#this is the second time ive binged a show in one night and started sobbing after

[pinkdiamonddd]

FUCK YOU HFJONE. FUCK . FUCKKKK FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKRUCKFUCIFUCHRHDUFUFUCURHAHWGRHEJRJ3JRJEJJRJCJFJRJR FUUUUUCCCKKKKK

IM FILLED WITH DREAD. DESPAIR. HATRED.

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED??? WHAT DID I WATCH??????

[artificialqueens]

By Your Side (Biadore) - Candy Cane

A/N: just a oneshot based off of a prompt sent in that asked for bianca finding out abt adore’s onlyfans! its not quite that tbh but the words take me where they want to go lol please enjoy!! <3 theres some other things ive been trying to work on but its slow going rn as my cat is very sick and a lot of my time and energy has been dedicated to him, but i hope to get more out soon!

It’s only been a few months into quarantine when Adore finds herself on the phone with one of her oldest friends. Like, old physically not old as in how long they’ve known each other. But to be fair, there aren’t a ton of people she’s been friends with longer than she’s been friends with Bianca. Courtney and Darienne too for that matter.

She loves Bianca. Their friendship is something precious to her, and surprisingly this is only the second phone call they’ve had since quarantine has started. They talk basically every day through texts, and that’s on top of the hours they spend going back and forth in the ABCD group chat with Courtney and Darienne. The four of them have something special, all of them realize that. There’s just something specifically between her and Bianca that Adore’s never really been able to place her finger on.

Out of the blue this morning Bianca simply… called her. Adore spends a full moment staring at the CallerID trying to figure out where the fuck this is coming from. With an uncertain frown, she answers the phone, hanging upside down off the side of her bed of course.

“So… OnlyFans? Seriously?” Bianca asks incredulously, her voice crackling over the phone speaker.

What a way to start a conversation after not hearing each other’s voices for like a month! Even though Adore can’t see her face, she can practically hear the raised eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” Adore laughs, unable to help smiling at Bianca’s playful accusations.

“Not that I’m mad, but why fucking OnlyFans? Aren’t bitches doing podcasts now?”

“I’m bored, okay? There’s not a lot to do but drink and masturbate, and drinking hasn’t really been doing it for me lately. Plus, I gotta make money somehow,” Adore grumbles through an explanation, lifting herself up and sprawling out on her bed awkwardly.

“Do I need to set up an intervention? You know I will,” Bianca says with faux seriousness, “Seriously though, if you need some help…”

Adore frowns down at her phone. She hates pity, she hates unnecessary worry, and she definitely hates burdening people with her bullshit.

“B, I’m fine, I promise,” she says earnestly, “I guess I just… I miss you. A lot. And we can’t see each other right now and it fucking sucks and I’m really lonely-”

“Come over.”

“What? I can’t, B, we’re quarantined…”

“When’s the last time you left your apartment?”

“Uhh, I dunno, maybe a month ago?’ Adore answers, unsure of where Bianca is going with this.

“Okay, that’s well over two weeks. Come hang out with me for a few days, get some human interaction, I’ve been needing it myself. I haven’t gone out or seen anyone for a few weeks now,” Bianca admits, and Adore feels suddenly giddy.

It’s been so long since she’s seen someone, since she’s even gotten a hug, and she really wants to see Bianca…

“I’ll be there tomorrow morning,” Adore agrees, not even thinking twice about it.

Bianca is everything to her. This person was one of the first to really take her seriously, to really see something in her, and Adore doesn’t know where she’d be without her. Every time something goes wrong, her first instinct is to call Bianca. Everytime something amazing happens, her first instinct is to call Bianca. They’ll spend hours talking or texting just because and Adore wouldn’t have it any other way.

They are as good together as PB&J, or peanut butter and celery, or peanut butter and pretzels… And Adore realizes she is feeling very snacky, specifically for peanut butter. With a sigh she rolls off her bed to get a snack before she starts packing for the next week.

The point is Adore loves Bianca, and Danny loves Roy. Sure maybe it’s in a different way than they should, or even once did, but it can’t be helped. It can be hidden, though. And Danny is more than fine with hiding this secret, as long as they get to have Roy in their life at all. He’s more than what Danny should ever even hope for, and yet a part of them can’t help but hope.

After spending so much time apart, Danny knows it’ll be harder now than ever to hide these feelings they’ve been harboring for Roy. They’ll try though, because sometimes the thought of this man loving them back is all that keeps them going.

Danny arrives at Roy’s beautiful new house in Palm Springs at nearly noon the next day. Which, to be fair, is very much the morning for Danny. They even woke up early to make the trip! …If ten a.m. counts as early in any book except their own.

Roy is already standing out in the driveway waiting for Danny when they get there, his arms spread wide for a hug the second Danny gets out of their car. The younger practically rocket launches themself into his arms, clinging tight to him as they savor the first hug they’ve gotten in such a long fucking time. Danny can’t help the tears that fall at finally having such warm, loving human contact, especially from this person.

They hold onto each other as tight as they can, each beyond glad to have each other’s trust in such unreliable times. Being alone for so long had hit Roy hard too. Alcohol and binge watching can really only do so much, and he’s genuinely been feeling lonely being stuck in one spot for so long. The dogs help some, but at the end of the day it really doesn’t replace human interaction, no matter how hard he wishes it did.

“I missed you, baby girl,” Roy says, and Danny can almost hear his voice waver.

“I missed you too,” Danny whispers, trying and failing to hold back a sob.

They leave Danny’s bag in the car for now, much more eager to go sit down and enjoy each other’s company. The dogs bombard the two of them the second Danny crosses the threshold, the enby leaning instantly down to kiss and coo at the babies and Roy can’t help grinning widely at the sight. He loves his babies, and he loves his baby girl.

They spend the afternoon talking and laughing and playing with the dogs. Danny clearly gets some ideas about the golf cart, and Roy is suddenly excited about the upcoming few days. It’s been a while since either of them have really had something to look forward to.

“Alright, I still need you to explain this OnlyFans thing to me,” Roy says with a smirk a few hours later, after they’ve gotten properly settled in on the couch together with the dogs.

Danny’s eyes go wide with slight panic, “Okay, grandpa, it’s like uhhh, Patreon but-”

“No, no, no!” Roy laughs, “I know what it is, I mean why that? Why not literally anything else?”

“First of all, I am sexy. Second of all, I spent a lot of time not making money masturbating, which is a fucking shame because as I said before I am sexy.”

They both crack up at that, giggling like idiots on Roy’s couch, the puppies quickly joining in, yipping at them to be a part of the excitement.

“Awww, do you two think I’m funny?” Danny coos, picking Dede up and cuddling the pup close, “Your daddy doesn’t think I’m funny!”

Roy snorts, “You’ve certainly picked up a thing or two from me.”

“Like how to be a bitter old hermit!” Danny grins sweetly.

“Exactly,” Roy laughs.

“So if I ask really nicely will this bitter old hermit make me food?” Danny asks, batting their eyelashes pleadingly.

“My original plan was to let you starve to death while you were here, but since you’re asking nicely…” Roy says teasingly, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction at the way the younger throws their head back with laughter.

Late that night, after a long night of talking and watching TV and a decent dinner, they curl up into bed together. At one point they both needed to at least be tipsy to do that, but nowadays that’s just overkill. They have progressed well beyond that point of friendship, though Roy sometimes still likes to put on a show of being annoyed, if only because of the way Danny pouts and rolls their eyes.

Tonight he just holds the thick comforter up so Danny can slide in easily with him, he’s not really interested in making either of them wait longer than they already have for cuddles. In seconds the two are holding each other tight, savoring the touch. As Roy lays there, holding Danny like the younger is his lifeline, he starts to think about the time they’ve known each other. All the ups, downs, and side-to-sides… Danny has grown up a lot over the years they’ve been friends, and it’s hard to deny that it’s changed Roy’s feelings for them.

Once his feelings to the younger were almost motherly, but now it’s closer to attraction. It’s kind of weird, at the least it’s very fucked up. Roy wants to just give in to the feelings, but he can’t. Not when he has no way of gaging Danny’s feelings for him. He can live with this secret, he’s not sure he can live without Danny’s friendship.

Danny interrupts his thoughts, their voice small and curious, “Why were you so invested in my OnlyFans?”

“Bitch, I’m trying to sleep here,” Roy groans.

“No, seriously,” Danny pouts, sitting up in bed and looking down at Roy. The moonlight streaming in from the window highlights the enby perfectly, and Roy curses his luck.

“I don’t want you renting yourself out on the corner like Bunny, now get back to sleep you dumb slut,” Roy says with all of his usual teasing heat.

Danny pouts though, clearly not satisfied, “But…”

“Sleep. Now.” Roy demands, reaching up to tug them back under the covers. Danny reluctantly gives in, and snuggles close to Roy.

Just as Roy is about to fall asleep, Danny’s voice has his eyes flying open.

“Roy?”

“What?”

“I love you,” Danny whispers.

Roy’s heart melts a little at that, “I love you too, Danny.”

Danny bites their lip nervously, “I mean like… I think…”

Roy’s heart starts to beat faster in his chest. Surely they couldn’t mean…

“You think…?” Roy asks, hoping that despite it all this person is about to say what he thinks they are.

“I think I might be… in love,” Danny says, their voice quiet and timid in a way Roy hasn’t heard in a very long time, “With you.”

This time Roy is the one to sit up in bed, staring down at Danny with pure infatuation. Those words echo around his ears, his chest, his very soul, and before he even realizes what he’s doing he’s leaning down to capture Danny’s lips in a kiss.

His lips against theirs feels so undeniably right. Their lips move slowly against each other, Danny brings a hand around to cup the back of Roy’s neck and in that moment nothing is wrong in their own little world. In that moment it’s just them and the moonlight. He thinks that he could live forever in this moment and never need anything else.

They break apart much too soon for either of their tastes, and Roy stares into those pretty eyes and murmurs, “I think I love you too.”

Danny surges forward for another kiss, this one much more desperate than the last. It’s a hot, heavy kiss that ends with Roy flat against the bed and both of Danny’s hands cupping his face as they explore each other. It’s like no kiss either of them have had before, with so many years of emotion and uncertainty between them it’s intense. Bianca and Adore have drunkenly kissed before, but this absolutely cannot compare. Danny whimpers pathetically against Roy, their hips grinding down against Roy’s thigh.

Roy lets out a shaky breath and grips at the enby’s barely covered ass. From the way Danny is squirming and moaning after only a little contact, Roy knows it’s been a while since Danny has been with someone like this. Roy hasn’t been able to get laid in a while either, rendering them both more than eager for this. Neither of them have a sexual partner in their circles right now, except maybe each other. Just this morning that would’ve been an absurd thought, and now it’s simply what makes sense.

Both of them need sexual fulfillment as much as they need emotional fulfillment, and even the thought of providing it for each other is thrilling. Roy grabs Danny’s bottom lip roughly between his teeth, sucking on it as he rubs his hands underneath Danny’s oversized tank top and over their skin. Danny whines and whimpers so deliciously in response, and Roy loves it.

Roy and Danny pull the little clothing that is off one another, each soaking in the familiar sight of the other being completely exposed. It’s nowhere near the first time they’ve seen each other like this, but it’s another one of those things where it’s simply different this time around. Because now it’s been established they love each other as much more than just friends.

Danny sucks hickeys along Roy’s collarbone, moaning roughly as Roy twists their nipples harshly, their bodies so close and warm wrapped up tight together.

“Think… Think I’m gonna get my nipples pierced,” Danny giggles breathlessly before it’s cut off in a moan of sheer pleasure when Roy pinches them even harder.

“Oh really? You’ve done a lot of slutty things, baby girl, but that is definitely up there,” Roy smirks.

Danny smiles innocently, “It would only make your job easier.”

