#this was supposed to be a less complex one

[dufferpuffer]

Out of every odd Pottermore thing I really like the poop one.

'However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence)'

It's so fucking odd and quirky I can't help but love it. What a weird addition nobody asked for... naturally I have headcanons.

Most adults still don't use toilets. They aren't against toilets - it is just more convenient to not have to rush to a separate room. Magic courses through their whole body, including their colon.

Wizarding houses don't typically have a 'toilet' room until they have kids - though it usually takes the form of a hole-in-a-chair sort of thing enchanted to vanish.

Designs of Wizarding 'toilets' are different to the ceramic-bowl-and-plastic-lid of most Muggle toilets, typically more like stools. Easy to shove in a small place. Enchanting a linen closet door to alternate between linen and toilet is common, or just keeping it on a shelf like a potty for the kid.

Toilet use is less embarrassing for magical children in general. They are expected to have more accidents culturally - and their parents vanish on their behalf.

This is because children are awful at controlling their magic. So magical children go through potty training like Muggle children - learning that when they need to go, they go and sit on a toilet.

There is a second 'potty training' that comes later in life when they become good enough at magic. It's not a specific skill they're taught, they just utilize the magic they have learned for it.

It USED to be a specific skill they are taught - because they had to know it before attending Hogwarts. it was many children's first complex form of magic, the struggle to not need your parents to vanish your shit for you before you turned 11.

The first attempts of practicing this skill are daunting. It makes 'shitting your pants' an even more embarrassing accident for magical children - because rather than just a bowel failure, it is also a magical skill failure, a failure of your parents...

Hogwarts put toilets in because it was a genuine quality-of-life improvement Wizarding families were starting to copy - and was familiar to Muggleborns, who had a very difficult adjustment period when attending Hogwarts. Being expected to suddenly be able to control their magic just to not shit themselves... toilets ensured less accidents from those new to magic and those less talented at magic.

Of course, traditionalist families hated this. It was encouraging muggle culture to seep into Wizarding culture when they were SUPPOSED to be separating, it was encouraging families to become lax in their child's magical education, it was lowering the bar of skill for children... for what? To appease a tiny percentage of Muggleborns? 'I made a mess of myself in first year - it is a rite of passage-!'

It became normalized, they were unobtrusive enough that nobody makes a fuss of them anymore - but traditional families still don't engage with them, of course. Parents train their children to vanish their shit - and in the mean-time, vanish it for them.

Am I saying Draco Malfoy spent his childhood literally shitting himself and having his parents clean up after him? YES. Same with the Blacks. Who do yall think vanished their shit first - Sirius or Regulus...? Who had to keep running for Daddy/Mummy/Kreacher because they had an accident? (it was Regulus)

I think James would have had a toilet growing up, his laid-back parents liking oddities like that. Lily would have INSISTED on a toilet, as Muggleborns often do.

The Weasleys have a 'proper' muggle bathroom, with a 1970s toilet that Arthur INSISTED had to flush as if they had plumbing.

Severus grew up in a two-up-two-down, so his toilet was outside and shared with all the neighbours. He doesn't hate toilets or anything, sometimes it was a good excuse to get out of the house and have quiet for a moment, but he was eager to learn how to avoid using it like a proper Wizard. His mother taught him.

Public Wizarding buildings still don't usually have toilets. Parents are expected to vanish their children's messes.

The major exception of this is pubs, taverns and inns. You do not want to rely on drunk Wizards having magical control and the barkeep doesn't want to have to vanish everyone's fluids all night, scourgify the tabletops and seats... Having to use it is a mildly-embarrassing sign of you being too drunk, something the pub might cheer and laugh about.

Hogwarts Toilets flush - when most Wizarding toilets don't bother, being vanishing drop-toilets - as a safety feature. Students try to Vanish all sorts of problems away, to the pipes are enchanted to work out what is being flushed and kick back foreign objects while accepting waste, with significant retrieval systems for... say, a transfigured student that might get flushed. That is more difficult in a smaller space like a small drop toilet.

[sage-nebula]

I loved the first three episodes of season 2, but I have to say that I do have issues with how Vi's character arc was handled.

I might change my mind on a rewatch, but it seems that the switch was flipped very quickly for her. When she first turns down the enforcer badge, she does so citing the fact that enforcers murdered her parents as the reason. This is a valid reason, and one that Caitlyn incorrectly says she understands.

(Caitlyn knows what it is to have her mother killed by an individual. She doesn't know what it is to have her mother killed by a police state that continued to beat and brutalize her and her loved ones as a child, and then be asked to join up with them. It would be as if someone suggested that Caitlyn team up with Jinx, in a way, but even then it isn't quite the same. Caitlyn does apologize later, but she apologizes for "springing the badge" on Vi; I don't think she realizes that their circumstances are still vastly different.)

But then two scenes later we see a drunk Vi lamenting how Caitlyn wants her to join "the peanut patrol" -- and this is a very trivializing way to refer to what is, again, an oppressive police force that not only murdered Vi's parents, but also physically assaulted her during her own childhood and did the same to people she loved. It's the very same police force that "saved" her from Silco by throwing her, at around age fourteen or fifteen, into a prison where she was starved and beaten for years. (She says herself that she would "lie on the cold floor, hungry and bloody" -- so yes, she was at times denied food.) "Peanut Patrol" is what you call mall cops or campus security; people without any actual authority or power to hurt you. It's not what you call a literal police state that has given you complex trauma throughout your childhood.

Then, immediately after that, we get Maddie gushing over how she looks up to Vi and how Caitlyn stood up for Vi's honor, and this . . . changes Vi's mind? Or at least makes her less hostile toward Maddie? Maddie talks about how "the sheriff betrayed us" -- but again, that's the same person responsible for throwing Vi into Stillwater and no one cared. They don't care about the people they beat and oppressed, they only care that they were betrayed. But Vi is just . . . okay with this. And seems to be changing her opinion because Caitlyn really fought for her right to become a cop uwu.

Then the staged attack (which no one knew was staged, but was) happens. And after that, Vi agrees to join up with Caitlyn and become an enforcer. Because she loves and wants to protect Caitlyn, I guess? That's the best reasoning I can glean from what we were shown; she was moved by Caitlyn vouching for her yet again, saw that Caitlyn was in danger during the attack, and then decides to join up. To me, it seems like it's all about her love for Caitlyn, which is extremely weak when, again, you compare it to the fact that enforcers killed her parents and she was oppressed by them her entire life, and it isn't like Caitlyn said anything in the episodes that would make Vi think that she wants to change that. (You could argue that Caitlyn vouching for her was enough, but Caitlyn saying that Vi is One of the Good Ones really shouldn't have made her feel that way.)

And then there's the 180 her opinion did on her sister, which I think hurts the way they transitioned Vi into being an enforcer even more. What we're supposed to understand is that Jinx firing on the council is what made Vi change her opinion entirely -- even though, moments before that, she was trying to reassure Jinx that everything would be okay after Jinx killed Silco. Yes, Jinx had her "here's to the new us" speech, but I still don't understand after all this time why Vi didn't speak up when Jinx said that Vi couldn't "love [her] like she used to." Just earlier in that scene she was saying that she did, that nothing would change that. And she lets her go that easily? She doesn't try to say anything more, she just lets Jinx continue believing that she was right?

I understand that Jinx chose the "jinx" chair. I understand that Jinx was asking Vi to do horrible things (namely, murdering Caitlyn). But even after that, Vi was telling Caitlyn not to shoot because, "please, she's my sister." So even after Jinx wanted Vi to kill Caitlyn, Vi was still trying to reach her. Yet Jinx blows up the council -- a council that Vi herself has witnessed wanted nothing to do with helping fix the Silco problem, and she has no idea that they were deciding on peace in that moment -- and Vi suddenly turns. As if Vi herself hadn't encouraged Powder to keep making bombs in their childhood, promising her that one day they would work. As if Powder didn't grow up under the mentorship of a big sister who wanted to bring the fight to Piltover herself one day.

I think showing more internal conflict within Vi would have helped. If she had chosen to join the task force because she wanted to make sure that Jinx would be alive when brought in, because as appalled as she was at the carnage (because violence is only okay when she does it) she still loved her sister, and was willing to fight her but didn't want to kill her, that would be one thing. But I think the writers made a mistake that a lot of writers make, which is that, they know the character's inner thoughts so well that they think it'll be obvious when it isn't. The shift in Vi's character seems entirely based on "Jinx did a Big Violence and I'm not okay with that even though I always encouraged her to do it when we were kids" and "My new girlfriend loves me and I love her, too" and it feels disconnected with who Vi was even in the last episode of season one.

