#and even though adam has a tendency to brush talk of his feelings off like they're nothing in 15x08 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr has been banned in Indonesia for providing people with access to pornographic content.

#and even though adam has a tendency to brush talk of his feelings off like they're nothing in 15x08

mahalshairyballs · 2 years

Text

I've said it before

But I'll say it again because I feel like it

Marc has never lied to Steven. Ever.

The only time where he was anywhere near doing that was at the beginning of episode 5 when he said

'it's just a street, how many streets have you walked on your whole life?'

Notice, that's not a lie. He just downplayed the importance of that street, tried to brush off the subject, but he didn't lie.

The number of times Steven calls Marc a liar (or implies it) though, is A Lot.

There's a few explanations as to why Steven was so adamant Marc was a liar when Marc never lied to him.

First is how profoundly shaken and distressed it made him to learn that he had an alter all this time. It explained a lot of things that happened throughout his life to him, but I think it scared him even more. Especially since this alter seemed way more violent than he was. We can understand that. So since the moment Steven learns about Marc, he's distrustful of him.

He expects Marc to lie to him even though he hasn't been shown Marc would do that.

Two, Steven has a tendency to trust other people over his alter. When people from the outside tell him something, even if they're the ones lying or leaving things out, Steven will believe them over Marc. It doesn't help that Marc hasn't been very good at explaining everything, even though he tried. It's pobably even the first time Marc had to do that.

Three. Marc has lied to Layla. Well, in the show he blatantly lied to her only once. In the car scene in ep 3. Other times he did what he usually does to not talk about 'anything real' as Layla said : he tries to downplay it and brush it off to change the subject.

Both Steven and us are aware though that Marc left big important information away from Layla. Whether we call that lying or not, we know he did that. He didn't tell her why he left, didn't tell the full story to Steven either. So Steven based also his judgment of Marc on that, as part of the sparse information he has on him. Marc hides stuff from people he loves, from everyone. So he'd lie right ? Maybe often even.

As much as a cinnamon roll Steven can be, he's also a complex character with his flaws. That's what makes me like him so much. Even if at times it makes me a bit mad at him.

Every time I see that scene of episode 5 in reactions where Steven says

'wouldn't put it past you'

when Marc says

'and you believe that ? [That Marc killed hostages]'

I still get annoyed/angry at Steven.

Steven expecting the worst of Marc like Marc expects of himself...

I love you Steven, but damn I hope Steven realized in episode 6 how badly he treated Marc.

And I need to read a fic where Steven apologizes to Marc for having called him a liar so often and having blamed some of the deaths on him.

It's for my own closure.

#moon knight #moon knight spoilers #moon knight meta #marc spector tries his best #marc spector #marc spector is not an asshole #marc spector deserves everything #steven grant meta this time #steven grant #we love our neuroatypical british nerd angel here #who is not always that much cinnamon of a roll #*hugging the marc system forever*

37 notes · View notes

bleufrost · 3 years

Text

There's Just Time (A Loki x reader Fanfic)

Chapter One: We've Met Before

Summary: You were an explosion waiting to happen who found love in the arms of a hurricane. Loki saw you as an angel that calmed his demons. For you, he was a savior that taught you to trust your abilities, yourself, and others. When he died, you were broken. You clung to any hope possible and watched as it all fell away. With nothing left, stories from your youth flooded back of a mysterious force that controlled time and space, and you knew that you would do anything to see him again...even if that something meant teaming up with the Time Variance Authority to capture the man you love.

A series of murders catch Mobius' eye. A familiar face catches yours.

Words: 3,118

Warnings: grief, mentions of self harm, death

Prologue

If you'd searched the whole wide world

Would you dare to let it go?

The pews of this church were far less comfortable than you could have possibly imagined. You let your feet dangle for a moment before pushing them up on to the pew in front of you. A bored yawn echoes in the empty halls and your eyes fall closed as the workers around you continue to struggle to make sense of the scene. When you try to breathe, you notice that the air is far too still.

“It’s great to see you making yourself useful.” The soft sound of shoes stop steadily next to your seat. With an annoyed huff, you push your feet down and sit up, looking at Mobius.

“I could be far more useful if you’d let me use my goddamn powers.” He sighs and stares down at his watch. “You know I can’t do that. Now come on, you’re a smart kid. What does this all look like to you?”

Your eyes don’t leave him for a few seconds. There was a time where you would have tried to run off; take what you needed to jump from place to place and find Loki on your own. Not now though. You know these people are far more powerful than they let on. You know that you need them if you’re ever going to see him again.

With that in mind, you walk over to the candlelit section, Mobius following closely behind. The bodies are spread out on the floor, each with wounds in a pattern far too familiar. Gunshots were never your forte. Stab wounds on the other hand, you were taught well by the best on how to both treat and inflict.

“They were stabbed.” He nods and squats down to inspect the wounds of one body more closely.

“They’re all consistent with the others. Look at the position of the bodies.” Your eyes glance over each of them. Some look defensive, but in a sudden way. Almost as if…”They didn’t know something was coming to them until it was too late. It was a blindside.” Mobius rises and pats your shoulder. It makes you uncomfortable, he’s trying desperately to be your friend and you don’t really know why. You both knew you weren’t here because it was your first option.

“That makes six attacks this week.” Your fingers tingle with the need to feel something. If you could just tap into the energy here, it could make everything so much easier. There is endless knowledge in the atmosphere of a room, especially one where such horrific things occurred. It was infuriating that they you couldn’t use a part of yourself that you had learned to depend on.

“Those are just the ones we know of.” Mobius walks around the side of the room again, just in time for your frustration to bubble over. You stare him down and, even without your abilities, you know he can feel the anger that courses through you.

“I thought you guys were all knowing.” You step toward Mobius and one of the soldiers lifts his gun. Mobius quickly puts a hand up to order him to stand down. He walks closer to you, arms up in attempt to defuse the situation. His patience pisses you off even more.

“This is a variant we’re talking about. You know better than most that those aren’t so well regulated.” He watches you closely as your jaw clenches. He’s right and you know it. It’s just felt like an eternity since any sign of Loki has come up. You were on edge, without your powers, and working with people you didn’t fully trust. Playing it cool was the only way to keep your position as Mobius’ partner though, and you had to remember that.

“Right.” You nod and turn away right as the shuffle of feet sounds from down the hall. A small child runs by and Mobius follows, along with a few of the crew. You’re not so quick to see what’s going on though. Right now, you need to think. The bodies around you were alarming. The stab wounds even more so. There was no way that Mobius didn't recognize the same signs you did, but you weren't about to broadcast it with the small chance that he didn't already know.

You had been working with Mobius for a little while now. You weren’t exactly sure how long because time has a weird tendency to move differently at the TVA. It was long enough to establish that, while you weren’t the most fond of him, he held a certain faith in you that the others lacked. Still, something was off, you just didn’t know what yet.

That’s what made all of this even more concerning. If your suspicions were even close to correct about the recent murders…you knew where your loyalties were held, and it wasn’t with Mobius or the TVA. Loki was somewhere out there. For a brief moment, before you had your powers stripped from you, you could almost feel him. It was the connection to his energy that tethered you to him when you first met, and it was a similar one to what called you to him back at the revisit to New York. There was something that kept hope in you that he was still alive, and the feeling stayed with you until the moment you entered the TVA.

Every once in a while, out here in the field, you think you can still feel little shards of it.

Your mind stops wandering when you see Mobius take something from the child to be examined. It was a little blue package, but the glowing teeth on the child are what really catch your eye. You make it just in time to see the kid point out the stained-glass imagery of the devil. Horns protrude from his head like a crown. It all felt too familiar: the god-like being, horned crown, stab wounds, and tricky nature of a blind attack. The anger, the mistrust. Your eyes can’t seem to tear away for a second, but when they do, you can’t help but stare at this kid. Something was definitely not right. Why was he so calm?

Mobius watches you from his place by the doorway and takes it all in. You can see it when you look back at him; the knowing look he gives you. It’s unsettling to think that your thoughts are so easily deciphered when you don’t have your shield to hide behind. He doesn’t ask any questions though, and for that you’re almost grateful. He says something else to the kid, but you aren’t listening anymore.

“Alright, let’s head out.” Mobius takes your arm and guides you back to the main hall. Part of you thinks these little gestures are to establish trust. Mobius truly has given you no real reason to dislike him. As a person, he appears inherently good. Without your ability to read him though, you never know what to trust. The fact that they seem adamant to keep them from you, while not his decision, makes you weary of the whole organization.

“Any of that seem odd to you?” He looks between your face and the rest of the room quickly. You know he’s trying to make it seem like he’s not watching you that closely, even though he is. Keeping your face as steady as you can, you choose your words carefully. Focus on the gum, not the horns. Not the stab wounds.

“Yeah, the gum was weird as shit. Definitely not the usual candy for this time period.” You brush his arm off of you and move your body around to feign looking over the church in attempt to hide the action. “You never know though, they might be more modern than we think.” He watches you with a straight face that breaks out into a smile instantly. Mobius nods and grins at you.

“I agree. No time variance there.” His voice is sarcastic and playful in that moment, but his face falls serious again. “What about the devil?”

You do everything in your power to not flinch or make any indication of discomfort at the question. “What about the devil? I feel like it could be a clue, but it could also just be some kid who learned from a very early age that any evil is done by a creature with hooves who lives in hell.” He continues to watch you and you continue to be as nonchalant as possible.

Finally, he nods. “Maybe.” Mobius turns and you pause to breathe for a moment before following him back to the TVA.

Upon your arrival, things move incredibly fast. Thoughts of the case are abandoned in favor of a much more urgent matter.

A call came in immediately. Before you even had a moment to settle yourself back into the usually stale atmosphere of TVA headquarters, Mobius was rushing you into a room. You almost miss the fact that the air is not stale in the slightest; in fact, it almost felt as though it was crackling with electricity.

“I need to know that you won’t do anything stupid.” The words left his mouth with urgency. The constant glances over his shoulder to the awaiting hall a clear sign that he knew something you didn’t.

Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, “What are you talking about?” He turns and paces the floor. Once. Twice. Three times before his movements halt.

“The Loki you know isn’t here. He never will be. You understand that, right?” His device flashes in his hand. You don’t know what the flashes mean, but you do know what he’s implying. Loki’s here. Somewhere in this building. In the same general place that you are. Loki is here.

Mobius continues to wait for a response. His foot taps with impatience. “When I took you in, we promised each other that our partnership wasn’t over when we found him. You can’t go rogue on me or this is all over for everyone, do you understand?”

Your breaths come out in rapid little puffs as your mind tries to wrap itself around the unspoken truth here. Mobius is right in theory. This isn’t the Loki you knew at the time you lost him originally. This Loki is still afraid. He’s angry, hurt, confused, and so far from trusting you. Where Mobius is wrong though, is in thinking you aren’t familiar with him at all. You know Loki in all forms, and if it takes a little extra time to make up for lost memories, that would be more than okay with you.

“Hey, I need an answer.” Mobius’ voice was barely registering with you, but you heard it. He’s on edge and you almost panic at the thought of potentially not seeing Loki as soon as possible if Mobius doesn’t think you can handle it.

“I understand and I’m not going to do anything stupid.” You can’t speak the words fast enough and as Mobius searches your eyes for any sign of deceit, you know all he sees is honest desperation. You would do anything to be with him again. That’s the truth.

With an affirming nod, Mobius leads the way to a section you recognize as the courtroom.

The air here is thick, almost unbreathable. The crackles turn to little sparks as you near the doors. How is it that in a place that banishes magic, Loki can still make the ghost of yours come to life? To say that you aren’t prepared to see him again would be an understatement. You traveled through time itself to be near him again, but the prospect of achieving that goal never actually felt like a fantasy you could fully entertain. How very like him to bring your wildest dreams to fruition in the most obscure of moments. Your thoughts all come to a sudden halt when you hear the faint sound of the most narcissistic angel to ever utter a word.

“…because they traveled through time. No doubt in a last ditch effort to stave off my ascent to god king,” Your mouth falls open in silent shock. Of course the first thing you hear from him in years is an accusation, you assume, to have you arrested instead of him.

Your gaze falls on him and you feel a weight lift off your shoulders as you see him, truly see him, moving, speaking, and having just as big a flair for the dramatics as usual. He’s here. He’s alive. He’s okay.

Mobius nudges you to follow him and you both attempt to silently take your seats in the rows lining the courtroom. Your heart pangs as Loki mentions Tony, but you sit and listen, nonetheless. He continues to argue with the judge, bringing up your old team and reminding you of just how much things have changed irreparably.

“Perhaps you can provide me with a task force and resources, and I can return and eliminate them for you.” His hands are spread confidently, but they immediately fall when you let out a short laugh. The comment caught you off guard and a part of you loved that he still thought he could squash your team so easily. Even after all that happened in New York, he never gave up and you loved that about him; even if his determination was a bit misplaced at the moment. Loki is nothing if not confident in his abilities to charm and disarm.

Your hands fly to your mouth immediately when you realize that the majority of the courtroom is staring at you.

That’s when it happens. His gaze pierces into you like a dagger, sharp and oh so welcome to do whatever damage it pleases. Your hand goes down, stopping at your chest where you can feel your heart pounding. Tears slowly well up in your eyes, but you blink them away as quickly as they came.

Loki tilts his head to the side subtly. You know he recognizes you and you know your lame attempt to hide your pain and love was seen right through. He doesn’t say anything though. Even though he was just offering to hunt your team down for sport and turn you in to gain his freedom, he says nothing to indicate you should be on trial. Instead, his eyebrows scrunch together, and he continues to stare at you. There seems to be a hint of sadness in his eyes, but you know you’re just imagining it.

The judge clears her throat, calling the attention of the room back to her. Loki’s eyes slowly move from yours. You continue to watch him though. It isn’t irrational to fear he might disappear at any moment. Not with him, and definitely not here.

You barely listen as he learns many of the same things you previously did about the Time-Keepers and his inability to use magic here. His attempts to conjure his daggers pulls your focus, but not in the same way a conversation would. No, you swear that you feel the frustration and utter helplessness that courses through him. You know the feeling, but this rushes over you just as fresh as the day you lost your powers. You can't be feeling it from him though, and that is reestablished in your mind as his magic fails to conjure.

What does call your attention is the sentencing that Loki receives and the sheer panic of potentially losing him again. You move to rise, ready to put up a fight because you know that being this close and failing is not something that you want to survive. In that moment, you don’t care if they kill you instantly. You just can’t live in a world without him. Not again. If you could find a way for him to escape, a way to feel him one more time and know that there is a chance that he could be okay, that he could live and learn to love again…well, death wouldn’t be so bad at all.

Before anything could happen though, Mobius pushes you back into place with a firm hand and rises. He runs over to the stand, speaking to the judge in whispers that you can’t decipher. Your lip trembles and you choose to scan the room for an escape route instead of focusing on Mobius, and Loki’s impending doom. When you find Loki again, his eyes are fearful and searching just like yours. You’re too preoccupied to notice when his worried gaze lands back on you. You don’t see when the fear slips from him and turns to calmness for a reason that he can barely understand.

The few seconds that Mobius spends by the stand feel like a lifetime, but his words are worth the wait.

“Alright, Loki you’re coming with us.” You have never felt more grateful for the man in your time here. Mobius takes hold of a collared Loki and guides him to the door. Loki shrugs his hand off and glares at him. “Who is us?” You take that as your cue and rise to fall into step on the opposite side of Loki.

Loki’s eyes find you the moment you’re next to him. The first time you met back in New York, you were young and still in training to fight. They had put you in the field out of desperation. When you came face to face with Loki then, you had felt small and insignificant. His confusion when he wasn’t able to control you had sparked a subtle interest in him, but you were still just an insignificant child in the eyes of a powerful god.

Now, standing next to him, you didn’t feel small in the slightest. You felt just as powerful as he had taught you to be. Even if he didn’t remember the endless time you spent together, the nights you cried over the torment your powers put you through and the days he could barely see himself through the monster he thought he was. Even if he had no memory of picnics in the park, dark nights spent teaching you to dance beneath the stars, movie nights, and laughing as you screamed lyrics at the top of your lungs in an effort to get your family to sing along (Tony, Wanda, and Thor often did); it was okay. All you needed was each other. The rest would fall into place.

“Hi. I think we’ve met before.” You give him a smile and continue walking beside them. Loki’s eyes don’t leave your face and you feel him staring as you all leave the courtroom behind. Finally, he shakes from his thoughts and offers you a soft nod.

“Yes. I believe we have.”

a/n: ahh first chapter done! I really hope you guys like this. please feel free to leave any feedback/suggestions you have to make my writing or story better. I appreciate any interaction so so much xx

Tags: @adefectivedetective @peachlobotomy666 @unfortunatelyymuggle @st6jimmyandtheidiots @cheydanoa @thenerdyniallgirl @jessalynjones1989 @00schasez @lunala-luvgood @floweaus @fangirltrash15 @bandsruinedmylife @mydelusionalworld-7 @uada-animus @randomfangirl7 @effmigentlywithachainsaw @drakesfiance @phantomr0se @payton-1-jones @letscici @strangemaximoff @hassbite @magi-no-aladdin @littlesouthernrebel @jessiejunebug @coppercorn-and-cauldron @orighami @wrappedinlokisarms @dark-night-sky-99 @unicornsandgliiitter @oatballsoffury @themusingsofmany @darkprincessloki92 @lokiedokiee @shegatsby @cherrygeek86 @beckymarvel

If you want to be added or taken off this list, just shoot me an ask!

#loki #tom hiddleston #loki x reader #loki fanfic #loki odinson x reader #loki imagine #loki imagines #marvel #mcu #marvel x reader #marvel fanfic #loki laufeyson #tva #loki spoilers

129 notes · View notes

connladraws · 3 years

Text

Not enough RikuRoku in the world, I gotta do it myself. This ship meme shall have to do.

big spoon/little spoon: Riku is the little spoon, unless it is the case where he is sleeping flat on his back and Roxas is laying face down on top of him. Riku just likes being held yknow?

favorite non-sexual activity: Sparring is high on the list, since they’re both naturally restless and have been fighting for too long to really relax normally. When they aren’t expending their excess energy via beating each other with blunt force weaponry, Roxas has taken a shining to dragging Riku to the Twilight Town open theater to watch movies together.

who uses all the hot water: While Roxas takes his showers scalding, he’s also in there for 20 minutes at maximum. Riku is the one who takes long, albeit ICE COLD, showers.

most trivial thing they fight over: Arguments are inevitable. It’s almost in their nature to squabble. Currently the top cause of these squabbles is Riku’s tendency to put all else above his own well being, which while not trivial, is the only thing that really could qualify as causing them to FIGHT.

who does most of the cleaning: Roxas. Riku isn’t necessarily messy but Roxas is used to an almost militant sparseness to his surroundings and thus any clutter that is “out of place” needs to be tidied up or it’ll bug him. Actual chores are divvied up between them

what has a season pass on their dvr/who controls the netflix queue: Neither of them really is huge on TV, and generally prefer the occasional movie, theatrical performance, or just reading a book. That being said, Olette DID get Roxas hooked on this ONE teledrama...

who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working: At first? Neither of them. They’d both make some effort to fix it, Riku likely coming closest to actually doing so. It’s sort of a contest to see who will swallow their pride first and cave.

who steals the blankets: Amazingly? Neither. Riku doesn’t like sleeping with blankets unless he absolutely HAS too, but neither Destiny Island nor Twilight Town get cold enough for that. Roxas just sort of sleeps like a deadman, so moving around enough to actively steal blankets isn’t something that happens.

who leaves their stuff around: Riku. His jacket over there, his boots over here. A water bottle in the bathroom, a hair brush in the kitchen. It’s been a while since he’s had a safe space to actually call his own and he’s resorted right back to all the bad habits of his younger self when it comes to house keeping. Whenever Roxas is over he almost auto-pilot starts to put things away as he comes across them.

who remembers to buy the milk: Neither. Remember what I said about bad childhood habits? Riku keeps putting the empty milk cartons back into the fridge and then gets frustrated when he tries to make a midnight bowl of cereal only to find it empty. Roxas at least throws the carton out but then forgets to go to the store.

who remembers anniversaries: Both of them. Roxas is INCREDIBLY date orientated and can probably tell you the exact date of most things just because he keeps track of it constantly in his head. Riku is just extremely sentimental like that.

who cooks normally?: They make efforts to do so together. Roxas never really had to cook and Riku’s method of cooking often involves freshly skinned kills and an open campfire. They’re BOTH learning how to navigate a kitchen.

how often do they fight?: Depends on what you define as a fight. They’ve both calmed down substantially but often have little spats with one another. These rarely ever turn into anything, though when they do... They’re EXPLOSIVE. Unfortunately for them both, Riku and Roxas are both capable of achieving a FRIGHTENING rage. They’ve both since learned to excuse themselves to go cool down, but sometimes this can take several days in Roxas’ case. It’s a good thing they’ve learned how to actively talk to each other about how they’re feeling.

what do they do when they’re away from each other?: With Roxas it could be ANYTHING. He’s a dog let out its cage. Who will he hang out with today? Axel? Xion? Namine? Kairi? Hayner? Pence? Olette? All three? Will he go challenge Seifer to a brawl? Will he spend the day helping Isa in the garden? Will he go head out to Departure for some training sessions with Aqua? Maybe go boarding with Ventus? Get some pointers from Terra? Riku is far simpler since he’s become QUITE the workaholic. You can usually find him in Radiant Garden, Departure, or Destiny Island unless he’s out on an active mission.

nicknames for each other?: Neither is quite the type to nickname each other but Riku will drop the occasional “babe” on Roxas.

who is more likely to pay for dinner?: It’s a back and forth thing. If either of them does do more than once, it could start a squabble. Unspoken rules. Unless it’s an actual date, in which case the rule is put aside depending on who is taking who out at the time.

who steals the covers at night?: Neither. Unless it’s ACTUALLY cold. In which case, Riku. Though his version of cold is perhaps... Debatable.

what would they get each other for gifts?: Roxas tends to pick up anything that makes him think of Riku. Which could be anything from a shiny rock to a bottle of lotion to a necklace. He’s not shy in giving gifts. Riku on the other hands tries to get things that he knows Roxas will like or otherwise needed. So far the best gift (according to Roxas at least) has been the at-home ice cream machine. It gets a center stage spot in the kitchen.

who kissed who first?: Amazingly it was Riku. He still asked though. Was fully expecting an angry “No” too. They both caught each other off guard <3

who made the first move?: It’s honestly hard to tell. Somewhere along their efforts of trying to bury the hatchet and become friends they kind of realized that they’re rather similar people who share a great number of philosophies and views. And those that they don’t, they tend to find interesting in the other. They both sort of danced around each other at first since they both figured there was no WAY they could possibly be anything more than very tentative friends at best. It wasn’t until Riku came out and asked Roxas if he could kiss him (and Roxas saying yes) that they both FINALLY realized it was a mutual thing. Even then, it took a while for them to figure out what exactly they wanted to be.

who remembers things?: Roxas. Always, Roxas. It’s not that Riku has a bad memory, it’s simply that Roxas’ is superhuman.

who started the relationship?: The actual relationship itself was started by Roxas. Both in terms of platonicism and romanticism. Riku carries a lot on his back about how he and Roxas first met and has been very adamant about letting Roxas set the pace for things. Which honestly suits Roxas just fine, since he rather enjoys being able to have some control over situations.

who cusses more?: Roxas, by a small margin. Neither of them curses EXCESSIVELY but Roxas was “raised” in a castle full of adults and let’s be real, he learned about HALF of those curse words from Axel and the other half from Xigbar. Riku isn’t shy to cuss but it’s usually not dropped so casually. If you hear him say “Oh fuck” you might want to start running the other direction.

what would they do if the other one was hurt?: It’s perhaps not... The HEALTHIEST mindset, but they both have a thing about the other getting hurt. It’s a sort of strange pattern where it’s FINE if they hurt EACH OTHER but not if anyone else does. In their head, it’s justified by the logic that they know each other’s limits. They’d never actually hurt each other to the point of it being debilitating because they know each other and themselves well enough. That being said, they can both get a little wrathful and helicopter-y when the other suffers an injury that can’t just be curaga’d away. Roxas more so wrathful and Riku more so helicopter-y.

