#they step foot here and their sleeper agent goes off

[crowcryptid]

The greatest lie ever told was white ppl convincing Florida Latinos that they are Special and Different while still calling them every other slur behind their backs

But the secret is that every group of Latinos does the exact same thing when someone from another group isn’t present. Especially Cubans. Pídele a un gringo que pronuncie tu nombre, Yanisleidys. Ya que te crees tan especial. They’ll hear you talk and tell you to go back to your country or stop speaking mexican.

Yet latinos don’t ever stop to consider why their neighbors are only other latinos.. it’s almost like.. the white people you are so desperate to please don’t want you. But maybe if you shoot yourself in the foot and do a little dance they’ll accept you, surely? But that’s asking for too much introspection from them. Así es la vida. Can’t fix stupid.

[iknewyoudunderstand]

Aaron woke up to a clattering in the kitchen. His brain caught up with his body when he was crouched at the gun safe tucked away next to his bureau, his sleep-addled fingers somehow maneuvering the combination lock—ten, oh-seven, thirty-four. Spencer had complimented him on it when figuring it out had taken him longer than ten seconds, because while using his son’s birthday was expected, what wasn’t was the division of his favorite album’s release date, and that would prevent potential attackers from— 

Spencer. Where was Spencer?

Glock in hand, finally, Aaron spun around but the bed was empty and the bathroom dark. Spencer’s revolver was still in the safe, and try as he might but Aaron just couldn’t remember if he had fallen asleep before Spencer had come upstairs or not. Spencer was a much heavier sleeper than he was, and if there was someone in the house and Spencer was downstairs…

On silent feet, Aaron crept through the upstairs, clearing each room. He didn’t have a flashlight on him, so he was forced to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, to keep his back to the wall, and to keep his finger on the trigger just in case someone jumped out at him from behind a door or a chest of drawers. His room, Jack’s unoccupied room, the upstairs bathroom… as he came down the stairs he noticed that there was a light coming from the kitchen.

He lifted his gun again and turned the corner to see Spencer, leaning against the counter with a jar of baby food in his hand and a spoon in his mouth.

“What the fuck?” Aaron asked. Spencer jumped at the sight of the gun, and Aaron clicked the safety back on. “What are you doing?”

“An experiment,” he said around the spoon.

Aaron suddenly felt very tired. He glanced at the digital clock on the oven. 3:23 AM. “Why?”

“Um.” Spencer set the jar of baby food down on the counter, and then the spoon. “Necessity?”

“Spencer.”

“I was hungry,” Spencer said. “And it was too late to make something.”

“Spencer.”

“So I had to go looking in the cabinets.”

“Not in the pantry?”

“As a result, I found the baby food.”

“It’s been there for at least a year. Did you check if it was expired?”

“My hypothesis was in regards to whether or not expired baby food was still going to be good.”

Aaron sighed. “And?”

“My conclusion is that it is palatable, but probably not something I should incorporate into my regular diet.”

“You mean you won’t be replacing your diet of coffee and saltine crackers with pureed peas and carrots?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Spencer cracked a grin and the sight of it dissolved all of his building exasperation. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“It’s fine,” Aaron said. He moved closer to Spencer and set his gun on the counter. “But you could’ve just told me you were going to make something. You know I don’t mind.”

“Do I?”

“Don’t you?” Spencer shrugged. “Spencer, you live here. I told you when you moved in that I wasn’t going to try and change your habits; they’re not disruptive.”

“They’re decidedly disruptive, Aaron. They’re the definition of disruptive,” Spencer said.

“Don’t be stubborn.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” he repeated. “It won’t happen again.”

“It will probably happen again.” Aaron reached out and grabbed one of Spencer’s hands so he’d stop wringing them. Gently, because he knew Spencer was still getting used to casual displays of affection, he lifted his knuckles to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss across them. Spencer lit up red. “But it’s okay. We’re FBI agents. At least one of us has to be the light sleeper.”

He snorted. “It doesn’t help that I’m an insomniac.”

