#these were meant to be still images since it was vertical but i had the idea of doing a gif like i did for hector

[sealrock]

tell me, what makes a human?

[winterwakesthewolf]

Wolves They Both Must Be

Jon Snow x Sansa Stark

Summary: “Did you bend the knee to save the North, or because you love her?”

Jon snaps his head up at Sansa’s question. Her eyes are brimming and hot and he can suddenly see this is not the argument he thought they were having. This is something else. Something deeper and much more intimate.

OR

The missing scene we deserved in 8x01

Author's Note: Part Two! I wrote this second part a few years ago and I really think I've grown as a writer since then. Since this part has never been published, I had the opportunity to edit it, but I read through it and honestly I'm too tired to do that so if there are any glaring issues, please let me know.

I first published the first part of this as a one shot on AO3 in 2019 and then a few years later I wrote a sequel that just sat in my google docs collecting digital dust. This is that second part. I may turn it into a series if there's enough interest so please let me know by liking, commenting, and reblogging if you want more.

Disclaimer: 18+, smut, (I'm serious, if you're not over 18 then scram), cousin incest, presumed half-sibling incest. Please let me know if I missed anything.

Word Count: 2K

part one - part two

Sansa wakes in his arms, bare skin against skin. It is still night. Or perhaps early morning. The fire has nearly extinguished, leaving them mostly in the dark but for a faint flickering of illumination that casts the room in a soft, warm glow. She glances up at him, sound asleep and looking more peaceful than she has ever seen him look. His arm strewn lazily across her back. And his heart, that he had said was only hers, steadily beating beneath her ear. 

She lifts her head to peek at the scar there and she runs her fingers along the ridges of the severed flesh - a long, vertical line, curved at the top and still red in the center. Similarly to the scars that marr his abdomen, they look to not be fully healed. Sansa wonders if they may never be. Her heart aches at the thought that his own had once stopped beating.

Gazing at his resting face in awe and bewilderment at the magic it took to bring him back to life, and to her, she sheds a tear for all that could have been lost, and all that will.

His raven curls, unbound and tangled, lay atop her pillow. Her belly coils with heat at the memory of her hands pulling at the leather strap that tied them back, at the image she conjures of him raised above her, glowing from the light of the roaring fire, and the look in his eyes as he buried himself inside of her, their flesh fusing in forbidden, long-awaited bliss. Her cheeks bloom with both shame and pleasure at the thought of their union. At her insistence that he spill inside of her and stay there long after both of their pleasures were drawn out, knowing in the morning she would brew a cup of moon tea that she had hidden away from the time before. 

The gods had been cruel to make her love her half-brother. They had been kind enough to make him love her back. 

In her solar he had confessed that he loved her, and only her. And how loathed he was to leave her for Dragonstone. That when he declared, in the presence of their bannermen, that the North was a part of him and that he’d never stop fighting for it, what he had meant in his heart was that she was his North. He admitted that every moment they were apart, she never once left his thoughts. And that everything he had done in the effort to return home truly was to save the North. To save her. His whispered words had sent shivers through her. Both the declaration of his love, and the thought of what kinds of things he had to do to return home to her.

She doesn’t want to think of what all that had entailed. Or what had transpired in the dark between him and the dragon to make her believe he truly bent the knee, and that he loved her. But Sansa wants to trust him and believe the words he told her in the quiet of her bed as he entwined his hand in hers. As he gently stroked his calloused fingers over her bare skin, leaving gooseprickles in their wake.

“I had to make her believe in the ruse, Sansa. I’m not proud of it,” he had rasped, eyes averted from Sansa’s gaze until she reached for him, turning his face so that she could look upon him. He released a shaky breath and croaked, “I’d beg for your forgiveness if you’re willing to give it. But I understand if it’s too much to ask. I wouldn’t blame ye. But I must confess, I thought of you. Every second.”

Jon had fought battles for Sansa, had fought Ramsey knowing the odds were against him. He fought the Others, and survived to come back to her. He had lied, manipulated, and kept the secret hidden away so convincingly, so deep, that even Sansa had not seen it. 

(Her feelings for Jon surely clouded her judgment, causing her to doubt his loyalty).

She doesn’t want to think of what he may have to continue to do to keep up the ruse, or what they both may need to sacrifice. But Sansa knows that whatever it may be, she will do whatever she can to protect him, as he has done for her.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she whispered. And she had meant it. 

Lying in the dark beside him she knows she will always mean it, no matter how much the thought of it stings. No matter the ache that blooms at the unbidden image of Jon with her. He had not truly been Sansa’s to lose then, but now… what were they to each other now? Now that they had crossed the point of no return.

Their love could never be known to any other. This secret they will always have to hide. If they were discovered it could lead to ruin and damnation. Northerners do not accept a union between siblings, no matter that they don’t share a mother. They were no Lannisters, nor Targaryens, and yet their illicit love seemed to prove otherwise. After all that she had learned, had worked so hard to not become, had she turned into Cersei after all? The thought makes her shiver and recoil. 

Perhaps she need not fret over any of it, for the Others are marching upon them. The threat looming, heavier with each passing moment. They may very well take this secret to a grave that lies just beyond the horizon. Lost to each other forever. And yet the thought of that terrifies her more than any possibility of their secret love being sussed out.

Jon stirs beneath her and flutters his eyes open, blinking to adjust to the dim light, and then he lowers his chin toward Sansa. His eyes soften as they land on her and he gives her a smile, sweet and tender, reaching his hand to gently tuck her tangled hair behind her ear.

“We fell asleep,” he says with a voice gruff and tender as he absentmindedly traces patterns on the small of her back.

“We did.”

“I’d better sneak off to my chambers before anyone realizes where I am.”

Sansa didn’t want this night to end. What had been their first union could very well be their last. 

As he moves to get up, Sansa gently pushes him back down to press her body and her lips as close to his as possible. The kiss, at first soft and slow, builds with passion, and desperation to stop time. Before long Jon has rolled Sansa onto her back and hovers over her just as before, looking down on her in wonderment and adoration. The look behind his eyes like an arrow of fire in her belly, and a need coils itself deep inside, begging to be met.

“Jon,” she pleads wantonly, reaching up to grasp his face in her hands, digging her fingers into his beard, weaving them in his hair. A frantic, desperate plea. He obliges, first by trailing kisses down her neck and to her breasts, spending time filling his mouth with them and driving that coil deeper and hotter inside of her, making her ache with need. And then he abruptly stops, pushes the furs farther off of the bed, until he is sitting at her feet, smiling with hooded eyes. The look she gives him of confused anticipation makes him chuckle.

“Why are you laughing?” Sansa sounds a bit wounded, but smiles all the same. 

“I’m not laughin’ at ye, Sansa. I swear,” he raises his palms as if in surrender. “But I want to try something if you let me.” Jon tenderly places his hands upon her knees, “Do you trust me?”

Sansa nods apprehensively, curiously, and watches as he spreads her legs apart and lowers his head, all while keeping his eyes locked onto hers. Kissing her knees and thighs in turn, he slowly travels higher and higher until his hands are gripping the flesh of her hips and his mouth is on her, licking the wetness between her thighs. It takes everything in Sansa not to cry out. Her heavy sighs alone are nearly loud enough for anyone outside of her door to hear. Jon’s tongue swirls and flicks at the most sensitive part and she has never felt a pleasure so intense. It rivals the pleasure she felt just hours ago when he touched her there as he spent inside of her. This was different and new and thrilling. She climbs higher and higher as his tongue works its magic, pushing her to the brink. And just as she is about to fall off the edge, Jon reaches up to take her breast in hand, his thumb grazing and teasing until she plunges off of the precipice and buries her face in the furs to muffle her cries. 

When the throbbing and the panting subsides, she glances at Jon, a very smug look upon his face, “Did ye like that?” 

Sansa smiles and nods lazily, still catching her breath, and she reaches for him with arms outstretched. He climbs up and kisses her deep and long, the taste of her still on his lips, and she can feel his need for her lined up at the spot his tongue had just deliciously ravaged. And suddenly she can feel the need inside her return in earnest. Those glorious flutters assault her belly as she wraps her legs around his waist and backside, pulling him close, inviting him in again. 

When he buries himself inside her once more, he keeps his eyes focused on hers, whispers a thousand I love yous that she returns in earnest, savoring the feeling of him so close to her as they find a slow and deliberate rhythm. 

Both of them know this might be their last and neither of them are quick to chase the pleasure out, but are intent on committing these precious few moments to memory. Tears stream down Sansa’s temples, sprung from somewhere deep and buried. Jon gently kisses them away.

“I am yours, Sansa. Only yours.” He touches his forehead to hers, “And you are mine.” It is half a question, half a command.

“Always,” she whispers and repeats again and again as she falls from the edge and he spills inside of her once more. 

The dawn arrives, creeping in through the window, as Jon dresses as quietly as he can. And once he has pulled his boots on he crosses back to the bed where Sansa is sitting, holding her knees and the furs close. She is cold without his warmth. He must sense it because he leans over to pull her close, bringing the furs with her, to the edge of the bed. He gently takes her face in his hands as she memorizes the look in his eyes. Kissing her sweetly, with such care and reverence, then envelops her in his arms for a long embrace. 

Sansa buries her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him, heavy with leather and steel and woodsmoke. She curls herself into his chest. And as she listens to the beating of his heart beneath her ear once again, she doesn’t even attempt to hold back the tears anymore. Releasing the ache of the joy, and the tragedy, of it all. 

“Never forget, Sansa. Whatever happens, know that I love you,” he whispers in her ear, holding her close, running his fingers through her copper waves.

And before dawn can unearth their secret, he moves to kiss her forehead with a desperation and reverence that burns long after he reluctantly pulls away. He stalks toward the door, and then looks back at her with a smile full of hope and fear before slipping into the cover of darkness. 

Alone and cold without him, Sansa weeps upon the furs that warmed them through the winter night. Tears that she has denied for so long finally tumble free and flow without ceasing. They pour out uncontrollably, as though Jon had unlocked a deeply buried chest within her, filled to the brim with love she had for so long confined to the darkest parts of her, and fear of losing what has only briefly been hers. 

She finds that once unlocked she may never again find the key.

~

Taglist: @thaisthedreamer @bluedaffodil21 @ilargizuri

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Silver Bloom Birthday Personal Story Part 1

"Happy Birthday"

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

[Diasomnia Dorm – Birthday Party Venue]

Silver: I am running slightly behind all because Sebek said, "Do something about your bedhead," and I was trying to tame my hair.

Silver: Yet I'm sure that there was no reason to fret too much over it, since I am wearing a hat over it. Well, at the very least, I am glad I did not keep my presenter waiting long.

???: Haaaaaah～～～～ This sucks… I want to go home…!

Idia: H-H-H-Hi... I'm your presenter… H-Happy… Birthday…

Silver: Ah, so my presenter is Idia-senpai. I am honored by your kind words.

Idia: Eep… I just wanna speed run through this, so can I just start the interview already?

Silver: Ah, sorry for taking up your precious time. Please, go on.

Idia: O-O-Ok, question one.

Idia: “Are you good or bad at flying?”

Silver: In general, I am relatively good at flying. At least, when comparing it to other subjects in the curriculum.

Silver: When it comes to flying continuously for long distances, or quickly changing the direction I am flying on a whim, among other things, I find that I still lack competence.

Silver: I must sup from the abundance knowledge this school provides me and continue to devote myself to my studies.

Idia: So unfair…! You really think you still have room to grow!

Idia: That's only something you can say when you're born with natural physical abilities and senses…

Silver: I do not really understand what you mean by being born with natural physical abilities and sense, but… It is not as if I was always a competent flier.

Silver: The first time I attempted to fly on a broom, I had enough trouble simply trying to lift the broom off the ground.

Silver: Most likely it was due to only being able to picture the broom sweeping. The broom would constantly only right itself vertically…

Idia: Yeah, m-makes sense, brooms aren't originally a meant to be a means for flying, but tools for sweeping,

Silver: Exactly. It was not so easy to erase from my thoughts the image of a broom sweeping my entire home on its own alongside a mop and bucket.

Silver: The tip of the broom would split into two, and it would walk around just like a human would.

Idia: Eh, what's with that weird dream? Silver-shi, you stressed, or something?

Silver: It was no dream. It was something I witnessed as a child. It truly did startle me then. And it pained me.

Silver: I thought I had done something so atrocious as treat the broom, mop, and bucket as mere objects, when clearly they were living creatures.

Silver: …But, when I learned that my father was simply moving them around with magic, I felt relieved.

Idia: Ahh gotcha… So that was the result.

Idia: But hey, if he was using magic to clean… Sounds to me like your dad's pretty resourceful, Silver-shi.

Silver: Resourceful…? I wonder. In my hometown, it is actually quite common for magic to be used to clean.

Idia: Hah? Th-Then, wh-wh-why didn't you notice that he was using magic to move the broom?

Silver: I was very young at the time, and I still had not manifested my magical abilities. Also, my father and I lived deep in the woods, away from any city.

Silver: I did not come into contact often with those people who lived in the cities… Therefore, I did not know much of their ways.

Idia: That mean that you really only interacted with your own family? I guess maybe we have some things in common.

Part 1 (Part 2) (Part 3)

Requested by @rotattooill.

[randomwriteronline]

@howl-osullivan

He’d started visiting the Highlands much more often since... Well, since he had decided to change up his morning training regime from five laps across the Icelands while dragging Avaluggs on his shoulders to a more leisurely run up the mountain’s nearly vertical cliff walls ever other day at a nice 50 kilometers per hour pace.

It just so happened that he would stop right at his fellow warden’s hut and have a kindly offered bite before making his way back.

Pure coincidence!

He definitely wasn’t doing this specifically to see the man he’d just gotten engaged to in secret (mostly out of boyish embarassment) and get a chance to kiss him awake since he so disliked getting up early.

What a silly assumption.

So silly.

Ahahah, ahah, ahahahahah, ahahahahah, ahahah ahah, ahah, ah-ha.

He was so lucky his absolute insanity in regards to exercise had nobody questioning his motives for choosing a different method of physical flagellation, because he would have betrayed himself instantly otherwise.

Of course, Gaeric didn’t think about any of this as he was running up Mount Coronet; he thought of his partner still sleeping as still as a stone, face up, snoring his nose away, and the image distracted him long enough not to realize he was trying to walk his way up a rock wall that was literally perpendicular to the ground.

Not that it would have stopped him from running up it. He only wasn’t able to at the moment because he wasn’t concentrating.

He still arrived at Ingo’s hut a little later than he usually would. Not that it mattered much - the Pearl clan was much more lenient with hours and schedules than those impatient folk of the Diamond clan - but maybe his fellow warden would have protested a little at not “having gotten his engine revved up” at just a few minutes after dawn, whatever those words meant in the grand scheme of his cloudy mind.

A familiar cry put him on high alert just a few meters before the small stretch of flat land his partner had made his semi-permanent residence: he knew there were Machokes by the river, but a Machamp? So high up on the mountain? Even the Alpha specimen in the Icelands wouldn’t have dared.

His worry spiked at the sound of a human grunt.

Powerful legs speeding across the rocky terrain, Gaeric rushed over to help just in time to see... Hm!

Well! He was definitely seeing.

And describing what he was seeing as surreal might have been... Perhaps on the diminutive side.

First of all, the sentient mass of muscle that was the Machamp was flailing its four arms to catch its opponent in them to little avail, powerful legs locked in a strong grip and sturdy body held up in the air.

Secondly, Ingo was the one hoisting the beast up on his back and shoulders, struggling under the weight a little but showing otherwise no discomfort of fear.

Finally, with a loud groan-like yell, the fairly average bodied warden adjusted his hold onto the much more powerful creature and hurled it at the ground with the great precision that comes from carefully practiced technique, yet still maintaining an admirable control over his own strength so that the Pokémon would not get too hurt when impacting the dirt.

Ingo fanned himself with his cap for a moment as he bent down on his knees. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard with that, which was why he felt like the breath got knocked out of himself...

He turned to find Gaeric staring at him with eyes wider than Almighty Sinnoh.

“Oh!” the foreigner noted, face lighting up: “Beloved! Hello!”

“Hello, love,” his fellow warden greeted faintly before getting to the point: “Did you just throw that Machamp?”

“Ah, yes! You did mention I should have exercised more to help me overcome my morning drowsiness, so I thought perhaps some friendly sparring might have done the trick!”

“With a wild Machamp?”

“Oh, goodness, no, she’s been part of my team for ages! You must have seen her last before she evolved.”

Machamp did grin at him and wave with great familiarity, and it had been a while since he’d gotten a good look at Ingo’s team on account of them being always cooped up in those apricorn spheres of his.

Still, Gaeric insisted: “Are you sure it’s safe for you?”

“I can assure you I’ve run all necessary safety checks beforehand, as I always do, so I have solid proof that this activity is perfectly within my limits,” Ingo reassured him, only to casually hit him with a complete curveball out of absolutely nowhere: “Additionally, Fighting types tend to still be notably less hazardous that Dragons, so the dangers to my person are heavily limited.”

“Wh- Dragons?”

“Yes, I have mentioned Dragon types. Would you like some tea?”

“You wanted to wrestle Dragons?”

“Truthfully I believe I was trained to wrestle Dragons specifically - I’m finding it strangely harder--”

“Trained?”

“--To do the same with Machamp despite her being very much built for it.”

“You were trained? To wrestle Dragons?”

“It’s only a supposition, but it would explain why I thought of Dragon types first.”

“To wrestle them?”

“Yes - are you feeling alright? You seem a little breathless. Come in and rest a little before you go back, will you? I’d rather you don’t faint on your way back.”

He managed to drag the strangely bewildered man into his hut and get him to drink a cup of tea before he fell over due to what appeared to be a dangerously low glucose level in his blood stream. He briefly wondered, handing him a Razz Berry, if he had perhaps forgotten to have a little breakfast before setting out today. It was unlikely, though - he was absolutely unhinged, but not enough to forget basic safety measures.

“So you could throw me,” Gaeric suddenly said.

“Oh,” Ingo replied in an instant, no hesitation whatsoever: “Easily.”

His partner looked at him with huge eyes again.

Then he took another sip of tea, swallowed it down as his face reddened with blush, and smacked his lips as though to collect his thoughts better.

“That’s hot,” he commented.

Ingo blinked; then he smirked, very pleased, making the sturdier man fumble and hide his face behind his hands in embarrassment.

[alarawriting]

52 Project #52: Nate and the Hyperpurples

A device was singing. Blearily Nate opened his eyes and stared at it for several seconds, momentarily confused as to what it was and why it was singing to him, loudly.

Right. That was a phone. And that was the ringtone he’d set for calls to his jobsearch number. He reached out and swiveled the face of the phone toward him, swiping to accept the call. The phone’s settings would automatically reskin his face as looking perky, awake, and probably fully dressed, and also definitely not wearing his sleep bonnet, but he had to at least orient himself vertically to the phone or it would produce some really bizarre artifacts. Since being actually vertical would involve more wakefulness than he wanted, he spun the phone so that it was horizontal, just like him. He did have to raise his head off the pillow, though; the software wasn’t quite good enough to compensate for some of his head disappearing into a pillow.

“Hello!” said the giant chicken on the screen. “You are Nate Wheeler, I hope? I took the liberty of checking your time zone and it is typical for humans to be awake at this hour, so I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Wait a minute. That was not a skin for video calls. That was an actual giant chicken.

“Uh, yes, this is Nate Wheeler,” he said, staring at the… well, okay, it wasn’t exactly a giant chicken. Its very, very bright blue, very, very tall crest was made of feathers, like a cockatoo, rather than the fleshy crest of a rooster. And it had more of a lizardy snout than a beak. Most of its facial feathers were brown, a shade only slightly lighter than Nate’s own skin, and its eyes were less like a chicken’s side-facing eyes and more like the close-centered eyes of a bird of prey, but without the hooding that predatory birds usually had.

“Honored!” the not-a-giant-chicken-or-even-quite-a-bird said. “I am frequently known by the name Bakoon! You are the Nate Wheeler who is seeking work as an engineer, I hope?”

“Spaceship. Yes. Uh, but I’d take a wide variety of different engineering jobs, but I was specifically looking for work on a spaceship.” The not-a-giant-chicken was a Diwar. The aliens who had given humanity the stars, at the expense of a good bit of collective self-esteem and most of the engineering jobs that were remotely interesting. Diwar did not hire humans as engineers for the same reason that medical hospitals did not hire clowns as nurses. “Um, is this about a job?”

“I am hopeful,” Bakoon the Diwar said cheerfully. His voice was masculine and had traces of a European accent of some kind, which meant absolutely nothing because Diwar were mimics like parrots or mynah birds, and would usually end up with the exact same voice as whatever trainer they’d studied English from. But a crest that big usually meant a male. Usually. “Would you still have an interest?”

“Um, yeah, I’m still looking.” This was worth sitting up. Nate did so, spinning the phone around on its holder’s axis so that it was now vertical, just like him. The image would have frozen while the phone was in motion or as soon as the cameras detected that his head was moving out of frame, so he wasn’t worried that the Diwar would see that he was getting out of bed. And the bedroom behind him wouldn’t show on his call skin; he’d recorded himself at the university library, in front of shelves of books, as his job search skin. “What kind of job?”

“Well, an engineering job of course, but the details are… somewhat confidential. I would like to meet with you and discuss! I will say that this role would be highly compensated, with great opportunity for advancement, fame and fortune.”

Nate blinked. “Fame?” Since when did engineers get famous?

“I can see my tailfeathers, so far ahead of myself I’ve become! If this proposition intrigues you, please come to Disque Hall at Drexel University, at 3 pm today. I will hope to see you!”

The Diwar ended the call. Nate looked at the time. Already 11:30 am. Shit. Bakoon hadn’t given him a chance to object to the time; he barely had time for a shower and shave if he wanted to make it.

On the other hand, if he was meeting with Diwar… would they really care if a human was showing some scruffy facial hair? Maybe he had time to grab breakfast? No, he couldn’t take the risk; there might be other humans involved in the hiring process for whatever this was. Shower, shave, deodorize, grab some clean clothes, and that was all he’d have time for.

***

Nate had been living off UBI, trying to find a job in the field he’d trained in, for a year and a half at this point.

There were human engineers who worked on building spaceships, or keeping them maintained while they were in space. They generally worked under the supervision of a Diwar; the aliens seemed to find it hard to believe that humans were remotely competent at anything related to STEM, and liked to insert themselves into any industry that used their technology, which nowadays was most of them. And there weren’t very many of them, and most of them came from Europe or Japan, not the US.

Nate’s mom had been on him, the entire time he’d been in college, that he should pursue acting instead. “There’s no jobs left for people who want to use their brains on Earth,” she’d say, with no small amount of bitterness – Ava Wheeler had been a physicist before the Diwar had shown up and more or less handed humanity the answers to all the questions physicists had been trying to solve, and she’d been considered too old to retrain to the level that Diwar physicists were at. She’d spent Nate and his sister’s lives raising them, trying to catch up to Diwar physics, and trying to push them into entertainment careers like the most infamous of stage moms.

The thing was, Nate knew he was a decent actor, nothing particularly special, and he knew that almost every young person on the planet who didn’t want to work in a restaurant or live off UBI was trying to get into entertainment in some way. Writers, artists, gamers, athletes, anybody who could create amusing videos of themselves doing normal human things like playing with dogs… and actors. The competition was enormous. And he didn’t think he was anywhere near good enough to break in to interstellar work, not like his sister, and he wasn’t going to trade on her name to get a better break than he deserved.

He was good at engineering. He loved it. It was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. It was also even harder to break into than acting. It’d have been different if he’d wanted to be a civil engineer and build roads and bridges, or something else that stayed on Earth and hadn’t been completely revolutionized by Diwar technology. But Nate wanted to work in space. Or work at space. Space something. And most of the work in space was relatively menial, because it was the Diwar who genuinely understood the technology and who owned most of the ships. Earth was building ships of their own, but even there, Diwar did most of the design and engineering work.

If the Diwar were hiring human engineers for something… why?

***

The maglev dropped him at one of the two stations at the university.

Nate had actually graduated from Drexel, so he was familiar with the campus. It was a short walk to Disque Hall, where Drexel’s department of physics had historically been, and which nowadays had a heavy Diwar presence. Bakoon hadn’t told him which room number, so he asked at the security desk. The security desk had no idea.

Then the giant fluffy chicken stepped off the elevator and made a beeline for Nate. “Welcome! Welcome, my boy! You are a boy, am I correct? I did not mistake your gender?”

Bakoon looked much more like a giant chicken in person than he had on the phone, to be honest. He was about five and a half feet tall, wearing a blue-feathered cape in the same color as his crest, with a downy golden interior. He had two legs, heavily feathered, his thick talons almost covered in his fluffy brown feathers, and four arms – two long, ape-like arms connected to his body on the sides, with four thick, finger-like appendages, and two small ones close to his body, positioned like a velociraptor or a T. rex, with four delicate, slim talons. The large-arms were heavily feathered, like they hadn’t quite made it all the way to evolving into wings but they were giving it their all, and the small-arms had feathers at the top above the elbow, and then bare wrinkly skin and bone like a bird talon. All of the claws on the talons had been blunted and then painted with elaborate red whorls. Something tunic-like hung from his large-arm shoulders, essentially just two rectangular pieces of cloth held together by golden clasps on his neck. They left his large-arms completely free; there were flamboyantly large and flared sleeves in the front for his small-arms, which he held clasped in front of him. There was a gold-colored belt around his middle and up around his back; loops on the belt held multiple pouches and sheaths for tools.

“Uh, yeah, I’m male,” Nate said. He’d met Diwar before, but this one dressed much more flamboyantly than any of the ones he’d met in college.

Bakoon’s head went up higher than a typical bird head, his beak-like snout distinctly lower than the level of his golden eyes, which focused front, but were wide apart and seemed to lay directly on his head, not in sunken orbits like a hawk. The blue feather crest was in full display, lifted high and fanned out on the top of his head. When he spoke, Nate could see serrations inside his mouth, like he was in the process of evolving from a reptile snout with teeth into a bird beak, but hadn’t quite finished the transition. He was gesturing expansively with one of the large-arms. “We have all been veritable tension belts, awaiting you! Come, come!”

Nate followed Bakoon into the elevator. “So, can you tell me about the job?”

“Not yet! The walls still have ears. That’s how you say it, correct? To express that there might be people listening to you, who should not be?”

“Yeah, that’s the right expression.” They got off the elevator. “Can you at least tell me if it involves going to space?”

“Maybe! All your questions will be answered momentarily.” They reached a room with no sign on it labeling what it was for, and Bakoon swung the door open. May I refresh you? A snack, a drink?”

