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rhysazriel · 4 months ago

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Smoke & Light: Part 1 [Plug!Az]

SUMMARY: Your ex-boyfriend gives you his dealers number, but you don’t expect for him to be so fine. And you certainly don’t expect him to be so goddamn flirty. (3.4k)

WARNINGS: descriptions and dealings of recreational drugs (weed), little bit of swearing, slight sexual themes and lots of shameless flirting. THIS IS A MODERN AU!!

A/N: the first part is here and I’m so excited!! Im still unsure how many parts this is going to be, but there’s a lot I want to happen in this series so probably (I’m guessing!!) six or seven, but we’ll see!! Anyway, I hope you enjoy <3

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Your patience was wearing thin. Very fucking thin. Those three grey dots mocked you as they bubbled at the bottom of the screen—disappearing and reappearing again—until they were replaced with another less than satisfying message.

Brandon: are you taking the piss? Why didn’t you just ask when you were here earlier?

You scanned the message over, swallowing back the groan at the idea of another potential argument. You needed to nip his attitude in the bud, you weren’t entertaining his bullshit anymore. Gnawing at the inside of your cheek, your fingers quickly typed a response.

You: I didn’t realise I was out until I got home. Can you get any or not? Just lmk

The dots appeared again after a few moments of silence, and you prepared yourself for the snarky remark he was most likely to give you, and took a deep breath to compose yourself in advance.

Brandon: no. I can’t get you any. Sort it out yourself for once.

There was no way in Hell you were going to let your frustrations show. Despite the pure anger and annoyance that began to bubble even more within you.

Brandon could be a lot of things. A liar. A cheat. And a fucking asshole. In all honestly, the only thing he was truly good for was the occasional above par fuck and the fact that his dealer had the best weed you’d ever smoked.

But when they were the only two good things he had going for him, it was hard to justify the disgusting behaviour he showed throughout almost your entire relationship. You broke up every few weeks as it was, but if you’d known about the cheating before, you would’ve left for good sooner.

Instead, you found out a year and half into the relationship, coming to the deafening conclusion that he had, in fact, never been faithful for a single moment of his adult life.

Fuck him. And fuck his shit sex. The weed, you could get yourself.

You: lmao ok. What’s his number?

A heartbeat after he read the text, he was calling you. And the moment you answered the call, he was his usual, un-charming self.

“What the fuck do you mean what’s his number?”

“Hello to you, too.” You murmured, tucking yourself under the blanket on your couch.

His clipped tone didn’t startle you, didn’t worry you about any form of consequences. He wasn’t scary, even when he tried to be. He was just a douche.

“What do you mean what’s his number?” He repeated himself, that agitation growing thicker and thicker with every word he spoke.

“How else am I supposed to get any?”

“Find your own dealer.”

He was being bitter now, pathetically so. You picked at the aged edges of your book, a novel you’d read five times over but one you couldn’t get enough of. Your love for it could be seen by the fading print of the front cover and the severely broken spine—despite how careful you tried to be with your readings.

“Brandon, I’m not going to find a random dealer. Your Azriel guy has good stuff and I know it’s safe. Besides, me going to the same person as you is not going to affect you in any way.”

He was silent for a moment, mulling over your words. Despite his dreadful personality and lack of love and care and compassion, he knew how little you knew about marijuana. He was the one that taught you to roll, after all.

You’d barely smoked before you met him, and on the rare occasions you did get high, it was usually in the form of gummy edibles your friends had. And you weren’t addicted or reliant on it in any way. You just enjoyed a smoke every now and then if you’d had a long day.

Alcohol had never been your favourite, and you much preferred to feel the chilled buzz from a joint than cradle a hangover for two days after a soirée.

“Fine. I’ll text you his number. Say Marco gave it to you, it’s a code he made up—had cops on him a while ago. He can be a bit of an ass, don’t let him shit talk you. Ask for a 3.5, he usually charges 40 for it. It’ll last you a couple weeks unless you’re planning on smoking heavy.”

It was easy to be pulled back in when he was like that. When he did the bare minimum of offering advice on things he knew you weren’t too sure on. But you were better than that now, smarter. You weren’t going to fall back into your old ways again.

Not with him. Not with anyone.

“I’m not. Thank you.”

The line went dead as soon as the words left your mouth and a few moments later, he texted you Azriel’s number. You would’ve appreciated a reminder of what you were supposed to ask for but at least you got his number. Small wins. You weren’t his responsibility anymore.

It took you a few minutes to figure out what to say, your fingers hovering over the keyboard as you typed and erased, typed and erased. Until you settled on ‘Is this Azriel?’ and finally sent the message.

Ten minutes passed and you didn’t get a response. Your nose was tucked back into your romance novel as you chewed on the drawstring of your hoodie. In all honesty, you could’ve quite easily slipped into a peaceful slumber under the warm golden glow of your lamps.

That was another thing Brandon couldn’t respect. Your No Main Light rule. The vibes were always immaculate with gentle warmth from lamps. The main light was not allowed on under any circumstances. You much preferred the cosy feeling of golden hues that accentuated the deep green leaves of your plants and vines that scattered the walls and crevices of your home.

Your phone chimed from your lap, a small surge of anxiety pulsing in your chest. You unlocked the screen and read over the message.

Azriel: depends who’s asking.

Ah, Brandon did warn you. You considered fucking the whole idea off. Maybe cracking open a bottle of wine and snuggling on the couch with a book or tv show would be better than having to meet this asshole, but the bottle of White Zinfandel wouldn’t give you the mellow buzz you wanted.

Not unless you had at least four glasses which was usually paired with a hangover the next day. Something you did not want to entertain. So, you bit the bullet and typed your reply.

You: y/n, got your number from Marco. You about?

The more you let your mind wander, the more you realised how little you knew. You had no clue how this sort of thing worked. Would he come to you? Your home? Would you meet at a location of his choice? Or would he just stash the weed somewhere for you to collect and you don't cross paths at all?

But the burning fire of the what-if anxiety was quickly trampled and extinguished when another text came through and instead of him deciding for you, you were given choices.

Azriel: sure, I can meet you at old tower in 20 if that’s good for you? If not I can drop to your location.

He didn’t seem as much of an ass now. No, quite the opposite. But you supposed that offer was something he probably gave to all new, female clients. If he truly was an ass or not, you couldn’t fault him for the consideration.

Old Tower was the old old watermill tucked slightly away in the centre of the city. It had been derelict for years, but due to its location—so close to all the necessities and right opposite the police station—no one ever tried to break in or set it alight like the many other derelict listed buildings had been in the past.

Even now, at almost midnight, that part of the city would still be bustling with city-natives and tourists alike. And you appreciated the safe and public meeting spot he suggested.

You: old tower in 20 is fine.

As quickly as you sent the message, you received another reply. A text describing his blue Mustang and his licence plate. You shook the nerves off as soon as they came. Azriel was respectful and well known. He dealt to make his money and that was that.

But the facts didn’t stop you from sharing your location with Brandon just in case, nor did it stop you from double checking you still had your little pepper spray clipped to your keychain.

The walk to the Old Tower wasn’t a bad one. There were many ways you could access it, most of them leading you through the city, but here were a few that hid you behind back roads and alleyways—those were routes you never took. Not on your own and certainly not in the middle of the night.

The air was still a bit sticky from the summer heat, and while the denim shorts you wore kept your body cool, you were grateful you kept on your hoodie—just that extra layer that protected your arms and shoulders from the chill of the breeze that your legs never seemed to experience.

It didn’t take long for you to reach the Old Tower, and it took even less time to spot the electric blue 2022 Ford Mustang. Small tufts of white smoke emitted from the exhaust as it sat in its standstill, headlights facing the opposite direction of what you came in, but you could still hear the engine humming from your short distance away.

You double checked the licence plate to the number Azriel texted you, and slowly made your way closer. While you didn’t know much about drop offs, deals, and weed in general, you did know the unspoken rules of picking up. And if you were picking up from someone in a vehicle, most people got inside for a few minutes before leaving.

Azriel must’ve noticed you from the rear view mirror because just as you approached the back of the car, the passenger door opened wide, inviting you in. You sucked in a breath but accepted the invitation, keeping your eyes forward as you settled into the warmth of the leather seat and closed the door shut.

You finally let your body shift and your eyes met his. And you were fucking done for.

You’d never seen a man so strikingly fucking beautiful before. He was tall, lean and muscular and oozed pure sex and charisma. Tan, golden skin and dark, luscious hair that swept loosely down his forehead and curled gently around the tops of his ears.

His face was chiselled not too sharply, a subtle gentleness to the stark contrast of the cold, brooding aura he carried. And those eyes. Christ, those fucking eyes. Hazel iris’ that dripped with a golden hue of honey.

You swallowed down the dry lump in your throat and willed your lips to part so you could finally speak. “Thank you for meeting me so late.”

And Azriel was absolutely hooked.

When you’d texted barely thirty minutes ago, he did not expect to be meeting with someone so fucking gorgeous. Your soft hair was twisted in a loose braid that hung over your shoulder, wayward strands having fallen from the updo and framing your face mesmerizingly.

Your eyes were the most captivating thing he’d ever seen; rich in colour and wide with slight anxiety, despite the sleepiness he could slightly notice beneath them. Your voice sounded like a fever dream. It wasn’t sickly sweet like most women he knew or dealt to. Perhaps it was just the sleep, but there was a rasp—a very slight ruggedness—in your tone and Azriel was certain he’d never heard something quite so sensual in his life.

He cleared his throat, that all too cheeky grin teetering on the corners of his mouth. “I was already out,” he shrugged, nonchalantly. “How much are you after?”

His voice was a perfect blend of sweet and rough. A deep depth to his tone that skipped hand-in-hand with a sweeter note. God, he was unreal, and the sound of him had you forgetting entirely what exactly Brandon told you to ask for.

You pulled your lips between your teeth and offered a very sheepish—but mostly embarrassed—smile. “Um… I’m sorry,” you found yourself apologising for the second time tonight. “My ex used to do this part, so I have no idea how this works.”

You couldn’t help the flush that rose to your cheeks at your own admission, couldn’t handle being the subject of his firm gaze, and you absolutely could not fucking handle the soft rumble of rich laughter that chuckled through him.

“Do you smoke a lot?” Azriel finally asked, a slightly amused smile on those full lips of his. His pink tongue swiped out to wet them and your heart thundered against your ribcage at the sight.

“Not really,” you cleared your throat. “Just every now and then. Semi-regularly, I guess.” There was no such thing as semi-regularly when it came to drugs and alcohol. To someone’s own self, sure. But not the general mass that consumed whatever it was they did.

Some considered three joints a day ‘semi-regular’, while others considered it as a joint every few days. Azriel had a feeling you were the latter, but he didn’t say anything about his thoughts or what you’d said.

Instead, he hummed and chewed at the inside of his cheek in thought. He wasn’t laughing at you or your lack of knowledge or understanding. Usually, he’d have kicked a new client out of his car by now and told them to figure it out on their own—he was a dealer, not a fucking private tutor—but with you, he didn’t seem to mind explaining or breaking things down so it was easier to understand.

Neither of you quite understood why he was happy to explain, but you didn’t complain. You’d much prefer this than the alternative version of him that you’d been warned about.

“A 3.5 would probably be best for you, then.” He decided.

Yes, a 3.5… that sounded very familiar. You nodded, slowly, considering your next words carefully. You had already disclosed the most embarrassing part of not having a fucking clue how this worked, one more probably wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“This is going to sound absolutely ridiculous,” you chuckled nervously, scratching at the nape of your neck. “But can you break that down in joint terms?”

Azriel laughed again, softer this time, through a breath. It was odd, really. He wasn’t laughing to be cruel or to embarrass you further. It seemed to you that perhaps he found it endearing—your innocence on the matter—and maybe, just maybe, you reminded him of himself when he too at one point, had no idea either.

“It depends on how strong you have them. Do you smoke blunts or just joints?”

Your eyes widened animatedly. “God, no. Just joints. I think a blunt might wipe me out.”

A glint of warmth and light fluttered through his eyes for a split second. “So, a 3.5 would get you like seven joints.”

“Yeah, that would last me like a week, two weeks.” You nodded. “I’ll have a 3.5 then, thank you.”

Azriel hummed in agreement, and it was only when he reached for the centre console and flipped open a compartment that you saw his hands. His golden skin was marred beyond belief, etched in burns and an array of pigmented colours. Your stomach lurched at the sight. Not from fear or pity or disgust, no. Your stomach twisted in agony, your brain couldn’t comprehend a reason for scars like that.

You looked away as quickly as you clocked them, not wanting to stare and not wanting him to notice. You supposed he was used to lingering gazes, but you would not be a name added to that list of people.

Azriel did nothing but make you feel comfortable in the brief few minutes of meeting one another. He was kind enough to not laugh in your face and kick you out of his car after your admittance. You were not about to make him feel uncomfortable either.

He pulled out a small plastic baggie stuffed to the brim with forest green nuggets and handed it to you between two scarred, pinched fingers. You took it gratefully, a full and genuine smile on your lips now as you thanked him, reaching into the back pocket of your denim shorts for the cash.

“Did you want me to roll them for you, too?” Azriel’s teasing voice dripped with sarcasm and your eyes snapped to him with a stern look. “‘Cause that’ll cost you extra.”

“I know how to roll, thank you.” You bit back, and while your voice and tone held all the conviction, the amused glint in your eye and the corners of your mouth told him he hadn’t offended you in the slightest.

“It’s twenty-five.” Azriel chuckled from beside you.

Your brows furrowed as you pulled out two twenty’s, meeting his gaze again. “Isn’t it usually like forty?”

The air now smelt of that tangy, vile scent, something that you don’t think you’d ever get used to. Or enjoy. He shrugged, flipping down the lid of the compartment between you. “You’re a new client.”

You raised a brow now, a taunting smirk creeping at the corner of your mouth. “Do you always undercharge new clients, then?”

Azriel liked you. Very much. You didn’t shy away or hide your personality from him, even after only knowing one another for barely an hour in total. He had a feeling he was barely scraping the surface.

He matched your stare, only he wasn't teasing. “Only the pretty ones.”

There was no hiding the heat that crawled up your neck and sat heavy on your cheeks. It had been a long while since you received a genuine compliment. Let alone one so forward and from someone so unexpected. You averted your gaze from him, looking at the two twenty’s in your hand. Raising them, you pursed your lips.

“I only have two twenty’s on me. So you may as well take the full forty.”

Azriel didn’t listen. Instead, he pinched one note from your hand, his skin brushing yours but you didn’t falter, didn’t shy away. He was warm, and despite the scars and marred skin, his skin was softer than you expected.

You huffed, not ungrateful for the discount but this was his livelihood and taking away from that felt wrong to you.

“Let me know when you’re out.”

You smiled appreciatively and nodded, stuffing the bag and cash into your hoodie pocket and reaching for the door handle. “I will. Nice to meet you, Azriel.”

He watched you climbed out of the car, offering another warm smile as the cooler evening air kissed at his skin. He wanted to ask how you were getting home, if you’d be walking alone or if you needed a ride. But Azriel couldn’t cross those lines, especially not with someone he only just met.

So he bit his tongue and prayed to the Mother above to get you home safely. “You too, Y/N.”

He started up the engine again as soon as the door closed, but he didn’t drive away. He watched you through the rear view mirror until you were out of sight and when he finally looked down, he found his jeans tight around his crotch and a painful erection.

“Fuck.”

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astrophileous · 1 year ago

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The Monday Pursuit

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Female Reader

Synopsis: The three times Derek tries to find out your name, and the one time he finally gets it. Or, the story of four different Mondays that Derek spends on the pursuit of your name.

Warning(s): shy!reader, cursing, public confrontation (verbal and physical) with a douchebag, verbal and physical threats, talks of killing someone, name-calling, protective derek, a bit of damsel in distress situation, and that's it really. this is just tooth-rotting fluff 💞

Word Count: 4300-ish

Author's Note: I FINALLY POSTED A DEREK ONE SHOT! YAY! I was toying around with the idea of making this a series of connected one shots, each one focusing on the significance of a particular day (tuesday, wednesday, thursday, etc) in the progress of your relationship. does that sound like something you guys would be interested in? tell me what you think! plsss!!! don't forget to leave a LIKE+COMMENT+REBLOG

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Derek noticed you on a Monday.

He couldn't count how many times his eyes had swept over you absentmindedly in the past few weeks. None of them ever lasted long enough for him to linger around, but somehow, this particular Monday was different.

It was different because the moment Derek's gaze drifted towards the direction where he would usually find you, he finally noticed that you were gone.