(Well, the "completely giving up on her sister" feels disconnected. Vi was always upset with Jinx doing violence, as we see in their reunion in episode six of season one, because again, violence is only okay when she does it. Her little sister, who she again encouraged to make bombs and promised Powder that they would work someday, is just Not Allowed.)

With all that said, I do think -- or hope? -- that we're supposed to see a logical disconnect within Vi. During their confrontation in the temple, we get an exchange where Jinx points out the awful things that Vi has done since becoming an enforcer -- plastering the wanted posters so that others would stop Jinx for her, and especially poisoning the air of the undercity. Not only did Vi rationalize that course of action a few moments prior ("we cleared the streets to keep people safe" -- you aren't keeping people safe by suffocating them, Vi! you should remember that from your own childhood!), but then she says, "I'm done blaming myself for your mistakes," which -- what is she talking about? Jinx isn't the one who put the wanted posters up. She isn't the one who flooded the Lanes with the Grey. These are actions that Vi, along with the task force, took. Those are her mistakes. Ones she should take accountability for, but is refusing to. Instead, it seems she's now blaming Jinx for her mistakes and wrongdoings. Which is kind of funny, because it's like, Jinx has done plenty wrong. Why not blame her for shit she actually did, eh?

Oh, but on that note: "I never thought my [sister] would orphan kids." It took me a moment to remember that the child Jinx orphaned was Ren, but I mean, Vi, sweetheart, you and Jayce killed a child last season when you were busting up a shimmer factory. Don't you remember that? Again, this is "violence is only okay when I do it." Vi definitely has a hypocritical streak going on when it comes to Jinx, and I think that we are supposed to recognize that. At least, I hope we are. I'll have faith in the writers that we are.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on that. I'd like to specify for anyone who has read this far that, no, I do NOT hate Vi, although right now I'm definitely more on Jinx's side because I think it is always morally right to oppose the police state, and again, Vi is coming across as a hypocrite. (Also stupid as fuck because, girl . . . Jinx is Powder is Jinx. Your sister grew up. Jinx did not "kill" your sister and is not "staining her memory." You are acting like a clown. Get it together.) But characters having flaws is a good thing, as it makes them more interesting, so it's okay that Vi is a hypocrite. I just wish that it got explored a bit more, especially re: her decision to join the enforcers and flood the Lanes with poison gas to "protect people" lmao.

Anyway. Can't wait for episodes 4 through 6!

[starryowlfella]

[ID: hashtags of a previous reblog saying "folks tend to either forget the collector exists or brush them off as antagonistic/evil; he started as an antagonist, but the show goes out of its way to show the collector isn't evil. Hunter also started as an antagonist, and folks loved him and understood when it was revealed he wasn't evil at all. They saw through hunter's facade, but I still see people saying the collector is evil and would destroy the isles again if he gets bored. Like??? Congratulations, you have fallen for the very thing the audience was supposed to dismantle. END ID]

Yes! Disney was manipulating the show's pacing and main events for a long time (see Dana never intending for Luz to get into Hexside so early, but the executives wanted it as a nod to HP), and we only know the tip of the iceberg of things the crew went through to get this show to be what it is today. TOH is not perfect, and it doesn't have to be; we could never blame the crew for it.

As for The Collector, this might be just my particular experience, but it feels like a lot of the negative feelings folks have comes from them being a child, specifically one that was initially written as "malicious".

Children characters are often treated as two dimensional and less complex than the teen/adult characters. The first impression people get from them is usually the one that stays. If a kid character is written as an antagonist, they're unredeemable, if they're a hero, they're the purest cinnamon rolls incapable of doing wrong.

See Chara and Asriel from Undertale, many times Chara is treated as a violent demon while in game they're as neutral as can be. Asriel, despite agreeing to Chara's plan in the first place, is the poor baby creature who was manipulated (disclaimer I love both of them very much, specially Azzy)

After all, they're children! It's not like they're capable of thought and have all the feelings adults have but none of the experience on how to regulate them, right?

The Collector is complex; he was manipulated into harming people, he is a loving kid with a heart of gold, they're a bit possessive, they're scared of being alone.

I wish fandoms (and everyone in general) would be a bit more kind to kids ^^;

does anyone else start tweaking out a little bit when someone talks about belos personally manipulated children and then they dont bring up the collector at all because i literally start crashing out a little

[gavinosbornedrors]

Goblin Week 2024!

It's still just those two goblins. Moving that one placard or whatever it is. That is a lot of Goblin Weeks, not gonna lie.

[sluckythewizard]

OOOH MORE WIPS UPON YYEEE i amm gonna crawl outa this artblock even if it KILLS ME! and speaking of killsing. whats with THIS dead guy huh??? its chip jrwi baby yeaaah its undead chip baby yeaaaahh its chip n hes fucken dead and rotting and gross and OOHHH IM SO PROUD OF HIm(for being dead)

[whoviandoodler]

you ever go into a tag for a show or whatever and find several painstakingly created gif sets from interviews with the actors where they're just like. fully mocking fans? talking about them like they're the most despicable thing on this earth kind of bitter mocking. and on the one hand you're like, okay, i get it, fans can really be shit and get overly parasocial and think you owe them something beyond the work you created but on the other it's like. bro this makes me not want to engage with anything you do at all. ever. you don't have to sing your fans praises but you can do them the basic courtesy of professionalism and not ridiculing the entirety of everyone who both engages with your creative work and whose interest ultimately results in your paycheck.

[volfoss]

Literally need to learn how to sew soooo bad it's not even funny

[eileenwdj]

Hi hi, i LOVED you spiderman mu qing idea it's just so neat and the aesthetic fits him perfectly somehow (his armor design is just *chef's kiss*)

while we're thinking about tgcf x spiderverse, have u considered jun wu as miguel o'hara? something something both of them wanting others to conform w/ their world views, both of them being grown men beefing w/ literal teenagers idk idk, just for your consideration.

stay hydrated ✨

hiii tysm!!

and GASP !! THAT IS SO GALAXY BRAIN OF YOU

this is probably not what you were getting at but your prompt got me thinking.... what if.... what if the whole spiderman thing was actually jun wu's idea and he originally intended for xie lian to be bitten and go thru aaaallllll the depressing canon events for Maximum Pain™️ but in an unexpected turn of events, the spider bit mu qing instead !1!1!1! so now jw is beefing with mq for ruining his plans and how mq is an "anomaly" !!!!

feel like this particular storyline would work well if the spider bite happened some time after the first banishment when jw was actively HOUNDING xl so it just. drives him insane that mq was the one that ended bitten somehow. maybe it can also be another reason mq ascended? like, not just bc of his cultivation but also bc jw NEEDS him closer so he can keep an eye on him and try to figure out how to still transfer the spider powers (and trauma) to xl

would be funny if jw now beefs with TWO teenagers but on opposite ends of the spectrum bc like. he's actively trying to ruin xl's life and cause him pain and make xl more like himself yadda yadda but with mq he's like. "pls stop fucking suffering. this suffering isn't meant for YOU DAMMIT!!!"

GOD I'M SO.... THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS, ANON, I'LL BE HAVING JW MIGUEL BRAINROT NOW

[maipareshaan]

I think fandom is most divided on s8 in the Sam and Dean wars, like the Dean stans and D/sticule never shut up about it as evil Sammy won't let Dean have friends and the codependency evil and bad and i woke and good and do media right by hating the codependency and every evil person who likes it. Then they'll share Cas and Dean beating each other and how hot it is and how you should like toxic characters and toxic dynamics bcz that's the POINT guys, do media right but you HAVE to be against the codependency and want to get it fixed via D/stiel and characters should be treated like real people who deserve better which is a found family and being gay, or you are evil and not woke like us who do media right and know what's wrong with the show which is that its about glorified toxic family and not about toxic glorified found family. Wah.

[bitegore]

baru cormorant seems to me to be a series that suffers miserably for me having read machineries of empire first. unfortunately everything BC is doing strikes me as something MoE did better and more believably and with much a greater and more grounded eye for how systems, complex system interaction, and oppression like. work

[onthehighwaytomel]

Could I please just go ONE day without seeing Taylor Swift's name or picture? Just one? I don't think that's too much to ask.

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[swordsandholly]

Double Date - Double Down

NSFW | MDNI

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Fem!plus size!reader

Word count: 4.9k

Summary: When you get a call in the middle of the afternoon from your friend begging you to fill an empty spot on a double date your initial instinct is a hard no. After all, no one wants to go on a blind double date and be surprised by the fat friend. It doesn’t help that this Simon guy is stupid fucking hot and obviously doesn’t like you - if his lack of talking is anything to go by.