#roxas #riku #kh roxas #kh riku #rikuroku #not art #connlatalks #think that'll be the tag now #kingdom hearts #kh

46 notes · View notes

imagineaworlds · 3 years

Text

I Love You (Part Forty-Three) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Kidnapping, death, torture, panic attack, PTSD-- everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 20,827

Timeline: Season 6 Episode 17 + 18. Three months after part forty-two.

I was… miserable. I felt like this big bubble that was waddling and bumping into everything, and I was entirely useless when it came to cases. Since the Appalachian Trail case, Hotch and I had decided that I would stay out of the field once I started to show; but now that I was bubble-size pregnant, he told me that it was either I stayed in the office with Garcia or I went home and rested in bed. Those were my only two options. There was no getting on the jet with the team, no wandering to the grocery store on a random Sunday, no escaping to get lunch with someone. Nothing. If I didn’t have food in the office, Anderson had to go get it for me. Poor guy.

But, honestly, I wasn’t even fighting Hotch on it anymore. I knew that I wasn’t going to be any help out in the field considering my feet hurt if I was standing for too long. I couldn’t imagine the next three months—at least. JJ and I were talking one day, and she told me to save my strength, because the cliché nine months was more like ten months, if my doctors knew what they were doing. Ugh. I just wanted this part to be over with. I hated feeling stagnant and useless. I liked going out into the field, working on the profiles, chasing the Unsubs, saving the victims. That was my life. And now I had to put that all aside for about another three months or so. It was worth it, though. Every single day that I was miserable was still worth it because it meant that before we would know it, we would have our baby in our arms. I could live with being bored and sick all the time just for that.

Hotch pitied me somewhat, however, and he really sucked at hiding it. He knew that I wanted a child, and he knew that I was excited—just as he was—but he also knew that I was itching to get back to work. Our deal was for my own benefit, but it was probably going to kill me before anything else. I needed the field. So fucking bad. He knew it, Morgan knew it, Emily knew it— Everyone knew it.

So, Hotch and I decided to host a dinner party one Friday night. He liked cooking sometimes, and he hadn’t gotten the chance to do so in a very long time, so I was fine with the idea of having people over, though it was draining at times. I called Emily to see if she wanted to come over for the dinner with Morgan and Rossi, since they were the only ones available on the team. Spencer was headed to some Russian film showing, JJ was busy with Will and the kids, and Garcia had a date.

But when we invited Emily, she was almost hostile towards us. I mean, she never, ever brushed us off; but even then, this was so cold and offensive. I had never heard her like that before. When we called her, I greeted her warmly, but I was met with an inconsiderate: “Hi.” And that was it! As I explained that we were having a family dinner with our friends, she then said: “I really don’t have time for that shit, Y/N. I’ll see you at work.” And then she hung up on me. I scoffed while turning to Aaron, trying to decide if he had any answers or not. He didn’t.

At dinner, I brought it up to see if anyone else knew anything. There had to be a reason that Emily would snap at me like that, right? Come on, she would have never in a million years done that to me—or anyone else on the team. Even if she were busy, she would have been overwhelmingly kind and apologetic about not being able to come to dinner. Something was off.

“She was probably in the middle of something and just forgot to call back to apologize,” Morgan offered behind a mouthful of steak.

I shook my head. That wasn’t it. She specifically said she didn’t have time for my call and for dinner— or really any distraction. There was no hint to her calling back later. There was something else that we were missing, and if we didn’t figure it out soon, I was genuinely going to confront her about it. The thing with Emily Prentiss, however, was that she enjoyed her secrets, and she enjoyed playing her cards close to her chest. Prying hardly ever worked with her, but maybe if I tried just this one, and if it was really all that bad, she’d confide in me. I mean, back after New York when I was upset about JJ and Morgan doubting me and Hotch, Emily was the only person I could confide in, too. Maybe this one time I could be that for her.

“She has her bad days, too, Y/N; you can’t take it personally,” Rossi said.

But I was taking it personally. They hadn’t heard her voice, the way it was gruff, demanding, and angry. Yeah, it sounded like her mind was elsewhere, but that gave her no right to talk to me, her friend, like that. We weren’t the closest. I would be the first to admit that Emily Prentiss and I weren’t exactly sisters forever, but I still loved her dearly, and she loved me equally. We looked after each other. And ever since Hawai’i, when the team found out that I was pregnant, she was over the moon excited to meet my child. She couldn’t stop talking about it. All this time, I thought that Morgan and Garcia were going to be the aunt and uncle who would spoil them a ridiculous amount, but now I was starting to worry that it was actually going to be Emily doing all of the spoiling. That was concerning. But I still loved it. I loved that she was as excited as Hotch, Morgan, and I were. I was excited that I would get to see her, my friend, holding my baby.

“Give it a few days, baby,” Hotch said before downing a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “If she hasn’t cheered up by then, you could talk to her—or, if you want, I’ll talk to her, and make it seem like it’s in an official capacity so that she doesn’t feel attacked.”

I rolled my eyes. That wasn’t going to solve anything. She wasn’t snapping at Hotch, she was snapping at me. The more we discussed it, the more upset I got. I eventually pushed my plateful of food away from me and set my hands over my stomach as I reclined back. The boys didn’t notice how I had fallen silent as they finished up their meals, then Rossi offered to clean up the dishes while Hotch and Morgan worked together to plate up the brownies Hotch made that afternoon with some ice cream. Then, throughout dessert, they talked about sports. I shook my head and took my leave early to go lay down before it got too late.

----

In the morning, mine and Hotch’s alarms went off simultaneously. I groaned and rolled over to turn it off. As I struggled to push myself upright, I saw that Hotch was already awake and dressed, taking a few steps back over to his bedside table in order to turn off his alarm. Somewhat forgetting about what happened yesterday, I smiled at him. He smiled back shortly.

As I slid out from under the covers, Hotch hurried over to hold his arms out to make sure I wouldn’t fall over or hurt myself or something. I laughed at him while playfully shooing his hands away, then leaning up and in to kiss him delicately. He kissed me back until we couldn’t breathe.

“Good morning, Agent Hotchner,” I whispered against his lips.

He tangled his fingers in my already messy hair. “Good morning, Agent Hotchner.” He kissed my jawline until I threw my head back to give him clearer access to my neck. It wasn’t a sexual act. I mean, normally it was, and it had a tendency to get us both riled up; but the way he was only barely leaving kissed against me compared to nibbling until he left a noticeable hickey was enough to just let me relax and fall in love with him again and again. “Are you feeling any better?”

“Kinda.”

“Good…” He ran his hands over my arms until my shoulders relaxed, then he hugged me so that he could rub my back until my spine relaxed, and then he lastly trailed back to my stomach until my whole body felt at ease, and the only thought I had was about how much I loved him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After another minute or so, Hotch pulled away from me entirely so that he could kiss my lips one more time before heading back into the bathroom to gel back his hair. Feeling practically rejuvenated for the day, I wandered—or more like waddled—my way to our closet so that I could pick out my clothes. A whole new wardrobe was laid out in front of me. Some clothes, like the sweatshirt Elle bought for me years ago, were already so oversized that I could still fit into them. Everything else, however, had to be packed away in boxes for the time being in order to make room for my maternity clothes. I sighed. I missed my old work clothes. I missed hiding in Hotch’s college shirts. I missed debating what outfit looked professional enough for the office, but was also logistically smart if we had to go into the field with a snap of our fingers. Now, it was just a matter of what was comfortable.

Since Hotch pulled me out of the field a few months ago, the Bureau had officially benched me, too, because I was too much of a liability to be out and about, working on cases. I just wasn’t physically fit to go out chasing bad guys. So, six months pregnant me had to stay behind with Penelope Garcia in her lair of all things Smart. If I showed up in her office with even a single hint of black, she kicked me out until I went to go find something with color on it. She hated blandness. She hated that I liked blandness—especially right now since I just couldn’t fucking fit into anything else. But she was adamant about keeping her office a bright and lively place, so there was one weekend where she dragged me out to the mall to help me find more “Penelope-looking clothes”. However, the purpose of that day spiraled fairly fast. I had gone there for some clothes, meanwhile Garcia had gotten sidetracked and started buying every toy imaginable for the baby.

While I squinted a judgement at her in the checkout line, she got all defensive and said, “You and Hotch are just going to be too busy once my godchild pops out, you won’t have any time to go looking for toys. So, really, I’m doing you all a favor.”

No one had told her that we hadn’t decided on godparents yet. Honestly, I just didn’t know how, and I think Hotch was genuinely terrified of breaking that news to her. So, we decided to keep it on the downlow.

I grabbed the first thing I found in my closet, brought it back out to the bedroom, threw it on the bed, then started changing. Hotch came out of the bathroom to grab his gun from the safe in his bedside table. We had been working on baby proofing the house over the past couple of days. I mean, we always had safes in our drawers for our guns because we still had Jack, a six year old kid, running around. But now we had an extra lock on our bedroom door, we had those stupid plastic gates everywhere to make sure that the baby couldn’t go falling down the steps or something once they started crawling, and we put shitty child locks on the drawers. I really fucking hated it. It felt like we were turning our house into a baby prison. But Hotch insisted that it was the best thing to do, and it was inevitably going to keep the baby safe, so what did I know. At this point, my job was just to sit back and relax while Hotch panicked about everything because I simply did not have the time and energy to be as worried as he was. If it were up to me, I would have just put the crib in our room and called it a day. At least, until they were old enough to move into the nursery.

Still, I didn’t think all of these extra precautions were necessary when the plan was that I would be staying at home for at least three months after the baby was born—way longer than JJ stayed out of the office. Once I was back at work, Jessica offered to spend more time around the house since her job allowed her to do so; but we didn’t think that was necessarily fair to dump on her, so we were debating on whether or not to get a nanny. But that was so far in the future. The point was, our child was going to be watched like a hawk at all times. There wouldn’t be a single chance for anything bad to happen. However, I understood that Hotch was just trying to do what he did best, and that was protecting us. If he felt it was necessary—or even if it just put his mind at ease in a placebo-effect kind of way, I was willing to let him turn our house into a baby prison for the next few years.

Oh, gosh… The next few years…

“Baby,” Hotch spoke louder, like he had been trying to catch my attention before. I snapped out of my train of thought to look at him. “You okay?” he asked, furrowing his brows. I nodded. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I was just lost in thought.”

I moved faster to get dressed. When I was done, I grabbed my gun from my drawer, too, holstering it on my hip, then I went to the bathroom to do my hair, wash my face, and brush my teeth. By the time I was gone, Hotch had woken Jack up and gotten him half-way ready for school. All Jack did these days was wake up, change into new clothes—which Hotch practically had to force him to do—and, if we were lucky, he would brush his hair. The rest of it was just shrugging off our questions. I was starting to worry that it was him acting out because we were a little focused on the baby, when Jack was normally used to getting all of our attention. We knew that this was possible. Older kids who could comprehend that they weren’t going to be an only child now had a tendency to act out like this because they felt like their parents were neglecting them. But I would never do that to Jack. I was trying my damn hardest to spend time with him and make sure he knew that he was still loved and that having a baby brother or sister wasn’t going to change that. He didn’t seem to believe me, though.

“Hey, bud, come on—” Hotch pleaded down the hall. He groaned in annoyance. “Jack. Please. Work with me here.” I heard him slap his hands against his sides like he had thrown his arms up in surrender, then was choosing to walk away from the conversation while worked up and frustrated. I snuck into the hall to see Hotch storming out of Jack’s room. He looked at me as he headed for the stairs. “You can try.” He started stomping downstairs.

I cocked a brow and slowly tiptoed down to Jack’s room, peeking in to see him dressed, but he was cuddled up with Red, our favorite toy dinosaur, on his bed. He was turned towards the wall so that I couldn’t see his face, but I could still tell by his body language that he was sad… He was trying to make it seem like he was mad about something, but he was just… sad…

“Jack?” I cooed, stepping into his room.

“Go away.”

I stopped. “Do you really want me to?”

Sincerely, if he wanted me to go away, I would have. I knew that this was all hard for him, and I knew that letting him feel his emotions was valid—and teaching him that was important. I wouldn’t always leave him alone like that, but sometimes it was better not to pry. If I were really the problem, and if he really wanted me to leave, it would have done more harm than good if I had stayed.

“No,” he whispered regretfully.

I continued approaching him, making my way to the bed until I was sitting on the edge. “What’s going on, little man?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not true. What happened with Dad?”

“I told him that I didn’t want to go to school, and he got mad.”

“Why don’t you want to go to school?” I asked. Jack didn’t respond. “Huh?” I egged him on while brushing his hair back with my fingers. “Do you want a hug first?”

He nodded, and within an instant, he spun around and sat up, catching my neck in a tight embrace. I wrapped my arms around his torso and held him close. “I just don’t want to go today,” he cried into my shoulder. “Just one day.” He squeezed me tighter until his little arms were straining. “Why did he have to get mad?”

“Because he just wants what’s best for you, bud. He knows that school is good for you. All your friends, your teachers you love, art class, which you love, too. Don’t you want to see Mr. Feechi and show him your cool, new drawing?”

Jack nodded against me.

“Yeah. See? He knows you love it. So, I think he just got confused as to why you don’t want to go. I’m confused why you don’t want to go. Sometimes it’s just hard for him to sit down and talk with people when he gets stressed about a whole bunch of things at once.” I petted his hair and kissed his cheek. “But he still loves you. And I’m sorry he yelled at you. I’ll talk to him about it. But do you want to talk to me about school? About what’s really bothering you?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know why…”

“That’s okay. But it’s not a good enough reason to not go to school.” It was valid if he was sick, or if he needed a mental health day, even. But not going just because he didn’t want to, and not going because he didn’t know why… That wasn’t enough to keep him at home, which would keep me at home, too. “I’m sorry, little man.”

He sniffled and pulled away from me. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll always love me, right?”

I pouted and let out a choked sob as I tried to smile and stay positive for him. How could he ask me something like that? There was nothing he could ever say or do that would make me stop loving him, and there was no way Hotch would ever let me stop loving him in the first place. I loved Jack like he was my own. No. He was my own. He was my son, and he always would be. For the last three years, I got the gift of watching him grow, and his birth parents were kind enough to let me help raise him, too. I’d be forever grateful for that. Since I met Jack all those years ago, he had been my little man. No matter how big he got, he would always be my little man, and that was just a fact and a part of loving him as fervently as I did. He was my son… He was one of the loves of my life.

“Jack,” I brushed his hair back, “I will never, ever stop loving you.” I poked Red’s side. “You and Red are the brightest parts of my day. Whenever I’m scared while off working with Dad, I think about you and Red, and I think about how much I love you, and I know that I’ll be okay. If I ever stopped loving you, I wouldn’t feel okay and safe anymore.”

He moved to hug me again, this time with enough force that sent me back somewhat, making me giggle while catching him. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

After staying like that for a few moments longer, I patted his side and lifted him up onto his feet on the floor so that he could grab his things for school before making our way downstairs. Jack scurried over to his desk without a word. He started shoving everything he needed into the biggest pocket, not at all concerned with organization. How he was mine and Hotch’s kid, I’d never understand. But it certainly brought a smile to my face.

Once we dropped Jack off at school, I fiddled with my fingers as we pulled out of the parking lot in order to head to work. I was beginning to wonder if I made a mistake sending him to school today. Maybe he really just needed the one day. No. One day would turn into two days, and then three, and so on. I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t’ve been fair to him or me.

“You can’t yell at him like that, Aaron,” I said. He nodded. “You’re going to have to apologize to him tonight.” He nodded again.

Funnily enough, he was never this quiet around me. Usually, Hotch was a very reserved person who didn’t like talking to people unless he had to—and he definitely never opened up to anyone. But I was the exception. He could always talk to me, and he always made sure to be open with me. Therefore, I knew something was off.

I grabbed his right hand from the steering wheel, brought it to my lips, and gently kissed his knuckles. “Baby…” He hummed a questioning tone back to me in response. “What’s going on?”

He sighed as the car slowed at a red light. “I’m worried about Emily, too. I just didn’t know how to tell anyone because it’s my job to worry about you guys, and it’s my responsibility to keep things professional and not pry too far into people’s—”

“Hotch,” I stopped him before he could keep rambling, “it’s okay to be worried about your friend. I’ll talk to her today to figure this all out once and for all.” I kissed his knuckles again. “She’s probably okay.” I turned his hand over and kissed his palm. “I love you.”

He curled his fingers until he was holding my chin. He squeezed as we both smiled. “I love you, too.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“You’re silly sometimes,” he teased.

“Only for you, my love.” I kissed his palm roughly before releasing him and turning back to watch the world pass by as we kept driving.

----

When we arrived on the sixth floor of the Quantico building, I meandered over to my desk in the bullpen, slumping and sighing as I did so. There was a picture of Jack sitting prominently on my desk, one that I had kept there since I moved in with him and Aaron a couple years ago, and I updated the photo every so often whenever it would become outdated. Jack was growing so fast. A few months ago, even, he would have never asked me a question like he brought forward that morning. He used to know that I would love him endlessly and unconditionally. Where did I go wrong? This had to be about the baby, right? I mean, he was probably getting worried that Hotch and I might love him less or something like that because we were going to have a baby—and maybe he was old enough now to assume that I would just love our baby more because they would be my own flesh and blood. But that wasn’t true.

Morgan cocked a brow at me from his desk. “Peanut, you okay?”

I nodded and leaned forward to put my computer passcode in. As the system started up, I saw the picture of me, Jack, Hotch, and Jessica together at the park the day Hotch proposed to me. The night before, we promised Jack that we would go on a bike ride together. So, after Hotch proposed to me just after we woke up, and… other things happened… we got up, showered, called Jessica to ask if she wanted to come with us, and the four of us made our way to the park where we biked around for about an hour or so before Jack decided he wanted to play soccer with Hotch. Around lunch time, as Hotch fell onto his back on the grass, and Jack landed on top of him, both of them laughing, I told Jessica what happened. She immediately brightened. She got all giddy and said, “Finally!” before throwing her arms around me. Then, she insisted that we take a family photo. She waved down a random jogger and practically shoved her phone into his hands while she called for Hotch and Jack to come over. We posed, but it was still chaotic. Jack was jumping on his dad for a piggyback ride, and I was trying my best to make sure that neither of them got hurt in the process. It was cute. We were all smiling—laughing, in fact—and it was absolutely genuine. There was nothing forced about the love we all shared for each other. There was nothing fake. I didn’t hate Jack. That photo was a reminder to myself that no matter what he thought of me, or no matter how much he could grow to hate me for one reason or another, I would never stop loving him. As I promised.

“What’s wrong?” Morgan continued to pry.

“Nothing.”

“Mhm. Sure. Try again.”

I rolled my eyes at him since I knew that this meant that he wasn’t going to let it go now. “Jack was having a bad morning, and he asked me if I’ll always love him. It’s just thrown my whole day off balance.”

“I’m about to make it even worse,” JJ said while passing our desks with a stack of case files in her arms.

The entire bullpen—excluding Emily, who seemed to be running late—groaned as we pushed ourselves to our feet and started meandering over to the roundtable room. After last night, I was expecting to talk to Emily before this would happen. I wanted… I wanted to just sort out if I was the problem or not. If I was, I wanted to know how I could mend things between us; and if it wasn’t about me, then what was it about, and how could I help? But, no. She wasn’t there, which was also incredibly unlike her. All of us happened to be late at one point or another. It was inevitable. However, there wasn’t a single day where Emily Prentiss showed up late or called in sick. No matter what was going on in her life, she was always there. Always. So, I was starting to grow even more concerned about her, which I’m sure everyone noticed as we sat down, because I could feel the color draining from my face as I took the seat facing both doors and the windows, just so that I could see her whenever she would come in.

In the meantime, JJ started circling the table while handing out the case files to each of us. When she arrived in front of the monitor once more, she began explaining the case as we knew all of the details to be, while simultaneously clicking the remote in her hand to show the slideshow that had photos from the crime scene—or, in this case, crime scenes.

Late last night, while everyone in D.C. was asleep, two homes were set on fire, killing the families inside. The only connection was the time. The fires took place within the same hour, but that was all. The homes were nowhere near each other—in fact, they were on complete opposite sides of the city. The oddest part, as Morgan noted, was that no one was reporting on this story, which was concerning considering the news ate up and spit out family tragedies like these all the time as if it were fun for them. Two identical fires in one night should have been like chumming the water for them. But nope. That was what caught JJ’s attention in the first place.

First, a couple and their son were found dead in the master bedroom of their home, all three shot through the forehead by the gun that happened to belong to the father. But, then, how did the fire start? Why did the fire start? If it was a murder/suicide, the odds that a house fire would catch shortly after was, at the very least, odd.

Then, the second couple all the way across town, were found dead in their living room after the house exploded due to a suspected gas leak. Still odd. Gas leaks purposefully smell like rotten eggs. If the family was up and doing something with fire—likely cooking—then how did the gas leak go unnoticed? Why didn’t an alarm go off? The report from the fire department in front of me indicated that there was a burglary, fire, and gas alarm in the house. They would have been notified before they could even smell the rotten eggs.

“What are the connections?” I inquired after falling short of noticing one in the files.

