Spencer’s desk, Mike and Jerry stand watch at the door. Y/N was sitting on top of her desk in front of Spencer, it was his turn to run alcohol over her cuts. Holding her face in his hands as he cared for her.

“I'm sorry,” he mouths the words at her. Not wanting his mother to overhear them.

She nods in response, unable to smile as the cut on her lips stings. All things considered, she could have been in a lot worse condition if it wasn’t for Derek and her training.

She wants to kiss him, she can tell he’s looking over her shoulder at his mom. Waiting to make sure she’s not looking before he leans in a little closer.

Pressing their lips together as silently as possible, his eyes still on her’s as they did so. It’s the most tender kiss she’s ever had, “I’m okay Spence,” she said softly as he pulled back.

“I’m still sorry you were dragged into this,” holding her against his chest softly.

From where she was sitting on top of her desk, she placed her head on his chest, holding him as close as she could, his cheek resting on her head. She wrapped her legs around him, not wanting to let him go, ever.

Needing the comfort he brought her, now more than ever.

When Derek and she started training again it was mostly to help her feel safe. To know what to do if it happened again. She didn’t ever expect it to, thinking it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. That she’d learn from it and then she wouldn’t be in this situation again, being punched in the face by a man.

She started to cry, the throbbing pain in both her face and her foot taking over as the adrenaline dissipated, she was too overwhelmed to do anything more. He let her cry against him, rubbing his hand on her back as he kissed her forehead.

She couldn’t wait for him to get out of here, and she was going to leave with him.

—

Derek is the first to burst through the door. Wrapping Spencer up in the biggest hug she’s ever seen him give. Rocking Spencer back and forth in his grasp as he kissed Spencer's cheek a few times.

He pulled back, holding Spencer's face in his hands. Smiling so he didn’t cry, “they’re dropping the charges.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope,” Derek shakes his head adding, “You’re free.” Expecting Spencer to hug him again.

Instead, Spencer turns to Y/N and pulls her into a kiss. She’s startled at first, eyes wide open as Spencer’s hands find her waist and pulls her right up against him.

She can't help but settle against him. Holding his face in her hands as she kisses him back. He picks her up slightly, spinning her around with his face buried in her neck as she yelps.

Everyone in the room watching him celebrate with her in shocked silence.

He placed her back on the ground, kissing her one last time. “You did it, Spence,” she smiles at him.

“We did it.”

She hears someone clearing their throat. Both of them turning to see the Warden as well as the entire BAU team standing in her doorway. But they don’t pull apart, Spencer’s hand stays on her side as they wait to get yelled at.

“I quit,” Y/N said before he could say anything to her, “and I might sue.”

“I’m suing for sure,” Spencer added.

“We’re terribly sorry for the condition of your stay Doctor Reid. And Doctor Y/L/N, I’ll never be able to make it up to you. I’m incredibly sorry for what Wilkins did,” the warden tried to cover his ass from a bureau lawsuit.

“Too late for that,” Emily added. Stepping into the room more. “Doctor Reid will be leaving with us, now.”

“Understood,” the Warden hurried out of the room before any more damage could be done.

Everyone took a turn hugging Spencer then. A handful of them even hugging Y/N as well.

Emily wrapped Y/N up in a hug, rubbing her back the way she would all those years before. “Thank you, you have no idea what he means to us.”

“I think I do,” she laughed against her. “If that’s not weird?”

“Not at all,” she pulled back, looking at Y/N with her big beautiful eyes, her bangs pushed out of the way so she could take a good look again. “You two are good together.”

She smiled, “thanks Em.”

“We need to fill him in on everything, will you stay with Diana?” Emily asked.

“Of course, I’m just going to be packing up some things anyway,” she said as she turned to Spencer. “Have fun with your friends, honey.”

“Thanks, sugar,” he kissed her on the cheek before walking out. Everyone whistling and hollering at the boldness Dr. Reid had developed in prison.

They all filed out after him, she watched the door with a soft smile as they wandered down the hall, Spencer taking them to the break room so they could chat.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Diana’s small voice came from Spencer’s desk.

“Oh, Diana,” she smiled. “Can I give you a hug?”

Diana nodded as she walked over to her, wrapping her up in a hug, much like how Spencer would. She can imagine Spencer’s hugs once feeling like this, imagining him small and shy, holding her slightly. Unlike his more beefy, relaxed form since being in prison.

