#tw: parental leaving

[cardigcn]

tell me more about layla and jamie.

hi anon! thank you so much for asking about my original characters, i'd love to tell you about them!!

so, layla is the youngest daughter of melinda and jim but it was after jim switched into sam's body so techinally her genes come from sam, so she shares sam's DNA. her fc is lili reinhart (also EDIT: lili is just a temporary fc, because idk if i like her for layla so i'm searching for a new one) and she is born just after the show ends, around aiden's six birthday. just like her mother and technically "half brother" she has the abilty to see and communicate with spirits but her powers aren't as strong as her brothers which she always feels leaves her as an odd one out. she's very smart and is going to school to become a doctor like her father and unlike her brother, has always been closest with jim growing up and sometimes butts head with melinda the most out of the two of her parents. more headcanons to come, but i haven't rped her much but i would love to!!

for jamie, he's one of my fav original characters i created for a grey's rp a while back and i've just added him to my multimuse because i loved him so much!! i'm going to put his information under read more because it's very well thought out and i don't want to clog up the dash!! this is for his main verse, which is set in the grey's anatomy world but i will edit it when it's not the middle of the night to fit every medical show!!

jamie was born in orlando, florida and is the oldest out of three siblings. he has two younger sisters who he gets along with pretty well. growing up, jamie was always the protector in his family, feeling like his was his job to look after them and make sure no harm ever came to them. when jamie was 16, he was in a car accident and broke both of his legs. it was a rough recovery, but he made it through stronger than ever and it was then he decided that he wanted to go into medicine. after jamie graduated in high school, he was accepted into stanford and moved all the way to los angeles. he attended both college and medical school in the warm state. while also doing his residency there, before moving to seattle where he was offered a fellowship as a trauma surgeon.

jamie takes his job more seriously than most surgeons do and it’s something that he’s proud of. he’s worked hard to get where he is now and he wouldn’t change it for a thing.

ten years ago jamie met a woman named emily while he was an attending in flordia. they both were working in the same emergency room, with jamie as the head attending and she was the on-call nurse most of the nights.as they got to know each other, jamie knew that she was the one he wanted to spend his life with and ended up proposing about a year after they started dating. a year later, the two of them got married.

emily ended up deciding to go back to medical school as she dropped out a year before she finished due to a family emergency at the time and jamie was supportive of her all the way. everything was great for the couple, until jamie was offered a job here in seattle for head of trauma 6 years ago. the couple moved to seattle together and bought a lovely house. everything had settled in just fine, when they found out emily was pregnant.

jamie was over the moon and couldn’t have been happier about the fact that he was going to be a father, but he could tell that his wife didn’t feel the same way. over the next few months, they had decorated the nursery and gotten everything ready for mia to arrive but emily wasn’t as excited to become a mother as she was to become a surgeon. a few months after mia was born, jamie woke up to find a note from his wife saying that she just couldn’t handle being a mother anymore and she needed to focus on herself and it wasn’t fair to either of them. a few weeks later he was sent divorce papers in the mail.

jamie never understood how she could just leave, but to this day he’s grateful for his daughter and wouldn’t change that for the world.

[tawaifeddiediaz]

do you ever think about how much it hurts eddie when chris expresses how much of his mother he's beginning to lose. because we know that he does his best to keep her memory alive, that they go to her grave and they talk openly about her. but there are things that eddie will never be able to replicate for him - her voice, the way she smelled, the way she'd walk towards him, how she felt when she held him close, etc - and chris will continue to lose those details even if eddie talked about shannon 24/7 for the rest of his life.

that is a sort of helplessness that i don't think anyone talks about enough, and that makes eddie's expression when he overhears chris talking to buck all the more wounded

[fumifooms]

Canines

The hand that feeds

Mickbell Tomas & Kuro Dungeon Meshi

^ 1: Ink-the-artist, I will remove my teeth / 2: Margaret Atwood / 3: C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy / 4: Mitski, I’m your man / 5: Ojibwa, I love you like a rotten dog / 6: KotOR II / 7: Stardrop, Everything that’s ever been mine is covered in teeth marks / 8: Sodikken, People Eater / 9: Mitski, I’m your man / 10: maxime., The life and death of a dog / 11: Mitski, I bet on losing dogs / 12: maxime., The life and death of a dog / 13: hun, I did not bite with Malice / 14: C. Michael Davis, Don't Pet the Dragon / 15: Mitski, I’m your man

v 1: Early versions of the myth as in aeschylus orestes / 2: Ink-the-artist, I will not remove my teeth

