#which could update as time goes on who knows

[twitchyglitchy]

Update 1-6-25

Weather is too bad to travel for myself and my partner but I really can't wait until spring to move out at this point.

Had to sadly use nearly all of money meant to move out with to pay bills and medical expenses I was unable to get covered by insurance, and I'll have to do that again soon for blood infusions as my iron levels are really low. I really appreciate the donations sent for helping me move out to cover these costs even if it was meant for something else by the way and I am very sorry if it seems like some hoax because I haven't been able to move yet. By the time I move out I will also be losing my insurance which means medication will have to be used sparingly until I get a job and new insurance.

On top of all of this, due to this home being small and with thin walls/floors, parents have kicked my bed out of my own room yesterday into the room next door, a room I actively had sexual trauma in and is still being used as a storage room. Not even taking a nap helped ease me as I instantly had a nightmare over said trauma. I don't know what this will solve as the room is directly above theirs.

So as of right now I technically don't have a complete room of my own, and my former room will be turned into an office since my mom wants to move her stuff into it where my bed once was. My clothes, and nearly all of my belongings are still in here which I refuse to/can't move into the storage room.

I slept like shit last night, not just from stress, but from a growing headache as there's probably still dust and/or mold and mildew in there, cramped body and neck from not wanting to knock over my comfort plushies or laptop over the bed, having sunlight directly in my eyes no matter which way I lay because it's right by the window which I haven't been able to cover, louder sounds of cars and police sirens also right outside the window of my suburban home (a siren goes off while typing this), and finding out just 30 min ago that there are currently live ladybugs in the room buzzing between the blinds of that very window.

I'm likely going back to sleep after this but on the floor of my former room where my bed used to be (I left my headset here last night so I could hug my partner for comfort in VR):

I know there are people who have worse living situations but this is just something I'm very not used to and sudden change without warning really fucks me up. I pray that the weather from Michigan to Pennsylvania get better within the next couple of week because I know snow storms are heading our way and they'll be pretty damn bad.

So please, anything right now helps, I will draw for what you pay if you so wish for art in return, I just really need any kind of support right now, financial or not. P@yPal/V3nmo: twitchyjayson Buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi

What do I have to do to get out of here? Who do I have to beg on my knees to so I can leave?

Get me out of my house

P@yPal: twitchyjayson

Current Goal: $55/$800

[goodlucktai]

one of the rotten ones

rottmnt word count: 2k pairing: don & leo, don & OC title borrowed from anthems for a seventeen year old by yeule part of the archer au :) read on ao3

x

“I don’t think Gio likes me,” Donnie blurts. 

He’d feel self-conscious if he was pressed to admit it anywhere else, but he’s in the infirmary, and the only one around to hear him say so is his twin. 

They’re moving into hour two of Leo’s “faves” playlist and the fourth consecutive Taylor Swift song even though he swore he put it on shuffle. Leo is going through cabinets and shelves systematically, updating inventory on his phone, while Donnie infodumps about energy storage and projectile dynamics and the breaking strength of crossbow string. 

Donatello’s base knowledge of this particular ranged weapon is severely lacking, which is a significant personal problem for him now that he has a sibling with a preference for archery. He needs to be the world’s leading expert on the subject yesterday. He has half a dozen half-formed plans for things like sonar bolts for 3-D mapping, which may or may not have been inspired by the Jupiter Jim Pluto Vacation run.   

Only every glance at the project folder simply labeled ‘G-01’ causes an uncomfortable feeling to squirm to life in his stomach, not unlike the Krang tentacles that had attached themselves to his carapace on the day the world didn’t end. 

Donnie isn’t good at people. He doesn’t know how they tick, and there are no reliable lines of code or handy user manuals that he can fall back on when he’s mystified by human behavior. 

His siblings don’t have the same problem. Leo is perceptive to a degree that borders upon clairvoyance, Mikey is the single-most emotionally intelligent member of their family, Raph is more charming than he gets credit for, and April can talk her way through any closed door, police tape or VIP-only entrance. None of them fumble the way Donnie does when a social interaction goes off-script, like it’s a volleyball that got served his way without the ample warning he needs to be anything approaching passable at the sport. 

But he knows he’s not imagining it—the way Gio seems to brace himself when Donnie comes into the room, like he’s expecting a confrontation every time. Like the last thing Donatello could want with him is something good. 

Donnie can be a lot. They all can. They come by it honestly, equal parts chaotic lab experiments and their father’s sons. And not every structure is built to withstand hurricane winds. Not every person is equipped to deal with a Hamato level weather event. 

But he has never seen Gio flinch away from anyone else. 

So he did what he always did when confronted by something outside his formidable repertoire—he took it to Leo. 

There had never in Donnie’s life been a problem that couldn’t be made into their problem. It came with twin territory. 

And Donnie’s twin in particular is good at translating Donatello and translating other people for Donatello, and jumps on any chance to be helpful and feel wanted, and absolutely loves problems. It’s one of the most annoying and endearing things about him. If there is any trouble within a hundred miles, Leo will find it. He will worm his way into the center of it and then puzzle his way out from the inside. Most other clever and curious people were satisfied by the daily Wordle; Leo would chew through a wall unless he had something more hands-on to occupy his mind with. As polar-opposite as the two of them could be in, in that regard, they were one and the same. 

It’s somewhat reassuring to Donnie that Leo’s immediate reaction is plain incredulity. He looks baffled, like Donnie has just started throwing stuff around the room for no reason. 

(He knows better. In the medbay, of all places, that would be a death wish. Leo runs a tight ship here and only here.)

“Sorry, you don’t think Gio likes you?” Leo says slowly. “Our Gio? The guy who let you infodump about the mycelial networks of fungi to him for almost two hours, all because Mikey mentioned he was making mushroom stir-fry for dinner?” 

Donnie scoffs, but he can’t help but feel warmed by the reminder. Gio had settled right in, the way he always did once he was sure of his welcome, and watched Donnie talk like nothing more interesting existed on this side of the equator.

“His eyes didn’t even glaze over,” Leo goes on, doing what he always does and pressing the advantage. “That’s a new personal best in this family. Even April started looking for a window to climb out of at the thirty minute mark.”

“There was bound to be at least one other mutant turtle in the New York metropolitan area with an appreciation for botany,” Donnie says imperiously, tilting his chin up. 

But the worry is still there, firmly rooted, trying to flower. Leo must be able to tell because his frown deepens, playfulness evaporating by the second. He pauses the music and sets his phone down. The room rings in the sudden silence, but it’s not uncomfortable, because it’s a room Donnie exists in with his twin. 

“I just want him to like me,” Donnie says. It’s a childish want, it makes him feel half his age, but it’s true. 

He was never one of those human kids lingering near the playground, on the edge of the classroom, desperate to fit in. He was never on the outs because he never had the chance to be. But this is probably what that would have felt like. 

Giorgio is quiet by default, absorbing everything with dark brown eyes, always pausing to think before speaking in a low, flat register that is becoming as familiar to Donnie as Raph’s comforting rumbles and Mikey’s energetic shrieks and Leo’s sweet or sly laughter. 

He hasn’t been anything but kind since he got here. He saved Leo, brought him home from a place it should have been impossible to come home from, so Donatello would put up with any manner of assholery from that quarter in exchange—but it’s not that at all. 

Once Gio’s initial guard goes up and then comes down, once they outlive that moment of consideration that verges upon scrutiny without ever crossing the line, the eldest turtle softens for any younger one like clockwork. He indulges whatever noise or nonsense they’ve brought with them like there is no better use of his time. 

It doesn’t seem like a lie. But Donnie is the least qualified person he knows to make that judgement call. 

There’s a lot at stake if he’s wrong, is all. 

Leo looks like Donnie has taken a melon baller to his insides just for fun. 

“I’d know if he didn’t like you,” Leo says with absolute certainty. And he probably would. And he would take it so personally. He wouldn’t let Gio know a single moment’s rest until the spotted turtle had a coming-to-Jesus moment and acknowledged his wrongdoings in canceled Youtuber apology video format. 

Since that isn’t the reality they live in—and Leo’s daily relentless pestering of Gio is harmless and little-sibling-shaped and decidedly not mean-spirited by any stretch of the imagination—some small part of the tight, unhappy feeling in Donnie’s heart has no choice but to accept that as the compelling argument it is. 

“He probably misses you, Tello,” Leo adds, something softening in his face that it hurts to look directly at. “His you, I mean. I know I would be a train wreck cosplaying as a person if I had to go someplace I’d never see you again. Can you imagine how screwed-up I’d be?”

Donnie’s whole soul shudders at the idea, at the nightmare that almost came true when the portal closed around the Technodrome and as good as severed Donnie clean down the middle. At the glimpse of a life he’d be forced to live with one leg, one lung, one arm, one eye, half a heart. 

“That’ll never happen,” he says, a little too loud. 

“You’re stuck with me,” Leo agrees. He means it, Donnie can tell—even after that almost-nightmare he put his family through, he means it. It’s one thing to take the nuclear option at the actual on-paper end of the world, it’s another to sit in a safe, warmly-lit room with his twin brother and try to conceive of an existence in which their dynamic duo was whittled down to a solo act. 

When they were little, Donnie once tried to explain how big the unobservable universe was. He told Leo that light from the big bang hadn’t reached Earth from all the way over there yet. It was a concept he struggled with as a child, that something could be so unknowable and immeasurable.

“That’s how big my ‘I love you’ is,” he said, all of seven years old and putting it into words the best way he knew how.

“I love you bigger than that,” Leo said promptly. 

“Ugh, you can’t,” Donnie said, frustrated at his twin for always trying to one-up him, for not understanding the huge thing Donnie was trying to compress and fit into his hands. “It’s not possible.”

“It is,” Leo said firmly, eyes gold to match Donnie’s, warm and shining in a way that was all his own. “I do.”

And then Leo went on to prove it. In a way Donnie never would have wanted him to—in an explosion that split the sky and left flash burns in their eyes, and the hollow pain of a surgical removal as the still-beating heart of their family was cut away, and the discordant electronic fuzz where a beloved voice had been rushing through last words, replaced by the sound of a radio without a signal, a device unpaired—but he proved it in a thousand other ways, too. 

He was even proving it now, this afternoon he spent leaning on a forearm crutch and ambling around to various shelves and cabinets to keep up with his stock of medical supplies that had been severely depleted in the weeks after the invasion. Leo had carried bandaids and lidocaine spray in a tiny tote bag since he was two feet tall. He couldn’t stop bad things from happening but he could try to make the bad things better. 

He’s looking at Donnie like he would right every wrong for him if he knew where to start. Like the unobservable universe was small enough to fit in his pocket compared to the lengths Leonardo would go for Donatello. 

Leo is the younger twin, but sometimes the only thing there is for Donnie to do is shuffle over and bonk their foreheads together and believe him. 

“If Gigi hated you, he wouldn’t be a Hamato,” Leo announces, muffled and silly and entirely correct. “It’s a prerequisite. You must have missed that meeting with HR.” And then, because it’s important, he whispers, “I promise, okay?”

“Okay,” Donnie whispers back. 

At about that moment, TSwift’s I Think He Knows comes on, proving once and for all that there is actually no way Leo’s playlist is on shuffle. The weighted moment they’re holding on tight to transitions into a lighter one that gets flung haphazardly around as an immediate life-or-death struggle for the phone ensues. 

Stalemate is only reached when Splinter barges in to read them the riot act for daring to roughhouse while they had a non-zero number of broken bones between the two of them. Leo is bright-eyed with mischief and already fast-talking their way out of trouble the same effortless way April can rattle off her brothers’ favorite coffee orders, and Donnie’s worry has been soundly evicted, all its belongings in boxes in the yard. 

Sitting around has never been his style. He’s a turtle of discovery and invention. And now that he’s been reassured that the absolute worst-case scenario is not on the table—that it, in fact, was never on the table to begin with—curiosity rears its head and snaps up the dregs of anxiety like a hungry wolfhound who mistook it for an unattended rack of lamb. 

He wants to know why Georgie is being weird, if it’s not dislike of Donatello. Leo’s certain it’s not, so certain that he was willing to promise, point-blank and absolute, instead of being tricky and sly in the name of cheering Donnie up instead. Which means it must be something else.  

So after dinner a week later, as the whole family crowds comfortably around the banana split bar spilling across the entire kitchen island and argues over which toppings Gio and Casey should stack their bowls with first, Donnie blurts, “Can I see your crossbow?”

Giorgio really is one of the clowns in this circus. He proves it by putting his ice cream down, and picking the bow up from where it was relegated to the bench seat where everyone tosses their coats and shoes when they get home, and passing it right over. No normal person would put a loaded weapon in Donnie’s hands just because he asked nicely. 

As if in tacit agreement, both of Casey’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline and Raph makes incredulous scoffing noises. April says, “You did not just—” at the same time Splinter blusters, “Purple, you fire that thing off in this house even once and I am grounding you from everything you know and love, including Orange!” and Donnie screeches, over Mikey and Leo’s hysterical laughter, “I can be trusted with projectile weaponry!”

The crossbow has been carefully maintained, but it hasn’t been used in weeks that Donnie is aware of. They’ve all stuck pretty close to home since the invasion, and it’s not like Gio knows anyone but them—it’s not like they need firepower for grocery hauls or pizza runs, though, knowing their luck, that could change any given day. 

But Gio still cleans it regularly, and he’s become a familiar sight at the kitchen table; parts spread out on an oil-stained rag, meticulous and methodical with the one belonging he brought here with him from the future other than the clothes on his back and the colorful friendship bracelet on his right wrist. 

It’s important to him, clearly, but he’s letting Donnie handle it with an indulgent look on his face. Like there are no better hands to leave it in than his little brother’s. 

Because he’s at risk of having a whole emotion about that out loud, where his entire family is assembled to witness it, Donnie quickly turns his mind onto the much safer road of gadgetry.  