“He means the world to me too,” she says softly as Diana pulls away.

“You saved him, if he didn’t have you he might not still be my soft and sweet little Spencer,” Diana patted her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for making him,” she laughed slightly. “He’s a wonderful man, I have a feeling you played a big role in that.”

Her smile was just like his. The smile of a mother, someone who was going to love him forever, maybe she’d love her too. Y/N felt a little emotional, this could be her family one day.

Chapter 8

There was a lot of information to process as she sat at the BAU round table.

Learning the entire plot of some women’s revenge against Spencer, just how much Wilkins and Lindsay were involved, the crazy scheme they planned and how terribly it would have ended if she wasn’t there.

Spencer, on the other hand, was visiting this Cat person in prison. The one who orchestrated it all, the one who was obsessed with Spencer, the love of her life, to the point she might be having his baby. He had some things to settle with her.

He was on edge before he left, going with Derek and JJ while Y/N stayed back with Diana. David Rossi had even offered to let them all stay at his guest house later that night, seeing as Spencer’s apartment was a crime scene.

Lindsay murdered Cassie, leaving her dead body on Spencer’s apartment floor. Ruining the place he was so desperate to return to.

She was a little out of it. Trying to think of everything that happened and everything she would have to do in the next few days. Compiling a list in her mind as the anxiety bubbled in her gut.

She needed a new job and a new place to live. First, she’d have to go back to Vermont to pack, and she’d have to find a way to support her boys on Parole. And Mike and Jerry.

She put her hands over her face and rested against the table. Overwhelmed with everything, her face still hurting, the lights were too much, she was tired.

Then she was crying softly.

“Hey,” Emily rubbed her back softly. “Shhh, it’s okay, what’s wrong Y/N?”

She sat up and wiped her eyes with a small laugh, embarrassed that her kinda ex-girlfriend was comforting her. “I’m stressed?” She answered, not even really sure herself.

Emily smiled while she nodded, looking so different now than she did back when they first met. Older, but in a beautiful way, gracefully becoming who she was always meant to be. “I get it, believe me.”

She remembered Derek saying she ‘died’ once. How they buried her casket and how pissed they were when they found out she was actually alive. Y/N only knew Emily re-born, as they called her.

She was always caring, always wanted to comfort and make people happy. It was the way she coped with hurting them all, but it carried on past the team. It carried on to strangers, victims, sometimes even unsub’s.

And most definitely Y/N.

There was a part of Y/N that wonders what loving Emily would have been like; if it would have felt half as good as loving Spencer. Or would it be better? She’d never really know, but she could imagine it would have been nice.

“How can we help?” Emily asked, still as wonderful as ever.

“I need a new job,” she laughed. “Can Penelope use her mad skills to find a reputable business in need of a doctor around here?”

“Are you moving back to Virginia?” She smiled at the thought.

“Yeah,” Y/N nodded, a smile growing on her face. “I’m kind of attached to Spencer now.”

“Good, maybe Derek can help you find a place, he has like, what 7? Right now that he’s fixing up?” Emily threw out ideas. “You’ll get the ball rolling soon, it’ll all be fine.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “For not giving up on him, I know you would never but, I was worried he had lost all hope and you never did. Thank you.”

Emily hugged her again, not saying anything. Y/N knew there was nothing to thank her for, this was a family. They would kill for each other if they needed to.

“Let’s go see Penelope,” Emily replied as she pulled away. Standing and extending a hand for Y/N.

The BAU offices were so interesting, many people running around to get jobs done before the end of the day as the main team chilled. It was like any other office she was in; controlled chaos and hierarchy.

Diana was sitting with Penelope in her office, flipping through a scrapbook while eating a jello cup. It made her smile to see it ran in the family.

“Hey,” Penelope cheered as she noticed them.

“I was just going to ask for some help with something, I see you’re busy,” Y/N awkwardly commented on the situation.

“Oh, we’re not,” Diana said. “I was showing her photos of Spencer. Would you like to see them?”

“I’d love to, um while I’m here, Penelope would you be willing to help me search for a good job?” She asked a lot mousier than Spencer would have if he was asking her for something.

“Of course, what are we looking for?” She wheeled to her main computer, cracking her knuckles as she got ready to look.

“Um, anyone hiring a GP close to here, I’m willing to go all the way to DC for work,” she explained. “I just want a place where I won't get punched again,” she tried to laugh at the trauma.