JJ shrugged. “There’s only one, and it’s… Well, it’s loose.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the only connection between the families comes from the mothers—”

Just then, Emily came running into the boardroom in a rush. Her head was down, but I could see how frazzled she was. She started setting her things down frantically before pausing when she noticed how we were all watching her. “Sorry I’m late,” she apologized while taking her seat.

“Are you okay?” Hotch interrogated.

She shrugged, entirely disregarding his worry. “Yeah. JJ, as you were.”

What the fuck? That wasn’t like her at all. First, she didn’t tease us as she came into the room; then, when asked if everything was alright considering she was late for the first time since joining the team; and then she was formal with JJ. What happened to the Emily Prentiss who cuddled with Jennifer Jareau on the bed at my bachelorette party? What happened to the Emily Prentiss who would try to hide what was really going on with her by teasing me or Morgan—or even Spencer, someone she saw as her little brother. It was all so strange. Her behavior was only making me worry more, and now I could see it on Hotch, Morgan, and Rossi’s faces. Hotch clasped our hands together under the table. That was how bad it was. We had never, ever touched during a roundtable meeting.

“Um…” JJ hesitated, eyeing Emily carefully just like the rest of us. “We were discussing the two crime scenes—”

“I’ll get caught up later. Just keep going.”

JJ scoffed. “Okay.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to the screen. “The only connection comes from the mothers, both of whom were born and raised in Europe.”

“That’s the only connection?” Hotch questioned warily. “That’s not much.”

“It’s all there is.”

Hotch sighed. “Okay… Rossi and Reid, you’ll take the first house. Morgan and Prentiss, head to the second. The rest of us will stay here and start looking through the files again and the families’ histories to see if we can find any other connection. There has to be something.” He released my hand, picked up his things from the table, stood, then quickly and quietly left the room.

Everyone started following his lead. Garcia and JJ immediately scurried off to Garcia’s office. Rossi and Reid turned for the back door that led to the ramp next to the break room, while Morgan and Emily moved for the front door that led to the bullpen. Before she could escape, however, I stepped just in front of her path, and threw my hands up in surrender so that she couldn’t get mad at me. She sighed and rolled her eyes. Wow. Was I really that bad? Whatever it was that was clearly going on in her life, was it really so bad that she had to take it out on me, the one person who had enough love for her to straight up confront her about what was going on instead of hiding like Hotch and Rossi were in their offices.

“Em, what’s going on with you?” I questioned sincerely. She didn’t say or do anything. “Can we talk somewhere privately?”

“I’m busy. Maybe later.” She pushed past me, barely brushing my shoulder like she still had enough decency to not actually harm me.

Fucking ridiculous. This was all so out of character for her, and she wasn’t letting anyone in to help her. Honestly, it was beginning to get on my nerves. Whenever I was in her shoes, something was going wrong in my life and I was bottling it up and taking out my frustrations on everyone else, Emily was the one person who could knock some sense into me. At least, that was what she had done after JJ pissed me off in New York. She looked me in the eye and said, “Screw them, Y/N. You don’t need anyone’s opinion but your own and Hotch’s.” Where was that Emily? That was the very same Prentiss that I knew and loved, and was going to be— No. That thought was for another time.

Garcia and JJ came back in, this time carrying laptops and stacks of files almost as tall as them. I hated desk duty. Absolutely fucking despised it. Hotch knew that I didn’t like being benched, he knew that it was hard for me to just sit around and do nothing while the team was out there getting a good look at the crime scenes and risking their lives. I should have been out there with them. I should have been by Morgan’s side, ready to jump in front of him if I had to; or I should have been with Emily so that I could get a read on what was really wrong with her. Honestly, at that point, I was even willing to go with Rossi and Reid, the two people on the team I hardly worked with. But, no. I had to be holed up all day in the office, and it was draining.

I had to grin and bear it, however, by taking a stack of files for myself and start flipping through all of them. Normally, I would be out there in the field, giving Reid a chance to stay back to read a mile a minute. I wished that were the case still. Between the three of us, it was going to take until at least lunch time to get through all of this information. Reid would have finished all of them on his own in, like, ten minutes— maximum.

Everything about the two families involved with these incidents were just as the cops and JJ described: Ordinary. They were all healthy, fit, and happy. There was no financial stress. No therapy bills or doctors visits outside of yearly physical checkups. Even their schedules were ordinary. Both parents went to work while the children went to school. However, the children went to different schools—one private and one public—and one was succeeding while the other was practically failing.

Their lives were as perfect as could be, which was in fact the one thing that was most suspicious.

“Hold on…” Garcia mumbled under her breath as she started typing on her loud keyboard faster. “Woah, woah, woah.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She pushed her seat back, grabbed her chair, then started speed walking out of the room. JJ and I shared a curious look. After a moment, I decided to chase after her. She was headed straight towards Hotch’s office, but he was actually coming out in order to meet us in the boardroom to see if we had come up with anything.

“So, something happened,” Garcia began as we approached Hotch on the balcony. He kept walking, so we followed. “No one’s talking about this. Still. Except for one guy who I caught attempting to post the article, but then it was pulled almost immediately—not before I could catch it, though.” She sounded so proud of herself.

“What do you want from me, Garcia?” he asked.

“With your permission, sir, I would like to track him down to see why it was that he pulled the article as soon as he posted it. Something’s fishy about all of this. Someone should have reported on this by now. Actually, there should have been a whole media blow up—pardon the pun—by now. I think he might know something about why there’s been complete radio silence on this.”

“Do it.”

“I’ll go to help you question him,” I offered. Garcia was tech savvy and extremely snippy and sassy, but she didn’t know how to profile. She could give us our in with this guy, but I could actually get information out of him. Garcia seemed to agree. She nodded and looked to Hotch hopefully, as did I.

“You can track him down and question him yourself, Garcia,” he said, half paying attention as he unpacked his papers to set them out on the table.

“Hotch—” I tried arguing. “That’s not fair—”

“Here and the house. Remember? That was the deal. It could be just the house, if you’re not careful.”

The whole room fell silent. Tension hung in the air as Hotch and I stared each other down. Just a few months ago, I promised Hotch that when the time would come, I would pull myself out of the field, and I wouldn’t throw a fit about it. I did that. But it wouldn’t hurt to drive down to the local newspaper to ask a journalist a few questions. This was a little too much. The deal was that I could go to the office, as long as I didn’t go into the field. Staying in town wasn’t “going into the field”. He had to budge on this. Right?

“No,” he finally said sternly.

I sighed and sat down, keeping my eyes away from him as everyone cautiously started moving back towards conversing about the case. That was incredibly embarrassing. For years, Hotch and I didn’t show affection at work, we didn’t argue like an old married couple, and we certainly didn’t bring up our deals or agreements in front of everyone. We didn’t discuss the fact that we made rules to not touch in front of people, or say “I love you” when the others were around. We didn’t talk about how we promised to never lie to each other. And we certainly didn’t talk about how we made a deal that I would only stay at the house or at the office. No one knew that. Since that day at the Park Rangers’ office, that had been our secret deal, and I wanted it to fucking stay that way; yet Hotch had the audacity to bring it up in front of the entire team. Not only was I frustrated about the situation he had stuck me in, but I was also frustrated with my husband now.

“I, um,” Morgan cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I think I might have something here.” He handed the file he had been looking through over to Hotch. “Both of the mothers coached their sons’ soccer teams out on the Hill. They probably met that way.”

Reid shuffled from Gideon’s couch in the corner to the table we were all sitting around. “I found another connection, too. It’s in their phone records. Both moms, who happened to be from Europe and coached their sons’ soccer teams on the Hill, as Morgan mentioned, called the same number multiple times.”

“Give it to me,” Garcia said. After Reid read the phone number aloud, Garcia started digging through the identity of whoever it was that owned that number. “Byron Delaney—He’s British.” She stopped typing immediately.

Hotch looked at Morgan. “Go.”

Morgan got up and raced to the bullpen to tell Emily where they were headed and who it was they were visiting. Within the next minute or so, Hotch’s phone started ringing, causing him to sigh under his breath, collect his things again, and leave to take the call out in his office. The rest of us settled in our seats and started looking for a way to contact that reporter Garcia had talked about. I even decided to spend some time reaching out to newspapers as an “anonymous source” looking to give them an inside scoop on the story just to see if anyone would bite. Nothing. Everyone got back to me in the next thirty minutes or so just to tell me that the story wasn’t interesting enough for them to pursue. That was utter bullshit. Something was seriously wrong with this case, and the only one who could give us any answers was the reporter Garcia was hunting down.

“Where are Hotch and Rossi going?” JJ asked, looking through the windows of the roundtable room to see the two of them hauling ass out of the office.

We all shrugged.

Two minutes later, Hotch was calling Garcia to let her know what was going on. “Emily and Morgan were shot at by the Unsubs.”

“What?!” I exclaimed. How could he not tell us that immediately? “Are they alright?”

“They’re fine. They found Byron’s body. Dave and I are headed there now to case the scene with them. We’ll call with what we know later.” He hung up before I could argue with him, which he knew I would.

The worry was starting to fuck with my head and my body. A headache was brewing, meanwhile my stomach was starting to ache to the point I felt like I was going to throw up. At first, I tried ignoring it. I closed my eyes to stop the headache and to focus on my breathing, but that didn’t work. So, I tried rocking back and forth gently. However, it only seemed to get worse the longer we sat there in silence, worrying about Morgan and Emily.

“Fuck…” I cursed under my breath. “Not now, baby… Come on, just give me a few more hours.”

“Y/N?” Reid questioned me from across the table. I glanced up at him through my lashes to see that he was watching me hold my stomach, rocking back and forth lightly, trying to control my breathing. “What is it?”

“The baby’s just kicking. That’s all.”

He narrowed his eyes at me and closed the file in front of him. “You look like you’re in pain.”

I searched his eyes. There was no way in hell he was going to give this up, but if I told him the truth, he would tell Hotch, and then that would just cause more problems than was necessary. “I’m fine.” I saw that Garcia was also eyeing me suspiciously now. “Please, just don’t tell Hotch. I swear, it’s nothing. I’m just not feeling well.”

“We’re supposed to tell Hotch if anything—”

“No. Please.”

Garcia was slowly tapping on her keyboard, trying not to draw my attention. Her sloth-like pace was exactly what caught my eye, though. “Sorry…” she apologized quietly. “I had to.”

I sighed and threw my papers on the table. “I’ll get my things.”

“Why?” Reid asked.

“Hotch’s gonna make me go home.” I stood. “Fuck—” I grabbed onto the table for balance. “Shit…” My stomach ached like I was being stabbed. I let out a shaky breath. “Okay, fine… Someone get Anderson to drive me home.”

Reid stood and raced out of the boardroom to go find Anderson while I slowly made my way down to my desk to get my things. I collected my purse and threw my phone and badge in it. Within the next minute or so, Anderson approached, letting me know that Reid had tracked him down to take me home. I thanked him quickly. The stomach aches had passed, but I knew that they would inevitably return. If I was heading home, I wasn’t coming back. At least not today.

On our way out, I beckoned Garcia over quickly to tell her that even though I was going home, I wanted constant updates, and if there were any new developments, I wanted her to video call me with everything. She agreed. While she was practically pushing me towards the elevator, she said that she would put me on calls with the team, send me texts with small details, video call me for dozens of other things. Since I was going home because they let up the game to Hotch, it was the least they could do.

In the car, Anderson played the radio and we talked about his girlfriend. Her name was Angelica. They met shortly after the Fisher King case when he began attending group therapy to help him cope with the guilt he felt for what happened to Elle. I interrupted to tell him that none of it was his fault. While he sent me a short smile and thanked me for the personal reassurance, I could tell that he still wasn’t convinced; but it didn’t matter. Talking about Angelica made his whole face brighten. He was grinning ear to ear, his eyes sparkling in the sun as he focused on the road, and he was tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the beat of the music. I smiled to myself. It was so odd that I had been working with people like him—people in the broader spectrum of the BAU—for years, and yet I hardly knew anything about them. Sometimes I would consider Anderson a friend, but it was just… It was different being friends with him compared to being friends with Morgan and Emily. I knew practically everything about Morgan, and I knew as much as Emily was willing to tell me, but I didn’t know much about Anderson. It felt wrong. Somehow, it irked me that I could be working in the same office as him for so long, and yet I never stopped to ask him how his day was going, or if he was seeing anyone, or if he was okay since everything happened with Elle.

“Do you ever wish you could see her again?” Anderson inquired. I didn’t understand what he was asking. “Elle.”

Oh. I couldn’t tell him that I had seen her somewhat recently, or that I didn’t care if I saw her again or not, as shitty as it sounded. Since she first left, all I wanted was to see her again and get answers from her. Only, when I did see her again, she felt like an entirely different person, and I didn’t get a single real answer out of her. So, no. I didn’t wish that I could ever see her again, but Anderson didn’t need to know that.

“Sometimes,” I answered, then I turned to stare out the window silently.

By the time he dropped me off at my house, my phone was ringing with a FaceTime from Garcia. Anderson was already driving around the corner down the block when I answered while simultaneously digging out my house keys. As I unlocked the door, I saw Penelope’s face on the screen.

“What do you have for me, lovely?” I asked.

“We have a name—a potential suspect,” Garcia said.

“What does that mean?”

“His name’s Ian Doyle, and we think that he might be operating on a list of people who took him down seven years ago.”

“Why?”

“Because all but three of the people on that list are dead.”

I stopped in my tracks as I entered the house. “Who are the other three?”

“We don’t know. The CIA and Interpol are giving Hotch a hard time confirming identities. They only just told us that our victims matched the team of profilers that had taken Doyle down. I don’t know when we’ll get the name of the other three agents.”

“Hotch will get the names. I know he will.” I set my things down and wandered to get a TUMS and Motrin for my stomach and headache. “Call me when you know more.”

“Of course, my love. Get some sleep. You look pale.” She kissed the pads of her index and middle fingers, then pressed them to her camera before hanging up on me.

I set my phone down on the counter so that I could pour out one pill from the TUMS bottle and the Motrin bottle. When I had them resting in my palm, I turned to grab a glass from the cupboard and fill it with water. When I was finished with the Motrin, I carried the water and my phone with me upstairs as I began chewing on the big TUMS pill that was slowly dissolving in my mouth. By the time I landed in bed, the pill was gone, and I was already falling asleep. Just a few minutes. I would wake up soon...

----

As my eyes fluttered open, I could see that the sun was setting over the houses in the neighborhood. I jolted upright and checked the time. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I slept for three hours. Fuck. I reached to grab my phone to see that there were no calls or texts from anyone on the team. I didn’t understand. I had been MIA for three hours. How had Garcia not checked up on me? How did Hotch not call to see if I was feeling alright? What the fuck was he really going on? I tried calling Hotch, but it went to voicemail. My face fell.

That was when I heard something clatter in the dining room. I jumped in my own skin, the sound echoing throughout the house sending me back to that day when I was taken in Hawai’i. Hotch wasn’t picking up the phone, and now it sounded like someone was in the house. Maybe it was just Hotch? Maybe he picked up Jack from soccer early, and they were downstairs setting up dinner? Yeah. Maybe. I could only know for sure by making my way downstairs slowly, holding onto the railing to make sure I didn’t lose my footing. My heat was still hurting, but the baby had calmed down, so my stomach wasn’t aching and cramping anymore. Thankfully.

I stumbled to a halt when I saw Jessica and Jack sitting at the dining room table, eating spaghetti and garlic bread. She had a glass of water and wine, meanwhile Jack was chugging down a large glass of chocolate milk that he ended up refilling with the jug next to him once he was out. I smiled. Chocolate milk was his “thing” right now. For the longest time, it was mac and cheese—and, of course, he would never pass up the chance to have a bowl of it, but it was “chocolate milk this” and “chocolate milk that” nowadays. Eventually, Hotch and I were going to have to trick him out of it. If it became an unhealthy obsession, I’d find one way or another to get him to start drinking iced tea or something like his dad.

Jessica looked up to see me standing in the doorway. “Hey! You’re up.” I smiled and nodded. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah…” I searched the table with my eyes, trying to piece together how long she had been with Jack. “How did you…” I chuckled to myself.

“Aaron called to tell me you weren’t feeling well, so I came over to watch Jack.” She picked up her glass of wine. “I would’ve warned you, but I saw that you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“It’s all good.” I walked over to the table before kissing the top of Jack’s head. “How was school, little man?”

“Boring,” he answered behind a full mouth of spaghetti noodles.

At least it wasn’t bad, and at least he wasn’t sending any signal that he didn’t want to go back tomorrow. If he would have still been as upset as he was that morning, I would have considered letting him stay home tomorrow. Tomorrow… I realized that I didn’t even know where I would be tomorrow given the fact that I had already missed so much of the case. I was feeling a thousand times better already, but Hotch probably wasn’t going to accept that, and I really wasn’t looking to pick a fight with him about it again, and I wasn’t willing to hear Morgan, Rossi, or Emily take his side on the matter.

“Did you show Mr. Feechi your art?”

“I forgot.”

I chuckled and kissed the top of his head again. Forgetting to show his art to his teacher probably meant that he was caught up in a million other things like schoolwork or friends, and either option was ideal to me, so I was content with that answer, truth be told. At least he looked and sounded better now. Compared to this morning, he was acting like my little man again as I knew him, the slurping spaghetti noodles really bringing the whole thing together. I smiled to myself.

“I’m gonna check in with the team,” I said to Jessica. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

She shrugged and nodded understandingly. “Take your time.”

As I headed back upstairs to the bedroom, I sighed and wiped my palms over my face in an attempt to wake myself up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep earlier. Considering I gave Garcia so much shit earlier for snitching on me, and I begged her to stay in touch because of it, the least I could have done was stay awake in order to receive her calls. Then again, I was feeling much better now that I was well rested. Give and take, I suppose.

I grabbed my phone from my bedside table and dialed Garcia’s number. The call rang a worrisome amount of times before going to voicemail. That was unusual… I cocked a brow at my phone as I dialed Hotch’s number this time around. Garcia normally picked up because she was sitting at her desk—or at least she had one of her many phones on her to alert her that someone was calling. Why hadn’t she answered?

And then I heard Hotch pick up. I let out a relieved sigh and let my palm rest over my stomach. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he responded, sounding a little out of breath and extremely preoccupied.

“Is everything okay? Garcia didn’t—”

“We’re fine, baby. We’re just about to give the profile, so we’re all running around right now. Can I call you back later when we’re done?”

I hesitated. “Yeah…” I looked over my shoulder to glance at his side of the bed which was uncomfortably empty. “Are you coming home tonight?”

“Probably not.”

“Oh…”

Hotch stopped and sighed heavily. “I’m so sorry, baby. I know that this isn’t what you want. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Just be safe. Call me after the profile and catch me up.”

“I will. I love you, Y/N.”

I smiled against my phone. “I love you, too.”

He hung up on me before anything else could be said.

----

Jack tried staying up with me as long as he could. After Jessica had left for the night, the two of us crashed on the couch to watch a movie, but he ended up spending more time focusing on my stomach than anything else. He found it fascinating. I mean, he was a kid, so he didn’t necessarily understand what was happening, but he knew that his baby brother or sister was in there. When I told him that the baby was kicking, Jack started freaking out. He thought I was dying. I laughed at him and told him that it was alright while placing his hand over my stomach so that he could feel it. “Ew,” was his response as he snatched his hand away. I chuckled again and explained that it was natural. “I still hate it,” he said, scurrying to the other side of the couch. At least his fascination with poking my stomach was gone now.

By the time the movie reached the credits, Jack was asleep and snoring. We had been waiting to see if Hotch would show up or call, but there was no word. So, I leaned over, and I combed Jack’s hair with my fingers while kissing his temple until he slowly stirred awake. I whispered that it was time to go to bed. Since I couldn’t carry him, tired, little Jack had to roll off the couch, then lazily stomp across the house in front of me as we ever so slowly made our way upstairs one step at a time. Jack crashed onto his bed and fell back to sleep immediately.

I smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Night, my little man.”

“Night…” he whispered, then rolled over to face the wall.

As I left his room, I closed the door quietly behind me to make sure that there weren’t any creaks, and that the sound of the doorknob wouldn’t wake him up. When the coast was clear, I let out a deep breath. That was when my phone started ringing. I jumped slightly at the sudden noise that shook the house, and probably woke Jack up.

I cursed under my breath while hurrying down to mine and Hotch’s room while answering the phone. The call was from Hotch. Finally. “Hey, babe.”

“Hey,” he responded with a hint of worry.

I froze and cocked a brow. What was wrong? Something was definitely fucking wrong, and he couldn’t lie his way out of it in order to make sure I wouldn’t come back in. Whatever it was, if it was bad enough, I would go back in. So, help me, if he wasn’t okay, I was going to race there, honking the horn at every goddamn car in my way.

“What is it?”

“Have you seen Emily?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s nothing,” he insisted quickly. “I’ll call you back—”

“No. Aaron Christopher Hotchner, you tell me what’s going on right fucking now, or so help me.”

He sighed heavily. He was still reluctant to admit whatever it was, but I wasn’t going to back down. He promised that he would call after the profile, yet he didn’t, and now he was calling to ask if I knew where Emily was, which meant that the team didn’t, which meant that something horrible— “She’s the last person on Ian Doyle’s list.”

“What? And you let her out of your sight? Aaron!”

“It wasn’t our fault. We didn’t know, Y/N. We think she ran in order to protect all of us, because she thinks she can handle this on her own.”

“Of course she does. She’s always been like that. She’s been acting so fucking weird, Hotch,” I said, hiding my face in my hand, “we should’ve talked to her sooner. Fuck…”

“Y/N, please, if you start panicking, it could be bad for the baby—”

“I’m coming back in.” I knew that argument was going to come about. I knew the second I heard his voice that something was bad enough that he needed to call me, and if it got to that point, I should just come in.

Hotch sounded angry when saying, “No.”

“Emily’s our family. I’m coming in to help find her. And Doyle.”

“Y/N, no.”

“Yes. I’m already on my way, Hotch. I’ll be okay. I’ll bring medication, a go-bag, and I’ll sleep on the couch in your office if I need more rest. But I’m not abandoning Emily. She’s our family.”

“That’s exactly why she left in the first place. Y/N, she left a gift in the drawer of her desk with her phone and badge. It’s addressed to you.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What?”

“There’s a letter attached to it, too.”

“What does it say?”

“I haven’t opened either of them.”

“Open them,” I demanded. “They might be something important!”

“I need to have the bomb squad check it first,” he answered quietly, and almost regretfully. I cocked a brow. What the fuck did that mean? “Doyle’s getting desperate. It could be part of his plan. If I open it now, it might—”

“Okay. Fine. Just… I’ll do it when I get there…” I grabbed a go-bag from the closet and started shoving clothes, medication, toiletries, etc. in there without a single care in the world. “We have to bring her back, Aaron,” I whispered almost helplessly, almost as if the message wasn’t really for him but for me and my conscience. “We have to.”