[asoftepiloguemylove]

hi! could you do a webweave on realizing that you are a combination of your parents' worst? thx! ♡⁠♡

the word "father" rotted in my mouth

i hope this is what you were looking for !! some of these just about parental failure and this is really long but i have a lot of posts about parents lol. i hope you're doing well <33

Ethel Cain Family Tree (Intro) / wych elm Susan Smith / @filmnoirsbian Do Not Reply / Mary Ruefle Woodtangle / Julia Jacklin Less of a Stranger / Halsey I Would Leave Me if I Could: A Collection of Poetry / Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous / The Front Bottoms Father / @filmnoirsbian / pinterest / Warsan Shire How to Wear your Mothers Lipstick / Smoke Signals (1998) dir. Chris Eyre / Ocean Vuong Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong / pinterest / @extrasad

[uncanny-tranny]

It's weird how people paint "daddy issues" and even "mommy issues" as, like, a joke or a failure on part of the person who has those issues, rather than recognizing that daddy and mommy issues stem, for so many people, from abuse. What this all is is just abuse apologia, and nobody seems to either notice or maybe even care.

When somebody with daddy or mommy issues opens up about the "why," I can't ever seem to shake the fact that they tend to have gone through a ton of abuse and bullshit as a child. It's just crazy that other people would look at that and see a joke or a failure of the once-child who was abused.

[merakiui]

That ruggie thought about him getting you pregnant 👀 u always leave bangers in yhe tags

Putting bangers in the tags is a merakiui speciality. :D

(cw: slight yandere, nsfw, pregnancy, female reader, mentions of abortion)

Ruggie is a sneaky hyena, so naturally you shouldn’t have trusted him when he said he’d pull out before he cums. The two of you are just friends, yet one thing leads to another and the both of you agree to a night of mutually beneficial affairs. School is stressful! Running errands for Leona is stressful! If anything, the both of you deserve to unwind with one another. Ruggie makes it very clear that he will pull out. There’s no way he can risk cumming inside, and neither of you have any condoms on hand either. His pull-out game is elite; don’t worry. You’re in good hands. 

Until you aren’t and you wake nauseous weeks later. You’re quick to get a pregnancy test and when it comes back positive and you realize that the only one you were intimate with was Ruggie... Now things are complicated. The both of you sit in his dorm room on his bed, staring at the test and then at one another. It’s so awkward; the silence is stifling. He’d promised he’d pull out and he fully intended to, but in his defense it was warm and snug inside and you’d wrapped your legs around him and!!!! Excuses, excuses, excuses.

Ruggie offers an awkward apology that sounds insincere, but the truth is that he’s never been in this situation before and he has no idea how to smooth-talk his way out of this. So he tells you very bluntly that he can’t afford to take responsibility. He can get Leona to pay for any fees that might crop up if you don’t want to keep the child. He just can’t balance a fussy prince, academics, part-times, and a child. That’s way too much. Not to mention children are expensive and he’s very tight on money. He wouldn’t want to subject a child to a poor life because he isn’t financially stable. You understand where he’s coming from because with your monthly budget there’s no way you can afford a child either. But all of this is so...real. It’s one thing to entertain ideas like pregnancy, but it’s another to actually be pregnant.

So you tell Ruggie you need some time to think things through before you make a decision and he offers his support. After all, it was technically his fault that the both of you are in this predicament. He is genuinely sorry! He really wouldn’t dream of stressing you out with this. If he was rich, it would make your lives so much easier. Leona won’t provide any help because it isn’t his problem to solve. The way he sees it, Ruggie shouldn’t have had such a weak pull-out game. Ruggie’s humiliated that that’s what Leona decides to comment on. Leona does, however, wish you the best of luck. He does care for you in his own gruff way, but don’t expect him to bow to you just because you’re pregnant. 