He has never actually held a crossbow before, has never built or used one, but he’s been doing a lot of research. He has a lot of ideas. He wants to print mechanical broadhead arrows with explosive tips, or tear gas canisters, or EMP charges. It’s a brand new world of creative chaos and that’s not even touching all the build customizations Donnie has in mind. His fingers are already itching to dismantle and reassemble the machine into something better, something that won’t ever fail, something his big brother will love. 

Only—huh. What feels like a low-level electric current thrums to quiet life like it was waiting to be noticed by the right pair of eyes, just enough of a static shock to get his attention and guide his hand to the rail. Glowing purple does the work of an allen wrench in seconds and a handful of screws clatter to the table. Donnie removes the scope in one sure motion, and moves on to snap the rail from the stock. 

Raph says, low and warning, “Donnie,” intimately familiar with gremlin gadget mode and all the kitchen appliances and shared toys destroyed in Donnie’s early years in the name of science. But he’s not breaking this time, he’s just looking. 

He flips the rail over in his hands and finds the source of that odd electricity-conductive feeling. Hidden on the underside is a small embossed logo that Donnie would recognize anywhere, because it’s his.

“A-ha!” he says, absurdly pleased with the discovery. “A Genius Built mod.” 

The rail was one of the first things he’d had in mind to upgrade, but it looks like he’d beaten himself to the punch. 

“With a custom rail, we can add whatever attachments we want to the stock, way beyond just an average scope or a rangefinder,” Donnie says eagerly, his mind darting ahead in three different directions at once. “The world is our oyster, Georgie!” 

He can’t help grinning. His logo on Gio’s prized possession is that last little bit of evidence he needed. He’s never been happier to be wrong, and will endure Leo’s smugness for an unheard of two entire business days before initiating retaliation. 

No version of Donatello would put that mark on anything unless he really cared about it. 

And Gio wouldn’t lift the rail from Donnie’s hands, and touch his thumb to that stylized “D” as if to prove to himself that it was real, an expression of painful wistful longing on his face, unless he really cared, too. 

[jnnul]

the right side of wrong (part 3)

TAGS ▸ uhhh an accidental kiss, some fighting/sparring, sunghoon boxes bc i said so, stalking but you don't know that yet

PLAYLIST ▸ yosemite - travis scott, back - jey, stay - ari abdul, element - pop smoke, dirty laundry - blackbear

WORD COUNT ▸ 4.8k

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ so i've been sitting on this chapter for quite some time (motivation to finally post has come from @dojunie for updating the masterpiece misdial) and i originally wanted to include a lot more plot in this chapter but i figured that it would better to get it out than ruminate about the plot too much more. quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

TAGLIST ▸ @hybeboyenthusisast

[march 19, 20XX, 12:19 P.M.] [copenhagen, denmark]

“teekl!” klarion exclaims, taking in his surroundings with a sneer. “i wanted to teleport to where y/n is! why’d you bring me to copenhagen?”

teekl meows, as if to rebuke klarion’s displeasure of being dropped in copenhagen - a place with beautiful scenery and fresh air, mind you - compared to the exact location of where y/n was, which was something that teekl was not only incapable of doing at the current energy levels that he was at, but also something that was difficult for klarion himself to do.

“if only i had her exact energy signature…,” klarion mutters under his breath, trying to hone in on y/n’s energy signature. he feels a quick zap against his skull, almost as if he’s made a breakthrough before it vanishes and klarion sighs.

“might as well take a cat nap, before i recharge and find that stupid runaway,” klarion says and teekl meows in almost malicious agreement. neither of them realize that they aren’t the only ones looking for her as felix faust slinks back into the shadows, the two of them never leaving his sight.

[march 19, 20XX, 12:27 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“let me get this straight and please, feel free to stop me at any point you think that this is batshit insane: you landed in ace chemical factory, and in your panic, you screamed at supersonic levels and everything around you shattered. after that, you didn’t want to be put in jail or whatever you thought was going to happen so you ran and wandered aimlessly around gotham before you ended up at the bank and met artemis. oh, and how could i forget, you didn’t know you could do that?” sunghoon recaps in an almost satirical voice, rubbing the outside of his ear, having just recovered his sense of hearing. y/n nods, somewhat sheepishly, having been pacified when yuna shin, the magician from the justice league, had been called in to fix the necklace using a spell. yujin sighs, rubbing her forehead as the two of them start to piece together what had happened that night.

“still doesn’t explain how icicle sr. managed to get from the yacht bridge to the bank in that time frame,” yujin says and y/n raises her hand hesitatingly.

“i don’t know if this is relevant but there was some guy wearing a huge parka in the middle of march that was riding down a huge…bobsled with ice that kinda appeared wherever he moved? i wasn’t sure if that was normal in this dimension so i didn’t say anything but they’re both icy,” she says, fidgeting with her hands. 

“did you see anyone else with him?” sunghoon asks, and y/n wracks her brain, trying to think if she saw anyone else that night.

“some really pale lady with spiky blue hair?”

yujin and sunghoon exchange a look before yujin groans, pulling out her phone to call belrev and let the maximum security prison wasn’t nearly as high security as they thought it was. 

“those three are all money hungry people who ally with each other every time they want to pull off a serious heist since they all use ice as their method of attack. they were probably all working together to pull off the yacht bridge incident,” sunghoon explains as a lightbulb goes off in his head. “that’s why we only saw shattered glass and nothing else. the ice probably melted by the time that we got there.”

“well that explains that. what that doesn’t explain is the canary cry. no one else in the justice league - or the injustice league, for that matter - has the canary cry. at least not since that impersonator was put into prison but even she couldn’t use the canary cry well enough to make stone break,” yujin says once she gets off the phone.

“right…” sunghoon turns to y/n, who’s fidgeting with the necklace in her hand. “do you mind if i look at that for a second?”

y/n stares at the necklace for a moment before handing it over somewhat reluctantly.

the necklace itself seems rather plain. it’s a gold necklace, with a single pearl dangling off of it but other than that, it had no identifiers to suggest why this necklace was so important to y/n.

“it was my mother’s,” she says softly and sunghoon hears yujin have to contain her gasp where she was standing. “it’s the only thing i have from her and the only thing that my father hasn’t tried to take from me when it comes to memories of my mom.”

that would explain the sentimental attachment.

sunghoon eyes the pearl, which seems to be dazzling in the light, even though there was very little in y/n’s room, as though it were exuding light, rather than reflecting it. well. unless pearls operated differently in y/n’s dimension (which, at this point, sunghoon couldn’t even say definitively that they didn’t), there was something about this necklace…

“you don’t know who exactly your mother is, right?” yujin asks and y/n nods, hands twitching as she watches sunghoon fidget with the necklace before he drops it back onto the nightstand. she snatches it up quickly, putting it back around her neck, seeming much more calm now that the necklace was on her.

“no. all i know is that my father and my mother went to the same high school and that i was born when they were both still in school, which is probably why i ended up with my dad instead of my mom,” y/n says, thumbing at the pearl. yujin exchanges a look with sunghoon, and this time, sunghoon is the one to leave the room, pressing buttons on a flip phone to call someone.

“look, i don’t want to give you any false hope or even give you any information that you don’t need right now,” yujin starts, taking a deep breath. y/n doesn’t say anything, just watching yujin as the taller girl gets up to start pacing around the room that suddenly feels surprisingly cramped.

“but with the cry and everything that she’s told us about how she discovered her powers and everything…we have good reason to believe that your mother is black canary.”

y/n’s breath comes out as a staccato as it catches in her throat.

“…and we don’t know if she knows you exist."

[march 19, 20XX, 1:02 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“what did the bat say?” yujin asks a disheveled looking sunghoon. the tall man just shakes his head, sitting down next to her on y/n’s bed, the owner of said bed watching him from the other side of the room on her beanbag chair.

“he can’t confirm or deny anything right now because black canary’s not in the u.s. right now. she’s out of the country on some top secret mission and cannot be called back under any circumstances,” sunghoon sighs and yujin’s eyebrows furrow.

“it took you half an hour to find out that we can’t get in touch with black canary?” 

“there were…other things. just alpha clearance level things,” sunghoon says and yujin immediately leans back. y/n’s eyes bounce back and forth between sunghoon and yujin before clearing her throat nervously.

“uh, what does alpha clearance mean?”

“it’s just our classification system to ensure that the information from the team and the justice league is kept safe,” sunghoon explains. “each person has a certain clearance level they request or are approved for. more than anything, it’s so that people in the league or on the team don’t bite off more than what they can chew.”

“for example, superboy has the lowest clearance level - level eight. we trust him with our lives and know that he’s the first person to run headfirst into danger if he felt that was right,” yujin starts and y/n nods slowly, following where yujin was going with her logic.

“but if someone who was that quick to action were to be given higher clearance knowledge, then it would be hard to reestablish which missions are his priority and which aren’t, since he would probably feel they were all important,” y/n continues.

“and while they are all important, some require more planning than brute force. it’s hard to explain that to someone when they’re already extremely emotionally invested in a mission,” sunghoon finishes.

“it’s really more about how emotionally detached someone can get from the mission to ensure that actions are being put in place for the greater good,” y/n summarizes and yujin and sunghoon both shrug.

“that’s one way of thinking about it. it’s like a chain of command, honestly. if something were to happen to me, there needs to be someone who would be next in the chain of command so that the team doesn’t get split into five different directions because five different people think that the team should operate differently,” sunghoon says and y/n nods, leaning backwards into the plushiness of the beanbag chair.

“is it alright that you’re telling me all of this though? i asked because i was curious - but i’m curious about a lot of things. things that are probably less confidential than the inner workings of how an espionage and covert operations team works,” y/n asks, and although her words would set sunghoon on high alert coming from anyone else, he feels strangely understanding when it comes from her.

which had implications that he wasn’t ready to think about just yet.

“well, if you want the truth, there’s two aspects to it: a) it’s in our best interest to be as honest with you as possible so that you can be as honest as possible with us to help us with stopping the light. and b) i’ve been having private conversations with various members of the team about you joining the team - if that’s what you want - and everyone’s on board with the idea,” yujin says, watching y/n’s reaction to this (what she thinks is, at least) bombshell of information. “that’s actually part of what sunghoon and i wanted to talk to you about before the whole canary cry situation.”

“join the team?” y/n repeats slowly, her posture growing more timid as she sinks even further backwards into the chair. sunghoon refrains from reaching forward to comfort her, for fear that he might scare her even more.

“it’s not an obligation and we’d definitely understand if that’s not something that you want. but we figured that we’d present the option to you whenever you’re ready. i think that you’d be a great addition to the team,” sunghoon says gently, his eyes never leaving y/n’s.

“you do? but i don’t have any combat experience; i’d just drag you all down and put you in danger,” y/n murmurs softly, and yujin catches the faint blush on her cheeks as her eyes dart to the floor for a moment’s reprieve from sunghoon’s gaze. cute.

“we all started from somewhere, y/n,” sunghoon reminds her.

“yeah. boy wonder’s the only one out of all of us who came out of the womb fighting,” yujin snorts, punching sunghoon in the shoulder. “and besides, i saw you hold your own in front of icicle and his stupid gang. anyone who can blast that frosty old snowball into a sedan is someone i want on my team.”

y/n smiles softly, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles as she’s lost in thought, weighing her options in front of her almost plainly on her face. sunghoon taps yujin’s knee slightly and the two of them get up from where they were perched on her bed and begin to make their way to the door to leave y/n to her thoughts.

“can i - could i, maybe, watch you guys train tomorrow? soojin said that you guys are training altogether tomorrow and maybe that’ll help me make a decision?” y/n asks and sunghoon’s nodding his head before he even fully processes the question.

“whatever you need, y/n. just be sure to bring an ice pack in case you decide to join the fight,” yujin says with a wink as she walks away. sunghoon rolls his eyes before shaking his head when he see’s y/n’s eyes widened with worry.

“she’s joking. you absolutely don’t need to spar with us to watch, y/n,” sunghoon says softly and he sees some of the tension in her shoulders visibly melt.

“thanks, sunghoon,” she murmurs back, getting up to close the door as sunghoon retreats as well, a small smile on his face.

sunghoon. he liked the way that his name sounded on her lips.

[march 19, 20XX, 9:52 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

y/n winces as superboy crashes to the floor with a resounding thud. jay huffs as he lays on his back for just a moment, the mat sounding out a depressing ‘SUPERBOY - LOSS’ as he stares up at the ceiling.

“i’m getting really tired of getting beat up by people half my size,” jay groans as he accepts yujin’s hand as she hoists him up back onto his feet. 

“to be fair, yujin is pretty much your height,” jake points out, hand deep into a family size bag of chips. he was already well past his first defeat at the hands of his girlfriend and had wisely decided to spend the rest of training with some form of food shoved into his mouth.

“i don’t think that’s gonna make him feel better, kid. and he’s pretty tall,” soojin says but jay just shrugs.

“eh, i’ve only got two or three inches on her but if there’s anything i’ve learned from training with artemis and black canary, it’s that you should never judge a book by its cover. especially a girl. those are books you could read your entire life and never understand,” jay snorts, and soojin and yujin exchange an exasperated look when jake hollers out an ‘amen brother!’.

“i don’t know. i don’t think girls are really all that hard to understand,” sunghoon announces his presence, unwrapping the bandages on his knuckles as he joined the team in the sparring room. he was a boxing aficionado as of late and had taken to doing some boxing training in solitude before training with the rest of the team.

he’d tried to hook soojin and jake on it but soojin had incinerated the boxing gloves and jake had accidentally phased right though the sandbag. needless to say, boxing became more of a sport of solitude after that.

“of course our resident player says that; that’s how he gets all the girls to fall for him,” jake teases and sunghoon just rolls his eyes.

“i’m not a player.”

“says the man who hasn’t dated a woman for longer than three months at a time.” yujin crosses her arms over her chest as though she was daring sunghoon to challenge her statement.

“that doesn’t mean i’m a player.”

“can you count the number of women you’ve dated on all of your appendages?”

“does my tongue count?”