“What? This job?” Roy asks teasingly, then trails his fingers down Danny’s stomach so they ghost over the enby’s half-hard cock.

Danny gasps, and Roy takes the opportunity to press his lips against theirs all over again, sucking their tongue into his mouth as he teases their cock. They moan and whine and squirm, their fingers gripping and squeezing at the flesh of Roy’s back frantically in response. Roy knows that that’s going to leave a mark, despite the fact that their nails are usually kept short. He doesn’t mind though, in fact it makes him harder knowing that he’s the reason Danny is reacting like this.

Danny’s head falls back against the pillow, feeling heat rush to their cheeks upon seeing the smouldering look in Roy’s eyes as they stare up at him. He’s so fucking gorgeous, all his sharpness and softness in just the right places.

“Tell me what you want,” Roy whispers roughly.

Danny inhales shakily, “Want- Wanna feel you-”

“What do you want me to do to you, Danny? Use your words…”

“Fuck me, oh God please just fuck me, holy shit,” Danny begs, squeezing their eyes shut tight and squirming underneath Roy’s tight hold.

“Shh, that’s so good, thank you,” Roy murmurs, caressing Danny’s cheek, “I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

And Danny just moans. They’ve wanted this from Roy for so long, and so many years were wasted convincing themself otherwise that this really feels like a fucking dream come true. It’s their own little fairytale, just for the two of them. Danny gets to live this fantasy with Roy, and that thought alone is almost more mind blowing than the idea of getting rammed until they can’t remember their own name.

Roy leans across to riffle through the nightstand, and turns back to Danny with lube, a condom, and a devious grin on his face. Minutes later, Danny is a whimpering, begging mess just from two of Roy’s fingers stretching them open. Roy is clearly enjoying it, whispering dirty things in their ear as he slowly tortures them with his fingers. When he slides in a third finger, Danny lets out the filthiest, most inhuman sound Roy has ever heard.

“You are just so fucking needy,” Roy says lowly, pulling out his fingers and quickly rolling the condom on.

Danny nods feverently, their eager words of agreement being almost incomprehensible. Roy grabs their tiny hips in his large hands and slides himself in. That moment is almost pure magic, the connection that had been simmering for so many years finally coming to a boil. Danny sobs from the mix of emotion and sheer pleasure, throwing their head back and forth, panting and begging for more while Roy closes his eyes and takes it all in.

Danny is incredibly warm and tight around him, and after a minute he begins to thrust shallowly, making Danny’s mindless babbling slur together. His thrusts quickly become harsher, aiming specifically for Danny’s spot, his grip on them tightens and he grabs the enby’s cock and starts to lavish it with some much needed attention.

“OhGodohGodohGodoh-” Danny rambles, pressing their face into the juncture of Roy’s neck and collarbone, inhaling his comforting, familiar scent, “So good, feels so good, don’t stop please don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to stop, shh, I’ve got you, fuck you’re so good,” Roy groans in response, his thrusts speeding up and his fingers around Danny’s cock tightening, “Are you about to cum for me? Huh?”

“Yes, fuck,” Danny rasps, “Yes yes gonna cum Roy please let me cum I’m gonna- gonna-”

Roy pumps his hand a few more times and whispers right in Danny’s ear, “Cum for me like a good girl.”

And Danny is a gonner. They moan high and long, their hips twitch rapidly and their whole body shakes with the force of their orgasm, ropes of cum covering Roy’s hand and both of their abdomens.

Danny practically goes limp in Roy’s hold, and just a few thrusts later Roy is undone as well, unable to help thrusting even harder and deeper into Danny’s body as he does. He falls on top of Danny, breathing heavy and ragged, and they hold each other tight. Danny’s arms still wrapped around Roy’s back when he carefully rolls them onto their sides so that they’re facing each other, nearly nose to nose. He gingerly pulls out of Danny, ties the condom, and throws it into the bin that he knows is next to the bed.

Roy cups their chin with his clean hand and stares into their dazed, half-lidded eyes. Danny blinks slowly, the afterglow beginning to wear off.

“I can’t believe it took us seven years,” Danny murmurs, reaching up to thread their fingers through Roy’s currently long hair.

“It was worth the wait,” Roy smiles softly, “And now we have the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah,” Danny whispers, “I get the rest of my life with you.”

Because for Roy and Danny it’s nowhere near over. For them it’s all only just begun.

[managedmischiefs]

don’t leave me//spencer reid

600 follower celebration!! my first one shot in months because ive been so consumed with north. enjoy!!

also I didn’t edit this at all and worked on it for like five hours straight so excuse the mistakes plz and thx

genre: so much angst

pairing: spencer reid x female oc

warnings: drugs, withdrawal, overdose

word count: 5.2k

It isn’t hard to tell when something is wrong with Spencer. 

 Spencer is generally a sweet, patient, and quick-thinking person, especially at work. I joined the BAU when Elle Greenaway departed from the bureau and left a spot open for a profiler. Spencer didn’t seem to take well to the change in the team dynamic and it seemed like he shut down whenever I was around him. He didn’t talk to me much at all and when he did, it was strictly business. No banter about personal lives occurred between us like it did between Spencer and, well, the rest of the team. I chalked it up to an anxiety over change and I respected that. I gave him the time to warm up to me and thankfully, after a while, he seemed to take a liking to me.

Penelope Garcia is the queen of stirring up drama and once Spencer and I started to bond over our geeky tendencies, like using Doctor Who as a comfort show, and always searching for nerdy apparel in stores, she had no problem stirring the pot. To my understanding, she watched Spencer and I play cards together on the jet one day (on one of the rare days she came in the field with us) and then told Emily that we must be in love with each other. Emily told JJ, JJ told Morgan, Morgan told Hotch, and Hotch told Gideon. Suddenly the whole team became convinced that Spencer and I were madly in love and it only took about ten minutes.

    I would never admit it, not yet at least, but Penelope was dead on. Once Spencer and I talked more and spent time together outside of work, I fell hard and fast for him. He truly is unlike any other man in the world. He has no problem with staying at home for a night, in fact, he prefers it. He likes to open the windows when it’s raining to hear the noises of the water making contact with his fire escape. He wants to stay up with me until the middle of the night just so we can make sure we finish every Harry Potter movie on binge days. It’s hard not to fall in love with Spencer Reid. He makes it so easy. Of course, he’s oblivious and his brain is filled with thoughts of self-doubt and inferiority in the looks department, but I don’t need or want him to look like a model. He’s all I need.

 But one day, all of this stops. It wasn’t hard to tell that something was wrong with Spencer. It wasn’t a secret that a piece of Spencer’s soul was left in the grave he dug for himself under the watch of Tobias Hankle. It wasn’t a secret that Spencer struggled immensely upon returning home and having light withdrawal symptoms. I tried my best to help him, making trips to his apartment to bring him anything he might need while he was on his mandatory two weeks leave. But he would also give me an unconvincing smile and push me right out the door. He never let me spend more than five minutes inside his apartment. I never saw him sweat, or vomit, or shake, or yawn. I never saw his pupils dilate. 

 When he returns to work, a bit too soon for my liking, that’s when I start to notice the withdrawal symptoms. And for a little while, I’m okay with it. Withdrawal, although painful and torturous, is a step in the right direction. The drugs are making their way out of Spencer’s system and he is detoxing. I pay extra attention to him to ensure his safety, but nobody else on the team seems to give Spencer any care. They surely get pissed off when he snaps at them and sweats all over the case files and is far too nasty with possible witnesses. Nobody, besides me, gives his attitude any slack. But I continue to keep a close eye on him during the case.

 Keeping a close eye, however, reveals to me that Spencer’s withdrawal symptoms continuously disappear and then reappear during the three days we are away. I don’t need Spencer’s level of genius to figure out what is going on.

 My heart pounds against my chest when Spencer goes running of the jet the moment it touches down in DC. Not a single pair of eyes follow Spencer’s movements but my own. The others on the team just stand to pull their bags out of the overhead bins. They’re chatting about whether they should go out for drinks or to a restaurant for dinner but they’re not chatting about their friend who clearly has a problem. But I love Spencer more than anything and seeing him struggle makes me hurt inside. Once I retrieve my own carry on and go-bag, I drive straight to Spencer’s apartment. I ignore my fellow team members when they ask me if I want to join them for dinner. 

 “Spencer?” I knock on his front door and rock back and forth on my feet, waiting for some type of response from him. I saw his car outside and I know he’s here and if he doesn’t open the door within ten more seconds then I’m going to kick it down. 

 Thankfully, I don’t need to risk breaking the heel of my shoe today because the door swings open a second later. Spencer stands before me, looking the most disheveled I’ve ever seen him. His shirt is untucked, his pants are wrinkly, his hair is half curly from his excess sweating, and he isn’t even wearing socks or shoes. His long sleeve shirt makes my heart drop to my stomach.

 “Olive?” His voice cracks when he speaks. “What are you doing here?”

 “I’m here to-” I choke on the words I truly want to say and suddenly I’m pushing back tears. I try to swallow the lump in my throat and give him a smile. “I’m gonna make you dinner! The team is going out together but I’m in the mood to stay in after that horrible case.”

 “Uh,” Spencer glances behind him and then whips back to me, “I’m actually really tired and I just wanna sleep. So thanks for coming by-”

 My hands fly out when Spencer tries to close the door in my face. I’ve underestimated his strength up until now because I have to use all of my strength to keep him from pushing me out. But Spencer isn’t able to keep up his strength much longer and concedes, letting the door fly backward and unintentionally letting me inside. I drop my bags to the floor, eyes locking with Spencer’s and watching a fire light in them.

 “Spencer,” my voice is still far too weak for my liking, “I’m not leaving.”

 Spencer scoffs, slamming the door shut, just barely grazing my shoulder as it passes me. “Yeah, well, I want you to.”

 “I’m not leaving.”

 Spencer’s jaw tightens and his hands ball into fists at his side. He’s trying to stand tall and strong in front of me but he’s starting to crack by the millisecond. His chest heaves when he tries to choke back his tears and his eyelids start to flutter. If I wasn’t sure of the situation before I stepped inside, it surely has been confirmed right now. Spencer opens his mouth to speak and his chin trembles. “I want you to leave me alone.”

 “Absolutely not,” I step closer to him but he steps backward, not allowing me to diminish the distance between us. “Spencer, please. Let me help you.”

 His head drops, his shoulders caving in. “I don’t need help,” With his eyes on his feet and no longer on me, I take the opportunity to grab his arm. He tries to jerk away from me the second my fingertips brush the fabric of his shirt but I told him as tightly as I can. He whimpers in my hold and his crack start to get wider and wider. “Olive, please.” 

 “Just let me see, Spence,” I’m already begging and I’m already crying. “Let me see. Let me help. I’m here for you.”

 Spencer squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head away from me, his first tears dripping down his cheeks. He stops trying to escape my hold and just cries, his clothes clutched in his hands. It’s not an invitation whatsoever but I take it as one, rolling up Spencer’s sleeve past his elbow. The crook of his elbow is covered in track marks, some fading and some bright red and bloody. It takes every ounce of my energy not to break down right then and there as my worst fear comes true. But Spencer breaks down when his biggest secret is revealed, his knees giving out and his body tumbling to the floor. I follow him down, cradling him in my arms as he sobs into my chest. I shush him and stroke his hair, rocking him back and forth, like a child, to calm him down. 

 “It’s okay, Spencer, shh,” I coo, my fingertips coated in sweat as I coax my fingers through his knotty locks. “Everything is gonna be okay, my love. I’m here and I’m gonna help you.”

 “No.”

 “Yes. Spencer, look at me,” I don’t give him the option of where to bring his gaze to. I grab his cheeks and force his gaze up, his eyes bloodshot and his face soaking wet. “You can’t keep doing drugs. You’ll lose everything, you know that. You’ll lose your job, you’ll lose me, you’ll lose your life, you’ll-”

 “I’ll lose you?” He’s never sounded more like a child than he does now. He’s whimpering and whining and crying out and clinging to me as tight as he can. 