Time passes and with it a dozen decisions fester. No one could tell you’re pregnant because it doesn’t show, but Lilia has popped in to gift you a pair of baby booties he’s crocheted and Malleus has started to visit more often to wish you well and check in. Some of the beastmen seem to perk up when they’re near you, as if they can sense the change in hormones, and the merfolk exchange sly glances. Everyone’s starting to wonder. 

When you finally, after much debate, decide to visit the doctor and Ruggie accompanies you (for your sake, he claims. He’s not a deadbeat, so wipe any of those ideas from your mind at once!), the doctor informs you that you’ve waited much too long and that now you ought to focus on preparing for the baby. You and Ruggie die that day in the pristine office, and you leave hollow and nervous. You knew you should’ve gone sooner, but you were never afforded a break. With Grim’s nonsense and then trying to scrounge enough money to fix a hole in the wall (thanks to Ace and Deuce’s foolishness) to managing your own academic schedule, you pushed pregnancy to the back of your mind because you were so certain that you had time. 

You try to look on the bright side, but Ruggie’s a realist and there’s absolutely no way the both of you can afford this without having to take out a loan or sign one of Azul’s contracts or work more jobs or... It doesn’t look good, but he wants to try to figure out a solution. So when Ruggie starts working more to afford pre-natal care (Leona’s wallet is always missing Madol, but he never notices, certainly not when he has a habit of leaving his valuables out and about), you try to do your part by looking for work as well. The both of you spend nights in either his dorm or yours (mainly yours, though. Ruggie doesn’t want any of the guys getting any funny ideas) and you’ll read up on pregnancy and parenthood together. You haven’t decided what you’ll do once the child is born, considering neither of you have any romantic feelings for the other and you’re not too keen on forcing a relationship that’s bound to fail. 

Despite the initial fears, all poorly concealed, you and Ruggie slowly relax as the weeks go by. The both of you are saving up to afford everything needed for a healthy pregnancy, but there are certain factors that get in the way. Nausea is your enemy. You’ve had to excuse yourself from your shift more than once to vomit, and Ruggie’s started staying in Ramshackle with you and Grim to cook and care for you. He rubs circles into your back when you spill the contents of your stomach into the toilet every morning, sometimes right after your meals. You caught Grim sleeping on your stomach one morning, to which he will adamantly deny it and scoff about how you’re just delusional and trying to spin a lie. 

When your baby bump finally starts to show, it becomes harder to hide the obvious. You’ll receive some support from Crowley because he’s so very kind, but you’re still expected to attend classes and such. Although the professors are admittedly a little more lenient with you now that they know of your situation. Ruggie wishes they’d be more lenient with him. Trein advises Ruggie to treasure the blessings that come with children. As noisy and troublesome as they are, it’s so very worth it in the end. His daughters mean the world to him; he’d do anything for them. Ruggie thinks this conversation got weird fast because since when does Trein get sentimental one-on-one like this? But...he’s grateful for the advice. He confides in Trein that he has no idea what he’s doing, but he’s really trying because... Because. He doesn’t have an exact reason, but he’s just doing it. 

Trein smiles at him and simply says that trying is better than nothing. Ruggie feels like this was the strangest pep talk he’s ever gotten, yet somehow it’s cleared his head a little. 

When your belly is more rounded and you’re a few months in, Ruggie suggests you stop working. Even Azul insists you ought to take leave; the lounge can survive without you. “It better be paid leave,” Ruggie threatens, to which Azul grins and says that a little signature can solve all of his issues.

Every single Madol counts. He’s filled jars and jars with bills and coins and he’s stowed them away in a locked space in his room. He’ll check the days off on his calendar as the both of you get closer to your supposed due date. He’s not sure why, but when you insist that you can work a little longer for his sake he doesn’t like that. He’ll work for you. He’ll do all of the heavy lifting and physical labor. Just relax and let him massage your shoulders or feet when they’re sore. Let him rub lotions and creams into your belly. Let him cook healthy, safe meals for you. Normally, Ruggie would let you do your own thing, but this time he’s a bit more forceful with his insistence. He doesn’t want you to hurt yourself or the baby, and he definitely doesn’t want you around those slimy Octavinelle students. 

