#virginia has ptsd

[imkindanerdy]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Welcome To The Table - Ben Brainard (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Massachusetts (Welcome To The Table), Virginia (Welcome To The Table) Additional Tags: Massachusetts and Virginia raise Kentucky Maine and West Virginia, Virginia has PTSD, Post-Revolutionary War, Discussions of War Series: Part 4 of When We're a Family Summary:

On a cold night, Virginia finds that he can't sleep, and starts to think about how things got to be bad. Massachusetts attempts to reassure him.

[elvisqueso]

"Our warriors fought with courage, but none as bravely as Kocoum."

Pocahontas (1995)

long, rambling meta under the cut:

you know i've taken some light dips into the tags looking for content on kocoum and i never see anyone going into depth about him as a character. sure you see the posts that are all "omg he was so hot pocahontas should have picked him instead :p" but that has little to do with his character or his place in the narrative or anything. in fact, it's a further objectification of a guy who is already dehumanized in-narrative, which is so very sad to me. kocoum is a lot more than his looks, which is why they're the first thing about him you're meant to notice. he's handsome, and he doesn't smile. he's a warrior and a stoic kinda guy. but that's all surface-level stuff. he's a very complex person with an intense internal turmoil that circumstances aren't allowing him to deal with properly.

like, you really can't come to an understanding about his character and go on to say "and he should have been with pocahontas" bc the fundamental aspect of their relationship as characters is that they would have been terrible for each other. you could feasibly make an argument that, on some level, kocoum would have been good for pocahontas (the "handsome, sturdy husband" who could ground her), but there is no way in any universe that pocahontas would have been good for him, bc the one who actually needed and wanted a steady, reliable partner is kocoum and pocahontas is the opposite of that (which is one of the reasons she and john smith kind of deserved each other but that's a whole other post).

see, kocoum is like a hemingway protagonist. remember, at the start of the movie, everyone is returning from war; it's important to note how much emphasis the movie places on family as a representation of "the ordinary world." the same is done with the virginia company members at the top of the film. there, they say goodbye to their normal lives and start an adventure. here, the powhatan warriors are returning to theirs. but who does kocoum, the celebrated warrior, have to return to?

kocoum doesn't have a normal life yet. he still belongs to the battle. there's a lot to be said about PTSD as a character motif in this film: it affects a lot of the major characters in different ways. for kocoum, it means he's not allowed to depart from his wartime mindset until and unless he can start a family of his own, and for that he pins his hopes on pocahontas. why exactly he likes her goes unsaid; it's implied they aren't particularly close, but may be familiar with each other. pocahontas being the chief's daughter may be an element, but it may also be that he's harbored an admiration for her from afar for some time. whatever the reason, kocoum has a misplaced idea that being with pocahontas will bring him peace. like a hemingway protagonist, he's taken up with the notion that being with a woman, an angel, will fix him; but the woman he wants is neither interested in doing so nor able to do so, whether or not she cares for him.

and this is why his outburst of emotion when he finds pocahontas and john in the glade is so understandable. he's watching his hopes for the future being ripped apart before his eyes. he'll never get peace, and that breaks him and then kills him.

and when i say he's dehumanized, i'm talking about the way characters talk about him and then how he dies. he's fierce, like a bear. he's handsome, but doesn't smile. he's a tool, an obstacle, and ultimately fodder for both pocahontas's and thomas's character development (mostly thomas's). there's something to be said about how both kocoum and his foil john smith are objectified so differently. where john is the subject of pocahontas's female gaze, kocoum is also objectified through a masculine one (the tension-filled lens that marries fear and admiration for athletic, warrior men and rivals). and then, again, he gets 'fridged for plot reasons because he's also the paris to pocahontas's juliet.

basically what i'm saying is kocoum really needed someone to take care of him, and no one did nor could. and that's why he's so tragic and tbh deserves better treatment by the fans, too.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Doomscrolling Is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health June 2020

For years people have questioned the net benefits of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and while some studies have found social media, when used responsibly, can have positive effects on mental health, it can also lead to anxiety and depression. Or, at the bare minimum, FOMO. And that’s just the result of looking at too many brunch photos or links to celebrity gossip. Add in a global pandemic and civil unrest—and the possibility that social media networks are incentivized to push trending topics into your feeds—and the problem intensifies. [...] The doom and gloom isn’t all the media’s fault, though. Mesfin Bekalu, a research scientist at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, notes that while a lot of the news is bad, “as humans we have a ‘natural’ tendency to pay more attention to negative news.” This, along with social media algorithms, makes doomscrolling—and its impacts—almost inevitable. “Since the 1970s, we know of the ‘mean world syndrome’—the belief that the world is a more dangerous place to live in than it actually is—as a result of long-term exposure to violence-related content on television,” Bekalu says. “So, doomscrolling can lead to the same long-term effects on mental health unless we mount interventions that address users’ behaviors and guide the design of social media platforms in ways that improve mental health and well-being.” The effects of doomscrolling also vary depending on who’s doing it. [...] Many activists didn’t participate in doomscrolling simply because, they said, “I can’t see myself being killed over and over again in this tiny square on my phone.”

It’s Time to Log Off Nov 2023

Scrolling through social media can feel like a nightmare these days. You’re reading about the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war, and then you’re reading about the horrors of the war between Ukraine and Russia. You’re learning about the latest devastating climate news. Democracy is under threat in America. It can feel like everything is falling apart. This, of course, can have a significant effect on your mental health. You start to feel overwhelmed. [...] Matthew Price, a professor of psychological science at the University of Vermont, says that stress is cumulative. [...] Price says ingesting a lot of negative news can cause anxiety and depression, at least for some period of time, but it’s especially likely to “exacerbate” anxiety, depression, and PTSD in people who have a history of experiencing those conditions. He says that people often doomscroll because there’s something bad going on and they want to find a way to fix the problem they’re reading about. “When we’re doomscrolling, we’re kind of looking for the resolution to the issue. Read some more posts. Read some more articles. If I get more information, then maybe I’ll understand the problem,” Price says, describing the doomscrolling cycle. [...] “It’s not about ‘this is a bad thing and this is a good thing.’ It’s about how you engage with it and how it fits in with the rest of what’s going on in your life,” Teachman [a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia] says. “How are you living the rest of your life, and what are the impacts on that?” [...] Price says that acting locally on issues you’re concerned about can help you maintain your mental health because otherwise things can feel too far away and too difficult to solve. Maybe you can’t end a war, but perhaps you can help some people in your community or get your community to do something that helps a bigger problem.

i find the defiance that it's not phones (a shorthand for everything they provide access to) eroding our children's attention spans puzzling. bad news isn't new, the press has always veered towards the sensational, people have always overfocused on the negative. but the technology of access and dissemination is brand new. this is a summary of a few research studies on doomscrolling and the emotional, psychological effects it has on adults. surely everyone reading this has experienced some it in some form. you don't think worse things are happening to undeveloped brains?

[cultofdixon]

Protective of One Another

Daryl Dixon • She/Her Pronouns • The Saviors war ended, and everyone has been doing their part to rebuild the communities. A project being the bridge. You have been assigned to watch those building the bridge and help where you can. You just didn’t expect to end up in the infirmary • ANGST/SFW • TW: Injuries / Anxiety / PTSD

Requested by: Anon

“Hey, you coming to work on the bridge?” Aaron asks Daryl who was preoccupied with sharpening his knife.

“Nah. Why?”

“Eh just thought I’d ask…” Aaron started to walk away from the tent the archer was currently occupying. “Y/N will be there”

Aaron now with a satisfied smile on his face worked beside Daryl who was hammering away at a panel they just placed while Y/N walked past them every now and then.

“Bitch”

“Hey it got you to work today. At least I didn’t lie”

“Mm. Fair” Daryl scoffs looking up for a moment seeing Y/N talking to Rick about the progression of the bridge they were working on.

________

“You sure can hold your own”

Y/N turns toward Daryl after setting another Walker on the pile with T-Dog’s help.

“Yeah…okay” Y/N brushes her hands off on her blue camo pants seeing that he was still standing there. “Yea need somethin’ Daryl?”

“How come you know my name but I don’t know yours?”

“First, it’s Y/N. Second, you’re not a very social person. Or you weren’t until that Grimes guy came and told yea he ditched your brother on a roof”

“Mm. Fair I guess” Daryl frowns watching Y/N step over one of the dead’s legs and extending her hand out to him.

“It is nice to finally meet you though”

“What’s with the blue camo?” He asks while shaking her hand as she laughs slightly.

“Navy. Blue is for the navy. I had just gotten home from discharge when the outbreak happened”

“Then I guess you weren’t part of the dumbasses that kept the virus under wraps until it started killin’”

“Oh I would’ve deserted and told the whole world if it meant this outbreak not happening”

“Wouldn’t have met yea though”

“Already liking me, D?” Y/N teased before going to help T-Dog with the rest leaving Daryl a bit of a blushing mess.

________

“You’re crazy yknow”

Daryl turns to the beautiful voice that matches the woman he’s been pining for for years as Y/N held up a canteen.

“Crazy for what?”

“Wearing all black in Virginia air. Or at least all dark clothes” Y/N gestured to his outfit before crossing her arms and still having that gorgeous smile remain. “What am I gonna do with yea, Dixon?”

“Beat my ass if I pass out from heat stroke” Daryl jokes getting that laugh of hers to roar out of her. “You’ll never see me in shorts”

“I would pay good money to see that one day” Y/N laughs a little more. “Shorts are great” she gestured to her own dark blue denim shorts as it wasn’t the only thing Daryl looked at. She was wearing a black tank top and red flannel over it with the sleeves rolled up, very different from her old Navy camo pants and the long sleeve when they first met up until the farm. But she always had the signature combat boots, something from her past that she won’t get rid of.

“On others maybe” He makes one last comment on the shorts listening to her laugh die down a bit before patting him on the shoulder.

“Least you can do is go inside one of the tents in the shady forest to cool a bit with that canteen.”

“Yea ain’t the boss of me, woman” He smirks watching her glare playfully.

“Last I checked. I was assigned to oversee those working on the bridge today…so the least you can do…is follow my orders” Y/N smirks getting up in his space as the archer covers his ears to avoid the blush rising.

“Yes ma’am” Daryl states watching her go back to working.

As he made his way back to the little tent city they have up for those working on the bridge, Carol immediately got up from her tent with a smile on her face.

“Hey buddy”

“Buddy?” Daryl scoffs to the nickname.

“What? You want me to go back to pookie?” She smiles deviously listening to him groan. “Anyway, I saw yea chattin’ it up with Y/N. Did you finally ask her yet?”

“Ask her what?”

“Oh come on!” Carol shoved him playfully as Daryl almost pushed her back but decided against it and sat on one of the outdoor chairs she has set up. “You know exactly what I mean Dixon” she took the other empty seat listening to the man groan even more. “She’s a catch. If you’re not going to say anything, someone else is gonna swoop in”

I don’t even want to think about that Daryl rolls his eyes turning his attention to the bridge. “The fuck am I supposed to say that I should’ve said years ago?”

________

“You’ve seen Y/N?”

“Oh my god. Are you actually going to finally do it, Dixon?” Carol teases handing him a bowl of breakfast which was whatever meat the archer hunted for that morning.

“Shut up” Daryl grumbles taking his bowl and going to sit with Rick at the table he was at with Judith in his arms.

“Waiting for Y/N?” Rick smirks watching Daryl glare as he was about to get up and leave. “Woah Woah. I surrender…sorry man. Just never seen someone so close to our navy officer and well. Connecting the dots here…”

“How’d yea tell Lori yea liked her?”

“Geez. You have no experience just from that question alone”

“Rick—-“

“Right right. Well. I kind of just went up to her asked if we could talk somewhere more private and then told her how I felt” Rick shrugs, it wasn’t exactly rocket science. “Then one thing lead to another”

Daryl hums in response to such as he watches the gates open showing Michonne returning on the horse they found and Y/N walking beside. They have been going on runs together that would last days or weeks and the archer would be stuck sticking around hoping to run into Y/N just for a second.

“You wanna tell her. Just tell her” Rick smiles picking up Judith and heading inside leaving Daryl to sit there watching Y/N draw closer.

He straightens up and in that moment he decided today was the day to tell her how he feels. But once she got closer to him, Daryl noticed the bandage on her arm and his worry got the best of him.

“Long time no see, Dixon” Y/N smiles warmly even if his neutral expression didn’t exactly cover his tense body language. “It’s just a scrape. Gotta see Hershel to see if it needs stitches”

“You better”

“Oh I will, and then I can tell you about the run I just went on” She smiles patting his shoulder in passing leaving him stuck in his thoughts once more.

________

So many opportunities.

And this was the time he chose to take it head on.

Y/N heard commotion going on between a few Saviors and some Oceanside on the other side of the bridge. She quickly apologizes to Eugene who she was talking to about the progression, to go handle what was going on.

“We shouldn’t have to work with scum like you!”

“It ain’t my fault the old man is making us work with weak ass people like yourselves”

“We’re weak?!” One of the Oceanside men got up in the Savior’s face. “Whose fucking leader is caged like an animal?”

“Woah guys let’s break it—-“ Y/N’s words didn’t reach their deaf ears as the Savior grabbed the Oceanside’s collar tossing them down. “Hey! Stop it”

“Back off!” The Savior yells pushing Y/N aside as she was resilient. “This fucking weakling needs to know his place”

“Oh yeah?!” He snaps back rising to his feet and with an unexpected play of drawing his gun which none of the crew that day thought anyone was armed. Even Y/N.

“Hey—Who told you you can—“

“Shut the fuck up! I ain’t listening to you” the gun pointed at Y/N temporarily before going back to the Savior who seem to be standing his ground. “And I’ve had enough of you Saviors walking all over me”

“Really? Then pull the trigger”

“Hey let’s not escalate this any further” Y/N sternly states to the two while standing in between them as she suddenly felt her hair get pulled to bring her back out of the way of the now nervous Oceansider. “Excuse me—-“

“Nah I wanna see if this fucking pussy will actually pull the trigger” He snaps in the nervous one’s face as Y/N tried to push him back because this wasn’t going to end well regardless.

Then the gunshot rang through the nearby woods, alerting the residents in the tent city. Daryl quickly rose to his feet running over toward the bridge with Carol following shortly behind. The two noticed a small crowd was formed and as they drew near, Daryl instantly locked onto Y/N pinning the Oceansider down while Rick kept the Savior at a distance.

“What the hell happened?” Carol snaps bringing herself over to Y/N before realizing. “Let me take over”

“Just take his gun away” Y/N hissed through the pain in her side given the Oceansider was a nervous wreck, making him a nervous shot. He aimed low and Y/N knocked the Savior out of the way. Resulting in her receiving the bullet. “Get the leader of Oceanside to take care of her own, Carol will confiscate the gun and…”

“We’ll call it a day” Rick finishes for her but then noticed the shakiness in her composure. “Somebody catch her”

And that was Daryl’s cue. He caught her right as she started to faint. The archer quickly picked her up and didn’t wait another second to take her to the med-tent that currently had Enid working. Not that he didn’t trust the prodigy, he would rather have Siddiq for someone this important.

“It’s just a flesh wound”

“So no bullet?” Rick asks Enid once she finished applying the pressure bandage on Y/N’s side.

“No bullet. Through and through”

“This could’ve been a whole lot worse. Hell remember when you took a bullet?” Carol laughs a bit of the tension away referring to Daryl’s near death moment.

“Yeah but I would like to knock that son of a bitch’s teeth in when Andrea walked away”

Both Rick and Carol gave each other a confused look when Daryl said such. It definitely didn’t go unnoticed.

“What.”

“Andrea didn’t just walk away”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” The archer was even more confused than ever.

But he’s not the only one pining for another.

________

“Oh you’re a fucking moron that’s trigger happy”

“Now Y/N I didn’t know it was Daryl—-“

“Don’t fucking matter.” Y/N didn’t hesitate to punch the girl square in the jaw, with enough force to cause her to stumble and before Shane or Rick could intervene Y/N held her hand up toward them. Indicating she was done after that. “Four of our men ran over to Daryl to take out the walker—if it was a walker—you didn’t have to get on your high horse and shoot the only other person in this goddamn group that understands”

“Understands fucking what?!”

“I don’t like you. You ain’t getting that out of me” Y/N knelt to her level on the ground. “But if he doesn’t pull through or you try that shit again. I’ll put you six feet under with my bare hands”

________

“She was scary” Rick laughs a bit. “Seriously. Why do yea think I don’t piss her off?”

“Besides, she was at your bedside when you slept in the farmhouse” Carol adds. “She really protective of you in some way”

“She was also the advocate to get yea out of the Sanctuary job sooner. So you didn’t have to relive any trauma left there”

The two stopped talking when they heard Y/N groan indicating she was waking up.

“We’re gonna take care of cleaning up for the night” Carol smiles giving Daryl a look as he glares back stating this isn’t the right time. But she didn’t care and insisted with her eyes.

Enid handed Daryl the painkillers for Y/N to take before giving them the room (or tent).

“Take it easy”

“I feel like shit” She crooked out with a sigh following, Daryl reached for the canteen opening it for her and taking out a few pills. “Mm. Nurse Daryl to my rescue?” She teases bringing herself to sit up which she regretted given the stitches in her side.

“Lay back down and let me actually nurse yea” Daryl got up to grab the pillow from the other cot to help her sit up a bit to take the pills with the water.

Y/N sighs once more handing the canteen back to Daryl and sinking into the cot. “Shit got out of hand”

“Yea don’t gotta talk about it right now. Just rest”

“Mm…Carol and Rick talk a lot” She randomly states receiving Daryl’s confused look as she brought her right arm under her head. “I wasn’t fully unconscious. Yeah lost some blood and fainted, but started coming too a bit ago”

Shit. “What’d yea hear?”

“Besides how you were barking at Enid for doing a simple repair because of how worried you were. The fucking farmhouse story. Guess we both have bullet scars”

“That…isn’t something to be happy about”

“Oh I’m not happy. That bitch reminded me of Andrea when she was trigger happy. Regardless…you’re missing my point here”

“I think I’m tryin’ to avoid it”

“Why?” Y/N gave him a small smile. “Because you wanna be the one to tell me you have feelings for me and not the other way around?” She continues to smile while the blush became more prominent on Daryl’s face.

“I thought…uh. I waited too long”

“We never had a quiet moment, D. Just think about it”

The outbreak in the quarry

Merle gone missing

The CDC exploding

The farm

The Governor Pt. 1

The prison illness

The Governor Pt. 2

Terminus

Grady Memorial Hospital

Old Alexandria

The massive herd

The wolves

The Saviors introduction

Daryl’s kidnapping

The Saviors demise

…Wow

“We really didn’t…” Daryl frowns watching Y/N bring her free hand to take one of his. “But I was still protective of yea”

“So was I”

“Is this finally that moment?”

“As fucked as it is” She laughs squeezing his hand a bit as Daryl leans into her pressing his lips firmly against hers. Feeling the hand behind her head move to run through his hair.

Once they parted…

“Took you two long enough” Carol chimes in with the biggest smile on her face. “Should’ve made a bet on it”

“Shut up”

[lawsofchaos1]

MCU Promptlet: Tony takes a breather first AU

When Tony Stark finally sets foot on American soil after three months of captivity and torture, he requests two things: an American cheeseburger and a press conference.

