#you have no idea the impact it had in elementary and middle school

[claratyler]

got tagged by @wdapteo (ages ago, sorry waa) and I thought this was such a fun dynamic. Especially because i'm back in my Watching Full Length Films era, so this is great for getting ideas for what to watch.

List of my top 10 favorite movies of all time! Vote for your favourite (no nuance!!!) and then tag your friends so they do it too :)

i tag @almayver, @whoiskt, @virtu4l-di4ry, aaaand i dont know anyone who likes movies yay <3

[dwellordream]

“As late as 1970, college men outnumbered women 8 to 1 in expressing interest in careers in engineering, medicine, and law. By the mid-1970s, however, a sea change had occurred. The number of women planning to enter traditionally “feminine” careers, such as elementary school teaching or nursing, fell from 31 percent to 10 percent. In the meantime, women’s applications to law and medical schools soared 500 percent, and by the mid-1980s, entering classes of medical, law, and business schools were 40 percent female.

The percentage of new women doctors increased from 9 percent to 22 percent from 1971 to 1981, while the proportion of women Ph.D.s leaped from 10 percent to 30 percent. Thirty years earlier, virtually all these women would have been entering “women’s” jobs, with low prestige, limited chance for advancement, and poor pay. Now they were becoming increasingly competitive with men for high-paying, high-status jobs in the most prestigious professions. Once again the feminist movement seemed to have made a significant impact, supporting a very different idea of who a woman was, and what she could aspire to be, than had existed just a few years earlier.

Less related to feminism and perhaps more a consequence of the general “liberation” attitudes of the 1960s was a significant change in women’s sexual behavior as well. There have really been two sexual revolutions in the 20th century. The first came in the early 1900s, when there was a significant increase in the number of women engaging in premarital intercourse and expressing satisfaction with their sexual experiences. Use of birth control also increased at that time.

By the 1970s, however, the first revolution seemed mild. The number of women who believed premarital sex was wrong fell from 75 percent in 1969 to 53 percent in 1974. Among younger women, especially, sexual behavior became much more similar to those of men, with approximately 75 percent of women and men becoming sexually active by the age of 17.

…Ms. was particularly effective in the way it recognized and endorsed women’s gradual yet startling realization of their own condition of inequality. The letters column were full of stories describing the “click” that suddenly made a woman realize she was a victim, playing a part assigned to her by someone else, and thus denied her own voice and autonomy. It might come in the middle of the night when a woman’s husband woke her saying, “The baby’s crying, honey, you’d better see what’s wrong” or when a young man persisted in making romantic advances after the woman said to stop.

But the “click” was there in a thousand manifestations that, through the medium of Ms., now became the common property of women throughout the land. Not only was it okay to be a feminist, but it was a fact of life and a truth that readers could not imagine having missed for so long. Ms. became one of the staples of many women’s lives, just as McCall’s once had been. Only now the message was very different.

Even Hollywood stars became involved in promoting a different vision of how boys and girls should grow up. Led by actress Marlo Thomas, a group of entertainers concerned about how children were socialized into traditional roles of passivity (female) or aggression (male) by most fairy tales and children’s books decided to celebrate diversity and autonomy. A record album, “Free To Be You and Me,” was a series of songs, by stars everyone recognized, that told boys and girls it was all right for them to be whomever they wanted to be.

Crying was something good for both boys and girls to do. Participating in sports, playing with dolls, and dressing up were also good. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician who wrote the nation’s leading advice book on how to raise children, even changed some of his counsel to young parents when he became aware that some of the old stereotypes of how to treat boys differently from girls were not only wrong but harmful.”

- William Chafe, “Responses.” in The Road to Equality: American Women Since 1962

[unbound-shade]

I think the only thing I miss from growing up in the church is the idea of redemption. The idea that if you stop doing something and change your behavior surrounding it permanently, that you are recognized for having made that change and can be washed clean of the past. Not that many people actually made the changes, banking instead on being saved as a blank check for their behavior. A lot of the true believers, those typically being neurodivergent kids raised in the church and later-in-life converts who came out of drug addiction etc., took this to heart. It was possible to have a future where you were absolved by virtue of long-term changes in behavior. In leftist circles, I've had people get on my case for growing up conservative Christian. Like I'm not half a lifetime away from that. Like I wasn't an indoctrinated child who was not given a choice to attend church and Christian elementary and middle school or not. Like two full decades of deconstructing that and acting against my right-wing upbringing has no value because of a past harmful lifestyle. It doesn't matter if you're an ex-military or ex-law enforcement leftist, people will put you back on the hook for past participation over and over again. It doesn't matter if you now counter-protest pro-life Christians outside abortion clinics if you ever agreed with them in the past; you're on the hook for it over and over again. Never mind that some of the most historically impactful anti-fascists were former participants in the regimes they helped dismantle; they'll be back on the hook for their past fascism over and over again. Popular online leftism demands zero mistakes. Ever. This simply isn't realistic and is only possible in cliquey online cabals made of people willing to forget or lie about their own pasts to seem more pure than everyone else. We've all done harm; if you think you haven't you're deceiving yourself. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to fully recover from that? How does one find redemption and absolution in a secular world? How do we own up to the harm we've done if all we'll receive in return is eternal scorn and punishment from other people?

[morg-among-the-stars]

Hi, Morgan. This you from the future, I am nineteen years old.

If I use too many big words, then please take this letter to the library. I am sure Mrs. Libkins won’t mind reading it to you, or at least helping you figure it out; you’re a very bright girl, after all.

I am nineteen years old, you are six years old. You’re getting a hard time from your teachers. You like to rock in your chair and for whatever reason, everyone around you has a problem with that. I will tell you, even all this time later, I still don’t get what all the fuss is about.

You will be fine, I want to know that. Things will, unfortunately, get worse for you. But you will come out on the other side. You are strong, a very strong girl. I don’t mean to scare you; you will have moments of joy in-between all the pain, but things will be rough for a long time. They never really stop being rough, but things do ease up. You learn how to manage things, how to manage yourself.

For a long time, you will be alone. You’ll be adverse to the other girls in your class in elementary and middle school, but you’ll meet a nice, nerdy girl in a technology class in sixth grade and you will find peace in having a girl on your side. A girl who thinks you’re funny. A girl who tries to understand you the best she can. You two will have bumps in the road, big bumps, even. You’ll go months without talking and you will feel alone again, you will be scared of what being alone means. But it isn’t your fault that your other friends will move away; that is what we call a product of circumstance.

It isn’t your fault.

I’ll tell you about your friends: the girl from your tech class and two others will have the greatest impact, they will get you through school.

The first is a boy with long, curly hair that you mistake for a girl when you first meet him. He cuts his hair in the middle of sixth grade and you were used to it when it was long, you liked it a little better. He is tall, very tall and he gives wonderful hugs. He loves cartoons and he talks about them a lot. He loves Adventure Time and Gravity Falls and other greats, and you will spend a lot of time with him during lunch, looking at fan-art online and listening to him ramble. You’ll fall in love with him, a (not-so) little crush, but it won’t feel right. You’ll think about him often, but the idea of being his girlfriend makes you feel sick. The idea of kissing him or, Heaven forbid, marrying him, are thoughts you avoid when your family asks about him. He moves away during eleventh grade and you don’t get to properly say goodbye. You still call him or message him sometimes, but that’s part of growing up. Things are alright.

And the second is a kid who is very, very short. He tells you that he was a girl in a past life, and that isn’t a completely foreign concept. You met a kid like him in middle school, and that middle school boy was on your side. You were both outcasted for completely separate reasons; you got to see that someone had it worse than you, really worse. That boy from middle school is doing alright now.

But you meet the very, very short boy in high school and you fall in love with the girl he once was in that past life. You couldn’t tell a soul. And you felt relief when he told you he was a boy and not a girl. You couldn’t be liable for being queer.

He is the first person you ever meet you has depression, he says it right out loud on the days where the sky is gray and heavy. And even on the sunniest of days, he was still down. You understood it but you didn’t know how to help. You ask him very literally at thirteen years old, “How can I help make you happy?” and he laughs tiredly and tells you that’s not how it works. You would do anything for him, he becomes your best friend for a short time. (Not for long, don’t worry) You will give up yourself to help him, and you have to gather the pieces of Morgan up again.

You succeed, I told you that you are bright.

Strangely, the nerdy girl who grows up with you becomes the one you fall in love with. But this cannot be denied. You are liable. You tell her and for a moment in time, she is liable in her own way. But nothing ever happens, she beat around the bush of things she wanted, of how she wanted you, to love you.

You decide to get over her and you do it in the worst way possible; you fall in love again, but this love is so, so cruel. This person violates your soul, kicks and punches your heart that is always trying to repair itself. Over and over again, being kicked and ripped to shreds. It hurts, God, does it hurt you. You shouldn’t be hurt, you’re a good person. You don’t deserve to be hurt like you were. You’re over your nerdy best friend, but at what cost?

Things come to a head and the world implodes, you lose that love (for the better, was it really ever love if it hurt so much?) and you lose your best friend for the worst; you don’t talk to her for a long time.

But, even alone, you are okay. You manage, you live and I have always been proud of you for doing so.

Time goes on and spring comes. You’ve always liked springtime. You like the flowers and warm air, and chirping birds outside your window (you called them “spring birds” when you’d hear a certain birdsong. Even as an adult, you still call them that. Some things stay the same, and that’s alright).

With spring, you make amends. You have your nerdy, kind, loving best friend again, but she’s grown up some. So have you.

You make amends and come across springtime as a person. Pretty red hair, a smile that you think about often (you think about it a lot, your heart feels warm when you see it), a soft voice that could be its own birdsong; that’s how you feel about this girl who you would’ve loved to sit with while Mrs. Libkins read stories to you in some other, distant universe.

Morgan, it takes time, but you fall in love for a fifth time. Five has always been your lucky number. You trust springtime, you let her warmth in. She fills up the cracks of your heart with golden sunlight and you begin to trust again. It takes a long time. Sometimes, you push her away. You worry that she will fall into the patterns of those before her, but she doesn’t. You are safe. You grow up and find love and you find safety.

Feels good to know, doesn’t it? You get bullied in school and the world implodes around you, and you are scared. But you have good friends and the sweetest partner you could have ever dreamed of and a bright mind, always. Things turn out alright.

Now, your life isn’t perfect. It definitely is not perfect. But you learn that perfection doesn’t exist. Mom and Dad still fight and your baby sister grows up and you sit together and wait for the storm to pass; wait for the fight to end.

The tiny, waddling baby that you know becomes a big kid and, my goodness, she is cool. You grow up beside her and you help her all that you can. She’s your best friend in her own way, and she always will be.

You are always curious about the world and that doesn’t end. You have good people who ask about your curiosities and who adore your mind.

Morgan, you are small now, and you are worried about the future. But let me tell you one final time: you will be alright.

You will always end up on the other side, even with a few scars or bruises. You will be alright.

With love and big hugs,

Morgan, thirteen years into the future <3

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

People I've met irl with the same name as dcla characters (and how they were)

Nina: I have met LOTS of people named Nina, and they all have been very different. One of them is related to me and I love her ofc. But then there's also Nina from fourth grade who... well, we were on the swings at recess and I said "I wonder how they make cartoons like Phineas and Ferb, like how they animate them", and she stopped her tracks and said "Are you watching cartoons?!" in the most judgemental tone ever. She then jumped off the swings and walked away, not wanting to be associated with a fourth grader who was so cHiLdiSh she still watched cartoons. So, Nina from fourth grade, if you're out there: Fuck you :)

Maxi: Maxi is a very common name for people my age. Often a nickname of Maximillian (just like Maxi in Violetta's full name is Maximilliano). The Maxi's I've met have often been "one of the boys" and sometimes had a bit of a cocky attitude. One in particular also was famous for making really odd comments sometimes lol.

Helena: Often teachers or friends of my mom are named this. Been very different how they have been. One Helena was my english teacher in middle school and she was from America. She was also my drama teacher (in middle school I went to a school that had a performing arts program), but apparently she was not a fully fledged drama teacher but just "took a course in it for one class". And you could tell, because she just had no idea what we were doing. Once like a week before we performed was like "so I have an idea what you could do :)" and we were like "... we have a play already thanks"

Daisy: Now, the Daisy in Bia is a wonderful person. The Daisy I met irl......................... *traumatic flashbacks*

Simon: I've only met people who are named Simon without the accent over the o. They've all been like Simón in the show :)

Camila: I had a daycare teacher named Camila and I found her to be the funniest teacher. She was in charge of the younger kids, but she talked to us older kids a lot. I remember when my little brother was born and she every day was like "you need to show me your little brother!". And I was so excited when my mom came to pick me up and had my little brother with her (because she was on maternity leave), and as we were leaving, I saw Camila out in the yard and was like "CAMILA!!!! MY LITTLE BROTHER IS HERE!!" and she came out to greet us.

Leon: Every Leon I’ve met has been under 2 years old. I think that name is trending rn (googled: Yep, Leon was top 12 on the baby name list in Sweden 2022).

Lucas: In elementary school I had THREE people named Lucas/Lukas in my class. Extremely popular name in my generation. All of them were different. One of them left no impact on me at all, one of them was the most annoying boy ever, and one of them I had a crush on and ran around telling him I was going to kiss him. He also hit me with a stick in kindergarten and we went to the same daycare where I witnessed him spin around and fall down on a sharp rock, so his mom had to come pick him up and he needed to sew three stitches on his chin.

Alice: Yes, I’ve met several, but all of them are pronounced the english way. They’ve all been very kind people. One of them was a friend of my sisters and my sister said she was a bit odd, though. Although, I can’t judge for myself since I didn’t know her.

Ana: Well, maybe not spelled Ana, but Anna I’ve met hundreds of. Relatives, classmates, teachers, friends of my parents… no one is the same. Every Anna I’ve met has been nice except for one Anna in elementary school who I found so annoying, because she always acted like I was stupid, and gaslighted me. I’ve also had a teacher named Anna who was… we’re not gonna talk about her I am just wondering how she could be allowed to be around children tbh.

Emma: Emma is such a normal name that some Emma’s I’ve met have been nothing but kind, but other Emma’s have been hell’s children. I have nothing but love to say to some Emma’s and have the biggest grudge against other Emma’s.

Emilia: Yes, I met one Emilia. She was very nice and kind, although quite shy.

Amanda: Yep. One girl in my confirmation group who kissed me on the cheek because I offered her chocolate that I didn’t want. And one from my childhood who every time she was invited to birthday parties had to be accompanied by her mom as she had a tendency to get… out of control…

Diego: I’ve only met one Diego and he was literally 1 years old (people naming their kids Diego and Leon… they’re gonna grow up having the real life Violetta over here)

Tomas: Every Tomas I’ve met is either a middle aged man or a toddler, there’s been nothing in between. None of them have left a strong print on me lol

Monica: EVERY Monica I’ve met has either been a lunch lady or a teacher. They are always in school in some way. No one has been the same

Luna: Every Luna I’ve met has been friends of my sister and I never knew them much to say I have an impression. Like I’ve said hi to them at most.

Alex: Every Alex I’ve met is exactly like the Alex in the show. Literally if you’re named Alex (often short of Alexander), you’re destined to just act like that ig

Lara: The only Lara I’ve known was in the same ”art and design” class as me (this was kind of like regular arts class except it was an optional class you could take, like with drama, and you didn’t get graded so you could just sit there and draw or work on an artwork of your choice). I have to admit that I know nothing more than her name. Sometimes I wonder if she was also in my science, physics and biology group (we blended classes for those subjects). If she were I never talked to her. Honestly don't even know her face. Just know she exists because the teacher called her name.

Eric: Every Eric/Erik I've met has been the friend of a friend. I've never been close to an Eric but I've known his name because we have a mutual friend. Although, I recall once when I was like. 4? I was invited to a boy named Eric's birthday party, he went to the same daycare as me and he invited everyone in our daycare group. Remember nothing from his birthday except that it was out on some 4H farm and I ran around chasing a white balloon that was flying over the field. I don't even know if there was cake??? Every kid just ran around. But then again I was 4 so it's understandable I have such blurry memories.

I'm not sure if I've met anyone more that has the same name as a dcla character (maybe the same name as a small character that appeared in like an episode maybe).

[thatoneshortieho]

Yori Aisuke, Hero name: Bouncer - was born with pale skin, orange hair and blue eyes, physical traits which she inherited due to her mother’s side being entirely of Irish descent. Her father’s genes left nearly no impact on Yori’s appearance, however his Quirk: Rubber Body, was eventually passed onto Yori, developing itself a lot further than his own. Her mother was however Quirkless, something extremely rare for her generation. But she was treated no differently by her family and loved just as much still.

Yori didn’t care much about Heroes and such, mostly just hoping she wouldn’t end up in trouble or her part of town being in danger. She always acted indifferent whenever other kids were talking about how they wanted to be Heroes and beat up bad guys, but secretly she also had the same wish.

Yori’s Quirk finally showed itself one day as she was playing ball with some of her friends in kindergarten. One of the kids kicked the ball weirdly, and it shot full speed directly at Yori. In a panic, she tensed up entirely, bracing for the impact. She heard an impact but all she felt was a light tap, she opened her eyes to see that the ball was now laying next to her friend, who had been knocked unconscious on the grass. She had no idea what to do or what even happened. Later, a teacher told her what had happened; Yori’s Quirk must have manifested and as she had tensed up her body, it activated and the ball Bounced right off Yori and right back at her friend with the same speed he’d kicked it. Yori and her friend apologized to each other and her teacher - with her parents’ permission - signed her up for Quirk Development Therapy.

With the help of QDT and her father, Yori came to understand her Quirk better. She had in fact inherited her father’s Rubber Body and - as passing on Quirks do - developed a stronger variant of it. Her father had the similar type of effects as Yori did, however for Yori; the impact damage is reduced to only a third of the damage it should do, as opposed to her father taking ¾ damage. An incredible development. Yori discovered that she could - not only have things Bounce off her, but that she could Bounce herself off things. She discovered this when she and her father were training to increase her reflexes and resistance. She had activated her Quirk a bit too late, so when the ball hit her, she was knocked back into the wall of their shed and Bounced off that with quite some force. 

Teachers at her elementary and middle school were constantly worried regarding the bruises she’d sometimes have when coming to school. One teacher even called CPS and when her father calmly explained the situation and their Quirks, he was given a light warning to not push his daughter too much, but other than that the case was dropped entirely.

Yori herself is what you could call withdrawn-but-cocky. She isn’t much of a people person and she tends to have quite an attitude. She was never a bully however, but she was most often seen as one by more timid classmates. Once she realizes this, she tries to drop her mask a bit for them, but only for them, because she really didn’t want to be feared. She has a soft heart but it is buried by layers of insecurity, “ambitious” thinking and her general need to come off as at least a little tough. But she never means anyone any harm. “Unless they’re legit askn’ fo’ it.”

She was teased a little for having picked up a bit of an Irish accent from her mother, but she learned to suppress it. Until she got angry, then it really shone through. She knew quite a bit of English due to this as well and was a bit of a star in English classes at her schools.

During the Entrance Exam, Yori felt no confidence in herself. She knew she couldn’t fight, much less fight giant robots. For most of the duration of it, she was simply running around, trying to figure out a way to at least get a single point. Suddenly, she saw something falling from above, she quickly realized it was a person and her body acted on its own, running towards where the person would land, and throwing herself at the ground - activating her Quirk. The person in question Bounced safely off Yori and was absolutely stunned, thanking her over and over in what seemed like a bit of a mental haze.

After some thinking, she decided that, even if she herself can’t get enough points to get into UA, she might as well help someone else so they can get in. She proposed the idea to this person - who introduced themselves very quickly as Ayane - that they could use Yori as a sort of trampoline. Run into her or - if they fell again - Yori could Bounce them, so that Ayane could get enough height and defeat enough Target Robots to get into UA. Ayane tried to convince Yori that she could get points too, but Yori’s mind was set on her failing the Exam either way. With a bit of convincing - and another Target Robot finding them, Ayane accepted.

She was later sent a letter explaining the Hero Point system, and that she had gathered enough to also get into UA, even if she hadn’t defeated any herself. She was as such accepted into Class 1A at UA. 

[rainglade]

My grandfather once told me that it is better to have less friends than more, and to be careful who to consider a friend. He told me about his experience, and how most of the people in your life should be nothing more than acquaintances. I understand what he meant by this, but it makes me a little bit confused. I think advice like that tends to stem from the idea that I just have a super robust social life and throw around my feelings haphazardly, when the reality couldn't be farther from the truth.

When I was in elementary school, I moved three times, and while my old therapist once alluded to the idea that that had maybe impacted my ability to form close friendships (emotional detachment, hyperindependence, etc.) I think it is probably more than that.

Growing up, I knew there were things about me that were different, but I simultaneously also felt as though what I felt was "normal" per se. I just though that things like sexual attraction were barely there for most people, that gender was pretty meaningless for most people, that my perception of the world was consistent with everyone else's. I think when I learned that this wasn't the case, it made me feel a little bit alienated, more subconciously than conciuosly, which made it so that I can't think of a single person I considered an actual friend in middle school.

