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tawnfawn · 5 months

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intoxicated | könig

summary: you get along with everyone on your team, except for könig. you think he hates you, but his perceived distaste for you only makes you want him more. you're able to keep your composure until you're partnered up for a mission, where everything seems to go wrong...

tags: könig x fem!reader smut. cod. pure filthy, shameless smut. sex pollen. proofread. MDNI. 5,000+ words

cw: dubcon (due to sex pollen but there's clear consent before and after). unprotected sex (reader IS on birth control, wrap it before you tap it), p in v, oral m!receiving, fingering, accidental drug use (sex pollen), dom!könig and sub!reader, light humiliation kink, heavy praise, size kink if you squint, overstimulation, mutual pining, violence, killing.

MDNI. NSFW BELOW THE CUT

You crept around the corner of the warehouse with your rifle, watching König’s six as you progressed. The other KorTac members were stationed on site as well, giving quick updates through comms as you progressed. Details were scarce, except that in the warehouse, a Russian terrorist group was producing a bioweapon capable of mass destruction—and anyone inside was KOS.

Of course, the bioweapon in question was…dubious, to say the least. A strong aphrodisiac, the contractor had explained, much to the astonishment of your team. During the briefing, you’d managed to keep a straight face, but not all of your teammates were as courteous.

“So let me get this straight—you want us to risk our lives for…Viagra?” Horangi had questioned, exasperated. Your lips pursed at his crudeness, but it was exactly what you were thinking too.

The scientist’s face flushed. “N-no, this is much different,” he snapped. As one of the architects of the bioweapon, he was clearly offended. “It is much, much stronger. Exposure to just one dose will cause severe arousal: heart palpitations, excessive sweating, overheating. Imagine…” He seemed to be struggling to find the words. “Imagine a brain overload, yes? Rational thinking…disappears. Victims may lose all motor control. Too long without treatment can result in heart failure, aneurysms, seizures, stroke, and sometimes death.”

“So what is the treatment?” you interrupted, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Sex,” the scientist answered, shifting uncomfortably on his heels. “It was designed to be, ah… difficult.”

Your jaw clenched, and your eyes darted to König. He was staring down the scientist, narrowed eyes betraying no emotion. While everyone else struggled to keep their bafflement hidden, his sniper hood obscured any hope of reading him. Just my fucking luck, you thought when you were partnered with him.

It wasn’t that you disliked König; it was just that you found it so much more difficult to talk to him. With the rest of your teammates, you were fine. A natural people reader, you were comfortable with the rest of them, relying on body language and the details they let slip to learn more about them. In fact, you considered yourself to be pretty close with them—unsurprising, given that in your line of work, your life rested in their hands and vice versa. But König was… different. You didn’t distrust him, per say, but outside of the battlefield, he was quiet. Reclusive. No matter how many times you’d tried to get him to open up, he barely interacted with you, despite talking to the others. You’d chalked it down to being the newest on the team at first, but now that you’d served over a year and a half together, you were frustrated. Shouldn’t that be well enough time to open up at least a little bit?

You knew your thinking was illogical. Your job was to hunt targets and invade bases, not deep dive into your coworker’s soul, but you couldn’t help the way it took over your mind. Your need to understand him had become a bit of an obsession. You constantly found yourself looking at him, trying to discern any emotion his eyes betrayed. You listened intently for any of his input in person or on comms, no matter how menial it was. You studied his body language, taken note of any habits or gestures. You’d even memorized the way he reloaded his guns.

It was…embarrassing, to say the least. But could you blame yourself? He was so tall and strong and imposing that even just standing next to him made you, a normally very confident and intimidating woman, feel small. Such was the reason that you pushed yourself extra harder whenever you were paired up with him, making sure he knew you were valuable, a force to be reckoned with. Your excellent performance had made you two quite the duo, often clearing out legions of enemies in mere minutes. And you had to admit, seeing him absolutely obliterate enemy lines made you feel some type of way…

But not like that, of course. You were just…curious. When he finally opened up to you (and not if, but when), your obsession would stop, and everything would be fine. At least, that’s what you told yourself.

Today, however, there were a lot less enemies than you’d expected. Sure, there were quite a few soldiers stationed around the warehouse (which your team had incapacitated quickly), but inside, save for some scientists and the occasional guard, it was eerily empty and quiet.

“It’s fucking cold,” Horangi’s voice rang out from your radio. You sighed and brought the device to your lips.

“It’s fucking Russia,” you stated. “What did you think it’d be? Beachy?”

König’s quiet chuckle sounded from in front of you, and you couldn’t help the pride that swarmed in your heart. Heat burst in your cheeks, but you tried to brush it off.

“Fuck off,” Horangi replied. “East side clear.”

“West unknown,” you said. “Standby.” You tucked the radio back into your pocket, following your teammate.

You both peeked around the corner to the last room. It was filled to the brim with lab equipment—beakers, bunsen burners, flasks, microscopes—all sitting atop of large resin tables. Bright, fluorescent lights bounced off the sterile grey walls and ceiling, creating a dull glare that was almost depressing. Neat racks of tightly sealed vials and test tubes peeked through glass cabinets on the walls, parallel to the large sinks below. Across the room was a row of unfamiliar-looking equipment, and next to that, an enormous whiteboard boasting messily scrawled notes, diagrams, and equations. A bag of what looked like takeout sat on a nearby desk next to a crumpled napkin and a perspiring styrofoam cup. It was almost exactly what you’d imagined a stereotypical laboratory to look like, albeit a bit messier and more lived in. A singular man stood working at one of the tables, frantically scribbling on a notepad with his back facing toward you. König motioned for you to stay put as he crept forward. You complied.

Then the man dropped his pen.

“Xyй,” he cursed and turned around to pick it up. Of course, when he turned around, he saw König’s gigantic form pointing a gun at him, and he screamed. You fired your suppressed pistol, but not before the scientist hurled a glass vial at König. It shattered against his tactical vest as the dead scientist crumpled to the ground, releasing a burst of lavender-colored smoke that curled into the air and quickly dissipated.

König ripped off his tactical vest, coughing violently, but it was too late—the substance had already entered his lungs, likely reaching his bloodstream by now. He stared at you, blue eyes wide with—for the first time you’d ever seen—fear.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered, and he staggered to the wall, crashing down to the floor.

“König?” You stared at him, stricken. His eyes were closed, and he was stock still—stiller than you’d ever seen him—and for a long, hard moment, you thought he might be dead.

Then his eyes snapped open. His pupils were dilated and blown, a sea of black barely tinged by blue irises. He stared at you, unmoving, before letting out a groan and bringing his hand over his face.

“Oh, fuck,” you whispered. You grabbed your radio. “M-man down!” you stammered into it. “König’s been exposed. West side clear. Requesting med evac in thirty minutes. Going dark.” You turned it off, not bothering to listen to any input. The rest of your team knew what this meant. As did you.

In the time you’d been on the radio, König had torn off all of his other gear, leaving himself in just his shirt, pants, and boots. He was panting, his chest heaving with each breath, ungloved hand still hiding his masked face as he cursed in German.

You crossed the room in seconds and kneeled at his side. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, König, just breathe—”

“No,” he breathed. His voice was deeper, raspier than normal, and the unbridled heat in it sent a shiver down your spine. His hands were clenched into fists, body tensed as he fought the invisible infection. “Go. Now.”

“You know I can’t leave—”

His hand fell to his side, letting his eyes meeting yours for a split second. “Please,” he groaned, starting to tremble as you drew closer. “I—I can’t—”

His gaze strayed lower, and you followed it to the growing bulge in his pants. You gulped, unmoving, and he grabbed your arm. The force of it was enough to make you still.

“Go,” he insisted, his accent even thicker than usual. “I’m not—I cannot control myself.”

“I’m not gonna leave you here!” you argued, swatting his hand away. “You’re my teammate. You could die.”

“I will hurt you,” he retorted. All the muscles in his body were tensed, clearly on overdrive. Even his eyes were watering. “Please, maus. I am not gentle.”

Something inside about his statement made your thighs clench together, but you tried to ignore it. Tentatively, you brought your hand to his chin, pulling his face towards you. His skin was feverish, and your heart twisted in sympathy. “Let me help you,” you pleaded, and he inhaled sharply.

“It feels like I’m burning,” he hissed, and you frowned. His black compression shirt was nearly soaked with sweat, and you grabbed the fabric, pulling it up. He pawed at your arm weakly, but you shushed him.

“You’re overheating. Take it off,” you ordered, and finally, he let you pull it over his head, sagging back against the wall as you threw it to the side.

You’d seen him without a shirt before—it was hard not to with this kind of job, what with donning injuries all the time—but this was different. His head was thrown back as he panted, toned chest heaving with each breath, and you could see all of the muscles in his chiseled abdomen clenched, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. It was… erotic. Just looking at him made you feel dirty. You felt the thrum of something other than worry in your abdomen, and you swallowed.

“Leave me,” König growled, but it sounded more desperate than commanding. You shook your head at him.

“Not letting you die, König.” You began to rip off your gear, tugging off your tactical vest and discarding your weapons.

König grabbed your wrist. “What are you…?”

“Wanna help you, okay?” you said softly, trying to catch his eyes as they darted over your face. “Are you gonna let me?”

He took in a deep breath, his other hand in a death grip on his thigh. “I-I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated, but it was starting to lose its original harshness. He was fading, and fast.

“It’s okay,” you murmured. You placed your hand on his bare chest, feeling the way his heartbeat stuttered and stammered under your touch. He cursed in response, the hand on your wrist twitching, clearly fighting the urge to touch you. In a split-second decision, you swung your right leg over his lap and straddled him, careful not to grind against him, waiting for an answer first. He let out a choked noise and grabbed you by the hips, his tight grip making you gasp. “Yes or no?” you breathed.

“Ahhh, maus.” The low groan he let out was nearly animalistic. “Yes,” he begged, and that was all you needed to hear.

You started grinding on his lap gently, trying to restrain yourself from going further. You wanted to be mindful of his sensitivity, but König simply huffed in annoyance and used his tight grip on your hips to tug you all the way down into his lap—allowing you to feel everything. The imprint of his hard, throbbing cock made you dizzy; you couldn’t resist pressing against it, moaning softly at the delicious friction it granted your clit.

“Scheiße,” König murmured, his thighs twitching underneath you. You felt bad, knowing he was probably dying for some real contact, so you decided to give it to him.

Your heart raced as you reached for his waistband, unbuckling his belt and sliding his pants to his knees. His cock was straining against his briefs, a wet patch forming from precum, and you quickly removed those as well, watching his hardened cock spring up and then fall slightly, its weight making it unable to reach his stomach. Your mouth went dry. Fuck, he was huge. You supposed it made sense: as an exceptionally large man, it was logical to have a proportionally large cock, but the sight of it still shocked you.

“Maus,” he whispered, breaking you out of your trance. He stared at you apprehensively, and you wrapped your much smaller hands around his cock, hearing him suck in a breath. You took a moment to marvel at the sheer size of him—your normally average-sized fingers looked miniature in contrast, unable to even fully wrap around his length. You felt your own arousal seep into your underwear, and you leaned down to kiss his tip.

The moan he let out turned you on even more than before, and you wasted no time teasing him, spitting into your hand and pumping his cock a few times before bringing the tip into your mouth, swirling your tongue over the slit before pushing him further down your throat. His cock was so large that you had to fight not to scrape your teeth against it, flattening your tongue under the base of it.

His hand fisted into your hair, pulling slightly every time you moved your lips up and down his shaft, twisting your hand in tandem. Your other hand gripped onto one of his thick thighs, feeling his leg twitch as he struggled not to buck his hips up into your mouth. Each strained noise and curse you coaxed from him only encouraged you more, your own whimpers muffled against his cock as you did your best to fit him down your throat.

After only a few minutes, you felt him twitching in your hand and sped up your pace, determined to pleasure him as much as possible. Curses fell from his lips as he finished, hot spurts of his release shooting down your throat. You swallowed it quickly, continuing to pump your hand up and down his still rock-hard shaft.

König, however, pulled you off quickly, eyes wide and dark with an almost fearful desperation as he stared at you. “The poison. It’s still…”

You looked back down to see his cock still twitching in your hand. “It’s okay,” you said, starting to lean back down, “I’ll just—”

“No!” He pulled you back up by the neck. You blinked at him in shock, and he stared back, pupils blown wide like black moons. There was a fiery hunger in his eyes as he looked at you, one you’d never seen before. The sheer want in his gaze sent a cold shiver down your spine. No one had ever looked at you like this before—like you were prey.

“König?” you asked nervously.

Instead of answering, he began to unbuckle your belt, and you gasped as his hand reached under your waistband to cup your clothed core, index finger tracing lightly over your clit. You fought back a mewl, chest seizing as you shut your eyes from the pleasure.

“So wet,” he marveled. He pushed your underwear to the side, smearing your arousal over your soaked folds as you whimpered, bucking your hips into his hand. “Just from sucking my cock?”

His switch in demeanor startled you, and you moaned as one of his large fingers pressed into your weeping hole, curling inside you with precision. His hands were so much bigger than yours; the stretch was making your knees weak. He quickly found your G-spot, taking care to press against it as you arched into him. “Oh, oh, fuck, König,” you whimpered, coaxing a dark chuckle from him that made you clench around him.

Your thighs clenched around his hand, but he pried them apart with ease, forcing you to straddle him and rendering you helpless to his ministrations as he slowly dragged another finger in and out of you. With each achingly slow push into your dripping hole, he made sure to curl them just right, long fingers able to reach that sensitive spongy spot inside you effortlessly. His palm laid flat against your clit as he stroked your walls, letting you sloppily grind into his hand as he murmured praise into your ear.

“Does that feel good, liebling?” he asked, drinking in each of your breathy, pleasured noises with satisfaction. “You like making a mess on my fingers, mm?”

You simply whimpered, too embarrassed of your flustered state to form a real response. He seemed to pick up the hint, giving you a cocky smirk through his mask. “Ohh, it’s okay, maus,” he cooed, but his soft words were laced with a smug condescension that made your cheeks burn. “You look so pretty like this, all dumb on my fingers. I wish I could’ve seen it earlier.”

You whined again, desperately grinding down on his palm for more friction. His slow pace was torturous, giving you just enough to feel pleasure but not enough to build it. It was mean. It was twisted. It was agonizing. You were eating it up.

“Please,” you tried, teary eyes boring into his. “Can you—can you please—”

“Can I what, maus?” He cocked his head, darkened eyes twinkling with mirth. “Tell me, or I can’t help you.”

You know what I want, you wanted to shout at him, but you knew that wouldn’t work. “Please,” you begged, “I need more."

“What more do you need, maus?” he asked again. “You have a mouth. Use it.”

“Need you to—” You whimpered pitifully, dropping your head into his shoulder. “Please, need you to go—go harder.” You nearly sobbed out the words, desperation winning out over your embarrassment. You were mortified at your teary, shaking voice, but he seemed to revel in it, squeezing your thigh in appreciation.

“Oh, is that what you wanted?” he teased, and you could hear the smirk in his voice. “You could have just said so.”

He set a steady pace with his fingers, bullying them inside of you hard enough to make you squirm against him. With each thrust, he curled them just right, sending your eyes rolling back and mouth falling open in heavy pants as you mewled into his shoulder. You were grateful to be spared of his intense gaze; you didn’t think you could look at him in the state you were in. It was mortifying just hearing the sounds of his fingers pumping in and out of your gushing cunt.

“Oh, maus,” he cooed into your ear as you trembled, keening at the stretch of his fingers. “You’re just so beautiful like this, you know. So fucking desperate and pathetic. I wish I could see you like this all the time.”

Would I like him to finger me like this all the time? Hell yes, you thought to yourself, but you couldn’t find the words to tell him, only able to whine and nod vigorously into his shoulder, lost in the feeling of his fingers inside you. You could feel yourself starting to reach the edge of your climax, grinding harder and harder into his palm and gasping with each spark of pleasure it gave your throbbing clit. You were so wet that you were starting to wonder if you’d been infected, too; each time he hit your g-spot just right, you felt more and more slick dribbling out of you and down your thighs. It was driving you insane.

“K-König!” You managed a cry of his name right before you came, clenching around his fingers as you bucked your hips into his hand. Breathy whines fell from your lips, your thighs shaking and seizing as you squirmed in his hold, feeling an almost overwhelming wave of pleasure wash over your body. The feeling was so intense it was almost painful; you hadn’t had an orgasm in so long, and the effect was palpable. His arms held you tight, keeping you grounded while you shuddered in his grasp, his big fingers determined to prolong your ecstasy.

When you finally came down from your high, you couldn’t look at him, mortified at your messy state. His fingers were still knuckle-deep in your arousal, and you could feel more of your slick dripping down your thighs, wet and uncomfortable. You kept your head buried in his chest shyly while your happy cunt stayed spasming in his hand.

“Okay, schatz?” he asked softly, using his free hand to tilt your head towards him. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

You stared up at him, mouth open. There were practically hearts in your eyes; your adoration was clear to him, and he laughed at your expression, cradling your cheek with his hand. “Aww, schatz.” He clicked his tongue, a smile audible in his voice. “You’re so sweet.”

Your cheeks burned red at the words, and you blinked rapidly, unable to look away. His piercing blue eyes stayed trained on yours, but there was a warmth in them that soothed you. He petted your cheek, lifting his hood to press a kiss to your forehead.

Your mind felt fuzzy. All you could think about was your need to be filled by him, and you pawed at his hard cock, wrapping your fingers around the base of it. A hiss of pleasure escaped him, and you kept your eyes on his, wide and pleading. “Please fuck me,” you whispered, still trembling in his grasp.

König’s eyes darkened, and he tugged off the rest of your bottoms quickly. His strong hands lifted you to hover you over his cock, and you shuddered with anticipation, head spinning. He rubbed the tip through your dripping folds, coaxing out a gasp as it brushed over your swollen clit. You tried to push him inside, squirming, but his tight grip on the bottoms of your thighs kept you in place, and you whined his name, hoping he would take pity on you.

“Bitte, König,” you begged, and he practically growled at the words, mercifully allowing you to sink onto the tip of his cock and drawing out a desperate mewl. Even with how wet you were, he was so, so big that he was practically tearing you in half.

“K-König—”

“Hush, liebling,” he soothed, and you moaned as your core clenched around him, beacons of pleasure ripping through you from just the feel of him. He waited for you to relax and then pushed in farther as you gasped at his length.

“Mmph! König—” You keened as he continued to push himself into you, waiting each time to make sure you were okay. You could feel his hard cock twitch with each thrust, and you knew it must be difficult for him not to go straight into fucking you, that he was holding himself back to be more gentle. The thought only made you moan louder.

Tears slipped down your cheeks when he finally bottomed out, and he wiped them away with his thumb. “I’m sorry, maus,” he groaned, no doubt feeling the way you clenched around him. “You’re just—so tight—”

You wanted to tell him to it was okay, but from your already fucked out mind, all that came out was a dumb whimper of his name. In response, he pulled up his sniper hood to kiss your forehead, to which you whined and chased his lips with your mouth. This made him chuckle, and he guided your lips to his, coaxing out a soft moan as his tongue met yours. He tasted wonderful, and you mewled into his mouth, feeling even more worked up from the way he kissed you: hot and desperate and sweet, like the world was ending and you were the last ones in it.

“Mein maus,” he growled, suddenly thrusting up into you and making your eyes roll back. His hips snapped against yours, setting a pace that sent your thoughts reeling. “Taking me so well, doing so good for me, hm? Du bist mein schatz, ja?”

“Yes, fuck—yes,” you babbled, barely able to understand what he was saying. His unusually rough tone was fogging up your dumbed-out mind, the contrast between his sweet words and punishing pace reducing you to nothing but a crying, creaming mess. You’d never been this wet for someone before. “Yes, yes, yes, I’m yours, please—”

“Good girl,” he moaned, pushing you up and down his cock with dizzying strength. Your legs tightened around his waist as he thrust up into you, high-pitched and pitiful noises falling from your lips at a shameful volume. He was using you like a toy, you thought, and the notion of it made your pleasured cries even louder.

“Mmm, yeah? Mmm?” He mimicked your breathy moans, and you could hear the grin in his voice. Normally, you’d be mortified, likely retorting with some witty insult, but now? Now with the way he was fucking you, all you could do was whine in pitiful response.

“So needy for me,” he groaned, punctuating each word with a deep thrust. The sheer force of him made your eyes roll back, and you felt that tight coil in your belly close to snapping.

“Fuck, König—” You panted heavily, your legs starting to give out. “K-König, oh my God, I’m gonna—”

“I know,” he cooed, pulling you closer to his chest so your clit could find purchase on his toned abs. “Doing so good for me, schatz. Such a good girl, getting off on me like this. Like the way I feel, mm?”

His sweet praise became your tipping point, your orgasm hitting you like a freight train. You cried his name, mouth falling open in shock as your legs kicked out, your cunt weeping and convulsing around him as you keened. You gasped for air as your orgasm rocked through you, the pleasure suddenly becoming all too much as he continued to drill himself into your gushing cunt.

Tears streamed down your cheeks as you sobbed from the overstimulation, but he didn’t let up his pace, pressing chaste kisses to your lips to soothe you. “Wonder how many orgasms I can get from you,” he murmured. You could hear the smile in his voice as he panted. “How many more, mein schatz?”

“I—I don’t know!” you cried as his pelvis dragged against your clit, sending shocks of electricity through you. “I don’t—I can’t—”

He groaned as you trembled in his hold, pretty blue eyes boring into yours. “You can do it for me,” he replied. “I know you can. Isn’t that right, liebling?”

“Ahh—König—” The juxtaposition of his soft kisses and brutal pace was making your head spin. Too overwhelmed to answer, you just clutched onto his shoulders tighter, crying out every time his skin brushed against your puffy, overstimulated clit. It was painful. It was overwhelming. It felt so fucking good.

“Hush, mein schatz,” he coaxed, holding you closer as you clenched around his cock, babbling incoherently as he fucked up into you. “You’re doing so good, I promise.”

The answer was two. Two more earth-shattering orgasms before he finally went soft, coming inside of you twice before either (1), his dick just gave out, or (2), the poison wore off. Either way, by the end of it, you were exhausted and fucked out, still recovering from your cock-drunk state as he cleaned you up.

“I’m sorry, maus,” he apologized, sounding genuinely remorseful as he gently wiped your soaked thighs with a clean cloth he had found in the room. “I’m so sorry, I don’t—I don’t know what came over me.”

“Drugs,” you supplied, staring at the ceiling in exhaustion. “Really bad drugs.”

“Yes, drugs,” he agreed, carefully mopping your folds as you sighed. “But still—I am sorry. I was…overzealous. I hope I did not hurt you too bad.”

“I’ll be a little sore,” you admitted, glancing at the bruises his fingers had left on your waist and hips. “But I’ll be fine, trust me.”

He sighed, somehow managing to look resigned even with the sniper hood. “I should not have been so hard on you. I’m sorry.”

“Honestly?” you murmured, blinking at him sleepily. “That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

He froze for a moment. “What?”

“Not that I’ve had a lot of sex,” you said quickly. “But still, that was the best I’ve ever had. Probably will ever have, now that I think about it. You must be very experienced. Oh God, I should not have said that out loud. I am—I am so sorry.”

Even with his sniper hood on, you could tell he was blushing. “Oh, um—it’s okay, maus.” You could hear the shyness in his voice. “I do not consider that to be my best performance, but I will take it as a compliment.”

“Your best performance?” You stared at him, mind running through everything that had just happened. You’d had sex before, but that—that was a whole ass experience. You’d never even dreamed about anything that good. “Christ, what’s your best performance, then?”

“Well,” he replied, sliding your soaked underwear back up your legs for you, “I would have taken you out on a date first, at the very least. That would be the proper way to court you.”

“Court me?” you repeated, sitting up straight. “I didn’t know you were so well-mannered, König.”

He looked away from you, shifting awkwardly from his spot on the floor. “I try to be courteous before sticking my dick in people.”

It took you a moment to realize he was joking, and you laughed—actually really laughed out loud. His awkward humor was charming you, and you felt warmth swell in your chest as you listened to him speak. You grinned at him, his eyes crinkling in a smile back.

König still smiled, but a hint of sadness pervaded his gaze. “Ah, schatz.” He hesitated. “I would have liked to make love to you,” he sighed, “but I did not imagine these would be the circumstances. I was hoping to take you on a date first, get to know you better.”

“You wanted to what?” Your eyes widened, and you blinked in confusion. “But…I thought you didn’t like me.”

König practically jolted in place. It was like you’d electrocuted him. He stared at you. “Why would you ever think that?”

“You talk to everyone but me,” you said softly. “I thought you didn’t trust me. Thought you hated me.”

“Hated—?” He shook his head vigorously. “No, I wanted to speak to you. You just…made me nervous. The others do not.”

“I made you nervous?” The words fell from your lips with shock, your eyebrows furrowing. “How would I—how did I ever make you nervous? You’re like three times the size of me!”

König shrugged, sheepish. “You’re very pretty. And you seemed…kind, and well-connected with the others. I have trouble finding that connection. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing to you and fuck it up.”

“So you said nothing at all.” You were quiet for a moment, turning over the information in your mind. “Wow. I was way off.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but it is okay. I’m sorry for making you think I disliked you, schatz.”

“It’s okay,” you chuckled, shaking your head in disbelief. You ran a hand through your hair, beyond shocked at everything happening. You couldn’t believe you’d fucked your colleague, the one you’d had a crush on for who knows long, and also discovered that he didn’t, in fact, hate you. “At least I know now.”

“Next time, I will be better,” König vowed, helping you tug on your pants. “More gentle. I will do things right, I promise.”

“Next time?” You hesitated, biting your lip. “There will be a next time?”

“Of course there will,” he answered, adjusting his tactical gloves. “Did you not hear what I said earlier?”

“Um…which one?” He’d said a lot of things earlier.

He helped you to your feet, towering over you as he cupped his large hand under your jaw. Your heart stopped in your chest as you looked up into his eyes, his large frame dwarfing yours beyond comparison. “Du bist mein schatz, ja?” he repeated, gloved thumb tracing over your bottom lip. His very soul seemed to ooze confidence. “That’s what I said, no?’

With the way he was making you feel right now, you didn’t think it was even possible to say the word no. “Y-yes,” you stammered, adoration clear in your eyes as you gazed up at him.

He chuckled and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “So there will be a next time. Unless, of course, you don’t want to.”

“N-no, no, no, I definitely want!” you said quickly. You stumbled over your words in your eagerness, and your cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I would like that a lot.”

“Good,” he said, patting the top of your head. Normally, you’d be furious at such an action, but considering his height, it seemed more practical than condescending. “Now come, schatz,” he said, adjusting his vest. “Time to deny everything to the rest of the team.”

Oh, fuck. You sighed. “Yeah…I forgot about that.”

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wolfies-toys · 2 months

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I've been sitting on this pattern and tutorial for a while now! so time to finally share it with you! I was lamenting that the jellycat pip and sugar mice were long retired and difficult to get your hands on unless you are willing to pay much more than they retailed for each mouse, so i decided to try and eyeball a pattern and make some myself! they're not exact as i only used constructed visual references but they're close! please note that this pattern set is intended for personal use only. Rough tutorial under the cut!

This pattern is for printing onto A4 but you can check your scale with the measurements I've provided or just play around with how big or small you want to try and make them! i didn't really get any wip photos of pip mouse but it's method is largely the same with the nose being the major change, which i will detail in text in the instructions below.

for sugar mouse i would recommend using polar fleece as it will act the right way for the ears to do their squishy marshmallow looking thing. but minky should also work or other similar fabrics! for pip mouse if you can find a similar curly looking fabric with a thin backing that'll be ideal but fleece will also work well, you just wont get the furry texture, you want a fabric with a little bit of stretch to it. i however would not recommend fabrics like felt or non stretch cotton for these guys as it's likely to not take shape the same as there's no give to the fabric.

once you have printed out the pattern and cut the pieces in your fabric, you'll want to sew the ears up and turn them inside out, then put them aside for later. just leave them as is for now but here you can see i was playing around with pinching the turned through ear into shape.

Then moving on, sew the back pieces together along the spine and front of face. you then want pull the bottom open ends apart gently and place the open sides flat up against the base piece so that they're aligned, it can be good to pin this in place so it doesn't shift.

then, get your tail rope, and tie a knot at either end, placing the base of it inbetween the seam at the butt so that it'll sit in the right place, then sew the seam up directly with the tail in place, make sure you sew through the rope to secure it and make sure it doesnt shift. Sew around the bases seam leaving a hole in one side so that you can then turn your mouse through.

once turned through you will want to stuff your mouse with polyfill quite a bit so it takes shape! i like to put weighted beans in mine for extra effect, you can use dried rice or wheat too, just sew a little circle pouch a bit smaller that the mouses base with scrap fabric and fill and seal! then insert into the turning hole while you stuff. once stuffing is done you can sew the hole up with a ladder stitch. the weight from the beads will allow your mouse to sit up quite well.

next you will want to get those ears you put aside, take each corner and bring the ends together in the middle. then sew them gently together at the ends with one or two stitches in about the same spot. you want them to look 3d so dont sew the ends to the back of the ear, just end to end so they meet in the center.