“Life goes on.” Aaron fought a yawn. “I’m going back to bed, okay? Just make something if you’re hungry; you can throw away all that baby food when you’re done with your ‘experiment.’” He made air quotes around the word.

“It’s science, Aaron,” Spencer said. “I know you don’t understand it because you don’t have a doctorate in chemistry—“

“You are so lucky I love you,” Aaron said with a scoff. He looked down to grab his gun, and when he looked back up, Spencer was frozen completely, his eyes wide and his bottom lip trembling a bit. He looked like someone had just told him his dog died.

Or, his brain that was still heavy with sleep supplied, like someone had told him they loved him for the first time.

“Sorry,” Aaron said quickly. “I didn’t mean… well, yes, I meant it, but I didn’t mean to say it now… honestly, I was hoping for a situation that was more romantic—“

“I’m sorry, this isn’t the romantic occasion you were looking for?” Spencer joked, a little bit of color coming back to his face. Spencer away from work was a smart-mouthed son of a bitch, and Aaron recognized it as a sort of defense mechanism—a sense of normalcy.

“Not really.” He returned Spencer’s wry smile with a dimple-bearing grin and received a light shove on the shoulder for his troubles, and a muttered ‘jerk.’

Aaron knew they weren’t going to talk about it. There wasn’t going to be a conversation about the logistics of a romantic connection between a superior and a subordinate, because they were already in too deep for a 3 AM feelings powwow to make any difference. They lived in the same house, they slept in the same bed. The only thing missing was the verbal affirmation, the thing that would tell the other, yes, I am in it for the long run.

He supposed neither of them had been looking for a promise because promises eventually got broken. Aaron learned that with Haley, and he didn’t want Spencer to have to learn it first hand—but he knew anyway because no matter how they got into this job, into this field, there was always trauma in the background. Neither of them wanted to get hurt or hurt the other, so the nonverbal agreement had been formed. Maybe if they didn’t say it out loud, the eventual dissolution wouldn’t hurt as much.

And Aaron had just ruined all that because he was caught off guard. It was uncharacteristic as it got—he was Aaron Hotchner, he was never caught off guard—but the easiest way to ruin something was by sticking your own foot in it.

“It’s not a big deal,” Spencer said, looking like he’d just heard Aaron’s entire thought process out loud. Or he had probably had the same one. “I mean… you mean it, right?”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “I do.”

Spencer stepped in close and caught his lips in a kiss, and it was relatively romantic for all of five seconds, especially in the way that his long fingers caught the skin in between his boxer briefs and his worn academy t-shirt that had become his pajamas, but then the taste made Aaron recoil.

“How did you palate that?” he asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “All that sugar in your coffee is ruining your taste buds.”

“Maybe.” But Spencer was laughing, even as he stuck the spoon in the sink and dropped the baby food in the trash—thank God, Aaron didn’t know if he wanted that disgusting stuff in his house anymore. He’d call Jack in the morning and apologize for making him eat that liquid garbage. “You should go back to bed.”

“You should come with me.”

“I need to finish what I was doing,” he said with a sigh. “This professor is killing me with these papers.”

“He most likely knows that you’re smarter than him and feels intimidated, so he’s lashing out at you,” Aaron said, feigning wiseness. “Probably had some sort of complex when he was a kid.”

“Oedipus,” Spencer said. “You’re lucky you don’t have to sit through his lectures. I thought I was done with Freud when I finished my BA…”

“And that’s my cue to go to bed before I have to listen to another rant.”

“They’re well deserved.”

“Good night, Spencer.”

“Good night, Aaron,” Spencer said, and Aaron turned to leave the kitchen.

He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination when he heard a soft, “I love you, too,” but he didn’t want to check. Life with Spencer Reid was wonderful, and incredible, and all the other adjectives this crazy relationship between them deserved, but it was fragile. They both were.

Besides, he didn’t need to hear those words, because they only encouraged him—and he didn’t need to be thinking about a recreation of this scene in a world where life was more stable, and society was more accepting, and there was another child in his life and Spencer had another opportunity to eat baby food, even though the whole thought made his heart slam against his ribcage and a grin break out across his face.