The people I sat with at lunch to avoid sitting alone had no respect for me and made me leave when the table was crowded. Even the majority of people who I interacted with were friendly and kind to me, but I never felt close to them. By eighth grade, everyone kind of knew everyone, so things had calmed down more and I felt less insecure, but that didn't change the fact that I didn't have friends, and refused to allow people to get close to me when they tried to be friends with me. Come high school, I never was really bullied or picked on (thank goodness for going to a small minority-majority school attached to a college) but even then, the extent of my friendships were sitting next to people in class or eating lunch with my friend starla.

Mine and my mother's brain have a lot in common, so when I learned that she didn't make many friends until college, I assumed it was the same for me, then felt disappointed when I didn't have any close friends in my first year or two. It is recently that I think I have felt that shift. I think the anti-anxiety meds helped with that, and I also think that mentally I just don't care about that things that used to make me anxious.

In my first year of uni, I used to sleep at 9pm sharp so I'd be asleep before my roommate got back and I wouldn't have to interact with him, then I awoke and left at 6am so I'd be gone before he woke up. On the several nights that I was out past 10/11pm, I slept in the library because I was anxious about waking him up when I unlocked the door. It seemed perfectly rational then, but ridiculous to think about now. Things like this have started to fade into the background of my mind; the bars that limited me before have started to disintegrate, and I couldn't be more glad.

I think my grandfather was right, but I also think that before having close friends, you have to first put yourself out there. Love doesn't come to you by making yourself desirable, it comes to you by making yourself vulnerable to it. It comes by opening your heart and mind; your people will not come to you until you come to them. The universe is a machine, and one gear cannot turn until the other one does. Everything is reciprocal, everything is circular. At the end of the day, who do you want to answer to? Who will you willingly be there for, and who will be there for you?

[phantomtwitch]

fanfic writer emoji ask

💖 what made you start writing

🧠 favourite valerie headcanon

✨something nice about your work

💖 I started writing so long ago I genuinely don't remember - like I can remember writing stories as a real young kid and coloring and everything else. I just loved creating new worlds and putting ideas on the page and expressing myself that way since I was pretty introverted and awkward from a young age. The first fanfic I wrote was a self-insert Animorphs one--I was super obsessed with the series in elementary school and middle school--and then a Digimon fanfic after that, but I never published any of those and I don't think I still have a copy. I ended up starting to write fanfic again after I got into the DP phandom ages ago, since I had shifted to original works for a bit and was feeling stuck. Now I mostly keep doing it because I'll either see or have an idea and just feel an intense urge to get it down on paper.

🧠 Valerie is the best! I love her so much. I think my favorite is that the her suit post the whole bit with Technus is literally a part of her, and while I wouldn't say she's part-ghost like Danny or Vlad, I would say she's not entirely human anymore, either, and is kind of in a unique subset all of her own at that point. I really like exploring that idea in concert with Danny, who I think can't ignore how inhuman he is in so many ways because of his parents and the fact that he can literally turn into a ghost, and Val who I always assume would be in some level of denial about the changes that have happened to her or too focused on everything else in her life to let herself dwell on it.

✨I think I'm pretty good at writing dialogue and putting a lot of emotion into my scenes. My favorite thing about writing is the characters (another reason I tend to love writing fanfic now), so I spend a lot of time thinking about how they would react, what they're like, how a situation would impact them, etc., and then the emotional fallout and character growth or change that can come of various circumstances.

[alyssa295]

Reading Exploration #4

April 3rd – Tompkins & Shanahan and Shanahan

Tompkins

Tompkins, Chapter 12, “Reading and Writing Across Curriculum”

Big Idea:

Writing impacts the way we read, and reading impacts the way we write, this allows students to gain a better understanding of the texts they are interacting with.

Nugget:

This idea that reading and writing are interdependent did not make much sense to me until I had more experience with the Zine project. Once you must write a specific text or genre it really makes you stop and think about what is included in that text. When I go to read that same text, I think it makes me more aware of what the author does within that genre to support comprehension.

Shanahan & Shanahan

“Does Disciplinary Literacy Have a Place in Elementary School?”

Big Idea:

Literacy should be taught across disciplines, for example, including history texts or science articles since it gives our students the tools, they need to comprehend that text as they move towards middle school.

Nugget:

I like that this can easily be done in literacy. When we include these different disciplines in our literacy instruction, they can still accomplish the goal or standard we want, but it also exposes them to new texts they will be interacting with in the higher grade levels (middle and high school).

Readerly Exploration:

For this readerly exploration I chose to share with a family member to get his or her insight and perspective on it.

I talked to my dad about disciplinary literacy and his personal experience with it. His experience with the disciplines was strictly textbooks. He said they got a textbook in every subject and the only other things they used were workbooks. He said that he always reads everything on the page but wouldn’t always understand the text features. He was not given any instruction on how to read things like captions or graphs. My dad said that was something he figured out on his own. He said he thinks it would be most helpful for the teacher who is teaching that discipline to show the students how to read those types of texts.

I think this has helped me think about disciplinary literacy more because I do not think I realized that no one was really taught how to read different features in different disciplinary texts. This skill can be introduced into elementary school. A common view is they will figure it out on their own or they will be introduced to it when they are older. Instead, we can set our students up for success in the intermediate grades by introducing how to interact with these texts in elementary school. Like my dad, most people just had to figure these things out as the grades demanded comprehension with those texts. I think another beneficial aspect of disciplinary literacy is using authentic texts. My dad only ever used textbooks or workbooks. I think we should be incorporating much more authentic texts for our students. This supports their motivation and provides support when they encounter these things in their own lives.

Multimedia Documentation: Here is a picture of me talking to my dad.

[boldlyvoid]

Hypothetically | Chapter 1-5

summary: Reader and Spencer were friends in kindergarten, she watched him grow up and explore the world while she was still trying to catch up to him. now that they work together, they fall in love incredibly fast.

friends to lovers, case of the week style story

A/N: Set between seasons 4 and 6, not following canon. all original crimes based on real-life stories.

Warnings 18+: Murderers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Blood, Guns, mentions of autopsy, Fluff, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, bed-sharing, Riding, Unprotected Sex, Virgin Reader, Case of the Week, original crimes, Food mention, Smut, Oral Sex, Light BDSM, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Talk, obgyn appointments and info, Home Invasion, Past Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Emotional Manipulation, Grooming, Pedophilia mention, non-con oral (male receiving), Pregnant Sex, Daddy Kink, Breeding Kink, Homophobia, conversion therapy

Word Count: 15k

chapter 1

It took Y/N longer than she had hoped to finally catch up to him. He seemed to go from the cute little boy with a bow tie who sat beside her in her kindergarten class to working for the FBI by the time she graduated high school. It wasn’t fair that he happened to be smarter than anyone on earth, causing him to test out of elementary school before she even got to know him.

Spencer Reid had an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and the sweetest personality to match. Y/N saw him around as he grew up, coming home to see his mom often and minding his business as he wandered around in his free time.

He liked to sit on the swings at the abandoned park across the street from her house, it was a place he would go to at the most random hours of the day for years on end. Every time he was in the area, he visited the swing. And She’d watch him from her window seat in her bedroom. Pretending to read, but really she was watching him read.

It was years of watching, from the ages of 13 to 18 when he was coming back and forth from working on his second Ph.D., and she was still trying to make it through high school.

But she never walked out there and talked to him, she knew nothing real about him other than his name and that he was smart. The town told rumours about him being an alien or a government experiment because there was no way a kid could be so smart, but she never believed them. She liked to keep to the idea that he was sweet, smart, and special.

He stopped coming to the swing for a while after they turned 18, her mother had said something about Spencer Reid’s mother being admitted to the nursing home she worked at and y/n drew the conclusion that he’d finally left the small Nevada town she was seemingly trapped in.

Y/N kept tabs with him online, as weird as it felt to her she had a strange sense of pride when it came to Spencer’s achievements. That was the kid she sat beside in kindergarten out there working for the FBI, saving lives and changing the world. It inspired her.

So sure enough, when she moved to Virginia to join the FBI academy it was the perfect opportunity to finally be on an even playing field with him. An excuse to reach out to him and catch up, get to know him. She was technically older than him, by 10 months, and yet somehow he seemed to feel unreachable, wiser and more of an adult than she ever would be.

At 28 she finally bumps into him again. She’s carrying boxes into her new apartment with help from a moving company when he leaves the apartment across the hall from her.

“Oh my gosh, Spencer Reid?” she said with the biggest smile spreading across her face.

“Hi?” he says, not having any clue who she is.

“You might not remember me, I’m Y/N Y/L/N we were in kindergarten together in Nevada?”

He takes a moment to think, she watches his eyes flutter as he recalls the memory to his mind. She is mesmerized by how his brain works, like a filing cabinet he can just pull memories out. “Oh, yes we sat together the first day and you got in trouble later that afternoon for adding water to the sand because I had said it was too dry to build a model of the Pyramid of Giza.”

Her smile gets even bigger, “yes! I hope this isn’t weird but I’ve kept up with you over the years, I’ve always thought it was so amazing that someone from my town was off doing incredible things! I can’t believe I’m moving in across from you that makes it look so much worse oh god, I promise I’m not stalking you!” She rambled anxiously.

He laughed, “it’s okay I believe you! I’m surprised honestly that you remember me, we were what? 5? That’s a good memory you must have?”

She walked over to him and out of the way of the men moving her boxes into her apartment, that’s what she was paying them for anyway. She set the box down on the floor beside herself to free her arms, “I think your first ever friend would leave an impact on your memory.”

“We did have a good bond before I was transferred out,” he recalls with a smile.

“Well,” she smiled right back, “I also work with the FBI if you want to get coffee before work on Monday and catch up? See if there’s a possibility of being friends once again?”

“Yeah!” he answers abruptly, “I leave around 7:15 normally and I always go to the little cafe down the road, what department are you in?”

“VICAP,” she said, “just a floor above the BAU, surprised I’m only running into you now”

“You sure you’re not stalking me?” he joked.

She shook her head lightly, her cheeks hurting from smiling so hard. “Promise, just inspired by you, that’s all.”

He chuckled to himself, almost shocked that such a lovely person would be inspired by him. “Well, thank you. I’ll let you get back to moving in and I will see you on Monday Y/N.” he said with a small wave and walked down the corridor.

She sighed to herself, this was going to be amazing.

---

Y/N had barely unpacked anything by the time Monday had rolled around. She spent most of her time working on her bedroom organization, leaving a mess of boxes everywhere else. Going through her closet to find the best outfit for her first-morning commute with Spencer.

Her job didn’t require as much fieldwork as he did, so she could wear anything she wanted to the office as long as it was professional. She settled on black flared dress pants, a nice white turtleneck, the watch her family gave her when she graduated from the academy and her cute healed wedge boots.

She grabbed her purse and wallet, ensuring she had her keys and badge in there before unlocking her safe and clipping her gun to her belt. She grabbed her go bag and coat and draped them over one arm, holding her purse in the other.

With everything she needed, she walked to her front door, turning off her alarm just to change the setting to protect her empty apartment. She closed and locked the door behind herself just as Spencer walked out into the hallway.

“Good morning Spencer,” she said, cheerful as ever.

“You’re awfully cheerful for this time of day,” he yawned after speaking.

“Late night?” she asked, joining him as he walked towards the building entrance.

“We had an emergency case this weekend that kicked my ass, I’ve only been home for 15 hours. Hopefully, today is just a desk day,” he yawned again. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re tired as well, from moving this weekend.”

“Oh I’m exhausted, normally I don’t leave till quarter to 8, living farther away now is going to suck a bit.”

“At least our building is nice,” he adds.

“It seems wonderful so far.” He held the door for her as they walked into the parking lot, he dug her keys from her bag, “do you want to take my car?”

“Sure, seeing as I don’t have a car, I normally take the subway,” he said softly, walking to the passenger side and opening the door as he heard the door unlock.

“Well if you want a ride every morning I don’t mind, even If you need rides to emergency cases,” she smiled softly.

Spencer insisted on buying her coffee, saying it was only fair for driving him. But really it was because he wanted to spoil her, ever since she said she was inspired by him his mind hasn’t been able to stop playing that sentence on loop. He’s completely enamoured by her, willing to do whatever it takes to get on her good graces. Not realizing she’s willing to do the same for him.

In no time she’s pulling up to the main building, both of them showing their badges before being allowed access into the parking structure of their building. Y/N parked close to the main elevator, having impeccable luck with getting that spot in the garage.

“We still have time before we’re officially on the clock, if you wanted to come meet my team?” He offered, hitting the button in the elevator for floor 3. His floor.

“I’d love to meet the legend that is Penelope Garcia,” she smiled.

“She is wonderful,” he agreed with a smile.

The elevator dinged and she felt her heart drop into her stomach thinking of how Spencer was going to introduce her. He walked with her towards the glass doors, holding them open for her as she walked into the bullpen.

All eyes were suddenly on Spencer and Y/N, so many faces she’s never seen before, and 2 she knows too well from her research on the BAU. She smiled lightly as she walked towards them all. Spencer not far behind her.

“Good morning,” Spencer smiled a small pressed-lipped smile. “This is agent Y/N Y/L/N, she works up in VICAP, she was one of my best friends in elementary school.”

She smiled, so that’s how. “Hello!” She waved, “It’s so nice to meet you all,”

“Derek Morgan,” the tall dark and handsome one reached his hand out for yours.

“Oh, I don’t shake hands sorry,” she said, grabbing her right middle finger with her left hand and smiling lightly.

He laughed, “wow pretty boy, how come you never told us you have a twin?”

“Do you not shake hands either?” She asked him, “we really do have a lot of catching up to do Spence.”

“Emily Prentiss, it’s lovely to see Spence bring in new friends.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, I’ve always admired the BAU, I’ve actually compiled a few of the cases you’ve worked on this year, I’m pretty good at finding patterns even the system overlooks.”

“Oh yes, Y/N Y/L/N, I’ve seen your name on all the emails, thank you you’ve sent some of the best-connected cases to us, you’ve brought justice to people who we would have never connected to cases,” JJ said enthusiastically, “I was actually just about to tell Hotch about the newest one you sent me.”

“It’s horrible, isn’t it? I’ve been carefully looking over this case for 2 years now I knew you’d all be able to help with it. It’s right up your ally,” she nervously laughed.

“You sent in the files on the family annihilator that was going after people he believed to be decedents of Cain from the bible right?” David Rossi asked.

She nodded her head and sighed, “yeah everyone told me it was a stretch to catch onto but when I noticed all the men were from the same online ancestry family tree I knew you guys needed to see it.”

“That was specifically interesting, the death of his own brother led him to seek revenge on the father of murder,” Spencer agreed.

“So what’s this new one you’ve brought us?” Derek asked.

“Oh, would you like to pitch it to us? We’re all here we can meet you in the briefing room before your shift starts upstairs?” JJ offered.

“Oh sure,” she smiled, finally it was her time to show off.

Soon enough, Aaron Hotchner, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi, Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia and Jenifer Jareau were all staring at you in the briefing room.

“In Wichita Kansas, there have been a string of murders over the last 6 years that have all been incredibly, creepily similar,” she started explaining as she handed out the case files to everyone.

“Each victim is female, 16 to 24, they’ve all been strangled with rope while completely naked, signs of brutal sexual assault, binding and torture. They’ve all been found wrapped in shower curtains and placed in various public locations. Clearly a sign of remorse with how he keeps them covered but still a taunt that we can’t find him even now that he’s 6 victims deep.”

“Clarise Richardson, victim number 1 was raped, strangled with rope and left by an underpass. She was found in 1998, the M.E said she was dead 16 hours when they found her, COD was asphyxiation. Her family reports she was last seen at least 73 hours before she was found. So he kept her for a while. There were fibres under her nails of green carpet, either she was held at someone's house or in a van with carpet like they had in the 70s and 80s.”

“Were there any fingerprints or DNA on the bodies?” Prentiss asked.

“Yes, there was a sperm sample retrieved on victim number 5, Sharon Flynn. Most likely he wore a condom for the rest of his rapes and he wasn’t in the system already. Either he never ejaculated in earlier rapes before he grew to murder or his victims never came forward before 1998.”

“which is highly likely, we saw in the EARs case in California how hard it was to get the men and women who were raped to even come forward. There were 4 confirmed cases in the news before more came forward with similar stories. It’s seen as a shameful thing when in reality it’s just giving them more power if they believe they’ll never be caught.” Spencer explained.

“Yes, it’s very hard to come forward when it happens to you,” she agreed before quickly hanging subject. “I’ve been searching for any rapes in the area with similar MO, choking, BDSM, ropes, vans with green carpet, and I’ve found 3 women who claimed to be raped by a man at festivals the late 70’s who had an orange van with green carpet who bonded them up in a very intricate form of bondage that tightened every time they squirmed to entice them not to move. And from my research, that's the same pattern of rope as the rope burn on the 6 bodies we have.”

“All 6 of them are fairly similar it’s just their dumpsites that sets them apart. He didn’t have one strict area that he stuck to, he seems to have no problem travelling to them.” Emily said, flipping through the files.

“I’m thinking he has a job the requires him to still use his van. Like a travelling plumber, a phone or computer tech, home surveillance or maybe even he’s with Jehovah's witness or the Mormon church. It would explain him being able to get into these women’s houses and neighbourhoods long enough to pick someone, learn their schedule and grab them.” Y/N explained.

“Garcia, can you look into those businesses, as well as independent contractors, satellite companies, mailmen, and anyone else who might have been on the job by the victim's houses on the dates and times they were last seen,” Hotch asked.

“Absolutely, I’ll also run the DNA samples in my other databases.”

“I was about to ask you to do that, I think he might have children. There is a very large gap between the rapes and the jump to rape and murder, if you could run the saliva sample from victim 3 that's on her neck with any foster system or genealogy company to see if he has a son or uncle we can trace his sample to?”

“That's a great idea, I’ve never thought to do that,” Garcia smiled. “I like you, you’re a smart cookie!”

“Looks like we’re headed to Wichita,” Hotch said. “Do you think VICAP would be mad if we stole you for a few days? You have more connections with the Wichita police than we do, they might cooperate more If they know a friendly face.”

“Absolutely, let me grab my go-bag from upstairs!” Y/N jumped up, “I’ll be right back down!”

“Wheels up in 30,” Hotch said, And with that, she was out the door.

“Reid if you don’t marry her I will,” Penelope said softly.

“Okay.” He blushed.

—

She took a seat beside Reid on the jet, the two of them chatting amongst themselves for a while before they were called for the second briefing.

“So local PD think they have a recent victim from this weekend they want us to check out,” Penelope said over video chat. “she’s a little different than the others. Katie Newton, 27 was found bound to her bed, already having passed and was being assaulted when her husband came home. He screamed at the guy who was only wearing a ski mask and “tight-y white-y’s” as the husband described. He grabbed his bag and clothes with him but he left her tied up with the little time he had to knock the husband out of the way and run out.”

“Did he get any other identification marks on the unsub?” Y/N asked.

“He said he was pasty white, 5’8 and he didn’t talk. He didn’t scream, nothing, he just grabbed his things and ran. He does however remember he had a very large brown birthmark on his chest covering the right nipple down to his stomach.”

“Okay that’s good to know, why do they think it’s our guy?” Rossi asked.

“Blood found on the rope she was tied up with can match back to 13 different women. 6 of the murders that Y/N brought to us, 1 of the rapes she found and 5 other break-in and rapes of other women in the area.”

“Holy shit,” Y/N whispered to herself.

“Well done on finding this one Y/N, this one is going to be big.” Morgan complimented her with a smile.

“Thanks,” she smiled back, “I didn’t expect any of this when I connected the 6 of them originally. This is insane.”

“have you ever been in fieldwork like this?” Hotch asked.

“At the academy, I was combat trained, I have all my clearances and I’m a great shot. I’m good on my feet and I tested perfectly on hostage talk down.” She tried not to brag but this was almost as important as a job interview.

“Well damn,” Morgan nodded in approval. “We might just have to seal you full time.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all!”

“Good,” hotch smiled, something he didn’t do often. “I’m going to send you and Reid to the M.E to see what else we can find out about these new break-in homicides. Prentiss and Rossi, I want you to travel to the last dumpsite and the latest crime scene to see what else could connect them. Morgan and JJ come with me to the station to set up communication with the local PD and media we don’t need them naming him like they did with BTK.”

“Garcia, would you also widen the search for anyone convicted of sexual misconduct, flashing, stalking, break-ins where underwear was stolen or and peeping toms? Go all the way back to the 70s. If any of them are now working for any businesses that have vans and require him to travel. This guy has to have a mistake somewhere that you will find.” Y/N asked one last time.

“Got it, genius girl, over and out.”

—-

The bureau had the funds for rooms for the main team, meaning Y/N had to double up with someone and she had to decide who once they landed and headed to the hotel.

“It wouldn’t be weird if we got a room with two queen beds right?” She asked Spencer, “it would give us a chance to catch up in our downtime like a sleepover we never had as kids.” She nervously rambled in the SUV as Reid drove.