A/N: Just a fun little oneshot I used as a warmup between working on chapters of future multi chapter projects.

“I said *no*.” You snap, angrily folding the washcloth in your hands.

Your friend splutters from the other side of the phone, the desperation in her voice only growing now that she’s on her fourth ask. “*Pleeeaase*! Steph backed out last minute and no one else is free-“

“How do you know I’m free?”

“You just said you were!”

You huff. She’s got you there. When she first called, you admitted you didn’t have anything going on but that was *before* she told you the plan for the night. Before she mentioned that her very, very conventionally hot military boyfriend wanted to do a little double date with his friend and one of hers. Plus, you take a least a little offense to being second choice. Really, last choice, it seems.

“Cass, you can’t just set up a blind date and take your fat friend. That’s not-“

“You’re not fat, love. You’re beautiful.” Her words drip with turned honey. You make a gagging face to yourself in the mirror. “You just need more confidence!”

You sigh loudly, pinching the bridge of your nose. You could try, for the millionth time, to explain to her the nuanced ins and outs of dating as a fat woman. The rules and stats that could rival even the most complex rpg… or you could be petty. It takes less time to be petty. “If I go, you’re paying for my drinks.”

“Johnny’s friend will probably-“

“Yeah, and when he leaves you’re paying for my tab.”

“He won’t-“

“We got a deal?”

She clicks her tongue. “*Fiiiine*.”

At least you can get wasted for free either way. A small consolation. She texts you the time and location, barely leaving you with enough time to shower and turn yourself into something presentable. Not that you really care. It’s going to be shit either way, most likely. Staring yourself down in the mirror, you suppose you could at least try to look somewhat attractive. If you’re about to get rejected (or possibly shouted at, you’ll never forget *that* horrendous interaction) you might as well feel your best.

The pub is small as you push through the front door. Casual. A couple pool tables, some darts, a large bar and few booths with stools on the outer side. You scan the room, searching for Cass’s familiar face.

“Over here!” Cass waves with a wide arc at you, a grin plastered from ear to ear. At least she’s having fun.

You take a long breath, bracing yourself for whatever is about to happen. Cass introduces you to her boyfriend - who is somehow even hotter in person. You can see why she’s so smitten with him. Johnny looks you up and down as he shakes your hand. He doesn’t comment, or make a face, or really react in any particular way, but you can feel a shift. Something in his eyes…

Maybe it’s just your imagination. You’ve always been a little over sensitive.

“Si will be back in a sec. Stepped over tae get a drink.” He flashes a grin.

You hum, quietly folding your hand as Cass pushes a cocktail for you that she preemptively ordered. Criticize her as much as you like, she knows her mixes.

“There he is.” Johnny grins, turning slightly.

You follow his gaze, heart sinking as your eyes settle on the man approaching your table. He’s massive. Tall and wide. Total brick shithouse. His face is mostly covered by a black surgical mask. A few years ago you might have questioned it but at this point you couldn’t care less, especially when his dark eyes meet yours, small flecks of gold honey catching the low bar lights. Barely styled tufts of blonde hair stick up from his head. They look like they might curl if he let it grow a little longer.

All in all, wayyyy out of your league.

He settles into his seat with all the confidence of any military man - back ramrod straight. He extends a large hand. “Simon Riley.”

You murmur your name, somewhat enthralled by the half lidded, almost bored look in his eyes. Now that he’s closer you notice a large scar splitting his left eyebrow and light, newly forming crows feet in the corners of his eyes.

“S-so you’re military, too?” You stutter, eyes trained on his the massive hand holding his glass. It’s nicely vascular, his nails are well groomed but it also looks like he could snap you in half with it.

Not that that’s entirely a bad thing - whatever that may or may not say about you.

He nods. “I’m a Lieutenant.”

“Oh! Officer position. So you’re smart, then?” You try to be charming, to give him a sweet smile and keep your body language open.

“Enough.” He deadpans. It takes a few beats for you to realize he’s not going to say anything else.

“Uh…” You squirm awkwardly under his gaze. It’s intense - his dark eyes nearly black in the low light of the bar. “I do hair.”

Conversation is slow, to say the least. The longest answer he gives you is maybe five words. He only flips up the mask long enough to take a sip of his drink every so often. You start to talk less, opting toward a group conversation in which Johnny takes the lead, which he is obviously very good at. He regales you and Cass with a few stories of his and Simon’s adventures. Some funny, some brave, some worrying. He’s setting the man up to be a god, nearly, but Simon himself just shakes his head and insists Johnny is exaggerating.

You wonder what he sees in Simon. Alternatively, you wonder what *you’re* supposed to see in Simon. Besides his good looks, of course. He’s… bland. Obviously bored if his constant glances toward the exits and rhythmic, occasional tapping on the corner of the table are anything to go by.

“Want tae go dance, lovie?” You overhear Johnny as he leans in toward Cass.

She glances at you, then Simon, then back to you before nodding enthusiastically. “We’ll give you two some time *alone*.”

In any other situation, you’d probably beg her to stay in desperation for a conversation buffer. Here and now, though, you’re grateful. You can finally let this poor guy off the hook. You wait until they’re gone; fully out of earshot before turning to the man in front of you.

“I…uh… look…” You chew your lip, glancing between him and your folded hands on the table. “Sorry… I know I’m probably not what, uh, what you expected… I get it if you want to leave. It’s - you don’t have to stay, or whatever. Don’t have to be polite…”

He cocks an eyebrow, eyes boring through your skull. “Why would I want to leave?”

“I know what I look like. You don’t have to be nice.”

His raised brow turns into a slight frown. “I think you’re quite pretty.”

You scoff - blushing despite yourself. “Again, you don’t have to be nice.”

“Do I seem like the type to just be nice?”

You continue to gnaw at your lip. He’s got you there. Simon definietly doesn’t come off as the type to bow to polite society. “You’ve barely talked to me.”

He stares for a moment. It’s his turn to avert his eyes, swirling around the whiskey in his glass awkwardly. Almost bashfully. “It’s not you. I’m… not great in public… especially in crowds…”

Oh.

*Oh*.

You’ve completely misjudged him, haven’t you? Shit. He’s just a big awkward lug isn’t he?You sigh, rubbing your temple. “Oh God, *I’m* the asshole, aren’t I?”

He chuckles, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I’m sorry it’s just…” you scrub a hand over your face. “Most men don’t really want to be surprised with a fat girl on a blind date. Guess I assumed the worst.”

Simon hums. A low vibration that settles into your bones. He gets up, sliding into the booth side of the table beside you - his massive frame pushing into your space. He smells like spices. Cinnamon and pepper. A little hint of leather and tobacco underneath. It’s heady, and some primal part of your mind wishes you could roll around in it like a dog.

“Some men might like a waifish little thing, that’s their business, but personally…” He leans in, a large hand resting on your wide thigh. “Yeah. I like somethin’ I can get a proper handful of.”

“*Oh*.” You squeak, back stiff. Was that what you saw in Johnny’s face before? Approval?

“‘Ere’s a thought - we go back to mine. S’quiet. Can talk more freely. See where the night goes, hm?”

You smile hesitantly, finally looking up to meet his gaze. It’s honest. Kind. Dark pools of sincerity. It’s against your better judgement. Impractical. Out of character. Even so, you allow yourself to surrender with a warmth in your cheeks and a small nod.

“I’ll get an Uber.” He pulls out his phone, tapping away. “Five minutes out.”

“Want to wait outside?” You offer, nodding toward the front entrance. Simon just nods, following you out close behind. Neither of you say much of anything while you wait, but you watch him out of the corner of your eye. He taps on his leg a few times in much the same way as he did on the table.

He dutifully opens the car door for you, letting you slide in before climbing in beside you, long legs slightly cramped in the small sedan.

“You don’t live on base?” You ask as the Uber drives away from the infamous military housing. You’d been there once or twice - a while ago when you were younger and messier.

“S’too loud.” He shrugs. “Too crowded.”

“Well, at least you’re consistent.” You smile.

Simon hums, resting his hand on your thigh once again. It’s casual, not too high up or too much pressure. Not presumptuous.

“How’d Johnny get you out there in the first place? If you’re so *averse*.” You tilt your head.

He shrugs, “Was supposed to be another Sergeant we work with but I guess he cancelled. No one else was free.”

“Ah, so we’re both last choices, then.”

“Yeah?”

“Made Cass promise me free drinks if I came.”