“gross.”

y/n’s eyes dart back and forth between yujin and sunghoon, and sunghoon is almost taken aback to the night before, with artemis and him going back and forth with their usual banter. ah. while the other members of the team knew to just ignore the two of them (or watch, if they wanted some entertainment for the day), y/n probably thought they were genuinely fighting. 

it wasn’t as though she had many friends to banter with and the ‘friends’ that she did have weren’t exactly the bantering type. sunghoon shudders as he tries to imagine vandal savage engaging in harmless banter.

“did you hurt yourself?” y/n says softly, nodding at sunghoon’s bandages that were balled up in his fist. he looks down, eyebrows furrowed before realization strikes him.

“oh no, these aren’t bandages because i’m hurt; these are wraps that boxers wear to keep their fists protected when they’re boxing,” sunghoon says and even jake (who’s usually the most oblivious one of them all) can sense the shift in sunghoon’s tone when addressing y/n. where sunghoon was prone to having a rather stoic first impression, he was soft and gentle when speaking to y/n.

my bet’s that they’re gonna kiss in the next three weeks,jake says through the mind link.

i’m going for four, jay contests. sunghoon tries not to make the indignant feeling bubbling in his chest too obvious on his face.

i wouldn’t put it past sunghoon, but i’m giving the girl two months. i don’t think she really understands how romance works, yujin points out.

she’s watched the notebook. she knows what romance is, soojin disagrees.

“are you guys having a conversation without me in your minds?” y/n asks, glancing between them, and the team belatedly realizes that the room had been silent for too long to be appropriate. especially not with sunghoon looking at the rest of them as though he wanted to throw something sharp and pointy at them.

y/n crosses her arms over her chest and for the first time, sunghoon saw sheer disappointment on her face. the look made his chest tight and for some reason, he really didn’t want to see that look on her face directed towards him ever again. ever. “i really can’t tell if that’s really cool or…really, really rude.”

“sorry, it was something really stupid,” yujin says, trying appease y/n. her expression doesn’t give any leeway, and soojin makes her way over to y/n to nudge her slightly.

“really, it was super stupid. but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t rude. sorry y/n. we’ve grown rusty with welcoming new people when all of us are together since we haven’t had a new member since…well, since yujin,” she explains and y/n finally uncrosses her arms and sighs.

“it’s fine - i mean, i get that you guys have a super important history together and i would never do anything to try and intrude on that,” y/n concedes. 

“look, i’m really sorry,” sunghoon says and y/n’s shoulders melt in the slightest when he does - something that doesn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the group.

“it’s okay. now - uh, who do i shoot with a fireball first?”

“i thought you were just watching?”

“what can i say? i’m all fired up.”

“you and i are going to get along just fine.”

“shut up, kid.”

[march 19, 20XX, 10:21 A.M.] [mount justice, happy harbor, rhode island]

“break - break! jesus christ, what have they been feeding you in that other dimension?” jake wheezes, pressing a hand to his chest as he tries to catch his breath. y/n blinks innocently from where she’s standing on the other side of the mat, looking rather unfazed by the whole experience.

“uh, human food, i’m pretty sure. no ovens or refrigerators, remember?” y/n points out and jake blinks, now on the other side of the room, mid-bite as he was scarfing down a 7,000 calorie protein bar made specially for him.

“it was a rhetoric question,” he says in between bites and y/n nods as though she were taking mental note. 

“right. uh - so who am i sparring next?” she says, awkwardly holding her hands out in the same position as she had done so before - effective, if jake’s wheezing is to say anything, but clearly off in practicality and skill.

“how about you spar with me?” sunghoon offers, casting his boxing gloves on the bench. he’d taken a break to watch y/n and see how she would adapt to a sudden situation where she could only rely on instinct rather than her underdeveloped pyretic skills, only to realize just how far behind she was in technical skill.

but if there was anything that her match with jake had indicated, what she lacked in technical skill, she made up for in sheer ability, with her ability to nearly predict what her opponent was going to do - even if said opponent was operating at superhuman speeds.

sunghoon figures that it’s a trauma response developed to sort of predict the behaviors of those around her in such an unpredictable environment. she also had a tendency to rely on her feet instead of her hands, which was a good thing when facing an opponent such as kid flash, who relies on his speed and arm skills and disadvantageous for pretty much everyone else.

“be careful, newbie. sunghoon’s undefeated against all of us except for yujin,” jay warns from where he’s also taking a break next to jake, soojin not far from him.

“i only beat him that one time he broke his leg,” yujin points out, but she’s quickly shushed by jake, who says something along the lines of, “don’t lose your street cred in front of your girlfriend.”

yujin, of course, lobs a sweaty towel at him shortly thereafter, but it was the thought that counted.

“should i be nervous?” y/n asks, and sunghoon shakes his head before stepping into the ring.

“don’t worry - i’m not trying to beat you or anything; i just want to correct a few small mistakes i’ve been seeing,” sunghoon explains gently, watching y/n’s worried expression melt off her face, although her limbs were still stiff with anticipation.

sunghoon steps one foot forward, to which y/n lunges backwards, wary and apprehensive of every move sunghoon made. “i’ m not going to hurt you, y/n.”

y/n nods, but it’s clear that she’s scared witless and sunghoon crosses his hands over each other to form a ‘t’ to indicate a time-out, casually walking forward towards y/n in hopes of making her feel more at ease.

but no sooner does he get within a foot of her does she lunge forward rather brashly, causing sunghoon to stumble backwards and toppling downwards - just barely saving himself by flipping over so that he was in a pushup position.

“get him while he’s down!” he hears yujin cry.

“i can’t believe a noob is about to beat sunghoon!” jake exclaims. 

“oh my god, i can’t watch,” soojin says, her fingers crossed in front of her face with enough space that it was clear her eyes were 100% still watching.

“i might have never been taught how to fight - ” y/n begins, sweeping at sunghoon’s arms so that he would fall. he just barely avoids it by rolling forward, crouched on the balls of his feet as he watches y/n carefully. “ - but i did learn a thing or two about how to stay unsuspicious.”

“i’ll give you that,” sunghoon concedes after standing up, dipping into a gentleman’s bow, twirling out of the way when y/n tries to take the moment to push sunghoon down. “but it’s not enough to take me down.”

“i don’t doubt it,” y/n admits, awkwardly holding her arms out in what it she deemed to be a ‘threatening offense’ as she carefully circled the fight space, mirroring sunghoon’s movements.

“you don’t seem very bogged down by the truth,” he remarks and a catty smile flashes across y/n’s lips before disappearing just as soon as it had appeared.

“you don’t seem to be very discontent in my inability to take you down,” y/n throws back lightly.

“how long are they going to keep doing that?” jay whispers to soojin, who still has her fingers spread across her face, her face strangely tinted pink rather than her usual pale pallor.

“keep flirting or keep fighting?” yujin snorts from the other side of jay, ducking out of reach when soojin leans over to push yujin.

“they’ll hear you!” soojin shushes and jake rolls his eyes with a goodnatured shake of the head.

“the only person who has super hearing is jay and he’s sitting right next to you. i doubt they’re going to be able to hear us from forty feet away,” jake points out and soojin harrumphs, crossing her arms over her chest.

“we don’t know if y/n has super hearing,” soojin reminds the group and the three of them simultaneously face forward to see if y/n was listening to their conversation. either she was an incredible actress or she genuinely couldn’t hear anything because by the time they refocus on the scene in front of them, sunghoon’s warding off another well timed kick and the succeeding side swipe.

but what he doesn’t account for is y/n’s ability to turn around nearly as fast as sunghoon to try and land a punch. and while sunghoon does manage to swat away y/n’s fist, she’s unable to recover as quickly as sunghoon as she loses her balance trying to beat sunghoon. and sunghoon, in his panic to try and shield y/n’s fall, manages to topple downwards with her.

down, down, down until suddenly, every inch of y/n’s body is pressed against his own. from her toes to her - to her lips, pressed against sunghoon’s and although y/n’s powers are pyrokinetics, sunghoon feels as though his entire body has been doused in cold water as he realizes that technically, he is kissing y/n. or honestly, she’s kissing him but somehow the logistics of the situation are lost on sunghoon when he looks into her eyes, wide-eyed and confused. 

have y/n’s eyes always been so…so bright? 

it’s only when jay coughs obnoxiously loudly that he remembers his audience, and it seems that this is an adequate reminder for y/n as well, who rolls off of him rather unceremoniously.

the room is silent, almost painfully so as sunghoon and y/n seemingly process what just happened. 

ardor - win. sunghoon - loss. the mat rings out unhelpfully and y/n looks as though she’s rebooting as she rises to her feet.

“is there any way to correct the system? i - i don’t think i actually won. not with conventional tactics anyway,” she splutters as sunghoon also composes himself enough to get off the floor.

“a win is a win!” jake calls out, wincing when sunghoon shoots him a withering look. this seems to kickstart the rest of the team back to life as jay offers y/n a water bottle and soojin flashes an award-winning smile at her.

“not bad for your first day on the training mat,” yujin says, casually throwing an arm around y/n’s shoulders.

jake, seemingly haven shaken off sunghoon’s nonverbal warning rather quickly, turns to the still somewhat confused man with a shit-eating grin. “you lost. you know what that means, right?”

this catches jay’s attention as well as he appears at the scene of the crime with an equally frightening smirk. “i vaguely recall someone saying that if someone beat him - ”

“ - he’d be their personal servant for a month?” yujin finishes and soojin giggles, quickly trying to hide her grin when sunghoon’s glare transfers from the terrible threes and lands on her instead.

“oh, oh no - i’m so sorry!” y/n exclaims, her face twisted into an expression somewhere in between guilt, shame, confusion, and anxiety. “please don’t regard this as a loss; the…accident from before was completely my fault and that wasn’t an official sparring match so - so that shouldn’t count as a win and you shouldn’t be held to those conditions.”

yujin watches as sunghoon turns to her, his gaze growing soft but somewhat guarded as he shakes his head with a good-natured smile. 

“you won. there is no changing the system. and besides, in the field, one must be prepared for sorts of conditions and trials; it was my own fault that i lost so i must uphold the conditions i proposed,” sunghoon says but the words don’t seem to appease y/n’s mind at all.

soojin seems to notice as she steers y/n towards the exit of the training room.

“y/n, trust me. when it comes to wins from sunghoon, you take them where you can get them,” she says and y/n just nods, which is as much of a concession of her victory as soojin figures she’s gonna get. 

yujin’s left in the training room with sunghoon by the time jake and jay gather their belongings also start to file out the training room (but not before jake smirks at sunghoon, indicating that they were gonna talk later).

“stop thinking so much,” yujin says, arms folded across her chest. sunghoon rolls his eyes before heading over to the bench to pick up his bandages and boxing gear.

“i’m not thinking,” sunghoon says and yujin snorts.

“normally, i’d love to agree with that statement but you’re overthinking and every single one of us can tell. including y/n.” yujin nods to y/n’s receding figure before turning back to sunghoon with an unimpressed look. “it was an accident.”

“i know,” sunghoon says, a little too quickly. “i mean, i know.”

yujin fixes him with a probing look before giving up, shrugging as she also starts to head out of the training room. 

but it seems the surprises for the day are still abundant as y/n bursts into the room, looking more alarmed than yujin’s ever seen her before.

“don’t ask me how i know this but klarion’s back in town,” y/n trembles, eyes full of panic.

“and i think he knows where i am.”

[wardingshout]

Since I didn't draw anything for like half of 2024 I did an updated colour wheel instead! featuring only the newest of stuff I could find that fit.

I have also compiled a dump of many thoughts I want out of my head, like a little text post dump I guess. the tldr I guess I will just make "thank you".

Putting the most important thing first here which is. Every single time I catch myself thinking "no I need to draw smth other than alttp" a couple of very specific tags and messages pop into my head and I get so fired up to draw more alttp !!! the power I feel from that!!!!!

IIIIII feel like there used to be a way to do linebreaks but I can't remember how so my new text bit divider is random crap I can find lying around in my files

Ok here goes me being dramatic about something that only matters to me but feels so very important to get out for the sake of others too. I guess the gist of it is that tumblr is a rly important place to me and I'm so endlessly grateful for people always being so nice. at the end of the day I don't think I really care about much else in life than drawing and getting to share it with others makes it a much less lonely experience for me. I mostly just for myself, but I'm so grateful for the extra joy associated with posting it online too.

I feel a bit bad I can never seem to give back the kind of nice energy you guys give me. despite how much joy this place brings me, I'm just a naturally anxious person and I often chicken out of doing things myself. I'm so endlessly happy that people still bear with me or at least stick around to look at my art.

thanks to people's kindness I often find myself breaking out of the anxiety and getting a lot closer to initiating stuff myself, but I always get run over by some kind of irl issue instead, usually mental, but recently also physical health. I had so much fun on here this summer especially and I was so certain that this was the time I would make it last only for irl stuff to yet again show up and knock me out completely. every time that happens I feel like I have to rebuild whatever social bravery I had aquired from the beginning again and at this rate I won't ever get anywhere.

after weeks of very few work days, I feel like I'm finally rebuilding the courage to post and the concentration to manage drawing at all. it's not a lot of progress but I can feel it growing. from tomorrow it's back to full time work with no other breaks in sight and I'm scared my groove will be cut short already... I like my job but I've acknowledged I just can't thrive with full time work. I can bear it fine though, but it doesn't leave energy for much else in life.

I think the point here is. I know it's just social media but I've had so many good experiences on here and they're really precious to me. I hope one day I can be well enough to be that kind of influence for others too. my activity with art and presence online has become surprisingly reflective of how well or bad I'm doing irl, so I never I never want to give up on become a more present person.

the most important thing is art though, so finding the courage to get back to posting even if it's all I do, makes me happy too. thank you so much to everyone else who posts are too. I'm endlessly excited about all the cool things I get to experience and see online, thank you!

it is absolutely absurd how many drafts I have of just very frustrated moments where literally all I type is "if I have to be sick one more time I will lose my absolute mind holy shit" and having just been sick again? really feeling that !!!! it's also like. frustrating to feel you're making progress mentally and then you constantly get knocked into bed by phsyical health instead like come on I'm finally learning how to get Out of that place... and then every time you get sick, routunes have to be rebuild all over after, it suuuuucks....