“No I don’t mind, It would be fun if we get any sleep in this case. This one seems like it will be a bit of a brain rattler.” Reid agreed with a soft pressed-lipped smile.

They booked their rooms, dropped off their things and all headed their separate ways. The M.E’s office was close to the police station, the two of you in an SUV followed Hotch, JJ and Morgan in another down the road.

The bodies had all been cremated or buried shortly after being found, there wasn’t anything fresh enough to examine for them but they did have access to all the information on all the cases.

“I’ve been the medical examiner here for the last 30 years,” the nice old man said as he led them down the hall to the storage room. “These ones have all been some of the worst cases I’ve seen here. So much so that I keep them all in their own boxes just in case a day like today ever happens.”

“That is very helpful for us thank you so much!” She smiled at him as he held the storage door open.

“They’re all labelled by name and date. If you have any questions about tests or need me to run more with what we have left just give me a holler!” He said as he left the room.

Y/N sighed. “Why do I feel like this is going to take a million years?”

“I can read 20,000 words a minute, it will take me 3 hours to read everything in this room. Luckily we only need to read these few boxes.” Spencer pointed at the wall.

“Okay boy wonder, stop showing off,” she smiled, taking the Victim # 5 case box down first. “She was the first one I put into the system when I joined VICAP.”

“Is that why you sent this case to JJ?”

“Partly,” she sighed again. “There was the emotional attachment of this being my first case but there were just too many connections I knew you guys could bring justice to her family. She was so young.”

Spencer opened a box and she watched as his eyes darted across the pages as he flipped through them. She was mesmerized by how he could do that. But he was probably even smarter than god so it made sense.

“This is interesting. They found LSD in the system of the 3 rapes from back in the day which isn’t that uncommon for the time period or the places where they were abducted, but what’s strange is the amount. This is enough LSD to make someone go insane, no one in their right mind would willingly take this much LSD?” Spencer said.

“They were all found 2 days later dehydrated and alone in the middle of nowhere, there’s no way of knowing if more women didn’t have this happen and died where he left them.”

“He is probably in his 50’s now. How fit would he have to be to still be able to break into houses and rape and murder women?” Spencer asked.

“Well that might be just why he stopped dumping, he might have a bad back and can't lift the dead weight. He is more willing to get caught in someone's house so that he doesn’t have to do the dumping, he can just leave after. 5 of the 6 home invasions were with women who lived alone or husbands who worked night shifts. So they wouldn’t be home. He watched them long enough to know when he could successfully get away with this.” Y/N explained as she flipped through boxes.

“And the rope technique our last victim was found in is exactly the same as the rope burns as the others you’re correct,” Spencer complimented her. “He might have ex-girlfriends or even an ex-wife who he would have tried BDSM on and she didn’t like it, so now he feels like he has to do it this way. When we deliver the profile we should alarm the public about him to draw out any women who would have willingly tried something with our unsub.”

Y/N nodded as he spoke, agreeing with everything. “That could have even been the original stressor, all the women are pretty vanilla, I talked to the husbands over the phone and the original rape victims. They weren’t into trying anything like this in their free time. 2 of the rapes were also virgins. They all had good jobs and good grades, they were outstanding, low-risk members of the community. He might be getting revenge on the women who wouldn’t indulge in this fantasy.”

“He probably feels a lack of control in his personal life, maybe he even has a more dominating wife who he feels he can't stand up to so this is how he deals with it.” Spencer agreed.

“Let's go see Hotch, I think we should deliver the profile.”

—-

They walked into the police station, gliding through the doors like they owned the place. Emily and JJ watched as they walked over to hotch with the exact same energy. Both speaking with their hands and rambling about what they had found.

“So he’s a fit, early 50’s, white male. Married, probably with kids, works with or owns a van. He has a problem with authority in his own life, he feels like he is in a submissive role all day be it from a female boss who’s always on his ass or his wife. It’s possible he even has only daughters and no sons. He feels emasculated, surrounded by women, which is why he started taking these women originally to rape them with BDSM-like acts to finally have that control he lacks in his everyday life.” Y/N explained. “He wouldn’t be very handsome, he would have issues speaking with most women, he keeps to himself, he might have even failed out of jobs involving the police or security, he wants to be in a place of power but he has none of the social skills to accomplish what he wants. I would even look into local army cadets or boy scouts he could be a very old member or the father of someone in one of those groups. His affinity for binding them up and the types of ropes he used are very common BDSM ropes but the knots are reminiscent of ones my brothers would do in at Navy cadets.”

“You got all that from the M.E?” Derek said, shocked at how good she was at this.

“I’ve been staring at his work for 2 years, every time a case from this town came in I checked into it to tie it to this guy. I don’t know what it is but this one gets to me, like BTK or Ed Kemper, these men have specific vendettas against women, they need to dominate women because they have a strong mother or wife in their presence. I know the type of man he is and I want to see him rot in prison.”

Spencer walked over to another table, spreading out a map and beginning to look at the geographical profile. Making down the 3 rapes and their dumpsites, the 6 abducted women and their dumpsites as well as the 6 home invasion homicides. Narrowing down on the geographical profile to find his comfort zone.

Y/N stood beside him watching him draw perfect circles over the map, placing a dot right in the middle. “He either lives or works in this area. Everything is within 35 miles of this area.”

Hotch took out his phone and called Garcia, placing the phone on the table with the speaker on. “Hello my lovelies, what can I do for you?”

“Have you narrowed anything down?” Y/N asked.

“Yes, I have 117 orange vans originally bought in the late ’70s that are still registered to men in this area all between the ages of 45 and 60. 63 of them work in home security, 13 of those have a son in boy scouts and 4 of those have prior peeping tom allegations.” She explained.

“Any of the 4 look interesting?” Hotch asked.

“We have Travis Johnson, 55 he works for Acorn Security, he was doing service in each town that a murder took place the same week they went missing. He is married and has been since 1980 right when he stopped raping and his 5th and last daughter was born the same week that Clarice Richardson was murdered in 1998. They took in a foster child to give him a boy 3 years ago who is in boy scouts, and has all his badges in you guessed it, knot tying.”

“Do we have his home and work address?” Morgan asked.

“Yes of course I do chocolate thunder, they’ve been sent to you already. I’ve also sent a list of his appointments for today, he might be on the hunt.”

“Thanks, baby girl,” Morgan smiled at the phone.

“It's what they pay me the big bucks for.”

She hung up and hotch immediately started handing out bullet-proof vests. “Time to catch him.”

Spencer rested a hand on your back as he passed you, smiling as if to say 'good job'.

Y/n grabbed her vest and her go-bag and quickly changed into something more suited for chasing after a runner. It almost always came to that in her experience. She came back out in jeans and a white long sleeve shirt tucked in, her vest on and her hair up. She placed her earpiece in and straightened out her gun. Making sure the clip was full and adding an extra one to her vest.

“Ready?” She asked Spencer as he tightened his vest.

“Let’s do this.”

They split up, Prentiss Rossi and JJ went to his house while Reid, Morgan, Hotch and Y/L/N took a squad of local cops to where the unsub was supposedly doing his house calls.

They slowly drove through the neighbourhoods, lights off just paroling up and down the streets. They saw an orange van parked on the side of the street, they watched as the unsub got out of the driver's seat, grabbing a bag and walking up to a woman’s house. Slowly they all got out of the SUV, Morgan and Hotch taking the back while Reid and Y/L/N took the front door. They waited for confirmation that he wasn’t alone in this home, before going in.

They could hear a woman talking and then there was a scream, “I’m going in,” Y/L/N said, Kicking the door down before Reid took the lead, Y/N following behind him.

“Travis Johnson? FBI!” Spencer yelled.

The two of them cleared the main room, working their way to the hallway, Reid let her take the lead to the bedroom where they heard the struggle.

“Travis put down the rope and let her go,” Y/N said slowly as he walked into the room, gun pointed.

“And why should I?” He panicked, holding the woman against his chest, she was crying gripping onto the rope he was holding tightly around her throat.

“I’m a huge fan of your work!” Y/N said. “I work for VICAP, I’m the one who had to put each and every single one of your victims in the system. I know exactly how much you’re into control and BDSM, it’s honestly surprising that you have to force these women into it, why are women so against letting a big strong man control them anymore?” She said softly as she lowered the gun and her voice.

“You know, I’ve always thought BDSM was super sexy, I’d love to be tied up and taken control of, if you put down the rope how would you like to have a willing participant one day?” She teased him, getting closer and closer, she could see he was rock hard. He loosened the rope and pushed her to the side, stepping forward towards Y/N who quickly flipped him to the floor and cuffed him.

“Travis Johnson you are under arrest for the rape and murder of over 12 women. You have the right to remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you can't afford one will be appointed for you. If you chose to share anything without a lawyer present you have the right to stop at any time. Is that clear?”

She single handily lifted him to his feet and dragged him out of the room as the men in the hall just watched with awe.

“You’re a little bitch you know that?” The unsub said as he struggled in her grasp.

She slammed him against the hallway wall, pressing right up against his back, whispering in his ear “oh so now you have a big mouth huh, finally feel like you can talk to a woman who isn’t tied down? I’m in control here, you’re my little bitch you hear me? Only good boys get to speak to me.” She said as she pulled him back off the wall and handed him off to local PD. “Have fun being a little bitch in prison Travis.”

She stood there with her arms crossed catching her breath as the adrenalin shook through her body.

“Well done Y/L/N,” Hotch and Morgan put their fists out to give her props.

“How would you like to join the team for good?” Hotch asked? “we’ve been looking for an extra hand.”

“Absolutely!”

—

They were going to spend the night in Wichita, all agreeing to spend the night getting drinks at the local bar suggested by the PD. Piling into the SUV all together with Spencer offering to DD.

“How much time have you put into Travis?” Prentiss asked in the back seat beside Y/N.

“Sharon Flynn was the first case I ever put into my system 2 years ago. Her case looked so gruesome and evil it never left my mind. So then when Alice Webster, number 6 came in I did some more digging and found the 4 before Sharon and the 3 rapes, I knew it was cold for a while but something about him always stuck with me. And for some reason last week when I emailed the info to JJ out of the blue I had a gut feeling he was at it again.” Y/N explained.

“It’s a special talent to just feel when something is wrong.” JJ smiled back at them.

“I’ve always been, not fascinated, by serial killers but more interested in the chase of justice.” She explained, “if that makes sense. I love puzzles and finding answers and at least this way the end result is families finding peace.”

They pulled into the parking lot, all of them finding their way into the bar before the ladies went to the bathroom to freshen up.

“So Y/N,” Prentiss said, taking her phone out and calling Penelope. “The ladies of the BAU are very close, so welcome to our little group.”

“exactly.” Penelope said over the phone, “welcome to the group you’re going to fit right in!” She cheered.

“Thank you, VICAP was not a tight-knit group like y’all are. I’m extremely excited to get to know you all more.” Y/N smiled as she straightened her shirt out in the mirror.

“So you and Spencer?” JJ asked.

“We were in the same kindergarten class,” Y/N said with a small smile. “I thought he was going to be my best friend and then he took some test and was bumped into 4th grade. By the time I was in high school he had already finished his second Ph.D.”

“So you never kept up with each other?” Prentiss asked.

She shook her head. “I knew of him, my mom is the Activities Organizer at the home his mom is at, he used to go to the park across from my house, he now lives across the hall from me and works with me. I think we were always supposed to be friends but it wasn’t the right time till now.”

“Sounds like you have a crush,” Penelope teased through the phone.

“I do.” She smiled to herself. “I think I always have.”

“If pretty boy was here he’d say that there is a statistical likelihood that because you’ve been interested in him for longer than 3 years you’re most likely in love with him and you'll never not be.” Prentiss explained, “I heard him say that to Hotch once.”

She nodded along, “I guess I just need to get him to fall in love with me now.”

“It won't be that difficult.” JJ placed her hand on Y/N’s back and they all made their way out of the bathroom smiling.

The men were all sitting together at a table with everybody’s drinks already waiting.

“We didn’t know what you liked,” Spencer said as Y/N sat beside him. “So I said I’d go get whatever you want.”

“Or we can go up to the bar together.” She smiled.

The two of them got up and walked to the bar, the rest of the team watched them.

She leaned against the bar, ordering her drinks and pressing in close to Spencer. “It’s been so nice getting to spend time with you.” He said softly.

She was handed her drinks before she could even respond. Taking her tequila shot there and bringing her margarita back to the table as Spencer followed swiftly behind her.

They all drank and exchanged case stories from within and beyond the BAU, Spencer was able to add a lot of input but he was always cut off. Y/N leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “you can tell me all your facts later I really want to hear them.” She smiled so softly Spencer felt his heart about to burst in his chest.

Emily left the group to go flirt with the bartender, JJ was on FaceTime in the SUV with Will, Rossi had disappeared with a local woman and Hotch and Morgan were exchanging childhood stories over a beer in the corner.

The bar was playing old, slow music, almost everyone had filtered out but there were still older local couples hanging out and dancing in the middle of the room.

“Do you dance?” Y/N asked Spencer.

“I can try.”

She took his hand and led him to the floor. Drunk on the alcohol and his touch as she slipped his hands around to her back, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned her head on his chest. She felt his cheek rest on the top of her head as the two of them just swayed in a circle together.

“Do you have any other memories of me?” Y/N asked him softly.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “You lived across the street from the park, and your mom works at the nursing home. You have 2 younger brothers who have always looked older than you. They would come and go when I was sitting on the lone swing and I’d always see you in the window reading. I knew you were my age but it still never felt right for me to talk to you when I was in university.”

“I watched you every time you were on the swings, you looked so peaceful. You read at least a book a day every time you were out there and it became so special to me seeing you there every weekend.” She explained.

“The world works in mysterious ways.” He explained.

She held him as close as she could. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect her day to go like this. She expected coffee and a weird goodbye in the elevator and staring at a computer screen all day. Somehow she ended up in Spencer's arms in a different state after having caught the serial killer that's haunted her dreams for years.

He rubbed his thumb lightly over her back, “do you want to go back to the hotel? We have an early flight.” He whispered.

“Yeah,” she smiled pulling back but reaching down to hold his hand as they walked over to Hotch and Morgan.

They drove home quietly, everyone in the back was happily drunk and tired. They parked and wandered up to their rooms, saying goodbye at their doors and disappearing into their rooms.

Spencer let her take the bathroom first, changing into her PJ’s and then he did the same. She laid in her bed, facing his as he sat up and read.

“Can I come lie beside you?” She asked, knowing exactly how needy she sounded.

He nodded, pulling the sheet back so she could slip right in. She laid on her side and just looked up at him. Absolutely astounded that she was with him.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Spencer asked, putting his book down and sliding down the bed to be on her level.

“Yeah?” She said nervously.

“Today you said it’s hard for people to come forward after they are assaulted, it sounded like personal experience and I wanted you to know if you need anyone, I’m always available for you.” He explained.

“Oh,” her face dropped. “I was 12, he was 15. You were in high school at the same time as him. I don’t know if you’d remember him, his name was Christopher.”

Spencer nodded along as she spoke. “When my mom finally went back to work she didn’t trust me watching my brothers alone so her friend offered to babysit us during the days. Her foster son took advantage of me the whole summer and when my parents finally found out he went into Sophomore year and told everyone that the nerdy girl who looks like bugs bunny was obsessed with him, that I stalked him and that anything I said about him wasn’t real.”

“I’m so sorry.” He rubbed his hand over her shoulder to soothe her.

“It’s okay, they used to call me bugs bunny because of my overbite. I used to rest my front teeth on my front lip and they would throw carrots at me,” she explained further.

“It all makes sense now,” he said softly.

“What does?”

“When I was 13 the seniors had a cheerleader invite me onto the football field and convinced me to strip down to my underwear, she was about to kiss me when all the football guys ran out and beat me up, they tied me to the goal post and the one said ‘we should really hook you up with bugs bunny, you losers would be perfect together.’ And they left me there all night long.”

“Oh Spencer I am so sorry,” she cuddled in close to him, placing her head on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “I think we went through our traumas separately all these years because something bigger than us knew we’d need each other one day.”

“When we get back to Virginia, would you like to go on a date with me?” Spencer asked.

“I would want nothing more.” She hugged him a bit tighter.

They stayed like that for a while until Spencer felt Y/N slip into the night's slumber. He quietly reached for the lamp, turning it off and readjusting himself under Y/N’s grasp.

He fell asleep not so long after. Both sleeping soundly for the first time in a long time.

Chapter 2

They had 3 back to back cases once they arrived back at Quantico. They travelled from DC to California to North Carolina within 2 weeks of Y/N working with the BAU.

Meaning she had not yet gone on that date Spencer asked her out on.

“If we get another call as soon as I reach that elevator I am leaving and not coming back. I am exhausted,” Emily said as she packed her bag and all but sprinted for the door.

“I hope my car still runs, it’s been parked here for so long now,” Y/N added and she walked towards the door. “You coming Spence?”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you at the car,” he said with a smile as he waved her off.

Emily and Y/N waited for the elevator, Penelope and JJ quickly followed behind them with their bags in their hands. Penelope’s heels clicked as fast as they could against the floor as she tried to catch up.

“Girls night?” JJ asked, “Will said Henry is asleep and he’s about to go to bed too, so I’m free for a bit?”

“I have to go home, I’ve barely moved into my new apartment, I still have to unpack,” Y/N explained.

“How about we come have some wine and help you?” Emily offered.

“If I’m being honest, I kinda want some alone time with Spencer.” She blushed bright red.

“Oooooo,” Penelope and JJ teased.

“It’s about time someone gave Spencer the attention he deserves,” Emily laughed.

“Believe me he’s going to get too much attention now that I live across the hall from him, work with him and carpool with him,” she giggled right back. “Has he never had a girlfriend before?”

“Not that we know of,” JJ said, “he’s very quiet.”

“Have you?” Penelope asked, “dated before that is?”

“oh no, I’ve never dated anyone before, I haven’t even kissed anyone in years,” she said feeling bashful and embarrassed.

“I think that's what Spencer needs though,” Emily added, “He needs someone on the same level as him all ‘round, you two match in every sense it’s almost perfect.”

“He’s probably the only man who doesn’t make me feel scared like I want my first real love to be with someone I feel safe with, I don’t think I could do anything with like, Morgan or Hotch or any men like them. They’re nice, yeah but the aggressive authority side isn’t something I’m comfortable around outside of work.” She explained.

“Yeah, Spencer is a sweetheart. I think that’s why I didn’t end up with him honestly.” JJ said softly, “Gideon tried to hook us up years ago cause we were the youngest on the team, but I do crave that authority outside of work.”

“It’s probably because you’re in power here. You handle the media, you wear the pants and you get shit done,” Y/N said, “you want to go home and be taken care of by a man who knows how to run a household.”

“Exactly!” JJ laughed.

“I want to be taken care of, yes, but I rather be the caretaker at home. I just want someone who will do their own thing with me in the same room, to kiss me before we go to bed and make sure I know they love me.” Y/N said softly, only picturing a life with Spencer as she said it.

The elevator never moved the whole time they were in there, it dinged and opened to Spencer and Morgan waiting. “You guys are that tired you didn’t even make it to your cars?” Morgan teased.

“didn’t even push the button actually,” Y/N chimed in.

“We were having girl time,” Penelope smiled.

“well let’s go home finally,” Morgan and Spencer walked in, pressing the button to the garage and riding down in silence.

Spencer waited for Y/N to exit the elevator last before walking with her to her car. She unlocked it and got in, watching and waving as her new friends pulled out of the garage.

“Ready?” She asked, pulling out as soon as she saw Spencer nod his head with his cute little pressed-lip smile.

They drove home in silence, enjoying the peace and quiet for the first time in weeks. The drive was quick, 30 minutes in the cold, dark, Virginia wilderness.

She parked in their parking lot, yawning as she turned the car off. She grabbed her purse from the back seat and made her way inside with Spencer.

“You going to sleep?” She asked him when they reached her door.

“Probably not, my brain is still too caught up in the cases,” he said honestly.

“Would you like to come in for some tea? To calm down before bed?” She offered as she unlocked her door.

She stepped inside, unlocking the alarm with the 4 digit code. Spencer tried his best not to listen but he failed, he’ll remember the sound of the code forever now.

She flicked on the light and looked around at the mess she left in her living room. “God I forgot it’s a mess in here,” she groaned.

Spencer followed her inside, following her lead and dropping his bag on the floor. He watched as Y/N walked around the house with her hand on her gun, clearing each room to make sure it was still safe.

“Sorry, I live alone, I don’t take any chances,” she said as she came back into the room.

She unlocked her safe and placed her work gun inside, closing it and spinning the lock right after. She let out a deep sigh, stretching her arms out over her head. “It’s so nice to be back in this mess.”

“I can help you unpack this weekend?” Spencer offers.

“If you want to that would be nice, I’ll order us some take out too.”

She picked up the boxes on her couch and moved them to the floor, she cleared off her coffee table and took the lamps out of the box in the corner. She plugged them into the wall and set them on the end tables. Luckily her furniture was in place all she had to do was put out all her little trinkets, books and photos.

