#this is now a lie and most of the delay is my fault

[babymetaldoll]

Are you mine? - Chapter nineteen: "Date night"

Summary: It's Spencer and (Y/N)'s last day at work, but before they can retire and live happily ever after, there is one last psycho they have to catch. 

Warnings: A lot of curses and angst, some funny comebacks and most of all, spoilers of season 15 E6. 

Word count: 12.240

A/N: I never liked Max. I'm not even sorry she wasn't a part of this story. Spencer deserved better than a character written just to give him the hint of a love interest that was never heard of again. 

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Spencer’s point of view

And all that happened to us in the last few years led us here. Today is our last working day at the BAU. (Y/N) and I step out of our car and head to the elevator in silence. You think you won’t miss it, but I know I will feel melancholic about all this in a few years. However, we both had enough. We are glad to finally be gone.

Prentiss understood our reasons for leaving the team. However, it hadn’t been an easy conversation. We all shed a few tears when we sat with her in her office and announced our decision.

- “I can’t say I’m shocked”- Emily said and paused for a second to rearrange her thoughts after we delivered the news.- “After everything you two have been through… a part of me knew it was a matter of time. But at the same time, I don’t think I can imagine this place without you two. You are part of this family.”

- “And we will always be. But there is another family, with tiny babies, that needs us now.”- my wife added and wiped the tears from her cheeks.- “This wasn’t an easy decision for us, but we won't change our minds.”

- “I know you won’t. It’s a shame for the team, but I am glad for you two. You deserve a new start.”

- “Thank you, Em.”- I nodded at her words and sighed, relieved.

- “And what’s the plan now?”

- “We were offered full-time positions in Georgetown.”- you could hear the happiness in my reply.- “I’ll be with the Research Department and (Y/N) will be teaching two courses during the next semester.”

- “Wow!”- Prentiss was surprised and the tone in her voice betrayed her.- “Sounds exactly like what you two should be doing.”

- “I’m sorry Em, are you mad at us?”- my wife asked directly.- “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you said you were happy for us and yet you sound disappointed.”

- “No, no, (Y/N). I’m really happy for you, it’s just that… I have to ask you this.”- of course, she would address the pink elephant in the room.- “Is it all this because of JJ’s confession back in Los Angeles?”

The silence in that room was so awkward and deep, that nothing could break it. I could deny it, of course, but it felt useless. But before I could reply, (Y/N) did.

- “That was the last straw, I’m not gonna lie.”- my wife replied and stared at Emily straight in the eyes, showing her she was telling the truth with no hesitation.- “But we weren’t happy before that… incident. We had considered leaving a few times before, after JJ’s confession it was clear we couldn’t delay our departure any longer.”

I moved my hand and reached hers, holding it on her lap.

- “If that hadn’t happened, we would have left anyway.”- I confirmed.- “This conversation was going to happen, no matter what.”

- “I understand, and I’m sorry.”- Emily whispered.- “I know the last few months haven’t been comfortable to deal for both of you”

- “It’s not your fault.”- I replied.- “And, like (Y/N) said, we are not leaving because of her. It’s… everything. Our time here is done. And now we have to start a new stage for our family. One where we can assure our kids we will be home every night for dinner, and that we won’t miss any important date.”

Emily walked to us as we both stood up. My wife hugged her first, with tears on her face.

- “Just promise you’ll still be around.”- Prentiss asked.

- “You don’t get rid of us, I swear”- (Y/N) replied and chuckled.- “You might not be our boss for much longer, but we are family forever.”

That was a month ago, and today, my wife and I are walking into the bullpen holding hands for one last time.

- “Ok, this is not what I was expecting.”- (Y/N) whispers looking around.- “It’s not like I was waiting for a party or something, but… everything is just so normal.”- and I chuckle at her words.

- “It’s eight in the morning, chipmunk. People have to work.”- I joke and leave my bag on my desk just the minute Emily’s voice calls our name from outside the conference room.

- “Now we are talking”- (Y/N) says and quickly heads to the stairs.- “I’m sure Pen baked us some cupcakes for our last day’s breakfast.”

- “Maybe even a cake”- I tease her. But as soon as we notice Emily’s serious face, we realize something bad is happening. Rossi is there as well, staring at us with an apologetic look.

- “What happened?”- I ask right away and Prentiss turns on the tv.

- “Early this morning, Garcia got an email from an anonymous server”- and just like that, the image of two people tied to a chair, clearly frightened, appeared on the screen. Right in the middle of them, the unsub, showing her face and holding a gun.

- “She is not obscuring her face, telling us she's got nothing to hide.”- Rossi adds. My wife crosses her arms on her chest staring at the screen before asking.

- “Any ideas on the victims or unsub?”

- “No. Only the unsub's demand.”- Emily pauses, grabs a case file, and gives it to me. - “That we release Catherine Adams in 24 hours.”

I stare at Prentiss and Rossi in shock for a moment. They can’t be serious. It’s our last day.

- “I'm having her transferred here for questioning, but we have no illusions.”- Em announces and my stomach drops at her words.- “This is just a game to her. We know that. The question is, do we want to play it or not?”

- “What do you mean if we want to play it?”- and that’s when (Y/N) reacts.- “We are leaving today. We don’t have time to play any random game with a serial killer.”

- “We know that, (Y/N). But you have to understand the lives of two innocent are at risk.”- Rossi immediately explains the obvious.- “And when it comes to Cat Adams, her only weakness is the man you call your husband. We need you two to crack this case as fast as possible.”

Dealing with Cat Adams is the last thing I want on my last day as an SSA. And yet, somehow, it makes sense that this happened today. It’s exactly why we are leaving.

- “I can’t believe this.”- (Y/N) whispers as she sits at her desk. I stay by her side and rest my hands on her shoulder. She is right, this is the worst way to finish my seventeen years of active service with the FBI.

- “At least we know it’s our last case.”- I caress her shoulder and my wife pouts in response.- “I know this is not how we thought it would be, but tonight we are going home to start our new life. Don’t forget that.”

- “Reid.”- Alvez walks over and both me and my wife look at him.- “Garcia was catching me up about the case. Who is Cat Adams?”

- “My nemesis.”- (Y/N) says and sighs.- “Another crazy psycho in love with Spencer.”

- “She is not in love with me.”- the way my wife turns to look at me raising an eyebrow in disbelief could be comical in another scenario. - “She is not!”- I add just to make sure I’ve made my point.

- “No? Are you sure? That bitch even tried to convince you she was pregnant with your kid.”

- “What?”- Luke is shocked.- “How did she even try to do that?”

- “Not important right now.”- I reply ‘cos I don’t wanna remember that moment. - “Cat Adams is a psychopath who is used to getting away with what she wants.”

- “And she wants you.”- my wife points at me and makes a pause the second JJ walks over to us along with Prentiss.- “I am so sick and tired of bitches trying to get my man…”

- “She is here.”- Emily announces and asks me to walk with her to the interrogation room to wait for Adams.

I hold my wife’s hand and kiss it sweetly as I look at her and try to make her feel secure and safe. I know how much (Y/N) hates Cat. I am not a fan myself, she kidnapped and tried to kill my mother. But I know my wife feels threatened by her in a way, and I don’t know why. I can not stop it either, I’ve tried. So I want her to understand nothing and no one is more important than her and our kids.

(Y/N) wraps her arms around me and I hold her tight against me.

- “Last day.”- I whisper as I rest my forehead against her and hear her hum.- “I’ll be right back.”

- “Take care.”- I kiss her lips and cut her a short smile before I follow Prentiss.

I know I’m not going to like this.

I wait for Adams in the interrogation room. Prentiss is on the other side of the glass, and I know my wife will be there in a second. I do my best to look relaxed, and only a tad annoyed when Adams is walked into the room, in chains. I am not going to let her know how angry she gets me. I will never give her that pleasure.

She is in a mask, which reminds me of Hannibal Lecter, from The Silence of the Lambs. It seems useless to put that on her. I don’t think she will try to eat me.

Her eyes are on me from the second she steps in until she is seated, and she even smiles for a second, pleased.

The guards leave and we both stay quiet for a moment. I stand there, staring at her, unimpressed. Just annoyed.

- “Classic negotiating technique.”- she says after a few seconds. - “The first one who speaks loses, right?”

I don’t move, hands in my pocket, unthreatened by her presence and actions. I just stand there and tell her what will happen.

- “You arranged the kidnapping of two people and you did it the same way you did it before, through a partner on the outside. But her demand, "release Cat Adams," that will never happen. So, tell me what you want right now before I send you back to prison.”

- “Oh! You don't know, do you?”- she looks surprised like I missed something important.- “I stopped fighting.

- “Fighting what?”- I look at the ceiling and sigh, already tired of the conversation.

- “The United States versus Catherine Adams.”- she announces and stares at me waiting for a reaction. She doesn’t get any.- “I had my lawyer plead guilty to all 73 counts. And request the death penalty.”

- “Oh, you've grown a conscience now? I don't think so.”- if she thinks I’m gonna feel sorry for her, she must be really crazy.

- “I'm bored, ok? Boooored.”- somehow, she looks sincere about it. - “Death has to be more interesting than this. But it is funny, you know, when you’re counting the days left, you really do ask yourself, "What didn't I do?" And the only thing I could come up with was…”- she makes a short pause and sighs, to finally turn and stare at me with a smile. - “You.”

- “You haven't done me?”- I ask calmly and take a few steps closer to the table, hands still in my pocket. - “And you think by kidnapping two people you are gonna get what you want?”

- “Do I ever get what I want with you?”- she stares at me as I just raise an eyebrow and wait for her to answer the question herself.- “Besides, your wife must be at the other side of the glass fighting the urges to kill me, and we don't have a lot of time.”

- “For what?”

- “I would like to go on a date. With you.”

I can say I’m surprised. I didn’t think she was this mental.

- “A date?”- I stare at her in disbelief and she smiles.

- “Yes. I want to look pretty. And I want to have fun! And I won't even get physical, ok? Unless you want me to.”

I finally sit in front of her and lean in on the table.

- “Come here.”- I say and lean even more- “Closer.”- she moves and stares into my eyes the entire time, something that might have been incredibly intimidating for me a few years ago. But today, as my last day in the BAU, Cat Adams is not a threat.

- “The only date that I'll be there for is the one where they stick a needle in your vein.”- I whisper and she just stares at me, smiling, looking from my eyes to my lips as I lean back and keep my annoyed facade.

- “You're gonna let a father and daughter die? I don't think so.”- and just like that, she makes her first mistake.

- “I never said father and daughter. You're already slipping. We'll find them. We always do.”- I stand up, annoyed by the conversation and ready to share my intel with the team.

- “Not tonight. Tonight I win.”- she announces from her chair. I stay still for a second, taking a deep breath before I turn and reply with a serious voice.

- “The score between me and you is two to zero. By tomorrow morning, it'll be a clean sweep. Enjoy eternal nothingness. It's a metaphor for your life.”

I turn around and open the door. Before I close it behind my back, I hear her saying “Nice to see you, too, Spencie.” and it takes everything in me not to slam that door on my way out.

Cat Adams kidnapped a father and a daughter just to go out on a date with me? She has to be crazy if she thinks she can get away with it! She is ruining our last day of work torturing two people just for a pity whim. I hate that woman in ways I could never explain. And to think this was supposed to be the best day for me and my wife.

My poor wife. She must be even angrier than I am.

I walk into an empty interrogation office and take off my tie in a poor attempt to calm the sudden anger that fills my body. I don’t wanna deal with this, I just wanna leave. I don’t wanna be targeted by a psychotic narcissist again. Again! I just wanna make my wife happy, and give her the life she deserves. That we both deserve after all these years. And this bitch comes and ruins everything!

I lose it for a second and smash everything that’s upon a small piece of furniture. Lamps, books, whatever was on it gets trashed against the floor in a second.

- “I was gonna ask if you were ok, but I can see you are not.”- (Y/N) whispers from the door as she stares at me. Anyone else would be shocked to see me act that way. I don’t think anyone has ever seen me lose it physically. She, instead, just opens her arms and takes a few steps closer, as I rest my body against hers and feel her embracing me completely.

- “You don’t have to go out with her.”- she whispers sweetly.

- “I wanna kill her.”- I confess and bury my face in her neck, ashamed of my own anger.

- “Not if I kill her first.”- she replies immediately, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

- “I’m not joking.”

- “We are both carrying guns, hon. And we both have enough motives. I know we are not joking.”- (Y/N) answers and moves her hands until she is holding my face, staring into my eyes with so much love and care, that I could melt. - “That bitch tried to kill your mom and managed to torture us and our family. She won’t get what she wants.”

- “She wants to…”- but she shakes her head before I can finish talking.

- “She wants you. I will never let her have you.”

- “I don’t want her. I just want you. Forever.”- I whisper and kiss her lips as soon as I’m done speaking.

(Y/N)’s point of view

I never really imagined my last day at work could be in the top ten of my worst days at the BAU. But it’s quickly getting to the hot top five. If I didn’t want to deal with JJ anymore, now I have to deal with her and Cat Adams at the same freaking time. I know, I am a grown almost forty-year-old FBI SSA who should act like an adult at this point. But I am tired. Exhausted. I just wanna go home with my husband and raise our kids. Is that too much to ask?

Spencer and I sit at the conference room’s table as the team debates what’s going on. A part of me is still in the car with Spencer, going over the last fifteen years we’ve spent together in the FBI. Reliving the memories and talking about our favorite moments. Not here, discussing what to do with Cat Adams. Of all people, why did it have to be Cat Adams?

- “Victimology's off.”- Spencer says and Prentiss questions him right away.- “Father and daughter. She's never done that before.”

- “Yes, she usually kills men that remind her of her father. Children, even adult children, are off limits.”- Tara adds in support. - “Do we have an I.D. yet?”

- “No.”- Pen replies immediately, and you can read the angst all over her face.- “No one's even reported these two as missing. You'd think a wife, a mom, someone would notice.”

- “What do we know about the partner who was helping her?”- Rossi asks. Yet, none of that is what really bothers me.

- “It's got to be someone from her prison. She hasn't had contact with anyone else.”- Simmons replies.- “We can start with known associates who were recently released.”

- “Ok, can I tell you what's bugging me?”- JJ asks and I don’t bite my tongue in time. I can see everyone’s face changing as I say:

- “The fact an unsub has more chances of going out on a date with Spencer than you do?”

- “(Y/N)!”- Emily widened her eyes, shocked by my words.

- “Sorry, but I already quit. This is just a bonus.”- I reply with an evil grin, enjoying making my ex-friend uncomfortable. She deserves it, no doubt.

- “It’s the fact every time we've gone up against Cat, there's the presenting agenda and the hidden one.”- JJ just keeps talking, ignoring my words.

- “We know that”- I add, in a clearly annoyed tone of voice.- “This woman has always been a few steps ahead. That’s her modus operandi. We have to figure it out before we make any decision.”

- “Well, if she sticks to the pattern, this isn't just about going on a date with Spence.”- JJ looks at me as she speaks, so mad I could laugh. Who the hell does she think she is to even try to look angry at me. She should be glad I haven’t hurt her. Bitch.

- “Right now, she's a fixed variable.”- Prentiss replies.- “We need to focus on identifying the unsub and her victims.”

Spencer and I stand outside the interrogation room as Prentiss talks with Cat one more time. Neither of us says a word for a few minutes, but he still holds my hand tight and keeps me close to him.

- “You shouldn’t be so aggressive with JJ.”- I hear him whisper and I just stare at him, clearly annoyed. I don’t understand why he would say such a thing if he knows that woman triggers me each time she stands too close to him.

- “Right. Why is that?”

- “She is your friend.”- he has to be kidding.

- “She was.”- I correct him quickly- “You know she lost my friendship the day she said she loved you.”

- “I don’t like her that way. Why do you wanna hold a grudge against her?”

- “Because I always knew she had feelings for you. Ever since I started liking you.”- I sigh and turn to him. He looks so tired and defeated by the situation, I don’t think I wanna have this conversation right now. - “Fine, I won’t be a bitch with her until we solve this case.”

- “Thank you…”

- “I’m not happy about this being about Cat either.”

- “It’s not my ideal last case either…”

Our conversation ends because Prentiss walks out of the interrogation room and stares at us, clearly frustrated and most of all, annoyed.

- “So, what does the princess of madness want?”- the words come out filled with bitterness as I stare at my friend. She bites her lips before she tells us:

- “She wants to go ice skating, so she can skate circles around Spence. She is wasting our time.”

- “Bitch is mental.”- I whisper and look at her, alone in that room. In no scenario that psycho can or will go out on a date with my husband. Again…

- “Ok, something weird happened, but it could be a lead.”- Garcia shows up and looks at us in honest concern.- “I just got a bazillion voicemail messages, all from the same address on Fourth Street.”

I drive with Alvez and Lewis to the address Garcia gives us. I need a moment away from Cat Adams because I’m starting to believe she will somehow get away with it today, and she will go out on a date with Spencer. I don’t think I could deal with that.

- “Are you ok back there?”- Luke asks as he parks outside the house.

- “Yeah. I just need a little more coffee.”

- “Sure babe.”- Lewis raises an eyebrow and shakes her head.- “Lying to profilers, are you sure you wanna do that?”

- “Just keep me away from Cat so I leave today without killing any more people.”

- “Yes ma'am.”- Luke got out of the car but Tara stayed a few more minutes with me.

- “Reid, keep your eyes on the goal. It’s your last day on the team, don’t let Cat Adams ruin it for you.”

- “I keep telling myself that, but it’s hard when all she demands is a date with your husband.”- I simply confess ‘cos it’s not like it’s a secret.

- “We are gonna find this family and Cat is gonna go back to her cell, and most importantly, you are gonna go home with Spencer tonight and start the rest of your life together. Nothing will change that, ok? So don’t let any bitch get into your mind. Ok?”

I hold my friend’s hand and nod. Sometimes, all you need is a little empowerment from a friend to kick ass.

The whole street is filled with wanted posters looking for Susan. Yes, like the 80s movie. It’s breadcrumbs and it means to follow Cat’s game, but if we want to find that family, we’ll have to find who that Susan is.

When we get back to the BAU, the team has news: they know who Cat’s sidekick is. It was her old cellmate, Juliette Weaver, freed only six months ago. They had a lot in common, other than sharing cells and being besties, both their dads had killed their mothers. And we all know what trauma bonding does to psychopaths. It encourages them to do even crazier shit.

Matt says Susan is no other than Cat’s mother, and this is when I know she is not playing. We are about to go straight into her trap. But we have nothing else. As always, she is five steps ahead.

- “You are gonna have to go out with her.”- I whisper as I walk with Spencer to the interrogatory room one more time. He just shakes his head and holds my hand.

- “The only date I have tonight is with you and our bed after we solve this case and go home.”

- “She will only make a mistake if she is alone with you. If you go out with her and go fucking ice skating or whatever it is that she wants to do, we’ll get a chance to find that family.”- I hate saying this, but it’s the truth.

- “Chipmunk, I’ll try to talk to her one more time. If this doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.”

- “There’s not enough time.”- I whisper and sigh.- “I just don’t want her to get what she wants.”

- “She would never.”- Spencer stops walking and stares at me.- “I love you.”

- “I love you too.”

His arms wrap around me and keep me close to him for a few seconds. I feel his lips on the top of my head and I just sigh. Is it bad that I just wanna call him mine and only mine? No one can have him. He is my husband, the father of my kids… I am being obsessive and possessive, but can you blame me? Bitches keep falling for him and trying to steal him from me.

Spencer’s point of view

I am tired. Frustrated. Angry. I just wanna get this over with and go home. Instead, I have to talk to Cat Adams one more time.

- “Somehow you did it.”- I walk to her and she just sits by the table, not even looking at me, she just stares at the wall, looking like she is bored out of her mind.

- “You found what I couldn't. You found your father and you must have been furious when you discovered that he started over. Had another daughter. And that is why you deviated from your usual victimology. It wasn't enough to just hurt him. You had to hurt her, too.”

I finish my speech and crouch down by her side. And she just ignores every single word. Until she finally looks at me and asks.

- “When are we going ice skating?”

- “We're not going ice skating. You know, we've been asking ourselves this whole time what your hidden agenda was, but you tipped it when you said that you were gonna win tonight. Even if I let you out of here, you'll still kill them.”

I keep my eyes on her the entire time I talk, but she shows no emotion, no remorse. Nothing. She just stares back at me and pouts.

- “So, no ice skating?”

- “No ice skating.”

As I stand up and walk to the door, she says one more thing. One that gets me in a worse mode ‘cause of course she still has more surprises.

- “You should tell Garcia to check her email.”

Garcia has a video of Cat’s sidekick, Juliette, firing blanks at the father, right in front of his daughter. We all watch it and Emily ends up saying what my wife had suggested a few hours ago. That I should go out on a date with Cat and wait until she trips. ‘Cause apparently she always trips up with me.

- “Absolutely no.”- I stare at Rossi and Prentiss ‘cause I can’t understand why they are suggesting this.- “There is no way I am doing this.”

- “If we give Cat what she wants, we can profile what she says on the date. She always trips up. She always reveals her Achilles heel.”- Emily says as she looks me right in the eyes, trying to convince me.

- “And she always does it with you.”- Rossi adds. I feel my wife holding my hand and I turn to look at her.

- “I told you so.”- she whispers.

- “I don’t want to go.”- I reply in a soft voice.

- “We are gonna be three steps ahead of her this time.”- (Y/N) assures me and cuts me a short smile.- “Or I’ll kill her. Whatever happens first.”

It takes Cat an hour to get ready for our “date.” Meanwhile, I prepare every detail with the team and Emily convinces (Y/N) not to go with us, instead, Luke will tag along.

- “Why do you think I will let my husband go out with a serial killer alone?”- my wife asks, raising an eyebrow.

- “(Y/N), if you go, Cat will be mad and it might probably ruin the entire thing.”- Prentiss replies and tries to calm her down.- “Luke will be there the entire time, and we’ll…”

- “No! Last time she was on a date with him, he ended up being kidnapped.”

- “I was not kidnapped.”- I argue, though she is somehow right.

- “You were kept against your will at gunpoint at a table playing a sick game in a restaurant that had a bomb. How do you call that? Game night?”- (Y/N) looks at me, annoyed. Why is it that I find it sweet that she gets jealous and worried? I can’t tell her that now ‘cause she is clearly angry. But she looks adorable right now. Maybe there’s something wrong with me.

- “Nothing bad will happen, chipmunk.”- I whisper and kiss the tip of her nose.- “I’ll always come back home to you.”