For the longest time, Ruggie was so certain that there was nothing between the two of you. You’re not in love, you never kiss or hold hands, and you don’t even sleep in the same bed. You’re really just two friends trying to get through a tough situation. But lately he’s felt different. These feelings surface when he’s rubbing a soothing gel into your belly and he feels the slightest kick, and he freezes up and looks you in the eyes and both of your stares seem to say, You felt that, too, right? It finally occurs to him that there’s life inside you. That the little movement within your belly is the result of you and him. That, had you never waited in the first place, he wouldn’t be here with you, feeling a restless baby kick and squirm within. Ruggie finally understands what Trein meant all that time ago. Moments like this—the ones in which he’s reminded of the bond the two of you share, that this child is the one who tethers you and him together—are so very special. An important thing that only he could experience with you. 

Ruggie’s been feeling for too long and so he tries to back off, suddenly embarrassed, when your hands cover his. You smile at him and for the first time in his life he thinks that this isn’t a bad situation. Sure, it’s stressful and he’s exhausted every single day, but it’s a situation he doesn’t have to face alone. He’s together with you. With someone who is not quite a friend but not quite a lover either. Somewhere in between all of that. What does that even make you? He has no idea, but deep within his heart he wants you to be more than just a friend.

He’s never had anything that is remotely his. He’s always had to fight for his things. For food. For clothes. For money. He only knows survival because he’s never been granted the luxury of an easy life. So when you smell of him and you’re carrying his child and there are just so many traces of him on you it makes him realize that he wants this relationship. He wants to be your lover and future husband. He wants to be a father. He wants to be yours, and he wants you to be his.

Ruggie’s not sure what will happen after the baby is born and if the two of you will even stay as close as you currently are, but when he discusses potential names late into the night with you he pushes thoughts of the future aside. It’s important to plan ahead, but right now all he wants is to admire the way the moonlight frames you, the way you light up and laugh when he playfully suggests the name Ruggie Jr., and how warm you are. How welcoming your scent is. How comforting it is to know that it’s just you, him, and a precious miracle growing within you. (And a snoring Grim, but he’s too deep in sleep to be woken.) How perfect the two of you are, even when you’re struggling to make ends meet. Even then, he’s happy because you’re really all he needs to get through tough times.

He can’t let you go. He loves you too much, and hopefully by the end of these nine months you’ll love him, too.

[hussyknee]

Narmada and her sister Sharika are the daughters of prominent Tamil feminist and human rights activist Rajini Thiranagama, who was murdered when they were children. Every time they speak of her I move away from grief that her life was so brutally cut short, to joy that she spent those years living a life more full of light and love than many can fit into a hundred. Nothing can compare to the legacy of being remembered this way by your children.

[jackdaw-and-hattrick]

Danny’s parents don’t vivisect him when he tells them he’s Phantom

They don’t even reject him. They pull him into a tight hug and cry, whispering broken-voiced apologies as he talks about what he’s been through. But that doesn’t mean everything is fine. He doesn’t see the way they tense, the wild-eyed looks they share as they come to terms with their new reality. Their baby is dead. He’s dead and it’s their fault. Every shot. Every new weapon they were sure would be the one to take that dreaded menace down. Fuck, every hours-long rant about just what they’d like to do with that dastardly Phantom if they ever got their hands on him. Danny paling as he learned to fear them. Jack and Maddie had always worked so hard to protect their children. Sure, they hadn’t always been perfect, but why else would they throw themselves into ghost hunting the way they had if not for their children? It had been for their children, right? Every sleepless night over blue prints and days hammering away in their labs or off chasing whatever spirit they had found, it had been to keep their babies safe, hadn’t it? Hadn’t it? Even the ghost portal, their magnum opus which let all these ghosties through in the first place had been so they could better understand their enemy. But it had been it which did their boy in. Had they missed out on so much of Danny’s childhood just to build the guillotine that came down on his neck? Their poor boy. He’d been through so much. What kind of parents were they if they couldn’t even keep their children safe in death? Didn’t their boy deserve to rest in peace? Why was the world so cruel? Was there anything they could do? Anything at all?