“The sanatarium is hiring, they’ve got good ratings and not a lot of patient complaints, they’re looking for a physician to care for the elderly members of the program,” Penelope explained as she clicked through screen after screen of info.

“That would be nice,” she smiled towards Diana. “Did you like the one you were at?”

“Oh yes,” Diana mused. “I had many friends there, I miss them and the social aspect. For a bunch of loons, I really loved the company.” She laughed at herself.

“I send the link to you,” Penelope smiled. “Now let me see his little baby bum again that one is my favourite, he’s so funny,” she leaned back in close to Diana.

All the pictures were priceless. Seeing Spencer grow up, page after page, every award and accomplishment displayed proudly. It made her miss her family, the love that a mother could bring to her life.

She got a little emotional, trying to nonchalantly wipe the tear off her cheek as she watched Diana flip a page.

“Are you okay?” She asked softly.

Y/N laughed, “yeah I just miss my mom.” She scrunched her nose so that the tears stayed in, waving her hand in front of her face as she tried to blink the tears back.

“Where is she?” An innocent question opening the floodgates.

“She had cancer,” Y/N cried softly. Not noticing as Emily and Penelope left the room. Giving them a space to bond.

“She died when I was 26,” she explained.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Diana placed her hand on Y/N’s back as she rubbed her softly. “Do you have any other family?”

“My moms are gay, well. After my mom died I stopped talking to her wife, yes she raised me but she hurt my mom too much for me to love her like a parent,” Y/N unloaded her trauma onto Diana, it must be genetic to find comfort in the Reids.

“Spencer never had a father either,” Diana related to her. “After William left it was just us, and Spencer stepped up to being the man of the house. He’s always been thrown into situations where he has no control but he needs to make the decisions. You’re probably the best person he could be with, he doesn’t have to take care of you.”

“Cause I baby him,” she laughed as she wiped stray tears off her cheeks. “He’s pretty wonderful, you did a fantastic job. Both of you did, look at the love you have. This is a perfect family.”

She gestured to the book of photos, seeing the love beaming off Diana’s face as she held a 12-year-old Spencer in her arms. Braces, on his face, thick glasses, long hair. He was adorable.

“You’re welcome to join,” Diana offered softly. “I’ve always wanted a daughter.”

“Why didn’t you?” She asked softly.

“Why have more when you can stop at perfection,” she smiled, the same wonderful smile Spencer had.

“That he is,” she agreed. “Thank you for him.”

“Thank you, I mean it when I say you saved him,” Diana’s serious look making Y/N cry again.

“I know,” she cried. “And I’d do it again.”

In a heartbeat.

—

Rossi had 3 rooms ready for use in his guest house. Only 2 were ever used during their stay. They spent a few nights recovering together, helping Diana into a new routine for a few days while trying to just spend as much time as possible together out in the real world.

Rossi’s property was huge, never-ending even. He had lake access, ponds with ducks, fields and fields of long grass topped with flowers. It was like a dream getting to explore it together.

Happiness hit her like a freight train, smacking her in the chest and knocking the wind out of her.

She blinked and suddenly she had been waking up in Spencer’s arms for a week straight. Going on adventures together, waiting for him with a coffee outside his NA meetings, holding him all night long.

He had a hard time adjusting to a real bed again, it was too soft. He spent most of his time with his head on Y/N's chest, letting her rub his back slowly as she kissed his head, helping him drift off to sleep every single night. Causing her to fall deeper and deeper in love with him.

Every day beside him was a blessing, no longer was he a dog trapped in a cage. He was free, running with her through the fields like wild horses.

She woke up with him still snuggled into her, arm around her waist, legs tangled together, his face right in the crook of her neck. His hot breath on her skin being the thing that finally woke her up.

Absentmindedly running her fingers through his hair, eyes still closed as she woke up. Snuggling her cheek against the top of his head, causing him to pull her in tighter. Both of them slowly coming alive again.

“I love you,” her voice coarse from sleeping with her mouth open, dry as she licked her lips. It was the only thought that came to her mind. Not even realizing it was the first time she’s said it to him.

Spencer kissed her neck softly, “I love you.”

She couldn’t believe the happiness she was feeling, almost positive that even in her saddest moments she still loved him just this much. He was everything, even under all the scares and trauma, he was the most wonderful person in her whole world. And she was beyond blessed to be holding him in her arms.