“I know.” He sounded just as helpless as I was.

I stayed on the phone with him the entire time as I texted Jessica to let her know what was happening, and then I got in my car that was parked in the garage in case we ever needed it for situations like this. My hands were shaking against the wheel as I drove. How could Emily do this? How could she just run instead of staying with us and trusting that we could help her? I didn’t understand how she could possibly think that she was better off on her own than with her family. I didn’t understand why she felt like she couldn’t come to me. Ian Doyle was why she had been pushing me away. All this time, she knew that he was coming after her, and instead of utilizing us, she abandoned us. As angry as I wanted to be, I was just anxious. I was worried sick. If I hadn’t been concerned earlier about Morgan and Emily, I didn’t know what to call this. I hadn’t felt this way since Hotch was all alone as he went to go face off against Foyet and I had to count the seconds until we could get there to give him back up.

When I got to the office, Hotch was waiting at the front door for me, the phone pressed to his ear because he stayed on the call with me all the way until I was standing just in front of him. I crashed my face into his chest. I didn’t care that we had our rules about being intimate at work, or that Cody, the Director, was walking past us as I did so. I didn’t care. The only thing that could calm me down again was being in my husband’s arms, feeling the way his abs under his shirt flexed against my torso, and how his long arms could hold me close while his hot breath floated over the top of my head.

“I still haven’t opened them,” he whispered to me, “but the bomb squad cleared them, and a tox report on the envelope came back negative.

I took his hand in mine, letting him take my go-bag in his other hand so that I wouldn’t have to carry it. We walked together inside. Security was different at night. We usually knew the team working the front desk during the day since we would welcome them every morning when we would come in for work, but we hardly ever saw the night team. I mean, if we were still at the office at night, that meant that we were there until the sun came up, just as the morning security team was coming in. But not this time around. Everything felt so foreign with Emily gone in the wind, and the different, unwelcoming faces at the front desk and standing at the metal detectors didn’t help.

When we made it up to the sixth floor, I could see the team standing up in the roundtable room, working together to tape photos and maps up on the walls to organize all of their evidence and get a new perspective on everything. Hotch led me the opposite direction, though. He led me straight to his office where he dropped my go-bag on the couch, then walked over to his desk where the box and letter were sitting, just as he promised. He didn’t touch them. He just turned to face me while gesturing towards them.

“Do you want me to stay?” he inquired. I shook my head. If it was addressed to me, I wanted to see it all for myself first, and then I would take it to the team if need be. “Okay.” As he started walking out, he wrapped his right arm around my hips before kissing my cheek lightly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I croaked.

He left before anything else could be said or he could change his mind about leaving me alone for this part. His hand drifted off my waist, my fingers trying to tangle with his all the way until he was out of reach. My hand fell to my side. When it was just me in the room, I turned back to the box and the letter. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to know what was in there. I didn’t want to know what it was that Emily could have possibly left for me now. I didn’t want this to be the last thing I would ever get from her.

I slowly moved to sit down in one of the chairs in front of Hotch’s desk. After staring at the packaging for a moment, I decided to take the box in my hands and start carefully tearing at the wrapping. As the box opened, I saw what it was that she had left for me. A choked back sob escaped me. I smiled as I lifted it out of the box and held it close to my chest. Emily’s favorite animal was a koala. We always joked that if we had left her in charge of putting together the nursery, she would have ended up decorating the whole place with koalas. Never in a million years, however, did I anticipate that she would do this.

I squeezed the stuffed animal koala bear against my chest as tight as I could, as if I were giving it a Superman hug. After everything, the last thing she wanted to do—the last thing she wanted to give us before leaving—was a goddamn stuffed koala bear. I was going to give her so much shit when I would see her again. She could have given us anything. Scotch for Hotch, cigars for Rossi, a book for Reid, something with butterflies for JJ, something small and adorable for Penelope’s desk; but, nope. She chose to leave this for me. Why?

I leaned forward to grab the letter and pull it out of the envelope. It was her handwriting, alright. Ian Doyle couldn’t have forged anything like it, that was for sure, though Reid would probably still want to verify it himself at some point.

“Y/N, if you’re reading this, then you know by now that I’ve left. You know that I had to run in order to protect all of you. You also know that I would never do this unless I thought it was absolutely crucial. Doyle is coming after me. He’s been threatening the team and your family for three months, and I couldn’t tell you because he was going to kill you, and I just can’t let anyone die because of me. I can’t let you lose your family because of me. I know that there’s a chance that I won’t make it… That Doyle will win, and I’ll never get a chance to meet your son or daughter. If that’s the case, then I want them to have this and to know that it came from me. I want them to know that I love them, even if I didn’t get to hold them in my arms. I want them to know that I left in order to save them, and to save their family because they deserve to grow up with a mom, a dad, a brother, and a group of aunts and uncles that love them more than anything. I want you to know that I love you. Joining this team was the greatest gift of my life, but getting to know you and work with you in the field every day is my greatest blessing. You’ve come so far. You’ve grown, learned, suffered, and succeeded. I don’t know anyone like you, and I doubt that I’ll ever meet anyone else like you. You’re special, Y/N. Your son or daughter is going to be special, too; I just know it. More than anything in the world, I wish I could be there to tell you that it’s all going to be alright, but I really don’t know if that’s true. I want to meet your child, and I’m so ready to see the amazing person they grow up to be because they have the most amazing parents. Things just don’t turn out how we expect sometimes. Life gets in the way. Love and suffering gets in the way. I know me asking you and the team to not come looking for me is futile, but I hope that you understand that if you do come looking for me, I can’t guarantee everyone’s safety, so for that very reason, I’m going to ask that none of you follow me. This is my battle to fight. On my own. No one else needs to get hurt because of things I did in my past. I love you, Y/N. I love Hotch. I love Jack. I love your baby. I’m sorry. Emily.”

I folded the paper slowly before setting it down on the desk in front of me. Just when my hands were free, I immediately hid my face in my palms as I started to sob. That wasn’t fair of her. She didn’t get to do this to me. She didn’t get to just run away and say goodbye, never giving me the chance to say goodbye, too.

The team was going to want answers.

So, I wiped as many tears away as I could manage while putting the stuffed koala back in the box and hiding it under Hotch’s desk before grabbing the letter then heading out of his office. As the door closed behind me, I let out a shaky breath. Anderson, Gina, and a few secretaries were mulling about in the bullpen, completely unaware of what was happening. The team was going to take it hard; I knew that. But the rest of them in the office were going to have a hard time with it, too. I didn’t want to have to tell any of them. I didn’t want to have to face the truth.

I took one brave step towards the roundtable room, trying my best not to draw attention to myself. And then I took another. Every time I let out a breath and moved one step closer, I felt the task become easier. I still dreaded it, but at least it was a mindless endeavor now as I moved across the balcony.

As I walked into the boardroom, I saw all of the pictures and maps that the team had been taping up as Hotch was leading me to his office only a few minutes ago. I was so naïve then. I didn’t know the contents of the box or the letter, and I didn’t know what it was that they had all been hanging up and inspecting for the sake of the case. There were photos of Emily everywhere, but she looked so different. Her hair was brown instead of black, it was curly instead of straight, and she had soft bangs instead of harsh and dramatic ones— and her hair was just… longer. She didn’t look like the Emily I had known for the past three years. Then again, I was slowly starting to learn that I didn’t know her at all, and that the Emily I knew and loved was simply a facade, just as she was in those pictures hanging on the wall. She was smiling in those pictures while holding Doyle’s hand. In others, she was smiling against his lips, their fingers tangled in each other’s hair. I shook my head. She was a stranger to us. All this time, we trusted and loved her, and yet we didn’t really know anything about her. She was going to have to explain a lot when she would get back.

I was broken out of my trance when I heard the team arguing about whether or not what Emily had done undercover was moral or not. She sold Doyle weapons. She slept with him. From the looks of it, she even fell in love with him. Was that a part of the plan, or was that who Emily really was?

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Reid insisted with a hint of a whine buried behind his words. “We’re her family. We could have helped her…”

I threw the letter on the table. “Doyle’s been killing families. She ran so that he wouldn’t come after us. She’s leading him away.” Everyone glanced over at me, their faces falling as they saw how red and teary eyes I was, and how I was melted down to sniffles and quiet sobs now.

Reid stretched across the table to pick up the letter. Boy genius could have read the letter in its entirety in less than two seconds, if my math was correct, yet he kept hesitating on every other word, forcing him to practically start over every time his eyes fogged up too far with tears or he lost his train of thought.

“She doesn’t want us to go after her…” he croaked. “How could she ask that of us?”

“Because it’s too dangerous,” Hotch said.

“Her messes are our messes, though. That’s part of being a family,” I whispered. I looked around at all of them. “We have to help her.” Morgan’s gaze fell to the ground. “Derek, please… You know we have to.”

“Morgan, in the morning, you and Rossi will head to Prentiss’ apartment to see if you can find anything to tell us where she went,” Hotch continued as calmly as he could. “In the meantime, let’s get Y/N caught up to speed.”

I sent him a quick look that asked if he was really going to let me pursue this, if he was actually going to let me into the field for this. He nodded. My whole body relaxed in response, a behavioral way to thank him for knowing what I needed and giving in without starting an argument.

Everyone sat down and settled. Hotch cleared his throat. “This is personal. And I know that we’re not supposed to ever let it get personal, so… If it’s ever too much for any of you, it’s okay to take a step back.” No one seemed to be listening to him. All of us just wanted to dive straight into it so that we could catch up to Emily as fast as possible. Hotch caught the hint. “Okay.” He gestured to JJ to give him the clicker for the TV, and once she did, he began speaking. “My friend from… Well, from higher places, gave me this information about Lauren Reynolds. She was apart of a secret group working under Interpole, the CIA, and a dozen other organizations where they profiled terrorists around the world. Their last target was Ian Doyle.” He put a picture of Doyle up on the board. It was the first time I had ever seen this man’s face straight on compared to just his cheek as he was hugging or kissing Emily in any one of the photos up on the walls. “Emily had gone undercover as an arms dealer named Lauren Reynolds. Her mission was to get close enough to Doyle in order to build a stronger profile. Her undercover work, along with the entire team’s profile is what finally took him down. Jeremy Wolff was Doyle’s first victim in this spree.” He pulled up a photo of Jeremy. “He was murdered while on a morning run. His fiancé, Tsia Mosely was the victim Morgan and Prentiss found last night.”

“That was Em’s trigger to leave,” Garcia gasped.

“Clyde Easter was the leader of the profiling task force. He had come to D.C. a couple of days ago with Tsia, but after her murder last night, he ran. My friends in those higher places have already put him on the TSA’s watch list.”

“How close did Prentiss and Doyle get, though?” Rossi scoffed while looking at one of the pictures of them kissing passionately.

I shook my head and looked down.

Hotch didn’t seem to want to talk about it either. So, he instead opted to say, “Doyle fell madly in love with her. That was how they ultimately took him down.”

“Does he know that?” JJ asked.

“I would assume so.”

“That’s why he’s leaving her for last…” I whispered while running my hands over my stomach to ignore the stomachache that was slowly but surely returning.

Morgan stormed out of the room, deciding that he didn’t want to sit around long enough to hear all of this while also doing nothing. If anything, he was probably headed to go to Emily’s apartment already. Rossi stood, too, just when he put the pieces together. We all sighed and fell quiet, considering just how bad things were getting, and the fact that they could get much worse soon if we weren’t faster.

----

After Morgan and Rossi came back, they met with us in the roundtable room to discuss what it was that they had found at Emily’s apartment. Yesterday, while I was at home resting and they found Tsia’s body, Emily threw up outside, then asked Morgan to drive her home so that she could change clothes. What Morgan failed to recognize at the time was that she was packing up a go-bag so that she could leave when the time was right. But she left her safe open. Not that it was a mistake or that she was being careless, but because she knew that we were going to try to follow after her, and she was only giving us what she wanted us to know. She had tried to flush the golden necklace in Rossi’s hand, but he had spotted it just before they decided to head back to the office.

It was a Gimmel ring— a Gaelic-made wedding ring where the husband and wife’s rings would be worn separately during the engagement, then, for the wedding, they would be molded together to represent their unity. The one hanging from the chain in Rossi’s hand was already molded together. He handed it to me so that I could inspect it further. Immediately, I took to the detail of the different Gaelic marking on both rings, and how they certainly meant something in Gaelic—something only Spencer Reid himself could translate, so I passed the necklace to him. He examined it closely, too. While he was busy, I crossed my arms over my chest, shrugged, and asked what this had to do with anything. Certainly, it was just her parents’ old wedding rings, or perhaps her grandparents’. Emily was never married prior. We would have known if she were ever married.

“Ian was—” Rossi began.

“Shit—” Reid threw the necklace on the table angrily before I could get an answer from someone. We all turned to face him. He gestured to the rings, “They have Ian and Emily’s names on them.”

“As I was saying,” Rossi continued cautiously, “Doyle was part of the Irish Mob… The running theory Morgan and I had on the way over here was that it belonged to Doyle. We didn’t know that Emily was… Well, we didn’t realize… I…” He chuckled to himself and how outrageous the situation was. Did we really not know anything about her?

“Doyle ran his operations out of Boston,” Morgan said quietly from the corner. He was sitting down, unlike the rest of us, and he was staring at the closed Ian Doyle file Hotch had gotten from his friends in “higher places”. When we all turned to him, that was his cue to continue. “That was where he and Emily met.” He looked at me. “It’s important to both of them. If he’s not in D.C. anymore, which I doubt he is, he probably scurried back to what he knows, which is Boston. And since Emily wasn’t going to let him bring the fight to us, she probably ran to take the fight to him.” He slid the file away from himself like he didn’t want to stare at it any longer.

“As usual, my slice of chocolate cake is correct,” Garcia said, turning into the boardroom with a laptop in her hands, racing over to the table as if she could hear what we were talking about from across the office. “TSA just got a hit on one of Clyde Easter’s covers. He’s on his way to Boston.”

My jaw fell slightly in shock. “He probably had the same thought we did. He knows Emily just as well as we do, but he knows Doyle better. He knew that they were likely in Boston.”

“It confirms Morgan’s theory,” Hotch agreed. “Garcia, have him detained the second he gets off that plane. We’ll interrogate him when we get there.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And, you’re coming with us.”

She looked up at him suddenly, uncertainty written all over her face. “Okay. Yeah. Sure.”

As she began contacting TSA again, we all headed to grab our go-bags and get ready to head for the jet. Hotch and I headed to his office. He had some extra clothes stored away in a drawer, so he carefully grabbed them to make sure they would stay folded, then slid them into his bag. I sat down at his desk to look at Emily’s gift again. The box was just staring at me. It was as if it were saying to me: “She’s already dead. You’re too late. There’s nothing you can do.” I sniffled and wiped my face clean with my palms. Hotch, from where he was standing opposite me, took notice of my behavior, yet he didn’t say anything, probably because he didn’t know what to say. If anything, he was just as panicked as I was, as frustrated as Morgan, as desperate as Reid and JJ; he just showed it differently.

On the jet, however, that was another story. Everyone sat down for takeoff, and Hotch held my hand the entire time. Even though I wasn’t scared of flying on the jet anymore, there were times when there were personal stakes involved when he needed to hold me and rub his thumb over my knuckles, and even kiss my cheek once. I melted into his touch. I turned to face him, both of us relaxing with our eyes closed, and I kissed him gently.

Once we were in the air, he tugged at my hand. “I have something to give you.” He pulled me to my feet and led me past the team, then, when there was some remnants of privacy, he handed me a piece of paper.

“What’s this?” I inquired.

“A list of Emily’s phone numbers.”

I looked up at him. “Why?”

“Most of those are unlisted, and only a select few of us know about them, but I figure that if she’ll pick up for anyone right now, it might be you, considering she left the gift for you.”

“You want me to call all of these?” The list was probably nine to ten different phone numbers. How the hell did Emily have so many different phones?

Hotch nodded. “Just try.” He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly before leaving to take a seat with the team again.

I sighed and headed towards the back of the jet. “Whatever you say, boss.”

After stepping into the small bathroom, I turned and locked the door, then I slowly sat down on the toilet seat while turning the list over in my hands so that I could start dialing. The phone didn’t even ring once. There was an immediate dial tone, followed by a voice telling me that the phone number was disconnected by the owner. I sighed and began dialing the next number. Same thing. The first four were all disconnected lines, but by the fifth one, I finally got to her voicemail before a robotic voice told me that the inbox was full. I cursed under my breath. Was that how the next four numbers were going to be, too? There was probably no point to this in the first place. Emily didn’t want us to follow her, therefore she wasn’t going to let us contact her in any way, and I should have known better.

When I reached the last phone number, I entirely anticipated that it wouldn’t work. To my surprise, however, the voicemail came and ended, but there was no robotic voice. There was a single dial tone signaling me to start speaking, so I decided to just… go for it.

“Hey. It’s, um… It’s me. I don’t know if you’re safe, so I’ll keep it brief, but… Hotch said I should try calling all of your numbers to see if I happen to hear back from you. I don’t know why I’ve been sitting on the toilet in the jet for an hour doing all of this when I know you’re not going to pick up, but I just… I had to try. This is the only number that has room left for a voicemail. I don’t even know if you’ll ever hear this, but if you are… Emily… It’s time to come home. Please. I can’t do this without you—I don’t know how to do this without you. I read your letter, and I haven’t been able to stop crying and worrying about you since then. You’re not allowed to die, Emily Prentiss. Do you hear me? I don’t care what it takes, you’re not allowed to leave us. You’re not allowed to just write a goodbye letter and then make it seem like it’s okay that you might not get to meet my baby. You don’t get to say goodbye. Not like that. You don’t get to leave and make me regret not loving you and appreciating you more. Shit…” I sniffled. “I took your love and friendship for granted, Emily, and I’m so sorry. I had all the time in the world to look at you and tell you that I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and Hotch. You’re our family, Em. You always have been and you always will be. You’re one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had, and the worst part is that I couldn’t recognize or admit it until you were gone, and I can’t say it to your face. So, I just need you to come home. I need you to survive all of this bullshit. Because you deserve to meet my baby and give them the koala bear. They deserve to fall asleep in your arms. I deserve the chance to get to look at you and say: ‘I love you, Emily Prentiss. You’re one of my best friends. Thank you.’ Morgan, Reid, Garcia, Hotch, JJ, and Rossi… We’re all waiting to see you again. We love you.”

The call beeped, signaling that I had taken too long to record my message, so it was just sending what I had already said, and that was it. I sighed and turned off my phone.

When we landed in Boston, Hotch’s phone immediately started ringing. We were all stepping off the plane when Hotch answered and stopped in his tracks on the runway. We stopped, too, to gauge just how bad the news was. Then, he hung up. He looked at us and told us that Boston P.D. just responded to a call at a local bar where there was a shooting. They had confirmed that Emily was involved.

At the precinct, we were immediately set up with a monitor so that we could watch the video to confirm whether or not it was really our Emily Prentiss. The security camera outside of the bar was set up at an awkward angle, so all we could really see was a group of men climbing into two separate black SUVS. Out of nowhere, gunfire rained onto the side of the second car, and that was when we saw Emily stepping into the frame of the camera, a MAC-10 in her hands, and a flashbang being thrown into the broken window of the car. But when she approached the car, something seemed wrong.

Suddenly, Ian Doyle revealed himself from the shadows, his gun raised at her; and before Emily could do anything, he fired.

“Oh, my—” I jumped as the gunshots rang. I stumbled back and caught my footing on a nearby desk.

She was killing me with worry at this point. Every time something bad happened to our team, it built this knot in the pit of my stomach that made me want to puke or just completely fall to my knees and give up because worrying about them—my family—was sometimes too unbearable to handle. Worrying about Hotch, Morgan, and Emily specifically were the worst moments. When Hotch was in danger, it was like I couldn’t move or breathe. When Morgan was in danger—like when he stole the ambulance in New York, I felt like my legs would give out at any second and the only thing that could put me back together was knowing that he, my best friend in the entire world, was alright. And he was. Him and Hotch were always okay. No matter how much pain they put me through, at least I could say that they were okay and they were still with me. Hotch was still by my side. Morgan was still there to tease me every chance he got. Yet, this time, with Emily in the hot seat now, it felt like things weren’t going to be okay. That knot in my stomach was twisting in ways worse than ever before—and maybe it was because the stress was putting pressure on the baby, or maybe it was the fact that I never had to worry about her like this before… or maybe it was the fact that I didn’t realize that I cared for her this much until something terrible happened that I wasn’t sure was going to end with rainbows and unicorns. This didn’t feel right. There was something about my worry for her this time around that made me feel like something horrible was going to happen. And when I heard those gunshots echo through the security footage, I thought that was it. Before I saw Doyle pry open her shirt, I was convinced that it was over. I thought for sure as I jumped out of my own skin that I was never going to see her again.

“She’s alive,” JJ said, “that’s the good news.” She sighed heavily. “She’s alive.”

“Only because Doyle wants to toy with her,” Rossi said.

“Once he’s felt he’s made his point of revenge, he’ll kill her,” Hotch added.

“It gives us time to find her, though.” I turned back around to face the team. “We’re going to have to talk to Clyde Easter. He’s the only way we can stop hitting these walls in the case like complete fucking idiots.” Everyone seemed shocked at my anger. “Sorry,” I apologized quietly.

“You’re right.” Hotch crossed his arms over his chest and started drawing his thumb around his lips while thinking. “You want the honors of talking to him?” he asked me. I nodded eagerly. “Okay. Garcia, keep trying to track their path from the bar. See if you can narrow down where it is they took her. It’s probably somewhere remote. Definitely not in the center of the city.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because he’ll want to hear her scream,” Morgan answered blatantly.

No one said anything.

Before I could let his depressing words continue to seep into my mind and heart, I started walking towards the mirror room. Hotch silently followed me. When we reached the door, he skipped a few steps so that he could beat me to it and hold it open for me. I thanked him with a smile.

“I’ll go in first just to loosen him up a bit. Until then, you stay back here.” Hotch grabbed the doorhandle to the interrogation room, then stepped in.

Clyde immediately pushed himself to his seat. “What is this?! I demand to talk to the British Consulate!”

“Calm down.”

“You can’t keep me here. You would know that if you would let me speak with—”

“The British Consulate. Yeah, I know.” He turned the file in his hands over. “Clyde Easter, I’m Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—”

“Oh, my god,” Easter groaned. “What the hell are you doing in here with me, then?! Shouldn’t you be out there, looking for her?”