They didn’t deserve to live.

Their babies weren’t safe. Never had been. Never WOULD be, not so long as they existed.

There had to be a way. A way to keep them safe from the cruelty of this life and the next.

The Fenton parents knew well by now how to destroy a core. What if they… Was there a way to destroy one before it got the chance to form? If there was enough destructive ecto like they used in their guns (oh god, why did they have so many god damned guns?), any core would theoretically be wiped out before it got the chance to form properly. If they took everything down to the lab, rewired the portal a bit, just enough to make it unstable… it would be easy enough to get Danny and Jazz down there, all they’d have to is ask (they had such good kids). They could just… lock the lab doors. Tell the kids to count to three. It would be so easy.

Could they do this?

They had to

They were parents, they needed to make sure their babies were safe

No matter the cost

[bonefall]

why is fernsong on thin ice with dovewing, did ivypool use him to send her messages or something like that

Yeaaaaahhh. I figured it was obvious enough to figure out lmao.

Dovewing really likes Fernsong (who doesn't?) but Ivypool continues to be a petty badger for years. She's changed a lot after the impostor murdered her daughter publicly for codebreaking and suddenly ShadowClan didn't look so crazy to resist him from the very start...

But she treated Dovewing like garbage for years. Always looking for ways to spite her and her 'Friendship' with Tigerheart, and it didn't even stop after she booked it. Dovewing doesn't WANT to fix this.

Sure, this stems from Lionblaze being a really bad parent, playing obvious favorites with Dovepaw and neglecting Ivypaw. But Ivypool would take it out on her. Well into their adulthood. And NOW she wants to reconcile? When Dovewing's finally away from her, and living happily?

Fernsong and Dovewing have a history, making friends with each other before Fern started dating Ivy when he first joined ThunderClan, but he FLOATED the idea of Dove talking to her sister, "you know... Ivypool talks about you," and she shut it down fast.

(That means she walked away, cutting the whole reunion short. She really did discover the power of Just Leaving and has been using it like a superpower)

He hasn't dared try again, since that moment. He knows very well he won't get a second chance, and Dovewing is his friend. He doesn't want to ruin it. She's forgiven him, but hasn't forgotten.

I think Dovewing has a reputation of being really sensitive, according to ThunderClan cats. And, she kinda is? But it's because she was so patient for years with them. She feels like if she gives an inch, they'll take a mile, and reacts accordingly.

...it's why the deafness isn't ALWAYS a bad thing, in Dovewing's mind. Sometimes she really appreciates it. She doesn't have to listen to her dad bark for her to get back here, or Bumblestripe break out into a sob, or whatever stage of denial Ivypool's circled back around to. If she does, it's quiet.

It's SO much easier to walk away now.

[moonysfavoritetoast]

we shouldn’t have to have planned escape routes. we shouldn’t have to worry about having our phones on us in case there’s an emergency. we shouldn’t have to know where to hide. we shouldn’t have to go to school SCARED for our fucking lives.

[i3utterflyeffect]

I made a mistake <- dared to ask if nonbinary people will ever be added to base-game stardew valley

[furiousgoldfish]

Abusive parents will look you in the eye and say ‘I should have beaten you worse when you were a kid’, and then still pretend they’re good damn parents! They will actively wish that they traumatized you worse, in your face, as if that’s not the most terrifying, hateful, vile and disgusting thing to say to someone, and still pretend they had any kind of good intentions towards you as a child! They’re expressing literal regret that you’re not smaller and more vulnerable again so they could brutalize you into terror, injure you into obedience! As if they didn’t already do that, as if you’re not already at the end of your wits just trying to cope with that hatred and violence! They’re regretting that their trauma conditioning didn’t grant them more power and control over you! That they could still force their way and erase your will and humanity and reason by hurting the child-like, younger and infinitely more vulnerable version of you! Who wouldn’t be able to fight back or understand what is going on! That’s what they’re saying! That’s fucking terrifying! Evil! Predatory! Despicable!