They had work in the morning, and he didn’t need to be up all night dreaming about the future, because he was perfectly content to just let it come.

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

Hey so 9. and 33. Pretty please?

9. One more step, I dare you.33. Can you give me a hug?  Just once?

This might not be exactly what you were looking for... but it’s what popped into my mind with these prompts.  Something a little different than what I normally gravitate towards!

At first, he thinks it's the thunderstorm that's woken him up, which would be a reasonable assumption- it's one of the worst he's ever seen.  DC's spring storms have nothing on Florida's.  But as he lies totally still in his hotel room, in between the crashes of thunder, he becomes aware of another sound through the hotel wall, coming from the room next door.  A series of high, keening sobs, reaching a shrieking crescendo as a sustained flash of lightning whites out his vision, and that's all it takes for him to rocket out of his bed.  He grabs his glasses from the nightstand and his gun from his holster... and after a half-second's thought, he yanks on the sweatpants he'd earlier discarded at the foot of the bed.

The connecting door is unlocked, which both surprises him (she's a federal agent and that's an awful lot of trust she's displaying in him) and relieves him (at least the hotel's not going to have to bill the FBI because of damage to property).  The lights on the other side are off, the bed is empty, and in the next flash of lightning, he sees her.  She's crouched in the far corner of the room, half-hidden behind a chair- and her gun is pointed directly at him.

"One more step, I dare you," she says, in a voice that shakes just as violently as the hand clutching her weapon.  Very slowly, he reaches out and places his own gun on the nightstand to his left and raises his hands so that she can see that they're empty.

"Agent Scully," he says, in a slow, calm voice, "I'm not going to hurt you."  He can see from here that there's no recognition in her face, only panic, and he knows, instantly, what's going on.  "It's Walter Skinner," he says.  "You're in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida.  We're attending a conference.  There's a thunderstorm outside, but you are not in any danger."  She lowers her gun slightly.  Encouraged, he takes a cautious step towards her.

"That's not right," she says, her voice wavering.  "Where's Mulder?"  Pure panic overtakes her face again, and she raises the gun.  Skinner stops moving.  "What have you done with him?"

"Agent Mulder is back in DC," Skinner says.  "He's home sick with the flu."  Scully closes her eyes and takes a deep, ragged breath.  "Scully," says Skinner, lowering his voice, "everything is all right.  You're safe.  There's nobody in this room except you and me, and I promise, I'm not going to hurt you."  He takes another step.  "I promise.  You are safe."  Her head lowers with a heartbreaking sob, and the arm holding the gun falls to her side.  Intuiting that the danger has passed, Skinner goes to her- still moving slowly- and helps her to her feet.  He leads her to the bed, where she sits, her head in her hands, and he places her gun on the nightstand alongside his own.  He turns on the bedside lamp, bathing the room in a dim, orange glow.  After a moment's hesitation- he's not sure what Scully would deem "appropriate"- he sits next to her.

She's trembling so hard that the bed is shaking.  He doesn't need her to tell him what's happened, but he knows from experience that what helps or doesn't help is different from one person to the next, so he does need her to tell him what to do.

"Dana," he says gently, "how can I help?"  She shakes her head violently.  "Come on," he cajoles her.  "It's nothing to be ashamed of.  I just want to make it better for you, all right?"  She peers up at him, and he nods encouragingly.

"Can you... I'm sorry, Sir, I know this is inappropriate-"

"Don't worry about that," he reassures her.

"Can you give me a hug?" she asks, looking at the carpet instead of at his face.  "Just once?"

"Of course," he says.  He slides closer to her on the bed, still moving slowly to keep from spooking her, and takes her in his arms.  She's stiff at first, still trembling fiercely, but as he holds her she calms, until after what feels like forever to him (but is, in reality, probably more like a minute), she's no longer shaking.  She pushes him away gently, and takes a long, shuddering breath.

"Thanks," she says softly, still not looking at him.  