- “She is ready. Let’s go.”- Tara announces from the door, so I take a deep breath and get ready to pick up my date.

We walk to the elevator outside the bullpen. The entire floor is filled with agents and high-security cops. Cat holds my arm as we walk and I just look straight ahead, trying not to acknowledge her. But I know she is smiling, enjoying her moment of triumph.

I can see my wife, arms crossed against her chest, standing along with the rest of the team. I just look at her as I walk past her and try to tell her how much I love her, that I’ll be back soon, and that I love her more than my own life. She looks at me for a moment and then stares at Cat with pure hate. I might need to make it up to her for this whole thing.

Luke and a SWAT team are waiting for us in the elevator. I really don’t wanna do this and I hate the fact there is no other way.

- “Don’t wait up!”- Cat says with a cheeky smile and somehow I know she is staring at my wife, probably ‘cause fire and knives are coming from her eyes as she stares at us. I wish I could tell her how sorry I am to put her through this whole thing. Now the door is closed and I’m on a date with Cat Adams.

In my head, I list all the things I’m gonna do tomorrow on my first day outside the BAU. I’m gonna make my wife breakfast in bed, then I’m gonna take her and the kids out for lunch, maybe we could go to the zoo or to the library.

- “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”- Cat’s voice takes me from my head and forces me back into reality. I’m in the back of a SWAT van with two officials. I try to stay focused on the plan and ignore her completely. Of course, she just keeps talking.

- “What ice skating rink are we going to?”- still no answer.- “Spencie.”

- “Don't call me that.”- I give her a stern look and then look away.

- “God, your parents are so strict.”- she jokes and looks at the officials.

I hate every second of this.

- “This isn't what I wanted.”- Cat’s tantrum starts the second we get off the van and she realizes this is a roller skating rink, not ice skating. As expected.

- “It's the best I could do.”- I reply and place my hands in my pockets. I did, in fact, nothing for this date.

- “It's not what I want.”

- “Skating is skating. What does it matter?”

- “It matters because if I asked to hang out with a bunch of sixth graders, I would have asked to come here, but I didn't, did I?”

- “We put in the request, Cat, and the answer was no.”- I explain once.

- “Why?”

- “Because we can't risk giving you access to a bladed tool.”- I explain twice, and I’m losing my patience.

- “What? I'm gonna use an ice skate to slice your neck open? Grow up”- two guns clock behind her and she doesn't even bother- “Relax.”

- “It's out of my hands. It's either this or nothing.”

- “Then nothing.”- she replies defiantly.

- “Fine.”- I say and shrug.

- “Fine.”

- “Get back in the van.”- I command.

- “I will.”

- “Had something special planned for our anniversary but whatever, forget it.”

I delivered that line as casually as possible, trying to make it sound like I was sorry she was gonna miss my surprise. When my wife said this time we were going to be three steps ahead of her, she wasn’t lying. She realized we had met Cat this month a few years ago, making it technically our anniversary.

- “You remembered?”- and it worked, ‘cause Cat turns to me surprised.

- “Of course, I remembered, but this date is over, so, let's get back in the van.”- I try to help her inside the van, but she is very curious.

- “No, no, no, no. I want to see it. Come on. I want to see it.”

- “Give me something.”- I demand immediately.

- “No.”

- “Yes. Give me something to help find your dad and half-sister.”- I insist, staring at her and trying not to look as annoyed and tired as I am.

- “Twenty-three.”

- “That's nothing. Give me something better.”- I demand, knowing the team is listening.

- “You're smart. You'll figure it out.”- she pauses, not moving from her spot, and then repeats.- “Let's go. I want to see it. Let's go.”

And so, we start walking. I sigh and most nonchalantly, I reach out for her hand, just like my wife suggested. I can't believe she asked me to do this.

- “Hold my hand. It's dark inside.”

- “You know we just had our first fight, right?”- there’s some pride in that sentence. She wants us to act like we are a couple, ‘cause maybe in her head, we already are. I wanna be done with this.

As soon as we step inside, Cat starts complaining again.

- “God, it smells so gross in here. That's why I hate roller rinks.”- but I just ignore her.

- “Luke, can you hear me?”- I say and look up at the DJ booth.

- “Loud and clear.”- he replies in the speaker. The whole room fills with his voice. I’m glad I am not alone.

- “Light it up.”

- “Got it.”

The entire room lights up, some random song I didn’t pick starts playing, and a massive sigh lightens and you can read “Spencie and Cat Forever.”

- “Spencie”- Cat seems to be impressed, even delighted and touched by my gesture. I try not to smile pleased, thinking my wife’s idea is working. I married the most brilliant woman in the world.

- “I'm a size 7 skate.”

This is a bad moment to face the fact I can’t skate. I failed with the skateboard every time Frank and Mikey tried to teach me, but that was probably ‘cause we always tried to do it when we were drunk. And right now, I am failing with the skates. Cat is enjoying her moment, sliding from one corner to the other with elegance and ease. Meanwhile, I am struggling to stand and move forward without smashing my face on the ground.

- “What's up?”- she asks as she shows up next to me- “Can you skate backward?”

- “I can barely skate forward.”- I confess ‘cause you can see the struggle I’m in.

- “Really? Just look up.”- and I do, well, I look up to the ceiling and she chuckles.- “Not that far.”- Cat holds my arm and helps me. This whole thing is ridiculous and I end up chuckling.

- “Someone having fun?”- I don’t reply, but keep smiling ‘cos at some level, this whole thing could be fun. -“I'm having fun. If your stupid chaperone wasn't here, I would ask the DJ to put on some Savage Garden for the guy-girl skate and we could totally make out.”

Cat smiles at me as she helps me skate, holding my arm.

- “You, uh, you realize what I have to do, right?”- I ask because I can’t drag this conversation any longer.

- “Um, let me think. Ask me a bunch of pointed questions and hope that I trip up? Go ahead. Ask away.”

I know I have to play Cat the right way, she knows I want to rescue her father and half-sister, but that won't come from a direct question. So instead, I ask:

- “What happened to your baby?”- and it works.

- “What?”- she definitely didn’t see that question coming, because her eyes and voice are filled with anger and hurt in a second.

- “The last time I saw you, you were pregnant with someone else's baby that you said was mine.”- I simply add trying to be casual.

- “Why are you asking me about that? I don't want to talk about that.”

- “Hormonal changes during pregnancy expand the brain's capacity for empathy. I was actually just trying to see if I could use it against you.”- it’s not the honest reason, but I think it works.

- “Oh, really? What about, um, sex?”

No. My strategy didn’t work. Now she wants to find me unprepared. She moves and crushes her body against me and stares right into my eyes, trying to read the effect she has on me. I hold her in place and stare at her, glad there are no cameras here, just audio to report back to the team.

- “Why don't you use that against me?”

It’s far from a pleasant image if you ask me to be honest. Sex will only seem tempting if it’s with the woman I love, and as much as I try to hide my contempt, I fail. Cat moves away from me and stares at me with pure hate. Then, she slaps me so hard I fall to the floor on these stupid skates.

- “Cat, wait!”

I stand up as fast as I can and start to make the story believable enough to help me through this. I know (Y/N) is listening on the other side of the mic, but this is the only chance I’ve got to finish with this and save that family. And I know she understands.

- “Cat! Cat! Wait! I can explain!”- I follow her to the lockers, where she is taking off her skates, furious.

- “I have spent my entire adult life reading men. I know when they're thinking about someone else.”

- “Yes, I was thinking about my wife, but that doesn't mean…”

- “Do you know what this was for me? I didn't ask for one last family visit. I didn't want one final meal. I wanted this. And you can't even give me the courtesy of your undivided attention before I'm executed.”

Somehow, she was being honest about that. This was all she had asked for, which is sad. But she just had to torture two people to get it.

- “So, thank you very much, but this date is over. You can turn off the stupid lights, boys. Let's get out of here.

- “She's not you.”- it’s the only thing I can come up with. I stand in front of Cat looking defeated and she stares at me, still angry, and trying to find a flaw in my facade.

- “You're lying.”- and she doesn’t believe it, so I have to make sure she swallows every word that comes out of my mouth from now on. It’s time to lie.

- “I'm not lying. I wish I was, but I'm not! There's some part of my brain, some part that you somehow inhabit, and no woman, no matter how good, no matter how kind, no matter how sexy she is, not even my own wife can ever get you out.”- she stares at me and suddenly I wonder if this is exactly what (Y/N) fears the most. Am I hurting her?

- “Do you think about me when you kiss her?”

- “Yes.”- I don’t even think about it, I just answer. She raises an eyebrow with a smirk.- “And if it makes you happy, I’m pretty sure I’ll be in big trouble when I get home after our date.”

- “Does she know everything you do or think?”

- “No, but I try to tell her most things.”- I say those words with the certainty I am not lying.

- “Most things, not all things.”- Cat takes the bait and a part of me feels good lying is useful for once.

- “No…”

- “What doesn’t your wife know that I could know?”

- “Well…”- I glue my eyes to the floor, trying to look as ashamed as possible.

- “Come on. Give me something.”- her voice is annoyed and anxious.

- “I still go to my old apartment.”

- “What?”

- “We were supposed to sell it when we got the house, but I wanna keep it. She doesn't know that I still hang out there sometimes when I tell her I’m running an errand.”

- “Then I want to see your apartment. Now.”

(Y/N)’s point of view

Call me petty, but the fact Spencer is on a date with Cat Adams is driving me more crazy than not being able to find her father and half-sister. Something is off. Adams has to be hiding something. She wants to throw us a curveball at the last minute. But what?

I stare at Emily as the team analyzes every second of the conversation Spencer is having with Cat. My cell phone hums in my pocket and I grab it immediately, thinking it could be my mom. She is with the kids tonight. But instead, it’s Frank.

- “Nugget, I’m sorry.”

- “Hey, what is it?”- I can tell he is stressed ‘cause his voice is shaky and very fast.

- “I just… never thought I could make this call, less on your last day, but I need your help. We do.”

- “What happens, Paco?”

- “It’s Tarah’s dad, Charlie. He has been missing since last night.”- I hold my breath, shocked. His girlfriend’s father is missing. And because I am surprised, I ask the wrong question.

- “What? Are you sure?”

- “Of course I am sure! I would never call you if I weren’t sure!”- my friend snaps right away.

- “Sorry! Sorry! Did you guys fill the report?”- I walk outside the conference room as I talk with my friend.

- “Tarah is just doing that as we speak, but it’s not just that.”

- “What is it?”

- “Lizzy, Mikey’s sister-in-law is missing too. Both of them disappeared last night.”

And somehow, it clicked.

- “I’m gonna need you to send me pictures of them asap. I’ll make sure they get home safe tonight.”

I rush back into the conference room and start shouting information, hyperventilating ‘cause we are wasting time.

- “It’s about Spencer.”- Rossi and Em stare at me, lost. Of course, none of them gets what I’m trying to say ‘cause they are not in my head, so I try to elaborate on my breakthrough.

- “This whole show Cat is doing, it’s about Spencer and me, I’m sure this bitch knows we are leaving the FBI.”

- “What? Why?”- Prentiss doesn’t doubt it, she just needs more proof.

- “Frank’s father inlaw and Mikey’s sister inlaw are missing, they are sending me pictures as we speak, and if I’m right, I’m pretty sure that’s the father and daughter Juliette is torturing.”

- “Fuck.”- Rossi whispers as he shakes his head.

- “Can you get your friends to come over?”- Prentiss asks and I just nod. - “Good, ‘cause we need to be ready for whatever Cat is planning to do now. She won’t get away with this.”

- “Spencer is taking Cat to your old apartment.”- Matt shows up suddenly with the news

- “What? Why?”

- “Apparently, Cat wants to see it…”- my phone rings that second. Mikey’s hyperventilating at the other side of the line.

- “I just got a call from an unknown number, a woman yelled at me to go to your old apartment. It said there was a hidden key underneath the mat. And if I don’t go, she’ll kill Lizzy and Tarah’s dad.”

- “Cat is taking us all there.”- I say and look at Prentiss.- “I’m on my way, Mikey, wait for me there. I’m gonna call Frank.”

Just then, I get a text myself. It says: “If you want to save them, go to your old apartment.” So Cat wants me to be there as well. I wonder why. I show it to Prentiss as we hurry to get into the car and she stares at me, pale.

- “She has never even addressed you.”

- “No. Not really.”- now that I think about it, Cat has always been alone with Spencer. I watch them interact from a safe distance, but I have never spoken to her. This shit will be weird.

I was right. Cat wants us all to meet in our old apartment? Why? I have too many theories about that. We meet Frank and Mikey a block before Spencer’s apartment. In the years I’ve met them, I have never seen them like this. They are… losing it.

It’s hard to work with friends and family. You just never know how to keep your head cold, and how to talk to them without sounding condescending. Not even in my worst nightmare I ever imagined I would be in this situation with my best friends on my last day working for the Bureau. But Cat wanted us to leave like this, so we have to deal with what we got.

- “She is the crazy psycho that almost killed Diana?”- Frank asks but instead of me, Prentiss does the talking.

- “Yes, she is. She is a dangerous criminal, and she just wants to hurt Spencer and (Y/N).”

- “I’m gonna kill her.”- Mikey mumbles as we rush upstairs.

- “No, you have to outsmart her. Let her think she is in charge. She will trip with Spencer.”- I command as I open the front door. We are less than fifteen minutes ahead of Cat and Spencer, but we have to be ready for them.

- “Whatever happens, don’t believe anything she says, but act as if you do.”- Prentiss starts instructing my friends.- “She will lie, she will use you to make Reid’s life a living hell. Try to make her see she is convincing you.”

- “She can’t know you are lying.”- I add, scared my friends are caught in this mess.

- “So it’s like when we got drunk as teenagers and pretended to be sober when we got home?”- Frank somehow jokes in the middle of this nightmare, probably trying to ease the mood. And I just smile at him and nod, as I help wiring him.

- “Hopefully your acting will be better now. You always got caught.”- I smile at him, but tears fill my eyes in a second. I hate getting emotional on the field, but this is my family we are talking about.

- “Hey, hey. No, don’t.”- Frank holds my hands and looks at me.- “Don’t give this bitch what she wants. Don’t cry.”

- “I’m just so sorry.”

- “You are sorry she is a crazy bitch?”- Frank raises an eyebrow as I shake my head.

- “I’m sorry we dragged your families into this madness.”

- “This is what she wants, nugget.”- Mikey kisses my forehead and wipes my tears.- “Don’t let that psycho win.”

- “They are almost here.”- Garcia announces. She checks our mics, and earpieces and kisses my cheek.- “I love you, munchkin. You can do this.”- I just nod and watch her and the rest of the team rush out of our old apartment.

Just now I realize how empty this whole place looks. We left some furniture behind, an old sofa Raven and Vinny had mostly destroyed, and a small table. But it feels so weird without all of our books and mess and child’s screams. Our landline is apparently still on, and a very old telephone sits there, alone. Frank lights a cigarette and I almost ask him to put it off out of instinct. Like the kids were still there.

We say nothing for a few minutes. We just stand there speechless. Mikey whispers a few things, mostly words of encouragement. Until we hear some noises from the hall.

- “This is it.”- I whisper and my friends just nod. Anything could happen. Adams probably has a very structured plan and we need to outsmart her. I am sure she just wants to hurt us. Mentally and even physically.

So of course, as soon as the front door opens, the first thing I see is Spencer kissing Cat as if his life depended on it.

- “What the fuck?”- I mouther as I open my eyes wide and my husband removes his lips from Cat’s, in shock, fear and regret. I can read it all on his face, but it doesn’t mean much at the moment. I don’t even have to force myself to fake the anger. I am burning.

Spencer stares at me for a few seconds, still holding Cat’s face with both hands. As soon as he reacts to what’s happening, he starts walking in my direction, but Frank’s fist stops him. He hits him hard, right on the jaw.

- “Mother fucker!”- Frank hisses and I wrap my arms around him to stop him from resuming the fight. I don’t know if this is pretending or if he is actually mad, but he wants to keep hitting Spencer and I am not letting that happen.

- “I told you what would happen if you ever made her cry!! I warned you!! Now you got us all in this fucking mess! I am gonna kill you!”

Frank’s face is red in anger as he yells. Spencer raises a hand to his jaw and stares at him for a second in disbelief. Then, he looks at me with sorry eyes. He is almost in tears. I remember Cat was just here, but she is nowhere to be seen. Probably the SWAT team took her out. Mikey holds my hand, pulling me away from Frank, and wraps an arm around my shoulder protectively.

- “Chipmunk, this is not what it looks like.”

- “Get them out of here!”- Luke rushes in and my friends raise their hands like they were being at gunpoint.

- “No, we can’t leave. She’ll kill them if we do.”- Mikey explained.

- “Who?”- Spencer asks but keeps looking at me.

- “My sister-in-law and Frank’s father-in-law. She took them.”- as Mikey speaks, Luke stops the few SWAT officials in the room from taking them out. - “Someone called us and told us to come here if we wanted to see them alive again. Our wives are terrified, Reid. We need to get our family back.”

- “This is all my fault.”- Spencer whispers and for once, I don’t comfort him. I don’t open my mouth.

- “Spencer, what the fuck is happening?”- Frank demands to know.- “Tell me before I break your face.”

- “Guys, I’m so sorry. I don’t have enough time to explain. I just wanna apologize for what you saw. It really means nothing, I am just trying to…”

- “No time for that, Spencer.”- I snap and look at Luke.- “Bring her back and leave us alone.”

- “What?”- Alvez stares at us not getting what’s happening. But Spencer agrees.

- “If she brought all of us here, this is what she wanted.”- I add before my husband grabs the landline phone and calls from his cell.

- “You can monitor us from here.”

- “Are you sure?”- Luke asks and I just nod.

- “I’ll keep her safe.”- my husband tries to hold my hand but I don’t let him and he stares at me like a wounded puppy. It hurts to act this way, but if I just saw him kissing another woman. A crazy bitch as a matter of act. And I know it’s not because he wants to do it, he was probably just trying to prove a point. But it still hurts. I have to use this anger to make it all real in front of Cat.

- “Follow my lead. We can outsmart her.”- Spencer says and looks at our friends.- “Trust me, please. Let her goat, she loves to goat. Just don’t show fear, she’ll use it against you.”

- “Who are you talking about?”- Frank asks as Cat walks into our apartment, a sign I never imagined could happen, not in this life or another.

- “Her.”- I point out and cross my arms on my chest. Luke leaves us alone, closing the door behind his back.

Cat fucking Adams wipes her mouth with her hand, remembering my husband’s lips were just there a few minutes ago. I have a gun, I could just kill her.

- “I can’t believe after all this time we haven’t properly met, Mrs. Reid.”- she smiles at me and winks.- “She is cute, Spencie.”

- “We are here. What the hell do we have to talk about?”- my husband barks at her, and she scoffs as if the answer is too obvious.

- “So much, so, so much. I can’t believe this is actually the first time I get the chance to talk with your wife. We have so much to share. We both know you so well.”

- “I give a fuck about your stupid crush on Spencer. I just want my family back.”- Frank snaps and I hold him back.

- “I like you, you are feisty. I never got what were you doing hanging out with two feds. You had potential as a riot maker.”- Cat smiles at Frankie and my friend nearly bites her as he replies.

- “Oh shut up. Just tell us what the fuck you want and let us leave.”

- “I just wanted us to talk. I mean, we’ve been all connected for so long, it’s only fair we get to know each other better. Especially us, (Y/N). Our lives, and some other things, have been touched by the same man.”

It’s official. I’m gonna kill Cat Adams.

Spencer’s point of view

- “Did it make you mad that I was kissing your husband?”- Cat asks with the most innocent tone of voice and I don’t know if I should look at (Y/N) or just ignore what’s going on. Of course, my wife knows what to answer, though her cold tone of voice is so unsettling.

- “A lot of things you did made me mad today. Mostly the fact you kidnapped my friend’s family. Why?”

- “Why what? Why I kissed him? He kissed me, actually.”- I open my mouth to argue with Cat’s affirmation, but (Y/N) speaks quicker, sounding incredibly tired of the whole situation.

- “No, Cat. Why don’t you just release their family? They have nothing to do with this.”

- “They have so much to do with all this. What was it, Reids? Did you think you were gonna quit and everything was gonna be fine? You don’t get it. They don’t get it.”- she ads and looks at Frank and Mikey.- “Did you guys get it? How much your friends have fucked up your lives? How their jobs got you all in this shit?”

- “Honestly, right now, I give a shit about their lives. I just want you to stop this and release our family.”

- “Wow, Frank. That’s not what a friend would say.”- the way Cat says Paco’s name is upsetting, and I can see how my wife is trying to mask her anger.

- “Excuse us, but we actually have other things in mind right now.”- Mikey adds, and lights a cigarette.

- “Like what?”

- “Are you gonna hurt Lizzy and Charlie?”

- “No if I don’t have to.”- I know Cat is lying. - “What’s important here is that you learn your lesson.”

- “Which lesson would that be?”- Frank questions and crosses his arms on his chest. He and Mikey are standing at each side of my wife, protecting her. Something I wish I could do better at this moment.

- “Well, usually Spencie and I spend our time together playing games, but tonight I brought you all here to make a point. You could do so much better.”

- “With you?”- I ask her, but she shakes her head and points at my wife and her friends.

- “The three amigos here. Especially you, (Y/N). You had so much potential. I know you’ve been wanting to leave the BAU for longer than your husband here, and you’ve stayed in this shitty job, putting your friends and their families in danger just because he can’t make up his freaking mind.”

- “That’s not true.”- I argue, but my wife doesn’t say a word. Instead, I see her fighting the tears. And Cat smiles, rejoicing in the pain she is causing (Y/N).

- “Apparently, it is.”

- “(Y/N)?”- I whisper her name and she bites her lips, trying not to burst into tears. Frank holds her hand and Mikey wraps an arm around her, two things I should be doing.

- “I’ve hated this job since before Hotch had to leave. I wanted to quit since Raven was born. You just… didn’t listen every time I tried to tell you.”

- “You see, Spencie? Your wife hasn’t been happy for a while, and you never noticed. Your marriage isn’t as perfect as you thought it would be.”

- “Chipmunk, why didn’t you tell me?”- I whisper, afraid of the answer.

- “I couldn’t. You just… weren’t ready to deal with this, and I thought if I faked it for a little longer, I was going to fall in love with the job again.”

- “But you didn’t”- Cat adds and my wife just shakes her head.