Spencer took a seat on her couch, opening a box with mugs and cups, taking them all out of their bubble wrapping and setting them on the coffee table.

Y/N managed to find her kettle, as well as the box of random food she brought from her old cupboard. She set out a variety of teas and digestive biscuits.

Spencer slowly brought the mugs over, placing them in the cupboard of Y/N’s choosing, making sure he left 2 mugs out for them.

“Can I have a green tea?” Spencer asked softly.

“Of course, is it your favourite?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I would like some caffeine but I’m not interested in having a coffee, so this is a good middle ground.”

“I’m not a fan of most hot drinks, that's why I drink ice coffee in the mornings,” Y/N poured the hot water into both cups, leaving room for milk in both mugs just in case. “But, Orange Pekoe is my favourite.”

She placed a tea bag in each mug and handed Spencers to him.

She watched him add a little sugar to his mug before picking it up and returning to the sofa. She followed him shortly after adding milk and sugar to her own, as well as a plate of cookies.

She sighed as she settled in to the couch. “Going to try my hardest to manifest a full weekend off, with no cases, if my spirit guides loved me they will listen.” She jokes.

“You’re spiritual?” He asks.

“A little?” She shrugs, “I’m very into natural medicine, lunar cycles, manifesting and affirmations. Basically what would be considered a witch back in the day.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “I had a pretty invasive surgery when I was 17, and because of the body trauma, I developed fibromyalgia. And there really aren’t any answers or explanations for it so I had to turn to something to bring me peace and pain relief.”

“I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

“It’s okay, eating right, taking my supplements, sleeping and exercise help. Basically, if I take care of myself my body will thank me,” she huffed out a small laugh. “It’s annoying waking up in pain randomly for no reason. I rather wake up sore from taking down an unsub, at least then, the pain is more like a reward, you know?”

Spencer nodded along and smiled softly, “I’m glad you found something that helps you.”

“How about you? I’m guessing you’re a science-only man?”

He laughed, “yes.”

“So do you believe in soulmates?” She asked on a whim.

“In the scientific sense of the word yes. I believe when the big bang happened, all the atoms, electrons and particles that split to make the universe as we know it, still exist in us today. Who’s to say that they don’t pull back to each other, causing a cosmic connection,” Spencer explained softly, his voice low as he explained himself.

Y/N set her drink down, moving in closer to him on the couch. “And how do you know when you’ve met your other half?” She asked. Her voice was just as low.

Spencer set his mug down as well, he placed his warm hand on her cheek, “I think everything would just make sense with them. They’d orbit each other's lives for so long, observing and acknowledging one another and finally one day they’ll connect.”

He leaned in and pressed his perfectly soft lips against hers. She reached her hand around the back of his neck and held him into the kiss. Breathing in deeply through her nose, trying to keep the moment forever.

She pulled back, her breathing was deep as she opened her eyes to look into his. “If you weren’t just explaining the big bang to me, I’d think that was it.”

He laughed at her joke, making both of their hearts soar. She pressed him back against the sofa, adjusting themselves so that she was lying partially on top of him as they cuddled in her crowded living room.

They could hear the sound of the world going on around them. The subtle hum of the subway below them. The distant car horns, someone upstairs was walking around in their apartment.

They were completely quiet then, just cuddled up in their own world without any distractions. The two of them let their hands wander each other as they laid there.

Y/N slowly sat up, peeling herself out of Spencer's grip. “Do you want to spend the night here?”

“I’m just going to run across the hall and get ready for bed, I can lock up when I come back?” He said softly.

“Okay, the button with the person inside the house is the one you hold down on the alarm system after you lock both locks,” she explained before standing up and walking into her bedroom.

She changed into a pair of shorts, a sports bra, and a tank top. She brushed her teeth and hair, throwing it up in a little bun. She took out her contacts, replacing them with her glasses. She washed her face, watered her plants and sat down in her bed finally.

She had her hand on her night side drawer, where she keeps her other gun, just in case the person coming into her house wasn’t Spencer. But then she heard the alarm system arm, both locks clicked, the sound of dishes being placed in the sink and finally the sound of a lamp being clicked off.

Spencer slipper clad feet against the hardwood floor is all she heard as he walked into her room. He took the right side of the bed, wearing his PJ bottoms and a regular t-shirt. It was really the first time she was him so dressed down.

She settled down into the bed, she put her glasses on her side table, plugged in her phones and turned out the light. Spencer spooned into her, cuddling in tight and holding her against his chest.

“Goodnight, Spencer.” She whispered.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

She didn’t fall asleep right away. She basked in the glory that was Spencer Reid’s warm embrace. The feeling of his breath against her neck and his hand on her stomach.

“I love you.” Was the last thing she thinks she heard before she finally fell asleep.

—

She woke up to her phone ringing. She reached over to the nightstand and clicked talk. “SSA Y/L/N,” she said.

“Hey, it’s Penelope.”

“What’s up?”

“Not a case don’t worry, I was just wondering if I could stop by with some iced coffee and breakfast sandwiches to help you unpack?” She asked way too cheerfully for whatever time it was.

“Uh yeah just give us a chance to wake up, can you come by in 30?” She said as she rubbed her eyes, waking up.

“Us?”

“Uh, yeah, Spencer came in for tea and slept on the couch,” she lied.

“No I didn’t,” he groggily chimed in from where he was cuddled into the crook of Y/N’s neck.

“Right okay, so I’ll bring Spencer some breakfast too then,” she said before hanging up.

Y/N placed the phone back on her night table, settling back into Spencer’s embrace.

“Why’d you lie?” He asked.

“Didn’t know if I had your consent to tell her about us yet,” she whispered into his hair as she placed kisses on his head.

“Morgan told me if I didn’t kiss you last night, he’d make me do another round of physical evaluations,” he smiled against her skin. “He wanted to win the bet everyone set to see who would kiss who first.”

“So you just helped the guys win?”

“Prentiss, Morgan and Hotch were betting for me to kiss you first,” he admitted.

“Well, that means Rossi, Garcia and JJ think I’m the one wearing the pants here. Good to know,” she giggled.

“You can wear the pants,” he said as he shifted his weight to look up at her, “as long as I get to take them off later.”

“Well, Dr. Reid, I never thought you’d have it in you,” she was pleasantly surprised.

“When I get comfortable around someone I’m a lot different than I am at work,” he explained, “I heard what you said about needing someone to take care of who still wants to take care of you.”

She blushed, “of course you did.”

He leaned down to kiss her jaw and down her neck. “I think we can work something out,” he whispered.

Her breathing hitched. She couldn’t believe the complete 180º his personality just took, and she wasn’t complaining. All the moisture left her mouth as she just nodded her head in agreement.

“We should get up before she gets here,” he said, kissing her one last time before crawling out of bed.

She laid there staring up at the ceiling, shocked, flabbergasted, enamoured, basically every single word that essentially meant ‘what the fuck just happened.'

She got up, turned off the alarm and waited to use the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and replaced her tank top with a sweater. Spencer slipped across the hall to change into jeans and a button-down shirt, almost like he couldn’t be in anything else around his friends.

Penelope was a hugger, she made sure to give Y/N a good squeeze as she walked into her apartment. “It’s literally the same as Reid’s just backwards,” was the first thing she said.

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been over there yet,” Y/N smiled, taking the coffees out of Penelope’s hands and setting them on the counter.

“JJ and Emily said they’d love to come help later too if you want them to, but it doesn’t look too bad for just the 3 of us,” she said looking around.

“Everything is labelled, my room is all done so you don’t need to worry about it, set up however you see fit, honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss figuring out how to make this place feel more like me with what I have.”

“Alright, well,” she started, looking for the box with the cleaning supplies. “First we clean the kitchen then we put everything where it has to go.”

So that's what they did, they spent a few hours wiping down every surface in the house, disinfecting the floors, the walls, door handles, nobs, everything. Then Penelope got out all her pots and pans, hanging them on the rack above the kitchen island.

Spencer took all the plates out, stacking them neatly in the cabinet. Y/N stacked her cups and glasses, placing them on the shelf with the glass door. They organized her utensils, baking equipment, cookbooks and aprons, asking all about how much she baked.

She offered to make cookies for the team soon, that was a Sunday night with Spencer activity for sure.

In the living space, there weren’t many things. Spencer unpacked the books and placed them on her shelves in library-coded order. While Penelope and Y/N unboxed all her albums and records, cheering and singing along to their favourites.

Y/N had never quite had friends like this before, people who just fit into her life so easily. This was really the best family in the FBI, they knew how to make someone feel completely and wholly loved.

“I need to get some art and stuff,” Y/N said staring at the one empty wall.

“What are you going to do on the fireplace mantle?” Spencer asked, noticing it was still empty.

“Probably some of my spiritual stuff, like my crystals and candles and incense,” she smiled.

“oh, I do that too!” Another thing they had in common.

The day blew past them. They finished unpacking and breaking down all the boxes by 2 pm, finally sitting down altogether, exhausted. Ready to order a few pizzas and chill for the rest of the afternoon.

—

“I really appreciate the help today,” she said as she hugged Penelope. Penelope’s hugs were more comforting than her own mother’s, she thought. Holding her tightly and taking it all in. “I’m so blessed I ran into Spencer and now I get to be your friend.”

“I will cry,” she joked as she hugged y/n tighter. “I’m very blessed to have met you as well.”

She hugged Spencer on her way out as well, forcing herself to leave or else she would have stayed and talked for hours.

As soon as Spencer closed the door behind her, he set the alarm the way Y/N liked it. She smiled at him, seeing him remember how she likes to feel completely safe.

She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in. “Would you like to make out with me on my bed?”

“Like horny teenagers?” He giggled, dropping his forehead to rest on hers.

“We never really got the horny teenage experience,” she said softly.

“Are you-?” He cut himself off before he could say the word.

She looked up at him, her eyes big and innocent, she nodded. “technically.”

“Technically?” He repeated softly.

“I don’t want to count my sexual assault as my first,” she whispered. “I’ve never let anyone touch me since.”

His arms wrapped tighter around her, pulling her in closer to be right against his chest. He kissed her cheeks, her chin, forehead, nose, and finally her lips. “I’m going to try my best to never hurt you.”

She kissed him deeper, her hand on the back of his neck, never wanting to part from him. But when she did, she whispered, out of breath. “Promise to only hurt me if I ask you to?”

He saw the way his breath hitched and the way his grip changed. His face went red as he nodded feverishly.

“Are you a virgin Dr. Reid?” She teased.

“No,” he whispered. “I uh had sex in college, just to get it out of the way.”

She broke out of his grasp, taking his hand and pulling him into her bedroom. She closed the door behind them flicking on her fairy lights and lighting a couple of candles. He sat patiently on her bed as he watched her nervously organize things that had no reason to be organized in that moment.

But he let her calm down until she was fully ready, or she changed her mind. Either way, he was going to hang out with her all night long, however she wanted him.

“Close your eyes,” she asked softly. “Lay back against the bed and don’t look at me yet.” She ordered him and he listened.

He pressed his eyes closed and scooted up the bed till his head was on a pillow, laying back with his hands over his eyes. He listened closely to the sound of her taking her clothes off. She tried to steady her breath as she pulled off her sweater and sports bra and replace it with something cute.

She put on her only pair of matching underwear, ones she got on sale at some department store that she only wore for herself so far. She crawled up the bed, sitting directly on Spencer's hips.

She took his hands off his eyes, noticing they were still closed, she smiled. She placed his hands on her bare hips. “Open them.”

He opened his eyes to the most stunning image he’s ever seen in his life. Blinking a few times as his mind burned the image into the back of his eyelids for the rest of time. “Fuck,” he whispered.

She smiled to herself, “thought you’d like it.”

She leaned down, arching her back and kissed his neck. His hands travelled from her thighs to her perched ass as she kissed up his jaw to his ear. He was nothing but breathy moans and thank you’s as she explored him.

She ground herself down on his growing erection, smirking against his skin. She sat back on his hips, wiggling as she undid each of his shirt buttons, way too slow.

She took her time, pulling the front of his shirt out of his jeans and finally spreading the shirt open. Her hands ran over his chest before she used her nails to scrape her way down to his jean buttons.

He reached for her hands then. Stopping her and looking up into her eyes. “Before we start, I need to know what will trigger you,” he said softly.

“Oh,” her face dropped a little, she was a little overwhelmed with the fact he was asking, but she knew he truly cared. “I can’t do blowjobs yet, I will probably have a panic attack.”

“I can live without them,” he smirked, “look at everything else you do, fuck you’re amazing.” His hands roamed her skin the whole time.

She tucked her ankles under his knees and in one swift moment flipped them from laying on his side of the bed to the middle. He was on top of her now, absolutely amazed that she could do that.

“Told you I was combat trained,” she giggled.

Spencer sat up on the bed, ripping his shirt off and pushing himself out of both his jeans and underwear at the same time. Her mouth couldn’t help but fall open and the sight of his perfect cock bouncing free.

He sat back, trying to tug his jeans off of his ankles when he fell back and landed on the hardwood floor, “Spencer!” She couldn’t help the laugh that erupted from her.

He huffed, clearly embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she quickly bit her lip to try and stop laughing.

“When you said horny teenager phase I didn’t think you meant the awkward part too,” he smiled, standing completely naked in front of her.

“Get back here,” she giggled.

He got right back on top of her, between her legs that she wrapped immediately around him. Locking him in place. “How would you like it?” He asked.

“Well hypothetically,” she began with a smirk, “I think I would like to ride you, sitting up, tits in your face, the whole shebang.”

He forgot how to breathe, the most beautiful girl in the world just laid out how she wants to be fucked like it was a science experiment.

He was in love with her.

She flipped him again, “you have to stop doing that!” He gasped.

She laughed as she sat up, getting off him enough so he could sit up against the headboard. She shimmied out of her underwear before sitting down on him again, their most intimate parts just resting close to one another. She shivered at the feel of his hot skin against hers. She’d never been this close to another human before.

“Do you have a condom?” He asked, suddenly shy.

“If you want one yeah but I have an IUD in case I get,” she stopped herself, “you know, in the field.”

“Yeah that's smart,” he was so nervous.

She leaned in and kissed him. Holding his cheeks in her hands as his hands reached behind her back to undo her bra. She opened her mouth to let him explore with his tongue as she felt the straps of her bra slip down her shoulders.

She let go of his face one hand at a time and peeled the bra from her skin. Flinging it across the room without looking and pressing her breasts against his chest.

She gets on her knees without breaking the kiss, reaching between them she grips the base of his cock. His breath hitches in his throat and she can feel his pulse in his shaft.

She drags the head through her folds, she breaks the kiss to breathe in his ear, “you know, you’re just a bit bigger than what I'm used to.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

She lines him up with her and slowly pushes down on him, pulling up and back down again, each time getting his cock a little wetter on her juices so he can slip in easier. “I think it was called the emerald stud, he’s in a box over there,” she whispers in his ear as she bottoms out.

She sits back, her arms around his shoulders, she rocks on his cock. His eyes slip shut as he dips his head back against her crossed wrists. “Fuck,” he breathes.

She shifts again, bouncing more on him when she’s used to his size. His hands are on her ass again, helping her bounce as he moved to kiss her neck and collarbones.

He’s all noises, hot breath against her chest and sloppy kisses. She reaches between them to rub her clit before he pushes her hand out of the way to rub her himself. Feeling how swollen she is, he squeezes her clit lightly.

She moans out a high pitches squeak that she had no idea she could make, covering her mouth as she bounced a little harder on his cock. “Fuck Spencer,” she whispered into his hair.

He kissed her ear again, “you want me to cum in you?” He asks.

“God yeah, fill me up,” she replies without thinking, tossing her head back and grinding down ever so provocatively on him.

She presses her front against him more, causing the friction from his index finger on her clit to get more intense as she bucks her hips faster and faster against him.

He’s gone. Absolutely destroyed. He cants even worn her that he’s about to cum he just tips his head back and fucks up into her, gripping her ass so tight that he knows she’s going to have 5 deep, finger-shaped, purple bruises around each ass cheek.

Her orgasm rips through her, losing balance with her shaking thighs she gasps for air, falling into him with her face in the crook of his neck. She is breathing so hard as she comes down, she drools on his neck a little.

He pulls his hand out from between them, flicking her clit on last time. Sending a tremor through her body. She twitches against him, tensing up and tightening around the cock still inside her.

He moans once more, and she feels the tiniest trickle of cum slip out of her as he lifts her off him.

They don’t talk. They just hold onto one another, breathing and rubbing their hands over each other's skin.

“Wow,” Spencer finally says.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“Hypothetically,” he says with a smile, “I think the outcome we reached was the intended goal?” Only Spencer Reid would make a joke like that after sex.

She laughed and kissed his neck, “very successful, I would be willing to switch techniques next time to see if we can repeat this outcome.”

“Sounds like a date.”

chapter 3

They worked together perfectly. Every morning he’d head across the hall to his own apartment to get ready, coming back to a slice of toast and coffee in his travel mug ready to go.

She looked gorgeous every morning. She put time and effort into what she wore to work, just to chase psychopaths all day. He was in love with her, its the only thing he knew for sure when he looked at her. He was never going to recover from falling for her.

He’d hold all her things while she sets the alarm and locks the door. She would drive them to work each morning and even then he’d carry all her things up to the office.

Everyone noticed how Spencer changed around Y/N, he was always smiling, he was basically glowing from being in love, and having sex. Derek teased him constantly, but in all honesty, he was really proud of his little bro.

They had a slow day, which meant all the ladies filed into Penny’s office to shoot the shit when they were really supposed to be writing reports.

“So?” Penelope looked at Y/N with an arched eyebrow. “How is he?”

She shook her head and giggled to herself. “Really good.”

“Really?” Emily pried?

“He has this other personality that comes out when we, you know,” she was afraid to say fuck inside the walls of Penelope’s office. “I’m addicted, I was so afraid to have sex and now I’m like having an internal battle of is it really worth getting caught in the filing room for a quicky!”

They all burst into laughter, sharing stories of all the times each of them has fucked at work, “you won't get caught if you let us help you?” JJ said with a smirk.

“You’re kidding?” Y/N tilted her head, not believing her.

“I can ask Morgan and the team to lunch while you stay here, text Spencer saying to stay back to get work done but he can meet you in here.” Penelope planned the whole thing.

“No,” Y/N shook her head. “I don’t think I’m comfortable enough for that yet.” She was being completely honest.

“We need a code word for when you choose to use this plan,” Emily said. “Like you group text us the word ‘switch’ and we will keep everyone busy for you and Spence.”

“Why do you want me to fuck him here so bad?”

They all laughed, “because we’re not used to Spence getting this kind of love!” JJ said. “Emily and Penelope covered for me literally when me and Will made Henry.”

“having a hand in making my godson gave me a god complex,” Penelope joked.

They got along fabulously, laughing and working all afternoon before the boys came to get them.

“We got something.”

Y/N walked out first joining Spencer in the hall with a smile, standing close enough to him as they walked that their knuckles rubbed together. She sat beside him in the briefing room, opening the case file in front of her and flipping through the info.

“Wow,” she whispered to herself. “I know a few of the 13 women, I put them in the missing system.”

Spencer rubs his hand over her back softly, looking at the pages she’s flipping through.

Garcia wasn’t cheery anymore, she grabbed the remote for the tv and started her rundown.

“Over the last 6 days, police in Winnemucca Nevada have dug up 13 bodies of women who have gone missing in the last 10 years. He seems to kill sporadically without patterns. M.E has confirmed all 13 women, and de-comp shows they were all killed within 24 hours of going missing.”

“Cause?” Prentiss asked.

“All 13 were strangled with plastic shopping bags, that were left wrapped around their faces in the graves. They were all sexually assaulted antemortem, but not all of them died from asphyxiation. He also stabbed 9 of the 13 victims, 5 of which died from massive blood loss. But the real kicker was that all 13 of them had their wombs removed.” Penelope finished.

“Do we know if any of them were pregnant?” Y/N asked.

“Yes,” she said flipping through slides, “victim number 13, Traci Purcell was 17 and according to her autopsy, her HCG levels indicated she would have been 3 weeks along when she was murdered.”

“Are they able to see if the others were pregnant?” Hotch asked.

“They’re working on it, best bet will be for me to pull medical records and to ask the family.”

“Wheels up in 30,” Hotch nodded towards the door.

Slowly but surely they all filed into the plane, Y/N took a window seat, quickly burying her head in the file, looking at each and every victim carefully.

“Spence, would you help me place the geographical profile?” Y/N asked him softly as he got comfortable in the seat across from her.

“Once we take off we can spread out the map,” he smiled softly back at her. Even when dealing with the hard cases they managed to get caught up in each other's eyes.

“Okay love birds, can I sit here too or will I get more than air sickness?” Morgan said, pretending to feel sick as he sat beside Y/N.

She smacked his arm lightly.

“Speaking of,” Spencer said, stopping to swallow nervously. “Hotch I’m going to need 2 of the workplace fraternization forms when we get back.”

Everyone on the plane cheered at him, he got 3 high-fives and all the congratulations in the world. Y/N immediately felt her face warm up.