 I give the hardest answer yet and I feel my heart break in my chest. “Yes, Spencer, I’ll leave. I can’t-”

 Spencer starts to scramble to his knees, legs wobbling under his weight. “You can’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. I love you, Olive. Don’t leave.”

 I know it’s the drugs talking but it doesn’t make the confession hurt any less. The confession is what I’ve waited so damn long to hear. But it’s wrong right now. Admitting my love will do nothing but hurt both of us. Spencer isn’t in a good state of mind right now. He probably won’t even remember that he hastily confessed his love while trying to convince me not to leave him. I find myself forcing down tears yet again.

 “I won’t leave you if you get clean,” I brush back his hair again and this time, it slicks back with sweat. “You can’t keep living your life like this, shooting up in bathrooms and hiding from your friends. Get some help and get clean. I can’t sit back and watch you destroy your life, a life that you worked so damn hard to get.”

 Spencer collapses under his own weight, no longer able to sit up on his knees. He falls onto all fours, his head hanging between his shoulders and his tears falling onto the carpet. “I can’t do it. It’s so painful to stop. I need it to be happy. I need it to escape.”

 I smooth my hands over his shoulders and where other people would probably feel tensed up muscles, I feel relaxed muscles as Spencer melts into my embrace. “Then let me take you to the hospital. They can help make the detox less painful. They can give you medication and you can get counseling and I’ll be there for as long as I’m allowed to be.” 

 “No, none of that. Here. I wanna do it here.” Spencer lifts his head, sniffling and huffing through his tears. “I’ll do it alone. Please leave. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

 “Absolutely not,” I rise to my feet and lean down to help Spencer to his feet, baring all of his weight on my shoulders as we trudge towards his bedroom. “I’m not leaving you like this. I’m gonna call Hotch and get time off for both of us.”

 Spencer lets out his millionth whimper of the night when he falls onto the bed, immediately curling up on his side and squeezing his eyes shut. “Please. Go.”

 I kneel beside the bed, bringing my hand to his cheek and stroking his soft skin gently. The simple motion actually seems to calm him for a millisecond before he starts to shake, clearly being hit with an onslaught of chills from his inevitable fever. So I tug the blanket over his body and tuck him in, pressing my lips to his forehead. “I’m not gonna abandon you, Spencer. I’m gonna help you through this and you’re gonna return to your happier, drug-free self. You’ll feel better soon. I promise.”

 I stayed true to my promise. I didn’t leave Spencer alone for a single second while he suffered through withdrawal. I washed his vomit and sweat-soaked sheets. I wiped his tears and held him when he cried. I dragged him from room to room when he didn’t have the energy to carry his own weight. I cooked him food on the rare occasions that he was actually hungry. I whispered sweet nothings in his ear when he needed the reassurance that someone actually cares. I located his stash of needles and excess vials and threw them in the dumpster outside, not even wanting to risk leaving them in a trashcan in the apartment. There is no doubt in my mind that Spencer wouldn’t have gotten through this without me. I was harsh with him when he begged for ‘just one more hit’ and I held him when he woke up screaming in the middle of the night. There is no doubt in my mind that Spencer would have given in to his cravings and started this mess all over again.

 After two weeks, Spencer starts to get better. He is able to walk without assistance and he can eat two meals a day without throwing it up ten minutes later. It’s a relief and the sun finally starts to shine through the clouds that had been lingering for too long. He still needed at least another week off of work to work up his strength and catch up on sleep in order to not look like the living dead and Hotch starts to get suspicious of such an extended time off. I tell him not to ask and for some reason, he listens. Maybe he just knows and is glad that someone else dealt with Spencer at his lowest point. Yeah, that’s probably it. 

 After three weeks and a promising night where Spencer makes me dinner for the first time in weeks, we return to work. The team is happy to see us and they don’t question why we were both gone for so long. But I’m almost positive it’s the same reason that Hotch didn’t question the time off.

 I made sure to visit Spencer in his hotel room and I always, somehow, made sure that he was never in a room alone. One night of being alone could make him spiral and that is the last thing he needs. So if he was in a room alone then I would sneak out of mine and sleep with him. It seemed like he started to enjoy sleeping in the same bed as me, opting to cuddle me close to his chest instead of turning his back to me. His confession always seemed to echo in my mind when he would kiss my head or squeeze my waist but it was just the drugs talking. He didn’t mean it.

 One month clean and Spencer seemed to be doing amazing. He boasted about how he deleted his drug dealer’s number from his phone and how he would eat meals without me reminding him to and how he could be on his feet for more than twenty minutes without being winded and needing to sit. I don’t think I had ever felt so proud of a human being until I shoved all my pride onto Spencer. Sure, he didn’t necessarily want to get the help that I gave him, but he went along with it and it’s a joy to see him return to his old happy-go-lucky self. 

 But then the team gets called into a meeting. The phonecall wakes me up in the middle of the night and sends me rushing to get dressed in something other than pajamas, but I just wind up putting on new sweats. I rush out the door and to the vacant building, throwing my holster on my hip and riding the elevator up. I blurt out a load of apologies for y lateness as I stumble into the conference room and realize I’m the last two arrive.

 “Aww,” Morgan coos sarcastically as I sit down beside him, “it was so nice if you to get dressed up for us!”

 “I swear to god,” I hiss, but he knows I’m just teasing, “if you don’t shut up right now then I’ll-”

 “Okay,” Hotch shuts me up far too easily, standing at the front of the table with his arms crossed, “we’re all here. Let’s start.”

 “Is this a new case?” Emily wonders, eyes darting between Hotch and the table that is usually filled with case files.

 “No,” he sighs and looks down at his feet, and this is probably the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him before. “Tonight-”

 “Wait,” I sit up and glance around, suddenly alarmed, “We’re not all here. Spencer isn’t here.”

 Hotch holds his hands up to me in his second way of telling me to shut up. “I know that. He already knows what I’m about to tell you all.” This does absolutely nothing to erase the red flags in my mind. “I know we all struggled with our last case, and Gideon struggled the most, for obvious reasons. Tonight, Spencer went to his cabin to check on him. It turns out that Gideon had left a note for Spencer to say goodbye and he has sent in his resignation. He has officially left the BAU.”

 Okay, listen, I barely knew the man. I haven’t been on this team for too long and Gideon favored talking to Hotch and Spencer. He didn’t interact with me much at all, except to correct me, so I’m not too torn up about his departure. Yes, he just created a huge hole that needs to be filled but that’s not my main concern. Spencer is. He isn’t here and he just learned that the man who has been his father figure for years just abandoned him in the same way that his father did when he was a child. Nobody should be alone at a time like this, and Spencer especially shouldn’t. 

 JJ is the first to ask a question but I don’t even hear it. Hotch answers and Emily follows and then Penelope is squealing and Morgan shouts over everyone and it’s far too crazy. I just need to know that Spencer is okay. He is the only thing I care about. He made so much amazing progress and he absolutely can’t erase that.

 “I need to go.” I blurt out suddenly, standing from the round table and rushing out of the building. I call Spencer relentlessly and get no answer. I go straight to voicemail every time. I slam on my gas pedal.

 I don’t lock my car and I barely remember to close my door before I’m bounding up the stairs and to his apartment. I couldn’t care less about the other residents who are probably fast asleep by now. I bang on Spencer’s door, shouting his name once, twice, three times, and get nothing. I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

 “Spencer! Come on, open up!” I cry out, jiggling the handle and hoping it’s unlocked. “Please! Let me in!” The energy radiating from the apartment makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. 

 I take two steps back and breathe in a deep breath, preparing me for whatever could be on the other side of this stupid door. I’ll never be ready to see what I know is waiting for me. I lift my foot up and slam it against the door, the lock snapping and allowing the door to fly open. I burst inside, shouting Spencer’s name frantically as my eyes search desperately for his adorable curls and his soft cardigans. 

 It takes me no more than thirty seconds of frantic running to find Spencer. When I do, I wish desperately that I hadn’t.

 His body is slumped against the bathtub, head hanging backward and his mouth wide open. His shirt is off and a rubber band is still tied around his bicep. The bathroom wreaks of vomit and there’s a needle in the sink and a broken vial on the floor. He looks haunting similar to the crime scenes we observe every day.

 I drop to my knees in front of him and grab onto his cheeks, lifting his head up. “Spencer?” My sobs are uncontrollable as my thumbs stroke his freezing cold skin, searching for some sort of life. “Come on, baby,” I resist the urge to shake his head in my hands. “Spence, please, wake up!” 

 I wait for another second. I get nothing. No eyelids fluttering. No sniffles. No coughing. No vomiting. No screaming. No crying. Nothing. There’s nothing left.

 Working through my sobs, I reach into my backpack and fish out the little box I’m searching for. I set it aside momentarily and try to gather Spencer in my arms as best as I can, pushing and dragging him until he is laying on his back in the most comfortable way his lanky body will allow in the cramped bathroom. Gosh, if only Spencer was conscious. He would be freaking out about being on the bathroom floor.

 I pull out the nasal spray and administer the Narcan into Spencer’s nostril, tossing it aside and then rolling Spencer onto his side. I don’t dare to tear my eyes away from him, even as I fish my phone out of my backpack and call 911. I babble on about there being a federal agent down and how I’m a federal agent who administered a dose of Narcan and how someone needs to help Spencer now but it all seems like a foreign language to me. Nothing is right anymore. The operator tells me someone will be there soon and to stay on the line, so I set my phone down and lean closer to Spencer.

 “Spence?” I wait for a reaction. “Sweetheart, come on, don’t do this to me,” my tears fall onto the floor and create a puddle beside his hands. My trembling hand reaches out to push his hair back, admiring the way his locks curl around my fingers. I admire the way for eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks and how beautiful his lips look. I wish I kissed him when I had the chance. Now I might never get the chance to be with him. The thought makes me cry harder and I double over in agony, crying out for the love that I will never get to have and for the life I will never get to live. I should have told him I loved him when he said it first. How could I be so stupid?

 I have no recollection of the paramedics arriving. Being pulled away, kicking and screaming Spencer’s name, is a complete blur of smeared lines and flashes of light. I do what I can to erase the image of Spencer being carried out on a stretcher, his rubberbanded arm dangling off the side, and into an ambulance. I clutch Spencer’s hand and shut out the words of the paramedics as the ambulance speeds to the hospital. I barely even recall being plopped in a waiting room and being told to await further instructions.

 I slide down the wall and tuck my head between my knees, hoping that being bent over will minimize the volume of my cries. But it doesn’t and sobs take over my body, leaving me shaking and quivering. If Spencer were with me, he would hold my hand and quietly tell me how many germs are on this floor and statistics on how easy it is to catch and infection in a hospital. He would talk to distract me from the horrible situation going down. But he’s not here and I’m alone and there’s nothing I can do to help.

 “Olive?” I ignore Hotch’s voice when I hear it. I pay no attention to his softer than usual tone and I don’t dignify his presence by acknowledging it. I keep my head down and clutched between my knees and try to quiet my cries. Hotch crouches down beside me and tells me how he was notified of the situation and how the team is on the way but I ignore him. He never cared about Spencer before so why should he now?

 True to his word, the rest of the team has arrived at the hospital within ten minutes. They form a circle in front of me and bounce around questions about what happened. Is he alive? How much did he take? What did he take? Where is he now? They never address me directly and just keep shooting questions around and receive no answers. It’s exhausting to listen to. I’m exhausted.

 “Hey, Olive?” Penelope crunches next to me in the same way Hotch did, placing her hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. She pauses before speaking again. “Could you tell us what happened?”

 For the first time, I lift my head. Everyone is in their pajamas and looking just a little less distressed than me. I’m sure I look horrendous. I surely feel horrendous. I’ve never felt worse in my life. I’ve never loved a person so much just to have them ripped out of my life. If Spencer doesn’t recover from this, I know I never will.