“You got a bagel with melted cheese and a Coke?”

“Of course!” Bakoon went to an inner door and yelled. “Rikwaal! A bagel with melted cheese and a Coke for our guest?”

“What kind of cheese?” a feminine voice called back. “Cream cheese is typical with bagels but isn’t usually melted! Also what kind of bagel and what flavor Coke?”

“Hey, I don’t want to put you guys to a lot of trouble,” Nate said.

“Nonsense! The food printer is entirely capable of making such a basic human dish! Just let Rikwaal know your specifications!”

A white not-exactly-chicken head stuck through the door. She actually looked a lot like a cockatoo; her crest was pale yellow. “I didn’t spend all this time configuring and programming this thing to never use it. We can’t put fruit in the bagels, but I’m sure we can do anything else.” Her voice was crisp, with an American East Coast generic accent, similar to Nate’s own when he was code-switched into mainstream.

“Make it a poppyseed bagel, melted provolone, and just a normal regular Coke, no special flavors or anything.”

“With ice? You’re American, so I’m guessing ice.”

“Yeah, I like ice.”

As the white-feathered Diwar retreated back behind her door, Nate said, “So, can you tell me any more about this job?”

“Direct and businesslike! Well done,” Bakoon said. “Too often your fellow Humans waste precious time talking about things of no relevance. Time, after all, is the one commodity none of us can buy!”

Given how many Humans were employed doing menial jobs for aliens in space because it was the only way they could get the opportunity to see other worlds, Nate could have argued that point; anyone wealthy enough could buy people to do jobs for them, thus saving themselves the time. He could also have pointed out that right now, Bakoon was wasting his time talking about time wasting. He said neither of those things. “Do I need to sign some kind of NDA? You said this was confidential.”

“Yes, yes, that’s exactly what we planned. Rikwaal! You have a contract for non-disclosure ready, isn’t that so?”

“On the tablet,” Rikwaal yelled back.

“Of course, of course!” Bakoon picked up a tablet sitting on the unmanned reception desk. “Rikwaal has prepared this for you. She’s our project manager, by the by.”

Nate raised his eyebrows as he read it. It had normal NDA language throughout most of it, but was significantly more restrictive. He wasn’t allowed to talk about the fact that he’d been recruited by the Diwar for a job whether he got the job or not. If he was hired, he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone who had hired him or why or what he was doing. These restrictions would be in place until a press release went out about his position. “I can’t even tell my mom I got a job?”

“Oh, by all means, tell her you’ve acquired a job. You simply cannot tell her what the job is or that it involves Diwar in any form until the press release goes out.”

“This is the kind of job where you send information about it to the press? I’m looking for an engineering job, not some kind of… I don’t even know, what kind of job involves press releases?”

“This one,” Bakoon said. “Which I am positively dying to tell you all about, as soon as you sign that contract.”

Well, it wasn’t like he had any better opportunities. Nate signed the contract. If he got the job he’d be able to tell Mom about it eventually (press releases? Why?), and if he didn’t then there was nothing to tell her about.

“Delightful!” Bakoon pronounced, throwing his large-arms wide. Nate actually had to step out of the way. “Have you, by any chance, ever heard of the Great Build?”

“Uh… I think so. Isn’t it some kind of Diwar sports competition?”

“Sports!” Bakoon flung his large-arms up again. “If by ‘sport’ you mean ‘tedious competition of physical bodies performing a task no one cares about’, then hardly! But if by ‘sport’ you mean ‘rigorous intellectual challenge undertaken in competition between the best and brightest’, then yes, by all means!”

“Okay…”

“The Great Build is the ultimate challenge to the Diwar! A year – which is approximately thirteen and a half of your months – spent creating something, overcoming technical limitations and solving engineering problems, to eventually present to a body of judges to be awarded accolades, or dismissed as lesser!”

“So it’s a contest.”

Bakoon snorted. “If one wishes to describe it with such mundane terms, then yes, I suppose it’s a contest.”

Rikwaal came out with Nate’s bagel and Coke. “Sorry for the delay. The food printer is acting up. Again.”

“I told you we should bring Mip along,” Bakoon said.

“Mip said, very clearly, and I quote, ‘No, I’m not going to go to Earth with you! You people want to be insane, then fine, but leave me out of it.’”

“By the most technical of definitions, that was a translation, not a quote.”

“By the most technical of definitions, you are being a pedantic smear.” She turned to Nate. “Let me know how it came out, okay? It wrecked my breakfast and I had to order out. Did you know there are only three restaurants in Philadelphia that make Diwar cuisine?”

“I have solved this difficulty by ordering from sushi restaurants. The poke bowl is quite appealing,” Bakoon said.

“Yeah, they’re not open at breakfast time. Something about, Humans don’t eat sushi for breakfast.”

“A lot of us would like to,” Nate said. “But I guess not enough of us to keep the restaurants in business that early.”

Rikwaal was dressed the way Nate expected Diwar to dress. No cape. A similar tunic-like garment like the one Bakoon was wearing, but with straps made of the same fabric rather than clasps, and it was plain and dark blue, a nice contrast to her white feathers. Hers had additional straps holding the tunic together across her middle, approximating the shape of a human blouse with very, very wide sleeves. She was also wearing a belt in roughly the same place as Bakoon, but hers was white and had only a holder for a tablet and a small purse-like object large enough to hold a few credit cards hanging from it. Unlike Bakoon, she was wearing something that resembled short pants, except that it had a hole for her tail. The pants were a complementary shade of blue to her tunic, not quite as dark. She held out the plate with his bagel with one short-arm, and a cup of Coke with the other. Both the cup and the plate had obviously been recently printed, little bits on the edge still soft.

He bit into the bagel. “This is pretty good. I’m usually not a super big fan of printed food, but this one actually got the cheese right. That’s usually the biggest challenge; it’s hard for them to mess up breads unless they’re really delicate, but cheese is… well, it sits on a really fine line. It’s easy to make the oils separate from the curd, or make the cheese too hard or too soft, and I guess your printer toasts it too. That can be a challenge. A lot of food printers with toast functions will either burn your food or, like, heat it up two degrees and call it a day.” He realized that he was rambling about a subject that most likely Bakoon would consider ‘a thing of no relevance’, and shut himself up.

But Rikwaal responded, animated. “I know! I spent half a day programming the thing and I think the hardest part was that it didn’t want to follow my toast protocols. I ended up having to hack it and to stick a sensor on it to detect the start of a burn right before you can taste it.”

Nate wasn’t used to project managers who could hack food printers. “I never thought of that. Sounds like a good way to handle it.”

“On the subject of the Great Build,” Bakoon said, “in which we do not create or reprogram food printers. We are participants in the Great Build. Our team is known as the Proud-Crested Hyperpurples.”

“Hyperpurples?”

“Ah. We see into the range you refer to as ‘ultraviolet’. Since Humans cannot see these colors, you have no native words for them, so we Diwar, when speaking English, refer to the colors as ‘superpurple’, ‘hyperpurple’, and ‘ultrapurple’. To us they actually look quite distinct, as unlike each other as red from orange and yellow, so it perhaps is not the best naming convention, suggesting as it does that these are somehow all fundamentally the same color. But, it is the convention the Diwar chose years ago.”

“We had a committee analyze your languages and figure out how to express things you don’t have words for, about thirty years ago. The surprising thing was how many words we have to describe beer flavors that we had to translate as things that don’t really sound at all like beer flavors, like fruity.”

“Fruity actually is a beer flavor,” Nate said.

“A connoisseur of beer? Dare I hope?” A beak could not actually smile, and though a Diwar snout wasn’t quite a beak, it was too beaky for smiles. But somehow Bakoon’s facial expression looked like he was broadly smiling, even though there was literally no way he could do that. Nate had seen similar expressions on parrots before and had always wondered exactly what about their faces was making them look like they were smiling.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I mean, I drink microbrews, not like Budweiser and that kind of thing.”

“Delightful! Perhaps you can introduce us to some local brews!”

“Stay on topic, Bakoon,” Rikwaal said. “The Build?”

“Oh, yes. We are the Proud-Crested Hyperpurples… as I mentioned. The only team ever to come from Fillit Province!”

“Unfortunately there’s a reason for that,” Rikwaal said.

Bakoon tilted his head to look at her, and then leaned his head forward in a way that seemed almost aggressive. Rikwaal tilted hers, and Bakoon moved his head back. Nate had no idea what any of that meant.

“And you want me to…?”

“Join the team!” Bakoon swept his large arm out and fluffed his crest. “Be the first Human to participate on a Diwar Great Build team. Help us in designing and building something so audacious, so creative, so amazing, that we cannot help but gain positive attention, even if we don’t win.”

“Wow,” Nate said, taken aback. “Uh. Yeah, that sounds amazing! I mean… that would be fantastic. But why me, specifically, and also why a Human?”

“As to you, I have business dealings here with the university. I spoke to some of the professors, and perused school records, and came to the conclusion that you would be an excellent candidate. You’re not the only Human we’ve approached with the opportunity, but we’ve prepared a simple test to see if you have what we require to assure our place within the Build for years to come.”

“What he’s not telling you,” Rikwaal said, “is that we suck. Our team has literally come in last for four years. Any team that can’t make it out of the 10th percentile for five years in a row gets booted. And if we get booted I will never hear the end of it from my mother, not to mention that none of us would exactly have great career prospects. So the team decided that adding a Human to the mix would maybe inject some creativity and unpredictability into our performance.”

Bakoon did the head-tilt-and-lean-forward again, which Rikwaal ignored serenely. Nate guessed that that was the equivalent of a glare, for people who couldn’t substantially change the shape of their eyes’ appearance on their face.

This was all starting to make sense now. “I get it,” he said. “You don’t need me for engineering skills, you need me to be a performing monkey. A dancing bear. No one cares how well the bear dances, the thing everyone cares about is that it can dance at all.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the bitterness and anger came through more and more clearly as he spoke.

“Mm, you are not entirely wrong,” Bakoon said, “but also, not entirely right. You see, the competition rates us in three domains – creativity, skill of implementation, and followership. The number of watchers who’ve chosen us as a team to follow.”

“We suck at implementation,” Rikwaal said bluntly. “And we haven’t managed to be particularly creative, the last four years, either. Bakoon and Le’ir manage to get us some followers through showmanship, but there’s nothing much to follow, so most of the audience tunes out.”

Nate scowled. “And my job is to be a performing monkey, so everyone wants to watch.”

“One could say that, but you are mistaken if you think no one cares how well the bear dances. The Great Build demands rigor! Competence in the extreme! You would, at the very least, need to be able to transcend what our audience thinks Humans to be capable of. Show yourself to be on the level of at the very least, an inexperienced Diwar engineer.”

Rikwaal added, “And I imagine that some performing monkeys are just trained, pushing buttons for a treat… but some are actually good at getting the audience’s attention and running with it. I mean, I don’t know anything about monkeys, we don’t have any primates on Diw, but they’re your close cousins, right? They’re pretty smart for animals?”

Nate swallowed his deep irritation at being compared to a monkey. It wasn’t a racist microaggression. The Diwar were dinosaurs, by human standards; from their perspective, every human being was a kind of monkey. “So you figure, Humans are good at entertainment, you’ll pick a Human to entertain your audience?”

“Exactly!” Bakoon said.

“Not exactly.” Rikwaal lowered her head and glared at Bakoon. At least, Nate was no expert on Diwar body language, but that sure looked like a glare. “There’s definitely more to it than that.”

“Yes, of course,” Bakoon said. “We Diwar generally see Humans as creative but impractical. We want you to give us ideas that sound ludicrous, and then help us bring those ideas to glorious realization. While being a better engineer than anyone has ever seen a Human be, and while being charismatic and showmanlike so you can get and hold the audience’s attention even after the novelty of your presence wears off. The Build lasts for a year. No one’s going to watch a dancing bear for a year, unless the bear dances superbly.”

“So you picked me because you know about my drama minor?” Nate said sharply.

“You have a drama minor?” Bakoon perked up.

“You’re Human. We assumed you’d be good in front of a camera,” Rikwaal said.

“Not all Humans are good at performing, at all. Before you people came along, we thought of ourselves as a species that invents, and discovers, as well as a species that creates art and performance. Most of us aren’t any good at performing.”

“And not one single one of my extended family has ever been an engineer,” Bakoon said. “Or a performer. They consider me a genetic sport. Had I not so closely resembled my father, there might have been questions as to who, exactly, fertilized my mother’s egg.”

“Yeah, okay, everyone’s got their own preconceptions about other species, but you Diwar really did take over all our engineering and science. We didn’t take over your native entertainment industry.”

“You actually did,” Rikwaal said. “Mostly because Diwar suck at story telling.”

“Speak for yourself, friend,” Bakoon said. “I excel at spinning tales.”

“We had some tests planned for how you’d do in front of a livestream recorder, but if you were a drama minor, you might have some records of past performances we could look at instead. We really did pick you based on what your advisors said about engineering aptitude.”

“Perhaps we should have been looking for showmanship as a criterion! I will admit, it was short-sighted of us to imagine that a good Human engineer would also be good in front of a recorder, simply on the basis of being Human. But if indeed you studied drama as well, then perhaps our choice of you was purely serendipitous.”

“Where do you guys come from again?” Nate asked.

“The Hyperpurples all hail from the quaint fishing province of Fillit! We supply all of Diw with… I don’t know how to translate the specific words.”

“Crabs, mostly,” Rikwaal said. “Crabs are like felines. You see them on every planet.”

“Well, yes, crabs, but I was thinking of the ri’heenyu.”

“Oh, yeah. Picture salmon, but they’re saltwater only, and they don’t go home to spawn, and they have green flesh from all the algae they eat, not pink.”

“So not like salmon at all,” Nate said.

“Eh, the taste is kind of similar, and it’s a similarly fleshy fish.”

“My parents are fishers,” Bakoon said, “as are my siblings, my cousins, my avunes, my grandparents, and so on and so forth. But I have always heard the siren call of invention! To build things, to make ideas into a reality, was my only interest as a child!”

“If you’re trying to figure out why he talks like that, it’s because he went to college in Herwun. Our capital city. And then he decided he was ashamed of being a Fillito, so he adopted the most not-Fillito speech pattern he could come up with. It’s not an English language thing, he talks like that in Diwar, too.”

Bakoon frowned. Nate had no idea why his expression looked like a frown, given that he could not in fact frown with his snout-beak, but he had the very strong impression that it was a frown. Maybe it was because Diwar eyes could scowl, and Bakoon was not quite scowling, but not quite not scowling. “I was never ashamed of Fillit Province,” Bakoon said. “I merely felt it was misleading to imply to those who are non-Fillito that I share the knowledge and interests one would expect from a Fillito.”

“Like how to fish,” Rikwaal said. “They haven’t let him fish since the time he tried to electrify an inlet to stun the fish.”

“My plan was mathematically quite sound.”

“Except for how many fish it would have killed, and ruined the freshness.”

“You are hardly an expert fisher yourself, Rikwaal.”

“Never was. I kept the metrics on my family’s fleet of fishing boats.”

If he took this job, and so far he wasn’t at all convinced he should, Nate could see he was going to have to put up with a lot of these two verbally sparring with each other. “So let me get this straight. You want me to give you stupid ideas, help you build them, and perform in front of the cameras in front of an audience of thousands of Diwar—”

“Millions,” Rikwaal said.

“I dare say it may be in the billions now.”

“No, it’s not. I manage the metrics, remember? The Great Build is regularly viewed by 720 million Diwar on a yearly basis, with an additional 200 million occasionally tuning in during some years, or popping in to watch for a few days and then leaving.”

“920 million is close to a billion.”

“Fine, millions of Diwar, then,” Nate said. “Does that basically sum it up?”

“That sums up what you’d do for the competition, but your actual job would involve a lot of training and study on top of that.”

“A great deal. We must bring you up to Diwar levels of knowledge within the first few months. It will be challenging! Rigorous! If you consider yourself unable to manage such an intense course of study, you are of course not obligated to take this position.”

Nate wasn’t going to let Bakoon use reverse psychology on him, but this – minus Bakoon’s passive-aggressive comments – was the first thing he’d heard that left him strongly in favor of taking the job. The Diwar trained very few humans, and there were entire domains of their knowledge that they simply didn’t share. “Does that include the Interdicted Disciplines?”

“If you sign a pledge that you will not share your knowledge for the purpose of making war, nor will you share it with anyone who does not sign a similar pledge, then yes, we have absolute authority to train you in any discipline that seems relevant.”

“Your planet still doesn’t have a unified central government,” Rikwaal said. “We can’t take the risk that your existing separate states might make war on each other with our technology.”

“Come on. Humanity’s been in space for forty years now. The UN has a lot more teeth in it than it used to, before you guys came along.”

“Yes, yes, but the decision is unfortunately not in our hands. We are merely a sporting team from Fillit Province, not politicians or influential leading lights of society, as yet.”

Well. It wasn’t as if Nate disagreed with the restriction against using Diwar technology for war; tensions between human nations still existed, and war was overall pretty terrible. Maybe it made sense that they wouldn’t teach humans certain things unless the humans pledged to never use those things for war. The thought of actually getting to learn Diwar physics and engineering in the Interdicted Disciplines was heady. He’d be able to write his own ticket anywhere on Earth that did engineering at all, or become a professor with near-instant tenure if the college could enforce his students pledging against war.

“Ok. I’m sold, I guess. Happy to be a dancing bear for a year if it means I have a chance of learning the advanced stuff you guys won’t teach the rest of us.”

“Excellent!” Bakoon declared. “I will inform the rest of the team!”

“You will not,” Rikwaal said. “He’s gotta pass the test first.”

“Oh. Ahem.” He actually said “ahem” rather than making a throat-clearing noise. “Yes, of course.”

“What kind of test?”

“A test of thinking outside boxes! A challenge to your creativity and skill!”

Rikwaal sighed.

***

They brought him to a room where there was a chaotic pile of transparent chips that were about the size of his pinky fingernail, all over a table and spilling onto the floor. There was also a small robot. The robot, about a foot tall, was built in a Diwar-like shape rather than a humanoid shape, but it had very large eyes, proportionately much bigger than Diwar eyes, or human eyes for that matter. It was as if a Japanese animator had been given the task of making a cute Diwar robot, and had applied extremely large eyes for cuteness. The robot was painted in bright primary colors, with a thin visible speaker grille in its slightly open beaklike mouth.

“This,” Bakoon said in an apologetic tone, “is your assistive equipment. It will follow voice commands in English, to assist you with the task.”

“We figured you needed something,” Rikwaal said, “since you only have two arms.”

“Humans are pretty good at getting by with our two arms,” Nate said, in a mild tone of voice because sounding as irritated with the condescension as he felt would be a good way to not get the job.

“Most Diwar engineers working on a task have robotic assistance,” Bakoon said. “We regret, though, that all we’re able to offer you for assistance is… this.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Bakoon became very interested in smoothing down the feathers of his left large-arm. “It’s… well, it’s hardly up to the standards we’d prefer to use—”

“It’s a child’s toy,” Rikwaal said. “We borrowed it from Le’ir because the budget wouldn’t support buying anything more sophisticated and bringing it to Earth. Or buying anything, really. He’s held onto it since he was a kid.”

“In English, we would call it something like a… Buildy Buddy.” Bakoon was still very interested in preening his arm. This looked like it was conveying the same emotions humans would by staring at the floor or ostentatiously not making eye contact.

“A Buildy Buddy,” Nate repeated.

“Well, of course the name in Diwar Standard isn’t quite the same. It’s more of a portmanteau word than alliterative, but I thought this would be the best translation.”

“It’s not like you’re likely to need it for much,” Rikwaal said. “Maybe bringing you tools or something.” There was a large collection of tools, electronics boards, and various doodads all over a table that ran along the wall.

“Okay,” Nate said, hiding his impatience. “So, what’s the job?”

“These are memory chips. Most of them can hold a petabyte of data,” Rikwaal said. Nate whistled. The solid state memory chips humans used in their tablets and phones were a little bit smaller – not much, they were close to the limit of what humans could usefully manipulate and not lose in a carpet – but typically held only a few terabytes. “But about ten percent of them—” she held one up against the light with her small-arm’s talons—“are double capacity.” She picked up another and held them both up. “Take a look.”

Both were transparent. Both were the exact same color. Both had a numeric sequence on them that was too tiny to read and was written with Diwar hexadecimal numerals anyway, but looked to be about the same length. But when Rikwaal held them in front of the light, Nate could see that one of them was very slightly darker on the inside.

“And… what? I’m supposed to separate the two-petabyte chips from the one-petabytes?”

“In three hours,” Bakoon said.

Nate looked at the pile of what had to be thousands of the chips. He looked at the two Rikwaal was holding. “Is there any significant difference between them? Like… am I supposed to plug them all into that laptop to check their size?”

“You can’t plug any of them into the laptop,” Rikwaal said, “since this is a Diwar standard and that is a human laptop. Also that would take you much too long.”

Well, he definitely had to agree with that. Finding ten percent of several thousand, when they weren’t visibly different unless held to the light, was already the kind of task a fairy tale character would probably need the help of a kindly bird bringing her flock in to help after the hero had put the bird’s babies back in her nest for her, or something.

“As for any other indicator of the difference,” Bakoon said, “you have your two examples and you have your tools, and components for various devices you might choose to build. The rest is up to you to resolve!”

Great. Nate hadn’t saved any baby birds recently.

***

The two Diwar left the room, leaving Nate to his own devices… as many of them as he might decide to build in three hours, anyway. What he really wanted to do was rant about how ridiculous and unreasonable this task was, but he considered it very likely that they were watching and listening, so he needed to stay professional.

He decided to get acquainted with his tools. “Hey, Buildy Buddy.” Nothing. “Hey, little robot.” Shit, why hadn’t he asked how he was supposed to address the thing to get it to respond? They’d said it understood English. “Robot guy! Buildy Buddy! You dude!” Nothing. “Can you hear me, little robot dude?”

The robot chirped.

“Oh, ok. So I’m supposed to call you ‘little robot dude’?” Nothing. “Shit. Um, do you understand English?” Chirp. “Can I call you Buildy Buddy?” Chirp. “What happens if I ask you something that’s more complicated than yes or no?” Nothing. “Is it okay if I jump out a window and kill myself?” This time the sound wasn’t a chirp, more like a squawk. “Ok! Yes and no! We’re getting somewhere!”

So Buildy Buddy understood English, but could only say yes or no, in… Diwar Standard? Baby talk? Some made-up toy language? And if the question was more complicated than yes or no, Buildy Buddy couldn’t answer. “Buildy Buddy, can you go get me a screwdriver?” Chirp, and the little robot rolled along the table full of tools, found a screwdriver, picked it up with a large-arm, rolled back, and handed it to Nate. Its lower body had wheels rather than Diwar legs.

“Buildy Buddy, is this a double-capacity disk?” He held one of the chips up in front of it. Nothing. “Buildy Buddy, can you tell the difference between a single-capacity and double-capacity?” Squawk, but not exactly the same squawk. The response to his query about committing suicide had been loud and somewhat angry-sounding, like an infuriated chicken. This squawk was quieter. Maybe Buildy Buddy was programmed to alert parents if the kids were trying to do something dangerous? It still probably meant no, though. Nate hadn’t seriously expected that to work, but he’d had to try.

He inventoried his tools and components. There was a lot. Lasers. Scales. A centrifuge. Screwdrivers, hex drivers, crimpers, wire, a tiny soldering iron, an AR visor… what was that for? Nate put it on, and saw the words “Magnification: 100%” floating in the top right corner. “Visor, increase magnification to 200%.” Nothing happened. Then he found the up and down buttons on the right temple. Yep, that was a magnifier. Maybe there were other things it could do, but if it wouldn’t respond to voice commands, Nate had no idea how to get it to do anything.

The laptop was running LonelyIX, a variety of Unix with all the networking protocols stripped out aside from direct ethernet cable connectivity. It could be connected to a single other machine, or to a LAN running specific protocols, but it had no ability to connect to the internet. The OS was generally used on servers where it was important to keep them isolated from the Net, such as AI research or top secret projects. So the Hyperpurples thought it was very important that he not have Internet access for this test. That made sense, as annoying as it might be. Its lock screen had a timer on it, showing Nate’s time ticking down.

He tried weighing the two chips on a very tiny scale that had been provided. The double capacity was, in fact, slightly heavier, in the nanogram range. Nate tried weighing the chips; at twenty-three chips he found one of the double-sided ones. He realized there was no way he could separate the chips out just by weighing them, in the time frame he was given.

Could he do something with weighing large groups? There were larger scales that had the capacity… but no. There were thousands of chips. He’d have to weigh in small enough batches that he could get some idea of how many double-sided might be in a particular group.

OK. Inspect the chips with high magnification. See if there was any other trait he could use to separate them. He had two examples of the double capacity, and twenty-three of the single, counting the original sample he’d been given.

Wait a minute. Was that… seriously?

“Buildy Buddy, can you read the serial number on these chips?” Chirp. “Do you recognize the first character in the serial number on this chip?” Chirp. “If I show a new chip to you, can you say yes if the chip serial number starts with this character?” Chirp. “Can you say no if it doesn’t start with this character?” Chirp. “Am I wearing a purple hat?” Squawk. OK, it wasn’t stuck. It legitimately was answering yes to his questions.

“Let’s see how fast you can read,” he muttered.

He laid out chips for Buildy Buddy to chirp or squawk at. For the first fifty, he tossed them on the scale first to make sure they were, in fact, following the pattern he’d noticed. One of the fifty came up wrong, and he observed that it started with a different character than any of the others had. Meanwhile, of the forty-three he’d identified as single-sided on the basis of the serial number, there were seven that started with a fourth character. So it looked like the chips could have at least four separate kinds of serial numbers, starting with different characters.

“Buildy Buddy! We’re going to change it up some. Say yes if the serial number starts with the same character as either of these two chips, and no if it starts with the serial number of either of these two. If you see any other character outside of one of these four, I want you to roll backward five centimeters and then roll forward five centimeters. Got it?” Chirp.

What followed was an hour of lining up chips for Buildy Buddy to check, pulling out all the ones it chirped at, shoving aside all the ones it squawked at, and on three occasions, pulling out one it rolled back and forth on to weigh it, then modifying his instructions. All the chips he tested turned out to either weigh the same as the other single sided chips, or the same as the other double sided chips; there was no weight variance.

He was now two hours into his allotted three when the thought occurred to him. “Buildy Buddy, are you able to pick up these chips?” Chirp. “Can you put them in a pile?” Chirp. “I want you to take the ones where the serial number starts with one of these three characters, and pile them here. The ones where the serial number is any of these four, pile them here. If you find any other characters starting the serial number, give the chip to me. Can you do that?” Chirp.