Hotch ignored him by opening up the file. “October of 2006. ‘In closing, I have never worked with an agent finer than Agent Prentiss. Her skill at analyzing and predicting terrorist behavior is unparalleled.’ Signed, name redacted.” Hotch threw the file on the table. “Do you want to know what it was that I read when I was given her file in October of 2006? I’ll never forget it because it was the best recommendation I had ever read. ‘In closing, I have never worked with an agent finger than Agent Prentiss. Her skill at analyzing data and predicting the behaviors of potential serial killers is unparalleled.’ Signed, name redacted. I never knew who it was that wrote that recommendation, and I never found out how it was that a small-time data analyst agent got moved from a desk job to being a profiler for the BAU. That was why it impressed me. I can remember staring at it for hours while asking myself, what was it that Cody and Strauss saw in this girl that was so different from the rest of my team that she got special permission to join the unit? I didn’t clear her. In fact, I was told that she was cleared to be on my team, and that was the end of it. But now I know how it happened. The recommendation came from you, it went to Interpol and the CIA, who then sent it to Cody as it was, and he saw an opportunity to steal away a brilliant agent from Europe and utilize her within his greatest unit at the Bureau, so he took it. You used all the right buzzwords with him, which was how Emily was transferred. But her work with your unit was confidential, so you had to write a second recommendation that used my buzzwords in order to get me off your scent.”

“Okay. And?”

“It takes a true sociopath to betray his team and the cause he held dear for self-preservation.”

“So, then, you don’t believe any of your team is capable of that kind of betrayal?”

“I know they aren’t.”

Easter chuckled. “Sure.”

“My point is, if you help us save Agent Prentiss, I might be willing to make a deal with you. Otherwise, you’ll end up in Guantanamo Bay. That’s not what you want. Is it?”

Easter didn’t say anything. Hotch had to know that his threat was entirely empty, right? I mean, we only suspected that Clyde Easter was the one who sold out his team to Doyle, but we had no way to prove it; and by the looks of it, Easter knew that. This tactic wasn’t going to work on him.

“She said you were the best,” Clyde finally said. “I’m unimpressed, however. As I’ve already said, I cannot help you.”

Hotch sighed and took his leave, reentering the mirror room to send me a look that told me that it was finally my turn. So, that was all apart of the plan. He knew that he wasn’t going to get in with Easter that way, but it would get him worked up enough that I could find a way in. I nodded and switched places with him, heading into the interrogation room.

“Hello, I’m Agent—”

“Great,” Easter threw his hands up, “another agent. Like I told the other guy, I won’t speak to any of you. I want to speak to the British Consulate first!”

I rolled my eyes and continued, “I’m Agent Hotchner.” That surely got his attention, as I knew it would. “We need your help saving Emily.”

“Like I told the other Agent Hotchner, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

I searched his eyes for a moment, reading the sparkle there that was pleading for answers and to know that Emily was safe. He cared for her just as much as we did. We were all panicked and racing around to rescue her from Doyle, yet Easter knew he couldn’t, and that was killing him slower than potentially anything Doyle had planned for him. I could use that. Unfortunately, it was my only way in with him; and by catching that slight bit of empathy hidden behind that thick skin of his, I could poke that button now to gain his favor.

So, I used the only thing I could think of. Even Hotch didn’t know this yet, but he was standing in the mirror room, so he was about to find out. “I never got the chance to tell her that she’s going to be the godmother of my child.” Easter’s attention snapped to me. “I need your help giving me that chance.”

Suddenly, as if on cue, Hotch burst into the room. “Did you know that Jeremy sold the list to Doyle?”

I cocked a brow while glancing between the two men in the room. “What?”

“I had my suspicions,” Easter answered. Any bit of rapport I had just built with him was washed away by Hotch’s interruption. Great.

“We need your team’s original profile of Ian Doyle so that we can save Emily’s life,” Hotch said.

“I can’t do that—”

“We need to know who he is as a terrorist in order to profile him as a torturer and serial killer.”

“I can’t do that,” he repeated, this time with his voice fluctuating to tell us that there was more to be said, “without making a deal first.” I rolled my eyes. “You have to kill Ian Doyle yourself. Even if it means killing him without cause.”

“No.”

“You must. If you don’t kill him, then he’s going to keep going after her.”

“I said, no. We don’t kill people without reason.”

“Then, you must do whatever it takes to keep Emily alive. If you think he’s a danger to her, then you must kill him. Protect her at all costs, Agent Hotchner.”

Hotch hesitated for a moment. “Okay.”

The door opened again. JJ was standing in the entryway, still holding onto the doorknob, leaning into the room as she said, “The British Consulate just arrived.”

“Tell them—” Hotch began.

Easter cut him off, “Tell them that their assistance is not required. I’m now consulting with the BAU on a case. That is… if Agent Hotchner agrees to the rest of my terms.” We all looked at him blankly. “Privately.”

The room was silent for a moment as we all stayed still, watching each other intently, waiting for someone to say something. There was no way Hotch was going to agree to that. Easter could ask for anything, and with how desperate we were, Hotch would probably give in, and we all knew it—Easter most of all. At least together we could become a voice of reason for one another. Alone, we were weak. Together, we were unbreakable and perfect. Working together every single day then being able to go home with a still healthy and loving relationship proved that much to everyone who ever doubted us, including JJ, who was still standing at the door.

“Go catch up with the team,” Hotch ordered me quietly.

“Hotch—”

“Go.”

“Aaron, this is a bad—”

“Go,” he ordered more demandingly, his eyes staring into mine with a look that Dominated me into submission. “Go.”

I looked away from him and headed out of the interrogation and mirror rooms with JJ, but I didn’t go to catch up with the team as Hotch had intended— hell, I didn’t even stick around JJ’s side long enough to let her see me kick a wall as hard as I could. I had him. I had Easter right where I fucking wanted, and as usual, Hotch came in to muck it up, thinking that he was saving the day; but now he was alone in there, making whatever deal it was with Easter instead of trusting me—his closest ally and coworker, and his wife. It was infuriating. I could have gotten Easter’s help without all of these extra steps and dramatics. Maybe Hotch was just mad that I brought up the fact that I wanted Emily to be our baby’s godmother. I hadn’t told him about that yet, and it was a rude way for me to let him know what I was thinking, I’d be the first to admit, but he had no right storming in there to break the sudden news that it was Jeremy who had sold out his own team. Fucking Jeremy. Did Tsia know? Clearly Emily and Clyde didn’t. But how could Jeremy possibly do that to his own team? It just begged the question that Easter had asked, were we so sure one of us wouldn’t do the same thing if we were desperate? I shook off the thought. There was no way in hell we would betray each other. We were family. We didn’t keep secrets—at least, none of us except for Emily…

“Sweetness,” Morgan cooed, carefully approaching me. I turned to him while huffing. He threw his hands up in surrender once he saw how red my face was from getting angry and taking it out on the defenseless wall. “You okay?”

“No,” I answered blatantly.

He lowered his hands. “Same.”

I sighed and rested my back against the wall. “I don’t hate her, I swear. I’m just…”

“Worried.”

I looked at him. “Yeah.”

“Me, too.”

“Hotch and Easter are making some kind of deal, I guess,” I said, changing subjects quickly because I felt like if I kept talking about her and the way I missed her, I would fall apart.

Morgan nodded. “They’re already done.” As I cocked a curious brow at him, he gestured behind him as if to say: “They’re waiting for us.” I still didn’t understand, though. “Easter’s presenting his team’s original profile to us.”

I immediately pushed myself off the wall, caught my footing, and stormed past Morgan to head to the boardroom where our team was set up. They were all waiting around patiently. Easter and Hotch were at the front of the room, both silent as they caught a glimpse of me and Morgan entering the room. I watched Hotch carefully while I circled the room and sat down in an empty chair. I was trying to get a read on the situation. What was it that he and Easter said to each other? Did he agree to any deal? Was the deal entirely outrageous? Was he ever going to tell me about the deal? Honestly, if it were important—or if he had taken the deal, he would tell me. Like I said a thousand times before, we didn’t keep secrets from each other. I trusted that he would tell me the truth in due time.

Easter cleared his throat as he began reciting the profile for us. Ian Doyle was a terrorist known under the name of Valhalla. Most of his work was spent in the U.S. smuggling weapons for the Irish Mob, but when he met Lauren Reynolds—or as we knew her, Emily Prentiss—he turned his attention towards building his own empire. His first attack was on his own uncle in Ireland. It was a calculated attack to gain power within the family, and it worked, however, it cost twenty-three innocent people their lives, too. After that, Doyle had to stay low while planning his next attack for power, which was going to be on a rival in Germany. That was when the clock started racing for Emily to complete the profile sooner. After a few months of staying undercover with Doyle in the farmlands of Italy, she reported back to her team with the following information: He was a power-assertive psychopath, who was highly controlling and precise, and if something ever went the slightest bit off plan, he lost his shit.

Sounded like someone I knew. I looked over at Hotch quickly.

“He had a son,” Easter continued. “I don’t know anything about him. Name, age, appearance, anything. Emily was very protective of him, claiming that we were there to profile Doyle, not ruin a child’s life. So, we never pried about it; though, in hindsight, perhaps we should have.”

“Doyle’s son isn’t listed in any of the information in these files,” Morgan said.

“His existence was Need-to-Know only. From what I can tell, Doyle didn’t even put his name on his own son’s birth certificate in order to protect him.”

“But he kept him close,” Hotch said, “so, someone had to raise him.”

“I’ll check employee records,” Garcia said, already typing away on her computer. “I got him!” Garcia cheered. “His name is Declan Jones. He settled in Boston eight years ago with his adopted guardian, Louise Jones, Doyle’s housekeeper.”

“Are they still alive?” Hotch interrogated.

“They went missing seven years ago— Oh, my god—” She looked away from her screen after pressing a single key that projected what she saw up on the monitor for the rest of us.

There were dozens of photos of Declan and Louise on the dirty floor of an abandoned warehouse, duct tape on the mouths, ropes on their wrists, tears streaming down their faces. And then there was a gun being pointed at their heads. I shook my head in denial. No. Please. The next few images were of them being executed one by one. I closed my eyes in disappointment, disgust, and distraught.

“Wait…” Reid whispered under his breath, taking a few steps closer to the screen. “Morgan, look at this.” I opened my eyes long enough to see them both squinting at the screen. “Look at the fingernails. Who do we know that chews on them to that extent?”

“Emily,” Morgan answered lightly, as if shock were settling in his stomach.

“I think I found the warehouse where these pictures were taken,” Garcia spoke up. Suddenly, all of our phones dinged with an address.

Hotch examined it for a moment. “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”

The team scattered to go collect their gear. Meanwhile, Garcia and JJ stayed put. I, on the other hand, had something on my mind. So, I carefully snuck out of the boardroom and tracked down Hotch to a room where they had a stack of FBI bulletproof vests. I stopped around the corner, however, when I heard Hotch getting off the phone with Strauss. Why the hell was he calling Strauss? I didn’t understand.

Within the next few moments, Hotch was getting ahold of a SWAT team to meet them at the location. While I was eavesdropping, I heard him mention that it was a high-risk situation. My heart started racing in my chest, and I felt like I was going to cry or start panicking. It felt like I was going to lose everyone at once, and the worst part was that I couldn’t do anything about the situation to tilt fate one way or another. If it were me out there, I would have jumped in front of any bullet aimed at anyone on the team. But I wasn’t going out there with them. I was being forced to stay back with JJ and Garcia. How was I supposed to trust that Spencer would jump in front of Hotch? He wouldn’t. The scariest part was that, if I lost Hotch or Morgan, as well as Emily, I wouldn’t know what to do. My life felt like it was crumbling into dust in my hands, and every anxious idea I ever had in my life was consuming me in that moment.

“Y/N?” Hotch waved a hand in my face. I snapped out of my trance long enough to look up at him with foggy eyes. “Baby, it’s going to be okay…” he cooed, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me close, our foreheads pressed against each other. “I’m going to have a body cam on so that you can make sure I’m safe the whole time.”

“Please be careful out there,” I whispered.

His breath was hot on my nose as he said. “I will. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He kissed my lips quickly, yet still passionately, before pulling himself away from me and hurrying out of the room, trading spots with Morgan who needed to grab his vest. My eyes followed him. For a short moment, neither of us said anything, giving me a chance to read his body language. Everything about him was angry. Since we knew for sure that Emily was involved in all of this, Morgan had decided that he was going to be pissed off with her compared to just trying to be understanding and focus on finding her until we could ask her all of our questions.

“Are you going to be okay out there?” I questioned. He nodded while pulling the vest over his head. “Do me a favor, then?” He nodded again. “Watch his back for me since I can’t.”

Morgan looked up at me as he snapped the velcro straps together. “I’ll try.”

I flung my arms around him without warning. He stumbled back before catching me, his arms somewhat embracing me since he didn’t want to squeeze me too hard with my baby bump in the way. I hid my face against the hem of his v-neck. “Thank you.” I let out a sigh. “She’ll be okay.” I knew that had been weighing on his mind, and that was why he was incredibly upset with her. He just cared for her the same way he cared for me and Garcia, and he just couldn’t imagine losing any of us; so, he was taking that anxiety out on all of us using anger… He just needed to hear, “She’s going to be okay,” again, though, and it seemed to help somewhat.

----

Things spiraled quickly and without any warning. Just as SWAT kicked down the door, gunfire was exchanged, causing Hotch, Morgan, Rossi, and Reid to all scatter and find another way into the building. Reid and Morgan went together, but Hotch and Rossi went to the right. They were splitting up. No. Please. Morgan promised that he would watch Hotch’s back for me. I needed them to be together, to make sure that they were both okay, and that they were going to come back to me.

A man stepped out of the door Hotch and Rossi were headed towards. Just as the man raised his weapon at Hotch, I gasped, my hand flying up to cover my mouth in a panic. Rossi shot the man first, though. My shoulders relaxed and I let myself catch my breath. Garcia, on the other hand, had finally decided that enough was enough, and she turned away at the first sight of blood.

Finally, Rossi grabbed ahold of the door before it could slam shut, and Hotch ran in, careful to check every dark corner, every open room, and every locked door. This was the dangerous part. Anyone could have jumped out at any time, catching him off guard, taking him and the chance to say goodbye away from me. Yet, there was no one there. It was like a ghost town until they met up with SWAT again towards the exit of the building where all of the bodies of Doyle’s men were piled up from their failed attempt to fight back.

“We’ve cleared this area,” the SWAT leader told Hotch. “We’re clearing the rest of the building now.”

“We got the right—” Hotch began responding.

“Hotch!” Morgan shouted into the comms. “Prentiss is down!”

My face fell. What the fuck was he talking about? Where was Doyle? How had things spiraled so quickly? The team had only just infiltrated the building, and now there were no eyes on Ian Doyle, and Morgan was claiming that something was wrong with Emily. I refused to believe that she was dead. I didn’t care what he said. There was no way in hell I was going to lose her like this, and there was no way I was never going to see her again. It just wasn’t possible.

Hotch turned on his heels and started dashing in the opposite direction of the exit to go find Morgan in order to see what was really going on. I didn’t believe it. Emily was somewhat of a trickster, though she would never outright admit it. Her and Morgan were devious together, though. I could remember the way she and I used to pick on him for the smallest things, and then the next day, they would team up to prank me as payback. Emily was never the instigator or victim in those cases. She just went with the flow, and she always had the brightest smile on her face. So, I was sure that Hotch was about to turn that corner, and what we were going to see was Emily Prentiss with that bright, toothy grin lighting up her face and the entire room, and Morgan would be laughing behind her at our expense.

“Y/N,” JJ whispered to me, her eyes moving from the monitor to me. I didn’t look at her. “Y/N, you’re hypervent—”

“It’s not true,” I insisted quickly.

Honestly, I hadn’t even realized how lightheaded I was until JJ said something, but that wasn’t going to break my concentration. I was just waiting for Hotch to turn that corner. In just a few moments, all of my suspicions would be confirmed, and I would be able to calm down. I’d be able to breathe, sit down, maybe drink something cold to keep me from puking everywhere.

And then I saw her.

For the briefest moment, I saw her raven hair, and I smiled. For just a single millisecond, I thought that everything was alright, and that we were going to all go home tonight together, and I’d never let her go again. But then Hotch stepped closer. He was hesitant at first, almost like he couldn’t believe what he saw, yet as Morgan’s pleas for help got louder, Hotch ran over to her and grabbed her hand with Morgan. Once he was close enough, I could see the large wooden stake buried in her stomach, right where all of the most vital organs lived.

She was losing consciousness. Her eyes kept fluttering, as if she was fighting her very hardest to keep looking at them. Despite both Morgan and Hotch trying to convince her to keep her eyes open, however, Emily was ultimately starting to slowly close her eyes, her head tilting to the side. A sob left me without warning.

“Hotch…” Emily whispered. She could hardly move, breathe, or speak, yet she was still trying. She was so strong. She always was. She was the strongest person I knew. She could get through this. She could get through anything. “Hotch…”

“I’m right here,” he cooed.

She sighed weakly. “Tell… Tell Y/N I’m sorry… And… I… They didn’t take me for granted…”

“Stop it, Prentiss. You’re going to talk to them yourself,” Morgan insisted.

Her hand was starting to release his, though, and her head was falling back as her eyes couldn’t stay open any long. Hotch shook his head and leaned into her desperately. “Come on, Emily. Stay awake for us. The medics are almost here.” I saw a tear of his land on her collarbone. “Please.” But she wasn’t moving anymore. “Please…”

“No, no, no, no,” Morgan mumbled under his breath as Emily stopped breathing. “No. Emily—” He pressed his palms against her chest to begin performing CPR. “Where are the fucking medics?!”

Just then, as if they realized just how late they were running, a group of medics came storming into the room. Morgan kept pumping Emily’s lungs, but Hotch took a step back to leave the professionals room to help save Emily. I fell into the chair behind me. I couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not when I was entirely unable to help her or even say goodbye. I wanted to tell her that she had nothing to be sorry for, and that I was the stupid one who did take her for granted, but I loved her so much. I wanted to look at her and tell her that. I wanted it to be with her in that moment, holding her and telling her to keep breathing and blinking because she was going to be the godmother of my child. She had every reason to live now. If for some dumb fucking reason she thought it was okay to let go now in order to spare us some kind of pain, that wasn’t the truth! She had to know that she was going to be a real part of our family now. We needed her here. I needed her here.

Suddenly, she let out a gasp as she woke up. Morgan immediately stumbled back, falling onto his tailbone so that he could be out of the way, too. Within an instant, the medics were sliding her onto a stretcher, then working together to carry her outside, Hotch and Morgan following closely.

“What…” I cleared my throat. “What hospital…”

“St. Bernard’s!” Morgan answered while racing on his toes towards the SUV so that he could drive behind the ambulance.

I pushed myself up to my feet, inviting JJ and Garcia’s stretched out arms that were there to catch me in case I ended up collapsing, which honestly felt entirely possible now. But I tried my best to ignore it.

JJ drove while Garcia and I sat in the back together, holding hands in an attempt to help ease our nerves. We were both shaking like chihuahuas. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure how it was that JJ got us to the hospital safe and sound. If I were driving, I would have crashed before leaving the parking lot of the police station. By the time we were stepping out of the SUV, I thought I was going to pass out due to the nerves, yet JJ still seemed like an unwavering force in the face of disaster. She was set on the path of one thing and one thing only… Finding the team and seeing if Emily was alright. In fact, she seemed more determined than any of the rest of us.

When we found the waiting room, we discovered that the team was sitting around in silence. They had all taken their vests off and thrown them onto a single chair in the corner. Morgan was on his own, staring down at his bloody hands. Meanwhile, Reid and Rossi were together, staring at the wall, both of them entirely lost in thought. And then there was Hotch… He was sitting just ahead of me, his face buried in his hands as his knee bounced like crazy. He had taken off his tie, and the top button of his dress shirt was undone, just as his cufflinks had been undone, too. My face pouted. When he looked up at me, I saw just how distraught he was, and I knew that the only thing that could possibly help make things better was to hold each other close. He seemed to have the same thought because he pushed himself to his feet and held out his arms for me.

“Have you guys heard anything?” I asked as I flung my arms around Hotch.

“Nothing yet.”

“I’m going to talk to the doctors,” JJ said, already walking out of the room.

Hotch let go of me slightly, giving me a chance to turn around to see that Morgan still hadn’t looked up from his hands. I whispered to Hotch that he should sit down and wait for me to come back. He nodded and did as he was told. Without saying anything, I left the waiting room to find a nurse to see if she could give me a cloth and a water bottle in order to wipe all of the blood off of Morgan. When I had what I needed, I returned to the room to see that Garcia was trying to console him already, so I handed the materials to her then went to sit down next to Hotch.

Without hesitating, Hotch took my hand in his, and he hid his face against my bicep. “I can’t do this,” he whispered.

“It’s okay. She’s going to be okay.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t say anything.

A few minutes later, as JJ returned from tracking down the doctors to get an update on how Emily was doing, we all sat up straight to hear the news. Though, nothing technically had to be said. Just from her posture, her puffy, red face, and the way her lip was quivering, I knew that it wasn’t good. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to come back to the FBI? Maybe she wouldn’t be able to walk again? No. I had to stop imaging the worst. JJ just had to tell us. So, we waited for her to gain the courage.

“She never made it off the table,” she finally admitted.

“No,” I shook my head in denial. “No, you’re lying.”

JJ just stared at all of us while blinking away the tears.

I kept shaking my head. “JJ, where is she?”

She didn’t move.

“JJ!” I exclaimed angrily, pushing myself to my feet.

Hotch tried to pull me down. I felt my breath shudder as a choked back sob slowly crept out of my chest. The whole world was crashing down on me. The pain I felt in New York was nothing compared to this. The pain of seeing Haley dead on our bedroom floor was lightyears away from this. This wasn’t real. I was dreaming. Emily wasn’t gone. She probably just got out of surgery and her first thought was to have JJ play some kind of a sick joke on us. Well, ha ha. I wanted to see her now.

Reid stood from his chair and tried to push past JJ, but she caught him in a hug. When I saw them both break down into tears, I finally realized that this was real. This was happening. My knees buckled and I wavered slightly. Hotch jumped up and wrapped his arms around me so that I wouldn’t fall over. I cried out and sobbed as hard as I could. She was supposed to come home. She was supposed to meet my baby.

-------------

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22 @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc @braty-angel

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine

35 notes · View notes

seungminotes · 3 years

Text

Charming Worries Away

Hello @n8dlesoupguk I was your skz secret santa! I had so much fun talking to you this month and you are so so sweet I wuv you now. I know this is a bit later for you because time zones boo :( but I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed today to the fullest! Hope you enjoy this, much love.

word count: 1.5k

desc. / warning: hogwarts au, Gryffindor!Jisung x reader (no house specified), gender neutral

note: hope you enjoy!