“Don’t worry, Garcia filed them for you that night she helped you unpack,” Hotch smiled into his paperwork.

“How did she even know?” Y/N’s voice went up 3 octaves as she panicked.

“At least we know when pretty boy lost his V card now,” Morgan smirked.

“No, just me.” Y/N corrected him. To which Spencer was given yet another high five.

Just then Spencer was handed $20 from Rossi, Hotch, and Morgan. Y/N raised an eyebrow, “why?”

“I bet them $20, years ago, that I am in fact not a virgin and they said they would and I quote ‘only pay me if a woman who has fucked me confirms it.’ So who’s going to tell Gideon to pay up?” He explains.

The team carried on like normal after all the excitement died down. Having side conversations, working on the case, sleeping. The trip from Quantico to Winnemucca was fairly quick.

Y/N sat with Spencer at the table, spreading out the map and watching him place where all 13 victims disappeared from as well as where they were found. They were spread over 3 subdivisions, all 35 miles at least away from the burial sites.

“The park,” Spencer said softly.

“Is that the middle ground?”

“Yeah there’s something significant with the park,” Spencer confirms.

—

Spencer and Y/N went to the M.E together, all 13 women were labelled and displayed under white sheets. They took their time looking over each skeleton and the bodies.

“Clean cuts on the stomach, I wonder why he didn’t stab her?” Spencer said as he looked at the 13th victim.

“She might have cooperated better, or and I hate to say it but, seeing as she was Asian there is a high chance she didn’t bear resemblance to the source of the unsubs rage meaning she got to go out a little easier,” Y/N suggested with a disgusted look on her face.

“The 5 who died of blood loss were all white, brown hair, green eyes. 3 were 26, 2 were 29. They might be exactly his type,” Spencer confirmed the theory.

“They were also murdered,” she flipped her notebook open to show a chart with 5 columns. “June, February, June, November, November. Could also mean something to him.”

“What is that?” Spencer asks.

“It’s a chart that has the name, their age, the missing date and last scene location, the estimated date of death, and the cause. So that I can easily refer to the most important info when making a connection,” She explained. “My brain works better if I can see everything, so I also have my own little hand-drawn map of the area on his page as well as all my ideas in case I don’t get a turn to speak.”

“That’s really smart,” he smiled.

“So June, November and February might be significant to him.”

“Let’s go tell Hotch.”

Spencer drove for once, Y/N sat in the passenger seat in the SUV, doodling into her notebook.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Spencer asked.

“I wrote down the first letter of each month,” she explained, showing him the notebook. “And I circled each of the 3 months that repeat, February, June and November.”

“Okay?” He followed along.

“From February to November it’s 10 months or 40 weeks which is the typical length of a pregnancy,” She explained further. “This whole thing is clearly about pregnancy seeing as he is taking wombs. It’s clearly not a woman seeking revenge because of the sexual assault so it has something to do with him seeking revenge for a pregnancy in his life.”

“Could even be his own, like he’s punishing women who look like his mother because he wishes he was never born,” Spencer ponders.

They pulled into the police station, she got out and walked in all with her head still in the notebook. “Find anything?” Hotch asked.

“Of course she did,” Spencer bragged about her.

—

They all took a break, going back to their hotels to get some rest. All agreeing that since the media hasn’t released anything about this case yet the killed has no idea. They take it in faith that he will stick to his 2 to 4 month waiting period.

They all returned the next morning, refreshed and ready to resume their findings. JJ and Emily spent most of the morning interviewing families of the victims, specifically asking if they knew the vic was pregnant as well as what significance the park played in or around their pregnancies.

Y/N sat in silence with a coffee, flipping through her notebook. Hotch and Morgan were running over ideas they all had with Garcia on the phone.

“Hey, Spence?” Y/N called boy wonder over from the map he had been staring at.

“Yes, my love?” He says softly.

“I think I have an idea, can you go over it with me before we tell the team?” She asked.

“Of course,” he took a seat beside her.

“Why do I have an IUD?” She asks him in a whisper.

“In case you get raped in the field,” he whispered back.

“More specifically.”

“So you don’t get pregnant as a result of a rape in the field.”

“The sexual assaults in his mind, are him getting these victims pregnant. But they’re already pregnant when he picks them right?” She explains, “So that when he removes the uterus postmortem it's his way of aborting the child.”

“So this is all about abortion?” Spencer confirms.

“More specifically to do with how you said he regrets being born,” she corrects.

“Do you think he’s the product of a failed abortion?”

She nodded her head, “yeah and that by taking the whole uterus, and the strangling, and the stabbing, both mother and baby are for sure dead.”

“Hotch!” Spencer called across the room. “Y/N figured it out.”

They waited for JJ and Prentiss to finish an interview before they all piled into an office to discuss Y/N’s idea.

“Is there even any way to know if someone is the product of a failed abortion?” Prentiss asked after Spencer and Y/N took turns explaining how they came to their conclusion.

“Probably the best way would be to search for babies born with the common disabilities that occur in babies of failed abortions, but make sure they were born in November,” Y/N explained.

“Why November?” Penelope asked over the phone.

Y/N took a whiteout marker and started writing on the whiteboard.

“The 5 victims that died from loss of blood were all exactly the same, they were murdered in June, February, June. November and November.” She explained.

Writing “J F M A M J J A S O N D” on the whiteboard. Circling February, June and November.

“February, conception. 10 months later, or 40 weeks, is November. June is 4 months along meaning that would be when the mother either had the abortion, be it medical or homemade,” Y/N explained.

“Last year alone 146 of the 164,045 abortions resulted as a failure. When this happens most women choose to have the second procedure, or a D and C. Or they can carry the baby the rest of the way to term,” Spencer explained. “Children brought to term from a first-trimester medical abortion failure often have limb or digit abnormalities while infants born from non-medical approved abortions are more likely to have congenital problems.”

“However someone without a limb would not be able to do what our unsub is capable of. Digging graves, abducting, dragging dead bodies, it’s a lot of effort,” JJ added.

“Exactly, which is why I think our unsub probably has a mental disability.”

“Non-medical abortions, most often referred to as the poor person’s method, is taking a non-FDA approved ulcer treatment drug called Misoprostol, which is causing an epidemic of birth defects all along South America and parts of Asia,” Spencer added. “It induces contractions, causing women to deliver babies far too early to survive outside of the womb. If taken after the first trimester, and unsuccessful it can cut off oxygen to the brain long enough to permanently damage development in the frontal lobe.”

“Did the families mention anything about the park?” Y/N asked Prentiss and JJ.

“So far 4 of the victim's husbands say their wives announced they were pregnant on park benches, near the children swinging. They said it was the typical, ‘that could be us one day, that day came sooner than you thought’ moments from movies.” JJ confirmed.

“Let’s deliver the profile,” Hotch announced, following them all into the precinct.

—

They spent the next few hours looking for anyone with birth defects or mental disabilities that could be a potential suspect. Asking the other officers as well as anyone around the park about the type of man they were looking for.

Morgan and JJ patrolled the park while Rossi and Prentiss asked around on the street.

“Lynette Hayward,” Y/N whispered to herself, standing up and rushing through all the papers on the table in front of her.

“She was the only one who wasn’t pregnant, she was the only one who wasn’t reported missing, she was the oldest and in her youth, she had brown hair and green eyes. What if she’s his mother?” Y/N expressed to Spencer and Hotch who were watching her scramble around.

She pulled her phone out and called Garcia, “what’s cooking good lookin’?” Penelope answered.

“Can you help unscramble my egg brain?” She joked right back.

“Sure thing, whatcha got?”

“Lynette Hayward, does she have children, was she ever pregnant, or put someone up for adoption?”

“Let me check into it and I will call you right back!” Garcia said, hanging up and going right to work.

“Is there anyone here who knew Lynette Hayward about 30 years ago? She would have been 26 to 29, my height, brown hair, and green eyes?” Y/N announced to the whole Police Department.

“I did,” an officer said, standing up from the desk on the other side of the room.

She waved him over, pulling out a chair and asking him to sit.

“Was Lynette ever pregnant?” Y/N asked.

He thought for a moment, licking his lips and harkening all the way back to his 20’s. “There was a summer that no one saw her."

"When was this?" Spencer asked.

"From June to November, not a single person saw her. We thought maybe she was doing summer classes somewhere,” he explained.

“Were there any children dropped off at a fire hall or a hospital that November?” Spencer asked.

“There was a baby left in the park, poor little guy had been left out there in the cold,” he said.

Hotch, Spencer and Y/N all took a deep breath and looked at each other. “That’s him.”

Garcia called back then, “I found 1 baby left abandoned in the park in November of 1979, he was diagnosed with a cleft lip and palate, seizures, and later on he was diagnosed with diabetes, Crohn’s disease and Asperger's syndrome.”

“Name and address?” Spencer asked.

“That's the difficult part, he was born, operated on and handed over to the state and cared for by a foster family that named him Jake Alexander Ingrid. At the age of 6, he was adopted by them fully. When he was 12 he dropped out of the public school system due to bullying that left him in the hospital with a broken arm. After that, his trail goes cold.”

“How cold?” Y/N asked.

“If I didn't know better I'd say he was the one missing not Lynette,” Garcia confirmed.

“Does anyone live in Lynette’s house?” Hotch asked.

The sound of Garcia’s typing was all they heard over the phone, “her bills are being paid on time, someone is in her trailer. I’ve sent the address to your phones.”

“Let’s go.”

Hotch kicked the trailer door in, “FBI!”

He was asleep, startled awake in the bed that used to belong to his birth mother. He cried, overwhelmed with the 3 guns pointed in his face. Hotch sighed, cuffing him and reading him his rights.

“Why are the worst ones always the sadist?” Y/N asked Spencer as they watched forensics tore apart the trailer.

“Sad in what context?”

“His whole life was so fucked up, it sucks. All those women crossed paths with him and he took his fucked up life and ended theirs, as well as their babies,” Y/N couldn’t stop shaking her head as she spoke, disgusted with the whole situation.

Spencer wrapped her up in a hug, “if we spend all our time wondering why the world is like this we won't have enough time to bring justice to the victims.”

“which is the best outcome we can ask for,” Y/N agreed.

“Dr, Reid, agent Y/L/N?” An officer interrupted their hug and watched them awkwardly pull away from each other quickly.

“Yes?” Spencer answered.

“We found the wombs.”

The worst fucking sentence she had ever heard. “I can’t look at that.” She said, walking away to join JJ and Prentiss standing by the SUV.

“Good job kid,” Morgan said, wrapping his arm around her. “You’re almost as smart as boy wonder over there.”

“Just call me Mrs, boy wonder then,” she joked.

“Don’t tempt him!” Prentiss joked.

Y/N turned back to see Spencer walking out of the trailer, a shade of green spreading across his skin. “Excuse me,” she said walking towards the ambulance that was on standby.

“Dr. Reid looks like he might be sick,” she said, taking an EMT with her towards him.

Sure enough, Spencer leaned over the bushes and hurled before passing out into the EMT’s arms. Morgan and Hotch came running over to him, helping get him into an ambulance.

“What happened?” Morgan asked.

“He took a look at the recovered womb’s the forensic team found,” Y/N explained.

“That would do it,” Hotch agreed.

Y/N rubbed her hand along Spencer’s shoulder, “good catch,” the EMT complimented her as he took Spencer's vitals.

“I know him well.”

“Too well,” Morgan agreed. “You’d think you were cut from the same cloth.”

“No,” she said softly, gripping Spencer’s hand in her own as he started to stir a little. “We’re cosmically connected, made from the same space rock that split during the big bang.”

“I love you,” he whispered, awake the whole time she was speaking.

“Yeah, yeah,” she teased him, “I know, save your strength, you’re still all pasty white.”

“Gross,” Morgan smiled, turning away from the ambulance

chapter 4

Prentiss convinced Y/N and Spencer to take the weekend off in Nevada to go visit their parents. They agreed that it would be nice, seeing as neither of them thought to tell their moms that they met again let alone that they were together.

Y/N walked into the Nursing home first, looking for her mom in her office as Spencer walked in quickly to go find his mother.

“Hey mom,” Y/N smiled as she knocked on her mother's office door.

“Y/N!” She yelled, shocked to see her eldest baby standing in front of her for the first time since last Christmas. “What are you doing here?”

“Remember how I moved?” She started there.

“Yes?”

“Well, my new neighbour ended up being Spencer Reid, and he introduced me to the BAU and I helped them with a case, so they hired me, and now I work for them and we just finished a case in Winnemucca and me and Spencer are dating. He’s here too and we’re taking the weekend off to tell you and Diana,” she had never rambled so fast to her mother before in her life.

“Holy shit?” Her mother was shocked, “this all happened in the last 3 weeks? Is that why you’ve been too busy to text me?”

“I’ve been on 5 cases in the last 3 weeks, I was swamped,” she smiled, her eyes welling with tears.

Her mom walked over to her and wrapped her up in her arms, holding her close. “My baby, this is everything you wanted why are you crying?”

“I haven’t taken a moment to actually understand that this is all real,” she whispered.

Her mother pulled back, looking in her eyes with a stern look. “Is he good to you?”

She laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes. “He’s wonderful.”

“Diana is in the game room, let’s go see them,” she tucked her arm under Y/N’s and the two of them walked arm in arm towards the game room.

Diana stood up as she saw them walk in, “Debbie’s daughter?” She asked.

Spencer nodded with a large smile on his face. “This is Y/N Y/L/N, my partner.”

“I know you,” Diana said softly, reaching out to pull her into a hug. “You would read to me on Thursdays after Spencer left for CalTech.”

“Really?” Spencer asked.

“I knew you were here as often as you could be, and I felt bad she didn’t have any other children to come see her,” Y/N explained. “I know if my mom was here and my brother couldn’t visit I’d fill in.”

“It was lovely, I still have the book you gave me before you left for the academy,” Diana’s smile was as big and bright as Spencer’s.

They all sat together, sharing stories with each other. It seemed like their mothers enjoyed sharing embarrassing kid stories to make Spencer and Y/N blush back and forth.

Before they knew it, it was 3 pm and visiting hours were coming to an end and Debbie’s shift was about to end as well. “Where are you both staying?” She asked.

“At a hotel downtown,” Y/N explained.

“Nonsense, stay with me and your father!” Debbie insisted.

Y/N shook her head, “we can come to visit for dinner tomorrow, but we need some space.”

“You know how it feels to be in love especially this young Deb, I’m sure you understand,” Diana patted her on the shoulder.

“Go on, have fun. But tomorrow dinner starts at 6:15, Levi and Lizzie also home this weekend,” Debbie smiled, hugging both Spencer and Y/N before Diana.

“Would Diana be able to come to dinner at our place?” Y/N asked.

“I think I can pull some strings,” Debbie agreed, “have a good night tonight guys.”

“We will,” Spencer smiled, taking Y/N’s hand and walking with her to the parking lot.

They both sighed as they sat in their rental car. “That went well,” Y/N said softly.

“Why didn’t you tell me you visited my mom?” Spencer asked, holding her hand again.

“I was going to, there’s so much I want to tell you but we haven’t had enough personal time to get through it all, every time we talk lately it’s about murder,” she replied.

“Let's go get a table at a nice restaurant and tell each other everything.”

“I have something to do first, can I drop you off at the hotel and meet you there?” She asked.

“absolutely.”

-—

She drove to her parent's place as fast as she could, they were all just sitting down in the living room when she walked in the door. “Hi sorry I can’t stay I just want to grab a dress from my closet.”

She kicked her shoes off and ran up the stairs to her bedroom just like she would have after school. Her room hadn’t changed much. Her desk was still in the corner, her bed was made, and her mom now used it for storage. There were boxes, lamps, pillows and a million folded blankets all resting on her bed and scattered along the floor.

She shuffled some things out of the way of her closet door and quickly looked through all the bagged dresses she had left here. Minoring in political science and volunteering with government organizations in college meant she had a dress for every occasion, times the 4 years she was there.

“Cocktail, dinner, black tie, prom, homecoming,” she flicked through them all, “funeral,” she said as she stopped. “Why is this here?”

She pulled out a black dress she wore to a democratic representatives fundraiser, it was an off-the-shoulder, 3/4 length sleeve, plunging neckline, skin-tight dress with a slit to show some leg. It was perfect.

She placed it on the edge of her bed and dug out the black heels that she originally bought to go with the dress. She found a strapless bra in her dresser, and a cute pair of underwear buried at the back of her drawer.

She closed her door and quickly changed, walking across the hall in her heels to fluff her hair in the mirror and figure out how the fuck she was going to do her makeup here.

Just then her brother's wife came walking up the stairs, “Y/N?” She knocked on the bathroom door before coming in.

“Hey Lizzie,” she smiled. “Do I look okay?” She asked.

Lizzie looked her up and down with a shocked look on her face, “yeah what’s the occasion? I didn’t even know you were home?”

“It’s a long story, my boyfriend and I were here on a case and we’re staying for the weekend, you get to meet him tomorrow!” She filled her in as she searched the bathroom drawers for makeup.

“What do you need?” She asked.

“Do you have your makeup kit here? We’re like the same shade right?”

Before she knew it, Lizzie was making her sit on the edge of the tub while she did Y/N’s makeup for her. “Remember when you did my prom makeup?” Lizzie asked.

“Yeah,” she smiled. “You and Levi looked so good together that night.”

“Not as good as you look right now, he’s going to eat you alive,” she hyped Y/N up.

“You think so?” Y/N asked, standing up to take a look in the mirror.

“Absolutely!!!”

She took a deep breath and shook the nerves out, “okay I have to go,” she said running back to her room for her phones, wallet and badge.

“Go get him, SSA Y/L/N,” Lizzie smiled as she watched y/n steadily run down the stairs in heels, clicking on the hardwood as she ran.

“Wait!” Her dad yelled from the table, “don’t I get to see you before you leave?”

She ran into the table room, quickly hugging her father at the head of the table and kissing him on his bald head. “I’m late for my date, I love you, I’ll be home tomorrow,” she said running back towards the front door and to her car.

She was like a mad chicken running around with her head cut off. She took a breather in the car before starting the engine and making her way back downtown.

--

She left her car out front with the valet, saying she would be back in a minute. She dug her phone out of her wallet and called Spencer. “I’m in the lobby.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She waited by the elevator, she pulled her boobs up into her bra and wiggled the wire till they looked okay, then she straightened her dress out. She never felt this nervous when she wore this dress the last time, she’s never felt this nervous period, actually.

Spencer Reid did something to her that she couldn’t quite describe. But if she had to, she’d say he makes her feel alive.

The elevator dinged and Spencer walked out in one of his best suits. He was looking down at his button as he stepped out not seeing her at first.

She smiled at him, waiting for him to look up. When he did his eyes grew three times their normal size and his mouth dropped. He stopped right in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and lightly running his hands down her arms. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“Could say the same thing about you Dr. Reid,” Y/N teased as she pulled on his tie.

She pulled him down by his tie and pressed her lips against his. Never before had either of them been a big fan of PDA, but this was an exception.

She pulled back from him and tucked his tie back into his jacket. Smoothing out his sleeves before taking a step back and handing him the keys. “Lead the way doctor.”

He extended his arm to which she wrapped her arm around. He walked her to the front of the lobby, watching as the bellhop held the door for them.

Their car was still there, waiting with the valet who opened the door when he saw her return. She sat on the passenger side, fixing the slit of her dress to not show too much just yet.

Spencer joined her, sitting in the driver's seat he started the car and drove off.

He reached his hand over to place it on her thigh, where it belonged. He gripped her leg and felt down to where her holster was. She saw his eyebrow raise as he looked down, moving the side of her dress to see her gun strapped to her leg.

“Gonna shoot me if I’m not on my best behaviour tonight, agent?” He laughed.

“Nevada is a concealed carry state, and I don’t trust anyone,” she said. “Plus I look like this tonight, do you know what the crime rate is in Los Vegas-? Don’t answer that, of course, you do,” she teased him.

“It’s pretty hot,” he complimented her.

“What? The gun or my attitude?”

“The fact that you don’t take shit from anyone, you’re a badass and I never have to worry about you.”

“What if I want you to worry?”

“I’m always going to worry, I just mean you’re not a damsel in distress. I can go into every situation knowing you’re smarter on your feet than anyone on the team, and as long as you’re there we’re coming out alive,” he explained better.

“That’s the best compliment,” she felt bashful all of a sudden. She put her hand on his and squeezed it. “I love you, Spencer,” she finally told him.

“I love you too,” he smiled.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t said it back yet.”

He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant they were going to, returning his focus fully to driving. He pulled into a parking spot and put the car in park.

“I knew you’d say it when you were ready, I’m in no rush to hear it,” he leaned over the centre console and kissed her on the lips.

He got out of the car and walked around to open her door, helping her out before extending an arm out for her once more.

He made a reservation while he was alone at the hotel, getting a table in the back away from everyone else. It was a round table with a booth stretching all the way around the table. The back of the chair tall enough to enclose them in their own little world for the time being.

They were at a cute little stake house, one where you got to pick the exact piece of meat you wanted and they did it however you asked. They ordered drinks and enough bread to make the waiter look at them differently.