 “He,” I lift my hands to wipe my cheeks but stop mid-air, wondering just how many germs are on my skin, “overdosed. To my knowledge, he’s been clean for a month and-and-” my lips quiver again, “I guess Gideon leaving was too much for him to handle. He thought he needed drugs to make him feel better.”

 JJ leans into Emily’s side, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why didn’t he just call one of us instead of going straight to drugs? We all would have dropped what we were doing and gone to help him.”

 The absolutely idiotic statement sets me on fire. I clamber to my feet, sadness replaced with anger within a millisecond. “Really? Would you have?”

 JJ furrows her eyebrows and looks to the team for more support. “Of course. Spencer is one of my best friends.”

 “We all would have helped him,” Morgan adds.

 “Oh, really?” I sneer at them. “Were you there to help him last month when he was detoxing? Did any of you come to see why Spencer and I took three weeks off from work without warning? No! None of you texted or called or visited like real friends do. Did you even care that he obviously had a drug problem? Did any of you notice?”

 Emily scoffs at the accusation, her anger starting to rise to mine. “Of course we did! I even asked him about it once and-”

 “Once!” I let out the most sarcastic laugh that has ever dripped from my lips. Sleeping patients be damned, I will let out my anger at these inferior ‘friends’ and tell them the truth they need to hear. “You asked him once? Well, I spent three weeks living at his apartment, cooking, cleaning, holding him, reassuring him that he would be okay. And all you did was ask him about it once?” The realization is starting to set in on their faces that maybe this issue is bigger than they thought. “He needed real help and support from his friends, and yeah, he had me but he would have done a lot better if he had all of his closest friends supporting him.” They all fall silent, as they should. They stare at me and each other and everyone cries over their friend who they should have helped.

 “Olive,” Hotch murmurs, “when you gave him the Narcan, did he wake up?”

 This prompts more tears. “No.”

 “Spencer Reid?”

 I whip around as fast as I can at the sound of a doctor approaching, leaving the team in the dust to approach him. “Hi, yeah, I’m here for Spencer Reid. I’m his emergency contact.”

 The doctor smiles at me and he waves me along, leading me away from the blabbering BAU and towards a room. “So,” the doctor says, “he’s extremely lucky. You administered the Narcan just in time. A few more minutes and Mr. Reid probably wouldn’t have made it.” I barely pay attention to the looming fear of Spencer’s death. If I hadn’t gone running out of the team meeting, Spencer would have died. “We’ve given him the proper medication, he’s in this room, and he should be waking up soon. When he’s feeling better, we can talk about proper treatment and recovery for Mr. Reid.”

 I thought that maybe I cried all the tears my body could handle but that is proven wrong. He’s going to be okay. Going through detox again will be hell but now he can get professional help. He’s going to be okay.

 I step into Spencer’s room. The sight of him lying in the bed is reminiscent of him lying on the bathroom floor and it makes my head pounds and my heart break. His elbow is bandaged up so his track marks are hidden and his hair is a matted down mess. But even lying there, helpless and in pain, he still looks like the man I fell in love with. The man who learned to braid hair and actually drove a car a few times and went shopping with me just to make me happy. He’s a shell of the man I love but he’s there and I know we will meet again soon.

 Spencer starts to stir a moment later, tossing his head side to side gently. I creep over and slide my hand in his, squeezing softly. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet but there are tears streaming down his cheeks, soaking the top hem of his hospital gown. His hand tightens around mine and suddenly, my cheeks match his.

 “Hi, sweetheart,” I breathe out, bringing our hands up to my lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles, “you’re okay. Everything is gonna be okay.”

 Spencer lets out a high pitched moan, his head rolling over to face me. “I’m sorry,” he slurs out. “I didn’t mean to.”

 “I know you didn’t mean it, Spence. I’m not mad. Just relax. I’ll be right here,” without letting go of his hand, I reach over and push a chair against the side of the bed. “Get some rest.”

 “You won’t leave me?”

 “No, Spence. I’m never gonna leave you.” 

[luucarii]

Persona 5 Ramblings

this shit is long. like really long.

and I sound like a crazed fangirl so....

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. IM TALKING ABOUT LIKE ALMOST EVERYTHING BUD!!!

also, i curse way too much in this... apologies in advance 

also, happy father’s day even though this has nothing to do with it :)

THIS IS ALL BACKGROUND ON ME BEFORE I GOT THE GAME SKIP TO THE NEXT BOLD PART IF YOU WANT TO HEAR MY OPINION ON THE GAME ITSELF.

Okay, so I’ve mentioned vaguely how Persona 5 is my first encounter with the Persona series. I’d heard bits and pieces about the series but I never really understood the concept of Persona until maybe mid April of this year. I was on spring break from school and I don’t remember how exactly how I stumbled across it but i found this playthrough of Persona 5 on youtube and I was mildly interested. So I clicked on it, and into the emotional rollercoaster that is this game i went.

At the time, there was only about 11 episodes of the play through (each around an hour long) so I binged watched each episode ending up with me staying up past 2 am. I was just so invested. The opening drew me in the minute the camera showed off that smug little bastard Joker’s smirk over the casino (I’ll get into why I love this kid and the rest of the cast later). I was confused since I was going into Persona 5 with no knowledge of the whole concept of Personas at all. I was kinda just like “wow this looks badass. What is he doing? Oh my god, this game is so pretty.”

I ended up skipping around once I got tired of waiting for a new episode and watched this long ass livestream. I got to about Okumura’s Palace before there was nothing left for me to watch but the boss battles uploaded, which did spoil me a little bit and got me a bit confused but I was so interested that I honestly didn’t care. I was so surprised at Niijima’s Palace and her boss battle as a whole and was like “SHIT THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME!!!! OH MY GOD EVERYTHINGS BACK”

From there, I skipped straight to the traitor - aka Akechi’s battle - and can I just say, I was not surprised that he had a Persona but I was surprised that he betrayed the group considering all the story shit I skipped. Shido’s fight was fairly interesting to me but again, I skipped a bunch of story shit so I was really just rooting for the Phantom Thieves because this was THE ASSHOLE WHO GAVE MY POOR LITTLE AKIRA A CRIMINAL RECORD.

Skipped a bunch of shit again and onto the fight with Yaldobaoth. At this point I was drawing a lot of similarities to Xenoblade Chronicles, fighting a God for freedom and then THEY PULLED THE WHOLE BELIEF THINGY (which they did at the end of Okami as well) AT THE END WITH MISHIMA AND THE REST OF TOKYO BELIEVING IN THE THIEVES AND I WAS SOBBING LIKE A LITTLE BITCH AT 2 AM.

And after that, I made it a point that one day I’d play this game for myself. And it was maybe a few days after that I finally got the game.

Now at the time (and still now) I didn’t own a PS4 and was forced to use my brother’s when he was at work. Adding to the fact that school was beginning to start up again, I had at most maybe 6 hours to play a day if homework didn’t take up all my time. So what might’ve taken me a few weeks to beat took me almost 2 months to beat because of timing. 

BUT OH WELL, I HAD THE GAME, I PLAYED THE GAME, I LOVED THE GAME AND NOW IM GOING TO SQUEAL LIKE A FANGIRL OVER EVERY ASPECT OF THIS GAME THAT I ADORED.

GAMEPLAY

Okay, so I’ve played my fair share of JRPGs and Persona 5 was a nice familiarity. All the dungeon crawling, the fighting, turn-base combat, ya’ll get it.

BUT UM THESE DUNGEONS (Palaces if you would) ARE FREAKING GORGEOUS, HELL THE GAME ITSELF IS GORGEOUS.

Each Palace and their respective Shadow ruler has their own design, personality and each are based on the seven deadly sins which (after finishing FullMetal Alchemist a few months earlier) I thought was clever and interesting.

Kamoshida’s castle was a nice balance of a first dungeon and “hey we’re not gonna hold your hand, this is fairly simply kill some Shadows, find the infiltration route and don’t get kicked out.” ALSO RYUJI AND ANN’S AWAKENINGS. JUST THAT. INCREDIBLE.

Madarame’s museum had a little bit more difficulty but was still fairly easy. The security bars kinda gave me a little anxiety considering I was still getting used to all the controls (I had just finished an Xbox One game before playing this so my buttons were mixed up) and the little painting guessing game was a bit dumb considering each Sayuri looked EXACTLY THE SAME TO ME (except the color swapped ones) ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING YUSUKE WAS THERE AND COULD HAVE EASILY TOLD US BUT NO HE WANTED TO TEST AKIRA’S ART SKILL. ARE YOU APART OF THE PHANTOM THIEVES OR NOT YUSUKE??????????

but i digress…

Kaneshiro’s bank was fun but GOD SEND THOSE FREAKING SECURITY CAMERAS AND THOSE SHADOW DOGS TO HELL OH MY GOD I HATED THOSE. See my thing is, I’m not exactly a stealthy person. Which is why I love hiding because you can sneak up on Shadows and ambush them easily. I hate raising security level and those damn dogs were so annoying and just ugh. Those dogs are honestly one of the few grips I have with the game. Also, MAKOTO IS THE ACTUAL QUEEN.

Futaba’s temple was by far the longest one for me in terms of gameplay hours (in game time took me about 2-3 days) but it was still fun nonetheless and I’m glad Futaba (who is one of my favorite female characters) got some closure on her story with her mother and was able to rise above that. I’m a sucker for tragic backstories when their well executed. (i still to this day do not know how to pronounce her Persona…)

Okumura’s spaceship was my favorite aesthetically because I’ve always been interested in space and the stars and the little puzzle at the end with the space pockets was a nice bit of challenging and flying through Metaverse space. ALSO HARU HAS FLUFFY FLUFF HAIR AND HAS MY SECOND FAVORITE PHANTOM THIEF OUTFIT 

hmm, i wonder who has my favorite Phantom Thief outfit... Joker... It’s Joker... god damn those red gloves

Niijima’s casino, which OH MY GOD WERE BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND AKECHI’S WITH US AHH, and WHIMS OF FATE IS BEST PALACE THEME.

It was my favorite palace, no questions asked.

Shido’s ship was another long one but finally getting revenge on this dick was incredible. Also, AKECHI AND RYUJI PLAYING WITH MY FEELINGS.

Mementos was a good idea as a whole but the way it was executed everything just sort of blended together for me and there were only a few requests that stood out to me. The music was bland (one of the blandest on the soundtrack, especially compared to the other Palace themes casually mentions Whims of Fates again) and during the late floors of Mementos, everything got so dark and it was really hard to see.

CHARACTERS

expect this to be me screaming a lot.

Akira Kurusu (Protagonist)

okay, um, i love this boy. like a lot. LIKE I WOULD DIE FOR HIM.

For a silent protagonist this guy sure has a lot of character. The rare times he speaks in cutscenes, specifically the ones where he’s Joker, he has this sort of cocky arrogance yet when he’s little Akira in his Shujin uniform he’s a quiet little curious boy. He’s incredible under pressure, like there’s only a few things that make him crack and his dialogue options are priceless.

I especially love Joker because I’m an honest to god mess when it comes to smug bastards and I have an unhealthy love for those crimson gloves of his.

But honestly he doesn’t deserve half the shit he gets in game. Besides the whole “game” set up by Yaldobaoth, he was sent away from his family and presumedly the friends he had back in his hometown all because of his probation, literally no one treats him with any sort of respect when he gets to Shibuya. Sojiro reminds him countless times the first what 3-4 months that he’ll be kicked out if he breaks his probation which (besides doing all that illegal shit as Phantom Thieves) he honestly just goes to school (a place where he gets even more shit from teachers and students), hangs out a little after and comes straight home. I know Akira’s been established to have a bad reputation because of his record but don’t these people have eyes??? Can’t they see that he’s obviously not a bad guy based on what he’s doing in school and not getting involved with the police??? Sojiro's exempt from this because he at least grows to like having Akira around and trusts him enough to go out at night, work in the store alone and lock up from him when he leaves.