I truly believe whoever says this to a child should not exist anymore. No child or adult deserves to know someone would want to inflict this kind of harm onto them. Nobody deserves to know that a family member, a caretaker, a parent, someone they once did, or still do, love, would want to hurt them in the worst way possible.

[ladsofsorrow24]

10 year old me really thought it's normal for kids to think about dying or disappearing from the world on an almost daily basis huh

[chappellrroan]

the family drama is about reach it's peak

[uncanny-tranny]

Can we all collectively start to view parents who post online about the "fuck-ups" their child did as what it is - abusive? I genuinely do not care about the "reason" somebody has for posting their child on the internet, if it can be "solved" in the public court of shame and humiliation, it can be solved in a home that should love them.

Public humiliation is not an appropriate response to a child being a child. If your first line of defense is airing out your dirty laundry to millions of strangers, you are at best not mature enough to be a parent, and at worst, you are completely abusive and should not be a parent, and both options are pretty grim.

[l4ndojpg]

Whumtober 2023, Day 10: "You said you'd never leave."

fandom: criminal minds | characters: spencer reid (centric), diana reid, derek morgan, aaron hotchner, jennifer jaraeu, penelope garcia, emily prentiss | ship: past spencer reid/elle greenaway | trigger warnings: parent abandonment, depression, grief | content: spencer reflects on the people who have left him over the course of his life and grieves | word count: 1.3k.

“The five stages of grief,” Spencer says, standing in front of his geographical profile addressing officers on a case, “is a model developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and became famous after she published her book On Death and Dying in 1969. Kübler-Ross developed her model to describe people with terminal illness facing their own death, but it was soon adapted as a way of thinking about grief in general. 

“We believe this unsub is not grieving death in his life, but rather, great loss in general. The five stages are often mistaken to only be relevant to death, because of the term grief. But in fact, you can grieve many things, and you can go through the stages in any order. This unsub has been left by so many people - his mother, father, siblings, partner and only close friend because of his sociopathic tendencies, and he is grieving these losses like they’re death. We believe he is in the anger stage, hence his violent behavior.” Spencer turns to look at Rossi, who takes point from there, going on to describe what the officers should be looking for. Once they’ve dismissed the locals, Spencer excuses himself. 

Once he’s out in the fresh air, he takes a huge, shaking breath in, and raises a trembling hand to rub at his eyes. Penelope had relayed a list of people who had left this unsub to them over the phone, and Spencer had found himself growing more and more uncomfortable as each name had been read off the list. It’s only been a few weeks since Hotch left to go into witness protection, and though Spencer knows there was no other option, he can’t help but feel betrayed. It’s torn open old wounds for him: the amount of people that have left Spencer is laughable. He’s only ever had a handful of people he’s let in close see his vulnerabilities, and it feels like it always ends with them leaving. 

Spencer’s brain knows none of the people who have left him because of anything to do with him. 

Spencer’s heart aches with loneliness and grief, and always finds a way to make it his fault. 

Denial

“Spencer, what are you doing? It’s nearly midnight,” Diana Reid says, shivering and pulling her dressing gown around her tighter. She approaches her twelve year old son, who sits in the living room, staring out the window that watches over their driveway. 

“Sometimes when Dad leaves, he forgets his keys. I’m just making sure he doesn’t get locked out if he comes back,” Spencer says calmly. Diana sighs and takes a seat next to her son. 

“Sweetheart,” she says, “look at me.” 

Spencer turns to face his mother, eyes wide and tired behind his too-big glasses. 

“We’ve been over this. Your father isn’t coming back,” her voice quivers and cracks. 

“But you don’t know that,” Spencer argues gently. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“I’ve known your dad for a long time, Spencer. When he makes a decision, he sticks to it,” Diana says sadly. 

Spencer shakes his head stubbornly and turns to look back out the window. 

“You don’t know that for sure.” 

2. Anger 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Spencer says, his voice low and gruff. Morgan is taken aback by his friend's tone. He’s known Spencer for close to two years now, and he’s never heard so much anger in the young man’s voice. Spencer is by nature incredibly gentle, and he’s surprised at the sudden turn in emotions a week after Elle has left the BAU. 