It was ironic in a way, how he only noticed you in the wake of your absence. But somewhere in the ruckus that his favorite coffee shop would whirl into every morning, Derek had begun associating the table in the corner of that place with you.

Even then, when someone else was occupying the seat at the end of his long stare, Derek could picture the scene in his head: your laptop on the table, a cup of steaming hot coffee in your hand, and a serious but adorable crease on the center of your forehead. Those three things stood out from the rest. Perhaps if he had the same eidietic ability as Spender Reid, Derek could list more details about your habits and person. Nonetheless, somewhere in his subsconscious, Derek's memories must have deemed you important enough to keep, and that was all it took for him to wonder what about you was so goddamn special.

His fog of reverie was soon broken by an interrupting voice, "She's out of town."

Derek turned his head to see one of the barristas giving him a sly smile. "Excuse me?"

"The writer. She's out of town."

"Writer?" Derek didn't know that. "She's a writer?"

"On the side. She's in grad school," the barrista said. "She has two books out and another one pending publication. She's in New York right now for a book signing."

The word impressive promptly filled Derek's mind, and judging by the barrista's expression, it seemed that the word had translated unmistakably on his face, too.

"You know, you shouldn't give out someone's information to random people like that," Derek warned.

"I don't usually, but I thought, since you're FBI..."

The surprise in Derek's eyes couldn't be more palpable. "How'd you know?"

"Dude, you've been around a while." The barrista shrugged. "Besides, I don't think she would mind."

Derek frowned.

"She likes you," the barrista revealed once they saw the confusion settling on Derek's face.

"What?"

"She's got a bad crush on you, didn't you know?"

"Uh, no?"

"Huh." The barrista put down the cup containing Derek's order on the counter. "I thought you knew. She was so obvious. I mean, I'm not sure how she hasn't burned through the back of your skull with how hard she always stares."

Flabbergasted couldn't even begin to describe what Derek was feeling. His curious eyes flicked momentarily towards your table before he addressed the barrista again, "She's a friend of yours?"

"Hell yeah, she is." The barrista smiled. "That's why I know she's got it bad for you."

Being admired wasn't exactly something new for Derek, so he struggled to comprehend why the thought of you crushing on him had triggered a wave of heat to travel up and down his body.

"What's her name?" Derek asked, trying to sound casual and nonchalant as he picked up his cup of coffee.

The barrista grinned smugly. "I thought you told me not to give someone's information to a random person like that?"

With that said, the barrista went to attend to another customer, leaving Derek to curse over his excellent ability to dig up his own hole.

You were back in town the following week.

When Derek walked into the coffee shop the next Monday, he immediately found you huddled up in your usual seat. For one split second, Derek saw you looking up from your laptop, your eyes locking with his from across the room. But before he could offer a smile, you averted your gaze as if you couldn't wait to get away from him.

That thought didn't conjure well in Derek's mind.

Derek proceeded to give his usual order and waited by the counter. However, when he saw a plate of blueberry muffin being placed next to his cup to go, Derek glimpsed up in confusion at the awaiting smirk on your friend's--the barrista's--face.

"I didn't order this."

"No, you didn't. But do you know whose favorite dessert it is?"

Derek casted a glance towards your direction.

"Exactly." The barrista grinned wider. "Now, go. It's on the house."

The loud drumming inside Derek's chest should have been laughable.

He was never like this. Derek was always self-assured, especially when it came to flirting and courting, so there really was no reason for him to be feeling like this. But something about you had spiked the rhytmic beating in his chest, and Derek didn't like being out of his element when there was a pretty girl at stake.

Thus, with an ease born out of years of practice, Derek worked to turn on his good ol' charm. The same one that dripped from his footsteps as he sauntered over your table with his coffee in one hand and one special plate of blueberry muffin in the other.

Deer caught in headlights; that was exactly the perfect description to visualize how you looked when Derek finally placed the muffin on the table. The man smirked triumphantly at the knowledge that he affected you just as much as you affected him.

"Hey," Derek greeted almost complacently. "I heard this is your favorite."

"What? I don't.... how did you..."

You stopped speaking altogether, sending a grimace to the direction of the counter--where your friend was working--when you deduced what could probably have transpired

"I missed you last week," Derek added.

If you were abashed before, then you must have been mortified when those words slipped out of Derek's lips. You looked up at him with a gaping mouth, and Derek would have laughed at how precious you looked if he didn't have compassion for your poor nerves.

"I was out of town," you eventually managed to say.

"I heard. A writer, right? You had a book signing." Derek smiled. "That's impressive. Anything of yours I might know?"

Your face contorted after hearing his question. "I doubt it. I'm not big at all."

"I don't know. Book signing in New York? Sounds pretty big to me."

"Not as much as you would expect, to be honest."

Derek didn't know why, but he despised the sound of you downplaying your own accomplishments as if they weren't worthy of being praised. He swore he would assist in changing that tendency if given the chance.

"My name is Derek. Derek Morgan."

"I know."

Derek raised a curious eyebrow.

You cowered shyly when you realized what you had admitted. "I heard you mention it a while ago, when you were ordering."

"And you remember?"

Your bashful expression nearly compelled Derek to cheer out loud.

"Do you need something?" you finally asked, not at all mean or bitter, more timid than anything else.

"Yes. I was wondering if I could ask for your name."

"My name?

Derek nodded. "Well, you see, I wanted to ask for your number, but I figured since I still don't have your name yet, then maybe I should get around to it first."

You bit your bottom lip, seemingly in deep thought as you assessed Derek with soft eyes.

"My name is--"

Just as the answer was dangling on the tip of your tongue, Derek's phone suddenly started to ring. He internally cursed his life for its partiality to bad timings, holding up an apologetic finger as he accepted the call without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?"

"Hey, beefcake, where are you?" Penelope Garcia asked from the other end of the line. "Hotch just told everyone to be up and running in 30."

"What? I thought the briefing starts in 30."

"He's debriefing on the plane. Another body just turned up."

"Shit. Shit. Okay, fine, I'll be there."

Derek ended the call in the next second, panic clouding his mind to the point that he failed to realize he didn't bid his usual farewell to his favorite tech analyst. In front of him, you were staring with a pair of expectant eyes that made Derek wish he could stop time to spend it by your side. Alas, such power only existed in fantasy, and Derek--frankly--didn't have enough time at hand to pay grievance over that fact.

"I'm sorry."

Your face fell at Derek's apology, even if slightly.

"God, this sucks. I wish I could stay. I haven't even--"

"Derek, it's okay," you cut him off. "Just go."

"But you didn't--"

"Derek." Your hand on the table slid forward, as though wanting to reach out to him but stopped shortly before you did. "I'm always here."

It was such a simple statement. Three small words that carried hardly any weight on their own whatsoever. But strung together, Derek knew exactly what you meant, the real meaning behind the sentence you chose to say.

You can go. It's okay. We'll continue this some other time.

Reeling from your generous understanding, Derek rushed a goodbye before sprinting towards the door. But just as he was about to touch its handle, he span around for one last look, calling out a sentence that he had pocketed safely as a promise.

"I'll see you soon."

Since Derek's last encounter with you at the coffee shop, the BAU had been thrown from one case to another in the span of two weeks, during which Derek seemed to struggle eliminating the thought of you from the depth of his mind.

When a new Monday rolled around, Derek found himself whistling to a favorite tune as he took the morning route towards the coffee shop. The day was a gloomy one, gray and cloudy with a high chance of rain, contrasting entirely with the sunshine inside Derek's chest. In a few minutes, he would finally see you again, and Derek couldn't wait to woo you into agreeing on a date with him as his palm pressed on the door of the coffee shop.

Unfortunately, Derek's movements ceased the moment he stepped into the familiar establishment.

The atmosphere in the coffee shop struck no resemblance to what Derek had associated with the place: warm, safe, and welcoming. Instead, the taste of tension was hot on his tongue, sizzling under the thick silence that had rendered the entire room into a standstill.

In the middle of it all, just a few paces from where the front door stood, Derek had found you.

You were standing with your head down, which wasn't a strange sight considering that you often did that to avoid unwanted attention. But Derek never saw your lips quiver that way before, nor did he ever see your eyes blown so out of proportion in a telltale sign of fright.

Upon a further inspection of the room, Derek realized that he wasn't the only one whose eyes were trained on you. Every patron in the shop, including every worker behind the counter, was staring openly in your direction as well. He was a milisecond away from taking another step when the man in front of you started to scream out of the blue.

"Why aren't you saying anything? Are you fucking stupid?!"

The malicious words didn't sit well with the vituous bone in Derek's body. But it was seeing you flinch from the verbal onslaught that finally made Derek dash forward, putting himself as a shield between you and the insolent stranger.

"That's enough," Derek said as he tugged you behind his back.

The stranger looked up at Derek with an ugly scowl on his face. "Who the hell are you?!"

"If you have a problem, let's take this outsi--"

"I don't have a problem with you, dickhead. I have a problem with her!" Derek extended to his full height instinctively, trying to hide you from the brazen man. "Now, move. This is none of your fucking business!"

"It became my business the second you chose to disrupt everyone's morning," Derek countered. "Why don't you tell me what's going on here?"

"Why don't you ask your bitch, huh? She fucking started all of this."

"Fucking bastard."

Red clouded Derek's vision when he clenched the man's collar in his hand. All around him, the crowd erupted in a chorus of gasps. Satisfaction filled Derek's chest when he glimpsed the hint of fear in the man's eyes.

"I dare you to say one more word about her," Derek seethed. "I dare you."

"Derek." He felt your fingers then, twisting around a portion of his shirt, pulling desperately until Derek loosened his grip on the other man. "Please."

The douchebag stumbled dramatically when Derek finally discarded him to the side.

Derek span around, looking directly into your eyes for the first time that morning. "Are you alright, sweetheart?"

Instead of answering his question, you pushed past a frowning Derek, addressing the horrible man whose face was now crimson; either from rage or embarrassment, Derek didn't know. He didn't care.

"I'm sorry, sir." Your voice vibrated in the air. It wavered with a clear sign of tears. "I didn't... I wasn't thinking. I've caused you trouble. I'm sorry. And I apologize to everyone for ruining your day."

With that, you turned around and picked up your belongings that were scattered on the floor before dashing straight out of the door. Derek stared at your back until it disappeared from view.

"You better tell me what the fuck happened here," Derek fumed towards the man.

"You heard her. She fucked up, that's what happened."

"That's not true." A new voice arose. Derek turned his head to see your barrista friend standing behind the counter, their eyes flaming with anger.

"The poor girl spilled her coffee," another voice interjected. It belonged to an old lady who was standing at the very front of the line. "She didn't mean to, but it got all over his things. Then he just started screaming all kinds of stuff to her."

Derek closed his eyes before reopening them again, shooting daggers towards the man. "You're pulling this crap over a spilled fucking coffee?!"

The other man began to stutter. "She ruined important documents!"

"It wasn't even her fault," the barrista added. "He was too busy being on his phone to watch where he was going."

That last piece of information was the last straw for Derek.

He used his forearm to push the douchebag by the throat, slamming his back against the wall until the man gasped for air.

"You will never step foot in here again, do you hear me?" Derek pressed his elbow deeper into the man, stopping only when he started to nod frantically. "You don't come near this place, ever again. But most importantly, you don't come near her. I'm gonna fucking kill you if you do."

Derek let him go afterwards, ignoring the series of coughs that the man had fallen into while he marched towards the door.

"Don't even think for a minute that I'm gonna let this go!" the man shouted just as Derek was about to exit the coffee shop. "I'll be notifying the authorities about what happened here today. You'll see!"

The scoff Derek let out couldn't be more condescending. "Yeah, you do that. And when you do, tell them--" Derek reached into his pocket, pulling out his credentials before flashing it towards the man, "--the name's Agent Derek Morgan. FBI."

He slammed the door behind him.

Once outside, Derek's eyes darted around to find any trace of you in the midst of the morning rush hour. Eventually, he spotted the back of your head, walking away about a few feet ahead of him. Derek broke into a sprint almost immediately, squeezing himself in between the ocean of people, trying to catch up with you before realizing that he most like wouldn't be able to.

Just as he watched you turning a corner, Derek mourned the fact that he couldn't call out to you because he still didn't know your name.

It was the second Monday that Derek didn't see you anywhere in, or near, the coffee shop.

In total, it had been two whole weeks without you showing your face at the place, not even once. Your barrista friend was as clueless about your whereabouts as Derek was. He even had started coming into the shop at odd hours during the day, or whenever his schedule would allow him to, sometimes lingering for a few minutes in the morning just in case he would catch you walking through those doors.

You never did.

In a moment fueled by something akin to desperation, Derek found himself marching towards the office of Penelope Garcia. If there was anyone who could find you--who you were, where you were, and everything else about you--it was going to be the team's tech genius.

The tech analyst wasn't in the room when Derek entered, and as he found himself standing there--alone in the silence--Derek was confronted by how ridiculous he was being.

He couldn't understand why he was acting like this. Why the thought of never seeing you again managed to lure him into considering a breach of privacy. Derek had barely even talked to you, yet whatever brief interaction the two of you had so far was enough to affect him in ways that shouldn't be possible.

Derek decided to turn around and vacant the room before anyone could catch him lingering there like an idiot, but his steps fell short when he saw Penelope standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here, Sugar?" Penelope questioned, her eyes squinting into a suspicion-filled look.

"Looking for you, of course," Derek lied.

"Derek Morgan, I didn't spend years working with the best profilers in the country to not be able to tell when someone is lying." Penelope walked towards her chair, making sure that she was settled comfortably before swiveling around to face Derek again. "Talk to me."

"Babygirl, there's nothing to talk about."

"Oh my God. It's about a girl."

How the fuck does she do that?

"Derek, you tell me right now every single thing about this lovely creature who has captured your heart, and I meant every single thing. What's her name? What does she do? Where did you guys meet? You guys are official, right? Because if not, then--"

"Okay, Blondie, pump your brakes," Derek interfered before Penelope could vomit the entire content of the Oxford dictionary. "There's no girl."

Penelope frowned. "There isn't?"

"No."

"But you want it to be?"

Derek couldn't give her an answer.

"Mister, you tell me what's going on right now, and don't leave out any details."

So, that was exactly what Derek ended up doing.

He told Penelope about you; about the little snippets of yourself that had infiltrated Derek's subsconscious without him even realizing it, about your first proper interraction where your smile looked more appetizing than the blueberry muffin he had put on the table, and about the incident that marked his last ever encounter with you.

By the time he wrapped the story up, Penelope's face was a heap of reactions.

"You know," the tech analyst finally said, "I can probably find her for you."

"I told you I don't want that, Sweetness."

"But why?!" Penelope nearly whined. "You like her, and her friend said she obviously likes you, too. What if you never see her again? Are you seriously just going to let your story end in what ifs?"

"Of course, I don't want that. But this is not how I want our story to start, too, if there is even gonna be one." Derek gripped Penelope's shoulder, squeezing affectionately. "Thanks for the offer, Babygirl, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be."

For the rest of that day, Derek threw himself into work in order to keep his head preoccupied with something else other than the images of you.

In a few hours, he had successfully completed all of the pending case reports that were piling on his desk. A quick glance at the clock told Derek that he still had another three hours before he was supposed to go home. Sighing, Derek got up from his desk and walked towards the pantry.

"It's been four hours," Derek heard Emily say as soon as he walked towards the kitchenette. "What are they doing there?"

"She could be a reporter. Maybe she's interviewing him," Spencer theorized.

"Who's interviewing who?" Derek asked.

He headed for the coffee maker only to realize that there was no coffee left. Derek cursed under his breath before he went to make a fresh batch.

"Rossi has a guest, and they've been in his office for four hours," Spencer explained.

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Really? I didn't see anyone."

"She came in during lunch."

"Huh. A woman?"

Spencer nodded.

"Potential lover?" Derek asked again.

"I don't think so. She's young."

"Unless, he's that kind of guy." Emily smirked.

Spencer frowned. "What kind of guy?"

"I don't think Rossi's like that." Derek chuckled.

"Who is she, then?" Emily questioned.

"Is no one going to tell me what kind of guy Rossi is?" Spencer suddenly said.

"A student, perhaps? A fan? Who knows?" Derek shrugged. "Or maybe you were right. She's here to interview him."

"Oh! Here they come!" Emily exclaimed a few minutes later.

Derek turned to steal a glance at the guest that had captured his fellow teammates' interest. But just as he was about to catch a glimpse of her, Derek suddenly spilled hot coffee everywhere, flooding nearly half the counter until some of it dripped down the cabinets as well.