Ms. Virginia "Pepper" Potts, the woman who has risen up to become the personal secretary to the head of the largest weapons manufacturer in the country and who will one day become the CEO of the largest technology empire the world has ever seen, takes one look at the three days of stubble on her boss' cheeks, the haunted gaze in his eyes, and the trembling in his always steady hands and says no.

Pepper does not call the press conference, but instead takes Tony home to his workshop where he can sleep, unwatched and among friends, for the first time in months. She takes him home to soothe Jarvis' fears (even though Jarvis' has uploaded himself to any tech within three meters of Tony since he was found, it's not the same as the sensors in the shop and Jarvis' steady stream of increasingly alarmed texts to Pepper's phone have made that clear).

She takes Tony home to be hugged by his robot-children and to let Rhodey mother-hen him the way he couldn't while in uniform, cajoling him to eat small portions of Rhodey's homemade spaghetti - Tony's ultimate secret comfort food - every few hours. The next morning, the three of them sit at the kitchen table, Jarvis ever-present, and Tony tells them of what he found out in Afghanistan. He tells them and they plan.

Tony doesn't have a press-conference, hands still shaking and fear hidden in his eyes, to shut down everything his company is known for on the way home from the airport. Instead, Rhodey and Pepper and Tony strategize.

Tony meets with the Joint Chiefs and the SecDef, not to mention the heads of the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Stark weapons in terrorist hands scares them the same as Tony. Tony tells them of his plans, for his company and for Iron Man. People tend to forget that Tony's company holds billions in military contracts, but only about twenty percent of that is for weapons.

The military knows there will always be other bomb makers, but the rest of what Tony provides? SI holds those thousands of contracts because there is literally no competition. With the military's continued and public support of SI, even without selling weapons, the company's stock never tanks, but instead surges with Tony's newfound determination and innovation.

With the military's support for Iron Man, Tony's PR surges with newfound respect, not just popularity. Pepper says no to a press conference, and that makes all the difference.

[Additional fun head canon below]

This Tony would be gently cajoled into therapy by Pepper.

And see, Tony was basically raised by the military. Howard used to bring him to meetings as a kid and Tony would escape his SI minders and go hang out with the friendly soldiers until his father remembered he had a kid. The soldiers paid him more attention and taught him more than Howard ever did.

And with how he was captured, it would make a lot of sense for Tony to be with a military therapist, and Rhodey quietly works some magic and Tony somehow ends up in group therapy sessions with other soldiers with PTSD.

The soldiers are at first a little wary of Tony Stark coming to group, but also a little in awe because most of them owe their lives or the lives of their brothers/sisters to Stark Tech of some kind.

But then they get to know Tony. And Tony .. doesn't really have friends.

He has Rhodey- who's amazing but can't be there a lot- and Pepper and Happy, but again, they work for him. So the soldiers decide unilaterally to adopt him.

Suddenly Tony is walking out of group and someone is shoving a baseball cap on his head so they can all go out to Chili's for dinner (and no, they don't let him pay).

Then he's being invited to backyard bbq's and birthday parties for two years olds. (A trust fund is an appropriate gift, right?)

And then one day Lisa (a former sergeant in the group) and Helen (Dave's wife) just .. show up at the Tower with coffee and pastries. They don't want anything, they just want to ... catch-up. Which is precisely when tony is hit by the clue by four that he might just have .. friends.

[boldlyvoid]

I Know Places: Title Chapter.

18+ Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader | Masterlist | AO3 link

Summary: Worried for Aaron's safety as he heals, she takes him to the one place she knows no one can find them. The Bed and Breakfast in West Virginia.

Warnings: depression, anxiety, ptsd, suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, anti-depressants, hotch has a really hard time with everything. taking care of him, helping him bathe, hurt/comfort, deep talks, teasing, getting his staples removed, implied off-screen "sex", proposals

Word count: 5.6k

For some reason, he feels incredibly self-conscious as the nurse explains to Y/N how to help him change his bandages. They give him a little sponge bath in the room, ie a basin of soap and warm water is in his lap and they clean around his wounds with a washcloth while he lays back against his pillows biting his lip when it hurts. 

In total, he has over 100 staples in his chest right now. Each wound has a large purple and blue bruise growing out around it and the wounds are gross… but Y/N doesn’t care. She lightly dabs the washcloth over these wounds, she cleans off the blood and iodine left over from his surgery and she listens so intently to the nurse as she explains how to re-bandage him. They dry him off, cover him in bandages and then make him lean forward so they can wrap his chest in gauze. 

“Now, when it’s time to take the staples out you’ll have to come back here—

“We’re leaving after he gets discharged,” Y/N cuts her off. “With everything going on I don’t want to stay in his apartment or mine in case the unsub comes back, he’s not strong enough to help me fight the guy off if we need to.” 

“Oh uh… where are you going?” 

“West Virginia. The closest town to our cabin is Davis,” she explains, voice as low as possible. 

“Okay,” the nurse nods and thinks of what they could do. “Um, I can send a referral to a local doctor or nurse practitioner in the area to get them out there?” 

Aaron just takes a deep breath, he knows the plan but he’s so tired, so out of it, that he has a hard time caring. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“You can’t take them out yourself,” the nurse reminds him. “Don’t even try.” 

“I won’t let him,” Y/N assures her. 

“Good, okay, I’m going to go do some research and talk to the doctor and you can help him put his gown back on?” She asks Y/N. 

She nods, “Yeah, thank you so much.” 

“Oh, you’re welcome,” she gives them a smile and then heads out with the basin and the washcloths. 

She helps him back into his hospital gown with some grunts and heavy breathing as he stretches with staples in his chest. It’s not fun. He wants to pass out from the pain but he’s had more than enough pain medication today so he has to just deal with it. He’s so miserable, depressed beyond belief and trying his absolute best not to take it out on the woman he’s supposed to be so in love with. 

Every time he looks at her, he knows he loves her. Every time she smiles at him, he knows he loves her. It's when she talks, to the doctors, to their friends… she talks to them as if he’s not there. As if everything will be okay. As if this isn’t the worst situation he could ever be in. He’s so mad at what’s happening that he wants to scream at her, ask her to be a little less cheery, to be a little more upset like he was. 

“Are you okay?” She asks, giving him those over-caring eyes again. 

He nods, “Yep.” 

“Do you want to talk?” 

He shakes his head. “No.” 

“Aaron you can’t--

“I can. Watch me,” he spits back, closing his eyes as he lays back. “I’m hurting, I’m sad. Let it happen.” 

She simply crosses her arms and stares at him, “You want me to leave you here? Do you want me to just go back to work and let you wallow in your self-pity and hurt yourself further? Cause I can do that.” 

“No, no that’s not—

“I love you. I know this is hard, it’s killing me to see you like this but if we both fall down this hole who’s going to pull us up? I have to stay above ground for the both of us,” she explains and he knows she’s right. “So I’m going to plan things, I’m going to help you, I’m going to keep you on a schedule, and when you’re ready, we’re going to talk. Because I love you. I’m not doing this because I have some fake hope that things will be okay. I’m doing this because I truly believe we can get through this. I love you, which means I love your family and I will go to the ends of the earth to bring them back to you. Believe me when I say that.” 

He beckons her closer, makes her sit on the side of the bed and takes her hand in his, “Thank you.” 

“And?” She teases him. 

“I love you too,” he assures. “Could you… um… could you ask the doctors to get me a psych consult?” 

She nods, “Yeah, I can.” 

He takes a deep breath, it hurts and so his breath comes back out in a sputter as a tear drips down his cheek. He doesn’t want to say it but he promised her a while ago that he would never leave her in the way he’s been thinking about it. “It’s been a week and my thoughts are… they’re not good. I want to fall asleep and never wake up in the morning. I want to die before they do. I can’t go through this anymore… I need some help.” 

She reaches out and cups his cheek, wiping the tear away with her thumb, “thank you for telling me.” Fighting every urge not to cry with him, she swallows sharply. “you’re not thinking about hurting yourself? You just want to slip away in the night?” 

He nods, crying harder, “I’m sorry.” 

“No, no, no,” she gets even closer to him and lightly rubs his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. We’ll talk to someone, get you some medicine to help with the thoughts and I know I said we’re going to the middle of nowhere but I can find you a therapist there? We can handle this. We can do something about this before it gets too bad.” 

He just cries, leaning forward she catches him carefully and their foreheads rest together. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” 

That’s all he could ask for. 

—

With a new prescription for escitalopram, his bottle of pain meds and a referral for a nurse practitioner in Davis, they hit the road 1 week after the attack. 

It takes them 4 hours to make it to the bed and breakfast that they knew and loved last year which isn’t too long for Aaron to be sitting but is just long enough to drive him a little crazy. He gets out with her to go get the keys, needing to stretch a bit before they have another hour and a half drive to their cabin. 

Mary's daughter is working the front desk when they walk in. “Eileen, it’s lovely to see you again,” Y/N smiles as they enter.

“Oh, hey! Mom said you were coming today,” she smiles wide, happy to see them and then reaches under the desk for something. “I’ve got the key right here.” 

“And I have the money,” Y/N says, digging $2k out of her purse in hundred-dollar bills. 

They exchange the money and keys, Eileen gives her a map with instructions on how to get to the cabin and makes sure they know how everything there works. There’s a fireplace, they’ve stocked up the wood near the front porch so they don’t have to go far to get it and they walk them through the temperamental amenities for their stay. 

She helps Aaron back into the car and he sighs, “Thank you…” 

“Hey,” she looks at him from the door. “You don’t have to thank me, ever.” 

“I know,” he gives her a little smile. She closes the door and rushes around to the driver's side again. “I just want you to know how much I love you for all this.” 

She reaches over and takes his hand in hers, “so you should know I love you just as much because I’m doing this.” 

He nods, “I know… thank you.”

“Let's go hide away.” 

—

The first day at the cabin is just them moving in, unpacking all the things she brought and making a fire. She leaves Aaron there with his guns and makes him lock the door while she heads to the grocery store to get some food for them for the first week and when she gets home, he’s sound asleep on the couch, by the fire, with his gun untouched on the coffee table. 

She makes him dinner, she helps him change his bandages, she gives him his meds and she helps him into bed. It’s the same the next day, only they start the day with his antidepressants and cuddles in bed. He’s starting to feel the side effects of adjusting. The nausea and dry mouth, he’s sweating even though it's pretty chilly without the fire on and he’s so tired. That can be both from his injury and his pain meds, but it’s definitely more intense than just regular fatigue. 

She lays there beside him, as close as she can be without her head on his chest, watching him sleep. She’s done a lot of that over the last 2 weeks. He’s barely awake, he knows she’s watching him so he smiles and blinks into the light, “What?” 

“Nothing,” she smiles back at him. “I like watching you sleep… knowing you’re okay.” 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“For what?” She asks, confused. 

“I gave up,” he whispers. Eyes welling with tears, “I could’ve fought back… I got stabbed that first time and I just laid there.”

“We profiled him, we knew he’d need a stern face and if you show fear it’ll get worse. You did what you needed to do, clearly, he didn’t want to kill you,” she explains. “You didn’t give up, you did what you had to. We’re still doing what we have to. And when we catch him, he’ll pay for it.” 

“What do you—

“I’m going to kill him,” she assures. “I’m going to shoot him in the chest and watch him hit the ground. I’m going to step on his wound so it hurts and I’m going to stare him in the eyes while I shoot him between them.” 

“You can’t—

“I can and I will,” she nods, staring him down. He knows she’s being serious, she wants revenge. She loves him deeply. “And Haley said she would too.” 

“What?” 

“Before she left I gave her a talk, I gave her the profile and I let her know what he��s like. The games he plays and the shit he might try. I told her that he’s going to try and find her, he’s going to try and get her away from her Marshall and he’s probably going to pretend to have killed you to draw her out of hiding. I told her she couldn’t trust anything if it didn’t come from her Marshall's mouth or one of us. I made sure she knew to get a couple guns, one for her room, one for her purse and that if she ever thought she wasn’t safe, she should get in her car and drive right to Quantico.” 

“Seriously?” He can’t believe it. 

“Yeah. I’m going to make sure she comes home to you,” she whispers, trying not to cry. “You love her, I love you, we all love Jack. We’re getting them home. We’re all going to make it out of this alive.” 

He reaches for her hand, holding it tight, “kiss me? I can’t sit up,” he laughs. 

“Okay,” she smiles, leaning into his space to press a kiss to his lips. She kisses him a few times, hand on his cheek, she pulls back with a smile, “I love you.”

“I love you,” he whispers back. “I love you so much, I don’t want you to ever think I love her more because I do love her… but it’s so different now. The love I feel for you is so intense, I crave you every day. I will never be able to explain how different it is.” 

“I don’t need an explanation,” she caresses his cheek, staring at his lips and then his eyes. “I know you love me. I’m perfectly fine with you loving her. I love her because she is your family. We are a weird, misshapen family… but we’re a family.” 

“When this is over… when it’s all okay again…. Would you ever want to get married?” He wasn’t even sure where it came from, but he knew he wanted this. 

Her smile slowly grows, “seriously?” 

He nods, “When I was on the floor, bleeding out, all I could think was you’re going to find me like this and— and I’m going to break your heart in a way I promised I never would… and all I’ve thought since then, as I watch you take care of me, is that I never want to be without you. I never want to leave you with nothing. I want everything that’s mine to be yours, I want to take care of you as well as you take care of me and I want to love you until the day I do die. Naturally, as an old, old man, holding your hand.” 

She kisses him again and again, crying slightly, he holds her as close as he can without hurting himself. He really didn’t think their first real vacation would involve him being hurt… he thought the first time they disappeared into the wilderness they’d be able to be all over each other, take hikes... go sit by the lake. But they can’t. 

Not just because he’s in pain and recovering and worried about internal bleeding… what Foyet did to him transcends just physical trauma. 

He pulls away from the kiss, memories flashing through his mind and taking him out of the moment. “Sorry…” 

“It’s okay,” she worries, “are you okay?” 

He shakes his head. “No… sorry. I just. I’m hurting.” 

“Oh, oh, sorry,” she pulls away, sitting up and away from him and it breaks his heart. 

“It wasn’t you,” he shakes his head. “I uh… I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it all yet but, I just got a little triggered.” 

“That’s okay,” she assures him. “What did you want to do to feel better? I can read to you? We can go outside and sit on the porch? Whatever you want to do, we can do it.” 

“I think sitting by the lake would be nice?” He suggests. 

And so that is what they do. 

She brings both the chairs from the porch all the way down to the dock and she lets him sit down in the first one while she retrieves the second. She brings down some blankets and then she heads back inside to make them both a coffee and he just sits there alone while she does it. The water is so calming, the air is so fresh. The sounds of the birds in the trees and the squirrels in the bush. He sees some ripples in the water where the fish have come up to nibble at the insects on the surface and he even sees a beaver out for a swim with a stick clenched between his teeth. 

When she comes back, she has two mugs, and he gives her a big smile. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it,” she waves it off cause he should know by now that she’ll do anything for him. 

He reaches his free hand out to her, and she holds her coffee on the other side so she can meet him halfway. They interlock their fingers, he smiles over at her and she smiles back. “It's nice to see you happy,” she says as if a weight has been taken off her shoulders. 

“I’m trying really hard,” he admits. “You make it easier.” 

—

Getting him into the bath was easy. She bought Baby Johnson baby wash so she could clean him without any scents or harsh chemicals hurting him and he’s thrown back in time to when Jack was a baby. There were only a handful of times that he helped give Jack a bath before bed, he was always home after bedtime… it just makes him miss Jack even more. He normally sees him once or twice a week and now it’s been 2 weeks since he’s seen him last. 

She gives him some time alone in there, letting him relax when in reality she can see the pain in his eyes and allows him to cry in peace. He was grateful. It’s not like he’s ashamed to cry in front of her, but she knows sometimes it’s more cathartic if you do it alone. She kissed his head before she left the room and he promised to call for her when he was ready to get out… and now he’s just sitting in lukewarm water, tears on his swollen face and no courage to actually stand back up to get out. 

“Y/N?” He calls out for her, his voice more horse than he thought it would be. 

She’s there in seconds, a dish towel thrown over her shoulder, and she looks worried. “You okay?” 

“Can you help me out?” He asks, cheeks probably pussy and eyes bloodshot. 

She nods, “of course.” She looks around, making sure she has a towel for him close by and there’s one on the floor too to capture all the water that drips off him. “Can you get to your knees?” 

He groans but he does it. She helps him from his knees to his feet with her hands under his armpits and as soon as he’s standing, he kisses her. “Thank you,” he whispers against her lips. “I love you.” 

"I love you more,” she whispers back. “Come on,” she gives him a little courage to lift his leg and get himself out of the big, clawfoot tub. “There you go, you got it.” 

He groans as his foot hits the ground, his chest stretches and the staples pinch slightly. “Fuck I hate this,” he says through gritted teeth. He brings his other foot out and stands tall on solid ground. 

“I know, just another week and then they’ll be out,” she reminds him. She reaches for the towel and wraps it around him. “Are you cold?” 

“I’m okay,” he assures her. “Do you have the fire going out there?” 

She nods, “Yep, just put a couple more logs in a few minutes ago. I’m in the middle of making some of those Pillsbury cookies for us. Did you want some coffee or tea?” 

“A tea would be nice,” he gives her a smile and then another quick kiss. “I can change on my own, I’ll meet you out in the living room.” 

“Sounds good,” she smiles right back, and just by the look in her eyes he knows how much she loves him. 

It takes him a couple minutes to get back into his clothes, it hurts a bit but he’s okay. He’s so glad she packed his sweatpants and comfy shirts, he doesn’t get to wear them often enough but he loves them. He’s so comfortable, so happy… he wanders out into the kitchen and wraps his arms around her and rests his head on her shoulder, watching her place more cookies on a sheet. 

“Hi,” she coos. 

“I love you,” he reminds her. 

“I know,” she smirks. “I love you, too… do you feel better?” 

“I do, thank you,” he kisses her cheek. 

“Your tea is right there,” she points. 

“Do you mind if I go drink it outside again?” 

“Not at all… just be careful?” She asks. 

“I will,” he kisses her again before pulling away. He takes his cup and steals a cookie from the cooling rack. “Come out and join me when you can.” 

He slips into his shoes and a coat, steps outside and starts to walk down the path toward the lake. It’s not too far, there’s nothing he can trip on, and their chairs are still out on the dock. He’s actually shocked by how much he truly enjoys being here. 

He actually loves it here. 

And when this is all over, maybe they can get a vacation home here. Like the one Gideon has. He always said it was a great escape and Aaron agreed to a point… he never fully understood it till now. It’s so peaceful, his brain is quiet and his belly is warm from the tea. He’s having the time of his life here. 

Even though he misses his family deeply. Both his work family and his real family. They’re all his real family, who is he kidding? Even Strauss, he misses her too. He’s never been away from work this long without a single call or update or question. It’s weird… but he also enjoys it. 

The sun is starting to set when Y/N comes out to join him. Wrapped up in a blanket, she sits on the arm of his Adirondack chair and smiles down at him. “Having fun?” 

He wraps his arm around her and wishes he could pull her into his lap but it would hurt too bad. “I’m okay…” 

“Good, good,” she smirks. “Did you want to go out for dinner? Or I could go pick something up for us?” 

“I don’t mind,” he shakes his head. “Either is fine, but what do you want?” 

“Just you,” she leans forward and steals a kiss from him. “I still have lots of food to make for dinner here, but it could be nice to get out?” 

“What if I make you something?” He suggests. “I want to do something nice for you.” 