There was his friendly bird. Buildy Buddy was not quite as fast as he was at picking up chips, but by now he had memorized what the characters on the chips looked like, and could identify them for itself. So while Buildy Buddy was going through the pile autonomously, he could sweep chips in front of himself, use the magnification on the visor to check the initial character of the serial number, and pull out the double-sided ones.

The laptop had a camera. If he had thought of it earlier, he could maybe have written a program that let the laptop use its camera to check his work, or maybe to check chips on its own… Buildy Buddy had two large-arms. It could have been stacking chips for the laptop camera and assigning them to one pile or the other, while it was picking chips up with its other arm. But it was too late to make use of the laptop now.

He was working on the last three when the door opened and Bakoon entered. “Time!” the Diwar called. “The test is over!”

On the assumption that at a 10 to 1 ratio, the last three he hadn’t looked at were probably single-sided, Nate swept them into that pile. “Done.” He stood up. “These two piles are double capacity. The rest are single.”

Bakoon cocked his head. “You are sure of this result?”

“Pretty sure,” Nate said.

Rikwaal poked her head into the room as Bakoon strode over to the table and stared at the Buildy Buddy. “Well, that was… interesting,” she said.

“You used a child’s toy,” Bakoon said, still staring at the Buildy Buddy. “All of these tools and instruments, and you used a toy.”

“And the fact that these are all the same brand of chip and apparently they have some coding in the serial number,” Rikwaal said. “I had no idea. I’ve never even looked at these serial numbers.”

“Yes,” Bakoon said. “Nor have I. You know that wouldn’t have worked if by coincidence the company who makes these hadn’t decided to use different characters for the single vs double capacity?”

“You’re Diwar,” Nate said. “It’d be efficient for a company to differentiate the serial numbers of separate products so they can’t overlap, and you guys usually go for efficiency.”

“True, but…”

“So, did I pass or not?”

Bakoon was plainly struggling. “We expected… an engineering solution of some type? Create an algorithm to allow you to identify the chips by differential weight. Use the magnifier and the laser in combination to detect the differential refraction of light passing through the singles and doubles. Something like that. Not… you just had the toy read the serial numbers and do the job for you!”

Nate shrugged. “You give your kids some pretty sophisticated toys.”

“We will have to check to see if your solution produced the correct results before we can say if you’ve passed the test—”

“No, we won’t,” Rikwaal interrupted. “You’re hired.”

“What do you mean?” Bakoon asked, aggrieved. “Of course we have to check if his solution worked!”

“I’d welcome that, actually,” Nate said.

“Sure, but it’s not necessary for him to join the team. We didn’t come to recruit a human whose solutions are always accurate. We came to recruit a human who could think of things none of us would. And using a kid’s toy to help him scan the serial number instead of using some more traditional engineering solution is exactly the kind of thing we were hoping for.”

Bakoon’s crest, which had puffed when he became agitated, slumped back against his head. “I… suppose you’re right. It is a very… different… solution.”

“I mean, go ahead and check it,” Nate said. “I’m pretty sure it’s accurate, regardless of what you think of the method.”

“What made you think of such a thing?” Bakoon asked.

Nate laughed with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “So, on Earth, we have stories for children that we call ‘fairy tales’. A lot of these stories involve some witch or monster setting the main character an impossible task. Sort this entire bag of grains and separate the rice from the barley, that kind of thing. Only, the main character is so good and kind, they’ve helped some kind of magic creature early in the story. I remembered one where the character saved a bunch of baby birds that fell out of a nest, and the mother bird was so grateful, that she said the kid could call on her any time he was desperate for help. So this witch makes him do this sorting task, and he calls the bird, and she comes with her whole flock and they sort the grain for him. Or whatever it was. I was really, really young when I read the story.”

“And you took inspiration from this story?” Bakoon asked.

“Well… Buildy Buddy was chirping. I mean, the sound it makes when it means ‘yes’ sounds exactly like a chirp from an Earth songbird of some kind. And I made the connection. Buildy Buddy sounds like a bird, a bird helped the character in the fairy tale, maybe it can help me. Also, after I tried weighing them and realized it would take me way too long to weigh them all, I was inspecting them to see if there was anything I could see that was different about the chips, and I saw that all the ones whose weight was the same as my example of a single capacity disk had the same squiggle starting the serial number, and the two I had that I thought were double capacity based on their weight had a different squiggle. And I can’t read Diwar fast enough to be able to identify those squiggles, especially how small they are, but I decided to see if Buildy Buddy could do it. Turns out it could.”

“So,” Rikwaal said to Bakoon. “The human used a story to help him solve an engineering problem. You see how this sells itself, right?”

“I mean, I don’t usually solve engineering problems with fairy tales,” Nate said, feeling like this might be going in the wrong direction. “Usually I use math.”

“But the audience,” Bakoon said, his crest starting to lift again. “Yes. The audience will expect the human to know stories and be good at presenting them in some way; if he uses a story to solve a problem, they’ll be riveted! Who knew you could even use stories to solve problems?”

“We actually do that a lot,” Nate said. “We’ve built things because someone wrote a story about the thing and an inventor read the story and thought, Hey, I bet I could actually make that thing.”

“Amazing!”

“You guys do tell stories, though, right? I mean, you’re not… it’s not like you don’t have an imagination for fiction.”

“Of course we do,” Rikwaal said, “but humans are just better at it.”

“I think that’s probably a cultural thing. Diwar could probably learn to come up with amazing stories, too, if you wanted to. I mean, I was in Florida for spring break a couple of years ago and I met a Kai who was learning to scuba dive. She worked at the beach gift shop selling hermit crabs and shells.”

Both crests lifted. Nate got the impression that that particular lift indicated being taken aback. “A Kai, swimming? Earth is full of wonders,” Bakoon said.

Nate had felt the same way when he’d met the catlike alien – Kai famously did not like water, the same way Earth cats didn’t. It had made him realize that a lot of what the Diwar, the Kai, and all the other aliens thought about each other, or humans, was probably pretty close to human racist beliefs like “black people have rhythm” and “Asians are really good at math.” The Diwar really did know a lot more than humans, and had a culture built around excelling at STEM fields, but biologically he very much doubted they were actually better than humans.

And he might have the opportunity to prove it.

“So. Do I get a salary on this job?”

“We all do,” Rikwaal said. “Until the Build, at which point we will probably lose and be kicked out of the competition and we’ll all have to get real jobs.”

“All the skies forfend,” Bakoon said fervently. “Let us hope this strategy saves us from that fate!”

“What’s the next step, then?”

“Do you have an interstellar passport?” Rikwaal asked.

“Uh… no.”

“Then the next step is, I get you an appointment to get an emergency same-day passport because this specific country of all your nations refuses to modernize, and I book you a ticket on our flight back to Diw, and we all go back home and introduce you to the rest of the team. You’ll like Le’ir. You won’t like Enshru, nobody likes Enshru. Irta and Mip, depends on how they feel that day.”

“Be fair,” Bakoon said. “She’s had a difficult life. I am moderately fond of Enshru.”

“Wow. Uh, when I got up this morning I was not expecting to get a job out-system. How long do I have to pack? What am I allowed to bring? And how long before the Build, like, how long will I be out there with you guys?”

“Bakoon, we’ve got his email, right?” Bakoon nodded at Rikwaal’s question. She continued. “I’ll send all that to you in email, then. The Build is about ten of your months away; it’s annual, but Diwar years are shorter than Terran.”

“Or, looking at it a different way, the Build begins now,” Bakoon said, “and what is ten months from now is our opportunity to show off what we have made in the intervening ten months.”

Ten months on an alien world. Not just offplanet, but outside Sol System entirely. Nate had never even been to the Moon.

A grin slowly spread across his face, and grew bigger uncontrollably until he was smiling so wide, he was almost laughing. At this point he didn’t care what the salary actually was, as long as it was enough to afford room and board and some souvenirs on an alien world. This was a job he’d have taken for free.

[valcuda]

Picnic with her Little Siblings

- Scene History

This was just a remake of "Picnic with Big Sis" originally, like how I remade "Cloud Gazing with her Little Siblings" with the models originally, but then I remembered the previous render, and how I got a better camera angle in the viewport!

That lead me to this angle! Which accomplishes showing Jasmin's face! Something I wanted to do in the original, but decided against. It really helps make Quinton and Elizabeth feel small, having Jasmin tower over them.

- Troubled Rendering Process

This had a very troubled rendering process. The poses themselves were annoying, but I'd say "Hugging her Little Brother" was more annoying, just due to the darn hands. But the rendering! I rewrote this post 3 times, and edited it 2 times on top of that!

The original looked very unfinished, so I gave them back their normal maps, but that removed their shadows, so I turned on Raytracing in EEVEE, cause I remembered I did that for the previous render, (And forgot to mention it for some reason) but that caused them to glow???

So, under the raytrace options, I cranked "Max Roughness" all the way up to 1, and used viewport rendering, giving me a very vibrant look, more importantly however, it mostly got rid of the glowing!

It did make Jasmin's hand look blocky, but I fixed that with a 3x subdivision surface modifier. So that's the render I was originally going to go with.

When rewriting this post however, I just decided I really didn't like it, calling it my least favorite render, so I decided to go back in and edit it some more!

I got rid of their normal maps, merged Jasmin's hand by distance, cause it was a dozen separate parts for some reason, which messed up the shading! Then I notice her cuff was partially weighted to her hand bone, so I had to manually fix that, then merge it by distance to fix the shading on the inside! And I probably did some more as well!

- My Least Favorite Render so far

Future Val here! (I planned to post this the day after I finished rendering it, and that decision paid off!)

While working on my next render, I discovered the environment has it's own "Shadows" checkbox, which I originally turned off in the scene, since it was just meant as a drawing reference... When I realized this, I turned it on, and that is how I got the final render! I also changed it to vertical, cause it frames the scene better. It's kinda funny how much that change improves the final image!

Anyway, this section was originally me talking about how the render looked bad, and I felt bad cause it feels like it should be good, but it just wasn't.

For context, this is what the original final render looked like! (But with the new resolution, cause I'm too lazy to change that)

Jasmin's face just looks off, along with other things, and I couldn't figure out why! But it's that lack of shadows! I didn't notice their absence, but I definitely felt it!

This one friggin change made me go from hating it, to loving it! Ironically, I think "Hugging Her Little Brother" has become my least favorite just due to everything else being better XD

Now then, back to past me!

- Explaining the Render

Anyway, unlike the original, where both Quinton and Elizabeth had curious frowns, Elizabeth is smiling in this, while Quinton is still frowning. That's because (post being shrunken) Elizabeth originally lived by herself outside for multiple years, so she used to being outside, and actually quite likes it.

Quinton however, has lived in a house the entire time he's been small, except when he got lost one day, and met Elizabeth. So Quinton is actually quite fearful of being outside. Also, he isn't meant to be ducking, he's just quite short compared to Elizabeth, they're both standing at the same height.

Then of course, Elizabeth doesn't really trust people as much as Quinton, so she's holding the basket lid open, despite Jasmin holding it open, just out of caution. Quinton on the other hand, probably isn't even thinking about that.

- Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for now. I have another render planned for tomorrow, after that, it'll prob be a while before I post more, cause those'll require other assets to be made, but I'll talk more about that in tomorrows post.

[fishfauna]

UNIT 5: Where are We? Building the Future (Greenscreen, Lighting)

Overall, I think that this unit was a much calmer unit, and that there is still much left to be desired with my own work, but I think it went smoothly despite the burnout from the last unit.

CONCEPTS, Researching Films Since this had the option to also include animated films for the green screen, I had both animated and non-animated films, as well as television while I was brainstorming my ideas. Below is the PDF to my moodboard, including the series I looked into.

https://artslondon-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/r/personal/c_radaza0320231_arts_ac_uk/Documents/UNIT%205/concept/moodboards-research.pdf?csf=1&web=1&e=9erXmV

Initially, I was going to delve into doing concept work for 'Interview with the Vampire' (1998), looking into the second image, yet I chose to go into Henry Sugar due to Wes Anderson's simple and easy to replicate framing style. Below I had drawn out some concepts, gaging out the layout of both scenes:

This was scanned from my sketchbook and was there to set up the scale and floorplan, which is drawn in blue pencil.

LAYOUT AND MODELLING ASSETS Because beforehand I had created a floor plan for the model itself, which made it easier to block out my assets. This blockout made it easier for me to make the models as I was able to clone the cubes blocked out and build from that. This is also where I blocked out my base lighting. I had also imported an HDRI from Poly Heaven yet I had later changed to a different HDRI because the first one was too bright.

Because the image I was mainly referencing from was blurry, I had ended up sketching out some of the assets out so I could visualise the objects better (as seen on the concept illustration and my sketches below). It also helped me focus and keep with the flow of my own work.

I also used reference images from the internet to model my assets. For example, here with the window to make it more realistic. I had also done this for the chandelier light.

In addition to this, I had stripped down the vertices of objects, which was probably an unnecessary detail that prolonged my modelling process, but it did make it personally easier for me to read what vertices I'm using on a subdivided object. It also meant I had to fill in dissolved gaps. I had also used math to get more precise scales, but I could've made my life easier by making each vertex/face scale individually.

I had to also work with the cloth modifier to make my curtains, which was a learning curve. I had to play around with modifiers, create points and play around constantly to get a result I want. The result I got was not truly precise but I was at least able to create draperies that feel effective in my own work. Personally, this was the most difficult part as it involved a lot of trial and error.

I shaded each file in chunks, the fabric assets using procedural textures (magic textures, voronoi) alongside picture textures. While most of the basic shaders are from AmbientCG, I had to create the patterns from the film itself. They aren't fully accurate yet I tried to recreate the patterns similarly enough.

Below were all the shaders I made myself, as I used Procreate to create them. I could have learnt to use Illustrator to make cleaner, more vectorised designs but learning a whole new application would have been a bigger learning curve.

All of this combined led to my final model (shown below)

GREEN SCREENING The green screening required adjusting lights and multiple takes (I had around 4 takes). I think while the lights aren't too complex because my scene lighting wasn't too complicated. Personally the acting was the most fiddly part, but it ended up being workable.

The green screen was imported using blender and rendered frame-by-frame as a transparent PNG so it could be set as a plane video on the final Blender render. Much of the color was recorrected in Blender as well.

Below is a link to the BTS of the green screen.

Reflection Overall, I feel like my final result was workable and quite simple despite the complex patterns, so it helped my burnout from the previous unit. I don't find it too admirable apart from the fact that I had to create some of my own shaders. If I had more time and patience, I think that I would have likely added more detail to my assets. I also feel like I would have likely just committed to what I first looked at (Interview with the Vampire) or another film/show. I would have also probably made the scene more accurate. I would have also likely created my assets more efficiently without trying to reduce polys or clean up (despite it helping my workflow) as I wasn't trying to reduce file size. I would have also double checked my assets before rendering, as I had to redo my render once due to missing assets.

EXTRA LINK TO ONEDRIVE (GO TO OUTPUT FOR FINAL RENDER): HERE

[babymetaldoll]

DIWK - Chapter four: "Hurt"

Words count: 13,7K

The gif is mine ✨

Warnings: Hardcore Spencer trauma. Mention of drug abuse,  torture, Criminal Minds usual case triggers. Spoilers of Season 2 E14/15 Criminal Minds.

Summary: An unsub abducts Spencer, and reader blames JJ for it.

A/N: Have you ever wished you were there to save Spencer from Tobias Hankel? I know I have. I know reader wants to... I'm dying to know what you'll think of this chapter! Sorry if it's a little too graphic, writing Spencer's POV of this episode was really hard.

Series Masterlist

Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five | Chapter six | Chapter seven | Chapter eight | Chapter nine | Chapter ten | Chapter eleven | Chapter twelve | Chapter thirteen | Chapter fourteen | Chapter fifteen |

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

(Y/N)'s point of view

I remember the day Emily Prentiss arrived. We had a case in Saint Louis. Two serial killers, 'cos it couldn't just be one asshole making everyone miserable. And on top of all, Hotch was confused and upset 'cos he never signed Emily's transfer to the BAU. It was like someone was trying to force her into the team, and we all thought it was weird.

We left the bullpen off to the case and left Prentiss in the office, not knowing if she actually got the job or not. I know Elle and I weren't incredibly close, but it still felt weird to think someone might join the team and try to replace her. It didn't work that way in that job. It didn't feel right at the moment.

There is something I also distinctly remember about that day: Gideon talked to me. And not only that, but he actually trusted my knowledge. We hadn't been on the best terms for a few months, so that approach meant a lot to me.

We were at the police station. Reid and I had been analyzing the letters one of the killers had sent to a journalist to find something that might help us catch him before there were any more victims. That's when JJ and Jason walked in, and he asked about our progress.

- "He only sent this to an individual, which shows he is not confident enough to initiate contact with the masses."- Spencer explained as he projected an image of the letter on the wall.

- "Emotional indicators are analyzed through slants, and you can see the shooter maintains vertical, narrow letter writing, and both are signs of repression"- I said and pointed at the image on the wall- "And the pressure, if you look closely, it's excessively heavy, which shows that he's uptight and can easily overreact."

Gideon looked at me and nodded. It was my cue to keep on talking. For once in a long time, I was feeling approved by him.

- "You got all that from his handwriting?"- JJ asked me, surprised. Reid looked at me from the other side of the room, and I could feel his smile reflecting how proud he was of me.

- "Graphology is an effective and reliable indicator of personality and behavior."

- "But my writing is always different,"- she added, and I nodded. I was waiting for that comment.

- "Yes, because it represents your emotions at the moment, just like your facial expressions parallel the way you are feeling while you are speaking."

- "What else can we know about our unsub from this?"- Gideon asked me.

- "Well, our killer uses simple statements, all first person, like "I won't be ignored," which means he's obviously tired of feeling this way. He may have a job in solitude or one that he feels strips of his identity. His work might require him to wear a uniform, something that shows absolutely no individuality, or he may be overqualified for his menial job and feels that he doesn't get the respect that he necessarily deserves."

I made a pause and waited for his words. I was giving my best, and I swear I was still hoping I could ever get Jason Gideon's blessing.

- "I think we are ready to give a profile,"- he said and nodded.

And damn, that felt good.

When we were back in Quantico, Hotch had a long and clearly awkward conversation with the section chief, Erin Strauss. She was scary. She was clearly trying to get rid of Hotch, questioning his work daily, decisions, and how he managed the team. Why? I have no idea.

It felt she forced him to accept Prentiss into the team. We were one man down after Elle left. Ok, one awesome woman down, so we definitely needed some help. And Emily was a great addition from day one.

We clicked right away. Prentiss was funny, smart, but most of all, she constantly had to prove she deserved to be there. Just like me. Gideon gave her the cold shoulder from day one, and that I could relate. The only difference was that she won him over in a few days, though. I was still trying to win that battle.

Garcia decided we needed a girl's night, and she hosted the first of many "BAU Girl Power get together." Basically, it was us at Penelope's place drinking and talking.

That first night, we updated Prentiss with everything that had happened with Elle. She wanted to know everything about us, what we did, how long we've been on the team, and how we all got along. It was sweet and fresh. After that year in the BAU, I had already learned to enjoy the sweet things in life. Like getting drunk with my work girlfriends.

- "So, does Hotch ever smile?"- Emily asked, and we all laughed at the very same time. Yes, it was getting late, and we weren't as sober as we should have been.

- "He does! he does!"- JJ assured us- "You should see him with his baby."

- "He is a dad?"- Emily was shocked. I was surprised too when I found out Aaron was married and with a baby. The amount of time he spends at work always made me feel he had zero personal life.

- "And has a beautiful wife"- JJ added- "He is always laughing when he is with her and baby Jack."

- "I guess this job can drain the happiness from your day... "- I thought out loud, but before anyone could say anything about my dark and bitter comment, my cell phone rang.

- "Hey honey bunny, everything ok?"- I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I didn't want to interrupt the girl's conversations.

- "Yes, I just wanted to make sure you were drinking enough water between drinks"- I laughed and shook my head. Only Reid could call to say such a thing. He was the sweetest friend on earth.

- "Yes, I am, don't worry. I'm not going to be hungover or drunk tomorrow. I know you are excited about the new exposition."

- "You are gonna love it!"

- "I am sure I will"- and I wasn't kidding. I loved when he dragged me to the Smithsonian or any museum for some nerdy fun.

- "Have fun with the girls."

- "What are you doing, by the way?"

- "Just reading a little, you left your complete Sherlock Holmes collection here, so I'll be solving mysteries while you get drunk."

- "Don't have too much fun without me"- he chuckled and ended the call. I smiled and walked back to the girls looking at me with a funny grin on their faces.

- "Was that your boyfriend?"- Penelope asked me, and I frowned right away.

- "No, it was Reid. He just wanted to confirm we are going to the museum tomorrow."

- "Wait"- Prentiss narrowed her brows and looked at us confused- "Reid ain't your boyfriend?"

JJ and Garcia's laughter was epical, as well as my frown. They nearly gasped for air while Prentiss and I waited until they calmed down.

- "No"- I finally answered- "Reid is not my boyfriend."

- "He is more than that; he is her work husband,"- Penelope clarified, and I turned to her with my mouth wide open, shocked.

- "What the fuck? Reid ain't my work husband. He is my best friend!!"

- "Yes, and you happen to call your best friend "honey bunny," right?"- JJ questioned, just like she had a few months before when we were alone in our room away on a case.

- "Reid is my best friend, and yes, I call all my close friends by weird pet names. You will get one too if you are lucky."

- "But I thought"- Emily continued- "I mean, he looks at you like you are his sun."

- "No, Prentiss, the only coupe in this team is the one between "chocolate thunder" and "baby girl" right here"- I pointed at Garcia, and she just blushed and covered her face.

- "My love for Derek will burn forever with the intensity of a thousand suns. I mean, have you seen that man? he was made by the gods and sent to earth just to give my existence some sense"- we all laughed at those cheesy words, though Pen was serious about them.

- "But, have you ever...?- JJ looked at her and made a pause. We were all looking at every single facial movement or behavior she might show to read her body language."

- "My relationship with my loverman could never be tainted by something as mundane as sex."

- "Like you wouldn't lick honey from that six-pack and ride that thunder."

The words just left my lips, and I blame the buzz. BAU (Y/N) would have never said that. Drunk (Y/N) would, totally.

The girls laughed until tears fell from their eyes, and I just chuckled, honestly happy to make them laugh. I had been more of the real me than I had ever actually been around them in nearly a year.

- "Hello?"- my phone rang again when I was walking out of the bathroom. And this time, it was Paul.

- "Hey babe, what are you doing?"

- "Hey, I'm..."- I looked at the girls in front of me and sighed- "I'm stuck with paperwork"- and they turned to me immediately. I could read the "What the fuck" on their faces.

- "Well, I'm at Rob's in case you feel like dropping by. We are writing a few songs."

- "I'll text you if I finish with this early, but... have fun."

- "Ok, bye"- I hung up and sighed.

- "And that was..."- Prentiss asked, frowning.

- "My boyfriend,"- I explained and grabbed another beer

- "Sure, I could feel the passion,"- Garcia joked, but I just didn't think it was funny.

I knew my relationship with Paul wasn't alright. Actually, things with Paul weren't. Period. We were done, it was apparent, but still, neither of us had said it. That relationship was just a few phone calls every once in a while, only to make small talks. When we were together, we would just watch a movie, eat something, drink a few beers, and that was it. It had been a long time since we had sex or even made out. I don't know why I didn't end it sooner. I guess I was just afraid to do it.

But I let more months pass before I actually did something.

Spencer's point of view

I'm not proud of what happened that year after Prentiss joined the team. I think that year changed me profoundly, and a part of me never fully recovered afterward.

Maybe it had to be that way, and it was something I had to go through to grow up. I guess I'm still trying to make some sense of all the misery I put my friends through. Mostly (Y/N). She was in hell with me.

A few weeks after New Year, we started working on a case. Someone was killing wealthy people in their own homes. At first, we thought there were two unsubs, 'cos one of them called 911 after killing, and you could hear them struggling and arguing. But no, it was just one.

Tobias Hankel was a delusional serial killer. He had split personalities, not two but actually three. His father, the one who tortured me. The archangel Raphael, who was trying to make God's will, killing people. And himself, who wanted to save me, but instead, he nearly destroyed me.

What do I remember about the day he kidnapped me? I remember I was stupid enough to try to catch an unsub alone, just to prove I could take care of myself on the field. Hotch sent me and JJ to talk to Hankel at his house, 'cos apparently, he might have seen the unsub months earlier. But no, he was the unsub, and neither JJ nor me could stop him.

We hid in a barn, and I was so eager to prove I could catch him; I told JJ we had to split up to cover the place. I was counting on Hotch to get there with the team sooner than they did, and before I realized it, I was in the middle of a cornfield, and Hankel was pointing at me with my own gun.

I was sure I was going to die right there. All of Hankel's personalities were struggling inside of him. I couldn't stop thinking about why I thought I could do it on my own? Why had I been a reckless asshole? Was it because I wanted to prove I was an excellent SAA? Because I wanted to impress JJ? Maybe I tried to convince myself I could do the same job my team did. I knew I wasn't the most physical person, but I had a gun. I had been trained to capture killers.

Yes, I was an asshole that day, and I've regretted everything that happened that night many, many times in the following years.

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair, and the archangel Raphael had taken Hankel's mind completely. The room was dark, and it smelled awful. He was burning fish hearts and livers, 'cos he believed it kept the devil away.

I was confused and lost. My head was spinning, and my heart was about to burst into my chest. I knew I could die any second now. Raphael wasn't the one to show mercy. That's what I had learned from all the videos Hankel had uploaded to the web. He had shared with the world every murder they had committed to show the other sinners what was going to happen to them.

- "They believe you can see inside men's minds"- Raphael looked at me with dark eyes, implying he meant Tobias and his father

- "It's not true. I study human behavior."- my voice was shaking. I knew I had never been more scared in my entire life. He took out a gun and showed me one bullet.

- "Do you know what this is? It's God's will."

Things didn't look good for me. He put it in the cylinder of the revolver and spun it. He was going to let my life to luck.

- "You don't have to do this"- I tried to talk him out of it, though I knew it wasn't going to work.

- "No go, sinners, to your God."

And he pressed the trigger.

What went through my mind the seconds that passed between having the gun pointed to my face and realizing I had lived? My mom. All I could think of was how my mom would react to the news of my death. I could never bear to hurt her like that. I couldn't die. I couldn't leave her alone.

I sighed, relieved, and bit my lips not to cry. Raphael looked at me with a blank expression and walked out of the room. I had survived for now.