"Shit." Derek stared at the mess he had made in annoyance. "Fuck me."

"She's really pretty, though," Emily pointed out--no doubt about Rossi's guest--earning an agreeing hum from Spencer.

After he had cleaned up the spilled coffee, Derek ambled back towards the direction of his desk. As he was passing the glass doors to the bullpen, however, Derek saw Rossi standing in front of the elevator, waving towards the person who had just walked inside of it.

Someone who--as Derek realized with a particularly loud thump in his chest--turned out to be you.

Derek was barely able to place the steaming cup of coffee on a random desk before he made a run for the elevator. But just as he reached Rossi's side, the elevator's doors had closed, making you vanish once more from Derek's sight.

"Shit," Derek muttered. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

Beside him, Rossi was staring in open confusion. "Morgan?"

Derek finally turned towards the older man. "The girl who was in the elevator. Who is she?"

Rossi's forehead creased. "Why?"

"Do you know her?"

"She's a fellow crime writer. She was here for a consultation," Rossi answered. "Are you gonna tell me what's going on?"

"Her name. What's her name?"

"What the hell is going on, Morgan?"

"Rossi, come on, man," Derek sounded desperate, but he didn't care. "I just need her name."

Derek barely succeeded in mumbling a quick thank you to Rossi for giving him your name before he rushed straight to the emergency stairs. The entire run down to the lobby was a blur in Derek's eyes. The only focus in his mind was about getting to you.

Once he was outside of the headquarters building, Derek saw you walking a few paces ahead of him in the direction of the parking lot. He shouted your name with all of his might, seeing you stop and turn your body around from the distance, and soon enough, he had managed to close it in a matter of seconds.

Derek was a mess of panting breaths and drumming heartbeats when he finally stood in front of you. The look you gave him spoke of surprise and bewilderment, and Derek relished in the feeling of being at the receiving end of your lovely gaze.

"Derek? What? What are you--"

"I work with Rossi," Derek stated simply.

Your eyebrows escalated in surprise. "You do?"

"Yeah. I saw you earlier with him," Derek continued. "I haven't seen you in awhile."

For the first time in what felt like forever, Derek allowed his eyes to roam over your entire person, from the top of your head to the tip your toes. There was no malice in his stare as he did, just appreciation, and maybe a little bit of longing from not having seen you in such a long time.

"I haven't been to the coffee shop again. Not after--" you swallowed the lump in your throat. "I was embarrassed. I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart."

"You got dragged into my mess. I owe you an apology."

"You owe me nothing. Okay? What happened wasn't your fault. That man was just an asshole," Derek told you truthfully. "You don't have to be worried about him anymore. He's never coming back."

His last statement caused you to lift your head up so fast, Derek was scared you were going to have a whiplash.

"Nothing happened, sweetheart," he elaborated once he saw the panic in your eyes. "I just made sure to let him know that he wasn't welcome there anymore."

The breath you let out sounded eerily similar with relief.

"Thank you, Derek. For everything," you offered shyly. "Please tell me if there's anything I could do to make it up to you."

That last sentence you uttered prompted a wide grin across Derek's face. "Actually, there may be something."

Derek took a step closer towards you then, noting the way your shoulders tensed up from his proximity. His own senses were overcome by everything about you; from the slight parting of your lips, the steady rise and fall of your chest that seemed to be growing more rapid in Derek's presence, and to the sweet plus addictive smell of your perfume.

Taking his own deep breath, Derek forced the words--the same ones that he had been keeping deep inside of him--to tumble freely into the air.

"Would you like to go on a date with me?"

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r0-boat · 4 months ago

Note

May I request some Yandere Von lycaon headcanons please? Thank you! 💗

Hot wolf headcanons coming right up

Yandere Von Lycaon Headcannons

Cw: Yandere, possessive, excessive,and overprotective behavior, super controlling, super toxic, kidnapping.

Von Lycaon knows every little thing about you down to the last beauty mark on your skin. He is a hyperstalker, MF has a leather notebook filled with meticulous notes on you. Along with pictures photos or sketches to go with it. He takes such great pride into knowing every little thing about you.

He wants to know your likes your dislikes everyone you hang out with your family members, He will know you down to what soap you use.

First he was just happy with stalking you knowing everything about you but after a while he would want more. You would start bumping into you on the street slowly starting to hang out with you. And as a handsome and very charismatic wolfman you will be in tranced too much so to even notice what's going on before it's too late.

You will be kidnapped, He had to do it as soon as he could and it's not like it was hard either He had stolen things before. He was rusty but once he knew your schedule and how to get you alone it was so easy to lead you with stray.

Lycaon is not stupid. He knows what he's doing is wrong. You are his guilty pleasure and he cannot help himself. at first he was very conflicted and holding his feelings back but now he does not care.

he assures you that him being your captor is a better option than literally anything else out in the world. With his salary he could easily provide for you then when he is not working you are his one and only. If you know your place, he will happily serve you and give you anything you wish.

Just because he serves you that doesn't mean he's a pushover. Far from it He's only like this because he wants to serve you However he is not afraid to take back what little control you thought you had.

Of course, obedience is not without punishment, and as a strict wolf, he must uphold his rules. And there are a lot of them.

-Supervise internet for 1 hour only, of course certain social medias are blocked and restricted.

-Going outside without his chaperoning is prohibited

-wondering around the house when he is at work is prohibitive However once you're good you will get this privilege.

-You must eat meals by him and him alone Von lygon will provide three meals a day along with snacks and dessert He shall leave warm breakfast out for you before he leaves for work. His Bangboo shall provide you with lunch.

-no tempering with the Bangboo, it's there for your safety surveillance and to provide You with any necessities while he's away.

-television for no more than 2 hours a day. Anymore then 1 hour over this limit and you'll get a scolding. More hours maybe negotiated.

-any books or TV series you want to watch or read must be checked and green lit with von Lycaon first

-hanging out with friends is out of the question unless greenlit by Von Lycaon.

-when he calls you must pick up immediately.

-do not feel yourself up on snacks and sweets. You'll spoil your dinner.

Honestly he doesn't think he's that controlling.

Von Lycaon had a connection set up cameras in your room and everywhere around the house, which was attached to an app on his phone so he could see what you're doing at all times.

Von Lycaon Will cook for you cloth you, bathe with you, He would even goddamn brush your damn teeth for you.

Your Butler by force may look common collected but internally he has no chill when it comes to you and will clear out grocery stores when you even mention you have a craving for any snack or dish.

He is self-aware but he is still delulu from the fact that he wants to get married to you someday. It will happen You just have to trust him more. In one of your many fights with him You yell at him that "You can't force someone to fall in love" and with a straight face looking you dead in the eye he answers " you can love someone by force that's called Stockholm syndrome. I researched that extensively"... You never had that argument with him again.

#zzzero #zzzero von Lycaon #zzz #von lycaon #lycaon x reader #yandere #yandere zzz #yandere von Lycaon #zenless zone zero #zzz von lycaon

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asteiioss · 10 months ago

Text

The One With The Proposal

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!OC

Warnings: smut, fingering, oral sex (m receiving), slight BDSM (use of cuffs), delayed orgasm, P in V sex, unprotected sex (people pls be safe), creampie, no use of Y/N

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: Well... Okay. There's a few things you need to know about this piece of work you're about to read. This is actually a part of my series that I'm writing on Wattpad. I will put the link below in case you want to read the whole thing. It's not finished, I'm still writing it. This chapter, however, can be a standalone and can be viewed as a one-shot, so I decided to post it here, too. I wish you an enjoyable reading. Oh, and this is not read through, so if you find some mistakes, pretend that you didn't.

Wattpad acc link: here

Spencer Reid. A man known for several things. His knowledge. A brilliant man, whom the FBI owes many thanks. Uncountable cases that he helped solve that would probably stay unsolved without him. His blabbering. He had a whole paragraph ready to shout out on anything you say. The sky? Fun fact... The book you're looking at? Fun fact, the author actually... A specific person who's dead or alive or never surfaced for something they did? Fun fact about them...

You will never see him wear anything outside of professional clothes. Comfortable professional clothes. Sweaters, cardigans. He sometimes reminds me of older women who wrap themselves in their cardigans. You will never hear him swear. Not in public, anyway. The most he said once was goddamn it. The entire team was left in shock. Penelope was even scared of him that day.

He will stutter in conversations and situations that make him even slightly uncomfortable. He has a germ thing. He never shakes hands or hugs with random people. He makes contact with his friends, me, and some close people like his mother, Diane.

Now put all that into an image and try to picture that man. A shy, uncomfortable, boyish man. Stuck reading books when he has free time. No, no. He cancels plans to stay indoors and read books. Even re-read them.

That same man proposed to me half an hour ago. It was small, intimate, and sentimental. We walked by the restaurant where we confessed we loved each other. He let my hand go and I took a few steps ahead. When I turned back, he was down on one knee and held a small box in his hands.

I said yes.

I said yes more than once.

He was the sweetest man. He was mine. I loved to be loved by him. Delicate, heartwarming, caring and sweet. The man I just described above.

That same man was driving us home at the moment, his dick hard, bulging in his pants, one hand or the wheel, the other deep in my cunt while curving his knuckles at a new angle as he fucked me.

Every person has two sides.

And boy, oh boy, did I love his other side.

Everything anyone knew about Spencer, they would say he would be a sweet, whiney, submissive man during intimacy. I beg to differ.

His fingers twirling inside me, I huff as I refuse to moan just yet. I hated the way he could make me fold so, so easily. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. My mouth is open and I can't hold in pleads from him. His fingers are long. I love his fingers. But his cock is bigger.

He pulls into our parking space and he removes his hand from under my dress. He walks out and comes around to open my door. I begin to come out when he stops me, picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder. I yelp, feeling almost powerless. He slams the door and locks the car and continues to carry me up almost three flights of stairs. The apartment door flies open before we go in. He closes it with his leg and heads directly to our bedroom.

I can't help but blush. I felt like a tiny girl. How disgusting that the tiny girl imagined all the things he would do to her in a few moments. He slides me down and steps back to look at me. His eyes scan me, from the smallest hair on the top of my head all the way down to my toes. There's a devilish desire in his eyes, his mouth parted ever so slightly. His eyes come back to mine and he, almost growling, says, "I kneeled for you, now go ahead and kneel for me."

Tingles run down my entire body. I don't hesitate to obligate his request. Not a request. He demanded. And I wasn't going to defy this. I wasn't going to defy him. Not breaking eye contact, I slide down on my knees, perfectly aligned with his belt. I look ahead, seeing him painfully hard in his pants. I slide my hands up his legs and start undoing his pants. Every clank makes me tingle between my legs.

There was a specific time when a powerful, strong and independent woman only wants, no, only needs to be told what to do. I raised myself from nothing. No one helped me. I could only thank myself for everything I have accomplished in my life. I would listen to no man. No man had the power over me. No man could take nothing from me. Except him. He had all of me wrapped around his little finger.

And I didn't mind.

Being submissive to someone means so much more then people think. It means trust. It means love. Truth be told, not every submissive person tends to be like that in everyday life. Don't get me wrong, I know what comes to mind when you think of someone like that. Porn taught us so wrongly. And this? This was so much more intimate then just porn. This was desire, lust, and pure neediness.

After undoing his belt, I pulled down his pants, tugging his underwear to, removing them to. I would skip everything just to feel him. Being released from his clothes was hitting him sweetly as he took a sharp breath when my eyes fell to his dick.

I look up, almost lustful, maybe waiting for him to tell me to touch him, maybe even to beg me, a whole 180 to what I just described myself as. His eyes were dark and watching me from a high. He simply smirked, almost reading my mind and what was going through it.

"Go on," he half whispered, voice deep just like the darkness around us, "be the slut the outside world has no idea you are."

And that was all it took. My hand takes his base before I stick out my tongue and slide it up his entire length. There was a lot of length. He inhales, pushing a groan down his throat at the first touch I plant on him.

This was going to be a long night.

The kiss I leave at his tip as I start stroking him with my hand sends his head falling back. The motion pushes his curls off of his forehead. I loved when his hair fell on his face. It made him look messy. It made him look more flustered. And the image of him like that made me throb between my legs.

After enough slow-play, I stick out my tongue and take him in my mouth, slowly, reaching as far as I could before I feel him touch my throat. He feels he reached far and he groans. The funny thing is I had taken only half of him. He looks down again, his hairs flying back to his face. His fingers twist around in my hair and tug slightly, almost like he was checking the grip he had on my head.

But I soon found out it wasn't the grip why I thought he wanted it. He held my head in place as he started to rock back and forth. He was using me. Using my mouth to be precise. And he started fucking it. At first it was slow, almost shallow thrusts, reaching where he first did. But as time passed, he became more fierce. He started going deeper, hitting the back of my throat with more force making me gag. My eyes started to water as I had no control over anything. His hand held my head in place as he now almost pounded into my mouth.

As he continued, I could feel him twitch on the top of my mouth. And so did I. I felt my panties dampen with every second that passed. I was horny because my boyfriend, my fiancé, was fucking my throat like it was just something for him to use.

Muffled moans and occasional groans escaped his mouth. He was about to finish. I could easily tell by the increased speed of his thrusts and their force. Finally, he pushed himself almost the whole way, deep into my throat and let himself release there. I gagged pretty hard, trying to keep him down and not throw out his cum.

He pulled himself out and let go of his grip on my hair. His hand slid from behind to my chin and he lifted my face up. He was taking deep and long breaths, his chest falling and rising every time. His eyes scanned me, a fucked mouth, watery eyes and bright red cheeks. Must have been quite a sight.

"Swallow, baby." he said and left his mouth slightly opened, watching as the small bulb went down my throat and he smiled in satisfaction. "Good girl. Your turn."

He bent down and picked me up to carry me to the bed. Back facing the mattress, he climbed on top and roughly kissed me. I loved when he did that. After what I just did, he didn't hesitate to kiss me. He didn't get disgusted to do so. His fingers hooked around the hem of my dress and he pulled it off in one quick motion. I was left in my bra and panties that were already soaking wet. Every time he saw me like that, dressed but not dressed, I'd get shy.

I never liked my body. And yet he worshipped it.

"God, you're so gorgeous." he hovered over me, his eyes trailing over every inch of my body. I shivered from his words that sounded like a prayer. It was half whispers. Like he was afraid that if someone heard what he had, it would be stolen from him.

His lips come down and start kissing my neck, my weak spot. Just the warmth of his kiss makes me moan, eager for more as I buck my hips up towards him. I feel that I caress his cock against my thigh, and as soon as he feels it, he pushes my hips down with his hands.

"Needy, are we?" he chuckles against my skin as he now slowly moves lower and leaves a trail of kisses at my collarbone.

"I hate when you do this." I whine, my fingers roaming through his hair.

"You hate when I kiss you?" he says between kisses, one on my shoulder, one at the base of my neck, one directly in between my breasts.

"No, I-" my words get interrupted when I moan. I feel him smile when he hears me. "I hate when you make me wait. You tease. Every time." I take a deep breath in between every sentence to take in his kisses. As much as I did hate the delay of the actual sex, I loved feeling him everywhere. I didn't know what I wanted more.

He continues kissing, his lips reaching my stomach and he stops. I look down to see him slightly smirking as he is settled just between my legs. I feel shivers. He lets go of my hips and slowly pulls down my panties, sliding his fingers down along my legs in the process. He is continuing to tease me with every touch he leaves on my body.

When I finally think that he is going to stick his tongue at my cunt, I am yet again met with disappointment. He comes over me and trails his hands, slowly, around my back as he keeps looking me in the eyes to catch every whiney face I make as I plead him to fuck me already using no words. But he knows. Oh, he knows that's what I'm asking of him.

He unhooks my bra and I am completely naked. His shirt comes off as he makes us even. Again, I hope that he will now go down. It doesn't have to be his mouth, I'll be happy if he would just stick his fucking fingers into my pussy and rummage through it. But, no. He bends down and kisses my breasts, moving from one to the other. Kissing it, sucking on the nipples, squeezing them with his hands.

If he was kissing and/or sucking the right he would be squeezing the left. There was no space left for me to catch a breath. Then, he bit down on one, just enough to make me squeal. He chuckled with my tit in his mouth. I had enough. I gripped his hair and pulled him up to my face.

"What do you fucking want from me?" I say with a whiney voice. I sounded desperate. I hated it. I loved it, too.

His face had a drunk smile across it. He was enjoying this. My torture was satisfaction for him. Fucking great. "I want you to beg." he said through a whisper. His head was tilted back as I was pulling his hair.

I hated to beg him. Especially to do what I wanted. I knew he knows what I want, but he loves when he makes me break and I have nothing left but to fucking beg him to do the most unholy things to me.