I finally got a PC which has been absolutely life saving, However. I am still drawing on tegaki only... I'm so excited I can get back to bigger works on csp but I've gotten so used to seeing only my tegaki stuff, I'm scared of how much I'll suddenly hate my art when I see it differently again... hating your own art is probably a feeling that will never disappear but even so. I think I'm at a pretty content place right now and I'm worried about shaking it up. I can't let something like that knock me down when I'm only finally getting back to drawing regularly again... I already copied over the palette for some comfort so hopefully I can find a brush that feels similar too! at least I'm super excited about getting to pick some more colours !

and a very belated tag game thing !! I completely lost the original post by now but it was from @lele5429 and I've had it in my drafts this whole time, so better late than never to fill it out!

Last song: Alt Hvad Jeg Vil by Von Quar

Fav colours: warm yellows or light oranges!

Last book: switching between Assassin's Quest and Our Wives Under The Sea!

Last movie: The Princess Bride I think?? it was long ago so I feel like I'm forgetting something else though...

Last tv show: my roomie and I binged Twin Peaks season 3 as well as most of True Detective over christmas break we went Ham

Sweet/spicy/savoury: sweet !!

Relationship status: not interested

Last thing I googled: "nosferatu rats"... I see.....

Current obsession: alttp auish shenanigans... this one has not changed since I first drafted my response to this... on one hand I feel like I'm just filling out the gaps between games, but on the other it's getting very close to full au stuff... I always wanted to draw comics but had no ideas and for the first time in my life I'm drowning in ideas and fully held back by fear and skills haha

Looking forward to: actually surprisingly nothing at all? I'm looking forward to whatever good times I can create for myself I guess. the last few things I was looking forward to didn't go so well, so maybe it's nice to have nothing but the most normal and boring daily life ahead haha

[crossbackpoke-check]

Sat politely ankles crossed hands folded please say you have more thoughts about the DC deweys. Lazarus pit cold-eyed stare pristine and bloodthirsty anyway I would love to hear any further thoughts if you have the time + energy + motivation

how i imagine you waiting for me to re-read the resurrection of ra’s al-ghul and hush vol. 1+2:

ALRIGHT. in no particular order, thoughts about the dc deweys

connor fits very well into the mold of a talia al-ghul for me; chip on his shoulder, femme fatale, deadly and precise. he’s not the loudest but he’s got a dry wit that’ll cut you!

“why is connor an al-ghul at all and not batman” well first of all he’s already got the water connection, i’m gonna go dip him into the lake a couple hours north of the pas to make him incredibly long-lived, rejuvenated and beautiful

second of all i want him to be a questionable villain/antihero because he looks evil in those pictures but like beautiful evil. you see him at a multi-million dollar soirée and he’s bored of being there wearing his “heritage” beads and jewels he originally had from a thousand years ago. he and his assassins are only here to murder the head of state who’s planning to lay a pipeline through ancestral grounds

rip brandon duhaime i simply cannot imagine you as any kind of batman. lacks the gravitas, too much of a yapper, loves his wife too much. i curse thee to be green arrow if you’re in this narrative at all

assuming connor stays with toronto, would LOVE to think about toronto as one of the sites of the lazarus pit for many reasons

(a brief aside here to say that for me personally this is interesting if connor goes to winnipeg because i think they suit him better, he’s a manitoba boy, but re: the chip on his shoulder, he’s NOT a manitoba boy. he’s from the pas and very proud of it)

a) the amount of ‘toronto is the center of the universe’ hockey creation myths i can play with & birth/rebirth/reincarnation. if you WANT to feel unhinged trying to blend hockey and comics is an ice rink not just a pool of water?

b) mr. cathal kelly i love your works!!! toronto eats its young!!! thinking about this very literally in the sense of the resurrection arc where players come to toronto and are sacrificed, give up their body, their skill, in service of the demon’s head, and lose themselves.

c) we see echos of the same narratives and styles over and over again—if i can hop over to the flyers for a second, there is of course the curse of the *8s (18 richards, 28 claude, 48 danny b, 68 nolan, 88 lindros) but ALSO the danny brière -> tk -> morgan frost celly chain. every generation a resurrection, emerging clean and new from the pit

can you just briefly hold my hand and imagine wayne gretzky as an evil ra’s al-ghul wanting to possess a new body. gretzky i’m sorry to malign you and i know you never played in toronto but you are the best player in my head to fit the idea, i’m open to other suggestions

coming BACK to green arrow dewey (i did not re-watch arrow or re-read those comics sorry) connor could also be black canary, who takes a brief dip into the lazarus pit (toronto) before getting married to oliver. i do like that narrative but because we were talking about pristine and cold-blooded i figured connor dewar head of the league of assassins was more what you were after

now that i’ve gotten through world building… choose your own adventure narratives?

hockey-ish au: connor chosen as a host for the Next One. i think the lineage of the great one -> next one -> next next one -> next one up of gretzky -> crosby -> mcdavid -> bedard is taken, BUT i can imagine that the league of old boys all have the same intentions. connor gets sent to toronto unknowingly being prepped to get body-snatched by ???? and brandon duhaime of course accidentally stumbles on the plot and they have to fight to stop it

connor assassinating people :) snapshot of the head of the league of assassins delegating which major world events they’re going to change today. would love his shark face from the gifset to have blood spattered across it, ideally.

version 1 as head of the league of assassins: brandon is one of his assassins, big strong bodyguard type. devoted to him, would lay down his life, perfectly designed for connor (lady shiva/cassandra cain-ish). connor orders for something to be done and brandon does it there for him then gently wipes the blood off his face and apologizes for being careless and getting him messy.

version 2 as head of the league of assassins: an actual plot where connor aims to assassinate SOMEONE but brandon gets in the way. they meet at odds as their respective roles (hero, leader of a crime syndicate) but are magnetically drawn together as their alter egos. eventually brandon puts together the pieces of the Big Evil and manages to (legally!-ish as much as vigilante-ism can be legal) take it down and the ending panels show a tentative friendship and recognition of potential shared goals

also, jaromir jágr is immortal. don’t know if this is relevant OR related but he is. personal hot spring lazarus pit?

um. thanks for coming to my 1.5k ted talk (including tags). what a way to moritz seider lore drop that i DID grow up a comic book nerd, lmao. thank you so much for enabling me <3 i'll be here all week thinking about which teams would get what rings in a blackest night au

[seekingthestars]

we're doing these workshop things to try to address some of the equity/workflow/workload problems in our department and our facilitator wants everyone to email her "the problem [we'd] like to solve in [our] large team" and how do i politely say i just want people to do their fucking jobs

[essektheylyss]

Hey, would you be cool with other people writing fics in the specific universe of tief? With Fortune Lavorre?

Hello! I just realized I had half-typed up an answer to this and completely forgot to finish it, so apologies that this is deeply, deeply overdue!

I am absolutely cool with it, with a few caveats but only of the disclaimer sort. (And that's not even to say that they're necessarily things that pertain to you, but I figured if I was commenting now I should just lay my thoughts out there, in case anyone else goes looking.)

I'm personally of the mind that transformative works of a transformative work are just as fine as the original transformative work itself, though I know that not everyone agrees. I'm not going to begrudge anyone their own personal rights for how their writing is used, but I have always felt that it would be hypocritical of me to consider it in any other way. (I'll spare you my deconstructive essay on the nature of transformative works in modern culture or I'll take another month to answer lol.)

That being said, the disclaimers! First, I will probably write more in that universe, and as such I will... probably not read other folks' dabblings in it. Not because I would be uninterested, but because I do take the author-ly point of view in that I want your works to be yours, and mine to be mine, so I don't want to find that I've inadvertently snatched up a plot from someone else without realizing. And in a similar vein, attribution of what you're riffing off of would be nice, but at the very least please don't, I don't know, claim that I've totally vetted it and it's definitely fully canon to the original work, or something of the sort. Both because of the aforementioned, I will write further things and I don't want to garner any confusion, your works are yours and mine are mine, and also because if anyone for any reason wanted to come complain to me about a fic, I'd much prefer it was indeed my fic.

(Like I said, I don't presume you need any of that noted in particular—just figured I should note it, since in general I am pretty laissez-faire when it comes to transformative works as a whole haha.)

[bamsara]

A quick tutorial on how to Download Fics from AO3

After making this poll about the panic that comes when Archive of Our Own goes down, there seems to be a chunk of folks who didn't know they could download fics for offline use, or don't know how to go about it. Here's a quick tutorial for that.

You do not need an AO3 account (unless the fic you are trying to download is restricted to AO3 users only) you only need an internet connection and a device to download to, whether it's PC or a phone.

These instructions work for both desktop and mobile. At the top of the fic, where the chapter index is, there will be the download option on the right side, and an 'Entire Work' button the left side.

For One-Shots: Go ahead and click the download button.

For multiple chapter fics: In order to have the fic download all together instead of downloading each chapter individually, make sure you select the 'Entire Work' button. Like the names says, it displays the entire work on the webpage, and will download the entire fic with all it's chapters in the correct order when you go to download.

Archive of our Own will automatically download the entire fic work now instead of chapters.

Click the download button. You've got a couple of options:

What these options mean:

AZW3 - Amazon-developed ebook format that is designed for Kindles and Amazon's systems. Good if you want to read off of a kindle.

EPUB - Standard file format for Ebooks and is basically used as the default for pretty much most ebook readers. This is what I prefer to use when downloading to my phone.

MOBI - An older version of the AZW3. Older but standard as well.

PDF - Downloads the fics as a PDF. Can be read anywhere you can open a PDF.

HTML - Downloads an offline version of the exact webpage you are looking at. Fine if you want to keep the 'look' of AO3 but you can't change the text size or reading style like you can with ebook formats.

Not sure which one to download? Use EPUB since it's standard and readable by pretty much everything, retains images too.

You now have your fic downloaded to your device and can read it on whatever reading app you have. YAY!

Do keep in mind that these are offline files that do not synch with Archive. So if you download an ongoing fic that updates or is edited since you last downloaded, you will need to download it again to have the updated version.

I highly encourage you download your fics if you are able. Worst case scenario, if AO3 goes down for an indefinite amount of time or the author deletes or hides it, you still have it. (Only download, not distribute.) Best case scenario, you have saved yourself an inconvenience for later.

Happy Reading!

[whateveriwant]

I know you already did the 141 boys when their wife gives birth (which was fantastic btw) but maybe if they missed the birth because of a mission or whatever else your brilliant mind can think of!

Don't give me compliments because then I'll follow you home like a cat and you'll never get rid of me 😖

Price

(This goes for all the men, really) but he's absolutely gutted to not be with you as you're giving birth

Honestly, if he had the choice, he would've rather lobbed off his own arm than miss such a momentous occasion in both your lives

It’s nothing less than the literal fate of the world that's keeping him from you, and he makes sure to reiterate that over and over again

The only thing that gives Price a bit of peace of mind when leaving you at a time like this is knowing you have a strong support system to help you through it

And boy oh boy does he put those friends and family members to use by having them constantly text him with every update imaginable

What time your water breaks, how far apart your contractions are, how much you've dilated, so on and so on. He wants to know it all

While he has to remain focused during the bulk of the mission, when he's able to, he's whipping out his phone to scroll through the literal hundreds of messages that await him

The updates are so plentiful and detailed that if he tries hard enough, he can almost pretend like he was right there beside you all along

And once he gets to the pictures of you holding your little one for the first time, well… he's not afraid to admit that he sheds a manly tear or two at the sight

Soap

He kicked up quite the storm at work when he realized he was going to be missing the birth of his child

He did everything in his power to try to get out of the mission – to try to get back to you – but, ultimately, he had no other choice than to go

But he's not just going to go gently into the night. No, he has a few tricks up his sleeve to make it as if he's still there with you in some capacity

Like Price, Soap takes comfort in leaving you with a huge support system to help while he's away

And also similarly, he's recruiting your loved ones (more so their phones) into letting him video chat with you whenever he gets the opportunity

(Does that mean he snuck his unauthorized smartphone into the middle of a battlefield? …. Yes. Yes, he did. .……....… Don't tell Price)

You'll be in the midst of a call with him and a bullet will fly right by his head and embed itself in the wall behind him

Of course, this has you incredibly concerned, worrying over how you're distracting him when he should be focused on his mission

But he assures you there's no need to fret, dear. He's perfectly safe and everything’s completely fine

(Oh, and just disregard that sound in the background, hun. No, it wasn't a bomb. Heavens, no! It was a… a… piano falling out a window)

Gaz

Even when he's away on mission during normal circumstances, he's calling home all the time to check in with you

But given your current state, now he's checking in twice as much as he usually does

Expect a minimum of three calls a day just to ensure things are still all hunky dory on your end

It's during one of these calls that your water breaks, and as you fly into a state of panic, forgetting everything you're supposed to do, Gaz has to calmly walk you through the steps of what you'd planned

He's able to talk you down and make sure you get yourself to the hospital in one piece, but then after that call, weirdly, you don't hear from him again

It's not until several hours later when you've already delivered your child that you're awoken by the feeling of someone beside your bed

You look to see who it is and it's none other than Gaz himself – still dressed in his full gear, covered in all sorts of dirt and grime, a hushed apology pouring from his mouth

He's so sorry he couldn't get there quick enough, beautiful. He left as soon as he could once he'd pulled a few strings with Price

But you don't even care about the excuse because you're quickly enveloping him in a hug. With tears in your eyes, you assure him it's alright. He's here now, and that's all that matters to you

Ghost

When he was informed he was being shipped off to a remote location less than a month before your due date, he was livid

No phone, no radio, no communication of any kind with the outside world and he was supposed to be okay with that? He very much wasn't

The higher-ups had to really hammer home the whole “safety of the world” thing to convince Ghost to go, and even when he did, he did so grudgingly

He finds that as he sits in this shoddy shack halfway across the planet from you, all he can do is keep a mental tally of everything he’s missing

Going with you to your final check ups, helping you pack your hospital bag, holding your hand as you begin to push, etc. etc. etc.