“Smart girl.” He chuckles, holding out a hand to help you up out of the car upon your arrival. His hand is warm when you take it, and a small part of you feels disappointed when he lets go.

The building is small. Old. All red brick with a thirty year old intercom and an elevator that you’re pretty sure hasn’t been inspected since the place was built. About halfway down the hall, you start to second guess yourself. You don’t know a thing about this guy - you don’t know what’s going to happen as soon as you get on the other side of his door. His weird, bright red door. Wait - why is this whole floor covered in red doors?

“Alright?” He grunts, back turned to you as he wrestles with the lock.

“Uh - why is your floor color themed?”

Simon laughs, wide shoulders shaking with the movement. It’s a low sound, something that vibrates in his chest. Makes you want to press your ear to it, see how it feels. If it will reverberate into your bones as well. “The old lady that owns the building is a bit… unique. Likes to talk about colors and karma and destiny stuff.”

“Ah.” You nod, as if that makes any sense at all. “So you’re red?”

“Apparently.”

His apartment is actually quite homey, as you step into it. From a stiff military man like him you expected something akin to an ikea floor model. Instead it’s furnished with a well worn, green couch. A large TV with an extremely up-to date surround sound system and an entertainment center filled to the brim with CDs sits against the wall. A few movie posters fill the walls. All horror classics - you count three of the scream movies. The first two final destination. There are condensation rings on the coffee table.

Behind you, you hear the door lock and unlock three times, but you don’t pay it much mind.

“Want a drink?” Simon asks, already popping open a decanter full of something gold on a small drink cart beside the kitchen island.

“Sure.” The agreement is automatic - blurted out before you can second guess taking a drink from a total stranger.

You watch a little too closely as he takes off his light jacket, exposing his strong arms and a half sleeve tattoo. It’s a bit tacky, all skulls and military symbols. The black ink has been sun worn over time. The motif of a young getting his first tattoo after enlisting. He settles down on the couch with the decanter and two glasses, patting the spot beside him. You plop down. It’s pretty comfortable, honestly.

His fingers loop into the mask’s straps. You find yourself watching with wide eyes and bated breath as he removes it. His nose is crooked - broken more than a couple times, you think. There’s a scar running from his nose to upper lip that could only come from a cleft palette. It’s charming, in a way. When he turns toward you, you notice a patch on the side of his face that looks like a rather large burn all the way down to his sharp jaw. The roughness of him works, somehow. The scars and tattoos and choppy hair all coming together to create the visage of a life hard lived.

“You’re really pretty…” the words slip from your tongue before you can stop them.

Simon splutters out a laugh, the slightest hint of color appearing across his cheeks. “Didn’t take you for a flatterer.”

“I’m not.” You huff before nodding toward the posters. “Horror fan?”

He hums, passing you a glass. “Are you a fan? Of horror, I mean.”

“Found footage!” You grin a little too excited. “It’s the best genre.”

“Terrible taste.” He scoffs.

“Wrong! Found footage can be anything you want it to be - slasher, thriller, mystery, mocumentary. Anything.”

“Which makes them messy.” He argues. “Anyone can make one.”

“Yeah! Theres so many hidden gems out there.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Oh, I’ll put you on them. We just need to get you a good one.”

“Askin’ me on a second date already, love?”

“Oh, fuck off.” You shove at his shoulder. He was right, it is so much easier to talk freely out of the bar. Away from everyone and everything. His posture is far more relaxed, laid back into the couch with his hips canted forward rather than stiff as a board.

“We could watch one now?” He offers. If you were more sober, you might have heard the twinge of pleading in his voice. As it stands you’ve already drained the glass he gave you and are perfectly buzzed enough to be ignorant to the subtler parts of communication.

How convenient.

“Okay.” You whisper.

After a bit of debating back and forth you settle on Hell House. After all, it’s been your tried and true method for getting anyone and everyone into the genre. You don’t notice it, at first, but you slowly begin to scoot closer to him as you fold your knees up on the couch. Eventually, tucking yourself under his arm sling across the back cushions. Between him and the drinks - which you’re pretty sure is a rather fancy bourbon - you feel what could only be described as snuggly. Limbs loose and pliant, smile easy and words flowing as you cheer and jeer at the characters together.

At some point, Simon’s dark eyes meet between yours. You lean in, so does he. Inch by inch until your lips meet. It’s tentative, at first. Testing the waters. His lips are soft and move expertly against yours. You part for him has his tongue darts across your lower lip.

It’s easier than it usually is for you. Easy to let him pull you over his lap. To rest your hands on his broad shoulders as you take each other in. Normally, you’re not a person for one night stands. A commitment kind of gal. You can’t exactly say no, though, when you have a beautiful man’s hands traveling over your body like it’s the only thing in the world worth paying attention to right now.

He breaks the kiss just long enough to grunt, “Bedroom?”

“*Yes*.” You gasp between kisses.

Suddenly those large hands grasp under your ass as you’re hauled up. You grapple to hold onto the back of his neck, keeping your weight forward.

“Simon!”

“Yes, love?” He asks as if he didn’t just life you like a sack of potatoes.

“A-aren't I heavy?” You question as he makes his way through the apartment, peppering kisses over your neck and jaw.

“No.” He replies bluntly. Like what you asked was stupid.

You’re placed on a bed with all the gentleness of a rare china plate- one hand cradling your upper back and the other tucked under your thighs. There isn’t any time to take in the room before Simon is kissing you again but you do count approximately five pillows and zero navy sheets.

That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.

Simon leans in close, nose ever so slightly bumping yours. “Before we keep going, I want to establish a rule. Red light means stop. At any time, for any reason.”

You can’t help but smile. “Okay.”

“Say it back, doll.”

“Red light means stop.” You reach up and cup his face. So handsome. So warm.

“Good girl.” He murmurs. “Let’s get these off, hm?” Simon pulls your clothes off deftly - dragging those rough palms over your skin as he moves and kneading at the plushness of your hips appreciatively.

You reach up to tug at his shirt. “S’not fair if I’m the only one naked.”

Simon chuckles and hastily sits back to yank the shirt over his head, giving a lovely show in the process. You think this what people mean when they talk about an Adonis. There’s a comfortable soft layer of his strong abdomen. Something you want to sink your teeth into. Your fingers trace each dip and curve of his muscles, the lovely shape of his pectorals, the raised scars littering his body. Floral shapes from bullets along with slashes and smaller jabs. A particularly nasty one runs down his side, coving his ribs. A burn, you think.

“You’re beautiful.” You murmur. Definitely out of your fucking league. You move to sit up, reaching for his waistband.

His hand pushes your shoulder back on the bed. “Let me take care of you tonight, bird.”

Your face warms. Simon kisses your cheek, continuing down to your chest and taking one of your nipples in his mouth. Gently sucking and nipping at it while flicking the other with his hand. A shameful whimper escapes your throat.

Simon leans up to murmur in your ear, “What do you want, sweet girl?”

“Want you to fuck me…” You murmur, embarrassment making you want to close your legs. His solid hips block you.

“Oh, I will, but first I want those beautiful thighs wrapped around my head.” Simon continues to place kisses down your body, over your stomach, stopping right at your panty line and tracing along it with rough fingers. His arms circle your thighs and in one swift motion your hips teeter on the edge of the bed, Simon kneeling between them. His fingers hook in the waistband of your underwear.

“W-wait…” You sit up on your elbows.

He freezes, looking up at you.

“I, uh, I haven’t exactly *landscaped* in a while… wasn’t really planning-“

Simon huffs out a laugh. “I’m a grown man, love. You think a little bush is gonna scare me off?”

All thoughts related to anything within the proximity of embarrassment come to an instant halt as Simon’s lips wrap around your clit- sucking and nipping and lapping like a man starved. Like he’d die without it. A low groan rumbles through his throat.

“F-fuck!” You gasp, whimpers and moans interrupting any chance you may have at putting words together.

“Taste so fucking good, princess.” He mumbles against you. A shaky moan rattles through you as he pushes a thick finger in, working it gently. His other than grips your hip tightly, pinning you in place. The pet-name sends a shiver down your spine - leaving you rolling your hips and clenching on the finger inside you.

“Fuck, Si…” You gasp, tangling your fingers in his hair.

“I can tell your close, baby.” Simon groans. “Cum for me. Come on, be a good girl and cum all over my fucking tongue.”

The bastard knows the power he has in that voice. He *has* to. That baritone gravel sinks in your veins and all you can do is whimper. Panting pathetically the closer you get. His fingers curl up and your back arches harshly as your climax washes over you. Your legs tremble as he works you through it; stopping just shy of pushing you too far.