I roll my eyes. "No." I simply say.

He smirks and bucks his hips so his dick slides over my dripping cunt. My entire body arches and he smiles again. "Beg, my love. Use that mouth for something else then a place for me to dump my cum."

That mother fucker. "You assh-" he bucks his hips again and breaks me mid-sentence. I growl at him.

"I don't think that's how begging works. C'mon. Beg me to fuck you. I know you want to."

It was weird hearing him swear. Not just swear, but use vulgar words in general. I used them everyday. It was like saying 'hi' to someone. But Spencer? Noup.

I gave up. I close my eyes and just make peace with my fate. "Please, Spencer."

He bends down and kisses my lips. "You have to be specific, my love. What do you want from me?"

I'm boiling at this point. Do I have a choice? If I want to be fucked, not really. "I want you to fuck me, please me, make me cum. I'm fucking tired of being teased." I practically cry out the last part.

He smirks and I let go of my grip on his hair. He doesn't move, he is still looking me directly in the eyes as he slides one hand down and caresses my inner thigh. He goes over my cunt with his entire hand and I loudly gasp. He watches, enjoys the reactions he gets as he touches me. He brings his hand up and licks his two fingers and then slides them down again.

Baby, you don't need no more moisture, I'm wet enough.

His hand finally connects to my core and he starts making circles around my clit. My body erupts. I no longer have control over my reactions. My eyebrows furrow, my mouth is wide open and it's letting out moans, whines, sounds I didn't even know I could make. And he simply watches. From time to time he would bend down and kiss my neck, maybe even bite down on it, making me buck my entire body up.

"God, you're so fucking wet." he says and starts rubbing up and down my entrance. "You're so pretty. My pretty girl."

I'm melting. Melting into his sinister hands that are touching me in the most horrid ways. And I wouldn't stop him even in a million fucking years.

He slides the fingers in, gently, slowly, caringly. I let out a loud moan, slapping my mouth after I do. Just as I did, his other hand takes my wrist and pulls it off. Holding it, he collects my other hand and pins both of them above my head. "Why would you do that?" he asks. But I don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. "You sound so beautiful when you moan for me. You sound so pretty."

His knuckles are now buried deep inside my pussy and he starts to pump them in and out. When he slides them back in, his thumb hits my clit and he curls his fingers inside just enough to hit that little spot. Every movement he made was followed by that wet sound. I just knew his fingers were drowning in my arousal, and I just knew he was so eager to put his cock inside there too.

He kisses my jaw, my neck, my cheeks. He is enjoying this. Pleasuring someone you truly love is pleasure to you as well. His other hand in on my thigh, pulling it away so he has better access and can slide in deeper then he usually could. In between my own sounds, I can hear him groan whenever I jerk my hips upward and slightly stoke him against my leg.

I want more. Now, I'm just desperate because I don't want to finish now. I want to cum over his cock while he is buried all the way inside. I want him to see that little blub in my stomach appear and disappear as he fucks me.

Like on cue, as if he heard me, he pulls his hand away and climbs the bed again. Pushing my legs fully apart, he aligns himself at my entrance. He pushes, but purposefully jerks himself up so he slides against my clit. I see him place himself on my abdomen as if he is looking how far he goes when he's inside.

"Look at how deep I can bury myself in you, love." he admires and glides his fingers over my skin. He pulls back and leans over to the drawer next to our bed. For a moment he rummages through it. "Shit."

I look over, trying to figure out what was going on. "What is it?"

He pauses and looks at me. "We don't have any condoms."

Well shit.

But I put on my big girl face. "And?"

He looks slightly surprised by my reaction. "No protection?"

I shrug. "What's the worst that can happen?" I smirk, moving myself lower on the bed and connecting myself with him. He really was hard.

He says nothing and just enters. He pushes in with quite a bit of force. I let out a quiet scream at his motion. I still needed time to adjust to his length. But he didn't care. He was already in full force, starting to pick up the pace of his thrusts. His hands go down and wrap around my hips and he uses them to pull me on himself as he continues to pound me.

The room is filled with my whines and moans, the sounds of our hips connecting and slamming against each other, and his groans. I love when he groans. I know he feels good. I make him feel good.

"You're so tight. It's so warm inside." he says through rough groans.

His fingers are diving inside the skin of my hips. I feel pain as he squeezes them. I push the feeling away, I even don't have to. The feeling of his dick hitting my deepest point is strong enough to push it away almost instantly.

The repetitive slamming into me lures my finish to approach. It's forming in my gut and I feel it slowly coming as he continues fucking me mercilessly, rough and fast thrusts.

"I'm gonna cum- Oh, God, Spence." I saw, although I'm not sure how I managed to.

Just as I said that, I felt my climax get at its highest point, and I was about to finish-

He pulls out.

What the fuck?!

"Wha- what are you doing?" I stutter, the high still in the air but it's fading away.

He looks down and has a wicked smile on his face. His cheeks are deep red and his hair is damp from his sweat. "I'm not done with you. Turn around."

I'm mad. Furious. I want to defy him so badly, I want to say 'no', maybe even flip him off. But I want to finish. I was just about to. So I do as I'm told. I prompt myself up and turn around and stand on all fours on the bed. Might I add that this is my favorite position.

I expect him to align himself again and continue to thrust like he did, but he gets off the bed and walks over to the corner of the room. The corner where he keeps his bag for work. I hear a clank before he walks back behind me. He places his hand on my upper back and slightly pushes, indicating for me to lower myself even more. My face and chest lay on the mattress. My ass is now the only thing in the air.

This position gives him more access. I am ready for it to hurt before I can adjust myself to his length again at this angle. Yet again, I don't get what I'm expecting. He takes my wrist and places it behind my back, then the other and connects it with my other one. I hear that clank again. He takes one of my wrists again and puts the metal around it.

It's his fucking cuffs.

He puts his cuffs on and thugs on the chain between them to pull my arms back. He pulls so much that I have to lift myself slightly off the bed. I tremble. Out of excitement. Our of slight fear. Out of horniness, simply.

I feel him bend down and kiss my back. He knows I love that. It feels very intimate to me. He kisses down my spine and then slaps my ass. I yelp, not just by the sudden contact, but also because he slapped it pretty hardly. Not enough to leave a bruise, but it will definitely go red in a few seconds.

"You ready?"

There are certain points in our sex life when he asks, or even simply warns to hold on tight to anything. Since I was obviously restrained, he's asking. That is enough to know this was going to be really good.

"Yeah." I whisper, my face buried back into our bed.

"You know I love you, right?" he whispers again and pushes his tip into my cunt.

My breath trembles since I was still sensitive from the high I missed a few minutes ago. "I know."

"Good. Because for the next few minutes it might not look like I do."

He didn't give me time to respond. He slammed himself inside, making me scream out. This was enough for the neighbors to hear. He started thrusting. I still wasn't adjusted to this position, and his cock was hitting from a new angle that allowed much better access. I felt pain. But, God, was it good. My eyes started watering from the pain as I couldn't take it. I prayed that my pussy would stretch just slightly so I could take him a bit easier.

After a short while, I did. The slight pain was still there. It couldn't really go away from the force he was driving himself in. And then it happened. He slapped my ass again. It was a strong slap. His hand was big enough to cover my entire cheek. I yelp at the sudden pain.

As he continues to thrust, I feel him occasionally twitch. That can mean only one thing. He is about to cum again. Just when I realize that, he speeds up. He pulls on the cuffs and makes me get up from the bed. He's pulling hard enough to hold me in the air.

He hits again, going back to squeeze after. I feel the slight burn of his slaps. Another one connects to my skin and with it I feel that high again. I don't want it to escape again, so I bend slightly so he feels me letting him slide even deeper.

Spencer quickly realizes what I'm trying to tell him, but there's not much left before I feel him hammer himself once, then again, just as I feel my climax release. I scream out, and I feel him empty himself inside.

It takes him a few seconds to calm down before he lets me fall down on the bed again. I'm a fucking mess. He takes off the cuffs and places my hands on my sides before he bends down and removes my hair from the back of my neck and kisses in that spot.

"My perfect girl." he cooed. "You're so fucking special."

I breathe deeply. "Well..." I begin as he lays down next to me. "That was fun." I feel his cum drip down out of my cunt.

He chortles. "That's one way to put it."

I was about to marry this man. I loved every inch of him. Every version there was of him. There was nothing that could take that away from me.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #doctor spencer reid #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid smut #dr spencer reid #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid x reader #spencer x reader #spencer reid prompt

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month ago

Text

Ian McDonald's "The Wilding"

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

Ian McDonald is one of those absurdly brilliant novelists that just leave me wondering the actual fuck he manages it. How does he cover so much ground, think up so many compelling characters, find so many gracenotes, conjure up so many complicated emotions?

McDonald burst on the scene in the late 1980s, with the 1988 novel Desolation Road and then his 1989 Out On Blue Six, a slick, stylized cyberpunk-meets-Orwell tale that overflowed with beautiful prose, technomysticism, and sly jokes that hid sneaky truths that hid even more sly jokes:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/01/20/out-on-blue-six-ian-mcdonalds-brilliant-novel-is-back/

By my count, McDonald has now published twenty books – mostly novels, but a couple short story collections (and the most amazingly demented, Tom-Waits-inflected teddybear murder comic imaginable, 1994's Kling Klang Klatch):

https://irishcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Kling_Klang_Klatch

McDonald's work is truly globespanning. While he's made his mark on the Martian soil, and overtaken the moon with the Luna trilogy (his definitive rebuttal to Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) he is widely adored and much-awarded for the glittering, futuristic versions of Brazil (Brasyl), Tanzania (the Chaga series), and India (River of Gods).

Indeed, McDonald's imagination has roamed so far over the Earth and the solar system that it's possible to overlook his fantastic reimaginings of Ireland, the land where he was raised. There's his Philip K Dick Award-winning 1991 novel King of Morning, Queen of Day, a swirling, mythopoeic novel of Celtic mysticism:

https://www.baen.com/king-of-morning-queen-of-day.html

And then there's 1992's Hearts, Hands and Voices, which is lowkey one of the best novels I have ever, ever read – a scorching science fictional allegory for The Troubles, but with the gnarliest biotech weirdness you can possibly imagine:

https://archive.org/details/heartshandsvoice0000ianm/mode/2up

McDonald's books cover so much goddamned ground, but one feature they all share is a prose styling wherein every sentence is at least 20% poetry, a fraction that somehow, impossibly, rises to as much as 150% in certain especially shiny passages.

Like this passage, which opens The Wilding, McDonald's new horror novel that marks his first return to Ireland since 1992:

Autumn lay on the great bog in silvers and tans, late purples and duns.

The sun rose above the tall ash saplings and feral sycamore. It called the birds into full voice. Stabbing shrills, tumbles of notes, the flutes of dove-call, frantic ticking hisses, song upon song. In hedgerows and copses, among the pale foliage of the birches, in the weave of deep willow and the bramble fastnesses, each bird called and was heard. In this season the peatland held the day's warmth through the night and on the bright, clear mornings rivers of mist formed, filling the subtle hollow places in the exposed cuttings, the bogs and fields. High sun would dispel it but at this hour half of Lough Carrow lay mist-bound. Each blade of grass hung heavy with dew, the clumps of sedges were already browning, the bracken curling and crisping.

A pair of horns lifted above the willow scrub and out-grown ash hedges of the Wilding. Polished tips caught the low sun and kindled as bright and keen as spears.

https://www.gollancz.co.uk/titles/ian-mcdonald/the-wilding/9781399611503/

Oof.

I would drop everything to read Ian McDonald's grocery lists but after that opening, I wasn't going to put this one down, and I didn't, reading the whole thing on yesterday's flight home from my gigs in Atlanta this week.

The Wilding is (I'm pretty sure?) McDonald's first horror novel, and it's fucking terrifying. It's set in a rural Irish peat bog that has been acquired by a conservation authority that is rewilding it after a century of industrial peat mining that stripped it back nearly to the bedrock. This rewilding process has been greatly accelerated by the covid lockdowns, which reduced the human footprint in the conservation area to nearly zero.

The story's protagonist is Lisa, a hard-case Dubliner who came to the bog to do community service after a career as a crime syndicate driver for hire, a woman who never met a car she couldn't boost and pilot in or out of any tight situation. After years in the bog, she's ready to start a new life, studying Yeats at university, indulging a late-discovered love of poetry that has as much to do with her redemption as her years in the wild.

Lisa's last duty before she leaves the bog and goes home to Dublin is leading a school group on a wild campout in one of the bog's deep clearings. It's a routine assignment, and while it's not her favorite duty, it's also not a serious hardship.

But as the group hikes out to the campsite, one of her fellow guides is killed, without warning, by a mysterious beast that moves so quickly they can barely make out its monstrous form. Thus begins a tense, mysterious, spooky as hell story of survival in a haunted woods, written in the kind of poesy that has defined McDonald's career, and which – when deployed in service of terror – has the power to raise literal goosebumps.

There's a lot of fantasy that deals with Celtic mythology, including McDonald's own King of Morning, Queen of Day, but the vibe of that stuff tends to the heroic and romantic – sure, there's the odd banshee, but in the main, it's mischievous wee people, pookas, and leprechauns. More fey than fear.

But Irish mythology in its raw form is terrifying. The monsters of Irish storytelling are grotesque, mean, remorseless, and come in every shape and size. Some authors have done well by going back to the bestiary for the deep cuts. When I was a kid, I must have read John Coyne's Hobgoblin fifty times (mostly because it was about D&D, which I was obsessed with). I haven't read this one since I was about 12, and I have no idea if it'd hold up today, but it left me with a deep appreciation of the spooky multifariousness of monsters who dwell in Ireland's bogs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobgoblin_(novel)

The Wilding is a suspense novel, which means there's no way to really sum up the plot without spoiling a lot of the affect, but suffice to say that McDonald brings large swathes of deep Irish lore to the surface, and it had me reading as fast as I could and wanting to put the book down and hide.

What a writer McDonald is! The fact that this is the same guy who wrote last year's stunning secret-history/solarpunk/uncategorizable wonder that was Hopeland beggars belief:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/30/electromancy/#the-grace

Read you some Ian McDonald novels, is what I'm trying to say. This one is only available in the UK, if that's not where you are, consider mail-ordering it. Looks like they've got stock at Forbidden Planet for £19 plus £18 shipping to the US. Worth every penny:

https://forbiddenplanet.com/424306-the-wilding-hardcover/

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/25/bogman/#erin-go-aaaaaaargh

#pluralistic #books #horror #science fiction #ireland #fantasy #gift guide #reviews #climate #rewilding

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beauty-and-passion · 3 months ago

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TBOB PART 3: OF BILL'S SOLITUDE AND BILLFORD (1/3)

What can I say? I’ve always loved the canon ship in almost every fandom I was in.

Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the third part of my endless rambling about Bill Cipher, The Book of Bill and Gravity Falls in general. Now it’s time for the ship, so sit back and relax, because there is a lot to talk about here.

Yes, I was one of the people who shipped these two eight years ago. And I shipped them as soon as I finished watching the series, because… well, there was more than enough proof that something was going on between them.

Unfortunately, the mentality at the time was “Bill tries to kill Dipper as soon as he has the chance? True love. One trillion proofs that Ford and Bill have something going on? How dare you think that, you are a Bad Person™”.

And yes, I know I could’ve written one post years ago and tried to explain Billford back then but… it would’ve been so, so tiresome. Especially considering that pedophilia was a-okay, but Billford shippers were terrible people Because Yes.

But hey, times change, people change and TBOB gives us enough proofs even a blind person can see them. So. it’s finally time to extensively talk about this ship - this time, from Bill’s point of view.

(For the disclaimer and everything else, refer to the first post. And read the previous ones too, if you like! They will help you understand some things I take for granted here.)

<- Previoust post - Masterlist

_______________________________

Billford has always been canon

The thing is: now as then, Billford has never been a ship about “and they ended up happily ever after”. There was never an intent to glorify abuse or to say that Bill and Ford had the healthiest relationship and everyone should have the same.

What was so captivating of this ship was the tragedy of it. The clearly evident infatuation. The obsession these two had for each other.

This is what pushed people (me included) to ship them: because it’s interesting. The dramatic possibilities, the angst, how deeply an obsession can go to the point you lose yourself to your partner… and yes, of course also the interesting images that can come up by imagining such different beings having something physical (if you’re not a coward and give Bill a human form). It’s not the typical fluff with a couple being lovey-dovey 24/7: it’s a lot more. There is a lot that can be explored. It’s wonderfully challenging, both on the writing plane and purely mentally.