But what about things he might not know about? What if something's gone wrong while he's been away?

He can't let himself think on it too much because he'll end up putting his fist through the drywall, and he needs at least one good hand to hold his child with when he meets them for the first time

Seven weeks, four days, and nine hours after he shipped out, Ghost is on a plane back home

He doesn't stop to talk to anyone when he touches down at base (not even to report to his superiors). He just gets into his car and books it, not letting off the gas until he's parked outside your home again

And when he finally reaches the front door, an unexpected tremor passing through him as he grabs for the handle, he closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and walks inside, beginning the next chapter of his life

[staff]

Hello, Tumblr. This is a badges update.

Just popping in to tell you about all the nifty badges you can get to decorate your blog these days. You, too, could be the proud owner of The President’s Shoelaces (authentic, we promise), the Rainbow Crab, or the extra special Supporter Badge subscription that changes color as your support progresses. Here’s a full list of all the shiny knickknacks you can currently purchase from TumblrMart:

Supporter badge: This is the big one. This is how you support Tumblr in an ongoing fashion. This badge changes color the longer you subscribe to support Tumblr, starting off with Steel and working towards a very shiny Oil Slick, which demonstrates you’ve reached the highest level of support for this lovely little corner of the internet you call home. Read more about this one here.

Visionary, Literary, Shutterbug, Playlist, and Fashionista identity badges: We have a whole host of badges you can pin to your blog, leaving no one in the dark about your main passions. Are you an artist, a writer or reader, a photographer, a musician, or a style icon? Is your blog a curation of all your favorite art, writing, photography, music, or fashion? Then there’s a badge here for you! 

The Color of the Sky: That old meme that curses your dash now and again? Yeah, you can now wear it on your blog to show off your mischievous side all year round. 

The President’s Shoelaces: For when you want people to know you Know.

Crabs: Regular or Rainbow, you choose. Just know that crabs are something of a Tumblr mascot now, and wearing them on your blog shows that you either  (1) love crabs, (2) participated in crab day on Tumblr on July 29, 2023, or (3) know what to do when the news goes November 5, 2020 on you. 

Lunar badge: For all those who love the moon or simply need to know when they might not be sleeping well, this badge changes throughout the lunar cycle.

Important Babylonian Checkmark: Show your solidarity with disgruntled customers throughout time and space with the help of this extra special checkmark.

Hewie and Bones Halloween badges: Celebrate Tumblr’s national holiday in style. The Hewie and Bones badges bring that special Halloween feeling to your blog year-round. 

That’s all for now! Enjoy mixing and matching your badges to your heart’s content! What’s more, if you have an idea for a badge you’d like to see, get in touch with us, and we’ll see what we can do about that!

[thargelalia]

see you in hell, baby

jason todd x fem!reader

Dick naively expects Jason to help him stay in your good graces as the MVP brother-in-law

-> 1.4k words

-> fluff, poor attempt at humor

-> warnings: none, the dynamic duo being dorks together perhaps?

please, reblog if you like or the author will cry

There's nothing better than to enjoy the vast collection of classics at the Wayne Manor library on a rare peaceful Sunday afternoon.

Or is it?

“Jaybird, hey!” Dick greets his younger brother, a little more excited than usual, as he saunters into the library. “Have you.. uhh, is my BFF around?” 

He’s scanning around the place like you could emerge from behind the couches or bookshelves at any given moment. Judging by his tone, Jason can already tell Dick wants something, but chooses to ignore him, too immersed in his current book to care. 

Dick looks left and right to the hallway before closing the doors, and joining Jason on the leather couch. The latter finally acknowledged his older brother to get this over with, so he can leave and Jason can read in peace. 

“She went to the bathroom.. why?” Jason says, narrowing his eyes inquisitively at Dick’s fidgeting. A fake smile plastered on his face, sweat bidding on the temple. He’s obviously worried about something. “You’re being weirder than usual.. Got your pants stuffed with itching powder again?”

His lips twitch upwards a little at the memory. 

“No, I— please, don’t ever remind me of that day again.” Dick winces, rubbing on his thigh to soothe an imaginary itch. Steph really goes all in on April Fool’s Day.

He clears his throat. “So, uh.. maybe, just maybe… I might’ve accidentally scratched that Beatles record sis-in-law lent to me last week.”

Jason exhales, contemplating whether he should ease Dick’s mind or not. While you were very careful and protective of your vinyl record collection, depending on which one that got damaged – and the extent of it – you might get a little upset, but let it go without much trouble. 

Not before an hour lecture to the culprit about taking better care of other people’s stuff, of course. 

“As long as it’s not Sergeant Pepper’s, you’ll be fine.” Jason shrugs, then chuckles to himself a little as he opens his book again. “Perhaps a kick or two to your shins.”

The silence that follows is pregnant with guilt. Jason can almost smell it in the air at the way his brother blanches next to him. 

“Fuck. Don’t tell me—”

“It was an accident!”

“Dick, you insane?! It was a gift from her grandmother!” Jason chastises, smacking the book shut with a hard thud. “You damaged an original copy from the seventies, you fucking idiot!”

Dick slides down on the couch, a pout taking over his lips. “I know!” 

“Can’t believe she let you borrow it.” Jason huffs, crossing his arms while shaking his head indignantly.

Dick has his hands on his head, about ready to rip his hair out.

“I know! What do I do now??”

“Well… for starters,” Jason begins dead serious, leaning towards Dick, who straightens his posture, desperate to hear a solution, “when was the last time you updated your last will and testament?”

“Shit.” Dick falls into the cushions, a desolated sigh leaving the depths of his soul. “Not helping, man.”

“Maybe Bruce can recycle my gravestone,” Jason continues, tapping his chin in fake thought, “what about an epitaph? Sure you’ve got some ideas.”

As always, any comment remotely related to his death has all the bats squirming or tensing like they’ve been poked by Catwoman’s sharp claws – which most of them have, in fact. They tend to feel uneasy whenever Jason makes his grim jokes. 

And perhaps that’s exactly why he does it. 

“Please, don’t talk like that,” Dick says softly, furrowing his eyebrows. Then, he changes his demeanor completely. “And yes, I do. Here lies Gotham’s hottest piece of ass. S.I.P.”

Jason gives him an unimpressed look, lifting his eyebrow. “S.I.P?”

His brother smiles as if he was dying to be asked that. “Sashay in peace.”

“Hope you make a safe passage, disco queen.” Jason deadpans. “Make sure to head straight to heaven, though. Don’t wanna put up with your glittery ass in hell, too.” 

Dick seems to suddenly remember why he was there in the first place. He grabs his younger brother by the shoulders, and shakes frantically. “This is serious, Jaybird! What now? I’ll lose my ‘favorite brother-in-law’ privileges!”

Jason kisses his teeth in annoyance, immediately releasing himself from Dick’s grasp, and pushing on his chest with zero delicacy. “You never had those.” 

Anyone other than Dick — and Bruce — would’ve splattered themselves on the cushions at being on the receiving end of Jason’s hard shove. But his older brother only tilts back, and recovers his posture like a roly-poly toy. An impressive display of sheer core strength.

“Yes, I did. I do. Remember her last seminar? She only had one other seat aside from yours, and she chose to invite me.” He points at himself, sounding smug. “And what about the wine she got me from her trip to France? Or the tequila from Mexico, huh?”

“The others aren’t old enough to drink.” Jason points out, groaning as he massages his temples. This conversation is getting tiresome. Baby, where are you? He thinks in exasperation. Dealing with his family outside patrol is easier when you’re right next to him.

Dick freezes, his index finger lifted in the air. 

He lowers it, closing his mouth. 

Then, he raises it again, attempting to hide his wounded pride. 

“That’s not the point! The point is—”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” Jason cuts him off, waving impatiently before he adds dryly, “too late for that, though. Replacement joined her Public Health research group last month. She’s invited him to dinner at our place twice now, unfortunately.”  

There’s a shocked gasp. 

“Not to mention the little demon asking her for help with his school projects, even though everyone knows he’s damn well capable of handling himself.”

An even bigger gasp leaves Dick’s lips, this time followed by a dramatic hand to his chest.

Jason rolls his eyes. “Will you fucking stop?”

“I need to amp up my game. Urgently.”

“Good luck with that. Not sure you can—”

Jason’s interrupted by the sound of the doors opening. The scowl on his face immediately dissolves into a relieved look at your return. Meanwhile, his brother appears as if he’s staring at a ghost.

You smile, tipping your head up. “Hey, Dick! What’s up?”

“Heeey, bestie!” He shoots up from the couch, sounding extremely unnatural as he glances at the watch on his wrist. “I–um.. Damn! I gotta pick up Babs at her friend’s house now. See you guys later!”

With a quick kiss to your cheek, he breezes past you and out the doors like he’s suddenly been possessed by Wally West.

“What was that?” You turn from the door to your boyfriend, giving him a puzzled look.

Jason contemplates for a brief moment whether he should tell the truth or not. More out of concern over you, as he’d hate to upset you, than over Dick’s sake obviously. But if you found out later that he knew about this fuckup, he’d join his brother’s body in the graveyard. And Jason is very much enjoying his second chance at life right now.

“Dick ruined your Sergeant Pepper’s record.” Just as predicted, he doesn’t feel the slightest bit of remorse for snitching on his older brother. Jason wishes he’d broken the news in a better way, but he let his eagerness for throwing Dick under the bus override his judgment.

Much to his surprise, you don’t show any expressive reaction aside from the slight purse of your lips. 

“You’re talking about the scratch?” You ask simply, joining him on the burgundy couch as he opens an arm to envelop you in a half embrace.

He tilts his head to rest against yours. “You’ve seen it already?”

“It was there before he got it. Probably happened during my last move out.”

“Oh. Oh.” 

“Poor Dick. I told him my grandma loved that record… He must be feeling like trash.” A sigh escapes your lips as you lean against Jason’s chest. “You should probably tell him when he comes back.”

“Baby, I’m not telling anything.” Jason laughs wickedly, taking your hand in his large one and bringing it up to his lips. The tender kiss offers a stark contrast against the disapproval in his tone. “Serves him right for not being watchful enough.”

“You’re so evil, Jace.” You tilt your head up, so he can see the playful glint in your eyes. “There’s no place for you in heaven, you know that, right?” 

Jason eyes you in disbelief. “Are you planning on telling him?” 

The pressing of your lips together is already enough to answer him – a futile attempt to conceal a mischievous smile. 

“That’s what I thought.” He pulls you to sit sideways on his thighs, arms tightening around your waist as he leans in to kiss your neck. Lips lingering there as his voice lowers in a way that makes you shiver when he says, “guess we’ll both be sharing Satan's throne as you sit on my lap in hell, baby.” 

A/N: I wanna be Jason's boo, and Dick's bestie so bad y'all!!

Remember to reblog, and let me know your thoughts if you liked. It helps me stay motivated to post on here <33

divider is from here

[pathologicalreid]

hiii I love ur fics <3 I am OBSESSED with the prompt “can you come get me?” bc h/c makes me 💥💥💥 so I was thinking:

reader has been kidnapped by the latest unsub and the team is trying their hardest to find her but all the leads keep coming up empty until one day Spencer gets a call from her and the first thing she says is “can you come get me?” she sounds extremely upset and afraid so Spencer and Hotch leave to go find her. when they get there, she looks like she’s been through hell so they rush her to the hospital to be checked out, all the while they can’t seem to get any info out of her about what happened.

Spencer & reader could be platonic or romantic, whichever you like. (also I was thinking maybe hotchner!reader ? if that wouldn’t be too many things to ask for lol)

I love how you do angst and h/c, so keep up the good work and have a wonderful day <3

can you come get me? | S.R.

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: kidnapping, hospitals, stitches, blood draws, catatonia, disassociation, brief mention of sa, ohio mentioned, general cm violence (let me know if i missed any) word count: 4.56k a/n: i have no idea how this got so long but i love the plot of it so much that i couldn't cut any of it! i'm such a slut for the "you came"/"you called" trope that i couldn't help myself! i wrote this with the idea that it would be in place of the m*eve storyline (which means our lord and savior blake is here)!! anyways anon i hope you enjoy this - i love you!

Any external sound was completely ignored as Spencer flipped through the same file for the eighteenth time that day. In his periphery, he saw JJ and Rossi nod at each other before Rossi split away, walking up the ramp to where Hotch’s office was.

It took him a moment to realize JJ had made herself comfortable by sitting on the edge of his desk. She had her jacket neatly folded in her arms as she eyed the file he had, grief filling her eyes as she registered what he was looking at. “What are you doing tonight?” She asked, trying to keep her voice as light as possible.

The question was entirely pointless, she knew exactly what he was doing tonight, but in an attempt to get her to leave him alone, Spencer humored her, “I’m working late tonight,” he answered simply.

JJ’s smile faltered ever so slightly before she shook her head, “You’ve been working late all week, what if you come over tonight? Will’s making dinner. Garcia’s coming after she finishes her system update,” the attempt to get him out of the office didn’t go over his head, but it wasn’t going to work. “Henry would love to see you – maybe you could teach him a new magic trick.”

Peeling his eyes off of the paperwork, he looked up at the blonde, “You know I can’t.” He felt so close to an answer, he couldn’t possibly leave.

“Look, Reid, I get it, but you’ve been working crazy hours for the past month. Maybe taking a night off would be good. You can start fresh in the morning,” she tried to coax him into leaving the case be.

It hadn’t been a full month; it had been twenty-seven days. Almost four full weeks since you were taken. It had been one week since Section Chief Cruz had told Hotch that the BAU needed to start taking new cases, as the trail to you had run cold.