It was already past the newly implaced strict curfew, but you couldn’t get the sound of Jisung’s frantic whispering of enchantations out of your head. There was no doubt the guy was practicing his charms that evening when he skipped supper in the Great Hall, without even giving you the usual heads up when he missed.

You knew his upcoming NEWTs were stressing him out as of late, his Charms exam more than any other, as expected from the forgetful boy. He’d always managed to change up spells a bit, placing emphasis on the wrong parts of words, even replacing some with awfully incorrect ones. You wish you could somehow help the troubled Gryffindor, but you knew Jisung was often too prideful to ever actually accept your help.

Which is why you were currently tiptoeing towards the astronomy tower, exactly where he was to take his exam next week. He’d been practicing there for the past few days, figuring out mnemonic devices he could possibly use from the surroundings to little avail. He was well aware of the great possibility he had in failing this one NEWT and it slightly discouraged him in his hopes of someday becoming a great auror, like the ones he’d see on the daily newspapers the owls would drop during breakfast. Ever since his first year, he’d dreamed of becoming such a figure, having been muggle-born though, he knew there was a lot to learn. But he never thought his forgetful tendencies could ever hold him back this much.

When you opened the creaky door to the Astronomy Tower’s roof, Jisung was sure enough hunched over his Charms notebook that you had binded the week prior, insisting that he stop lugging around and losing dozens of sheets of paper around campus. You had even offered to transcribe them into a separate book for him, worried his awful handwriting was only contributing to his trouble in remembering the right words to charms (though you hesitated in specifying this reasoning). He of course rejected your offer, adamant on getting by on his own somehow.

“Sung,” you called.

Jisung promptly looked up, sighing internally as his gaze was met with your glowing eyes looking down towards him. He immediately took notice of the aluminum wrapped bowl you held, surely from the kitchen you so often would sneak to this late at night with him on weekends.

He stood to take the bowl from your clammy hands, placing it on the roof’s concrete barrier, just at his own chest height.

“It’s late,” he sighed, this time externally, heaving a deep breath after. He wouldn’t normally mind meeting up with you this late, but this wasn’t the time to be fooling around, his Charms NEWT was the very first he was to take next week, he couldn’t risk getting distracted now.

“Benefits of a prefect in training-in-training I guess,” you shrugged before pulling out the badge given to you earlier that night.

Jisung’s face quickly ridded itself of any signs of exhaustion and frustration, his bright gummy smile on full display at the sight. You’d wanted to be a prefect for a while now, and though he never understood why, he was suddenly so full of happiness for you, momentarily forgetting his own worries.

He quickly pulled you into a tight embrace.

“Sneaking out will be a lot easier now huh,” he teased.

“I could deduct points, watch out,” you countered, causing him to scoff with a feigned hurt face.

Your banter soon died down from the news and Jisung’s worries suddenly came crashing down onto him once again.

“I’m gonna fail,” he signed, still somehow maintaining a small smile from before. He knew his dream of becoming an auror was crushed if he couldn't pass this measly test.

“So what if you do?” you stood by him, looking over the roof’s barrier over to the darkness of the Forbidden Forest

He scoffed again. “What do you mean ‘so what?’ I can’t be an auror if I fail, stupid,” he ruffled your hair harshly.

“You could always retake it you know, there’s no shame in it, but Jisung…” you began to reason, but soon trailed off not knowing how to put things into words correctly enough for this conversation to be of any help for Jisung.

“But…” he mocked.

“I probably couldn’t be an auror anyay, right? Are there even muggle-born aurors? Do you think I could make it?” he asked, turning his gaze towards you, surprised to meet your eyes on him again. He was letting his thoughts eat him up now and you of course knew this because Jisung would never voice out such insecurities, he was your token Gryffindor, prideful, strong, self-assured, sometimes cocky kind of Gryffindor, a poster boy for the damn house, though muggle-born.

“Jisung, of course you can make it. You’re Han Jisung, the best seeker Hogwarts has ever seen, the ‘best Defence Against the Dark Arts student’ Snape has ever had, you’re good at everything you’ve ever touched, are you kidding me? I wish I was half as good as you with the spells you can barely cast sometimes and I’ve been in this magic shit my whole life. Are you seriously doubting yourself now, oh so prideful Gryffindor?” Your attempt at reassuring him was not a complete miss, Jisung’s heart swelled at the mention of your admiration for his skills, but that Snape comment did the trick in getting him to show off his bright smile again.

“Snape did not say that,” he laughed off.

“Best muggle-born I’ve ever met,” you mocked in the best impression you could muster, placing that hateful emphasis on the ‘muggle-born’ as your dreaded professor so often does.

“That’s a compliment if I’ve ever heard one, take it or leave it, that’s the best you’re getting from that grinch.”

“I’ll make him give me a better one, one of these days,” he sighed.

“That sounds like my Sung,” you reach over to his hand clutching his notes, gently taking them from him, unknowing of the red spreading all over Jisung’s face at your comment. ‘Your Sung’ he repeated in his head.

“You should eat and get to bed, you’re pressuring yourself too much these days, you’re gonna jumble up your spells in there,” you playfully knock on his forehead.

Your caring nature isn’t unusual, but for reasons unknown to Jisung at this very moment, it makes him nervous. He feels a slight bump in his throat, keeping him from voicing out his refusal at the idea of heading to bed and taking back his book, his nerves are tingling and he feels his heart speed up and his hands begin to clam up as he takes of the aluminum foil of the warm container of food, most likely charmed by you to stay so hot on such a cold night.

You stand so close yet so unaware of the fumbling feelings of the boy standing right beside you, flipping through his notes and once again eyeing his scribbles inscribed messily with the quill he was somehow still so ill-accustomed to.

“My offer to rewrite these still stands, you know, can you even read this?” your eyes narrow to attempt at reading a page yourself.

“I think I can read what I write, thanks,” he awkwardly laughs off, cheeks full of rice.

“Hmmm, I think I’ll do it anyway, free of charge, you won’t even owe me anything, promise,” you insist, watching his head slightly tilt down in embarrassment.

“Jisung, you know that I’m always willing to help you right? You don’t have to ask. I’m right here for you.” you assure him.

‘You don’t have to though,” he explains, sighing once again as he lifts the spoonful of rice to his mouth again.

“Jisung, I want to,” you argue, firm in your words, this time clutching the boy’s arm gently, applying slight pressure to assure him of your presence. Your eyes deadpanned on his, your expression was so serious yet so vulnerable at this very moment and Jisung woud have to be stupid to not realize the implictness of your words.

Jisung’s heart surged at the contact and he suddenly wished he would've just brushed off your offer and let you go through the pain of copying his notes for him.

He was suddenly all too aware of your hand on his arm and the gaze you held so intently on him and the meaning of every little thing you two had ever done together. He wondered how long he’d felt these nerves for and could not pinpoint an exact moment when this increased heartbeat began to feel familiar with your touch. It could have been years ago for all he knew. His thoughts were spiraling way too fast for his comfort.

“I want you to,” he suddenly blurted much louder than he intended to, he realized as he watched you flinch.

“Good,” you meekly responded, taking a deep breath of relief at his anwer.

“Good,” he whispered before slightly closing his eyes with the cool breeze and sighing one more time.

#skz #skz imagines #han jisung imagines #han jisung #stray kids imagines #skz fluff #skz scenarios #stray kids fluff #han jisung fluff #han jisung drabbles #jisung fluff #jisung imgines #jisung #han jisung blurbs #stray kids drabbles

53 notes · View notes

awesome-cookies-and-cream · 3 years

Text

Reki and Langa’s dynamic

It’s speculation at my part and a shameless rant on what i like about sk8 just to get it off my chest I’ve been so fixated help

it’s 5am I’m at uni and i have a shit ton to do, am I really gonna make an essay about sk8 instead? yes abso-fucking-lutely. strap on to your metaphorical skateboards kids. this is going to be long ride

this isn’t to call out anyone lol so in case you get that impression I’m sorry. I understand everyone is out to interpret media in whatever they like and that’s fine, but sometimes i feel like either some missed some points of the story? anyway here are my thoughts tho

alright so what i absolutely love about sk8 is how they didn’t make anyone into a genius.Genius is a mockery of the hardships everyone does to attain that level of skills. And no Langa is not a genius or a prodigy which I will explain later. I’ve seen enough shounen animes back in the day and usually it’s ‘annoying heart of gold beginner vs. calm and collected genius’ they usually hate each other’s guts and bicker all the time though secretly, deep down care for each other but would rather die than admit it dynamic. While I’m glad we’re moving past that, I really thought Reki and Langa would be like that so....

imagine my surprise when Langa was the ‘beginner’ in skating. He has the potential to be a second sasuke here lol. (blue, handsome, cool) but no he isn’t. he’s an adorable idiot, an airhead, head empty only skating dude and i love it.

Reki as well. He could have been the usual protagonist. (sucks at his sport, loud, hardworking, and by the power of friendship he suddenly beats everyone else which i think is pretty overused at this point, don’t you think?) some people complain how Reki despite being the MC isn’t given screentime and hasn’t won a single beef. (and sure that’s true. he should have won some and langa lose some but we only have 12 eps so lol) but he’s not the usual protagonist you know? and sk8 isn’t about winning. if it was, I think they would have focused on the techniques. the hows and the what to do.

Idk if you noticed, but sports anime with winning in its goal would often explain in detail certain techniques. (see haikyuu) but shows like Free and Yuri on Ice isn’t exactly talking about how to win that seriously as Haikyuu did. It’s more focusing on the feelings and how their lives are affected with their passion for this sport. it’s about the character development!!! and i think SK8 is something like that too. It explores the character’s feelings rather than sport. (like what i tell my sister, they use the sport as a character device if that makes sense?)

this was literally in the opening lol. it’s really about the feelings you know?

so anyway it’s been pointed out several times that Reki was already feeling insecure about his skills in skating since ep 1 way before Langa came. But he still likes to skate and despite feeling never enough, he still enjoyed it. (some also pointed out that Reki’s reason of going into a beef against Shadow has been because he insulted his way of skating not because he wanted to be the best) so the show from the get go was already hinting at his self esteem issues.

this also implies that Reki has always been feeling like this in a while, added with his tendencies to bottle things up, it makes sense that he’ll blow up at some point and he’ll need to release all of those feelings. (so yeah i think this is just the right amount of eps for their fall out. i see some people complaining shush. otherwise it would also feel too rushed. this is years weighing him)

and i guess it’s also implied in here he’s had days like these too in the past! seriously it’s an ongoing problem he’s been carrying. i think 3 eps is pretty good enough pace to internalize it

so point: Reki was already down way before Langa came. langa just added to that. And don’t go blaming Langa cause the boy did nothing wrong.

Consider that Langa just lost his dad (i think we need more backstory on this though. please sdsjkdksl i need little Langa and his dad interactions) he just moved countries, and the only connection to his dad (snowboarding) is gone cause it doesn’t snow in OKinawa

though one also argues that Langa hasn’t been snowboarding since his dad was gone.

so for Langa, Reki introducing skating to him was revolutionary. You’re someone grieving over the death of what is probably the most important person in your life, the thing you love the most no longer gives you joy (as was shown in the flashbacks and basically Langa going ‘it’s the same’) and you’re in a new country with a language you barely are fluent. you can’t even read or write, and you barely have friends granted you don’t have much back in the day. it’s horrible.

and then this guy you barely know talks to you, befriends you, helps you get a job, and teaches you something you thought you’ve lost and through that you made more friends??

yeah you see why Langa likes Reki. You also see why he’s obsessed with skating. It’s kind of like a coping, a fixation. plus he’s bad with social cues i guess? the interview says he’s likely to get dumped for being too inattentive lmao and that’s what makes him interesting!

also the thing that really surprised me when they first interacted was how supportive Reki is to Langa. it also got to me with how much Langa thinks highly of Reki. Again a deviation to the ‘i say i hate you but deep down i care for you’ trope. they’re full on supportive and protective. i like that. it’s fresh to me. I thought Reki was going to the tsundere ‘hmph that’s not a big deal’ route at the start of ep 2 but he’s really amazed. (kinda also says he’s been very desperate for someone to share skating with but that’s another topic)

so Reki teaches Langa how to skate. and Langa sucks. Which was interesting to me because I thought Langa would be some flawless prince-like character. But nah. He trips and faints at his own blood lol. He’s so uncool and i love it.

Some people say Langa is over powered with a thick ass plot armor which gets him to win (which is why i see people saying he should have won against Joe and I actually agree that Langa should lose some beefs but again only 12 eps, so little time)

but I still wanna talk about it anyway so it’s revealed Langa was snowboarding since 2. That’s 15 years. I think that should be around the same time Joe and Cherry should be skating. and i think if you start earlier as a kid, your body develops differently. (should Langa, “an amateur” win against Joe a pro? the question falls more on whether you can classify Langa as an amateur) i think it’s like Langa being very used to motorcycle tricks from age 2 then suddenly he’s using a regular bicycle, and sure the feeling is mostly the same but there’s just something off. Your body doesn’t easily forget what you know, especially if it did it for 15 years. and so Reki customizes a board for Langa so it’ll feel exactly like snowboarding

So Langa has a customized board that he needed to get used to before he went pro. He really sucked the first few eps lmao. but that’s more of him getting used to the new rules. he pretty much told Reki in ep 2 that he can’t do a skateboard ollie, but he can do a snowboard one bec it’s attached to his feet.

(i may just want to add that one thing i also like about sk8 is that it really doesn’t care what you need for accommodation? if that’s how you do it best, then go for it. When Langa says to Reki he can’t do the ollie without the board attached to his feet, Reki immediately goes his way to accommodate him. usually people in real life might say ‘it’s not real skateboarding if you need a modification etc. but look at Cherry with a freaking AI board and people are like yeah whatever do what you want man. whatever rolls your board.)

so anyway Langa vs. Joe with Langa winning despite being an amateur? if you can even call him an amateur that is. Plus all his tricks are snowboarding tricks lol. everything he’s done is testament to his 15 years of snowboarding?? We don’t even know how good Langa is in snowboarding. Someone make a post about how difficult the snowboarding equivalent of those tricks Langa has done just to show people it means he’s pretty pro (I’ll even argue maybe Langa’s real talent is his creative ways of going around things which kind of why Adam is highkey obsessed, and calls Cherry who calculates everything to the last second boring but that’s a different can of worms I’m opening later) plus Langa barely won against Joe so there’s not much difference in level i think. Should Langa have lost though?

I think some have missed the point of that beef in Reki’s pov. and if the Renga reconciliation is done well, it would be worth it.

that beef got Reki to realize he what he really wants! that it’ll kill him if he can’t skate anymore! that he doesn’t wanna only cheer on for others and be a support! THAT HE WANTS TO SKATE BY LANGA’S SIDE WHICH IS THE REASON FOR ALL THIS INSECURITIES if Langa lost, that cathartic realization might not have happened. He might have gone to Langa and cheered him up, brushed off his insecurities and, made up with Langa halfheartedly without addressing his problems

I’m going to go back to Reki’s insecurities. In ep 6 he’s been afraid of being left behind, and sure Langa came back for him but he still forgot until midway. (will that parallel how Langa got too excited with the idea of skating, the same feeling he thought he lost forever. The same thing that he thinks connects him with his dad, and might have left Reki behind, but later remembers and goes back to chase him? hopefully) in ep 4 it’s obvious he’s afraid of the near death experience Adam gave him, and he’s just realized how different their skills were. in ep 5 he worries about Langa, enough to get nightmares about it. mixed with his friend getting hurt. it’s obvious the feelings are very very muddled there.

So he begs Langa not to skate with Adam.

And what did Langa do? say that he wanted to skate with Adam. (again he’s not the most attentive. he probably thinks he’s just skating with his best friend, all is good then boom. Reki leaves. as a person shit with dealing with other people, i don’t blame him at all) he’s trying to fix it though, but his bond with Reki primarily revolves around skating! how else was he going to warm up with Reki? He also doesn’t know that Reki has self esteem issues that’s always been there since the beginning. He probably doesn’t understand it too because he holds Reki up highly. in ep 6 when Reki was going over his board, Langa thinks he’s pretty cool. he didn’t hear what other said to Reki. He’s earnestly having fun with his friend

We should also note that Reki was never angry at Langa’s skills, he wasn’t resentful that Langa was far ahead. Again he’s been nothing but supportive. He doesn’t want to pull Langa down. He wasn’t like Miya’s friends that lashed out at Miya for being better. in ep 7 he tries his best to follow Langa

it feels like he’s mostly regretful that he can’t catch up. he doesn’t want Langa to slow down, he wants to go faster and meet him where he was. So it makes the realization that all he wants to do was be in equal with Langa more frustrating because he thinks he can’t keep up. (and this only ever started when he heard he’s like Langa’s plus one. there’s that daunting feeling about being pulled around. not being his equal)

if you need further proof, when Langa and Joe were having a beef, he wasn’t aggressively hoping Langa would lose. in fact he encouraged him. He worries deeply He calls him out when he was doing badly. Still very supportive as ever. So really the frustration isn’t to Langa, again, it’s all internal. He wants to be better

so he’s feeling shit and Langa goes to him in the middle of the rain, bless langa for trying, thinking talking about skating (what he thinks Reki loves and would probably cheer him up, not knowing that’s exactly his problem) tells him

which is probably the worst he could say.

THAT’S what got Reki mad, not really Reki being insecure though that’s part of it, that’s what they’re fighting about, Reki is angry he’s breaking his promise. He thinks Langa doesn’t care about Reki, that he’ll easily break a promise between them that Reki obviously cares about just so he can go skate with Adam who is way better than him. It blows to the self esteem. Reki probably also think that if only he was better, langa wouldn’t bother skating with someone that dangerous. it doesn’t help at all.

but langa doesn’t know this. he doesn’t see all this. Langa might have been too up the high of skating like in ep 6, he sorta left Reki behind again.

it kinda makes Langa’s mom’s words hit harder though

and he did just that. he got too engrossed.

It parallels adam, cherry and joe’s friendship then probably tadahsi’s too but who knows? reki and langa, and tadashi and adam might parallel too, the master and the student thingy Adam might have gotten too obsessed. So Joe trying his best to make sure Reki and Langa won’t end up like them hits a little harder in my chest ;’)

but Langa won’t be to engrossed i think

because unlike Adam who’s aggressively looking for his ‘equal’, Langa is just looking for someone who makes his heart beat, to make him feel like he’s skating with his dad again, someone he loves dearly. (there’s a parallel about loves here too between Adam’s and Langa’s. but I can’t write it now) and he probably already thinks Reki is his equal anyway. He just wants to have fun. he doesn’t think much about the skills.

maybe at first he does. that’s why he’s drawn to Adam but from ep 9, it was pretty much shown that skills really doesn’t matter from when he skated against Joe

if Adam easily discarded his friends because he think they’re boring (which was why the whole skateboard to the face thing with Cherry), langa doesn’t think like that

if anything Reki is important to Langa because he only has fun skating with Reki, who taught him how to skate and made his board. (his board that was customized to fit his style btw, and arguably the only reason he could skate that well. without it, he might as well be a beginner once again.) so without reki, langa is left with nothing. especially with his broken board

no fun in skating, no way of skating. He’s only manage to get this far because of Reki and he knows that now. All of it would be pointless if he doesn’t have Reki (and either he gets so obsessed in chasing that feeling again, or he stops completely) but in case you haven’t noticed it, Langa’s motivation revolves around having fun with skating no matter the skill or place. And he’s having most fun with Reki.

But Reki obviously doesn't know Langa’s feelings. He thinks Langa was forever looking for someone better. So he’s still caught up in the idea that Langa won’t want to skate with him (even though Langa has never shown this) and he left S entirely, thinking what he wants is impossible. fucking just talk you two motherfucker

(I also wanna point out that Reki has always been shown from episode one to be good at making boards. And that’s amazing? We need some support recognition and appreciation, seriously) I think maybe most who find problem with Reki not winning beefs like the usual shounen protags aren’t used to the nuance and perspective of being someone ‘ordinary’. Reki’s character is relatable because most of us feel ordinary, never enough, surrounded by geniuses, ‘inferior’. And if we’re being realistic since a lot are saying joe should have won because langa winning is unrealistic and you want realism so bad no I’m not salty at all there will always be someone better than you. ALWAYS. but what’s important is for you to have fun in what you love! in what makes you happy! AND even if you’re not good at one thing (in Reki’s part, skating) he’s also good at other things (making boards) so does he need to stop one for the other? no. He’s shown to enjoy skating with Langa, he doesn’t wanna stop it hurts him so much he quit. But he can also hone his skills in making boards as well as skate. He’s equal with Langa in a way he doesn’t even notice when he made that board for Langa, but even Reki’s presence alone makes Langa enjoy skating the way Reki also wants Langa by his side.

So I think the next ep is the best time to confront all these feelings. And how it happens might be what’s tricky. Like romantic or not, i personally can read it both ways though i prefer if they do become canon. (idk if it’s queerbaiting. i guess friends can care as deeply as that but ngl, these shounen bestfriends having deep connections that are written off as friends while also giving us bland af hetero love interests who did nothing but exist and be straight really is messing with my perception of romantic and platonic love irl) anyway their talk better be done really well, or else all those episodes of tension would be for nothing

It’s a nice perspective to give a shounen protagonist this time. It’s new, it’s fresh. How many incarnations of underdog turned the best at their craft can you take? variety is nice! and if you don’t like it, there are always a dozen other animes like that for you to turn to. to conclude, IT ALL GOES BACK TO THE START: WHAT IS YOUR HAPPINESS???! AND FOR THEM IT’S THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BUT IN A VERY DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. FRIENDSHIP DOESN’T SUDDENLY GET YOU TO LEVEL 100000000000 TO DEFEAT THE FINAL BOSS. FRIENDSHIP IS WHAT MAKES DEFEATING THE FINAL BOSS WORTHWHILE

Anyway tldr; maybe the real Eve is the friends we made along the way :D and idk if I’m making sense but obviously I’m head empty only sk8. Renga needs to talk, i can’t believe they have the audacity to make a recap episode as if i wasn’t head empty only sk8 since february, and if there’s more emotional edging to come, i will burn some of the palm trees outside my house

30 notes · View notes

oumakokichi · 3 years

Note

What's your opinion on Kaito and Maki! I don't know if anyone's ever asked this before (sorry if yes) Ur blog is epic btw!

This question is pretty recent, so I feel like this is a great one to kick off with getting back into writing full meta! I know in the past I’ve answered a few brief questions on how I feel about Momota and Maki respectively, as well as their relationship in-game, but I don’t know if I’ve ever written at length about the two of them.