“Hey!” You gasp indignantly as a jolt shoots up your spine as he settles a final, harsh suck on your clit.

Simon taps your hip, climbing back over you as you scoot up on the bed. He carelessly kicks off his pants as he goes, toeing them off before settling between your legs. Those dark eyes rake over you leisurely - taking in every inch. Every curve and dip and flaw categorically. He sucks in a breath and sighs. “Bloody ‘ell, look at you… so fuckin’ pretty.”

Your face heats and you look away. “Who’s the flatterer now?”

“Not me. Just bein’ honest.” He places a quick kiss to your soft jawline before reaching over to dig through his nightstand drawer. You don’t miss the gold foil of the condom wrapper.

You can’t stop yourself from licking your lips as he pulls off his boxer briefs. Simon is uncut, already ruddy and leaking and just begging for your mouth. Maybe next time, though. He’s already slipped on the condom, carefully hooking one of your legs over his shoulder and the other around his hip. The man has a laser-focus to him, you’ll give him that.

“Still want t’ keep goin’?” He mumbles, eyes locked on his cock as is drags between your folds.

“*Please*.” You whine pathetically. Simon’s chuckle turns into a gasp as he presses in. It’s achingly slow and you roll your hips in demand for more.

Simon lets out a low groan as his hips meet yours. The stretch is perfect - just enough to feel completely full without pushing you too far. As though your bodies were made to slot together just so. Your head falls back, chest heaving as you beg him to move, to fuck you, just *please* for the love of god-

“Needy little thing.” He gives you a sloppy smile before setting a brutal pace. You find yourself clawing at his back, clinging to him as your back arches and the most obscene sounds are systematically torn from your throat. The angle he has your hips placed causes his cock to bully that sensitive spot inside you - dragging over it with every thrust.

Simon leans toward, bracing himself on his forearms and pinning you under him as he fucks into you. “So fuckin’ good f’me. Knew you would be. So soft and sweet and goddamn *pretty*.”

“*Fuck, Simon*.” You gasp, nose bumping against his as your lips intertwine. Breaths and moans intermingle as you both chase that edge. There’s nothing else, in this moment, just you and Simon and the sounds only he has ever managed to pull from you.

Your orgasm hits you like a train. Out of nowhere and all at once, tensing every muscle into a trembling mess as you clamp down around his cock. Simon sinks his teeth into your neck as his own climax takes him, cradling you close and moaning out your name so muddled you almost miss it.

For a few moments, you stay frozen in place trying to catch your breath as you come down. Your limbs feel like jelly when you finally try to move, body limp and pliable. It almost feels like a loss as he pushes off of you, leaving you open and vulnerable to the cool night air while he ties off the condom.

“Be right back.” He murmurs, slowly climbing off you and heading for an attached bathroom off to the left.

You let your eyes slipped closed only to jump and shoot back open as a dap rag drags between your thighs. A little yelp escapes you as the rough material drags across your oversensitive clit. Simon chuckles at you, tossing the rag back somewhere in the bathroom before crawling into the bed beside you. It’s so easy to curl into his chest and let those strong arms encircle you.

“Have fun, love?” Simon murmurs into your hair.

You just hum happily, smiling against his hard chest.

“Good.”

It’s just as easy as the rest of it to fall asleep like that. To seek out the warmth of his body in your satiated haze and press into him, allowing the night and rhythmic beating of his heart to overtake you. You feel four small taps between your shoulder blades just before tipping over the edge into comfortable nothing.

You wake slowly to an empty bed. The light from the window above you streams in - bathing the room in a light golden tone. It’s cozy. The blankets seem to pull you in, keeping you snugly in place. Distantly, you hear the sound of pots and pans clinking.

Shockingly, you’re not hungover. Well, not much at least. There’s a slight twinge in your head and a not unpleasant soreness in your hips. You dig around, finding your clothes strewn across the room haphazardly. Your underwear are nowhere to be found and you eventually give up with a shrug. They weren’t one of your best pairs anyway.

When you come out of the bedroom, you pause. Simon stands in the kitchen, working on something over the stove wearing only a pair of sweatpants. They hang loosely around his hips, showing off the rises and dips of his strong muscles and well defined waist. This scene somehow feels too intimate despite your activities the night before.

“Perfect timing.” Simon turns, placing a plate down on the kitchen island. The omelette before you looks immaculate, all the way down to a light garnish on top.

Your eyes turn to saucers. “You…you made me breakfast?”

“Course.” He nods sharply as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. As if *not* doing so would be some sort of affront. Either you’re still asleep and this is all a dream or you stumbled upon the perfect man through pure happenstance.

He turns the stove off and on and off twice before standing at the counter across from you while you sit on one of the stools at the island. It’s a comfortable silence as you both eat. Simon keeps glancing up at you as if waiting for your disapproval. Boyish, somehow, despite the size and breadth of him.

It’s perfect. The eggs practically melt in your mouth and the goat cheese and vegetables taste fresh. You can’t help but him happily as you eat.

By the time you’re done, you think you might be a little in love.

Maybe you should text Cass and thank her or something. Maybe a gift basket. “Oh. My phone’s dead.”

“Didn’t charge it before y’left last night?” Simon cocks an eyebrow, chewing on his last bite.

You snort. “It was last minute, remember?”

“What if I’d been some sort of psycho? What was your plan?” He grins as he takes your empty plate. If you were a more impulsive woman you may have gone so far as to lick the damn thing.

“Are you a psycho?”

“Not generally, no.”

“Well then, nothing to worry about.” You grin, watching a little too happily as he rinses down the dishes and loads the dishwasher.

Simon just scoffs at you.

You glance at the time above the stove, disappointment settling deep in your chest. “Shit. I should get going.”

“I’ll get you a cab.” Simon offers automatically, reaching for his phone.

You shift side to side, twiddling your thumbs. “Y’know… we never finished the movie…”

Simon cocks and eyebrow. From the pleased smirk on his face you can tell he knows what you’re implying. He still patiently waits for you to say it out loud.

“Would, uh, would you want to exchange numbers? Maybe… meet up… again…?” Your voice is more timid than you’d like. This fear of rejection is new. Being rejected is nothing new for you, so why does it suddenly feel so high stakes with this one guy you barely know?

You don’t miss the way his eyes light up ever so slightly at the question. “I’d love to.”

[damnprecious]

rhubarb pie rhubarb pie rhubarb pie

[staryuee]

HOW THEY REACT TO YOUR SILENT TREATMENT.

꒰warnings꒱ not proofread … sigh

⠀꒲ ` synopsis . . . you and your partner are having a “cooling down period”, a time of détente, after a recent argument. how do they deal with the lack of love from you?

⠀꒲ ` characters . . . diluc, eula, wanderer, ayato, gorou, tartaglia, lyney, wriothesley, neuvillette, arlecchino

⠀꒲ ` notes . . . as a psychology student ☝️🤓 i can safely say that the silent treatment is usually frowned upon due to its connotations with emotional abuse, therefore i tried my best to make it apparent that this sort of silence is within the boundaries of the relationship ( ･᷄ὢ･᷅ ) please communicate with your loved ones if you feel a certain way :)

you and your beloved recently had a pretty bad argument. out of respect for both of your feelings you both decided to have a period of détente to allow a gradual recovery of your emotions and logical reasonings.

there was no need to argue, and there was also no need to be hostile or petty; therefore your silent treatment wasn’t a way to maliciously gain control or make your lover come running back to you, it was a way for both of you to regain composure and come back to the topic when prepared.

that did unfortunately, lead to much less affectionate gestures from both of you. of course there was still the casual “i love you” every morning and night accompanied by a simple kiss, but it never went anything beyond that.

while your lover fully knew why this sort of peaceful coexistence was necessary, sometimes it’s sincerely difficult to not just reach out and kiss you breathless.

you’re so close yet so far, it’s unbearable.

R. DILUC — 迪卢克

master diluc has been rather restless lately.

constant muttering to himself, plucking the dried up skin that stuck out from his badly bitten lips, his gloved hands constantly scratching a non existent scratch; honestly, if the fellow residents of dawn winery didn’t know any better they’d think he was possessed and required an immediate exorcist.

adelinde refuses to see her precious baby sink his eyes into ruin purely because he’s out secretly patrolling once he wakes up in the middle of the night to clear his head. you’re always there with him throughout the night: but why does it still feel so empty regardless?