AKIRA IS A GOOD BOY WHO DIDN’T DESERVE ALL THE SHIT GIVEN TO HIM

Also, Xander Mobus did a good ass job with his voice

Ryuji Sakamoto

see this post that basically sums up my feelings on this boy.

Also, Max Mittelman.

Ann Takamaki

CAN I JUST SAY ANN IS ONE OF THE BESTEST FRIENDS IVE EVER SEEN???????

Like she went through all that shit with Kamoshida, the harassment, possibly rape, all for freaking Shiho’s sake. Just… wow. That’s some freaking loyalty there. Shiho's the closest friend she has at Shujin (at least before the events of the game) and God knows how long she went along with Kamoshida’s bullshit all for Shiho. I mean I may sound a bit repetitive but holy shit that just amazes  me. SHE. ENDURED. SEXUAL. HARASSMENT. ALL. FOR. HER. BEST. FRIEND. And the minute she watched Shiho’s suicide attempt that was it. Any last bit of restraint she had left broke and she went full on at Kamoshida all for revenge for her best friend. My god.

Onto her confidant ranks, Ann is just a charismatic bundle of joy who just wants to make people happy. Yeah she butted heads with that girl (forgot her name…) and did fall down a little in terms of confidence but Akira and Shiho helped her through it and brought her back on her path of what she wants to do… Just ugh, I love Ann so much.

Yusuke Kitagawa

Yusuke’s a fan favorite and for good reason.

His backstory about how Madarame took him in after his mom died and overlooked his painting which led to the later plagiarism is an interesting one and I love how the Sayuri, the only thing left to connect him to his mother, is an important factor that leads to his realization of “oh shit this guy’s a dick who watched my mom die without helping her and he used me for money and fame.”

As a character though, Yusuke’s freaking weird. But i love him because of it. He has his formal tongue but that formal tongue casually overlooks any weird shit that comes out of his mouth. He doesn’t give any flying fucks about what people think of him and he speaks his mind like there’s no tomorrow. I still crack up at the nude painting scene with him and Ann because his mix of awkwardness and passion to paint a nice ass picture is just incredible. Also, another thing. He’s. So. Damn. Passionate. Like he ties art into everything, even fighting Shadows and he’s always looking for new ideas for paintings.

Also, Matt Mercer

Makoto Niijima

MAKOTO IS QUEEN.

She’s not my favorite female, that role goes to Futaba but she’s definitely number 2.

I genuinely have a love for the Niijima sisters because they complement each other so well. Sae’s the head of the house who also works tirelessly just to support her younger sister and it’s clear to see why Makoto would feel useless. She’s a high school student and as a student you really can’t do much that’ll pay the bills and keep food on the table unless you have a job which Makoto’s student council president and (i’m assuming) is in everything so it’d probably be hard as is to get a job and be of some sort of use to her sister. Then Kaneshiro comes around threatening her and Thieves and her sister and she just doesn’t want to feel useless anymore. She wants to do something after being forced to sit back and watch other people be counted on. And just, ugh, her awakening is by far my favorite out of all of them just because of everything behind it and just MAKOTO IS AMAZING, CASE CLOSED.

Also, Cherami Leigh.

Futaba Sakura

By far my favorite female as I feel our personalities are pretty damn similar. Besides her being a hacker and me not knowing anything about possibly illegal things like that, I relate to Futaba as she’s an introvert. She and I value our alone time and (although for different reasons) like being shut in. Now I’m not going to say Futaba and I share the same backstory because my God I’m honestly baffled how this girl went through years in solitude after her mother’s death thinking it was her fault. For one, she WATCHED HER MOTHER DIE IN FRONT OF HER. HOLY SHIT HOW DID THIS GIRL MANAGE TO FUNCTION WITH THAT MENTAL IMAGE IMPRINTED IN HER BRAIN???? AND THEN FOR YEARS ON END SHE LOCKED HERSELF UP AWAY FROM THE WORLD AND BEGAN HAVING ACTUAL PHYSICAL AND VERBAL HALLUCINATIONS AND IF IT WASNT FOR THE PHANTOM THIEVES SHE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE ENDED UP KILLING HERSELF AND I DONT WANT TO THINK OF A WORLD WITHOUT THIS ADORABLE LITTLE OTAKU.

also, i really ship her and Yusuke Inari

Haru Okumura

For one, Haru is freaking adorable, I mean look at her. She has the short little fluffy fluff hair and her voice is so light and feathery and polite and WHY DOES SHE COME SO LATE IN THE DAMN GAME????

I was lucky enough to manage to finish her confidant before the end of the game but when her confidant first opened up to me (getting rank 5 Proficiency was a bitch) at that point I was planning on not doing her confidant at all, I was just planning on getting Baton Pass and ditching her because I didn’t think I’d finish it. I did (at the cost of not finishing Makoto’s, still extremely disappointed on that) and I have to say Haru’s confidant was by far my favorite one out of the ones I maxed out.

Her whole thing is now that her father’s dead, she’s basically the one inheriting everything from Okumura Foods and she never really understood anything to begin with and she thinks everyone who’s trying to help her is just doing it for their own self-gain.  Okumura Foods, at this point, is attempting to rise back up after all the shit her father put the company through and all the current bad reputation it has. Haru’s never had a chance in her life to make things for herself. She’s always been told what to do and has been very obedient (even agreeing to marry a literal dickhead all for her father’s company) and suddenly she’s given all control and doesn’t know what to do with it. All these happy smiling faces offering their help just seem like people attempting to take advantage of her incompetence. Akira helps her through it like the amazing boy that he is and Haru ends up finally being able to speak her mind about the company and what SHE wants to do. She gives the company up to someone who she believes is trustworthy and decides that she’ll one day open a small little cafe like Leblanc in the future after college. And honestly, just her overcoming her distrust and her previous shell of being obedient to rising up and making her own decisions it makes me so happy and proud to see her grow and change and just UGGH I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS DAMN CAST.

Morgana

This cat, literally this cat. HE BELONGS WITH AKIRA AND THE REST OF THE THIEVES NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

Loud-mouthed, a little bit arrogant, Morgana is just an amazing character in general for me. I know Ryuji’s technically supposed to be the comic relief (and he does fulfill this role, don’t get me wrong) but I feel Morgana takes this spot too, especially the two bickering like an old married couple. I know some people hate on Morgana because of how he treats Ryuji and the amount of “go to bed” memes on Tumblr but all around Morgana is just a cat who was just looking for a place to call home. He was just looking for people to accept him.

And a part of me honestly hopes if there’s an add on for this game in the future, Morgana gets a human form because I’d love to see that.

Also, please tell me I’m not the only one who still mixes up Morgana’s gender. I still sometimes call him a her just out of habit because I can’t hear Cassandra Lee Morris as anything but a girl.

Also, Cassandra Lee Morris.

Goro Akechi

OKAY SO CONTROVERSY??? MAYBE??

I LIKE AKECHI

NO FUCK THAT

I LOVE AKECHI

LIKE HONEST TO GOD THIS BOY DESERVED BETTER.

Don’t misunderstand, I know he killed people. I know he caused all those shutdowns and was planning on killing the Thieves and eventually Shido himself (which now begs the question, say he did kill Shido, what next?)

I’m not denying anything he did. And yes, his backstory (although extremely saddening) does not justify his actions. He knew what he was doing and he still did it.

Akechi took the wrong path in his life. If anything you can sort of compare his story to Futaba’s in the sense that they both lost family members and were left with nothing. In Futaba’s case however, she still had people trying to help her. She had Sojiro who took her in after her uncle was abusing her or something and she had the Thieves who literally changed her heart and made her see the truth.

Akechi had absolutely nobody.

His mom died (suicide if I remember correctly), he was thrown into foster care, his own father (seriously, fuck Shido. Not just because of how he was with Akechi but everything in this damn game) didn’t even knew he existed. He had no acknowledgement, no affection, nothing. He was forced to make do with what little scraps he could find and make a life for himself.

Again, don’t misunderstand me. I know he killed people and his backstory does not justify his actions because he knew what he was doing was wrong. I’m just saying maybe if he had someone, anyone who was there to help him out, to pull him out of his misery he most likely would have been a different person. He wouldn’t have had his revenge for Shido be his only reason for living and he wouldn’t have gone out the way he did. It’s hard not to feel bad for him. He’s been alone all his damn life and all this guy really wanted was a friend, some teammates, people who wanted him around. I just wish Akechi had gotten a way to repent. I hate the fact that he died. One because we lost a good character and two because I genuinely believe that he wanted to change at the end. Akira changed him. The Thieves changed him. I wish he had gotten an ending where he could own up to his mistakes and be able to make up for lost time.

Just… ugh.

I’m apart of the “Akechi deserved better” group.

And I also ship Akeshu really really really hard.

Also, Robbie Daymond was freaking fantastic.

VERDICT

THIS IS LONG ENOUGH SO LET ME SUM IT UP IN A SENTENCE.

PERSONA 5 IS AMAZING, I LOVED IT.

[thespace-dragon]

Hi Mogi! Are there any Klance fics that you would recommend? Thanks :)

Oh good golly gosh, here goes my afternoon, because youre about to get a shit ton. xD

If you want to peruse my bookmarks feel free. the link has been filtered down to only klance fics, enjoy your time sifting through 150+ fics ^^; (i have no self control)  And then theres any of my stuff here because i need validation and have no shame with self plugs, but ill put the focus on the other fics for right now. ^^

But here are the ones i reallllyyyy recommend outside of the big name fics that literally the whole fandom knows about.:

Make Me Your Home by Reader115

Summary: “Oh my god, Keeeith,” Lance wheezed. “Keith you’re the best drunk space cadet I’ve ever seen.”“Space cadet,” Keith mumbled. He repeated the words again although his eyes had zeroed in on Lance’s hands and Lance offered no resistance when Keith picked one of them up and pulled it possessively towards his lap. He began to gently trace over Lance’s fingers, sending shivers up Lance’s arm and down his spine. “You have looong fingers,” Keith murmured after a few moments.Keith’s face perked up then, as if he’d just had a brilliant idea, and Lance could almost not wait to hear what new obscure thought had entered Keith’s pretty head. He was prepared to laugh, and instead found himself shivering again as Keith leaned far into his personal bubble, lips practically touching Lance’s ear when he spoke next.“I bet you could reach all kinds of things, Lance.”Update: Now with ART by suitboxers!!WC: 38169 (6/6)General Notes: just, omg? this fic has like it all, and it all fits into s2?? yes please?? i could not get enough of this fic and talking with the author, there is a rumor that they might write an epilogue and i like high key died. 10/10

Today, anew by MemeKonVLD

Summary: “Lance.”Lance’s eyebrows furrow in concern for a second before his whole face goes gentle and open.“Hey buddy, everything okay?”Keith nods. Then shakes his head, then opens his mouth to let out a noisy sob before he’s hugging the air out of Lance, grip vise tight.Lance hugs him back. That’s one of the great things about him— he doesn’t— he doesn’t need explanations for things like this. He doesn’t make Keith jump through hoops, the way other people might— he’s just— he just knows what Keith needs in times like this. No façades, no posturing.(Or: the one where Keith is trapped in a time loop. A time loop from hell.)WC: 5910 (6/6 chapters)General Notes: this was interesting to say the least, and one of my latest reads. I really enjoyed, told from Keiths pov and he’s stuck in a time loop. Angsty, but has a happy ending. 8/10