Then pin the ears in place on the head

then you need to ladder stitch the ears in place while they're pinned so they dont shift around, go all the way around the outside edge of each.

now you're almost done! next they just need a face! sugar mouse only needs embroidery by way of a french knot for both the eyes and nose (you can find good video tutorials on how to sew a french knot online), pip mouse will also need a french knot for the eyes but has a separate process for it's nose. (for the pip mouses nose you will need to leave the marked nose hole open and then stitch the nose fabric to the square nose backing in line with the dotted direction on the pattern, (it should look kind of baggy when it's unstuffed) sew it up completley with no hole, then cut a tiny slit in the backing and add polyfill there before closing with a basic stitch, then you ladder stitch the nose directly to the marked nose hole)

in order to hide the embroidery anchor knots i find the best way is to start by going down through the middle of the ears and then coming back up where you want the eye to be, and then going back down and up through the ear for the finishing knot, as it creates a very easy cover for them and looks nice and clean!

then you have yourself a little buddy!

haha they're great to squish! if you use this pattern i'd love to see your results!

#toys #plushie #pattern #tutorial #made by me

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femboty2k · 25 days

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The Great Trans Girl Exodus Commission Post

Hello once again! To make a long story short: My darling wife and I are trying very hard to be able to move from Texas to Colorado ahead of how bad legislature is getting here. We have savings and a plan but its shaping up to be a very expensive and stressful finding a place to actually move in to. Our lease here is up at the end of June so we're starting to really crack down on trying to find places to apply to. I'm making this post because we would really appreciate some extra funds to add to what we have saved to make this move possible and if its an option: comfortable. We're a pair of trans lesbians trying so very very hard to make a life for ourselves in this country that hates us. Below I've attached some basic pricing and examples of the type of pixel art I do as well as some of my writing as I'm A-Okay writing for other folks if you like my prose or brand of article jank. If you have any questions about anything here please feel free to send me a DM on here and we can talk more about what you want and what I can do for you. Thank you so much if you end up commissioning anything or even if you just share this post. Examples and pricing below the cut:

Y2K Stylized Piece: $50+ (Price can range based on piece complexity desired)

Flat colour piece w. basic detailing: $60+ (Price can range based on number of characters desired and background complexity, basic BG is included in piece)

Detailed/Low-Poly Style piece: $75+ (These ones take the longest due to the by-hand editing needed to ensure the style is cohesive or detailing is done on the whole piece. Price can range based on complexity desired.)

Pixel Chibi: $20 (Pixel Chibi pricing is locked at $20)

Emote Suite: $35 (Price covers up to 9 custom emotes sized for usage in Discord and other messaging use cases)

Doodle: $25 (A flat simple piece with a simple concept done on a small canvas)

WRITING EXAMPLES:

Fiction: Tactile Sensations, a Sci-Fi short story Article Writing: Bloodborne PXS: One of the best fanworks on the web Writing prices start at $30 and can fluctuate upwards based on piece length. Thank you so much for checking out my work and/or sharing it. We're trying to start a new life for ourselves in a safer place, and we really do appreciate any help. Thank you!

#my stuff #pixel art #my art #digital art #art #commissions #trans #mutual aid #moving help #commission post #commissions open

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yandere-daydreams · 7 months

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Not-So-Scary Moments With The Yan. Genshin Boys (Sumeru + Fontaine Edition).

Characters: Alhaitham, Neuvillette, Kaveh, Tighnari, Cyno, and Wriothesley.

Word Count: 2.7k.

TW: Borderline Shitposting, Prolonged Imprisonment, Varying Levels of Emotional and Physical Abuse, Codependency, Mentions of Stalking, and Unhealthy Relationships.

Alhaitham

It took Alhaitham about ten minutes to drag himself out of bed, his staggered footsteps audible through the thin walls of his apartment.

It took twenty for him to haul himself through his morning routine – water running somewhere in the distance and porcelain clattering against marble countertops as he washed his face and tried to work some life into himself. Alhaitham usually wasn’t so lethargic, but he’d had a rough week. There’d been a sudden influx of paperwork for the Akademiya’s sole scribe, and every second he didn’t spend buried under new legislation and requests for increased budging was, instead, dedicated to one of his many personal research projects. By the time he’d gotten home last night, it’d been all he could do to make sure you hadn’t starved to death and drag himself to bed.

He usually would’ve kept you waiting for a few more minutes, but an agitated grunt marked an end to his normal patterns. In a moment, he was braced against the doorway to his own study, his eyes narrowed half-hearted towards where you sat in his leather-padded chair, your feet propped on his desk. There was an book open in your lap – one of his, something about metaphysics and ley line abnormalities and how both tied into the Inazuman politics. He eyed it wearily before speaking, his voice still deep with exhaustion. “Where did you put my hearing aids?”

His tone was accusatory, his irritation visible. You put on your sweetest smile. “Where did you put my novellas?” you signed, thinking for a moment before adding, “Bitch?”

“They aren’t ‘novellas’, they’re—” He cut himself off with a scoff. “They’re filth. I don’t want you rotting your brain with smut.”

“The plots are very—”

“The plots are half-baked excuses for paper-thin characters to fondle each other in locations you can tell the author didn’t take the time to properly research and—” His gaze flickered to you, his frown deepening. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“You’ve read them?”

There was a long beat of silence.

Finally, he let out a labored sigh. “The dozen or so I couldn’t be bothered to throw away are in a cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. It’s locked – the code is your birthday. Now, where are my aids?”

“You fell asleep with them on last night,” you said aloud, abandoning his glorified textbook and pushing yourself to your feet. His hand shot to the side of his head, finding the metallic cuff only slightly displaced by having spent the better half of the night on his head. As you passed him, you paused, pressing a kiss into the corner of his scowl and pretending to ignore the muffled groan he let out in response.

Neuvillette

Of all the sights you thought you might see after arriving in your wonderous new nation, the Iudex of Fontaine standing over your drained bathtub with a look of potent remorse written across his expression was not one of them.

You’d imagined yourself strolling through the walls of the Opera Epiclese in vivid detail, been able to picture exactly what you might’ve seen standing below the Tower of Ipsissimus or above the bottomless pit that was the entrance to the Fortress of Meropide, but even after you’d found yourself in the smothering care of Monsieur Neuvillette, you never would’ve been able to conjure this sight. He usually insisted that you bathe together, going so far as to have an in-ground tub that could’ve easily been mistaken for a hot spring installed in his (until recently neglected) personal residence to better indulge the habit. Thankfully, the trial he’d been presiding over had run long today, and you’d been able to save yourself an hour of his calloused hands running over your body, of his eyes burning into your skin with a nearly inhuman focus. You knew he’d be disappointed. Irate, even, depending on how his trial swung.

You hadn’t expected him to be so… sulky about it.

Half-lidded eyes, a slight pout tugging at the corner of his lips as he lingered idly in the doorway between your shared bedroom and the in-suite bathroom. Steam and silence laid heavy in the air – the latter you were eventually forced to break as you fiddled with the hem of your robe. “I’m sorry,” you muttered, hoping more to break the tension than to make him think you were genuinely apologetic. “It was getting late, and I didn’t know when you were coming home. I didn’t think you’d take it so personally.” When he didn’t respond, you braced yourself for the worst. “If you’re angry, please say so. I… I’d rather get this over with now, if it’s all the same to you.”

His expression softened. He let out an airy sigh and, with only a moment of hesitation, closed the space between you. “I’m not angry.” A pair of lean arms wrapped around your waist, his face soon buried in the crook of your neck. You heard him inhale, and did what you could to suppress the shudder that ran up your spine at the thought of him basking in your scent. “I’ve just been… looking forward to it, I suppose. Your taste relaxes me.”

Immediately, you went rigid. “My… taste?”

“Mhm.”

“Neuvillette,” you started, very slowly, giving your own mind time to catch up to the dread slowly building in the pit of your stomach. “Have you been drinking my bathwater?”

He was quiet for a not inconsiderable amount of time.

Finally, he pulled away from you just far enough to speak. “…no?”

For your own sake, you decided to believe him.

Kaveh

“Kaveh.”

“Not now, treasure.”

“Go to bed.”

“I will, in another hour.”

“You need to get some sleep.”

“I’ve already told you – I’m fine.” He narrowed his eyes, expression contorted by concentration. “Knight to B4.”

“Kaveh,” you repeated, leaning across the table. “You were showing me your blueprints.”

“Oh.” He blinked several times, looking over the sheet of blue paper marked with chalk drawings and near indecipherable hand-writing. “Were you impressed?”

Your frown irked, but you swallowed back your exasperation and pushed yourself to your feet. Slowly, you took him by the hand and, when he failed to protest, guided him out of his own seat and towards the room you were usually restrained to, when he wasn’t home. He’d kept himself awake for the past two nights, every moment of the past forty-eight hours devoted to finishing his proposal for a wealthy commissioner’s summer mansion before its upcoming deadline and, now that the coffee had been drained from his system and his adrenaline had been given time to fade, he was practically a shell of a man – all dark circles and hunched posture and disheveled blonde hair.

Sleep deprivation was, by far, the worst thing he could inflict on himself. At least he was happy after he drunk himself into oblivion. This was just depressing; as miserable for him as it was for you.

With a dutifulness you shouldn’t have had to show to your lover-turned-stalker-turned-captor, you brought him to his bed and watched as he collapsed onto it, what little strength he had to hold himself up immediately dissolving. With a sigh, a roll of your eyes, you turned to leave, but a hand lashed out from the crumpled heap and caught you by the wrist. “Stay with me?” His voice was muffled by layers of sheets and blankets, but clear enough. “Please?”

Usually, his bids for affection were met with bitter neutrality or, on your worse days, spiteful condensation. Usually, you would’ve torn yourself out of his hold and made sure he knew that he’d ruined any chance of living out his little domestic fantasy the second he decided his obsession was worth more than your happiness. Usually, you would’ve hated him that much more for daring to ask.

But, he could barely hold his eyes open and when you failed to immediately recoil, the sloppiest, most lovesick smile you’d ever seen plastered itself across his lips. It was his turn to pull you forward, this time; to drag you onto his bed and into his chest. With a satisfied sigh, he slotted his chin against the dip of your shoulder and draped his arms around your waist – an old position. A relic of better times you’d never been strong enough to completely dicard. “When it’s time to draw up the plans for our home,” he mumbled, only half-audible. “I won’t so much as breathe until its perfect.”

You opened your mouth, but didn’t say anything.

He’d already fallen asleep.

Tighnari

He glanced once at the thick packet of ink-marked parchment you’d slammed in front of him before looking back to you, his expression disparaging. “And this is supposed to be…?”

“A custody agreement,” you answered, grinning. “Alhaitham put it together during his last visit.”

“We don’t have any kids.”

“It’s for Collei. If I ever leave you,” and, to be clear, you would be leaving him, as soon as you figured out how to get away from a man who poisoned your tea whenever you so much as suggested entertaining a future that didn’t include him, “I want weekends and summers.”

“She’s nineteen.”

“Which is why we’re letting her pick who she wants to spend holidays with.” You tapped the front page with your knuckles. “Honestly, dear, if you weren’t going to so much as read the documents, we could’ve scheduled this for another day.”

His ears twitched, his tail sweeping across the floor in irritation. “Even if this was legally binding – which, by the way, something assembled by a scribe would not be – I would never give you weekends. That’d be too much travelling for a girl in her condition, and I don’t want her to feel like she comes from a broken home. Moreover, according to Regulation #531 as passed by the Grand Sage last year, you would have to get Collei’s signature before—”

“Check page twenty-seven.”

You watched him scowl as he thumbed through the pages. A second later, his ears flattened against his scalp, and he took to muttering under his breath. “Traitor.”

“If you don’t want your aggression towards the dependent party used against you in court, I’d suggest you sign on page four, seventeen, and thirty-two.”

You left his villa half an hour later with a with a new imprint of his fangs on the side of your throat and a signed document in-hand.

Cyno

“You have kidnapped me.”

“Technically, I was only—”

“You’ve blackmailed me, imprisoned me, and tortured me.”

“You can’t still be hung up on—”

“You’ve branded me with your name, forced me into your bed, and made me play out all your delusional, fucked-up fantasies—” You took a deep breath, pursed your lips. “—but if you show up to a black-tie event wearing that, it will be the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”

He looked down, as if considering his attire for the first time. He was in his usual uniform – which was to say, shirtless and barefoot, his hair windblown and a fine layer of sand still coating what little he was wearing. You could only be thankful his polearm wasn’t slung across his back, but you knew he’d make it past the door without it. “The way I dress has never been a problem before.”

“There’s a difference between hunting down rouge scholars and going to a banquet being held by a literal god. Archons, Lesser Lord Kusanali herself might be there.” You gasped, dragged your hands over your face. “Everyone who’s ever gone to the Akademiya will absolutely be there.”

For all his many faults, he could never stand to see you in pain. There was a brief delay, a moment of unsure shuffling, then his arms were wrapping around you, his chest slotting against your back has he pulled you against him. “It’ll be alright,” he muttered, speaking into your shoulder. “If anyone so much as attempts to insult you—no, if anyone tries to talk to you at all, I’ll strike them down in the blink of an eyes.”

His comfort was stale, but you forced yourself to relax. At least enough to speak. “You know,” you mumbled, letting your hands drift to your temples. “Dehya was hired by an up-and-coming scholar, a few weeks ago. I’m not sure how long her contract was, but there’s a chance we’ll see her tonight.”

There was a beat of silence, then another.

“Cyno?”

“I’ll change.”

Wriothesley

You could hear him trudging up the metallic stairs to his office; his footsteps heavy enough to drown out the soft music flowing out of his century-old gramophone. His head emerged from the curving staircase, first – his hair somehow more disheveled than its usual state of barely-tamed chaos – then his chest, his tie undone and his collar terribly mangled, as if he’d spent all day indulging the worst of his nervous habits. He was baring his teeth, his pale cheeks flushed with anger and his eyes narrowed into a pointed glare. It wasn’t quite the reaction you’d hoped for (in your wildest dreams, he would’ve managed to sink his beloved fortress before he ever reached you), but it was close enough.

You moved to stand, to greet him with the warm embrace he usually demanded, but he was already in front of you, already pinning you to the back of the lounge you’d been splayed across with a single fist planted less than a hair’s width above your shoulder. “You,” he growled, leaning in close enough for his breath to fan over your skin. “Do you know how many journalistsI had to deal with today? They were everywhere. I couldn’t go a step without tripping over some— over some glorified tabloid.”

“So, your meeting with Monsieur Neuvillette went well?” His scowl deepened, and you let out your most faux innocent laugh – a chiming, bubbling thing he’d never been able to stand. “You shouldn’t scowl like that, love. All those photographers will have to find a new model if you manage to give yourself frown lines.”

He jolted, but forced himself to shut his eyes, to let out a long, ragged breath. When he did face you again, he’d regained a degree of his composure – just enough to meet your smile with his own tight-lipped grin, more teeth than anything. “I’ll let you off easy if you tell me how you did it now. Before I decide it’d be faster to strangle an explanation out of you.”

“I didn’t break any rules, if that’s what you’re worried about.” You paused, folded your hands over your lap. “It was all thanks to our great and benevolent duke. Contacting people outside of the fortress has gotten so much more efficient ever since you decided prisoners should be able to send letters without administrative vetting.”

He buckled visibly, his shoulders falling as he lean towards you, his face soon buried in the dip of your shoulder. “You’re gonna be the death of me, sweetheart.” There was a raspy chuckle, a hand on your thigh, squeezing just hard enough for his anger to shine through the playfulness of the gesture. “I think I’ve earned the rest of the day off, and I think you’ve earned—”

The door to his office swung open before he could finish, a masculine voice calling up from the voice below only a moment later. “Your grace, t-there’s a reporter here to see you! She says she’s been told not to leave until she speaks to your partner!”

“That’ll be Charlotte,” you half-sung. “She seemed like such a nice girl in her letters. It’d be a shame to keep her waiting.”

When he failed to answer, you brought up both hands and cupped his face, cooing as you used your thumbs to quirk the corners of his mouth upward.

“Just remember to smile for the camera this time, alright?”

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sundrop-writes · 3 months

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Careful - Chapter One

(Dad)Spencer Reid x (Mom)Fem!Reader

Chapter One: Over Yet

We can go farther, beyond the end.

Summary:

You and Spencer broke up more than four years ago. Since then, he has tried his best to forget about you. He has pushed all of his feelings down - locked them away into a little box that he never touches.

That is, until he sees your name on a list of potential victims being stalked and killed by a man who kills single mothers. (And he quickly realizes that your son could be his.)

Dad!Spencer Reid x Mom!Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Angst.

Word Count: 5,900

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Please keep in mind - I am not doing a taglist for this series, so please do not ask to be tagged in future parts. I do not do taglists. If you want to be notified when future parts of this fic are posted, you can follow this blog and turn on notifications here - I don't make personal posts on this blog, it is just pure posts of my fanfiction. Or you can subcribe on AO3 to get email notifications when this series is posted. You can also view the posting schedule on the series materlist and check @tenpintsof-sundrop for any information about possible changes to that schedule.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: general warnings for a Criminal Minds episode - mentions of murder/killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of killing, somewhat graphic descriptions of dead bodies, the underlying misogyny that comes with a man killing women, mentions of children being orphaned due to their mothers being killed (though there is no mentions of other living family members taking care of those children - you can imaging that they still have nice families to take care of them if you want, I didn’t fill in that detail), mentions of children being in proximity of a serial killer; exes to lovers - the reader and Spencer broke up and the reason why will be revealed later; mentions of pregnancy/mentions of the reader having a child; mentions of sex that resulted in a child/pregnancy (there is no detailed sex scenes/detailed smut in this chapter, but there will be in other chapters); mentions of JJ x Will; the reader’s looks are described as vaguely as possible; passing mention of incest (in the context of a historical figure); all statements that Spencer makes toward the end of this chapter were heavily researched and are factual; I think that’s about it?

A/N: The reader and Spencer originally dated around Season 1/Season 2 - I state at some point during the fic that they dated for 3 years before breaking up, so they started dating when he was very early Season 1 baby Spence (or even before Season 1) and they broke up around Season 2. So technically this fic takes place around Season 6 - but because I didn't want to distract from the plot, I didn't mention any of the stuff going on with Emily or any of those major canon plot points, and I am using pictures of later versions of Spencer just because that's who I was picturing in my head while writing this. But that's how the math works out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic!! This chapter is more of an introduction before we really get into the meat of things, but I still hope that you guys like it.

...

The team had been in Portland for three days.

No leads, a confusing, inconsistent profile - huge pieces missing that would likely give them the real answers.

A patient killer with an extended timeline who likely wouldn’t kill again for months - leaving them chasing their tails, looking for answers.

“Okay, so, let’s take a step back.” Hotch sighed. “What do we know so far?”

He leaned against a nearby table, looking at everyone with the hope of reassessing the case from a different angle. The hope of talking it out to get some answers.

Another woman’s body had been found just before they arrived, and that would mean that the UnSub would be out hunting again soon. This was both good and bad.

Good, because the UnSub clearly had to spend a lot of time stalking his victims - he knew a lot of details of their lives, and he had spent a lot of time developing an intimate fantasy of being a part of their family in his mind. So he wouldn’t be killing again the next day. No woman was in immediate danger. It gave the team more time to find viable suspects.

Bad because they had no physical evidence, no good leads. And thus far, the profile was leading them nowhere. It felt incomplete.

They could find no real connections between the victims - their gyms, their banks, their childcare, their grocery stores. Somehow, the victims didn’t seem to have any crossover in their lives. There was no real way to say how the UnSub had met them. And someone like this - he would have interacted with them at least once in order to become obsessed and stalk them to this degree.

“Five women dead within the last three years.” Prentiss announced, starting to round up the facts that the team knew for certain. “All of them mothers, all with children under the age of five. All within the same ten square mile radius of Oregon, around Portland’s suburban neighborhoods.”

She slumped back into her chair with a tired huff, and then continued.

“The UnSub breaks into their homes through a backdoor or a back window, and somehow goes undetected in such an upscale neighborhood.” She sighed. “He kills the mothers, but he leaves their children alive. And then he calls 9-1-1 to report the death as a case of child neglect.”

“So he was likely neglected by his own mother in his childhood.” Morgan easily theorized.

“All of the victims upper-middle class, single mothers to one child with good jobs. All of them are of the same physical type.” Rossi added on. “They’re the same race, they have the hair color, they’re the same body type - all in their late twenties to early thirties. So the UnSub definitely has a type. He’s most definitely recreating a fantasy of some kind - perhaps taking out revenge on his own mother, but protecting himself. Which is why he never hurts the children.”

“Yeah, but the children are different.” Morgan replied. “Sometimes boys, sometimes girls. Some of them are biracial - he doesn’t look for a specific type in the father. He doesn’t necessarily need to see himself in the children.”

Then, as another thought occurred to him, Morgan continued on:

“Plus, the children’s ages vary from barely a year old all the way up to five - if he was looking to seek revenge on his mother, looking to protect a younger version of himself, then he would have locked in on a critical event that he needs to protect himself from. The age of the children would be more consistent, at least, because he would be looking to protect himself as he hits the age that he was most traumatized by a specific event.”

“That’s good.” Hotch nodded. “Then we know that it’s more about the mothers. He hates women at his core. Protecting the children is just a byproduct of his obsession over these women.”

“But we still have no clue how these women could be connected or how they met the UnSub.” Morgan replied, jaw stiff with frustration.

“Focus on what we do know.” Hotch reminded him.

“All of the women were killed via stabbing. They all had over a dozen stab wounds to their stomachs and genital areas.” Rossi replied. “So, he is an aggressive sexual sadist.”

“But if he hates women so much, why spend so much time in the house?” Morgan argued gently. “Every single one of these scenes has evidence that the UnSub spent hours - possibly up to a day in the house before he killed them. He cooked dinner, set the table, and made the women eat it before he killed them. Including a second place setting for a child. Some of the kids even said that ‘the scary man’ tucked them into bed and read them a story.”

He held up one of the crime scene photos that depicted the scene of the family’s place settings - a haunting scene of plates not cleaned up from dinner, with a flower vase sitting in the middle of the table with a few white flowers wilting inside of it.

“He’s right - why bother to show them the kindness of a last meal if he shows so much aggression toward them during the killing?” Prentiss added on.

“It’s a routine.” Hotch said, the thought suddenly occurring to him. “It’s likely that he chooses single mothers because he gets to play the role of the father. With the real father figure absent from the picture, it makes it easier for him to impose himself into that role. At least for a temporary amount of time.”

“It is strange.” Reid added on, clearly swimming in thought. “It’s almost like he’s courting them? Sending them gifts, showing what a good father he could be. Each of the women were sent white carnations sometime in the days before they were killed, and after the killing, he lays the flowers around their head in a halo-like fashion. It is said that carnations represent motherhood, and the white shade could depict an angelic innocence that he’s projecting onto these women.”

“So he views these women as angelic figures, yet he kills them so brutally?” Prentiss scoffed. “It just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe he views the killing itself as a type of purification.” Reid theorized. “It’s not uncommon for killers to emotionally fetishize dead bodies and consider them more ‘pure’ than their living counterparts.”

Prentiss visibly cringed at this.

“Wait.” JJ said, looking at one of the crime scene photos with a sharp line pulling her brows together.

Everyone looked to her, waiting for her to finish this thought.

“I don’t think that the mothers were the only ones sent gifts.”

She held up the photo, showing a picture of a colorful child’s play mat in the living room. Everyone stared at the photo in confusion, and JJ sighed and began to explain.

“Look at this toy truck in the middle.” She said, pointing at something that almost blended into the background of the photo. The true focus was a large handprint - one that belonged to the killer, but he had worn gloves. “It’s wooden, it’s hand-carved, it’s old fashioned. All the other toys are plastic, brightly coloured. Remember what the UnSub said in the second 9-1-1 call?”

“‘She pretends to have her son’s best interests at heart, but she was going to let him get cancer from sucking on those cheap plastic toys.’” Reid said, repeating it word-for-word, using his impeccable memory.

“Exactly.” JJ confirmed with a nod. “Clearly the UnSub believes that he would be a good father because he can gift his child something hand-made instead of something mass produced.”

“Alright, get the crime scene techs back over there to pick up the truck, maybe he wasn’t wearing gloves when he made it and there is some slim chance he left a print on it.” Hotch said, and JJ left to call the crime scene unit.

This left the team sitting in silence for a few more moments until Reid spoke up again.

“What about preschools?” He said, suddenly coming out of a wave of thought to announce this to the room.

“What?” Prentiss prompted, wondering what on earth he was talking about.

“Preschools.” Spencer confirmed, looking across the table at her.

“We checked already, none of the victims’ children went to the same preschool.” Morgan reminded him. “Two of the kids didn’t even go to preschool.”

“Yeah, but preschools typically have large waitlists.” Spencer argued.

Naturally, all eyes in the room fell on him, waiting for him to explain.

“In the first 9-1-1 call, the UnSub said that the victim ‘shipped her son off to be cared for by strangers half the time’.” He explained, once again perfectly reciting this from memory. “What if the UnSub resents preschools and the schooling system for taking these children away from their mothers, so he’s choosing his victims off of a preschool waitlist? What if that’s where his obsession stems from because that’s where his rage stems from?”

Reid jumped up, pointing to the map he had been using to make a geographical profile.

“All of the victims live within the same school district.” He added on. “So they would be applying to the same group of preschools.”

“I’ll call Garcia.” Morgan announced.

A few minutes later, Morgan connected Garcia’s call to the comm on the center of the conference table they were working from.

“Hey, pumpkin pies.” She greeted them sweetly, as usual. “So it turns out, the preschool that Tommy Laird, and Emily Ashton, the third and the fourth victim had in common, does have a waitlist. But none of the other victims’ names were on it.”

“Come on, babygirl. I know you’re holding out on me.” Morgan said, giving a small smirk.

“Oh, my Adonis, if I don’t have your trembling anticipation, I have nothing.” Garcia giggled. “The school’s waitlist, and their applications, are handled by a firm called Gordon & Stanheight. And it turns out, they handle the applications and waitlisting for five other preschools in the area.”

“Which gives the UnSub a perfect way to pick his victims.” Morgan sighed. “The first interaction that gets him hooked might not even be in person-”

“Unless he’s picking them out of the line-up on paper and then waiting to meet them in person?” Prentiss replied. “With this type of guy, the smallest smile, a nod in his direction - that could be consent in his mind to play father to a household that’s missing one.”

“You said they handle forms for five different schools? That just widened the victim pool.” Rossi groaned.

“And the suspect pool.” Garcia added on. “The firm has thirty male employees. And I did a bit more digging - the preschool applications have ten ‘optional’ questions on the bottom that are definitely not marked as such. Questions directed at the parent filling out the form, rather than vital information about the child. Things such as: ‘what’s your favorite food?’, ‘when is your birthday?’, ‘what’s your favorite color?’, ‘do you plan on having more children?’ - typical survey schlock,”

“That would explain why the UnSub served Lisa Laird a birthday cake.” Reid sighed. “He knew it was her birthday two days before he killed her.”

“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like where this is going.” Emily sighed.

“Oh, sugar. You probably won’t.” Penelope easily agreed. “The ‘optional’ part of the forms is sold off to other companies as survey data. And those forms are seen and handled by over a thousand male employees of Gordon & Stanheight’s larger ‘data processing’ sector.”

“Well the UnSub has to be local to Portland. So narrow down the suspect list based on his last known address and go from there.” Hotch said. “Also, it would be someone who has a criminal record. Someone committing this level of violence wouldn’t be a first time offender.”

“Gotcha.” Penelope said. “Penny G, out.”

…

The team ended up raiding Gordon & Stanheight’s Portland based office.

After some pointless conversation, some threats of lawsuits, and some even larger threats of being detained for impeding an FBI investigation, the team was able to get their hands on the preschool applications. Over two-dozen boxes worth, that they would have to sort through.

So this left JJ, Reid, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss knee deep in paper, looking for anyone who fit the UnSub’s victimology - praying that they would be able to pick out the next victim and get to her before the UnSub did.

“We’re never gonna get through these fast enough, are we?” Prentiss sighed, continuing to sift through the papers.

“We just have to go as fast as we can, and hope the UnSub sticks to his schedule.” Morgan replied. “He has to spend time stalking them, learning their routine. Even if he has chosen his victim by now, he won’t break into the house until he’s fully confident that he won’t be disrupted.”

“And the stalking helps build up the fantasy.” Reid added on. “He romanticizes them from afar, sends them gifts. It adds to his delusions of grandeur and forbidden love. The idea that he’s swooping in to become the perfect father figure for these ‘broken’ families.”

“So we’re hanging all our hopes on the idea that this psychopath needs time to ‘fall in love’ with his next victim before he kills her?” Prentiss groaned.

“Sadly, yes.” Rossi confirmed.

“It helps that most of these applications are from two-parent households.” JJ pointed out. “We can throw out anything with a second applicant on the form, because he’s only targeting single mothers.”

The rest of the conversation easily became quiet in Spencer’s ears when he saw it.

It should have been just another page among the sea of paper in his hands, but when he saw those words on the page - that name - it was like a punch to the gut. It pushed all the air out of him in seconds, it made him dizzy, made him struggle to breathe. Like a reel flashing through his mind, it brought back a flood of memories he thought he had locked away forever.

It was you.

What the hell were you doing applying for preschools?

Spencer rushed to tear this paper away from the others in order to read it more carefully.

Surely enough, the application was filled out in your handwriting. Something that had barely changed over the years. And it was all right there, laid out in front of his eyes, clear as day -

You had a son.

A son named Sebastian, who was three years old. Spencer checked the date on the form, eagerly looking for a birth date for your son. His birthday had just recently passed, actually, so he was four years old now.

And his birth date was… fuck.

He had been born eight and a half months, almost nine months exactly after the two of you had broken up. Your son had been born eight and a half months after the day you had left and Spencer had never seen you again.

One thousand, seven hundred and two days.

Four years, eight months, and two days.

It wasn’t difficult math.