- “And you know what’s even worse than that? The fact a psycho noticed and you didn’t!”- (Y/N) isn’t yelling, but the words come out filled with anger, and she is being sincere.

- “I… I am so sorry, chipmunk.”

- “Finally, we are getting to the heart of the matter.”- Cat claps a few times and walks around our empty living room.- “He told me he doesn’t want to sell this place, by the way. That he still comes and hangs out here on his own when he says he is running an errand.”

- “Everything I said, I did to save their families, ma cherie.”- I ignore Cat and try to talk to my wife. But she ignores me.

- “Did that kiss look like a lie, (Y/N)? Be honest.”- Cat asks her.

- “It was.”- I assure my wife but she wipes her tears from her cheeks and looks at me, knives coming from her eyes.

- “You know that looked pretty real, Spencer.”

- “Chipmunk, please.”

- “Shut up, Reid.”- Frank is losing his patience.- “You fucked it up, at least admit it.”

- “Frank is right. Everyone thinks that Doctor Spencer Reid is just this nice, bookish genius who always saves the day and has all the answers and who would never ever hurt anyone, right? ‘Cause he is the nice guy. But I know the real him.”

- “Oh yeah? Who is the real me, Cat?”- I sound defiant ‘cos I’m fucking tired of this trial.

- “The real Spencer Reid throws women against walls and hisses that he’s gonna kill them.”- she replies, hitting a sensitive spot.

- “That was a very different situation.”- I explain, but she dismisses my words.

- “Your wife was there. Am I right, (Y/N)?”

- “What is she talking about?”- Frank asks and turns to me.- “Who the fuck did you hurt?”

- “No one! I hurt no one!”- I try to defend myself, but I know Cat will have a different point of view.

- “Come on, Spence”- she says with a mocking tone of voice.- “Don’t lie to your friends anymore. That’s why we are here. To be honest with each other, so they can see you are not a saint, and that their friend really screws them over bringing you into their lives.”

- “Who did you hurt, Spencer?”- Mikey asks and stares at me, demanding answers.

- “You tell him. They are not gonna believe it coming from me.”- Cat says innocently.

Frank and Mikey stare at me as if they don't know the story. Which they don’t. Not this part, at least.

- “I’m sure you remember two years ago, Cat had her partner kidnap my mother. Just like tonight. She got under my skin and…"

- “And you threw her against a wall?”- Frank asks raising an eyebrow, shocked.

- “Don't skimp on the details, Spencie. They deserve to know everything.”- Cat is surely enjoying this moment of humiliation for me.

- “She was pregnant at the time and I knew that when I hurt her.”- I whisper those words staring at the ground ‘cause I am honestly ashamed of confessing it in front of my friends.

- “And?”- Mikey asks.- “How badly did you hurt her? Did you lose your temper?”

- “Well, the next day I miscarried, so you can imagine who mad get got.”- Cat whispers but the words are heard by everybody.

- “That's not true.”- I snap and look at her, in shock.

- “It is most certainly true. Check my medical records."- Cat basically threatens us with those files, and I can't believe a word she is saying.

- “That doesn't mean I… I would stop.”

- “You stopped ‘cause your wife forced you. But who forces you to stop when you lose your temper with her?”

- “I would never…”- I whisper shocked by her insinuation.

- “Never, Spence? You did it with me.”- Cat raises an eyebrow and looks at me.

- “You had kidnapped my mother!”

- “So that gives you the right to kill my baby?”

Kill a baby. I murdered a poor child. I feel the knot in my throat tighten and fight the tears. Cat has to be lying. She has to. Because if by any chance she is telling the truth, I don’t think I will ever be able to live with the guilt. I’ve killed evil men, and I’ve pulled the trigger knowing the consequences of my acts many times. But not once I’ve ever thought about hurting a baby, an innocent child.

- “I thought you were decent.”- it’s the repugnance in Frank’s tone of voice that shocks me. - “To think you could do that to my sister.”

- “I would nev…”

- “Shut up, dude.”- Mikey pushes my arm, but my wife stops him.- “I always knew your mister goody goody attitude had to be fake. No one is like that in real life.”

- “It was about damn time you knew the real Spencer.”

- “Shut up, Cat.” - (Y/N) whispers and covers her face with both hands.- “You wanted to hurt my whole family? Congratulations, you did it! Now let those poor people free! They didn’t do anything!”

- “They did! You are just not seeing it yet, chipmunk!”

My wife’s nickname coming from Cat’s lips seems tainted. And somehow I realize how she makes me my sanity. I can picture myself hurting Cat Adams and not feeling bad about it. That kind of thought is dangerous.

- “I’m sorry.”- I whisper and try to reach (Y/N), hold her hand, but she moves away from me, breaking my heart.

- “Notice how he apologizes to you, not to me, and it’s my dead baby.”

- “I would never… I didn’t mean to…”

- “It doesn’t matter, Spencer.”- Cat says and looks at my wife.- “All men are the same. Aren’t they, Mrs. Reid?”

- “Don’t call her that.”- I snap at her immediately.

- “Or what? Are you gonna throw me against the wall? Choke me? Or do you do that only to pregnant women?”

- “Why are you doing this to them?”- Mikey asks, thankfully ending that useless argument.

- “Because I want you all to see it. How Spencer ruins everything he touches.”- Cat looks at Mikey and Frank as she speaks, and then looks at my wife.- “Spencer ain’t better than whoever hurt you before.”

- “Don’t you dare bring that up”- Mikey’s words stop my heart, and my wife looks at him with watered-up eyes. I have no idea what he is talking about, but whatever it is, it pleases Cat, so she looks at my wife with a fake smile and asks.

- “What’s his name?”

- “I mean it, (Y/N), we are not talking about this shit.”- Mikey warns her, and I stare at them puzzled. What have they been hiding all these years?

- “Come on, Mrs. Reid. Tell us.”

- “It’s not of your business. Mikey is right. We are not talking about him. Release their families.”- but Cat just smiles a her and shakes her head.

- “You know it’s my business, (Y/N). It’s my specialty. What I did for a living. So come on. Share with the class.”

- “If you wanna know about him, release their families.”- my wife crosses her arms on her chest and stares at her.

- “Do you want me to make a phone call so you can trace it?”- Cat smiles at (Y/N) and mimics her posture.- “You guys at the FBI are so good.”

- “What the fuck is wrong with you?”- Frank shouts- “Stop flirting with Spencer and release our families! What is this sick, twisted thing you two have? And how are you not breaking her face?!”- he asks and turns to my wife.- “He clearly has feelings for her! How can you just overlook that?!”

- “I can’t overlook it! It’s just… I can’t-” (Y/N) fights the tears and groans as she walks across the room.- “What she does to him I can’t control it. Happy? Now release their families! Please!”

My wife sounds desperate, and Cat simply stares at her.

- “Tell me his name.”

- “Don’t do it, we’ll find another way.”- Mikey warns her. Why is he trying to keep this a secret?

- “Tell me the story, (Y/N). And I promise you, Lizzy and Charlie will be free to go.”

- “Nugget, you fucking promised me we were never going to talk about that again. Don’t do it.”- Mikey begs her.

- “We have to do anything she wants if we want to save Lizzy and Charlie"- (Y/N) mutters and sighs.- "Sometimes bitches win. This time, she does.”

- “No, please.”- Mikey sobbs and hugs (Y/N). What the fuck happened that I never heard anything of.

- “Arthur.”- my wife walks away from me and whispers the rest.- “His name is Arthur, he is Mikey’s older brother. We dated for two years.”

- “Your best friend brother. What happened?”- Cat is enjoying this and I hate it.

- “What do you think happened? Does it look like we lived happily ever after?"- (Y/N) asks, annoyed

- “Tell me, when did it end?”- Cat keeps asking.

- “When I was twenty.”- my wife stares at her hand, embarrassed by the story.

- “Was he your first?”

- “Shut up.”- I stare at Cat and she just smiles at me.

- “What? I just wanted to know. You surely must know you were not her first.”

- “He was my first love. I loved him since I can remember. Mikey’s older brother, he was… he always seemed so cool. So different than all the kids in school.”

- “And what happened?”

- “What do you think happened, Cat?”- (Y/N) sounds irritated.- “Do you think everything ended like a fucking fairy tale?”- but Cat shakes her head, keeping her posture and calm.

- “Come on, Reid. I am not the enemy here. Just tell me the story.”

My wife sighs and looks at Mikey. He is angry, and fighting the tears himself.

- “I’m sorry.”- (Y/N) whispers and holds his hand.- “I tried to change for him. I did. A lot. He didn’t like that I was smarter than him, or that I had many friends in school. So I stopped hanging out with my friends from college. I never talked about school, my classes, or any kind of award or recognition I got for my grades. But that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to control everything I did. Everyone I talked to. But it wasn’t enough.”

- “When did he start hitting you?”

- “He didn’t.”- my wife replies and shakes her head.- “He never raised his hand to me… not until the end at least. Instead, he isolated me. I barely even saw my family anymore. Not even my closest friends were safe. Mikey and Frank realized something was wrong… but…”

- “But you somehow got out of that relationship. How?”- Cat walks towards my wife and stares at her. (Y/N) sighs and closes her eyes for a moment.

- “My dad… he tried to talk to me about my boyfriend. He noticed things were not ok. I had moved out of their house already, and we barely saw each other anymore. So… he told me he thought Arthur wasn’t right for me. At first, I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just being an ass because he loved me and he was jealous.”

- “I hate this.”- Mikey mumbles, eyes filled with tears. - “You swore you weren’t talking about this with anyone!”

- “She has your wife’s sister, I’m trying to save her! So your brother raped me! There! I said it!”

- “Chipmunk, stop talking, now.”- I demand and move closer to my wife. Mikey bursts into tears and Frank hugs him.

- “No, don’t stop. Give me your phone.”- my wife does and Cat diales.- “Look, I’ll release their families as soon as you finish this story.”

(Y/N) off the tears that fall down her cheek and looks at Cat, and for once, I don’t think she is trying to read if she is lying. She is connecting with her.

- “My dad talked to me one day. We had a heart-to-heart, and after some time I realized Arthur wasn’t good for me, so I ended things. Of course, he didn’t take it well… and he hit me and raped me.”

- “And you…”- Cat stares at (Y/N) with a smirk. She is enjoying every second of this, rejoicing in her pain.

- “I still couldn’t legally carry a gun so…”- there’s a deep silence for a moment. I don’t move, I just stare at (Y/N) thinking there is nothing she can say that will stop me from loving her.- “So my dad took the blame. He said he walked into him hurting me and shot him…”

- “It was self-defense… he was hurting you.”- I whisper and look at my wife. She didn’t deserve any of that at such a young age.

- “How did it feel killing him? Did you enjoy it?”

- “I didn’t kill him, Cat. I shot his leg and called my dad. He called the ambulance… and he fixed everything.”

- “Well, aren’t you daddy’s little girl”- Cat chuckles and turns to me.- “You really have a type, don’t you?”

- “He helped me. Got him behind bars and made sure he was never going to hurt me again. There! That’s my story. Now you know…”

- “Now you all know… and your friendship is doomed.”- Cat replied and grinned.

- “Why is our friendship doomed, Cat?”- my wife asks- “Mikey knew this whole story.”

- “He did… but he didn’t know this: what I did took me zero planning. Less than a week and I destroyed your lives. Anyone at any time can hurt your family and extended family ‘cause you and Spencer caused so much pain to so many psycho killers like me, anyone can seek revenge. Leaving the FBI doesn’t even matter ‘cause you are in too deep already.”

(Y/N)’s cell phone rings she rushes outside without saying another word, Mikey and Frank following her immediately. Cat stares at me with an evil grin.

- “I win.”

And I feel like I just lost so much. 

Previous chapter | Next chapter

[madrone33]

So, I've been re-reading the Deltora Quest books for the first time in years because my obsession with them has recently been revived (just finished Valley of the Lost), and man, I don't think I realised before just how, like, absolutely devoted Lief is to getting rid of the Shadow Lord and freeing Deltora. It's especially apparent in the first few books.

The Belt is basically all that matters to him. Not even finding the Heir is more important, honestly the heir is very much secondary to the Belt. They're just the person who will put on and activate the Belt's magic; they are a means to an end. His own life is secondary to the Belt - which isn't to say he's not afraid of dying, he really really is, but when shit gets real and it looks like this is the end, his thoughts almost always go to the Belt. Just like the heir, Lief thinks of himself as a means to an end. (Which is ironic, seeing as how he is the heir.) Lief will make the Belt, and the heir will wear the Belt, but it's the Belt itself that matters most to him. Because it's the Belt that will save them.

'Do not worry about me,' Lief whispered, trying to keep his voice steady and calm. 'Nothing matters but that we seize the gem. If I die in the attempt, it will not be your fault. You must take the Belt from my body and go on alone, as you have wished.'

I must prepare myself for death, Lief thought. But he could only think of the Belt around his waist. If he was killed here, the Belt would lie forgotten with his bones. The gems would never be restored to it. The heir to the throne of Deltora would never be found. The land would remain under the Shadow forever.

'No!' Lief cried. 'Wait!' At this moment of terror, his one thought was for the Belt of Deltora and the topaz fixed to it. If he did nothing to prevent it, this golden eyed giant would surely find the Belt after he was dead, take it from his body- and perhaps give it to Thaegan. Then Deltora would be lost to the Shadow Lord forever. I must throw the Belt over the cliff, he thought desperately. I must make sure that Barda and Jasmine see me do it. Then they will have some chance of finding it again. If only I can delay him until I can do it...

[Literally just died] Lief felt himself pulled to his feet and slung over Barda's shoulder. His head was spinning. He wanted to cry out, 'What of the crown? The opal?' But then he was that the crown was in Barda's hand.

Lief's fingers felt for the clasp of the Belt he wore under his shirt. If necessary, he would unloose it and let it fall into the mud at the bottom of the stream. It would be better for it to lie there than for it to fall into the hands of the Shadow Lord again.

And maybe it didn't really hit me when I first read them 'cause I was approximately A Child, but it's really sinking in now just how bad things have been in Deltora for the last 16 years. When they talk about slavery and fighting arenas and brandings and starvation and executions in the streets. For some reason all these human atrocities are hitting home a lot more than before. It used to be the monsters that seemed the scariest, but now I can see that yes, the monsters are horrifying and traumatising and terrifying, but Lief and Barda and Jasmine continuously choose to keep going, they willingly put themselves through hell, because the Shadow Lord is worse.

Anyway, all this to say, Deltora really couldn't ask for a more selfless and loyal King that Lief. This kid is willing to die so many times over if it means his people are safe.

(The only thing he tends to go off mission for are his friends and family, but even then, I'm thinking of that part in Isle of the Dead where Laughing Jack holds Jasmine hostage and demand the Belt in return. And Lief refuses. Because his people must come first. And he knows Jasmine would never want him to betray their land for her. Like??? So many feels.)

[sweetsimp]

Dark Photographs || Obey Me x Reader -- Part One [Lucifer]

TW!!! Please read the warnings before proceeding.

A/N: HELLOOOOO sorry for the delay, ive been super busy with all of these classes, I havent been able to work on dark photographs. I WAS IN SIX COLLEGE CLASSES AHHHHHHHHHH also haha what if i opened up my tips..................... would you guys.... wanna... um... 

ANYWAY I ALSO FINISHED RAINCOODEEEEE I FINISHED IT AND IT WAS AMAZING and if you dont know what that is uhhhhhhhhhh GO FIND OUT AHHHHHHHHH i might also write raincode stuff.................

also sorry?? for taking so long?? Ive been trying to get used to this move and i finally pushed myself to stop putting this off, but I WAS WRITING IT IN A SEPERATE APP CAUSE TUMBLR KEPT NOT SAVING MY WORK and then it just pasted as one whole paragraph and fixing it was the only proofreading that i did (clown honk) 

Warnings: dark themes, kidnapping, threats, angst, angst, angst, assault, use of dr*gs, fighting, mention of not-alive, etc.

EXTRA WARNING this shit made me cry WHILE I WAS WRITING IT proceed at your own RISk

-- word count for imagine: 2257 (give or take a few maybe)                                                 

Lucifer

Sometimes he had his moments where he got on your nerves. 

You get into an argument but he always makes it up to you.He'd always find a way to get under your skin, especially with the fact that he was basically the embodiment of Pride and the dictionary definition of a workaholic. He could spend hours trapped in his office, surrounded by mountain piles of paperwork, but only minutes with you. 

The problem was, he seemed perfectly content with that, and it bothered you.

Now, you were kidnapped and had no way of knowing how he actually cared about you and especially in the ways that mattered most. It secretly tortured him that you could've died thinking that you were the least important thing in his life. 

Was that his fault? Was he to blame? 

He almost found it humorous how much he had been torturing himself, especially because he always had full confidence that he would solve the issue no problem, and everything would go back to the way it was. He forgot how fragile humans were until now. Of course, anyone that wasn't Lucifer seemed almost fragile in comparison to the Avatar of Pride, but you were a whole different thing. 

You were his human. 

It wasn't a lie when he said he was confident he would find you, but what he didn't know was if it'd be too late or not. He didn’t know what to do. 

Were you devoured immediately or tortured? If you had been alive still, why hadn't you summoned him? What was he going to say once he found you? 

The fire let out a loud crackle noise, interrupting his thoughts. He stopped in his tracks and sat down for a moment while resting his head on his hands with his elbows propped on his desk. He closed his eyes as small strands of hair tickled his skin and fell in front of his face. Shadows danced around the room to hide from the fire's burning light. 

Why didn't they tell anyone where they were going? Why didn't they ask anyone to accompany them? The most likely possibilities had been work or shopping. They wouldn't go with any random demon that asked them to follow their lead, and especially if no one he trusted was with them. Why were they alone? 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Lucifer lifted his head immediately. "Come in."

Mammon hesitantly walked in, dipping his head in first before pulling the rest of his body into the room to face his older brother. It was strange to see his predictable behavior get washed away in a matter of seconds, but it was a relief for Lucifer that he had one less thing to worry about. 

Mammon's otherwise mischievous tone and behavior dissipated even when he spoke. "We confirmed that uh… the human was workin' right before they disappeared. Thought ya might wanna-" Lucifer didn't let Mammon finish, standing up immediately to grab his coat and make a beeline for the door. "Are the others already investigating?"

Mammon nodded. 

It was strange how much fear could affect even demons, especially because of the effect you truly had on them. It could've been possible that they were equally as afraid of what Lucifer would do if he lost you. It would've destroyed him, and they knew that the façade he would put up wouldn't be able to convince his brothers otherwise. 

"Where?"

Mammon didn't hesitate to give Lucifer a slip of paper with the details, which Lucifer had basically ripped out of his younger brother's hand. Without saying another word, the Avatar of Pride dragged his brother out the door and let go once it had closed and locked immediately. Lucifer wouldn't have cared if Mammon went or stayed. All that mattered to him was finding you. Maybe he spent too long looking at your room or thinking too hard about your whereabouts alone in his office, creating a pattern in the floor with his constant pacing. 

Either way, his vision seemed to have cut in and out with anger and worry-- but before he knew it, he was already there. 

He was going to find you. 

"This was found in the trash," Beelzebub spoke, handing over a ripped up picture that had been pieced back together. "There's two different traces on here. One of them is MC, but…"

"I know where to go." Lucifer spoke, "I'll deal with it. Just gather the others."

"Are you sure-"

With just the power of his glare alone, Beelzebub stopped mid-sentence and just nodded.

 --------------------------------------------------

Click! Click! 

"Before you go, I want to try and take as many photos as possible." The photographer spoke, "I could make millions with even just one photo. I can't imagine how rich and powerful I'll be with a hundred of them."

The photographer put his camera down again for what felt like the millionth time. The soft clanking noise made you feel only a small drop of relief, but it also filled you with dread because of what would follow after: More adjusting. Brighter lights. Different music. More clicking. More adjusting. Dimmer lights. 

Silence. 

It was nauseating, but none of it came even close to what that monster did to keep you under his control. It felt disgusting. Demoralizing. 

What was the point in fighting? Why were you trying to hard to think of the words, when this was a deserved ending for a sad, pathetic human? 

The anger and sadness had been building up with no possible way to get out, and you would die before it ever would. It would die with all of the other feelings you kept inside. The other truths you tried so hard to protect-- from the others and even yourself. Maybe they werent truths at all, just things you tortured yourself with that you believed so hard to be the truth that anything else seemed almost absurd and unrealistic. It gave you a false sense of hope that there was any chance of redemption for all the things that made you feel sick inside.

When the anger, the sadness, and the guilt proved to be too much, it made the tears fall faster than you could have ever expected.

Click! Click! Click!

"Oh my god! That's absolutely perfect. You're an amazing model." The photographer breathed, "If Lucifer and the others weren't a problem, I could sit here for all of eternity taking these beautiful shots of your purity. Your soul. It's too hard to resist. Human emotions are so complicated, aren't they? You must feel so awful about yourself."

Click! 

"So pathetic."

Click!

"Worthless."

Click!

"But it's deserved and you must know that, but I mean…" The demon said in a hushed, soothing voice. "It's not like anyone will ever get to understand how you feel. You'll die before then. Alone."

He just kept talking. You wanted him to stop.

"Lucifer probably makes you feel worthless, huh? Like you don't matter. I get it. He's so obsessed with his paperwork, isn't he?  Never makes time for anyone or anything else. You're just more work." The demon spoke, "I'll bet he's taking his sweet time finding you cause he doesn't want the wait the next few decades waiting for your timer to run out. Anything else is just for the sake of Diavolo's dream."

He paused, looking at the photos before speaking again. "I know them better than you think you know them. Demons are malicious and deceiving, and anything they show you is to give you a sense of security. The truth is, you're nothing more than just a sad, weak, human."

Please stop.

"All you want is Lucifer's touch, right? You're addicted to it. That's why you can't leave. He waves his demon charm at you. One magic trick and you fall in love all over again. You eat up his dominance and power over you because it makes you feel even more special that he's one of the most powerful demons here and he chose you."

Make it stop. 

"And all of that makes you feel just a little less awful about yourself for being the only human who can't be trusted by themself. It makes you feel better about yourself, with this fake illusion of power that you have over these people who never needed you. Even after your time runs out, they won't care."

Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop. Please stop.

"There we go," He hummed in a sick and twisted kind of satisfaction. "That's what real emotion looks like. That's the hundredth picture. That's how easy it is to break a human. I can see it in your eyes." 

Cli-

Actually, no. There had been no click this time.

You couldn't blink away the tears fast enough to find the source of the loud, shattering noise and the sounds of metal clashing against the ground in pieces with pieces of glass scattered amongst the scraps. A flash of black and red made the photographer disappear. 