“Tell me the most random fact about you,” Y/N asked as soon as the waiter left to tell the kitchen their order.

“When my mom’s schizophrenia started getting bad, she thought that the government used dryers to take our socks for DNA and clone us, so whenever one of my socks went missing she freaked out. After that, I started wearing mismatched socks all the time so that that way she would never notice which of the pairs were missing since I never wore them that way anyway.”

She smiled the whole time he talked, absolutely in love with him. He was her everything. “So that’s why I’ve got so many random socks around my house.”

“It’s worse at my apartment,” he smiled again. “Your turn.”

“The first time I ever rode a bike without training wheels was because I stole my neighbour's bike and took off with it down the road,” she laughed.

“Why?”

“I think my mom said I couldn’t take my own training wheels off yet, so I took matters into my own hands.”

“See?” He shook his head lightly. “Badass.”

“When was the last time you were in Vegas?” She asked.

“Earlier this year when we reopened the Riley Jenkins case,” he said softly.

“oh, my mom was telling me about that one! Your mom went off her meds to help remember if your dad was involved right?” Y/N recalled.

He nodded, “do you know what really happened?”

“I have the gist, Lou killed Gary in revenge for Riley.”

“That's not all of it,” he said lightly. “Gary was watching me, and my mom told Lou that the way he looked at me, he might have been the one who hurt Riley. And then she witnessed Lou kill Gary.”

“Holy shit Spence, I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “Did you know Gary was my neighbour?” ,

“No?”

“Yeah we were 4, my brother was 2 and my mom was pregnant again, and Gary kept taking photos of my brother through the fence. My dad threatened to kill him a few times and then we finally moved across town,” she explained.

“How is it that our lives were so intertwined, and yet it took 20 years for us to actually connect again?” He asked.

“The same thing happened to my parents.”

“What’s their story?” He asked.

She moved around the table to sit closer to him, taking his hand in hers. “My dad is 8 years older than my mom, they met when she was 17 and he was 26 and they became good friends like he was her older brother. They realized years later that my dad delivered newspapers to the town my mom lived in, and he saw her basically grow up playing in the yard. Then his best friend always invited him to his cabin and when he finally went, the lot across from them was my mom's family cabin. They were always so close but never knew each other till they were meant to. And now they’ve been happily married for 30 years.”

“There's an old Buddhist saying that, when you meet your soulmate, remember that the act to bring you together was 500 years in the making. So always appreciate and be kind to each other,” Spencer explained.

“It took 500 years of coincidences to bring us together,” she said softly. “Which kinda makes the 20 years of admiring you from afar not seem so long.”

“From here on out let’s make every moment count then,” Spencer suggested, “we’ve been barely dating for 3 weeks I’m not going to ask you to marry me right this instant, but I do intend to spend the rest of my life with you in whatever capacity I can. Because I think you’re it for me.”

She could bask in the feeling of her heart fluttering like this for the rest of her life, it was like butterflies but completely calm. True happiness at its finest.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said softly, “in 1 year we come back here, and if we feel the exact same way as we do right now, you can propose to me.”

He put his pinky out for her, she wrapped hers around his, before kissing each other's knuckles. “Promise.” Spencer and Y/N said at the same time.

—

Back in the hotel room, she didn’t even bat an eyelash before slamming Spencer against the door. She slid her thigh between both his legs and boxed him in.

She undid the single button of his suit jacket, shushing Spencer. She pushed it off his arms, knocking it to the floor. She loosened his tie, tossing it to the side, still around his neck, while she unbuttoned his shirt.

He was completely silent and still. She was in control.

She tossed his shirt to the ground next. Holding onto his tie as she pulled him down into a heated kiss.

“Take my dress off,” she breathed into his mouth, feeling his hands reach around her back for the zipper.

He pushed the sleeves down her arms, watching the dress gather at her ankles before she stepped out and kicked the fabric out of the way. She tugged him by his tie towards the bed.

“Strip,” she instructed him. “Not the tie.”

“Underwear too?” He asked as she dug through his suitcase.

“yes.”

She returned with 2 more ties. Looking at him, butt naked on the bed. She stepped out of her underwear and the uncomfortable strapless bra. She set her gun in the hotel safe with her badge and returned to the bed.

“Would you be willing to try something?” She asked.

“anything,” he said, overly eager.

“Would you tie my hands to the bedpost and blindfold me and just do whatever you want?”

“Hold on,” he got off the bed and opened his go-bag side pocket. “I have a blindfold for the plane.”

“So you want to?”

Actions speak louder than words, he would always say.

He dimmed the lights down, got on the bed and roughly picked her up laying her back against the pillows. He tied her left hand first, and then her right hand. He took a hair elastic off the bedside table and put her hair back as best he could before he rested the blindfold against her forehead.

He hovered over her. “Anything I want?” Spencer confirmed.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Ground rules?”

“Yellow for slow down, red for stop?” She shrugged.

“You really mean anything?”

“I trust you, Spencer Reid, make me feel good,” she smiled.

He kissed her on the nose before coving her eyes with the blindfold.

She had always wanted to try this, it was a kink she had always been determined to try. She took a deep breath and tried her best to listen to him as he moved to sit between her spread legs.

He ran his hands up her thighs, over her hips before following the curve to her waist. He gripped her waist tightly and leaned forward, pressing his mouth to her stomach, breathing her in as he kissed.

She wasn’t embarrassed about her tummy, for the first time in her life she loved her body. She felt him kiss all over her chest, dragging his bottom lip along her skin. He licked a stripe between her breasts, dropping his chin to her chest then to blow lightly over the wet trail.

She felt her nipples harden, she could physically hear the smirk that spread across his face.

He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, cupping her breasts with his hands as he groped her lightly. She squirmed, trying her best to grind her hips against his.

He pushed her hips against the bed, “be patient.”

He disappeared then. She felt his weight shift and get off the bed. She let out a deep breath, knowing she told him he could do anything and that included punishing her. She literally asked for it.

“I picked something up after you dropped me off,” she heard him say from the other side of the room.

He walked around for a minute, taking something out of a hard plastic container. He struggled with ripping it, she heard papers fall the floor and something hard hit the floor. “Shit.”

She heard him walk towards the bathroom, she crossed her ankles and just waited.

He came back to the bed, moving her legs apart like they were when he left. “stay.”

He crawled between her legs once more, his hand brushed her thigh and it was cold and wet like he washed his hands.

“Can I touch you?” He asked softly. She nodded her head feverishly.

She heard a small buzzing, an all too failure sound. The first place she feels the vibration is in her belly button. Causing her to let out a shocked little giggle.

“Shhh,” he smiled.

He dragged the little bullet vibrator down her stomach, over her pelvis and finally, finally, against her clit. She let out a moan that sounded more like a sigh of relief.

All she wanted was for someone else to control her pleasure, surprise her, set the rhythm, the speed, everything. She spent so long pleasuring herself, she was so ready to sit back and just take it.

Spencer felt the same. He took his time, feeling every inch of her skin, kissing every single place he wanted to. He spent so much time just looking. Finding freckles and scars and kissing them. He was mesmerized by the fact she was real, that a beautiful woman would lay down in front of him, spread open like this and just let him explore. It felt like the best wet dream his brain could ever conjure.

She could feel him getting closer to her. His weight shifted and she felt his breath on her leg. She took a deep breath, sucking in her stomach in the anticipation of feeling a tongue on her for the first time ever.

He turned off the vibrator. Setting it to the side as he looped his arms around her thighs. Just admiring the view. Just then her whole body shivered as she anticipated the heat of his tongue.

He pressed a kiss to her clit first before flattening his tongue against her. “Sweet fucking Jesus Christ,” she gasped.

“I’ve never done this before,” he breathed against her.

“Explore away, sir,” she whispered.

He clearly did research, if he didn’t just say this was his first time eating someone out, she would think he was an expert. She regretted having her hands tied up at that moment. She squirmed, he held her hips down. She gripped the ties around her wrists wishing it was Spencer's hair.

She was never big into overstimulation or denial, never having the willpower to keep going after making herself cum once. Spencer, however, had the ability to bring her to the edge again and again without ever letting her spillover.

She didn’t beg, she didn’t complain, she sat there in the blissful feeling and waited. It was heavenly.

“Spence,” her breathing was heavy.

He hummed, letting her know he was listening. His tongue still wiggling back and forth on her clit.

“Can you please just fuck me now?”

He kissed his way back to her mouth. All up her stomach, over her breasts, her neck and jaw. She could taste herself on his lips, “untie me?” She asked softly.

He let one hand free, which she immediately used to grip his hair. The second hand was freed and she pushed the blindfold up and worked her way into a sitting position while he kneeled in front of her.

“Anything else you want to try?” She asked, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking into his eyes once again. She pushed his hair out of his face and just looked at him.

“Lie back and roll over,” he instructed.

He pulled her into a face-down, ass-up position and aligned himself with her. Pushing in little by little till he bottomed out. He reached around the bed for the vibrator and placed it in her one hand.

“You decide when you cum,” was all he said before he started fucking her.

She white-knuckled the pillow as he rammed into her, she was arched in the most perfect way for him to hit her g spot every time he rammed into her.

“My hair,” she gasped, wanting him to grab her by her ponytail as he fucked her.

With one hand on her hip to steady her and the other in her hair, he fucked into her like his life depended on it. Her legs were quaking, she felt like she was going to explode if she didn’t cum soon.

She flicked on the vibrator and pressed it against her own clit, feeling the familiar heat bubble in her stomach. “Fuck me, oh god,” she chanted.

Cuming with a shout, she dug her face into the pillow and all but screamed. Pushing back against Spencer as he bucked into her one last time and erupted inside of her.

His hips shook as he emptied his load before slowly pulling out and dropping down beside her.

She turned her head to look at him, eyeliner and mascara all smudged around her eyes, makeup all over the pillow. She was trying her hardest to catch her breath, staring at him with a smile on her face.

“If sex was an Olympic sport, I think we’d win,” she complimented him.

“you think?” He asked, his breath just as shaky as hers.

She rolled onto her back, letting him cuddle into her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him. “Everyone told me that the first time I have sex it’ll be underwhelming and uneventful, and yet every time we fuck I feel like I’ve run a marathon and I should invest in a wheelchair.”

He laughed, “would you put that in writing and send it to everyone from our high school?”

She smacked his arm. “and then I’d have to swat women off you with a bat if I wanted any alone time, you’re mine now.” She wrapped her whole body around him and held him there.

“I love you,” Spencer smiled.

“I love you, more.”

chapter 5

They packed everything into their car just to go to her parents house. There was something in Y/N’s gut that told her there was a case coming.

Her parents lived 30 minutes out of the city, on the edge of a cul-de-sac that faced a park. They had lived there since she was 5, it was her mom’s dream home. It was the only place in the town she had good memories in.

Y/N’s mother brought Diana home with her after work. They were waiting in the kitchen for Spencer and Y/N when they arrived. Tonights guests included not just them but Y/N’s youngest brother Levi, his wife Lizzie and their 2 year-old Chloe.

“There’s my girl!” Her dad cheered, standing up and rushing to give her a real hug. “Did you get taller?”

“it’s the boots,” she laughed, holding onto him tightly.

“You look great! The FBI is treating you well,” her dad was always one to compliment her. He pulled back and looked at Spencer. More like glared at him.

“Nice to meet you Sir, I’m Doctor Spencer Reid,” he said, shockingly extending his hand to shake her father's.

The profiler in her knew he was breaking his comfort zone to appease her baby boomer, ex-cop, father.

Her dad always did this thing when he met new men where he squeezed their hands to see how much they could take. “Harrison Y/L/N Sr.” She watched Spencers hand shake as he squeezed right back.

“Strong shake.” Her father complimented him. “She must have warned you.”

“No, he just knows how to read people,” Y/N laughed.

“Well come sit down Doctor Spencer Reid,” he teased him. “Let me interrogate the profiler.”

“Here we go,” Y/N laughed, placing a hand on Spencer's back as she led him into the kitchen.

They sat down together, Spencers mom, Diana, just across from him at the table. They smiled and nodded at each other in a quiet little hello.

“I would ask you to tell me a bit about yourself, but Y/N has kept me all caught up with you over the years,” her dad said. “You went to CalTech at 13, somewhere in there you got a degree from MIT, she idolized you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she blushed.

“It’s very flattering, but if anything I’m now huge fan of her’s. In the last 3 weeks she has been the one to find the major break in 3 of our cases. She is amazing at what she does, you raised an incredible woman,” Spencer replied, praising her in a way that made her heart flutter.

“Go on then, tell us about these cases then,” her dad asked.

And with that they got lost in all things horrific. Spencer explained, verbatim, how each case went down and exactly what Y/N came up with to solve them. She answered little questions here and there but mostly it was Spencer showing off how much he loved his girlfriend.

Her mom passed out dinner plates in the middle of the talk, some how all of them were able to discuss cases and eat at the same time. Her mom made burgers and potato salad for dinner, just something simple for them all.

“Did you really offer to fuck a serial killer?” Her brother asked, disgusted.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I knew in his sick twisted mind he wouldn’t be able to refuse a woman willing to let him do what he wanted and as soon as the weapon was down, so was he.”

“I always told you she’d be able to kick your ass, Levi,” her dad said. “Ever since she was a kid I knew she had it in her to wrestle someone to the ground.”

“Yeah, Spence didn’t believe me that I’m combat trained.”

“No,” Spencer interjected, “It’s not that I didn’t believe you, I just didn’t ever think you’d be able to take me down.”

“And did you?” Her mom asked.

Her face turned bright red. “Yeah, I showed one of my combat maneuvers on him, we were all horsing around and I showed them how to go from being pinned to the ground to being the one on top.”

“How?” Her brother’s wife asked.

“Yeah demonstrate!” Her mom innocently cheered them on not knowing she was mid sex with him when she showed him how to do it.

“Um okay, Lizzie come with me,” she said, saving Spencer the awkwardness of having to straddle her in the middle of her family home.

She laid down on the floor, “you basically have to just pin me down how ever you see fit.”

Lizzie, sat on her, holding her shoulders down with one forearm. Y/N, quickly flipped her onto her back, making sure to catch her head as she did so. Not wanting her to smack it off the hardwood floor.

“Like that,” Y/N stood up and helped Lizzie to her feet. “Made sure all the girls knew how to do that.” She lied.

“As you should!” Her dad cheered, “nice to know your team all has each others backs.”

“How do they all feel about you two?” Diana asked. She had been mostly quiet all night, just enjoying time outside of where she was used to.

“They love it, they’ve been placing bets about us,” Y/N laughed.

“Like what?” Her dad asked.

“If he would kiss me first, if we’d tell the team ever, they even had one about who is most likely to say I love you first, they’re insufferable,” Y/N ranted.

“So what team one?” Her brother teased, just trying the embarrass her.

“He kissed me first, he told the team that we were together after like 10 hours and he was the first to say I love you,” Y/N blushed.

“Does she still have the I love you problem?” Her mom asked innocently but received a death glare from Y/N.

“Uh no, she says it to me too.” Spencer noticed the awkwardness.

“Any plans for baby number two?” Y/N asked Levi, changing the subject faster than ever.

She’d be lying if she said she was listening to the answer, her ears were ringing and all she cold focus on was Spencer’s hand on her back. Her mom was about to pass out cake when she excused herself to the bathroom, and ended up in her old bedroom.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, hearing the words her mother said over and over in her mind. “Does she still have the I love you problem?”

She rubbed her hands over her eyes and just breathed. She didn’t want him to know about that yet.

Spencer knocked on her door, opening it softly and peaking his head in. “Do you want company?”

She nodded.

He kneeled down on the floor in front of her, running his hands along her thighs. “Are you okay?”

“I told you about Christopher?” She said softly.

“yes.”

“In order to get me to do what he did, he would always say I had to because he loved me,” she explained. A tear dripped down her cheek and landed on his hand. “And so for 7 years after I never told anyone I knew that I loved them.”

“That’s okay, you went through trauma. You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he soothed her.

“I want to though because, before you, I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand love, I thought it was weird and forceful and something dependent on coercion,” her voice was so tiny, she didn’t want anyone else hearing her. “Loving you is light and fluffy and special and safe, I didn’t want you to think just now that I said it this weekend to get it over with or something because I truly do love you.

He pulled her into a kiss, “I love you, more.”

She laughed, “we’ll see about that.”

—

Y/N and Diana were doing the dishes as her mom packed the leftover food into Tupperware containers. Debbie was just about to ask who wanted coffee when Y/N’s phone started to ring.

She sighed, drying her hands on a dishtowel before answering the phone. “SSA Y/N Y/L/N.”

“There’s been an explosion at a mall in Los Angeles and reports of 4 more planned, how fast can you and Reid get to LA?” Hotch asked.

“Um, we’re about 45 minutes from the airport.”

“We’re 4 hours out, we want you and Reid there ASAP. Is there any way we could send a helicopter to get you?”

“Yes, there’s a soccer field across the street from my parent's house, Garcia knows the address she can direct them where to go, we’ll be ready.”

“Debrief has already been sent to your phones, I need you and Reid to go to the LA field office and start communication with Garcia on victimology.”

“Got it.” She said as she hung up. “Spence we have to go!”

“What’s wrong?” Diana asked.

“We have an emergency in LA, they need us there immediately. There’s a helicopter coming to get us,” Y/N explained as she walked around the room towards her go-bag.

She unzipped it, unfolding her bullet-proof vest and putting it on. She adjusted her gun and made sure she had everything she needed. Spencer did the same at the table beside her.

“You are a badass,” her dad complimented her, filming her getting her gear on. “This is my daughter! FBI superhero! Kickass tonight kid!” He had an affinity for embarrassing her, but an even bigger obsession with showing her off.

He was like that with all of his children, first with her brother Harrison in the army, then with her other brother Levi and his swat training. Now his daughter was catching serial killers like it was nothing.

“Okay, we gotta go, the helicopter will be landing in that field in 3 minutes. Dad are you okay to take the car back to the dealership if this takes a while? We will be back for our suitcases after the case, I love you guys.” She said. handing her father the car keys and moving to put her shoes on.

“Got everything?” Spencer asked.

“Yep,” she smiled.

They walked out the door and across the street. Most of the neighbourhood watched a helicopter land in the soccer field as the sun was setting. They ducked as they ran getting in the chopper and strapping in.

“Agent Valdez, Nevada PD!” the officer in the pilot seat introduced herself. “We have just over an hour till we land, use the headsets to communicate with me if you need to!”

And they were off. She looked down to see her family waving up at them from their houses as the neighbours she grew up around took photos and videos of them leaving.

“What’s going on?” Spencer asked.

Y/N took out her phone and read over the debrief, “tonight at The Grove in Los Angeles, a small bomb went off killing 6 people and injuring 31.”

“Where did it go off?” Reid asked.

“Inside a small dress store that has been renting the space for the last 7 years,” Y/N confirmed. “I’m sure Garcia is looking into everyone who was injured or killed as well as the current and former employees.”

“It says here that the person who called 911 before the bomb went off warned of 3 bombs to come. Saying; ‘4 bombs in total the first in clear, the next is where her checks would clear.’” Reid read from the phone.

“So we need to find a connection between the dress store and a bank in the area,” Y/N said. “We need to go over that call more, have Garcia look into every aspect of the sound.”

“Where did Hotch say he wants us?” Reid asked.

“At the LA field office, he wants us working behind the scenes in correspondence with Garcia.”

Spencer sighed, “well, our weekend was fun while it lasted.

9:42pm PST

By the time the rest of the team landed and Hotch and JJ arrived at the field office, another 2 bombs had gone off at a Liberty Bank downtown LA.

“Garcia, do we have any connection from the dress shop to the bank yet?” Hotch asked.

“Nothing Sir, I have dug and dug and there isn’t a single person with a connection to both the bank and the dress shop within the last few months, I'm widening back 2-5 years but still nothing,” Garcia panicked over the phone.

“Is there any possibility our unsub is female? This to me feels like a scorned lover, maybe her husband is paying someone under the table who is cashing checks at that exact ATM that exploded and then went and bought a dress,” Y/N suggests.

“Garcia run with that as far as you can and call us back,” Hotch ordered.

“On it!” She cheered before hanging up.

Spencer looked around at all the info he and Y/N brainstormed while waiting for the team. “a female unsub would make the most sense.”

“Did we get any more clues for where the next bomb will be?” JJ asked.

Agent Cunningham from the LA field office shook his head, “nothing at the scene or over 911, we’re on the lookout for any suspicious calls and tips currently.”

“If you were cheating on your wife, after going to the bank and the dress shop where does she go with you next?” Y/N asked Hotch.

“Uh,” he shook his head, clearly faithful to his wife. “Dinner and a hotel?”

“So those are possibly the next two targets,” Y/N said, “but finding out what restaurant and hotel in the entirety of LA is like finding a needle in a needle stack.”

“I hate to say it,” JJ sighed, “but we might need one more explosion before we get a breakthrough.”

“All we can do is hope for minimal damage,” Y/N shot a soft smile over to her, “till then, what kind of woman in the area could make the type of bombs that are being used?”