The sun was barely up yet, having fallen asleep around 10 pm last night, they were up way earlier than they expected. It was so nice, the deep orange light of the morning sun creeping through the window behind the bed.

“Do you want to go watch the sun come up?” She asked softly.

“Yeah,” he nodded softly. Sitting up with her to get ready.

They put on track pants and sweaters and shoes, grabbing a few blankets and heading outside. A few minutes of walking behind Rossi’s house led them towards a beautiful little pond, they laid out 2 blankets over the dew-soaked grass before cuddling on top of it.

The birds were performing for them, the clouds were cleaning into the most beautiful morning blue sky she had ever seen. She couldn’t help herself from holding him tighter against the blanket.

The sun shined on the water, casting beautiful pinks and oranges across the surface as it stretched into the sky. A few ducks followed their mommas in the May morning breeze, quacking in agreement as they swam across the pond. Playing a game of following the leader.

It was a dream, she was sure of it. It was all too perfect to be real.

Including Spencer, he laid there softly underneath her, holding her against his chest as she appreciated the world around them. His attention only on her, even after being locked up for 3 months. He would always choose her.

“I’m so happy,” she said softly. “You make me so happy.”

He kissed her on the forehead, pushing her back against the blanket so he could kiss her whole face as she laid there. Smiling as she held his sides, letting him smother her in affection.

When he finally stops kissing her, he brushes her hair behind her ear. Cupping her face with one hand as he looks at her. The sun casting a vibrant glow on the both of them as they appreciated each other for a moment.

“I don’t know how I made it so long without you,” he finally speaks. “But I never want to do it again.”

“Move in with me?” She replied without a second thought. “I need to find a place here anyway, and I doubt you want to go back to your apartment.”

“I already asked Derek for the place he was fixing on Wilmont, it’s close to the sanatarium, mom wants to be social again,” he filled her in on his plans. “We just have to sign the lease.”

“We?” She teased him.

“I love you,” he reminded her.

“Good,” she smiled as she pulled him into another kiss. “Because I love you, too.”

Spending time with Spencer was intimacy in its purest form. It was a relationship built on trust, respect, and mutual love. It was the first time in her life she felt truly in love, not mesmerized by the idea of it.

She trusted him when he said that he loved her. She believed him when held her when he talked to her about his day or the most random things his mind could conjure. When he’d just hold her, enjoying her presence without wanting anything more than just her.

Chapter 9

They arrived in Vermont early on a Saturday morning, heading to her apartment to pack everything up. It was just the two of them this time, flying in together, half asleep at the break of dawn.

Only bringing 1 bag with her essentials for the next 2 days, hoping to pack her whole life into a truck and pray it arrived in Virginia okay.

And she got to show Spencer her space. A personal side of her that he had no idea about. He knew her mind, her feelings, her trauma, but he didn’t know what her personality was really like outside of loving him.

He was surprised by the amount of stuff she had. Wandering around her apartment quietly as she started taping boxes into shape.

Rented white walls enclosed the space when she moved in, not being able to paint them or anything felt wrong to her. So she covered them in photos, artwork and posters. Bringing the space to life with a touch of colour.

Mostly neons, having an affinity for green and purple accent pieces. Not a single shade of blue to be found, getting enough of that at work over the years.

She had plants everywhere, an old record player and a million different albums spread across the living room. Her bedroom was a mess, the closet was even worse. The kitchen would be easy to pack, it was the stuff on the walls she was worried about.

“I’m probably not getting my deposit back,” she laughed as she started taking the paintings down.

“I didn’t know you went to Harvard?” He points at her medical degree on the wall as she takes it down.

“Yeah, let me guess you’re a Yale guy?” She teased him.

He scoffed, nudging her arm lightly. “CalTech and MIT actually, Yale was my safety school.”

“Mine too,” she smiled.

Spencer stood beside her and watched for a minute, “what should I do?”

“Pick an area and pack the way you would if this was your place, I trust you won't break anything.”

“Okay,” he nodded, beginning stacking all her books on the kitchen table.

They worked well together, they knew that already. She put on music, they moved around each other freely. Occasionally singing the words and dancing around to the good ones. It was a lovely day to just open the windows and clean.

Hours passed, pizzas had been ordered and destroyed, boxes filled every corner of the space as her personality was completely ripped from the room. Soon it was just them, a couch and the record player.