I also don’t know whether you want my opinions on them both as individual characters or their relationship together, so I’ll probably touch on both aspects! This ask will obviously include spoilers for the whole game, so I’ll talk more under the cut!

Momota and Maki are definitely two of the most important characters in the game. Both their dynamic with each other, as well as their eventual friendship with Saihara, are pivotal plot points that come up again and again. Momota’s good intentions and attempts to help Maki come out of her shell and self-imposed isolation from everyone else are initially met by her with skepticism, distrust, and a feeling that he’s being incredibly overbearing and putting his nose where it doesn’t belong—but in the end, she does find herself pulled in by his unrelenting optimism and offers of friendship.

As Momota helps Saihara begin to overcome his anxiety and self-doubt by pushing him forward and reaffirming that he believes in him, Maki also begins to face some of her own demons. Like Saihara, her issues are rooted in deep-seated trauma from a young age, though hers is considerably more severe as it concerns both physical and mental child abuse, as well as a life filled with violence and murder.

It’s interesting, because both Saihara and Maki struggle with what I would call self-loathing, but go about showing it in completely different ways. They both doubt their own ability to do anything right and feel that they’ll only hurt people in the end, but where Saihara overcompensates for this by trying to please everyone and being afraid of saying no, Maki’s approach is much firmer: she tries to shut everyone out completely, keeping everyone at arm’s bay in order to prevent any attachments from forming in the first place. As someone who lost pretty much everything at such a young age, she’s clearly afraid of the same thing happening all over again, as well as wary of anyone who might try to get close to her, only to attempt to “take her out” in the same fashion that she’s had to kill people her entire life.

Momota’s persistence in striking up a friendship with her is therefore really, really interesting. It’s the first time in Maki’s life that anyone has ever been so adamant about wanting to get to know her. Considering how harsh and unfriendly she initially is, as well as the fact that her talent is revealed to everyone by the end of chapter 2, it would make complete sense if Momota wanted nothing to do with her, in her opinion. She’s used to being alone, and she’s already convinced herself by that point that it’s preferable to the alternative.

But Momota is a character who fundamentally refuses to take no for an answer. This is simultaneously both his best and worst trait, in my opinion: it’s literally right in his catch phrase, whenever he claims that he’s going to reach the stars someday. He runs purely on the idea of faith and belief. There’s no middle ground with him: either you trust someone implicitly, regardless of everything stacked against them, or you don’t. Shades of grey, especially at the beginning of the game, are virtually nil. It’s a very “shounen protagonist” sentiment that winds up being somewhat challenged for him as the game goes on.

He’s interested in Maki, and wants to know why she closes herself off in her research lab. When the finger is pointed at her in chapter 2 and she falls under suspicion of murdering Hoshi, he defends her even at the expense of making himself look worse, and even to the point of claiming that he would “bet everyone else’s lives” that she’s innocent (a line which was completely omitted in the localization and dub, but which you can still hear him say in the jp dialogue of the chapter 2 trial).

There’s absolutely no evidence to back Maki up or support her; Momota’s defense on her behalf stems more from the fact that he hates Ouma’s equally black-or-white “guilty until proven innocent” approach, and resents the attempts at mutual suspicion and paranoia that Ouma tries to force between them. Momota is, in a word, stubborn. He figures things out by “feel” or “intuition” and is extremely slow to change his opinions even when facts and evidence are presented before him.

Again, this can be a good trait: his loyalty means he’s the last person who would ever throw someone else under the bus, and it’s the main reason he succeeds in getting closer to someone as emotionally closed-off as Maki at all. It’s less of a good thing, however, in later chapters like chapter 4, where his stubborn refusal to look at the facts genuinely endangers everyone’s lives in the trial and results in a huge blow-out that threatens his friend group with Saihara especially, but really with the whole training trio.

It’s this stubbornness of his that really baffles Maki. Initially, she doesn’t know what to make of Momota’s attempts to befriend her. She assumes he must be reckless, or stupid, or both, to want to get close to someone as dangerous as she is. But as she gradually begins to let her walls down and starts opening up despite herself, it’s such a nice change to see her eventually starting to believe in herself and view herself more positively as a result of Momota’s own belief in her.

I think momoharu as a ship works really well and has potential specifically because of these themes of “self-love” and “believing in yourself” that come up in the main game’s narrative again and again. And unlike the dynamics between Momota and other characters, such as Saihara, I feel like Momota and Maki are on much more of an even footing, where the two of them can view each other as equals and aren’t afraid to challenge each other whenever one of them is in the wrong about something.

For example, Saihara and Momota have much more of an imbalanced, sometimes one-sided friendship. That’s not to say that they aren’t both extremely important friends to one another—but between Saihara’s inability to say no to people and Momota’s tendency to take charge and view himself as “the hero” while everyone else is his “sidekick,” their relationship becomes incredibly uneven very quickly.

Add to this Momota’s unspoken jealousy of Saihara’s talent and his pivotal importance to the rest of the group in trials, and it gets even messier. I’m reminded of the chapter 4 trial, when Saihara really goes against Momota’s opinion on something for the first time by proving that Gonta is the culprit, and Momota is livid. Even when all the proof is laid out before him, and even when he knows, logically, he feels so betrayed by Saihara’s lack of “belief” in him that his underlying jealousy bubbles up and he lashes out. The localization considerably dulled the impact of this, but in the original Japanese dialogue, Momota even stops referring to Saihara by his first name for a long time, referring to him much more coldly by his surname from the end of chapter 4 until the latter half of chapter 5.

Momota and Saihara never feel as though they’ve really escaped that “hero and sidekick” dynamic until the very end of chapter 5 when they say their farewells, and even then there’s a real hesitance with Saihara to call Momota out when he’s wrong or ask for an apology even when Momota owes him one. If the game had explored more of Momota’s jealousy and feelings of inadequacy compared to Saihara, I would have really loved that, and I feel like there would be real potential to explore how they could eventually be on even footing… but as it stands, in canon we don’t really get that, and most of Momota’s shortcomings and flaws are somewhat brushed aside after his death in favor of Saihara remembering him more fondly.

This isn’t to say that Momota doesn’t have any flaws when it comes to how he interacts with Maki, of course. His character has a lot of “toxic masculinity” baggage, including unironically believing really outdated things like “women shouldn’t be fighting, they should be raising children,” or thinking that women are inherently weaker physically and more fragile emotionally than men. Luckily though, Maki often consistently proves him wrong on all of these points: her ability to wipe the floor with him during their training sessions is of course part of it, but it’s worth noting that she’s also considerably more level-headed than Momota is in many ways.

Where Momota is superstitious and afraid of the occult to a comedic degree, Maki remains the rational, down-to-earth one who doesn’t believe in such things. Where Momota is prone to letting his pride and temper get the better of him and refuses to speak to Saihara or apologize for the things he said during their fight in chapter 4, Maki is the one who attempts to push them into interacting with each other again, and believes that Momota is being much too childish about the whole ordeal. Again and again, Maki proves Momota’s outdated and harmful stereotypes about women wrong, and isn’t afraid to poke fun at him or get exasperated with his bullshit whenever he’s being kind of a dick.

Her relationship with Momota works specifically because of how much it feels like the two of them are on a more even footing. Where Saihara somewhat meekly accepts the “sidekick” role, even when he thinks it’s unfair, Maki doesn’t really accept it or go along with it in the first place, beyond showing up for training sessions. And when she gradually begins to develop romantic feelings for him, it feels authentic—particularly because it ties back into the idea of Maki learning to believe in herself the same way that Momota has believed in her from the start.

Deep down, Maki is someone who fundamentally believes herself not only undeserving of, but borderline incapable of love. She feels as though any human emotions she might have once had were stomped out of her from a young age and that absolutely nothing remains, to the point where she says “even Kiibo is more human than she is.” This self-loathing and dehumanization are the main reasons she keeps people at arm’s length: she simply thinks she doesn’t deserve any kindness, and that even if it’s given to her, she doesn’t know how to reciprocate in turn.

Her entire character arc is about unlearning this, and gradually coming to accept that she does have the capacity to love, including love for herself and for others. I’ve seen some people who believe Tsumugi when she claims in the chapter 6 trial that she “gave Maki those feelings for Momota” for the sake of the show, but I feel that believing that at face value really doesn’t do justice to Maki’s autonomy as a character.

Even if Tsumugi somehow did insert those feelings there (which I highly doubt, especially considering how she blatantly lies about giving Momota his illness too despite pretty obviously not knowing he was sick prior to chapter 5), the whole point of Maki’s confession to Momota in chapter 5 and reaffirmation of those feelings in chapter 6 is that she eventually comes to believe that they’re her feelings, and no one else’s. As someone who was denied any free will or choice for her entire life, her coming to view Momota as someone precious to her, as well as herself as an individual capable of making decisions and loving other people, is an incredibly powerful arc of character growth. I honestly really love to see it.

And it’s clear that Maki coming to love and value herself as an individual is exactly what Momota wanted to see from her. We don’t really know if he reciprocated her romantic feelings or not since he dies without really giving her an answer. I personally think he spared her an answer because even if he had said he reciprocated, it only would’ve hurt her worse to see him die immediately afterward.

But what he does make really clear is that he fully believes that because she could come to love him, she could also eventually come to love herself. Whether it’s romantic or not, he clearly cherishes her a lot as a person and wants her to be happy. He wants her to live on as herself, and not any of the roles she’s had to take thus far in order to survive. She eventually does do this, and I think he would’ve been absolutely thrilled to see it happen.

All in all, I feel like momoharu has a lot of potential for character growth (both for Maki and Momota), as well as for cute moments, comic relief, and all around as a feel-good ship. Momota definitely has some issues to work out with misogyny and toxic masculinity, and while it’s certainly not Maki’s job to hold his hand and walk him through those things, she’s the type of person who doesn’t mind putting her foot down and telling him no when she feels like he’s crossed a line, which is exactly the type of dynamic I like to see in relationships.

Anyway, I’ll wind this up here. This was a really fun question to go into, thank you again anon! I had a lot of fun getting back into the swing of writing meta, and I’m glad I got a chance to write a little more about my thoughts on momoharu, and Momota and Maki as characters.

#ndrv3 #maki harukawa #kaito momota #momoharu #danganronpa #ask #anonymous #my meta #ndrv3 spoilers //#okay to reblog #tumblr almost ate this ask as soon as i tried to draft it #luckily i had my response still written up in word so i could repaste it but phew #tumblr being as functional as ever i see

87 notes · View notes

littlemissagrafina · 3 years

Text

Comfortember Day 4. Anxiety

we're just sunflowers waiting for a sunrise

@comfortember

Read on AO3

The first time he had seen it out of the corner of his eye, Tony had thought that maybe Peter had gotten a tattoo or something, possibly some of the rebellious teenager that Tony knew still lay inside Peter somewhere wanted to make a show.

Tony hadn't noticed entirely at first, had caught glimpses under Peter's sleeves, over his hands or wrists and even near his socks but when Peter would come back for his next lab day, those flashes of colour or shapes would be gone. And so the tattoo idea was dismissed.

Tony started keeping a close eye though, watching discreetly when Peter lifted his arm for something Tony knew would let his sleeves slide or when he would lift his legs and sit criss cross applesauce on his workbench stool. The older man was still baffled at how he sat that way on a stool but put it down to Peter's weird spideryness.

Throughout his watching and observing, Tony finally saw that the drawings, for that's what they had to be, would appear and disappear at random. Some days they would be there and other days not. As would they be large and more bold or more subtle and contained at times.

The only thing that Tony saw in connection with the drawings was Peter's fidgeting and jumpiness. Whenever those were increased more than Peter's usual energetic behaviour, Tony knew he would find drawings too.

Eventually his curiosity and slight worry became too much for the man and he had to ask about it. That time came to be during a movie night that he and Peter were having when the kid stayed for the weekend.

"Hey, Pete?" Tony's voice rang softly from where his chin was propped on top of the head resting on his shoulder.

"Hey, Mr. Stark?" Peter answered back, not moving.

Grasping Peter's hand from where it was tucked into his waist while they cuddled, Tony gently pulled it free and turned it over, careful to watch for Peter tensing or stiffening. "I noticed these appearing a while ago." Tony's thumb subconsciously brushed over the edge of a green shape curling just around the bottom of Peter's wrist and palm. "I was just curious about it."

"It's embarrassing." Peter mumbled into Tony's shirt.

Instead of pushing like his curiosity wanted him to, Tony spoke back quietly. "I'm sure it isn't but if you don't want to talk about it then it's okay, Pete. Please don't make yourself speak about something that you aren't comfortable with talking about."

Peter was silent for a while and Tony could practically feel his mind turning.

"MJ likes to draw." Peter eventually said, his voice quiet and nervous yet open in a way that Tony hadn't heard before.

"She says that it helps her feel calm and happy when something stressful is going on." Peter hesitated slightly here. "I was really… anxious at school a while ago and she told me to try drawing but all the paper I had was for my classes so I couldn't use it and I didn't wanna ask MJ Flr some of her's– uhh sorry. Rambling. So I just started drawing on my hands and stuff and the motion is really calming and soothing. Especially the feeling of the pen or marker. So, yeah." Peter finished a bit awkwardly but Tony didn't mind. He knew that Peter struggled with talking about his anxiety and other tendencies at times. Knew because he still struggled himself at times.

"I'm really glad that this is something that helps you, Bug. It's really awesome that you found a healthy way to cope with it." Tony said to him, his voice oh so gentle and full of pride.

Peter looked up at him, slight confusion swirling in his eyes. "You are? Isn't it lame? Ya know, that drawing like that is what helps?" He didn't think that Tony would be against it obviously, he just hadn't thought the man would have thought it was the best because of the way it implicated that Peter still struggled with his self destructive tendencies.

"Of course I am!" Tony smiled at him. "This is so much better and healthier than so man alternatives and I'm really proud that you found something that works for you so well. And it's not lame or anything, not at all.

Peter smiled bashfully at him and answered by ducking his head back to Tony's shoulder and cuddling into his side again. He subconsciously fidgeted with his sleeves, the cotton sliding up to show more of the colourful green vines curling around his wrist. Noticing Tony's curious but respectful glances, Peter took a deep breath before offering him his arm.

"You can look if you'd like. MJ sometimes does it for me but I did today's one." Peter said and Tony looked at him as if silently asking if he was sure. When Peter didn't move his arm away, the older man carefully tugged the sleeve higher and was met with bright yellows and greens drawn across Peter's arm.

It was a sunflower, and an exquisite one at that. It's leaves and stem curling and twisting behind and over the vibrant yellow petals.

"It's beautiful." Tony said quietly, his words drifting into the comfortable silence that had grown around them.

"Thank you." The words came equally as softly.

---

A couple weeks later, Peter was sitting at his workstation in the lab, trying to do homework. Or rather, fidgeting and twisting at it. He couldn't sit still, but he couldn't move. Couldn't calm the tingling feeling of his anxiety from where it was centred in his chest.

Tony eventually stopped what he was doing and rolled his chair next to Peter's. "You okay, kid? I can feel your anxiousness from my desk." There was concern in his eyes that cracked the part of peter that usually brushed things off, saying he was fine.

"I can't calm down. I dunno… today just hasn't been a great day. I'm sorry."

"Hey, shh. You're okay, it's fine." Tony tried to soothe him. "You do your breathing exercises? The 5 things countdown?" At Peter's nod he spoke again. "And drawing? You do that yet?"

Peter shook his head miserably. "My hands are a bit shaky. I don't like doing it while they're like that and MJ wasn't at school today."

Tony hummed to himself. "Okay. If uh, if you're comfortable with it, I can draw for you? I mean, I won't be as good as MJ or you but I'm passable. I've sketched enough graphics and designs over this to be pretty decent at it." The older man rambled slightly, sounding similar to Peter when he rambled.

The trembling yet still blinding smile he received from the teenager was more than enough to calm Tony's own slight nerves at his sudden offer.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Of course. I'd do anything for you." Whoops. Too much, Tony. Don't scare the kid away dammit.

Peter pretended to ignore the man's latter words, seeing the slight panic on his face after saying it. It still made Peter's heart feel happy that his dad- mentor cared for him so much.

"I have some markers in my bag, I can go get th-" Peter started saying before Tony interrupted him.

"No need, bud. I have a couple packs lying around somewhere." Yeah, cuz Tony Stark just has packs of Sharpie lying around. Sharpies that you conveniently bought the day after Peter told you about this.

In a few minutes, they had migrated up to the living room, sat together on the couch with Peter slumped against Tony's side and an arm resting on his lap.

Markers next to him, Tony nudging Peter. "What do ya want, kid? Are we feeling something Picasso or Van Gough?" He snickered at his joke.

Peter turned uncharacteristically quiet, and Tony could feel a weight in his next words. "Can you draw a sunflower?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

They fell quiet and Tony felt a subtle shift between them when he drew the first of the yellow petals. And as he drew, the flower bloomed, it's petals and leaves growing, brightening as it came to life.

Placing a cap back on the final marker a while later, Tony tilted his head and carefully studied Peter's face. The teen was marginally calmer than earlier, his tremors gone and his shoulders relaxed.

Suddenly he turned his head and looked Tony in the eyes. "The last person who drew me a sunflower was Uncle Ben." He blurted and Tony was momentarily stunned.

"He used to paint a lot, and his favourite thing to paint was sunflowers. I still remember the first time he started teaching me about art. The way he showed me how to layer the petals. It just brought it back a bit. Thank you for bringing a piece of him back to me." Peter whispered.

"Thank you for letting me." Tony whispered back. His heart bursting at what Peter had just told him, what Peter had trusted him with.

It was funny how things worked that way, how sometimes as small as a sunflower could hold such meaning.

Something changed with Peter and Tony that day, something shifted and brought them closer. A part of Peter that had felt empty ever since the night that he and May lost Ben finally felt as if it was being healed.

Peter's uncle would always have a place in his heart, would always be special to him, but another place in Peter's heart had grown. That place was Tony's.

Tony knew that Ben was, and still is, important to Peter. A part of him that was still so strong. Tony promised that he would help Peter keep that part of him alive, help it to grow and not be forgotten on the days were the flowers were deprived of sun. Benjamin Parker would be a part of Peter as long as time still passed, Tony was adamant of it.

Ben would be found in the curling of a sunflowers petals, in the twisting green of it's leaves and stem, but Tony, well, he was becoming the sun that helped it thrive.

#irondad #spiderson #comfortember 2020 #peter parker #tony stark #ironman #spider-man #irondad fanfic #irondad fanfiction

54 notes · View notes

angelruel · 4 years

Text

Challenge

“for fucks sake, y/n can you please just do what you’re told for once”

author’s note: this is kinda toxic, sorry. also, pls be easy on me. this is my very first fic ever and could possibly be the last.

summary: Ruel snaps at you which causes you to challenge his authority in the relationship. ft. an aggressive and controlling boyfriend rool but in a non-toxic way haha. Just the big scorpio energy i know in my heart that boy has. Also I made up friends' names to keep his real homies out of this.

masterlist

Word Count: about 3k

It was pretty clear that shit was about to hit the fan. Everyone could feel the tension from the moment they stepped into the house. Ruel had warned you beforehand that two of his friends, Adam and Gabe, were on the outs at the moment and things were bound to blow up soon. However, no one expected it to go down at the Friendsgiving party that Adam and his girlfriend planned for everyone just before the holidays. Adam and his girlfriend… who used to be Gabe’s girlfriend… or at least that’s how he told it.

The party was going pretty well. You and Ruel cooked queso dip the night before to bring. It was cooked in a crockpot so there wasn’t much work being put in, but Ruel was still proud of your “first official meal prepared together.”

After walking in, you and Ruel soon separated to greet people and you headed towards the kitchen to set down the crockpot. You had already met most of his friends, so it was easy to start mingling with the girls that you saw in the kitchen. You weren’t far into your conversations when you received a text from Ruel simply saying “pay attention.” There was yelling coming from the living room, mostly guys saying “Okay, calm down,” or “Back up.” You all headed down there from the kitchen to see what was going on and were met with Gabe and Adam about to throw down in the middle of the living room. You found Ruel across the room and sat on the couch near where he was standing. He leaned down to you and rolls his eyes towards his friends.

“Pssh, what I tell ya?”

You laughed back, “Yeah but I thought we’d at least have 30 solid minutes before it went to hell.”

Ruel shook his head and whispered, “Not with these guys.”

Everyone was just crowded around the living room area listening to the drama unfold. It was clear that both Adam and Gabe had been drinking already, and Gabe held a beer in his hand as he continued to argue back and forth with his friend. Because they were both intoxicated, none of the conversations really made any sense. It didn’t take much to figure out the source of the problem, seeing as the girl they were arguing over was in the corner crying her eyes out. Once Gabe stepped closer to Adam and set his beer on the coffee table, all of the other guys got up and started moving towards them.

“Okay, you should go get in the car,” Ruel leaned over the couch arm and tried to hand his car keys to you.

You slightly swatted his hand away before replying “Nah, I’m good,” never taking your eyes off of the boys. Here’s the thing: when you were in the kitchen earlier, you received some tea on the situation that revealed maybe Gabe wasn’t exaggerating as much as everyone thought he was. Apparently, the main reason Adam’s girlfriend offered to host the Friendsgiving this year was to try and make everyone like her despite her past with Gabe. And Gabe was not holding back. He was exposing the homegirl repeatedly, confirming most of what you were told in the kitchen.

You probably shouldn’t have dismissed Ruel like that, but you couldn’t help yourself every now and then because deep down you kind of enjoyed when he got angry with you. The dominant persona that he took on was something so natural and passionate and always enchanted you as much as it startled you.

“Babe,” you could hear Ruel continuing to get your attention but you were too invested in what was going on. His tone that started off as gentle was now getting more aggressive as he had to keep repeating himself. Usually, you would let Ruel protect you in a situation like this. However, no one else was making any moves to leave the apartment at any time soon, so why should you have to be the only one to miss the fight?

In retrospect, Ruel was probably only trying to prevent you from getting hurt in the impending cross-fire between the two guys because you both knew that he would rain down hellfire and shut the whole party down if any of those drunk clowns touched you even if by accident. You knew that he was protective but he was just going to have to get over himself today.

Once Gabe put his beer down and took a step towards Adam, you felt a firm hand press down on your shoulder with keys in the palm.

“Y/N, go start the car. I’ll be over in a minute and we can go-”

You cut him off, “I’m good, I’ll just wait for you.” You could feel his eyes burning into the side of your face but you couldn’t care less. No one was paying attention to the back and forth between the two of you. The only thing people could focus on was the constant blows Gabe attempted to make towards Adam’s face which he missed each time. The rest of Ruel’s friends began to slowly gather around the two just in case things got too serious. He had previously mentioned to you that this conflict had been growing a huge wedge in between everyone and that if they started fighting, they were going to try and let them resolve this on their own. But it was getting too far. Ruel needed to join the guys in separating them, but he didn’t want to leave your side until you were out of the place. Apparently, Gabe had a tendency to swing on women when he got too upset. And he was clearly past the point of anger now.