I struggled with my handcuff, but it was useless. My head was killing me. I could feel the open wound on my head, still dripping blood on my temple and head. I tried to focus on the pain for a few minutes, just to make sure I was awake. It was a nightmare, and keeping myself sane and conscious under those circumstances was nearly impossible.

How was I going to get out of there alive? Did the team know where I was? I had no idea where I had been taken. I had been unconscious the whole way. It was dark, and I couldn't see much around me. I wasn't afraid of that darkness. I was more fearful of the man that left me alone, 'cos he was armed and mentally unstable. Darkness had nothing on him.

I had to focus on the things that kept me sane. The things that made me want to get out of that room alive.

- "My name is Spencer Walter Reid. I'm twenty-five years old, my mother's name is Diana Reid, I was born in Las Vegas, October 28th, 1981."

I closed my eyes and tried to think of all the things that made me happy.

- "I work at the BAU, my best friend's name is (Y/N), and she sits at the desk in front of me. Derek Morgan is the closest I've got to an older brother."

He was. He still is. You have to be close to dead to start seeing things clearly sometimes. Derek was my brother. He treated me like a kid, but a kid brother. He was always teasing me, trying to teach me how to pick up girls, trying to drag me to the gym with him. Derek was a good friend, we were very different, and I knew if we had been classmates in high school, we would probably never have talked. He was a jock, and I was a nerd. But life had brought us together. And now I couldn't think of a better friend than him.

I tried to focus on my happiest memories. My birthday came to mind. The guys had planned a Halloween-themed birthday party at the conference room of the BAU. Of course, Garcia baked a cake and (Y/N) helped her decorate it. It was incredible, 'cos it was covered with tiny gourds and skulls.

- "Frank and Mikey sent you these,"- she announced after everybody had given me their presents. I wide opened my eyes in shock 'cos I had no idea her friends knew it was my birthday or even cared about it.

- "Why?"- I had to ask.

- "'Cos they think you are amazing. They actually wanted to come over to your house and have a few beers tonight."- I opened my mouth to say something, but Derek interrupted me.

- "Pretty boy is gonna get to work hungover again."

- "Shut up"- (Y/N) and I said at the same time, making everybody chuckle. I opened the present her friends had sent me and laughed right away.

- "Lucky Doc"- I read and took out of the bag a Sports Illustrated issue with Lila Archer on the cover. My cheeks turned red immediately.

- "Frank still hasn't overcome that story. I think he will hate you forever"- (Y/N) laughed (along with the rest of the team) and gave me another present.

- "They also sent you this. They said you were going to like the man in black"- it was a Johnny Cash's vinyl- "Frank picked it. He thinks he is some sort of musical psychic that can read people's taste in music."

- "We should get together and have a few beers one of these days. I need to thank them for these."

Gideon looked at me in silence as soon as I said those words. But I didn't care if he disapproved. I was going to be (Y/N)'s friend, whether he liked it or not.

He is the closest I've had to a dad in the latest years. He cares about me, and he tries to make the best of me that he can. Yes, he can be too apprehensive. I think that's a way to put it. But only because he wants me to be the best profiler I can be.

I never thought I would end up working at the BAU. I never thought I would love the job I do as much as I do. Back when I was in college, I thought I would dedicate my life to finding a cure for schizophrenia, but I ended up hunting serial killers across the country.

And though I was about to die, I didn't regret any of the decisions that led me there.

The morning found me shaking, cold, and scared. I was in a small cabin in the woods. Just like the worst and more cliché horror movie ever made. This was my own horror movie.

- "What are you staring at, boy?"- Tobias opened the front door carrying logs for the fire. His voice had changed yet again, so I knew it wasn't the same person I had talked to the night before.

- "You are not Raphael."- I whispered, looking at every movement he did.

- "Do I look like Raphael?"- had I insulted him? I couldn't tell. He turned to the fire, and I took a deep breath, doing my best to stay calm.

- "Thank you for burning those, for keeping us safe."- I said, looking at the fish hearts and livers he was preparing to put on the fire.

- "Don't try to trick me."

- "I would never try to trick you."

- "You are a liar."

- I'm not a liar."- it was hard to stay calm and not start screaming for help or mercy, but I knew that was going to take me nowhere with him.

- "Lying is a sin."

- "I'm not a liar."- he walked closer to me, and sat right in front of me, held my leg up, and grabbed my foot.

- "This will be over quickly if you just confess your sins."

- "I am not a sinner"- I whispered again. He took off my shoe.

- "We are all sinners."- it didn't look good for me, not at all, and I knew I had to talk to him with his words with his beliefs to save my life.

- "The Lord spake unto Moses saying "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of the lord" and say unto them, ye shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy."

Hankel, this time in the personality of his father, looked at me surprised. I might have done something right, 'cos he stopped moving, and for a second, I thought it was going to be ok.

- "You know Leviticus."

- "I know every word of the bible. I can recite it for you."- but his eyes turned dark again.

- "The devil knows how to read too."

- "I'm not a devil, I'm not a devil2- I repeated, and couldn't stop shaking, 'cos my life on the hands of a sociopath.

- "I'm a man, my name is Spencer Reid, and I have a mother, and I have a father just like you, and they taught me the bible, let me recite the bible."

My voice cracked at the knowledge of what he was going to do. He stood up, still holding my foot. He was going to torture me, he was going to try to break me, and I had to be strong. I didn't know how I would find the strength, but I had to be strong.

- "Time to confess, Spencer Reid"- and without further notice, he slapped a log against my foot, making me scream in pain. It hurt from the tip of my toes until the back of my skull. I hadn't felt that kind of pain, and it was worse knowing he was just getting started. Tears started falling down my cheeks in no time.

- "Confess!"

- "I don't have anything to confess."- I whimpered and closed my eyes, 'cos I knew he was going to continue his torture. And so he did. The pain was excruciating. I was sure I was going to pass out

I tried to go to a happy place in my head, somewhere when I could hide from all that pain. It was too hard, though. It hurt too much. I kept repeating over and over again I wasn't a sinner, begging Hankel for mercy, as he shouted I had to confess.

I made an effort to think about what he might want me to say. What did he want me to confess? Which sins was he talking about? But nothing came to my mind, nothing but the pain and the fear of dying.

(Y/N)'s point of view

The second we reached Hankel's cabin, I started looking for Spencer. I had a horrible feeling about it. Morgan and I headed it to a barn with Prentiss. There was no sign of anyone. It was dark and quiet. Never a good sign.

- "Shit!"- I whispered, staring at three dead dogs and a bath of blood in front of me. There laid the body of another victim that was missing from Hankel's last attack.

- "FBI!!"- JJ shouted suddenly. She was pointing his gun to us, clearly in shock- "Don't move!!"

- "JJ, it's Morgan, (Y/L/N), and Prentiss! Don't shoot"- Derek tried to calm her down, walking towards her- "Are you hurt?"- she lowered the gun and stared at us. You could read the fear and the trauma in her eyes.

- "Tobias Hankel is the unsub,"- she whispered as Prentiss rubbed her arm sweetly, trying to comfort her.

- "Yeah, we know"- I moved towards her too and put my gun back into the holster.

- "And we thought he was just a witness"- we looked around, and JJ pointed at the dead dogs.

- "JJ, where is Reid?"- Derek asked her, but she just continued talking.

- "They completely tore her apart"

- "JJ, look at me,"- I said and held her arm carefully- "Look at me, where's Reid?"- she was shaking, and her voice was cracking. I knew she was making her best effort to pull herself together.

- "We split up. He said he was going to go in the back."

And there it was. That was the reason why I had a bad feeling all along. Derek looked at me and nodded as we read each other's minds. The two of us turned around and ran outside, leaving JJ with Prentiss, waiting for the medical team and ambulance to check on her wounds.

Gideon and Hotch were inside the cabin, looking for Hankel, but there was no one there. And there was no sign of Reid behind the barn either, in the cornfield, or anywhere in the perimeter. Reid was nowhere to be found, and I started losing it little by little. I tried to repeat myself the words Hotch had said many times during my year in the BAU: "when you are out there with the team; your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case." But the case had never included my best friend missing before.

- "Hey, is there any sign of him yet?- I asked the police chief as I reached the ambulance. He was there talking with JJ, making sure she was ok.

- "We got every one of our units on the road. He won't make it far"- I nodded and watched him walk away. I knew he thought I was talking about Hankel, but I actually meant Reid.

I turned to JJ and moved a little closer to her. Her eyes open wide, staring back at me.

- "You can't find Reid?"- I just shook my head and tried to sound as casual as I could, not to freak her out. She was still in shock. I didn't want to make it worse.

- "Not yet"

- "(Y/N)"- Derek held my arm and forced me to walk away from the ambulance.- "Reid followed him into the cornfield. It looks like somebody got dragged."

My heart stopped. Did the psychopath hurt Spencer? Did he kill him? Did he torture him? Was he hurt? Was he alive? Where was he? Derek looked at me, and I nodded. I bit my lips and took a deep breath. Hotch's words were my mantra now: "your mind has to be one hundred percent on the case."

- "Are you sure?"- we turned to the police's chief, overhearing his conversation- "We are on our way now."

- "What's going on?"

- "The sheriff down two towns over, he just gave directions to a man who fit Hankel's descriptions. It's to a motor lodge in fort bend."

- "Let's get Hotch and Gideon"- Derek held my arm and walked with me to the cabin. We had to find Reid, and we had to do it fast.

That was the worst night of my life. The first worst night of my life, to be sincere. I didn't close an eye. I went through every paper, every note, every detail in that cabin, trying to find a clue that could lead us to where Tobias had taken Reid.

I felt someone had ripped my heart from my chest. I had to think straight, and to do it, I had to keep a cold head. But as the hours passed, it became a more demanding and more challenging task to complete. I knew the whole team was suffering, but that didn't ease my pain. And I knew JJ felt guilty, but that didn't stop me from blaming her in my mind. She left him alone. I would have never left Spencer alone on the field.

- "(Y/N), you should try to get some rest."

Derek whispered as he sat on the floor next to me, where I had been sitting for the last half hour, reading Tobias's old diaries. Nothing but fear of his father, mentions of Dilaudid use, and bible transcriptions.

- "I'm ok,"- I answered and didn't even take my eyes from the pages.

- "(Y/N), I mean it"

- "I'm not going to rest if he is out there in the hands of a psychopath, Derek"- I had to bite my lips and shut the fuck up, 'cos if I said one more word, I knew I was going to burst into tears.

Morgan just wrapped an arm around my shoulders and moved me closer to him. That was the first time I let him hug me, and it felt good to know I wasn't alone in my desperation. I knew he loved Reid like a brother, and neither of us was going to stop until we found him.

- "Welcome to our nightmare"- JJ's voice broke the silence we had been into for the last hour when Hotch walked into the cabin with Penelope.

It was morning already. There were still no signs of Reid. Prentiss, Gideon, JJ, and I had been sitting at the table, reading everything we could.

- "His computer is an extension of his brain. I need you to dissect it,"- Gideon whispered to García. You could feel the concern in his voice. She just nodded in shock and turned to Derek, who held her hand and helped her get set up in the computer room.

- "So, nothing new since I left?"- Hotch asked and looked at us. I just shook my head and continued reading.

- "Well, the good thing is the guy documented practically every second of his life"- Prentiss words took me from the pages I was reading. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. The concept of "good" was poorly used in that phrase.

- "The bad news is, we are still un-piling,"- she added and sighed.

- "From the looks of it, he hasn't left this place in years,"- JJ managed to say. She made her best effort to be useful, but she was in worse shape than everybody else. Yet, that didn't make me feel bad for her. I was mad at her and kept making my best to put it aside, 'cos my head had to be in the case.

- "He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail,"- Emily inferred, but I shook my head as soon as I heard her.

- "No, no, no, it's more than that!"- I shook my head and took a deep breath- "Sheriff's office, 911 calls, every time he engages the police and gets away with it... he reassures himself, God's on his side. Not ours."- I added.

Gideon nodded, and we shared a moment of agreement. He was as worried as I was. I could feel it. I'm not saying the rest of the team wasn't, I'm saying Jason was as fucked up as I was, and I could sense he was having the same trouble I had making sure my head and not my sentiments were into the case.

But if anything happened to Reid, I didn't know what I was capable of doing.

At a certain point, I got sick of reading and not doing anything and decided to look around the house again if we had missed anything. Derek went along. One part of me felt he wanted to stay away from JJ too. Maybe he was as mad as I was about her leaving Reid alone. I know I couldn't blame her, but I did it anyway.

- "Guys!! I think I've got something!"- Derek yelled, and I ran over. He opened a door that led to a basement. I walked right behind him, pointing my gun and my flashlight all over. But there was no sign of Reid.

- "Tobias Hankel!!"- Morgan shouted. Someone was sitting in what looked to be a gigantic freezer- "Tobias!"- but we didn't get any response. I took a step closer and examined carefully.

- "Morgan, I think we just found Hankel's father."

Spencer's point of view

On my second night in that cabin, I met Tobias. The third personality of Hankel walked into the room, carrying what seemed to be a dead deer. He looked as frightened as I was.

- "You need to eat."

- "What's your name?"

- "Tobias."

- "Tobias, who was here before?"

- "Probably my father."

He looked at me up and down, and he immediately understood what he had done to me. It was scary how he could dissociate. Someone with multiple personality disorder is usually unaware of the other personality states and memories when an alter is dominant. In this case, Tobias knew the other personalities but considered them different persons. He didn't think they were all in his head.

- "I'm sorry if he hurt you."

He looked at me like he understood everything I had been going through. Maybe he had been through something similar when his father was alive. Perhaps he had been a victim of Hankel as well, and that's what triggered his psychopathic nature.

He walked over and took out his belt.

- "What are you doing?"- he wrapped it around my arm, and I started begging him to stop.

- "It helps"- he took out of his pocket a needle and a small bottle of what seemed to be some kind of drug.

- "Don't tell my father. He doesn't know they are here."

- "Please, I don't want it, I don't want it, please"- I cried and begged.

- "It helps. I know"- it was the last thing Tobias said before the needle found my vein.

And he was right. It helped. Every single amount of pain I was feeling disappeared. My brain shut down. Somehow, everything was ok. I never had in my entire life felt so good before.

My mind kept flashing memories of when I was a kid. I kept seeing images of the day my father left and how he called my mother crazy.

- "You are weak"- mom spit those words after he refused to take me with him. I know she said it not because she didn't want me with her, but because mom knew she was sick and wanted the best for me. And he refused.

- "I'm not weak."- I whispered as I looked at her smiling back at me.

- "I know, honey."

I don't know how long I was drugged, but when I woke up, Tobias wasn't there with me anymore. It was his father.

And the torture continued.

(Y/N)'s point of view

Gideon was trying to convince me to go out with Prentiss and JJ to see a Narcotics anonymous's contact that might give us more information about Tobias. Emily had found some flyers about it in his room, and it could be the only lead we had to find him and Reid.

- "You need to get out of this house for a while"- he whispered and tapped on my back.

I knew he wasn't the one to be loving or physical with people, less with me. But that moved me. I turned to him and my eyes watered up. I was scared, and I couldn't hide it anymore. The more hours passed, the fewer the chances were to find Spencer safe. Alive.

I felt his arms around me suddenly, holding me tight, trying to keep the pieces of me together. We were alone on the porch, and though I didn't want to fall apart, I couldn't hold it anymore.

Jason didn't say a word. He just hugged me and let me cry for a few minutes. I didn't say anything either. I actually couldn't because I was overwhelmed with everything.

- "Are you ready, (Y/N)?"

Prentiss whispered as she walked over with JJ. I turned my back at them for a second to hide the tears that kept falling down my cheeks. I knew it was a shitty thing to do, 'cos it was obvious I had been sobbing, but they gave me the courtesy of not saying anything.

- "You go, I need (Y/N)'s assistance with some diary entries"- the two of them walked away quietly, and thankfully, didn't argue with Gideon.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and felt his hand on my shoulder one more time.

- "You are doing a fantastic job,"- he said and turned around.

I wish I could tell you that made me feel better, but instead, I just thought I had the duty to bring my friend back home safe.

It had been at least an hour since the girls left. Morgan, Hotch, Gideon, and the police chief were in the living room with me, reading. I sipped my hundredth cup of coffee and re-read the same diary entry for the third time.

- "There's something weird going on here."- I thought out loud and walked towards Gideon

- "You think?"- the police chief turned to me and raised an eyebrow, ironically.

- "No, seriously, check this out. This journal is filled with religious ramblings. He notated hour by hour: "November 15th, 3:17, if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord, ye shall offer it at your own will", and it goes on and on: 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42."

I made a short pause and looked at Gideon and Hotch. They didn't get where I was going.

- "But then, it goes blank for days."

- "Maybe he got sick of writing"- I seriously hated that police chief.

- "I think I got it"- Hotch whispered- "Journal entry: "December 6th. Father is sick. He wants me to put him down. I say thou shalt not kill. He said, honor thy father. Must pray for guidance."

- "So he kills his father as an act of mercy?"- Gideon asked, knowing the answer.

- "This is two months ago. Tobias Hankel's father had been dead for four months already."

- "That's exactly it"- I murmured, thinking Tobias Hankel was way more fucked up than we thought.

- "Look at the floor"- Derek pointed at a chair and moved it- "These scuffs marks are fresh. It's like two people were pushing the chairs constantly, trying to fight for control."

- "So?"- I swear to God, that chief was driving me insane.

- "This journal matches Charles Hankel's handwriting, but it was written after he died"- I explained. Still, it felt he wasn't following me.

- "What do you mean?"

- "Upstairs, Tobias' bedroom got junk piled from floor to ceiling, but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection."

- "So, are you telling me one of Tobias' personalities was his father?"

Apparently, I had to draw a picture so the chief would get it. Fortunately, Gideon continued explaining the whole problem before I lost what was left of my patience.

- "Well, Tobias was raised with a strict religious code, black and white, right and wrong. When his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give."

- "His brain couldn't handle the moral contradiction, so he split into two personalities to keep his father alive."

Hotch tried to put it most easy and simple words possible.

- "So, who is Raphael?"

- "My guess, he is a mediator between the two"- Gideon nodded at my words and sighed.

- "Angels have no human emotions, live or die. They don't care, as long it's God's will."

- "We need to start profiling Tobias' father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid."

Finally, I felt we were going somewhere.

When Emily and JJ came back, they gave us the news. Tobias was addicted to Dilaudid, which explained the fracture in his mind, and how he lived with three distinct personalities.

The police chief announced a computer store robbery, giving us some hopes that Tobias would use them to track him down.

- "Guys!! Guys!! get in here!!- I heard Derek shouting and I ran to the computer room. I felt sick in the stomach in less than a second. There he was, Spencer. My Spencer Walter Reid, tied to a chair, bleeding, shoeless. Clearly tortured.

- "He's been beating,"- I whispered, feeling my eyes water up. I would have given anything to be there instead of him.

- "Can you track him?!"- JJ yelled by my side, and I nearly smacked her. That's how sensitive I was feeling.

- "Hankel's only streaming this to his home computer."- Garcia whispered. And my heart dropped with those words.

That wasn't what I was supposed to hear. We were supposed to find him and bring him back safe.

- "This is for us"- Gideon didn't take his eyes from the screen- "He knows we are here."

- "I'm gonna put this guy's head on a stick"- Morgan was so mad I believed him. I wanted to do the same, if worse.

- "I'm gonna kill him myself as soon as we find him,"- I said and felt Aaron's hand on my shoulder as he asked Garcia

- "Why can't you locate him?"

- "He's rerouting to a different IP address every 30 seconds. I can't track him."

It knew it had to be hard if Penelope couldn't find her, but that didn't help. If anything, it made everything worse. I felt powerless. Hankel couldn't be more intelligent than us.

Spencer's point of view

- "Are you ready, boy?"- Hankel pulled my hair and forced me to look at him. I was still as high as fuck, but knew I was about to be tortured again.

- "Ready for what?"

- "My weakling son thinks God gave you to him for a reason"- if the reason was to get me into drugs, then the answer was yes.

Hankel placed a video camera in front of me.

- "Can you really see inside men's minds?"- he asked me and made a pause, pointing to three screens- See these vermin?

It took me a second to realize he was showing me images of real people. He had put cameras in those people's houses. How? When? What kind of sick game did he want me to play with him?

- "Choose one to die. I let you choose one to live."

- "No"- I didn't even think about my answer.

- "I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior."

- "You are a sadist and a psychotic break. You won't stop killing. Your word is not true."

I don't know if it was because of the drugs or because I hadn't eaten or drank any water in too long, but I was somehow resigned and tired of fighting.

- "The other heathens are watching- Hankel announced and pointed at the camera in front of me."

My eyes fixated on the camera right away. My team was watching me. (Y/N) was watching me. I didn't want to make her worry even more. I needed her to know I was ok. I know I wasn't, but I didn't want her to worry about me.

- "Choose a sinner to die, and I'll say the name and address of the person to be saved"- Hankel was sick. It was all a game, and religion was just an excuse to kill.

- "I won't get to choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher."

Hankel didn't like my answer, 'cos he grabbed me and pulled me up, looking into my eyes, insulted, annoyed, losing his temper.

- "Can you really see into my mind, boy?"

He was honestly scary, and it petrified me to think he could execute me right there, in front of the team, and I could never tell them how much they mean.

- "Can you see I'm not a liar?!"- he insisted. I nearly whimpered but made my best not to break- "Choose one to die and save a life. Otherwise, they are all dead."

He dropped me on the chair and turned around. It was clear he wasn't joking. I took a deep breath and nodded.

- "Alright, I'll choose who lives."

- "They are all the same"

My eyes traveled across all the monitors. It was nearly impossible to pick one person to live, knowing all the other people there would die. Hankel was sick, and I had to set a plan to escape because otherwise, I would end up dead.

- "Far right screen,"- I whispered. He turned around and nodded.

Then, he recited the name and address of the woman on the screen. I prayed for the team to find her before Hankel came after her too.

No. It wasn't Hankel this time.

- "Raphael,"- I whispered, and he nodded. I looked at the screen again. The woman we were watching picked up the phone. She was in her kitchen. He walked around, frowned, and turned to her computer. In a second, she had turned it off. My team had reached her. She was safe, I hoped.

Hankel turned the camera off and looked at me.

- "You've done your part. Now it's my turn."

I knew what that meant. It wasn't good.

He left the cabin, and all I could see were the monitors in front of me. Those people were going to die. They were going to die because I didn't pick them. I killed them. You don't need to pull a trigger to kill someone. I could never forget those words. And this time, they meant more than anytime before. I didn't press a trigger, but I had killed two innocent people. And I actually had to watch them die.

When I saw Rapahel walk into the victims' house, I tried to close my eyes and think of anything else. A part of me kept thinking he wasn't going to kill them. He just wanted to threaten me.

But not. Raphael slaughtered them.

I found myself craving whatever it was that Tobias had given me the night before. The drug in my veins had given me a kind of peace I had never felt. And I never thought I'd have either. The type of peace that can be addictive, 'cos it turns your head off. And God knows, sometimes I needed to turn my head off.

Remembering everything that has ever happened to me, especially all the awful things, wasn't a gift. It was a burden. And whatever it was that Tobias had put in my veins, it had taken that burden from my shoulders, at least for a couple of hours.

Who wouldn't want some more of that peace?

- "Reid!"- Gideon's voice took me from my thoughts. He was sitting right in front of the camera in the victim's house. He was there with Hotch and the police, investigating the crime scene.

- "If you are watching this, you are not responsible for this. You understand me? he is perverting God to justify murder. You are stronger than him. He can not break you."

I know he meant it. But I couldn't believe any of that, not after watching a family get slaughter just because I didn't pick them.

(Y/N)'s point of view

- "I thought you were going to try and get some rest,"- I said as JJ walked to me in silence. I made myself my hundredth cup of coffee, and she just showed up next to me, trying to engage in conversation, I guess.

- "Everybody else is working. I should be too."

- "We can handle it,"- I whispered and refused to look at her. I swear I was trying not to hate her, but it was getting harder and harder with every hour that passed without finding Reid.

- "It's funny, I keep thinking the one thing we need to crack this case is... well... Reid"- she chuckled, nervously and I just looked at her and nodded. I didn't even smile. I didn't move a muscle.

I didn't want to be with her, or anyone, as a matter of fact. And I wasn't going to hide it anymore. So I tried to walk away.

- "You think Reid and I should have stayed together at the barn, don't you?"

I stopped walking and looked at her. You could tell she was having a hard time facing the whole situation, and most of all, you could tell she felt guilty.

That really didn't stop me from being mad at her. I was trying to be the better woman during the investigation, but the uncertainty was getting on my nerves.

- "JJ, go get some rest,"- I tried to answer calmly, but I knew I was looking at her like she was dead to me.

- "I can tell that's what you are thinking, so..."

- "I just wanna get Spencer home safe."

- "But... if I had his back like I was supposed to do, he'd be here now"- and that was enough.

- "JJ, what the fuck do you want from me?"

- "I just...."- she was about to cry, you could tell- "I want someone to tell me the truth."

- "You want the truth? Ok, there you go: I would have never left him alone. None of this would have happened if I had been the one with him out there! 'cos I would never let anyone or anything hurt him!!"

I shouted. All the anger I had been feeling those days was finally getting off my chest. And fuck, it felt good.

- "You fucked it up, JJ, and if something happens to Spencer, I am never going to forgive you, never!"

JJ bit her lips, trying her best not to cry. But I still couldn't feel sorry for her.

- "Is that the truth you were looking for?"

- "(Y/L/N)?"- Hotch stood next to me with the most annoyed look in his eyes.

I knew I was out of line, but this wasn't about work anymore. This was personal. This was Reid we were talking about, and JJ had fucked it up. There was nothing to discuss.

- "What? You sent him with her, now she is here, and he isn't. What else is there to say?"

- "(Y/N)!"- Hotch followed me as I stormed out of the kitchen and out of the cabin- "(Y/N)! stop!"

- "What?!"- and I simply snapped- "Are you gonna suspend me for telling her the truth? Are you going to fire me for losing my shit while working a case!? Fine! I don't care! I don't give a fuck! All I care about right now is that my best friend is missing, and a fucking psychopath has him! That's all I can think of. That's all I've been thinking about for the last two days!"

I was yelling at Hotch. I was yelling at my unit chief. I was fucked. I knew he was going to fire me after that. But I couldn't help it. I was going insane. Tears kept falling from my eyes as I held my cup of coffee tight, holding onto it with my life.

- "(Y/N), we are all worried about Reid."