Your son was the perfect age to be Spencer’s child. Was this Spencer’s child?

His hands began to shake at the very thought of it.

Is that why you had disappeared from his life with such haste? Because you knew that you were pregnant and you didn’t want Spencer to be a part of your child’s life?

Had you been keeping this from him intentionally?

He hadn’t thought about you in four long years, he had tried so hard not to. He had spent so long forcing himself not to miss you, and now he was struck with the realization that he might have a child out there with the woman he considered to be his regrettable lost love. A child he didn’t know - a child who he had missed four whole years with.

What the fuck was going on?

There were no pictures included with the application, and suddenly, Spencer found himself dying to see the boy. He wanted to know if there was any physical resemblance to himself, or if he was jumping to conclusions.

Maybe you had cheated on him. Maybe that was why you had left town and never contacted him again. Maybe the kid wasn’t his at all, maybe-

“Reid.” JJ called out gently, getting his attention.

Spencer suddenly realized that he was hyperventilating, staring down at the application with your name on it in his hand, wrinkling the paper as he squeezed it more frantically.

“Did you find something?”

…

All in all, the team found four different women who fit the victim pattern in the files - you being one of them.

So the team split up, ready to knock on each of the womens’ doors, preparing to warn them that if they received any gifts or saw any suspicious men lingering around them in the next few days, they should call. They had to hope that the UnSub wouldn’t move on from this victim pool if he saw the FBI around. But he was overly confident, he had contacted police before.

It could definitely work.

When Hotch found out that Spencer had known you, he said that Spencer should be the one to knock on your door. That you might find it comforting to hear that you and your child could possibly be in danger if it were coming from ‘an old friend’. Spencer stuttered over himself and didn’t have the words to explain that you weren’t just a good friend to him, but a romantic flame. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of the team by telling everyone that the break-up had been messy, and sudden, and Spencer still wasn’t even completely sure what had caused it. He didn’t want to rip open his old wounds in front of everyone.

So he simply shut his mouth and got in the car with JJ, and they made their way toward your house.

…

“So…” JJ’s voice broke through the undulating silence of the car ride - filled by nothing but the sound of the car’s motor running and gears grinding inside Spencer’s mind as he tried to figure all of this out. “I do have to ask the obvious question,”

“What is that?” Spencer probed, slightly glad to be relieved of his own thoughts.

He wasn’t so glad when JJ pried those thoughts out of his mind and spilled them to the open air.

“Is the kid yours?” She wondered aloud. “I mean - when did you and Y/N break up?”

JJ had known you as Spencer’s girlfriend.

Come to think of it, she was probably the only person on the current field team who had some kind of a relationship with you back when you and Spencer dated.

Initially, it had been by accident. JJ had driven him home one night after a particularly long and sleepless case, and you had been coming to his apartment to drop off some books he had asked for (shortly after he had given you a key). When JJ saw you, her natural curiosity got the better of her - even more so when you stuck out your hand and introduced yourself as ‘Spencer’s girlfriend’ without hesitation.

The two of you got to talking, and JJ invited you to ‘girls night’. You met Elle and Penelope shortly after. You had become pretty good friends with the three of them before the break-up.

But Spencer had always felt secretive…. well, protective of you. He didn’t want Morgan teasing him about you, or him wanting to have ‘guy talk’ about things that occurred in the bedroom. Not when it might mean talking about intimate moments with you. Spencer had only introduced you to Gideon over coffee about three weeks before the break-up, and that felt like a lifetime ago.

Back then, having you, Elle, and Gideon leave his life all in a matter of a few months felt like hell on earth. It felt like being grabbed by his ankles and shaken for all he was worth. He really wasn’t sure that he was ready to see you again.

It had been four years.

JJ was someone he could lean on right now.

“Four years ago.” He told her, completely honest.

“And how old is the kid?” JJ asked.

“Four - four years old.” Spencer stuttered out, realizing that now as he was speaking about this very real possibility, he might be breathing more life into it.

“Oh my god.” JJ sighed. “Well… could it-? I mean…? Did the two of you?”

It took Spencer a moment to clue into what JJ was talking about. He gave her a sideways glance and she took her eyes off the road for a moment, raising her brows and giving him a pointed look.

“Please tell me you know what does and what doesn’t make a baby,” JJ groaned.

“Oh!” Spencer huffed, a small wave of embarrassment flooding him. “Yes! God, yes. I know.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Spencer felt the need to clarify his answer.

“We - I mean. We…” He trailed off for a moment, clearing his throat. “We didn’t always use… protection. We were together for three years, at the time, it was on the table.”

“Kids were on the table for you back then?” JJ asked, clearly shocked by this. “I could not imagine little twenty-four year old Spence with a baby.”

“Well… it’s something I’ve always wanted.” He mumbled quietly in reply.

It was true. At the time, Spencer easily imagined himself getting married to you, having multiple kids with you. These days, seeing JJ with Henry and Will brought him the occasional underlying pang of jealousy - but since breaking up with you, there hadn’t been anyone else in Spencer’s life that he could have imagined having kids with. He thought that he was going to be alone and childless for the rest of his life. That the dream was long dead for him.

“Hey - then, maybe this is a blessing in disguise?” JJ posed. “If we hadn’t been looking through those forms because of this UnSub, you never would have found Y/N again. You wouldn’t even know this baby exists.”

There was another thing that JJ was dying to ask - something she held back because she felt like it was a touch too personal. (Even if ‘too personal’ was basically how the BAU team lived - knee deep in each other’s business, all the time).

She wanted to know why you had a baby, a baby that Spencer had very likely fathered, and you hadn’t contacted him about it. Spencer seemed entirely clueless about the child’s existence before now, and JJ knew that because of what his own father had been like, he wouldn’t just blow off a kid that was his if he knew that one was out there in the world.

So why hadn’t you told Spencer about the baby?

“What if the kid isn’t yours?” JJ wondered aloud.

Maybe that would unburden him. She knew that either way, Spencer would fight to protect you from the UnSub. But if the kid wasn’t his - he would walk away again, and he wouldn’t have to be hung up on the heartbreak of dealing with his ex just to parent a child together.

“Honestly… I think I’ll be more heartbroken if I find out that he’s not even mine.” Spencer told her, his voice quiet and already lulling with that disappointment.

That was not something JJ had considered. She frowned as she saw the sadness paint across Spencer’s face.

“One thing at a time, alright?”

…

When they pulled into your driveway, Spencer’s mind immediately began churning.

It was a nice house. It was a beautiful, quiet neighborhood. The front yard was clean and trimmed and there was a silver SUV in the driveway with a ‘baby on board’ sticker in the rear window. There was a rocking chair on the porch, but he didn’t see many children’s toys out front on the lawn. He guessed that was a good thing. Letting children play in the front where they could run into the street and potentially get hit by a car was too dangerous. He was glad to already see signs that you were a good mother.

Spencer felt like he was opening up a book halfway, desperately wanting to be filled in on the previous chapters while having missed so much. Still wanting to read ahead and see more.

He had already missed so much of your son’s life. He had missed you. That was something forming the biggest knot in his gut. He had truly missed you. The times he had allowed himself to think of you over these past few years - he had missed you so dearly.

And now the two of you likely had a child together.

Craning his neck to get a better look, desperately trying to take in more information, Spencer’s eyes were wide and hungry as JJ put the car in park by the curb in front of your house. As Spencer reached for the passenger side door handle, JJ’s phone rang.

“I have to take this.” She sighed. “You go ahead.”

She gave Spencer a distinct look that said ‘I know you need a minute alone with Y/N’, and he nodded, stepping out of the vehicle while she greeted whoever was on the other line. He smoothed down his tie - for once in his whole life, he was actually worried about how he looked. Only because he knew that he was going to see you. Perhaps he had only ever felt like this before going on his first date with you.

He had such a strange lashing of emotions going through him as he approached the door. Fear, anxiety, anticipation. Longing.

He truly had tried so hard to lock away his feelings for you when you had left. He had tried to move on. He had considered, briefly, in passing, dating other women. There had been times when someone else caught his eye, and he considered asking her out on a date. Morgan had offered to ‘set him up’. Penelope had offered too, telling him that he deserved to ‘get back out there’.

Whenever she asked about you, his heart freshly cracked open.

At one point, she had advised him to write a long, Shakespearian letter, pouring out his heart to you in an effort to get you back - one which she would mail. (Because of course, she could get your new address in a heartbeat.) But he didn’t want to experience the heartbreak all over again if you ignored him. He didn’t want to sit, waiting by the mailbox every single day like a lost dog, waiting for you to write him back in return.

You had disappeared from his life for a reason. Just like everyone else had. For a long time, Spencer convinced himself that he was simply meant to end up alone.

Perhaps if he had known about your son - a child that could very well be his - then he might have felt differently about getting Penelope to contact you.

But now he was standing at your front door, his fist shaking as he raised his hand to knock.

He let out a sharp breath and steadied himself, giving three swift, firm knocks against the door and then trying to wait patiently. His heart thumped inside of his throat, and it felt like forever.

“Sorry!” Your voice called out from behind the door, muffled. “Sorry, I almost didn’t hear you. I was-”

You cut off your own words as you opened the door - the moment you caught Spencer’s eye and recognized it was him, pure shock fell across your features, and you froze on the spot.

You were just as stunning as ever. You had barely aged at all - your hair was different than the last time he had seen you, of course. And you were dressed casually - wearing a simple hooded sweatshirt with a drawstring and a pair of jeans with some fuzzy slipper boots on. But pale blue looked so good on you.

So much like the pale blue dress you had worn on your first date with him.

You were breath-taking.

“Y/N.” He greeted you, his throat dry already.

You didn’t say anything, simply continuing to stare him down with wide-eyed shock.

Seeing you again, Spencer couldn’t help but to think back to that first date.

The first night that he knew he was in love with you.

…

He had taken you to see the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

It was Spencer’s idea of a good time - and it ended up being one of the most beautiful, most romantic, most unique first dates that you had ever been on.

It was difficult not to fall for him with the beautiful music in the air and his glossy eyes, so sickeningly thick with affection, staring you down all night.

Afterwards, the two of you stopped to get ice cream at a small shop that was a short walk down from the orchestra. And now you were both enjoying your ice cream as you walked along in the cool night air - enjoying the peace and quiet and the gentle breeze in the darkness.

It was a perfect night.

Spencer could think of no better way to spend it than with you. The yellow bulbs of the street lights practically cast a glow onto your skin, the mulberry lipstick now worn off your lips as you brought the pink spoon to your mouth and licked up your sweet treat.

His stomach was churning with nerves. Joyous nerves.

And as per usual, when he was nervous - he rambled.

“You know, Bach actually married his cousin.” He said, spouting off the first thing that came to mind.

You told him that Bach was one of your favorite composers - it’s why he had thought to bring you to the orchestra on a date in the first place.

“I did not know that.” You giggled. “So what? Was it like a ‘third cousin twice removed’ type situation?”

Spencer found himself grinning at the fact that you actually engaged him in the conversation, rather than staring at him with an odd look for bringing up such a strange topic.

“Not quite.” He replied. “They had the same surname before marriage.”

“Oh, ew.” You chuckled again, giving a shudder at the thought of this.

Spencer knew it was an odd topic to discuss on a date, and if he rambled on too much, it might freak you out - but he couldn’t stop himself. His mouth ran away with him, and he continued.

“He married Maria Barbara Bach, and they had seven children together.” He told you. “His sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel became composers and musicians much like their father, which was actually carrying on a legacy started by Bach’s father himself - who was a seventh generation musician. He was the one who taught Bach the organ from a very young age.”

“Why don’t people play the organ anymore?” You wondered aloud. “Except in churches, I guess. The organ rocks.”

Spencer’s brain began rocketing off at the fact that you had asked him a question. A question he could answer.

“The organ has actually long been associated with divinity.” He replied. “The instrument rose in popularity alongside Catholicism throughout the eighteenth century, and in a sense, that was part of what made Bach a sort of ‘rockstar’ of his time. The religious references in his work, and his mastery of the organ - all of it made him incredibly popular at the time because it caused him to be favored by the church and by royal figures associated with the church.”

Spencer gleamed a large smile, heavily enjoying that he could share these facts with you. He thought for certain that any moment, you would change the subject or imply that he should stop talking. But instead, you engaged the conversation more.

“Religious references?” You questioned, wondering what he meant by this.

“Yes!” Spencer grinned, suddenly very excited by the explanation behind this. “Even in his secular music, Bach would often incorporate the acronym ‘INJ’, a Latin abbreviation that means ‘In Nomine Jesu’, or ‘in the name of Jesus’. It was something he put on all of his manuscripts.”

You grinned back. You found it fascinating that being around Spencer for such short periods of time caused you to learn so many things. It easily made you want to be around him more.

“Interesting.” You replied.

“And his talent on the organ was seen as something that made him ‘divine’ at the time. Divine enough to be worthy of performing for royalty.” Spencer added on. “In 1708, Bach got a position as the court organist in Weimer for Duke Wilhelm. And later when he requested early release from this position, desiring to go work for Prince Leopold of Koethen, the Duke actually had him arrested and put in jail for several weeks in 1716.”

Spencer laughed at this mental image - the composer being put in jail.

“Ooh, harsh.” You sighed. “But I guess Dukes have too much power.”

Spencer let out another bright laugh at this.

“And see, the interesting thing is, Bach later became the conductor of the court orchestra, in which Prince Leopold played.”

“So he got his wish,” You replied with a smile.

“And see-”

Spencer set off on another rant again, and you couldn’t help yourself. You put your spoon into the cup of ice cream and then you used your now free hand to reach out and grab Spencer by his tie - you pulled him toward you before he could get anymore words out, and he let out a shocked, choked-off sound when you pressed your mouth into his.

He sighed gently against your lips, and unconsciously dropped his own melting chocolate cone on the ground by his feet as his limp hands drifted toward your waist. He was dizzy, and now every single fact he had ever known about any composer had vanished from his head. In that moment, standing under a random street lamp on a random sidewalk somewhere - all he knew was the soft, pillowy feeling of your lips and the cool night breeze against his skin.

It was perfect. You were perfect.

You found his intelligence and the enthusiasm with which he spoke to be so utterly irresistible. You had been on so many dates with men before where they had acted like talking about their interests was a chore. Where they had made it seem like the whole thing was simply a routine, waiting for the end of the night so they could get into your pants. And for them, that’s what it probably was.

But Spencer was nothing like that.

He spoke about everything with such intense passion - and you couldn’t resist the urge to try and suck that very passion off his lips.

When you were forced to pull back slightly, your lungs crying out for oxygen, Spencer let out a gentle moan and began puffing out sweet little pants across your chin as he tried to catch his breath. You kept a hold of his tie, wanting to keep him close, and he stayed there, gently pressing his forehead against yours.

“That was… wow.” He sighed.

“I didn’t think I would ever find you at a loss for words, Doctor Reid.” You replied with a giggle.

“Well, I - you - wow.”

It was all he could muster, causing you both to break down into laughter.

Back then - everything had been perfect.

He had no clue where it all went so wrong.

...

Continue reading: Chapter Two - Liar

#sundrop writes #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #dad!spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x you #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fic

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fairyhaven13 · 1 year

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I really really dislike that people are using AI to steal art and take credit for it. However, I do like using some AI just for ideas to modify and remake in my own work, as my own creations and not someone else's.

My brother came over for Christmas and introduced me to chat.openai.com which is probably the most developed chatbot I have ever seen. I'm giving it prompts for stories and characters and it's giving me ideas that never occurred to me to use. My dad used it to find a game like Civ 5 and found one he'd never seen on Google. My brother asked it to make a poem about talking blueberries and an essay about why cheese is better than french toast and both answers were totally coherent. I'll have to get those from him and post them later.

I've been messing with it all evening after the festivities to get ideas for some plot holes and writer's block I've had and it's been great. Here's an example of what it gave me when I asked for a background for my Snitch class for the TF2 story. I gave it maybe two short sentences to work with for this btw. I'm going to modify and add a bunch to it, of course, but it's a great way to get inspiration!

"Sure, here is a long story about a woman getting sucked into the Team Fortress 2 game and becoming the tenth character class:

When Mia stumbled upon the Team Fortress 2 game at her local arcade, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. She had always been a fan of first-person shooters, and this game seemed like the perfect way to pass the time.

But as Mia began to play, she suddenly found herself being sucked into the game's universe. She found herself standing in a strange and unfamiliar world, surrounded by a group of mercenaries who seemed to be just as surprised to see her as she was to see them.

The mercenaries quickly realized that Mia was not like them. She was a real, flesh and blood human, and she had no idea how she had ended up in their world.

Despite their initial skepticism, the mercenaries decided to take Mia under their wing and teach her how to fight. They trained her in all of the different character classes, from the heavy to the scout, and Mia quickly proved to be a natural at combat.

As Mia learned the ropes, she found herself becoming more and more attached to the mercenaries. They were a strange and quirky group, but they were also kind and loyal, and Mia couldn't help but feel a sense of camaraderie with them.

But Mia's time in the Team Fortress 2 universe was not all serious training and combat. There were also plenty of ridiculous and absurd moments, like the time she and the heavy tried to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the rest of the team and ended up setting the kitchen on fire, or the time she and the scout had a dance-off to determine who was the better dancer.

Despite the chaos and absurdity of life in the Team Fortress 2 universe, Mia found herself falling for one of the mercenaries in particular: Spy. Spy was a suave and mysterious character, with a past that he kept hidden from the rest of the team.

At first, Spy was resistant to Mia's advances. He was haunted by the memory of Scout's mother, who had broken his heart years ago. But as Mia proved herself to be a skilled and loyal teammate, Spy began to open up and let her into his life.

In the end, Spy overcame his past and decided to stay in the Team Fortress 2 universe with Mia. Together, they continued to fight alongside the other mercenaries, always ready for their next battle and adventure."

#i dont own anything the ai wrote below the cut obviously #this is just for inspiration purposes #and im sharing it as a tool for others #not a creative medium at all #but it narrowed down some character tropes for me #and mythology i couldn't find on my own like obscure cryptids #and character dybamics for my ocs #just give it a detailed question and it will give you some great stuff #it even saves the conversation in tabs for you to reference later if needed #which i will since it already has tons of story ideas in it for me #neatly organized into different conversations for each topic

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northern-passage · 2 days

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Here are our contributors for the Interactive Fiction Raffle for Palestine!

Over 50 artists and authors from the IF community here on tumblr have joined together to run a donation drive this month! The raffle will be running from June 7th - June 21st. A separate post will be made with more information, including the rules and ticket submission form, once we're ready to launch.

Our goal is to raise as much money as possible for five specific fundraisers; we hope with us focusing our efforts we'll be able to make a tangible impact for these families. Tickets will be the equivalent of the minimum GoFundMe donation ($5USD/€5), and you will be donating directly to the families and then providing us proof of donation in exchange for your ticket(s).

We plan to raffle off all prizes. Below the cut is the list of contributors for both prize tiers, along with the prize they'll be offering. (Beware, this is a long post.)

While this drive is aimed at the Interactive Fiction community, a lot of the artists have offered to take requests from winners that include non-IF characters. These are specified with "non-IF characters included."

@beezhive

One half body couple “clean” sketch with flat color, non-IF characters included.

@depressed-sock

Half body to full body, single or couple, fully rendered in my style. Non-IF characters included.

@dast4rd

A painted single character portrait. Non-IF characters included (Any other media except for live action characters).

@fat-rolls-frictions

Halfbody of single character in SuperGiant Hades' style, less details, simple grey/no background, non-IF characters included.

@greypetrel

A painted single character portrait, non-IF characters included. (Bioware characters, Tolkien universe, Star Wars, the Arcana, DnD/Pathfinder/roleplaying fantasy games)

@hadrassians

One painted semi-realistic bust OR one half body couple sketch, non-IF characters included.

@harumeau

A full color single character bust portrait. Non-IF characters included (FFXIV, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age)

@jdstrations

Single character, bust or half-body. Fully rendered or sketchy. Can be MCs, or a favourite character (IF or Non-IF included).

@matrinki

One painted single character portrait, IF exclusive only.

@merry-harlowe

Fully rendered full body single character with a simple background!

@moonless-if

One full-body character, coloured and rendered, IF characters exclusive only.

@morticrows

One full-body character in a chibi style, non-IF characters included.

@pdrrook

Portrait/bust, semi-realism, non-IF characters included.

@rab-bitly

Half body character in an illustrative style, non-IF characters included.

@swimmingrat

A character portrait (OC, IF, non-IF characters included) in watercolour, ink or mixed media.

@trashy-corvian

Half body couple/single, fully rendered. Non-IF characters included.

@vakarians-babe

Half body couple, flat colors (monochrome or full) with finished lines. IF and non-IF characters accepted.

@cowboyhell

Painted one character with background scene, OR one custom chibi keychain charm. Non-IF characters included.

@violetaristea

A fully rendered bust or half body of one character with a simple background, non-IF characters included.

@atheone

Fully rendered single character bust, non-IF characters included.

@harbingersecho

Painted single character or couple portraits (bust or half-body) with a simple/non-detailed background, non-IF characters included.

@i-am-gogo-btw

Offering half body couple, full color, finished lines, simple background, no furry, no mecha, no gore, no nsfw and no complicated stuff (like armor), OR a full body, full color, finished lines drawing of a single character (same restrictions). Non-IF characters included.

@doctormortum

Winners choice between A) one full body drawing, lined/coloured, of one character OR B) one ~waist up drawing, lined/coloured, of two characters interacting (romantic, platonic, anything goes!) original characters or fanart, IF or non-IF, all OK! SFW only.

@cryptidling

One or two character, half or full body painted/rendered drawing, minimal background, non-IF characters included, open to nsfw.

@ligiawrites

Rendered portrait of one or two characters with a transparent background. Non-IF characters included.

@night-triumphantt

Half body couple fully rendered with simple background, or full body single character full render, non-IF characters included.

@silkhorse

Half body couple/single semi-rendered, non-IF characters included.

@neloangelo0

Rendered half body, will do couples, simple backgrounds, non-IF characters included.

@artist-faur

A single character half-body with simple background, either rendered (with ink wash or pen shading techniques,) as lineart, or in a sketch style - all using ink and pencil. Characters are from both IF and non-IF (preferably from small, obscure fandoms and media) are included.

@phanosis

A single character portrait in a painted sketch style, non-IF characters included. Monochromatic background.

@kithj

One custom, but in-character & non-spoiler, scene based on the winner's prompt with their MC and one LI of their choosing from either The Northern Passage or Blood Choke. Explicit prompts included.

@damnation-if

A 1k~ non-spoiler, in-character snippet featuring the winner's MC and a character of their choice from Damnation and Buggery. Fluffy, angst, etc and explicit prompts included.

@of-crowns-and-echoes

A 1k non-explicit, non-spoiler snippet including characters from Of Crowns and Echoes. Could be MC + RO interacting, could be just ROs interacting with each other, or a snippet with some side characters. No gore or explicit stuff.

@attollogame

A 1k non-explicit, non-spoiler snippet including characters from Attollo. Could be MC + RO interacting, could be just ROs interacting with each other, or a snippet with some side characters.

@burning-academia-if

A 1k~ prompt featuring your MC and chosen RO/poly from Burning Academia. Both Explicit and Non-Explicit prompts are fine! The prompt cannot include spoilers.

@hpowellsmith

An interactive playable date scene with an RO or polyamorous duo of your choice from one of my released games or WIP. Non-explicit - please specify if you'd like a kiss and/or fade-to-black included in the scene.

@nyehilismwriting

A ~500-1000 word snippet ft winner's MC and their RO of choice from Project Hadea doing activities as requested by the winner, so long as it is a) in character and b) non-spoiler related.

@mayhem-writes

A 1k non-explicit, non-spoiler snippet including characters from Sanctuary. Could be MC + RO interacting, could be just ROs interacting with each other, or a snippet with some side characters.

@devilishmango

A 1k snippet including an MC + RO from either Kenneski or The Story of Sin, based off a prompt from the winner. Can be explicit!

@gamesbyalbie

A ~1,000 word, non-spoiler, in-character snippet featuring characters from Zorlok, Mousetrap, Creating Goncharov, or System Processing. Could be a scene focused on the winner's MC interacting with one character, a scene focused on two characters interacting with one another, or a scene with the winner's MC and/or multiple characters present. Fluff, angst, spice, etc. are all possibilities as long as the scene is non-explicit.

@thecottageworkshop

500-1k word snippet with winner's MC + RO from Simple Moments or a general description of preferred favorite RO type (with the creation being at writer's discretion) with MC; fluffy or angst prompts included (could do monster ROs)

@tosahobi-if

A ~500-1000 word snippet with the winner's MC and their RO of choice from Tosahobi so long as it is in character and non-spoiler related. Any type of prompts including explicit are ok!

@if-mirrormine

A snippet between 500-1000 words featuring the winner's MC and RO of their choice from Mirror Mine. The theme (fluff/angst) and prompt is up to the winner as well.

@heart-forge

A ~500-1000 word snippet featuring winner's choice from Manor Hill, Bad Ritual, or Hybrid IFs. Can feature winner's MC, NSFW/angst/hurt & comfort/AU on offer as well as regular fluff, domesticity, etc. Winner may specify what they want to be happening, or let me choose.

@chthonicchromestudio

500-1k word snippet with winner's MC + any character from FFS, Another Northern Duke?! or a general description of preferred favorite RO type (with the creation being at writer's discretion) with MC; fluffy or angst prompts included (could do monster ROs)

@fiddles-ifs

A custom, non-spoiler, in-character snippet featuring the winner’s MC and a character of their choice from Greenwarden. Fluffy, angst, etc. and explicit prompt included. AUs also included.

@springsaladgaming

A 1k~ non-spoiler, non-explicit, in-character snippet, featuring the winner's MC and an RO of their choice from either Ninelives or Valiant. Prompts may be fluffy, angsty, etc.

@oblivious-melodies

One custom, in-character 500-2000 word snippet set within the world of Oblivious Melodies. It may include characters already in the IF or an original character within the world, designed to fit the winner's specifications. Snippets may include adult themes, but will not be fully explicit.

@chrysanthemumgames

A snippet of ~500-1000 words featuring the characters of the winner's choice from Fields of Asphodel (including the winner's PC if desired). Topic can be anything from platonic interaction to a lightly-spicy romance scene, subject to character and setting constraints.

@yuveim

A romance scene featuring the winner's MC on one of six romance routes, or a character-centred scene for one of five main characters in The Spirited: Origins.

@blood-teeth

A ~500-1000 word snippet of the winner's MC and their select RO from The Mouths of Elysium from a requested prompt from the winner. This snippet will not include spoilers.

@oscarwrites

A 500 to 1000 words snippet featuring the MC and/or any characters from the games The Eight Years Revolution, Gonzague or Better Off. Explicit prompts included.

@thelonelyshore-if

A 500-2k~ custom, non-spoilery snippet featuring the winner's MC and RO (or polyship or other character) from The Lonely Shore. Fluff, angst, non-explicit romance (kissing, fade-to-black, etc.) are all welcome.

#interactive fiction #raffle #thank you everyone for your help with this!!#💗

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chososdiscordkitten · 3 months

Text

Gojo's Love For Hands.

Synopsis: self explanatory, a few thoughts on Gojo's favorite part of reader ૮ ․ ․ ྀིა

Pairing: Gojo x GN!Reader - below cut is F!Reader Content: below the cut is smut, a sprinkle of voyeurism, fingering, handjob, penetrative sex is mentioned, hair pulling (m), no super in detail desc of intercourse

Dedicated to; my lovely moot, @meowkn ꕤ*.ﾟ

MDNI

Gojo liked every part of you;

Your eyelashes, the little beauty marks littered on your skin. He liked every inch of you. Even when you'd roll your eyes at his stupidity.

But Gojo loved your hands.

He loved holding them in his, the tips of his fingers tracing the creases of your palm. He liked intertwining your fingers with his, seeing the difference in height between your digits and his.

Satoru liked watching you talk with your hands. When they’d explain what you were feeling more than your words would.

He liked pressing his thumb onto your knuckles, feeling the skin above the bone move beneath the pad.

Gojo loved feeling the warmth your hands provided, reminding him that not only were you made of flesh and blood- but you were all his.

And when yours were cold, he would happily warm them with his. Just another reminder that he’s a natural, breathing person, made of the same material you were.

He cherished the feeling of your fingertips trailing on his skin, calloused or soft, slim and tall or short stubby- it didn’t matter to him. Only because they were yours, and yours only.

Gojo melted in your palms when you’d cup his cheeks, caressing the swell with your thumbs as a comfort.

For sure, he fantasizes about how a wedding ring would look on your finger. Spending too much time wondering what kind would look best with your hand shape or skin tone. Picturing about 100 different rings on your finger, all while you were unaware of his little fantasy.

He would smile to himself, watching you hold your phone while you were on a phone call- oblivious to his admiration-filled eyes. Watching how you held the piece of metal to your ear effortlessly, taking in every detail he could.

If your nails were trimmed, if they were painted or not, mentally making note if you had any rings on. Or if you had doodled anything on the tops of your palms.

Gojo has always been very attentive to your hands.

Scolding you whenever he would find small gashes from you, picking at the skin out of anxiety.

Holding your hands in his as though you had damaged some great possession of his. “You can’t do that anymore,” he gripped your hands, bringing them to his lips and kissing your knuckles.

Honestly, you thought this was just some ongoing bit Satoru kept feeding into. Thinking he was joking whenever he would tell you how pretty they were.

That was until you told him- “This joke isn’t funny anymore, ‘toru.” to which he tilted his head in confusion.

“I’ll show you how much this isn’t a joke.” he grinned, reaching for your hands.