“Okay,” she gives in easily. “There’s lots of stuff in there, do you have anything in mind cause I can run to the store real quick?” 

“I’ll whip something together,” he promises. “Come on, let's go in. You can sit by the fire and read a book, maybe have some of that wine you bought?” 

She stands up and reaches out for his hand, “let's go, handsome.” 

—

Dinner is nice. He makes some rice with broccoli and chicken doused in teriyaki sauce. It’s so good she compliments him the whole time. “Seriously, Aar, where did you learn to cook like this?” 

“It’s not hard… I made this a lot in college,” he smiles, enjoying the praise. “Rice is easy, chicken with a store-bought sauce is easy, and steamed broccoli is a piece of cake… I’m just glad you enjoyed it.” 

“I loved it,” she says, reaching out to hold his hand across the table. “Thank you for treating me tonight.” 

He runs his thumb over her hand and smiles, “I think I’m ready to talk tonight… I wanted to do something nice first before I tell you what happened to me.” 

Her face drops, her eyes scan his face and she shakes her head, knowing already. “No… no. He didn’t? Oh my god, Aaron?”  

His head bows and he takes in a deep breath as he draws his hand away from her. “He got completely naked while he stabbed me… I was incapacitated after the first one and he was able to straddle me and explain to me that stabbing isn’t always a substitution for a sex act.” 

She doesn’t say anything, she just shakes her head. Having a hard time believing it. 

“He was hard… he touched me. He touched himself,” he explains, feeling a little sick. “He used my blood as… as lu—”

“You don’t have to,” she waves her hand, unable to stomach hearing anymore. “Oh my god, Aaron?” 

“It was awful, but by the 6th stab, I was pretty much unconscious… I could probably remember more with some therapy but, I don’t think I want to uncover more just yet,” he explains. “I’ll definitely talk to someone, I don’t feel any disgust towards myself or hatred even. I’m angry it happened, I want to get him. But I’m tired, more than anything, I’m tired.” 

She gets out of her seat and walks around to wrap him up in a hug. He stands too, holding her as close as he can, “I love you. I love you so much,” she whispers, trying not to squeeze him too tight but she wants to. He can tell. “You are so strong, you are so brave. You’re the bravest man I’ve ever known in my whole life. I… I love you.”

“I love you,” he whispers into her hair. “Thank you for listening.” 

“I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me until now.” 

“I knew I could, I just didn’t know how to say it,” he explains. “I wasn’t raped but I was assaulted. It was awful but I’m okay. I’m alive. You’re here with me, I knew you’d still love me after it. I know the team will save my family. I know it’ll be okay. I just hate waiting.” 

“You’ve always been impatient,” she teases, she pulls away to cup his face and smile. “But you’re right. You’re always right. You’re loved, your team is powerful and we’ll win. We’ll always win.” 

“I just wish I wasn’t this beat up,” he whispers. “I should be able to cuddle while on a vacation with you. I should be able to hold you close and let you sit in my lap and… and I should be able to make love to you.” 

“We have lots of time to do that,” she assures him. “I spent almost a year sleeping beside you without sex. And sure… I would’ve loved to be having sex with you the whole time but just being near you means more to me. You make me happy and you make me feel safe and that’s all I want on this vacation. I just want us to be happy and safe.” 

“How about we do the dishes tomorrow and we just crawl into bed and we cuddle as best as we can?” He suggests. 

“I think we can do that,” she agrees, taking his hand and dragging him into the bedroom. 

—

The day he gets his staples out they have an hour and a half drive to the doctor's office. They check him for hernias, which he doesn’t have and they say he’s healing really well. And his antidepressants are working so he doesn’t need to go up a dose yet. But the best part is that his doctor is gentle as he takes out every staple. Y/N holds his hand the whole time and he gives her a good squeeze on the ones that pull a bit but other than them, it’s bearable. 

“Now, I have to say it, but you probably still shouldn’t have sex for another 2 to 3 weeks,” he explains. 

Aaron blushes, “thank you… honestly, I was going to ask.” 

“I could tell,” he smiles. “You two seem very close… but it’s just exercise, heavy lifting and quick movements that could cause tearing or rupture. so if you do anything, keep that in mind.”

Basically, there are ways to be intimate without having full-on sex.  

They go out for dinner afterwards, they sit down in a real restaurant and he has a burger for the first time in almost a month. He’s so used to eating out for work, he survives off breakfast burritos and club sandwiches and burgers and fries… it’s honestly a shock that he’s not 300 pounds with how much greasy food he eats. But he does do a lot of running after unsubs to counteract it.

And he doesn’t hurt as much today so he hasn’t had any of his pain pills meaning he can have a beer with dinner. And he’s so happy. He holds her hand across the table, they catch some of a football game on the TV and they talk about normal things for the hour and a half they’re there. It’s like everything is okay for a night. 

And when they get home, there’s a different feeling in the air. She sits on the couch with a sigh and he puts the fireplace back on. “I have to go to the internet cafe tomorrow…” 

“Why?” He asks, confused. She hasn’t gone there before. 

“Strauss promised me she’d email me with updates on the case once a week and I haven’t checked them yet…” she explains, wincing like he’s going to yell at her. 

“Oh, well, I mean she would call if there was anything serious to update you on,” he understands. “Is it safe to check them there though?” 

She nods, “Penelope added a VPN to your computer for me so that when I do get an internet connection no one can hack us and it’s extra secure so that when I do click on anything no one can get our coordinates.” 

“Okay,” he likes that she was so careful with everything. “Save everything and show me when you come back tomorrow?” 

“Duh?” She teases him. 

He smirks back at her, so in love… “thank you for doing all this for me.” 

“To the moon and back, my love,” she stands up and pulls him to his feet carefully. She cups his face in her hands, “to the moon and back.” 

“Come with me,” he backs her up towards the bedroom. “I know they said no sex but… there are other ways I can thank you for everything.” 

She hums, “and ways I can thank you right back…” 

—

When she gets back from the cafe she has a sad look on her face and the laptop tucked under her arm. “How was it?” He asks. 

She sighs, “well… I showed my badge and they let me in the back room so no one could look over my shoulder and I read everything.” 

“And?” He’s anxious as all hell. Patting the couch so she can come sit beside him. 

“Haley called her mom, so they got relocated again. I have a couple videos of Jack playing at parks and things taken from the Marshall's car as he watches and the team has been trying to track Foyet with the long list of drugs he’s on but they don’t have anything yet,” she explains.” 

“But they’re safe?” He asks. 

“Oh yeah, they’re fine,” she assures him. “It’s only been 4 weeks, it’ll be okay. We’ll get him. It won’t take as long as it did last time.” 

He takes in a deep breath. “When can we go back to work?” 

“We have two more weeks off,” she whispers, staring at him carefully and he knows she wants to say more. 

“But?” 

“Are you really ready? Are you going to be okay back out there?” 

He nods, “It’s not like I’ll be in charge, I don’t have paperwork to do, I can fly easily this time. It’ll be fine.” 

“But what if the cases trigger you? What if you act out and get yourself hurt even more?” She worries. “I can’t go back out there with you if you’re going to be reckless and stupid because you need something to feel powerful again.” 

“I won’t,” he shakes his head, upset she’d think that but really, why wouldn’t she? He’s done it time and time again. “I’ll listen to Derek and Dave… and you. I’ll follow orders and give my thoughts to the group and it’ll be okay. I want to get back out there, I want to work. I want to be with the team again.”

“You remember when you were interviewing for me?” 

He nods, “Yeah?” 

“They hired the other top candidate, Emily Prentiss. She’s been doing great filling in for both me and Spencer, who’s also doing a lot better,” she explains. “He’s at work, just he’s staying with Penelope in her room and giving his two cents on the phone.” 

“I’m sure that’s not fun for them,” he jokes. “They’re like twins, butting heads because they’re so smart and know everything and both want the credit.” 

“Oh, I know,” she laughs. “He’ll be on crutches for a few more months and he should be able to fly again by the time we get back.” 

“Okay,” he nods along, trying to grasp how different life will be when they go back. “I want to call Dave… I know he has a few extra rooms in his place and I think I’d feel a lot safer if we stayed with him once we get back. I don’t like thinking about how he was able to get into my house without me knowing and the thought of him being in yours while we’ve been gone…” 

“God, I didn’t even think about that,” she whispers. “Yeah, we should ask Dave for help.” 

“And maybe when all this is over we could get our own place?” He asks, “I’ve really enjoyed living with you… I mean, it’s been months of sharing hotels and going back and forth between our apartments anyway, it wouldn’t be that much of a change.” 

She smirks, “Aaron, you’ve already asked me to marry you, I think moving in together is the only logical next step.” 

He chuckles, tilting his head to the side cause he honestly didn’t even think about that part, “I did, didn’t I?” 

She leans over and kisses him quickly. “There’s no place I rather be than beside you for the rest of my life.” 

“Good,” he kisses her again, whispering against her lips. “Me either.” 

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[misery-has-no-company-now]

Imagine that, once Mass decides to get help for ptsd, he decides to go to a counselor that has been in the military as well (it makes him feel a bit more at ease talking about some topics)

Yeahhh given Mass' extensive time on the battlefield in wars across centuries, it certainly would mean that he has a lot of military-related trauma, so a counselor who has similar experiences would definitely help him a lot!

However, I suppose to an extent he can't be that open with them as well - since depending on how headcannons it, actual people may or may not be aware of the existence of personifications; so if his counselor is aware then that would be great surely. But I'm sure he'd have a hard time explaining to someone who doesn't why the sound of drums reminds him of the cavalry he was part of during the Civil War...and you know, stuff like that.

Though I'm sure that once he does get help, he starts to feel much better than he did - slowly but surely. The first time he notices that is when Virginia comes up to him smiling because Mass hasn't had any awful nightmares in a while.

Also, ignore how late I responded to this ask 😭😭I pretty much forget to answer them despite how much I love receiving them. Pretty sure this ask is from long long back ): Sorryyy

[aemiron-main]

im so so so normal about victor “has seen the horrors of war & watched young men and civilians die as a result of other mens’ violence and aggression” creel who loves his “sensitive child�� as a son not in spite of him being sensitive but BECAUSE of it. like when he’s talking about henry in pennhurst, he doesn’t say “sensitive child” in a cruel or mocking or disapproving way- he says it in a fond and kind way. victor, being happy that his son is sensitive and shy and artistic rather than aggressive and brash and stereotypically “manly”. like hell, i feel like a lot of people who do a surface level watch of ST really want to push victor into this gruff, hopper or lonnie esque manly man box when that’s not what we’re shown in the show. like sure, victor’s still a 50s family man, but he’s gentle and affectionate with his kids, like even in the few interactions we see, he’s reaching out to Alice when they get out of the car, and smiling when she runs upstairs, and at the dinner table, he makes sure to smile at both Henry and Alice, whereas Virginia pointedly only smiles at Alice. We also see Victor sitting by the fireplace reading, rather than doing stereotypically “manly” things like playing sports or going out for beers or whatever other “manly” hobby.

Like, victor and henry are so similar with both being sensitive, fairly quiet guys with “nerdy”/not traditionally masculine hobbies (reading vs drawing), and victor, canonically, loved his sensitive child of a son & speaks of him fondly.

(not that reading is feminine LMAO but based on dumb stereotypes)

We do get that “manly” scene of him on the porch with the shotgun, but even that is a.) framed as him protecting his family out of necessity and b.) it’s not framed as being a Epic Manly Man With A Shotgun- Victor looks scared during that scene, he’s not trying to show off, he actually looks a lot like he does during his fireplace PTSD scene, which makes sense because the gun & the being on guard/paranoid feeling when looking for the wildcat/whatever was killing the animals would likely trigger his PTSD.

I’m not saying Victor is super mega feminine whatsoever, but i AM saying that it’s inaccurate to characterize him as being annoyed/disdainful towards henry’s sensitivity when that’s simply not the case & when victor himself also seems quite “sensitive.” Hell, when we look at the dates in the dear billy script, he gouged his out on the exact day that he would’ve found out that henry “died” (since henry “died” a week after the murders, which is exactly when victor gouged his eyes out.) He loved Henry SO much, and he’s not some gruff hopper or lonnie 2.0 or even a ted 2.0- if anything, he’s most frequently paralleled to joyce. Joyce, who also loves her sensitive, artistic son.

[mariacallous]

Scrolling through social media can feel like a nightmare these days. You’re reading about the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war, and then you’re reading about the horrors of the war between Ukraine and Russia. You’re learning about the latest devastating climate news. Democracy is under threat in America. It can feel like everything is falling apart.

This, of course, can have a significant effect on your mental health. You start to feel overwhelmed. Not only are you dealing with the regular stresses of daily life—your job, your finances, your personal relationships—but now you’re thinking about the most serious problems the world is facing. Social media algorithms tend to elevate the most contentious content, so these feeds are showing you things that will elicit a visceral response—they’re putting the doom in doomscrolling.

According to psychology experts, this has become a serious problem. People are ingesting too much negative news, and it’s not only affecting them personally but impacting society at large. People can handle some bad news, but what if it’s a lot of bad news? And what if a lot of people are doing this while trying to function in the world together?

Matthew Price, a professor of psychological science at the University of Vermont, says that stress is cumulative. One thing starts stressing you out, and then it’s another thing, and then one more thing. Suddenly, you’re spiraling. He says the stress can continue throughout your day even when you’ve stopped bingeing on bad news on social media.

“Some of the work that we have done has shown it definitely increases your stress in the moment. It could increase your stress throughout the rest of your day,” Price says. “When you doomscroll, it gets much easier to reach your limit than I think you would if you weren’t doing that.”

Price says ingesting a lot of negative news can cause anxiety and depression, at least for some period of time, but it’s especially likely to “exacerbate” anxiety, depression, and PTSD in people who have a history of experiencing those conditions. He says that people often doomscroll because there’s something bad going on and they want to find a way to fix the problem they’re reading about.

“When we’re doomscrolling, we’re kind of looking for the resolution to the issue. Read some more posts. Read some more articles. If I get more information, then maybe I’ll understand the problem,” Price says, describing the doomscrolling cycle.

This doesn’t just affect individuals. When a lot of people are experiencing the stress of the news of the world at once, it can make them more likely to “snap at each other,” Price says. We may not realize it, but the reason that guy was rude to you at Starbucks might be that he has read too many damn scary news articles.

“When you have multiple people who are struggling, they’re going to have a harder time communicating together,” says Bethany Teachman, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. “We have to think of these things from a systemic perspective or we’re not going to be very effective at making change.”

Teachman says doomscrolling can “skew our sense of what’s going on.” You start to think everything and everyone is the worst, but it’s quite possible little of it is actually affecting you personally. Perhaps terrible news from around the world would not be changing your daily life unless you were reading about it, and it’s important to recognize when it’s time to log off.

“We do need to stay informed, but when we move past informed to feeling overwhelmed and often paralyzed and feeling like we’re under constant threat, it’s clearly crossed over into a negative place,” Teachman says. “I think part of what’s happening is most of the news stories tend to be negative, so it gives us this sense that we’re in a constant state of danger and that we are vulnerable and the world is a very dangerous place.”

In terms of solutions, Teachman says people need to limit their exposure to social media and the news to keep their lives balanced. It’s OK to read some news to stay informed and check out what people are saying online, but it can get unhealthy if you overdo it. Once you’ve read enough to know what’s going on, think of other things that you enjoy doing and that help you maintain your mental health, she says.

“It’s not about ‘this is a bad thing and this is a good thing.’ It’s about how you engage with it and how it fits in with the rest of what’s going on in your life,” Teachman says. “How are you living the rest of your life, and what are the impacts on that?”

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the news, Teachman says it’s important to consider what your values are and how you can act on those values in your daily life. Think about who you want to be and what you want to accomplish. This can focus your mind when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

If you’re not feeling like you’re who you want to be right now, she says, think of small things you can do to get closer to becoming that person. Think about the things you can do to get closer to that goal so you’re more capable of handling stress and feeling mentally well, and about the things you can do to help solve the problems you’re worried about.

“Take a step back from your social media. Take a step back from your phone. Take a step back from the stressors unless the thing that’s stressful is imminently going to harm you,” Price says. “And get more local.”

Price says that acting locally on issues you’re concerned about can help you maintain your mental health because otherwise things can feel too far away and too difficult to solve. Maybe you can’t end a war, but perhaps you can help some people in your community or get your community to do something that helps a bigger problem.

People are overwhelmed. They’re tired. Sometimes you want to just curl up in a ball and pull your comforter over your head. Teachman says that’s the worst thing you can do for your mental health. It’s important to connect with people to maintain your mental health, she says, and sometimes you can connect with people and be part of the solution to a problem at the same time.

[ao-anonymousobsesser]

How Many Times?

AO3: How Many Times? - AnonymousObsesser - The Vampire Diaries (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

Summary: Elena dies. And dies. And dies.

A/N: I swear I'm working on other stuff. Found this in my drafts and fixed it up a little. Hope yall enjoy this while you wait. All my love. --AO

Let me know what you think. Should I continue or leave it?

Tags: Elena/Eljah, Elena Gilbert, Elijah Mikaelson, Reincarnation, Time Travel, Be Careful What You Wish For, Elena Gilbert-centric, How Do I Tag, Temporary Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD, Mental Breakdown, Brainwashing, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Protective Elijah Mikaelson, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, basically a manwha regression thing, Elena will suffer, i love her but i had to do it, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, dying and regressing, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, okay actually she kills him but time travel so it doesnt last, what i mean is they are healthier than everything else

How Many Times?

She dies from old age. Married to her high school sweetheart turned Mayor Matt Donovan, white picket fence, four children, seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild. She never knew anything outside of Mystic Falls, never left Virginia--college at Whitmore in McKinley, Medical School and internship in Charlottesville, Residency and Fellowship in Norfolk, Attending at her father's practice back home. Born, raised, married, died.

Wakes up, sixteen again. Doesn't understand, goes along with Caroline and Bonnie to the end-of-semester bonfire. Has an epiphany halfway through that this is real, she came back, she can be free. Fights with Matt, leaves early, her parents die, she lives.

She dies of old age. Married to horror movie villain vampire turned hometown hero human Damon Salvatore. Two kids, one grandchild (three grandkittens). Rebuilt her father's practice, made it her own. Traveled to a few big cities along the way--Atlanta, Chicago, New York, New Orleans--but always goes home. She has blood on her hands, but believes she's a good person; knows Damon does, too, but believes that he is good in his heart. Watches her almost-stepsisters' grandchildren on the weekends, visits her almost-stepfather's grave alongside her brother-in-law's, her husband and ageless sister-in-law right by her side. Reborn, lives, dies, loves, dies, kills, lives, loves, dies, lives, sleeps, wakes, marries, dies.

Wakes up, sixteen again. Dies two weeks later by bluntforce trauma to the head from being thrown against a wall. Hears her mother's scream cut off with a gurgle.

Again. And again.

Wakes up. Dies the next night, her family's car a torched mess wrapped around a tree.

Wakes up. Dies by drowning.

Again again again.

Wakes up. Dies by strangulation after giving her secrets away to her former husband.

Wakes up. Dies by blood loss after giving her secrets away to her once epic love and tripping over a fallen branch, a twig going through her palm--he's on her before she can even scream.

Wakes up. Dies by broken neck when her former husband finds her with said epic love and loses his temper.

Again. Again. Again again again again again again again again again...