… and yes, it's funny for crack and parodies. These two being cringe and pathetic or married and divorced at the same time is always funny.

Sure, at first we had just the show to support this ship. But oh boy, if there weren’t enough proofs already:

Ford’s house was filled to the brim with images, pictures and stuff of Bill. His goddamn windows are triangular-shaped. Not even the Vatican is filled with so many images of God - and I can assure you the windows are not Jesus-shaped.

Ford made a deal with Bill to be together “from now until the end of time”. Until the end of time. That’s basically a marriage, only even more extreme, because fuck death, we will be together until the last supernova evaporates. And before you ask: yes, it takes such a stupidly long amount of time, it’s bonkers. That’s real infatuation.

Ford consensually gave his body to Bill for possession. Just imagine the sheer trust you need to surrender your whole self to someone else. Not even a married couple can reach this level of trust. And definitely not “just friends”. Maybe BDSM couples can come a bit closer to what these two had.

As soon as Ford returned home after 30 years, Bill greeted him in a dream, called him “his old pal” and was all nice and friendly. No hard feelings, no reprimands, nothing but flattery and threats because, as we learned from TBOB, these two things go together in his head.

Bill asked Ford to join him 200 times more or less.

Bill gave Ford 200 nicknames more or less.

During Weirdmageddon, right after Ford tried to kill him with one of the things that could’ve destroyed him (the quantum destabilizer), Bill welcomed him with a smile, offered him a place among his freaks for the umpteenth time and, when Ford refused again, he turned him into his literal golden trophy wife and carried him around.

By comparison, when Preston Northwest offered his help, Bill shuffled the function of every hole in his face and ignored him completely right after.

Also: Ford tries to shoot me and fails by sheer luck? Please please please, be one of my freaks. Dipper tries to throw me a punch that will literally do nothing? Death. Bill doesn’t have double standards, nope nope.

To convince Ford to give him the equation, Bill’s first thought is to bring Ford into a private suite, serenade him and ask him to join him for… what? The 220th time?

When Ford refuses, Bill puts chains on him in the kinkiest possible way known to mankind, with an iconic image that screams of BDSM.

Somehow, all of this wasn’t enough. And so, we had Journal 3, in which:

Ford called Bill “his Muse”. Oh, my mistake: he called Bill “his blessed Muse”.

Literally lavishes Bill with compliments. So. Many. Compliments.

Says Bill will “seduce” you with never-ending flattery. Interesting verb choice here, Ford, are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell us?

Ford named a constellation after his Muse.

Once he went through the portal, instead of hiding away forever and good luck finding him, Ford held a 30-years-old grudge and decided HE would’ve killed Bill, no one else. That’s not a simple obsession between friends.

But after all of this, something was still missing.

Until now, it was quite certain that Ford had a COLOSSAL obsession about Bill. The religious fervor, the sheer trust, the depth of his grudge all made it very clear that Bill carved a deeply rooted place in his heart and mind - a place he kept for most of Ford’s life.

But what about Bill? Did he even care about Ford?

We had no idea. Sure, he showed some kind of care: he gave Ford special treatment during Weirdmageddon and seemed to value him enough to offer him a place among his freaks multiple times.

But when did this care start? Was it just because he needed Ford? What about their pre-betrayal relationship? Did Bill even care before?

The most plausible explanation at the time was that pre-betrayal Bill was simply flattered by Ford’s lavish adoration. Maybe he liked the guy a bit (otherwise, why waste time with him?) and humored him in his fervor, but nothing more than that.

But then the betrayal happened and Ford switched from adoring him to opposing him. He actively ran away, found ways to keep Bill away from his mind and came back with the sole intention of killing him.

At the time, I thought this was the moment when Bill started to be truly interested in Ford. Before Ford was just an adoring pet. Now he was more. Now he was interesting. Now he was worthy.

And that opened the door to even more angst possibilities! If Billford was just a “one-sided relationship” before, now it could’ve been the story of two beings who loved/cared about each other, but at different moments in time: Ford in the past, when Bill didn’t love him yet. And Bill in the present, when Ford wasn’t in love with him anymore. The perfect tragedy, ton of angst, love that.

But now, with TBOB and thisisnotawebsitedotcom, the tragedy that is Billford gets a new, angst layer. A beautiful, angst layer.

Because it’s not that Bill never cared about Ford or cared at the wrong moment in time: Bill cared right from the start.

_______________________________

Deeply alone

One detail about TBOB that people aren’t talking too much about is the sense of solitude that permeates it. There are parts in which you can literally feel Bill’s loneliness.

One example? The Bill Tells All section. I know it’s supposed to be a funny parody, but it’s also a perfect image of how alone he is. He’s so alone, he has to be host, interviewee and audience at the same time, because no one else is willing to listen or talk to him.

And in light of the information we got about his past, I think this is an extremely important part of Bill’s character and personality.

Let’s come back to Euclydia: the anthem/poem on the website emphasizes how close people are (“LOVED ONES WILL BE EVER NEAR”), so it’s very possible Bill grew up surrounded by his loved ones.

And then, one single event and everyone disappeared. All the people who surrounded him one second ago, were gone the second after. “There was no one left but me, covered in blood, alone in the universe.”: if this line means solitude for us, just imagine how much, much stronger that same solitude would be for someone who, until that moment, has always been surrounded by others and knew no other reality than that.

That’s another level of solitude: it’s a black void of emptiness, something all-encompassing and all-consuming. It’s a hole carved inside you that nothing will fill ever again. And it was you, the one who carved it.

Of course Bill became insane. Of course he chose to find a justification for his action, by saying that he liberated his dimension and that his people were holding him back. I don’t know what he would’ve done, if he hadn’t. Probably, he wouldn’t have found a way to survive.

But he survived. He repressed his trauma, justified it and kept going towards the stars he was aiming for.

Still, that void was inside him - and we know he tried to fill it. He tried by dating a literal void, for god’s sake. And he tried by surrounding himself with people.

That’s probably why he became who he is: a flashy, flamboyant figure, someone who loves to be the center of attention, because that means having people around. It means people listening to him and being with him and surrounding him again. It means not being alone again.

I mean, just look at this book: every page has something new and interesting, every page is a different attempt to keep you involved, to keep you around and listen.

But an audience can always leave. An audience can stop being around. And that’s probably why Bill searched for someone closer, someone who wouldn’t leave him so soon.

He searched for new loved ones.

_______________________________

Love and hate

Bill’s love advice put a real smile on my face, because sure, they’re funny, but at their foundation, they all share the same goal: to show to your potential partner your qualities and how you would be able to carry/provide for them and your offspring.

Why is it so funny? Because that’s exactly what every single living being does to attract a potential mate: showing off your colorful feathers, singing louder than others, fighting other rivals, showing how clever you are, using pheromones and special smells. And, for humans, something like, idk, showing how wide your hips were as proof that you would carry healthy babies. Or showing off how wealthy you are, to prove you can take care of your partner and your offspring.

Bill himself follows this mentality, considering advices like “have two of everything to show your wealth” or “show how much calcium you have (aka how healthy you are)”. Heck, he even has a seduction hat which is basically one huge phallic shape!

And, again, this makes me smile, not just because it’s a clear parody of those men who keep showing off their huge, large vehicles. But also because he usually wears a tall top hat. And how funny it would be, if a tall top hat was indeed a way to win a partner in Euclydia? What if that’s how his father got his mother? Please, I want a fanfic or Mr. Cipher entering a place with a top hat big and wide enough to win Mrs. Cipher’s heart (while not accidentally piercing through another shape). I bet it would be hilarious.

Funny love advice aside, I would also point out these two things Bill says:

Love and fear are right next to each other in the brain and, like most humans, Bill also can’t tell the difference (he doesn’t even think there is a difference)

“love is the pupa stage for hate”

The fact Bill mixes love and fear explains why he is like that in general - and with Ford too. If love and fear are the same thing, then there is no difference between flattering someone and threatening them. There is no difference between partying with his friends and scaring the shit out of them. There’s no difference between helping Ford and hurting him. And there’s no difference between allowing him to see Fordtramarine and “joking” about someone coming to steal his eyes.

Also: if “love is the pupa stage for hate”, then Ford coming back after 30 years hating him was completely normal for Bill. It was just how things were supposed to go: first he loved him, now he hates him. Still, same thing. Still worth a place among his freaks. Still worth flirting. For Bill, nothing has changed - just evolved in a natural way.

And yes, this is uber duper fucked up and great material for toxic Billford. But it also makes me think: how did Bill get this mentality? How did he manage to mix love and fear so much? When did it happen?

Inevitably, I think about Euclydia. And inevitably, I think that “the incident” is when Bill mixed the two things.

When he still lived in Euclydia, Bill clearly experienced both love and hate: his mother at least seemed to love him, the other kids didn’t. Bill doesn’t like his optometrist either and we have no clue about his feelings towards his father. Later in his life, Bill recognizes his family and his world tried to blind him/”snuff out his potential” - so, again, something more similar to hate than love.

Then, Bill destroyed his place. He had to deal with a trauma so huge (i.e. experiencing solitude for the first time in his existence), it left a void inside him. A void he decided to suffocate with lies - lies that, in the end, are just half-truths. His place was bad and his family was holding him back! But that was also the place that showed him love for the first time. His people were flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams! But among them, there was also the one who loved him right from the start.

I believe this is when the two feelings got mixed in his brain. In his attempt to justify and cope with his mixed feelings regarding the universe he just destroyed, Bill ended up mixing love and fear together and believing that love is just one stage of hate. Unable to deal with the vastity of solitude, Bill put together justifications for his actions and messed up his own perception of feelings.

The result is someone who is deeply, deeply alone and who desperately keeps searching for love to fill that void… but is unable to do that, because he cannot distinguish between love and hate anymore.

That’s why he has a lot of exes. And that’s why they’re all exes.

But hey, at least there are friends, right? Right?

_______________________________

Bill’s friends are full of potential (especially one of them)

The perfect friend for Bill should be:

alone, outcasted, rejected by society, possibly an orphan looking for a purpose in life (so exactly like him)

completely devoted to him

Which you can see by yourself that this isn’t exactly how a friendship should work. The friend exactly like you can still work, but the friend completely devoted to you who should do everything you want… well, that’s not a friend. That’s not even a pet, because even pets do not follow you around with such lavish adoration.

But somehow, in the vastity of the Multiverse, Bill managed to find some friends. And oh boy, what friends:

Pyronica is a beauty queen AND she has a twin sister AND she dated Hectorgon. Cool, but not enough. I need details. But, like, a lot. Her entire story would suffice (maybe).

Amorphous Shape is invisible to most of the Henchmaniacs. How? Why? Who is she, really? Where is she from? Where is her backstory? Why isn’t it here? I need it here.

Hectorgon was a goddamn sheriff and Bill just throws it like that?! I want his backstory too! I want to know everything about him!

Keyhole hates Pyronica? Why? What happened? Where is all the juicy gossip, Bill? We need the gossip!

And most importantly: a certain someone was part of Bill’s gang. Someone with a photo that has been covered, but it’s still partially visible. And as soon as I saw it, I jumped up on my bed and asked: “Wait… is this Jheselbraum?!”

The answer is yes and thisisnotawebsite confirmed it: she was one of Bill’s Henchmaniacs. And now the right question is: how much do you want The Book of Jheselbraum, from 1 to 10?

I mean:

In the partially crossed-out part about her in TBOB, Bill says she figured something related to dimensions

In the shaman page (TBOB) there is a code: WHICH HENCHMANIAC RATTED ME OUT

In Journal 3, Ford has been saved by her, who sucked him out of the 2D world of Exwhylia

Jheselbraum told Ford that Bill’s “thirst for power caused him to destroy his home dimension - including his parents and everyone else he’d ever known” (Journal 3)

Still in Journal 3, Ford says she spoke of Bill “without anger, but with a calm, steely, clinical resolve to see his reign of terror end”.

In addition to that, let me add this part from thisisnotawebsitedotcom under the code TANTRUM:

I KNOW YOUR CRIMES, CIPHER. TAKING A NEW HOME WILL NOT MAKE UP FOR THE ONE YOU’VE LOST. WHAT YOU DID TO THE COUNTLESS SOULS OF EUCLYDIA- Cipher stopped in his tracks. YOU CHOOSE YOUR WORDS VERY. CAREFULLY. Ciphers henchmen murmured amongst each other, confused. They seemed to have heard conflicting stories about Bill’s past. “You said you liberated the people of your dimension-” LIBERATED THEM FROM THEIR BODIES! DONT LISTEN TO HIM! HE’S A BABY!

Can you see how HUGE the potential is?

What I believe for now is that:

Jheselbraum figured out what Bill really did to his home dimension (i.e. destroying everything and not “liberating” it, as he said to his Henchmaniacs)

She started to actively find ways to stop him from doing the same thing again

She “ratted him out” with Bill’s new potential puppets on Earth

Bill found out she didn’t just rat him out, but found out the truth about Euclydia too and that’s what led to her escaping

She settled closer to a 2D world - maybe to learn more about Bill, maybe because she knew Ford would’ve appeared there

And speaking of that, we have the message on thisisnotawebsitedotcom under the code SEVENEYES:

This is something someone else wrote to her. Someone who told her to escape to a crossed-out Dimension (who guesses that the crossed-out thing was the number 52?). Someone who told her it was against the rules, but it was also the only way to escape him (aka Bill).

And from her code, you can find out the other criminals found new homes as well.

In other words, we have a hidden spy story, in which someone helped Jheselbraum escape from Bill and, in turn, she helped all others escape Bill.

If you don’t want a book about her, about her story as Bill’s henchmaniac and about this whole thing, you are a huge. Fucking. Liar.

_______________________________

And with that, let’s close part 1 of this umpteenth endless analysis. The next one will come soon and it will be all about Billford.

Yes, I know I already talked about Billford here, but we still haven’t talked about the details in TBOB and Bill’s perspective on it. Also, it’s always nice to talk about Billford.

See you soon~

-> Next post

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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#gravity falls #the book of bill #tbob #the book of bill spoilers #book of bill #book of bill spoilers #thisisnotawebsitedotcom #this is not a website dot com #gravity falls fandom #gravity falls meta #bill cipher #billford #stanford pines #henchmaniacs #jheselbraum

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fictional-orphan-smackdown · 6 months ago

Text

ROUND 4, MATCH 1!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut

The Baudelaire Orphans (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

The epitome of orphans, they’re the best

“I’m having a very terrible childhood right now”-Klaus

The story deadass begins with them being told that their parents died in a fire and that they're orphans now. They then bounce from guardian to guardian who tend to always meet a gruesome fate at the hands of Count Olaf. Not only have they been orphaned once, but have been orphaned multiple times and are called "The Baudelaire Orphans" by not only characters in the book but by the narrator himself. They're called "The Baudelaire Orphans" so many times that it might as well be a defining character trait of theirs, and honestly it sort've is. The series doesn't even end with them finding a home or guardians of any kind, it ends with the Baudelaires fate being completely ambiguous with them literally sailing away from the island they were stranded on in the final book (yeah this series is quite the journey, I highly suggest it). These poor three kids are probably the most orphaned kids of all time since their orphaned in a new way almost every book and they deserve at least one win in their unfortunate tale.

These guys are like the poster-child of orphaning, we open the series with them finding out that they're orphans and also have no access to their money so now they hop around from place to place from weirdo caretaker to another weird/crazy/murderous caretaker and it's all fun and games and murder and decieving and surviving and thriving and---my point is, these three are a wonderful trio of siblings who love and rely on one another through all their trials and tribulations.

Literally every single one of their problems come from being orphans. They’re continually referred to as orphans and the plot of the first half of the series is them being shuffled around to guardians.

These kids are so orphaned they never even get a found family outside themselves. At least most stories featuring orphaned kids see them fulfill some sorta epic destiny or have them find a new home or set of loved ones of sorts. The Baudelaires? They're thrown from one fucking failure of a home into the next, ignored, hunted, etc.. It's been years but like, even in the end, they still have to set sail alone. As individual characters, they aren't bad either. Violet's the dependable big sister who's knack for inventions comes in handy, Klaus is a well-read chap and Sunny is a lovely gremlin. They make a good trio.

Every single guardian they try to obtain throughout the series turns out to be someone who wants the large inheritance left for them and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it.

They basically fend for themselves the whole series when no adult will listern to them. The whole series is them being resourceful and clever the whole series despite the misfortune. Violet is a brilliant inventor, Klaus reads and collects knowledge, and Sunny learns to be a good cook over the series

their parents die tragically in a fire and then everything awful proceeds to happen to them

I haven't read these books in years but if any orphans deserve to win a smackdown it's these fools, they are constantly in the trenches in those books goddamn. Also that baby is like a shredder they have that on their side, I think that beast literally solo'd a snake?