The back of your knuckles hit his palm as he placed his pointer finger on the crease of your palm. Looking into your eyes with an earnest smile.

“If I was blind, and you put me in front of 50 people and told me to find you- with only feeling their hands.” he traced the crease of your palm with the very tip of his finger- tickling your palm.

“I would find you just by doing this.” Satoru watched your expression churn with confusion and a sheepish smile. Huffing a smile at how whipped he indeed was.

And when it came to your hands during intimacy?

Foreplay with him almost always included kissing the very tips of your fingers. Placing open-mouth kisses onto the sides of your fingers as he looked into your eyes.

Having you straddling his thighs- lips moving against each other in rhythm with every small rut you made onto Satoru’s growing bulge. Hands interlocked with each other as he turned you both over, leaving you on your back and his hips pressing onto your clothed core.

Gojo’s hands pinning yours down as he pulled away. Resting on the back of his calves as he begrudgingly pulled his hands from yours. Looking down at you with determined eyes.

Now, Satoru would be lying if he said there wasn't was a close runner-up for his favorite part of you. A very, very close 2nd place would be your cunt.

But his all-time favorite sight?

Your thighs spread, feet planted on the plush sheets as you trailed your hand across your thigh. Blinking your gaze away from Gojo's crazed expression, lowering two fingers down to your soiled panties.

“Slowly, baby.” he instructed as he palmed his prisoned cock. Cheeks flushed as you pressed onto the wet spot of your panties, softly dragging your fingers up the fabric as Satoru watched with intoxicated eyes.

It was embarrassing whenever he would ask this of you- not understanding why he wanted to watch you pleasure yourself.

Truth being, Satoru always liked watching two of your fingers breach your entrance- the base of your fingers pressed against your skin as you let out a frustrated sigh.

Gojo would never admit it, but he loved watching you try reaching that particular spot inside you. So desperately trying to push your fingers in further- being able to feel how close it was the tips of your digits.

But he’s no monster; what kind of partner would Satoru be if he just sat back and watched you struggle?

Well- he would, for a few minutes. Then, he would offer his assistance. Telling you, “Jus’ focus on your clit f’me,” and he would take care of the rest.

Gojo swore up and down- he could cum untouched from just watching you play with yourself.

Your unoccupied hand pawed at your breast as the tips of his fingers quickly reached the sweet spot that made you exhale with a moan laced in it. Satoru’s finger bumped up once- and again, and again, as you called his name.

His eyes filled with stars as he watched your pretty hands unravel an orgasm from yourself.

And once you were finished- Satoru always made sure to clean your hands for you. Licking up the mess you made on them greedily.

All while looking into your eyes, guiding your wrist to apply pressure onto his tongue as he sucked on them.

And when you offer to blow him?

“Nah, just use your hands.” he assured with a smile, spreading his knees in an offensive manspread to welcome you between his legs.

He liked it when you used both your hands, watching you move them with circular motions as you stroked him.

As pretty as Satoru thought your hands were, he knew they had to be talented when it came to giving handjobs. Almost jealous as to how easily you stroked him- mentally thinking of how many you’ve given before him. As gifted as your movements were and how pretty your hands were? There had to be dozens.

“Nope. Only you.” you grinned, watching his eyes squint at your response. Unable to fathom how your hands were skilled with only given handjobs to him. To which you explained that he was the only one who preferred your hands; no one before him declined a blow job-

“I think I’ve heard enough.” he silenced your defense with a pout.

And when it came to feeling your hands sprawl on his back, rolling his hips against you as he looked into your hazy eyes.

Trailing up to the back of his nape, your fingers rub gently on his undercut before roaming up and getting lost in snow-white hair. And when he’d thrust a little bit firmer- you’d tug the tiniest bit. Causing a guttural whimper to leave his throat.

Gojo liked feeling your hands trail over whatever part of his body they could reach- the broad of his back, leaving small trails of goosebumps as you moved them to grip his bicep. The tips of your fingers turned a lighter shade as you strengthened your grip.

And when they trail on his ribs, a hot spark would run down his spine, settling in his tummy. Even more so when you’d place your hand flat on the side of his glutes. A daring hand roaming onto the swell of his bottom and grabbing a handful of his ass.

What Satoru liked about your hands- was how gentle and tender they could be at times, holding him delicately as though he was made of glass.

But he also liked it when you get grabby, unashamed groping on whatever part of his body you could grab.

And it was a friendly reminder, knowing your hands had a mean grip. Being able to make Gojo submit to you with a light tug of his hair.

(a.n) this was so cute to write, giggling and kicking my feet the whole time.

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bengesko · 3 months

Text

AI Sellout

Used an email mask to read the whole article, pasting it below the cut.

Quick important points:

The tweet content is a list of things that are currently included, but were not SUPPOSED TO BE, and engineers are working to scrub it.

Automattic is supposedly going to add an opt out option.

Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.

The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.

Gage wrote:

“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:

private posts on public blogs

posts on deleted or suspended blogs

unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)

private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)

posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)

content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”

Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.

Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”

404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”

Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”

Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.

Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.

OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.

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neo-my-geo · 6 months

Text

So @pinapin and I were talking about what would happen if you wrote a fic using a D20 to determine the outcomes of everything that a character attempts to do, and it snowballed into a full blown D&D fantasy AU

Race/class details below the cut!

Scout - half-orc/way of the drunken bonk master monk

Soldier - human/genie warlock

Pyro - ???/dragonblood sorcerer

Demo - triton/war wizard-fighter multiclass

Heavy - dwarf (with gigantism)/glory paladin

Engie - needs no introduction/artillerist artificer

Medic - vampire/order of the profane soul blood hunter

Sniper - human/sniper (tf2)

Spy - changeling/soulknife rogue

(ft. original scrapped soldier sheet; yes, Merasmus is his patron)

(and also ft. other sketches)

ignore the drow, this isn't about him

#tf2 #they're all here I promise #d&d au #d&d #d&d 5e #worlds worst isekai anime #alternate universe #neo's funny art tag #tf2 au

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 7 months

Text

Choke On The Sun

PAIRING: John Price x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: You'd known John ever since the Academy, and even after losing touch, the love you had for one another was never gone. Like a snake, it had stayed hidden in unseen places. But it was always there.

WORDCOUNT: 13.8k

WARNINGS: Blood, intense gore, torture, detailed descriptions of torture i.e. electrocution, loss of a finger, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, discussion of torture, canon-typical violence, death, near-death experiences, guns, weapons, abductions, betrayals, intended for mature audiences, happy ending, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

You remember a story you’d been told when you were a rookie—fresh off the cut and eager-eyed with far fewer scars. A more of a glass-half-full type of outlook on life, unknowing of what you’d experience during your years with the SAS: what choices you would have to make.

It went something like this.

There was a herd of deer that had jumped over the side of a bridge. On either end of that bridge, there were two trucks with their high beams on—not moving but sitting there; the deer got pressured. Spooked. One by one they just…hopped over and died on the rocks below—no noise above the breaking of bone and the clatter of antlers shattering to pieces.

You have to wonder if it was the fault of the first one who had jumped over for leading the rest to a quick end, or the drivers of the cars just trying to get where they needed to go; ignorant of the way they’d been ogling to see the panic in wide, black eyes. Either way, a whole herd of ten met their fate and left their bodies to feed the larvae and the birds.

The story had been told over drinks at a pub, at the time you’d taken an interest in it with no more than a slow comment of ‘poor things’ before you’d brought your glass to your lips. You don't know why you’re thinking about it now.

The timing could have been more opportune.

You send a bullet into the man’s kneecap, hearing the bone disintegrate and the flesh open like a flower. His scream follows, loud and hoarse—sobbing trapped behind a bitten tongue that drips blood down his chin.

Hand snapping up, you grasp the lower half of his face with a grunt, head shoving itself forward until you lock onto fluttering eyes and get consumed by a whining sob.

“I asked you a question,” you lick your lips, tasting sweat as it slithers down your skin. Your voice is slow and even, grip tight. With a shove, you push back the man’s face, wrist limp with the Basilisk as you wipe at your nose with it, unblinking, when you get to your full height.

The room wasn’t anything different from a million other black sites you’d been to. A single chair where your mark sits tied up, a desk that had been pushed to the wall, and a single door placed into the cracking foundations of a concrete wall. No windows. No vents.

Hotter than hell, too, and that place was something you were acutely in tune with.

“Anthony,” you say, waving your free hand as the scent of blood gets stronger, pools of it already on the hard floor. “I’m gonna call you Tony, alright?”

Tony yells, wrenching his arms against the zip-ties and screaming until his voice is hoarse.

“Damn you! I told you I don’t know anything!” He sobs. “My leg—I can’t feel my leg, oh, God it hurts.”

You frown, glancing at the door.

“Stop lying to me,” you look back, eyes unblinking in the low light. “You still have one left—tell me where your buyer is and I let you keep the ability to walk upright with a cane.”

“I don’t know his name—!”

“I don’t need a name, Tony,” you growl, irritated. “I need a location.”

“Copenhagen!” He wails, body spasming and hair dancing atop his head. “The warehouse is in Copenhagen, please, that’s all I know!”

You blink.

“Denmark?” You mutter, brows furrowing.

“Fuck!” Tony screams long, his skull tilting forward as he releases his guts to the floor through quick gasps. Backing up a step to stay out of the spray, you watch him silently; thinking. The flood of the man’s crimson fluids ripples. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Denmark,” grumbling to yourself once more, you shake your head and sigh aggressively. “Of course.”

Without another glance, you turn and exit the room, pushing your Basilisk into its holster as the gear on your chest clinks lightly like the sound of rain hitting a metal roof. The door closes behind you, voice calling to one of the guards as he looks up quickly. His face is pale. Tony’s wails still echo out; water filling a bucket.

“Get a medic,” is what you settle with—slipping past on a fleet foot and new intel to pass on to Laswell. She’ll be intrigued, no doubt.

One step closer, your mind hisses to you. Just a little bit longer.

It’s too late to gain a conscious now.

Emmett Kinsman had been dodging you for years—dodging the Task Force—but with one of his suppliers giving away a location you’d been unable to pin, there was hope for a swift resolution to this mess.

The radio on your chest sizzles to life.

“Hart, sit-rep. How’s it lookin’ on the black site.” Kate’s American accent leaks into the earpiece attached to you, the cord looping the back of your neck and inserted into the shell; a device of black metal and plastic.

“I have a location for Kinsman. Copenhagen,” you ease out, moving a finger to the earpiece and pressing. Glancing at the rows and rows of doors in this endless hallway of dark smoke and obsidian mirrors—you’re eager to get your boots to the ground. Your other hand snatches at the rag swinging from your belt, taking it out and rubbing at your face with it until the stain of oil and flecks of blood smear like frosting on a cake. “Where are the boys? I need to be wheels-up to meet them ASAP.”

“Coming to you.”

“They’re here?” Your face twists as the words settle in, confused. “Why? Thought they were tracking another lead in Romania.”

Kate’s voice is smooth in your ear, moving like water as you turn a corner, stuffing your rag back into your belt.

“Are you surprised?” The woman jokes in a monotone; you’d only taken it as such because you knew her dry state of humor. “Really, Hart, you know he can’t stop until you’re back at his side. I was going to tell you sooner, but you were…occupied.”

Your feet pause for a moment at the beginning of her sentence, instinctual heat moving the length of your neck until you clench your jaw and continue onward at a slightly slower pace—eyes narrowed on the floor ahead of you.

“It isn’t like that, Kate,” you mutter. A low hum echoes the line and you fight a scowl as a group of soldiers walk past. Itching at your forearm, you shake your head. “John just likes having everyone together on missions like these. If it had been different, I’m sure he would have told me to fly back to them regardless of the intel. We’re tight on time.”

“I’ve known you both for more years than I can remember,” Laswell sighs. “Don’t try that with me, Captain.” You frown, clicking your tongue. “They’ll be arriving on the tarmac—get ready for a quick exit. We need Kinsman by month’s end.”

“Copy,” you utter, removing your hand from the earpiece and glaring ahead of you. A still-air silence envelopes the hallway, the only sound of your boots to the concrete and the reverberation that booms after.

It was so quiet here.

John Price—Captain Price—and yourself had a… complicated history. You’d joined up together; gotten through SAS selection neck-and-neck until time and its grubby fingers had forced your lives in different directions. Like two vines of reaching ivy, it had only been three years ago that you’d seen the other again, though you’d heard stories as you’re sure he had about you.

Hart: not the kind that beats but the kind that bleats, you had to explain to most—you weren’t unknown to the darker side of the job and the people that specialized in it. Your file was stretched with so much black ink that when you’d gotten the call on your phone, an unknown number, you’d recognized the gruff voice behind it and the first question you’d asked was how the hell he’d gotten clearance to track you down.

“No hello, then, Hart?”

“Not one for pleasantries, John. Explain. Quickly.”

“Business as always.” He’s wasted no time, voice going to a low grumble over the line that day. “Laswell took in a favor. You’ve been busy, Love…Room for one more joint-Op?”

It hadn’t panned out to only ‘one more joint-Op’.

After the mission was over, it had been raining on base. The sky had shed tears from clouds deeper than the gray shades of your gear, splattering packed dirt and concrete. Above your head, the thin overhang off of the armory door had spared you some of it, but when the wind had shifted your clothes absorbed specks of water like spots on a fawn. Your eyes had been looking out—expression open.

When the man exited the building and came up beside you, you both didn’t speak for a long time. You had been aware of his form, devoid of vest and gear, while yours was still layered with it to the utmost degree. You’d expected to leave that night—a good old-fashioned Irish Goodbye with a C-17 already waiting for you to board. To carry you off to another hellish deed done with ravaging cruelty for the sake of people who would never even know you existed.

The storm had stopped you…or, maybe something else had.

“Good to see you again, Hart,” John had stated, still not looking over at you as his arms had crossed, feet situating themselves. “Been too long.”

You had stayed silent—watching. The drain across the street was flooded. Sticks and leaves stuck at the drain as a whirlpool formed; only dangerous to bugs and the bits of garbage blown in by the wind.

Only after the wind shifts again did you speak.

“And what has John Price been up to in that time?” Your eyes had slid to stare, piercing in the low illumination of the armory’s outside light.

A huff of a chuckle, the one you’d remembered in the days of selection—coated in mud from crawling through man-made trenches and a sharp smirk of a snap when the barbed wire had grazed his back.

There were too many stories here. Too many. So many it became impossible to wonder what could have been and what couldn’t—all that existed were the little moments of fondness.

The two of you were nothing else but souls long past redemption; stuck on that knife’s edge and waiting for the hand to shake and send you through it.

You are made of memories.

“That’s a story told over bourbon,” John’s lips had flickered, and you’d blinked slowly, head tilting. “Not anything worth reliving, yeah?”

“Everything is relivable, Captain. You just need to find a reason as to why.”

The man had nodded his head your way, conceding with his blank eyes ahead to the rain. A rumble of distant thunder had flown out, making your ears twitch. You couldn’t stop watching him now that you had the chance—the brunette strands; the fatigues, and that accent. The muscle you don’t remember him having in that specific place all those years ago. The wrinkles on his forehead from age and stress are shown in yours as a mirror.

Tall; formidable.

There was a tension in the air that you chose not to dwell on—the same that had been brewing for as long as you’d known him.

“I want you to join up with me,” the sudden comment had made your body tense, eyes snapping away. In your pockets, your fingers twitch with surprise.

“Join?”

“Thought I’d catch you before you disappeared again, yeah?” A sheen of slight embarrassment is over your skin. John chuckles again. “Extend a formal offer—Laswell was the one who suggested it.”

“Well,” you’d huffed, licking your lips. “Now I’m surely not accepting.”

“Let me fuckin’ finish, Love,” John’s lips were pulled in a slight smirk—beard shifting. A pause as the wind whips again, shaking the trees before he grunts. “One-Four-One. My Task Force. Been thinking I’d need someone like you, but I knew you’d never agree to it.”

“Oh?” Your brow raises.

“Not bloody stupid.” He sighs. “Thought I’d ask anyway. Give you a proper goodbye if you weren’t so keen on handing it out.”

“I don’t like goodbyes,” you mutter, hearing John’s feet shift—his boots scraping.

“I know.” It’s low and even—not a prod or a dig. An observation.

A hand is moved out to you, hovering.

There isn’t any need for words when you glance down at it, and then up at him; staring into those blue eyes that so perfectly illustrate the hues of a roaring river, hidden away in the confines of a verdant forest.

A slow smile pulls at your lips, and you see the corner of the man’s eyes soften.

“Knew I’d get one out of you again,” he mutters as you slip your hand into his, a firm and all-encompassing heat of flesh and care.

“Don’t get used to it, John.” Shaking his hand, you smirk, legs shifting.

“Never,” he chuffs, squeezing your limb.

You don’t know why you stayed under that overhang with him that night. You don’t think you’ll ever be able to explain it as you had looked up and seen the C-17 fly off without you in its cargo hold, hands resting on your vest collar and blue eyes watching you, slightly narrowed.

You never even verbally told him you were sticking around…it had happened like a stray cat under the porch of your childhood home; taken in and cared for. Just the same, John never mentioned it beyond paperwork.

Shaking your head, you blink back to the black site, turning that last corner and making it to one of the exits. Pushing the metal-reinforced door open, you shift outside and move a hand to cover the glare of the setting sun from your eyes, grunting.

Laswell’s voice peaks back in as you jog toward the far-off body of a whirling plane, three figures just managing to walk down the ramp.

“Hart? It’s Laswell.”

“Copy,” you say, knees taking the brunt of the heavy items you carry in pouches and have strapped to your form. “What is it?”

“The Task Force is a go for Denmark—when you get there, I need everyone searching; we can’t lose him again.”

“Affirm. I’m on it, Kate.” You breathe. “John and I’ll get him. It’s personal for us, you know that.”

“That I do. Make sure to keep your heads on with this, Hart. Out.”

You lick your lips, nodding even if she can’t see you.

Slowing as you near the plane, friendly smiles spark up from the two Sergeants. Gaz comes over, grasping at your shoulder and speaking above the engine behind him.

“Ma’am! Good to have you back.” Soap chuckles, tilting his head your way as you grasp Kyle’s forearm—squeezing in greeting with a twinkle in your eye.

“Surprised to see us?” The Scot calls.

You scoff. “Laswell gave you up.”

“Damn,” Kyle moves back, fixing the cap atop his head and glancing back at his fellow Sergeant. Simon nods from behind the two to which you respond in like. “She bloody betrayed us.”

“Not as much as Kinsman,” the mood sours; lips thinning as you speak firmly. “Where’s John?”

“Right here,” the man in question comes down the ramp, blue eyes meet yours. A second of inspection passes, eyes from both parties flickering up and down forms for any mistreatment—any ailments. “Kate already told me. We’re leaving now that we have you.”

Bumping Simon’s fist with yours as you pass him, you ascend the ramp, Soap muttering under his breath about the flight time from behind.

Standing beside John, you pause like a bird, eyes half narrowed. “You didn’t have to pick me up, you know? I could have gotten another plane.”

The man the same rank as you hums, making sure the men are all inside and taking one last look out to the black site, eyes missing nothing down to the concrete structure to the lights that will soon illuminate the pure nothingness of the fields of this area.

“Wait time would have put us back.” Tiny eyes blink, a hand coming up to rest on his collar as his face shifts to you. “You good?”

“Always,” you mutter without hesitation. “Nothing from Romania, then?”

He grumbles, clenching his jaw and taking in your words. “Negative.”

A silence settles in which you quirk your brow—a small flicker of a smirk makes him turn away and stalk back into the hull, grunting in annoyance. You follow on silent feet.

“That’s it? It must have been horrible, then. Care to explain?”

“Get in your seat, Captain.”

You hold back a low chuckle, walking beside him until you both come to the back of the plane—easing back into the hard plastic, you huff as you clip in your seatbelt.

It’s all relative silence until the large metal beast is in the air; everyone's bodies shifting as the floor evens out. John and you take long breaths and, feeling the occasional jostle of the plane, you occupy yourself by picking at the dried blood all over your hands as the flight begins—Tony’s blood.

Blue eyes blink down at you, watching from the side.

“He know anything important?” You stifle a yawn on your lips, one hand coming up to cover the open-jawed expression of tiredness.

Glancing, you shrug with a slow response of, “Only a location. Even then I don’t know if it’ll pan out like we want it to, John.”

Everyone had been hoping for more, but they also knew that you were the best at interrogations and information retrieval. If you had called it that the man only knew a city and nothing else, John wasn’t one to question you. He knew better.

A large hand shifts to grasp your right bloody one, picking it up and bringing it to his lap. You let him do it without protest, shoulders loosening at the roughness of his calluses moving across yours until the familiar ritual begins to take part like a black mass.

Fingers twitching, you hear a hum as John takes out a rag from his pocket, opening it with a flick of his wrist. Moments later, the water bottle on the seat next to him is taken and the droplets that are left are scattered like rain over the fabric until they absorb.

“All dirty, Love,” he grumbles as your eyes soften, watching him trace the lines of your palm with the wet rag—dabbing away the beads of red. Watching, you listen as he continues. “We’ll figure it out, eh?”

Blue locks with you, holding your gaze until the permanent set of his brows slowly loosens. “We will,” he reaffirms firmly.

“...I should have shot him when I had the chance,” you whisper to John, words low and tone nothing more than a mouse’s murmur; a small pebble hitting the ground. “Don’t lie and say it wasn’t my fault.”

“You’re going to fucking ruin yourself with that, Hart.” He advises, his cleaning of blood coming to a slow halt. “You did what you thought was best,” John leans in closer, not blinking as you try to move your head away with a half-hidden scoff. A damp hand grabs lightly at your chin, shifting it back as you blink in mild shock into John’s face. He doesn’t falter. “It’s all any of us can do, yeah?”

As if it were nothing, he lets you go and shifts his focus back to cleaning your hand. You watch for a long moment, oblivious to the elbows hitting sides from farther down the hull, quick glances tossed between Sergeants and a Lieutenant who quirks a brow under his mask, huffing a sound in his throat.

“If I had,” you force back the stutter in your voice. “More people would still be alive.”

“Maybe,” John tilts his head, the rag brushing the length of your fingers. “Maybe not. We don’t know that, do we? No use wasting our breath talking about it then. What matters, Hart, is how we fix this.”

You sigh, repressing a shiver as his thumb brushes scars and blemishes, moving like moss over stone.

“And we don’t leave our bloody problems for the next poor bastard, do we?” You puff air from your nose, shaking your head at the smirked comment. You watch John’s beard move with it—taking in the crinkling of his eyes and the way his knee hits yours.

“Wonderful pep-talk, Captain.” You lean your head back against the netted sides of the aircraft, letting your eyes flutter shut; oblivious to the way he watches you. “The service is lost on you—therapist is right up your alley.”

“Fuck’s sake,” John scoffs. “I’d sooner go back to the academy than that.”

“The food was utter shite, wasn’t it?” You agree.

“No need to bring it up,” John comments lowly, amusement thick in his words.

You don’t know when you fell asleep, but you do know that the pressure around your limb stayed there for a long while—the rag moving over every sliver of skin until only the base was left behind; like a painter creating an ocean scene, shrouded in mist, every bit of red was gone.

Your dreams are plagued by Emmett Kinsman. His sharp face; his sly eyes and his knack for being undetected.

He’d been a part of your and John’s class in the Royal Military Academy—when all was done, he’d graduated and begun to serve in the 22nd SAS Regiment just as the both of you had. There was never much interaction there, beyond shared drinks and a few good words, a single operation, but the bonds of brotherhood run deep. If given the chance over any deployment or service, John or yourself would have given your lives for him—for the boy you’d bled and persevered with to a point of utter loyalty akin to beasts; unrestrained by any threat of violence, sharp attitude, or past faults.

And in the end, he’d thrown that all away to get into bed with terrorists.

Location: London, England

Time: 1718

Operation: ‘Purple Cloth’

Your eyes rest behind the glass of the bookstore, gazing out over the street from the second floor with a level of new-found skill and a surety in yourself. Fresh off the cut, you aren’t overly eager for this, but you’re assured in your abilities.

There can be no failure.

Emmett is down below, sitting at a café and sipping tea as John is stationed at a building farther down the street; waiting. Another man, directly relaying information to Emmett, is at the café as well, sitting in the corner reading a newspaper and facing the individual you’re supposed to follow. Only the four of you for this, and you’re not overly familiar with half of them. John was your only shining grace.

“Target’s getting the bill,” you shift your head into the collar of your shirt, muttering. “He’ll move soon.”

“He carrying?” John’s voice slithers in, a soft murmur.

You stare, expression lax at the large body that shifts and stands with a tight shirt on, waving off the barista when she tells him to have a good day. “If I had to guess? Negative. Nothing big—no bulge at his spine. At the very opposite end, I’d say an X13 could be concealed and accessed via a slit in the pant’s pocket and in a holster at his thigh. They’re baggy enough for it, but the draw time’ll be longer. Drug runners are sloppy.”

John grunts, and you address Emmett. “How are we doing, Mate?”

A smooth, suave, tone moves into your ear. “Not too bad, Sweet Thing. Else, I'd be better if you were sharing a drink with me before I disappear.”

“Only in your imagination, Kinsman,” John interrupts, unimpressed drawl taking your attention. “Keep on it.”

“I swear I rank the same as you, Price. Where do you get off ordering me around like your dog?” The comment is so easily dismissed as a joke between comrades that there’s no hostility there.

“Since I was given oversight,” the amusement is easily taken in John’s voice. “I’m the one keeping your arse alive, eh?”

The other addition to your team speaks up, a voice that in the future you’ve already long forgotten. He says to cut the chatter, and you have to agree.

Emmett and the target are nearing an alley.

“I’m heading down,” you utter, already turning and heading to the stairs, swiftly moving down them and exiting the building.

“Copy,” John’s voice fizzles the line. “I’ll head them off.”

“Emmett,” you move to link up with the fourth member of the team as he joins at your side, both of you sharking a glance and a jerk of your heads. “Keep him away from civilians. We can’t deal with casualties in this populated of an area.”

“He won’t have a chance to shoot them,” the comment makes your brows furrow, the tone not a cocky gloat but rather...quiet. A moment of silence wafts out. “What in the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, Kinsman?” You frown tightly, your gut swirling with something unidentifiable. The X12 in the back of your baggy sweatshirt is heavy—suddenly ten times more so.

In the corner of your eye, you see John far across the way shift, leaning before on a trash can, now standing upright. You swear you lock eyes with him, both gifted in all sense when it comes to war. Perhaps it was ingrained into both of your DNA—a knowledge of all things deadly; of threats unseen. Some primal and horrible understanding spanning back to when man had first raised a fist to another.

“Oi,” your voice pushes. “What does that mean?” Feet pivoting, you move closer to the alley where the light shade of hair disappears.

The line is silent.

Silent before a loud gunshot rings.

Birds scatter, and you instinctively duck down, hand snapping to your service weapon as your eyes go wide. Head snapping about, you dash to the alley opening above the screaming; pushing past fleeing people.

“Hart!”

“He’s in the alley!”

“Do not engage until I get there, do you hear me?!” You’re already at the entrance, X12 ahead of you, and the safety flicked off with a heavy finger. “Hart!”

The body of your mark is on the ground—a bullet in the back of his skull.

“Fuck!” You shout, feet slapping the concrete as you zoom past. “Price—target’s down, Emmett shot him in the damn head, on his tail now.”

“Fucking hell.” The man is growling out at you, voice heated.

Your eyes snap this way and that, weapon at the ready as you take a sharp turn. At the very end of the opening, you see him.

Kinsman slips his service weapon back into the base of his spine, pulling at his shirt to cover the grip as a mass of the crowd is just behind him. He rushes quickly on long legs.

“Emmett!” Your voice makes him freeze. There’s a long pause before anything is spoken; you have your sights trained—a perfect line-up to the roundness of his skull.

“I had hoped to be fast enough,” the man tells you, head tilting to the side, “but I should have known you’d move head-long into danger without backup.”

“Hart,” John’s voice nearly startles you from the line. “Sitrep, now!”

“Why would you do that, Emmett?”

“There’s more to this than being pawns, Hart,” Kinsman growls at you. “I play my game right, I always come on top. I needed to earn their trust; our target had a price on his head and no one else could get as close as me. Well,” he pauses, “us.”

“I’m taking you in,” you grit your teeth, hands tight on the gun. You don’t even want to think about what he means by ‘their’ or his ‘game’. It was always word puzzles with this man—one second you had the right piece, and the next the entire picture had changed like sand in the waves of a tide.

“Are you really that torn up about a drug runner?” A scoff makes you hold back a snarl, but your resolve is shaking. This was a man you had trusted—now fast can something that was forged with steel break?

“He was just some filthy nobody, Hart.” Emmett starts walking into the crowd ahead of him, and in your mind you know if you take that shot you run the risk of shooting an innocent civilian. “I’ll be more than a nobody. Or a grunt soldier. People are going to know me.”

Bodies flee quickly—screams. Mothers, children, husbands.

Kinsman smirks, and as your finger tightens on the trigger, he’s already swallowed by the hoard.

“I’ll be seeing you.”

John and you sit in the safehouse, for a moment, surrounded by quiet and the smell of hot tea. One week in Denmark, and you have no leads. The other three are away, sleeping in the rooms down the hallway.

“You’re still thinking about him,” John speaks up, eyes on you. It’s blunt, but that was just how he was.

You peek your eyes open slowly, your body slouching in the chair and feet outstretched under the table. Your boot lightly touches John’s own. A long sigh exits your nose, grumbling on your tired lips.

“John,” you level, drawing the name out like the years of your life. A thin warning.