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST ?

diluc is no pushover or people pleaser; if you were guilty, then you’re guilty and he’ll wait all the time in the world till you eventually own up and apologise (please let that come sooner or later though otherwise he’ll give into ruin and sip alcohol for a breather). otherwise, if its his fault, or no ones and it was a mere misunderstanding, the silent treatment lasts for a day. not any longer not any less; he doesn’t allow it to.

he’s more than happy to wait forever for you but gods if he ever made a mistake that accidentally led you to elongating this supposed transient silence till the end of time, diluc would much rather swallow his pride and give his all to you. you’re worth more than pettiness, and he’ll prove that to you once you wake up and get greeted with all your favourite luxuries and a bright, relieved smile on his face.

EULA — 优菈

you’re beyond delusion if you think this woman won’t turn this into a healthy-ish competition of sorts.

you wish to avoid her for days on end? she’s already used to the world avoiding her mere gaze, she can withstand the somber feeling of having the one person who’s fully understood her as the complex person she is self-isolating from her for a little while.

never mind, no, she literally can’t. come back to her right now. we have problem right? lets talk about it, isn’t that what you taught her in the first place? what do you mean you need a break and want to clear your head for a while to not hurt her feelings? you think eula of all people cares about something like that?

she’d rather you spit at her than withstand another hour of this mindless nonsense.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

she doesn’t apologise unless she sees whatever caused this perilous argument in the first place truly hurt you and you ended up in tears; otherwise whats the use in pointless words when you can easily hug it out and call it a day?

she lets you apologise under the guise of “if you don’t, my vengeance towards you will be greater than my foes”, but in reality? eula is hardly paying any attention to the words slipping past your lips. all she’s thinking about is how she’ll be able to shake off this uneasy tension that’s somehow been created between you two.

WANDERER — 流浪者

you can’t tell which one of you needed this little breather more, after all, you’d hope scara would allow himself to soften after distancing from you after a while, and scara hoped you’d see reason within your argument and eventually, as always, forgive him.

but forgiveness is a two way straight in the way most people subconsciously ignore; does he and could he ever forgive himself? that image of your teary eyed face, the harsh puffs of breath you heaved to prevent any more molten venom to burn his plastic skin, the slight clenching of your jaw, fuck it hurt.

he couldn’t admit it at the time, but right now after being forcefully peeled away from you for about week and forcing auntie nahida to listen to his venting rambles? he wished he just gave it all up and did something: anything at all. kissed you, hugged you, consoled you, swiped your tears away with his thumbs, fluttered his eyelashes on your cheek gently as he whispered an i love you.

yet all he could do right now was wait.

wait until you hopefully came back, he couldn’t face you. if you abandoned him he’d deal with it. the petals on the floor and the hushed whispers of “they love me, they love me not” are just hallucinations from his worried caregiver, he swears.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

never would he stoop so low as to apologise.

verbally. that is. if he’s aware that he’s in the wrong (believe me that look on your face does wonders for trying to figure out whats on your mind) he’ll begrudgingly come up with some covert way of making it up to you. he doesn’t want to be stuck in this immortalised silence forever; believe me, he likes your talking more than he realises and this little test trial of abandonment was more than enough proof that your existence within his life is essential.

if you’re not there standing by his side, what even is the point in that fraudulent pacemaker of his? your laughter is in the same shape of his heartbeat; if you’re not here, he’s just back to being that dumb little puppet cuddled ashore in the slim darkness of the night.

K. AYATO — 神里绫人

bile builds up in ayato’s throat, eyes threatening to spill hazardous tears on his paperwork. he HATES being away from you. yes, you’ll be back comfortably in his arms with a kiss on your forehead soon…but time isn’t making that “soon” come any quicker and it’s killing him.

‘silence’ is only the act of not speaking, right? so he’s technically allowed to sneak in pastries onto your desk when you’ve gone to take a break — he’s also most certainly allowed to write down his frustrations about not being able to be overly affectionate with you and then pitifully sliding them under your door in hopes you’ll read them and maybe write one back.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

he desperately tries to convince himself that if he works long enough, he’ll forget the hollowing feeling in his heart that’s left in the silhouette of you. he puts down his calligraphy pen with an exasperated sigh, rubbing his temples with rough motions as if to completely rid himself of any lingering thought of you.

that’ll never work, and ayato thinks you two have calmed down enough so therefore he trudged his way into your room, knocking of course, and sat down with you for a lengthy but beneficial conversation.

without a doubt, ayato will be the one to apologise first. whether it’s a conscious decision or not completely depends on how long he’s been away from you; at some point you just fall back into regular routine completely by accident.

GOROU — 五郎

he’s glad you’ve decided to take this sort of approach to your relationship instead of having a painful battle of the wits with him but right now, he’d withstand a thousand hours of scolding than the way his fellow soldiers worryingly clutter around their little general and ask about his well-being purely because those furry ears atop his bundle of bed hair decided to stay drooped down all week.

but he can’t help it! he’s utterly miserable! you didn’t even give him your complimentary “good morning, have fun at work, be safe” kiss before he left the door in the static quiet of your abode. to top this torture off? you haven’t pet him once, and while he’d normally revel in not being treated like an actual lap dog…you’re a huge exception in that rule!

unfortunately, it’s not like he can just outright demand attention from you merely because he’s feeling a bit down on his luck. you asked for peace, he’ll give it to you. he’s a war veteran but treats you like a flower thats sprouted on a ruined patch of sand.

ehem, but please come back to him soon. please?

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

whatever it takes to get your pretty hand to ruffle through his brunette locks he’ll do, he doesn’t care if the apology consists of him kneeling down on pitifully shaking his head near your thigh with his lips puckered into a pout. shame doesn’t exist within your relationship right? he’s more than willing to apologise first regardless of who was to blame.

if the argument was a little more serious however, he’ll sit down you on your couch that holds so many sweet significant memories within your mind, his head resting atop your collarbone and tail sneakily swishing from side to side now that your heartbeat was so clear to him. he’ll hear you out, talk through it, but more importantly, love and appreciate you.

TARTAGLIA — 公子

nuh uh. you think you’re getting silence with someone like him around? unless one or both of you fucked up really bad, tartaglia can’t see the point in silent ignorance; if you want to ignore him to personally calm down? sure, do whatever you want honey, you’re still getting treated like the other piece of his heart that you are.

if you’re genuinely annoyed he can leave you alone…for maybe two hours thirty minutes max. he loves you so much, talk to him, he doesn’t care if you insult him out of anger, lash out at him if you must. so long as you return into his arms so he can sway you around within his tender embrace and pepper your face with kisses, he’ll be more than happy and satisfied.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

him all day — call it the big brother complex with having to always apologise first whenever he got into a slight squabble or disagreement with his siblings when he were younger, or call it pure unadulterated love for you and the refusal to continue with this pointless staring battles whenever you guys were sitting across from each other.

whatever it is, just know he takes your feelings seriously regardless of the teasing grin across his face when you try not to squirm from the way his hand traveled from across your waist to the slither of exposed stomach. he just wants to assure you that his love won’t ever fade even if it becomes so deliberately one sided. he’s yours, after all.

LYNEY — 林尼

he’s used to eerie silence that bellowed icy winds against his ears, used to the tension that forced out his fight or flight response, but currently all he could do was freeze and overthink. how come this silence seemed so much more deafening than usual?

lyney doesn’t want this worse than capital punishment torture to continue without at least the slightest bit of laughter mingled into both of your days; he tries his best to curve your lips to even the slightest twenty degree lift using whatever he could. silly little flower reappearing trick there, a sneaky kiss to the side of your neck here; just any fleeting desperate attempt for some reciprocation on your part.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

lyney’s used to apologising first given his experiences within the house of hearth and the father herself. so imagine his surprise when you both incidentally stammer over one another as you two splutter apologies helplessly. god he’s so happy your relationship is built open gushes of giggles instead of the splats of tears because if it weren’t for that cute little accident? lyney was sure the second you opened your lovely lips to speak he would’ve teared up.

he missed that voice telling him constant i love yous, the affectionate cradling of his face against your neck and the way you wouldn’t hesitate to hold his flushed face within your cooling hands to comfort him after a particularly stress inducing performance.

WRIOTHESLEY — 莱欧斯利

you left the conversation with an “i love you.” so he knows that you’ll come back to him.

however, the last time he blindly trusted the comforting words of a loved one, it ended with blood on his hands and a lengthy sentence at the fortress of meropide. luckily for his heart and your own, he knows your charms and honeyed words aren’t for show and truly mean something.

wriothesley respects your boundaries and wishes to the t, he won’t speak to you like nothing at all happened but that doesn’t mean he won’t be overly cautious when it comes to your behavioural patterns. if he notices this sentence of silence is clearly taking its toll on you, he will, with no hesitation, talk everything out with you.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

depending on the argument, he’ll apologise first. if it’s rather undeniable that you were the one in the wrong however, he’ll explain his feelings thoroughly until you apologise — the standard. he doesn’t want this silence to end till the fortress of meropide overflows with primordial water so once you see multiple guards on your case more than ever, just know he’d like to talk to you.