Considering you were Hotch’s daughter, that discussion had gone rather poorly. Cruz had been able to give the team leeway. Both Spencer and Hotch had fully intended on taking advantage of that leeway, and the rest of the team helped when they had the capacity.

Turning back to your file, Spencer shook his head, “I’ll go if Hotch goes.” He knew there was no way Hotch would be leaving the office tonight, the only reason Hotch went home anymore was for Jack, and he was at a sleepover tonight.

JJ’s shoulders slumped in abject disappointment as her eyes followed Dave as he exited Hotch’s office, the slamming of the door enough to make the lingering BAU agents flinch. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, defeated.

Rossi wagged a finger at Spencer, “Go home at some point tonight, kid,” he instructed.

Waving a quick goodbye, Spencer resumed making notes in the margins of the papers that were making a permanent home on his desk. He looked up when Hotch exited his office, eyes following him as he brewed a pot of coffee in the kitchenette. The two of them acknowledged each other with a nod before continuing on with the hunt.

Both of them knew the odds, that you had been gone this long and there was a good chance that they’d never see you again. Despite that, Spencer would head up to Hotch’s office in about an hour, and the two of them would confer.

Eventually, the sun set, and a thunderstorm rolled in, the flashes of light coming in through the windows as he began to consider going for another cup of coffee.

Wiping a hand down his face, he inwardly groaned as his phone started to ring. Half expecting it to be JJ, he was surprised to find that it was an unknown caller. Clicking the answer button, he lifted the phone to his ear, “Hello, this is Dr. Reid.”

There was an eerie silence on the other end of the call, if he strained his ears, he could hear the pattering of rain. He tried to greet the other person again, but when there was no answer, he started to lower the phone to hang up.

“Can you come get me?” Your quiet voice came through the receiver, effectively knocking the wind out of Spencer’s lungs.

Fiddling with his belongings, Spencer gripped your file, “Where are you?” He asked urgently.

You sniffled, “I don’t know. A payphone off of twenty-eight.” If he strained his ears, he could listen to the rain. Spencer wondered if he could calculate how far away you were by the sound of the thunder where you were compared to where he was.

His chest ached at the exhaustion in your tone, imagining you had gotten approximately as much sleep as he had recently. That is to say, little to none. Pulling the phone slightly away from his face, he called out for Hotch, getting his attention and waving him over. “Y/N, can you see any mile markers or exit signs anywhere?” Spencer asked, bringing the phone back up to his ear.

“I can’t see much of anything,” you admitted. That made sense, your glasses had been recovered at your abduction scene. Spencer kept them in his bag with the rest of your belongings that had been released from evidence. “I feel lucky enough that I was able to find a pay phone,” you said, and for the first time, he noticed that you were whispering.

Glancing at the inside of his wrist, Spencer checked the time. JJ had mentioned something about Garcia staying in her office for a system update – what were the odds the tech analyst was still there? Stalking out of the bullpen, he made his way to her office, Hotch hot on his heels.

After knocking on the door, her voice rang out, “Enter, mere mortal.” Once she had recognized who it was, she greeted Spencer directly, “Ah, Dr. Reid, did you need a ride to JJ’s?”

“Can you locate a payphone based on the phone number?” He asked hurriedly, the longer you stood out there in the rain, the more danger you might be in.

A confused look was plastered on her face, but she turned back to her screens and started click-clacking away. “Most def, boy genius. Run me the digits,” she responded, pulling up some sort of database that Spencer didn’t recognize – probably for the best.

She typed the phone number just as quickly as he recited it, turning around and telling him that the pay phone in question was approximately thirty minutes away. You had only been thirty minutes away this entire time. “Send the coordinates to Hotch’s phone,” Spencer instructed, stepping toward the door. “Tell the rest of the team to come in,” he continued, “it’s Y/N.”

Each stage of grief flashed across Penelope’s face as she nodded assuredly, scrambling for her phone as she took care of notifications.

Impatiently, Hotch held the elevator door open as Spencer entered, keeping the phone up to his ear, “Stay on the phone,” he told you.

A desperate whimper came from your end of the call, “I don’t have any change. I found a few quarters on the ground, but I don’t have anything on me.”

“Stay on as long as you can, angel,” Spencer amended. “We’re on our way.”

The rain was worse than he had initially thought, but Mother Nature was no match for Aaron Hotchner. They were only about five minutes from the coordinates that Garcia had shared, and the phone call had dropped off before they were even on the main highway. The dropped call certainly didn’t help the rising tension in the SUV.

“Did she sound scared?” Hotch had asked for the nth time.

Not taking his eyes off of the map, Spencer nodded, “She sounded like she was stranded in the middle of the woods in Virginia, in a thunderstorm, and was using a pay phone as a lifeline.” His entire body was thrumming with nervous energy as they sped down the road, “but she’s alive.”

He didn’t miss the way Hotch’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. You being alive would have to be enough of a comfort to the both of them for now, but Spencer knew what your life meant to your father.

“There it is,” Spencer said, interrupting his thoughts with the recognition of a phone booth on the side of the road, in front of a seemingly abandoned gas station. In a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness, Spencer clambered out of the vehicle before it came to a full stop, an umbrella and jacket in tow.

Hesitantly, he approached the crumpled heap of limbs underneath the pay phone. It wasn’t a full booth, it had just enough coverage to prevent the payphone from short-circuiting. You had jammed yourself underneath it, trying to keep yourself as dry as possible.

Kneeling in front of you, he swept his sopping-wet hair from his face, “Y/N.” His voice was no more than a breath, he didn’t dare reach out to touch you — lest you not want to be touched. A strike of lightning lit your surroundings enough for him to note the bruise that had bloomed on your cheek.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he watched as your lips parted in recognition, “You came,” you whispered.

He nodded, “You called.” His heart soared as you shuffled yourself closer to him, allowing him to wrap the FBI-issued jacket around your rain-soaked frame. “Let’s get you out of this rain, alright?”

Standing up on shaky legs, Spencer helped you walk to the SUV where your dad was waiting, shining a flashlight to help guide you to the vehicle. Based on how heavily you were leaning on him, he could tell that your left leg was injured. Despite your injury, you stepped away from Spencer to hug your father.

For a moment, Spencer felt like he was intruding on a family moment, but he recalled all of the times he had been invited to join in Hotchner festivities these last few years and allowed his eyes to meet Hotch’s.

The two of them shared an understanding look as Hotch pulled away, “We should get you to a hospital,” he said, cupping your face with parental gentleness.

Spencer helped you into the SUV, unable to put any pressure on your leg, you depended on the handles to pull yourself up. As you maneuvered yourself, he tried to determine what your injuries were. His eyes scanned your body until he made his way back to your face, “Angel, keep your eyes open.” He felt as if he was asking a lot of you, but he didn’t know if you had taken a hit to the head. Falling asleep could do more damage. “Hey, Y/N?” He said, watching as your eyes fell shut and your head slumped forward. “Hotch,” Reid said urgently from the backseat.

Understanding perfectly, Hotch hit the lights on the SUV and turned on the siren. Flashes of red and blue signaled to other drivers that there was an emergency.

You were silent.

As soon as they had gotten you to the emergency room, your entire demeanor had changed. Spencer guessed that you had been in fight or flight when they had picked you up from the phone booth, and now that you were getting the help that you needed, all of the fight had vacated your being.

In the white fluorescence of the hospital, he could see how drained you looked. Once the doctors got their hands on you, you refused to let him or your dad near you.

Hotch was in the hallway, talking on the phone with your Aunt Jessica while he tried to arrange childcare for Jack so he could stay with you - the leader of your care team estimated you’d be in the hospital for at least a few days.

While you had been mobile when they came to get you, your energy had left along with your adrenaline, and eventually, the best course of action was to just let you sleep. That was how Spencer ended up sitting cross-legged in a stiff hospital chair, watching over you as you slept.

Respectful of your wishes, he kept a fair distance from you, but you’d be hard-pressed to convince him to let you out of his sight. There were tubes and wires going every which way from your body, oxygen, an IV, and electrodes monitored your life. Boiling you down to a collection of numbers that showed Spencer just how alive you were.

The doctors suspected you had bacterial pneumonia, but they were still waiting on the results of your chest X-ray to make a formal diagnosis. Your presumed leg injury had turned out to be a bruised hip bone – part of a sickening pattern that reflected that of someone who had been thrown down a flight of stairs.

A knock on the window to your hospital room caught his attention, causing him to turn his head and come face to face with Rossi and Blake. Opening the blinds so that he’d be able to keep an eye on you from the hallway, Spencer stood up and joined his colleagues in the corridor.

“What’s the report?” Rossi asked, nodding in the direction of your room, and placing his hands on his hips.

Spencer rubbed the back of his neck before responding, “The doctor said that all things considered, she’s in good shape, but…” Shaking his head to wake himself up, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, “She’s sick and was beaten. Right now, she’s sleeping. We have no idea she was running in the woods, so it’s not surprising that she’s exhausted.”

He continued on to list other maladies that the doctors had provided, dehydration, malnutrition, one cut on your arm that needed to be stitched, and that was just scratching the surface. Dave nodded understandingly, “but the sooner we get to ask her questions, the better.”

Shrugging, Spencer looked over at your father, and then back to you, “When she wakes up on her own,” he murmured, watching as a nurse checked on your IV. He didn’t want to risk waking you up or asking too much too soon of you. “Can I ask you a quick question?” He lifted a finger inquisitively to the nurse who was walking out of your room, scribbling something on your chart.

The nurse hummed in response, raising her eyebrows as she waited for him to ask.

“Do you think the infection has anything to do with her silence? She might be hurting so she isn’t talking?” He asked, it wasn’t unheard of, when people were in a lot of pain, sometimes they coped with silence.

While the nurse might have an excellent bedside manner, the three profilers took note of the concern in her eyes. “The silence might have more to do with her psychological well-being than her physical well-being,” she responded, it was a healthcare way of trying to appease them. Really, they didn’t know much better than the members of the BAU did.

Blake’s eyebrows shot up in curiosity, “Could it be catatonia?”

“In order to diagnose catatonia, she’d need to display three of twelve symptoms. Those are stupor, catalepsy, waxy flexibility, mutism, negativism, posturing, mannerism, stereotypy, agitation, grimacing, echolalia, and echopraxia. So far, she really only meets one of twelve,” Spencer answered.

Shrugging, the nurse pointed at Spencer with her pen, “What he said.” She looked down at the chart before continuing, “Her care team leader called for a psych consult, but we won’t really know one way or the other until she wakes up.”

Nodding, Rossi nodded in acknowledgment, “What else could it be?”

Pursing her lips, the nurse tilted her head to the side, “Peritraumatic disassociation is another possibility, but again, we won’t know until she wakes up.”

The waiting game began. As luck would have it, an FBI agent being abducted created a lot of paperwork, so Hotch was holed up in a conference room while Rossi and Blake worked on the profile. JJ and Morgan stayed back at Quantico with Garcia to look back at what information Hotch and Spencer had been gathering over the past twenty-seven – now twenty-eight – days.

Spencer stayed with you, tucking your blanket around you when he watched goosebumps sprout along your arms. He paid close attention to everything that the doctors and nurses said about your condition, relaying everything to Hotch via text message. They ran a kit on you, and the only solace was that there was a chance that they could DNA match whoever did this to you.

He left that last part out of his message to your father.

As soon as you started waking up, Spencer had to leave the room, watching from the hallway as medical personnel flurried around your bed. At first, he had assumed your aversion to himself and your dad was an overall aversion to men, but you didn’t flinch when it came to the male doctor who was checking your vitals manually.

A nurse peeked out from the door, “Are you Dave?”

Furrowing his eyebrows, Spencer cocked his head back in confusion, “No? I’m not – why?” He asked, gaze flickering back into your room as you scrawled something on the piece of paper that a nurse had handed you.

“She said she’d talk to Dave,” the inquiring nurse shrugged, turning back into your room, and adjusting your pillow beneath your head.

Still confused, Spencer slipped his phone out of his pocket, nimbly typing a message to Rossi before returning the phone to its home in his slacks. Trying to respect your peace, Spencer remained in the hallway, leaning back against the wall as he heard the familiar sound of Italian leather boots turning the corner. “Are you sure she didn’t mean Aaron?”

Spencer shook his head, mirroring the older man’s confusion, “She physically wrote your name out. She’ll only speak to you,” he answered, trying to hide his own pain for the sake of ridding you of yours. If you wouldn’t talk to your father or himself, it made the most sense that you’d talk to Rossi. You’ve known him the entire time your father worked in the BAU.

Shrugging, Rossi walked into your room and approached you with the care of a man approaching a deer. He remained this way until he made it to your bed, and Spencer watched as he smoothed your hair away from your face affectionately.

You leaned into his touch, and Spencer didn’t miss the cue. When was the last time anyone had touched you with love in their heart?

He had kissed you goodbye before you went on your run, just thirty minutes before your location turned off and your usual Thursday route turned into a hunting ground. With what you did for work, you switched paths frequently, but someone had been watching you, or at least, that was the conclusion the team had drawn.

Watching as Rossi spoke with you, Spencer noticed one anomaly – you weren’t speaking to him. Instead, all of his questions were answered with blinks or scribbling on paper.

The two of you went until a nurse came in, telling the both of you that they needed to run a few more tests. Taking his leave, Rossi told you something that Reid couldn’t quite make out and rejoined him in the hallway.

“What did you say to her? Just now?” Spencer asked, his need for any sort of contact with you becoming so desperate that he’d now accept it secondhand.

Frowning, Rossi placed both of his hands on his hips, “I called her piccolina, I used to call her that all the time when she was just a little thing running around the old BAU bunker.” Taking a moment, Rossi pulled out his little notebook and read through it. “White male, late twenties to early thirties, sometimes gone for days on end citing ‘work,’ but she never figured out what he did for work.”

Spencer’s eyes burned at the realization that you had been working your own case while being victimized, he peered in through the window as a nurse drew your blood.