Wakes up. Convinces her parents to let her drive when they pick her up. They pass Damon--her father leaves for a so-called business trip four days later and never returns alive, his body returned in a casket with a gaping hole sewn shut. She knows why his body looks so wrong, veins in stark contrast to grey skin,  suspects her mother knows, too, confirmed when she disappears and returns just as dead, the brand of Augustine linking them beneath the earth. Her brother lashes out too much, too drunk-high-faded to control himself, doesn't know his own strength, and she's too upset, too off-balance, her vision to blurry and reflexes too slow to catch herself on the railing. Swears she remembers hearing her neck snap this time, her head cracking open, blood splattered over the wall.

Again.

Wakes up. Asks her parents about vampires, werewolves, Doppelgängers. Gets shocked and confused looks followed by a crash course on the family history, on hate and mistrust and bigotry, and wonders aloud why it has to be this way. They get frustrated when she doesn't understand, doesn't accept their views as her own. Take her to the Society, show her their pet vampire, make him compel her to leave the supernatural alone and trust them to know best. She takes a tour around college and dies at the hand of a vampire obsessed with her face--with the last woman who wore it.

Wakes up. Packs a bag. Clothes, shoes for running, both her and her brother's money socks (bakesales of two different kinds, plus holiday and birthday money, adds up to more than a thousand each, sorry sorry), no jewelry or electronics, no keepsakes, steals from her parents' vervain stash just in case. Escapes in the middle of the day, drives to the next town and ditches her aunt's car, boosting another, repeats until she gets to the state line--hitchhikes for two states, then rents a car and makes it to Georgia.

Almost has a heartattack when she runs into her ex-but-not-anymore, but it's just a Doppelgänger, not him. He's normal and sweet, and he offers to take her to the hospital when she appears to be having a psychotic break, then listens to her sob story about losing her parents and her husband and her children and takes her to a bar instead. This is where she meets a witch for the first time again. Asks about her Doppelgänger, magic, vampires, werewolves, curses; asks to be taught, trained, a request that is granted.

Her old friend slash first hybrid-but-not-anymore-not-yet finds her in Chicago five years later, not looking, surprised to see her. She wonders if it's really coincidence, if they have a connection that transcends timelines, if his other creator can find her, too. Thoughts are silenced when he delivers the news: her parents are dead, made a mistake with a vampire in their desperation to find her (the not-hybrid doesn't know anything, isn't even a wolf yet, but she reads between the lines of "animal attack when they were out of town following a lead"), her aunt left town and never looked back, teaches at Whitmore with her fiance, Jeremy overdosed the second he was left alone after the funeral, lays in a coma with his medical bills paid for by the town.

She dies from her own kind of overdose, one of magic. Her powers fry her, emotions too raw and uncontrolled, sucking the life out of everything around her until her skin turns pale, then red, then charcoal-grey. Her friend-not-friend-son-not-son screams in shock as she explodes.

Repeat, this time with a note left behind, don't look. Same witch, same training, same new acquaintances and more training. More magic flows through her veins than ever, but she's greeted with the same death when her parents find her and explain that her brother committed suicide by overdose, angry she left him behind. She's sad and guilty and angry they came for her, and she barely registers the wave of power in her ears until it's too late. They die together.

She wakes up. Breaks down. Crying and screaming, lashing out. Can't take the pressure--tells her brother everything, as if he can help. He doesn't, can't. Won't believe her, thinks she's messing with him or losing her mind or got into his stash or something. Their parents overheard it all, understand that it's the truth, but they can't accept it. She tries to explain, but it makes it worse--they don't try to compel her this time, apparently that's not enough. They take her away, lock her up in a cell.

She knows this place, remembers it; looks to the left, isn't surprised to see him. Her best friend's lover, and her lover's best friend. She cries and cries until she falls asleep. Wakes up to someone petting her hair through the bars of her cell, fingers combing out the tangles, braiding the edges from her face. Looks up, cries again, spills everything once more, this time to someone she's pretty sure won't say she's crazy. And he doesn't--he believes her. She cries and cries until she falls asleep, wakes up to find him dead, staked through the heart; it looks like he tried to protect her, and that makes it worse, because she knows they won't hurt her, won't kill her like that.

No, they hurt her in other ways. Her parents--not her parents--they torture her for days, months, years, she loses count. Try to brainwash her into working with them, for them, using her knowledge and their skills to wipe out the creatures they abhor. They bring her husband's head, the heart of her once epic love, the teeth of her not-son. Magic can stay, but killers cannot--they bring witches to warp her memories, her best friend with cold eyes, and she knows her former sister-in-law is dead for good, probably turned after she went missing and staked after that. The shock of knowledge is enough to break her mind, let the magic and the science inside to do what they please, and she becomes their weapon.

She dies by her hybrid killer's hands, his teeth in her neck yet again, but she knows a witch is behind him, waiting for the weakness to take over his body. She feels the explosion as she drifts on an ocean, dizzy, fading into black.

Wakes up. Brainwashing is still in effect, and now she has all the memories she needs to finish the mission. She does, with a precision and finesse that would make her ancestors proud, that would horrify beings millenia her senior. The eldest first, buried in a tomb, and his lover shipped across the world--then the young ones, the ones with simpler weaknesses, first the wolf, then the coffins, then him. He almost gets her, almost breaks through, with those dark eyes gazing at her like he knows.

But when she asks, Do you know who I am? all he can say is, I knew that you were coming, and I knew that you would save me for last, and I know that you are not Katerina, but no, I cannot say that I know who you are.

Even that is almost enough to bring her back, remembering him from lifetimes ago--could she be even older than him now, with all the regression? no. no, that was impossible, but she might be older than them, or even her--but he tries to strike when she's conflicted, and her reflexes are faster than her emotions. The stake goes in at the same moment he reaches for her face, clutching her with both hands. She watches as he grits his teeth, his flesh burning like embers rather than flames, and she can almost see her own memories in his head, watches the horror dawn alongside pain and pity and intrigue.

He laughs when his knees give out, blood spraying past his lips to splatter her, and she jumps; she wishes she could say it was the blood, the disgusting sight of his flesh flaking away, but it's not. She jumps because he laughs, and she's never heard that before--it's marred by the grotesque scene, muffled from the blood in his teeth, but it's still... something. Not pretty or beautiful or soothing. But something.

His grin is sharp but almost sad as he looks up at her, and as his body turns fully to ash, he tells her, Come find me next time. Tell me the truth, and I'll help you. Then he's gone.

And the world burns with him.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd always wondered if this might happen. If magic, especially Earth Magic, Nature Magic, might be more like science than witches could comprehend. Vampires had been part of the ecosystem, the biosphere, for centuries--they were around when life-expectancy and population were both low. A thousand years of adaptation from five to dozens to hundreds to thousands of them, only to be wiped out in a matter of days; it was an ecosystem's worst nightmare. Nature had adapted, people had not, and this destroys them both.

It starts with confusion--where did all the dead bodies come from? What disease is this? But they don't know, can't see vampirism in permanently-dead tissue, and witches refuse to come clean with humans. The death toll is larger than she expected, somewhere in the millions, and a chill runs down her spine as the witches cheer.

In just one year, overpopulation runs rampant, and whole nations begin starving. No space for new homes, so forests are leveled; the rich live underground, mansions sprawling beneath mountains.

Two years, three years, and water becomes scarce; rivers dry up, reservoirs disrupted. Humans begin getting sick, too sick to move, let alone work. Birthrates drop in big cities, then small towns, then all over. Businesses go under, followed by whole governments. More death, more desperation, more destruction.

Five years, and half of all animal species are extinct. Another decade, barely a quarter remains.

Nature rebels. Plants wither, whatever is left burns. Deserts where there were once lakes and forests, ocean levels drop, volcanos erupt. The world does not end slowly, over centuries or millenia--as it turns out, it doesn't take that long to starve to death when you're too weak to move. A vicious cycle of fatigue and starvation leading to more fatigue and starvation. Three decades after she finished her mission, she's one of only a handful of humans left scraping by.

She dies in fire, with no one to see it.

Wakes up. Fights the itch, the urge to start again, finish the mission. Finds her parents, tells them she'll be back; won't accept their love, their physical affection, can't if she wants to stay sane. She catches her brother's eye, sees his suspicion, grits her teeth and leaves; makes it to a hotel five towns over before she breaks down. It hurts to resist, hurts more than anything ever has, but she has to keep going. There's only one person who can help her now and she almost laughs as she thinks of their last meeting.

Come find me next time.

Can't use her phone, her family might track her before the job is done, asks a concierge instead. Ten minutes is all she needs--gives the guy fifty dollars to keep his mouth shut when he gives her a look that screams, Should I call the cops?

She calls. No answer. Leaves a message, hangs up. The concierge clears his throat, but she holds up a finger, staring at the phone in her hand. Exactly one minute later, it rings loudly--she grins, victorious and a little pained, and answers immediately. Two questions, three answers, and a click. She hands the phone back and goes to her room.

It hurts. She drinks. Her mind drifts to the mission--she breaks the little bottle and cuts her leg. The fog fades while the pain burns, and she's glad he's not here yet; she doubts he'd hurt her, or pay any mind at all, and he probably wouldn't ask outright, but he would wonder. Wonder what she was doing, and why. He'd help her wrap it up--wouldn't heal her, not if she didn't ask--and that touch would break her. Soft, gentle, professional. It would shatter her like the glass she still held, and she would spill everything, and that wasn't how she wanted to start the conversation. Not this time.

Next time, maybe. But not now.

He comes the next morning. Suit immaculate, hair not quite. His knock is concise--tap tap, that's it. She opens the door a second later, already at the door since six a.m., and it's now eight. He's not surprised by her face--one of her answers last night had told him as much--but his gaze drops to the makeshift sheet-bandage wrapped around her calf, and he's confused, but only for a moment, because then she speaks, and he has something else to wonder about.

I need you to help me fix my brain, she grits out. In return, you can see my memories. I'd also appreciate it if you would kill me when we're done.

Must I?

If you don't agree, I'll do it right now and go find someone else. But I think you'll agree to my terms.

How can you be so sure?

She grins, a little insane. Because my words don't make any sense, and you can't resist the desire to find out what they mean.

She watches him, knows he wants to ask, ask how she knows him like this--she doesn't, not really, she knows him better than most, yes, but that doesn't take much when he doesn't let people in as a general rule--but he leans in at exactly the wrong moment, and she feels the urge tugging at her gut again. Her feet move back, and she holds up a hand to ward him off when he follows.

Give me your word. She leans against the opposite wall with crossed arms, her nails digging into her arms with the effort of keeping still.

He passes through the door, shuts it, leans against it with a posture to mirror hers. His dark eyes observe her from head to toe, then meet hers with a sharpness she recognizes even before she feels the nudge--his mouth ticks up at the corner. You can't be compelled.

I can resist compulsion, she corrects with an irritated sigh. I am the one that decides who gets into my head. Do we have a deal?

He ponders it for a long moment. I have a condition, he says, which is as good as a yes when it comes to him, or them, because she doesn't care what the condition is.

She asks anyway. What is it?

Before I kill you, he says slowly--she sighs in relief--as he steps closer, I want the right to ask any questions I so desire to ask... A pause, and he tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear before tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. And after that, I want a favor.

A favor, she says slowly. But I'll be dead.

Well, he drawls. Then I suppose it will be a quick favor. His smile is miniscule but sharp. If you can agree to these terms, we have a deal.

She tilts her face away from his hand, eliminating contact but keeping her eyes on his. Then I guess we should get started, she says with a nod. Her eyes close, and her shoulders relax with the sigh she releases. We have a deal.

She sits down at the little table provided by the hotel, and he pulls the extra chair around to sit directly in front of her, their thighs interlocked with each other. Every minute shift in their seats presses their legs together, and she has to grit her teeth to keep the magic under her skin from surfacing. He asks her several questions in a perfunctory tone, very professional--what exactly does she want removed, why is it there, who put it there, can he touch her skin to keep their connection steady. She lets him touch her hand; her face would be better, but it's too intimate and leaves her hands free to do what they really want to do, which is kill him--it's not her that wants him dead, but her mind and body. Something in the way she twitches must alert him to this fact, because he grabs her hands between his and looks into her eyes with no hesitation.

By the end of it, she feels relaxed for the first time since her husband's best friend died for her; there's no more pain, no more itch. She feels calm.

He isn't, though. Calm, that is. He's still--eerily so, not even blinking or breathing, as far as she can see. His gaze is the only sense of life on him, filled not with void but with pain and horror. It's clear he's disgusted, but when she tries to pull her hands away, to run from him in shame, he pulls her close, gripping her shoulders.

What happened to you?

Unbidden, her eyes fill with tears. I died, is what she says.

She moves his hands to her face and pushes, forcing the memories to float between them--watches as they're sucked into the black chasm of his gaze, as said gaze gets wider and wider with horror as he watches it all play out before him. Hundreds of lives, some short and some long; some including his brother, others her many lovers, only two before this with he himself in any capacity.

He says, Did you ever trust me? But he knows the answer.

I trusted you from the very first deal, she whispers. But everyone that I told either didn't believe me or just killed me. I didn't want... I don't think I could have survived if you did, too.

He's seen it in her mind--she loved him, at least in some capacity, in the first life they met. She might still, even, but she's broken in ways that can't be fully healed, not by him or anyone. And she feels guilty for all of it: for loving two, three, four people at once, for killing people, for killing him and his family, for hating the people that raised her, for not saving the people she loves that love her, for being selfish at the end of her first life and wishing for something she'd never had.

Five centuries, give or take. Five hundred years of guilt, and it reminds him of his family, of himself.

He asks her a hundred questions, pushes her for exactness, digs through her memories for every emotion, every thought, every compulsion placed on her; he asks and asks and tears at her psyche until she breaks down and repeats it all, shows him every piece of her, and then he asks for a favor. The same favor, and she knows he says it this way on purpose because he's seen her memory of the past.

Come find me next time. He tilts her chin with both hands, his gaze pleading. When you wake up, find me. Don't go to anyone else, don't ask questions, don't run away from it all. Just come to me. I will save you, if it's the last thing I do.

More tears trickle down her cheeks. I'll have to go through this again, then. She doesn't care, not exactly, but it hurts too much to be fully okay with it.

No, he insists. Don't tell me everything, but tell me the truth. Give me a glimpse, but don't hurt yourself. Can you do that?

Yes, she manages to whisper. But why do you care? Why do you want... to save me?

For the first time in her many lives, he hesitates to speak the truth. Because... I think I loved you. And I'm incapable of abandoning those that I love when they are in such immense pain.

But you want to kill your brother.

Only because I believed he destroyed the family we shared. Family is his only redemption, and as I thought he had buried them at sea... Well. If he could so easily abandon them, then the last of his morality is already gone. I believed him a true monster.

She sighed softly. But anyone who is capable of love is capable of being saved. Her eyes filled with tears again. She used to say that all the time. It's how she forgave my husband. She sniffled. But I can't. I'll never forgive him--them. The brothers... how many times have I died by them? By their sire. And my sister, she died, too. On the inside, and then temporarily, and then permanently. Over and over and over.

There was even a time she herself had killed the blonde, if only to put her out of her misery. She'd forgotten about that particular life, or perhaps buried it purposefully; the one time she managed to avoid her husband by seeking out her twin along with her sweet sisters. The blonde had turned alongside her, only to be bitten by her once-upon-a-time-wolf-boyfriend by accident. She'd held the blonde's heart in her hand, crushing it as tears ran down her face and the blonde begged for her mother to read her a fairytale.

Her life had ended shortly after, the witch unable to control her grief and she unable to run from it under the weight of her guilt. It was the only time she actively killed either of her sisters.

Another sob ripped through her chest. I can't even forgive myself. I destroyed the world. And I might do it again.

He shook his head. You won't. His hand curled in her hair. As you destroyed, so you will save. I will help you, if you allow it. But you have the power to do anything you wish. Forgive, forget, destroy, save. It is up to you.

What did I do to deserve this? she cried. I never would have made a wish if I knew it would never end.

You know what they say about wishing, he mused gently.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up her throat and past her lips. Yeah. She gazed up at him, wiping her face with a sleeve. Is... Is that your favor? Telling you again?

She watches him swallow, looking at her with that analyzing, calculating, contemplating gaze. No, he says finally. I don't want to force you. Tell me if you want, or keep it to yourself. It's your trauma, and yours alone.

She blinks in confusion. Then... what do you want?

He smiles. Please save me.

Another blink. From what?

A deep sadness crosses his face, flickers in his eyes, before it disappears as he leans closer. His lips press against her forehead in a featherlight touch, palms a gentle collar around her neck.

From myself.

There is no pain, and she does not hear it as her spine snaps in his hands. She dies in the beat from one second to the next.

And she wakes.

[teejaysnow]

It’s 04:00, I’m on the nightbus back to Stockholm (where I will arrive at around 06:10) - and no, I don’t regret all of my life choices. Yet.

My plan for today was to get a hot chocolate at Kaffebrenneriet, do some shopping at Outland and Platekompaniet, and then head over to Dramatikkens hus to watch six scriptwriters from Den Norske Filmskolen “revive the art of theatre”.

Well, at least I got my chocolate - but the shopping spree at Outland was cut short because of a fire alarm, and I didn’t find anything I wanted at Platekompaniet. So the scriptwriters better be reviving the hell outta that theatre, thanks.

First off, I did find Dramatikkens hus after circling the place only once. (Without google maps, I’d probably still be looking for it - they don’t really advertise their existence, do they?) Also, it’s definitely not bigger on the inside - which was good since I’d forgotten to bring my glasses and is pretty much blind as a bat without them. Usually not a problem, my sonar system is pretty good - but for theatre performances I prefer to rely on my glasses, thanks.

So, we all got our hands stamped (well, when I say stamped…), a small program (well, when I say program…), and a lottery ticket - which I suspect was a scam (I mean, as someone with quite a few memories she’d like to forget, I had high hopes for that lottery prize) and were then set free to find a seat. I found a nice one by the wall and curled up to enjoy the show(s).

Anyway - from here on, there be spoilers:

The first play was the lottery one. As I said, I had high hopes for my I19 ticket, but… yeah, I’m pretty sure it was rigged… 😏

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting play. The lottery winner was adamant that she regretted nothing despite the host dragging up things like making her younger sister drink her own urine (thanks for that mental image). It wasn’t until the host talked about how she’d sexually abused someone that the winner started to get uncomfortable and denying it had ever happened. She would never. She wasn’t that kind of person. And anyway, he was a guy, guys wanted sex. Also, guys wanted her. Finally she accepted that she might have been guilty of abuse and asked to get her memory removed. After some further thought, she instead wanted the guy’s memory to be removed. And after even more thought she decided that they both should keep their memories, thus turning down the prize, because it would be weird no matter whose memory got removed.

There were no curtain calls between the sets (well, there was no curtain either, so 🤷🏻‍♀️), only some nifty stagehands moving and removing the few props each scene had. So for Bruduljen, they produced a table and two chairs.

I was looking forward to this one. I read and really liked Camilla’s photobook, which felt very stream of consciousness-y, so I was interested to see if she’d also use that style for script writing. (The answer was no, but I still liked the play a lot.) A teacher and the mother of a girl that had assaulted her were working on a report on what had happened. The mother was trying to soften the language - was it really an assault, wasn’t it more of an argument that got out of hand? Did she really punch you, wasn’t it more of a slap? Talking about how she has a picture of her five year old daughter with her face full of ice cream taped to the refrigerator, wondering what happened to that sweet girl who now colour her hair and have a… well, rather colourful language to match? The mother and the teacher got into a shouting match, then there was an actual fight where the teacher’s ptsd from the assault kicked in and she hid under the table, and then there was a sweet (and very funny) bit where the mother tried to coax the teacher out from under there. And then they went back to work on the report.