- "I know you are all worried. I am too, and I'm also afraid and mad and going fucking insane knowing I am standing here not knowing what to do to save him."

- "That doesn't give you the right to treat JJ like this is her fault"- I don't know if he was talking like my unit chief or like a father figure trying to end a fight between two of his kids.

- "Did she stay with Reid?"- I simply replied and looked at Hotch in the eyes- "Did she?"

- "She is not the only one who feels guilty, so do I. And I know I won't forgive myself if anything happens to Reid."

Hotch made a pause and tried to find a way to say what he wanted to say. The door opened, and Gideon walked to us. He knew what was going on, and he didn't say a thing. I was sure he had already heard everything. We weren't actually arguing quietly.

- "We are not getting any closer,"- Aaron finally said.

- "Reid is brilliant. He'll figure out how to survive"- Gideon's words were way more hopeful than my thoughts. In my mind, Reid was too scared to think of a way to escape.

- "You know, I always take advantage of Reid for his brain. But I never actually teach him how to deal with things emotionally."

Hotch whispered, and his words were filled with regret. I was filled with anger and anxiety, and I know the two of them felt the same. But they way better at handling their feelings.

- "Lead by example,"- Jason answered, probably trying to make him feel better.

- "What kind of example is that?"- I simply replied, and both of them stayed in silence.

I don't think my words helped Hotch, but I wasn't trying to do that either. I was just honest. And Hotch's emotional assistance was shit on the field. Even Gideon was better.

- "He'll make it,"- Jason reassured us and nodded- "Now stop arguing and go back to work."

Spencer's point of view

I was glad when Tobias came to me that night with a needle in his hand and put the drug into my vein. I needed some release after watching a family die 'cos I didn't save them.

- "I'm sorry I had to leave"- he excused himself, preparing the drug next to me.

- "You can leave again, and you can take me with you,"- I begged in a soft voice.

- "My father would be angry,"- he replied and didn't even look at me. This time, I didn't even argue when he wrapped the belt around my arm. I was even a little eager he'd do it faster.

- "Not if he can't find us."

- "He always finds me."

- "If you tell me where we are, my friends will come, and they'll save us."

He gave me a look, mixed with horror and resignation. It broke my heart to think for a moment of all the horrors that lead Tobias to be as sick as he was.

- "We can't be saved,"- he simply replied.

- "We can, we can, I promise. If you tell me where we are, I'll save us both."

- "Listen to me. It's not worth fighting."

Somehow, I understood why he said that. I was afraid and shaking but still did my best not to think of all the pain I was in, of the terror that haunted me day and night.

- "Tell me it doesn't make it better- he said and showed me the needle."

I couldn't say no, 'cos he was right. It did. The drugs made his horrible situation bearable. I could understand why someone decided to use something to avoid the pain. I had faced all and each one of the pain and horrors in my life sober. It was time life was a little bit sweeter, in a sick way.

I remembered being twelve. Mom had had one of her episodes the day before, she was in bed, and I woke her up. I walked into her room and opened the curtains. It was already five in the afternoon, and she still refused to get out of bed.

- "The doctor says you need to get out of bed,"- I argued when she repeated she was just resting.

- "I've been reading"

- "He says you need exercise"- she sighed and tried to make a joke.

- "That's because his idea of good literature is Our bodies, ourselves."

- "Well, he is your doctor."

- "He is a neanderthal"- I gave up and started walking out of the room. She just laid in bed and looked at me.

- "Where are you going?"

- "I'm going to see if Jeff wants to play"- Jeff was our next-door neighbor and my only friend growing up.

- "Come here. Let me read to you."

I know Garcia made fun of me when I said my mother used to read me Valentine's sonnets when I was a kid. Most people think I have a weird relationship with mom, but they don't understand what it was like growing up with her. They don't know what it was like for a twelve-year-old boy to finish high school, facing bullies. Handling the pressure of being a kid genius and the fact I had to take care of a schizophrenic mother.

How come I didn't start using drugs earlier?

I remember that afternoon I sat next to my mother, and she made me pick one of the many books she had with her on the bed. I choose Proust. I knew she loved it. I loved it as well.

"For a long time, I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say, "I'm going to sleep."

I can still hear her voice, reading to me. Both of us avoided reality for a while, hiding in the books. I always do it regardless. I hide in the books to forget. I hide in knowledge to avoid acknowledging the real personal issues I have. I hide in my work saving people when no one ever saved me.

I work catching psychopaths when I know I might actually have a mental issue myself. I might end up just like mom, and it frightens me so much; there are many nights I can't even close an eye. If I get sick too, then no one will take care of her. I am the only one in her life. And she is the only one in mine.

She and (Y/N), but there is no way my best friend would ever take care of me if I got sick. Not because she wouldn't want to do it, but because I would never let her. I don't want to be a burden in her life. And she would hate me, I know. And I could never live in a world where (Y/N) hates me. Not then, not now.

(Y/N). She is the best thing that happened to me in the BAU. Yes, I had a family with my team, but she was different. She was my life. She was the reason why I smiled. She was the one person that made me feel I was important to someone. I knew the rest of my friend loved me, but I loved her.

That was it. I loved (Y/N). And I was scared I was never going to see her again.

(Y/N)'s point of view

I was standing next to Penelope. She kept trying to force me to eat. She knew I was living on coffee, but I just couldn't swallow anything. She held my hand as the two of us stared at the screens, hopefully waiting for Hankel to make contact again.

- "Any more signs of Reid?"- JJ walked over to us slowly and looked at me, afraid I might snap on her again. I just shook my head and sighed, doing my best to be nice to her.

- "He just posted the last murder online."

- "It had over 17 thousand hits in the first twenty minutes,"- Penelope added, and her voice was so full of revulsion. It was clear she couldn't handle the horror in the human mind.

- "I want to see it,"- JJ said, and I frowned, confused.

- "No, you don't,"- Garcia answered and looked at me- "Come on, munchkin, just eat one cookie, please."

- "Don't tell me what I want and don't want!"- JJ's tone shocked us both. She was severe and angry. She was rude at Penelope, and for a second, I almost snapped again.

- "If I can't watch this..."- JJ whispered and glued her eyes on the screen- "I have no business being in the field."

She looked at me when she was done talking, and for once during those awful days, I felt some kind of compassion for her. She had to be feeling like shit, no doubt, and no matter how mad I was at her, she was still my friend, and I didn't want her to suffer either.

- "JJ, it's not a competition,"- I tried to say in the softest voice possible.

- "I... I need to see it."

- "If you stop being affected by things, you lose parts of yourself, you know."

It was somehow ironic that I was the one saying those things. Me of all people in that team. Me, the one who was afraid the most of losing herself in work.

- "Show me"- she finally looked at Garcia, ignoring my words, and Penelope pleased her. She pushed play and simply said

- "I won't watch this with you."

García held my hand, walking me out of the room, leaving JJ alone in the room. She sighed and wiped the tears that started falling down her eyes.

- "I don't know how you do it either"- she whispered- "I don't know how you watch those things every day and don't go insane."

- "If it makes you feel better, I don't know how I do either, and it scared me to think my heart might be numbing with each case we solve. With every psychopath we catch."

- "We are gonna find him"- she assured me and held my hands tight- "We are bringing him home safe, I swear."

- "Let's go find Gideon,"- I said, nodding at her words- "He needs to know Tobias posted the last murder."

Jason was mad, beyond furious. He was losing it. Derek and Prentiss kept trying to crack Hankel and discover where he had taken Reid. Meanwhile, Garcia, Gideon, and I made our best to take the video of the murder from the web.

- "I have a list of everyone from the file-sharing chain. I could send out a mass warning that the video is actually a virus,"- Garcia said and started typing as fast as possible. I just stared at the screen, waiting for something, anything to happen.

But I wasn't waiting for what came next.

- "Confess your sins"- Hankel's voice made me jump, and the sight of Reid, still tied to that chair, bleeding, and being tortured, broke my heart again.

- "Confess!!"- that sick psychopath shouted and hit him.

- "I haven't done anything,"- Spencer sobbed, but it was useless. Hankel kept punching him, over and over again, even when my best friend begged for mercy.

I felt Jason hold my hand as I was holding Garcia's. The three of us felt powerless, useless, angry, and scared, all at the same time. I couldn't bear to watch Reid being tortured, but at the same time, I was so glad he was still alive.

That until Hankel beat him so hard, he pushed him back in the chair, and Reid started convulsing.

- "He is killing him,"- Penelope cried, and I closed my eyes, biting my lips. Spencer was choking, and that mother fucker just stood there, watching him die.

- "That's the devil vacating your body"- he spit those words as Reid simply passed out. I didn't know if he was dead. I didn't know if he was going to make it. Shit! I didn't know anything.

I let go of Jason and Penelope and stormed out of the room. I was unprofessional, and I knew it, but I knew I would quit if anything happened to Reid. I wasn't going to stay working at the BAU if Spencer died.

- "Are you ok?"- Derek grabbed my arm. I just broke into tears and held him tight. He wrapped his arms around me and let me cry.

- "He's dying! We can't find him!!"- I sobbed against his chest.

- "(Y/N)! (Y/N)!"- I heard Penelope yelling as we all rushed back to the computer room. Hankel was giving CPR to Reid, trying to bring him back to life.

- "Come on, come on, please,"- I begged as I watched him pushing his chest over and over again until Spencer woke up, gasping for air.

- "Thank God!"- Hotch sighed and rubbed his hands against his face. The whole team let out a breath of relief simultaneously, and I kept watching Reid. His opened eyes gave me hope.

- "Wait,"- Prentiss said suddenly- "When was the video of the last murder posted?"

- "Nine thirty"- Penelope answered

- "And when was the time of death?"

- "The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murder must have been moments later."- Hotch added and didn't even turn to look at Prentiss. We were all still shocked looking at the screen.

- "That's just a 19 minutes difference,"- I said and turned to García- "How long would it take to post that file?"

- "Two or three minutes."

- "Let's call it two,"- I said, getting excited- "You figure a maximum of 60 miles an hour in a residential area. That means Hankel has to be within a 17-mile radius of the crime scene."

For a second, I felt I was rambling facts just like Reid would. It made me miss him even more.

- "García, can we see it on the map?"- Aaron whispered. He was clearly affected, and it also made me feel selfish, knowing I had made a tantrum with the whole team, forgetting they were suffering as well.

- "Call chief Farraday"- Jason commanded as soon as we saw the map of the area on the screen- "I want that area locked down like it's martial law."

JJ stood up and grabbed her phone but didn't make the call. García warned us something was going on with Reid and all of us stared at the screen in silence.

Spencer was on his back on the floor, still tied to a chair. It was clear he wasn't fully conscious of what was happening.

- "You came back to life,"- mother fucker Hankel said, spitting the words in anger.

- "Raphael,"- Reid whispered, recognizing one of his personalities.

- "There can be only one of two reasons."

- "I was given CPR,"- my friend whispered, but it was clear that wasn't one of the psycho's options.

- "There are no accidents. How many members of our team are watching us right now?"

- "Seven."

- "The seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail, and they were thrown to the earth."

- "He thinks it's the revelations"- Hotch explained- "The seven archangels versus the seven angels of death."

I didn't know much about religion, but it didn't take a genius to figure out he didn't believe we were the good guys.

- "Tell me who you serve."

- "I serve you,"- Reid answered right away. His voice was a whisper. He had to be exhausted.

- "Then choose one to die"

- "What?!"

- "Your team members, choose one to die"- I knew what he was going to answer at that, and I didn't want to hear it.

- "Kill me,"- he replied immediately, and I closed my eyes, unable to watch what would happen next.

- "You said you weren't one of them."

- "I lied."

- "Your team has seven other members. Tell me who dies."

- "No"- Penelope gasped, and Prentiss cursed. I opened my eyes and nearly fainted. Hankel had a gun pointed against Reid's forehead.

The silence amongst the team was unbearable. Neither of us knew what to do. We were all panicking, praying, desperate.

- "Choose and prove you'll do God's will."

- "No."

Neither of us moved. Neither of us breathed until Hakel pulled the trigger, and no bullet came out. I nearly sigh, but it wasn't over.

- "Choose"- he repeated

- "I won't do it"- Hankel didn't even wait. He just pulled the trigger, and we all jumped at the same time. He was safe again.

- "Life is a choice."

- "No,"- Reid repeated once again. And Hankel pulled the trigger for the third time.

- "Choose"- and for the first time, Spencer made a pause. Was going to pick one of us to die?

- "I choose"- the whispered- "Aaron Hotchner."

Derek and I looked at him, and his pale face didn't move a muscle.

- "He's the classic narcissist. He thinks he's better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4 "Let him not deceive himself, and trust in emptiness, vanity falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense."

Hotch stormed out of the room as Hankel pulled the trigger one more time and shot the wall.

I felt I was going to puke. If Reid hadn't picked one of us, he would be dead.

- "For God's will,"- the mother fuck said, as he put another bullet in the gun after removing the casing.

I couldn't look anymore. I followed Gideon and Derek to find Aaron going through all Tobias's diaries on the table.

- "I'm not a narcissist,"- he said as soon as he saw us.

- "Come on. Look, you can't think anything from that"- Jason tried to calm him down, in case he was somehow affected by what Reid had just said on camera- "He is not in his right mind, Hotch."

- "No, stop, stop. Alright, everybody, right now: what's my worst quality?"

He had to be kidding. We all stared at him, muted, lost in that conversation. What was his point? Neither of us said a word. We just looked at each other, confused and awkward.

- "Ok, I'll start. I have no sense of humor."

- "You are a bully,"- JJ added.

- "You can be a drill sergeant sometimes,"- I said, and he nodded.

- "Right."

- "You don't trust women as much as men"- you could feel it in Prentiss's voice. That one was personal.

- "Ok, good. I'm all these things, but none of you said that I ever put myself above the team because I don't, ever. Reid and I argued about the definition of classic narcissism, and he knew that I would remember that. He also quoted Genesis chapter 23, verse 4. Read it."

Hotch gave me the book. He wasn't even breathing as she spoke. He was in a hurry. We were all.

- "I'm a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead of my sight."

- "He wouldn't get it wrong unless it were on purpose."

- "He is in a cemetery."- I said and looked at him. He nodded, and I swear to God, I saw a slight smile on his lips. That smile was hope. We were getting closer.

Spencer's point of view

I took a sip of water. I hadn't drunk in days, and my throat burned. I was still a little lost, still a little off.

- "Tobias, is that you?"- I saw him nod, sitting next to me. He moved the cup of water closer so that I could drink some more.

- "Thank you,"- I whispered and looked at him- You saved my life- he stared down at the ground and finally whispered

- "I'm sorry."

- "Why?"

- "He'll win in the end."

It was sad to see Tobias Hankel's good person locked inside a sick mind that also held a psychopath like his father.

- "Tobias, I need to know something. It's important. Are we in a cemetery?"- and he nodded. I smiled at him and sighed, relieved. Help was coming. My team was coming.

- "I used to come here to get high."

- "I was right."

- "No one bothers you here. I never told anyone about it."

He wrapped his belt around my arm, and I turned to him, still smiling. I didn't know if I were happy I was right or glad I would get high again. Maybe both. Maybe the second 'cos the minute that needle got to my vein, that sweet, sweet release felt like a bath of joy that washed away any pain, regret, or guilt I could have ever felt.

Guilt. I've had my share of that. I remember the day I had my mom admitted to the hospital. She hadn't eaten in days. She wouldn't take care of herself, and they're just so much I could do. I wasn't able to keep her safe from herself, from her mind.

- "What are these men doing here?"- she asked me as I walked with two nurses into the study. She was writing and reading. It was all she did, preparing lectures for classes she didn't have to give, in imaginary campuses.

I stood in front of her and hesitated for a second. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, telling mom I was taking her away from her own house.

- "They are from the hospital. They are here to help,"- I whispered and looked at my mother's confused expression. She was so thin. She looked so sick. I felt so guilty I couldn't do better for her.

- "I don't need help, and you can't be here without permission, tell them, Spencer."

She looked down at her books again and tried to continue writing. I took a deep breath, I knew I would break her heart, but there was nothing else I could do.

- "I called them"- she looked at me in pain. Deep, honest pain. Like I had just shattered her heart. Which I had done.

- "Spencer"- she simply whispered and stared into my eyes, begging for an explanation. I was trying my best not to cry. I had a whole speech prepared. I was going to tell her how much I loved her. I was going to explain to her how good it was for her to be in a place where someone could continuously take care of her. I had facts and statistics, but all I managed to say was:

- "I'm doing this for you."

And I felt like a liar. 'Cos, there was a part of me that was doing it for myself too.

- "This isn't legal"- she shook her head in shock and kept trying to find a good explanation to what was going on.

- "Your son is eighteen, ma'am. He can act in your welfare,"- one of the make nurses explained to her.

- "You need help,"- I said and prayed she could understand. But she just burst into tears and begged.

- "I wanna stay here!"

- "I'm... sorry, mom."

- "Please, these are my things, this is my life..."

Those men took her. They took her from her house and put her in a hospital. No. I put her there. I put my mom in a hospital so I could live my life, 'cos I am selfish and couldn't take care of her anymore.

- "Spencer, please, don't do this to me."

Those were the words that haunted me day and night. And my mother's crying face, begging me not to take her from her own house.

What kind of a son am I? I did that to her. I put her in a mental place 'cos I couldn't deal with her disease anymore. 'Cos I didn't know how to take care of her.

- "What are you sorry for, boy?"- I heard Hankel ask when I woke up. I was muttering, "Sorry" as I came back from my trip.

- "I sent her away."

- "Who."

- "My mom. I couldn't help her."

- "Is that a confession?"- I nodded and looked around, confused. Lost. High- "You know the bible. Exodus 21:17"

- "And he that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death,"- I whispered, scared and full of regret.

I heard him walk towards me. He kneeled and uncuffed me. I didn't know what was happening. Honestly, I was still too high to get what was going on around me.

- "Grab a shovel,"- he commanded and walked outside.

I was too weak to dig fast. I don't know how I was actually moving, but I was digging my own grave. I never thought I would ever end up doing such a thing. It's not something you think about, actually. Not unless you work in the BAU. Here, you start analyzing and considering the way you'll die: 'Cos you could, every day.

- "I ought to bury you alive in there, give you some time to think about what you've done,"- Hankel said and looked at me while I worked, playing with a knife.

- "I know what I've done."

- "Don't talk back to me! Dig!"

I pant and kept moving, very slowly, trying to buy myself some time too. I was sure the team was coming to get me any minute now. I was counting on them, though the more I thought about it, the less worthy of salvation I felt. Maybe I deserved to die after all.

I was almost certain I had seen some lights moving in the back. Flashlights. But it could be my mind playing tricks on me. I was too tired. And still too high, too.

- "Dig faster!"- he commanded me as I moved, losing my breath.

- "I'm not strong enough"- I cried, 'cos I felt like that. Like a failure, a child that aimed to be a grown-up and failed miserably. A bad son. The worst agent. A fake that deserved to die.

- "You are all weak!! Get out of there!"

Hankel took off his coat and left it on the ground. I slowly moved so he could dig for me, but the lights in the back took my attention, and he noticed. As soon as he turned around, I quickly grabbed his coat and reached out for the gun.

- "You've only got one bullet, son,"- he said as he looked at me. And I just pulled the trigger.

I shot him. I killed him. Hankel. Raphael. Tobias. I freed Tobias. Or at least, that is what I wanted to think.

- "Reid!!"- I heard (Y/N) yelling as I crawled to Tobia's body. He was still awake. He was himself.

- "You killed him"- he said, and he was relieved- "Do you think I'll get to see my mom again?"

- "I'm sorry,"- I whispered, and he was gone.

- "Reid!!"

(Y/N) yelled and ran over. She kneeled next to me and held me in her arms. I couldn't move, because for a few seconds, I couldn't believe she was real. She was there.

- "Honey, honey, are you ok? Can you hear me?"- she said, and tears started falling from her eyes- "Honey, it's me."

I just looked at her and hugged her. I hugged her as my life depended on it. There she was, next to me, finally.

- "I thought I was never going to see you again,"- I whispered and sobbed.

The urge to kiss her filled my whole body. I needed to taste her. I needed to show her how much I had needed her those days. But I knew I couldn't.

I didn't want to let her go. I didn't for a few minutes. I just hold onto her for my sanity. She kissed my forehead, cupping my face with both hands.

- "I'm so happy to see you. I'm glad you are ok... let's go to the ambulance, ok?"- I nodded but didn't let her go. I felt I could hold her forever. I wanted to keep her close for as long as I lived.

But the rest of the team gathered around us, and I wanted to thank them too. I needed to thank Hotch. So as soon as I let (Y/N) go, I wrapped my arms around him.

- "You alright?"- he asked me.

- "I knew you'd understand,"- I managed to say with tears falling from my eyes and a knot in my throat.

For a moment, I thought I was never going to see the team again. My family.

JJ held me close and apologized. I knew she felt guilty for leaving me alone, but I was the only one culpable for what had happened. I wanted to prove myself, and all I managed to do was prove I was a fool. A useless SSA.

- "It's alright, it wasn't your fault,"- I said and did my best to smile at her. But I know I failed. Gideon grabbed my arm and nodded.

- "Let's get you out of here."

- "Please,"- I whispered before we started walking- "Can I have a second alone?"- he looked at me and nodded, looking at Tobias' body lying by our side. He walked away, and I kneeled next to my capturer.

But instead of paying my respects, instead of cursing. Instead of anything, I took the Dilaudid bottles from his pocket and put them into mine.

And that's how the real hell started.

--

DIWK Taglist:

@all-tings-diego @big-galaxy-chaos @svveet-peas @muffin-cup @shilohpug

Spencer taglist

@calm-and-doctor

General Taglist

@spenxerslut @ash19871962

–

Do you want to be on the taglist or ramble about this chapter with me? Just send me a message here.

Next update: May 5th, 2021

[mauesartetc]

A collection of Vivziepop-related art tweaks

Some of you will recognize these; figured I’d post them here too in case others would find them enlightening in some way. Let’s go!

The position of Alastor’s eyes here flattened his face, and it’s super weird how his cheek and his temple form one big mass with no distinction between them. I remedied those in my version, in addition to avoiding awkward tangents with the teeth and lips. And I’m personally not a fan of the transparent anime hair phenomenon since it only creates more tangents and highlights just how little thought was put into the relationship between the hair and the face. So I minimized that as well.

 This one deals with Angel Dust’s proportions. According to the Hazbin wiki, he died in his 30s, but the huge head and eyes make him look like a teen here. I don’t know the intent or backstory of this image; it could be the case that he actually is a teen in this drawing. But in case he isn’t, I drew another version with a similar (yet more believable) body type, the proportions of an adult, an expression that fits Angel’s personality, and a period-appropriate hairstyle. He also has a cranium now. Yay.

So here we have Dawn O’ Deedle, the sin of gluttony, totally not Doug Dimmadome, and yet another moth demon. Viv, I know you like moths and all, but how does that design choice connect to his character in any way? I also have no idea how his jacket works; is it a separate piece of clothing or is it part of his body? And while it’s refreshing to see Viv draw a body type separate from your standard-issue Slenderman, out of curiosity, I ventured beyond the fluff to see how this big boy was built.

Yeah... There are a lot of inconsistent arm lengths and thicknesses, and I’m not even sure where his lower right one is meant to connect (diagonal from the top one? Somehow that doesn’t seem right). The vertical line where his upper right arm connects to his body pointed me to where the shoulder would be, but even in 3/4 view, it shouldn’t look THAT much longer than the opposite shoulder. But beyond that, his pose pushes his weight forward so much that, being so top-heavy, he’d fall over.

I tried the same pose with more consistent structure, but he still seemed a bit top-heavy to make it work, so I had him take a knee instead. I also felt having him look at the food instead of staring into space would breathe more life and personality into him.

This pose looked really uncomfortable and forced to me (seriously, try standing like this while reading a book). Even if she were picking the book up from the ground, that’s a terribly awkward stance to do it from. Solution: Keep the upper body as is, but straighten up the spine and balance the torso over the legs, not in front of them (kinda the same problem Dawn O’ Deedle had). I also positioned her feet to keep a sort of pigeon-toed look without breaking viewers’ suspension of disbelief. 

(Also why are the shins not just longer than the thighs, but SO much longer than the thighs? Maybe it’s a “”””style choice”””...or a clear case of an artist not thinking a pose all the way through before finalizing it.)

Finally, my personal favorite!

Here we have Mimzy performing for some slobberin’ wolves. What struck me about this image was how colorless it looked. Viv’s generally known for using lots of bright colors, but I guess she took a more subdued, monochromatic approach here. Problem is, the dullness saps the energy from what otherwise looks like a lively scene. Also, the lighting’s really confusing. We see lights coming at these wolves from all sides. Where’s the main light source? Is it the spotlight coming from the left? The right? The top? Is it the lights in the sign or the lights on the stage? Is it out of frame somewhere? I know working with multiple lights is hard, but if you establish one as the brightest, it really doesn’t have to be.

For my version, I used Color layers to paint over the original in Photoshop, using warm colors for lights, and cool colors for shadows. Mimzy stands out much more clearly as the focal point, with the main light shining on her, and with the wolves’ eyes changed from red to yellow so they don’t distract from her red attire. I also attempted to remedy the shadow situation by using a Multiply layer to paint new shapes on the wolves. This gives each one more consistent structure and conveys a stronger indication of which lights are affecting them.

I also thought the muzzle shape of the one at the top left made him look more like a rat than a wolf, so I took care of that as well.

So yeah, I hope y’all found this helpful or at least entertaining. Ever since @zpredraws went quiet, there’s been an unfortunate dearth of visual critique of Viv’s work. I don’t want this blog to turn into the ALL VIVZIEPOP ALL THE TIME zone, and of course I’ll still post original art. 

But listen. 

If you have any requests of Viv stuff you want me to look at, I’m here for it.

Critiquing others’ work is a fun challenge that helps artists exercise their own creative muscles, communication skills, and powers of observation. It can end up teaching you a lot, as well as your audience. And even though I animate and design characters for a living, I still have much to learn. So y’all can count on seeing more of these in the future. 

[archersartcorner]

I WANNA REINTRODUCE VAL AGAIN AND I LOCKED MY KEYS IN MY GOTDAMN CAR SO WHILE IM WAITING HERE WE GO

SO. Val. Valerio. Originally, Valos. Who the fuck is this boys. None of you asked? Well fuck off I’m tellin’ ya anyway JABDNSBS

Valos was originally made in 2018 as a Skyrim OC! Bosmer, small and quick-witted, and from the beginning was very much an OC I liked to put through ANGST AND WHUMP. Here’s some original pics of Val! And some IDs, since I’ve been wanting to practice for a while now!