(This one was specifically for Klaus, but I'll put it here still) He and his sisters being orphans is kinda the point. As in many books, it's the trigger for them to change lives and navigating hardships. The thing is, their hardships just grow worse and "unfortunate" (read "dreadful") events keep happening to them as they stick together instead of the story getting better. Klaus and Violet become Sunny's subtitute parents and get through their more and more miserable lives together keeping hope things would eventually get better

Arguably more famously orphaned than Bruce Wayne, if not for how their story happens while they’re orphaned children versus an orphaned adult. Definitely have the most famously tragic post-orphaning story. All three are incredibly brilliant in their own way, including the literal baby. Pursued relentlessly by the leader of a maniacal theater troupe and letdown by a slew of adults, so it’s all the more impressive how amazing they each turned out to be. Book series was so good it got turned into a pretty great movie and then a successful TV show years later. Also can’t forget how these three are orphaned repeatedly as the distant relatives who take them in get killed off in increasingly inventive manners. Let’s be honest, ain’t no characters out here orphaning like the Baudelaire orphans.

this series taught me so many cool words and phrases and I love each of the 3 main characters so much

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are peddled from caretaker to caretaker over the course of 13 books, always being chased by the evil Count Olaf who wants to steal the Baudelaire fortune that the children are meant to inherit once they reach a certain age.

Spoilers ahead, the Baudelaires siblings story starts with them going from being the Baudelaire kids to the Baudelaire orphans, after their parents pass away in a mysterious fire. But they arent the only paternal figures that they lost, they go from tutor to tutor, almost all the good ones dying in front of them, and even the ones that survive at first their future is uncertain since the last time the kids see them they are blindfolded in a burnind building, and we never found out who make it out alive and who didnt. Even the main villian, Count Olaf their first tutor, and the only constant adult in their life after their parents death ends up dying in front of them. These three are orphans ten times over.

They are THE orphans. They have lost not only their parents but multiple guardians that they went to live with as well.

They're THE Orphans. The childhood book orphans we all read, Orphans Prime if you will. They lose their parents, every caregiver who's ever kind to them, then say fuck it and live on a deserted island on their own to raise themselves abd fully embrace their orphan status. On the island, they learn their parents survived the shipwreck then died again - double orphaning even.

OH MY SWEET LITTLE CHILDREN THAT FUELED MY LOVE FOR READING AND THE MACABRE Violet- Won her first of many invention competitions when she was five with an automatic rolling pin (comprised of a window shade and six pairs of roller skates). Extremely innovative and genius, foiled by her kindness to others. And she knows how to make a Molotov cocktail. Klaus- Absolute monster of a bibliophile, conducts research for fun, and has a photographic memory. He is known to want nothing more than "a good book, a comfy chair, and the warm glow of a reading lamp". He also is a Herman Melville fan, which is points for him in my book. Sunny- Most people know her only for her penchant for biting, but Sunny is a distinctly distinguished character. She has sharp wit (as long as you can read it through her babbles), her poker skills are phenomenal for a baby, and she has quite the knack for cooking! Also yeah, the teeth. She climbed an elevator shaft with them once.

They are constantly going through it, give these kids a break for real

Mina Murray/Harker (Dracula)

IIIIIIII Loveeeeeeee Herrrrrr, she's learning shorthand, she's the group scribe, she writes in her diary about her and lucy seeing cows on a walk, AND she's a train fiend. She's everything to me fr

#poll #a series of unfortunate events #violet baudelaire #klaus baudelaire #sunny baudelaire #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily #mina harker #mina murray

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vivwritesfics · 5 months ago

Text

Shine A Light Into The Wreckage

Chapter Ten - Fired

Bob Floyd was many things. He was an instructor at Top Gun, a lover of Tolkien books and a huge fan of coffee. But Bob was also clumsy. That was how he bumped into the table, knocking her drink onto her notebook. He felt bad about it. Bad enough to come back time and time again, in the hopes that she would be there. And, every time, she is. Each time looking a little worse for wear. It doesn't take Bob long to realise he has to save her.

Series Warnings: Abusive relationship! Abusive hair pulling! Abusive choking! Forceful sex! Domestic abuse! Seriously don't read if you're affect by stuff like this! Talks of stalking (but in a non serious manner), talks of non consensual groping. she gets called a whore, choking, SA, 'missing' birth control, blood, pregnancy, hint at child abuse (not explicitly written)

Series Masterlist

Things weren't right, they both knew that. But they were pretending things were normal and, for the time being, pretending was good enough.

After a week of pretending, three weeks of her living in his home, Bob knew he had to address things. Not the baby, not until she was ready.

He sat beside her on the couch as she reached for her drink. Not coffee (something she was certainly missing). "Hey," he said, voice almost nervous as he looked at her face. But she wasn't nervous. No, she looked normal, and that was terrifying.

"Bob," she replied, holding her cup of water like it was a steaming mug on a cold day.

He sucked in a breath. "Do you want me to drive you into work? You know, talk to your boss so you can take time off and not get fired?"

She let a smile cross her face and put her cup down. "Thanks, Bobby," she said and stood. She went into the spare bedroom that had since become her own and got changed into the "grandpa sweater" Bob had brought home for her the other day.

She held it up to her nose and breathed in, but it didn't smell like him. It should have. That would have made her grandpa sweater perfect. But she didn't let it bother her as she left the room.

The moment she stepped out of the spare bedroom, Bob reached for his keys from the bowl.

She followed him out of the house. While he locked the front door, she climbed into the passenger seat of his truck. The entire time she was focusing on Bob, watching as he locked the front door of their house. No, his house. Not their house. It was his.

Her hand settled on her stomach. As soon as she realised she pulled it away as if she had been burnt, let it drop into her lap.

"You okay?" Bob asked as he climbed into the truck. He looked at her grandpa sweater and let himself smile. But his smile wasn't wide, it didn't meet his eyes.

She nodded and turned on the radio as Bob pulled out of the driveway. He hummed along to the radio and she turned it up just slightly, head against the window.

Moments like this with Bob had been few and far between since he'd gotten her out of the apartment. But she loved them, cherished them. Bob glanced at her for just a second, but she kept looking at him. She couldn't help it.

After Ken, she'd expected to be so fucking terrified. And she was, but not around Bob. Bob, Bobby, Robert. He was a man like no other. Every hand he had laid on her had been soft and gentle, to help her instead of harm her.

His fingers drummed against the steering wheel as she directed him towards her office. When they drove past the café where they'd met, past her old apartment, she couldn't look away from him.

Looking at Bob kept her panic at bay. She didn't know what it was about him, but he made her feel so goddamn safe.

He parked up outside of her office building and killed the engine. Sucking in a breath, he turned his attention towards her. "Want me to come with?" He asked, voice soft and sweet and gentle.

He was too good for her, that much was clear.

She shook her head. "I think I have to do this one on my own," she said as she climbed out of the truck. And then she turned and braced her arms on the seat. "Wait here for me?" She asked with a quirked brow.

"Of course!" He responded, usually deep voice squeaking slightly. And then he ever so quietly added, "wouldn't dream of going anywhere."

Maybe she should have stopped grinning by the time she walked into the office. Her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth as she knocked on her boss's door and thought about the man in the parking lot. The one with the glasses that he thought were ugly but she thought were so damn cute.

"Come in," her boss called. She let her lip fall from between her teeth and strode into his office.

His eyes widened as he looked at her. But then the surprise dropped from his face and he rolled his eyes. "If you've come to beg for your job back, don't bother," he spat and returned his eyes to his computer.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. "My job... what?" She asked and he rolled his eyes again. "Dave, have I been fired?"

Dave shrugged his shoulders. "You didn't come into work for weeks, what did you think was going to happen?" He spat back.

Helplessly, she turned and looked towards the office. Where her co-workers were. Well, ex co-workers, she supposed. "I'll pack my things," she said.

"No need," Dave said quickly. "Marjorie already packed your shit up."

She backed out of his office. As she walked around her co-workers desks, she couldn't meet their gaze, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. It was a mix of embarrassment and hopelessness as she made her way back to the annex.

"Hey, love," Marjorie said gently. She grabbed a box and placed it on top of the desk. A box full of her things. It was real, she really had been fired. "You'll be fine. You'll get on your feet in no time."

Sniffling, she grabbed a hold of the box. "Thanks, Marge," she said and took her leave. There was nothing left to be said, no point pleading for her job back. It was a shitty job, anyway. A shitty job with a shitty boss, she tried to tell herself. But she still wiped at her tears as she travelled down in the elevator.

As she walked out of the building, Bob reached over and pushed open the passenger side door. "How did it go?" He asked as she approached. He hadn't yet noticed the box in her hands or the look on her face.

Not until she placed the box on her seat. "What's this?" He asked as he reached into the box and pulled out a frame picture. A framed picture of her and Ken at their graduation, looking sickeningly in love. He placed it back, face down.

She wiped at her eyes and grabbed the box again, shoving it into the back of the truck. "I've been fired," she spat and climbed into the passenger seat. But then her head dropped. "I... he was right. I haven't been in for weeks. I don't know what I expected, really," she mumbled and sat back.

Knocked up, jobless, homeless. Fuck, she was gonna throw up.

"Oh, God," Bob whispered, his hand coming to rest on her knee. "I'm so damn sorry, Doll," he whispered.

But she just shook her head and rested it against the window. "Wanna go and get some junk food?"

The nod she gave was only small, but Bob still caught it.

Bob took her through the drive thru. "I don't wanna go back to the house," she whispered as Bob paid for their food. They drove to the next window, collected their meals, and then Bob drove off.

He thought about it for a moment. He parked up in the car park as he debated where to take her. He knew she only meant to the time being, but the images that flashed in his mind had the tips of his ears turning pink.

Her in Montana, collecting eggs from the chicken coops with him. Wearing one of those dresses that showed just how round her bump was. Squeezing into his small bed with him and sitting with him on the porch as the two of them watched the sun set. Bob's grandmother would love her, and his sister would come to visit nearly every day.

The spot he parked up in overlooked the beach. It was busy, family's on picnic blankets, kids building sand castles and dad's stood in the water, talking about something or other. It was just them in the spot that overlooked it. Nobody came to disturb them, not midday dog walkers, nobody.

"Thank you," she whispered as she stared ahead, at the gentle movement of the ocean. She cradled her bump in a way he hadn't seen her do before. It was, quite frankly, concerning. "I-I genuinely don't know if I'd still be alive if it wasn't for you."

It was horrifying, terrifying to hear. But, mostly, Bob hated that he couldn't disagree with her. He let gaze travel to her bump, but didn't let it linger.

No, he sucked in a breath, gathered all the courage he had. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Her eyebrows raised as she wiped under her eye. "Out of here as in out of the car?"

"I'm trying to be serious," he said quickly, but he couldn't stop his own laugh. "Out of San Diego. Out of California."

A hum left her lips. "Out of California, huh?" She asked, turning her attention towards the sea. She loved it here, on her good days. Loved the freedom of going to the beach whenever she wanted, loved the café where she did her writing, loved the area she lived in.

California wasn't the problem. But getting out of there sounded real damn good.

"Where would we go?" She asked as she grabbed her drink.

Bob drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. "My family has a place in Montana," he said. "We've got a ranch with horses and chickens and stuff." He leaned forward against the steering wheel and turned himself towards her. "I think you'd like it. My grandpa put seating beneath the oak tree so my grandma could sit and knit while we took care of the cattle."

She grinned, straw between her lips. "Sounds amazing, Bobby," she mumbled as she reached across and touched his shoulder. "Are you sure you can get out of work?"

When her hand met his leg, he stared at it. It felt too intimate for the situation, but he didn't push her away. "I'll speak to Cyclone tomorrow," he said, hand touching hers.

As soon as they had eaten, Bob drove them back to his place. They didn't turn on the radio as they drove, but they still had something important to talk about. "If we're gonna go to Montana, I think you should make a decision about..."

"About the baby?" She finished, pulling her hand from his leg.

Bob swallowed, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, about the baby," he said as he turned into his street.

A sigh left her lips. "I know," she muttered. "Trust me, Bob, I know." Her hand settled on her stomach and a mournful smile crossed her face. "It would be nice, though, wouldn't it? A sweet little baby girl to spoil."

Pulling into the drive, Bob parked. "A baby girl, huh?" He said with a grin. He could see it, her little mini me, chasing the chickens in Montana. It was simply a dream. "You know I'd help you spoil the hell out of her."

Her eyes lit up. But she shook her head, though, and climbed out of the car, still sipping her drink. "You don't have to do that, Bob," she said, following him towards the front door. "I feel back enough that you're letting me crash."

The moment he pushed open the door and let her in, Frodo came running. He let out one long, loud, drawn out meow as he brushed his body against her legs. "Oh, buddy," she said, reaching down to stroke the top of his head.

She spied his empty food bowl, but Bob had her moving out of the way before filling it up himself. "I got it," he said, waving for her to go and sit herself down.

"Can we watch something?" She asked as she sat herself on the sofa.

"Of course we can," Bob replied, the sound of the dry food hitting the bottom of the bowl echoing through downstairs of his little house. "Put on anything you want."

As soon as Frodo had everything he needed, Bob joined her on the sofa as the movie began. Back To The Future, he noticed as he sat down beside her, his arm on the back of the sofa. Immediately, she moved closer to him, making herself comfortable against him. "This okay?" She asked, voice so quiet he almost missed it.

"More than okay," he whispered back, fingers brushing against the skin of her arm.

She fell asleep against him that night, drool falling from her lips and onto his shirt. But Bob didn't mind in the slightest. He halted the movement of his fingers, but didn't move his hand away from her arm.

Bob watched her, but he could never begin to imagine the horrors playing out in her head.

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thelampisaflashlight · 5 months ago

Text

A Lack of Engagement Pt. 1: Ancient Rite

[Rain learns his actions (rubbing a giant metal dick) have consequences (marriage). The RainDrop series y'all doomed yourselves to in the poll... with some mild tweaking.] Below the cut.

It starts with a rumor among the siblings.

Something Rain isn't ordinarily interested in -rumors, or the siblings to be honest- but with a heatwave keeping them all locked down inside the abbey, and a desire to avoid doomscrolling on his phone, again, for the third day in a row... he'd indulged in a healthy bit of eavesdropping, hoping to hear something juicy, and instead learned of a curious addition to the abbey's art collection.

A giant statue of a penis.

Not the first one in the church's possession, but, according to the siblings -and this is the part that amused Rain the most and nearly drove the ghoul to tears- if you rubbed the head while linking hands with your lover, the devil himself would appear and give his blessing for you to be wed.

Rain thinks it's the funniest shit he's ever heard, or maybe it's just the heat fucking with his better sense of judgement, but it's either grab a friend and give a handjob to a statue or go back to lurking in Swiss' likes on his social media pages playing, "When will I find softcore porn?" and honestly, as much as he likes seeing the multi-ghoul be horny on main, he knows a fiery little demon who would get a kick out of something like this.

He considers texting Dew about the statue, but the idea of missing the look on the hybrid's face when he hears the words, "Giant Dick" is not something he can readily pass up.

Ultimately, it isn't that hard to find him either, Dew stays in one of two places when it's hot as balls outside; The abbey's indoor pool -which Rain knows he can't be in, because EVERYONE is in there right now, and Dew likes it all to himself- or the library.

It's surprising to hear, unless you've met the man himself, but Dew is an avid reader in his downtime.

In fact, in the time that he's resided in the abbey, he's read about a solid third of the books in the library, and has donated quite a few from his own collection over the years.

His room would be overflowing with them if he hadn't purged so many in the last year or so... to make more room for new ones.

Rain is sure it's partly to spite Mountain for having so many plants in their dorm, taking up every available surface that Dew hasn't claimed outright, but neither of them complains when a new fern or book on said fern appears in their room.

They work oddly well together as roommates in that sense.

Their space feels like an even mixture of the both of them, not like when Rain had been stuck rooming with Aether for a year and a half...

If you want to test the strength and boundaries of a friendship, listen to your best friend destroy your shared bathroom after eating two week old meatloaf from the back of the fridge and see how you feel.

Bless him, Aeth's a great guy, Rain loves him like a brother, but goddamn there were times where Rain wanted to throttle him.

You live and you learn.

Stepping through the heavy wooden doors leading into the library -locked in place to avoid another... unfortunate squishing incident- Rain scans the nearly empty room for signs of life, but a cursory perusal of the patrons has him coming up short one white haired, pointed eared devil... which can only mean one thing.