“I get that. But you seem - well, really tightly wound. And I thought talking might help. I know you and Elle were… close-,”

“You can just say we were fucking,” Spencer snaps, and now Morgan is really concerned. The Spencer he knows would never use such colloquial language to describe the sort of relationship he and Elle had, let alone snap like that.

“I-,” 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Morgan,” Spencer says tightly, clenching his jaw. “I thought she trusted me enough to talk to me about what was going on, and I was wrong. She’s gone, she’s not coming back, end of story.” Spencer walks away, fists tightly balled at his sides. 

3. Depression

“I thought I might find you here,” a voice says, and Spencer looks up sharply from where he’s sitting, curled in the corner of the living room of Gideon’s cabin. He swipes at the tears on his face and sniffs, trying to pretend he hasn’t spent the last four hours sitting here, shivering and crying like a pathetic little kid. 

“S-sorry, did - do we have a case?” Spencer says, his voice shaky and hoarse. 

“No,” Hotch says, lowering himself to the ground in front of Spencer and watching him carefully. “No case. But I went to check on you at your apartment this evening, and you weren’t there.” 

“You came to check on me?” 

Hotch sighs. “I know what Gideon meant to you. And it seemed to hit you very suddenly yesterday that he isn’t coming back.” 

Even just hearing Hotch say it makes Spencer’s heart ache. His lower lip trembles, and he’s furious that he’s doing this here and now and in front of Hotch nonetheless, but he can’t help it. The tears spill down his cheeks suddenly. 

“It’s okay to be sad,” Hotch says gently, in a voice reserved only for Spencer’s lowest moments. “Allow yourself that.” 

“I feel like he took a piece of me with him,” Spencer sobs. 

Hotch reaches out and squeezes his hand. “I know. I’m sorry.” 

Spencer squeezes back. “Please don’t leave me too,” he chokes, and Hotch sighs shakily. 

“No, Spencer, I won’t. I won’t ever leave you.” 

4. Bargaining 

“But now that I know,” Spencer argues, “it’ll be easier for her to come back. She’s opened up to me and I understand why things were difficult for her, and if I just tell her that I’ll be able to help her through it, that we’re all supporting her-,” 

“Spence,” JJ sighs, “I know it’s hard, but Blake made her decision. We have to respect that.” 

“But if I just talk to her,” Spencer says, not taking in a single word JJ says, “I can help her understand. I can help her come back and feel comfortable.” 

“Spence,” JJ says again. “I know your relationship with Alex was unique. I know you trusted her quicker than  you’ve ever grown to trust anyone. She felt the same way about you, that’s why she told you about her son. But that’s all the more reason to trust that she’s made the right decision for herself.” 

Spencer is quiet for a moment. Then - 

“But if I just call her…” 

5. Acceptance 

“I miss him,” Spencer announces, entering Penelope’s office and flopping down on a chair beside her. “I miss Morgan.” 

“Me too, sweetpea,” she sighs, offering him a cookie from the tin she keeps on her desk. He shakes his head in response. She pulls one out and begins to munch on it. 

“I’m happy for him, you know? Like, really happy. I’ve said that, right? I told him I was happy for him?” 

“Only a million times,” Penelope says through a mouthful of chocolate chips. 

“But I still miss him. And I still wish he was here. Is that horrible?” 

“Oh Spencer, no,” she says, swallowing and smiling at him sadly. “You’re allowed to be sad. I’m devastated, but I’m still buzzing with joy over the fact that there’s a little baby Derek running around. It’s okay to feel both, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Spencer says, sadly. “I suppose it is.” 

6. …

Emily announces Hotch has gone into witness protection, and it’s like the wind has been knocked out of him. He knows Hotch doesn’t have a choice. He knows Hotch will do anything to protect his son, including staying in witsec however long he needs to. But emotions still flood him, overwhelm him, kick and scratch and punch him. His face burns and hot tears threaten to spill down his cheeks. He squeezes his eyes shut against the tsunami of grief. 

“You said you’d never leave,” he whispers  to the empty conference room. Everyone’s gone, and now it’s just Spencer and the ghosts of all the people who have once sat in this room and chosen to leave him. “You said you’d never leave.”