[ID: Two images, side by side.

The image on the left is from 2018, traditional and done in orange ink, of two characters from the neck up. On the left is Valerio, named “Valos” at the time, a Wood Elf with a round yet pointed face; dark, jaw-length, swept-back hair with a widow’s peak; a hooked nose; and just the longest WoW-ass lookin’ ears the artist has ever drawn. He is smiling at a man on the right, a Dark Elf named Sven, who has similar features to Valerio. Notably different is that Sven’s hair is much shorter; he looks older; he’s slightly taller; and his lips are thinner, but he’s smiling wider. Below Sven is a note from the artist that says “Father-Son?”

The image on the right is from 2020, an updated reference image of Valerio from the waist up. This one is done in color - notable differences are that Valerio’s face is given more shape, but still retains his round-pointiness; the hair at the sides of his face are done in small braids; his ears have been significantly shortened; and the fuller image shows that Valerio has a very thin body type, with a hairy chest and forearms, as well as scars in multiple places along his body, including one across the right side of his mouth. He is brown-skinned, brown-haired, and has glowing green eyes surrounded by yellow sclera. He’s wearing a light brown fur cloak, but it’s only covering his back, leaving most of his front exposed. END ID.]

In 2021, I got into FNV. I had already applied my self-insert motherfucker unlimited to the plot of FO4, so I decided to go ahead and insert Val as my main character for FNV… and boy howdy did I run with it. Most of y’all who followed me during my FNV love are probably familiar with Val (most of y’all probably recognize him as Six!) and his antics with Vulps and Arcade! He’s meant to be a very soft and kind-hearted boy, but he doesn’t take shit (or at least he tries not to…) Here’s some art I’ve done of him!

[ID: Four images, two vertically longer images on top, two square-sized images on the bottom. These were all made from mid-2021 to early 2022.

The first image is a digital, colored, cut-off reference sheet of Valerio’s Fallout: New Vegas iteration. Different from his Skyrim iteration described above is: his hair being slightly wavier; eyes are now simply brown; has two gunshot scars along his forehead, with a lobotomy scar in between; has a little bit of chin hair; face has a bit more roundness to it; and he has slightly more musculature in his arms. He’s wearing a dark gray jumpsuit with two brown belts at his midsection, and has a green backpack strapped across his back. On his left arm is the Fallout series’ inventory mechanic, the Pip-Boy, and on his right hand are gray fingerless gloves and spiked knuckles. He’s smiling at the viewer, and his right hand is raised in a wave.

The second image is a digital but non-colored sketch of Valerio and Arcade Gannon. Arcade is mostly made of boxes; he has a squared face with a hooked nose, glasses, and beard stubble; his body is mostly boxy with some fat to it, and he has hair along his forearms. He appears middle-aged. He’s wearing a simple button-up and pants combination. Arcade is sitting down and holding Valerio in his lap, who is dozing off in relative peace, and has his right arm along Valerio’s back, while his left hand is holding a book. Valerio’s right arm is reaching up to subconsciously grab at Arcade’s shirt.

The third image is a digital and colored piece of Valerio, on the left, and Vulpes Inculta, on the right, from the thighs up. Valerio’s appearance is mostly as described, but his hair is slightly shorter. Vulpes is slightly taller than Valerio, with brown buzzed hair, light blue eyes, and pale skin. He is similarly thin as Valerio, and he has applied red nail polish, lipstick, and eyeshadow. Valerio is wearing his jumpsuit, drawn more dark-brown in this photo, and exposed from his chest to his naval, with two silver pauldrons on his shoulders. Vulpes is wearing a gray button-up and vest combo, with dark gray slacks. Valerio is hunched in front of a bar counter, looking slyly over at Vulpes, while Vulpes, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, looks away from Valerio, a cocky smile on his face. They’re both blushing. There’s a blue overlay across the image.

The fourth image is a digital and non-colored sketch of Valerio, sobbing uncontrollably. Like he looks so sad. The text he is saying is fashioned in FNV format, written: “[Crybaby] I’M,,, SORR-RY,,,” He’s so sad. END ID.]

SO VAL MY BEAUTIFUL BOY!!! When I played PL:A I just. Without thinking I was like “oh I wanna play as VAL my BABY VAL” and then I had and continue to have so many feelings about that situation I just keep drawing em. And most of y’all have probably seen my stuff with Val in PL:A at this point! In summary, he’s my baby, my super specialest boy, and I love him thank u

If you’re interested in knowing more about him, you can check out my “courier valerio” tag for FNV info, and “pokeverse valerio” for pokeverse info!! He’s so important thank u for ur time 🫡🙏

[lilyharvord]

Meet Me at Our Spot

  HELLO EVERYONE!! Vet school turned its back for a day and I was able to finish this one for you all. ((: Here is a lovely little one shot that is rated M people, so please read responsibly. Office AU because someone asked for it once upon a time and the image of Cal in one of those well tailored shirts/suits with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows has lived in my head rent free since then. So enjoy!!! ((: 

also, I’m obsessed with that song Meet Me at Our Spot by Willow and The Anxiety (specifically the live version). So that’s the vibe were going for. (:

find it on Ao3 too: link

Mare Barrow always felt underdressed when she entered the massive glass and steel structure that housed the Calore enterprises. Even when she put on her only pair on heels, and a nice outfit, she felt like a smudge of dirt on the pristine floors. Today though, she was determined to not feel that way. She had a plan, a vision, and she was not about to let some socially constructed idea like dress code ruin it for her.

           Striding up to the main desk before the elevators that lead to the corporate side of the building, she planted herself firmly before Tiria and cleared her throat to announce her presence.

           The young woman looked up from the book she was scribbling things in and held up a finger as she spoke into the receiver cradled in her other hand.

“Of course sir. Yes, two on Friday.”

With a sigh, Mare braced her forearms on the counter and glanced out at the massive atrium next to her. Multiple people strolled by in their nice suits and tight business dresses, carrying portfolios and briefcases and talking heatedly about a number of things. She got a few looks from them for her baggy sweatpants, oversized jacket, and faded ugly sneakers. She simply smirked back at them in response, a glint in her eye that dared them to talk about her after they had passed.

No one had ever really gotten a good look at her here, and if they had, it was when she was quickly being ushered past this front desk and into the elevators behind it. She was, for all intents and purposes, a very well-kept secret. One that was mandatory to remain a secret, given her position and her affiliation with this place.

Never in her wildest dreams had she thought she would ever set foot in a place like this, let alone be associated with the circle she now tenuously walked through. It had its perks though, like getting to give a bright shiny middle finger smile to the people Farley would have spit at. Mare couldn’t exactly spit like she wanted to though, because she happened to enjoy being around one of them. And she was supposed to be on her best behavior when she was in this building. It was part of the stupid rules she had been forced to agree to a year ago.

Rule number one: No one can know your name, where you are from, and who you are.

Rule Number two: best behavior at all times when you are in the building or near him. No exceptions.

Rule number three: You are not allowed to show up unannounced or uninvited.

           Well rule number three could just go fuck itself today, and rule number two could join it. The rules were just a way of making sure that the pristine reputation of this place didn’t get tarnished in the tabloids. She had laughed herself hoarse when they brought her into that dim conference room and dropped the pile of papers with the rules outlining everything in front of her. She never thought getting into a relationship would feel like a contract or a business deal but somehow this was made into one. Then again, the Calore family could make a business deal out of a child’s pretend game.

“Yes sir, I will let them know. Thank you for confirming, we will see you then.”

Tiria snapped the receiver back into the cradle and turning a scrutinizing eye to Mare she quirked a perfectly manicured brow. Every front desk girl in the world honestly looked the same to Mare, and in this place, there was no exceptions.

“Can I help you?”

“I have an appointment.” Mare said as she pressed onto her toes and pointed with a finger randomly into Tiria’s book.

The girl looked down at the line Mare pointed to with a frown while Mare swiped the key card Tiria always kept just under the ledge with her other hand. Tucking it into her pocket, she forced her eyes wide in a fake showing of bewilderment as Tiria gave her a contempt glare when there was nothing on the line.

“I could have sworn I called!” Mare gasped as she pressed herself up onto the counter to teeter further over it while her feet dangled. Damn these stupid things were high. She should have worn heels just so she could actually see over the top of the counter. “Maybe I should have called to confirm.”

“Miss Barrow, please stay on that side of the counter.” Tiria sighed as she leaned back in her chair.

Sliding down and dropping with a huff, Mare crossed her arms, trying to mimic the expression she saw most of these people give when they didn’t get what they wanted. “I want to go up.”

           Forcing her sigh through her nose so it wasn’t as obvious, Tiria shook her head and adjusted a pen that had moved out of its perfectly straight line. “You’re not supposed to be here today. Don’t make me call security.”

           “Well that would announce my presence.” Mare argued before picking up her backpack. “Besides, I’ll only be ten minutes.”

           “Miss Barrow, I like my job and want to keep it. Leave.”

           Letting out her own exaggerated sigh, Mare threw her hands up and spun on her heel to leave. “Honestly, you’d think I’d get a free pass giving who I’m dating in this place.”

           Peeking over her shoulder to see if Tiria was still paying attention, she smirked as the girl dropped her head to write something down. One of the benefits of everyone looking down on her here was that as soon as she turned around, she was out of sight and out of mind. It made sneaking around easier.

           Spinning back around, she scurried over to the elevators, ducking below the ledge of the counter slightly in case Tiria looked up again. Humming a song she heard on the radio to herself, she swiped the card and pushed the button to call the elevator. She had joked once this place was locked up tighter than a military institution, only to learn there was a reason for that. She doubted she could just swipe a key card and sneak into the Pentagon though.

           The doors opened with a little ding, and she glanced over her shoulder once before darting in and pressing the button for the top floor. She had to swipe the key card again and punch in a four digit code she memorized weeks ago, but the doors still slid shut and the massive glass box rose.

           Grinning like a fiend, Mare glanced over her shoulder at the green land stretching out behind her. She had to borrow Bree’s car to drive out to this place, and it almost didn’t make it. Her brother’s check engine light had been on since he bought the car, but he assured her it could make it the fifty mile trip and back. It had coughed the whole way, but it got her here. Beyond the trees she could just make out the highway she took with cars rushing along it.

           The first time she saw this place, she was afraid of it. Why was it so far away from everything, why was it so tucked away? What were they trying to hide behind the wall of trees? She hadn’t entire believed the excuses they gave, but she was at least certain they weren’t building nuclear weapons at this place.

           The doors slid open silently to a long hallway with dark floors and another bank of windows for a wall. Stepping out into the sunshine, Mare strolled forward, adjusting her hair and jacket as she went. Turning a corner, she passed a few smaller offices that belonged to some of the board members that held staff positions. The only one that was closed belonged to one of the only people she really, really didn’t want to see.

           Volo Samos made her nervous. If there was anyone who might be trying to make a nuclear weapon in this place, it was that man. She edged by his office, glancing through the swaying vertical shades to see if he was actually there or he had left for lunch. He was sitting at his desk on the phone.

Scurrying past him, Mare quickened her pace. If he was here, then the rest of the board might be too. Which meant she might be walking in on a meeting. Not exactly the best option, and neither was sitting outside in the hall and waiting.

           She had been so certain that there was nothing happening this week. She had planned everything around that fact. Maybe she should have called… just to make sure before she drove all the way out here.

           Before she knew it though, she was standing before the heavy dark wood doors at the end of that hall. She had never been nervous to open them. They were intimidating with an exterior that was meant to deter people, but once you opened them and peeked inside there was nothing to fear, just like with the man behind them. She knew that, and yet, she had to squash the shake in her hand as she nudge the door open a fraction.

           The office was empty.

           Throwing the door open all the way, she stepped inside and glanced awkwardly around the space. She had spent enough time in here that she knew there were very few places to hide. Not that Cal would have any reason to hide in his own office. Pursing her lips she pushed the door closed and stormed over to the desk before throwing her bag down behind it and tossing herself into the chair. It spun in a slow circle with her momentum until she faced the back windows. Slouching down she tried to determine her next move with a pout. Maybe he had left for lunch. It wouldn’t surprise her. If the board members were here, then he might have had to play the good CEO and daddy’s boy he was supposed to be and taken them all to lunch to placate them. But Volo was here… so maybe they hadn’t gone to lunch?

           She had put makeup on for this surprise. Honestly, was it so hard for him to be in the place he was supposed to be at this time?

           Forcing out a sigh, she crossed her arms and spun the chair back around with her toes to look at the papers scattered around the desk. Cal was perhaps one of the most messily organized people she had ever met. He was an oxymoron himself though, so it only made sense. She picked up a thick stack of papers that were clipped together and lifted one of the corners between her finger and thumb like it was radioactive. She didn’t understand a word on the next page or the numbers scribbled in the margins. Putting it back in its place she glanced at the few pictures he kept on his desk.

           The first time she had been in his office he had been on a phone call, and she had to entertain herself. She had picked up the pictures and made up the stories behind them while he watched her out of the corner of his eye. The picture of the two little boys crouched and playing in the mud on the edge of a lake was her favorite. She had been confused by it at first, until she saw the one next to it, with the same two boys almost a decade later in front of the Roman Coliseum.

Cal and his brother vaguely looked like brothers. They had similar features, but they wore them very differently. Where Cal was tall and broad, his younger brother was lean and sharp. Their eyes were strikingly different, but it was to be expected. She’d met Maven twice in the year she’d dated Cal. The first time was when he flew home for their father’s retirement party. He’d been quiet and reserved the whole evening until Cal dragged him out for a drink with her after to introduce them, properly as Cal had teased. When the brothers were alone and not around their father, they were different people. Maven especially. He seemed to soften, to melt a little bit. It had surprised her that someone could be so different just because the personnel around them changed. But Maven was a master of it.

The second time she’d seen him, Cal dragged her halfway across the world to Scotland to surprise Maven on his birthday. Cal’s brother lived as far from their father as possible, and honestly, Mare didn’t blame him. Unfortunately, Cal wasn’t afforded that luxury. Hence the rule book she had to follow.

           He had a picture with his uncle next to that. The man was a few years younger than her father, but he caried those years poorly. Still, he adored Mare,  and she didn’t have to pretend to tolerate him, unlike most of the other people that surrounded Cal at a given time.

A picture with his father was next to that one. It was a close second favorite of Mare’s. She couldn’t stand his father, the man was insufferable, but she loved to look at the younger version of Cal. He looked impossibly different as a kid, so different she almost hadn’t recognized him in the picture. She had told him that he reminded her of a taffy piece that was pulled too long in that picture. He was only ten in it, but his legs were already too long for him, and he was thin as a pole. He certainly had grown into his body, but the smile he gave to the camera there… he only gave it to her now. Or at least, she thought he did. She’d never seen him smile that brightly at anyone else.

           Next to that, tucked almost behind the other pictures was a photograph of a young woman in a window box with a toddler resting on her legs. She smiled at him, clutching his hands in hers, completely unaware of the camera trained on her. Cal didn’t talk about it, or the woman in it, but Mare wormed it out of Julian that Cal’s mother was a sore subject with everyone. Even though she was smiling in the picture, Mare could almost sense the sadness that radiated from her. She didn’t look much older than Mare in that picture. No doubt she had been tied up with the same strings and restrictions Mare faced now. If that were the case, Mare wasn’t surprised she had been so sad. The rules and regulations that came with dating a powerful person were like a cage. It worried Mare some days. She didn’t like being confined, but when she was with Cal away from all of this, she didn’t feel that way. It was only when they were together around other people that she did. More oxymorons where the man was concerned.

           The door into the office opened and Mare snapped to attention as Cal stepped in. His hands were full with papers he shuffled through while balancing his phone on his shoulder and speaking with someone. He’d nudged the door open with his hip and because of that, he had yet to turn and face her.

           Even though she hated all the restrictions she had to face while she dated him, she knew they didn’t truly bother her because he was hers. All of him carefully folded into a suit that hugged every muscle made her stomach tighten and other parts flutter. And all of it was hers, some nobody from a backwater city block. She sometimes felt like a tiny dragon hording a single coin when she was with him. She didn’t have much to her name, never had and probably never would, but he was hers. She wasn’t sure if she would get to keep him, but she planned to enjoy every last second that she could with him.

           Her lips curled into a smile as she leaned back in the chair and crossed her leg over the other, trying to paint a picture of coyness. It was probably not the best showing of it, but Cal was a miserable good boy who couldn’t handle anything remotely teasing.

           The papers ended up on the other side of the desk from her, while he shifted to hold the phone and rest his other fist on the table. The muscle in his jaw that always twitched when he was irritated fluttered like a bird’s wing now. He pressed his fingers into his closed eyes as if he could force whatever headache was probably there away with just that touch.

           “We didn’t agree to that when we signed the papers. They can’t come back and impose that restriction on us now.”            She squirmed in the chair at the tone in his voice. There were multiple sides to Cal that she had seen. There was her Cal, who had no idea how to dance, and who blushed whenever she teased him. Then there was the Cal she sometimes got at one in the morning who would grab the inside of her leg while he whispered in her ear exactly what he was going to do. Then there was this Cal. The one who had been heir to an empire company since the day he was born, and who could command a room like it was any other Tuesday. Sometimes it was hot to watch him do it. Right now though, it was the opposite. He wasn’t happy with something, and it honestly sounded like the last thing he needed was her here.

           She decided she definitely should have called before coming.

           Edging the chair back with her toes, it squeaked as it went over the floor, and his eyes darted up to her before widening.

           With an awkward smile, she wiggled her fingers in greeting before spinning the chair to face the back windows. Her cheeks were burning, and there were other parts that had melted to a very dangerous temperature. The look he gave her as he looked up at been fleeting, but it had been enough to put her on the teetering edge of deciding to grab him and pin him to the desk, or ask him to do just that with her.

           “Deal with this. Don’t call back until you have.”

           The silence following his words told her, that she was now the singular focus of his attention. His gaze was like a brand even through the leather of the chair. Crossing her arms and adjusting her posture accordingly, she went to spin the chair back around. He beat her to it though, spinning it to face him and tipping it back slightly so she had an easier time looking up at him.

           “I don’t believe I left anything at the apartment.”

           “You left me.” Mare pouted with a withering stare in his direction.

           “Very funny. Now how did you even get up here?”

           With a smirk, Mare fished the ID card out of her pocket and flashed it before him proudly. He snatched it from her hand with a startled gasp.

           “Mare… what the… what are you a thief now?”

           “Obviously.” She waved her hand to dismiss his comment before gesturing to the card. “You should really get lanyards to put those on by the way. I just kinda grabbed that off her desk. And if I got it anyone else could have—”  

           “You can’t go around stealing people’s ID cards. She needs this to get around the building.” He gestured at her with it, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

           “Well I needed it more in the moment.” Mare reasoned with a smile before leaning back in the chair. She didn’t really feel that bad, but the worry starting to etch itself into Cal’s brows did make her feel a little guilty.

           He tossed it unceremoniously onto the desk before sitting on the edge of it and massaging his face slowly with his hands.

“While I’m happy to see you, I don’t have time to deal with anything outside of work today.” His words were muffled by his palms but she could still hear every stressed syllable. Even when his work got stressful, which it undoubtably was at times, he still could push it aside whenever he saw her. Whatever he had been on the phone about had been serious, serious enough that he actually wasn’t all that happy to see her.

           “What happened?” Mare asked, scooting the chair close enough for her to set her hands on his thighs and squeeze gently. Now was not the time to be thinking about just how well that suit fit, but the thought still crossed her mind. Along with a few choice other thoughts.

           “Stupidity.”

           Cocking her head to the side, she waited for him to elaborate. It took him a moment, but he eventually dropped his hands and let his head fall back to look to the ceiling.

           “We signed papers on a deal a year ago. When that happens it’s done, the contract is sealed and stored away. In that contract, we agreed that should anything happen with a shipment, we were not liable. The group we shipped to doesn’t like that anymore, because a 30.5 million dollar shipment got lost.”

           Now it made sense to her. This wasn’t anger, or frustration. This was stress. Stress she could handle.

“How does one misplace 30.5 million dollars?” She teased before running hers hand up and down his legs.

“I don’t know. But there are five different parties all in a screaming match over it, including us. And if the other four don’t back down anytime soon, I’m going to have to find 30.5 million dollars somewhere.” His eyes darted down to her as she brushed her thumbs along the inside of his thighs. Glancing up through her lashes at him then, she tilted her head ever so slightly.

“And that is hard because?”

“Does it look like I have 30.5 million dollars lying around to just throw at someone?” He reasons, and the dips in his cadence brought a smirk to her lips. Now she had his attention. Pushing up to her feet she slid between his knees until she could drape her arms around his neck. Immediately, his hands found her hips and hugged her closer still.

“I’m sure there are one or two things you could sell in this building to cover that cost.” She ran her thumb along the back of his neck, before tracing the spot at the base of his jaw. His head tilted in the opposite direction, trying to escape the feather light touch. Both of them knew exactly what it did after all. Smirking at his reaction, Mare ran her other hand along his shoulder, tracing the contours she knew by heart.

“I bet I could pick out one of two things.”

“I don’t need to find the thirty and a half because it’s not our fault what happened.” He squeezed her hips, and even though she could see the fight in his eyes, it was quickly guttering. The tension in his shoulders was still more than she would have liked, but that tended to be where he kept most of it.

“So stressed out over something that isn’t even your fault.” She teased as she pressed her thumb into the knot closest to his neck. He tensed under her, but didn’t speak. At this point, his voice had already dropped an octave, and Mare had known him long enough now to know that when he went silent like this, he was trying to hide just how far she had pushed him. “Do you want help releasing some of that?”

“Not unless you can get up in front of five different boards and convince them otherwise.” She had to admire how even he kept his voice. It still wavered in a few places as he tried to remain composed under her scrutiny. Dropping her hands from around his shoulders to land on his thighs again, she squeezed hard enough to emphasize her next point.

“That sounds like a challenge.” Mare actually witnessed his pupils dilate as she dropped her voice an octave too. “You and I both know it’s not much of one. I can be very persuasive.”

“You’re gonna get us both in more trouble than I can get us out of.” He whispered to her, a tiny smile lifting the edges of his lips. The glint in his eye made her stomach flutter, especially as he started to finger the waistband of her pants. She didn’t want him to put his hands under it just yet though, she still had one surprise she wanted to save.

Pulling back to slip out of his arms, she dropped back into the chair with a proud smirk. “Then I see no reason to not walk me down there, call up these assholes, and have me deal with them.”

His hands grasped the air where she had been a second ago as his mind failed to register her abrupt disappearance. Frowning, he leaned forward to grab the arms of the chair and pull her close again. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she watched him look her over and hold for a little too long on her lips.

“I’d love to see them try and deal with you.”

Oh she was going to make him sweat so very much.

Grabbing his face and yanking it down to hers, she crushed her lips against his. He tasted like mint toothpaste, and he smelled like that cologne she bought him for Christmas. Gisa said it was cheap, but he’s smiled and thanked her for it anyway. And now he was wearing it. The very idea sent a thrill through her.

With a groan, he slid his hands along her legs and then underneath them to grab her ass and hike her out of her chair until she was flush against his chest. Her lips curled into a smile as she took his lower lip between her teeth and pulled hard enough to draw a sound from the back of his throat. Knotting her fingers in his hair, she tugged and whispered, “You get to deal with me first.”

His eyes opened, barely an inch from hers, and the look in them sent a shiver down her spine. When he looked at her like that, it drove her half mad every time. “Put me down and I’ll show you just how persuasive I can be.”

He set her down with exaggerated stillness, making sure to drag her body along his so she could feel every inch of him. Smirking at getting her way, Mare nudged him back until he was sitting on his desk. Bracing her hands on either side of him, she asked, “Which do you want first? Surprise one, or surprise two?”

His brow quirked, and he slid a hand around her waist to pull her between his legs. “I want you, just you.”

When his voice dropped that deep, it made it very difficult to stay focused on what she had planned. But she wanted to see him squirm, and if there was anything Mare Barrow was, it was persistent.

“Surprise number two it is.” She grinned like a cat with a mouse as she hooked his belt with a finger and trailed it along the waistband of his pants to the buckle. Humming to herself, she undid it, sliding it through each loop like a needle with thread. When it was fully out, she held it up with a wink. “Give me your wrists.”

Even in the heat of it all, his cheeks burned. Immediately he put his hands behind his back. Pouting at his movement, she lowered the belt. “It’s no fun if you don’t play along.”

“Can’t be restrained. I may have to get to my phone.”

“Then I’ll answer it and tell them you’re busy.” She teased before cupping the back of his neck and pulling him close to ghost her lips across his. He sighed, and the tension in his shoulders melted as she ran her hand along one side. She loved when he scrambled in these moments. Locked between a rock and hard place, he was like turtle on its back. If all she had to do to knock him down was insinuate like this, she would do it every night.

When he pulled away with narrowed eyes, she released a mock exasperated sigh and tossed the belt away. “Fine, next time.” Without giving him a moment of relief, she unbuttoned his pants and tugged to start sliding them off. “But since it’s my job to help you relieve stress, here’s what I’m going to do.”

He visibly swallowed, even as he helped her slide his pants off. Running her hands up his legs after she dropped them, Mare chewed on her lip. “If you can keep it together for longer than ten minutes, I will let you do me from behind.”

His eyes widened, shock pouring out of every pore of his body. She hated that position, and always refused it. It was the most degrading thing, she insisted. If a man was going to fuck her, he should look her in the eye while he did it. She may be trash from the other side of the tracks, but she knew her worth.

           “Ten?” He breathed, his eyes darting to the clock on the wall next to them.

           “Ten.” She confirmed before crouching down. “But it has to be ten. If you cheat, I’ll know because I will be keeping track of the time.”

           His mouth opened to refute before closing with a snap.  She could see him working it over, trying to determine whether or not she would play fair. She never really did, but this time she made a promise to herself that she would. Besides, she trusted him to at least make the whole experience entertaining.

           “Clock starts when I do.” She teased before tugging on the waistband of his boxers, making the elastic snap back. He tensed at the feeling, until she pulled them off too.

           Perhaps it was the fact that she had snuck up here, or maybe it was the fact that anyone—including one of the most prestigious board members—could walk in on them at any second, but the sight of him sent electricity along every nerve in her body.

           It was ten minutes. He wouldn’t make it to five, she told herself as she dragged her tongue along her lower lip. With that thought for reassurance, she gripped his thighs and closed her mouth over his cock. Immediately she felt the muscles in his legs tense, and his breathing hitched. She hummed, almost laughing at his reaction as he immediately grabbed the hair on the back of her head and pulled. She slid back an inch before diving back down, taking more than she had before. The groan he released was loud enough that she almost paused to make sure no one had heard. There was the fun in this, she supposed, getting caught might be exciting.