She got up and walked into the bedroom to change, feeling sticky and gross from the day. Not expecting Spencer to follow and sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Who knew packing boxes for 7 hours would make you so sweaty,” she jokes as she peels the shirt off her back. Standing in front of him in just her sports bra.

He turns away from her, making her laugh slightly. “Spencer, it’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” He asks as he turns back to look at her.

She nods softly, “do you want to shower with me?”

He’s speechless for a moment, staring at her with an open mouth, “yeah, yes sure.”

She can't help herself from laughing, taking his hand and pulling him into her tiny bathroom. She makes sure they both have a few towels, seeing him awkwardly stand by the door like he’s not allowed to move.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she reminded him. “Go as slow as you want.”

“I want to join you, but just to clean,” he made his decision.

“Alright, I have 3 different shampoos you can choose from,” she smiled, opening her cupboard and letting him pick. He smiled, appreciating how easily she made it a strictly business situation.

She took off her pants, watching him get undressed out of the corner of her eye. They had been much more intimate with each other already, getting naked in front of him shouldn’t have been as nerve-racking as it was.

She turned on the water, making sure it was the right temperature with her foot. She took a deep breath and just took the sports bra off, freeing her boobs after a long day felt amazing, replacing the fear of Spencer seeing her for the first time. She dropped her underwear to the floor and stepped into the shower, waiting for him to do the same.

Before she knew it, he was standing in front of her, naked. She didn’t know how to act, just laughing and smiling at him. He did the same, it felt kinda crazy that they were standing in a shower, butt naked as the water pooled at their feet.

“You have to pull the thingy up,” she pointed at the bottom of the shower behind him. “It might be cold when it hits you, here pull it up and hide in the corner, like I do.”

He followed her instructions, pulling the small silver plug up to redirect the water from the tub faucet to the shower head. Cowering into the corner with her, their chests pressed together as the cold water hit his back, making him gasp as she laughed.

She wrapped her arms around him, leaning against the shower wall as she held him against her, “hi,” she whispered through her smile.

He kissed her quickly before backing up under the stream. She watched the water cover his hair, making it darker as it spread through the long locks. She watched it drip down his body softly, her eyes travelling down as it did.

He had a scar on his neck and all the bruising on his chest was long gone. His skin was so pretty, he only had a small amount of chest hair, but it was the collection of freckles all over capturing her gaze the most. She reached out and rested her hand on his chest, seeing his eyes open as he ran his hands through his hair.

“Sorry,” she pulled her hand back.

“It’s okay,” he laughed slightly. “Here,” he reached behind her for the bar of soap, “if you want to touch me while I wash my hair?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. Reaching for the loofa on the tap behind him, standing directly in his space as she did so.

They switched sides, slowly turning so he would be out of the spray of the shower head. He put shampoo in his hands and rubbed it through his hair while she watched quietly for a moment.

She rubbed the bar of soap against the fabric of the loofa, watching it foam up and fill the small space with a soft cucumber scent. Running it over his chest softly as he massaged his scalp. She was so soft with him, mesmerized by how lucky she was.

He was beautiful and soft. He wasn’t big and buff like Derek, he was just a normal man with a love for chocolate donuts and jello. She ran the loofa over his tummy as she smiled, loving everything about him.

Loving every part actually while trying to avoid both eye and physical contact with specific sections of him. Not knowing if he was okay, wanting to respect his space, and appreciating that he was doing the same with her.

He laughed when she ran it along his side, ticking his armpit as he tried to wash his hair, soap dripping down onto his eyebrow. She reached up and wiped it off his face so it wouldn’t go in his eye.

“Thanks,” he smiled.

“Switch?” She said as she guided him back under the water, his eyes still closed from the fear of getting soap in them. Scrunching his face up in the cutest way.

The water cascaded over his body, washing the soap down him as she watched, her hair not even close to being wet enough to wash yet. She just wanted to watch the show, to look at all of him and appreciate the moment.

He opened his eyes once all the soap was gone, his hair longer than ever as it laid flat behind his ears, he looked so funny without a big curly mop of hair on his head, remembering he said it used to be like this at one point.

“Your turn?” He offered, taking the loofa from her and reapplying the soap to it. “Can I?”

“Of course,” she answered as he slowly ran the material over her.