“She said he drove a dark American sedan, making it either blue or black,” Rossi continued to list off, eyes following Blake as she approached the two of you. “Y/N said the car was filthy like he had been living out of it when he couldn’t get to her in the woods. The car had an Ohio party plate on it with expired tags.”

Blake arched a brow at the new information, “Party plate?” She said quizzically, looking at Spencer for clarification.

Nodding, Spencer looked over at his friend, “That’s the colloquial name for restricted license places. They’re given to people who are convicted of DUIs, which is actually called an OVI in Ohio. In Ohio, they’re yellow with red print, and the only state to have something similar is Minnesota where they call them whiskey plates because they all start with the letter W.”

“Well, he’s confident. Maybe too confident, driving around with expired tags and a license plate that already puts a spotlight on him,” Blake said thoughtfully, adding to the profile in her mind. “We should get this information to Garcia, maybe look for people who recently relocated from Ohio with those plates,” she suggested to Rossi.

Rossi nodded, skillfully flipping the cover back over his notepad and gesturing for Blake to follow him to the conference room, effectively leading Spencer to his own devices. When the nurse left to bring the vials of blood to the lab, he returned to your room, taking his seat on the edge of the room – as far away as he could get while keeping his eyes on you.

He looked up to your bed, catching you staring at him. As soon as you knew you had been caught, you turned your head to the other side, averting your gaze toward the window.

Every thirty minutes or so, Spencer moved the chair approximately five inches closer to you, by four in the morning, he had closed half of the space between you. He kept his eyes on you, watching as you stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. You had that crease between your eyebrows that told him you were thinking too hard, and he had to sit on his hands to stop himself from reaching out and touching it as if he could soothe all of your bad thoughts.

In the doorway, Rossi had appeared, garnering your attention as you propped yourself up on the flat hospital pillows. “We got him,” Rossi announced to the room, a reserved smile on his face.

Spencer watched as you visibly relaxed on the bed, your face softened as your eyebrows relaxed. Rossi explained some next steps, but he was only half listening, he could only focus on you.

Once Dave was gone, Spencer took a leap of faith and shuffled the chair to your bedside, “How are you feeling, angel?” He asked, taking up a muted tone.

You stared at him, blinking at him until, eventually, your face crumpled, and you leaned toward him.

Not missing a beat, Spencer stood up from his chair so that he could sit on the edge of your bed, meeting you in the middle, he gently wrapped his arms around you, rubbing small, soothing circles along your back with the flat of his hand.

In the past twenty-eight days, Spencer thought that being reunited with you could fix all of the hurt in his chest, but this, right here, was a different kind of pain. Tears sept through the fabric of his shirt just as soon as they fell from your eyes, and all of the hurt that he had felt before just morphed into a different kind of suffering.

His heart ached at the sight of you in this much pain, so much emotional turmoil that you had silenced yourself. What was he supposed to say in order to comfort you? ‘You’re okay,’ was wholly false, and ‘it’s alright’ felt like a cruel joke. You very clearly weren’t okay, and none of this was alright.

“I’m here,” he reassured you, his voice no more than a croak as he tried to swallow his own emotions. “I’m right here,” he repeated, continuing his ministrations on your back until you had cried yourself to sleep.

With your body in its weakened state, Spencer carefully adjusted you onto the bed, making sure none of your tubes or wires were kinked before settling back down in his chair and taking your hand in his.

Around the time the sun came up, your care team came through for morning rounds and woke you up to thoroughly inspect your status. Once they left you to your own devices – with the promise of food in half an hour – Spencer focused all of his attention on trying to coax you into speaking to him.

Tenderly, he dragged a finger across your forehead before continuing down the bridge of your nose, “I’d really like to hear your voice, sweetheart.” His voice was gentle, maintaining a subdued tone in the early hours of the morning.

He watched as you sighed, deflating all of the air in your lungs as you tipped your head to the side, interrupting his movements. “I asked him to do it,” you murmured, voice raspy from lack of use.

“To do what?” Spencer asked, heart beating a little faster at the sound of your voice. He watched how you nervously gripped a fistful of sheets and looked at him. Only you weren’t looking at him, it was more like you were looking through him.

You took a deep, shuddering breath before you answered, “To kill me.”

The confession weighed heavy on his shoulders, but it wasn’t regarding anything against you. It was in the realization that you had been in so much physical and emotional turmoil while in captivity that you had asked for your own death. That even for a moment, you sat in front of a killer and asked for him to end your life as an act of mercy.

Noting Spencer’s lack of response, you continued speaking, “That’s why he let me go. I begged him to just end it and that took away any appeal for him.”

Last night. You had pleaded on behalf of your own demise last night. Carefully considering his next words, Spencer met your eyes and replied, “That must’ve taken a lot of courage.”

You faltered for a moment, evidently not having expected those words from him, “What are you talking about?”

It made sense to him now, why you wouldn’t talk to him or your dad. He felt like such a fool. You had been ashamed because you felt like your abductor had diminished your worth by breaking you down. Spencer knew better, “You stood your ground. You faced your own death, and you chose that over further suffering. Dying isn’t an undignified act, no matter how it comes upon you,” he reminded you, smoothing your hair away from your face as he watched your lip quiver.

“Thank you for staying,” you croaked as emotion closed your throat.

Spencer hummed thoughtfully, swiping a rogue tear from your cheek, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

[spiderm444rk]

LOST IN TRANSLATION - mark lee smau

you, as the promising journalism student of NCUT, were more than willing to join the school magazine when you got offered. to your disappointment, the only section they let you have is the anonymous confessions one - which is mostly really, really boring. i mean, who even posts any cool confessions nowadays ? especially in a damn college magazine ? they only offered you the job no one else wanted.

on the other hand, mark, a business student, was never more annoyed with the choice of his major. sure, business is cool and hopefully it’ll earn him money, but it’s not something he could really get into. he always wanted to do music. but after long considering, he chose business instead, to make sure he gets a real job in the future. and he doubts that choice was correct more and more every day.

once the school band announces they’re looking for a new guitarist, he’s absolutely ready to apply until he reads the ‘music students only’ part. pissed off, he starts typing a message to the gc, but it ends up going to a different number - and you finally get to help some poor random stranger who confessed with something interesting.

business major! mark x fem journalism major! reader

GENRE — fluff, comedy, humor, slowburn, strangers to friends to lovers, non-idol au, college au

WARNINGS — a little bit of cursing, probably kys/kms jokes, mark is really unlucky and awkward, reader as a journalism student loves gossiping a LOT and she’ll get into everyone’s business to do her job properly, a lot of teasing, includes mlm, features other idols (aespa, enhypen…)

STATUS — ongoing

UPDATES — every wednesday and saturday

TAGLIST — open (reply or send an ask)

PLAYLIST — solo - frank ocean, ivy - frank ocean, highway to heaven - nct 127, pink matter - frank ocean, infrunami - steve lacy, attracted to you - pinkpantheress, leave the door open - bruno mars, only if - steve lacy, i like me better - lauv, 200 - mark, fireflies - nct dream, up to you - prettymuch+nct dream, it’s yours - nct dream

A/N — my first smau ever :) but i’m so excited ! hopefully it goes well 🙏🏻

profiles 1 || profiles 2

band introduction

Y/N’s magazine account

1) accidental confessions

2) don’t do anything stupid

3) y/n’s hit tweet

4) we are the most mysterious bitches in this cafeteria

5) they know what you did

6) you found me thanks to my private twitter ?

7) two baddies with connections

8) one at a time gentlemen

9) show them who’s the king

10) a little stalking never hurt anyone

11) we aren’t homophobic !

12) surrounded by opps

13) we’re locked in baby

14) she has a hand kink

15) hope they play charli xcx

16) party in the city where the heat is on

17) he’ll be the passenger princess next time

18) break his heart or his bones ?

19) you heard the boss

20) can you two stop flirting ??

21) one at a time ladies

[miley1442111]

the problem with arguing

a/n: Hi, this is my first story, any constructive criticism is welcomed. This had not been properly edited nor read through because icba lmao :) also I wrote it for a fem!reader but I don't think there's much mention other than Jack calling reader 'mom' so... yeah :)

pairings: aaron hotchner x reader, platonic BAUteam x reader, motherly(If that's a word?)reader x teen!jack hotchner

summary: aaron and you are in a fight, but what happens when a meeting with a witness goes south?

warnings: criminal minds levels of violence, angst, fluff, couple fighting, reader in distress, reader getting injured, mentions of knives, mentions of being stabbed, mentions of being tied up, mentions of hospitals, mentions of killing, mentions of general injury, mentions of guns/shooting, minimal use of y/n.

1.6k + words.

“We’re here, we’ll update you if anything comes of it,” Morgan promises Hotch over the phone as we walk to the front porch of one of our witnesses. Something about his story is messed up and we were the unlucky ones who had to go talk to him. It’s a pretty house I guess, a little expensive for what a 26 year old man could afford, and what he would want to buy. It’s all fifties style, the entire estate is. Big-enough bungalows with pastel walls and inviting doors with a small porch, just enough for the entry-way and a chair. I knock on the door, exhausted from the past 72 hours. Aaron and I got in a fight before we got to Ohio, it was unnecessary, but we fought all the same. He was mad at me for giving Jack advice that led to a fight between them. I just wanted to kiss and make up 3 days ago but he won’t budge. Maybe it’s because he knows I’m right and doesn’t want to confront it or maybe it’s because I took it too far and overstepped. Jack calls me ‘mom’, I live with him, and Jack came to me for support, he wanted guidance and I gave him it. He was mad at his dad because he missed meeting his girlfriend. His girlfriend, Ava, was a lovely girl, I had been the one there when Jack brought her over for dinner, I was the one trying to suss out if they actually liked each other, and I was the one Jack sat down with for 2 hours after and told everything about her to. All because Aaron was too busy with paperwork in his study. Jack was hurt, which is difficult to do because he’s such an understanding 16 year-old boy. It was also hard because I saw both sides. I’ll be the first to admit that what Aaron did was wrong, but our job is hard and demanding, especially his since he’s the leader of our team… But Jack just wanted 2 hours of his time, not even, just a dinner. A dinner to meet his girlfriend, and Aaron still couldn’t make it. 

I knock again as I huff. 

“Everything alright?” Morgan asks, the regular playful glint in his eye. 

“Tired, mad, over this job. You?” I sigh. 

“Sounds about right,” He chuckles. “How’s Jack doing?” 

A smile spreads across my face. “He has a girlfriend,” Morgan’s face lights up in a smile. 

“My man,” He smirks and I chuckle. “You two met her yet?” 

My face drops again. “I have, Aaron… couldn’t make it to the dinner though. She’s lovely, perfect for Jack. It's so funny, it’s just opposites attract. Jack is so sporty and outspoken and she’s one of the quieter, more into her studies kind of person.” 

The door swings open and we’re met with David, our witness. 

“You two know what time it is?” He yawns. 

“Oh trust us, we know,” Morgan sighs. “Can we ask you a few more questions?” 

“It’s 10pm at night? Can’t this wait ‘till the morning?”

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” I reassure. 

He looks between us for a moment, then sighs. “Quickly.”

We walk inside and are immediately hit with an awful smell. I know that smell. That’s when I see it, a body.

And that’s when it all goes black. 

I wake up in a new room, tied to a chair. I don’t see Derrick anywhere. I don’t see David anywhere. I’m all alone in this grey room. I don’t see a door but I notice a camera, and a screen in front of me. I see Penelope on the screen, then a sign above it with “Don’t make noise” scribbled. I look to my left and see a plastic window, I see Morgan through it, tied up too. He sees me. 

“Y/n? Y/n?! Where are you?” Penelope squeals. I shake my head and she picks up her phone and tries calling mine, it rings and I feel something go into my side. I scream out in pain as I see the blood start trickling out of me. Penelope drops her phone, then picks it up, dialling someone else’s number. 

I get switched to a joint call with Penelope, and the rest of the team, excluding Aaron. 

“Y/n?” Spencer asks and I nod, sobbing in pain. Spencer runs off-screen, leaving Jj and Emily to stare in horror at me.

Spencer comes back with Aaron and we make eye-contact through the screen, and he starts breaking. He’s shouting orders at the policemen in the precinct, he’s shouting orders at the team, and he’s trying not to cry. I know that. I also know I’m the only one who knows that. He hides it pretty well but not from me, not after all of our years together. His eyes squint, his eyebrows furrow more than usual, he starts biting at the skin around his nails. 

“We’re coming to find you. We will find you,” he promises me. I nod slowly as the pain in my side becomes unbearable as the knife is pulled out. 

“Is Morgan with you?” Emily asks and I nod as I bite my lip until it bleeds to stop myself from making too much noise. 

“Is he in the room with you?” Spencer asks. 

I shake my head no. After what feels like an eternity of yes or no questions, they think they’ve located us.I hear banging on the door and then it opens. Spencer is standing there with an entire Swat team behind him. I shake my head to tell them to not make noise but they talk anyway and another knife is put into my leg, I don’t have the strength to stay quiet this time and another finds its way into my arm. I pass out. 

I wake up in a hospital bed, an IV in my arm, Aaron on one side and Jack on the other. Aaron’s asleep in a chair on my left, I grimace, knowing his back will hurt. 

“Mom?!” Jack exclaims as he sees me open my eyes. “Mom!” His eyes fill with tears as he gets up and wraps his arms around me on the bed. 

“Jack,” I sigh in relief. 

“You’re okay! You’re awake!” He smiles brightly, happy that I’m alive. 

Aaron wakes up from the commotion and rushes to my side. “Honey?” He takes my hand and squeezes. “You’re okay.”

I smile at both of them. 

“I’ll go get the doctor,” Jack smiles and he rushes off to find a doctor. 

“Honey I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have-” He starts but I cut him off. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too,” he sighs, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Don’t go all soft now Aaron,” I joke. 

“You make me soft,” He smiles and presses a soft kiss to my cheek. 