Voltron Cafe by PinkHitman

Summary: Lance is the number one butler at a maid cafe, and his number one customer? Just his old High School rival Keith.WC: 66422 (14/?)General Notes: This is really funny and quirky. Lance is adorable in all his dorky glory. The whole team is there and i cant count the times ive had to stifle laughter reading it because it was 3am and i really needed to sleep but, hey what are you going to do xD theres also a blog @voltron-cafe and the art is just as quirky as the fic and i love it to all get out. 9/10

a truth in the blood by angstinspace

Summary: “I’m Galra, Lance.”It’s the first time he’s said those words out loud––and to Lance of all people. He should feel horrified at himself but somehow, he doesn’t. In fact, an eerie calmness has settled over him. Everything comes sharply into focus as he stands there, still holding Lance’s wrist, breathing in and out, waiting for a response. A post “Blade of Marmora” fix-it fic. Mostly broganes & klance bonding.WC: 7489General Notes: So theres a little bit of angst in this, but it does a really good job of filling in the blanks of what could have happened between ep8 and ep9 of s2. I really liked it, has some Broganes in there and Klance bonding. 8/10

Starlight by epiproctan

Summary: For once, Lance tries to be responsible for something. Namely, his feelings. Needless to say it doesn’t go well.WC: 7719General Notes: Lance pov, honestly this boy tries so hard to keep the team dynamic the same, but it never goes well. goes with the trope that EVERYONE knows about mutual pining klance, but goes a different direction just for the hell of it. i loved it. 9/10

He Who Fights Monsters by magisterpavus

Summary: In a world where monstrous dragons terrorize humanity daily, the Garrison trains valiant Knights to slay the evil beasts and defend Earth. But when Knight cadet Lance Espinosa is kidnapped by a strange red dragon who kills its own kind, certain truths are revealed…and so are the true monsters. WC: 64888 (13/13)General Notes: holy fuck do i love this fic, cuz like, wow. Im a sucker for dragons and i loved the way the author inocrporated them into this fic and made it freaking work. A+++. Lots of action, drama-rama and Lance learns a thing or two about hs feelings along the way. 10/10

Burning Love by TeaAndKittens

Summary: An injury sustained on the job for firefighter Keith means an extended medical leave that makes him feel useless and angry. He’s so desperate to get back to his crew at Station 5 that he’s almost willing to try anything - except yoga. Especially after Hunk calls this friend of his that owns a yoga studio and Keith gets supporting evidence for his claim that only crazy people practice yoga.Somehow, despite all of that, Hunk and Shiro manage to bully him into at least trying it. He shows up for that first class expecting to hate it. What he’s not expecting is for Hunk’s friend to be hot like the fire of a thousand suns. Or even more insane in person.Or: Keith’s life. So Hard.WC: 7017 (2/?)General Notes: Firefighter Keith and yoga instructor lance,,, um yes please! this fic is just getting started but i really love it so far. 8/10

Sharps and Accidentals by Zizzani

Summary: Keith is a talented up and coming violin virtuoso. Lance hates him immediately.Or an AU in which Lance and Keith both attend the same music university. Keith is deaf. Lance is Trying™.WC: 39528 (9/?)General Notes: ok, so i just really love this a lot. im a band nerd so music is like my thing, and this is honestly great. Deaf keith, and lance… poor lance, hes trying ok? Im a couple updates behind, but i really love it a lot. 9/10

bouncing off exit signs by steelthighsvoideyesSummary:

Summary: This is the story of two absolute idiots who keep searching for what they’ve already found. WC: 40147 (yes on chap xD)General Notes: this is like one of those comfort fics for me, i binged it one night, and it was amazing. Based off the song Closer by The Chainsmokers. honeslty, well done. 10/10

Duly Noted by TeaAndKittens

Summary: Keith has a box full of scraps of paper, a lovingly archived collection of all the notes Lance has written him so far in their relationship. Their son has a box just like it, and soon their newly adopted daughter will too.Or: 5 (-ish) notes Lance wrote to Keith, beginning with the one that started it all, and 1 Keith wrote backWC: 4913General Notes: this was so fucking cute that i really couldnt stop smiling the whole way through. lance leaving notes everywhere is just so him. 10/10

The Quiet by MilkTeaMiku

Summary: Does he not realise he’s dead?Keith can see ghosts. As a part of his Garrison training, he’s sent to a hospital to do one year of medical clerkship - it’s there that he meets a charmingly irritating ghost who definitely needs to learn what boundaries are.WC: 38000 (19/?)General Notes: Stop reading this list and fucking read this oh my gawd. It is that good, go on, shoo 10/10

Flirting with Death by drippingpen

Summary: Keith commits the ultimate taboo as a grim reaper: he saves a life.More specifically, he saves Lance’s life.Now they are forever linked, unable to survive without the other. Keith must protect Lance from the forces that are trying to right Keith’s wrong and kill Lance.WC: 29346 (9/?)General Notes: yoooo, my friend is reading this, and she is doing such a great job with it. Grim Reaper Keith and lance is high key supposed to be dead, and its awesome. Pidge is as nosey as ever and Hunk is pure™. give it a read, really. 10/10

Days Like Today by literal_trashbaby

Summary: For all Lance’s snarking and posturing, all that easy, cheery confidence, for all his charm and his pretty, pretty smiles (which absolutely did not make Keith a little weak in the knees, no sir). Just every now and then, Keith thought his smile would go just a tiny bit tight around the edges, and he’d go just a little quiet… well, quiet for Lance. And on the days when Lance was just that little bit… Not-Lance, like a force of nature he would, without fail, pull one side of his lower lip into his mouth and just chew on it, destroying those poor, perfect lips. Days like today.OR: Lance is Having a Day and Keith is somehow the only person to notice.WC: 3159General Notes: I love it when people write Keith picking up on Lance’s tendencies, its so freaking cute and my heart cannot handle. 9/10

so why don’t we fall by akinghtley

Summary: Five times Lance used a pet name for Keith, and one time Keith used one for Lance.Keith has no basis for having a relationship with someone, so he’s trying to follow Lance’s lead.WC: 8218General Notes: NSFW saying that now. but i love pet names, and this was all so cute. Touch of angst, but it makes up for it with fluff. I love it. 9/10

I think tht does it for fic recs rn, i could literally go through all of my bookmarks and list every one of them, but lets face it that would take forever.

Hope you enjoy all that fics!

[sariasprincy]

Where it Happened iii - ItaSaku

Part i    Part ii    Part iii (here)    Part iv

Where it Happened part iii

It was a quiet night. The ICU patients were resting peacefully, the OR rooms were empty and the residents covering the ER moved with purpose but not urgency. Everything was calm – far too calm for Itachi's liking. The lull in cases made him restless, knowing that the stillness was usually the calm before the storm, and the urge to sit and listen to the ambulance scanner in the ER tugged on him, but he curbed his desire by busying himself with checking in on his patients and updating their charts.

The hour wasn't too late and so he took his time as he moved room to room. He ordered the necessary medications for the patients in discomfort and made sure not to disturb those resting before he wandered into the attending breakroom for a quick refresher. The coffeepot was mostly empty and he dumped out the leftover from the afternoon rush before he replaced the grinds with fresh ones and set it to brew. As it was being made, he checked his phone only to sigh to himself as he noticed he had another missed call from his mother. He knew he should return it as it was her second one that day, but with the time difference he knew she would be in bed by now and he hated the feeling of relief that swept through him.

However, his guilt faded as he found several unanswered texts from his older cousin and longtime best friend. They were mostly light-hearted and teasing as Shisui complained once again about his absence. It wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation but Itachi played along knowing that he was most likely passing time as he sought out the prettiest girl at the bar or binge watched all the sports games he had missed while being stuck in surgery.

He couldn't recall how many nights Shisui had showed up at his condo, a six-pack in hand and a grin on his face as he asked to borrow his television so he could see if his favorite team had won. Itachi never understood why his cousin insisted on viewing them at his flat instead of his own but he never asked. They were as close as brothers and if Shisui wanted to spend his nights on his couch, he wouldn't deny him.

Thinking of his best friend put Itachi in a somber mood. He missed Shisui and even though it had only been a few months since he had last seen him, they had been some of the longest days of his life. He hadn't realized until he moved how accustom he'd become to waking up in the morning to find his cousin snoring on his couch. But he wasn't ready to pay a visit home yet. The events from a few months before were still too fresh.

After answering Shisui's texts, Itachi replaced his phone in his pocket and reached for the coffeepot just as his pager went off. Automatically he grabbed it and quickly read the short, emergency message before he replaced the coffeepot on the burner and ran out of the room, his mug left forgotten on the counter.

With quick steps, he raced through the hall and towards the elevator banks that would take him down to the Emergency Room. Just as he suspected, the night had no plans of sitting still, not that he had any complains. Surgery always made the nights on-call pass far quicker and the thought of being in the OR woke him up more than any amount of caffeine could.

The moment the doors opened, Itachi reached for one of the trauma gowns on the shelf near the elevator and pulled it on as he made his way towards the entrance doors. Kakashi was already outside upon his arrival, two residents beside him.

"What do we have?"

The older male glanced at him and nodded in greeting before his mismatched eyes returned down the drive the ambulance would be arriving from. "Car accident victim. Sounds like a massive chest injury. You might be in for a busy night."

Itachi hummed noncommittally as he finished pulling on his gloves. "How far out?"

"Should be here any second."

As if on cue, an ambulance suddenly turned up the drive, their lights and sirens on. They silenced them as they approached the entrance. The moment the vehicle was put into park, the doctors moved. A paramedic jumped out the driver side door to greet them. "Fifty-four-year-old female, t-boned by a drunk driver. She had low stats in the field, but the emergency thoracotomy has stabilized them for the most part-."

Both Kakashi and Itachi glanced at the paramedic sharply. "Thoracotomy?" Kakashi repeated.

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "Who gave you the authority to perform one?"

The emergency worker held up his hand defensively before he turned towards the back of the rig. "She insisted."

"She?"

Both men turned as he opened the back of the ambulance. Their eyes widened as the occupants to the rig were revealed. The first person that immediately caught Itachi's attention was Yamanaka Ino. She was sobbing hysterically. Her clothes were stained and ripped in places, but it appeared she wasn't critically injured as she was helped out of the back of the rig. The moment she was out of the way, Itachi understood what the paramedic had meant.

Haruno Sakura was sitting next to the stretcher. She was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a light jacket with her long, pastel pink hair down and falling around her in face and shoulders in soft waves. It was the first time he had seen her out of scrubs but that fact fell unnoticed as his gaze dropped to her hand. It was inside the woman's chest.

Kakashi turned to one of the residents. "Call down to the OR. Make sure they're ready for us."

The young woman hesitated, obviously not wanting to miss such an unusual surgery, but eventually she nodded. The moment she was gone, Kakashi returned his attention to Ino. "What happened?"

He grasped her arm but she shook her head, unable to explain through her tears.

"There was a car accident," Sakura said as she slowly stood, her attention focused on not letting her hand slip as they prepared to remove the gurney from the ambulance. "She has a tear in her right ventricle wall. I've plugged the hole for now, but my hand has been in here for twenty minutes and I can feel it widening. There's something sharp in here. I'm not sure if it's glass or bone."

"All right," Kakashi said. He reached out to Sakura as they prepared to move her and their patient out of the ambulance. "On my counter. One, two, three."

With careful movements, the doctors and paramedics helped the pair out as they made sure Sakura's hand didn't move an inch. They moment they were settled on the ground, Kakashi placed his hand to her lower back. "Jump on. We need to get to surgery."

Immediately Ino pushed forward, her blue eyes full of tears and her expression displaying her fear. "I-I can't…I don't-."

Sakura glanced up at her best friend. "Ino, we've got her," she said, her voice assuring but firm. She then turned to the remaining resident. "Stay with her. You do not let her out of your sights." Only once she received an acknowledgement did she redirect her attention back to the crying woman. "Go wait for me. I'll find you."

"But-."

"Ino!"