You heard a familiar voice behind you with the sound of someone being slammed against the wall. 

"There's a reason why demons like you are at the bottom." Lucifer snarled. 

His voice sent shivers down your spine. There had been so much pain buried deep under his own rage. 

"It's because you're all so incredibly humiliating. Did you honestly think you could get away with this?" Lucifer let out a low chuckle. "After you're imprisoned for the rest of eternity, I promise I'll make it even more unbearable than the things that keep you up at night."

BAM!

You winced, not wanting to know the source of that noise. A gentle gust of air pushed your locks of hair forward, making it sway and fall back into place right before he undid your binds and pulled you to him in one single motion. He didn't hesitate.

"I love you." He spoke, "Please forgive me, my dear. I was… I was so incredibly worried about you. I took too long to come to your side."

It was all too much. You didn't know when you started to cry, but it all came rushing out. There was no possibility of stopping. There was no chance of hiding the pain anymore once his warmth filled in the cracks that the photographer had almost permanently left you with before his inevitable demise. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." You sobbed, "I tried so hard. I just want you to be happy, but I can't do anything. I'm a human. I'm just another responsibility and you deserve so much more than that-"

Lucifer took your chin gently but quickly, clashing his lips against yours in a desperate and passionate way to prove just how much you meant to him. He knew that he couldn't heal all of your wounds as quickly as he would've hoped, but he would give up everything he had just to try. 

He held you close, wrapping his arms tenderly around your waist. Despite how soft he was with you, he held you in a way that made you feel like he was never going to let go. He loved you more than anything, and his comforting presence alone made the photographer's words meaningless. 

Lucifer wasn't just the Avatar of Pride when he was with you. He was just Lucifer. He was just someone who put his walls up high around everybody but you. He was someone who melted under your touch, even if he pretended to only be one of the most powerful demons in the devildom in front of others. You saw the soft side of him that he had kept hidden for centuries. 

He pulled away, resting his head on your shoulder. "It doesn't matter to me that you're human. You're perfect to me. You did everything right, MC. I don't want you to ever have a single thought in your mind that any of this is your fault, or that you feel guilty about a burden on my shoulders that never existed at all. You're the only person I've felt this strongly about, MC. I mean that." He spoke, "You're good enough for me, even if you may not always feel that way. There's no one else in this entire universe that could ever come close to how I feel about you. You're what I think about after a long day of work. I think of you when I wake up. I think of you during the day, when I'm working. I'm confident I'll prove that to you, MC. You deserve all of that and more."

"Let's go away for a while, okay?" He whispered in your ear. "Just you and me. No paperwork. No pictures. No anything. I want to spend the rest of eternity making it up to you… but since we don't have an eternity, I'm confident I could do it in the time we have, MC."

You nodded, letting the tears continue to fall freely down your face. This time, it had been out of the love you shared with Lucifer rather than the pain of your kidnapper's words alone. You endured so much, but deep down you knew Lucifer would keep all of his promises. Even if it wasn't out of the love he had for you, he wouldn't have let himself be known as someone who couldn't keep his word. 

But he loved you, and that was the only reason you needed.

[sparxwrites]

The Body Shots Incident

A prequel-ish to this nonsense, aka "the origin story of the Hermitcraft server party tequila ban". cw for lots of alcohol consumption and excessive innuendo [ao3]

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asks Mumbo, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. He’s trying to delay the inevitable – primarily, being shirtless in front of a lot of people with Scar ‘Godlike Abs’ Goodtimes right next to him for comparison. It’s not working very well. “Just, I can think of, off the top of my head, oh, sixteen ways this could go wrong. At least three of them end with us respawning. At least.”

“Oh, no!” Scar, already reclining across a table in a distinctly louche manner, is nude from the waist up and looking distinctly self-satisfied about it. If anybody present knew who Jeff Goldblum was, multiple comparisons would have already been made. “It’s a terrible idea, and it’s going to go horribly wrong.”

Scar, unlike Mumbo, had taken his shirt off with precisely zero shame and absolutely maximum enthusiasm as soon as the whole concept had been suggested. It had taken three people – Bdubs included, remarkably – to stop him from removing his belt and pants as well.

Mumbo’s unclear whether the nearly-double-digits-worth of brightly coloured cocktails are to blame for Scar’s enthusiastic stripping, or whether this is just a Scar Thing. Probably just a Scar Thing, if he’s being honest. The man’s shredded. If Mumbo had pecs and abs like that, he’d take his shirt off all the time too.

“Okay, both of you, lie down,” says Pearl, officiously. Or as officious as one can be, after multiple bottles of Prosecco and a round of Jaeger bombs – which is frankly not very. She’s wielding a salt shaker in one hand, like it’s a hand grenade; two lime slices in the other, like– some other kind of weapon. Or something. Mumbo’s not exactly sober right now, either. Similes are a little beyond him at this point.

Scar, already draped elegantly across his own table, gestures to Mumbo with a raised eyebrow.

Mumbo, very reluctantly, sheds his shirt.

Grian, loitering next to Impulse, wolf-whistles in what Mumbo assumes is supposed to be a supportive sort of way. It doesn’t feel very supportive. Doesn’t do much to actually support him, either. Mostly, it just makes him go bright red – brighter red than he’d already gone, anyways, at having so much skin exposed in a room full of people.

Though admittedly not that many people, realistically. There’s him and Grian, as a team; Scar and Bdubs, as the opposing team; and Impulse, the judge of this ill-conceived competition. And Pearl, of course, as his self-proclaimed beautiful assistant. But pretty much every other Hermit is on the other side of the room, busy getting drunk and being noisy. Usual server party stuff.

It’s only them over here, with the two tables in the room not currently covered in alcohol and cups, because Grian and Bdubs had had a stupid argument, and decided that clearly the best way to solve it was a body shots competition, of all things. Which, yeah, sure, tracks as far as drunk Bdubs and Grian logic goes, but– Mumbo’s not even sure how you score a body shots competition.

That’s what they have Impulse for, though. Impulse knows how to judge a body shots competition. Probably.

So there’s not that many people watching, by the grace of any god paying attention. It’s just that, well. Mumbo has his shirt off. Right next to Scar Goodtimes, abs god extraordinaire. And Mumbo’s got no abs, and skin pale enough a vampire would flinch from it, and a soft little belly, and enough body hair it probably technically counts as thermal insulation.

And, to put the icing on the misery cake, pert little nipples. It’s not his fault it’s bloody cold with his shirt off but, for some reason, he doesn’t think that’s going to stop anyone from commenting on their pertness.

“Nice nips, Mumbo,” says Grian, as though he’d read Mumbo’s mind in the worst, most malicious way possible. He cackles when Mumbo turns self-consciously pink. “Hey! That was a compliment!”

Impulse clears his throat. “No– no commenting on competitors’ nipples without their explicit consent. Well-established rule of body shots competitions that I definitely didn’t just make up. I mean. Preferably no commenting on nipples at all but–”

“Don’t worry, Grian,” interjects Scar, cheerfully. “You can comment on my nipples all you like.”

“Thanks, Scar. That’s great. I appreciate the offer.” Grian does not, under any possible stretch of the imagination, sound like he appreciates the offer.

“Hey!” snaps Bdubs, immediately, outraged on a reflex. “No commenting on my competition partner’s nipples, okay?! Get your own!”

Grian, moderately drunk and visibly bewildered, flounders. “Get… my own nipples…?”

“Yeah! Get your own nipples, Mister!”

“Anyway,” says Impulse, loudly, clapping his hands together. Several Hermits look over. A few drift over for a closer look. Mumbo’s insides curl up like a dying spider. “If we could, uh, get things started…? Pearl–?”

Pearl crosses her arms.

“–sorry, my beautiful assistant, Pearl, could you do the salt, if our contestants want to lie down…?”

“On it!” says Pearl, with entirely too much glee. She approaches, menacing, salt shaker and lime slices in hand.

Both Scar and Mumbo, rather hurriedly, scramble to arrange themselves appropriately for their salting, and then endeavour to lie very, very still. They get a lime slice placed besides their head for their troubles.

Mumbo is chosen as the first victim for salting. He holds himself frozen on the table – deer-in-the-headlights frozen, even – as Pearl, tongue between her teeth in concentration, begins to tip salt in a line down his chest, right between his pecs. It’s a pretty wobbly line. Mumbo blames the Jaeger bombs.

“This is ridiculous,” mutters Grian, watching his half-naked best friend get salted like a slug by a drunk Australian. This, Mumbo feels, is a bit rich coming from the man who enthusiastically agreed to the idea when Bdubs proposed it.

Bdubs glowers at him by way of reply. Impulse just looks tired.

When Mumbo has had the appropriate salt applied, Pearl moves onto Scar. She wields the salt shaker like a loaded gun, and is doing a poor job of muffling her giggles. Those in her way move out of the way, very quickly, as she heads to Scar’s table.

“Do not get that on my nipples, by the way, Pearl,” says Scar, firmly, craning his head up as she approaches to watch the proceedings. “I don’t want any chafing!”

Pearl, already struggling to keep anything so much as approaching a straight face, barely manages to set the salt down before she doubles over in hysterics. “Im– Impulse–” she manages, wheezing, her grip on the edge of the table the only thing keeping her upright. “Gonna– tagging– tagging you in, mate, oh, oh my–”

Impulse, with an apologetic twist of the mouth in both Mumbo and Scar’s directions, takes up the salt.

His attempt at setting up a line of salt down Scar’s chest goes significantly better than Pearl’s did with Mumbo, primarily because he’s not a bottle and a half of prosecco down and sloppy drunk with it – just a few beers tipsy, instead. In short order, the pair of them are salted, with a lime slice ready to go in their mouths when the competition begins. Then he heads off to fill shot glasses of tequila, with the tongue-between-teeth concentration and unsteady hand of the moderately inebriated.

Bdubs and Grian take the opportunity to approach and examine their victims.

“Cute,” says Grian, and pokes Mumbo in the bellybutton.

Mumbo yelps, raising a hand to swat at him, before freezing when he remembers the salt. “Hey! No– no. I am sensitive. No poking.”

“Ooh,” interrupts Bdubs, peering nosily over at the competition. At Mumbo’s chest, specifically, and the thick fuzz of dark body hair growing across it. Much of the salt has ended up across it – or, rather, beneath it, within it, and amongst it. Mumbo’s not looking forward to tomorrow’s shower. “Look at that. Very nice. Lucky you!”

Grian raises an eyebrow. “Lucky?” he asks, disbelievingly. “I– look, no offence, Mumbo, I’ve got nothing against a good bit of chest hair, but… I’m just not convinced licking it is going to be the best sensation in the world.”

“Lucky,” repeats Bdubs, firmly.

“You want to swap…?” Grian is once more visibly bewildered. Though, admittedly, that’s not an uncommon expression to find people around Bdubs wearing. “Because that’s fine, I don’t mind–”

“I do not want you two to swap,” mutters Mumbo, nervously.

He’s concertedly ignored by everyone involved.

“Aha!” Bdubs grabs Grian by the front of his jumper with both hands. “So it is true. You are trying to steal Scar from me, and you do want to lick his– Scar! Stop laughing, you’ll ruin your salt.”

Scar manages to muffle himself down to stifled sniggers, with what looks like a Herculean effort of drunken willpower. “C’mon, Bdubs. Leave poor Grian alone. We can discuss him licking me when I don’t have salt, uh, perilously close to my delicate nipples.”

“How’re you managing pel– perir– pelirousy after nine cocktails?” demands Mumbo. “You can’t even bloody say that sober!”

He is, once again, ignored.

“I don’t want to discuss him licking you! I want him to not lick you! That’s not his job.” Bdubs sounds aggrieved. He does, however, obediently release the front of Grian’s jumper, stepping back to give the other man the stink eye. “He’s not Deputy Mayor, now, is he.”

Bdubs is, technically speaking, not Deputy Mayor either. It’s several months and an entire world since he was Deputy Mayor. But everyone present is aware that, for Bdubs at least, Deputy Mayor is less a job title and more an eternal-obsessive-crony-to-Mister-Scar-Goodtimes state of mind.

“Since when has licking the Mayor been part of the Deputy Mayor’s job?” asks Mumbo, of no one in particular, though he suspects the answer is since Bdubs got the job.

“I do not want to lick Scar,” says Grian, firmly. “I’d just, you know, prefer not to lick Mumbo’s chest hair. No offence, Mumbo.”

“Some taken, mate, I’m not gonna lie.”

Scar pouts. “You don’t want to lick my–?”

“Ladies, gentlemen, and uh, sentient mosses,” says Impulse, returning with the shot glasses. Pearl has given up on proceedings entirely, sinking down to sit against one of the table legs and looking distinctly out of it. Not out of it enough, however, to have surrendered the prosecco bottle she has in a death-grip. “If we could maybe get back on track with the competition…?”

“How’re we scoring this?” asks Grian, because of course he does. Grian plays to win, after all.

“Uhhh.” Impulse, preoccupied with setting the slightly precarious shot glasses down on Mumbo and Scar’s belly without spilling them, flounders. “I was thinking maybe, like, speed, and style, and… Spanish-ness…?”

“Tequila’s from Mexico, idiot,” interjects Bdubs, helpfully.

“Mexican-ness, then.”

“None of us are from Mexico, though,” Grian points out. “Or Spain. Or anywhere in South America or Europe, actually.”

“Fine! Fine, speed and style, fine, can we just– god, I need a drink. Can we get this over with so I can get a drink?” Impulse’s voice has picked up the whining desperation of a man powerfully regretting several recent life choices.

“Yes,” agrees Bdubs, emphatically. “I would really like to get started, oh yes.” He’s looking at Scar, laid out on the table, as though he’s a slab of particularly well-cooked steak. Scar – somewhat worryingly – preens beneath his hungry gaze.

Mumbo’s relieved when Grian, deciding for reasons known only to himself to be reasonable for once in his life, tosses Impulse a casual salute by way of agreement.

“Alright.” Impulse inhales, and exhales, as though to centre himself. Or perhaps brace himself. Either way, it adds an unexpected gravity to the situation which Mumbo could really do without. Bad enough he’s shirtless on a table covered in salt, without it feeling like some big deal. “Ready, everyone? Right. Lime slices in your mouths, Scar and Mumbo. Bdubs and Grian– On your marks. Get set. Go!”

Grian goes for speed. He’s done the shot, licked the salt, and bitten the lime out of Mumbo’s mouth before Mumbo even really knows what’s happened. He’s kind of grateful for it, honestly – like ripping a bandaid off.

Bdubs, of course, goes for style.

The noise Scar makes as Bdubs drags a tongue up his belly is positively pornographic. Bdubs is flushed red-cheeked from the shot, and Scar is flushed red from a tongue dragged across sensitive skin and taut muscle. By the time Bdubs cranes his head up to take the lime from Scar’s mouth, it’s more of a lewd, open-mouthed kiss than anything else. It’s like watching a train wreck. None of them can look away.

“…Well.” Impulse clears his throat, awkwardly. His nose looks a little pink. Even odds on whether it’s from the alcohol, or the display he’s just witnessed. “I, uh… I think I’m gonna have to call that one for Scar and Bdubs, guys? Um.”

Scar whoops, gleeful. “Yes! Bdubs, it’s official. We’re the best.”

“I,” announces Bdubs, with the smug delight of a man who’s just licked a line of salt off of Scar Goodtimes’s abs and gotten an award about it, “am going to find us some more tequila. To celebrate.”

He’s gone before any of them have the time – let alone the inclination or recovered cognitive faculties – to point out that that’s probably a bad idea.

There’s a long moment of silence, as they all slowly come to terms with what they’ve just done.

“Oh, god,” says Grian, miserably, breaking the quiet. He sticks two fingers in his mouth, and comes back with something dark and wiry clutched between them. “I’ve got bloody– Mumbo hair, in my mouth–”

Mumbo is not looking at Grian. Mumbo is busy staring at Scar, still laid out across the table and looking quite pleased with himself. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I think the rather more pressing issue is that Scar’s got–”

“Absolutely no need to comment on that,” says Scar, cheerfully, finally sitting up. There’s still a little salt clinging to his abs, shimmering and crystalline. It draws the eye to it, and then encourages the eye to move further down, to his happy trail, and then on to his– “Perfectly natural reaction to getting your stomach licked. You wouldn’t shame a man for his natural reactions, now, would you, Mumbo?”

Suddenly unable to make eye contact with Scar, Mumbo averts his gaze. As he does, he mutters something that sounds remarkably like, “Bloody well would.”

He is, once again, ignored.

Scar is saved from having to discuss the particulars of his natural reactions by a loud crash from the opposite side of the room. Grian, sensing trouble occurring that he’s not yet involved with, whips his head around with velociraptor-like enthusiasm and speed.

“Bdubs, please, I just really think you don’t need any more–”

“I won!” Bdubs is yelling, holding the bottle of half-full tequila above his head as high as he can – which, given his height, is not very. Somehow, despite being far taller and significantly more sober, Xisuma’s attempts at grabbing it are going exceedingly poorly indeed. “I won, I licked Mayor Scar so, so good and I won, which means I get to celebrate, okay? With tequila.”

“No– no, Bdubs, you– come on, please, that’s very– you know what you get like when you drink too much of that, please, I really don’t–”

“Let him drink!” yells Keralis, from the sidelines, with both his characteristic lasciviousness and the motivated enthusiasm of a man who had an excellent time last time Bdubs drank too much tequila. “It’s a democracy, Shishwammy. Let Bubbles drink! Or at least let us vote on whether he can drink. I vote yes.”

If it goes to a vote, Mumbo knows, Xisuma will lose. Keralis is not the only person who had an excellent time last time Bdubs drank too much tequila. Far from it, in fact.

“Bdubs–” wails Xisuma, now weeping openly. Bdubs is stanced for combat, knees bent and arms wide like a sumo wrestler, the neck of the tequila bottle gripped in one fist. His moss hoodie and undershirt, somewhere in the proceedings, have vanished from his body. A circle of interested Hermits, sensing the evening’s entertainment, is beginning to gather around the scene.

Scar, Grian, and Mumbo watch from the other side of the room in companionable silence for a long moment – soaking up the general chaos, and attempting to process what’s just happened, respectively.

Then Scar swings his legs off the table, and stands up, with an admirable amount of grace and balance for a man nine cocktails down and counting. It’s an ongoing, server-wide mystery that Scar somehow becomes more coordinated and better with his words when drunk, and it’s always struck Mumbo as deeply unfair. “…Do you think we should go help?” he asks, mildly, watching Xisuma make yet another failed grab for the tequila.

“Absolutely not,” says Mumbo, immediately and very firmly.

As he watches, Bdubs downs two large mouthfuls of the tequila without flinching, and manages to duck Xisuma’s lunge with the poise of a ballet dancer. Xisuma, regrettably helmetless, lunges head-first into a table full of bottles instead. The resulting crash shakes the floorboards. “I do not want to get mixed up in that, thank you.”

“I think we should go and make it worse, actually,” says Grian, brightly. He is, Mumbo notices, holding a prosecco bottle – prised from Pearl’s now-empty hands where she’s slumped half-snoring beneath the table. He takes a sip, directly from the bottle, and hums appreciatively.

“Why,” says Mumbo, weakly.

“‘Cos it’ll be funny. Duh.” Grian offers the bottle to Mumbo, and wrinkles his nose when Mumbo doesn’t take it.

“Excellent point, Grian.” Scar swipes the bottle instead, tilting it up and taking a hearty chug – because that’s the part of the evening they’ve gotten to, apparently. Chugging prosecco from a bottle. “See! This is why you’re the brains of the operation. However, consider– you could also go make out in the bathroom.”

“With who?”

Scar strikes a pose, arms out, abs flexed. “With me, of course!”

“Eww. No,” says Grian, as though he hasn’t made out with Scar at nine out of the last ten server parties. Mumbo should know. He’s been keeping track. For the Boatem Pool, of course. It’s important to have those kinds of numbers to crunch, when you’re trying to work out how and when your best friend and your other best friend are going to have sex for the first time. Which is, of course, a perfectly normal thing to be trying to work out, thank you very much.

“I just want you both know,” Mumbo interrupts, “that I want no part in this.”

Grian turns to look at him, and Mumbo quails beneath the intensity of the mischief in his gaze. “What,” he says, “not even the bathroom makeouts?” as though he hadn’t been objecting to said makeouts mere moments ago.

Mumbo is just a heartbeat too slow in his denial.

“Mumbo. Mumbo!” says Scar, brightly. He’s grinning at him, a salesman’s smile, a snake’s smile, all teeth and smirk. “If you want the rewards of bathroom makeouts, you have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of doing crimes with us! You should know that by now.”

“What does that mean?!” Mumbo’s beginning to wish he’d taken the prosecco when it was offered.

“It means you should come with me and we can both take our pants off in front of Xisuma,” whispers Scar, secretively. “As a distraction. So Grian can do crimes, while everyone’s distracted by our ahmayzin’, uhhh– underwear.”

Scar’s natural reaction, Mumbo cannot help but notice, has not quite subsided yet. And, despite his trousers sitting low on his hips, there’s not so much as hint of underwear peeking out above the waistband.

“Underwear,” Mumbo repeats, slowly. “Right.”

“Absolutely not,” says Grian, but Scar is already gone, sprinting towards the Hermits ringing Xisuma and Bdubs’ ongoing tequila battle. “No! Scar–! Keep your damn pants on!” And then he’s gone, too, chasing after Scar. Or the promise of chaos.

Or, more realistically, both.

In their aftermath, Mumbo sinks – miserable, shirtless, belly hair still faintly damp from being licked – to the floor. Consumed by his own bewilderment, it takes him a moment to realise there’s a hand on his head. Pearl, apparently awake again, is petting his hair gently.

“There, there, mate,” she says, sympathetically. Her eyes are bleary, but her hands are remarkably steady as she pulls a fresh bottle of prosecco from god-knows-where and uncorks it with her teeth in a manoeuvre that leaves Mumbo staring, impressed. “Prosecco?”

“…Yeah, actually,” says Mumbo, as the noises of tequila-based disaster from the other side of the room increase, abruptly, in volume. “Yeah. You know what? Why not.”

They sit in silence for a moment, watching the chaos unfolding. Xisuma is on the floor, weeping. Bdubs is shirtless, teeth bared, wielding a now mostly-empty bottle of tequila. Scar is invisible through the throng of other hermits now watching, heckling, egging them on – but Grian is yelling, “Scar! Put your trousers back on!”, which gives them a pretty clear mental picture.