Jack comes back in with a doctor. She tells me that I lost a lot of blood and that I will be out of the field for a few months, with 2 weeks of mandatory bedrest, then 4 weeks of physical therapy. 

The next day, the team come in to visit. 

“Hey,” Spencer smiles, walking in first. I’ve always been close to Spencer, he’s always felt like a little brother to me. 

“Hey,” I smile and wince when I hug him, but I know it’s worth it. The rest of the team filter in, smiles on their faces.“So what happened after I went out?”

“Well, they got me, no injuries apart from a concussion,” Morgan says. 

“We got the guy-” Emily starts.

“Aaron got the guy,” Spencer interrupts. “He saw him and just shot him-”

“And then he beat the crap out of him,” Jj says. “It was pretty intense.”

I nod along as they tell me the story, and then we just talk about whatever until Aaron comes in and says visiting hours are over. Spencer leaves me a few more books to read and Jj brings Jack to Ava’s house for the night. Aaron walks in with my dinner on a tray. 

“Hungry?” He smiles. 

“You shot someone for me?” I ask as he places my tray down.

“Yes.”

I roll my eyes and smile at him. “Is he alive?”

“No.” 

My face drops. “Oh.” 

“It was the combined bleeding and head trauma that killed him.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I did.” 

I look at my food. “I understand you wanted to protect me-”

“I did that because he doesn’t get to live after doing this to you. Honey, you and Jack are the most important people in my life and I would do anything if it meant that you were safe and sound. Do you want to know how it felt to have what could’ve been my last words to you be ‘stop bothering me’? I was an asshole to you over the Jack situation because I knew you were right. I knew it wasn’t fair to not go to dinner when I was in the house. I knew it was important and it just felt too real. It felt like he was growing up and I just couldn’t take it because I missed so much of his childhood! So I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry that I said everything I said and did what I did, but I am not sorry about hurting that fucking monster,” He takes a deep breath. “Now eat up, it’ll go cold.”

“I love you Aaron, it’s ok. It wasn’t your fault, being a parents is hard.” 

His eyes fill with tears and he looks at me like an injured puppy. 

“Come here,” I smile and move over, allowing room for him to sit with me. He climbs into bed beside me and wraps his arms around me, being careful of my wounds. 

“I love you,” he whispers as I slowly eat my food. 

“I love you too.”

[hiraethwrote]

cw gn!reader but written with f!reader in mind, angst, no comfort, breakup, pining, minor clubbing wc: <1k an i'm on my period which is making me a little emotional, which resulted in this

ex!suguru will never truly be over you, convinced you’re the one that got away.

the breakup was “mutual”, emphasis on the quotation marks — it only meant you guys ended on good terms. it was a very quiet and tender scene. he holds your hands in his, slowly his thumb strokes across your knuckles, never letting his eyes leave your tear stained face.

ex!suguru who, despite disagreeing wholeheartedly with the decision, sees it’s for the best. he will forever hate himself for being unable to see it coming, unable to stop it — one day he suddenly notices how staying in the relationship brought you more turmoil than joy, and he didn't have the heart to hold onto you even though he so desperately wanted to. but he would ruin himself million times over for you

“it’ll be okay,” he says softly, letting himself indulge in the small acts that come so naturally to him one last time before he has to let go, hand reaching up to dry your tears and cupping your cheek. “i’ll be okay.”

with the quiet promise, he feels the stress leave your body and you rest against his touch, a sad smile painting your lips — you’re so beautiful, he thinks.

ex!suguru who lies because he knows it's what you need to hear. you had already stayed longer than you wanted because you didn’t want to hurt him. he wasn’t surprised. you were just so considerate, through and through. he had always thought the relationship was too good to be true anyways, never truly feeling worthy of you

ex!suguru who doesn’t cry, but that is because he feels numb. he can’t remember feeling a pain as intense as this one.

when your tears have stopped, only shy sniffles escaping you, he comes with one last confession. “i��m always going to love you.” he waits, hoping you would say it in return. it isn’t because you don’t love him anymore that you can’t keep going, it’s just because it isn’t working.

“i know,” you say quietly and his heart shatters.

ex!suguru who has his friends fooled because they think he is over the relationship already. he acts the same, eats the same and goes about his business the same — but that’s because it doesn’t concern anyone other than the two of you.

first weekend as a single man, gojo forces him to go out clubbing with him. he really doesn’t want to, but he can’t give his friend any excuses he will accept.

he hates every moment of it, rudely shutting down anyone that approaches him. no matter how attractive, no matter how charismatic, no matter how willing — they’re not you so what’s the point?

ex!suguru who hates the universe a little more than usual. despite his best efforts, he can’t seem to escape you entirely. and he swears he tries, but you somehow just appear every now and then.

he spots you in the grocery store, doing your daily shopping. he spots you in the line of the coffeehouse, ordering your usual drink (one he knows by heart). he sees you on every feed, posting pictures and updates of your life — you seem happy.

his heart screams for him to surrender to his desires, to approach you and hear your voice again. but he knows better, so after torturing himself by admiring you for a few seconds, he simply turns on his heel and leaves.

ex!suguru who after years still thinks about you as much as the day you left. he has tried to move on, but it feels like a betrayal, even after all this time.

has he healed? sure, a little. life goes on after all. with time he has been reunited with some sense of happiness. however it could never compare to the period of his life where he was so fortunate to be with you.

ex!suguru runs into you after nine years. and not like all the times he has simply noticed you down the street — no, you fully crash into his chest one day while walking out of a bakery.

to say he is surprised is an understatement. he has memorised all the places you used to visit so this exact scenario wouldn’t happen, and this had never been a chain you had set foot in before. but a lot changes in nine years.

“suguru, hi.” your voice is light, a rhythm in it that was not present at the end of your relationship. “wow, crazy running into you. how have you been?”

“good,” he croaks, eyes glued to your face. he still finds you as ethereal as the day you left. he wants to say more, but he is a little unsettled by how at peace you seem to be despite not being with him. “and you?”

it doesn’t go unnoticed how you present yourself as genuinely content with where you are in life. however, suguru goes through the entire heartbreak all over again — he has missed so much of your life. he used to think he would be along side you for every single moment of it. instead he is stood in front of you and feeling as if the walls are closing in on him.

his breath catches when you stretch out your hand to grab his forearm. “it was really great seeing you again,” you muse. it’s probably just wishful thinking, but he believes he hears a sadness in your voice that comes from missing him.

“you too,” he whispers, and you’re gone again.

ex!suguru who eventually comes to terms with just being alone again. before you, he always imagined this was how it would end, not the person made to share his life with someone.

you had obviously made him believe otherwise. with you by his side, waking up next to someone and sharing your meals didn’t seem so silly anymore.

but it turns out he only wanted those things if it was with you.

tags @sad-darksoul ﾉ @madaqueue ﾉ @toadtoru ﾉ @hiraethwa ﾉ @harperluvgojo

©hiraethwrote 2024 . all rights reserved. reposting, translating and otherwise plagarisim is prohibited

[loucifersbitch]

Buck walks through the automatic doors on autopilot and freezes. It hits him then that the last time he stood here, he was meeting Tommy for Maddie and Chim’s wedding. He had stood almost in this very spot and kissed his boyfriend who was covered in soot after fighting a wildfire all night and most of the day.

Now his boyfriend is somewhere else in the hospital, and Buck can’t kiss him or touch him, and his hands are shaking, and he thinks he’s going to be sick.

He turns toward the nearest bathroom and makes it into the stall just in time. He hasn’t eaten yet today, so he’s only throwing up bile mixed with panic and regret, but it’s just as bad.

It’s Hen who finds him, which -

“Why are you in the men’s room?” he asks, his voice weak and still creaky.

“I thought you might need a medical professional.” When Buck just looks at her, she continues with a sigh, “We could hear you in the waiting room. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh.” That’s a little embarrassing. “Sorry. And thanks.”

He gratefully accepts the wet paper towel she hands him to wipe his face.

“Any news yet?”

“Not yet. They took him back for surgery, and it’ll probably be a few more hours before we hear. Bobby and Eddie are in the waiting room if there’s an update. Chim went to pick up Jee from daycare, but he’ll be back later with Maddie.”

Then she produces a water bottle from somewhere behind her.

“How long have I been in here?” Buck asks. Hen seems way too prepared for it to have been just a few minutes.

“About half an hour,” she says. “Actually closer to 45 minutes now.”

“Right.”

So time is still moving awkwardly. He can’t get his bearings. He feels untethered, like he’ll never be on solid ground again.

“Why don’t we get you up and out to a chair?” Hen asks gently. She’s not treating him with kid gloves, but she is being more careful than necessary.

He decides to accept it for the time being. Maybe he does need the softness in her voice and the kindness in her eyes right now.

“Yeah - yeah, that’s a good idea. Thanks, Hen.”

She smiles with something like relief and then stands, offering Buck a hand up.

The waiting room is blessedly empty save for their morose party. Buck tries to sit down, but before he can, Hen is pulling at his turnout coat, trying to yank it off his shoulders. She manhandles the coat off and tosses it to Eddie who adds it to the growing pile of coats on an unused chair in the corner. He’s too tired to fight it or question it, plus it was getting heavy with all of the rain still soaked into the fabric. 

After that, Hen leaves to call Karen, and Ravi goes to get food for them all at a little cafe just up the road that they’ve come to know well. 

Buck sits between Bobby and Eddie, almost a mockery of them standing at the crash site, holding him up. Best not to think about it.

Eddie holds a phone in his hands that Buck recognizes, but it’s not Eddie’s phone. The screen is cracked at the upper corner, spider-webbing its way diagonally down the length of the glass.

“Is that -?” He can’t even bring himself to ask.

“It’s Tommy’s, yeah. A nurse brought out the personal items he had on him a while ago. I was going to see if he has any family in his contacts, but I don’t know his passcode.”

“Oh,” Buck swallows roughly, “it’s um - it’s my birthday. But,” he continues before Eddie types the digits, “he doesn’t have any family in his contacts. At least, not anyone he would want here.”

“Ah,” is all Eddie says before handing the phone over to Buck. He pockets it and tries to think about anything other than his boyfriend a few rooms away getting his arm put back together.

He spends the next few minutes staring off into space thinking of nothing other than his boyfriend a few rooms away getting his arm put back together.

“He’s gonna be okay, Buck,” Eddie says into the heavy silence.

“Eddie’s right,” Bobby adds. “His arm will be fine, and the cuts and scrapes will heal. He’ll be back up in the sky before you know it.”

Buck feels his stomach churn threateningly at the thought, but he does his best to nod and smile. 

When Ravi returns with food, Buck can’t handle the smell, let alone eating anything. But he tries. He can hear Tommy’s low voice in his head warning, “Evan, you need to eat something,” and that convinces him more than Eddie’s prodding.

When Karen shows up along with Chimney and Maddie, Buck feels the need to pull her and his sister off to the side.

He tries to keep his voice steady as he says, “I didn’t get it. Before, I mean. I didn’t get what it felt like to be on this side.” He’s oddly proud his voice only cracked once.

Maddie grabs his hand. “Buck, you’ve been on this side a lot of times. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the 118 isn’t very good at staying out of the hospital.”

He lets out a wet laugh.

“I think he means on the worried partner side of things,” Karen says. “You’ve never had someone you’re in a relationship with get injured like this before. Is that right?”

“Y-yeah.” He chuckles sardonically. “When I saw the helicopter - and his - his hand hanging out the window - I thought - he wasn’t moving, y’know? It took us so long to find him. We were too late. I thought -”

“You thought you’d lost him,” Maddie supplies. He can only nod. “Yep, welcome to the Worried Partners Club.”

“It sucks, but it’s worth it,” Karen adds.

Later, when Athena gets off shift, she arrives at the hospital bearing coffee for everyone. Buck nods gratefully when she hands him one, and the understanding look in her eyes nearly sets him off again. Although, he thinks he might be too dehydrated for tears by now.

“Family of Thomas Kinard?” a voice calls from the doors leading to the OR.

Everyone looks up, but Buck is on his feet before the nurse finishes saying Tommy’s name. He feels people behind him, and the nurse’s eyes widen a bit at everyone gathering around, but Buck’s glad for them.

“He’s out of surgery. Everything went well. He’ll be in recovery for about an hour, but as soon as we get him in a room, you can see him.” 

The last part is directed toward Buck. Maybe he now looks like he’s part of the Worried Partners Club, but that’s fine. He’ll see Tommy soon. That’s what matters.

He catches the end of the nurse’s spiel as he says, “...still be under some sedation, so don’t expect much conversation.”

Buck nods, and the nurse leaves, and then Maddie is dragging him back to their chairs, handing him his coffee, and plopping down next to him to wait until they can see Tommy.

“He’s going to be insufferable,” Eddie says suddenly. He looks at Buck and says, “Remember that time he sprained his ankle while we were sparring? God, he was the worst patient.”

Buck genuinely laughs for the first time since they got the call. “He’s so stubborn, he wouldn’t even let me open doors for him. He just struggled to balance on his crutches so he could do it himself. He almost fell into the bushes twice outside the physical therapist’s office.”

Then everyone is laughing, a sense of lightness settling over Buck. He still doesn’t feel grounded or right necessarily, but laughing with his family helps.

They keep telling stories after that. Most of them are about Tommy, but some are stories or updates about kids or parents or a new recipe gone wrong. They all avoid the topic of work.

“Family of Thomas Kinard?” It’s a different nurse this time, but she doesn’t blink an eye at the number of family Tommy has. “He’s resting in his room. You can go back to see him, but we ask that you keep it to 4 or 5 people at a time. He’s still pretty groggy and probably won’t remember what happened right away, so keep conversation simple.” Then she turns and starts walking down the hallway, not waiting or looking back to see if anyone follows.

Buck grabs Chim and Eddie and gestures at Bobby to come, too. At the last second he grabs Hen’s hand, and the five of them hurry to catch up with the nurse together.

“Breathe, Buck,” Hen whispers.

He can’t. Not yet.

part 1

part 2

part 4