She broke down into fresh tears but stepped back and allowed them to pass. Without further delay, they rushed inside the hospital with Sakura standing on the side of the stretcher and Kakashi beside her with a supportive hand to her back. Only once they were in the elevator did the older male glance up at her. "You going to tell me what the hell that was about?"

It was a moment before she answered, "Our patient is Ino's mother."

Itachi looked up at her as the weight of their responsibility suddenly pressed heavily on his shoulders. It was always there whenever he entered surgery, but the fact that this patient had personal ties to a doctor within the hospital only made it all the more clear.

Itachi briefly met Sakura's eyes over the injured woman before the sound of the elevator drew her gaze upwards to the row of numbers above the door. He continued to watch her. She looked equal parts stunning and fierce in her fitted jeans and simple but classy blazer, and he would have thought her style to be flawless – if not for the fact she was covered in blood. Her arm up to her elbow was speckled red while her jacket was moderately stained. There was a bloody smear near her collarbone, but his attention too turned to the floor numbers as they neared the OR.

"Haruno, you are not going to be able to scrub for obvious reasons," he said, his gaze falling back to her. "Hatake and I still need to. The surgical staff will gown you and we will meet you in there. Do not remove your hand under any circumstances until I tell you to."

Even given their current situation, Sakura still managed to a weak smirk. "What do you think I am? A first-year?"

Itachi shot her a look but said nothing �� nor did anyone else. The moment the doors opened, they pushed the stretcher out of the elevator. A team met them, and both Itachi and Kakashi turned away as the other members of the OR began prepping both Sakura and their patient.

The men scrubbed thoroughly, ensuring they didn't rush even as the desire to hurry and get into the room tugged on them. Kakashi was the first to speak. "How do you want to do this?" he asked as he glanced at Itachi out of the corner of his eyes.

"One step at a time."

His mind was already running through the outcomes of what could happen next. He mentally checked what would need to be done with each scenario, but the possibilities were endless. He wouldn't know exactly what they were dealing with until they got in there.

Washing the suds from his arms and hands, Itachi walked into the OR with Kakashi on his heels. He accepted the sterile towel from one of the nurses and dried his hands before he slipped into the gown and gloves. Sakura was looking far more familiar in her own surgical attire. One of the nurses had pulled her hair away from her shoulders and tied a mask over her mouth and nose, leaving only her eyes exposed. They were fixated on the patient's side.

"Shall we get started then?" Kakashi said pleasantly. His easy tone cut through the tension of the room.

Kakashi stepped up next to Sakura as Itachi automatically slipped into the primary surgeon's position across from her. He held out his hand. "Ten blade."

Together, he and Kakashi worked quickly but carefully as they widened the woman's chest around Sakura's wrist and revealed the damage they were dealing with. It appeared a rib fracture had caused the tear in the woman's ventricle wall and was threatening to do further damage with every beat of her heart. The only thing currently preventing her from bleeding out was Sakura's finger as she plugged the hole. He would need to repair the break before he could remove her hand. It wouldn't take long, but it was the damage to the patient's heart that was of far more concern. There was more blood than there should be.

With a practiced hand, Itachi repaired the break until it was no longer in danger of causing further damage and finally turned to her. "All right, Haruno, when I give you my word, I want you to take your hand out slowly and carefully."

He glanced up to see her nod, her eyes focused solely on her hand. His gaze flickered to Kakashi to get his confirmation as well before he returned his attention to the patient under his knife. Holding his hand out to his scrub nurse, he requested the necessary tools and exhaled slowly.

"Okay, now."

Gently Sakura removed her hand, paying special attention not to further widen the tear or cause any other damage as she slipped her hand out. The moment she was free, Itachi began working as Kakashi suctioned the blood out of his way. They moved quickly and efficiently as Sakura stepped away and allowed them room.

"All right, let me get scrubbed and I'll assist," she said.

Immediately Itachi glanced up at her before his gaze turned to Kakashi as he addressed her. "Sakura, we've got this. You should go find Yamanaka and update her."

Behind her mask, her eyes widened in surprise. "What? No, I want to help."

"I know, but right now she needs you more than we do," Kakashi explained patiently. "Besides, didn't you say you were in a car accident? You should get yourself checked out."

"I'm fine," she stressed.

Kakashi fixed her with a stare. "Sakura. Go."

She hesitated but after a tense minute, her shoulders slouched in acceptance. "Fine. But you'll page me the moment you're done?"

"I wouldn't dream of doing anything else," he smiled.

With his promise, she finally turned and exited the room.

The moment she was gone, Kakashi briefly flickered his gaze to Itachi. "You better be able to fix this, otherwise she will never speak to either of us again."

Itachi peered up at him, his lips pursed behind his mask. "This is a very difficult injury. It will be a long one."

He could feel Kakashi's hidden frown, but neither male said anything further as they turned their attention to their work.

##

It was late – or was it early? Sakura didn't know. She had been up so long she no longer knew what time it was but nor did she particularly care to know as she continued to sit in the Attendings' Lounge and half-watch whatever cooking show was on television. Nara Shikamaru, one of the hospital's best Radiologists, had taken Ino some time ago to get her cleaned up and the small gash on her head checked out. Naruto had sat with her for a little while after they had left, but he had been pulled into an emergent surgery himself not long after, leaving her to herself.

Sakura had taken the lull in activity to shower and change into a pair of scrubs – both to wash the blood off herself and to pass the time – but it hadn't taken very long and she found herself growing restless the longer Kakashi and Itachi were in surgery. She knew the extent of Ino's mother's injuries and was aware that it would be a lengthy surgery but the longer she sat, the more worried she became. She had told countless family members in the past that their loved ones had died in surgery, but she didn't know how to tell her best friend that her mother hadn't survived. She wanted to be in there, wanted to know exactly what was going on, but she knew Kakashi was right for kicking her out; there was no place for emotions in the OR.

Staring blankly at the television screen, Sakura watched absentmindedly as the chefs prepared an intricate meal. The food looked delicious and at any other given point in time, it would have made her mouth water but at that moment, the only thing on her mind was the heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach and how she wished someone would bring her an update.

It was nearly an entire episode later when movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Sakura turned her head slowly only for her exhaustion to vanish as she recognized Kakashi. He stopped at the end of the couch and quickly she stood to face him. It was then she realized he was not alone as Itachi leaned against the door frame, his expression tired but otherwise unreadable. The fact that they were both there made the lump in her stomach grow heavier.

"Please tell me I don't have to tell my best friend her mother is dead."

It was then that she realized there was a small smile on Kakashi's face. "You don't have to tell your best friend her mother is dead."

Relief swept through her so abruptly she thought her knees might give out on her for a moment and she dragged a tired hand down her face. "Oh gods…" she breathed. The stress she had been harboring all night vanished in that single exhale.

"There were some complications during the surgery," Kakashi continued slowly, "but we do expect her to make a full albeit long recovery."

"As long as she's stable."

"She is," Itachi confirmed.

Sakura glanced at him and breathed another sigh of relief before she swiped the remote off the couch and clicked the television off. "I should go tell Ino. Shikamaru took her up to MRI."

Kakashi stopped her with a hand to her shoulder before she could walk around him. "I think Uchiha can inform Yamanaka. Did you ever get yourself checked out?"

"'Kashi, I'm fine. It wasn't my side that was hit."

He gave her a stern look. "Sakura."

There was an undertone of warning in his voice that she had come to recognize while she had been an intern all those years ago. She knew she currently had two options: either she went to CT willingly or he would drag here there himself. Eventually she sighed. "All right, fine," she agreed reluctantly. "But it better be fast. My shift starts in an hour."

"I will cover for you," Itachi interjected. "Go get yourself looked at, Haruno."

Sakura glanced at him in surprise. "Oh. Okay."

Itachi merely nodded at the pair before he excused himself. She watched him take his leave before she followed him out of the room and turned the opposite way down the hall, intent on getting cleared as quickly as possible. She knew Itachi had been on-call all night.

However, it wasn't long before she realized she had a shadow. "Where are you going?" she asked Kakashi.

"I am making sure you don't get distracted on your way to CT."

She gave him a flat look. "Okay, dad."

"I love it when you talk dirty."

With a laugh, Sakura shoved him with her shoulder as they ventured further into the hospital. She would never admit it – though she was certain he already knew – that she was grateful for the company. It had been a long night by herself.

##

It was just past sunrise when Sakura wondered into the Attending's Changing Room. Her shift was supposed to have started a few hours ago but with her recent accident, she had been forced to wait for the necessary departments to clear her before she could resume her work. A yawn forced itself out of her mouth as she passed another attending and she nodded at them politely before she continued towards her cubby.

She spotted Tenten a few benches down but the older woman was busy talking to Hyuuga Neji, their Neurology Department Head, to notice her and she bit back her smile and averted her gaze as she watched them flirt awkwardly. It was then that she realized Itachi was sitting on another bench a few lockers down from hers as he stared down at his phone. Her sudden amusement vanished as a sense of guilt came over her. She had been too exhausted to remember to thank him for his work in the surgery and for covering her shift, and her lack of manners made discomfort fill her as she slowly approached her cubby.

Sakura glanced in his direction, but he didn't look up at her as he continued to stare down at his screen. She hesitated a moment before she eventually forced herself to speak. "Hey."

Itachi looked up at her slowly. "Hey," he echoed monotonously.

"I wanted to say thanks for tonight."

His expression didn't change. "I was doing my job."

"I know," Sakura nodded. She shifted to lean against her locker as she better faced him. "But thanks anyway. I couldn't have asked for better hands in there."

"You are welcome," he said.

A small smile crossed his face, softening his handsome features. It made an unusual feeling bubble in her stomach, but the look was gone as quickly as it had come before he returned his gaze down to his phone. It was then that she realized there was a slouch to his shoulders she hadn't seen before that was accompanied by a barely noticeable but tight expression on his face. He almost appeared sad.

"Are you all right?" she asked before she could stop herself. "You seem…" she trailed off, unsure how to word her next statement.

Itachi merely shut off his phone and pocketed the device before he glanced up at her again as he stood. The look was gone. "I am fine. You, on the other hand, should get some rest. You have been up all night."

The abrupt change in subject was not lost on her, but she didn't press. His business was his own. Instead she merely cocked her brow at him. "You've been up all night too."

"Yes, but I was on-call. And you were in a car accident."

"I was cleared."

"But you are exhausted."

As if to prove his point, she yawned. Quickly Sakura held up a hand to cover it, but Itachi merely stared at her, a smirk playing in the corner of his mouth. "Go get some rest. Page me when you are awake."

A frown marred her features but after a moment, she relented. "Fine. Thanks," she said, her mouth curving into a smile.

She turned away from him to retrieve her pager from her locker, but before she left to find herself the nearest on-call room, she chanced a glance back at the older male. He was riffling through his own locker. His expression was calm, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was bothering him, something was weighing on him.

But she knew it wasn't her place to ask and so she merely wished him a good night before she retreated from the room. Her only thought was on finding the closest on-call room.

tbc…

[notsdlifter]

Addled Roots: Prologue

The Apocalypse Obsession

The apocalypse was a national obsession, you could say. People always talked about the end of the world. Every summer, Hollywood churned out blockbusters about robots pushing mankind to the brink of extinction. For a decade-long stretch, the most popular show on TV had zombie herds wandering across the country like the buffalo used to tromp across the Great Plains. People had fears galore: global warming, rising seas, super flus, super volcanoes, giant meteoroids, toxins in our food, air, and water. Y2K was supposed to signify the collapse. Then it was the end of the Mayan calendar. The sun itself was a massive flare away from frying all the electronics on the planet and sending us back to the Neolithic Age. It was just a matter of time before some flop-haired billionaire pushed us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. The apocalypse was right around the corner and we were all chewing our fingernails off waiting for it to arrive. Oh, those were the good old days. 