“They’re going to have sex in that bathroom, aren’t they?” says Mumbo, absently, after a while. The prosecco has settled, warm and fizzy, in bottom of his already thoroughly alcohol-lined stomach. A pair of trousers just flew out of the middle of the Hermit huddle, which is rapidly looking less like a circle and more like an active, good-natured brawl.

“Yeah. Probably.” Pearl pauses, thoughtfully, and makes grabby hands at the prosecco bottle. Mumbo obediently passes it over. “That is, if they don’t just give up and fuck right in the middle of the party.”

Mumbo ignores that last bit, because if he starts thinking about that then he’s a bit concerned he’s going to have a natural reaction of his own. Across the room, Bdubs has begun wailing in misery, in the way only Bdubs can. “I should probably be there,” he says. “If they are. For Boatem Pool purposes, you know?”

“Boatem Pool purposes,” repeats Pearl, solemnly. “Totally.”

She passes the prosecco back, and fist-bumps the bottle in solidarity when he takes it. And then they sit there, in silence, sharing the rest of the drink between them as the sounds of tequila-based disaster fill the rest of the room.

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

Febuwhump Day 5 -- Rope Burns

Tw: description of injury, kidnapping

“Why did he do that?” Wind rocked himself back and forth on the edge of the inn bed, his arms clutched to his chest so tightly that Hyrule couldn’t manage to draw them out to be treated. Tears rolled down Wind’s round cheeks, and he made no move to wipe them away. “Why did he do that? Why?” he whispered, over and over again, like the answer would come if he asked enough, “Why did he do that, Hyrule?”

“I…” I don’t know “...because he wanted to protect you, Wind,” Hyrule answered, uncomfortable with Wind’s tears. Crying was considered a waste of water in his world, and he spent most of his time alone—he didn’t know what he was meant to do with this emotional display. Was he supposed to ignore it, to spare the boy's dignity? Was he supposed to attempt to comfort him? “He…”

Hyrule wished for Sky, for Twilight, for one of the heroes that would know what to do with Wind’s upset, but they were alone in this rented room. Once the rest of the heroes were assuaged with the sight that Wind was really okay, Time had herded them away before they further overwhelmed Wind—already a sobbing, incoherent mess, at that point—and handed him over to Hyrule, telling him to call for him on Wild’s Slate if he needed help or Wind divulged something actionable. Hyrule’s heart swelled at the show of trust, even in the middle of such circumstances, and he was determined to do his best. Still, he wondered in the back of his mind if he really was the right person to handle this.

The ruckus of the boy being kidnapped from his bed by traitors of Warrior’s world, right under their noses, had awoken them in the early hours of the morning, but they hadn’t been able to stop them before they disappeared into the night. Then, he had been delivered to the inn’s doorstep before the sun had even risen, bound hand and foot with coarse rope that he’d clearly fought, given the burns decorating his wrists. Which led them to where they were now, with Hyrule trying to heal him and Wind obstinately refusing to let him touch his injuries as he cried over the whole situation.

Warrior would have known how to comfort the boy, how to soothe his tears. But Warrior wasn’t here, not anymore.

“He… he didn’t want you to see you get hurt,” Hyrule finished lamely, looking away. Ignorance it was, then. He straightened up, forcing a firmness into his voice in his best imitation of Warrior’s medic voice. “Let me see your hands, Wind. I have to heal them. Warrior wouldn’t want you to sit here bleeding all over yourself and refusing treatment because of him.”

Wind only cried harder at his words, shaking his head and sputtering out some refusal or apology, but despite it he finally allowed Hyrule to draw one of his arms away from his chest. The lacerations around his wrist weeped red, rubbed raw and flecked with dried blood. The marks disappeared easily—it felt almost too easy, like their removal discredited everything the boy had gone through in the past few hours—underneath the pink glow of Hyrule’s hands. 

But their removal did not erase the past few hours. “It’ll…” it’ll be okay. Hyrule couldn’t bring himself to voice the lie. “You’ll be okay. We’ve got you.”

“But now they’re going to hurt him!” Wind protested, tears making his voice thick. “They’re—they’re gonna kill him, and it’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have gotten captured in the first place but I—” he choked over a sob “—I let my guard down, and then he just… he just gave himself up, and now they’re going to—they’re-they’re going to hurt him, Hyrule!”

“You were asleep, it wasn’t your fault that they got the drop on you,” Hyrule murmured. With Wind’s left wrist healed, he moved on to his right. “And Warrior… Warrior made his choice.” The words were difficult to force out. “He did it to save you.”

“But he went all by himself! And he just—Hyrule, you didn’t see them. Didn’t hear them.” Wind swiped awkwardly at his eyes with his arm, his movements delayed and clumsy. He’d been up all night too, no doubt, sleepless and terrified in the grasp of those traitors. “The way they were talking, and–and-and the little room they had me in h-had all these knives and —they’re-they’re gonna… gonna hurt him,” he whimpered, “real bad.” 

Wind couldn’t seem to bring himself to say the words kill him again, like saying it would make it true. Hyrule knew it was true whether or not it was spoken aloud. They’d been warned, when they first arrived in Warrior’s world, to pretend not to know him if asked, to hide their identities as heroes until they reached the castle, and to never ever go alone. The rebellion that had risen against him in his war against Cia had mostly been squashed, but nevertheless, rogue actors still lurked among the general populace, waiting to strike. Warrior had warned them of their cruelty, their cunning, and he warned them above all to not let themselves be captured by them, no matter what they threatened.

But Warrior had slipped away without a word to anyone, alone, in the wee hours of the sleepless morning before the sun even rose. And Hyrule knew it wasn’t a coincidence that Wind was returned to them not even an hour later. Suddenly, tears pricked at the back of his eyes, and Hyrule wanted to cry with Wind. He swallowed the urge down.

“The rest are looking for him right now.” Hyrule spoke as confidently as he could manage. “They’ve sent notice to his Queen, everyone’s on the lookout for him. They’ll…” They’ll find him. Another empty comfort he couldn’t bring himself to say. Instead, he took Wind’s hands in his own, ducking down to look him in the eyes. “Wind, you can help us find him, but I need you to focus. What do you remember about that room they took you to? How long it took you to get there, what you could hear, anything? If—if you can handle it, that is,” Hyrule added uncertainly as Wind only sobbed harder. “It’s okay if you don’t remember anything.”

“No, no it’s okay. I—I want to help.” Wind stared down at his own lap as he gathered himself up, scrubbing away the tears staining his face. “I—I remember. Well… kind of… Once we got there… they had a bag over my head, but there was this… this ruckus in the room overhead, like…”

As he spoke, Hyrule nodded along, rubbing his thumbs over Wind’s scraped knuckles. He couldn’t imagine how scared Wind must have been, yesterday, caught in the clutches of those traitors Warrior had warned them so strongly against. He was so brave to still be willing to go and speak through it again, not hours later, all to help them find Warrior. And the others were looking for him, too, along with all of the Queen’s forces.

Hyrule just hoped it would be enough.

Once Wind had exhausted himself and was slumbering uneasily in the inn bed, Hyrule reached for his necklace on the nightstand. Its string had been torn in his fight to escape his kidnappers, left abandoned in the street outside the inn the night before, but its pendant still worked. It lit up a light blue underneath Hyrule’s touch.

“Time.” Hyrule spoke into the crystal. “Wind told me some information that might help your search.”

Visit me on ao3! HCH Febuwhump Day 5 — Rope Burns

Or come check out the whole series! I'll be doing a prompt a day for the whole month! HotCheetoHatred's Febuwhump 2024

[jb-nonsense]

From the 50 questions for Rook: 15, 22, and 27 for Ogden? I’m invested in this man now 👀

fifty questions for rook

15. What’s the first thing people notice when Rook enters a room?

The man's been part of a secretive military group for seventeen years. He has a presence about him, a way he holds himself, a way he looks around a room when he enters, which screams of commanding. Paired with his taller than average height, he definitely gets noticed when he enters a room and perhaps can seem a bit intimidating to people who don't know him. This, though, sometimes causes him to stand out and he's not good at being inconspicuous because he just...Exudes an aura of command and a bit of danger when he's in a mood.

22. Most embarrassing memory as a teenager:

Ogden views a lot of his younger years as some form of depressed torture, not going to lie. So this isn't really a 'haha' embarrassing moment. But one day, while in the Circle when he was 13, he snapped back at the Knight-Commander when he was verbally abusing another mage. This annoyed the Commander, that a young mage would dare do something, and so he partially stripped him and publicly beat Ogden in front of the other acolytes, telling him he'd stop when he shed a tear. He refused and the only reason the knight-commander stopped was when the First Enchanter got involved. Ogden refused to let that break him, though, but it definitely is something that still gives him discomfort when he thinks about it and how the Knight-Commander aimed to humiliate a boy.

27. When was the last time they cried?

Ogden doesn't allow him much time to mourn. While he does great talking to others about letting out their feelings and accepting them, he's got a habit of bottling them up. It's not his fault; his family was ambitious gentry who severely emotionally neglected him, then he was a mage in the Ansburg Circle and the favorite beating bag for the Knight-Commander, and then he was a Warden. So he has a natural reaction to get angry before he gets sad. He'll shout, he'll curse, he'll hit something (training dummy or pillow or something where he won't hurt someone), he'll try to get it out that way. And when that doesn't work? Then he'll cry. As for the last time he cried, prior to the game, it would've been when he found Adhlea. Who I have mentioned in both fic and previous headcanon posts (x, x). Yes, the Wardens were meant to be neutral during the mage-templar war, but he did eventually go to find her encampment after he heard of a planned ambush. But due to debating on whether or not he should get involved, he was too late. He held her body and cried, then gave her a traditional Dalish burial he knew she would have wanted. This event is why he became a 'loose-cannon' and 'reckless.' Because delayed caused him to lose someone dear to him.

Note: I am glad you are invested in my boy!! I originally made him as a joke for the staple sad blond human guy which constantly shows up in dragon age, but then I developed him and got invested.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for telling my friend someone the truth?

(My interpretation of canon events, somewhat ooc but it's backstory so I imagine they’ve changed since then)

I (20 M) am a student in the world’s most prestigious university. Even amongst the other students there I am particularly brilliant, a fact I see no reason to lie about out of false modesty, since they know it as well as I do. Without acknowledging your gifts you can’t see their value. However, most people do not seem to share my attitude, and in general they can never really understand me. I don’t understand them either, so it’s for the best that they leave me alone.

There is one person who is different. I’ll refer to him as K (22 M). He approached me and wouldn’t leave me alone, and he didn’t seem to be deterred by the fact that I’m not like everyone else. He is also incredibly bright, and not just in terms of intelligence. He has a bright personality; he lights up every room he’s in. Unlike me, everyone likes him. At first I didn’t, and just wanted him to go away, but there’s something about him that you can’t help but love  like. I enjoy his company; I want to be around him. He’s different from me, but up until now it’s always felt like we complete each other.

Even though we are studying different things (he is an architect and I am a linguist) we decided to conduct a joint research project on ancients buildings and ancient runes. Since we are both at the top of our classes other students saw this and thought it would be an opportunity to put their names on something big, since everyone was certain that we were going to make enormous discoveries. I thought so too, at the time. But more than that I wanted to do this project with K.

The issue is that the other students involved in our project weren’t able to handle it. They worked hard, but none of them had the natural talent that K and I have, and there’s only so far hard work can take you. There’s nothing wrong with that, no one’s forcing them to try to be something they’re not, they should just accept that they aren’t able to keep up. It’s a lesson they have to learn some time.

K didn’t see it that way though. It’s his main flaw. He’s too much of an idealist, and self-sacrificing to a fault. He thinks that any of them can do the same amount that we can if they have the chance, and they deserve the opportunity to uncover wisdom too. It’s a nice way of seeing the world, but he’s wrong. He worked night and day doing not only his work but also theirs, even though helping them isn’t going to make them any more able to do the work in the future, so he was just delaying the inevitable. He was putting far too much on himself, (which I hated seeing), and all for nothing. I was right, and even with his help none of them could keep up with us. They all ended up dropping out.

I tried to tell K we were all better off; they could pursue something that fit their ability better, and the two of us could finish the project together like we should have done before. He could stop doing more than his share of the work, and it would all be ok. Instead of agreeing he got angry with me, told me it was my fault people don’t like me and I should try to get along with them better. He blamed me for looking down on people and for driving away all the other students.

That hurt. No one else has understood me until he came along; regardless of whether I tried to be friendly they thought I was cold and standoffish. K was the first one who recognized that I wasn’t trying to be rude or cruel, or so I thought. And I don’t look down on people, I just don’t delude myself about the difference in our capabilities. 

I told him as much. I could have been nicer about it, perhaps, but I was upset with him. I told him his idealism is impractical, that it was already hurting him, and that one day it would crush him if he let it. And I told him he just wanted to help others to escape from some past guilt.

I didn’t know it would affect him so strongly, it was just an assumption based on the evidence, but he seemed really hurt by that statement. Clearly I was right, and I touched on something he didn’t want brought up. He shouted at me, told me he wished he’d never become my friend, and that he regretted ever approaching me. Then he stormed out. And he hasn’t been back since.

I don’t know. That’s strange to say, since I’m used to always knowing. But I really don’t know. We’ve fought before over our different worldviews, but never like this. I truly believe everything I said, but he got so angry. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten upset, or I shouldn’t have mentioned his guilt, but I really wasn’t aware it would hurt him so much. AITA? It’s not like I was the only one who said hurtful things.

Update: I still haven’t talked to him. If he really doesn’t want to be friends, that’s fine. I was fine before I met him. I’ve taken my name off of our thesis. I can’t change him and he can’t change me, so this is better for both of us.

[obsoleteozymandias]

Hi!! I'm happy you liked your request! Thank you so much for the matchup exchange! I would also like someone from TWST.

I use they/he pronouns, and I'm somewhere on the transmasc/transman spectrum. I don't have a label for my sexuality, but I do have a preference for men and masc-leaning enbys. I'm also good with being matched with anyone.

Personality: I'm pretty shy, especially around strangers and while I'm in public. I am very much an introvert, and I enjoy my alone time a lot. I don't have a lot of friends, but the ones I do have are very special to me, and I find it much easier to open up to them. I have a close relationship with my parents, and I value my family a lot. While I have not been medically diagnosed with anything, it's pretty obvious to everyone around me I have anxiety, and I'm also known to be pretty paranoid. It can be a bit hard to deal with sometimes, but I make it work. Some of my friends also think I might have ocd, but I'm not quite sure myself. It's something I'm currently looking into. I tend to be pretty obsessive when it comes to my interests, and I have a tendency to let them consume my entire being. Sometimes it can be a good thing, but it's usually a hindrance when it's all I can think about. Most of my friends and coworkers consider me to be a kind person, and I tend to put others above myself. I'm very people-pleasing by nature, but I know when to stand up for myself as well.

Likes: I love animals a lot, especially dogs. I have two dogs right now, and I love them more than anyone. I'm a baker, and I make all of the dessert for any major family get-together, including Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. I like gaming, but I prefer cozy, easy games like Pokemon and Stardew. I also play a lot of visual novels, but I know that not everyone considers those games since there's no actual game-play. I'm a collector of many things. My favorite thing to collect is Pokemon cards, and I also collect Yugioh from time to time. Other collections I have include anime figure, rocks/crystals, and plushies. I also love theater, especially musicals. My favorites right now are the Hatchetfield trilogy by Starkid. On that note, I also love anything horror.

Dislikes: I hate large crowds and being outside for too long. I much prefer being alone in a quiet room. I dislike anything medical, especially when it comes to needles. My mom still has to make my doctors/dentists appointments for me because I hate them so much. I hate the rain, especially when it's thundering. I live in a hurricane state, so I'm always wary of thunder since it could mean hurricanes and/or floods.

Type: I wouldn't really say I have any one specific type to be honest. I like someone who is kind and thoughtful. Someone who can balance out my anxiety while not being too extraverted or loud. My love language is gift giving, so someone who enjoys receiving gifts would be nice. I also like receiving words of affirmation. I also prefer someone who is a dog person like me since my dogs are very important to me.

Again, thanks so much for the exchange, and I'm so glad you liked your matchup!

Thanks for doing this exchange with me! I’m so sorry about the delay on this one, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless! 

== Twisted Wonderland ==>

I match you up with…

Vil Schoenheit 

Pre-relationship:

Opposites attract here. First of all, I think he notices your potential. He sees you and your shyness and anxiety, but beneath that, he sees your kindness and passion. He KNOWS from day 1 that he wants to see you flourish. 

Now, Vil isn’t necessarily kind per say, but I think he is considerate and conscious of other people. It isn’t the same, but he is rarely cruel to someone for the sake of cruelty.

He is certainly intimidating at first, and it takes a while for you two to navigate how to interact with one another, but I think you’ll find him honest and genuine to a fault. He won’t lie to you, nor will he try to harm you for his own gain. For all that he’s a hardass, he knows your limits, and won’t push you too far. 

Too far. There’s a bit of mutual pushing, and it’s all done with love. 

As you get closer, you two start to be more candid with one another. He tells you about his stressors during the day, and you recount yours to him. He won’t judge you for your collections, not genuinely at least. 

He also makes sure that you two spend time together in a safe and quuiet environment for both of your sakes. I’ve always imagined that he’s someone who enjoys the peace of silence. 

He’d even play games with you every now and then. I imagine he’d favor some more tactical or puzzle games, but he could absolutely play your cozy games with you too, although somewhat sparingly. 

Confession: 

Vil isn’t sure when he falls for you. It was a slow and steady thing, like seasons changing. It was just that one day he woke up and realized that he adores you. He loves that you two can sit in silence together. He loves that you are passionate and kind. He loves your passion for animals and baking. He loves how special you make him feel. He loves you. 

He does have doubts that he isn’t good enough for you. For all of his ego, he knows his own flaws - selfishness, arrogance, and perfectionism. He worries that he won’t make you happy. But at the same time, he can’t deny the way you make him feel. 

Rook noticed this, of course, and gave him some good advice: to just go for it and see where it leads him, and, most importantly, to accept whatever answer you give with grace. 

And so Vil treats you to a private dinner, a showing of a new stage production, and confesses to you afterwards with a loving smile.

Relationship:

Your relationship is built on being candid with one another. It takes a moment, but Vil is unusually quick to let his walls down around you. He tells you when things bother him, and you let on about your own worries in turn. 

He’s a master at combating your paranoia and anxiety. He knows exactly how to calm you down, and also how to make you feel better about both yourself and your worries. You two are always improving together. 

Any gift you give him would be invaluable. He’s definitely a material person, and so if you gift him some new weights or makeup, he’ll be floored. Expect to be covered in extra kisses and affection for a long while after that. 

You two definitely adopt dogs together! Vil takes them out on runs with him in the mornings, and they snuggle up with you two as you go to sleep. He doesn’t even hide his love for the dogs; they are the real bosses in your relationship. 

He actually imagines growing old with you and finds that he imagines you gorgeous regardless of age. 

And he imagines himself happy regardless of what he looks like, as long as he’s by your side.

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Up My Sleeve (Off My Shoulders)

Ao3

Summary: Bdubs is a good right-hand. A great one, even. Some days, that feels more like a condemnation than a compliment. Content: AU- Mob Bosses, bittersweet/hopeful ending, emotional hurt; emotional repression, past/past relationships, bdubs having a Time and scar being a good boss-friend Pairings: Platonic Scar and Bdubs Note: Part five of Bloody Fruits au

~

Sometimes, Bdubs got tired of being good at his job.

Not that that made any sense, not when being good at his job kept him alive. Make no mistake, he wasn’t looking to get shot anytime soon.

He took pride in his work, too. If anything was running smoothly in the Glass Empire, it was always, in some part, because of him. Business papers, merchandise,  clearly defined borders, exterminated moles- you name it, Bdubs had a hand in it. Of course he did. He was Scar’s right-hand man. That was his job, to do a little bit of everything.

And, see, that’s where the issue was. Bdubs did everything. Sometimes he got tired of it- no, sometimes he got sick of it.

It wasn’t Scar’s fault. He entrusted Bdubs to do a lot, sure, but that’s how it worked. Bdubs was the only one Scar could truly trust, so he was the one who had the most to do. Bdubs knew that. Bdubs was fine with that.

Compared to some bosses, Scar was a soft-touch anyways. Most of them wouldn’t require a right-hand to take a break unless they were on their deathbed. With Scar, Bdubs got sent home if he pulled too many all-nighters in a row. 

Which meant it wasn’t a problem with the Glass Empire either. Even if it was, he wouldn’t want to work in any of the other organizations. He couldn’t imagine being a subordinate for Mumbo and Grian- because if Grian was just a right-hand like him, Bdubs was the mayor- where it was a miracle they noticed anyone outside of each other (and now Scar, apparently), the Guild was a puppet-show, the Armory was too aggressive, and the Seventy-Sevens-

Well. They were run by Doc.

Call him biased, but the Glass Empire was the only good group in the whole sludge of a town. So that wasn’t the issue.

Really, there wasn’t any issue, not one that was anyone else’s fault. Some days Bdubs sat at his desk and looked down at all the work he had to do, the papers on several different subjects, the notes about what he had to do outside of the office, the ever ticking clock that stood monument as a constant reminder of the mayoral election’s steady approach, and he wanted to scream. Not because it was too hard. Not because it was too much. Not because of anything that made any sense.

And because he was good at his job, he never screams. He buckles down and does his work and goes home when he must and ignores the way it feels wrong that he never tries to reach for a gun instead of the remote when he’s there.

All of which would be perfectly fine if it weren’t for one of the previously established facts: Scar’s a soft-touch. Not in business, but always with Bdubs. He’s close where the previous had been distant, and that means he notices things Bdubs doesn’t want noticed.

Which is why when he startled Bdubs out of his work with a seemingly random, “Is something wrong?”, that was a problem. Because something was wrong, and Bdubs didn’t want to talk about it.

“Our shipment’s been delayed again.” Bdubs answered in a way that wasn’t a lie so much as it was him ignoring the actual question. “I’ll have to call the manufacturer.”

Scar waved, dismissive. “Not that, that’s just business. I meant with you.”

Bdubs raised an eyebrow. “Even if it’s ‘just business’, I still have to fix it.”

“Aside from that, then. I doubt you’re that upset over making a phone call.”

“I’m not upset.”

If Bdubs had said that to anyone else, they would have had no choice but to accept it. He wasn’t tensed up, distracted, working slowly. At a glance or a stare, he seemed completely normal.

Unless the one looking was Scar, who had started to frown.