“Almost anyone,” Morgan said as he walked into the room. “I was just looking at the debris and shrapnel, it’s a fairly simple bomb that anyone with basic knowledge or internet access could make.”

Hotch called Garcia once more. “Can you start a search for women 35-55 who are married, ask the NSA if we can search through any women in the LA area googling how to make bombs in the last month.”

“Of course, I’ve also been looking at the past transactions of the specific ATMs that were targeted, 13 of the people depositing cash and cheques there, recently bought dresses from the store at The Grove.”

“Any of them look like they are partaking in an affair?” Y/N asked.

“2 of them are lesbian women, 3 are drag queens and the other 8 are girls in high school depositing birthday money,” Garcia explained.

“Well thanks for looking, hopefully, the NSA has some hits for us,” Hotch said as he hung up. “I guess we wait.”

11:56pm

“We’ve got reports of an explosion in an all-female dorm at UCLA,” one of the LA agents said as he burst through the door.

“Morgan, Prentiss, Rossi,” Hotch said, “go to the scene and find out everything.”

Y/N called Garcia, “as soon as we know what room the explosion was in I need you to go back 10 years of women who lived in that dorm room and their connections to older men. Sugar daddies, teachers, anyone.”

“The 911 call shortly after the bomb say it was heard on the first floor, possibly room 119 as that's where the blast was heard. Luckily the girl who was supposed to be in that room was with her friend down the hall so we currently have no casualties here,” Garcia explained.

“Thank god,” JJ exclaimed, placing her hand over her eyes.

“In the last 10 years, 6 different women have all had that room,” Garcia said as she narrowed down her search. “Okay, here we go this is the juicy stuff!”

“What is it?” Hotch asked.

“From 2000 to 2002 Maggie Burton was working on a science degree at UCLA. She was working part-time, both years, as the main Chemistry professor's teaching assistant, she was depositing money from him bi-weekly to Liberty Bank.”

“Okay, who was the professor?” Spencer asked.

“Michael Thompson, 56, but that would be too simple now wouldn’t it?” Penelope teased. “Thompson is gay and has been in a domestic partnership since 1998, his Partner Adam Pearson, however, is bisexual according to the sugar daddy website he’s on,” she explained further. “Whether Maggie knows it or not, she had been getting paid to be Thompson's TA, as well as his boyfriend sugar baby.”

“So our unsub is Michael Thompson?” Hotch confirmed.

“By the looks of it, yes. Maggie stopped being a TA when she graduated and now she works with a cosmetics developer downtown. Every week she deposits 500 cash to the ATM, which is the exact amount of cash Adam has been withdrawing for the last 7 years,” she kept explaining, they could hear her keyboard clicking as she kept digging. “Look’s like Adam is filing to remove the domestic partnership and he bought a ring last week.”

“There’s the trigger,” Spencer confirmed. “Do we have a home and work address as well as where the next bomb would be?”

“Adam checked into a Hilton hotel downtown, suite 613 which he has been booking once a month for the last 7 years,” Garcia confirmed. “Sending the locations now.”

“I need a bomb squad sent to the Hilton hotel, evacuations should be done floor by floor saving floor 6 for last, I need agents on floor 6 to evacuate all rooms, except for 613, quietly without making a scene.”

“Sir, suit 612 was booked only for tonight by Michael Thompson, using cash,” Garcia cut him off.

“All rooms but 612 and 613 are to be evacuated, I need a direct line on the scene to room 612 when we arrive,” Hotch ordered as they all hurried towards the elevator.

—

On the scene, Reid, Y/L/N and JJ were sent up with the bomb squad to floor 6. Red lights in the stairwell were flashing to alert that there was an evacuation taking place, but the building was silent.

There were 14 rooms on floor 6, 4 of them being rented that night. Rooms 601 and 608 were the only two they had to focus on to evacuate.

JJ quietly knocked on room 601, “Hi sir,” she whispered. “My name is Jennifer, I’m with the FBI. We need to quietly evacuate this floor, if you wouldn’t mind grabbing your necessities and any other guests in the room, an officer will escort you down the stairs. In the parking lot across the street, there are people issuing refunds and information about relocations for the night.”

The man nodded, he quickly grabbed his things and followed an officer down the hall.

Y/N knocked on 608 next, a young woman answered. “Hi, my name is Y/N, I’m with the FBI. We need to quietly evacuate this floor-“

“I have 2 kids with me,” she whispered.

“Okay, are they awake?” JJ asked.

“My daughter, she’s 2, she’s out cold. My son is watching TV, oh my god my husband isn’t here,” she quietly panicked.

“Ma’am it’s fine, we have officers here to assist you down the stairs and across the street, there are relocation preparations being made. If you don’t mind, I can help you carry your daughter down the stairs?” Spencer said softly.

“Yes, absolutely.” She said, running into the room to gather all her things.

Spencer lifted the little girl up softly, not waking her at all in the process. He held her against his chest softly while the mother grabbed their necessities and her 6-year-old son before followed Spencer down the stairs.

JJ and Y/N stood in the stairwell, Y/N picked up her radio and called down to Hotch. “All civilians on the 6th floor have been evacuated.”

“Any movement in 612?”

“Yes sir,” one of the bomb squad members said. “With our tech, we can see 2 bodies in 613 and 1 in 612, all alive.”

“Any idea how many bombs were talking about?” Hotch asked.

“Not yet, we need a clear look inside the room. Snipers on the building across the street say the blinds are closed,” he explained.

“Hotch, have you gotten in contact with him at all?” JJ asked.

“No, he won't pick up,” hotch confirmed.

“Would you like one of us to knock?” Y/N asked.

“Not yet, I want you both to come down. If we’re knocking on his door we need to have a full plan in place,” Hotch ordered.

“Over,” Y/N said. Following JJ back down the 6 flights of stairs.

Down at the base of operations, Spencer was still holding onto the 2-year-old as the mother called her husband. He shushed her and held her close with a blanket over her back as she slept.

“Hotch,” JJ got his attention. “I noticed each room has vents on the connected walls, is there any way to get into 611 and snake in a camera to see what we’re dealing with?”

“That was my next suggestion,” a SWAT office said as he shook her hand. “We’re prepping the equipment now.”

“Can we also spray a sleeping agent through the vents? If we knock out the unsub we can just drag him out and see what’s going on?” Y/N suggested.

“Yeah that would work,” the SWAT officer said, “we have a sleeping agent in a compressed gas form that we can spray through the vents.”

“Okay, just in 612,” Hotch confirmed. Y/N I want you and Morgan up there to assist in making sure Maggie and Adam are evacuated safely while the bomb squad looks at what we have going on.”

“On it,” she and Morgan said at the same time.

One of the SWAT officers pulled them aside, handing them protective gear for the gas that will erupt into the hallway. She waved to Spencer in the lot as she headed across the street with the SWAT team. They ran up the stairs, it was exhausting but Y/N pushed through, up the six flights. They quietly unlocked room 611 and filled the room with officers.

First, they snaked a small camera through the vent, the image showing on the screen right away, “you seeing this Hotch?” Morgan asked over the radio.

“Crystal.”

“It’s a wall of C4,” one of the Bomb Squad officers quietly confirmed. “Fairly simple to dismantle, it looks like it’s a manual switch. Wait till he crosses the room, and then spray the gas. We need officers to be in the room as it’s sprayed. He needs to hit the floor nowhere close to the detonator.”

Morgan quietly opened the door and assembled the team in the hall, making movements with his hands as he instructed the men. The door kicker was in place, the officers were ready to file in.

The swat agent deployed the gas, they watched on the monitor as the unsub turned to look at the hissing sound, inspecting it before hitting the ground.

“NOW!” Morgan yelled. The door was knocked in and the unsub was in handcuffs.

Y/N ran to 613, knocking on the door as hard as she could. “FBI OPEN UP!” She yelled.

A half-naked man opened the door, “what?” He yelled.

“We need to evacuate the building right now, cover-up and follow me.” She ordered as the two victims covered themselves and followed her down the stairs.

Halfway down, she got a call over the radio. “Bomb has been defused, all clear on floor 6.”

“Bomb?” The man questioned.

“Yes sir,” Y/N confirmed. “your partner, and your science teacher, Michael Thompson, has been bombing places around the city that you two have been to, and was planning to blow you up tonight.”

“What the fuck?” Maggie asked.

“He’s under arrest, you’ll have your chance to ask him questions in court,” Y/N confirmed as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

She held the door for them and watched as they were whisked away by EMTs. She waited for another set for the unsub before turning around and running all the way back up the 6 flights to Morgan.

Morgan was standing over the cuffed, unconscious, unsub in the hallway. “Good job pretty girl!” Morgan high-fived her.

“Thanks,” she smiled, “let's get this bastard down into the ambulance. The elevators should go back up in a minute.”

“What? No more stairs?” Morgan teased.

“I might not be able to feel my legs tomorrow, I’ve been up and down those too many times tonight!” She smacked him.

“Sure that’s why,” he laughed as they waited for the elevator.

—

Spencer and Y/N packed up that night and took a short trip back to Los Vegas. By the time they arrived back on her parent's doorstep it was 5:32 am. 12 hours since they were last there.

She sighed at the front door and called her parent's home phone. “Hello?” Her father's sleep-ridden voice answered.

“Hey dad, it’s Y/N can you come open the front door for me? Please.” She asked nicely.

“Yep.” He hung up.

She watched the hall light come on from the front door. Waiting for him to slowly make his way down the stairs to the front hallway. He unlocked the door and welcomed them in.

“Your mom cleaned off your bed in case this happened,” he whispered, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”

“5:30, go back up to bed, we’ll lock back up, thank you,” she hugged him and sent him on his way.

She sighed and sunk down to sit on the bottom step. She tugged her boots off and left them in the hallway. Spencer picked them up and moved them to be in order with the rest of the shoes. He locked her parent's front door and turned off the entryway light.

“You need water or anything before bed?” Y/N asked.

“No, come on,” he took her hand and walked with up the stairs to her bedroom.

She closed the door behind him, peeling out of her clothes and climbing into bed first. She got under the covers and moved the pillows around to make sure they were how she liked them.

Spencer crawled in beside her, wearing just his socks and underwear. He laid flat on his back while she cuddled into his side. He kissed the top of her head and let out a deep breath as he settled into relaxation finally.

“I love you,” she reminded him.

“I love you, more.”

[sweetspecterz]

Getting to talk about my version of VT was so fun that it would be wrong of me not to ask you about yours 👁👁

Only if you want to share, but I’m endlessly interested in other peoples take on these characters and their story

-dehliman

I'm a bit sad to say that I currently don't have much! I'm in the very early stages of thinking about it seriously! I will share a bit of what I do have for sure though!! it's the beginning of everything. The most I have is about Ghost, because for a good while I set out to make his life make sense which it probably still doesnt lol, its very centered around the Johnnys at the moment.... but i am currently working on Chris and Spooker >:3 no info on them until later unfortunately!! this ended up being so much longer than expected! warning this is a LONG READ. I MEAN IT. I REACHED CHARACTER LIMIT AND IM NOT DONE.

So getting right into it! Johnny Ghost, previously named [REDACTED] or Gregory Casket, was raised in West Virginia on a large property to which he was regularly left alone by both of his parents due to his mother being busy with a full-time job and his father being frequently away on 'business trips' and practically being non-existent in Gregory's life and dismissive of the kid when he was around. Unknown to all residents of the house, the house was built on land previously used to summon something otherworldly. The results remained to be unseen until the Casket family moved in. The results? A demon Gregory would unknowingly not only attach to himself for life but give power by calling it his friend. This demon would feed him false truths with no one there to correct him with the real truth, muddying what he knew about himself and where he came from later in life. One thing he was sure of was that in the tail end of elementary school he met Johnny Toast, who had an instant and strong impact in Ghost's life. The first REAL friend he ever had. Also around the tail end of elementary school is when the spirit attached to Ghost's 'imaginary friend' gimmick would stop working. It would lay low for years to come, thinking of what to do next. Jonathan Toast and his unexpected twin Gavin, were originally born in Brighton but temporarily moved to WV for a period of time after their father's death for a change of scenery. Johnny took his father's death surprisingly well especially for how young he was, Gavin did not and it was something that would effect him for the rest of his life leading to some not so great behavior out of emotional distress heard by barely anyone. I'm still working out exactly what's going on with their family tree so excuse the lack of information! Through the course of middle school Ghost and Toast would study the paranormal together on top of their actual school work which is an interest they bonded over from the beginning, going on 'investigations' that were really just the pair going to rumored to be haunted locations with a crappy voice recorder that rarely ended with anything being found. This is when the idea of P.I.E was pitched by Ghost, an at the time silly dream of a paranormal investigation agency that both of them only hoped would become reality in the future. This is also when Gregory started going by the name Johnny very suddenly for unknown reasons, but considering being called Gregory would make him completely breakdown barely anyone dared to question or protest. He didn't yet change his last name. During high school the entity attached to Ghost would decide to create a name for itself, using Ghost's real last name and entirely copying Ghost's appearance almost detail for detail to start on its planned path of Ghost's destruction and eventual use as a vessel for horrible things. It didn't know how resilient and strong Ghost could be at times. In the last few years of highschool, Toast and his family would move back to Brighton to be near their grandmother after her husband passed away. Both Johnnys kept in contact through letters and over the phone, Ghost became increasingly ambitious about the plans for P.I.E and insisted they would be reality which was an idea Toast was thrilled with and started to make a plan to move back to West Virginia when he finished college. He ended up graduating college early and moving back as soon as he was able. While in Brighton Johnny Toast would have many arguments with Gavin due to Gavin's uncaring nature toward their grieving grandmother, leading to Gavin not exactly being the most fond of his brother. Although in the time that Toast was gone, Ghost would meet Katrina Galloway. Katrina and Ghost quickly became friends, their similarly loud and in your face personalities just feeding off of each other. Ghost and Katrina would get in a large disagreement about 6 months into their friendship, a disagreement that would end in Ghost having his first blackout because of Jimmy. I LITERALLY CAN'T ADD ANYMORE THAN THIS WTF.

[howdoyoufeelaboutmakingthesong]

How Lauren Martin Sees Music

Visual Thinking with Lauren Martin

From painting to singing to illustration to textiles to keyboards, and on!

Today we will take a closer look at a *key* member of Frankie Cosmos, Lauren Martin. That's right, she started out designing our t-shirts, and ended up as a bandmate playing keyboards, singing harmonies, and even some 2nd guitar!

Lauren and I originally met in MIDDLE SCHOOL when Lauren formed a band with my brother! I inserted myself into their friendship as annoying little sisters tend to do, and eventually she and I started playing music together too. We had a band which performed one "show" in Eliza's backyard for 3 of our friends, but we were both very shy performers.

Lauren ended up pursuing textile design, and was the obvious choice when it came to designing and printing the first ever Frankie Cosmos merch. She screen printed everything by hand in my parents kitchen, and we laid all the shirts out to dry on the ground (as pictured above). She filled in for some shows sporadically while in college, and when she finished school in 2016, she officially joined the touring band as our keyboard player.

[Close It Quietly Album Art Time Lapse]

Lauren continues to design merch for FC, and has found her own audience for her illustrations and design work. She sells her own prints, apparel, and more on her website, and posts lots of fun drawings on her instagram.

Q & A with Lauren Martin

How did you first find yourself playing music and performing?

I never intended to perform but always found myself performing anyway - usually because I’d be playing music with other people and they would encourage me (/drag me along) for the live element. I have really bad stage fright, performance goes against my nature. But because I keep ending up doing it, it’s clearly something that’s important to me in some way…even though it feels in conflict with who I am.

My first instrument was flute in elementary school. But my first ever musical performance was a cello recital in middle school (to an audience of parents). After that I was in my high school’s all girl rock band. I played rhythm guitar. I remember we played One Way Or Another by Blondie. I was also in the school chorus, we would perform for elderly people at retirement homes. I performed a surprising amount considering how shy I was.

During the pandemic, your illustration work really took off. With visual art being full time for you now, and touring still on hold, does playing music feel different for you?

I think having one part of myself that was really important (being a visual artist) — having that dream fulfilled in a way, makes playing music feel better. It feels like I’m not missing out on one half of myself energetically. Finding an outlet that allows me to be more wholly myself, it makes me feel more creative as a musician than I did before.  After years of having a very regimented relationship with visual art during and after art school, during the pandemic I’ve unlocked a new side of myself creatively, and established my own style as a visual artist, and a musician. Recently I’ve felt a lot more confident in sharing my musical ideas.

You're a huge part of the aesthetic of Frankie Cosmos as a grown-up band, and took FC from my janky AppleWorks 6 creations to the legitimate poster designs, cute merch, and album art we have now. Has music always encompassed a visual element for you?

I have always been inspired by album art, and intrigued by the branding that goes along with a band. Not to say that it informs anything about the music - but I do think there’s a visual element of a band that has always been intriguing to me on the same level as sneaker logos or car logos. I like simplicity and impactfulness in graphic design. And I think music and design overlap a lot. I would never claim to have synesthesia, but I do think if you asked me to paint a song I could do that. Not being a trained musician and not having the standard language to describe what I mean when it comes to music, allowed me to create my own visual language about music.

I’m realizing now, the bands that were really influential to me as a kid, like the first albums I bought, were Gorillaz, who were cartoon characters to me, and The White Stripes, who were also cartoon characters to me.

Before you got into textile design and graphics, you were mostly painting in a renaissance style, and at one point considered studying painting restoration. How did you find your various styles over the years and how have your artistic inclinations changed?

In a weird way, I would say my artistic inclinations haven’t changed that much, it’s more just the subject matter and the medium have changed a lot. I’ve always loved depicting reality as I see it. My portraits were never “accurate” to life, they were accurate to my imagination. And now, I’ll draw a still life of something I made up. I like creating my own reality. Growing up, I was really inspired by old paintings because I would go to The Met every weekend, and I loved seeing the Hans Holbein paintings and Giotto, because I just loved that it looked like a fucked up version of reality. It’s not photorealism, it looks like what you would close your eyes and picture a person to look like. I love the way art can look like a painting of the inside of an artist’s brain.

[Banana Split Poster]

Can you compare your experiences in analog and digital art?

I love both, but I tend to gravitate toward digital mediums. As a perfectionist, I love the idea of being able to do things over and over in order to get it exactly how I want. I used to work in oil paints but I would get really frustrated with myself when it wasn’t going right, because I felt I couldn’t start over. It would probably be good for me to try it again, because I don’t necessarily want to lean into my perfectionism forever. But it was really freeing for me to start working digitally, because I can do it an infinite number of times, I can get it exactly the way I see it in my head. Also, in terms of material used…when I was making physical art, I was surrounded by so many canvases and pieces of paper…I really like sparseness and neatness in my space, so having everything I’ve ever made in a pile doesn’t work for me.

What about your sewing and physical textile work? How does that compare to your other art forms?

Music and drawing feel in a way like luxuries, whereas sewing my clothes (and cooking) feel like practical ways to use my creativity.  Those are more purely joyous outlets for me. My art is work, music is work, but sewing and knitting is truly just for myself. I don’t do it as much as I used to, but I always like to have a chunk of my wardrobe be handmade. I get to turn my brain off and just follow a pattern, do this repetitive motion.

What inspires you recently?

I’m inspired right now by exercising. My latest hobby is playing tennis. Growing up, sports were extremely important to me, I wanted to be a professional soccer player. At a certain point I felt like I had to choose between being creative or athletic. I’m recently getting excited about being physically strong again.