"Don't mention it," he says.  "Do you have them often?  The flashbacks?"  She jerks her head up to look at them, eyes wide.  

"How do you know-"

"That that's what was going on?"  She nods.  "I have them, too."  He laughs mirthlessly.  "Me and at least half the Vietnam vets still alive and kicking.  They're not anywhere near as frequent as they used to be, though."

"Not for me, either," she admits.  "In fact, it's been months."  She gestures towards the window, where lightning continues to flash.  "It's the storm causing it.  The lightning... it makes me think I'm back...."  She waves her hand vaguely.  "Wherever I was when I was abducted."

"I thought Mulder said you didn't remember any of that," Skinner says.

"I don't, not really.  But I do know that wherever it was, there were bright, flashing lights."

"What do you usually do when it happens?" asks Skinner curiously.  It's clear to him, from what's just transpired, that Scully requires outside help to pull herself out of the waking nightmare.  He's got a pretty good idea of who that someone usually is... and Scully's blush confirms it.  "Mulder?"  She looks away from him.  "Come on, Dana, I'm not looking to get you into trouble."  She looks up at him out of the corner of her eye and nods.

"He's a bad sleeper," she says.  "He come and calms me down when he hears me.  It's why I left the connecting door open tonight.  Force of habit."

"And how about at home?  The nights you're not together?"  Her mouth drops open, and suddenly, she looks terrified.

"Sir," she says, "I know the rumors, I know everyone assumes that we're... that Agent Mulder and I are... but that's all they are, is rumors.  Stories.  More ways for people to discredit us."

"Dana," Skinner says gently, "I saw you."  She pales visibly.

"Where?" she whispers.  He can understand her fear- they've been careful, Skinner knows.  They stand a little closer than most at work, it's true, but it's been that way since the beginning.  They've always been in their own, impenetrable little bubble... but there's never even the suggestion that something more might be going on.  He's walked into their basement office and felt that energy between them, sure, but caught them in a delicate moment?  Never.  Discretion is a language in which both of them are exceedingly fluent.

“My sister was in town last month,” he says.  “She dragged me to the symphony.  You and Mulder were sitting maybe ten rows in front of us.”  She covers her face with her hands.  “I saw him kiss you.  And, well... it didn’t look like the first time.  But Dana, listen: I don’t care what you and Mulder do in your free time.  I don’t care whether the bureau says I’m supposed to care.  You and Mulder watch each other’s backs, you get your work done, your solve rate is way better than any of my other agents, and you hand me receipts for two separate hotel rooms every time you take a case out of town.  Beyond that, what you do is your own business.”  She risks a look at him and finds him smiling.

“At home... if he’s not at my apartment, and I’m not at his... he usually just drives over if a storm blows through,” she admits.  “Sometimes he checks the weather forecast.”  She grins sheepishly.  “Before this year... before we were together... he used to just stretch out on my couch if he got there and I was sleeping through it.  I’d wake up and find him out there in the morning.”  This year?  Skinner tries not to show his surprise.  He’s been assuming they were an item for a lot longer than that.  “Can I ask... what do you do?  When one of these flashbacks hits you?”

“I have a list of phone numbers taped to every phone in my house,” he says.  “Old army buddies, mostly.  I go down the list until I find someone who’s home, and they talk me through it.”  Scully opens her mouth to respond, but she’s interrupted by the trill of her cell phone, lying on the nightstand.  Skinner picks it up and hands it to her.  He’s sitting close enough that when she answers it, he can hear Mulder’s voice on the other end, asking if she’s all right.

“I was checking the forecasts online,” Skinner hears him say, “and I saw you were getting a storm down there.”  Scully grins and looks at Skinner bashfully.

“Mulder, you’re supposed to be sleeping,” she says.  “You’re sick.”  Skinner stands- clearly Mulder will be taking it from here.

“Gonna go,” he whispers.  “Goodnight.”  Scully glances up.

“Mulder, hang on a second,” she says, and lowers the phone.  “Sir, that list you mentioned?  The numbers you call when it happens to you?”

“Yeah?”  She smiles.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to add mine.”