Stagehands in to exchange the table and chairs for a sofa with a… well, body, I guess? Enter my favourite play of the night.

The description of this one gave me a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf vibes beforehand. Afterwards? Yeah, I’m still sticking with old Virginia here. It’s really funny with some pretty loud arguments in between. As well as a whole cooked turkey thrown on the floor. Twice. I guess nothing says Christmas like a good family argument? Even if one third of the family is sitting dead on the sofa…

The play began with mum talking to her (very dead) hubby and offering him whisky. Which he - surprisingly enough - didn’t drink. She blamed it on it being cheap whisky - me, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have drank it even if it had been Talisker. Enter daughter, who complains about the smell. I wonder why 🤔 She also complains about rats. I wonder why 🤔 Exit mum to the kitchen to fetch the turkey - leading to my favourite joke of the night (that didn’t get a laugh - I wonder why?? 😠) where the daughter pours a glass of whisky, holds it out to her dad and with an absolutely perfect delivery says “Whisky?”. Anyway, enter the turkey, daughter throws it to the ground while yelling at her mother in english, picks it up, hands it to her mum, and apologises - only for her mother to throw it to the ground while yelling back, also in english. Then the doorbell goes off and her mum asks if the daughter had invited anyone. Which she had. People from the funeral parlour. Her mum still doesn’t want to let go of her dead husband, so the daughter agrees not to let them in and that they can all just sit and wait for death and then get buried together. Always look on the bright side of death, I guess.

Okay, so out with the sofa, in with… nothing? Except for two actors, that is. So this was basically my reason for going to Oslo. Well, this and Kaffebrenneriet’s hot chocolate.

Now, let’s start with the fact that the Bergen accent is not my friend, so… the struggle was real. I most definitely didn’t get all of the dialogue.

The play was about a seventeen year old drama student wanting to do a Chekhov play topless (but I’d say she definitely gave off more Shakespeare’s Ophelia vibes with the whole waif-y dancing and singing). Anyway, she baited the drama teacher about it and how she felt that Nina would definitely have her boobs out. The drama teacher didn’t fully agree, trying to argue that it was a school play and the sixteen year old boys watching would just see her boobs. The student argued that it would be Nina’s boobs they saw, not hers. (I think both me and the drama teacher doubted that the boys would make that distinction) The student kept provoking the teacher, calling him out about having liked to see her boobs. The teacher altered between confessing that he had and saying that he hadn’t and that he was being her teacher. It all finished with her dancing off the stage while humming an eerie melody, apparently off to drown herself in the river (as I said - Ophelia vibes) Between this and Kunsten er død, I have a feeling Tarjei is in his “exploring what art really is” era.

Anyway - no stagehands this time since we were getting another props free play.

This one was the age old story of boy leaving a party early because ex is there with her new beau, ex comes after him and calls him out on it, boy admits to it. Although a bit more complicated. (Don’t get me wrong, I did like this one.) So, boy and girl used to be a couple when they were younger. At seventeen, girl got pregnant. Girl then lost the baby, which led to the break up - apparently without the two of them really talking about it. Until now. Let’s just say there were some left over feelings still around and they kept skipping around the stage, getting closer and closer to each other. Until they got very close. And then her phone rang and it all crumbled into pieces. Boy is about to walk away, girl is waiting for her boyfriend to drive her home - and then we get a fifteen minute flash forward indicating that there will be an accident. Boy imagines asking (what we now know is future dead) girl to tell their unborn baby that he loves her. Sad now. (Also, all the actors were great, but I think these two were my favourites.)

And now the stagehands are back for the final play. Hooray! Enter a park bench and one actor - who is taking a magazine test on sexuality. S&M. Whips. Dogs. (I might have misheard that last one. At least I hope I did.). This is when actor number two arrives and starts going on about Will Smith and Chris Rock. (Both me and actor number one are of the opinion that it’s been years, just get over it.) Actor two talks about having sex with multiple people - which actor one quickly labels “poly” and - after a bit of explaining - actor two happily accepts. They continue to talk about the sexuality test and actor one goes full gossip girl and spills about how his girlfriend and a male friend got the same high score on the sadist category. They then do a bit of fuckboy sniggering until actor two shoves actor one hard enough for him to kick over his soda bottle. And that soda had cost him thirty crowns, thank you very much. So actor one tries to fight actor two over it. Very unsuccessfully. So actor one ends up lying on the ground moaning while actor two returns to the bench and starts up on the whole Will and Chris thing again. Actor one yells at him to stop (otherwise I’d have probably done it 😒), and actor two realises that actor one laying on the ground whimpering meant he’s masochistic - which is the perfect pairing for his sadist girlfriend. And then they all lived happily ever after.

The whole thing took about 90 minutes - which meant I had eons of time to catch my bus. I even had time to meditate a bit over the Opera House by night.

And now, here I am on a bus back to Stockholm, bum complaining about the uncomfortable seat, head complaining about the lack of sleep, stomach complaining about not enough food, and bladder complaining about having had too much to drink. And I’m still not regretting any of my life choices. Today’s been fun!

[imkindanerdy]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Welcome To The Table - Ben Brainard (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Virginia (Welcome To The Table), Kentucky (Welcome To The Table) Additional Tags: Virginia has PTSD, Virginia and Kentucky are brothers Summary:

Virginia hasn't been sleeping well lately. Kentucky worries about him. Will Kentucky be able to find out what's going on with Virginia?

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

Valentía: Extreme Aggressor

Season One Masterlist

Previous: Prologue Part Two

Next: Compulsion

Summary: SSA Jason Gideon is called in from his six month medical leave to return to the BAU to go to Seattle to profile a rapist and killer and save his latest victim after she goes missing.

Warning: Typical Criminal Minds warnings; UnSub is a rapist-killer; References to rape; References to murder; Descriptions of PTSD; Mention of real-life serial killer, Countess Elizabeth Báthory; "Supernatural" References

“PTSD: It’s not the person refusing to let go of the past, but the past refusing to let go of the person.”

September 21, 2005

"Zoe Valdez", as she was known around the office, wrote in her crime book, writing her own profile on the killer of Countess Elizabeth Báthory when her phone rang.

"Hello..." She mumbled.

"We have a case and we need Gideon."

Zoe fell off the couch, "Gideon's coming back?" She grinned.

"Don't worry, he knows how you want to be known around the office."

——————————————————————————————————

BAU — Behavior Analysis Training

FBI, Quantico, Virginia

One of the founders of the BAU, Jason Gideon, six months after leaving the BAU on medical leave, was teaching a class of those who may be FBI agents one day.

He clicked through the faces of the victims of the recently caught Footpath Killer (as of six and a half months ago), the victims were always the least known part of serial killer stories

"Anyone recognize these faces?" Gideon asked.

"Victims of the Footpath Killer." A student answered.

"That's what Virginia newspapers are calling him. We refer to him as the Unknown Subject or Unsub. I told Virginia P.D. they're looking for a white male in his twenties, who owns an American made truck in disrepair. Works a menial job. I told 'em, when you find him, don't be surprised if he speaks with a severe stutter." He explained.

A girl raised her pencil-holding hand and voiced, "Not to sound skeptical, but come on... a stutter?"

"Where'd the murders occur?" Gideon asked and realization slowly occurred to the girl as he continued to explain what a young genius he had known since birth had suggested, "Hiking paths. Isolated. If I'm a killer who has to use an immediate application of overpowering force, even out in the middle of nowhere, I lack confidence. I can't charm them into my car like Ted Bundy did. I can't because I am ashamed of something."

Gideon's serial killer class was interrupted when a quite pretty twenty-three-year-old boy with gelled down brown hair and brown-hazel eyes, held up a case file and tapped it. Gideon's protege, Doctor Spencer Reid, the smartest guy Gideon had ever met.

"Excuse me." He told the class and walked out with Spencer, "They're calling him the 'Seattle Strangler'. Four victims in four months. He keeps 'em alive seven days. The handle serves as a crank." He and Gideon looked at a photo of a recent victim.

"Allowing him to control the rate of suffocation." Gideon deduced.

"To prolong it?" Spencer asked.

"To enjoy it." Gideon corrected, "Seattle's hit a wall?"

"Physical evidence is nonexistent. There are no tangible leads."

"And another girl is missing." Gideon said and he entered an office, looking over the case, "I looked the case file over. I'll get some thoughts to you ASAP."

Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner and Derek Morgan entered with the former saying, "you're gonna be with us in Seattle ASAP."

Gideon looked up at the man who now held his former job title of Unit Chief and he took off his glasses.

Morgan held out a picture of a young girl with red hair, "Twenty-two-year-old Heather Woodland."

"Before she left for lunch, she downloaded an email with a time-delayed virus attached. The killer's virus wiped her hard drive and left this on the screen." Hotch said and handed Gideon a printed screenshot with a familiar messy colored hand-writing at the bottom.

"For heaven's sake catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself."

 The hand written note scrawled out the words: William Heirens (Lipstick Killer) December 10, 1945, the second victim, Frances Brown's apartment.

"Uh, Valdez, the new girl that Hotch hired wrote that." Spencer said, gesturing.

Gideon looked at Hotch and knew that meant Zoe.

"He never keeps them for more than seven days which means we have fewer than thirty-six hours to find her." Hotch said.

"They want you back in the saddle. You ready?" Morgan asked.

"Looks like medical leave's over, boss." Spencer said.

"They sure, they want me? You guys have Alexander and… Valdez." He, like Hotch, knew Zoe’s real identity as Alexander’s daughter, having been the second person to hold her after the stressful event that was her birth.

They all looked at him, they all knew, Alexander... well, he was about as crazy as the UnSubs they caught.

"The order came from the director." Hotch nodded

Gideon turned, dramatically, "Then we'd better get started."

——————————————————————————————————

Gideon got out of the car with his go bag and walked towards the BAU jet as Alexander, a forty-year-old man with messy brown hair, stuck his head out, "Ah, Jason. Welcome back."

"Alexander."

Gideon entered the jet to see what he should've expected, Zoe Noble-Valdez had notes all around her and stuck on the walls and there were several stuck in her hair that was streaked with light green and headphones over her ears.

"Of course." Gideon said as Zoe wrote rapidly, having always been an over-achiever due to her brilliant mind and constant need to be doing something especially in the past four years.

Spencer, Morgan, and Hotch got on the jet.

"Jason Gideon, meet our newest recruit, Doctor Zoe Valdez." It hurt the father, only referring to his daughter by his late girlfriend's name but this was what Zoe wanted.

"Zoe." Spencer said, passing her and pulling her headphones off, letting the distant sound of her audiobook be heard.

Zoe looked up, pausing the audiobook and smiled, widely.

"SSA Jason Gideon, nice to see you again." She said, acting as if he hadn't known her since before she was born, as if he hadn't mentored and worked with her mother.

"You know, Agent Valdez." He said, playing along and shaking her hand.

"You two have already met?" Morgan asked.

Zoe looked at him, keeping her cool and said, "Yes." She sat back down, "That is technically true."

Truth was Gideon was like a second father to her along with retired Agent David Rossi but Gideon had more of a healthy idea on what's appropriate to read to a three-year-old child before bed rather than a grisly unsolved crime case as Rossi had gotten bored of children books with no twists or plots and Zoe had annoyed Alexander into doing it.

"How did you get all this done? We were gone for half an hour." Morgan said.

"It's not my fault that you're ordinary and your thoughts go at a normal speed." She smiled.

"How's she doing so far?" Gideon asked Hotch and Alexander.

"Pretty good for a nineteen-year-old." Hotch admitted, "Other than her being, reckless, rebellious, a little violent, refuses to oblige the dress code. Pretty much everything I predicted.”

"Pretty good? My angel is the best agent since her mother." Alexander whispered, proudly as he watched Zoe and Spencer compare notes.

——————————————————————————————————

"His first victim was twenty-six-year-old Melissa Kirsh." Zoe said, "Stab wounds. Strangulation."

 “Wait, wait. Back up. Back up.” Morgan interrupted the young medical doctor.

Holding his hands out in front of him, stopping her from continuing.

“He stabbed her, and then he strangled her to finish her off?”

“No.” Zoe deadpanned.

“Other way around.” Gideon corrected and he turned to his two proteges, "Why do you think he started using the belt with the second murder?"

“Strangulation with your bare hands is not as easy as one would believe.” Zoe said, "About four-point-four to eleven pounds of pressure."

"He tried, probably realized it took too long..." Spencer speculated.

"So he stabbed her instead." Morgan finished.

“And realized it would be hours cleaning up the blood.” Hotch said.

“Next time, our boy’s got a method—the belt.” Derek said.

“He’s learning, perfecting his scenario. He's learning from his mistakes like the Reaper," Hotch shifted and Alexander flinched, giving Zoe an unreadable glance, "did when his call to 911 actually led to his only surviving victim's survival.” Zoe said, “becoming a better killer. 

——————————————————————————————————

They arrived at the FBI Northwest Field Office in Seattle, Washington. They were held back due to Zoe having more weapons than most would think possible on her person at the security check.

"What's wrong with you? Why do you have so many weapons?" Morgan asked as Zoe finally made it through and looked at him.

He never stands with his back to a window and was reholstering most of her weapons. She looked at Morgan with a guarded look in her eyes, "My dad was an overprotective and paranoid guy." She said, vaguely. She never said much about her parents but plenty about her terrifying family which seemed to mostly consist of badass women and valued a variety of Zoe's attributes and feminism.

Zoe walked with Morgan and Spencer when Morgan nudged the older genius, "He never stands with his back to the window. When I was between him and a doorway, he asked me to move."

"That's hyper vigilance. It's not uncommon in post traumatic stress disorder.

"Also paranoia; trust issues; vivid flashbacks; intrusive thoughts and/or images; nightmares; intense distress; physical sensations such as pain, sweating, nausea, or trembling. There's also categories of the different types of symptoms and the symptoms those symptoms have."

"I know what symptoms PTSD causes, Zoe!" Morgan snapped.

"I don't think you do. You most likely had been ignoring yours for years, more than a decade I bet." She said, blankly.

"Don't profile me." Morgan pointed a finger at Zoe who looked at him with a bored deadpan expression. "Just how much disorder are we talking about?"

"Morgan, it's been six months." Hotch said, "Everything's okay."

"Yeah, fuck off, Morgan." Zoe said.

"That's not what I said." Hotch said.

"Essentially it was." She said and Hotch just continued onwards with Spencer, being painfully awkward. “Just because you ignored the trauma your past caused you, doesn't mean Gideon will heal just as quickly." Zoe said.

Morgan was trained not to react when surprised but being off-guard, his eyes widened only briefly before his face went back to neutral but with panic, confusion, and mild curiosity in his eyes. "What trauma?" He asked, defensively which only further confirmed her profile she had unwilling been making over the past six months.

"You're guarded, unwilling to trust that people’ve got your back as well as you've got yours, and protective. You grew up with an absent father and given that he was a officer too, it's likely he was killed in the line of duty. Your compassion for the wounded tells me that maybe you witnessed it. And I'm sorry for that. You were then betrayed by a father issue not too long after." Zoe said and she noticed Morgan stiffen in fear and anger for said father figure and the idea of this nineteen-year-old that he wasn't sure if he fully trusted yet finding out, "I can't quite and am unwilling to deduce the specifics because that's personal and I am already overstepping, I'm aware of that. But you got out and you moved on to make sure that as few people as possible experience what you did." Zoe said with absolutely no effort whatsoever. "Not many people are that strong. They let it control their life. Not you though. Not only did you get out but you're making a difference."

She gave him a hesitant, small smile that only lasted about a second or two with a semi-warmth to it which was more than he had gotten from her in six months and then she walked after Hotch and Spencer.

Alexander walked past Morgan, pretending to have not heard anything with a small, proud smile on his face for his daughter's kindness, even if she tried to hide it. 

Hotch introduced the team as they walked, "This is special agent Gideon, special agent Morgan, our expert on obsessional crimes, special agent Noble, special agent Reid..."

"Doctor Reid." Gideon and Alexander corrected.

Doctor Reid, our expert on well, everything, and special agent—Doctor Valdez, our expert on missing persons and medical knowledge and pretty much everything Reid may not know. And after two years busting my butt in this office, I hope you all remember me."

And people laughed. His systems must've malfunctioned.

They looked at the murder board and Gideon observed, "He's willing to travel with the body."

"Then he drives a vehicle capable of concealing one." Hotch added.

"One in seven-point-four drivers in Seattle own an SUV." Spencer reasoned.

"Explorer with tinted windows." Morgan suggested.

"Explorers rate higher with women." 

But how do we know it's his car?" Morgan asked.

 Ted Bundy drove a VW Bug."

"A what?" Zoe asked. She was more of a motorcycle girl than a car girl. She had a  Marine Turbine Technology Y2K motorcycle that she had modified, it went above the average speed of one and was silent due to her modifications, she rode it when they were racing to an UnSub’s location and was usually able to stall or even take down the UnSub.

"Volswagen Beetle." Alexander clarified as Zoe, despite being such a tomboy she considered herself to count as a boy in the boy's club of the team (apart from J.J. and Penelope Garcia, the latter rarely ever traveling with them).

"What about a Jeep Cherokee?

"Jeeps are more masculine." Reid said.

"Yeah, doesn't mean he has one." Zoe said.

"We all know how an unsub feels about asserting his masculinity." Alexander said.

"That's a good point." Zoe muttered before turning to the closest detective, "Most male rapists are insecure about their masculinity and feel the need to assert their dominance as men over women—they also tend to have insulting and distorted views on women—or feel the need to be reassured in their masculinity by raping women, because men are the worst, meaning their insecurities are often present in their behavior."

Zoe raised her eyebrows as if asking anyone to question her but no one dared do so.

"When did the bureau become involved in the case?" Hotch said, ignoring her.

"After the fourth body." The ASAC (Assistant Special Agent in Charge) said.

"Sondra Watts, taken August sixth, killed and dumped August thirteenth." Zoe said, humanizing the deceased victim as she tended to do.

"He dumped that one out of state.”

"On purpose." Hotch added.

"If so, knowledge of law enforcement does suggest a criminal record.”

"Or that he watches television."

"Television usually is widely inaccurate and is based on assumptions and beliefs caused by television. He'd have slipped up by now. Maybe he's law enforcement..." Zoe mused.

"Are you accusing the local police?" Someone asked accusingly.

"There are other law enforcement jobs than police, you know." Alexander snapped, barely restraining himself. How dare someone speak to his little girl like that.

Zoe gave her father a side look and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, or maybe he's associated with law enforcement but not necessarily law enforcement." Zoe suggested.

"Like a prison guard or something." Alexander said with a bitter undertone.

"May I?" Morgan asked.

"So you wanna see our suspect list?" The ASAC asked.

"No, we won't look at a suspect list until after we come up with a profile. It keeps our perspective unbiased." Hotch explained.

"When do we sit down with your task force?" Gideon asked.

"Four o'clock." Another agent said.

“An accurate profile by four o'clock today?" Morgan asked.

"That's not a problem." Gideon said and walked to another board.

"Agent Gideon, where would you like to start?" Hotch asked, still used to taking orders from him.

Gideon pointed at a picture, "Let's start at the site of the last murder."

"Do we have a list of those Heather Woodland is related and close to?" Zoe asked.

"Yes," A detective said and produced a list.