If I could go back to 2018, I would be the Apocalypse’s Paul Revere. “People,” I’d warn, “The apocalypse isn’t coming… The apocalypse isn’t coming. IT’S ALREADY HERE!” 

Here is a quick history lesson. The “first beast” of the apocalypse was invented in Japan in 1893 when a chemist used western science to understand ancient Asian medicines. The Nazis gave a synthesized version of it to soldiers during World War II and the drug-crazed Wehrmacht blanketed half of Europe in a furious Blitzkrieg.  The tentacles of the beast spread across America in the 1950s. It started as a simple pick-me-up, a good time booster that beatnik poets used for fuel. Then it was outlawed in the 1970s by the American government relegating it to biker gangs and hardened drug users. By the late 1980s, Americans were making it in their bathtubs and houses were exploding from Ogunquit Maine to the salt flats of California. It shattered rural American communities like Little Boy’s blast flattened Hiroshima. Crystal Methamphetamine, is far and away the most abused drug in the history of the world. 

The Drug Epidemic

In late 2018, while America was deep in the throes of a quarter century old meth epidemic, another drug started to wreak its havoc. A “second beast”—if you will briefly indulge my hyperbole—had legitimate roots, and many got it by prescription and in pill form. It had a handful of names: oxy, roxy, fentanyl, black tar, china, chiva, smack, heroin… call it what you will. All of them were from the same family of opioids. Unlike its bastardized brother meth, opioids reached into all levels of society. It hit housewives just as hard as street users. Unsuspecting patients were prescribed the drug by their trusted family doctor for an injury only to begin the spiral of addiction. People bought it in the mail, off the shadow internet, and had it FedExed to their houses. Pill mills were seemingly in every strip mall in America. Opioids were everywhere, more ubiquitous than the Golden Arches of McDonalds. 

A syndemic is the study of two epidemics and how they interact. Imagine, if you will, two massive epidemics each wielding a crippling outcome of addiction in millions of people. On the one hand, you have the meth scourge, arguably one of the worst in world history.  On the other, you have the opioid crisis that was rumored to be so debilitating both economically and socially that it alone have removed America’s status as a superpower. Now what if both of those epidemics fed off each other and exponentially magnified the negative consequences? What if they were spinning at breakneck speeds in opposite directions in a social particle accelerator and smashed together? New elements are born that have unforeseen consequences. That is a syndemic effect. And that is exactly what happened to the Great U.S. of A. 

The opioid epidemic was sucked into areas that were already ravaged by meth like light hits a black hole. And in the pressure and darkness of those afflictions, something truly malevolent sprung from the track-marked carcasses of dying addicts.  There was an interaction, an unexpected agitator that spun people into a specific mindset. It wasn’t pure rage, not exactly, because there was a calculating aspect even though they moved with reckless abandonment. These addicts awoke from a figuratively dead sleep with the intent to murder. They had—to borrow a word from the legal community—a “depraved heart” and singular purpose. 

“Oh, you poor fuckers,” I’d say, “you should have seen it coming.” 

A Rash of Drug Overdoses

The addicts called it a “goofball.” It was a mixture of meth and heroin heated in a spoon. The high was a combination of the warm bath sedation of heroin and the frantic euphoria of IV meth. A high-low lethal amalgamation that some addicts described as a tearing in half of the soul. Overdoses skyrocketed. There was a public outcry and a flurry of class action lawsuits aimed at the manufacturers, distributors, and the physicians who wrote the scripts. A hundred thousand died in a three-month period. And, in this little bitty town in the middle of nowhere, there were a handful of ODs that didn’t stay dead.  

It all began in a spot between Denver and Saint Louis. I’m not sure if it happened when some hapless local queued up a “goofball” in a dirty spoon and put a match to it. But I do know that it started with a new synthesis of meth. It wasn’t more powerful than the Mexican meth cooked in super labs or more potent than Walter White’s mythical “baby blue.” But this meth, when it was mixed with an opioid and heated, grabbed peoples’ brains and never let them go. It dipped its tentacles deep into the gray matter and molded the perfect soldiers of the apocalypse.

The signs were everywhere. While people were helplessly plugged into their phones and sprouting roots into their couches binge watching Netflix, America was deteriorating like a bad case of meth mouth. The epidemic hit the rural Midwest first. Addicts showed signs of “the shakes.” Oh, dear God the shakes. These addicts were like normal meth fiends: the rotten teeth, the open sores, hallucinations, advanced aging, the insatiable desire to find the next fix… the whole kit and caboodle. But they appeared only at night in rural areas and in massive packs. They looked like your general run-of-the-mill meth heads but they were different. Really different. 

So, yeah, about the “goofballs”—turns out that was an apt nickname. Do you remember Looney Tunes when Bugs drank poison? His eyes bulged out, arms contorted in lighting fast poses. That was the cartoon version isolated to a single subject. The real-life shakes were this twitchy, spastic shuffle that was eerily coordinated across groups of people. They moved as a unit like nocturnal predators. Once the shakes came, they always packed up and hunting for the living, all while burning swaths of homes to the ground. And these things, these fucking drug beasts, could cut and move like NFL slot receivers. They were dead addicts, with only one key difference. They didn’t eat brains or human flesh. Though they were not alive, they were not undead either. They seemed to exist somewhere between the planes of alive and dead in some biological limbo. These “dead addicts” had only one purpose: to head out at night in large, fast moving packs to murder, burn, and infect. The screams and the flames spread across the country like a viral advertisement.

A year into the syndemic, as the shakes exploded across rural America, there were probably only twenty thousand dead addicts. That sounds like a lot, but they were spread out. The government might have handled things. The larger cities immediately put up fence lines, thick walls, and check points. Martial law and the army’s use of nighttime firing lines and shoot-on-sight strategies were effective for a time. Most places could have ridden out the fires and roving killing herds. But there were issues that no one fully understood. 

These dead addicts didn’t drag their feet and listlessly moan while shuffling toward a meal. They moved in predatory packs and tightly controlled formations.  After they hit an area, they rarely returned. And there are other things, too. They sent out small groups to test the strength of a wall or estimate the total firepower of a defensive position. When they strike, they did it with such an awesome display of force. Twenty thousand rapidly-moving, living corpses, all pressed into and over cement barriers while under a barrage of machine gun fire. The dead addicts scratched and bit and bleed in their frantic, flailing way. It was all so militaristic, like they had a general. And they retreated into dark areas to wait out the day hiding in older sewer lines, in abandoned houses, or just buried themselves in the dirt. Only the most fortified places are still standing, but even they will eventually fall.  

The Troubled Children

Right after the outbreak of the shakes, before shit went south, a new wrinkle appeared. Something started happening with the kids. They were always children of a certain age, slightly older than toddlers and not quite teenagers. You know kids in that horribly awkward stage of life? The big elbows, comically skinny legs, and bad hair. Almost always they were grade-schoolers somewhere between second and sixth grade. These kids became susceptible, open to control. There were many stories of grade-schoolers stopping in mid-stride, always with their head tilted slightly and a thousand-yard stare, before engaging in a brief fit of terrorism. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, they threw open gates. They went on violent rampages. They broke into weapon stashes and fuel depos with catastrophic results. A minute later, the kids would be sitting, sobbing, completely oblivious to the world. Utterly unaware of their acts. 

City leaders came up with various plans to deal with the children, all of them equally flawed: (1) isolate, (2) segregate, or (3) eliminate. That would have been a fine plan if talking about a rat infestation or coyotes killing calves. But these were kids. You do not fuck with people’s kids. The slightest insinuation that the government was planning to “deal” with the “kid problem” turned soccer moms into suicide bombers. I honestly believe that Martha Stewart would peel the skin off your face with a butter knife if you threatened her children. All hell broke loose, and it never stopped breaking. No place was safe. There was chaos inside the cities. It always seemed like any place was on the verge of collapse. In the countryside, there was a desperate horror. If the killing herds found you—and there were millions of dead addicts tediously searching everything—they would kill you. 

Token-Oak

All this aforementioned shit started in the little town of Token-Oak. My hometown. And I’d like to tell you that no one saw this behemoth coming, that it was some chemistry accident stumbled upon by a bathtub chef who unwittingly created the batch that brought the greatest military in world history to its knees. But there was one person who saw this whole damn thing decades before it started. 

Before the emergency declarations and mobilization of the national guard, she knew. Before the major cities were surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers with check points every thirty miles on major highways, she knew. Before all rural America became uninhabitable and uncrossable, my grandma knew what was coming. She knew it all the way back in the late 1980s, the first time we saw a meth addict in Token-Oak. She saw the fall and, in her own way, prepared me for what was coming. And everyone thought she was crazy. 

God, I should have seen it, too. It was always right in my face grabbing me by the ears throughout my life. As a kid in Token-Oak, the meth crisis had just taken hold with bathtub cooks springing up everywhere. When I moved away as an adolescent, I saw it increase a little more each time I returned to the town. Little pockets of the apocalypse—lab explosions, rampant murder, and disappearances—were all over Token-Oak. And as an adult that got trapped in that pit of hell, I was at ground zero when the syndemic started. I was in the eye of the hurricane, a silent circle as the ferocious winds of the storm tore the country apart. 

I don’t think we will ever make it back, not to normal anyway. Once the world has been saturated with enough blood, it has forever changed. After the whole scale slaughter of the American Indians, a nation of roads and laws and good Christian morality sprang up in their place. But underneath it all—waiting in the shiny new world—there was this bitterness, the cold reality that human beings are capable of the gravest infliction of suffering and pain. And that is why we were all so obsessed with the Apocalypse. Because deep down, we all knew it was coming. Because it had been here many times before. 

But what I know now is that we wanted it to come, too. And the thing that keeps me awake at night is the thought that we needed the apocalypse in many ways. A fresh start. A clean slate. Call it whatever you want, but millions felt that way before the collapse. 

My story is not the most exciting tale of the downfall—hell, you will find any account of the survivors from the shake attack on Chicago more riveting. It’s not the sexiest, it doesn’t have the best intel on the government response, though there is a great deal written in these pages about how to survive a night in America when they come for you. And they always come for you. But my story is the most complete of all the stories. I was a child in Token-Oak during the syndemic’s humble beginnings in the late 1980s. And, in a blind stroke of luck, I was a graduate assistant at the University of Chicago when the government first tested human brains for the shakes. I was the first person, due to my professional training and location, to recognize that there was a problem with certain American kids. And, somehow, I ended up back home on the day the syndemic officially began. I was at ground zero every step of the way. There is not another person alive or dead that can say the same thing. 

I never thought my life would end up like this. Not in a million years did I think a child from Token-Oak would be on the forefront of the apocalypse. There is a good chance that everyone will be dead soon. The spread has done nothing but intensify since the outbreak. Each passing month, another small pocket of resistance, another American city, succumbs to the killing herds. 

If I told you that I don’t know why I am writing this book, I’d be lying. It will probably never be read by another human being. There won’t be awards, no reading circles, it will not be published. And I can tell you that writing these pages at night nearly drowning in sounds of screaming and the gnashing of teeth has not been easy. But I write this nightly for selfish reasons. It keeps me alive, pushes me to fight on, to scrounge food and keep my weapons clean. Because in these pages, buried somewhere in my memory of the downfall, is a secret. Something hidden that I somehow overlooked. And maybe, if I dig deep enough, pull out my memories, I will find something that will beat these ravenous bastards straight back into hell. 

I am going to take you back to the beginning. All the way back to where it started and walk you through everything step by bloody step. I’ll start with the smartest woman—the most simultaneously ruthless and loving woman that ever lived. And even though we never talked about it, she knew. My Grandma knew it was coming and did her best to warn me.  “Oh, you poor fuckers” I’d say riding from city to city, “the APCOLYPSE IS HERE.” 

Robert Warrington, Ph.D.  Token-Oak, Winter of 2026 2556 days after the Syndemic