NEUVILLETTE — 那维莱特

fontaine has been drenched in rain for the past couple of days. every hour, every minute, every second neuvillette spends alone in his office makes him realise just how grand and solemn it is. everything is so mundane and banal…even the cheerful mutters and chatters of the sweet melusines couldn’t bring a smile to his face — much to the dismay of the little sigewinne who even so kindly brought him a cake to cheer him up…

what makes it even worse is that everything reminds him of you…and oh god the muddied clouds have once again been cursed with rain. this unquenchable thirst for your presence cannot be ignored by a mere sip from his intricate cup and being the ever so carefully mindful iudex, neuvillette sees it more than fit to call this hopeless game of silence to quits.

WHO APOLOGISES FIRST?

regardless of who’s in the wrong, neuvillette apologises first. he’s sorry for letting this go so far, he should’ve just trusted his gut and returned to your side even if it meant having to persuade you with his clever tongue or the coiling of his draconic tail around your leg to pull you sweetly closer.

honestly, if he could, he’d make this a punishment in the fortress of meropide for every couple. you committed a petty, technically non offensive crime? well instead of doing some charity work for the city, you’re not allowed by the side of your beloved for a few weeks.

ARLECCHINO — 阿蕾奇诺

a bunny within the jaws of a spring locked beast thinking it can persuade the tides in their favour with silence? arlecchino is amused you’d think such cheap tomfoolery would work to solve through your problems.

“darling, come here,” she taps her lap with her blood-stained nail, her eyes looking up at you greedily to soak up every single jitter of your movements as you alas fall onto your rightful throne, “my dumb bunny,” arlecchino coos at you with that devilishly low hum of her voice. “do you think the phrases ignorance is bliss, distance brings fondness, truly work within our relationship?”

arlecchino painfully grasps at your waist, that grip only loosening once you comfortably situate yourself on her thighs and lace your arms around her neck per routine. “i’d expect this behaviour from my children at the house of hearth, not you, angel.” she nibbles on your earlobe deliberately, forcing your lips to part just the way she likes. that perfect look of both surprise and desire; it’s a gorgeous display of your vulnerability.

“explain to me your problems, or else we can be at this forever.”

no such thing as the silent treatment when the very epitome of a wordless shadow has betrothed you.

©STARYUEE do not copy, steal or repost ♡ ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ɪʜᴇᴀʀᴛɢᴀɴʏᴜ

[pathologicalreid]

kryptonite | s.r.

in which all roads lead to Spencer's apartment, at least they do for jareau!reader

margotober masterlist

who? spencer reid x jareau!reader category: fluff (some comfort (god knows spencer needs it)) content warnings: reader went to a bar, but she's not drunk, creepy guy follows her around, abandoned by her 'friends', takes place following 6x12 "corazon", spencer and reader's first tea date, spencer's migraine arc, jj is in the middle east, this fic definitely wasn't inspired by a 3 doors down song, ffofa!spencer, reader feels out of place in the BAU, sexual innuendo word count: 2.97k a/n: MY GIRL IS HOME i have been wanting to go back to jareau!reader since ffofa ended. i genuinely have their whole lives planned out.

Screwed. You were so totally completely screwed.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you home?” The guy behind you asked once again, but he’d had more to drink than you. You wouldn’t trust yourself behind the wheel of a motor vehicle right now, much less a man who had leeched himself to you in a dive bar.

You laughed nervously, crossing your arms in front of your stomach protectively as you checked for passing cars before walking across the street. “Yeah, I’m sure,” you called over your shoulder, dreading the image of him following you around.

Slowly, you began recognizing your surroundings, the street name that you were turning onto ringing a bell—but which one? Somewhere you had seen the name, but as you glanced around, nothing triggered a memory. “I don’t want you to get left walking all around at night, could get dangerous,” he offered, slurring his speech.

It was the green canopy that finally jogged your memory, you picked up your pace as you recognized Spencer’s apartment complex. “I’m really fine,” you insisted, cursing your friends for the nth time for leaving you in the bar.

You faltered at the door, the blood draining from your face as you realized you’d need Spencer to buzz you in before you could finally lose the creep on your tail. “You’re supposed to push the button,” the guy—whose name you could not recall for the life of you—instructed you.

Smiling anxiously, you reached forward and pressed the button next to Spencer’s name, tapping your heeled boot on the sidewalk as you hoped he’d come let you in. For all you knew, he wasn’t even home.

“If your guy isn’t here, we could always head back to my place,” the drunk guy offered, looking around aimlessly, “it’s over… where are we?”

With wide eyes, you pushed the button two more times for prosperity’s sake, hoping that the world would take pity on you and get you away from him. “Don’t worry about it,” you mumbled, pushing the button again before resigning yourself to an evening with this guy. Turning around, you gave him your best attempt at a smile, “Look, I’m really sorry, but somewhere we got our wires—“

He nodded behind you, “Hey, is that your guy?”

You could’ve cried. Honestly, your eyes might’ve welled up at the sight of Spencer Reid, it looked like he had dragged himself out of bed to come get you. “Yeah,” you breathed, “That’s him.”

Spencer peered out the window, the frustrated look on his face softening when he saw you in the dim lamplight. He opened the door and stood, “Y/N, hey,” he greeted, brown eyes flickering from you to your unexpected guest.

“Hey, man,” the guy said from behind you, “I’m just droppin’ your girl home. I wanted to make sure she got home safe, there are a lot of weirdos out there.”

Spencer’s eyebrows raised in acute irritation, “Sure are,” he responded dryly. He took one look at your widened eyes and reached into his pajama pockets, holding his keys out for you to take, whispering his unit number to you as you swiped them.

“Thank you,” you breathed, squeezing through the doorway behind him and making your way up to apartment twenty-three. You unlocked the front door, faltering when you made your way inside.

You’d never seen Spencer’s apartment before, the entire space perfectly curated so that every nook and cranny was just so… Spencer. His bookshelves were crammed full of old texts, books that collectors would go to the mat for were piled up on the hardwood floor, waiting to be placed on a shelf.

The walls were painted a dark shade of green, and you wondered if Spencer had chosen the color himself or if the apartment had always been this color. You walked inside, placing your dead phone and Spencer’s keys on the coffee table before taking a seat on the supple leather. Tonight had been a nightmare, a story torn right out of the book about your college years.

You stood up as the doorknob turned, and Spencer walked inside, kicking his shoes off before locking the door behind him. “Spence, I am so sorry,” you insisted, walking around the couch and approaching him, “My phone died, and I didn’t know where else to go. I was going to take the metro, but then I remembered that you live near Van Ness, and I thought having somewhere to go would be better than potentially bringing that guy back to my place.”

“Are you alright?” He asked, looking you over quickly, checking the state you were in.

Nodding, you nervously ran a hand through your hair, “Yeah, that’s just… not how I wanted to spend my night.” Finally able to get a good look at him, you inspected his flannel pajama pants, a blue Madras pattern conflicting with the orange emblem of his CalTech shirt. You had never seen him so at ease, “I’m sorry for waking you.”

He shook his head dismissively, “You didn’t, I was still awake.”

You hummed, “Reading?”

Spencer faltered, “Oh, yeah,” his voice softened, looking over at the bookshelves as if he was missing something.

Part of you wanted to mention the odd behavior, but the two of you only ever interacted within the confines of the BAU. Maybe you don’t know him well enough to say that to him. “Do you have a phone charger that I can use? Once I get enough charge, I can just take the metro back to my place.”

Frowning, Spencer looked at you as if you had grown horns, “I’m not letting you take the metro, it’s the middle of the night.”

Glancing over your shoulder, you checked the time displayed on his microwave, if you plugged your phone in now, you’d be able to make it before the metro shut down for the night. “I only need to get on one line to get back to my place,” you informed him.

“That’s irrelevant, it’s past eleven and you’ve already been followed around by one creep tonight,” he reminded you, leaning against the column in his entryway and giving you a knowing look.

Your heart pounded in your chest, “Will you drive me home then?”

Running his hands through his hair, Spencer mumbled something unintelligible before he answered, “No, I shouldn’t drive right now. Just… I’ll go find you something to sleep in,” he told you, pushing off of the wall to go into what you assumed was his bedroom.