The man clenches his jaw slightly, bringing up his cup and taking a slow slip. You see the flesh of his throat bob with the liquid as it goes down, the overhead light of the kitchen only a single bulb of warm glow.

“Been chasing him for years, Hart,” he says when the item is back to the woodgrain. Voice a deep murmur—a scrape of vocal chords. “We both have.”

“He knows too much,” you reply. “I can’t let him get away again. Strategies, operators, everything.” Your eyes shift as your head raises, blinking away the sleep in your glinting orbs. “For years he’s been under our nose, getting away with who knows what—”

“Hart,” your rant is interrupted, and you stop with a snap of your teeth. Blue eyes lock a concerned sheen to them. “Breathe.”

Your face moves away, arms loosely crossed over your chest tensing.

John’s body shifts to you, leaning forward until his elbows are resting on his knees. He stares, brows a line on his flesh. You send a swift glance, lips pulling.

“...Stop that,” your voice murmurs, echoing off the walls of the kitchen. John blinks, not speaking as you move in your seat. The man tilts his head, a slow something making his lips go back slightly. Gradually, your face goes hotter, blinking at him a few times; sucked in like a fox to a trap. “John, quit it.”

“M’not doing anything, Love.”

“Bullshit,” you try and glare at the looseness of his expression, his smirk that makes your gut tighten. Goosebumps move up your arms. “You’re a horror.”

A low chuckle wafts out, John shrugging casually before he leans back.

He takes up his cup again and takes down the last of the remnants. “Go to sleep,” hits your ears as your pounding heart takes a breather. It’s a grumble on the air—not as much an order as it is a suggestion. “It’s late.”

You decide to sip at your own drink as well, eyes drooping at the steam that wafts around your face, nose twitching to the scents.

“You?” John hums, looking you up and down; seeing the fatigue you carry. You’d been relentless for the week you’d all been here, holding the few strings of the lead you had to your chest—five-fingered grasping with a desperate prayer to all things unholy.

“I’ll be here.” You tilt your head his way, eyes still half-closed in your seat. Your answer is easy, pushed out in a slow sentence.

“Then so will I.”

John sighs under his breath. It’s a moment before an exasperated chuckle moves through your earbuds. You smile, eyes slipping closed fully.

Yet, they startle back open as the cup is taken from your hands, your chair moved back firmly.

“Up you get, then,” John grunts, and his arms snake around you. Blinking quickly, your jaw is slack as you get taken up into a tight carry; John’s chest firm and your nose brushing the side of his chin.

Air getting sucked into your lungs, you stifle a hitch in your breath.

It’s only after he starts walking forward, hiking you farther up into him, and his fingers gliding over your clothes, that you start to relax. His heat seeps like a warm fire.

Head sagging to the side, you grumble into his neck as you miss his eyes looking down at you, eyes soft in a way only you would have been able to see. “Can walk, y’know.”

He hums, head shifting back to the hallway as he carries you to the last door on the right, bumping into the wood with his shoulder and shifting to walk in sideways so you don’t let your legs on the frame.

“Remember Preu? 05’?” John asks you, moving over to the bed and setting you down slowly, a tiny huff exiting his mouth. Your body sinks into the mattress, head to the pillow as your hand comes up to rub at your eyes. The man moves to grab the blanket at the end of the bed—knowing your trained habit of sleeping atop the comforter on operations; not tangled up in sheets just in case. He slips off your boots. “Carried you two miles.”

“I recall it,” you grunt, a tired flicker coming to your lips. “Bleeding out and all.”

“Well,” John hums, quirking a brow. “Wasn’t about to let my Hart die on me. Blood was the least of my worries.”

Your pulse flutters at the title, even if it’s just your codename and not the beating muscular organ inside of your breast.

My Heart.

But it’s never that simple.

A hand moves up your cheek, a kiss pressed to your forehead.

The both of you already know you love each other. It wasn’t a secret. You were smart; eyes sharper than a blade—you caught the way he watched you, saw the softness of his expression, and felt the drag of his hand. Just as he caught the way you stayed beside him, an ever-present pair of eyes watching his six. The content nature that only you showed him.

With feet so eager to leave at any moment, it said much that you chose to exist near him simply because you wanted to.

You loved each other.

Boil it down, and you’d both known even back in the Academy that it would be the two of you at the end of all things. The rivers said your name. The valleys rustled with the breeze of your breath. You saw John in the bits of water that sloshed the rocks and in the earth beneath your palms.

Over the years you’d been apart, the yearning hadn’t been any less sharp—any less potent. In every birdsong, the echoes of the other's voice flew and disappeared on wingbeats. In everything that existed, there was a fraction of what should be.

What should be.

“John,” your voice is a whisper, nothing more than a rustle of a cloth. He keeps his lips to your forehead, resting there for a moment against all sense and responsibility. John’s eyes droop down, lashes resting on the swell of his cheeks. “You know I love you.”

He takes a breath. Rain is in the air—the movement of a storm’s wind. A leaving C-17.

It’s a low mutter into your flesh.

“I know.”

You grasp at his wrist, pulling lightly. Without a noise, John slips in beside you, kicking off his boots with a single clop of the soles to the wood and the movement of your blanket. He grunts, pushing his nose into your scalp, arms going around your middle. Your head slots under his chin, lips to his Adam’s apple.

The house is silent beyond the murmur of the pipes—the buzz of awaiting electricity.

So many memories. So many lost dreams. It was akin to two skeletons lying in a grave of their own making, forever holding the bones of the other. Duty and honor are etched into the fractures.

But he still holds you, he still murmurs into your ear, “Sleep, Love.”

“And you?” You ask, mirroring the conversation in the kitchen.

John’s lips move along your flesh, moving into a soft smile as he glances down at you. His beard scrapes you delicately.

“I’ll be here.”

Then it is here you’ll stay, dreaming of deer and the way nothing could compare to how he held you in his arms.

—

“I have eyes on,” your head snaps up, blankly staring ahead as your fingers hover over the hanging beads of a wind chime. You stand outside of a restaurant in the heart of Copenhagen.

Laswell had sent in more eyes for the Task Force to use—local soldiers that knew the layout of the city better and where would be a good place to look. For days you’d been moving through the streets; far-off storage units and hidden buildings providing fruitless harvests. Anthony had said a warehouse, but that was panning out as nothing as well.

False information? Possibly, but unlikely. The man had been genuine in his pain and pleading, and it only served to confuse you more.

You had Gaz with you and five others, taking over as the leader of this fireteam while John headed the other with Johnny and Ghost. They were on the opposite side of the city, and you can’t help but compare this to the moment Emmett had become an enemy.

But divide and conquer was the only option in times like these.

Emmett had become someone, just as he said he would. The man was in charge of supplying arms to terrorist organizations all over the world, and with his knowledge of how the SAS operates as well as any number of special forces, he’d utterly disappeared off the radar.

A wraith of lies and murder.

He had locations all over the globe with his goods, shipped out for money and power.

And now you have a positive ID.

“Where are you,” your voice is hard and stiff, the body already moving back from the chime and leaving its little bits and bobs swinging.

“Café down the street,” feet nearly locking together, you continue down the street to where you know Gaz’s last position was. “He’s just…sitting there.” A pause. “You want to know what it’s called in English, Ma’am?”

“The café?” your brows furrow, jogging across the street.

“‘The Warehouse.’” Growling under your breath, you shake your head and send a curse into the air after a pause.

“I think the man thought he was clever,” Kyle’s voice is smooth and teasing.

“Should have shot his other leg,” you grunt. “You told Laswell? John?”

“Negative, I’ll get on it—”

“I’ll do it,” you interrupt. “Tell the others to group up at your position and spread out to create a choke point; we can’t let him get away.”

“Rog. Will do.”

You patch into John’s frequency.

“We have him,” you instantly breathe out. “Down Holbergsgade—café called ‘The Warehouse’.”

It’s swiftly that an answer hits you. “Get him surrounded, we’re coming.”

Your heart is moving rapidly, fast in your chest as you pass people and business quickly. You didn’t like this—didn’t like the similarities, the…nostalgic dread that builds. A café of all places? Sitting down? Waiting?

It was so ironic it made alarm bells go off.

“John,” you lick your lips, glancing at faces as they pass. “I think he knows we’re here.”

“Explain.”

“A café?” John’s low grunt lets you know he understands. “Just sitting there? He knows—he’s not dumb enough to throw away all of his secrecy just as we so happen to get here and begin looking for him.”

“How sure are you?” The man takes your words into account, and you hear his breath puffing as he runs to your location.

“Ninety,” you breathe.

“Then I’m callin’ it off.” Your eyes widen, feet skidding as you come to a stop.

You have no clue as to how far John will go to keep you safe—even if it means potentially letting one of the SAS’s highest HVTs go. There wasn’t anything that could compare to the thought of you getting in harm's way. Not you.

John had spent his whole life watching soldiers die in the worst ways possible; they haunted his dreams and he knew they’d follow him to his grave—men he’d led down paths that they never should have been on.

Not you.

Losing you would break what little was left of him, the remnants held on by tape and sheer stubbornness. One of the last old faces he could still look at anymore; could draw comfort from in the thin hours. To hold and to love.

You both knew you wouldn’t stand for it.

“No,” your voice cuts across, monotone. “I’m not allowing that.”

“Bloody hell, Hart, listen to me—do not,” John growls, making your spine tingle, “go after him. If he knows we’re fuckin’ here, we need to pull back and close off the area.”

You’re walking forward, that same pressure of a gun at the back of your spine. It was almost poetic.

A thought sparks. Years of knowledge and understanding lighting up.

Emmett was a snake.

A snake that liked to play games and prove points; greed stuck into his brain for reasons you can’t quite say for certain. Even if you did catch him, he would never tell the locations of his goods or the buyers.

But there was one way to find out. One way this might turn.

“There’s a tracker in my arm,” you speak, growing more sure of your actions with every fast movement of your body. The café is just up the street, and a head of blonde hair is a knife to your vision. “I asked Laswell to insert and monitor it years back when I had to infiltrate a cell before I joined up with you again. Cautionary procedure since I had to forgo my rig and gear.”

A sharp bark. He knew what you were insinuating. “Hart!” You were going to get yourself taken hostage.

“Get Kate to watch it, John.” You move off his frequency before he can comment again, half of a roaring refusal cut off. Speaking to Gaz with a restricted throat, you say, “Kyle?”

“Right here, Ma’am.”

“Good. Don’t engage—I’m moving in.”

A stiff breath is taken in. “W…what was that?”

You don’t reply, only saying, “Whatever happens, I order you and the others to stay back, yeah?”

Your hand pulls the earpiece out and shoves it into your pocket right as you slip into the chair directly across from Emmett Kinsman.

“Emmett,” you say in greeting, moving up a few fingers to a barista with a low call of your order. The individual nods and moves off before you lock on green eyes; they nearly make you flinch.

You can only imagine what Gaz is telling John right now.

Kinsman blinks at you, but he isn’t surprised. You were right.

“Hart,” the man smiles. His voice is still the same, though he looks older. “Pleasure seeing you again. Enjoying the sights of the city?”

“Not particularly,” you stare at him.

He chuckles, tilting his head before he brings his drink to his lips. He swallows and continues.

“You always were serious. No fun.” You take the insult without any emotion, blinking at him slowly. What was his play?

“Why?”

“You already know why,” he shrugs, dressed in a nice suit. “I’ve made a name for myself—my name will be remembered for ages.” A twinkle in his eye. “SAS soldier turned weapon supplier; isn’t it exciting.”

“It’s a disgrace,” you lean forward, only stopping your voice from rising as a cup is placed down in front of you by the barista.

Your face plasters a fake smile and you nod, moving it in front of you. Emmett watches with a smirk.

“I call it a change of heart.” He sighs, smirk simmering to a casual smile. “But I am glad to see you, you’ve been creating a big mess of things and I took it upon myself to have a meeting between us as old friends.”

“I’m not your friend,” you growl. “You’ve killed innocent people for no more than a fucking paycheck.”

“Well,” he snorts. “I don’t kill anyone. I’m the middle man—there’s a difference.”

Rage makes your eyes go to slits.

“And innocents, Sweet Thing?” Emmett leans in closer, face so smug and open you want to pull your weapon on him and worry about the consequences later. “What do I call what you do then?”

“A necessary evil,” you huff. “One I carry on my shoulders just like every other soldier does. One that was far better than supplying terrorists.”

Kinsman shrugs, moving back and picking up his drink, swirling it. “If you say so.” He hums. “You have to try the pastries here, you know. They’re very good.”

“I know you’re here because you expected us to find you, what I can’t figure out is why you broke your cover in the open instead of turning yourself in.” You look around at the faces in the outdoor seating, studying them trying to pinpoint if they’re civilians or in league with Kinsman. “Tell me before I decide to shoot you right here and now and end this regardless of hidden goods.”

“You already tried that, Hart,” Emmett laughs. “Pointing a gun at me didn’t work last time.”

“I’m not going to use a gun,” you ease out. “I’m going to take the butter knife on the table and slit your throat.”

“Uncivilized,” Emmet grumbles, frowning at the silver object near your hands. “It isn’t even sharp.”

“Good.” Green eyes narrow, unimpressed. He sighs, fingers moving in an outward gesture of exasperation.

“If you must know before the main finale, I wanted to bring you here to say that I’m thoroughly impressed with your drive.” You try to stave off the shock in your stomach at the words coming out like a charmer’s flute. Raising a slow brow, you’re caught off guard. Emmett chuckles. “You nearly caught me at several instances throughout our game of cat and mouse. Many times I forget who the assigned roles were even given to; I’m telling you that I had fun.”

You stare, face tight.

Emmett hums and his eyes go to slits.

“But every game has to come to an end. I’m growing tired of it.”

The building across the street erupts into a great ball of fire.

—

John hears the explosion in the air, the shockwave that leaves his body halting to look into the sky in time to see black smoke.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “Fuck!”

He rushes into the panicked crowd, memories stuck in his head and a bone-deep fear he’d been feeling since you cut the connection in your earpiece. Gaz had been relaying to him what was going on action for action—a football game, only the difference was that your life was on the line.

“Kate,” John shouts. “Get the authorities down here now! We have an explosion on Holbergsgade.”

“Explosion?” The woman’s voice is sharp and disbelieving. “What’s going on—”

“Hart’s in the bloody crossfire, there’s no time!” John’s face is tight, wind whipping past his ears as screams fly on the wind; crying. “The fool is trying to get herself taken fucking hostage for intel!”

Whatever else was said was lost to the wind—Gaz comes over the line, calling to him in a panic as Johnny and Simon join in.

“The entire building just went up in—”

“Fucking Christ—”

“Price, what is this?”

“All of you get down here!” John sprints past people on the ground, ripping his gun out of the back of his waistband. There’s no arguing.

When the Captain turns the last corner, carnage greets him.

The building across from the café was reduced to nothing but rubble and a still-burning flame. Eyes wide, John only looks at it for a few moments, too preoccupied with you.

Where were you?

His jaw clenches, eyes burning with rage. Such a perfect soldier yet such a flawed sense of teamwork, he had a feeling you’d try something like this—had left Gaz with you for that very reason. Fuck he should have been at your side. He should have known.

A low grumble moves through his lips, head snapping all around. There are bodies on the ground. Blood pooling under thick building material—fabric in the breeze.

“Hart!” John yells, running to the café and seeing the remnants of a fast fight.

The Captain’s heart drops to his feet, face burning with hellfire so much that a sheen comes to his cheek. His hand moves out to touch the handle of a butter knife that had been slammed into the table now half-fallen over, eyes stuck on only one thing on the ground under it.

Through the wails and the call of sirens, the man stares at the two long fingers sitting in the dust.

Never in his life had he felt a fear like this.

—

“I wanted to be kind about this,” Emmett fiddles with the wrappings of his bandaged left hand, only three fingers remaining. “I was going to make it quick.”

You’re locked in a cell-like room, head to the side and blood leaking out of a cut face. Burns travel up your arm, the sticky puss leaking out only serving to make you shiver. You don’t know where you are—don’t know what happened after you severed Kinsman’s fingers with that knife.

But you know the pain isn’t something that you haven’t already gone through before.

Your voice is hoarse but firm as it leaks out of you, vision spotty. You’d been thrown in here after a ride in the trunk of a car. The ground is concrete.

“...Don’t make me laugh.”

Emmett growls, eyes wide with hatred.

“Pathetic!” He barks eyes looking you over with disgust. “Look at what you did to my hand!”

His other hand connects with the bars of the cage, producing a metal ringing sound as you push yourself up with one arm, eyelids flinching in pain. Sitting up, your body falls back to the wall behind it, and you grunt when the air in your lungs is expelled. You lick at your dust-coated lips, your head ringing and your focus failing. Concussion.

“Least of your worries,” you roll your jaw, a wave of pain making your body seize up and your hands tense with quivering shakes. Your mouth opens with sharp pants. Bile pools in the base of your throat.

It’s nothing.

John will come soon. The tracker. If Laswell can get it working again, you’d be out of here and you would have whatever this location turns out to be and the intel that it can offer you—computer databases would be a one-and-done game. You would get names, coordinates, and buyers. It could all be over.

Your clothes are melted into your skin, and when you move, they peel away with the remnant of your epidermis. The flesh of your left thigh and arm had taken the worst of it—and the cut from flying debris over your left cheek hasn’t stopped bleeding.

Blood drips from it, and a loud ache makes your head pound all the worse.

You’ve gone through worse.

“I don’t know why I bother,” Emmett snarls, the crimson bandages thick over his hand. “But it isn’t a problem,” he says, moving his other hand to slick back his hair. “It isn’t a problem,” the man utters again. “You’re going to help me. Yes…I’ve made up my mind. I need you to understand why I do the things I do.”

Your brows furrow, but above this burning in your head, it’s hard to understand what’s being said to you. Shadows move and Emmett orders one of his men to open the cell door.

You fight the black dots at the sides of your vision, leaking until you’ve accepted the reality of yourself going unconscious. As your body slouches to the side, hands ruthlessly grasp under your arms and drag you to your feet.

“Everyone has a breaking point.”

—

“What do you mean,” John glares at Laswell, his arms crossed over his chest; hands tightly grasping at his biceps. “You can’t find her?”

“The tracker was old, John,” the woman tries to explain, furiously typing at her computer that rests on the table in front of her—her spine bent over as the rest of the One-Four-One stay in a limbo of anxious looks. “To get it working again, it would need something to restart it. I don’t know if you can see,” Kate’s eyes are hard as they lock with his, “but I can’t do anything if she’s not here first.”

“Well of course she’d not bloody here Laswell, fucking Kinsman has her!” He shouts, hands moving out in a display of aggression.

“Captain,” Kate rises to the challenge, hand moving flat to the table and glaring with the heat of a thousand missiles. “Do not take that tone with me.”

John snarls and jerks his head away, feet on the ground trading weight.

The man was borderline feral—all snapping teeth and sharp glances. Gaz had seen him like this only a handful of times, MacTavish even fewer. Ghost, of course, knew, but even his brown eyes wouldn’t leave his Captain, absorbed in the way he was unable to stay still for even a moment. He was in full gear, too. Had put it on directly after returning to a local base.

John was ready to go to war, down to the rifle that swung from a strap at his side, the ammunition stuffed to his chest—sidearm at his thigh. A rabid dog with intelligence and the knowledge of where teeth needed to be applied to a neck for a clean kill. Simon doubted he wanted it to be clean.

John was ready to rip people to pieces.

“Give me something,” the Captain says in a low growl, beard shifting. “Give me what I need.”

Kate splays her hands. “All we have is surveillance of a car leaving the area—the smoke covers all chances of the drone we had flying picking up a clear picture. John,” Laswell eases, standing up, “there’s only so much we can do. We need to wait—”

“We can’t bloody wait,” Gaz speaks up, “What’ll he do to her in the meantime?”

“Garrick’s right, we need to be on the ground with this.” Johnny nods, mohawk bobbing. “That’s one of our own—we’re not sitting around with our thumbs up our arses, Laswell. Not with Hart.”

Simon blinks, humming. Laswell’s eyes shift to him, near pleading for one to be on her side with this and see sense. Ghost shrugs. “I’m with them. Hart’s one of our own; we’ll do what needs to be done.”

John’s chest swells with pride while his eyes get stuck on your file on the table, your printed picture, and your black ink—he’d never loved an image more, but nothing could beat the real thing. He needed you back. He’d gone through hell with you for his entire life; you’d suffered with him and only locked your hands together and held on tighter.

That was love—that was duty.

John Price wasn’t against skewing his morals for the sake of your safety. You would always be his most important mission. The man didn’t want to think about what might happen if he found you too late.

“Give me the video of the vehicle,” he grunts, jaw tight and his eyes beady. His body slightly leans forward to Kate, love going lower. “Or I’m going out there myself.”

Laswell frowns tightly at him.

“I just sent it into forensics—they’re trying to get a match. Go out if you want, but I won’t be able to stop the firestorm that comes out of it.”

She closes her laptop and moves past him, sending one last comment into the stone man as he towers ever taller.

“She’s strong, John. If you’re smart, you’ll keep yourself out of the crossfire until we have a definitive hit.”

Her voice echoes from behind him as his hands slowly move to clench into knuckle-whitening fists.

“If Kinsman gets a tip we’re still onto him—you’ll never see Hart again.”

—

Day Three:

Your days start blending. One moment you hear the snapping of your bones, and then the next you’re wasting away in this cell—ears ringing and eyes buggy. So much blood. Blood on the walls—blood on the chair they strap you into in the other room; even stuck in the groves of your flesh.

You don’t think you can stop closing your eyes and seeing a deer at the bottom of a bridge drop-off. It’s stuck in your head like a virus; those car lights in the back of your mind just waiting for you.

There’s no sense as to what they do to you—all its purpose is, is to prove a point to Emmett. A sort of broken retribution for your interference and his fingers.

Vain man, really. You’d told him as much when he was watching you get your own finger torn off my pliers; spit it at him as the blood from your bitten tongue stayed his suit. You remember the feeling of the knuckle popping first, and then the burning heat of the flesh being twisted to the side. Two firm yanks and the flesh had sprung like elastic, fissuring, the tendon snapping.

You think you blacked out after that, but you can’t be sure. All you remember doing is screaming.

You woke up with your left pinkie finger completely gone, resting outside in the hallway to mock you from past the bars. Your eyes could see the bone sticking out of it, and all that was left on you was a badly cauterized stump.

When Emmett had come to gloat, you started slurring out laughter.

“I’m going to rip you apart.” Your broken body had jerked back and forth like a marionette doll, only succeeding in spreading more red over the floors as green eyes widened and went dumbfounded.

It sounded like a choking fish.

All he’d done was left, quickly passing the pinkie left limp on the ground.

Day five:

You can’t move your body as they dump you back into the chair—the drain below you flooded over with crimson and bits of hair; vomit and torn-off fingernails. You’re unable to open your eyelids fully.

A hand grasps at your face, yanking it up into the overhead light until a bucket of water is dumped directly over your head. Your body jerks, coughing and darting forward until you’re shoved to the back of the chair and the rope is tied around the front of your shoulders, the second at your wrists.

Trying to suck down air, you shiver with the strength of an earthquake. Whoever said that they would never be afraid while being tortured was a liar; whoever thinks that they would be able to push through it—a fraud. Emmett was right, everyone had a breaking point.

But you admitted yours would only come after your death.

Your legs are seized, bent up as you hiss as well as you’re able, teeth snapping.

They’re dumped back down into a bucket of ice-cold water as droplets drip from your nose—wet skin for the moment only holding streaks of gore. Even with your scattered mind, you know what this means.

Heart tight and eyes widening, you try to push back in the chair; try to fight the rope and the way your body won’t respond.

A battery is rolled up beside you on a metal cart. Jumper cables.

There’s a low chuckle at the way your face goes fearful.

—

John shoves open the door to Laswell’s temporary office, already talking before it hits the far wall.

“Do we have her?” His hands move beside him, brushing the grip of his sidearm. He hadn’t been out of his full gear for more than five minutes in days. Waiting day and night for any word; sleeping in it, eating in it. The forensics team had been stumped, unable to get more than a model out of the picture.

But this might finally give him something to act on.

Kate is moving, grabbing documents and her laptop, speeding past him and out of the door.

“Kate!” John shouts, following after. “Hey,” he calls, grabbing at her arm to stop her.

The woman only halts to say, quickly, “We have a hit. Follow me.”

John’s heart is rampaging, pulse wild under his skin as his gloved hands twitch. Finally. He can only smoke so many cigars—only think of so many scenarios until he feels he needs to vomit. You’d been gone for too long. Every moment had been like trying to walk with a cloth over his head; lost.

He’d grown stiff. Stiffer than normal. Everyone had seen it.

“Where is it, then?” John asks as Laswell pushes open the door to the meeting room, the other three already inside.

“A property outside of Copenhagen—bought through a proxy on a fund that was linked to blood money in South America; it all went directly back to Kinsman. It was found only ten minutes ago.” A pause. Electricity in the air. “But that’s not how we found it.”

“How,” Simon asks, moving closer.

John gives the woman his full undivided attention, hands moving to rest at his collar in a soothing gesture.

“Her tracker came back on.” Eyes go wide, all sharing rapid glances as Kate opens her laptop and opens a man, turning the device for them to see. “Same location.”

Johnny blinks, his eyes narrowing. “And what does that mean?”

“That can’t have just done that by itself,” Gaz mutters, brown eyes sliding over to John who’s stiller than a wolf. The Sergeant pauses.

His eyes are dead set on that screen. His thighs were so tense it was nearly like the Captain was about to sprint out of the room. Kyle’s face goes blank at that, never quite seeing the extent that your disappearance had on the man. His superior had bags under his eyes; far more pale than usual. His apparel was ruffled, too. Even in the more serious of situations, the Sergeant had never seen John so…out of it. He was always the one with the even head, even if he had a short fuse with certain things. Nothing was ever done without thought, he should say.

But this is something else.

“Torture,” Simon gives his two cents and John’s cheek twitches at the word. “Electrocution. They jump-started it and didn’t even know.”

“Bloody Jesus,” John breathes. Everyone had already had a hunch, but no one had wanted to name it.

It’s a low rumble that makes the rest of them freeze, though. It was so dead in tone that it even made Kyle’s spine lock up; Johnny’s eyes went a smidgen upward. Simon, although his face was covered, felt his lips twitch.

John looks at nothing but that dot on the computer screen.

“Am I green, Laswell?”

Kate looks at John. It’s like setting a hellhound loose.

“You’re green, Captain.”

—

You’re tossed into the cell and your body rolls along the floor, bouncing and flinching until your back slams into the wall. Air is forced from your lungs, coming out in a loud grunt before you land on your stomach in a heap. Staying there, your nerves are fried.

Every moment you think the twitching of your fingers will stop—the dance of your muscles responding to the aftereffects of electrocution, it only starts back up again. Your eyes blink rapidly; your clothes have the scent of smoke to them.

Gasping for breath, you feel like you’re drowning and being set on fire all at once.

Yet the question in your head was a simple one, one you’d been asking for days.

Where was John?

Emmett enters the cell, clicking his tongue as the metal hinges squeak.

“I’m not surprised it’s taking this long,” he explains. “But I am surprised you’re still alive, admittingly.”

A boot comes out and places itself atop your shoulder, pressing down slowly until its full weight is on top of you. Your mouth opens in a shuddering sound of a dying animal, blood dripping from your ears and nose.

“I know you’ve taken torture before—even taken a part of it,” Kinsman sighs. “But, shit Hart, you really do scare me when I know you’re strong enough to get through th—”

Your body jolts up, grappling Emmet’s leg and twisting it to the side. Regardless of pain—of agony—there’s such primal rage inside of you that what little adrenaline you can bring forth is all that more addictive.

The man collapses in a heap, gasping, but you’re already on top of him, wrestling your hand to his neck, missing finger and all. Blood moves, staining his precious suit and dripping from your mouth into his hairline. You bare down your weight on him, teeth clenched and eyes wild—one orb holding nothing but red from burst veins and the other full of a vicious gleam of ferality.

Hands snap up to your wrists, mouth opening in flapping panic.

But Emmett has grown weak; he’s out of practice. All of those years out of the SAS, giving up on the training of the body to match the mind. The idiot wasn’t even carrying a gun when he walked into the cell of a charging stag, its antlers dripping gore, sharper than any knife.

When the flaps of his eyes fall there’s no gloating speech—there’s no snort of a tall and proper victor. All you do is take the front of his face, grasp it, and start sending his skull back into the concrete floors.

Crack.

…Crack.

….Crack.

Only when the sound of his head breaking open meets your ringing ears, do you force your wheezing lungs to take a large breath.

Emmet Kinsman died as he lived.

A fucking piece of shit.

“Fuck you,” you spit on his corpse, saliva bloody; his jaw is loose as you release the man’s face, eyes bulging. Falling to the side, you groan in pain, your body curling into itself until you resemble a sleeping fawn. You’re shaking more and more with every second, coughing with the force of an earthquake until your shredded vocal chores force you to stop.

But the brain is a funny thing.

In times of danger, survival is the only thing that takes priority. It was why, in a long shove of your hand to the floor, with your bones creaking and your vomit meeting the ground, you’re able to stand. It isn’t enough to help you heal the snapped bone of your right leg, however, and in a steadily failing stupor, you drag it behind you. In this state, nothing else matters to you besides a simple command: get out.

Your shoulder slaps the metal of the cell as you stumble out of it, careening into the far wall and letting out a loud shout.

Eyes fluttering, you connect your temple to the cool concrete, trying to breathe.

It hurts too much, your mind says. God, I can’t feel my limbs.