"He's up in the loft." a helpful voice informs him, and when Rain glances over, he sees the librarian sat back in his chair at the front desk, gesturing upwards with his chin for emphasis before returning to his crossword puzzle.

Rain isn't sure whether the man knew he was looking for Dew because of his appearance -having forgone his glamour- or if he simply looked like he wasn't there to study, like the siblings he sees sequestered in a far corner, pouring over a large tome and muttering in tones just above a whisper, but he thanks him anyway and heads for the first set of stairs up to the library's second floor.

There are three tiers to the abbey's library; The first floor, where the siblings of sin attend lectures and study various texts to learn their secrets -or, as he has seen quite a few doing, taking online classes to learn skills that will take them to careers beyond the church-, the second floor where all of the more adult books are kept to avoid any of the young wards of the abbey getting their hands on them, and the third floor, which is barely bigger than your standard storage closet, the loft.

The loft was built well before Rain's time on the surface, and had been meant to be a private office for Sister Imperator, but age and a desire to remain close to the papas had resulted in her room being moved to the first floor instead, and the room itself had fallen into disuse, and thus, when the library underwent a much needed renovation, so, too, did the room upstairs.

That being said, very few of the siblings bother trekking up that far in the library to read, and the narrow, ladder like steps leading up to it are a turn off for most wanting to ascend with an armload of books, but Dew manages it just fine somehow.

Walking with purpose, Rain debates calling up to the ghoul, but remembers that shouting in a library isn't exactly smiled upon, and he can feel the librarian's gaze upon him the moment his mouth opens a bit too quickly.

Thinking better of his initial impulse, Rain instead ascends the ladder and pokes his head up out of the hole in the floor, half expecting to see Dew surrounded by a mountain of books, but what meets his eyes first is, well, Dew's eyes.

He barely contains a yelp as he comes nose to nose with the other ghoul, who's crouched on at the top of the ladder, arms crossed.

"...Hello." he greets, watching Rain compose himself.

"Hi-" Rain starts, "-do you wanna go touch a dick with me?"

"What-"

"-in the merciful fuck is this gorgeous thing doing in a place like this??" Dew cackles, rounding the giant bronze dong, "They sculpted veins and everything! How'd you even find out about this being here, Rainy??"

"The siblings were blabbing about it earlier, and I needed to see it for myself. Had to bring a friend, of course, because apparently it's not just a giant dick-" Rain says, wiggling his fingers, "-it's a magical giant dick, ooo~"

Dew snorts and steps back from the dick, which is, hilariously, just a bit taller than him.

"So what's it do?" he asks, casually leaning on the statue, which stays rooted in place thanks to the flared out base at the bottom, "Aside from looking like some kind of absurdly sized dildo?"

"According to the siblings, if you rub it-" Rain and Dew share a giggle at that, "-if you rub it while holding hands with your lover, Satan himself shows up and, boom, you're married."

"To Satan? Or each other?" Dew questions, seeking clarification, "Also why would the lord of Hell deign to marry two mortals together? It's such a weird concept to begin with, like one of the romance novels I read with the sisters in our book club last year..."

"You're in a book club?" Rain raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head, "Anyway, I just wanted to see if there's any credence to what the siblings were yapping about, and so far it checks out; I mean, I'm standing in front of a giant dick... and a bronze statue of a penis."

"Oi." Dew swats at him halfheartedly, "Jerk."

Rain stretches his arms and cracks his fists dramatically, "I intend to."

"You're an idiot..." the other huffs, sounding almost fond, "So why'd you bring me along?"

"Well, you know it takes two..." Rain smirks, "...and plus, we can find out if it's actually magic or not. You and I aren't a couple though, so it would probably be a net zero in terms of results, but it'd still make for a funny story though, and I know the others would be jealous that we got to the giant dick first..."

"Swiss is gonna be so mad when he finds out we found it before him." Dew agrees, nodding, "Okay, I'll bite."

"You really shouldn't use your teeth for something like this, it's a sensitive area." Rain teases, then extends his hand to Dew, "Wanna rub one out with me?"

Dew scoffs and links his hand with Rain's.

"Sure, why not? Worst case scenario, someone's gonna jump out with a camera and go, 'HA!' so might as well get the show on the road."

Approaching the statue together this time, the pair slaps their free hands down on the head and, with another fit on laughter successfully held in by the virtue of NOT making eye contact with each other -"Don't look at me during." Dew whispers, almost breaking Rain's concentration- ...nothing happens.

"Well, that was kind of lackluster." Rain comments, letting his hand drop down at his side, "I was hoping it would at least, like, glow or something, but-"

"Hear me out." Dew says suddenly, turning to Rain, "What if we... told the dick we're a couple?"

"Huh?"

"Magic and shit is all about intent, yeah? But it's also about respect, sort of." Dew explains, "We're not being serious enough about all of this, so the dick is... being a dick."

"Okay..." Rain draws his mouth into a line and gives the statue a thoughtful look before turning back to Dew, "You wanna try tricking the dick?"

"I want to trick the dick... for science." he says, holding his index finger up like a nerd emphasize his point, "Just to see if it actually works."

Rain sets his hand back on the dick, his other hand still holding onto Dew's, "And if it does work? What then? What do you think magical penis marriage entails?"

"You're the one who asked me to come." Dew points out, placing his hand back on the statue, "You tell me, shark nuts."

A pause.

"Do sharks even have nuts?" he wonders aloud, and Rain smirks, "What?"

"I mean, I do." he says and Dew rolls his eyes, "I thought you would know a lot about sharks seeing as you have that big ass marine biology textbook I gave you for your birthday last year."

"Hey, I do, I-"

Before Dew can finish, the ground begins to shake beneath their feet and the two find themselves clinging to one another to stay upright.

"What the fuck?!" Dew shouts, holding onto Rain for dear life, "Earthquake?!"

Rain stumbles forward, taking Dew with him a few steps before regaining his footing, "It's been a bit since we've had one this intense... We should get under cover before shit starts falling down!"

However, just as the duo is about the slide under a nearby table, the shaking stops and-

"...Uh, Rain, does the dick look... bigger to you?"

Rain makes a face.

"This isn't the time to-Oh my fucking god it is."

Standing nearly twice as tall as it was before, the bronze statue now looks over the both of them, its mighty girth casting a shadow from where it now blocks the light coming in from the windows.

An eerie glow emanates from the tip, which is now leaking... something.

Rain hopes it's just water.

"I think-" Dew starts, than yelps, "Ow!"

"What's wr-Ouch!" Rain winces as the skin around his ring finger begins to burn, strange runes scratching into his flesh, "What the fuck..."

"Thou hast attempted to invoke the ancient rites dishonestly, and are justly punished." a voice as loud as thunder booms, "May these binds remind you daily of your new found commitment... to each other."

And then, before either of them have the time to process what has happened, the ground shakes once more, and the statue... recedes.

Rain stares at the now flaccid statue, at the puddle of mystery liquid on the floor, and the markings on his ring finger.

"...Rain."

"...Yes, Dew?"

"...What the fuck."

In spite of the odd, borderline drug trippy experience with the dick, somehow, some way, the pair manages to put it from their minds by the evening.

The more they try to dwell on it, the hazier and more dreamlike the situation becomes, until it becomes just another nagging feeling that they forgot something important... and then, by midnight, it's as if nothing happened at all.

Rain's memory of overhearing the rumor is replaced with him scrolling on his phone in bed, and Dew's brings him back to the library, to the book he'd left sitting on the beanbag chair he finds himself slouching into now.

Absentmindedly, Rain fidgets with the silver band on his ring finger, plainer than anything he'd buy for himself, but, for some reason, it feels too... special... to want to take it off.

Dew does similarly with the gold band on his own hand, never one to wear jewelry like this, he slides it down his finger and feels a pang of... something... in his chest that makes him slot it back into place, feeling almost guilty for trying to remove it in the first place.

Overall, nothing feels different to either of them, but when Dew goes to his room and is met with a confused, half awake Mountain mumbling something along the lines of, "Did you leave something behind?" he can't help but ask what the tall man means.

"You must really be tired..." Mountain yawns, "You and Rain are in the room across the hall, remember? C'mon, let's get you back to your husband."

"My what now-"

At the same time, Rain finds himself staring at his phone screen, having remembered taking a picture of an interesting bird the day before, he'd wanted to find and edit the photo before posting it online, but now he's...

"Rain!" Dew calls to him in a panic, entering the room and all but slamming the door shut, "Mountain said-"

"-you may now kiss the groom."

Rain's eye twitches as he looks up from the video he'd found, "...Dew?"

"...Yeah, Rain?"

"...What the fuck."

What the fuck indeed.

#lamp writes #shitghosting #nameless ghouls #dewdrop ghoul #rain ghoul #ghost band #the band ghost #ghost bc #A Lack of Engagement #top ten places to get married if you're into that sort of thing

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addicted-to-dc · 1 year ago

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AK!Jason Todd x Catwoman's protégé! Reader - Just for tonight, Kitty

Gotta love it when inspiration strikes. Not promising anything after this, but I'll use this *possible* series to work out my writer's block.

Warnings: Drugging, kidnapping, mentions of torture, guns, and manipulation/mind control... you've been warned.

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You knew something was wrong the second you took a gulp from your drink, the bartender darkly watching you unknowingly seal your fate. Whatever it was, it was fast-acting, dulling your senses just in time for a hand to wrap around your waist.

“You don’t look so good, Kitty.”

The familiar nickname makes your blood run cold, memories flooding back into your mind despite the many drinks you’ve used to drown your sorrows. It can’t be him, not like this.

You’re urged to your feet and led out of the crowded bar. The hand around your waist tightens every time you try to rip yourself away, never faltering until you’re shoved into a vehicle directly outside of the door. You land harshly on a seat, mustering the courage to look at the man doing this to you.

No, it can’t be him. Jason Todd is dead, the Joker made sure of it with a bullet and a warning to the rest of Batman’s little helpers.

“J-jay? Wha’s going on?”

You reach for your bracelet, but he snatches your wrist before you could send out a signal. He removes it from your wrist and tosses it out of the window. The car begins to move.

“Can’t let you ruin the surprise,” Jason replies, pulling you closer.

You’re overwhelmed on all fronts, your mind hazy and confused by everything going on. His hand slips into your pockets, emptying out their contents as he whispers in your ear.

“How has my girl been doing? You miss me?”

Of course, you missed him. It’s been five goddamn years of trying to recover from his death. Your brows furrow together at the question. Your eyes look outside the window, finally noticing that you’re entering a tunnel. His fingers gently guide your attention back to him, a much darker version of the boy you knew.

“Missed you,” you say sluggishly, staring at the new scars marring his face.

Tears begin to form at the sight of the ‘J’ burned into his skin, only a small piece of the suffering that the mad clown put him into. You’re glad the bastard is dead, the world free from the monstrous acts he’d continuously commit.

A smirk crawls onto his face at the reply, but not the carefree one that would appear after he convinced you to sneak out. No, it’s something else. Borderline malicious, but not directed at you. You used to read him like an open book, but now Jason is a mystery to you.

A large bump sends you into him, his arms wrapping around you instantly. He guides you to lay down on the seat, your head resting on his thigh as the car continues to drive on a much smoother path than before.

“I know you did, sweetheart,” he smiles, dragging his fingers over your lips. “I missed you, too.”

“W-why… Wh-where are-”

Jason shushes you with his finger, “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep asking questions. We’re almost there.”

You’re so tired, barely able to move a finger as you fade in and out of consciousness. The combined efforts of Jason’s warmth and the rumble of the car is enough to finally lull you to sleep. It’s the best sleep you’ve had in years. No nightmares, terrors, or the clown taunting you from beyond the grave.

You awaken slowly, an overwhelming warmth keeping you from moving. It feels like home, something you haven’t had in a while. After what feels like forever, you finally open your eyes. A nearly barren room faces you, too militaristic with a suit of armor laying across a table. The currently deactivated mask captivates you, a nearly faceless… bat?

Your curiosity gets the better of you, slowly getting up, leaving the warmth behind, to see it. Cautiously, you walk over to the table. You pay no mind to the warning bells wringing in your head as you reach for the helmet.

“Still as curious as a cat, huh, (Y/N)?”

You wrench your hand away and turn around. A gasp leaves your throat before you could prevent it. Jason Todd is alive. There is no doubt in your mind, not when he’s standing right in front of you. He’s not the boy you fought with and against, nearly crossing so many lines to be with each other. A bat and a cat, something only Bruce and Selena could understand. They couldn’t stop it, just like they couldn’t stop themselves from falling in love.

You nod, “I am, but you’re just… a mystery to me. What happened? How are you alive? Does Bruce even know?”

The final question has him closing the distance between the two of you before guiding you away from the armor. You sit back down on the bed, but he remains standing.

“Did Bruce tell you what happened?”

Your throat dries up at the thought of the video that Joker sent. He looked and sounded broken, both inside and out. Bruce tried to pause it, to keep you from the pain of the truth, but you blocked him. You’d never forget Jay’s last moments on the video, the gunshot, how he just laid on the floor lifelessly…

Jason swipes the unwelcome tears from your face. Your head slowly tilts up, his hand guiding you to look into his eyes. “I saw the video, but you’re here?”

You look into his eyes, a million questions going through your mind. The memories last night were fuzzy, but you remember him saying something about a surprise. You took a sip from your drink… there was something in it.

Standing up, you wrench out of his grip and put some distance between the two of you. “What the hell is this? Did you drug me? Where the hell are we, Jason?”

Your voice wavers at the last question, but your hand already weakly pointed towards the mask and the militaristic armor alongside it. His eyes meet the helmet, and they darken.

“I need your help, (Y/N),” he says, finally moving to turn on the mask.

As soon as you see the eyes light up your stomach drops, everything clicking into place. You’ve been keeping tabs on Deathstroke for the past few years, watching as he’d train new recruits for a militia. You now realize why the armor struck a nerve. The Arkham Knight.

“I don’t like this, Jay,” you whisper, backing away from him, “but you know that.”

You’ve heard only whispers of what the Knight is capable of, his ruthlessness drilled into you through the horror stories from the militiamen. How could he be the Arkham Knight? He can’t be. He couldn’t. Not your Jay.

He sighs and places the helmet down. Your eyes shift to the helmet that was hidden in the corner, blocked by his own. Jason picks it up, holding it in front of you.

“I need you to get something for me, something I know only you can do,” he begins, taking hesitant steps forward.

With each step closer you can see the Knight, how he stalks towards you like prey. You gulp at the sight, clenching your hands to try and stop yourself from shaking.

“What is it?” you ask, flinching when he places a hand on your cheek.

He’s warm, too warm for a cold-blooded killer. You close your eyes, too weak against his touch. His hand drifts down, finding a home on your lower back.

“We need you to acquire some files at Stagg Enterprises. Off the record ones.”

The best kind, you think automatically. There’s something that makes you hesitate, a gut feeling telling you that there’s more to this. Something bigger than just you and Jason.

“Who am I doing this for? You? Or the Arkham Knight?” you ask, fearing what the answer will be.

He remains quiet for a few moments, until his answer breaks the silence. “Depends on if you’re going to do it willingly.”

You tense at his words. The Arkham Knight has spoken, using your connection with Jason against you. Everything is telling you to run, to fight back and try to leave, but there’s a reason why he brought you here. You can only assume it’s a fortress, something that is meant to keep people out and prisoners within.

Just as you try to take a step back, he pulls you closer to him. Jason’s grip is too strong for you to break. You finally look up at him, eyes widening as he shoves the helm onto you. You’re only able to struggle for a moment until you made the mistake of opening your eyes. Your body goes slack as you recognize the tech.

You had a past run-in with the Mad Hatter. That experience was enough for you to know behind his silly delusions of Wonderland, his mind control tech was terrifying. Your lack of movement is enough to tell him that the tech is working. Jason adjusts the helmet on you, tightening the straps so it won’t go anywhere.

“Just for tonight, Kitty. Go get dressed, your suit’s waiting for you.”

Thankssss for reading! Interact, leave a comment, reblog if you enjoyed the fic!!

#Jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #ak!jason todd x reader #arkham knight x reader #the arkham knight dows things to be that cannot be said with words #the tragedy of Jason Todd never ceases to make me ferralllll

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chaotic-iguana · 1 year ago

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Refuge | chapter three.

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter | general masterlist

chapter three: damning rebirth

wordcount: 3.8k - my longest work yet lmao summary: what if reader and joel were married before the outbreak? warnings: angst, estrangement, anger, violence, sad, its like centered around finding yourself again, reader and joel are both quite complicated broken ppl im trying to do them justice, not much joel he’ll be in the next chapter i promise.