“Your clock’s smudged.” He pointed out, and Bdubs took a moment to look at it even though he knew exactly to what Scar was referring. A tiny glint of grease against the pocket watch’s face, accidentally left behind by someone’s clumsy touch. It had been there for hours, each hand taking a turn spinning underneath it. He would’ve cleaned it as soon as it happened if it weren’t for the fact he left its cloth in his car, and he didn’t trust himself to fetch it without also getting behind the wheel and driving for as long as his tank would let him.

“It happens.” Bdubs replied, trying to force nonchalance into his tone as he turned back to his papers. “I’ll take care of it once I’m done with this.”

A minute passed in silence, but to Bdubs it felt like an hour. He knew that Scar was still watching him. He also knew that Scar didn’t believe him.

“Bdubs, look at me.”

Bdubs obeyed despite the fact he would, at that exact moment, rather gouge his eyes out than meet Scar’s. He didn’t want to talk about this, but Scar was concerned and his gaze was searching and there was no escaping the head of the Glass Empire, not in his offices, not as his right-hand man.

“I’ve seen you, quite literally, drop everything to clean that watch.” Scar spoke slowly, as if waiting for Bdubs to disagree with him. Bdubs wasn’t quite desperate enough to make that mistake again. “So I’ll ask again: is something wrong?”

He wasn’t really asking. They both knew that.

“I already told you. Nothing is.”

He wasn’t really answering. They both knew that.

Scar sighed. Leaned heavier on his cane. Bdubs wasn’t sure why he had left his office, if he had needed to get something or talk to Bdubs for other reasons. Like usual, they were the only two left in the office after sunset. “Give me the manufacturer's number.”

“What?”

“You said that was the only thing wrong.” Scar held out his free hand. “I can make the call, I’ve got time.”

Bdubs knew what Scar was trying to do. He wasn’t being subtle. He wanted Bdubs to give him a reason to end the conversation. A simple one, even. All Bdubs had to do was give him the phone number and he would let the matter drop with no further argument. The worst he would do would be forcing Bdubs to take the next day off. They wouldn’t have to talk about it.

So, obviously, he refused.

“I can handle it.” Bdubs said with a half-shrug. “It’s just annoying.”

“It won’t be annoying for me.” Scar’s hand was still extended.

“It’s fine, Scar.”

“Not if it’s bothering you.”

“It’s not bothering me.” Bdubs’s voice was sounding dangerously close to clipped.

“I’d still like to take care of it for you.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” Scar said in faint disbelief that sounded more curious than angry.

Bdubs didn’t answer. He was realizing too late that he had been backed into a corner.

“Why not, Bdubs?” Scar repeated when Bdubs didn’t say anything for too long of a moment, and Bdubs was out of options.

“Because it’s not your job!” Bdubs snapped.

He regretted the outburst in the same second it happened, ducking his head and once again looking away from Scar before he could see his reaction.

“I- sorry. I’m sorry.” Bdubs fumbled out, hating how quiet his words sounded in comparison to the near-shout they followed.

More silence. Bdubs didn’t turn his head when it was broken by the sound of footsteps and cane taps. Scar leaving, not acknowledging any of this had happened- it would be for the best.

Except then there was the sound of rolling wheels, a chair being pulled away from a desk, and Bdubs looked up to find Scar still next to him, now sitting, cane put to the side. As Bdubs watched, he reached across his desk to carefully pull Bdubs’s pen from his grip, the groves of its design showing white against red as Bdubs uncurled his fist and let Scar place the pen down. He had forgotten he had been holding it.

“Bdubs,” Scar said, quietly, and Bdubs might’ve felt worse about being treated like a cornered animal if it weren’t for the fact he had been acting a lot like one, “talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“...Nothing. It’s nothing.” Bdubs admitted in unhappy defeat. When Scar didn’t understand, frown remaining, he tacked on, “What’s wrong is that nothing’s wrong.”

“I see.” Scar didn’t sound as if he truly did, but Bdubs appreciated that he accepted it, that he wasn’t going to try and argue whether or not that made any sense.

It didn’t, but Bdubs already knew that.

“It’s- how long do you think I’ve been doing this sort of thing? How long do you think I’ve been in this business?” He wasn’t sure what suddenly possessed him to try and explain it. It wasn’t something he knew how to put to words, wasn’t something he had ever wanted to tell someone else about. It was his non-problem problem that he kept silently tucked to his chest, never a concern to anyone but himself.

But Scar had noticed. Scar had made it his concern. It was the first time Bdubs had been asked about it, and maybe the fear that it would be his only chance to answer was what pushed him clumsily into attempting to define it.

“Well, you’ve been with the Glass Empire for quite a while. And you’ve always seemed to know a lot about the business, even as a lackey.” Scar answered thoughtfully. “I think you’ve been in this business for a very long time.”

“I have. And I’m good at what I do?” Bdubs phrased it like a question, for the sake of asking it, but he didn’t actually need to hear Scar’s answer. He already knew it.

“You are.”

“Right. And I- I do everything that needs to be done, and I handle everything that needs to be handled, and as long as I’m fine everything goes fine, right?”

Whatever worry Bdubs had managed to ever so slightly assuage by trying to explain his problem had returned to Scar’s expression as he continued with his self-evident questions. “What’re you getting at, Bdubs?”

“I know this life. I know this job. I’m good at this job, when I’m here, when I’m working. But when I go home…” Bdubs fumbled, not sure how to put into words what he was driving at, “I just go home.”

Somehow, Scar managed to pick up on what he was trying to say. “You can’t always be making shady deals and hiding evidence. Work has a way of following you home, sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a life outside of the life.”

“Should I?”

“I’m not sure that’s a question either of us is really equipped to answer.” Scar half-joked. “But I think it’s better that you do. It eats you alive if you don’t.”

“But… it’s not something everyone can do, is it?” Bdubs glanced back to his pocket watch and the grease stain he had left smudged on its face for far longer than he ever had, trying not to think about it even as he watched its hands spin. “Is there a reason I can do it when other people can’t?”

Scar didn’t respond immediately, and out of the corner of his eye, Bdubs saw he had the same look on his face he got when he was sizing up customers and competitors alike. It was a harmless expression on the surface, idle thoughtfulness, but Bdubs knew his boss well enough to know it was more than that. In business meetings, Scar would follow it with a disarming smile and a throwaway comment that casually informed the other party that he knew exactly where to hit them hardest.

But in the backrooms of his empire, with only his right-hand man across from him, Scar didn’t bother with the formalities of friendly nonchalance.

“I’m sure you’re aware of this already, but the Glass Empire’s policy on inner- and outer- organization relationships is fairly flexible.”

Bdubs huffed a laugh. “Painfully.”

The corner of Scar’s mouth quirked up, amused. “I’m just saying, if there’s someone else… you can tell me.”

Bdubs hesitated. He knew Scar meant it, that he wasn’t trying to trap Bdubs into admitting something that he’d then turn around and kill him for. But things said couldn’t be nearly as easily unsaid, and Bdubs had built a new life in the Glass Empire out of a sole desire to never have to speak it- or think it- again.

The latter had never worked out though, and for once Bdubs was tired of keeping his mouth shut.

“It was in the past. Before I was with the Empire.”

“Oh?” Scar’s tone was that of mere polite curiosity, nothing more. Bdubs appreciated him pretending to be only mildly interested in the first bit of personal information regarding life before the Empire Bdubs had ever volunteered to share.

“I was still in Heremita, though. With a different group.” Bdubs glanced at Scar. “I was their right-hand too.”

It only took a few seconds for Scar to shift from contemplation to realization, and Bdubs could follow his thought process without him saying a word. The South hadn’t arrived in Heremita until after Bdubs was with the Glass Empire, not that they would be a real consideration either way. And the right-hands of the Armory and Gorgeous Guild were public knowledge. Which left only one option.

“You were Doc’s shadow right-hand.” Scar didn’t phrase it like a question.

“More than that.” Bdubs said before he could overthink it, watching as Scar’s eyes widened in surprise before turning his gaze back towards his pocket watch.

“...Doc does have a reputation for being a workaholic.” Scar offered slowly, when the silence had begun to stretch.

Bdubs let out a humourless laugh. “That’s an understatement.” He said bitterly. After a long minute with no follow-up response from Scar, Bdubs slumped down slightly in his chair, replacing the bitterness with exhaustion. “The business was always his priority. It didn’t matter where he was, what he was doing- he was always thinking about work.”

The minute hand on Bdubs’s watch ticked over a space, lining up right beneath the smudge. Bdubs dropped his eyes to the surface of his desk. “He never came home, y’know? Even when he was at home, he was still working. It was all he cared about.”

“Is that why you left?” Scar asked, quietly.

Bdubs nodded, moreso to the ground than Scar. “I wrote him a note, so he’d know I hadn’t been kidnapped or killed, but it was… professional. A resignation, nothing else. Meant to leave Heremita as a whole, but I needed funds, so I ran some odd jobs as far away from Doc’s territory as I could get.”

“The Glass Empire.”

“One thing led to another… and you know the rest.” Bdubs finally raised his head again, propping it up on one of his hands with a sigh. “I should have known better. In this line of work, not putting business first can get you killed. I can’t be that surprised he made his choices like he did.”

“There’s a difference between putting work first and putting everything else last.”

“Yeah, well.” Bdubs shrugged. “Not everyone gets that.”

Scar was silent, and for a foolish moment, Bdubs assumed that he was going to leave the matter there, an awkward not-so-secret secret that they knew but would never talk about, like Dolos or the way that Scar was clearly in love with both heads of the South (not that Bdubs hadn’t been trying to broach the latter subject, but Scar had been persistent in stonewalling his attempts). Outside of sympathetic platitudes, there wasn’t much else to be said.

But the analytic expression was back on Scar’s face, and while Bdubs knew it better than most, he had managed to forget just how perceptive Scar could be right up until the moment where he said something no one else in the room had even thought.

“Is that why you hate Mumbo and Grian?” Scar was kind enough to twist the observation into a question, softening the blow, but it still hit hard enough that Bdubs couldn’t keep meeting his eyes.

Bdubs had often found, with his line of work, you only ever had two choices when it came to personal issues that had the potential to interfere with business: you either took care of them, or you ignored them. He couldn’t make things work with the Seventy-Sevens, so he wrote a note and left. He didn’t like the thought of Dolos rotting in one piece, so he cut him into three and buried him on the territory of every Heremita gang (outside of the Empire) that had existed at the time. He got sick of seeing Scar turn down partnerships with the South on the same basis that middle schoolers used to pick teams in PE, so he bullied him into staying away until he was willing to make a decision.

He watched the way Mumbo never went anywhere without Grian at his side, both professional to a fault despite how clear it was that their only real priorities were the other, not their business, and Bdubs ignored how his chest twisted painfully at the sight.

It wasn’t fair to say Bdubs hated them, and he knew that Scar knew that. He had nothing against them or the South as a whole. What few interactions he had directly had with them had been civil and respectful. The only issue Bdubs truly had with them was just how close they were.

Professionally, the only reason Bdubs had any problem with that was because it made them unpredictable. Bdubs would never forget the look in Mumbo's eyes the day Grian had been kidnapped, the way he had threatened to ruin the organization responsible so vehemently Bdubs knew he wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. The goals of the South were always at risk of making a complete one eighty, subject to the mood and well-being of its boss and right-hand, and as such Bdubs always had to be on his guard with them.

As to any personal feelings, nothing good could come of hating Mumbo for doing what Doc never managed, of hating Grian for having more than Bdubs had even wanted, so he didn't. Nothing else to it.

(It was possible that that was different when Bdubs was home, far from work and professionalism, on the rare nights where it was late enough for him to entertain such thoughts. Late nights where he would do his best to convince himself he hated them, briefly giving into the hope that if he pretended it was true long enough, it would be. But Bdubs wasn't home right then, and the night wasn't dark enough.)

Bdubs managed a half-smile, shaking his head slightly as he tried for a light, joking tone despite the fact that he still couldn’t meet Scar’s eyes. “I don't hate Mumbo and Grian, I hate the way you interact with them.”

Scar pressed a hand to his chest, feigning offense. The deflection was so obvious Bdubs might as well have outright declared he was changing the topic, but Scar went along with it, accepting that they had gone as far into the conversation as Bdubs was willing to go. “I’m hurt. All my interactions with them are the epitome of professionalism, what about that could be so awful?”

“What about Grian cupping the back of your neck was ‘the epitome of professionalism?’”

“He was helping me keep pressure on my injuries.”

“I didn’t realize you had cut your lips as well.”

“He never-” Scar paused to clear his throat. “Your recollection of events seems to be somewhat faulty, Bdubs.”

“Something about the situation’s faulty.” Bdubs countered, though he didn’t try to push much past that. Any other time, he wouldn’t hesitate, but Scar was doing him a favour by letting Bdubs turn the tables on him. The least Bdubs could do was return it, if only for the night.

Scar chuckled, a tad awkwardly, before taking the opening to steer them away from the topic of the South (and his relationships within it). “Speaking of faulty, I think we've both been up past our bedtimes.”

“Smooth transition, Scar.” Bdubs quipped even as he started to put away his papers. Bdubs had learned fairly quickly that when Scar decided to wrap up for the day/evening, nothing short of a knife to his throat could make him change his mind on the matter. Bdubs wasn’t sure he was quite ready to face down his car and the thought of sticking the pedal to the floor, but arguing was futile.“Give me five minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

Scar waved him off long before he had the chance to so much as get up, however. “I won’t make you play chauffeur tonight. Plus, part of the reason I came out here in the first place was to give you this.”

Looking up from his paperwork shuffling, Bdubs expected to find another file or written inquiry he’d tuck away for the night and get to first thing in the morning. It was clear at a glance that his guess had been wrong, the small bundle of folded fabric and hemmed edges held between Scar’s fingers more familiar to Bdubs than any legal form or dark alley.

Bdubs took the proffered cleaning cloth from Scar, flipping it over in his hands to confirm what he had immediately realized- it was a watch cleaning cloth. Specifically, it was Bdubs’s watch cleaning cloth, the exact same one he usually had on hand, other than the fact that it was clean and unused and new. Which meant Scar hadn’t broken into his car to get it.

“I thought it’d be a good idea to have some extras.” Scar explained casually, as if there wasn’t anything noteworthy about it. “In case you lost yours, or something happened to it.”

“Some?”

Scar shrugged. “They were cheaper in bulk.”

For a moment, Bdubs couldn’t help but stare at Scar, who was continuing to act nonchalant. To anyone else, the gesture would likely be seen as small and somewhat meaningless. Nice, but little else.

Except it was identical to Bdubs’s cloth, which meant Scar had, at some point, gone through the effort of identifying the brand and make of a small square of fabric that was rarely in sight. He had bought multiple of it, hiding the purposeful act behind a white lie about cost (as if that was truly a concern for the Glass Empire), and had done so without ever mentioning it to Bdubs until he gave him one. Scar had done all that because he had realized it was something important to Bdubs, so much so that when he noticed Bdubs had neglected to clean his pocket watch for the better part of the day, he left his office to ask Bdubs what was wrong and present him with the cloth, with no indication from Bdubs that he was, in any sense, doing poorly.

It was almost too much. Bdubs didn’t know how to respond.

So, of course, Scar didn’t make him. “You can take the bed in the office, I’m going to check if we still have that spare sleeping bag in the storeroom. Your appreciation is implied.” Scar added to the end, voice light as though metaphorically brushing aside Bdubs’s stunned silence.

Bdubs remained quiet as Scar stood up, watching as Scar picked up his cane and pushed his chair back where he had gotten it from. He couldn’t even find the words to protest Scar’s declaration- the floor was worse on Scar’s back then it was on his, like hell he’d take the bed (though that, at least, was a point Bdubs could make later through light shoving and pushing)- letting Scar start walking off without saying anything.

Scar didn’t make it very far before he stopped, however, turning back towards Bdubs. He didn’t say anything immediately, hesitating as though he was considering his next move very carefully.

“For the record?” Scar’s tone was still light, but there was an undercurrent of something serious to it, something meaningful. His expression had softened as well, gentle in a way Bdubs couldn’t put an exact name to. “If you suddenly left the Empire, and your only goodbye was a resignation letter… I would come after you.”

Coming from any other Heremita boss, the sentiment would be a threat. A way of saying that Bdubs may have been able to do that to Doc, but he better not try it with them, that he better not abandon his job and their organization without a damned good reason personally presented to them.

But it wasn’t any other boss. It was Scar, who was looking at Bdubs with more feeling than had been contained in his words.

From Scar, it was a reassurance.

Scar resumed his trek to the storeroom, leaving Bdubs with the plausible deniability of privacy. A purposeful and gracious move, given the situation had officially become too much for Bdubs.

Because Bdubs was good at his job. He made sure that the cracks never showed- not for the Glass Empire, not for himself- because a seen weakness was an exploitable weakness, and it was better to never show anything rather than flashing an achilles heel at the wrong person. Scar knew that- he was good at his job too.

Which is why he walked away, giving Bdubs the space to stare at his desk, not really seeing it, as he idly thumbed a single tear out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t scream, didn’t sob, didn’t make a sound, just took full advantage of Scar’s discretion and let himself have five minutes where he wasn’t anything more than a heartbroken sucker.

“Bdubs, did you move the sleeping bag?” Scar shouted, presumably from the storeroom, giving Bdubs something else to focus on before he could sink too far into his own moping. He let out a breath, taking a moment to collect himself and straighten up as though Scar was present in the room with him.

“Don’t worry about it, Scar, just take the bed.”

“I’m not taking it from you!”

“It’s not my bed, you can’t take it from me.”

“Where’s the sleeping bag?”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor!”

“It’s my floor! I can sleep on it if I want!”

Despite himself, Bdubs laughed. He had, as a matter of fact, moved the sleeping bag, but he wasn’t going to be telling Scar that. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet, not wanting to shout his every rationale for why Scar would be taking the bed, actually.

He stopped by the edge of his desk as he went, picking up his pocket watch. The spot of grease glinted in the dim lights, but its presence didn’t mock Bdubs as it had all day. The cloth Scar had gifted him was still in his hand, and with a single swipe across the clock’s face, the smudge was dealt with, leaving the watch as clean and clear as it nearly always was.

Bdubs looked at it for a long minute before carefully placing it back on his desk, folding the cleaning cloth to put beside it. The watch kept ticking. The cloth didn’t vanish.

With a nod to himself, Bdubs continued towards the storeroom, where he could hear the sounds of Scar attempting (and failing) to find the hidden sleeping bag. There was a tightness in his chest, wrapped harshly around his ribs and heavy over his shoulders, that felt loosened in a way Bdubs had no intention of thinking very deeply on while at work. He had other things to focus on- papers to put away, an argument to win, a boss to subtly thank. Things that needed- and would get- his full attention.

After all, Bdubs was very good at his job.

[moodr1ng]

between the three different surgeons i had to meet + the surprise 4th surgeon they sent me to for no reason who didnt work at the hospital anymore and they just forgot to send me to the right person + my test results not being sent the first time and apparently not the second time either + delaying my surgery bc turns out they didnt have time for it in the schedule + delaying it again bc they somehow couldnt manage to get the authorization for my surgery (and me having to get the documentation myself to show that im approved for ALL SURGERIES FOR LIFE. bc they couldnt manage to call the other hospital themselves and asked me to do it.) and now this new shit. not to mention the constant calling and emailing to keep reminding them "hey you delayed my surgery, i STILL need a new surgery date". since 2021. i do not understand how they are failing at handling my case so so so so hard. if i was the kinda person who had the nerves and energy to handle any legal bullshit there would probably be a court case somewhere in here.

and the most maddening part is if this new hurdle proves impossible to pass and they delay my surgery YET AGAIN no one will be responsible or apologize or care. like all the other times they fucked up for this surgery or the previous ones. its never anyones fault that they didnt do their job or communicate between hospitals or departments or anything. theres never any "we messed up handling your case and we apologize" or anything just. oh well guess no surgery still! well let you know the next surgery date! which is also a lie bc i have to keep calling and emailing to ask for a new date for months. its just. at no point in this process of constant fuckups does anyone acknowledge im a human being and this is fucking me up. no one is responsible and no one cares.

[luckyladylily]

#but also like. regarding the first post. you are kinda supposed to feel the negative impact#like. if bus drivers went on strike and your life wasnt inconvenienced bc no one takes the bus anyways#they dont really have much leverage. but if people suddenly start yelling at the bus companies for not fucking adhering to scheudles anymor#and not having any buses driving at all. then the bus company is pressured into action. aka: giving the strikers what they want#so what people actually need to do is say:#'hey @netflix why are you delaying all of your shows?? im literally paying a subscription and you put nothing out?#just because you refuse to meet strike requests? well is your user base more important to you or the tiny margin you will lose?'#you actually NEED to be an entitled customer for once. but always make sure you blame netflix and not the actors#make sure they can't spin it like 'waaah the strike is so evil' you need to immediately fire back to make sure THEY remain the villain#but be entitled!! be MAD there is no content for you to watch!#tell them you will fucking kill yourself if they delay dune 2 and itll be warnerbros fault#you are SUPPOSED to notice when someone is striking!! it's not good when it feels normal to you!!#thats not a L on netflix' part they are HOPING you aren't inconvenienced

Ok. I am going to explain something here. I would ask that you please keep an open mind going in.

My post is an observation of my experienced reality. I fully expected this to not be the case going into the strike, I was around for and remember the last strike in 2007 when it was not the case. But as the strike drags on I am forced to conclude that this time is different for whatever reason. I am not feeling the strike.

That is not a political statement. It is a statement of fact. And, based on the thousands of comments agreeing with me, many others are experiencing the same thing. For whatever reason, many people, including many of us nerds that are most tuned into these industries, are not feeling the strike. That is reality.

#you are SUPPOSED to notice when someone is striking!! it's not good when it feels normal to you!!

Yes, I agree that for the sake of the strike this would be the most convenient reality. But that is not the reality we are dealing with. This happens all the time with political issues and indeed basically anything where reality might clash with expectation.

At this point we have two options. We can recognize reality has deviated from what is convenient or we can insist that reality is something it is not. Which is the better option, and why? Even if we put morality and long term issues aside and isolate this to only this issue, the answer is pretty clearly that we should deal with reality as it is.

Acknowledging that we are not feeling the strike now does not stop us from intellectually understanding that the strike will affect us later. In fact, working out why we are so insulated from the going ons of this industry (and why it is bad for us, how it is connected to the issues of the strike, and how it is the studio's fault) will help us understand that fact and fuel our own desire to act, not diminish it. There is nothing about this conclusion that stops us from acting pro union.