A long trail of blood follows you down the hallway as you slide along the wall, using it as a brace.

You want to see John, you whisper inside of your head. You want to be held by him—be taken into his chest; cared for away from all of this fighting.

A trip back to Herefordshire with him, to go deep into the country together; rest in the green grass where no one can find you for just a few good hours. It didn’t have to be forever, you would say. Just a few hours. A few hours of sky and earth wrapped in a time loop of just your own.

You want to kiss him there. In the open, out in the wild. You want to stay by his side, your mind thinks as you stumble over the three dead bodies in the left corridor, bullet wounds in their heads. You want to be by his side forever, no more gaps in years, not more longing. It’s so close you can nearly reach out and grasp it—

Your name is yelled on a heavy breath, and hands capture your shoulders as you fall straight into them with no more strength.

Blue eyes lock with yours as you’re hurriedly settled to the ground, body limp and eyes trying to stay open.

Blue eyes on a grassy hill.

“Hart, fucking hell.” Hands move your body, pressing and sliding—finding every opening and spreading blood like water. “Fucking hell! Hey!”

You’re yelled at, and the ripping of pouches and the familiar sound of bandages being wrapped come to the back of your brain. A hand shakes your head, locked under your chin as you take slow, broken, breaths.

“Please, fuck sake, please,” it’s a desperate growl, so familiar and yet a world away. Your body is moved and manipulated as every leaking wound is packed with so much gauze it hangs out of you like you’re a mummy. The burns along your flesh are crust and infected, open skin peeling back.

But the pain is lesser now. Easier to manage.

There’s such a ruckus that it’s hard to focus on John—the man on the hill. In the grass and the wind. Brown hair moves in the breeze as white clouds roll past. On the air, there’s the scent of rain, and in the far distance, you can see a group of ten deer grazing, ears twitching.

Maybe you’ll ask them if they blame their leader, or the two trucks on the end of a bridge.

“Keep your eyes on me!” You blink into John’s tiny blues, that mist rolling back. You stare for a moment as he frantically screams into his radio; night vision rig on his head and all-black gear covering him from you. His face is pale, his eyes glossy. “Look at me, hey,” he blinks as he notices you watching, surging forward. “Hey, keep 'em open, yeah? You keep them fucking open, Love.”

Your chest is heavy.

“John,” you push out a flicker coming to your lips as your vision slightly unblurs itself to the sight of a flood of blood on the man’s body—an unimaginable amount.

“I’m ‘ere,” his accent grows deeper with emotion, one hand holding your cheek and the other at your shoulder, keeping you still to stop any additional damage. “I’ve got you, you understand me? I’m not letting you go, so don’t you think that I will.”

It’s a double-edged sword.

A smile peels back your chapped lips, red running from the corner of your mouth. You glance at his stained gear again. The abyss swirls at the corners of your eyes.

“Is that your blood, or mine, John Price?”

You hear him scream for a medic, and then it all goes numb.

—

You dream of deer on a hill, but every time you search for John, he isn’t there. You go past rivers—

“She’s dropping!”

“Get me the defibrillator!”

—past copses. Your voice goes high and low, but all the while you look, there’s nothing but a nagging feeling in the back of your head that you shouldn’t be here.

“Again!”

It’s a strange nagging, truly. Like falling asleep in the middle of the day and waking up in the night without any remembrance of what had happened prior. A displacement of the mind.

“We’ve got a pulse, Doctor, do we stop and—”

“No, I need to finish off the internal bleeding or else she won’t make it another day. Get me the cauterizer, now.”

You blink and grip your chest, a sudden pain sharp in your heart as the grass moves about your ankles. Coughing, you bend over, your eyes fluttering rapidly. In the deepest part of your eardrum, you hear a murmur of a voice you can’t place.

“The man came back, again. He’s been out there for days. He just…sits there, waiting until someone tells him something. He can’t come in, and I’m sorry about that. I’m sure hearing his voice would help more than mine, but you’re in too much of an unstable condition for that. If you get another infection, you won’t…hm, I shouldn’t talk about that. Everyone in school said only to talk positively to patients when they’re like this. I…I’m sure he’ll be able to come in soon. I think everyone calls him John if that rings a bell?”

“John?” Your eyes flutter open, sharp light above you making you snap them back closed. No one answers.

It’s a long moment before you find the strength to breathe in the oxygen from the mask over your face, taking a long and deep inhale before a slight cough makes your abdomen tight. You flinch at the pull of stitches, all coming from so many places, that it’s unwise to move too much.

Gradually, you open back up your eyes, pushing past the sting. Inside of your throat, the skin is so dried out you can feel it cracking at every articulation of your words.

“Where's…John?” When you shift your head to the side, no one’s there. No one’s even in the room, either.

Blinking through the haze, your lips twitch on your face, skin tight. With a slap of your weak hand, you grasp the oxygen mask and pull it down to your neck, grunting in mild annoyance at the medicated numbness of your form.

Your leg is in a cast—and your left side is tightly bound by wrappings to hide away the burns where skin grafts most likely live. With a glance, you see the missing pinky and the bandages that cover the strange remnants.

The facial wound will scar, you know, but right now it’s patched over and healing. That’s all you can ask for.

Sighing long, you blink slowly at the ceiling, licking your lips. You need water.

Outside, the murmurs are missed to you as your unmarred hand reaches for the nightstand table, where a half-drunk bottle of water sits next to a tray of food. Even if your stomach rumbles, water takes precedence. Your throat was like the Sahara desert.

“Forget something, John?”

“Bloody fork. The bastard gave me the slip. Dropped mine, needed to go back and grab another.”

“Oh, that’s alright—you could have asked one of us to get one for you. We’d hate for you to miss any time for visiting hours.”

“It’s fine; gets me moving, eh?”

“Just grab us if you need anything else!”

A low grunt is accented by the opening of the door; immediately you tense and pause, neck fighting itself to shift forward once more.

Wide blues lock with your own, and it’s like every pain fades away.

John’s jaw is slack hidden under the layers of his beard bristles, brows going atop his head in an instant. The sound of a dropping metal utensil echoes through the room.

You both stare at one another for a long time, and the murmur of nurses accumulates to some peaking through the crack; their expressions also going to shock. A few scurry off, probably to get a doctor.

“What?” Your hoarse voice asks, unnerved by this.

At the sound of your voice, John flinches forward on his boots. The nurses get shut out with beaming faces as the barrier closes with a small click of metal.

Walking to the side of your bed, John clears his throat, eyes looking you up and down in two glances. A million things are hidden in them. After an opening and closing of his mouth, which you watch closely while squinting, he speaks.

“How are we feeling, then?” You breathe slowly and in tiny puffs. John looks at the oxygen mask as if telling you to put it back on, but you refuse for a moment.

“Like shit,” you utter, voice cracking.

With a huff, John pushes away your reaching hand and gets the water himself, unscrewing it. Bringing it to your lips, you take it down as he speaks.

“Easy, Love.”

When you’d had your fill and the ache settled, you brought a hand to your head and rubbed at your injured cheek before John sighed and grabbed at it, intertwining his fingers with yours and lowering the limb back to your chest.

You stare at him, and he stares at you.

“I don’t know what to ask,” you confess.

“You don’t have to ask anything,” John mutters, and his face is tight with worry. “You’ve been in a coma for three weeks, all you need to do is ease back into it.”

Your eyes snap back.

“Tell me if it hurts,” He speaks slowly, moving on one word at a time so the realization doesn’t dwell in your brain. “I can get someone to come in, yeah?”

Your hand in his burns, and John pulls at the chair by the nightstand until he’s able to sit down in it fully with a tiny grunt.

“No,” you say, “no, it’s…I’m fine.”

Better now that you’re here, but your body is tense. Three weeks?

“Just need to take it easy,” the man states, thumb running up and down your knuckles. “You’ll be better soon.”

A dry look is sent his way, and he hides a soft quirk on his lips. “You’ll be better, Love.”

You hum, head moving back more heavily into the pillow.

“When do I get to go back?”

“When you’re healed,” he grunts. “Not a fuckin’ moment sooner.”

“We get anything on the other locations of the—”

“Hart,” you’re interrupted. Blue eyes stare at you heavily, digging past every shield you’d put up and every fear. What happened was still heavy in your mind; it pained you to imagine it, even the way John had found you—even if it was all glimpses. “Slow down. That’s not an order coming from a soldier, it’s a caution from an old friend.” John says, squeezing your flesh. His other hand comes to your shoulder, sitting there heavily.

“Breathe,” he orders, face gruff. “We always figure it out.”

You close your eyes and sigh, frowning.

A low chuckle moves along the air a second later.

“Never sit down, do you?” A flicker dances over your lips like a butterfly. “Impossible, you are.”

“You’re one to talk,” you huff, eyes shifting back to him.

He’s smiling at you, and you can’t help but mirror it right back at the sight. Your facial injury pulls and tightens, but you would welcome an ache like that for as long as it stayed. A scar born of the stretch of lips is one well-earned. Only John could ever make it a reality.

The man stares at your lips, his wide build eager to stay over you in this state. He can’t stop himself from caressing your skin; to feel you alive and breathing. Talking.

“Scared me,” John admits under his breath.

You blink, your smile fading slowly until it was like it was never there. Your body builds with guilt; also something only he could bring. “I’m sorry, John.”

A small thinning of his lips is what you get, accented by a hum.

“Hart,” he grunts. “I…”

John’s eyes closed for a moment before opening back up—spearing you with their gaze. Your tired eyes crinkle in confusion.

“What is it?” Over the tingle of your flesh from where he touches you, it isn’t hard to forget the world is around you when he’s here like this. You’re nearly trapped by his eyes, yet you welcome it eagerly. His voice moves out, accent and natural gravel, all.

“I love you.”

Your nose lets a chuff exit. Was that all?

“I love you, too, John—”

“No, Hart,” he pushes slightly harder, moving closer and licking his lips as he glances away. “No,” John looks you dead in the eye as you lay here battered and broken within an inch of your life—a risk that you took willingly as if it had meant nothing. The both of you weren’t new to this; you both knew that on any day you or he would do it over and over again until it resulted in death. That was the way of this game; this trial.

You had both always been content with that, but when had it changed?

Why was the thought of losing you more fear-invoking than anything else he’d ever encountered?

You watch him as his lips utter the words, lips close to yours and your eyes locked.

“I love you.”

Your voice is caught in your throat, stuck in the throws of a quick gasp. Not blinking, the man waits for you—waits for an answer to the earth-shattering confession. But it all came far easier than you would ever admit to anybody besides him. It was already known, after all.

All that remained was the pesky words.

“I love you, too.” You beam, words low with intimacy. “I think I always have.”

John chuckles, a large smile pushing at his reddening cheeks. “Good,” he nods, clearing his throat. “Good,” he says again. “Well, I—”

You softly connect your lips with his, and you feel him pause, breathing you down for a moment as hearts beat at the same tempo. He sighs, one hand coming up to capture your cheek, holding it there for you as you sag into it and live in this everlasting moment.

It’s there you had a revelation.

It was never Hart to him. John had never been calling you that.

He’d always just been saying Heart.

You breathe out a laugh, when you separate, beaming in a happiness you thought was long gone from you—stolen in the dark nights and sold through even darker deeds. Neither of you was worthy of this, of the love that breeds in broken things. Yet, here it is regardless. Here, among blood and the blue eyes of a man you’d known since knowing anything became important. You had always known it was John. And finally, finally, finally.

“I would marry you in an instant, John Price,” you breathe when you separate, not weak enough to stop the words from exiting from the deepest part of your soul.

His crinkled eyes watch, reverently gazing at every blemish and mark; everything he could learn new again. John’s eyes are as soft as you ever imagined them to be, and he gives them over freely to you.

He kisses you again and leaves the taste of his heavy, happy, chuckle tingling across your lips.

“Seems I’d better get on that, then.”

A/N: This fic is strangely nostalgic for me even if I just wrote it - I remember the first ever fic I posted on here was a rescue fic, as well as a John Price fic; it's amazing to see how far I've come in regards to overall content/story building and how my understanding of the character has evolved. This might not be the best work I've posted on my blog, but I'm glad to say I'm proud of myself and how far I've come. It's so wonderful that I can have this feeling for such a big moment and still feel so drawn back to the past at the same time. Totally not tearing up at the thought rn.

Thank you all very much for your support.

TAGS:

@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting , @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot

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crustgremlin · 7 months

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How to start a pair of punk patch pants

(a potentially really shitty tutorial)

I've seen a couple videos on this but a lot of them seem to skip out on some really key information and tricks so I thought I'd just write a probably really long and really rambly post about it!!!

Step one: gathering supplies

In terms of supplies the main things you'll need are:

The pants

Approximately 4 rolls of dental floss (this can change depending on number of patches and your pant size)

A needle with a big enough eye to fit the floss through

Acrylic paints

Brushes

Scrap denim or other scraps of fabric for the patches

Pins

Some kind of marker or pencil that will work on the fabric you've chosen

I will be going into some detail below about why you need each of these items!!

The pants themselves

personally I prefer either using a pair of jeans I already own or thrifting a pair to be as sustainable as possible, however if you really need to go out and buy a new pair for whatever reason get a high quality pair, this will help in the long run with preventing them from falling apart as easily.

The second main point I want to make is that the pants should not be skinny jeans. This is because when you sew on patches it slightly cinches in the fabric, and with skinny jeans generally being stretchy, this is going to result in the thread of the patches stretching out and snapping. Your patches will all just start falling off and it'll ruin your hard work.

This is why I'd recommend using a pair of jeans or pants that are a bit looser of a fit, such as straight legged pants or a pair of pants a size up from your actual size if possible!

Dental floss

The reason it's generally suggested to use dental floss rather than actual thread is because dental floss tends to overall be a lot stronger than your average thread, as well as often being more easily accessible to buy.

Needle

This ones pretty self-explanatory, just make sure you get a needle with a long/wide enough eye (the hole the thread goes through) for your floss to be able to fit through without trouble.

Acrylic paints

You may be wondering why I'm suggesting acrylics over fabric paints and there are a few reasons!

The first is simply that they're both cheaper and far easier to purchase for the average person than fabric paints, and I want this tutorial to be as accessible as possible for as many people as possible.

The second reason is that fabric paints require a lot of fucking around with setting the paint, whereas acrylics can just be left to dry and be finished, and so long as your pants are hand washed, the paints won't come out (unless you layer it on super thick or are really rough when you clean them).

Brushes

Another pretty obvious one, these are needed so you can actually paint your patches!!!

Fabric/spare denim

You need fabric or scraps to be able to actually create patches for your pants, so this is essential.

Any kind of scrap fabric can do, a lot of fabric stores tend to have bins of scrap fabric that are either pre-priced or priced by weight and that can be a really good opportunity to acquire the fabric you need!

Another way (the method I tend to use) is thrifting a few pairs of jeans alongside the pair I want to patch and then ripping them up into patch-sized pieces!

Either way, I really advise against buying straight up new fabrics by the metre for this as it kinda goes against the entire idea of sustainability and reuse.

A really big tip I have for when you're cutting the fabric of your choice up for patches is to actually only cut a little slit, and then rip. This produces a really nice distressed edge and will help add some texture and more of a fucked up look to your pants a lot quicker than if you waited for the fabric to fray by itself!

Marker/pencil

This is literally just so you can draw your designs onto your patches! I've personally found that either a black or white (depending on how dark the fabric you're using is) pastel pencil is generally good enough to get the general gist of what you want down well enough for you to paint it on.

Pins

These are literally just to hold your patches in place and literally any kind from proper sewing pins to safety pins will work! (just don't forget they're in the jeans before you put them on I promise you it isn't fun to put on a pair of jeans full of pins).

Optional: a sketchbook

You may want a sketchbook or alternatively scraps of paper if you have any kind of original concept for a patch so you can draw it out a few times first to really nail it, and it's also helpful to have if you aren't as confident in your painting and drawing abilities!

Step two: patch making

I personally pre-rip/cut all of my patches before I paint anything on them generally speaking and then fit whatever design I want onto whatever piece I think it would fit on, however if you want to paint your patches and then rip/cut the design out that's also an option (and probably a much smarter one I'm just incredibly stubborn).

For punk pants you want a good mix of both punk bands, politics, and also maybe something a bit daft (I have the "he scream at he own ass" possum on the back pocket of a patched skirt for example). If you don't have bands and such, it kinda defeats the point of them being punk patched pants.

I personally generally pick a theme (eg. colourful patches, all black and white) when making anything patched because I think it makes everything look a bit more cohesive, but that is by no means a rule you actually have to follow I'm just autistic a fuck tbh.

Step three: the assembly

I personally put my main/bigger patches on first and put them on in a few different places until I get the placement I like, and then sew them on with the floss like this:

The main thing you want to do to make sure your pants don't wind up looking a bit weird or bare is to fill in any gaps between your painted patches with small, blank patches. Like this:

and that's pretty much it!!! I can't really explain via written text how to sew and how I personally tie off etc but if anyone would like a video tutorial lmk!!!

#punk #alternative #cripple punk #queer punk #diy or die #punk patches #diy punk #punk diy #patched pants #crust pants #patched skirt #punk skirt #crust skirt #punk pants #crust punk #punk style #punk fashion #punk culture

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st4rtar0t · 1 month

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Details about your future partner

physical appearance, astrological details and more

In this pick a picture we will get to know some information about your future partner, this can even be your future spouse or somebody you will have a long term relationship with. I know you are really curious about them so why not read this and like and share if you feel that this reading has resonated with you?

Pick a picture from below

DM for personal readings.

Picture one

Some of you may already know this person. I see that you know this person from a work setting. They are really hardworking and they put their best in everything they do. They are a master at their craft. I also see that they have had their heart broken in the past and they no longer want to take any risks. This person is really attractive and a lot of people have their eyes on them. They know how to have deep conversations and I also see that they hate small talk. They are always energetic and have a youthful smile. However they have a sense of mystery around them. It's like they are always Hiding a part of them from others. They are family oriented and they will always put their family before anyone else. I also see that they are just your type. They are really protective of the people they love and they will do everything in their power to help others around them. You may Meet this person through social media or through an online platform. I see that you guys will be talking a lot to each other. For some of you, this person is already stalking you and you can feel it. The only reason why this person isn't approaching you is because of their past relationship. This person is really attracted to you and they want to have long term relationship. They only date to marry.

Physical attributes: dark/tanned skin, buzz cut, brunette, ginger hair, puppy face, golden retriever energy, sharp jawline, narrow eyes, thick eye lashes, blue/brown eyes, wide nose.

Key words: childish, eyes on you, watching, spiritual union, lust, lesson, co-worker, short trip, water body, fox, R,A,T,M,O. Explorer, possessive, lots of love, overflowing love.

Astrological details: Virgo rising, Taurus moon, Mars in Aries, Venus in 2nd house, Gemini Mercury, Neptune in 12th house.

Picture two

They are definitely spiritual and if not spiritual then they are definitely interested in being a better person every day. I also see that they have deep understanding of human heart and are quite empathetic. But that doesn't mean they'll carry the burden of others. I see that they like the freedom they have. It seems as if you already know this person or you will be getting to know them soon, sooner than you think. You first conversation may start as an argument or you may not like them at first, its giving enemies to lover vibes. You or they can be an introvert or One of you may not talk much. Some of you may have a fake account that you use to stalk people and they know about it? Or they may collect information about you before talking to you. I am getting a little to no information about them its like the universe does not want you to know about them, it may be a surprise.

Physical attributes : straight nose, beautiful side profile, big or unique ears, full lips, mole under eyes, sharp teeth, dark hair, blond hair or some, fit body.

Key words : bold choice of clothing, snap chat, sunglasses, 11, hot headed, red, T, V, X, May, October, November, pet dogs, younger sibling, gardening, leaf, watermelon.

Astrological details : Scorpio sun, Uranus in Pisces, Virgo moon, Venus in earth sign, Jupiter in 1st, mars in 4th, Libra moon, Pluto dominant,

Picture Three

( Some of you may also be attracted to picture 2)

They're kind of replaying old memories in their head at this moment. They have a tendency to always think about what could've been instead of living in the moment. Sometimes they're just not feeling it, like they're out of sync with everything around them. They feel as if the world is moving but they are frozen. but they are okay with it as long as are helping out and sharing what they've got. Their sense of accomplishment may come from helping other both financially and mentally. They're all about hard work, always grinding and putting in the work to make things happen. They don't like drama and competition, if they feel like you are competing against them they will just let you win. They'd rather keep things peaceful and drama-free. When it comes to love, they're total romantics, just going with the flow and following their heart. They may be a hopeless romantic. They have immense live for their work and they do for a living. They're always honing their skills and perfecting their craft, putting in the effort to be the best at what they do. And at the end of the day, they're someone who feels pretty good about what they've achieved, just living their best life and enjoying every moment. They are grateful for everything that comes their way. No matter blessings or blessing disguised as disasters. Just soaking it all in and feeling grateful for where they're at.

Physical attributes : coloured hair, red hair, tattoos, veiny hands, curly hair, big eyes, sharp jawline, locks, big hands, may wear boots most of the time.

Key words : Horse, 9, 24, 15, pink, water body, red velvet, Venessa, butterflies, absent father figure, garland, gold, nose ring. April, August, June.

Astrological details : Libra descendent, Uranus in 5th, mercury in 10th, Venus in 4th, Taurus Venus, South node in Virgo, Jupiter in libra, cancer rising,

#tarot reading #spirituality #tarotcommunity #divination #pick a photo #pick a pile #tarot #pick a picture #pick a card #pick an image #future spouse #future #future lover #spiritual journey #love reading #love tarot reading #tarot readings #predictions

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clove-pinks · 2 years

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A series of 8 tweets on the experience of being autistic and ADHD (AuDHD) by @pot8um on twitter, image descriptions below cut.

I saved these shortly after being dx + medicated with ADHD last year. It was the first time I began to seriously consider the possibility that I was also autistic. 1/8

AuDHD is a constant tug-of-war— contradictions that exist simultaneously that I feel equally strongly about.

[image description: Two-column text inside orange arrows on left, and blue arrows on right. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, L text: “Making spontaneous plans”, R text: “Getting very upset if those plans are interrupted” 2nd row, L text: “Struggling to organize”, R text: “Having a strong need for order”. By @autistic.qualia]

Each of these are so familiar to me, but I could never articulate my experiences with the right language. Also, if you don’t know what you’re experiencing is AuDHD, you don’t know what questions to ask. You didn’t know you were even supposed to *have* questions! 2/8

[image description: Two-column text inside orange arrows on left, and blue arrows on right. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, L text: “Impulsively making purchases for a new hyperfixation”, R text: “Hyperfocus on researching the products” 2nd row, L text: “Struggling to be on time”, R text: “Upset when others are a few minutes late”. by @autistic.qualia]

I have phases of hyperfixation with certain things, and lifelong interest in others. Successfully executed plans / tasks is always my goal. (The perfectionism is too real.) I always get frustrated when I inevitably miss steps, regardless of my attention to detail. 3/8

[image description: Two-column text inside orange arrows on left, and blue arrows on right. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, L text: “Hyperfixating on a wide variety of topics”, R text: “Also having long term special interests” 2nd row, L text: “Forgetting steps in plans”, R text: “Needing plans to execute perfectly”. by @autistic.qualia]

I *love* trying new foods… until it’s a bad experience, then I clam up and am reluctant to try again. When it comes to food, consistency is vital to me. My brain is far more active than I have spoons for. Most of my ideas strike when I’m freshly overloaded and spoonless. 4/8

[image description: Two-column text inside orange arrows on left, and blue arrows on right. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, L text: “Enticed by novel foods”, R text: “Hypercritical of food taste and texture” 2nd row, L text: “Wanting new experiences”, R text: “Wanting to stick to what I know I like”. by @autistic.qualia]

I tend to hyperfixate on things that aren’t central to the task at hand. (I don’t want to say “on the ‘wrong’ thing” because I’m on my self-compassion shit ) Discovering my neurodivergence during the pandemic was surreal. Severe boredom, severe overload, severe whiplash. 5/8

[image description: Two-column text inside arrows. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, orange arrow, L text: “Misses details and makes mistakes on boring topics”, blue arrow, R text: “Notices small details and points out others’ mistakes”. 2nd row, purple arrow, L text: “Becoming easily understimulated”; Yellow arrow, R text: “Becoming easily overstimulated”. by @autistic.qualia]

Overthinking the stages of your emotional dysregulation is its own personal hell. When I’m lowest on spoons, I tend to ruminate the most. My thirst for knowledge is met by my shoddy working memory. I try recalling a fact that *I know* I read up on. Can’t. Frustration ensues. 6/8

[image description: Two-column text inside arrows. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, purple arrow, L text: “Struggling from emotional dysregulation”. Blue arrow, R text: “Being a logical and analytical thinker”. 2nd row, orange arrow, L text: “Struggling to retain information”; Yellow arrow, R text: “Wanting to learn everything”. by @autistic.qualia]

It’s hard for me to Start the Thing. Once I start, I NEED to ride that wave! If I’m taken out of the moment, idk when I’ll be able to start back up. If I don’t say what I’m thinking *while* I’m thinking it, it’ll be forever lost. (Trying my best to work on this. It’s hard!) 7/8

[image description: Two-column text inside purple and yellow arrows. Title “What ADHD & autism feel like…” L column is ADHD; R column is autism. 1st row, L text: “Having difficulty sitting still”, R text: “Hypersensitive to other people fidgeting”. 2nd row, L text: “Interrupting others when they are busy”; R text: “Hate being bothered while in hyperfocus”. by @autistic.qualia]

Please note: • These traits are infinitely more nuanced than a few tweets can possibly cover. • I do not speak for the entire autistic community. From @autisticqualia on IG, an outstanding AuDHD awareness account.

[image descriptions: a box of text at left reads “Having both ADHD & autism can sometimes feel like there are contradicting forces within you. Traits that seem incompatible on the surface can exist in the same person.” A box of text at right reads “Everyone with ADHD & autism is different. These are the contradicting traits that I personally experience as someone with both ADHD and autism.”]

It's uncommon for me to see someone discussing the experience of being both austistic and ADHD, and this was articulated so well, I feel like it also describes my experiences. (The author is also an advocate for late diagnosis AuDHD adults, who has shared her experiences about working with dismissive, misogynist doctors.)

Bearing in mind that every individual is different, as noted by the tweet author, I feel like I am more autistic than I am ADHD, despite my ADHD diagnosis (and these two developmental disorders have many overlapping traits, of course).

I have never, ever understood the experience of "ADHD boredom" that I have seen some people describe. I am perpetually overstimulated, not understimulated, and I stuggle to process experiences and find enough time and space. Executive dysfunction also prevents me from starting/enjoying activities, as is typical with ADHD. It's not just a thing that makes it difficult to work on stressful or boring tasks; it prevents you being being able to commence fun things, like reading for enjoyment or watching a TV show you want to watch. And when I do manage to start the book/TV show, the stimulus is often overwhelming and I don't get very far.

#autism #adhd #audhd #actually autistic #actually adhd #late diagnosed autistic #late diagnosed adhd #pot8um #shaun talks #disability

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sundrop-writes · 3 months

Text

Careful - Chapter Three

(Dad)Spencer Reid x (Mom)Fem!Reader

Chapter Three: Turn It Off

Before it gets any better - we're headed for a cliff.

Summary:

Spencer finally gets to see his son for the first time, and there is absolutely no denying - that is his son.

Caught up in a whirlwind of love for the boy and navigating the first small steps in co-parenting with you, he accidentally trips into a minefield from the past when discussing Sebastian's conception, and you both realize with baited breath that you might not be over each other.

(Especially not when that lust still burns so close to the surface.)

Dad!Spencer Reid x Mom!Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Angst, Fluff, and Smut.

Word Count: 13,400

Criminal Minds Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: basic warnings for a Criminal Minds episode - mentions of murder/killing; mentions of the reader being the target of a serial killer; angst/emotional tension between Spencer and the reader; (technically) Spencer being unprofessional by staying on the reader’s case; Sebastian is described to be a combination of the reader and Spencer’s looks, so this does not describe or exclude the reader’s looks/race; the bulk of this chapter is fluff because Spencer is bonding with Sebastian for the first time; most of the warnings for this chapter are because of the smut scene (which is a flashback to Sebastian’s (unintentional) conception) - so warning for smut; (kind of) phone sex; mentions of the reader masturbating; (Spencer calls the reader and she’s touching herself and he realizes it, but there’s not any real dirty talk in this section); the reader calls Spencer ‘baby’; Spencer calls the reader ‘darling’; mention of Spencer feeling emotionally worn down from looking at casefiles; unprotected penis in vagina sex (though Spencer is unsure if the reader is taking oral birth control consistently or not); there is a lack of communication about alternative birth control methods aside from condoms (like plan B and oral birth control) - but both partners enthusiastically consent to having unprotected sex in that moment, knowing the potential risks; creampie kink (not quite breeding kink?); mentions of Spencer eating out the reader after cumming inside of her; there is a scene with a lot of sexual tension between Spencer and the reader in the main timeline. Other than that - Morgan teasing Spencer? (and then having a serious moment with him). And I think that’s it.

A/N: This is by far the longest chapter - I don't know the official length of the final chapter yet, but this might be the longest chapter in the series. It was a bitch to edit, but I hope you guys enjoy it! Especially because I know a lot of people have been anticipating Spencer meeting Sebastian for the first time, and this is the big moment. I'm not gonna lie, when I was writing the first bits of this fic, I rushed to write the moment where Spencer meets Sebastian - and it gave me chills to write it. So I really hope that you guys enjoy it, and you enjoy the sweet moments in this fic, as well as the more saucy ones lmao.

...