You didn’t speak to him for weeks after that first afternoon. You’d run out of words to say. You stopped speaking to his brother, too, for keeping you in the dark; ignoring Maria’s justifications, the constant droning of “…he did it to keep you safe, you know? So you wouldn’t leave Jackson’s safety and run after Joel. You could have died. Sarah’s death would have broken you, like it broke him, and you should be thankful that…”

You tuned her out after a while. It was getting tiring coming up with rude adjectives to describe how wrong she was in your head. There was no fight left in you to even protest, so you just left the room while she was talking. You loved her, but there were days you thought she just enjoyed hearing herself talk. Which she was extremely welcome to do, but with the acknowledgement that you would rather walk into a bloaters' den unarmed than sit through it.

Tommy had lied to you, kept the truth about your family from you, and no matter how many ways he spun it, it wouldn’t change the fact that when your first fucking words to him were asking about Joel and Sarah, he had looked you in the eyes and lied through his goddamn teeth when he said he didn’t know. He could go crying to Maria all he liked. You’d need a while not to recoil with disgust every time you saw him no matter how many times you got told to stop acting like a child. When Tommy realised the extent of your anger, he attempted to remedy it by telling you everything. Sarah getting shot on outbreak day - you still winced when he said it- and Joel’s time in the QZ, with a woman called Tess. You didn’t even know what to make of that. You probably couldn’t unpack your feelings about it if you tried. How he found the girl you’d gotten alarmed by - the job he got, how he took her in, how he lied to her and why she won’t look at him now.

You didn’t even bother forming opinions about any of it, let alone voice any. Thinking was futile; your thoughts or ideas or opinions or offense wouldn’t change anything, would they? You continued the same monotonous routine you had established for the past year or so since you arrived to Jackson, this time with even fewer occasions of leaving the house for a party or drink.

The shop and your bedroom became your life, the only people you spoke to were those looking for books. You’d collected them for years in the hope that if the outbreak ever got under control, there would be literature somewhere for humanity to remember what it used to be. Or perhaps a relic, serving as a legacy for a species long gone. Something, just to yell at the world and all those to come after, that you were here, even when you weren’t really. You hadn’t quite been here since the day the world had ended. Since the day you had lost everything. And now, twelve years later, all of it just came crashing back.

The pain was as if someone had crawled into your flesh, peeled your ribs back, and plucked your heart out.

Sarah had become less of a person and more of a concept to you over time. The intangibility that very literally gave you strength when you lay bruised and beaten, held down and overlooked by snarling strangers. She had been your salvation; your everything. Losing her wasn’t something you had truly came back from the first time around, suppressed guilt and fear and worry gnawing at the back of your mind. The reappearance of all of it, overshadowed this time by crippling guilt, was a cruel albeit welcome one. You wanted to feel bad - because much like Joel, it was what you deserved. You had failed - not only as a mother but as a wife, too. You should have just gone home on time that fucking night, but life got in the way as if often used to back then. All those little things that got blown out of proportion like work and deadlines and projects and careers didn’t even matter now. You should have come home. You should have been there.

You didn’t even want to imagine how Joel felt. To you, the ache was a phantom limb - trailing you wherever you went, interwoven with your shadow. To him, it was a stain on his hands that he never seemed to be able to rub out; he could always see a tinge of crimson coating his fingers, ever since that night.

Neither of you could look the other in the eye anymore.

Yet, even after all of it life simply went on, stuttering but still relentless in its proceedings. Pink, jagged scars marred the flesh of time as it stretched around the metalwork of the lives you had fought to keep, yet lost the worth of anyways. Fate is seldom kind.

It wasn’t too peculiar, this distance. Ironically, even after all these years, you both understood the other perfectly - as if each thought either of you had, each feeling you felt, was respected and loved and relayed by the refuge of your marriage, still. You understood that he was too ashamed by his self-proclaimed failure to speak to you, and he understood that the loss had so wholly devoured you that you wouldn’t have the strength to look in his eyes and be reminded of hers for a while.

The song and dance continued, the delicate persuasion of ensuring not to jolt the fragile existences the other had created for themselves. Joel didn’t come near your bookshop, and you didn’t go near Tommy, lest the words ‘family dinner’ be spoken into existence. Truly, he was idiot enough to suggest it. As if all that your currently brilliant (more like fractured) relationship with your husband (was he still? what about tess?) needed was a dinner with his brother, his sister in law, and the kid he had apparently adopted, lied to, and was now in a rough spot with. Gotta love reunions, no?

In another life, you would have stepped in. You would have spoken to either of them - perhaps even made more of an effort to include Ellie in your own life to ensure that after all she had been through, she wouldn’t feel alone even when she wasn’t doing well with Joel. In this life, though, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Joel acted like a selfish, moronic liar, sure. But if this kid couldn’t see, that at his very core, he was just plain scared - that he practically shook in his (adorable) cowboy boots anytime someone mentioned what happened to Ellie - then, great, she deserved Joel not realising that it was her decision to save humanity; to pay the price, to do what it took; entirely independent of him, or anyone else. You tamped down on the cynical part of you sneering at the romantic heroism of it all. The world knew now, better than before, how selfish man was. How utterly human, for Joel to struggle to separate his feelings for his own daughter and the one he had taken in; for Ellie to be too caught up in her own view to even consider what Joel was going through. It was almost like one of those plays you used to enjoy reading - like a Greek tragedy. The hamartia of both heroes was humanity alone.

They’d come around, eventually. Joel and Sarah always did, too.

The irony lay mostly in the fact that you had spent a decade craving him - his comfort and his warmth. The kneading of his large hands on your back after a long day; the scratch of his stubble when he nuzzled into your neck from behind. The years you didn’t have him were spent with only him in mind; a mindless worship of the love you had. Now that he was within reach; close enough to grasp and curl your fingers around, to sink an burrow into; you were… lost. The desperation; the wild frenzy with which you had remembered only them through the years - to have lost one now leaves you clueless about what to do with the other. The cracks that have made their way into your heart - the ones tainting your soul - you see them reflected in him, too. Your first look into his dark eyes told you that he, too, has done too much to be standing here today; that his first kill, too, had been the man he once was. No wonder you can’t bear to look at each other anymore. The grief - not only of what you have both lost, or what you once had, but the grief of who you both used to be - rears its ugly head in any room you find yourselves in together. Look at me, it screams. Look at what the years have done to me. I can’t recognise myself in mirrors anymore. I don’t see who I used to be. I was so beautiful. I was so good. Look at me. Look at me. Look-

Is this how the angels felt when they fell? You’d never know - there were no angels; there was no God. What divinity would allow for any of this to happen? This joke, this mockery of nature. You never were religious, but fumbled prayers had found their way into your vocabulary every night when you didn’t know where Joel and Sarah were. You - who had never even stepped into a church had prayed.

You must have forgotten there was nobody sitting in the sky to listen.

You had made your peace with the mutual decision to avoid him and the girl - not only because you didn’t even know how to start apologizing to her-but because you were content with the mere knowledge that he was here, that he was alive and breathing.

Tommy’s guilt worked in your favor, ensuring that he didn’t try pairing you and Joel up for patrols - likely fearful of the fallout that might occur (but like, what could even happen? another apocalypse?) but the comedown of that meant that you were paired up with Fred, instead. A man who infuriated you to no end, one who found it extremely interesting that you were once married, that you have a child. Had.

His ceaseless questions made you want to rip your hair out, but you refrained - if only so he wouldn’t have another reason to put his arms around you to try ‘calming’ you like last time. He was a bastard, but you didn’t have it in you to challenge him just yet.

Your answers to his enquiries were grunted or simply monosyllabic, your irritation clear as day in the set of your jaw, the slant of your brow. Nevertheless, like the dumbfuck he was, he persisted. So then how was this your fault?

It had been a decent morning. You’d gotten up early in time for the patrol, taken a shower, drank some water and arrived at the stables. But as you stood outside, you could hear the commotion of people inside - boisterous cheering and laughing as if one would hear in a pub. Interest piqued, you inched your way to the entrance of the barn silently, trying to understand what was going on.

“…fuckin’ whore’s been leading me on for like half a year, turned out she was married the whole time. Dodged a bullet, though. Nearly lost her shit when he told her that her kid died. Went completely apeshit and ruined my goddamn shirt with her snot- nearly clawed through my arm, too. Feel bad for the poor husband, had to yell at everyone to get out just so he could calm her crazy ass down. Everyone’s lost someone, lady. Get over it, right? Plus, girl that age wouldn’t have done too well at a QZ, know what I mean? Wouldn’t have gone untouched, anyways.” He paused for them all to laugh at the supposed comedic gold in his words - him and his little pack of primitives - and all you could do was stand there, glued to the spot in shock.

The fucking audacity. Leading him on? You fucking tried your best to get him to stop talking to you, stop touching you - and you didn’t claw at his arm because you were crazy, you did it because you were fucking panicking and some idiot was making it worse by caging you in. And that was brushing aside what he said about Sarah. No, that had you seeing red, chest heaving.

Fuck, the old you would have broken his nose on the first day. Never is too late to do the right thing, is it?

Just like before, a laugh was forming in your chest. A giggle at first, before you were chuckling, clapping a hand to your mouth and horrified with your own humour. The joke here was priceless, though. See - the world had ended, God was dead, and you were worried about being lightly reprimanded? Fuck that, and fuck him. You hadn’t let yourself feel fear out there. You hadn’t let yourself feel despair, and you sure as hell hadn’t let yourself feel hope. Joel’s arrival forced you to confront all the pain you had ignored. This cunt of a man was managing to unearth all the anger you had neglected, too. His fucking funeral.

Your tongue sat agitated against your teeth in anticipation, waiting to give way to the venom lacing the words in your brain.

Fury sparked in your blood, washing away all your hesitation. Fragmented, she etched herself into the ring of black that blew out your pupils; the unfaltering thumping of your heart in your chest. The threads of your fate were now in her slender, silhouetted hands, and all that was left for you to do was obey. Not that you had a choice.

Before you could so much as blink, you had burst into the crowd. Fred’s eyes widened at the wild snarl on your face, begging and apologizing.

He was unaware, though, of just how sick you had become of apologies. Tommy’s apologies, Joel’s apologies, Maria’s shitty ones, and then the sympathetic apologies you’d been getting from customers because apparently word of Sarah and her role in your life had spread like wildfire throughout Jackson. Joel wouldn’t have shared it, nor would Tommy- not when he knew you were two seconds away from breaking his nose just weeks ago. That left the kid Joel bought-Ellie-or Fred. And something just told you it wasn’t the girl. You’d trust Joel’s judgement blindly any day.

His empty sorrys fell upon deaf ears, his trembling voice cracking as he repeated them over and over.

You grinned, baring your teeth.

“Hello, Fred. Hello, everyone. Having a party and I wasn’t even invited?” You pouted mockingly. “Y’ know what I personally think is absolutely, knee-slappingly hilarious?” You paused, watching their curiosity grow as they fell hook, line and sinker for the cheerful façade, furrowing ther brows in question and stepping in closer. “How untouched you look, asshat.” Your grin dropped just as you rocked back on your heels, surging forward within a split second while throwing all your weight into your fist.

Just as it collided with the asshat's jaw.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You’ve been…frazzled since Joel came back, fine, but I cannot excuse your behaviour just because I know you or because you’re family. This was absolutely out of line, is that clear?” Maria stopped her pacing to turn to you, expecting a justification or an apology. You offered neither. When you refused to so much as look up from your split knuckles, she threw her hands up, huffing at her husband, who was leaning against the table sheepishly while wincing every time her voice rose as she yelled at you.

The door swung open and Joel practically stumbled in, eyes searching wildly until they landed on you curled up on a chair with your hands in your lap. Did news seriously spread that fast, even now? Guess people don’t have much to do when the world has ended.

“Look- I know, I know you went through a lot. At first, you were spacey and Tommy told me to just leave it alone. Then, you got the bookshop and you just spent all your time there or on patrols, never even trying to integrate yourself here, and I’ve let it go because he-“ a finger in Tommy’s direction, “-begged me to. Let go of your little…tantrum with Ellie, too. I watched Tommy mope around and I said nothing even when you refused to accept that he hadn’t told you about Joel, for your own good.” Tommy flinched, but she went on. “I just can’t do it this time. You broke Fred’s jaw, you know? He is a contributing, well-liked citizen in Jackson. Not a recluse. I didn’t believe you’d done it until I saw the state of your hand. You’re always so quie-just-just give me one fucking reason you would punch him.” She was panting by the end, her chest falling rapidly under the weight of her own tirade.

Joel had planted himself directly between you and Maria, as if trying to protect you from the onslaught of her words. He looked more apologetic than you did, hands extending towards her while he took a deep breath, attempting to placate her.

“Maria-now just wait a damn minute, she wouldn’t-“

Was he defending you? When had that happened? When had you become this-this blubbering, weak version of yourself that Joel had to protect?

The cold, unforgiving numbness loosened its grip; fear, guilt but most strongly, shame coiling in your gut. Maria was right, in her own fucked up way. You had retreated so far back into yourself that all that was left within your grasp now was mere tendrils of who you used to be.

Sarah would have been proud of me for punching the bastard, though.

The thought rang in your mind as you raised your head, squared your shoulders. Took the stutter out of your voice, and looked Maria right in the eyes.

“Your contributing, well-liked citizen said Sarah was lucky to die. That she wouldn’t have gone untouched in a QZ. Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. And thanks to how well liked he is, I didn’t get a chance to tell you that he’s been touching me for months. That he took advantage of the fact that I was too fucking broken to say anything, to anyone. It’s not like you would’ve believed me.” You watched both Millers’ faces harden, brows furrowing as fury began sinking her talons in their flesh. Joel looked murderous, jaw set at that angle you knew meant he was livid. Good. You had been, too. Tommy looked shocked, anger painting his features, and his wife just looked terrified, eyes darting from you to Joel, wide and panicked. It made you smile at her, the curl of your mouth dripping with condescension and mockery.

“Maria, I’m so sorry you’ve had to overlook this many…grievances, let’s call them. I’ll work on my attitude here, I promise. I’ll go to book club and gossip about my husband and my dead daughter. I’ll do my hair and cut my nails and smile at people who don’t fucking deserve it. Hell, I’ll even forgive Tommy.” You pause, nodding at him, watching the relief in his eyes. Smile dropping, you meet Maria’s gaze again.

“But here’s what I won’t do- I won’t stand in a room with that asshole again without breaking all the other bones in his body. I won’t stay quiet next time his hands are on me - I’ll snap his fucking neck. Anyone else with anything else to say about Sarah - even if it’s just goddamn condolences - will find themselves in a similar predicament. Is that clear?” She blinked at you, mouth wide open at the radical transformation in you as you spoke, taking so long to nod that you doubted she’d heard you at first. You didn’t blame her - you’d folded in on yourself, made yourself small these past few years. Become meek: looking at the floor, wringing your hands; doing absolutely anything to avoid confrontation or issue. You’d been too tired to fight or stand on your own two feet, and everyone had focused on the wobble in your voice; the wet lining in your eyes; the shake of your hands, and just decided that just because you chose not to challenge them, you weren’t capable of it. Fuck that.

Joel’s eyes shone as he looked at you, chin dipping in acknowledgment as he, too, had a stunned look on his face. You just shrugged back at him, swinging your legs and getting up, walking out of the house without so much as a glance over your shoulder.

The flame that had forged your spirit - the fire burning in your veins, the one snuffed out long ago - flickered back to life. Dim, shaky, practically translucent - but ignited.

And fuck, it felt good to be back.

hello loves, as always - thank you for reading. comment your thoughts or find me on ao3. stay hydrated and have a great day! taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @imherefordeanandbones, @theywhowriteandknowthings, @josephquinnswhore, @breakfastatjoels, @millerscoffee, @nostalxgic, @sscorpiiio, @pedrosaidsheispunk, @its-nebuleuse, @sofiparallel, @mandoisapunk, @bastardmandennis, @pawnshopb1ues. dividers by me! series taglist (same rule: message/comment to be added or removed, no hard feelings): @spookyxsam, @obscurexsorrows, @planet-marz1, @lunxramour, @anavatazes, @joeldjarin, @stunkbiggu, @joels-darlin, @casa-boiardi, @noisynightmarepoetry, @chiogarza, @jasminedragoon, @daddy-din, @moonlightdivine, @stickthegremlin, @jamesmasbone, @avampiregf, @amanitacowboy

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