He was so gentle, she watched his face as he washed over her. Biting his bottom lip in concentration as he covered her chest, arms and stomach, “um,” he tried to speak, she knew what he wanted.

She took the loofa from him and replaced it with a bar of soap, “rub it in your hands for a sec, and then use them it’s easier.”

He did just that, lathering up his hands before he placed them directly on her breasts. She let out a sigh, bordering on a moan, as he held them in his hands, massaging the soap in carefully. Thumbs rubbing over her nipples as he made sure to not miss a spot.

She was in heaven, tossing her head back against the shower wall as he ran his hands over her more. Exploring her as she leaned against the wall.

Down her stomach, past her belly button, washing her hips before dropping to his knees. Using the bar of soap once more to wash over her legs as she stared at him, amazed by the bravery he was showing.

The water getting in his eyes down there, he stood and pushed his hair back out of his face as the water dropped to the floor, “turn around?” He asked softly.

“Yeah,” she replied, turning to face the wall.

He ran his soapy hands all over her back, over her shoulders and arms. Paying special attention to her butt, which made her laugh, she was only a little ticklish there.

She was covered head to toe in bubbles, Spencer looked at her with a big grin on his face as he noticed his job was done. Helping her under the water to wash all the soap off.

She lifted her arms to run the water through her hair, feeling her boobs perk up as she did so. Spencer's attention being completely switched to her chest as he watched. “Pass me the gold shampoo bottle?”

“Y-yeah,” he said, grabbing it from behind himself and handing it back to her.

She stepped into his space, pouring the soap into her hand and rubbing it in. “They say if you lather it up it’ll apply easier,” she explained her little life hack as she rubbed her hands together.

Finally running her hands back through her hair in Spencer’s personal bubble. Her boobs pressing against his chest once again. He was breathing heavier as she watched him, hoping soap didn’t make its way into her eye and ruin the moment.

When she finally stepped back to wash the soap out of her hair, Spencer followed, pressing them together once more. Holding her by the waist as she continued to get the soap out.

Once the water ran clean, she rested her hands on Spencer's shoulders. Staring at him as the water ran down her back, his eyelashes covered in water droplets as he stared into her eyes.

He was beautiful like this, just himself.

“Are we ever going to be like a real couple?” He asked softly.

“What do you mean?”

He ran his wet hands over his back as he thought about it for a moment, “I would like to be with you, more than this, but-”

“You mean sex?” She smiled softly, trying her best to not tease him. It was a serious moment, but she loved him too much to see him struggle.

“Yeah, I just don’t know how I’ll react,” he admitted.

“Honey,” she cooed, rubbing her nose against his softly. “Sex doesn’t make us a real couple, first of all. And second, we have all the time in the world, so you take it as slow as you want. We can start little by little, I don’t mind waiting.”

“How do you mean?”

She smirked at him, “have you ever masturbated in the same room as someone else?”

He swallowed sharply, shaking his head softly, “no, have you?”

“No,” she whispered. “But it’s a small step. You can sit beside me, we touch ourselves, nothing overlaps unless you want it to. Ease into it. It would be another easy way to be comfortable with your body around me.”

“Okay,” he agreed.

She reached behind herself to turn the water off, tapping the silver plug with her foot to release the pressure, and stepping out of the shower finally.

—

They dried off, getting into their pj’s before laying on the couch in her empty living room. Listening to the Hozier album that was already sitting on the player and cuddling while their hair dried. Just enjoying each other's company, he was so soft and he smelled amazing, it was so nice to have him in her space.

“Did you still want to?” Spencer cut into the moment.

It made her smile against him, lifting her head off his chest as she went to stand up. “Come on,” she took his hand, helping him to his feet.

She pulled him in close, kissing his lips softly. Only planning to kiss him once, being drawn into his mouth as his hands wrapped around her back.

She held him in return, slowly making her way into the bedroom as they stayed connected, laughing as her back smacked the door frame and then at the way he fell into her bed with her on top.

Her music softly travelled in from the living area, they kept the lights off as they stripped out of their pants and got under the covers.

“How did you want to start?” She asked, turning to face him as she laid against the pillow.

“Can we just kiss for a while?”

“Absolutely,” she smiled, placing a hand on his cheek and leaning in.

She was laying slightly on top of him, holding his face in her hands as she kissed him. His tongue was soft, swirling with hers as they made out softly. He was very handsy, wanting to touch every single part of her once again like he didn’t get enough in the shower.