Zoe looked over it, "David Woodland, who's that?"

"Her brother. He was the one to report her missing. He's at her house, watching her dog."

"Alright, I'm going to go interview the brother." Zoe declared.

"Uh, not alone you're not!" Alexander scolded, with more emotion than a supervisor would to a new agent. Zoe turned around and gave him a deadpan look that only someone who knew her longer than six months could detect the hint of a glare she was giving him like, don't fucking treat me like a child. I'm a big girl, Dad. “You’re around the same age as the victims.”

“I can take care of myself.” Zoe said, stubbornly.

"Reid and I'll go with her." Hotch said before Alexander did any more damage to Zoe's request that their relationship as father and daughter remain secret for now.

"As long as he doesn't drive." Zoe said, jabbing her thumb at Spencer.

"Deal." Hotch agreed in his usual deadpan, walking past her.

"What's wrong with the way I drive?" Spencer asked, genuinely.

Morgan made a sound between a scoff of disbelief and a snort of amusement.

"Because you drive like a grandma." Zoe quipped, "Come on, Boy Genius."

——————————————————————————————————

At the dumping site, Gideon walked off, observing the crime scene as an officer asked the group, consisting of other officers, Morgan, and Alexander, "so that's Gideon? The Gideon. The one who caught that guy, Adrian Baal, in Boston.

"Yep. That's him. But catching him cost us six agents." Morgan said.

"Gideon, he... he's always been haunted by those he can't save so that hit him pretty hard." Alexander said.

"You co-founded the BAU with him, right?"

"Yeah."

"You, him, and that famous writer, Rossi, and someone else. A woman."

"Zelena." Alexander said, "yeah."

"Didn't you marry her or something?"

"No. No. We never married. Never had the chance. I fell in love with her immediately... when she judo-flipped me. then straddled me, and pressed her forearm against my throat. She took a while, given my... my Bipolar and ADHD but she did and in January of 1985, we learned she was pregnant, then found out it was twins—both girls..." 

For a lot of fathers, the day of their child's birth are the happiest days of their lives, even better than their wedding days. Alexander's father didn't see that for Alexander or his younger sister. Alexander's oldest twin daughter, Zarah had been born normally but then... the job really did wreak havoc on his life and Zoe had been born with a number of complications from the circumstances to her health.

"How are they?"

"Oh, they're-they're good.” Alexander mumbled, knowing only where one was as he walked out where Gideon was.

"Twenty-two-year-old Anne Cushing was found right here. Nails clipped just like the others." Alexander said and handed Gideon a picture, "He wants them to fight back."

"But not enough to hurt him. And he left the belt around her neck." Gideon stated as Morgan joined them, "He's probably in his early twenties."

"What's your reasoning?" Morgan asked. 

"Youthful arrogance." Was all Gideon said as according to Zoe applied to Morgan.

Morgan sighed, "He clothed the body before dumping it." 

"That's a sign of remorse." Gideon said.

"It's not consistent. Look where we are. His opinion of women is pretty clear, don't you think?" Morgan opinionized.

"They're disposable." Alexander scowled, every time the killer's M.O. was even vaguely associated with his girls—he couldn't help but fear and imagine that they were the next victim. Zoe was technically half-Caucasian-Scottish but also half Hispanic but that didn't matter to a single parent of two girls both with childhoods filled with trauma and danger.

"Why show remorse by taking the time to dress her but then dump her here?" Morgan asked.

——————————————————————————————————

Hotch, Spencer, and Zoe were in Heather Woodland's house, let in by her brother, David.

Heather's labrador barked up at Spencer who flinched back.

"Sandy, no, no, no." David scolded the dog and apologized to the agents, "I'm so sorry." 

"No, it's okay. It's what we call the Reid effect. Happens with children, too." Zoe snarked, Spencer gave her an unamused look.

"I'm Agent Hotchner. This is special agent Doctor Reid and this is special agent Valdez." 

"You both look too young to have gone to medical school." David noted.

"They're PhD's. Three of them." Spencer replied.

"Are you a genius or something?" David asked. 

"I-I-I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified—but I do have an I.Q. of one-eighty-seven and an eidetic memory and can read twenty thousand words per minute." Spencer said and David stared at him, “Yes, I'm a genius.”

"Actually, I'm the medical doctor." Zoe said as she wandered around the room.

"Are you a genius too?" David asked and triggered Zoe to go on an absent-minded unintentional brag.

"Well, I never took an official IQ test because I believe tests are bias towards only two kinds of intelligences but it's been estimated to be quite high as I have an auditory memory, I finished high school when I was sixteen, could've done so when I was nine or ten but... circumstances. I was seventeen when I finished medical school." Zoe babbled.

"Seventeen?"

"Yeah, I started getting college degrees when I was six, technically graduated from Princeton, Yale, CalTech, MIT, etc. before age twelve."

"How many degrees do you have?"

"Twenty-four."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen. I turn twenty next month.”

“But—how-how…”

“I was fully able to comprehend basic language and things like death before six months old, I was fluent in Spanish and English by twelve months. I started taking college classes along with normal kindergarten classes at age five..."

"Zoe, you're doing it again." Hotch interrupted.

"Oh." Zoe blushed, "I'm sorry. I'm ADHD and Cyclothymic, mildly Bipolar, I tend to get distracted and it's a bit difficult to filter my constant thoughts. Uh, May I?" Zoe asked, referring to Sandy.

"Oh, yeah." David nodded.

Zoe crouched down and petted the dog, "You know my family back in Mexico breed Xoloitzcuintle dogs.”

“Is that a breed?”

“Yeah, they’re the national dog of Mexico.”

“I thought that was chihuahuas.”

Zoe ignored this comment. “Xoloitzcuintle are rare nowadays and Mexicans believe they have spiritual abilities.” She went back to petting Sandy, “Sandy, you get a lot of attention, don't you?"

"Yeah, Heather loves this dog. I feed her when Heather's away. Usually, she's fine, but lately, she won't eat. It's almost like she can sense something's wrong." David worried.

"Not sense. Smell. Our apocrine sweat gland releases secretions in response to emotional stress." Spencer explained.

"Uh, translation: Sandy's worried because she knows you are." Zoe said, standing up.

"David, does your sister drive a Datsun Z?" Spencer asked.

"No, but she's in the market for one. How'd you know?" David asked and Spencer showed him a magazine displaying that car, then Sandy barked, "Come on, Sandy." He took Sandy out.

Hotch and Zoe joined Spencer, "There's an immediate relationship established between a buyer and a seller, a level of trust. If I want to coax a young woman into my car..."  Spencer theorized.

"Offer her a test drive." Zoe finished, "That's really smart, Spence."

——————————————————————————————————

Back at the field office, Morgan was pacing, Spencer and Zoe were spinning in their swivel chairs as Zoe sucked on an apple-flavored dum-dum.

"Okay, then how about the fact that on one hand, we have paranoid psychosis... but the autopsy protocol says what?" Morgan asked.

"Adhesive residue shows he put layer after layer of duct tape over his victims' eyes." Zoe recited after pulling the dum-dum out of her mouth with a pop!

"He knows he wants to kill them, but he still covers their eyes. He doesn't want 'em looking at him, apparently. Okay, but then he takes the body and dumps it right out in the open, murder weapon nearby." 

Zoe turned to Gideon, noting his tense posture and being ADHD, she had hypersensitivity, also known as being a "highly sensitive person" (HSP), which meant she was more empathetic than the average neurotypical person and being raised around profilers plus her own studying and intuition meant she could pick up on what others didn’t and completely missed what everyone else did.

"Not the M.O. of a paranoid convinced he's being watched or surveilled." Spencer said. Twelve minutes in and we're already foreshadowing.

"Paranoid psychosis, but behavior that's not paranoid." Morgan argued.

"Maybe he's schizophrenic." Hotch asked.

"Gideon?" Zoe asked but got no response, "Gideon?"

"Maybe we just don't have enough for a complete profile." Morgan said, pessimistically, as always.

"We have enough to narrow our list of suspects." Hotch said. "You know, we're looking at less than twelve hours to find this woman. We don't know exactly what..."

"Hotch, we don't know anything!" Morgan shouted.

"Gideon!?" Zoe said, loudly.

"All right, enough." Gideon said, quieting the room and Zoe put the dum-dum back into her mouth and started to half spin her chair before using her feet to make her go the other way, never fully spinning around. "Let's tell them we're ready." Then he walked off as Alexander entered with the coffee (and in Zoe's case highly caffeinated Mexican hot chocolate) orders.

"We're ready?" Morgan asked in disbelief as Alexander placed the cup holder tray on the table—Zoe and Spencer taking their respective cups at once—and Alexander followed Hotch after Gideon.

Zoe took a big sip of her hot chocolate and then leaned onto the table to write down a copy of the profile they never really discussed.

"Reid. Zoe. You're good with this? We've got a woman who's only got a few hours left to live, an incomplete profile, and a unit chief on the verge of a nervous breakdown." Morgan complained.

Gideon came in and picked up something as he said the same thing as Zoe, "They don't call them nervous breakdowns anymore."

"Grandma Morgan." Zoe had added, snarkily as Gideon left.

"It's called a major depressive episode." Spencer said, getting back to writing.

"I know, Reid." Morgan snapped.

"Are you sure? Do you know what year it is, gramps?"

"Okay." Morgan said and walked out.

Zoe’s phone rang and she saw her caller ID, reading, MD.

She brought the phone up to her ear as she spoke to her friend, “Hey. MD, seriously, I’m fine. We’re just about to deliver the profile. Well, you’re not a profiler. I know. I know, you are. Alright, I’ll call you back later.”

——————————————————————————————————

Gideon stood in the middle of the room before getting to the profile.

"The unidentified subject is white and in his late twenties. He's someone you wouldn't notice at first. He's someone who'd blend into any crowd. The violent nature of the crime suggests a previous criminal record—petty crimes. Maybe auto theft. We've classified him as an organized killer—careful. Psychopathic as opposed to psychotic. He follows the news, has good hygiene. He's smart. 'Cause he's smart, the only physical evidence you'll find is what he wants you to find. He's mobile, car in good condition. Our guess—Jeep Cherokee, tinted windows. The murders have all involved rapes. But rape without penetration is a form of piquerism, and that tells us he's sexually inadequate. Psychiatric evaluations will show a history of paranoia stemming from a childhood trauma—death of a parent or family member. And now he feels persecuted and watched. Murder gives him a sense of power. Organized killers have a fascination with law enforcement. They will inject themselves into the investigation. They will even come forward as witnesses to see just how much the police really know. That makes them feel powerful, in control. Which is why I also think—in fact, I know—you have already interviewed him."

——————————————————————————————————

They had an officer with the Seattle FBI agent lure a suspect named Richard Slessman into a nearby house where they tackled him to the ground.

Slessman looked like a near-incompetent monster hunter with a lame catchphrase that was just their first name as a verb that would get bitten by a werewolf with dead eyes. As in Slessman had dead eyes, not the werewolf.

They searched Slessman's house as others spoke to the woman who had opened the door for the previously mentioned agent.

"There's no sign of Heather here." Zoe said after jumping over the banister to make room for the agents 

"We can arrest him with probable cause, but we won't be able to hold him. Slessman's been at the top of the suspect list." Spencer added.

“Is that the mother?" Gideon asked.

The agent came up to them, "Grandmother. The mother died in a fire when he was thirteen."

“Probably not the only fire in his childhood.” Zoe said.

She looked to Spencer and Zoe, "Hi, Agent Elle Greenaway." 

"Special Agent Doctor Zoe Valdez. I prefer Zoe." Zoe shook her hand while Spencer awkwardly and clumsily shifted past them, trying to not make any physical contact with them. "That's Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid. He doesn't understand social interactions while I understand them a little better but despise them."

Elle chuckled and they walked with Gideon and Spencer as 

“Before his Son of Sam murders, David Berkowitz set a multitude of fires.” Spencer said.

"Exactly how much is a multitude?" Morgan asked.

"A multitude." Zoe sassed. Morgan wasn't amused. "A multitude is a multitude many. More than one."

"Zoe's the second snarker on the team. The first is Alexander Noble." Gideon told Elle.

"According to his diary, one thousand-four hundred and..." He trailed off, trying to search through his memories.

"Eighty-eight." Elle and Zoe said.

"Luring him out was your idea, right? Greenway? " Gideon asked.

"Elle. I don't send a SWAT team into a house with children." Elle stated.

"Hotch says your background is in sex offender cases. What can you tell us?" Gideon asked. 

"The last four murders show he's an anger-excitation rapist. He'll keep a victim for a couple of days. He probably records or videotapes them so that he can keep reliving the fantasy."

Zoe balled her fists, her fingernails digging in her palms. 

"You ok with Hotch being in on the interview?" Gideon continued.

"I'd like him to lead, actually." Elle said.

"Fine. But hold off.  Slessman's done time, and he knows the process. And all you will get now is a demand for a lawyer." Gideon said. "Hotch, let's check the garage, then show me what you got.

"Next time, show a little leg." Morgan flirted.

"Spence, you wanna go check out... not here." Zoe said, deadpan.

"Yeah, that-that sounds like a good idea." Spencer said and they went up the stairs at a quicker pace than Morgan and Elle and went to a room at the end of the hall.

"Morgan, the only time you're gonna see a little leg from me is when I'm about to kick your ass." Elle said.

"I still teach hand-to-hand over at Quantico if you need a little brush-up training."

"Yeah, because I passed up so I can humiliate him when Hotch asks me to join. He loses every time." Zoe called to them, much to Morgan's chagrin. "It infuriates him to be beaten by someone who's only been in the FBI less than two years and has only been at the BAU six months and is thirteen years his junior."

"Don't you have a room to search, Doogie Howser?" Morgan asked, irritably.

"Okay, first off, I'm a woman. You'll need to find a girl name, Chicago. Second of all, Doogie Howser is improbable, the youngest people to graduate from medical school were the same age. Balamurali Ambati and me. They'd never have a ten-year-old start medical school, even if he was the legen-dary Neil Patrick Harris."

Spencer appeared next to Zoe to add his criticism to the legendary Neil Patrick Harris' breakout role. "Even if he knew all the information since his emotional development would be taken into account."

"You two ruin everything." Morgan said.

"Elle, you think you're ready for it?" Zoe asked, "the job. You'd have to deal with all of us all day. And we got Garcia who flirts with Morgan even less shame than him."

Zoe moved back into the room with Spencer before Elle strode over, "Zoe, wait. You're the newest member, also somehow only nineteen. The cut off is twenty-three."

"Well, for geniuses, we were given exceptions. I joined the BAU when I was twenty-two." Spencer said.

"I trained with Maze Valdez, no relation,” Absolutely relation, “for a year and a half before..." Her mouth was about to form one word but then she changed, "The BAU requested my transfer. But I'm fully qualified." Like most people Elle assumed Zoe had said that due to her age and not her blood relation to two of the founding members of the BAU.

"Zoe, seriously I want that opening at BAU. You got any advice?" Elle asked.

"My advice? Just trust your instincts. Be intuitive. Be empathetic. Restrain your impulses. At all times, try to understand the Unsub's point of view, including their backstory, their mentality, their family, everything. Put yourself in their shoes as horrible as it is. Be perceptive. Be observant. But most of all, trust your instincts. They're telling you something for a reason."

——————————————————————————————————

Elle found Spencer, Gideon, Zoe, and Alexander upstairs; Alexander seemed to be fussing at Zoe about something in a manner that Elle hadn't experienced in twenty years; Spencer in thirteen.

Zoe irritably snatched a bottle of water and reached into her side satchel that carried her ADHD fidget toys and her antidepressant, ADHD, PTSD, and Cyclothymia (a combination of a variety of pills) pill bottles and she took out only a few of the bottles to take and washed them down with the water.

Elle didn't comment on this as she had figured Zoe had some kind of mental illness due to her constant fidgeting, oral fixation, distractibility, hyperactivity, forgetfulness, and her bag of fidget toys.

Then she spotted a game on a wooden platform with white and black markers.

"What kind of game is it?" Elle asked.

"In China, it's called wei-chi. Here we call it 'Go'." Spencer said.

"It's considered to be the most difficult board game ever conceived." Zoe said, having mastered the game by two and a half.

"Chairman Mao required his generals to learn it." Gideon said.

"It also looks like he's playing himself." Zoe observed, kneeling down beside the game board, nearly knocking it over with her knees, making Spencer's hand fly near it before pulling them back. "Sorry."

"How can you tell?" Elle asked.

Zoe gently pushed the board into a spin, revealing that it was on some kind of rotator wheel.

"My uncle taught me how to build these, I've got a few at home." Zoe said.

"I will come back to that later." Spencer promised her, "This might provide an advantage, actually."

"Yeah, Go is considered to be a particularly psychologically revealing game. There are profiles for every player—the conservative point counter, the aggressor, the finesser. And with what little psychological research that has been done of 'Go' against other games. In Go the large search tree, knowledge, and pattern recognition is more important than in other strategy games, it's theorized playing this reduces the risk of Alzheimer's and dementia and I can already tell I'm doing the off-topic thing again..." Zoe said and saw Elle looking at her, wondering how she knew so much about the psychology of a game Elle didn't know existed five minutes ago, "My, uh, one of my cousins introduced me to it when I was a year and a half." She pursed her lips together, recalling a brief memory where her thirteen-year-old cousin had been pinned to the floor by mental institution security officers and forced into a straightjacket in Las Vegas when she was about three years old.

"A year and a half?" Elle asked, certain she must've heard that wrong.

"What kind of player is Slessman?" Hotch asked, noting Zoe's discomfort which told him it was either one of her criminal relatives or mentally ill relatives.

Zoe stood back up once again, carelessly, bumping against the board game, making the markers jump but no real damage done. "Sorry. Sorry. Need a few angles." Zoe tilted her head as visualizations only she could see formed rather cinematically, putting mental notes on the different players. Her eyes darted up to meet Alexander's first, before darting to the next person's eyes and so on, "Extreme aggressor."

——————————————————————————————————

Elle, Gideon, and Zoe walked into the boy room where Morgan was with the laptop.

"Oh, fake password?" Zoe asked.

"How'd you guess?" Morgan asked.

"Garcia's not the only hacker, I just prefer the field." Zoe shrugged.

"Well, ladies first." Morgan said, pulling the chair out.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" She sassed. Spencer snorted in amusement behind them as Zoe sat down, flipping her streaked dark brown hair.

"Well, then what's the number six at the bottom of the screen?" Elle asked.

"Number of password attempts before the program wipes the hard drive." Morgan said.

"There could be an email, or a journal in the computer, something that tells us where Heather is." Elle said and looked at Zoe, "Do you think you can break in?" 

"In six tries?" Morgan asked, skeptically.

Zoe tilted her head back and looked at Elle and the others upside down, Zoe asked, "I don't know if there's any other viruses on the laptop if I try to hack into it which would wipe the hard drive.”

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Gideon quoted and Elle, Zoe, and Morgan just stared at him.

"Samuel Beckett." Spencer recalled.

"Try not. Do or do not." Morgan said.

Gideon looked at him confused before Spencer turned to him, "Yoda."

Zoe was hesitant; while she may be reckless when it came to her own safety; she was so filled with self-loathing and utter conviction that people wouldn't care all that much if she died; but they only had six tries. 

"I'm all for taking risks but not when it holds the life of another person. Zoe Valdez." Zoe sassed. "The password likely means something to him. Our best chance is to either get it out of him or to profile him.”