On the other hand, insisting that we are not experiencing what we are experiencing is questionable in terms of motivational force on a group level. Sure, you may work yourself into a frenzy, but not everyone will be able to ride on the back of a lie like that. And way, way more importantly, no one who isn't already zealously in agreement with your position will buy this lie. They have no motivation to overcome the mental dissonance causes by trying to paper over their experienced reality with the convenient lie, and there is no reason why our lie would be more attractive than the convenient lies of people trying to break the strike. And our lie will never be as powerfully delivered as theirs.

We are never going to win a propaganda fight against companies with access to mass media control, highly skilled PR firms, and all the money necessary to power a massive propaganda machine. We are never going to win that game. The advantage we have is that ethics and reality are on our side, even if it isn't quite as straightforward as we would like, and using those advantages is how we win this fight.

So, TL:DR

#you are SUPPOSED to notice when someone is striking!! it's not good when it feels normal to you!!

I agree, and it would be most convenient if reality lined up with that idea. But it does not, at least not for many, many people, and we deal with reality as it exists because that is the fight we can win.

You know, after a hundred days of strike, I have noticed absolutely no differences.

I mean, they say shows are canceled because of it, but they would cancel shows for any reason or no reason at all. They often wouldn't tell us one way or another for months or years. Functionally, the uncertainty is the same.

The same goes for delays. How the hell am I supposed to tell if some show or another was delayed? They were never released in any sort of timely fashion before. What does a delay even mean when there is nothing even resembling a schedule? I mean, there wasn't even something like "within the first two weeks of august we will put something up for you to watch."

Zero accountability means they got away with whatever bullshit practices they wanted to, but now its cutting both ways. Any claim that this strike is negatively impacting me is meaningless because Netflix and most the other entities like them have built a system where it is extremely difficult to hold anyone accountable for anything.

And now they seem to think they can just bring accountability back? If they had numbers they could point to maybe it would work, but that's half the battle here. They are desperate to avoid releasing anything that tells anyone outside the company what the hell is going on. So we are just supposed to take their word for it, no really bro, it's actually really bad for you and all the strikers fault if only you could see the numbers that we refuse to show you, you're just gonna have to trust us bro.

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Daily Devotionals for June 18, 2024

Proverbs: God's Wisdom for Daily Living

Devotional Scripture:

Proverbs 19:3(KJV): 3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD. Proverbs 19:3(Amp): 3 The foolishness of man subverts his way (ruins his affairs); then his heart is resentful and frets against the Lord.

Thought for the Day

Because man does not understand God's ways or know His Word, he does many things that are foolish and sinful. When he begins to suffer the natural consequences of his actions, he tends to blame God. As we have seen, the Bible teaches that a man reaps what he sows. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" (Galatians 6:7). When we break God's commandments, we suffer the consequences of our sins.

Not all people break the laws of God willfully; some people break them ignorantly. God's laws are given to us for our good so that we might live a good life. If we break them, we are the ones who are hurt. This applies not only to people who do not know God but to God's children as well. One of the tactics of the devil is to feed us the lie that God is so angry with us when we sin that He punishes us with evil things. If Satan can get us to believe this, we will blame things on God that are not His fault. Most of our troubles are the result of our sins or the sins of others. This is the reason Jesus died for us - to save us from our sins. When we receive Him into our hearts, He can repair the damage done by sin, whoever it is, and enable us to overcome evil with good. Jesus came to redeem us and to help us become overcomers in this life.

"Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the LORD GOD of hosts" (Jeremiah 2:19 and Job 37:23). Also Hosea 7:2 says, "And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their doings have beset them about; they are before my face."

God is for us, not against us. Romans 8:31-32 says, "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Certainly, we can learn things by going through adverse circumstances, but many such circumstances could be avoided if we took the time to learn God's Word. If we are committed totally to God, we will want to study His Word to know His ways. If we are good students, we can escape many snares of the devil designed to destroy us. We are responsible for learning God's ways. Bibles are available in most countries, especially in America. Where they are available, we should be ashamed if we are not reading God's Word and learning His ways. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee" (Hosea 4:6).

Prayer Devotional for the Day

Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for Your love and patience toward me. Lord, help me to trust You when I do not see an answer to my prayers right away. I want to take the time to come before You and find out if there is a reason for my delayed answer. Perhaps it is a "God delay" instead of the enemy delaying it. Give me Your knowledge and wisdom as to what You want me to do in the matters I face in this life. Lord, help me not to make hasty decisions that would not only wrongly affect my life, but others as well. Help me to be more faithful in prayer. I ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. From: Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ,  gatekeeperwatchman.org Monday, June 17, 2024, Jacksonville, Florida., USA. Founder and Administrator of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups: Https://gatekeeperwatchman.org/post/751889961062744064/daily-devotionals-for-may-30-2024-proverbs-gods? X/Twitter ... @ParkermillerQ   #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO

[worangetraveler-multiverseguide]

BURRITO GIRLFRIENDS!!!

Overall episode 7 of Yuru Camp was a fun weird relaxing ride and while I think it would be okay for me to stop there I wont. The camping siblings that Nadeshiko and Rin meet were odd, but apparently there will be more of it during the future? At least I’m expecting that from the newbie drunkin teacher now :P

The K-ON comparison I made with her made me realize that while it was in jest, there’s some logic behind it... except for the MOOD each show releases. K-ON’s MOOD is cutesiness but also big and dumb laughs, while Yuru Camp’s MOOD is a feel of relaxation beyond belief... and I really enjoy it tbh (and reminds me of my favorite slice of life from a decade ago: Hidamari Sketch, that could be seen as an inbetween the laughs of K-ON and the relaxation of Yuru Camp... should really finish the last season...)

(I could also gush over Nadeshiko and Rin’s relationship... but I’m sure I’ll have more windows for that... a lot of windows for that... I actually read the sinopsis of episode 9 and OH BOY)

I give this episode the totally serious score of “Burrito girlfriends”/10

Thank you so much for checking my silly memes, ramblings and thoughts and... actually... I know maybe shouldnt be asking... but you got questions? Random or related to what I’m (or have or will) liveblog? SEND IT MY WAY! Only be mindful of spoilers for what I’m currently watching (not that’s really heavy to spoil, but still)

Now to my lovely “patreons” (if you give like = patreon) I like to thanks personally via tag so lets do that right now...

WITH A VERY SPECIALLY CALL OUT ONE FOR @shima-rin-official BECAUSE MY FRIEND THANK YOU SO MUCH... AND AT THE SAME TIME WHY SUDDENLY I HAVE LIKE 200 NOTES OVER MY HAIKU FOR RIN AND NADESHIKO!?!?!?!?! I’M GONNA BE HERE ALL NIGHT TAGGING PEOPLE xD (no but really, thank you for always check my stuff, im just overexaggerating)

Now to everyone who has been around here this last few day... THANK YOU TO: @ephemeral-dreamer, @theponyarchive, @crashy-sparrow, @sinorfen, @o98, @homemouse, @morphlingunderscore, @witlessjester, @irineu-jr, @red-moon-eclipse, @hanz129 (all these lovely regulars tbh), @jean-and-ali-liveblogs, @megajukebox8, @dorko4u, @rowdyx3, @kayomielatoro (great friends of mine) @cuppabee, @supremenadeem, @perpetual-awkwardness, @akiradiamond,  @humbleasshat, @quailsinspace, @hal10, @maplebodybutter, @heroicbrew, @gold-5tandard27, @laulink, @sean-the-sharp, @bubbles0989, @rapter33, @meinss, @limeth, @cyanizite, @subarunekootaku, @xtitan92, @thestuffed-alligator... and im sorry but im literally 24 hours later and my brain can’t keep track and backtrack, if your liked or reblogged my stuff know I REALLY appreciate you, even it was just a random act of approval... thank you all

And to end this session... have my favorite song from K-ON (although to be fair only know like 3... should really fix that :P)

See you tomorrow for... I dunno really, we will see.

[justathoughtfulangel]

I'd Rather You Lie ~ Kai Parker One Shot

*not my gif

Pairing: siphon!Kai X witch!Saltzman!Reader

Word Count: 3,453

Requested?: No

This IS a reader insert fic; I just don’t like writing with Y/N in the place of names. Use Rosalie/Rosie/Rose as a placeholder for Y/N :)

Description: When we fall in love with someone, we learn to love every part of them - even their faults. How much would it break your heart to learn you'd fallen in love with a lie?

Warnings: Angst, betrayal, and heartbreak

The story begins after the break! I hope you enjoy reading it <3

Kai had been wandering around Mystic Falls aimlessly for a few days. He’d absorbed all the magic from the Traveler’s Spell, and it was almost impossible to control. Kai had stolen the chance to practice on Elena for a little while, but her stupid boyfriend and his twin sister managed to get her back. He’d have to wait weeks before the magic dwindled, delaying the merge he’d been denied for decades. He was done waiting. He was burning for revenge, and he wanted it now.

He'd been having a lonely lunch in the Mystic Grill and people-watching when his gaze fell on a girl. She seemed very focused, typing away on some device that looked like a slim typewriter with a TV screen. Kai had been in a prison for eighteen years, but before he left, bringing pagers to sit-down restaurants was considered rude. She fascinated him, whoever she was. Before he could go talk to her, she was joined by Alaric Saltzman – a vampire and Josette’s fiancé. The typewriter-with-a-screen was finally set aside. He couldn’t hear them from this far away, but he could’ve sworn she’d greeted him with a “Hey, Dad!”

Raising his eyebrows, Kai took a sip of his soda. Alaric Saltzman seemed far too young to have a near twenty-year-old daughter. This opened up a very interesting set of opportunities. Muttering a spell under his breath so he could listen to their conversation, he settled into his seat, finally feeling like he wasn't sitting here alone. It was illicit company, but company, nonetheless.

“How’s school going? You keep your academic life surprisingly secret from your dad.” Alaric flipped through the menu, teasing Rosalie as she put her laptop away into her bookbag. She smiled, shaking her head. “It’s not a secret if you have chats over coffee with all of my professors in staff lounges.”

“Fair, fair. I’d just like to hear it from you sometimes. Did you order anything yet?” Rosalie shook her head, perusing the menu herself. “Not yet, I was working. Looks like they added some new mains.”

There was nothing important Kai would learn from this mindless chatter, but some part of him liked listening to it. It was… well, normal: a normal lunch between a dad and daughter. Funnily enough, normal was the most abnormal for Kai.

~~~

It took one week for Kai to find out the girl’s story. Rosalie Saltzman was a witch. Though not his daughter by blood, Alaric was her only family. They’d found each other ten years ago when Alaric was just starting as a middle school teacher. He’d been heartbroken over his ex-wife, Isobel, for many years, and the hole in his heart couldn’t be filled romantically. Rose was an orphan. When she was old enough, she ran away from her abusive foster home and was living by herself in the school. Alaric found her sleeping in the library one night and took her in. Soon enough, Alaric became Rosalie’s legal guardian, her friend, and eventually, her parent. When she discovered her magic, Alaric knew exactly what it was and how to help her learn.

Rose had befriended the Mystic Falls gang when she moved there with Alaric six years ago. She’d lost him, and Rosalie almost lost herself in those years. She didn’t like to talk about it. Now, she was on the same path as her dad. She was majoring in Occult Studies with the hopes of becoming a professor herself.

From what Kai had seen, it seemed like Alaric tried to keep her away from the crazy happenings in Mystic Falls. It was the only point of strife between the two. Now that he was back, Alaric was determined to protect Rosalie, not wanting her to get involved until she had to. The problem was that she’d spent years without him, now – years when she was one of the only trusted witches Elena, Caroline, Damon, and Stefan turned to. She wasn’t about to abandon them because her dad wanted her to.

Nevertheless, Alaric had managed to protect Rosalie. He hadn’t let a word of Kai or who he was slip to his daughter. This worked in Kai’s favor miraculously. He wanted to get close to Rosalie. She was the glue that held the messed-up Mystic Falls family together, and she was exactly who Kai wanted to destroy. The game was about to begin, and he’d found a new piece to play with. It would take time, but this wait would be worth it.

~~~

Every Sunday, Rosalie spent the day studying away in a tiny coffee shop a few blocks from Whitmore’s campus. At first, Kai started showing up there with something random: a book, a sketchpad, and even a typewriter-with-a-screen he’d bought himself (he finally learned they were called laptops and were portable computers).

They didn’t even make eye contact for the first week, but Kai observed her very carefully. She tended to order black coffee and then go into work mode. By the time she went back for her second sip, her beverage would be untastefully cold. Then, she’d request ice and turn her order into an entirely new concoction with cream.

During the second week, they truly saw each other for the first time. Rosalie smiled and nodded politely as one does to strangers and went back to her work, sipping her iced coffee and ignoring him as well as everything around her.

When the third week came around, he finally spoke to her. “Hi.” Rosalie glanced up at the sound and removed her earbuds. “Hi?” She hadn’t failed to notice the very attractive guy who’d suddenly begun frequenting her favorite coffee shop, but she hadn’t imagined he’d come to talk to her. “Um…” Kai was very rusty with face-to-face interactions. “Lovely weather we’re having.”

Kai almost facepalmed. Rose raised an eyebrow and looked out the window. It was pouring outside, and the wind had just blown away some poor fellow’s umbrella. “Sure, if you’re into storms.” He seemed adorably nervous, and Rosalie decided to take the lead. “I’m Rosalie, Rosalie Saltzman.” She stood, reaching out her hand in greeting. Kai’s palm slid against hers, surprised at the comforting warmth. “I’m Kai Parker. Are you related to Professor Saltzman by any chance?”

“Why, yes. He is my dad.” Kai already knew that, of course, but he needed an in with her. “I’ve been thinking about taking one of his courses next semester. Any chance you could tell me about them?”

Rosalie, very patiently, began talking about Alaric’s Introduction to Occult Studies seminar. Kai just continued to watch her. He was learning more about her every day; for a witch, she was surprisingly open. Most were always so secretive and quiet.

Before they knew it, they’d spent hours chatting the day away. “Thanks for being so patient with all my insipid questions.” Kai was feeling oddly cheerful. It wasn’t a common emotion for him. “Aw, they weren’t all insipid questions. Maybe a few.” Rosalie teased brightly, and Kai couldn’t help but return her wide grin. “Well, Rosalie, I had a lot of fun today, and I was wondering if you maybe wanted to… get coffee sometime.”

“Well, considering we’re in a coffee shop, that shouldn’t be too hard to arrange. How about the same time and place next week?”

“Great. It’s a date.”

 ~~~

One date turned into four, and before he’d even planned it, Rosalie was spending much of her time with Kai. He didn’t mind one bit. Of course, Kai had to convince himself it was all to get close to her and then break her – break them all. The more time he spent with her, however, the more he was starting to think he’d picked the wrong girl. The more time he spent with her, the more he didn’t want to have to break her. But he was in this now. He was in it, and there was only one way out.

Despite planning to meet at their usual coffee shop, Kai didn’t show up today, and he wasn’t answering his phone either. Perhaps it would seem pathetic or clingy, but Rosalie was worried about him. She made her way to his place, only wanting to see if he was okay. He was a quirky guy who had grown on her. He loved his food. He was strange at times, but she chalked it up to this naivety he had about their world. It was almost like he’d come from another time.

Rosalie knocked on his door. “Kai? Is everything okay?” There was no verbal response, but she heard shuffling on the other side of the door. The door handle did not turn, but she could feel his breathing on the other side. Pressing her palm to the door, Rosalie spoke softly, knowing the words would reach him. “Kai…” There were many things she wanted to say, but she didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know what he was going through, and she didn’t want to push him to open up to her.

“I don’t know what is bothering you, so I can’t say it’ll get better. People always say it will, but maybe it won’t. That is okay. I promise you, even if it doesn’t get better, it will become easier to live with. It always does.”

Kai closed his eyes. His temples were throbbing from dehydration, his eyes sore. He hadn’t cried in years, and it wasn’t catharsis – it was torture. How would she know it would become easier? She was unbelievably kind, and the kinder she was, the harder it was to stay on track. He wanted to forget all this. Kai couldn’t bear to use her as a catalyst for his revenge. Not anymore. Not like this. “How do you know?”

His raspy, broken voice hurt something within her. It sounded lifeless, devoid of hope and meaning. “Because I’ve lived through it. Please let me in.”

His shoulders slumped over. The weight of worlds may have rested on them. The weight of his identity certainly did. Weeks ago, he’d claimed the only way out of this was through. Could he give up his revenge, the one thing that sustained him? Could he give her up? He sank to the floor and leaned his back against the door. He said nothing else, but Kai hoped she didn’t leave.

She didn’t leave. Mere inches away, separated by the wooden door between them, Rosalie sat on the other side. She listened to his breathing, his muffled sobs. Her heart broke for him. Something was tearing him apart, and all she wanted to do was hold him together…

When dawn struck, Kai woke. His back was stiff from the strange angle he’d been sleeping at, and he stretched forward. He shot up, then. There was no way she was still here, was there? Very slowly, he opened the door with a shaking hand. She was asleep against the wall. Kai wanted to wake her, but that would be a poor way to repay her compassion.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Kai lifted her and laid her on his bed, tucking her in. He was done with all of it. He was done with lying to her. He’d tell her everything very soon, and if she wanted to tell him to leave her life and never return, so be it. Kai would leave her life and never return.

~

No matter how he wanted to, Kai couldn’t do it. He couldn’t tell her, not when that would mean admitting how horrible he was. Instead of telling her when she woke the next morning, he crossed another line. He kissed her. It didn’t take much thought on his part, and she returned the kiss after a few moments of surprise.

As their lips meshed together, Kai couldn’t understand how she’d become so important to him so quickly. It seemed she felt the same way. “Kai… I don’t know what is going on with you, and I won’t force you to tell me, either. I want you to know I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.” 

 Her words rang with sincerity, breaking Kai’s heart more and more. He had to come clean. If she left him, he’d deserve it. The only problem was… Malachai was a coward. He’d always been a coward, and he would always be a coward.

~~~

After that one kiss, Kai vanished. Rosalie hadn’t heard from him or even seen him around campus in weeks. She got no texts, no calls… no sign he’d ever existed. The first week had hurt badly. She stayed up nights, staring at her dark ceiling trying to comprehend why he’d disappeared. The second week brought about the best performance of her life; Rose acted like she was over him. She figured she could fake it until Malachai was solely a memory. By the third week, the act was up. She couldn’t hide behind a screen of emotionlessness. It was standing on a feeble foundation, and sooner and later, it would crumble.

Thankfully, a distraction had presented itself. Alaric had been dealing with yet another villain in Mystic Falls for the past few weeks, and this time, he’d called upon his daughter to come help. Despite the pure annoyance their life had become in recent years, Rosalie knew asking her to come step was a solidifying step in the relationship she had with her dad. She journeyed down the highway, not knowing she was speeding towards the man she’d spent weeks trying to forget.

~

Kai had spent the last three weeks trapped in the cellars of the Salvatore Boarding House. The first week had hurt badly. He stayed up nights, staring at the granite ceiling trying to make sense of the uncomfortable whirlwind of emotions inside him. The second week brought about starvation, weakness, and a moment of painful clarity. Malachai somehow felt the aching and confusion Rose must have been feeling all those miles away. By the third week, something had awoken within him. Something hard. Unbreakable. Unyielding. He’d snapped again, and the Kai Parker they were so terrified of had returned.

He'd been dragged out of the cell and tied up to a chair in the living room. The moment was all too reminiscent of an interaction in the prison world, where he’d been tied up to the exact same chair. The fireplace crackled to his left, and Damon stood in front of him with a poker in his hand. “Man, no one thought to change up the furniture since 1994? No wonder this place went out of business.”

Damon smirked without mirth, passing the metal rod between his hands. “I forgot how annoying you can be. Bonnie couldn’t stand to be in the same room as you again, so we’ve got another friend coming to help out with whatever little secrets you’ve got in there.” Kai raised his eyebrows, internally indignant but outwardly cool. His gaze fell on the glass of water on the coffee table. “Let me guess. I answer the question, I get the water. I refuse, and I get the poker.” 

“Oh no, no, no. That’s mine. You just get the poker.” In his exhaustion, Malachai genuinely chuckled. “How original, Damon. Tell me, how’d you get Rosalie to agree to help out?” That was the ace in his back pocket – the card he hoped he’d never have to play. At the mention of his daughter, Alaric zoomed into the room, holding Kai by the throat while he tilted his chair backward. A few more inches and his head would slam against the brick fireplace. “How do you know my daughter?” 

 As quickly as he’d come in, Damon got Alaric off of him. “Easy, Papa Bear. Kai’s going to cooperate.” The metal poker rested on Kai’s chest, the sharp tip separated from his heart by mere inches of flesh and blood. “Talk. Now.” 

“Didn’t you know? I’ve been dating her for a while. Here I thought she told you everything, Alaric.” Alaric blanched. There were consequences to keeping Rosalie in the dark, and here was one. In the process of trying to keep her out of these messes, Alaric had enveloped Rose into one with repercussions he couldn’t yet imagine. “Of course, she thinks it’s real, which is sweet, really. At least someone among us has a heart.” 

His words betrayed his thoughts. Truly, he’d be taking her heart and crushing it, but this was about his survival. If there was one thing Kai Parker knew how to do, it was survive. “She’s just so welcoming… it was so easy to step into her life. I could get into all of yours and take what I’ve always wanted. But you really didn’t need to torture me to get that out of me, did you? I think I’m an excellent communicator.” 

Nothing had announced Rosalie’s arrival. Her car pulling up to the driveway had reached Damon and Alaric’s ears, but not Kai’s. He kept talking, spreading lies and making them sound like nothing but the truth. Rose was standing just ten feet behind him, and her dad looked up at her. His eyes were swarming with a myriad of emotions in stark contrast to Rosalie’s. Her eyes were simply empty. There was nothing to be found in her anymore. There was no more pain, no more darkness, and no more joy.

Damon forcefully swiveled the chair around, and the movement nearly knocked Kai to the ground. When he looked up, he saw the numbness in her eyes. He’d broken her. Rose didn’t scream at him. Not one tear slipped past her eye, even as her throat closed up with emotion. She just turned on her heel and walked away. Kai had thought he was destroying her heart, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. 