[Love Love Tennis Club T-Shirt]

[Stay Sunny Tie-Dye T-Shirt]

Click Here for Lauren’s Website

[unwhitewashthebadbatch]

#UnwhitewashTBB FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions and Frequently Made Arguments 1. "It's a cartoon!" Cartoons can be racist, and animated forms of discrimination are exempt from neither harmful impacts nor criticism. 2. Why don't you focus on real racism? What would you define as real racism? Only in-person forms of violence? This question ignores the fact that racism comes in many forms, and therefore must be tackled in many ways. This also ignores the Thermian Argument. 3. Did you watch the show? It says why they've all been "whitewashed". Please refer to the Fan Theory Debunking page if you are still confused. 4. It's the lighting/art style. This response is normally accompanied by an image of The Bad Batch and Echo on Anaxes. This ignores the difference between base tones and affective lighting, and takes the latter for the former. This also conveniently ignores how dark Cody looks in the exact same lighting. And finally, this argument does not address the fact that no matter what lighting the Bad Batch appears, a) they are too light, and b) their features are still European (and for Tech, his voice is still British). This same answer applies to claims that the artstyle is simply why they look different. If one's artstyle makes characters of color much lighter and more European-appearing than they are meant to be, then they are whitewashing. The "artstyle" is whitewashing. The two are not mutually exclusive. 5. This movement is stupid. You're stupid. And a moron. Please actually respond to any of the myriad arguments made throughout this carrd. 6. You're overreacting. They all look exactly the same. Please refer to the concept art depicting otherwise. Please also refer to all of the screenshots heading each character profile. 7. This is all recent. How come nobody said anything about any of this with the clones in The Clone Wars? The timing of this campaign and the fans' reactions to the whitewashing and other racism in The Bad Batch is irrelevant. But, for the sake of argument, let us also bear in mind that most of the people who are speaking about it now were in elementary and middle school when The Clone Wars first came out. Not only this, social media back then was not what it is now. Fans are complaining about the whitewashing and overall design of the clones in The Clone Wars, and they have been doing so for years now. 8. How do you know the team whitewashed everything on purpose? We do not, and it was never the claim of the #UnwhitewashTBB campaign that everything we see in the series is a deliberate act of conscious racism. Whether the whitewashing was by accident or not, this does not erase the fact that real harm has been and is being done to people of color in the portrayals of each member of The Bad Batch. This harm must be remedied. 9. You're just a bunch of white performative activsists. As stated on the home page, every single page of this carrd was directly informed by the voices of Star Wars fans who had the lived experiences needed to give a nuanced view of the issues within The Bad Batch--meaning that, for instance, the explanation of sinophobia in the Other Issues page was informed by Eastern Asian watchers of the series who had noticed and been harmed by the parallel. Everything that was written about ableism was brought up by disabled and neurodivergent watchers of The Bad Batch. The antisemitism was pointed out by Jewish fans, and the whitewashing by Polynesian fans (linked is a thread featuring multiple Tumblr posts by a good friend of mine regarding representation and whitewashing). 10. You just want them to be Black!* Nowhere in any part of this carrd has it been explicitly stated or implied that the clone troopers, including The Bad Batch, are anything but Māori. A desire by fans to see brown skin and non-European features is not "blackwashing". This term creates a harmful dichotomy for people of color by pushing the narrative that characters of color presented in media are either white or Black, creating the idea that those who do not fit in this binary are "Blackwashed". This

fundamentally misunderstands the definition of whitewashing and poses the whitewashed character as the standard; any desired changes to a whitewashed character are automatically a deviation from the norm, and thus cast as harmful to the original-yet-poor representation.

*this ties into accusations of racewashing

Hunter | Crosshair | Tech | Wrecker | Echo | Omega | Home Fan Theories | Photo Gallery | Art Tutorial | Other Issues | Goal

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

On Family

An excerpt from Memoirs of a Flesh Eater, never published

Previous Excerpt

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One question that I see asked in the news a lot is why there are still any ghouls left. We have a distinctive, high-impact feeding habit that requires us to stay within human society, where we are both outnumbered and outgunned. This has essentially been the case since the development of automatic firearms, and you’ve continued to develop more and more effective methods of killing us since then. How are we not extinct?

The talking heads always have lurid theories to propose. My personal favorite one, which comes up every couple of years or so, is that the government is secretly breeding us so that they have an excuse to send secret police out into the general populace for nefarious purposes pretending to be exterminators. As if they’d need the excuse {Editing Note: I’ve gotta keep my political views out of this except where they directly pertain to ghouls. No unnecessarily alienating people}. The most commonly accepted one seems to be that we just have a lot of children to compensate for our high mortality rate. Spatha calls that an R strategy, I think. Scarlet calls it the Rabbit Theory. Whatever you call it, it’s wrong. Our species has survived off the strength and compassion of our families.

Contrary to popular impressions, our “nuclear” families are pretty small. My understanding is that 1-4 children is the typical range. I’m the only confirmed only child in my friend group. Scarlet’s the youngest of three, Scorpio’s a middle child, Spatha avoids talking about her home life, and Kestrel doesn’t know her biological parents. There’s a couple of pressures that keep our family sizes small. First, it’s challenging to feed too many ghouls at once, especially ghoul children, who we don’t want worrying about where they’re going to get their meals. Second, the majority of ghoul parents are going to end up as single parents before their kids are fully grown. Either one of them is going to get killed, or they’re going to have to separate to go on the run from the exterminators; and, of course, we do still break up and get divorced sometimes.

These pressures are exaggerated by our general lack of an extended family. It’s not that all of our aunts and uncles get hunted down - even if they did, we’d still have cousins - but it’s not safe for us to have traceable extended families. When exterminators identify a ghoul, the first thing they do is put out a bulletin for all known blood relatives. The most common tactic to avoid this is, when multiple siblings make it to adulthood, at least one of them changes their identity and moves away. This isn’t always done, but it’s done often enough that document forging is a widespread and well-respected profession in the Society. It’s useful for dodging exterminators in other circumstances too. My mom and I changed our names and moved cities after exterminators killed my dad when I was 4.

Between that and the sheer number of out-and-out orphans in our Society, it should come as no surprise that we’ve developed a new family structure to fill in the gaps. The terminology we use for this structure is variable, but the term I’ve always used is “household”. A household is a sort of adopted extended family, typically formed by and centered around one particularly resourceful ghoul called a patron. The patron takes whichever ghouls they choose under their wing, introduces them to each other, and helps them coordinate their talents and resources so that they all have everything they need. Most obviously, this means making sure they all have a supply of flesh, but there are numerous other kinds of support a household can provide. I doubt I need to emphasize again how valuable a reliable source of companionship and safety is, but patrons typically have access to connections and contacts that can help the other members of the household accomplish their goals.

My household, for example, was founded by our patron Yaga. It consists of her, her adopted daughter Kestrel, my mom and I, my friends Scarlet and Scorpio and their immediate families, and four other older ghouls. There’s also Spatha, who has been reluctant to fully join the household but acts like a member in most contexts. Three of our members have reliable flesh sources, and Yaga coordinates with other ghouls to find supplementary sources to ensure that she always has a surplus on hand. This keeps all of us well-fed and lets her distribute the rest to those in need in exchange for favors and cachet that the rest of us can use for our own advancement. In turn, the rest of us pitch in for odd jobs here and there, mostly on flesh-gathering jobs of one kind or another, and we look out for each other. I’ve done a bit of babysitting with Kestrel, for example, and Yaga was able to get me and Scarlet summer jobs to save up for college.

Babysitting, by the way, is one of the most valuable services a household can provide to a ghoul parent. Given our mortality rate, it probably isn’t a surprise that there’s a good bit of cultural pressure to have children, and have them quick. Ghoul children are… a lot. When we’re newborn, we’re pretty much like human babies. Ghoul babies can nurse from ghoul mothers for awhile, which is a relief. They need to switch to flesh before their teeth come in, though, so that means flesh slurry, which is more complicated to make than you might think. For best results, you want a mix of blood, muscle tissue, organ tissue, and bone, especially marrow. We get better at pulling all our nutrients from just flesh as we mature, but babies aren’t as developed. Getting those varied tissues is a little more complicated than just getting flesh. Bone especially is challenging - more mature ghouls have no need for it, and it’s honestly kinda gross. You just have to hope that whoever you’re getting flesh from can start holding some bones for you. Not every source has easy access to bones. 

{Editing Note: I think I wrote bone too many times - it looks fake now. Bone. Bone.}

We get our ghoul teeth at the same time as our baby teeth. Our ghoul teeth fall out and are replaced too, but we keep growing new ones our whole lives, kinda like sharks. Funnily enough, I don’t think we grow extra human teeth, which seems like a strange way for evolution to take us, but what do I know, I’m not a biologist. At that point we can start eating regular flesh, and parents have the unenviable task of explaining to toddlers that they can’t just slide their teeth out whenever they want. Our other features come in a bit later - claws between 4 and 6, eyes with puberty. Let me tell you, the claws hurt coming in. I couldn’t hold a pencil for a month. My mom told the elementary school that I was deathly sick so she could keep me home, but I think Scarlet just pretended he’d broken both his hands and went in splints. I don’t envy him - stretching my claws did a lot to relieve the pain.

I’ll admit freely that, by our standards, I had a pretty charmed childhood. I fit into human society pretty easily, I had a mom who loved me and could provide for me, a patron and household to help pick up the slack, and ghoul friends my own age. I had the discipline to keep my true nature hidden from my human peers, and I don’t think I was even particularly traumatized by the pressure of performing humanity that much. I can safely attribute that to the fact that I had safe spaces throughout my life to let the charade drop. Most ghouls at least have that. Most, but not all.

Our integration into human society also means that we inevitably become entangled in human society. We become invested in the lives of our human peers, we befriend them, care about them. Sometimes we fall in love with them. Eating people seems like kind of a big secret to keep from a potential romantic partner - I certainly couldn’t manage it - but some ghouls form romantic relationships with humans nonetheless. Maybe some of these human partners eventually discover the truth and are willing to overlook it for the person they love, but I doubt it happens often. I’ve certainly never heard of it. I’ve heard of it going the other way, though, a human partner discovering the truth and reacting poorly. Someone always dies when that happens. I personally know a few ghouls who’ve dated humans, or are seriously involved with them. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me. I get that the heart wants what it wants, but some wants aren’t worth the risk.

{Editing Note: That last line feels… tense. Emotionally charged. Why? And should I change it?}

In my opinion, the gravest of these risks is what happens when a human and a ghoul decide they want to build a life together, but kids are already in the equation. The human-ghoul mixed family is probably the most toxic environment that a ghoul child could be raised in and conceivably survive. All that pressure of hiding your true nature from your peers as you grow up? That feeling of isolation that follows you everywhere you go among humans? All of the most crushing emotional turmoil I’ve described in this book so far? Imagine if there was no relief for that even at home with your family. I frankly have no idea how ghoul parents manage to feed themselves and their children without being caught, or how they manage to perform humanity so flawlessly and constantly that their literal immediate family never catches on. I don’t know how those children manage to survive to adulthood, but I imagine they have some seriously fucked up mental health problems by the time they do. Factor in the suspicion that they would inevitably face from our Society when they finally are able to join it properly - after all, who more likely to become a Judas or be Lost than a ghoul raised by humans? - and I’d be willing to bet most of them don’t make it out of their twenties.

Before we move on entirely from families in general and mixed families in particular, I’d like to take a quick aside to talk about “half-ghouls”. You hear about them in horror media fairly often, the biological child of a human and a ghoul. Authors love to ascribe all sorts of traits to these hypothetical creatures - greater and more monstrous than the sum of their parts, supernaturally strong and vicious, impossible to detect within human society, sometimes with traits that are blatantly impossible, like telepathy or mind control or just plain magic. All of that is obviously untrue, but it’s something of a point of contention as to whether or not a “half-ghoul” is even possible. None of the ghouls I’ve talked to seem to agree about whether it can happen, and a search of human medical literature was similarly inconclusive. Humans, at least, seem to think that it might be theoretically possible, but have never been able to verify it by observation or by medical experiment. Of the ghouls I know that have been romantically involved with humans, none of them have ever gotten a kid out of it. It’s one of those things where we just don’t know. If it were possible, I’m not even sure what the implications would be.

[k7l4d4]

Danny Phantom AU: ParaNormal

Hello all, I am a huge fan of Danny Phantom, but I often found myself disappointed with how underutilized certain characters and aspects of the show were before its conclusion. This AU is based on how Clockwork, the ghost in charge of overseeing time and the future, witnessing the formation of a NEW Timeline Parallel to the main. Everybody clap your hands!!

The basic premise is based on this: What if the Fentons had support for their research, like a proper laboratory? This is essentially based on the thought that the Fentons managed to publish and profitize some of the side-benefits of their research, such as Ectoplasm powered gear and weaponry, specifically the viability of Ectoplasm as a fuel source itself! After getting this revolution out there, the Fentons managed to reel in some support for their research, even partnering with a few groups in order to conduct more tests than was feasible prior. Let’s be honest here, in canon they were basically operating off of a shoe-string budget and their own ingenuity for their inventions, along with whatever devices they could repurpose to make more.

However, all that success comes at a cost, particularly when it attracts enemies. During a tour of their main lab building by the local elementary school, with support and supervision from local parents and industries, a disgruntled employee decides to cause some trouble after he’s fired for his conduct on the job. He destabilizes the prototype portal, while a young Danny, Sam, and Tucker, all of whom had snuck away from the class for their own reasons, are in the room. The resulting explosion changes everything.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker disappeared that day, presumed dead. The explosion devastated the town, random portals and specters appearing on an almost daily basis. Life as Amity Park had known it was irrevocably altered. A prominent side effect of the explosion was the emergence of Half-sides, people who had been exposed so deeply to ectoplasm that they had become essentially part ghost, though not to the extent that Danny was in Canon. I’ll detail some of the prominent ones below.

Paulina Sanchez: Half-sides typically are regarded with a mix of suspicious caution at best, paranoiac fear at worst. For emergent Social Butterfly Paulina, this essentially crippled her. Paulina has always been lethally self-conscious, particularly about her worth, often seeing herself as nothing without her beauty, the one thing that people outside of her family seemed to care about in regards to her; she wasn’t athletic, she wasn’t a very good student (at the time), she was just the pretty face on the playground. When she became a Half-side, all of that went away. While still extremely self-conscious, Paulina is more comfortable in her own skin, and genuinely kind to others, though she certainly has a vindictive side to those who cross her. Paulina’s primary ability is the ability to travel through mirrors, as well as communicate through them, and store things in them. It’s rare to see her without at least one form of mirror on hand. Paulina is also something of the local conspiracy theorist, albeit one who’s usually right; her ability to spy on others through whatever reasonably reflective surface is nearby aids in this immensely.

Star: While many often confuse her ditzy attitude with genuine unintelligence, Star is sharp as a tack, easily the smartest kid in her generation. She just rarely cares enough to show it, preferring to live life without the extreme expectations of the exceptional burdening her. Star is Paulina’s oldest friend, some have even speculated they might be more, and is always willing to stick up for her when she gets grief for being a Half-side. Star herself possesses an unusual power, in that she can capture past and future events of anyone she takes a picture of. Star is never seen without some form of Image Capturing device, often carting a Polaroid Camera around her neck. She’s occasionally wondered how her powers would interact with film and video, but she so far hasn’t tested it.

Dash Baxter: Once having a future as a promising Athlete, the emergence of his Half-side powers sealed his chances at a successful future. Dash gains in strength, speed, and endurance proportional to his stress or aggression, entering a complete berserker state when sufficiently enraged. The sheer chaos he’s caused in the throws of his anger, as well as the slew of ruined property and broken objects whenever his strength flared up has turned him into a lonely outcast that no one is willing to tolerate being around bar his small circle of friends. Dash occasionally tries to bluster and act like a tough guy, but his isolation has ruined his self-confidence, leaving him starved for interpersonal contact and validation; you could literally just tell him good job, being a random person on the street, and he’ll act like he won the lottery.

Kwan: An all-around nice guy, Kwan has served as the peacekeeper among his peers for years, even as his parents worried about his behavior taking a turn for the worse if he strayed into the wrong crowd. Kwan is a sweetheart, regularly volunteering at local shelters and charities, as well as soup kitchens, he’s single-handedly done more for the reputation of Half-sides than anyone else. Kwan’s power can essentially be summed up as weaponized Empathy; anyone he comes into direct physical contact with feels the accumulated emotions of everyone their actions have negatively impacted from the perspective of said victims. His abilities are so potent that, during an incident in Middle School, when he attempted to stop a man from assaulting a woman, his mere touch sent the man into screaming hysterics as the sheer amount of pain and suffering he had inflicted to others hit him all at once, literally driving him mad. As a result, Kwan always wears a pair of gloves. ALWAYS.

Well, here’s the basic idea. Let me know what you all think!

[dianapana]

SH Day 2: Fashion Statement

Modern AU, OOC

@sasuhinamonth

Bullies exist everywhere you look, in school, at work, on the street and most of all, on the internet. Countless bullies hide behind the anonymity the internet provides them in order to bring down strangers for no apparent reason. But there is always a reason, jealousy, an inferiority complex, a superiority complex, or plain and simple the bully is a pile of trash and no one should call it a human being. One of the worst things one can do when being active on social media is read the comments, because no matter how many positive comments there are, one bad comment outweighs them all. Scrolling through my Instagram I see the perfect example of this issue. Hinata is barely an acquaintance, I have not seen her since middle school almost a decade ago, she’s not active on any social media, or at least she wasn’t until today. The picture in front of me brings back all of my past thoughts of her, how pretty her face looked, how refreshing and pleasant her lower voice tone was; out of most people I was aware of at the time, she was one of the least annoying. The only thing that bothered me at times was her meek demeanour, how easy she’s fold under the pressure of bullies; and it would appear that she had not changed in that particular category.

The picture was there, I liked it, I looked through the comments, I saw all the negative ones, I saw them misgendering her due to her short hair and baggy clothes, I saw them calling her names; and then there was nothing, because the picture no longer existed. Much like in school, the bully applied pressure on her, and she caved in on herself and chose to hide.

I wish I had taken a screenshot of the picture to post myself, but that would have been an invasion of privacy. She looked older and more mature, her hair was much shorter than in middle school, almost a buzz cut. She had always worn baggy clothes, but her style developed to streetwear, all in all, the picture was, in my opinion, a work of art. But as soon as it appeared, it disappeared. I can’t explain why it bothers me this much the fact that she took it down, but it just does.

I hate all the entitled fucks that think people own them anything. Females do not own them femininity, males don’t own them masculinity and gender non-conforming people don’t own them an androgynous appearance. Gender and fashion style are different issues, they can reflect each other or not. People use clothes for various reasons, as art, as means of expression, or they use them to hide. We talked about this during one of my courses in gender studies in university and it fucked with my brain how many people, young people that are supposably ‘woke’ heard that for the first time. I was shocked how many were unaware of things that I consider common sense.

I have the urge to reach out, assure her that the shit those incompetent fucks commented is the furthest thing from fact. Maybe I also feel guilt, because I was aware she was bullied in school and never helped, my apathy always made me so sure that it had nothing to do with me. It wasn’t my issue to fix, it wasn’t my battle to fight, and this isn’t either; but I’ve also learned to understand that being quiet might not be as hurtful as actively attacking the person, but it’s damn near close enough. So, I click on her blank profile and shoot her a short message. ‘the pic looked nice. U didn’t have to delete it just cuz some ppl don’t know what style is’

It was partly to comfort her, and partly to prove to myself that I’ve become better even in the slightest. I press the lock button on my phone and the screen turns black, I put it screen down on my bed and leave the room trying to fool myself and the universe that I don’t care if she replies or not.

I return to my work desk, continuing this charade, I am actively trying to not think about it, but the more I try not to think about it, the more I think about it. There is something about a 24-year-old Hinata looking the way she does, yet listening to haters, that just doesn’t sit well with me. I’m still in deep thought about the issue when my laptop dings, letting me know I received an email. I half expect it to be Hinata, but it’s work-related and my focus turns to that for the time being. Work keeps me busy for the remaining of the day, enough to push the whole issue out of my mind for real. In a blink of an eye over 9 hours have passed.

I wasn’t able to fully finish everything I wanted, due to some issues but I have to call it a day, since I worked overtime quite a lot. I go back to my bedroom and pick up my phone ready to order some delivery for the night when I see that Hinata responded.

“That was very thoughtful of you, thank you for the kind message.”

“I agree that I shouldn’t let myself be brought down, but it’s devastating in the moment.”

“I’ll try again.”

Her last message makes me click back on her profile to see that she reposted the picture with the caption saying ‘fuck you’. A sense of pride flows into my body, and I can’t fight the urge to comment as well, ‘fuck them all’. I go back to our little chat.

“Im glad u decided to post it again.”

I’m trying to formulate a compliment that doesn’t sound weird, I don’t feel like we are close enough for me to call her beautiful or pretty without it sounding like I am flirting, stunning sounds extreme, sexy and hot feel somewhat disgusting; yet all these five adjectives describe her, because she is beautiful, pretty, stunning, hot and sexy. I’m in the midst of this internal battle when I receive a reply.

“I am too. Thank you again”

I don’t feel like I deserve thanks, so I decide not to write back ‘you are welcome’, but I still want to compliment her so I click back to look at the picture, seeing whether having the picture in front of me will help. I’m lowkey annoyed when I get a notification that I have a new message from her, I am hell bound on finding a compliment and she is hell bound on stopping me. Either way, I click on the message, but upon reading it, my annoyance dies.

“I’m actually in Konoha for the first time in forever. I was thinking…if you maybe want to meet up? I’m here for a month, let me know if and when is a good time for you 😊”

Under normal circumstances, an invitation to ‘hang out’ from any former classmate be it elementary, middle or high school would annoy me further and I’d turn it down immediately. But for some reason, the idea of meeting Hinata after so many years, seeing what she is up to, interacting with her now as adults, makes me oddly enthusiastic. I reply before I can overthink the issue.

“Sure, we can meet, I’m free every Wednesday and throughout the weekend.”

Her reply is almost instant. “That’s perfect! See you Saturday” Reading her message makes me forget what day it is, so I have to look at my phone’s calendar; Saturday is the day after tomorrow, in less than 48hs I will see Hinata. My feelings are conflicted, they lay somewhere between nervousness, which is new, and giddiness, which is even newer. In order to calm myself, I do what I always do, set a goal. By Saturday I’ll have an appropriate compliment for the picture and her, it will have more impact if I say it face-to-face anyway, yes that’s the reason I want to see her, so I can feel as if I completed this little mission of mine, no other reason…