She spread her leg between his, sitting on his thigh as she rubbed against him. He bit her lip, squeezing her skin at the feeling. “I think I can do it,” he said softly.

“No,” she whispered, kissing his neck before getting off him. “I don’t want to hear I think. It’s a yes or it’s a no.”

“Okay,” he managed to bring reason back into his horny brain.

He took his shirt off, only in boxers beside her, tenting in them slightly. She took off her shirt as well, laying back against the pillow. He watched her breasts the whole time, licking his lips as he leaned on his side.

She ran a hand over her side, cupping her breast and tossing her head into the pillow more. “I’m starting without you,” she teased, her other hand slipping under the band of her underwear.

He laid on his back, bending his knees as he slipped his boxers off, she looked over at him with careful eyes. Genuinely curious about how beautiful he would look rock hard and begging for it.

She didn’t move her hand, just resting it under her underwear to entice him to start. She watched as he stroked himself softly, returning his attention to her smiling face.

She pushed her shirt and underwear off as well, scooting in closer to him so she was pressed against his side. Bending one knee so she could ghost her fingers over the folds as he watched her.

“I want to touch you,” he rushed the words out.

“Okay.”

He reached his left hand over, resting it on her hip before resting his hand on top of hers. She slipped it out from under his grasp, guiding his fingers to her clit as she stretched her legs further apart.

“Yeah, like that,” she encouraged him.

“W-would you?”

“Finish the sentence,” she instructed him. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

“Stroke me, I want it. Yes.”

She wrapped her fist around him, feeling his fingers swoop down to see how wet she was. “Oh,” she jerked her hips against his side, not expecting him to loop the wetness back up and rub her clit again.

He groaned as she stroked him faster, both of them staring at their own handiwork. She was fascinated with how big he was, being able to stroke up and down him so gracefully it was like she was always meant to. She licked her lips as she saw the pearl of precum drip out. Gathering it up with her thumb as she slid back down his length.

He was panting, trying to hold himself back as she kept jerking him off. Lightly touching her clit as all his attention focused on not cuming so soon.

“It’s okay honey,” she whispered in his ear.

Straddling his thigh then. His hand resting on her clit still as she ground down on him. “Is this okay?” She asked.

He nodded, “yes,” biting his lip so he didn’t explode right then and there.

He felt amazing on her, every time her hips ground down her clit rested right between his fingers perfectly to gain the perfect amount of friction back and forth.

She let herself go, bucking her hips and moaning as she stroked him with one hand. Resting the other behind her neck so he could look at her boobs perk up again, sending him so close to the edge he almost jumped out of his skin.

“Fuck,” he gasped. “C-an I?”

“Cum baby,” she gasped. Following her own instruction as she watched the cum burst from him, shooting up over her fist as she stroked him through it. Grinding against him as she whimpered, “fuck, I love you,” leaving her mouth.

Letting go of his dick as he started to whine, she dropped down against him with her face nestled into his neck.

She kissed him, over and over again. Peppering them against his skin for the best orgasm she has ever had.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close against his skin as he came down from the high. His chest heaving as he tried to calm down, only picking up again when she heard the sob.

“Shhh,” she whispered against his skin, letting him hold her tighter against him as he cried. “I love you, honey, it’s okay. I’m here for you.”

She felt the tears welling in her own eyes, overwhelmed with her feelings for him. “I love you so much Spencer,” she cried against his skin, the tears dripping down his neck slowly.

His hands ran over her back, they held each other while they cried.

Everything from the last week finally catching up with them both. They hadn’t taken a moment to talk about any of it, the fact he was even in prison or what happened after. They just moved on, pretending it was fine now.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered finally.

“Me too,” he pressed his hand onto her cheek, freeing her from his neck as she sat up a little.

Both of them still gross from the sex, pressing sweaty foreheads together as they took a moment. “I’m so sorry,” she emphasized, “are you okay?”

“I’m wonderful,” he laughed at the absurdity. “I’m crying because I love you so much.”

“Really?” She laughed too.

He nodded softly. Kissing her nose as she pulled back to look at him better. “I want to touch you but,” she laughed at the mess on her hand and where she rested it on his chest. “Can we pause for one sec?” She couldn’t stop smiling.