           “Mare.” He gasped as she continued her ministrations, and began to trail her nails along his skin up to his hips. Forcing her head down further, he muttered a breathless apology when she gagged. Digging her nails and fingers into his skin, she smiled and hummed again.

           “Fuck.” He spit the word like poison and bucked against her, earning another hum from her. “Not fair, that’s not fair.” He panted as she picked up the pace of her work.

           His finger dug into her scalp as he pulled even harder on her hair. She stayed on like a leach though, stifling a laugh at his squirming. His other hand gripped the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white, and his legs tensed in time with each of her movements. But the stubborn bastard kept it together, and no matter what she tried in her arsenal, he only cursed and gripped that desk until she thought it might splinter.

           “Ten,” he crowed with a breathless laugh. “That’s ten.”

           Mare snapped away with a grunt, swiping her hand along her mouth, smearing the lip gloss across her cheek. Glowering up at him, she grumbled a curse word that would have made her mother slap her across the mouth. A deal was a deal.

           “Don’t look so bitter about it.” He teased, before cupping her face and lowering himself to capture her lips. His tongue darted along hers as his fingers gently pushed the hair he had pulled behind her ears.

           When she pulled away for air, her chest ached and the space between her legs ached even more. “I’ve got one more surprise for you.” She rose to her full height, and had the pleasure of seeing a bead of sweat roll down from his hairline. He had barely made it. If she was being honest, she would say that she hadn’t been keeping track of the time. She’d lost all of it to the feeling of his hips rocking and the tension of his muscles.

           Backing away a step, she winked at his confusion. “Remember a few weeks ago when I went to mall and made you go find something to do?” She fingered the zipper of her jacket, another bolt of electricity ran down her spine as he straightened up, completely attentive to her. “I was saving this for your birthday, but I got tired of waiting.”

As she went to unzip the jacket, he leaped, catching her hands almost knocking her over. Scrambling to stay on her feet, Mare let him take her whole weight as she gasped. “Fucking hell Cal—”

“Let me.” He smirked as he straightened her up and grabbed the zipper before she could. With a gentle tug, he unzipped it halfway, his eyes darkening again as he caught sight of the top half. She’d picked it carefully, the first time she’d ever done something like that honestly. Normally she grabbed things off the rack and hoped it matched. This though, she had taken her time selecting.

He had the jacket off in less than a heartbeat, and his fingers danced along the thin black lace of the corset. His eyes followed his hands as he searched the whole thing over, making her swallow in uncertainty. He trailed a knuckle along one of the many straps, his teeth obviously working at the inside of his cheek. Gently, he grabbed the waistband of her sweat pants and pulled them down as he dropped into a crouch before her. His eyes widened at the matching bottoms.

Immediately, his hands gripped the back of her legs as he glanced up at her. The weight of that stare could crush her if she didn’t realize that it was the most reverent of gazes. He looked at her like she had put the stars in the sky, and hung the moon too. It she was honest, she would admit that it might go to her head a little bit ans that the smile she gave him was mostly fed by that. She could bring this man to his knees by simply standing in a pair of lacy panties.

           “Where,” he voice cracked on the word, and his fingers dug into her hamstrings a little more before he dragged his lips up the inside of her bare thigh. “Where did you keep this?”

           Threading a hand through his hair, she exhaled in a sigh as his lips grazed the seam along the inside of her thigh. “You like it?”

           “I’ll like it better when it’s on the floor.” He murmured before sliding his hand up to grip her ass again. She almost yelped, and grabbing his shoulders she let out a breathless laugh as he pressed more kisses along the inside of her thigh.

           Standing up, he kept his hand on her as he lifted her off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and let him spin her around to the desk. With a quick sweep of his hand, he sent the papers all over it to the side before laying her down on it. With a tug, he dragged her back to the edge so she was still straddling him and braced his hands on either side of her head. She panted as she watched his lips curl into a hint of a smile.

           “Forget fucking you from behind.” He murmured, before lowering himself to trail his nose along her sternum. “I want to see every inch of you in this.”

           She grinned triumphantly as he slid a hand up her side to squeeze her breast, made far more generous with the help of the corset. It had been a good idea to listen to the pushy sales girl just because of that. “Good thing you don’t have to take it off.”

           His brow quirked in confusion, and sliding her hand down her body, she opened her legs a little wider to brush her fingers along herself. “Made sure it would be easy for you. Didn’t want you to feel intimidated by all the straps and buckles.”

           The snort he let out made her laugh, and she smiled as he stole the sound from her lips with a kiss. Rubbing his hips against hers, he lifted them off the table slightly until she was arched against him. Groaning when she felt how hard he was, she dug her nails into his arms, and said, “If I knew all it took to get you like this was wearing a pretty scrape of lace, I would buy sexier panties.”

           “I happen to like the panties you already own.” He teased before reaching between her legs for the bundle of nerves there. Rubbing in a tortuously slow circle, he grinned down at her as she craned her head back so her hair spilled across the desk. Grabbing onto the edge above she tried to grind against his palm, seeking further friction.

           Dropping his lips to her neck, he let his finger slide down to penetrate her. Groaning loud enough that she actually slapped her other hand over her mouth, Mare arched until her chest was smashed against his. He let out his own pleased sound at how wet he found her, and let her grind against his palm.

           “Can you last ten minutes?” He whispered in her ear before catching her earlobe with his teeth and pulling lightly. Mare twitched in response to the movement of his finger inside of her, whimpering when he pressed a kiss to the point where her pulse pounded in her neck. And although this was heavenly, she’d be damned if he won at this.

           Setting her jaw, she squeezed her legs together, earning a laugh from him as he withdrew his hand and brought his fingers to his lips. Sitting up quick enough to make herself dizzy, she grabbed his wrist to stop him from putting those fingers in his mouth. He froze as she closed her lips around his fingers and glanced up at him through her lashes. Releasing them with a pop, she watched his pupils dilate until they swallowed almost his entire iris.

           Smirking when a blush exploded across his cheeks and neck, she licked her lips and said, “You won’t even last that long.”

           Without speaking, he put a hand to her shoulder and slowly guided her back down to the desk as he stood over her. He pinned her hips down with his other hand as he tilted his head to the side ever so slightly and said, “I will take that as a challenge.”

           Mare’s heart fluttered in her chest at the tone of his voice, and how deep it had dropped. Keeping her breathing as level as possible, she closed her eyes as he traced a hand along her side and cupped her breast before leaving open mouthed kissed along the column of her throat.

“Cal,” she breathed his name in a gentle exhale as she threaded her fingers into his hair at the same time that he slipped his hand to her entrance again and pressed his palm against her.

           “Say my name like that again.” He whispered in her ear. “And I will do anything you want.”

           “Anything?” Her voice hitched as she ground against his palm, her eyes fluttering as she sought out the friction he denied her as he teasingly pulled away.

           His lips pulled up into a hint of a smile as he withdrew enough that she chased him with her lips. Their breath mixed as he rested his forehead against hers, and through her lightly fuzzy and crossed vision she could see the depths of his irises. Dark gold, and amber like honey. She could drown in them and be happy.

“Anything.” He answered her.

           Lowering herself back to the desk, she pulled him with her while her other hand threaded between them to grab his hip and pull him closer. Without breaking eye contact, he let her guide him to her entrance. With a sigh, she tipped her head back and locked her ankles behind his hips as he pulled her completely to the edge of the desk.

           “Cal.” She whispered as she grabbed the top of the desk again and squeezed her eyes shut.

           “That’s my girl.” He replied before putting a hand on her hip to keep her pinned to the desk and pulled out before pushing in deeper. Mare bucked against him, gasping as she clenched her thighs together around his hips, pulling him closer. Bracing his other hand next to her head, he dropped his chin as he moved in and out.            She only regretted doing this here for half a second, since she had to contain whatever sounds she made to minimal volumes. The last thing they needed was Volo Samos hearing something or coming to investigate what he was hearing. Although that might have been part of the thrill. If they were at her apartment, she could be as loud as she wanted, even with the window open. The traffic outside was loud enough to mask anything that happened in her shoebox apartment.

           “Harder.” She panted as she dragged her nails down the side of his nice shirt. She wanted to tear it off of him, to get to his skin underneath. He caught her hand before she could do just that, and pinning that hand above her head he obliged her. She half yelped, half gasped as she slid along the desk until her head almost dangled off the edge.

           Like a light switch flickering on and off, the light beyond her closed eyelids alternated with each meeting of their hips. She could feel the change in pace as he sensed her reaching her climax, and her lips curled into a pleased smile even as she arched slightly, hoping to escape him to last longer. He laughed softly at her attempt and pulled her toward him until she was dangling off the desk and had to grab on or risk falling to the floor. He caught her, but she still gasped as the change in angle pushed her completely over the edge so she shattered like glass. Every muscle in her legs contracted and her chest hitched on the rapid inhale she took. Curling around him as much as she could in her position, she stifled any other sound that wanted to come out.

           The best part? She knew she had lasted longer than ten minutes. The worst part? She wanted him again. And there was no way that was going to happen because as she sat there panting after he put her back on the desk and bent over to kiss her lightly, she heard the subtle ringing from a cell phone.

           “You’re getting a call.” She panted in his ear as she ran her fingers through his hair. It was damp now, and his chest pushed into hers with every inhale he took around his rapid heartbeat.

           “It can wait.” He murmured in reply before pressing a kiss against her jaw again.

           “I thought thirty and a half million dollars meant a lot right now.” She laughed as she traced a finger down the column of his spine from his neck to the middle of his back. He turned the full force of his gaze on her and she almost melted into a puddle in the heat of it.

           “You’re worth more than that. More than any deal, any job.” He kissed the tip of her nose. It kept her from turning away to hide the blush that exploded across her cheeks. He traced a thumb along it, and smiling at her he continued, “Who’s blushing now?”

           With an amused roll of her eyes, she traced a finger along his jaw in response to his light touches. This close to him, she realized he was beautiful, in the same way a marble statue in a museum was. She used to think he belonged in places like that, surrounded by priceless and irreplaceable objects that everyone paid to see.

           “I love you.” She tilted her head to the side, testing the phrase again. It was only the third or fourth time she had used it seriously with him. The weight of it settled over him, and he brought her fingers to his lips to press a kiss to them.

           “I love you.” He dropped the hand and pulled her into a sitting position so she could drop her legs from around his waist. Still connected with him, she trailed her fingers along his arms and drank her fill of him with her eyes. A part of her knew that someday she would lose him. Nothing in her life was ever truly hers and he luck had always been rotten, it was why she never bought a lottery ticket. And of course, his father did not like her. He wanted her gone because he saw her as an obstacle, or a hurdle his son would trip over. It took everything to not dig her fingers into Cal’s arm when they were around his father. Maybe if she did so, she could tattoo herself onto him and never lose him.

           “What are you thinking so deeply about?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and pressed another kiss to the tip of her nose.

           “Nothing important.” She lied effortlessly, the smile she conjured for him almost real. If he saw through it he didn’t comment. The phone rang again from its sad position on the floor where it had ended up, and this time they both looked at it. The screen was lit up and he grimaced at the number showing on it.

           “I think you have to take that one.” Mare whispered before pressing a kiss to his cheek and sliding away from him to hop off the desk. He managed to catch her, and bring her to his chest before she could escape. Closing her eyes, she let herself melt against him for a second, inhaling the smell of his cologne and the smell of her that was now on him.

           When he pulled away to grab the phone off the floor and his pants from their pile near it, she sank back into the chair and watched his back as he finally answered the call. Whatever he was saying was like a buzz against her ears. She could only see him right then: the man he was, and the one he could become. She hated what he was in a small part of herself. But he wasn’t… he wasn’t like the other people he had spent most of his life around. And neither was his brother. Maybe that’s what that life did to people like them. Pushed them so hard that they turned out the opposite of their parents.

           He glanced at her with a smile as he managed to step into his pants with one hand and pull them up. She conjured up another smile for him and stood to fix his hair. He leaned down far enough that she could do that while he went about stringing his belt back into his pants. She trailed her fingers along his chest and down to the buckle and wrestled his fingers from it to clasp it shut herself.

           By the time she had finished he was done with the call, and was sitting in silence watching her work. She glanced up at him through her lashes, but he cupped the back of her head so she tipped her head back completely to him. His thumb rubbed a soothing rhythm along the back of her skull as he whispered, “I have to go. They found a solution.”

           She nodded. “So I guess you don’t have to bring out the big guns and put me in front of them.” Her smile was easy even as she prepared to pull away from him again. He held her steady, staring into her eyes for a long moment.

Just after the silence had stretched too far, he whispered, “Thank you.”

           “For what?” She managed to disentangle herself from him, and turned to gather her clothes. If he was leaving she needed to disappear too. They couldn’t leave together though, or people might notice. And she did not need it getting back to his father that she had broken any of those stupid rules. Then she might as well consider this the last time she ever saw him. What a last time it would be though. It would live with her for the remainder of what she had heard his father call a measly insignificant little life.

           “Everything. You… you make me impossibly happy Mare.” He threaded an arm around her waist before pulling her back against his chest and laying a kiss on top of her head. She finally melted completely into his arms. Wrapping his forearms with hers to trap him for a moment longer she closed her eyes. Suddenly, she didn’t care about the rules she had agreed to. Rules were meant to be broken, and she had always excelled at doing just that. With him, she would break every rule and scatter the ashes of them to the wind.

[vinyls-and-valentines]

CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT THE HYPERTHRUST GRAFFITI WALL??!

[Image Description: An ask by @partyrockpoison reading: "Can you go into more detail about the Hyperthrust graffiti wall? It sounds really interesting!" /End Description.]

Okay, so— forgotten lore time:

before deciding Hypethrust was an old skate rink, i used to envision it as a large 2-story house (much like my current version of the Nest) that was abandoned in the process of being remodeled when the Helium War took place.

the "graffiti wall" referred to what was now an exterior wall that spanned vertically across 2 of the houses bedrooms with only a thin ledge separating them. They were on the corner of the house, so you'd just see this slightly roughed up painted-wood-front suburban house with a giant pop of color on the left end full of hundreds of scribbles and symbols and shit— it kicked ass.

everybody would add a tag to the graffiti wall when they first went to Hyperthrust, be it encouraged by their crew or by some of the more regular patrons of the bar— this included Show Pony who was friends with the owners, so they'd sometimes volunteer to help when they were short-staffed.

this was very much away of keeping track who was still around and who'd been ghosted, as most 'joys find their way back by Hyperthrust at least every few months to at least give their tag a new coat of paint or even remake it entirely— after all, a lot of things can happen in that time and paint isn't the only thing that fades under the scorching desert sun.

the owners actually started the wall and then it just steadily grew as did the clientele of the club and the Zones' overall population, to the point where the graffiti wall and the wall with the access points are on either floor got fully covered in paint. At that point, they had no other option than tag the building on the opposite exterior wall (mostly out of killjoy property rules than anything) and mounted a neon sign out front confirming that the building was, in fact, Hyperthrust if you couldn't tell from the way the bass all but threatened to knock it down and the massive guest list plastered over the walls.

there were only 2.5 rules to adding to the wall: don't be as far up your ass as Korse is up his and do a giant tag, don't ever cover someone else's tag if you know they haven't been ghosted (bad luck; slightly overlapping designs are fine as long as they're still legible from a distance), and don't do incredibly generic shit like a cartoony dick or a handprint or anything of the like (this is not kindergarden, we need to know at least vaguely who you are).

also, honorable mention to the crazy fucks who put their tags above the 2nd floor access door because when i say "thin ledge" i mean one person can barely stand on that thing without risking to fall off if they took even a step back.

oh! Also also, since this technically was originally meant for an alternate universe fic where the killjoys just lived in our world, i was also toying with the idea of the wall being like. A large scale version of the graffiti on the mailbox at the time because of the lyrics "This ain't about the friends you've made, but the graffiti they write on your grave". Far more grim! I then proceeded to completely forget about this concept until now

[writing-in-april]

Mismatched

Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Than you to @imagining-in-the-margins for this perfect gif!

Summary: Reader is Spencer’s roommate has been pining after Spencer for a while now. One morning they finally get to act on their shared desires.

Warnings: NSFW (Non specific dom), Goofy smut, Unprotected sex, Oral (Female Receiving)

A/N: So anxiety has been a real bitch to me as of late but I finally finished this so sorry its 3 weeks late. This is also a little shorter then I intended but I still like the way it turned out. Hope y’all enjoy and my requests are open!

Masterlist  Word count: 2.3k

Spencer’s penchant for wearing mismatched socks was one of the things I found most endearing about him. I often peaked down to look at what socks he was wearing each day, they almost always gave clues about his mood. I knew that if they were plain colored socks with no pattern he was usually feeling down and on the opposite end if they had little characters on them I knew he was probably in a great mood.

Today on our off day from the BAU he was sitting on the couch of our apartment with a coffee in one hand and a book in the other reading some obscure novel in French that I could never understand. Ever since we became roommates I often stared at his visage soaking in the beautiful image of him every morning.

“Good morning Jelly Bean.” A soft whisper speaking my nickname that I loathed spoke drawing my eyes away from his form, getting distracted before I could look and see what colors adorned his feet today. His eyes bore into me as he glanced up and down my figure that was only barely covered in one of his shirts that I had stolen. I smirked to myself at the sight of his wantonness. Ever since I had heard him and Derek talking about his crush on me I had been trying to coax him into acting on it. I knew that my pale pink lace boy shorts were definitely in view as that was my intention the whole time, he always got this almost feral look about him when he saw me in some clothes I had nicked from him.

“Hey Spence.” I said with a coy smile meant to deceive as to not give away my intentions. His eyes narrowed at my words unsure if I was doing this on purpose or not. Before I could even comprehend what was going on Spencer had tossed his book aside and made his way over to me. He trapped me against the counter so I couldn’t escape him with our breath intermingling from how close we were, though I was quite happy with the position I had found myself in.

“Do you know what you’re doing to me Jelly Bean?” God, I really hated that nickname. He had come up with it soon after we had become roommates and I had insisted on a spot in the kitchen to put my stash of jelly beans that he could not touch. I normally loathed the nickname however, the way his breath was caressing my face as he spoke the words softly almost turned me into jelly.

“What do you mean Spence?” My innocent tone of voice looked like it pained him. Giggling at the sight I bumped his nose with mine in jest bringing us ever closer. My actions caused a gasp to escape from him as if I was crushing his lungs, though that was the only sound between us for a minute besides heavy panting.

“Do you want this?” He said to break the silence, he didn’t need to clarify, I knew what he meant and was giddy at the implications.

“Yes”

As soon as the words left my mouth we were both on each other in an instant, our mouths moving in sync as if we had done it a thousand times before. We stumbled and rushed to the closest bedroom which happened to be Spencer’s. With fumbling hands he opened the door to his room just as I started to work on tugging his sleep shirt up over his head. He stopped by movements by swiftly picking me up and walked over to his bed before tossing me down like a rag doll. I giggled as he tossed me down but quickly to strip his shirt off so I was only in my panties,

I then placed myself back down on the bed right back to where Spencer threw me before patiently waiting for him.

My lustful gaze fell onto him as I watched him strip down, shamelessly staring at him wondering how someone could look more perfect. He was also staring at me as he undressed his eyes filled with awe as if he was looking at a goddess. I had never felt more beautiful.

Giggles then suddenly started to fall from my mouth uncontrollably, I caught a glimpse of the socks that still sat on Spencer’s feet which pulled me out from my illicit thoughts. They were red and purple in color, with the red one having large orange polka dots and the purple had blue vertical stripes running up the sides. A mixture of hurt and confusion flashed across his face, his body suddenly curling in on itself trying to shade himself from my laughs. He started to retreat out of the bedroom in shame and I then realized how my laughs must’ve been perceived by Spencer.

“Spen-Spencer wait- I’m not laughing at you” I spoke out between my dying giggles, his brows angle deeper, his confusion increasing further. “I’m laughing at your socks”

He glanced down to look at the mismatched socks that were pulled halfway up to his calves, he wiggled his toes inside them then joined me in giggles of realization that he looked like a goof.

“Oh!” He squeaked out while scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry for misunderstanding.”

“No it’s my fault- I’m sorry for making you feel self conscious, I feel really bad.” The laughter had completely dissipated from me, guilt replacing the elation. Averting my eyes in shame, the pillow sitting next to me suddenly became the most interesting thing in the room as I started to pull the threads on the soft plush. Spencer padded over to me, he carefully straddled my thighs while boring his eyes into my skin trying to get me to initiate eye contact.

“You don’t have to be sorry Jelly Bean.” My cheeks blushed at the nickname which now sounded suddenly cute but I still refused to face him. When I didn’t move to look at him he dropped his face down to my stomach while skimming over the dips of my hips. Delicately he started placing feather light kisses to my middle barely grazing the soft flesh, when I started to squirm a bit at the slightly ticklish touches he pursed his lips and started to blow raspberries against my stomach. My giggles returned in full force as pressed goofy kisses onto my skin, it then turned into uncontrollable laughter when he started tickling every part of my body he could reach.

He pulled up to engulf me in a wet kiss, slipping his tongue inside to caress my own which muffled my snickers. He cradled my cheek as he pushed our kiss deeper, stealing all of the breath from my lungs. While biting the soft flesh of my lips his fingers trailed down from my hips slipping underneath the lace of my boy shorts.

His light teasing touches against my folds continued to push giggles from my throat, but they were soon turned into a loud moan as his fingertips made contact with my bundle of nerves. Slowly he started to circle my clit as he moved away from my mouth to give my jaw and neck the attention they deserved. Hickies were slowly accumulating as his teasing touches made me more and more impatient causing an impatient whine to fall from my lips. He smirked against the column of my throat in response to my inarticulate plea, he still must’ve understood my wants and slipped two fingers inside, crooking them to try and locate the ever elusive g spot. He was better at finding it compared to most men as after a few pumps of his fingers he pinpointed the exact spot, causing a ripple of pleasure to flow through me. Gasps, moans, and whines were freely escaping me, the pleasure coming in intense waves. He then pulled his fingers away from me causing a full pout to form on my lips. When he looked at the pathetic look on my face he was the one snickering this time.

“Why’d you stop.” I whimpered out pitifully and added puppy dog eyes to my face to convince him to resume his ministrations.

“I wanted to taste you.” He answered cheekily while dipping down to hook his fingers in the waistband of my panties. Pulling them down my legs slowly he followed them with a trail of teasing kisses ghosting around where I wanted him the most,“I bet you taste like pineapple.”

“Spencer, don’t lie to try to be sexy, that's not what any woman tastes like. I am not a literal jelly bean.” My legs kicked out in impatience to get the offending fabric off of me while trying to suppress any more giggles and focus at the task at hand.

Finally the fabric was removed from my center but Spencer had not ceased his teasing. I squirmed as he slowly kissed up my legs leaving kisses and love bites wherever he could.

“Be patient.” He tried to say with conviction but was unsuccessful at concealing how funny he found my impatience.

“Stop it’s not funny”

He silenced my whines by diving into my core. He wasted no time, slipping his tongue between my folds. Immediately waves of pleasure were already rolling off of me, I had been with plenty of guys beforehand but being with Spencer already felt otherworldly. The kitten licks alternated between teasing my entrance and sucking my clit making my vision go white. But, that feeling was nothing compared to when he added two of his fingers pushing them into my entrance. I probably sounded like I was in a porno from the cries that were coming from me and all it took was a few crooks of his fingers before I fell over the edge. My hips tried to rotate to ride out my high, though they were quickly stopped by his other hand over my stomach forcing me to be still as pleasure ripped through me.

When my release finished he made his way back up my body and enveloped me into a heated kiss. It was messy, sloppy, and I was gasping into his mouth as I caught my breath from my high.

Once I came back down to earth he flipped me over quickly so I was now on top, I was shocked at the sudden movement but I quickly recovered and wrapped my hands around his length slowly starting to pump. I guided his length to grind against my core to tease him and get back at him for the way he teased me.

The pleas that fell from his lips were unintelligible, the fact that he was already this deasperate from just a little bit of teasing made me smirk devilishly.

“Please.” He was finally able to form at least one word so I relented and lined him up with my entrance. As I sunk down I tried to relish in the feeling of him stretching me, that was quickly ruined by Spencer roughly grabbing my hips and pushing me all the way down. Underneath me Spencer was fighting to thrust up into me as I adjusted to his thick length and once I started to roll my hips an uncharacteristic high pitched whine came from his lips. The pleasure that started to well up inside me was too much to ignore and we both devolved into thrashing pleasure grabbing any part of each other we could reach to get to our respective release.

There were no words spoken as we both hit our highs, just loud pornographic cries that reverberated around the apartment and would surely get us a complaint from the neighbors. I kept my movements going as long as possible until the last dregs of stimulation were pulled from us and everything became oversensitive. I rolled my body off of him laying down in the bed roughly with exhaustion and I barely noticed Spencer cleaning us both up with a wet washcloth.

Just as he laid down next to me the rising morning sun that we had both woken up to started to peek through the curtains obnoxiously as it was close to noon by now, falling right on my eyes. A groan fell from my lips at the light that glared into my eyes so I got up groggily to shut the curtains.

“Stay.” Spencer whispered, breaking the silence in the room. I glanced back to look at him through my sleepy eyes, his curls wild from the previous activities we partook in but they still framed his face perfectly while he nestled himself further into the fluffy blanket.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily Socks.”  I simply remarked while closing the curtains with a huff. Glad that the sun was now out of my eyes I made my way back over to Spencer meandering playfully over to tease him.

“Socks?”

“Well you have a stupid nickname for my jelly bean habit so I’m giving you one for yours.”  I picked up the socks he had carelessly chucked across the room and threw them at him. Then a stack of his freshly cleaned clothes caught my eyes, specifically the colorful socks that sat on top. Padding over to the stack I quickly put on the first two different ones I see. I presented my choice of socks to Spencer by standing on the bed while giggling, my choice of an orange Halloween sock and one with teddy bears seemed to greatly amuse him, “Now we’re matching.”

He snorted and pulled me back down to cuddle our limbs intertwining as we fell asleep now both wearing mismatched socks.

[fettsvette]

Never Worn White (Part One)

Cloud City, Bespin. Boba Fett is on the hunt for a casual fuck before he cashes in on Han Solo’s bounty. You’re a naïve virgin, saving yourself for an adolescent fantasy… and it just so happens that he’s in town. Upon encountering the object of your infatuation though, you didn’t expect he’d be so willing to help you out.