She no longer had a heart that could be destroyed. Now, there was just nothing. 

~~~

Kai had come to ruin the lives of those who’d tortured him. He thought he deserved the vengeance, and perhaps he still did. He just had no right to ruin the one soul who’d shown him an ounce of kindness along the way. After giving Damon whatever information he’d wanted, Alaric had let him go with the promise that he’d stay away from his daughter. That wasn’t a promise Kai would keep, and even Alaric knew that. She may not have seen it, but Alaric had seen the flicker of remorse in him, even if it lasted a fraction of a second.

Rosalie had gone about life just as she had before Kai ever came into it. She studied. She had dinners with her dad. She spent her Sundays at the same coffee shop. In his weakness, it took Kai weeks before he could step into the coffee shop and approach her. When he finally did, he wished he hadn’t. It would’ve been much more acceptable if she yelled at him, even thrown her hot coffee in his face. Instead, she glanced up at him and began packing up her things. Not a word was exchanged.

Kai trailed after her, not knowing what to say or how to start. Snow had begun to fall, and the chill settled into his bones. Instead of calling out her name, he ran up behind her, grabbing her wrist to get her to stop. She did stop then, wrenching her wrist from her grip. “What do you want, Malachai?” The words did not reflect her turmoil, because none came up to the surface. He’d shattered her beyond repair. “Rosalie…” He didn’t have the words to begin. Just saying her name did something to him, closing up his throat and stealing his air. “I’m so sorry. I know that doesn’t begin to cover it. I had no right to use you the way I did. But I swear to you, I wasn’t lying. I really began feeling… something for you. I don’t know if it was love because no one’s loved me before. I don’t know what love is. But I felt something for you… something that made me sick and dizzy and light and happy. Just being around you…” Kai rambled on. Once he started, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Just being around you healed me. I need that. I promise you, no moment we spent together was a lie. It may have started that way at first, but now…” What finally silenced him was not his own tiredness or overwhelming emotions; it was her smile. It was a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, didn’t even seem like a smile. It was empty, reflective of the shell of Rosalie he’d left behind. “I’d rather you lie.”

~~~

This concludes yet another Kai Parker One Shot! Sorry about the sad ending, darlings :(

Through this piece, I wanted to illustrate a face of heartbreak we don't always see. It's not always screaming and crying. Silence can speak the loudest.

Please feel free to send any thoughts/comments/constructive criticisms my way. I always welcome them :) Also, let me know if you're interested in a sequel for this piece! If you'd like to be tagged in future Kai Parker works, feel free to message me/leave a comment here.

If you liked this story, feel free to check out my other stories from my Malachai Parker Masterlist (pinned to the top of my profile).

Until next time, JustAThoughtfulAngel <3

Taglist: @socio-kai-path1972, @bluelicious, @kolsangel, @genevivetaylor, @prettybitchfatwitch

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

Draw your swords

Summary: In order to keep Ravka intact, general Kirgan, the Darkling, must marry. Needless to say, he’s not happy about it, but neither is his bride.

Warnings: indicating smut, slight angst

============================

Standing at the altar, wearing his black kefta, the Darkling grinds his teeth at the closed door at the end of it.

Any moment now, the door will open and his bride will appear as an angel in white. Except, the Darkling preferred to think of her as devil incarnate.

Although her beauty is without faults, her mind is sharp and her tongue can be sweeter than honey, Y/N Y/L/N is everything the Darkling hates.

She's entitled, bratty, arguably manipulative and downright cruel. She's all that and more, at least to him. But the one thing he cannot forgive her for is her lineage. As a daughter of a man he sought to destroy, Y/N became general Zlatan’s bargaining chip.

“You must marry her and she must be included in all decisions concerning Ravka on my behalf, or we will declare independence.”

General Zlatan gave the emperor no room to argue on the matter, forcing the marriage onto them. As the emperor had no male descendants to marry off, the next in line was general Kirigan. And while the Darkling fought the emperor on this instance, he was given no choice – either marry Zlatan’s daughter or someone else will be ascending as a leader of the Second army.

"Is it too late to run?" Ivan turns to Kirigan and Fedyor with a breathless chuckle, earning a dirty look from the official Y/N insisted marries them. She caved on the Palace setting, but no one could bend her will on who it is that seals their marriage contract.

"You promised." Fedyor reminds him and Kirigan closes his eyes, letting out a heavy sigh.

"Maybe some promises are best broken. She'll be the death of Ravka." Licking his lips, the Darkling glances at the door as a faint noise is heard on the other side of the door.

‘Of me’, he thinks to himself, ‘She’ll be the death of me.’

“She is Zlatan’s daughter with no special powers”, Ivan scoffs, “What could she possibly do?”

"I'll make her just as unhappy as I am now. She's never going to love me and I most certainly will never love her," the Darkling huffs, straightening his back as his eyes narrow at the door. “Unhappy women are always dangerous.” He pauses, pursing his lips, “Even if they are just human.”

"You said this is a business deal, so think of it as such." Ivan raises an eyebrow, wondering why is love even on Kirigan’s mind. In all his time serving his general, Ivan never heard the word pass his lips before now.

"I will”, the Darkling rolls his tongue, focusing on Ivan and Fedyor again. "Tell me you’d fight with me to preserve Ravka if I walk away."

"Do whatever you want, but you better be fast because your bride is coming", Fedyor nods toward the grand opening of the grandiose door, revealing a vision in white and the veil covering her face.

"Fuck", the Darkling mutters under his breath, his heart jumping at the sight.

He watched her walk, his nerves gnawing away at him and all he could think about is why his heart is beating so fast. Why would he be nervous? She should be the one drowning in nerves instead of walking so confidently. Why is she not afraid of him?

Folding his shaky hands behind his back, the Darkling could have sworn every step she took closer made his heart drop further in his chest. It was only a matter of time before he had nothing left but to accept his destiny and take an ordinary woman such as Y/N as his bride. Oddly enough, he found comfort in her mortality. She would die eventually and he’ll be free of her. If she angers him or her father stirs up trouble, he’d make sure he’ll be free much sooner.

Finally in front of him, Y/N holds her breath as the Darkling reluctantly pulls the veil up, revealing her face.

When she first met him, it was on a field of scattered, mangled bodies. He looked at the sky like a man would look at a withered flower in which he no longer sees the beauty he plucked it for, thus destroying it.

And when he looked at her, Y/N forgot to breathe.

There are no traces of doubt, no evidence this isn't the happiest day of her life. If anything, the Darkling is in awe of her and her ability to maintain composure without showing the slightest inkling of her disdain for him. He’s looking for a weakness, studying her in order to find something, anything he could use to make her submit to him, but she’s not flinching. Her stare is unyielding, fierce, and she is unbowed, like a rose in the eye of a hurricane.

"You should have worn the white kefta. Black is for funerals", she notes, her voice low and cold and the Darkling can't help but scoff.

“Black is my color. Besides”, he leans in, pressing his lips against her cheek before whispering, "It is a funeral."

While the crowd whispered and awed over the little exchange, Y/N's lips twitched into a brief smile. Reaching out for his hand, she tilts her head to her left, hiding her face with the veil as she scowls at him.

The ceremony begins, but neither the Darkling nor Y/N can truly focus on a single word said. Y/N is busy wondering what she could do best to make his life hell. This isn’t exactly what she had in mind for her future either and being exchanged like a broodmare to delay a war is unforgivable. She couldn’t forgive her father for giving her over to a known monster, nor could she forgive her seconds-to-be husband.

He is cruel, manipulative, a beast hidden under a handsome built and he may be appealing to the eye, but she can feel he’s rotten inside.

The Darkling’s eyes are fixed on her, examining every single inch of her rather small sized body. Though her curves are undeniable, her height would leave him with a craned neck and back pain in the future. Inhaling sharply, he tried to understand why his thoughts of all the things he hates about her include ripping that wedding dress straight off her. She looks far too appealing in a dress for him to ignore and it sparks a fire to further fuel the flames of hate he’s tended to.

Either way, quicker than imagined, the Darkling found himself saying "I do", forcing a smile that matched the one she displayed. Unlike his cold smile that didn't reach his eyes, Y/N was capable of making her smile believable, enough for him to envy her acting skills.

"You may kiss the bride."

Licking his lips, Kirigan's eyes flicker to Y/N's lips. He never kissed her before, the human who perfectly portrayed an ice queen. It would be a lie if he said kissing her never crossed his mind, but it didn't feel like he'd willingly do so even if he had a chance. He didn’t desire her at all. He refused to allow himself as much.

Y/N glanced at the crowd, seeing their little whispers about how long Kirigan is taking and how they pity her for marrying someone like him – a dark shadow, an abomination even in their world.

She felt a shuddered breath pass her lips as Kirigan leaned into her, torturously slow and the worst part? He smells good, intoxicating kind of good. And whether she liked it or not, her heart fluttered as his lips grazed hers and his hand cupped her cheek.

The Darkling's heart quivered, his mind overflowing with frustration. He couldn't comply and kiss her wholeheartedly, but he found himself wanting to turn her over, to have his way with her.

She's infuriating, unlawfully cocky and unjustly stunning. No wonder hell is where most mankind would go considering the beauty of its tempting demons that poise as naïve angels.

Snapping out of the daze, she pulls back first, whispering against his lips. "Hope you enjoyed it, because it will be the last time you’ll ever taste my lips in your lifetime."

Blinking slow, the Darkling smirked, genuinely entertained. "We will see about that", and he took her words as a personal challenge. 

He would melt the ice queen and have her on her knees, begging for his love before the year is done. He will demean Zlatan by turning his own daughter against him and he will do so with pleasure.

Part two

[wh6res]

one more time | markhyuck

"if i'm going to teach you how to fuck her right, you’re gonna need the best seat in the house, markie!" — lhc 

warnings. dubious content, swearing, bondage, voyeurism, masturbation, exhibitionism, mentions of stalking, fingering, oral (f receiving), degradation, there’s a knife (but no knifeplay), a threesome, implied kidnapping 

disclaimer. i dont condone anything. this isnt a normal relationship. this aint love.

note. prolly going to hell for this but who cares. markhyuck for @nakamotocore​ i wuv ya ie please get better soon! TT and dom hyuck for my napaka kalat na mami @donghyukcore​

against all rational thinking, haechan is getting bored from seeing the pathetic five feet distance between you and mark when he comes home. he tries to understand the other male in the relationship. truly, he does, even if he highly doubts that celibate little mark lee can pleasure you the way he can but everything's practically past that line now. donghyuck just wants to have some fun with you two, is that too much to ask for? at this point, he's blatantly ignoring the fact that you and mark don't even like each other.

but haechan cares for mark just as much as he cares about you and he won't just let his best friend miss out on all the fun things he can do to their little doll, right? what kind of a friend would he be? once haechan shoves him into a world of temptation and sin and pleasure, mark would kiss his self-induced celibacy goodbye.

plus, you've been awfully naughty these days.

talks about wanting to come home or getting at least a few rights to have gadgets were the only thing you said whenever you see him. it went as far as practically growling and running away from haechan when he tries to initiate something with you, screeching your lungs out and saying, "don't fucking touch me, you creepy little psycho!"

deflowering mark.

punishing you.

he'd be killing two birds with one stone.

he's fucked your stubborn little self into submission once, but all that overprivileged tv sessions might've put silly little ideas into your dumb little head again. alas, no worries, he'll just have to do it one more time. and maybe, now with the aid of his good 'ol buddy mark, they'll both be able to screw you up so good you'll never want to leave their clutches.

"gumdrop, can you come here for a second?"

haechan isn't deaf to the exaggerated groan you let out from the living room and it grates on his nerves how utterly brave you are for being passive aggressive. you reminded him of a little girl in a temper tantrum because they weren't given any candy - and when you show up in the master bedroom clad in your little pink dress, eyes upturned and sharp, a pathetic little girl was all he can think of when he saw you.

only now did he notice that you had even detangled your hair from the intricate braids haechan spent at least twenty minutes doing earlier this morning. where was mark all this time? why wasn’t he there to stop you? geez, you both are so going to get it, this time!

"what do you want?"

"can you give me a hug? i felt awfully stressed at work today. i need my little gumdrop."

this was obviously a test. don't get him wrong, he'll still punish you but if just this one time you learned to swallow that bitchy attitude and come crawling to him as the perfect lover should, maybe he won't be too harsh.

but he gave you too much credit, he thinks. of course his dumb cockwhore doesn't know shit. of fucking course, you wouldn't know it was a test. not when you scoffed, rolled your eyes at him, and spun in your heels to walk back to the living room.

"beat your meat with your own hands, creep."

haechan's reaction is immediate, his long legs allowing no delay in crossing the room to mercilessly fist your hair. he had pulled your hair so bad you thought it was going to rip right at the roots, all of his pent up anger due to your poor behavior channeling into that one grip.

you feel his scoff of disbelief against the curve of your neck as haechan pulls you flush against his body. "what the fuck did you just say to me?" he laughs patronizingly. "beat my meat with my own hands – aw, baby! that has got to be the best one yet!"

it truly was, though. he's not going to lie. out of every vicious snarl and hate-induced words you said to him, that particular offhand comment takes the cake. seriously, sometimes haechan thinks you're deliberately trying to make him furious – gumdrop, if you wanted to be fucked silly, all you had to do was ask.

he hurls you to the mattress, breath knocking right out of your lungs. before you can even sit back up and crawl away from haechan, he's already crawling over your body to sit directly on your stomach, fiddling with something on the headboard. you nearly scream in frustration, no matter what you do, you just can't throw him off of you!

"i don't know why the fuck you're behaving this way but it's gone too far. one more time. do i need to fuck some respect into you, one more time?”

a new wave of motivation surges through you when you hear the familiar click clacking of metal. your eyes widened just a fraction, the only thing that gave away the unease quickly seeping under your skin. if not for haechan's perceptive eyes, he would have missed it.

he merely used one hand to grip both your wrists in a vice. "no!" you squirmed, tossing and turning and trying with all your might to get him off of you. "no! i don't want that – not the cuffs!"

he loops the respective bands around your wrists with practiced ease. the last handcuffs he used had torn and marked your skin, something haechan wasn't fond of. only he can paint your bare skin with colors.

thus, he bought newer ones. the bands were a bright shade of red, connected to each other using a medium sized chain that loops around one of the steel wires of the bed, and the little bells attached to the bands ring with your every movement.

haechan knows the bells drove you crazy. its incessant ringing driving you up the wall as you couldn't keep your hands still whenever he fucked you to oblivion – he knew how much you loathed the sound of the bells, all the more reason for him to enjoy.

and mark, too. speaking of which…

you stubbornly pull at your bounded hands, glaring at the man before you as he studies your state. the corners of his lips curl up at the sight of you struggling. "you always look so good in red, gumdrop."

before you were given a chance to reply, he stormed out of the room with a sense of purpose bounding his steps. "lee donghyuck!" you screamed. "fucking come back and get me out of these, you pervert!"

he can hear you thrashing in your chains and yelling profanities from a room away. where was the demure girl he turned you into after only a week living in the apartment? though funny enough, the blood in haechan's sadistic side rushes in excitement at the prospect of wiping that glare off your face. it wasn't the fear, nor your submission that gets him off. it was the idea that he can and he will break you down no matter how many times you try to build yourself back up again.

he's not too sure whether he's going to eliminate that dirty mouth you've developed, though. because you did make him snort in the most unattractive way when you told him he can fucking jack himself off when he had been merely asking for a hug. this aggressive side you developed is… nice. he can work with it.

"can you ask your play thing to keep it down?" mark hisses, flinching and making an offkey sound with his guitar when a certain screech from you caught him off-guard.

haechan smiles.

"why don't you shut her up?"

it took a good few minutes trying to talk mark into stepping into the bedroom where he's got you chained to the headboard, but alas, haechan can be persuasive if he wants to be.

frankly, the younger man is sick and tired of hearing both of you bicker – it's no wonder you've developed a sharp tongue! it's all mark's fault and yet it's haechan that has to do the dirty work of setting you straight all over again. you're a tough cookie to crack, someone hauntingly immune to the violence and chaos.

and yet…

"you don't – don't seriously plan on doing this, do you?" your eyes go back and forth between the two males, primarily addressing the younger, devil-spawned male. haechan, ever observant, picks up the light tremor in your voice.

haechan had uttered a playful "if i'm going to teach you how to fuck her right, you're gonna need the best seat in the house, markie!" before forcing the older boy to sit by your side, mark's thighs grazing the temples of your head as your eyes awkwardly flutter up to the spectator.

mark couldn't deny he was intrigued by the emotion reflecting in your orbs. when your eyes met, it was a silent plea, he just knew it was. and unlike vulnerable and helpless you, mark, to some extent, still had at least some sense of freedom to him. he can choose to walk away, to stop haechan from trying to get him laid, maybe even talk the other boy into postponing your punishment.

but he'll do no such thing.

not because he has a moral compass (he doesn't, really) but because mark knew firsthand, there's no stopping haechan once he sets his mind into something – and right now, if that boy wants to punish you and use mark to fulfil his exhibitionistic fantasies then that's what'll happen.

your bottoms were the first to go, haechan's blunt nails digging into your skin as he pulled it down slowly, patronizingly, while watching bemused at your squirming. "this is how you know she needs a reminder," he says, addressing mark. "a good princess should take whatever's given to her like a good girl but if she's being an ungrateful brat –"

you flinch when he harshly smacks your thigh.

"– she gets what’s coming for her, right?"

there's a second's delay with mark's reply. haechan didn't mean for the question to be rhetorical, he wanted an answer from the other boy.

"right, mark?"

"r – right…"

haechan laughs, flipping the skirt of your dress up. "what, are you that excited for pussy that you're stuttering? that's cute."

you hear mark intake a sharp breath when haechan dives in to give you feathery kisses in your inner thigh. he always starts off this way, after figuring out this gets you wet way faster than simply kissing you.

as haechan starts talking, lips lazily grazing over your skin, you fight hard not to utter a single sound as you pull on your chains. "listen carefully, markie. do you hear those whimpers? she likes it," you feel the prickles of his sharp stare. "she's just too much of a fucking brat to admit it. go on gumdrop, your fighting spirit makes this all the more interesting."

you hate the patronizing tone he used as his hands trail higher, and higher until it's pinching at the bud of your clit. and against your whole being trying to keep your lips sealed, alas, it parts and creates a soft whimper that has mark stiffening next to you.

haechan lays his tongue flat against your folds. you weren't in the least bit wet yet to accommodate his size, but that's easy. he merely circles the bud with the tip of his tongue before pushing two fingers in. months of standing in the shadows outside your window had made him memorize the movement of your fingers whenever you pleasured yourself.

he felt the jolts of the bed as you shook your head side to side, trying with everything you can to hold your moans in. a corner of his lips can’t help but curl up. "what, gumdrop? too shy to lose yourself because we have an audience? don't worry our celibate little friend over here seems to like it. go on, give him a show."

too lost in the ministrations of his lips and fingers, you don't see haechan meeting eyes with mark, nodding at an object lying on the bed side table. you can only shudder when the cool tip of a knife presses against the base of your throat, hooking under the collar of your dress as mark slowly rips it off.

but haechan doesn't have the patience. "dude, give that to me. at your phase you'll get her naked tomorrow. let the tip cut her skin, the bitch deserves it anyway."

you scream when he drags it unceremoniously down your front, narrowly missed tearing at your navel. there are a few pricks of pain here and there for when the knife accidentally nicked your skin. he sure was ruthless as can be. why did you even bother acting like a brat, cursed him out, when it gave you no benefits whatsoever? did he unknowingly transform you into this sick little masochist that thrived on his sadism?

"no."

it was a defeated whisper. the last of your resolve turning into dust as the breath escapes your lungs. why did losing feel so heavy in your chest? you don't notice your arms slumping, nor your head nodding off to one side, the weight of your horrible reality sinking into you once again as if you had only been kidnapped yesterday.

but it had not been yesterday. it's been days. weeks. months. and the last time you sneakily got ahold of mark's phone and searched for your name, the last news clip or article published about your disappearance had been three months ago. that only meant one thing.

they weren't looking for you anymore.

just like that the world continued, other people's lives continued. all the while you're stuck here, rotting in the arms of your captors.

haechan's face emerged in front of you. he smiles and you would've believed he felt an ounce of guilt if not for that wicked stare in his eyes. "you've always been most beautiful like this, gumdrop. the hope disappearing in your eyes upon the realization that no one's coming for you anymore – i love it. i love you, my pretty girl."

he placed a chaste kiss on your forehead but he might as well have shot you straight in the heart.

there was no warning, nothing to ready you for the sudden intrusion happening on your bottom half and it was so bad, that it made you shut your eyes, hands wrapping around the chains as tears started falling across your cheeks.

rough fingers reached out and wiped them away.

something felt off.

the fingers were too calloused, opposed to the softness of haechan's nimble fingers. and while the aforementioned male had more length than girth, the person who's thrusting himself inside you is the complete opposite. he's stretching you out too much, not even bothering to give you time to adjust when he's already bucking his hips like an animal.

"shh, it's okay. i'll take care of you…"

this wasn't haechan.

and when you fluttered your eyes open to see mark's boyish little face, you can't help that look of betrayal painting your features. at least you only had to deal with one obsessive, sex-deprived freak. now, you're not so sure if you can handle both of them.

how foolish of you to think that mark's self-induced celibacy stretched far and wide when in reality, he was also just a boy with his own needs. a slave to his own temptations.

how cruel. so, so cruel.

in the back of your mind, you were thankful haechan cared enough to properly get you in the mood or else you would've been staining the bed sheets red by how deep and frantic mark’s thrusts were. it felt like he wanted to tear you in half.

"if i didn't know better i'd say you're experienced, markie! i wouldn't fucking know you're a virgin by how much you're humping her like a dog.”

curse him and his dirty mouth. his constant degradation is making it easier for mark to slide in and out of you, and a proof for that is the lewd slick sounds echoing in the room partnered with the older male's deep grunts – a complete opposite of the pitched, whiny sounds haechan makes.

'gumdrop, come on! be noisy with our first-timer here just how you're always noisy with me, yeah? don't be such a killjoy." the pout in his voice is evident, coming from the side of your ear.

you wish you had never turned your head, otherwise you wouldn't have to see him pumping his own dick in his hands right in front of you. the glare you shot probably looked pathetic, what with all the tears streaming down your face and your little theory proves true when you see his mouth quirk up to the side.

"i fucking hate you."

"mark, fuck her harder, wouldja? until she learns her fucking lesson."

the disturbed stare you gave him does not slip his notice, his hand's pace turning erratic, spurred by the slick sound of your walls, skin clapping, and mark's broken whines.

make him stop, your eyes said. please.

but haechan only shoots you an innocent smile before shaking his head. "didn't you tell me to beat my meat with my own hands?"

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