The two of them continuing to laugh at the situation as they cleaned up in the bathroom, laughing even harder as she sat to pee like they had been married for a million years already, laughing the hardest when it came out in dribbles from all the laughing.

Going through every emotion in the book as they coped with the insanity together.

Once they were clean they crawled back into bed. Resuming almost the same position as she sat down on his lap, holding his face in her hands like she wanted to. Rubbing her thumbs on his cheeks as he pulled her in closer by her hips.

“Tell me what you’re feeling?” She whispered.

“I’m happy, you saved my life and I can’t believe I get to do this with you,” he explained softly, moving his hands on her back. He talked with his hands, not able to say anything without them moving.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known, Spencer,” she reassured him.

“Why?” He asked softly. “not in a pity party sense, I just want to know how you feel. You haven’t really told me, I’ve been waiting for you to open up, I thought maybe you were just like that because it was your job, but I want to know you more.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she bumped their noses together. “I don’t normally talk to people, even with Derek I’m really closed off. But I do trust you, and I want to, I just wanted to experience you when you’re free. I wanted to see if this overwhelming ache in my heart would dissipate as I was allowed to love you.”

She didn’t want to cry again. Blinking so the tears rolled back behind her eyes, licking her lips as her head tilted slightly. She just stared at his honey eyes, glossy and blown out. So absolutely beautiful.

“It got worse,” she laughed slightly. “I realized that now that you’re free you don’t have to see me every day, luckily you want to. But, now I think about losing you instead of keeping you safe.”

“Never,” he shook his head, face still cupped in her hands. “I’m never leaving you, you’re going to need a restraining order if you want to break up.”

She laughed, pushing the tears out, finally. Spencer kissed her cheeks, wiping the tears away with his lips. “Okay,” her voice broke as she tried not to cry anymore.

“I love you,” Spencer whispered. “You’re brave and kind, incredibly smart. You’re willing to do whatever it takes for the ones you love, you’re the only person I want to talk to every day.”

“I was going to say that about you,” she pressed their lips together finally, pushing him back against the headboard.

She laid her head on his shoulder, cuddling into him as she sat in his lap, “I have never loved anyone like this.”

“Me either,” he admitted as he pressed his cheek to her head. “Not even with Maeve, or Derek I know he told you.”

“And your mom,” she smiled. “She actually welcomed me to the family, said she always wanted a daughter. It’s nice to have a mom again.”

That broke him, he finally dropped the tuff boyfriend act he was putting up to hear her feelings, crying at his mother and the love of his life being close. She could tell he was a mamma’s boy, they had a bond Y/N wished she could have with someone. The closest she had to a Diana was Derek, as funny as that was.

She let him cry, not prying into it at all. Letting him take control of his emotions and the conversation. She ran her hands up and down his arm, soothing him softly as he held on to her.

“I was so scared,” is all Spencer says.

“I can imagine.”

“No, I mean about my mom,” he corrects her softly. “I thought the second she got her diagnosis that I ruined everything for her. She was going to forget me before I could even find a person to marry, let alone give her grandkids.

‘She was going to forget me,’ echoed in her mind as she wrapped her head around what he was saying. He was more terrified of losing his mother and missing time with her than he was about being in prison. He really put every ounce of his love into his family, it was beautiful.

“I applied to work at the sanatarium,” is how she answers. “They needed a GP and I need a job. This way I can see her every day, and you can go to work or teach or do whatever and know she’ll be okay. And old people seem nicer than cops and criminals.”

“I love you.”

She laughs, kissing his neck softly. “She’ll be okay, we’ll get her taken care of and who knows, maybe we’ll have more answers before a grandkid rolls around.”

It’s a risk, joking about having kids with him already. But she was ready for a life sentence with him, willing to stay in that god-awful prison as long as he was there. Including if he lost his case.

“You’re too good to me.”

“I try,” she smiled. “You’re pretty fantastic yourself, I didn’t just fall in love with your pretty face, sure you’re helpful and do what I say. But I love you because of what’s in here,” she ran her hand over his chest.

He just held her, silence encapsulating the room finally. The record stopped playing in the living room, no one was on the street at this time of night, the world stopped as she laid in his arms.

The Sunday morning sun was going to start coming up as she stayed up in his lap, both of them settling more against the pillow. She had no plans to get off him, he had no plans to separate from her loving embrace.

a/n: still working on an epilogue idk when it'll be done

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