Pairing: Boba Fett x Reader Words: 2.1k Rating: Explicit Warnings: Loss of virginity and unprotected sex

Can be found on Archive of Our Own here.

Boba Fett was in town.

 There had been rumblings around the city for the past several days. Something big was happening, but nobody seemed to be sure of exactly what. You’d overheard people at the Shadow Market saying there was a beautiful woman who matched the description of Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan - well, formerly of Alderaan, now - staying in the guest quarters of the Administrator’s Palace, with a motley crew of attendants that included, of all creatures, a Wookiee. There were whispers of the famous spice smuggler, Han Solo, having been sighted as well, and even quieter mumblings concerning something called a ‘Skywalker’ (whatever that meant). An Imperial Garrison had been installed earlier in the week with no sign of leaving anytime soon, and the Baron Administrator himself, Lando Calrissian, had allegedly been seen meeting with Darth Vader himself. 

  Or so your roommate claimed.

  “That big scary guy who works for the Emperor? The one with the magic powers who sounds like he breathes through a gas-processing vane?” You had asked skeptically when they’d burst into your shared flat with the news, the normally relaxed Aruzan acting infuriatingly bubbly at finally having gotten hold of the hot gossip in the neighborhood before you had.

  The very same, they insisted; and the Baron hadn’t looked too pleased to be hosting such a powerful representative of the Empire, either.

  They hadn’t seen anything themself, no - they’d heard it from one of their coworkers at Pair O’ Dice, who’d claimed their cousin’s friend’s uncle had seen them together, walking across the Apex Overlook with a squadron of armed stormtroopers trailing behind them… the amount of parties involved in this city-wide game of Comlink Operator seemed to go on and on and on. You couldn’t decipher what was true, and what was just garbled rumors and hearsay. And you couldn’t make sense why such a varied amalgamation of the galaxy’s most well-known creatures would choose to congregate at a mining colony so far away in the Outer Rim.

  There was one thing you were absolutely certain of, however.

  Boba Fett was here, in Cloud City.  

  You’d never been so sure of anything in your life. You knew it was true. 

  Because you’d seen his ship yourself.

  It had been two days ago. You hadn’t been able to sleep, even after a long night waiting tables at K’cri’s Café, and you’d decided to take a walk down by the landing platforms in the wee hours of the morning, dawn still only a pinkish-orange smudge barely visible above the thick clouds. Whatever the time of day or night, there was always some action going on there - ships arriving constantly, bringing tourists from all over the galaxy looking to try their luck at one of Cloud City’s various casinos. You enjoyed watching the multitudes of different creatures disembarking off their various means of transportation - sub-aquatic Mon Calamari, blue-hued Chiss, reptilian Trandoshans; you’d even seen some gargantuan Hutts a few months ago, with their retinues of slaves and hangers-on, making their sluggish way across the concourse towards Yarith Bespin. It sometimes seemed that this city never truly slept.

  You’d been about to finally call it a night, still not particularly tired but knowing that you should attempt to go home, draw your curtains against the burgeoning light of the sun, and get some shut-eye before your next shift the following evening, when a bizarre sound from above snapped you out of your reverie. 

  You’d heard the Slave I long before you’d seen it. 

  The ship’s engine gave out a strange whining noise, unlike anything you’d ever heard in a transport. It reminded you of a gigantic buzz-bug, and you resisted the urge to swat at the air around your ears out of habit, squinting your eyes against the hazy morning light to see what kind of damned contraption could be making such a racket. 

  The ship came into view as it banked around the clouds, beginning a slow descent towards one of the nearby docks, and you felt your heart give a walloping jolt from the shock of what you were witnessing.

  ‘No… it can’t be… not here…’

  The ship was an ugly, mottled thing - a retired Firespray model of Old Republic make, the paint faded red and greenish-grey, much of it scraped away and adorned with deep gouges and obvious carbon scoring from firefights over the years. It had seemed to glide almost effortlessly through the air as it swept towards the docks, and as the transport grew closer and its image became more clear, your eyes widened, your blood screaming in your ears, your heart threatening to jump up out of your throat and flee from your frozen form. Its strangely vertical craft had suddenly rotated horizontally in the air, hanging momentarily as if suspended by a fine thread, and sank down to settle on one of the nearby landing pads, steam from the thrusters billowing around its now motionless form.

  You knew the ship well, although you’d never actually seen it in real life. It was all over the HoloNet almost every time a huge sum of credits were posted on a well-known fugitive’s head, their eventual capture usually accompanied by footage of that very same transport leaving the scene. It was called the Slave I , and was owned by a man who wore a ragged suit of Mandalorian armor, and who made his living by hunting down and - sometimes killing - those who found themselves on the wrong end of a particularly influential creature’s business dealings.

  Rooted to the spot, trembling from excitement, you’d stood on your toes and craned your neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the pilot as they exited the durasteel behemoth. When the boarding ramp had finally extended, however, you’d turned and ran back to your apartment, a wave of anxiety at possibly seeing the owner - and them seeing you - having overcome your senses. And there you’d hid for the rest of the day, pacing the floor of your living quarters and periodically peeking out the window, expecting to see the old Firespray taking off into open space from the vicinity of the dockyards across the city. But as far as you knew, it was still there. You could feel in your guts that it was.

  That was how you’d discovered that Boba Fett had come to Cloud City.

  The deadliest and most effective bounty hunter in the entire galaxy, in your town.

  And you wanted to meet him. You needed to meet him.

  It sounded almost dirty, to acknowledge that maybe you had a bit of a crush on Boba Fett. Although merely calling it a ‘crush’ was quite an understatement. 

  You were infatuated with him. 

  You’d followed his career almost obsessively since your early teenage years, when he’d first erupted onto the bounty hunting scene and began making headlines thanks to the clean, efficient work he’d make of marks who’d been unfortunate enough to cross his path. He was highly dangerous and had a nasty reputation for being a ruthless killer, focused only on bringing pain to the creatures that could earn him as many credits as possible. On top of that, he had exclusive hunting contracts with both the Empire and the Hutts, which didn’t garner much support from communities sympathetic to the Alliance to Restore the Republic, such as your own. Much of the galaxy considered bounty hunters to be the lowest of scum, on the same level as the criminals and other dregs and vestiges of the civilized universe that they were famous for capturing. It was difficult to admit that it wasn’t the gorgeous Falleen who lived down the hall that you fantasized about sweeping off your feet and charming the Corellian hells out of you, but Boba Fett. 

  You couldn’t fully explain it, even to yourself let alone your exasperated and befuddled friends, but there was just something downright sexy about him. You felt weak in the knees whenever you saw his visage broadcast on the holocaster in the café, and your ears always tingled and burned when you caught his name being mentioned in a snatch of overheard conversation. You spent hours scrolling and typing on your holopad, searching for any and all information you could discover on this enigmatic figure who wore the regalia of an ancient warrior race. You’d made it a point to haunt the local nightclubs and bars on your nights off, always seeking out information on Boba Fett’s whereabouts in the galaxy, his latest jobs, encounters that the creatures constantly flowing in and out of the local entertainment establishments may have had with him during their travels. You’d heard how good of a lay - and a generous tipper - he supposedly was from several of the go-go dancers who worked at the Zero-G Club, and the idea of Boba Fett himself getting a lap dance in a seedy topless bar always sent liquid heat pooling to your core. One of your most prized sources of intelligence concerning Boba Fett was Rystáll Sant , the half-Theelian backup singer for the Max Rebo Band, whose frequent sets at the Blue Petal Bar you never missed for this express reason. Lyn Me and Greeata Jendowanian had their own Fett stories, but Sant in particular became very talkative about her famous conquests while touring the galaxy - always after a couple spotchkas, which you were more than happy to share with her.

  Rystáll Sant was adamant that she’d had a casual physical relationship with Fett for years, and that he was, without question, the best fuck of her life. She hadn’t seen, let alone hooked up with him, in several months, no, but the band had a long-term residency at Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine coming up, and she was looking forward to finally reuniting with him there. He was one of Jabba’s favorite hired guns, after all. You always came away from your conversations with Rystáll feeling flushed and woozy, in a way that had nothing to do with the copious amounts of alcohol you both consumed while chatting. You’d always been too shy to grill her on any of the specifics of her dalliance with Fett, even though you knew she’d be happy to give them to you - what kind of a lover he was, if he was gentle or rough or a delicious mixture of the two, what he sounded like when he moaned, what he looked like both underneath his Mandalorian helmet and that mysteriously dented codpiece - but those unasked questions haunted you endlessly. You wanted to learn the answers yourself, somehow.

  In short, you were helplessly drawn to Boba Fett, and found everything about him to be intoxicating - from the danger associated with his chosen career, to the mystery of what dashing good looks he had to be hiding behind that black-visored helmet… and the fact that he was experienced. 

  Because you’d never been with a man before.

  Ever.

  You were a virgin in every sense of the word.

  You didn’t consider yourself a prude, or anything close - you just felt you’d never met the right person who you’d want to share that part of yourself with. Your virginity was something sacred in your eyes, something you wanted to give to someone special, not to just waste on a drunken, spiced out tryst after a night partying. Your prospective admirers on Bespin bored you to tears, and you found yourself constantly daydreaming of being whisked away off-world by a masked man in a shining suit of armor; one who would take you on exciting adventures and carry you bridal-style back to his ship afterwards for a romantic, passionate night together.

  You’d never admit it to anyone, knew you’d be laughed out of the social circles you’d managed to cultivate during your years living and working in Cloud City, but Boba Fett’s was the only name that ever came to your lips as you laid in bed, your hands between your legs, bringing yourself to climax twice, sometimes three times during one of your nightly sessions. Just the mere thought of him drove you wild in a way that no other person ever had, and you constantly fantasized about him claiming your innocence for his own, leaving you trembling and mewling underneath him.

  And now, like a bolt out of the blue, he was actually here , located in Cloud City on some unknown business, possibly entangled in whatever Imperial affairs that’d had the entire colony holding its collective breath over the previous days.

  It almost seemed as if it were meant to happen, that you were supposed to seduce and sleep with him, despite your initial panic at his unprecedented arrival. You knew how it sounded. If anyone found out about what you were planning, discovered the details of your deepest fantasy, the one thing you truly wanted above all else, they’d have you admitted to the psychiatric medcenter at Cloud City Central.

  It was true.

  You were saving yourself for Boba Fett.

  You were on a mission to fulfill that adolescent promise to yourself, consequences be damned, and you had no idea what you were getting yourself into.

[cowboymantis]

Let's talk about Kazuto Arase

Yakuza / Yakuza Kiwami , Yakuza 3 side content spoilers. Later on Yakuza LaD too, but I'll give a warning before that especially since a lot of people haven't played that yet.

So I have a lot of thoughts about Yakuza on my mind and just want to scream into the void about it somewhere to write 'em all down somewhere! I'm starting with... Arase.

Yeah, I know, a mostly very hated character (personality and battle-wise) that has so little screen time on top of it all too, is the first thing I'll be talking about.

Hear me out, I actually really love this character and only really started to appreciate him after I went for the Yakuza 3 platinum trophy... I've replayed this game so many times, I didn't mind it when I played through it first but seeing all the hate it has gotten, I went to replay it just in case and with that replayed it again and again because I just somehow loved it so much-

And you know, one part of Yakuza 3, also completion related so there was no way I could've missed it, were the Hitman missions. In general, after playing through all the main games I started to come back to a lot of characters I didn't like or minded the first time playing that are now some of my favourites (other examples are Tamashiro or Lau Ka Long, hell even Katsuragi)!

To come back to Arase, let's start with, well, the start: Yakuza / Yakuza Kiwami.

Introduced already in the very first Yakuza game, Arase is just there for a brief moment in the game, yet has a heavy impact on the game's story and Kiryu. It starts with Arase's oath brother Shinji being shot by Arases subordinate, Mochizuki, at least it looks like it. Shinji came here to rescue Reina, whose corpse then gets dragged on the roof of the Dragon Palace by Arase, Sergeant of the Nishikiyama Family. Now that's a pretty... heavy and sadistic first image for a character introduction, and honestly, his strong personality like that seemed also to be the reason he wasn't exactly loved by other members of the Family.

His battle theme in the first Yakuza game is called "Turning Point" which also puts more emphasis on how important this scene is, Kiryu breaking down, his scream when he sees Reina's body... It's really a turning point in the story.

In Kiwami, his new theme "Virtical Point" is also used as the intro song (or at least, the intro song "Vertical Point" is similar and shortened). Which also once again shows the importance of this piece.

Of course, he's not the most important character in the story, but it's still interesting to see how much there is around him other than his rather short appearance.

Then, his fighting style. Yeah, most hate this too and also the fact that starting from there, other bosses also sometimes use his moveset or a similar one. Like, take Jiro or Jo Amon or Andre Richardson... Basically just the usual dual wielding guns while being an athlete on crack - layout. It is actually not that bad, it's even less bad when you've got the right equipment but I have to admit I didn't really have that much good equipment when I first played all the games and basically just rushed through them because I just couldn't stop!

Arase's goal here of course was also to beat Kiryu but well, just like every other character ever, he couldn't do it and got beat instead.

And that's the end of that... The end of his part in the story and also the end of his part in the Nishikiyama Family, because he got disowned right after his failure.

Which is so... hmm... It makes me think. Many others have tried to take Kiryu down, too. And I mean, Arase was normally a very successful assassin, right? Yet this one failed attempt, at which everyone else too failed, got him disowned? Seems to me like they didn't like him and gave him an impossible task to have a reason to throw him out, huh?

And with that wonderful transition, let's get into his appearance in Yakuza 3.

You get introduced to the concept of the Honest Living Association, in short the HLA pretty much after Kashiwagis death. An association, founded by Kashiwagi to help Yakuza / former Yakuza who weren't meant for this life or just wanted out but just couldn't do in it on their own. For some, all they knew was the criminal life, so having a thing like this is especially helpful. Although, I'm kinda sad this was never a thing anymore after Yakuza 3. The whole concept of it was very cool.

Kiryu gets asked by Ibuki to help the HLA because there is an organisation of hitmen, also known as The Reapers (or The Avengers on PS3) whose goal was a different one than the HLA's, it was to kill Yakuza. The Reapers consisted of former criminals, mainly Yakuza, who were wronged by their superiours and expelled, disowned, you name it. Basically what happened to Arase.

Apprehending those hitmen is a totally optional part of the game and I have to admit, I didn't finish it my first time playing. Which is such a shame because it goes by so fast too when you play it after finishing the game! And the individual stories are all so interesting too, I've really enjoyed this side content and also replayed those missions already. You don't really expect someone like Arase to be behind all of it when it turns out to be him who is the founder and the leader of it all. I was already taken aback by Shinzaki being the lieutenant, or part of it at all. I often stopped by to listen to his guitar playing and talked to him, often asking myself is there's anything else up with him.

And once this one hitman contract came in and guitar playing was mentioned, I was just thinking "It can't be him...?", god, this whole side storyline just was so good. And here people come and say Yakuza 3 was a bad game.

The whole build-up to then reveal Arase was just so cool, honestly. It made me start to look more into his character after this confrontation. The fight was really cool too, just having to fight Shinzaki so many times wasn't really necessary, but Arase seems to like to fight alongside others, so fair enough.

And his theme "End Point" is also just so good. It's more similar to Turning Point than Virtical Point was. The name is also again fitting, since this is the end for The Reapers and Arases power.

It is made clear here that Arase has a strong hatred against the Yakuza and especially holds a strong grudge against Kiryu. He sees Kiryu as the reason he got wronged and had to leave the Yakuza behind, while also seeming to be very aware of the fact that the others there probably didn't like him at all.

He's so angry at him, he holds this whole speech and talks about revenge while Kiryu tries to talk some sense into him, eventually Ibuki also joins and tries to reason with Arase too. Telling him how that's what Kashiwagi wanted, even for Arase to find a new, honest life.

Arase is too strongly lead on by his grudges, so even though it seems like he might be thinking about turning his life around, he decided to not let them help him. Then he goes on about how he will definetly return to take revenge on Kiryu... Well. That's the end of that.

It becomes clear that Arases stubborn way of thinking is kind of childish. Not taking responsibility for any of his actions, thinking that his vile personality and actions are in fact the reason he got disowned. Failing to beat Kiryu was just the final puzzle piece to have a solid reason to throw him out. He's clearly unstable, doesn't think twice before shooting someone, he could turn on anyone and wouldn't be sorry for it. Just, he doesn't seem to really think about what he does.

I guess he probably thinks he's strong enough, he doesn't need to be careful. Also fitting for that is his fighting style in Dead Souls, how when he gets low on HP, he pretty much fends for himself, disregarding orders and just charging head first with full strength.

His Dead Souls appearance is also interesting. Okay, we all know, this game isn't canon, it's a spin-off and just doesn't fit in to the story. But it is interesting how he teams up with Kiryu for a bit and then leaves again. The game itself takes place after the events of Yakuza 4, meaning at this point RGG did remember that hey, they have a rival that swore to beat Kiryu one day. But after that... radio silence.

Really, this is such a shame. Just alone from his short appearances I can talk so much about Arase because he really is an interesting character with so much more potential! The only thing that's good about it is that he didn't die, making him technically one of the longest surviving characters in Yakuza which really is a great achievement.

Okay, we don't exactly know that he's still alive, but assuming due to there not being a mention of him being dead, he's probably alive. He might be, might not. Schrödinger's Arase.

One other thing I thought about is Jo Amon. I mean, his outfit and fight style is also similar to Arase, but that's not what I'm mainly thinking about. So the name Amon is for the greatest assassins, right? And they have a strong hatred against Kiryu at the beginning too.

So, putting those things together, Arase being a former assassin in the Nishikiyama Family, then the leader of a dangerous hitman organisation... Then, to fight Jo Amon in Yakuza 3 you also need to do all the hitman missions other than the substories and the IF7 fights. And to start the search for Amon, you also need to go to Ibuki again, where you got all the other hitman missions.

Yeah, it's a bit far fetched, but ... not too far fetched to think that maybe Arase and at least Jo Amon could know each other. I'd say, they could team up in a future game but. Well... Yeah.

Now some more things I thought about, I'll put a warning here though.

Yakuza LaD spoilers ahead!

Soooo, in this game we've gotten a couple of characters "back" ... Some more real than others... Thinking about Joon Gi's body double.

But one character that survived is Kashiwagi! Now the bartender of a bar named Survive. What a fitting name. After surviving such a heavy attack and believed dead by, well, everyone, it was the best approach to keep a low profile, start a new life. Also, he doesn't seem to be fit for any fighting after the incident.

So Kashiwagi is still there. And, now I just thought about, what if there was a possible redemption arc for Arase? Kiryu is believed dead now too, alone the fact that it seems that Kiryu never met Kashiwagi while being in the same area is kinda sad. I like to imagine they met each other...

I think it could go either way, Arase somehow got information on Kiryu being in Ijincho. He is a professional after all. Plus, by now Kiryu is also, well, not really working with... but. You know, not fighting with the Amon Clan anymore, even having Shin Amon to help determine Ichibans strength with the (True) Final Millennium Tower.

And, now, maybe there can be some other comnecting inside the Amon Clan and some info got out to Arase, ah, hell, I don't know, it's all so far fetched but I just like to have those possible headcanons of Arase somehow coming back!

Another possibility could also be Arase thinking Kiryu has died, just per chance being in the area and just going to the Survive bar? He'd probably be way more open about the thought of redemption and with Kashiwagi probably being pretty good at talking former Yakuza into that, given how the whole HLA was his doing.

Just... Thinking about possible things.

Yakuza LaD spoilers end here!

Well. That's that.

At the end of the day, the chances of Arase returning are pretty much 0, other characters you never thought of reappearing sometimes appear in one way or another, so it can be possible, but probably won't.

But one thing is clear, looking more into this character made me really appreciate him more. I guess that's the fact with a lot of characters, not just in Yakuza, but in general.

The characters in Yakuza are just so well written and even though it has some very weird and silly plot points and plot twists, I just love this game so much and looking more into it and replaying it is just so much fun.

I even started to like the minigames in Yakuza 3, even though I got very hopeless at the last pool opponent and the goddamn Mahjong completion, ugh. But at the end of the day it's all just really fun once you get the hang of it. It hasn't aged too well when you play it after the other Yakuza games, but replaying it on all the difficulties and then casually, then trying to beat it as fast as I can just made me love the game more and more every time.

So, uh... I don't know if it's a blessing or curse for me to often really like the characters that either everyone hates or have almost to screen time. Because well... there's such a lack of content and appreciation but hey that's what I'm writing this for!

I hope maybe someone starts to appreciate Arase more after this - if anyone even reads further after learning that I love this character. :D' I swear I tried to write it with as little bias as possible. I do know he's a morally very very grey character but after all, it's a video game character. (...There's no way I'll ever like characters like Yoneda...Ogita...Or Kume though... ugh)

Well anyway, with that, I go!

[shsl-box-worshipper]

3, 5, 6, 22

OMG, SOMEONE FINALLY SENT AN ASK :D (and thx Kuro for sending so many)

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

If there is a trope I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, it'd probably be anything relating to smut. Now, I know this isn't a trope but instead a genre of fic, but still. I find it kind of weird that a good chunk of people write fanfiction purely for to make their ship do the sexy sexy stuff. Plus, I am a minor, which means I can't even write smut and I'm generally repulsed by the kind of people who do it (especially without plot). (Not you tho, Kuro, I genuinely love your fics. I just can't read your NSFW stuff, if you have any published)

5. Share one of your strengths.

One of my strengths definitely has to be imagery. I, personally, think I'm really good when it comes to helping the reader visualize what's happening inside a character's head or out in the story's world, and amplifying the tone based on that principle. For example, I use this constantly in Field Trip of DOOOMMMM!!! to add tension, horror, and, of course, humor to the fic and help develop the tones of both Danny and Conan's perspectives. Part of what helps me build that imagery is imagining what the scene might look like if someone drew a fanart or fancomic. After all, you can't put down imagery without having an image to work off of.

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Probably my tendency to exposition dump. The latter is less of a problem in my fics as it is in my (currently WIP) original story, but it's still a massive issue since I tend to get too excited about a piece of information and try to slam it all on the user all at once. What can I say, I'm a nerd, but it is a problem I try to tackle in every story I write, regardless if it's fanfiction or not.

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

Holy shit, Kuro's just got a full on feast of an answer planned. Oh well.

You didn't suggest any particular fics so I'm going to go with a passage from the first fic I ever posted to ao3, The Makings of the Hunger. A fic I wrote purely on a Danganronpa Discord server with absolutely no betaing and me being way too obsessed with the idea of Shuichi being turned into a horror movie monster (Which also contains some of the worst paragraph-ing I've ever seen)

Note: The fic's about medical horror and torture so if you cant stomach it, DO NOT READ AHEAD.

The original passage

'Shuichi closed his eyes in horror as the man revved up the saw, knuckles white and teeth clenched. The first wave of pain hit him as his legs were chopped by the buzzsaw, except it wasn't just all the leg all at once. No, it was bit by bit in tiny chunks of the leg, starting from his feet and going all the way up to hips, on each leg. The pain was unbearable, his screams filling the night, much to the killer's amusement. He then moved up to his fingers, bringing out what looked to be a knife-sized power saw. Then, again, one by one, bit by bit, the man chopped his fingers off, while poor Saihara screamed in pure agony as he felt his nerves, and himself in turn, howl in pain. The man then decided to move up to opening his chest, pulling out a scalpel to do so. He started from the hips and, slowly in order to make sure Shuichi felt everything at full force, opened up his chest cavity with the scalpel, exposing his ribs and organs to the air. The amount of pain Shuichi felt at this point was unclassifiable, each nerve and neuron screaming and overloading his brain, and his voice was dried up from how much the poor boy screamed. Now, the man had moved to his mouth, pulling out an unreasonably large bench press that was pressed together, and placed it in Shuichi's mouth, which filled it up. He then released the pressure built by the press, which meant it expanded vertically, causing Shuichi's mouth to painfully elongate. He was so much pain that he began crying more than he usually did.'

See the issues? It's all one paragraph and there's barely any pause and imagery for the horror.

Here's how I would do it now:

Shuichi stared at the crazy paper-bagged figure in horror as he started revving up his buzzsaw, the noise worming it's way into Shuichi's ears as he struggled against the chains.

"Ahhhh, don't struggle, Mr. Detective. You wouldn't want to ruin God's work, now, would you?"

Shuichi, growing more exhausted with every desperate pull he made on the chains, wanted to shout 'What God?!' at the culty lunatic but before he could even focus his energy on that...

*CRACK!*

Shinichi screamed in pain as the buzzsaw finally met his right leg, cutting through his heel with a noise that made Shuichi sick to his stomach. The cultist moved through his leg incredibly slowly, as if to make Shuichi feel all of the pain from having his foot forcibly removed. And when the saw finally finished cutting through the bone, all Shuichi could do was begin to cry and start squirming his now chain free bloody leg around in the air. The man laughed, as if to entertain in the boy's suffering. But the man wasn't done.

And before long, he cut into Shuichi's right leg once again. Shuichi continued struggling against the chains as pink crimson filled his vision.

All the while, the Bloody Smile Killer laughed with manic glee as he slowly worked his way up and down Shuichi's legs.

Shuichi was in so much agony, so much pain. Pink had completely filled his vision. Shuichi was in so much pain that he couldn't even see the Bloody Smile Killer clearly anymore, only seeing pure pink which made the monster look like a demon.

Then, as Shuichi finally started to recover from the pain, he heard the revving of a new power tool.

And instantly began the cycle anew.

Excruciating pain hit his hands, causing him to scream and cry in more agony as his own blood exploded out of the wounds. Shuichi wanted desperately move his his hands and crawl out of this nightmare, but he knew he couldn't.

Since his fingers were now gone, replaced instead with little nubs that were screaming in agony.

Shuichi could barely see anymore, which was probably his only grace in this scenario.

Because it allowed him the luxury of not being able to see his own chest being cut open, revealing his organs, veina, and ribs. Shuichi was in so much agony that his voice was slowly growing strained with every wave of agony.

It seemed that the demon had grown tired of the boy's constant screaming, groaning as the fun of Shuichi's agony started waning.

"God needs to make more of you, my little sweet~ Let us fix your face."

And with that, a large piston-like object was shoved into Shuichi's mouth.

And then it pushed itself. Pushed against the roof and floor of his mouth. Shuichi's screams became raspy screeches as his mouth elongated past what is possible for a human jaw, his cheeks joining in his body's chorus of medical torture.

Shuichi was in so much pain. Everything hurt, and he felt like his mind was starting to fall apart from all of the torture. He couldn't speak anymore, he could barely see, and Shuichi felt like his humanity had been stripped from out under him.

So much pain.