You sat back down on Spencer’s couch, skimming your palms over the knit blanket that had been thrown over the back of it while you waited for his return. Spencer Reid was something of an enigma to you, there were times when you thought he’d be your closest friend in the unit, and there were other times when he seemingly wanted nothing to do with you.

He came back out of his room, balancing a sweatshirt in his hands and presenting it to you, “Hey, this should fit.”

Checking the tag on the sweatshirt, you nodded in response as you inspected the rest of the crewneck. An old academy emblem was embroidered on the front of it, but the year didn’t match the timeline of when Spencer did his training at the Academy. You hummed, “Whose sweatshirt was this?” You tried to act nonchalant, thumbing the loose threads on the cuff.

“I’ll check my desk for a charger,” he swerved around your question, leaving you holding the sweatshirt in the middle of his living room.

You watched him walk away, “Uh, where should I change?”

He nodded his head in the direction of his room, “My room is fine. The bathroom is connected if you need it.”

Quickly, you slipped into his room and stripped off your dress, laying it on his bed while you pulled the crewneck over your head. At the very least, the fabric smelled like Spencer instead of smelling like another girl’s perfume. The navy blue sweater skimmed the top of your thighs, falling over you comfortably.

Rolling your dress into a ball in an attempt to hide your bra, you opened the door and jumped when you were met by Spencer. “Is that good?” He asked you, looking you up and down—not for the first time that night.

“What?” You asked, peering up at him with wide eyes. Obviously, you hadn’t expected him to be waiting for you outside of his bedroom. You would’ve mentally prepared yourself to be in your underwear in front of him—you’ve had dreams that started much like this.

He smiled softly at you, “The sweatshirt,” he whispered, “Does it fit alright?”

Mystery girl’s sweatshirt fit you just fine, and you nodded a confirmation up at him, looking at your iridescent reflection in his glasses.

“I live by a lot of nightlife, and that’s gotten out once or twice. So, there’s a small box of clothes that people have left behind here. For all I know that sweatshirt was Morgan’s,” he told you, holding a charger out for you to take.

Your face warmed with embarrassment, “You don’t owe me an explanation,” you murmured before taking the charger from his hand, letting your fingers linger a bit too long in his palm.

The soft smile that remained on his face was enough to make you weak at the knees, “I know, but you asked.”

Holding the charger to your chest, your head bobbed, “The sweatshirt’s great, Spence,” you told him meekly, stepping around him to plug the charger into the wall, and setting your phone next to his on the kitchen counter.

“Do you want to call your sister?” Spencer asked, loitering in the doorway between his room and the living room and sticking his hands in the pockets of his pajamas.

Shaking your head, you crossed your arms in front of your chest, “No, she’s probably busy. Still uh… adjusting to her new job.” You looked over at him, each of you staying on one side of the room. You weren’t sure what JJ’s new job entailed. She had been acting cagier than usual on most of your phone calls.

He finally kicked off his shoes, prompting you to take a seat on the couch and unstrap your heels. “Are you going to tell me what happened tonight?”

Leaning back into the cushions, you tugged the hem of your sweatshirt down on your hips, “There’s really not much to tell.” You watched intently as he turned the corner, sitting next to you on the couch, so close that you felt the heat emanating off of his body. To your surprise, Spencer was one of those people who was built like a furnace—the lanky stature was misleading.

“Did you go out alone?” He asked, matching your level of relaxation and leaning back on the couch. Grabbing one of the pillows from the end of the couch, you set it in your lap and wrapped your hands around it.

Shaking your head, you frowned at your phone, which still hadn’t powered on, “No, I went out with a group of friends for a birthday.”

Concern pinched his brows, “Your friends left you in the bar with that guy? Why would they do that?”

You shrugged in response, skimming your fingertips over the stitching on his pillow, “They think I need to get laid.”

“Do you?” He asked, likely before he was able to process what he was saying, based on the shocked look on his face.

Smiling softly at him, you teased, “Jeez, Spence, buy me dinner first.”

Spencer’s cheeks turned pink as a result of your jest, shaking his head quickly, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I’m sure you have plenty— er… I’m sure you’re very successful in that area of your life.”

A soft giggle escaped your lips, the light feeling of laughter a stark difference from how you felt twenty minutes ago, “I’m just messing. I know what you meant.” At least, you thought you knew what he meant. You kept watching him, his body turned away from the lamp, neck slightly craned forward. “So,” you began, “If you weren’t sleeping, and you weren’t reading, what were you doing before I buzzed?”

His expression went tight, and you worried you had somehow stepped over an invisible line, “Can you keep a secret?”

Your heart jumped at the prospect of becoming Spencer’s confidante. You’ve spent your first few months in the BAU hoping someone would invite you in, but they all seemed too preoccupied with losing your sister to the State Department to even acknowledge the fact that you were floundering. Trying not to seem too eager, you nodded at him, “You can tell me anything.”

His eyebrows knit themselves together, “I’ve been getting these… headaches lately. Migraines really.”

Your expression softened, mouth going slack in surprise, “Have you been to a doctor?”

He nodded in response and leaned his head to the side, so close to you that you could feel his hair touching your shoulder, “They can’t find a physical cause.”

Your stomach flipped, eyes widening ever so slightly as you found yourself glad he wasn’t looking at you. If there wasn’t a physical cause for Spencer’s migraines, then you knew exactly what he was worried about, “I’m sorry, Spence.”

Spencer hummed in acknowledgment, not saying anything else for a moment. There was just the two of you on his couch, and you wondered if there was any way you could make this a normal occurrence. You’d give away every night out for the promise of nights like this.

Bits of the puzzle started to fall into place. The way he had acted on the case in Miami, all of the time off he had taken, and even his newfound aversion to coffee—he was drinking less caffeine. He hasn’t been sleeping, the bags under his eyes told you that much.

“I’m gonna make tea,” you announced, resting your hands on the tops of your thighs and pushing up. “What kind of tea does Spencer Reid drink on a Saturday night?”

With his head buried on a couch cushion, you hear an almost pained response, “Lavender.”

Your back was to him as you smiled, “I like a guy who drinks lavender tea,” you said, your voice too soft to carry into the living room. Turning on his electric kettle, you started going through his drawers, hoping to find a stash of tea bags somewhere.

“This really isn’t necessary,” Spencer called over from the couch. “I just… needed to share.”

You hummed as you found the tea, grabbing a lavender tea bag before lifting up a box of chamomile, checking the production date before tossing a bag on the counter. Your next challenge would be mugs. “You took me in like a stray cat in the middle of the night, making you tea while you have a migraine is the absolute least I can do.”

He didn’t respond, but you felt his eyes on you as you worked in the kitchen. Dropping the tea bags in the mugs—an air and space museum one for him and a Snoopy one for you—you picked up the kettle before it let off its high-pitched beep, pouring the hot water into the mugs.

Carefully carrying the mugs back to him on the couch, you set them on the coffee table and returned to your spot next to him, “Here we are,” you said, flattening out a napkin for the two of you to place your tea bags on.

“Thank you,” he responded timidly, reaching out for the mug. “Since I shared about myself, I think it’s only fair that you share something with me,” he told you, a ridiculously serious look on his face.

You raised your eyebrows, using your tea bag to stir the tea in your mug, “Oh, a quid pro quo?” A soft smile grew on your face when he nodded, “What do you want to know?”

He thought about it for a while, taking a sip of his tea while he considered his options. “Why does JJ call you Ducky?”

Scoffing, you roll your eyes in response, “Oh, Spence, if you wanted the answer to that question, you should’ve asked while I was drunk.”

“You were never drunk,” he responded easily. “Y/N—” he faltered, frowning before he had the chance to continue.

You incline your head toward him, “What is it? Is it your head?”

He shook his head carefully, “Would you mind if we watched something? On the TV?”

“It’s your apartment, you can do whatever you want,” you told him, your volume hovering just over a whisper.

Spencer reached forward and took the remote off of the coffee table, hitting the power button and bringing the television to life. To your surprise, the pictures that showed up were cartoons. Old reruns from when he would’ve been a kid, he must’ve noticed your surprise, because he whispered, “It gets too hard to focus on anything else.”

He must’ve changed the settings on the TV, bringing down the brightness in a way that was comfortable to his eyes. You thought of all the times Spencer had been in a bright or loud space for work in the past few months, and the sympathy made your chest ache. “Thanks for saving me,” you murmured, watching to catch him before the two of you fell into a comfortable silence.

Extending his mug to you, you gently clinked your mug to his before giving your undivided attention to Inspector Gadget.

As the night went on, you remained in your place on the couch, because when Spencer fell asleep on your shoulder, you didn’t have the heart to wake him up.