Gideon turned around and spotted a familiar book spine on the shelf that was written in 1984, he pulled it out and Spencer read the title aloud, "Journal of Applied Criminal Psychology..." Zoe cut herself off from her conversation with Morgan when she heard Spencer say the title and turned to look at them, "Co-written by David Rossi, Jason Gideon, Zelena Valdez, and Alexander Noble."

Her eyes landed on the book and Zoe stood up from the chair and made her way over, Gideon glanced at her as he started to flip through the book before it landed on a newspaper article about the incident from six months ago.

Shrapnel Blast Kills Six

"I wanna talk to him." Gideon said and walked off.

Zoe took the book and a slip of paper fell out, landing on the floor Zoe picked it up and read it. Her eyes grew dark and she stormed out of the room, slamming it into Alexander's chest. He looked at it and his eyes also grew dark.

Zelena V.

Alexander N.

Zarah N. V.

Xiomara N. V. 

Zelena and Zarah were crossed out.

——————————————————————————————————

Gideon approached Slessman and placed the book down on the makeshift interrogation table which was really the cheap dinner table.

"You read my paper. Learn anything?" Zoe and Alexander ran down the stairs, Gideon turned and held out a hand out, making Zoe stop and turned back to Slessman, "go on."

"Heirens said a man living inside of his head was the one who committed the murders. You said he was lying, that there'd never been an actual case of multiple personalities." Gideon gestured for Alexander and Zoe to come in and Slessman's eyebrow raised when he saw them, his eye glued to Zoe.

"I assume you know who these two are?"

"Alexander Noble, co-founder of the BAU in 1983, you were nineteen. Same age as your daughter here, Xiomara Noble-Valdez."

"No one calls me Xiomara and don't call me Noble-Valdez either."

"What? You rather go by the surname of the mother you killed?"

"What did my mother say on Heirenz?" Zoe asked.

"She disagreed. Saying that it was more than likely many serial killers had multiple personality disorder. What do you think, Xiomara?"

"About what?"

"Heirens' diagnosis."

Zoe sat back in her seat, sensing the test and she looked down as she shifted through her thoughts

"Nothing was ever confirmed but it's been theorized that he could've had some sort of personality and/or schizophrenic disorder. Hysterical Personality Disorder. Dissociative Personality disorder. Dissociative Schizophrenic. His mother however, had hysterical paralysis and conversion disorder, formerly known as hysteria, is genetic so most likely HPD but still possible he had DID." Zoe shrugged.

"You have an academic interest in dissociative identity disorder, or you just planning your defense?" Gideon asked and Slessman just chuckled/scoffed. Gideon pulled out the article he found in the book and placed it in front of him. "You a fan of Adrian Baal's work?"

"No. I'm a fan of yours." Slessman said. "You know they never give you the real facts about CPR that outside of a hospital, it's only effective seven percent of the time." Slessman mocked but Zoe had already found that he was arrogant in his intelligence but he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. "Your friend had a ninety-three certainty of dying, but you kept trying even after you'd broken his ribs, even after his blood was all over your hands.

"How are you still alive? Are you learning medical knowledge off of a sitcom or the back of a cereal box? That was deeply inaccurate." Zoe deadpanned. "So you can't figure out how to get into the laptop to Google it either?"

A flash of irritation flickered upon Slessman's face and leaned forwards on the table, "I've heard about you. The daughter of the Scottish FBI agent, never afraid, always mocking others. I bet you're afraid deep down."

Zoe leaned on the table too until her nose was only an inch from Slessman's nose and she spoke in a soft but rather tauntingly intimidating tone but also so a certain nearby agent wouldn't hear, "I once looked a well-known serial killer who derived sexual pleasure off of the fear he inflicted up all twenty victims before brutally killing them, likely he couldn't perform otherwise. I stared him right in the eyes and I knew I was the only one to ever show him no fear and I was twelve years old. I am nineteen years old now and you look like a dentist turned supernatural monster hunter who was so incompetent at his job that he turned into a not-at-all-scary werewolf. I made my first kill when I was thirteen and he was a family member and I never regretted it because he hunted me like an animal for nearly two weeks. So, you don't scare me, so why don't you tell us where Heather Woodland is?"

He tried to cover up the fact he was unnerved and shaken now and he sat back in his chair.

"Woodland?" He feigned vague recognition at the name, "isn't she the girl that went missing a couple days ago?" 

Zoe smirked, confusing Slessman and she got up, spinning on her heel dramatically out of her chair and strode out.

Gideon's eyes darted around the kitchen, noting a recurring theme in the kitchen. Good boys. Growing up in an environment like that wasn't exactly likely to mold a dominant criminal; but the kind to mold... a submissive.

"Get him out of here." Gideon said and he left.

——————————————————————————————————

Hotch found Gideon, Alexander, and Zoe, Gideon wasn't speaking while Alexander once again was fussing over Zoe to put on her sunglasses.

"I'm not putting my sunglasses on. It's fucking dark out here. You know who wears sunglasses at night? Blind people and no-talent douchebags!" She hissed at him

"Hey." Hotch said.

Gideon turned to him, "He said 'isn't she the girl’. If he'd already killed her, he would have said—"

"'Wasn't she the girl'." 

"She's alive. We don't know for how long." Gideon said.

"Is it true what he said about CPR? I mean, I didn't know." Hotch said, gently.

"You want statistics on CPR, ask Reid or Zoe. She's the medical doctor. Zoe, what's the real statistics on CPR?"

"Forty-three percent survive." Zoe said, "Fifty-seven don't." 

"I wanna know if you're okay." Hotch told Gideon.

"I'm fine."

"Are you?"

"Think I can't do the job?" Gideon asked. 

"I think you can't be two different people at once." Hotch said and Zoe flinched.

"Conflicts in the profile." Zoe said.

"What?"

"Slessman's behavior fits a submissive of a duo. Part of the profile but another part conflicts it.

"Two different behaviors." Hotch said.

"Two different people." Zoe added.

"There's a second killer."

——————————————————————————————————

Apparently, the only friend Slessman had was his ex-cell mate, Charlie Linder. Alexander had refused to let Zoe go to the prison and for once she didn't fight him too hard on it. He told Hotch to make sure she didn't sneak off. Zoe was messing with a cube puzzle, sitting in a chair next to Spencer who was on his phone when Hotch approached.

"We get an address on Linder?"

"It's coming right now." Spencer said and turned to Hotch when he went past him, "Does senior management want a field assessment on Gideon? "

Hotch stepped towards the boy genius, "Don't worry about it."

"It's Morgan who's been worrying." Zoe muttered, still doing the cube.

"Are they nervous about him being in charge? Aren't you two on your way back to Slessman's house to help Morgan?" Hotch said and Zoe left to get the keys since Spencer drove so slowly.

"Do you know why he always introduces me as Doctor Reid?" Spencer asked.

"Because he knows that people see you as a kid, and he wants to make sure that they respect you." Hotch told him.

"But he never corrects people for Zoe and she's four years younger than me." Spencer said.

"You're about to be in a car alone with her for ten minutes. Ask her then." Hotch said as Zoe came back.

"It's here." She said.

"What's the address?" Hotch said as Zoe held the paper so they all could read it.

"Don't think it matters anymore." Spencer said.

——————————————————————————————————

Winston Churchill said, "the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see.

"I heard you ask Hotch why I never insist on being called Doctor and Gideon or Alexander never correct people when they call me 'Agent'." Zoe said and Spencer looked at her as he clutched his seat, tightly with her reckless driving, "It's because I know they see me as a kid and I want them to. I have always had the element of surprise. I have twenty-four degrees. I finished a four-year medical school in two years. I finished the FBI training in six weeks. I'm a five foot two, nineteen-year-old girl with dyed hair and I refuse to dress as professionally as everyone else. I want them to underestimate me. I prefer to show them up, you don't because you're better. You're... honestly, you're one-of-a-kind, Doctor Reid, I've never met anyone like you. And you should be respected for that." Spencer smiled, warmly at her. She glanced at him, "What?"

"You finished your FBI training in six weeks? That's a twenty-week program." Spencer asked in amused bewilderment.

——————————————————————————————————

Spencer sat on Slessman's bed, spinning a CD while Zoe tried listening to the music with his CD player to get into his headspace. She pulled off the headphones.

"Ugh, this is much too loud."

"I'd think rock was your style." Spencer said, in an attempt of conversation. Something he was terrible at. But Zoe had always been easy to talk to while simultaneously terrifying. She never judged him for being awkward or different. She never interrupted him when he went off on one of his rants like literally everyone else but his mother had but Zoe often had her own inputs of her own knowledge.

"Alternative rock is. Very rarely in the metal section. The only Black Sabbath song I ever heard is Iron Man. What music do you like? School House Rock?" Zoe asked as she took the CD out of the CD player.

"I like Beethoven."

"Ugh. I'll never understand how people can stand classical music." Zoe rolled her eyes as she picked up the nearest CD case. "It's boring and old and there's no story..."

"You gave me the CD case." Spencer reminded her,

Zoe looked at the case she was trying to put the CD in, "Oh, yeah, this isn't the right case..." An idea came to her. "He already had a case empty."

"Like he was using it. Nothing was in the CD player..." Spencer came to the same conclusion.

——————————————————————————————————

Morgan was pacing in the attic, "Oh, come on! I need a password. I need a password. What am I looking for? What could I possibly be looking for?"

"Zoe and I've been thinking about the CD's." Spencer said as he and Zoe entered as he turned a stretched-out paperclip in his hands.

"Oh, guys, come on. We tried the CD's. We searched, sifted, and sorted through every one of this guy's head-banging heavy metal collection. We gotta find something, or this girl is dead."

"Think we may have missed the obvious." Spencer said, using a paperclip to eject the CD holder.

"What are you doing?" Morgan asked and the ejector popped out, revealing a Metallica CD. Morgan picked it up, "Reid, Zoe, what made you think of this?"

"If you're putting this kind of protection on your computer, then you probably use it a lot, it's easier to use the laptop and listen to music on it at the same time." Zoe said.

"And it was the only empty case." Spencer added, handing Morgan the case.

"All right. I'm an insomniac who listens to Metallica to go to sleep at night. What song could possibly speak to me? 

"Enter Sandman." Zoe said so at once. "Trust me, I come from a family of sociopathic and violent insomniacs." Morgan put the password in as she added, "Or as we call ourselves 'independent women'." The home screen popped up, "Morgan, let me. I can find anything relating to Heather fastest."

Zoe pushed Morgan out of his chair and started to type at lightning speed, sticking a bit of her tongue out. Until a box popped up saying: "Are you sure you want to connect to T. Vogel's live camera?"

Yes.

Their eyes widened at what they saw. "Morgan, get the cops. The cops! Get the cops!" Morgan ran out, shouting for them. "Phone, where's my phone!"

She pulled it out of her pocket but dropped it. Spencer grabbed it, fumbling and handed it to her and she called Gideon, "Gideon, Heather's alive."

"How do you know?

"'Cause we're watching her right now."

——————————————————————————————————

They still didn't know where Heather was.

"Zoe, did you see that?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah."

"What?" Morgan asked.

"Zoe, can you show me the last twelve images lined up next to each other?"

"Yep." She said, popping the 'p', typing a few keys and bringing up the twelve.

"What?"

Zoe spoke just a fraction of a second before Spencer, "Right there."

"Right there." Spencer said, "You see that? The light bulb hanging from the wire? Yeah, what about it? It's shifting positions like it's swaying like the Earth is tilting." 

"Not the Earth, doc." Zoe said, "The ocean."

"I'll call, Hotch." Morgan said.

——————————————————————————————————

"According to Zoe, he wouldn't be able to transmit the webcam image from the middle of the ocean. It's the best we got, Hotch. Even if we're right, getting the exact location's on you, my friend. To work me a little magic."

——————————————————————————————————

Zoe sat in front of laptop and she messed with a glow in the dark spinning pen while Spencer absentmindedly messed with a puzzle box of hers.

"Zoe, would you knock that off, I feel like I'm going to have an epileptic seizure." Morgan complained.

"Technically, an epileptic seizure is caused by flashing lights." Spencer corrected.

Morgan snatched the pen from Zoe and she pulled out a shape-shifting fidget cube.

"Guys, look." She said, "he's inside." They saw Vogel unlocking the cage, "get Elle on the phone, Morgan!" She snatched her spinning pen back as he walked off to make the phone call. On the screen, Vogel started to pull Heather out of the cage when she kicked him in the face.

"Ooh." Spencer and Zoe said as they were getting their things together to leave.

"Good instincts, girl. But she won't get far, he's been starving her and raping her with various objects on a boat." Zoe said, "Let's just hope Gideon and Elle get to her in time. I'd better drive." 

——————————————————————————————————

Gideon had angered Vogel until he threw Heather aside to shoot him, allowing Elle to get a shot in, killing Vogel. Zoe had rushed over to check on Heather's condition at once, comforting her with Elle in hushed whispers, doing what she could with her portable mini-medical kit until the ambulance arrived.

Morgan sat with Hotch when the impulsive former cop asked, "So what kind of report do they want on him?"

"I suppose whether he's fit to be a field agent." Hotch said.

"Same one they wanted on Zoe?" Morgan asked.

"Same one they want monthly on Zoe." Hotch corrected.

"Think he'll pass?" Morgan asked after a chuckle at the jab towards the department's wild card.

"You know, Haley and I were looking at a baby names book. Guess what Gideon means in Hebrew." Hotch said as Spencer and Zoe walked up behind them.

"Mighty warrior." Spencer said and walked off before turning back to them, "Appropriate."

"Also, 'great destroyer'; 'great warrior', 'woodsman', 'one who cuts down'." Zoe said, "But apparently in the bible, Gideon was the name of a judge in the Bible and the angels called him a 'mighty warrior' or as Spencer explained to me for five full minutes, so indeed spot on." 

Morgan rolled his eyes at the two geniuses.

"So what are you gonna tell them?"

"About Gideon's report?" Zoe questioned. 

"What would you say?" Hotch asked Morgan. 

"Gideon saved her life. That's good enough for me." Morgan said and walked off.

"Seemed not to be good enough for him when we got here." Zoe murmured with a hint of teasing sarcasm in her tone.

"What do you think?" Hotch asked.

"I think... there may be setbacks due to the whole Adrian Bale situation, we may have a bomber eventually and he'll have to deal with that. But... he's the best and unless Rossi comes out of retirement or as I call it 'hiding from his dozen ex-wives', we could use a founder of the team who is not constantly worried about his daughter's safety and keeping the fact that the newest member of the team is his daughter a secret and the stress that his other daughter has been missing for four years now." Zoe sighed, "It's been four years since I escaped and I still have nightmares of the stuff I allowed myself to remember but eventually, I'm going to have nightmares of the stuff we see again, cases that don't end as well. He can't wait until the guilt stops because then he'll be waiting forever. The only way to stop feeling so guilty is by helping others, he can't do that on medical leave."

"You know you're too wise for nineteen."

"Yeah, the graduations from Yale, Harvard, MiT, and CalTech before I even graduated high school kind of tipped me off to that." She sassed, playfully, though she had an embarrassed blush on her cheeks.

——————————————————————————————————

On the plane back, Morgan was asleep in a chair, still clutching the file. Spencer was asleep on a couch, rather adorably which Zoe definitely did not think or care about and if she were awake she would not think his turning in his sleep was adorable either, nor would she care.

Only Alexander, Gideon, and Hotch were awake, Gideon sat in a seat on a laptop while Alexander sat on a couch diagonal to the older founder with Zoe asleep on the other side of the couch with her head laying on her balled up leather jacket in his lap, making the occasional noise in her sleep, usually it was incoherent mumbles or soft groans or moans but every once in a while, she muttered something.

"Mary... Mary Bell, ten years old... Scotswood... Newcastle... Tyne... nineteen-sixty-eight..." She muttered, apparently dreaming about one of the youngest female serial killers.

Alexander couldn't help but chuckle, having long since lost his concern of her growing up to be what he hunted.

"She still sleeps like she did as a toddler." Gideon remarked as Hotch sat in the seat across the aisle from Gideon.

"Hey."

Zoe suddenly stirred, her groans rising before she rolled over and hit the floor. She woke up, smacking her lips as she saw the three men looking down at her, all rather amused at how she could be both the definition of innocent and the antonym.

"Hey, guys. Uh... you and Haley pick the baby's name yet?" She ignored what happened as she lifted herself back onto the couch. Alexander wrapped his daughter into a fatherly one-armed hug, pulling her against him, kissing the top of her head.

Hotch smiled briefly before saying, "It's funny Haley liked the name Charles—but, you know all I could think of..."

"Manson." Gideon chuckled.

"Then there was Henry." Hotch said.

"Lee Lucas." Alexander supplied.

"Uh... Jeffrey."

"Dahmer." Zoe filled in the blank, sleepily.

"There's just too many of them."

"That was the problem when Zelena and I were coming up with names for this one and..." His eldest daughter's name died on his lips, "you know, luckily they both turned out to be girls and there's not as many girl serial killers."

"You wanna bet?" Zoe tilted her head up, giving him a challenging look. “Plus, you and mom picked the most bizarre names ever. Zarah and Xiomara.”

"Kind of hard to feel good about catching one when you know there are fifty more still out there." Gideon said.

Hotch looked away for a moment and the father and daughter exchanged looks, having a feeling he was thinking about that one serial killer who got away seven years prior.

"How's your report going?" Gideon said, having not been on the case due to his son Stephen having his appendix removed but knowing it weighed heavily on Hotch's shoulders. Hotch chuckled at Gideon, knowing this, "Didn't think you could hide that from an old profiler, now, did ya?"

"Oh, Gideon, you're not old. Not compared to Rossi, he's always been a cranky sixty-year-old man at heart." Zoe teased.

"You know, you saved that girl today. You can feel good about that." Hotch told Gideon.

"It is good. It's a good thing." Gideon said.

"Zoe, you need to go get some sleep. Go." Alexander said and pushed his daughter off the couch and towards the side of the plane where Spencer and Morgan were.

"Or else what? I'll turn into an UnSub?" She muttered, sarcastically before toppling herself in a couch beside Spencer's.

"She's good." Gideon said, 

——————————————————————————————————

Late February to Early March, 2005

Dumfries, Virginia

Nietzsche once said, "when you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you."

Soon before the Boston bombing case, Gideon was driving back to Quantico, talking to Zoe Noble-Valdez on the phone as a test run to see if she could get an interview was to create a profile for the Footpath Killer, theorizing a white man in his twenties, most likely an American van, a menial job that was most likely isolated containing few visitors and little to no possibility for witnesses, and a possible stutter.

He had already made the profile but she was doing it on her own which turned out to be a bit more detailed than his.

Zoe had been through a recent traumatic event just a few weeks before but Zoe had always been better at compartmentalizing and dealing with trauma better than others.

He hung up on the young girl he had helped his co-founder raise when he stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere to get gas. He filled up his car tank and went inside the gas station for some unnecessities.

He took a single candy bar and placed it at the counter, "I'll take this." 

As the gas station clerk rang up the purchase, Gideon's eyes wandered behind him to the wall of photos, noticing several but not all were of the Footpath Killer's known victims, they were up-close and personal. 

Gideon turned to see the cashier's truck, it was an old, dingy American truck, maybe a Chevy, looking like it could use some repairs.

The cashier's gas station was in the middle of nowhere, isolated enough for the occasional customer with little to no risk of a witness.

He turned back to the cashier, a white man who seemed to be in his mid-twenties. Only one characteristic remained.