Spencer churned with nerves as he walked back up to the house, two gift bags clutched in his shaking hand.

He had walked around the mall for a long time - partial aimless wandering, partial sweaty anxiety causing his feet to move along rapidly. He felt like everything he looked at was not the right gift to apologize to you with after so long. He felt like it needed to be perfect.

After about an hour of wandering, Hotch called him and tore him a new one. Apparently JJ had pulled him aside and explained the delicate nature of his situation privately. Hotch knew how dangerous it was to get so personal and emotional when it came to things like this, and he wanted Spencer back at the police station and far away from you. He said that if you needed protective custody, then he would put Morgan or Prentiss in charge of it.

Spencer didn’t care if it was unprofessional. He begged to stay on the case, to stay with you and watch over you. Apparently you were the only viable lead - with the flowers that had been sent to you, you were the only potential next victim.

After a while of back and forth, Hotch folded.

He sent an unmarked car to watch over your house, and told Spencer to hurry up and get back there. He needed to try and convince you to agree to around the clock protection. At the very least, if Spencer was in the house when the UnSub tried to break in, he could catch him in the act.

The rest of the team tried to farm other leads. They went through the other victims’ lives to see if anybody connected to them had any connection to the firm that handled the preschool applications, if any of their neighbors remembered anybody suspicious lurking around their homes in the days before the murders.

Spencer spent another hour rushing around the shopping center before he found the perfect gifts for you and your son - his son. (He really, really hoped that he was right about that.)

He picked up a couple of gift bags - one with a brightly colored pattern of teddy bears eating birthday cake and the other with a more mature pattern of soft roses. He put the gifts inside and rushed to get back to the house before Hotch called him again.

And now that he was standing on the porch, facing down your door again, he almost couldn’t work up the ability to knock.

But he knew that he had to face the inevitable.

He reached out and gave three firm knocks once again.

This time, what he heard surprised him.

A loud, squealing giggle, and a round of thunderous footsteps across the floor, slightly muffled by the door. Clearly - the sound of a young child.

Spencer’s blood rushed through his body like a tidal wave and he found himself dizzy as he stared at the white panels of your front door, anticipation thumping through him. After a tedious moment that felt like four long years, the doorknob slowly turned, and the door creaked open.

Peeking out of the crack - a big, curious eye, and half a chubby cheek poked out at him.

Your son had answered the door by himself.

Spencer swallowed down nerves as he prepared himself to meet Sebastian for the first time.

Upon instinct, Spencer crouched down lowly on the balls of his feet, getting down onto the child’s level.

“Hey, buddy.” He said, using a light voice, trying to be as non-intimidating as possible. “Where’s your Mommy?”

Mommy.

It felt so strange - using that word to refer to you. But yes, you were his mother.

You were a mother.

That fact truly hit Spencer like a truck in that moment.

Unexpectedly, Sebastian then flung the door open fully. It seemed that he had fully assessed Spencer, and deemed him as someone friendly, rather than some kind of threat.

A large knot formed in Spencer’s stomach then, as he saw his son for the first time. Because in that moment, there was no denying - this was his son.

He saw his own big eyes staring back at him, reflecting the same epic curiosity that he had at that age. He had your complexion, most definitely your same skin tone. The boy had your sweet smile, your cute nose. Spencer ached as he realized that Sebastian was quite literally the perfect combination of the two of you. His own wild, untamable tendrils (hair that clearly hadn’t been cut for a while) with tones of your natural color in it - your sweetness, your laughter.

Spencer used all of his self control in that moment to keep himself from fainting on the spot.

“Who are you?” Sebastian asked, tilting his head slightly, inspecting Spencer with a distinct up-and-down glance. “Are you the police? Mommy’s talking on the phone. She said the police are coming to our house. But she didn’t like that. Her face made a big frown - like when that man at the grocery store asked if she’s ‘free’ on Friday. And I said: you can’t buy Mommy, she doesn’t have a price. You can’t buy people. You buy bananas. That’s why we came to the grocery store, pal!”

Spencer frowned.

This was a lot of information to receive in such a short span, and Spencer quickly tried to sort it all out in his mind.

Technically, he was ‘the police’, but he didn’t want to introduce himself to Sebastian that way if it would bring a negative connotation. Clearly, this was a very observant child - he had picked up on the fact that you didn’t want police protective custody around. (Spencer just hoped that you hadn’t mentioned why you might need that kind of protection around the very clever ears of your son - someone who had interpreted a man asking you on a date as a barter for ownership of your person, apparently.)

Not wanting to upset Sebastian, he chose to introduce himself in another way, rather than saying he was with law enforcement - which is what he would have done with any other small child.

“I’m a friend of your Mommy’s.” He said. “My name is Spencer. Can you-”

Before he could finish talking, your voice entered the conversation.

“Sebastian! Seb!” You called out urgently, looking for him now that you had realized he was gone from your field of view.

You came around the corner in a panic and found your son standing there with the front door wide open. Your eyes naturally flickered toward Spencer, and surprisingly, a look of relief flooded your face at seeing him.

As much as you disliked Spencer for your own reasons - at least someone who wasn’t a predator was with your son. You hadn’t meant to leave the door unlocked. It was just easy to forget things when you were chasing after such an energetic kid.

“Sebastian, Mommy told you not to open the door unless I’m here with you.”

You scolded him, rushing to scoop him up in your arms - unconsciously protecting him from the outside world as you propped him up onto your hip, hugging an arm around his back to hold him there.

Spencer’s insides fluttered at how natural you looked with him in your arms. It was a picture perfect sight: you with his son in your arms. It was something he had been dreaming of for years. And now, for so many reasons, it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Spencer is my friend!” Sebastian proudly proclaimed, motioning toward his very new ‘friend’. “You said it’s okay to answer the door for friends.”

You clenched your jaw, clearly resisting the urge to make a foul comment about this in front of your son. You wanted to correct him and say that Spencer was not a ‘friend’ - that he was far from it. But you held that back, knowing that Sebastian was too young and innocent to be stung by your anger. (Especially anger from a fight that was older than he was.)

Before you could speak further or insist that Spencer had to leave, Sebastian spoke up again.

“What’s in that bag?” He asked, extending his little arm and pointing a pudgy little finger toward the gift bags that Spencer had in his hand - items that Spencer himself had nearly forgotten about, swept up in pure awe at meeting his son for the first time.

“Oh, it’s a gift for you.” Spencer smiled at him, holding one of the bags up toward the boy. “Because I missed your birthday.”

Sebastian took the bag excitedly, but didn’t get a chance to examine the items yet, still awkwardly trapped in his mother’s arms.

You glared at Spencer over Sebastian’s head. You thought it was a cheap attempt at buying his affection. Spencer avoided your eye. (If you were a lesser woman, you would have banned Sebastian from having the gift. But you weren’t going to take away his joy based on your own rotting emotions.)

“What do you say, bud?” You prompted, wanting him to thank Spencer for the gift - even if you thought it was ill-intended.

“I’m four now!” He excitedly announced, believing this was what you meant. “I just turned four. I had a big boy birthday. So I go to the toilet all by myself - as long as I don’t wee on the floor. And I had a princess at my birthday party, but apparently she doesn’t bring the letters to Santa Claus, the mail does that. Did you know that the U.S. Postal Service was founded in 1775, and Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster-”

“Seb, that’s not what I meant.” You said quietly, gently cutting off his unrelated string of ranting.

Spencer was grinning widely from ear to ear - he found himself so utterly charmed by Sebastian’s bright, enthusiastic personality.

“Sebastian, you have to say ‘thank you’ to Spencer for the present.” You reminded him, getting his mind back on track.

“Thank you!” He parroted back.

“You’re very welcome.” Spencer replied, his cheeks hurting from how hard he was smiling.

You then put him down, and he ran back into the house, excited to open his gift and see what was inside it.

A tense silence fell over you and Spencer. You continued to glare at him with fury tightening in your jaw. Any joy he previously felt over seeing Sebastian for the first time was completely zapped from him.

He now felt like a groveling idiot, desperate to get back into your good graces. He felt like the picture perfect life with a perfect family was right there, and he was missing out on it because he had messed up all those years ago.

“That was a nice try. With the gift.” You huffed out. “I don’t even wanna know what’s in that one.” You said, motioning to the other bag.

“Y/N-” He said your name, ripe with desperation, and you cut him off again.

“When did you know?” You asked.

The question utterly confused Spencer, and when you saw this flash through his features, you took pity on him for once, and decided to clarify.

“When did you know that he was yours?” You said this lowly, edging on a whisper, not wanting your son to hear it - even though he likely wouldn’t understand what the words meant if he did. (But he was an observant, smart kid. You couldn’t risk him hearing either way.)

“I did the math.” Spencer told you, matching your whisper. “I knew for certain when I saw him.”

You let out a rugged sigh. With your tense body language, your tight jaw - Spencer feared that even now, you might ask him to leave.

For him, that simply wasn’t an option.

“Look, you can’t keep me from my son-” Spencer said, speaking normally now - he knew that eventually, the two of you would have to tell Sebastian that he was his father.

He wanted a relationship with his child no matter what.

“Keep your voice down!” You hissed, looking over your shoulder as if the small child was some boogeyman who would sneak up on you specifically to eavesdrop on the conversation.

From the distant sounds of giggling and some playful voices - it sounded like he was far too busy playing with his toys to care about what was going on between you and Spencer.

“This changes nothing.” You added on bitterly. “You still have no right to be around me after what happened, and-”

“You’re seriously telling me that this changes nothing?” Spencer barked back, intensely offended by that assessment.

You refused to look Spencer in the eye, and he barreled forward, believing that he could convince his way in the door with his stubbornness alone.

“He is my son.” He spit back sharply, so much passion in the words that it gave you chills. “He is a part of me as much as he is a part of you. Even if - even if you hate me,” Spencer said, unsure if that was the right term, and feeling a rock in his stomach when you didn’t protest. “Even if you hate me now and always will, I still have a right to be in his life.”

Guilt flashed across your features. You had always regretted not contacting Spencer in order to let him meet Sebastian. And now all of those late night ‘what ifs’ were coming back to haunt you. With a vengeance.

“And I know you might not view it that way, but it’s been a long time. And I have changed.” He continued on, trying his best to convince you, knowing that these words were hollow.

Spencer didn’t even think about the potential consequences of his next words before he spoke them, but he went on anyway.

“And I would really, really like a second chance with you. I understand if you and I are over. If everything we had is completely… gone.”

Your eyes flickered toward him at this, a dreadful ghost lingering in the back of your pupils. This was the last thing you had expected to hear from him, and you had a difficult time processing it.

His tone was incredibly mournful when speaking these words. He still had so much love for you in his heart, and he could not imagine being around you and interacting with you to co-parent a child and not being with you. Not sharing your bed. Not having more children with you.

“But you and I at least need to be civil, for his sake. Tell me that he really would be better off without both parents in his life.”

Spencer resisted the urge to cite statistics about single parent households and the likelihood of forming antisocial personality disorders - mostly because he didn’t want to think of his son like that, and because you being a single parent household was the entire reason he was here.

He didn’t want to bring up the UnSub again, and the potential danger you might be in - because he didn’t want you to brush him off or get even more angry.

You looked intensely thoughtful, then, clearly mulling over his words in your mind.

He thought that something else might sway your opinion in his favor.

“Plus, if you don’t let me inside, that means I got you this gift for nothing.” He said, giving you his absolute best puppy eyes as he held up the bag in your direction.

You rolled your eyes with a huff, but you took it from him anyway.

“Don’t think you can bribe your way back into my good graces, Spencer.” You said, accepting the bag, and then:

You stepped aside and let him in.

Spencer didn’t waste a moment, gratefully accepting this. He took off his messenger bag and set it beside the door as you closed it behind him. You made a point of locking it this time, putting the deadbolt on so that Sebastian wouldn’t be able to get the door open by himself.

“You used to be very easy to bribe back in the day, if I can remember.” Spencer told you, throwing a grin over his shoulder at you.

That grin, the light in his eyes. Him bringing up memories of ‘the old days’ - for a moment, it was all too much. It was too easy. It reminded you of simpler times - a time when you would have just leaned over and kissed him in order to shut him up.

“Enjoying and accepting gifts is a lot different than being bribed.” You muttered under your breath, leaving the gift bag on the table beside the door as you walked back into the living room where Sebastian was playing.

Spencer left it there for now - but he would have you open the gift before the day was over. That much he was determined of.

“Mommy, look!”

Sebastian ran toward you excitedly when he saw you walk back into the living room - he was waving something in his hand to show you. You quickly recognized it as a character from his favorite show - it was a rather large plush toy of Rubble from Paw Patrol. It still had a tag hanging off its ear, so it must have been what Spencer had brought him in that gift bag.

Your stomach tightened. You knew that it was likely something to do with profiling - the fact that when he had been here before, he had only been in your home for fifteen minutes, but he had likely been able to observe so much about your life (and about your son) just from the simple things you had sitting around. You hated it. You hated that he had so many skills and tools at his disposal that meant you could hardly keep any secrets from him.

“Oh wow, that’s so nice, baby.” You grinned widely, putting on your happiest voice for your son even though you didn’t like that Spencer had so easily bought his affection.

“And look, look at this!”

He nearly tripped over his own small feet, racing back over to the gift bag to fish out something else. He ran back over to you and handed it to you. It was a children’s picture book called ‘Dino ABC’ - it appeared to have a different dinosaur for each letter of the alphabet on each page. Educational and cute. Just what you would have expected from Spencer.

You felt a deep pain emanate out from the center of your chest - your heart literally aching as you fought your hardest to keep a big smile for your son.

“Seb, you still have to finish your snack.”

You told him, tossing the book aside to put it on the couch and walking back over to the coffee table in order to draw his attention to the abandoned plate with his food on it.

“Come on. You can play with your toys later.”

You had been part way through his snacktime when JJ had called you, trying to convince you to come into the police station for a briefing about ‘protection’. Ultimately, that conversation had distracted you when Spencer had knocked on the door.

He tucked Rubble under his arm and rushed to sit in your lap, shoveling cheese and crackers into his mouth off the frog shaped plate while you turned your attention toward Spencer - who had been watching the whole exchange while leaning against a wall, a tentative smile forming on his face.

“I have to hand it to you, you’re good.” You said, trying to keep your tone neutral, straying away from anger. “You hit on two of his biggest interests - Paw Patrol and dinosaurs. That profiling stuff is a lot more accurate than I thought,”

Spencer didn’t want to admit that he had just picked a book about dinosaurs because that was what he liked at that age, and the Paw Patrol thing had been all JJ’s doing. He had been far too busy caught up in anger at your initial stubbornness to try and ‘profile’ you.

“Well-” Spencer attempted to reply, but he was cut off by Sebastian’s loud, enthusiastic voice.

“What’s profiling?” He asked, nearly shouting, unintentionally spraying crumbs out of his mouth as he struggled to chew and speak at the same time.

“Buddy, what did we say about talking with your mouth full?” You huffed quietly, grabbing a napkin to wipe up some of the crumbs he had sprayed out.

You didn’t expect Spencer to indulge him with an honest answer.

“Well, you see…” Spencer thought for a moment, wanting to explain the concept to him in an honest, but child-friendly manner. “Profiling is when I look at the things around you, and how you act, and I can tell what you’re thinking.” He replied. “Like… if you have a secret.”

He moved toward the coffee table and once again crouched down to Sebastian’s level - and his cheeks curled into a smile at his son’s eager, curious eyes staring him down.

You watched the interaction quietly. You never would have admitted it, but it gave you butterflies to see how natural, how perfect Spencer already was with Sebastian.

Sebastian chewed a bit more before he spoke again.

“I have a secret.” Sebastian whispered - a dramatic stage whisper that kids his age always did.

“Hmm…”

Spencer put his thumb and forefinger against his chin, and cocked an eyebrow, looking around the room like a cartoonish detective, acting like he was trying to piece together exactly what this big secret was. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sebastian’s entire body go stiff, as if he could better hide while not moving - and one small, cracker-crumbed fist clenching tight under the coffee table as the boy tried his hardest to contain his laughter told him everything that he needed to know.

“You’re trying to hide part of your snack from Mommy!” Spencer declared, laughter in his voice as he pointed an ‘accusing’ finger toward Sebastian.

The boy burst into laughter and surrendered his hand, dumping a single crumbled up cracker onto his plate as he curled over with epic laughter - apparently finding the whole thing to be a very amusing game.

“You got me!” He chuckled.

You had difficulty hiding your own smile at all of this, and you tried to encourage Sebastian back into an upright position as he wiggled around from laughing so furiously.

“Well maybe we need Spencer around when you try to hide your carrots at dinnertime.” You said, your tone flat, not at all reaching that same joy. “Now come on, you joker, finish up please.”

You caught Spencer’s eye then - and he had the dangerous realization that you weren’t entirely kidding.

“I’ll be around whenever you need me.” Spencer replied, seriousness seeping back into his tone.

You wanted to argue this - but of course, you held back with Sebastian sitting in your lap. Instead, it dissolved into a sharp huff out of your nose.

When it seemed that you had nothing more to say on the matter, Spencer turned back to Sebastian, who was licking the mushy, bright red remnants of some strawberries off his fingers.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur, bud?” Spencer asked.

He was eager to get to know his son better - and he was expecting a rather generic answer from a four year old, like T-Rex.

He certainly did not expect what came next.

“Plesiosaurus!” Sebastian cried out excitedly, accidentally spitting out some food (again), which you rushed to wipe off his shirt and face with a nearby napkin. “They lived in the Jurassic period, and could grow to eleven feet long!”

Spencer beamed with pride.

Even though Spencer hadn’t spent that much time around children, he knew that this seemed to be fairly advanced knowledge for a four year old.

You gave Spencer a very distinct look over Sebastian’s head. You could see that glint in his eye, and you knew that you were both thinking the same thing.

He had interented his father’s big, big brain.

It was something you had known for a long time now. And you knew that it wouldn’t take Spencer long to see it.

“Wow, buddy.” Spencer smiled widely, eager to praise the boy. “That’s so awesome. My favorite is the Brontosaurus.”

Sebastian smiled, and nodded.

“They’re herbivores. Which means they only eat plants.” He replied. “Not like Mommy. She eats steak. And it’s gross.”

You couldn’t help but to let out a laugh at this, and Spencer easily joined you.

Leave it to the random stream of thoughts of a four year old to actually make you forget about your anger towards Spencer - at least for a little while.

“Mommy, can I have more strawberries?” Sebastian asked, holding up his now empty plate.

Something a lot of people don’t realize about little kids - they eat a lot of fruit.

“I’ll see if we have more.” You told him, moving to scoot him off your lap.

“I’ll go-” Spencer moved to get up, and you gave him a sharp glare that cut off his words.

Luckily, Sebastian didn’t see this as he jumped off your lap and rushed toward Spencer, picking up his dinosaur book with still sticky fingers along the way.

“I got it.” You grumbled quietly, picking up the plate and moving toward the kitchen.

You wanted to make a comment about how you had been taking care of him by yourself for the past four years, so a single plate of strawberries was not that big of a deal. But you didn’t want to be so passive aggressive in front of Sebastian, especially because he wouldn’t understand why.

You cleaned and cut up the few strawberries that were left, and when you came back, Sebastian was sitting on Spencer’s lap. They had the book propped open in Spencer’s hands while Sebastian gawked at it and explained in detail about whatever they were looking at - likely far greater detail than the book already had written in its pages.

“Ferrisaurus.” He said, nearly out of breath with excitement. “He has a very sharp beak. He was discovered in 1971 by Kenny F. Larson. He belongs to the Leptoceratopsidae family, and-”

You put the plate down in front of them, and Sebastian frowned when he saw it, cutting off his own words.

“Is there any more?” He complained loudly. “I wanna share some with my friend Spencer.”

Spencer’s mouth flattened into a thin line, clearly trying his hardest to hide a beaming smile at being claimed as Sebastian’s ‘friend’ once again.

“No, sweetie, that’s all the strawberries we have in the house.” You informed him. “I’ll go to the store and get some more tomorrow. But you can’t keep eating all the fruit and then complain when it’s all gone.”

It was a common theme in your life - Sebastian could eat an entire carton of raspberries in one sitting, and then became upset when there was no more in the fridge.

Sebastian shrugged and reached up over the book to grab one off his plate. He shoved it into his mouth before reaching for another, looking up over his shoulder to then clumsily aim for Spencer’s mouth. You were expecting Spencer to dodge it and tell him ‘no thank you’ - a man who was a germaphobe, someone who you had seen use disinfecting wipes on forks at restaurants because he didn’t trust other people to clean the utensils well enough. But instead, he leaned down and captured the half-mushed fruit from your son, giving a small grin as some of the juices smeared across his lips.

Your stomach twisted into knots as you moved to sit on the couch.

You didn’t want to call it affection. You would deeply deny that it was fondness rising in you at seeing Spencer clearly soft and loving toward your son.

Toward his son.

Especially because it was a sight that you thought you would never witness in your lifetime.

“Thank you.” Spencer mumbled out as he chewed, and Sebastian chirped out a ‘you’re welcome!’ - even reaching to grab a napkin to help Spencer wipe his mouth before he then turned back to his book.

“You know, if he wants more fruit, I can run to the store. It’s really no trouble.” Spencer offered, clearly eager to give your son whatever he wanted - whatever he needed.

“He’s fine.” You sighed in return. “It’ll be fine until tomorrow. Do you have any idea how much fruit this kid eats in a day? How much fruit he’s eaten just today alone?” You remarked.

Spencer saw it as the rhetorical question it was, and waited for you to continue on.

“He ate an entire carton of raspberries before he left this morning. I had to change his shirt because he looked like a character from Texas Chainsaw.” You explained, feeling safe that Sebastian would not understand that reference.

“It makes sense.” Spencer replied. “The natural fructose found in most fruits make it an incredibly appealing taste to the underdeveloped palette of a child. It’s actually believed that before puberty, people have a higher concentration of taste buds on the apex of the tongue, which is the area associated with sweet and salty sensations, so children are more likely to crave sweet flavors. And most fruit has a mild but naturally satisfying fructose level, essentially making it less assertive than artificial candy that pubescent children would enjoy with a more developed tongue. Basically - children like it so much because fruit is nature’s candy.”

Spencer let out a breathy laugh as he finished this statement, and you knew that your eyes were glowing with delight as you stared at him.

Sebastian was staring up at him - clearly absorbing every single word that he spoke with eagerness. You wouldn’t be surprised if Sebastian was able to repeat back those facts word for word later on. He was startlingly like his father.

You almost hated it, but this reminded you so much of the Spencer you had fallen in love with. The man who excited you with his passion; the person who made your knees tremble because he was so chalked full of knowledge, but never pretentious about sharing it.

“Is that so?” You grinned in return.

Before Spencer could get too caught up at that affectionate sparkle in your eye, something barreled to the forefront of his mind.

“Wait - what did you mean by ‘before he left this morning’?” Spencer asked. “Where does Sebastian go during the day?”

He needed to know more about your life. There could be something small lurking in some corner that could lead him to the UnSub before the man had a chance to even consider attacking you.

“I go to see Abby!” Sebastian piped up, answering the question as he turned a page in his book. “And my friends: Paige, and Jimmy, and Emma.”

“Abby is his babysitter.” You explained. Spencer nodded at this. “He goes there four days a week. From nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. They have three other kids, Paige, Jimmy, and Emma. So he has friends there. He likes the social interaction. And I get my work done while he’s gone.”

“But you’re on a waitlist for a daycare in the area?” Spencer prodded. You grew confused at this, so he added on: “That’s how my team found you. Through the daycare applications.”

It felt like a violation of your privacy, but you didn’t point that out.

You felt like the conversation was straying into ‘grown-up’ territory. Things that you didn’t want to speak of in front of your son, because children are sponges and you don’t really know how much they absorb. So you decided that it was time for him to have some independent playtime while you and Spencer talked. He had finished his snack in the meantime, anyway.

You picked up a napkin and wiped his hands, and then you gently took the book from Spencer, who had been holding it open for Sebastian to look at it.

“Seb.” You spoke to him gently, leaning into his view. You brushed away one of his wild curls and he looked at you attentively - Spencer’s heart rate sped up uncontrollably, and he knew that he was looking at you much the same way. “Can you go play in your room for a while, buddy? I need to have some grown-up time with Spencer.”

“I want Spencer to come with me!” Sebastian argued gently. “I wanna show him my toys!”

“Yes, you can show him later.” You told him. “After we’re done talking, he’ll be right up, and you can show him all your dinosaurs, and-”

“And the stars!” Sebastian added on excitedly.

“Yes.” You nodded. “Whatever you want.”

Sebastian then let out a bright ‘okay!’ and Spencer helped him up, and there were more thunderous racing footsteps as Sebtastian went upstairs to go and play in his room.

“Grown-up time?” Spencer asked, quirking a brow at you.

You hated that the tiny bit of innuendo in his voice drudged up heat between your thighs.

You labeled it as desperation because you hadn’t been touched by another person in so long, not your genuine attraction toward him coming back again.

“Yes.” You said firmly. “You and I need to talk. About a lot of stuff. And he doesn’t need to hear all the gory little details.” You sighed. “Coffee?”

“That sounds great.” He nodded.

He followed you to the kitchen loyally and leaned against the counter while you went about the mechanical, ingrained movements to make a pot of coffee.

“So, why isn’t he in preschool?” Spencer asked.

He neglected to bring up the fact that the UnSub had likely targeted you through the preschool applications. He knew that you would become annoyed again if he brought up the fact that you were in danger - so he left that alone for now. The longer he stayed in the house, the better chance he had of convincing you to leave, to come into police custody for your own protection.

If the worst case scenario were to take place, his gun was in his bag. He would protect you if anyone tried to break in. He would protect you at all costs.

“They wouldn’t accept Sebastian into daycare because… they thought he was too advanced for their program.” You explained, answering his question. “They wanted me to have him IQ tested. And I refused, so they put him on the waitlist.”

You weren’t facing Spencer as you filled up the coffee machine with water, but he could hear it in your voice. Grit. Disdain.

Did you dislike the fact that your son was so advanced? Did you harbor annoyance because he had likely inherited that incredible intelligence from Spencer?

“Why didn’t you get him the IQ test?” Spencer probed, brimming with frustration. “Get him an assessment with a professional, at least?”

Sure, you disliked Spencer for your own reasons, but it was no good reason to have your son held back in life.

You shrugged. Obviously, you were holding back the truth.

“My mom thought it was a good idea.” You remarked. “But…”

You clicked the coffee pot into the coffee maker and turned it on, and then turned to face Spencer.

“I remembered all the stuff you said.” You said gently.

This confused Spencer, and he eagerly listened as you continued.

“About feeling ‘socially isolated’, and how you were upset that you didn’t have a ‘real childhood’ because you didn’t get to go to school with people in your own age group.” You explained.

Then it truly hit Spencer.

You weren’t avoiding having him tested to hold him back in life - you thought it was for his betterment.

Because you had truly retained something from your relationship with Spencer. From all those late night hours the two of you had spent talking, tangled up in the sheets together after-

Spencer forced himself not to think about it.

“I want him to have friends.” You continued on. “To have socialization. Even if he’s special - he can have education individually. Hell, having a tutor will probably be better for him if he’s so advanced, right? He probably needs individual attention.”

Spencer nodded at this.

“I wanted him to go to daycare - not because he needs to learn the ABCs and shit. He could recite the alphabet when he was eight months old.”

Spencer felt a wave of shock at this, and then intense pride.

“I wanted him to go there and make friends. So I guess him going to the babysitter and making friends turned out to be a better fit for him anyway.”

Spencer couldn’t describe the depth of the pride he was feeling. Not just at knowing how truly intelligent his son was, but at knowing that your instincts as a mother were so well tuned.

Not just because you knew what your son needed, but because you had listened to Spencer talking about regrets from his own childhood and you had tried to keep from making those same mistakes with his son. It was likely that you even saw how socially underdeveloped he was when you met him as a twenty one year old and that was a huge part of your reasoning.

In the few minutes he had spent with Sebastian, he already saw that brilliant intellect colliding with the nurturing you had shown him. His ability to make friends easily, his eagerness to share, his natural curiosity. He was leagues ahead of where Spencer had been at that age - shy, apprehensive, constantly clammed up around new people.

You had raised such a brilliant, beautiful boy.

“It seems like the right choice.” Spencer assured you. “I can already tell that the socialization is doing him well. He - he’s such a great kid.”

He couldn’t hold back his beaming smile this time, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, highly resisting the urge to reach out and touch you. He wanted so badly to pull you into a hug - to kiss you.

But he had to remind himself that he had lost those privileges so long ago.

He had to be thankful for the simple privilege of basking in your smile when you returned the action.

“I - I am actually kind of glad that you’re here.” You admitted meekly, a moment of shy honesty shining through.

Spencer resisted the urge to cheer loudly.

“I’ve been trying to teach him, but I barely know where to start.” You added on, exasperated laughter escaping your lips at the thought. “I can barely keep up with stuff that’s on his level. I read to him a lot, but I have trouble picking books that are appropriate for him? Anything that’s on his level academically has too much violence or racism or complicated themes for his age. At least, when it comes to fiction books. And I can’t really comprehend the scientific stuff. He picks out dinosaur books when we go to the library and reads them on his own, and half the stuff… he just tells me all the stuff he’s learned when he reads on his own and it amazes me.”

You chuckled, and Spencer easily returned it.

His son was truly an egghead after his own heart.

“I’ve been trying to teach him the periodic table, but I don’t even remember half of it myself. I haven’t needed it since high school chemistry.” You remarked with another dry laugh.

Spencer smiled brightly at you.