"Have a n-n—a n-n-n-nice day." He stuttered. He had a stutter. He fit the profile to a "T"

Gideon looked at the clerk for a long time and then the clerk glanced down to see Gideon's holster. He was law enforcement but he didn't react with Gideon watching him. 

Gideon took the money and left the store as the clerk moved quickly inside the shop and reappeared behind him with a shotgun. Gideon spotted him in the reflection of a sign, pointing the gun at him, ready to fire.

*Spencer Reid Gif Source: @borahaes*

*Edited November 8, 2024*

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 38: Falling Into Place

Summary: They found their way back to each other, but now they have to find their way back to themselves as well. A/N: This took me way too long to write, because I just couldn't get it right, even though I knew what I wanted to happen. But next is the epilogue, and I'm ✨very pleased✨ with that, so hopefully it all balances out Warnings: symptoms of PTSD Taglist: @latibvles @liebgotts-lovergirl @dcyllom @ithinkabouttzu @mads-weasley @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

Virginia, 1946

Their first week in Clinchco is probably the closest thing that they ever get to a proper honeymoon.

Although Shifty is sometimes in pain, he insists on going into the woods, reacquainting himself with the places that raised him. Despite the winter chill, they climb Frying Pan together and watch the sprawl of blue mountains before them in silence, drinking it all in. These are not the same mountains that cradled Zenie growing up, but she squints out at them, familiarizing herself with their peaks and crevices, already calling them home.

The blanks do not easily fill themselves in, completing the story and wrapping it up in a nice bow. The universe has spent too long throwing them curveballs to stop now.

On the coldest winter nights, Zenie sometimes jerks awake, heart racing, convinced that she’ll open her eyes and find herself back in her foxhole in Bastogne – afraid that the past year has all been a dream and that she never made it out of those woods.

Shifty is usually awake, staring at the ceiling. She curls into his warmth and listens to his heartbeat, trying to drift back to sleep.

On nights when it eludes her and Shifty still dozes, she sneaks into the kitchen and places late night phone calls to Philadelphia and chats with Bill or Babe, neither of who seem to be getting much sleep, either.

It’s on one of those sleepless nights that Babe dredges up ancient history.

“Zee,” his voice crackles through the receiver. “I just realized something.”

“What is it?”

“You remember that night back in England where you danced with that girl in the pub?”

Zenie has to rifle through memories until she comes up with the correct one. There had been a girl, she vaguely recalls, who moved like a fox that allowed her a dance after Babe encouraged her not to waste her night on the sidelines. “I think so.”

“You made me look like an idiot!”

“Because I was such a good dancer?” Zenie croons quietly, smirking to herself in the darkness of the kitchen.

Babe gasps, mock offended. “No! Because I said that it was too bad you weren’t a girl – since if you were, we would have made a hell of a jitterbug team.”

She has to muffle her laugh with her hand so that she doesn’t wake up everyone in the Powers’ house. He had said that. With no clue.

“Anyway, you better get your ass to Philly to come visit me and Bill,” Babe continues. “And when you do, we’re gonna go dancing!”

“Is that a promise, or a threat?”

“Both.”

But in the end, they go nowhere. Not for a while, at least.

Shifty borrows the truck one day to drive into the next town over, eager to go visit an old friend. Zenie kisses him goodbye at the door, then heads out into town to see if she can find a job. Their time at home relaxing has been fun, but she’s spent too long being busy to get used to it. (Besides, the lingering memories of her father never raising a finger haunt her; she refuses to be anything like him.) They need money, at some point, anyway, to get their own house.

She returns home an hour later, smiling in triumph after securing herself a job at the local diner. But it fades as soon as she walks into the yard and sees Shifty sitting on the front step, frowning down at his feet.

“Shifty?”

He looks up, startled. His dark eyes are deep with something that Zenie doesn’t recognize.

“You’re home early.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t go.”

“What?” He had been so excited, even though he was only going a town over.

“I couldn’t go,” Shifty corrects himself slowly. He stands, shaking his head, brow furrowed. “I – I don’t know. I was going down the road, and it was like all the air just left my chest. Had to pull over to catch a breath. And then I just . . . came home.”

“Oh, Shifty.”  She opens her arms, and he falls into them. His breathing is heavy, and Zenie rubs his back. They stay like that for a while, still making up for lost time, still making up for all those months where they didn’t get to hold each other like this. When Zenie speaks, she keeps her voice low, afraid to upset the delicate balance of the little universe that exists between just the two of them in this moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

There’s a moment of hesitation before she feels Shifty shake his head. “No,” he says, breaking their embrace. He sighs. “I don’t even know what there is to say.”

He’s right. What is there to say?

The words for what the end of the war leaves in them remain just out of reach, like a plane passing over in the evening sky, or too deeply entrenched in their hearts to remove, like pieces of shrapnel lodged in a soldier’s flesh. Every time that Zenie thinks she’s found the words, they ultimately fall flat. She always thinks of David Webster, and how he could wax poetic about anything and everything. It makes her wish that she was like that.

But she’s not. So she has to find other ways to express herself. And sometimes the only way she can find to do that is to grab hold of Shifty’s hand and squeeze it like she’s gripping a lifeline. Shifty, for his part, often wraps his arms around her and just holds her, neither of them speaking – just the two of them huddled together, as if they’re the only people in the whole universe.

Things don’t magically fall into place the way that Zenie had once expected them to. Their new lives take some adjusting as new routines develop. They found their way back to each other, but now they have to find their way back to themselves as well.

Shifty disappears into the woods most afternoons. Sometimes he takes Zenie with him. They sit on top of Frying Pan, gazing out at the hazy mountains, their hands intwined. It’s on one of these days that Shifty makes a confession.

“I can’t hunt anymore,” he says quietly.

Startled by his sudden speech, Zenie tears her eyes away from the scene before her. It takes a minute for his words to sink in.

“What?”

“I can’t hunt anymore,” Shifty repeats. He’s still gazing out at the mountains, but a wrinkle appears between his brows as he furrows them in thought. “I’ve tried, but it’s not the same.”

Come to think of it, Shifty usually has his rifle with him when he heads into the woods. But he never comes back with any game. He used to love to hunt.

“I’m sorry,” Zenie says for lack of anything better.

Shifty turns to her, offers her a sad smile. He plants a kiss on her cheek. “Not your fault, Zena. Some things are just different now, and this is one of them.” He exhales, a hard sigh through his nose. “We just have to get used to them.”

And they do.

Slowly, Shifty starts to venture further than the woods. He surprises Zenie by visiting her at the diner one afternoon, and she takes her break so that they can share a slice of pie – blueberry, just like they talked about back in Haguenau – and watch people pass by on the street. When she returns home from work that evening, Shifty surprises her again by announcing that he got a job after he left the diner.

“With the coal company,” he explains. “They aren’t hiring mechanics, but they signed me on to pick slate. It’s a start.”

He doesn’t sound disappointed, but he doesn’t sound thrilled about the menial work, either.

“Shifty,” Zenie says, squeezing his hand. “You don’t have to go back to work if you don’t feel ready.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m ready. There are only so many days a man can sit around at home or walk by the same trees in the woods. Besides, I –“ He stops, bites his lip. He shakes his head again. “Never mind.”

This catches Zenie’s attention. “What?”

An awkward pause ensues in which they stare at each other, Shifty looking like a man who has just painted himself into a corner.

Finally, he sighs. “I’m not goin’ to be the type of man your father is. Sittin’ around at home all day, I mean.”

“Oh.” He’s doing this for her. No one has ever forced themselves to do something just for Zenie’s own benefit or happiness before. She leans forward and presses a kiss to her husband’s smooth cheek. Just by considering her feelings, he’s already leaps and bounds ahead of her father. Her last conversation with Matthew applies here, too. “Don’t worry, Shifty. You’re nothing like him.”

Shifty nods in agreement. “And we never will be. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Slowly, spring comes into bloom all around them. Green buds and colorful shoots reintroduce themselves to the landscape, creeping through the mountains and valleys like a spilled watercolor set staining fresh paper. With the rising temperatures, thoughts of Bastogne and long, miserable days in frozen foxholes subside. Zenie’s sleepless nights ebb away. Shifty begins to smile and talk more. Even though it’s their first spring together in the States as a couple, it feels like they’re returning to themselves as things begin to fall into place.

It's late March. Shifty’s birthday has come and gone, and her own is on the horizon. As the days pass, Zenie finds herself watching the calendar more and more, keeping track of dates as she makes private calculations and risk assessments as she secretly practices speeches that she needs to deliver to Shifty.

The afternoon is clear and bright. Blooming jonquils perfume the air, giving it a sweet quality that Zenie can’t get enough of. A whole company of the yellow flowers rests behind the house, guarding the little creek that runs past. Zenie paces along their ranks as she waits for Shifty to return home from work.

When the rumbling of the truck’s engine comes into earshot, Zenie has to shield her eyes from the sun as she looks up to watch her husband pull into the driveway. He’s going faster than usual. The second he spots her coming towards him, he leans out the window, smiling wide as he waves her over to his parking spot.

“Got a surprise for you,” he announces as he leaps out of the truck. “A couple, actually.”

“I have something for you, too,” Zenie admits.

“I hope it’s pie,” Shifty says. “Because that’s the only thing that could make this day any better.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. It might be better than pie.”

Shifty quirks an eyebrow. “Better than pie? That’s some big talk.” He circles to the back of his truck, smile never wavering in his excitement. “Do you remember what we talked about back in Haguenau?”

They talked about a lot of things back in Haguenau. Many plans were made in those haunted shells of buildings. But for the sake of conversation, Zenie just nods. “Yes.”

“Well, you never said what kind of dog you wanted, so I took a chance – “ Shifty opens the back door of the truck and removes a box from the back seat. Almost immediately, a small, dark nose framed with fiery fur peeps over the rim and gives the air a sniff. A glossy auburn head soon follows, and a puppy stares out at Zenie, who tentatively reaches out a hand to scratch it between the eyebrows.

“A guy at work said his dog unexpectedly had some puppies, and I told him I wanted to buy one,” Shifty explains. “Irish Setter.” He tilts his head as he watches Zenie run the puppy’s silky ears between her fingers. “I think he’s cute.”

“Beautiful,” Zenie agrees. “Does he have a name?”

Shifty beams when he tells her, “That privilege belongs to you.”

The puppy is small, but his eyes are large, soulful things. Sunlight glints off his red fur the way that it used to shine off Matthew’s auburn hair on summer days – bright, like a new penny. Bright like the sun, like Shifty’s smile. Nvda means sun, and agaliha means it’s sunny, but none of those seem quite right in explaining how he looks; the color of his fur is deeper, redder . . .

“Degvliga,” she decides.

“Wildfire,” Shifty translates. He inspects the dog, who perks up at the name. “Hey, I think he likes it.”

They get so caught up in playing with Wildfire, watching him roam the yard and telling him that he’s an osda ghili usdi that Zenie almost forgets what she was thinking about before Shifty arrived, and he forgets that he promised her a second surprise.

It’s not until they’re lying awake in bed that night, legs entangled and watching their fingers in- and untwine in the moonlight that reality seems to set in again.

“Adeljuhlvi,” Shifty says dreamily. “California.”

“What about it?” Zenie’s eyes are already half closed. For all she knows, she might have only dreamed that he said that.

The mattress dips as Shifty rolls onto his side so that he can look at her. “I forgot to tell you. A mechanic’s job opened up, but the boss wants to send me to California for it.”

Tired or not, now Zenie’s eyes open wide at the news. She props herself up on one elbow, like looking at her husband from a slightly different angle will make everything clearer. “That’s so far away!”

Shifty nods. “I know. But I’ve been thinkin’ . . . It’s also a lot warmer there. It might be nice, you know, to take a break from winter for a while.”

All the recent sunny days they’ve experienced with the onset of spring have caused her memories of winter to melt away like thawed snow. Now that she considers it, though . . . won’t they just come back with the first cold snap? Who can predict that type of thing?

Even the thought of snow sends a shiver down her spine. Memories of ice and explosions flash through her mind, quick as the shrapnel that tore so easily through the forest every day and every night. At night she sometimes wakes with the images echoing through her mind the same way that screams and gunshots echoed across that frozen wasteland they called Bastogne.

She never wants to look winter in the face again. So she makes up her mind then and there.

“I’m game if you are.” Her voice is strong, steady. “It’s your job, though, so it’s your decision.”

In the moonlight, Shifty studies her for a moment. The slightest incline of his head indicates a nod of agreement. “I think it would be best for us. For now, at least.”

“A new adventure.” Zenie settles back down onto her pillow, relaxed by the decision. “I’ll miss this place, though.”

“I know. But our mountains will always be here.”

“They’ll wait for us.”

“Exactly.”

Funny, she thought the same thing the day she ran away. And when she left home for the last time to come here, to her new home. Maybe she’s destined to think it every time. A reminder of sorts. But a fact – they have been here since time immemorial, and they will be here long after Zenie has come and gone.

“ – to tell me?” Shifty’s voice drags her out of her half-asleep state.

“What?”

“When I got home, you said that you had something for me.” He nudges her affectionately. “And there was no pie at dinner.”

A giggle works its way up Zenie’s throat. It sounds loud and bright in the moonlight and the quiet of the night around them. Through the darkness, she finds Shifty’s hand again and drags it toward her, until his warm palm is pressed against the flat of her stomach.

If all goes well, there are two new adventures that they’ll be going into – together. 

[topazadine]

Oh I should probably introduce myself

I'm Cam, a thirty-something writer in Cleveland, Ohio. Frankly, I'm terrible at introducing myself because I'm socially awkward. I'm also terrible at talking about my own work.

Then again, that's kind of par for the course for writers.

Writing Stuff

I've written over 2 million words of fiction (yes, I swear), approximately 1.6 million of which is hosted over on Archive of Our Own. The other 0.4 million is held in reserve for monetary purposes, but you'll soon be able to read a portion of it on Amazon.

My original fiction is set in the Poesyverse, which centers on the struggle of two nations separated by a nigh-on impenetrable mountain range formed through poetry magic. Since the goddess Poesy intervened to protect the Bremish people with the Rimuk Mountains, Sina has fought to colonize their enemies, while Breme resists through the use of High Poetry.

Poesy (as yet unpublished) focuses on Cerie Korviridi, a High Poet forced to betray her beloved Breme when she is kidnapped by the Sinan royal family. Snatched away from all she holds dear, Cerie desperately misses her brother Uileac and brother-in-law Orrinir - the only family she has left after Sinan forces slaughtered her parents. This decades-held resentment is made all the more explosive when her kidnappers demand that she use her High Poetry to solve the centuries-long war between their countries.

Not only does she need to choose between escape and acquiescence, she also finds herself paradoxically drawn to the Sinan princess, Haniya Aina. Both women find it impossible to escape the amorous clutches of a sworn enemy - and find themselves betraying their patriotism for the good of both their nations.

While I tiredly wait for some agent to recognize how special and good I am, I have been busy writing side stories that focus on different characters from the Poesyverse.

Right now, 9 Years Yearning is live on The Everything Store; this story tracks the slow-burn, friends-to-lovers arc of Uileac and Orrinir, both young soldiers in the Bremish military. You'll cringe at how dumb and oblivious and teenage-boy they are, but that's part of the fun!

They will be the feature characters in several other stories I'm working on cleaning up.

I will also publish a novella focusing on Mordrek Willets, a Sinan spy who gleefully joins Cerie on her mission to wreak havoc (because of course he does). What Is Cannot be Unwritten explores his murky past as a Sinan Intelligence Services officer, including his adventures creeping across the Rimuk Mountains to explore Breme. It features a tragic love story that ends in … death by transmogrification?? It's weird and gross. You'll love it.

Person Stuff

As for me personally, I am the loving pet parent to two incredibly lazy pit bulls named Clark and Wendy.

Wendy is the yawning one. As I said, they are lazy.

My other hobbies include knitting, photography, horseback riding (hence the annoyingly precise descriptions of horses in my books), and miniatures (the dollhouse kind, not the Warhammer kind).

Look at this horse I got to play with in West Virginia! Horse!

I am a single lesbian (hello, ladies). I've been diagnosed with bipolar 1 for over a decade; I also have PTSD and dissociative amnesia, both of which significantly inspire my work. For work/professional stuff, I'm a SEO writer and hold a Masters degree in International Relations.

I'm pretty shy but friendly, so don't hesitate to ask me things about mental health, writing, etc. Even if I don't respond to OC games and such, I do appreciate you including me!

[otherworldlymorbidities]

My Class of '09 OC Luke

If no one reads this, it's just a way for me to convert my thinking into writing.

I do not have any pictures, sorry. I haven't quite figured out his design.

Age: 16-18 (Depends on which game)

Gender: Cis male (He/him)

Family: Mother, stepfather, ex-stepfather, father (incarcerated), maternal aunt, maternal grandparents (estranged), paternal relatives (estranged)

Friends (or the closest to): Nicole (dependant on route), Jecka (DOR), Kyle, Trody, Braxton, Crispin, Hunter, Emily (in most routes), his drug clients

Enemies: Kylar, Nicole (DOR), Jecka (DOR), Jeffery, Megan, faculty of LHS, Emily (DOR), his own family (DOR), the mall cop

Fun facts about him:

- He plays the guitar

- He is a Marilyn Manson fan

- His celebrity crush is either Marilyn Manson or Avril Lavigne

- He is bi (50/50 lean towards women and men)

- He sells and buy large quantities of drugs

- He smokes atleast 2 cigarettes a day

- He carries around a pocket knife

- He moves to New Zealand at some point in his adulthood

- He has no plan or ambition for college, so he doesn't attend affter graduating high school

- He speaks English and Spanish

- He has ADHD, PTSD, major trust issues and bipolar disorder. May also develop ASPD.

- He owns and wears a trench coat

- If he had to work anywhere, he would work at Hot Topic.

- If it was up to him, he would live with his aunt, who is schizophrenic and childless and would give him indefinite freedom.

He has a backstory similar to Nicole's. Unstable home life, moving often, parental issues. He was born in Texas, his mother a stripper and his father a Mexican illegal immigrant. Due to his father's legal status, the family had to move states 3 times (Texas -> Louisiana-> Oklahoma->Arkansas). The father was physically and verbally abusive to Luke and the mother.

When Luke was 10, his father was arrested after Luke brought his illegally owned gun with him to school (No one was hurt). Luke's father was arrested for illegal possesion of weapons, illegal immigration and cartel involvement (the reason he illegally immigrated in the 1st place). Since then, he has been out of the picture and doing time in a Mexican prison. Luke and his mother moved once again (Arkansas->Arizona) after Luke received a state-wide expulsion and their home was gambled away.

Luke's mother is no better. She is an alcoholic and a drug addict. She never intervened whenever Luke was abused. She once even allowed it to happen when an aquaintance offered her herion in exchange. Less than a year after her divorce, she remarried. Luke's stepfather was more emotionally abusive than his biological one.

One fateful day after 5 years of mutual hatred, Luke was pushed over the edge and got his revenge by cutting the brakes on his stepfather's car. Coincidentially, his stepfather got into a car accident the following day and could never walk again. The police ruled the case as an accident, as there was no proof of foul play.

Less than a month later, Luke had to move states again (Arizona->Virginia). Just after getting settled! His whore mother had gotten remarried to some rich old fossile. He couldn't believe it. Why move across the country because she was dependant on a man to have a source of income for her crack addiction? Oh well, not like he had a choice. He was 16, after all and couldn't run away.