“You - you were right.” You hated to admit it. “He does need his dad. He needs you. He needs someone who can nurture that big brain of his.”

The detail oriented part of Spencer’s brain was eager to jump into planning - he wanted to ask you about creating a schedule, the logistics of how and when he would see his son, especially considering that the two of you lived in different cities, in different states. (Truthfully, he wanted to ask if you were willing to move closer so that he would be able to see Sebastian as often as possible.)

But he forced himself to set that aside for now, because something else was bothering him.

You reached up to the cupboard and grabbed two mugs, and poured up the coffee, and Spencer watched carefully as you went to the fridge and grabbed some creamer for yourself before you handed him his mug.

“The sugar is behind you.” You told him. “Spoons are in the drawer to your left.”

Naturally, you remembered how he liked his coffee. Black with regular sugar. It was something fond, that left an ache deep in his soul. He set to the gentle task of getting some sugar while he conjured up the courage to ask the question.

“Have you ever told him about me?” He asked. “I mean - have you told him about his father? Does he know who his dad is?”

He knew that obviously you hadn’t told Sebastian outright that Spencer was his father - not with a photo and a name. But he wondered if you had ever told him stories about who his father was - a doctor, a man who fought against bad guys. Did you only have room for malice against Spencer in your heart, or would have told Sebastian some of the good things about his dad? Had you told him how you and Spencer had met? Had you told him that the two of you were once in love?

He hated to think that you resented Spencer so much that you had lied. That you had made up some falsehood. Perhaps you had told Sebastian that his father was dead, or someone who never existed at all (because someone his age would believe that). Spencer’s insides flooded with anxiety at the thought that perhaps you had a boyfriend. Someone who was a fixture in Sebastian’s life already who the young boy called Dad.

Before Spencer could flare with too much jealousy at a completely made-up figure, you answered his question.

“I - ugh.” You stuttered out. “No.” You admitted hesitantly, capping the creamer and moving to put it back into the fridge.

You moved to sit down at the kitchen table and Spencer followed you with his own mug in hand. He found it quietly adorable that there was a rubber dinosaur placemat and a booster seat on one of the chairs - clearly the place where Sebastian sat to eat his meals. He pulled out the chair opposite of yours and carefully waited for you to continue talking.

“It was one of those things…” You stared down into your mug, a wave of embarrassment spiking in you.

Seeing how put together Spencer was now - how mature. It filled you with regret, and made you feel quite embarrassed about not contacting him before.

But the Spencer you had last seen was nothing like this. So previously, you had no intentions of seeking him out in order to introduce him to his son. But every time a major life event came up - toward the end of your pregnancy, the birth, filling out the birth certificate and leaving the section of his father’s name blank… The first time Sebastian sat upright on his own, his first words, seeing how truly intelligent he was, his first steps, potty training him.

Through all of it - you ached with regret. There were more than a dozen times (sometimes more than a dozen times a day) when you considered reaching out to Spencer and telling him the news. But you thought that he might lash out at you in anger for not telling him when you found out that you were pregnant. (And then you thought he would be even angrier for not telling him sooner).

You had considered that with his job, and with the other circumstances - he might be dead. That there might not even be someone on the other end if you did reach out.

You didn’t want to go looking for a father for your son, only to have to mourn over someone you once loved.

You didn’t want to open the door for more hurt to come your way.

“It was one of those things, that… the older he got… I never considered that he might ask.” You explained. “I just thought I could get away without telling him who his father was. Without talking about you at all. Because I was so hurt over what happened between us.”

Oddly enough, Spencer understood this. That night - things had been so messy. Spencer had always wanted a chance to apologize. He would have pushed harder - he would have chased after you better if he knew that there was a child hanging in the mix.

“You had no intention of ever finding me again to introduce me to my son?” Spencer asked.

He needed to hear you say it.

You shook your head, entirely solemn, even more guilty.

“It was selfish.” You admitted. “I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle the pain of seeing you again. I didn’t consider how it might affect him.”

“So… he has been asking about me?” Spencer probed. “He’s been asking about his father?”

You shrugged.

“He’s old enough to understand the concept now.” You said, sipping your coffee. “He sees stuff on TV. Cartoons where characters have a Mom and a Dad. And he reads science books about animals - so he knows that other ‘species’ need two parents to ‘reproduce’.” You were almost annoyed by the fact that your son was so smart and still so young. You couldn’t trick him with gentle lies anymore. “I don’t think I can convince him that I am the only asexual reproducing woman on the planet.”

Spencer let out a harsh chuckle at this. He knew how it was at that age - too smart for his own good.

“What have you told him?” He wondered aloud.

“I have been trying my hardest not to tell him anything.” You replied. “Whenever he asks about his own father, I just… dodge around it.” You told him honestly. “What do you think all the strawberries are for? I mean, I can’t lie to him, but I can distract him. He’s still at the age where his attention span is not that great if he gets excited about something.”

“Would you be willing to have that conversation with him?” Spencer asked meekly. “The three of us? Would you - would you be okay with him knowing me as his dad?”

He was terrified that you might reject him. That you still hated him enough after that horrible night that you wouldn’t want your son to see Spencer as his father, even if it was the truth. (A truth that you and Spencer knew intimately well.)

“Spencer.” You choked out his name, looking at him with tears dancing in your eyes.

You knew that you had been harsh upon first seeing him again, perhaps unrightfully lashing out due to your own vendetta. But you didn’t think that you had made such a nasty impression.

“Of course. Spence, I-” You choked on your own words for a second, taking in a sharp breath in an attempt to regain your composure.

Spencer tried not to get excited at you calling him ‘Spence’ again for the first time in so long. He couldn’t take the familiarity, the sweet nickname as meaning the same thing it used to. He couldn’t take it as a signal of affection.

“Even if you and I can’t get back to where we were…” You continued on.

(Which would be something you would gratefully regret now, those feelings for him locked up inside of you, banging on the door, just begging to get out.)

“My son is so lucky to have you as his father. And I am sorry that it was due to my own selfishness that he missed out on you in his life for so many years.”

“It’s not all your fault.” Spencer replied. “You don’t have to apologize.”

You nodded at this, and the two of you fell silent once again.

Of course, both of you wished that you could go back to that night and do things differently.

You wished that you would have told him about the pregnancy as soon as you took the test - so if he was going to scorn you, he could make an informed choice about doing so.

Spencer wished that he could have chased you - that he could have been in his son’s life from day one.

Which made him curious about something.

“Can I ask you one more thing?” Spencer asked when it came to the forefront of his mind.

“Sure,” You sighed. “I think we have a few more minutes before you have to go.”

You chuckled, motioning toward the stairs - where Sebastian would surely be running down soon, waiting for Spencer to come and play with him, so Spencer could be shown all of his toys, introduced to each dinosaur by name and species.

“When did you find out that you were pregnant?” He asked. “Was it - was it before? Or after?”

He didn’t even have to fully spell it out in order for you to know exactly what he meant.

Had you known that you were pregnant when the two of you had broken up?

You could have easily lied to him. But just like every other moment on this day, stupidly - you felt like you owed him the truth.

“After.” You told him. “It - it was about two weeks after. When I took one of those at home tests. And I had already made up my mind that I never wanted to see you again. So just - then and there, I decided that I was gonna raise the kid alone.”

“You - you just unilaterally decided that you were going to raise my son alone?” Spencer snapped, some of that spite from early coming back like the coals from a fire being stoked.

“Yes. I did.” You said firmly.

You didn’t have to remind him of why.

Spencer sighed and rolled his eyes, and then plowed forward with another question.

“So - so do you know when-?” He began, and you cut him off.

‘Do you know when he was conceived?’

“No.” You quickly replied.

But it was a lie. You knew.

You felt like you couldn’t easily tell him the truth about this. If there was one thing you couldn’t afford to do right now, with Spencer Reid sitting at your kitchen table, staring at you with his big, inquisitive, glossy eyes, licking his lips, with his firm jaw set tight in contemplation - you couldn’t afford to go reminiscing with him about the night your son had been conceived.

You had spent a lot of time during your pregnancy thinking. Doing the math. Trying to remember.

And you knew exactly when.

The night was so vivid in your mind.

It was one of the last good memories you had with Spencer. It was one of the most perfect pictures you had of who he truly was before he came home from Georgia such a different person, and you had no clue why he had changed.

…

Spencer had come over to your place late one night.

He had a key, but usually he was afraid to wake you up by using it. But that night he had been swamped with paperwork, writing up consultations on cases less urgent for police precincts that the BAU couldn’t get out to attend to in person. Images of mangled bodies stuck in his mind and by the time he finished up, it was well past dinner - well past a decent hour to be seeing you. But his insides felt hollow with a unique kind of grief as he imagined all the people who wouldn’t be getting home to their families - the people in the photos.

He fingered over the key to your apartment on his keyring as he walked out the front doors of the office. He had taken the metro that day, and the last trains ran late into the night - until two or three am, to ensure that people drinking could get home safely. But he needed some fresh air, so he decided to walk. He took out his cellphone and decided to call you.

If he let himself into your apartment unexpectedly so late - he didn’t want to scare you.

“Spencer.”

Your voice had a breathy, airy quality to it. He wouldn’t quite call it tiredness, not like he had woken you from sleep.

“Y/N.” He called your name back softly. “Did I wake you?” He still wanted to ask, even though he wasn’t sure that was the case.

“No.” You replied. “I - I missed you, baby.”

The slightest quiver in your tone gave you away. That gentle, needy curl around the word baby - it practically brought him to his knees on the sidewalk.

All at once, his mood changed.

It was something beautiful that you often did for him.

Every single bit of brick-like grief was pushed out of him in favor of that flowery, dreamy lust.

“You missed me?” He parroted the words back, mischief seeping into his voice as he continued the walk toward your apartment on slightly weaker legs, the cool night air brushing up against his now heated cheeks. “You’ve been thinking about me a lot tonight, haven’t you, darling?”

You let out a fluttering moan. You knew that you had been caught, so you felt no sense in holding back now.

Spencer pulled his messenger bag to sit in front of his crotch, praying that he wouldn’t look indecent in public. It took so little effort from you to make his cock swell to attention - with his intense attraction toward you, and with you being so perfect, such a beacon of beauty and sex.

“You caught me.” You huffed out. “Been thinkin’ about you all night, baby. The bed feels so empty without you.”

You both knew that it was a subtle admission. The downright filthy way you said the word ‘empty’ - Spencer bit his lip to hold back a moan just hearing it. You knew that those clouded innuendos turned him on so much. The veil. The intention.

You were touching yourself, and Spencer had called with perfect timing to ‘catch you’ in the middle of the act.

If Spencer strained his ears enough, he could hear the wet slide of your fingers against your pussy on the other end of the line, and he knew that you could hear the increase in his breathing - the hard huff coming out of his nostrils because of it.

“Where are you?” You whined, clearly needy. “Need you, Spence.”

You hoped that he wasn’t too busy, caught up at work.

“On my way to you now.” He told you, his voice leaking desperate breaths.

He was already grinning widely at the thought of what would be waiting for him - how you would be leaking wetness, so warm and ready for him; how he would be able to simply slide his hard cock into you with no resistance and your gorgeous pussy would so eagerly swallow him up. He forced himself to focus.

“Wait for me, okay?” He added on, trying to have some firmness in his tone - but he knew that it sounded too much like pleading and you would be kind to comply.

Wait.

You let out a strained, harsh sound at this.

You knew that it was another subtle code.

He didn’t want you to make yourself orgasm until he got there. (You had already had one before he called, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as one by Spencer’s hand, or his tongue.)

He likely wanted you to stop touching yourself all together. He wanted to leave you on edge, to make you even more needy for him. Even if he would only take a few minutes to arrive, he wanted you hungry.

You had the urge to argue with this, but you held back.

You knew that it would be worth it.

Spencer always made it worth it.

“Okay.” You huffed back, an undertone of frustration in your voice that got Spencer even more excited. You needed him. And he planned on providing every single inch of what he knew you needed so badly. “I’ll wait.” You agreed. “But hurry? Please?”

Please.

The way you said it, asking so nicely - it nearly knocked the wind out of him. You would never truly have to ask him to touch you. Truthfully, he should have to ask for the privilege of providing you with pleasure. He would never say no to you.

But there was something beautiful about hearing that from your lustful voice.

“I’ll be there before you know it.” He promised you gently before hanging up the call.

Spencer would have broken out into a full run if - one, it wouldn’t have made him look entirely idiotic, and two, it wouldn’t have stolen all his energy. Energy that he needed in order properly fuck you. He didn’t need to arrive at your apartment sweaty and panting and then collapse onto the floor in a heap and miss out on his chance to make sweet love to you.

He got there as fast as his legs could carry him (at a reasonable pace), and he estimated that it took him less than four minutes - because your apartment really wasn’t that far from the office. Conveniently enough for him. He skipped the elevator ride and took the stairs two at a time in his eagerness (and long legs). And soon enough, he was putting the key into the lock, welcomed by gentle shadows, the smell he recognized as the air freshener you loved to use, and a single guiding light that must have been the tableside lamp in your bedroom.

“Spence?”

You called out from down the hall as he closed and locked the door behind him.

“It’s me.” He assured you.

He tossed his keys into a bowl that you kept on the counter, toeing off his shoes, ditching his bag off to the side, and shrugged off his jacket as he walked down the hall.

“That was fast.” You remarked with a giggle, making him smile.

“A lady should never have to wait.” He replied, coming to stand at your open bedroom door, already working open his tie.

“Then you better hurry up.” You told him, your voice melting into a purr as you stared at him with honey warm lust in your eyes.

You were completely naked, laying in the middle of the bed, propped up on a few comfortable pillows. The comforter was down by your ankles; perhaps you had crawled into bed with the intention to sleep (some of your sleep clothes strewn across the floor, as though you had stripped them off and tossed them aside) - but then found yourself feeling that deadly ache between your thighs and kicked away the covers to relief yourself.

Spencer had called you with perfect timing.

Perhaps your soul had sung out to him like a siren - luring him here to perform his duty to you, to act as the servant meant to bring you pleasure. He could think of no better duty meant for his existence than to serve you. Ideally, it was something he wanted to spend the rest of his days doing. He would buy you a house, give you kids if you wanted them, support you in whatever ways you needed. He felt like he lived to make your life better - to make you smile, to make you laugh, to make you moan with pleasure.

If he didn’t have that, then he was lost.

In the low lighting, the star shaped necklace that he had given you for your birthday sparkled between your breasts, and Spencer found that you were most gorgeous wearing only that - a kiss of his claim on you, a perfect symbol of the beauty of your relationship among your goddess-like curves.

He felt entirely overdressed and he rushed to play catch up; fingers fumbling over buttons, his movements becoming downright frantic as he stripped out of his clothes. He almost knocked his glasses off his face while ripping his shirt off his head, and he had to place them on your bedside table for safekeeping. And then he nearly tripped out of his pantlegs on his way to the bed, which had you giggling, and he flashed you a smile.

But finally, he was freed, as naked as you were, and he crawled between your open, welcoming thighs. It felt like coming home. Your hands reached up to settle onto his ass - gently smoothing from the skin there, up his back, spreading warmth across his body as you groped him smoothly with soft, open hands.

He planted one hand on the pillow beside your head and used the other to gently lift your chin toward his. He captured your lips in a smooth, knowing, passionate kiss - you didn’t hesitate to moan into his mouth, and Spencer echoed it right back. He had missed you so much during the day. Even though he had seen you less than forty-eight hours before this, he felt decades of yearning in his heart.

He really should ask you to move in with him soon.

Even if he had to be away for days on cases, he should get to come home to you.

The two of you should start building a proper life together.

But of course, any thoughts about the clippings of property listings that Spencer had hidden away in a desk drawer fled from his mind when you rubbed your knee across his thigh, sending shivers through him - reminding him exactly what he was here for.

Typically, he would be the kind of man to go down on you, thoroughly, before he fucked you. He loved the feeling of your legs tightening around his head - he loved the taste of you on his tongue.

But when he felt the bare head of his cock bump up against your entrance, smearing your wetness over him - his self control broke down. He had missed you so much. He realized that he needed you just as badly as you needed him. He moaned even harder against your mouth, and he pulled away from the kiss with a huff, moving his hand to your hip.

Then, he asked a very important question.

“Do you have a condom?”

It broached the front of his mind, then, that he hadn’t brought one with him.

He knew that you typically kept a box of condoms in your bedside table. But the last time he had reached for one, the box had been empty. And he had resorted to using ‘the emergency condom’ that he kept in his bag. He didn’t have one in his bag now and he wasn’t sure if you had gotten a new box of condoms for the nightstand.

While he contemplated all of this, he kissed along the side of your breast, and then gently tongued at your necklace, still loving how it looked against your bare skin.

“You don’t need one.” You breathed out in reply.

You combed your hand through his hair, raking your nails across his scalp in a way that made his hips unconsciously buck forward. It was something that made it far more difficult for him to concentrate. Especially when he felt more of that warm wetness smear across him, his cock just barely dipping into your heat.

He didn’t entirely care to decipher the meaning behind your words. He simply trusted you.

(Later, when he was looking back on it, he would have guessed that you meant you were taking your oral birth control consistently. Or that you meant to pick up a Plan B pill in the morning. But looking back on it now - it was the only time within those last months of your relationship that the two of you didn’t use a condom. You were urging him on, and maybe, at the time - a baby truly was what you had in mind.)

“Please, Spencer.” You begged quietly. “I need you. Just you.”

He wasn’t one to deny you anyway. And he certainly wasn’t going to deny himself of this.

He reached down and used a hand around the base of his cock to help line himself up - and then he gently guided the length of his cock into you.

This was always his favorite part.

The gasp - the lilting moan you let out when his cock first slid into you, the way your thighs flexed around his hips - it was all so perfect.

But it was even more perfect without the barrier of a condom in the way. Spencer always thought that it was a myth, men talking about how condoms actually reduced the feeling. It was such a thin piece of latex, how could it truly affect the overall sexual experience that much? Sex with you was so amazing, he couldn’t possibly imagine it getting any better.

But this - this was so much better.

He could feel your wetness sliding against every inch of his cock, he could feel your heat drowning him, he could feel every little clench you made - every little movement. He felt like he was truly drowning inside of you. Like he was being smothered inside of your perfect body.

His head collapsed against your breast, and he sucked in a sharp breath, struggling through it all, as though he was trying to swim through thick, warm honey. His head was hazier than it had ever been - if someone asked him to recite a most basic fact at this moment, he wouldn’t be able to.

“Spence,”

You whined, arching your hips into him, forcing your pelvis into him just slightly more - he felt your pubic hairs grazing against the base of his cock, the sensitive head of his cock angling at a new place inside of you. He let out a pathetic moan, struggling not to cum too early.

“Move, please.” Your voice was breathy, and desperate, and he had to remind himself of his purpose - bringing you pleasure.

“Yes.” He sighed, trying to regain his composure. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, just-”

Whatever else you were going to say was promptly cut off when Spencer put both hands on your hips and bent his knees slightly, gaining the traction needed to properly fuck you.

He didn’t initiate a brutal or rough pace, but he pistoned his hips well enough to take the air out of you. His movements rang a moan out of your lungs as pleasure hummed through your body, finally getting what you had been craving all night. You loved the feeling of his long cock finally plunging in and out of you, especially without the barrier of a condom. It was enough to create the delightfully filthy sound of skin smacking through the air, well timed with the chorus of moans that began to echo out from your lips. Something that was complemented by Spencer’s own grunting and whining - something he tried to partially hide by biting his lip.

It was perfect. It was so easy, came so naturally between the two of you. It was a perfect rhythm between your bodies that came from knowing each other so well, feeling so at ease with each other. It was a perfect dance that made your entire body relax - the beautiful tingle of knowing that he was touching you.

“Thank you.” You moaned, reaching around to plant your hands on Spencer’s ass again. “Fuck, thank you.”

You bent your knees and spread your thighs more, angling your body perfectly for him to fuck into you even deeper. At the same time, you used your hold on him to pull him closer - to shove his cock even deeper into you. Something that both of you grunted harshly at. It wasn’t just out of the visceral need to have him inside of you; it was the pure yearning to feel close to him, to have him as physically close as possible.

With your wetness gathering around the base of his cock and dripping down over his balls - with your hot, thrumming cunt squeezing over him, he was getting dangerously close.

“Y/N.” He warbled out your name, almost as a warning.

“It’s okay.” You breathed back. “Cum for me. Come on, please.”

Spencer couldn’t resist - not when you said ‘please’.

The sound that came from his chest could only be described as a cry, and you forcibly held him close by digging your nails into the flesh of his ass. Any fleeting thought he might have had about pulling out left his brain in a millisecond. Especially when he felt your tightness fluttering around him, his hips unconsciously fucking deep into you, his body loving the feeling of being held tightly there while your cunt milked him for all he was worth.

He certainly didn’t miss the sweet moans you let out - the bright eyed awe you started up at him with as you felt his cum fill you up for the first time.

Spencer collapsed on top of you - even as tired as he was, he was careful not to hurt you by putting too much of his body weight onto you. (Even though you professed that you liked feeling his weight on top of you because he didn’t weigh all that much).

“Wow.” Spencer breathed into your neck - finding himself speechless after such a fantastic moment.

“That - that was amazing.” You remarked, breathless.

After a few moments, his cock began to go flaccid and slipped out of you, and he still felt your pussy practically beating with heat. He was reminded of something.

“You haven’t had an orgasm.” He mumbled quietly.

“It’s okay, I-”

‘I made myself cum earlier.’

Your words were cut off as Spencer descended down between your thighs. He felt his cock twitch with interest at the sight of his thick, white cum leaking out of your used cunt, mixing with your clear wetness.

So perfect.

He didn’t hesitate before putting his hands on your thighs, holding your legs apart while he shoved his tongue deep inside of you - partially with the purpose of cleaning up his own mess and partially with the newfound curiosity to taste what the two of you were like together.

You gripped onto his hair and moaned out, not a single complaint to be found on your lips.

It was the most perfect night that either of you could have imagined. All topped off by falling asleep in each other’s arms after a hot shower together.

Three days later, Spencer was called away on a case in Atlanta, Georgia that changed his life forever.

…

‘Do you know when he was conceived?’

“No.”

Spencer could see the lie reflected in your body language - how closed off you became, how quickly you rushed to cut off his words. Along with the intense heat reflected in your eyes. You were thinking about that night.

He thought he knew exactly which night you were thinking about - if his memory served him well enough. Which it usually did.

He couldn’t hold himself back from calling you on it.

He locked his eyes on yours across the table, the memory of that night possessing him - the ghost of your warm skin pressing against his own only further driving the words from his lips.

“Don’t lie to me.” He said, his voice a deadly, low rumble. “Look at me now, and tell me in all honesty that you don’t remember that night. Tell me that you don’t remember the way I felt inside of you. Tell me you don’t remember how good it was.”

Maybe it was pure spite on Spencer’s end. Desperately wanting to know that after all the resentment, the arguing, the years he had lost with his son, with you, that you still felt something for him underneath the anger and the annoyance.

Even if that underlying thing was lust. It was a strange victory, but he mentally cheered when he saw you clench your thighs together past the table - when your jaw tightened up. Your fingers twitched, and he knew you well enough to see the subtle signs of your lust from a mile away.

Old habits die hard.

Spurred on by this, and your steely silence, he kept going.

“Tell me that you don’t remember how perfect we were together - how good it felt when it was just us, nothing but skin on skin for the first time.”

You exhaled sharply.

“Spencer, we are not doing this right now.” You declared, your voice quivering slightly in your throat.

This didn’t deter him.

It was your use of the words ‘right now’ - even if unconsciously, you thought that there might be a ‘later’.

(In your mind, having sex with your ex, the father of your child, just to get off, sounded like the worst idea ever. But he looked so good and you knew that he was good in bed and if you had to be cooped up in the house with him for much longer, you would be making that stupid decision against your own will.)

“Tell me you don’t remember how good it felt when I came inside you that night.”

Spencer’s words were becoming more graphic now, looking to get more of a reaction out of you.

It worked in an instant - you swallowed thickly, your whole body tingling with the imagery his voice carried. The underlying lustful rumble in his tone making your insides quake. Your leg twitched with that unconscious desire to have some friction between your thighs. It was working so well, and he hated how much he loved it.

“I mean - what was your intention that night? Did you want me to fuck a baby into you? Is that why you were so desperate for me to fuck you raw? Is that why you kept pushing my cock deeper inside of you? Were you just that desperate to get knocked up?”

His words were making you utterly dizzy with heat. If it wasn’t for the common sense blinking loudly at the front of your brain, you would have jumped across the table and tackled him just to hump him for some sort of friction on your aching cunt.

Of course, he could read this plainly all over your face.

“Spencer-” You breathed out.

Just then, Spencer’s phone rang, cutting through the dangerously palpable tension in the air.

He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and when he saw Morgan’s contact name on the screen, he thought for certain that the man was calling to discuss some development in the case.

“I have to take this.” Spencer sighed.

“That’s fine.” You nodded. You were glad to have some relief from the dangerous tension - you needed a few minutes to collect yourself.

Spencer got up from the table and naturally moved toward the back door - a sliding glass door that he was disappointed to find unlocked. He would have to remind himself to have a talk with you about having better security protocols in your home, even during daylight hours.

Spencer closed the door behind himself, creating a small barrier of privacy as he answered the call.

“Hello.”

“Hey, pretty boy,” Morgan chuckled.

Spencer rolled his eyes, immediately knowing that this wasn’t a work call - this wasn’t anything serious in nature for Morgan to be greeting him that way.

“What do you want?” Spencer replied, his patience already in short supply.

“Oh, come on, man.” Morgan kept up that airy, light tone. “You think you can sneak around with your secret little family and not have it be the hottest gossip we’ve had in years? I wanna hear more about this kid of yours. Me and Prentiss got a bet, goin’ - so, was it an accident or not? Did you really know what you were doin’ when you stuck your little genius thang in her back then? Or no?”

Reid was going to kill JJ. (Well, not really. He was likely just going to glare at her firmly and ignore her for a day - or, just until she apologized.)

He knew that it had likely been an accident - the information about his private life getting leaked to the entire team. But, if JJ could keep important information about killings away from the media, why couldn’t she keep this out of the team’s hands? Why couldn’t she have made up some excuse about where Reid was?

“No, no.” Spencer ground out harshly, reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I am not telling you if my son’s conception was an accident or not just to satisfy some stupid bet.”

“Ooh, a son.” Morgan seemed stuck on this piece of information. “Rossi, you owe me a drink. It is a boy.”

Reid heard Rossi and Prentiss arguing in the background, and he let out another frustrated sigh.

“Don’t you have work you should be doing?” Spencer asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

“Hotch has us spinning our wheels here.” Morgan replied. “Goin’ through more of these daycare forms while Garcia runs more background checks - but, so far, we’ve come up with squat. Your Baby Mama is the only real lead we’ve got so far.”

Reid sighed.

“So, was it a one night stand? An epic night of passion?” He chuckled, still using a teasing tone.

Spencer didn’t answer.

“At least tell me this - is she cute? What was it about this woman that got Doctor Reid to chase after his Darwin instincts for once?” Morgan pressed on.

“She’s beautiful.” Spencer replied without even thinking, his eyes looking at you through the glass door. “She… she’s perfect in every conceivable way.”

Sebastian had come back down stairs, clearly looking for Spencer. And now you had him in your lap, still sitting on your kitchen chair, playing with a couple of plastic dinosaurs that he had brought down from his bedroom on the tabletop.

There was a distinct, humble beauty in the fact that you didn’t know you were currently under Spencer’s attention. You looked at Sebastian with such intense love in your eyes - a way you had once looked at Spencer, before that love had been replaced by scorn and disdain. Before he had messed it all up.

“Woah.” Morgan wisped in reply. “That sounds like a whole lot more than just one night of baby makin’.”

Maybe he was still fishing for information to ‘win’ the bet, maybe not. Spencer couldn’t quite tell from his tone alone. But he did sound a bit more serious, and that wedged Spencer open a bit more in order to feel comfortable continuing.

“It was.” Spencer sighed. “She - she was the love of my life.” He added on, feeling safe to tell Morgan this. “But I messed it all up.”

Morgan instantly dropped his joking and teasing when he heard the choked off tears in Spencer’s voice.

“What happened?” He asked.

“Long story.” Spencer sighed. “But - it ends with me being excluded from my son’s life. For a good reason.”

“I don’t see any good reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to see your kid.” Morgan replied. “Reid, I’ve seen you with kids, man. If anybody deserves to be a father, it’s you.”

“I was different back then. Around the time she got pregnant.” He explained. “It was just after Hankel.”

There was a tense silence as Morgan sat with the truth - as he absorbed it. Clearly, he was unsure of what to say, and Spencer found himself naturally continuing on.

“He’s so smart.” He added on, looking at the way Sebastian ran his fingers along the neck of the brontosaurus - maybe he had brought that one down for Spencer, remembering that he had said it was his favorite. “He’s such a good kid.”

He almost choked on these words, more tears welling up that he forcefully pushed down.

He turned away from the glass door then, just in case you looked up to see his tearful face. He wiped his eyes with a stiff hand, and he was surprised by what Morgan said next.

“So be good to him.” He said. “Be there for him now. Step up and be the dad that we all know you can be.”

Before he could reply, Morgan continued.

“I don’t know if I believe in fate, but Penelope always says that everything happens for a reason.” He said. “And she would tell you to use this as an opportunity to be reunited with your girl, and become a real family. Even if it is because of some scumbag killing people that brought us here.”

Spencer smiled at this.

“That is very Garcia.”

“And you know she’s always right.”

...

Continue reading here: Chapter Four - Last Hope

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