“Y/N. Get. Out of here. Into the car, now.” You looked up to see his stern expression on his face. Who was he, your father?

“No, I’m enjoying this.”

After obviously being fed up with your protests, you felt his hand grab your arm firmly. He wasn’t hurting you, but the pressure of his hand against your arm was enough to let you know he wasn’t playing around.

Before you could get up, he whisper/yelled to you, “For fuck's sake, Y/N can you please just do what you’re told for once.” The hurt you were feeling was overpowered by the anger that boiled up inside of you.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” you spit out at him as you snatch your arm away. He had some nerve to speak to you like that in front of his fucking friends.

In reality, you usually stood up to him anytime he challenged you like this. It was no secret that Ruel had a temper when things didn’t go his way, but he’d only ever snapped on you like this once or twice before. Although it was a potentially dangerous situation, you could handle yourself and you surely didn’t need him talking to you like a child in front of everyone like that. You snatched the keys out of his hand and stormed out of the living room. It was obvious that Ruel didn’t care about your own feelings even though he made a point to not let anyone else hear what he whispered in your ear.

As you waited in the passenger seat of his car, you grew increasingly angry at your boyfriend. You thought about how unnecessary that comment was. In fact, you actually considered driving off and leaving his ass but immediately dismissed that thought because he was already frustrated enough at the situation and that would only add fuel to the fire. You tried to scroll through twitter to distract yourself from how upset you were feeling but doing so only paused your thoughts just for them to be resumed as soon as he appears outside of the building.

It took him about twenty minutes to return to the car and you could only assume it was because the boys actually did start fighting each other. After he got into the vehicle and started to drive the both of you back home, he broke the silence between the two of you.

“Geez, it’s so hard to calm Gabe down when he gets plastered like that.”

You didn’t respond and just continued to stare at your phone. You were still beyond pissed and Ruel could definitely feel the tension. He just sighed and brushed it off, ignoring your attitude by turning on some music and singing obnoxiously loud along to it. This nonchalant behavior only pisses you off more. Does he not feel the need to apologize for the way he spoke to you?

“Fuck, I left the crockpot. Was too caught up in the bullshit to realize. I’ll probably stop by over there tomorrow morning to get it.”

You still didn’t look up from your phone but this time you reply with a low “okay.”

“Well, do you wanna stop and get food before we make it back? I know you didn’t get to eat anything before the shit hit the fan.”

You quickly clap back to him with a short “I’m good.”

Ruel shook his head and you could see his jaw tense out the corner of your eye. You felt the car swerve to the side and you begin to feel equally as annoyed as you are anxious to see what he was about to do. He pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park.

He wasted no time before saying, “okay,” as he pressed both of his hands onto the steering wheel.

“I get that you’re mad because I took that tone with you back there but I just didn’t want you to get hurt. You weren’t listening, and they were about to start fighting.”

“So I’m going to ask you again,” you finally looked up from your phone.

“What do you want to eat?”

You rolled your eyes and sighed because you desperately wanted the conversation to end, so you simply said “I’m good, Ruel. Let’s just go. Please.”

It took everything in you not to snap at him and say “I don’t need you to take care of me”, but you didn’t even want to argue with him at the moment.

The only thing you wanted was space from him, which he couldn’t possibly understand. In Ruel’s mind, he had to take care of you and protect you at all times. You usually viewed this as enduring and you knew he only meant well, but he’d taken it too far this time.

By now, you could tell that he was as annoyed with you as you were with him.

“Fine, but don’t ask for shit when we get home,” he spat out.

You thought “trust me, I won’t.” That last statement left a sour taste in your mouth mainly because he knew all too well that you’d cave in at some point in the night and want to go back out for food. The way he acted like he just knew you and was the boss of you only pissed you off more. Why couldn’t he just fucking apologize? Did he seriously not see anything wrong with the way he treated you back there?

Ruel made it seem like a challenge. You were gonna show him that he didn’t know you as well as he thought.

When you finally got back to his home, you rushed upstairs to take a shower and change into some different clothes. You walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom to be greeted by a relaxed Ruel laid out on the bed barefoot and scrolling on his phone. He barely even lifted his head when you walked out in leggings and a t-shirt. It wasn’t until he saw you going into the closet to get a pair of shoes that he sat up and asked you what you were doing.

You respond matter-of-factly, “To get food,” in a much brighter tone than you had before as you dangled his car keys in front of him. He stood up to challenge you and said, “Stop playing, now.”

He still had a warning tone about him which set you off. Was he seriously still acting like a bitch? It was time to snap.

“No Ruel, why the fuck do you seriously think that you can tell me what to do and when to do it as if I can’t drive myself or protect my god damn self.”

He opened his mouth to reply but you continued before he could speak.

“Furthermore, I’m a grown-ass woman and you are not my dad. Plus, I’m older than you. Fuck outta here.”

You were beyond pissed at this point, but finally expressing yourself made you feel a little bit better. He stood up off of the bed, took two big steps towards you, and stood over you. He chuckled as he slipped the keys out of your hand.

“Yeah, but I am much bigger than you,” he simply stated, refusing to break eye contact with you even though you so desperately wanted him to. The fact that he was making a joke out of your anger made you want to fucking explode. You snapped your body away from him and began to look up rideshare deals on your phone so you could leave on your own terms.

“Okay well, I’m getting an uber.” He walked right behind you, keeping up with you perfectly and had the nerve to ask “Wait, why?”

“Because I want to leave. I’m sick of you and I don’t want to be here with you anymore, get it?” you snapped. Before you could open the door halfway, your body jumped as you saw his hand reach over and close the door.

Ruel got back in front of you, grabbed the bottom of your chin, and moved it slightly up so you could look him in the eyes.

“Okay, this was cute but now it needs to stop.”

You huffed because you simply didn’t give a fuck about his opinion anymore. You decided to go back to your silent treatment and wait for him to stop blocking the door so you could leave.

“You can be mad at me all you want. Go be mad downstairs or something. But please don’t leave this house. Especially not on your own.”

Once again, who the fuck was he talking to? As you felt the tears forming in your eyes, you instantly became grateful in your mind that his parents were both out of town at the time and weren’t home to witness the big argument that rose from you and Ruel. You should’ve known that he wouldn’t be crazy over the idea of you leaving without him but he didn’t give you much of a choice. He wasn’t listening to you, and when you got super upset you always had a tendency to run away before saying something that you might regret. You only wanted to leave to cool off and clear your mind and you knew that food would certainly shift your mood quickly. However, the fact that you’ve never been anywhere around Sydney on your own and you were only there to visit him probably prompted this response from him.

Nevertheless, he was still very wrong in this scenario.

“You know what? Fuck you, Ruel. I understand that you might have been frustrated with me but there was absolutely no need to talk to me like that. You made me feel like shit. I still feel like shit. Please, just let me leave before either of us makes things worse.” You finished your last sentence before your head dropped and you began to let out a soft cry.

Ruel’s face immediately softened up, and he pulled you in for a hug.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. I know that I shouldn’t have snapped on you like that, but I’d rather you be mad at me for a while than you getting hit by one of those drunk idiots.” He grabbed your chin again to look up at him. “I knew I had to say something drastic to get your attention, but I realize that there was probably a better way to handle that. Hey, I’m learning how to love you in ways that you need me to. I just love you so much, and for me, it sometimes means that I want to protect you.”

You pouted up at him in response. “Yeah, but I don’t need you to take care of me.”

He leaned down to give you a big, soft kiss. “Yes,” he leaned back down and gave you another puffy kiss again, “you do.”

He finally let your chin go and you didn’t try to make another attempt to leave him. He grabbed both of your hands and said, “Just let me take care of you, yeah? It makes me feel better.”

You pressed your head into his neck in response, knowing that being able to take care of you in person took a lot of stress off of him since you both were used to a long-distance setting. He wrapped his long arms around your figure and embraced you for a long time, your body remaining stiff before you realized that he was genuinely upset about hurting you.

“Okay, but I’m still hungry.”

He sighed into a hard laugh at your honesty, causing you both to have the first light moment between you two of the evening.

“Okay. I’ll order something.”

#ruel #oneruel #ruel van dijk #one ruel #rueledits #ruelvincentvandijk #ruel imagines #ruel imagine #one shot #ruel one shot #writers on tumblr #x reader #ruel x reader #ruel fic

235 notes · View notes

wildernessuntothemselves · 5 years

Text

Noona, Do You Have a Boyfriend? | Part 1

Genre: Smut

Word Count: 3.7k

Summary: You hate brats. Jisung is a brat. So why the fuck are you blowing him in a dirty bathroom in the middle of a concert? A/N: I hope this is better than the clusterfuck that was Born Sick. This is supposed to be a small series but knowing me, who the fuck can tell? 3racha don’t read this!

Warnings: femdom, sub!jisung, brat!jisung, dom!reader, dancer!au, dancer!reader, very mild dub-con, jisung doesn’t ask for permission before he does something and you should always ask for permission.

Part 2 Han Jisung is insufferable. The boy didn’t know how to take no for an answer. He was always bothering you, using any spare moment he had to hit on you or try to seduce you. He would do the craziest things to try to get your attention, ranging from dropping the cheesiest pick up lines on you to giving you what basically amounted to a lap dance. It’s not even that you didn’t find him attractive, he certainly was. He might not have the stunning good look of Hyunjin or Minho, but he possessed an abundance of charisma that just drew people to him. The only problem is that he knew that too well. As someone who thrived on praise and received it from everyone, everywhere, it was natural that he’d know how attractive he is and use it to his advantage, but it seriously got on your nerves how arrogant he could get sometimes. Guys who think they’re the shit are so off-putting to you—you’d take a well-behaved baby boy over a brat like Jisung any day. The only problem though was that Jisung is right, he really is irresistible, try as you might to deny it. He got away with displaying a multitude of opposite charms because he embodied them so carelessly. When he’d do aegyeo—puffing his cheeks out so he’d look even more like a cute squirrel—his awkwardness would make it endearing instead of cringey, and the stupid kissy faces he’d make at you would be almost too tempting to ignore. You wouldn’t guess it by looking at him, but Jisung could be real suave when he wanted to. He is shameless and he is cocky and that was a recipe for one very rude boy who would stop at nothing to seduce you. As a backup dancer for JYP, your job allowed him ample opportunity to get physical with you. You frequently had to stay late at the practice room with him in order to teach him dance moves that you knew he was messing up on purpose so he could get you alone and make his moves on you. Those late night dance sessions were filled with heated gazes, unnecessary lip bites, and overly sexual dance moves. Han Jisung is nothing but an undisciplined boy who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer. So why the hell did you think it was a good idea to blow him a bathroom right in the middle of a concert?

They boys were on a short break in between sets in which they could catch their breath and get seen to by the stylists in case they needed to get anything fixed. But as soon as they went off stage, Jisung ran off to the bathroom and locked himself in there. It was none of your business. As far as you were concerned, the more time he spends in there, the less time he has to bother you. Unfortunately for you though, Jisung’s ceaseless attempts to hit on you were known to most of the staff by this point and, after multiple unsuccessful attempts by other people to get the boy to come out of the bathroom, the head stylist asked —i.e. ordered—you to give it a try, hoping that Jisung would hurry up whatever he was doing in there and come out so he could bother you a little before the next set begins. You were totally against it, a man’s bathroom time is his own and even though he annoyed you endlessly, you didn’t want to embarrass him. But the woman was adamant and you couldn’t say no to a senior staff member so you, begrudgingly, accepted. Clearing your throat awkwardly, you knock on the door, and call out for him. “Noona! What are you doing back here?” Jisung answers in a panicked voice that immediately raises suspicion within you. You understand he could be embarrassed about taking too long in the bathroom, but his tone was less embarrassed and more freaked out. “Siyeon-unnie asked me to come get you… what is taking you so long anyway?” “Nothing!” He answers too fast. Realizing how squeaky his voice sounded, he coughs and tries again, this time in an unnaturally deep voice, “Uh, nothing. I’m just… fixing my… hair.” You roll your eyes, “Oh, yes, because you don’t literally have an army of stylists whose entire job is to fix your hair for you. What is really going on, Han?” He’s silent for a long time, clearly hesitant to tell you which only piques your curiosity further. You hadn’t been interested before but now you certainly were, especially after what he says next. “If I tell you, you’ll beat my ass up.” “That’s very possible.” “Noona! That’s not funny.” “It is, but okay, I won’t hit you or whatever, just tell me what’s wrong.” You hear the sound of the door unlock before the round-cheeked boy sticks his head out to say, “Promise you won’t hit me.” You roll your eyes and mockingly hold your pinky finger up, “I promise.” As the door creaks open to reveal a bashful Jisung cupping his hands over his crotch, you could almost smack yourself for not realizing the problem sooner. Of course a horndog like Han would pop a boner right in the middle of a damn concert. He seriously is hopeless. “You promised you won’t hit me.” He quickly reminds you, probably seeing the annoyance on your face, and you sigh. “Han, we have no time for this. Just jerk off or something.” “You think I haven’t tried!” He exclaims in exasperation, “It won’t go away. It hurts, noona. I can’t—” And then something curious happens—Jisung whimpers—whimpers!—and his expression settles into one of pain and desperation. It was an entirely new look on him—a vulnerable, soft side that you’ve never see on him before and honestly? The rush of arousal that shoots down to your heat at seeing him like this almost makes you pass out. The Jisung you knew was always so cocky and bratty that you’re ashamed to admit that you’ve touched yourself to the thought of breaking him—making him so damn needy that he’d take anything you give him and say thank you. It was the ultimate guilty pleasure that you never intended to actually act upon. It was just an outlet for all the sexual frustration he put you through and all the your pent up sadistic impulses that you’re too afraid to indulge in. That’s why Jisung was so dangerous; he makes you want to wallow in those tendencies. He makes you want to tease and punish him, and tease and punish him, until he apologizes for everything and begs for mercy. So yeah, you try to avoid that at all costs. But could anyone really blame you for pushing him inside, locking the door behind you, and getting on your knees to give that hellboy the suck of his life when he finally acts just a little bit subservient? You think not. Maybe this will help you flush out your desire for him. You know, getting over something by letting yourself be consumed by it? That’s a thing that works, right? “Noona, what are you doing?” Jisung gasps when you reach out to pull his already unbuttoned pants down. “You want this to go away, right?” He stares at you dumbly as if his brain short-circuited and he couldn’t figure out what you meant and you sigh as if you didn’t fucking adore this new side of him. “Do you want me to suck you off, Han?” “Do I…” His mouth hangs open, making you worried that drool would start leaking out, before he snaps out of his dim-witted haze and stumbles to answer, “Holy shit, yeah. Fuck yeah!” You chuckle and lower his pants and boxers down, revealing the painfully hard member that was causing him this much trouble. As soon as you wrap your hand around it, he jolts and cries out. “Shh, be quiet or you’ll get us in trouble.” Despite your rebuke, you don’t hesitate to start a rapid pace with your hand on his cock, aided by the fact that he was slick and lubricated already. Boy must’ve been trying for a long time. To his credit, Jisung tries to listen, biting down on his lip to keep quiet, his moans coming out in muffled whimpers. He only lasts for a few seconds though, because when you flick your wrist, your palm sweeping over the leaking slit, he breaks right away, moaning out your name. You know, just in case whoever catches you won’t mistake your identity. Clearly, he was too wound up and horny to be expected to actually follow orders—not that he would’ve listened either way— so you quickly take him in your mouth, figuring that you’d get him off faster this way, hopefully before anyone catches you. But it wouldn’t be Jisung if he didn’t find another way to cause trouble for you, and when you start sucking him off, he not only moans super loudly but he starts talking too. “Shit, shit.” He groans, watching you with blown out pupils as you take more and more of his cock in your mouth. He was fucking living for this. “Ah, fuck, noona’s mouth feels so good around my cock." That little shit. Why did he have to sound so sexy saying that? No matter what, you can’t let him know how much this is affecting you—how his cock feels so good in your mouth too, all hot and hard and oh-so-very responsive. He was moaning and squirming at the tinniest brushes of your tongue, and leaking so much precum that you could literally taste the need on him without him needing to say it. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Why did you have to be such a tease, noona?”

You grip the base of his cock just a little too tightly, and pull away to snap at him, “I’m not a tease. You’re just a brat. Now, shut up or I’ll stop.” “No, no, don’t stop. I’ll shut up. Just please put your mouth back on my cock.” He says, clearly not shutting up, and grabs the back of your head to push your face towards his crotch, thrusting his hips slightly to press the head of his cock against your lips, silently demanding to be let in.

“I will if you don’t stop being a brat.” You threaten, using your tight fist to give him a rough jerk that is just on the painful side of pleasurable. Of course you wouldn’t actually leave him like this, you needed to see how he looks when he cums almost as much as he needed to cum. It would be great fodder for your nights of shameful masturbation at the thought of this boy. But he didn’t need to know that, and with the way the wet heat of your mouth is now wrapped just around the very tip of his dick, you don’t think he’ll be figuring it out soon. Instead, he asks you the stupidest question in the history of questions. "Can I take a picture?” Your jaw almost dislocates from dropping so low. What the fuck is wrong with this boy? “I won't show it to anyone. I promise.” He quickly adds on, as if that might convince you. “Are you crazy or just stupid?” The frown on your face was so intense, you think it might actually scare the boy for once. Truth is, you find the fact that he wants to save this moment so he can get back to it later—just like you undoubtedly will—so sexy. It makes a new gush of arousal coat your already drenched underwear. But you would never let him do that because you’re not a dumb horny teenager, no matter how much Jisung is forcing you to reconnect with that long-forgotten side of you. But even as you glare at him, he presses on, “Please, I don’t know if I’ll ever get you like this again.” It’s only when you start to get up that he finally backtracks. “It’s just a polite request! I’ll stop asking. Please, don’t leave.” “No, you’ll stop talking.” Slipping off your underwear, you mentally congratulate yourself for choosing to wear a skirt today, and stuff the fabric in his mouth. You hoped that your makeshift gag would finally shut him up, but even through the fabric, you could heal his garbled voice saying, “That’s hot.” You sigh, getting back on your knees and taking him into your mouth right away. You start bopping your head up and down his length again. Jisung wasn’t big, but he was a bit thick and it made it a little hard to continue taking in more of his length when he reaches the back of your throat. But you keep going anyway, the thickness of his cock only adding to the pleasurably tight sensation for him. When you’ve fit his entire length inside, the head nestled snuggly down your throat, you swallow. It hurt, but it was worth it to feel the way he spasmed under you and cried out loudly even through the panties in his mouth. You don’t give him a break after that, alternating between licking up and down the underside of his cock and taking him down your throat and swallowing around him, all while your hands played with his balls and your fingers rubbed the sensitive patch of skin between them and his asshole. Your pace was fast and hard, making Jisung approach his high very rapidly. It was all going so well. He was so, so close and he was finally being nice and pliant for you, letting you do what you needed to do to get him off. But then someone knocks at the door, and a voice that you recognized to be Chan’s calls out for Jisung. You quickly yank the now drool-covered scarf from his mouth and gesture for him to answer, hoping beyond hope that the lust-dazed boy won’t give you both away. “Yes?” “What the hell are you doing in there?” Chan immediately pick up on the way Jisung’s scratchy voice trembles. “What’s going on? And where the hell did ___ go? She was supposed to fetch you—you know what? Never mind all that, It’s almost time to get back on stage so hurry the fuck up.” “I’m trying to!” Jisung whines, pouting down at you like this was all your fault. That brat! Narrowing your eyes at him, you press his cock against your mouth and sink down on his length in one go. He almost screams your name, but for once he had the good sense to bite down on his tongue as soon as the first letter came out. “Seriously what are you doing in there?” Accusation was clear in Chan’s voice, and you realize it probably wasn’t helpful to try and push Jisung right now, no matter how much of a brat he was being. So you move to pull away but he stops you, his hands grabbing the back of your head and pushing your mouth all the way down his length again. “Shit,” He curses quietly, before calling out to Chan in a louder but clearly strained voice, “I’m almost done, man. Just go and I’ll come quickly.” You would roll your eyes at the double entendre but you were a little short on air right now. Before Chan’s receding footsteps can no longer be heard, Jisung tugs your head back, pulling his cock out of your mouth so far that you think he’s gonna let you breathe, but just when the tip is at the edge of your lips, he slams his hips forward again, stuffing his length fully down your throat and choking you with it. “You’re always so—ah—mean to m-me, noona.” He cries out, fucking your mouth none-too-gently. You would bite his dick off if his moans didn’t sound so damn delicious, so whiney and broken and high-pitched. You could sit him and let him use your mouth however he wanted for hours just so you could hear the sounds he made, but you were starting get dizzy. Not to mention that the little brat didn’t even ask for permission before he went ahead and made your face into his own person blow-up doll. So to get back at him and get some much needed air, you use your long nails to claw at his skin harshly, digging bright red trails down his thighs. You expect him to scream and try to get away but, to your surprise, he does the exact opposite; his hold on your hair gets even tighter, his fingers yanking the strands right at the root while he rams his cock in and out of your mouth. He only lasts a few more seconds before he cries out your name and empties himself in your mouth, but damn were they brutal on your poor throat. You’re gasping for air as soon as he pulls away, which—unfortunately for you—only makes you choke on his cum that was too much for you to swallow. So there you lie on the dirty bathroom floor, throat burning and hair stinging, gasping for breath through the tears, cum and saliva that were staining you face. “Holy shit, are you ok?” Jisung kneels down next to you, looking comical with his flaccid cock out and a dazed look on his face as he tries hard to concentrate, apologize and make sure you’re alright all at the same time. “I’m so sorry for being so rough… But also, that was so fucking hot.” He holds your head in his hands and uses his thumb swiping up some of the mess on your chin which he then presses to your lips, probably trying to get you to lick it off. You smack his hands away, furious. “You brat!” You hiss, your voice hoarse and gritty, something that Jisung apparently also finds ‘so fucking hot’ if the way he licks his lips and stares at you hungrily is any indication. He really was a horndog. “You don’t deserve my kindness. I should’ve let you go up on that stage hard and horny.” “I’m sorry, noona.” He cowers, pouting and trying to make himself look cute and small so you’d let him off the hook. “It just felt so good and I needed to cum fast before anyone caught us.” That still wasn’t enough of an excuse but you didn’t have the time to tear him a new one right now. You both needed to try and make yourself look presentable enough for the next set, which should be starting any minute now. “Whatever.” You dismiss, getting up to wash your face in the hopes that it will make you look less like someone who just had their face fucked by a horny teen. Jisung stand up too, but instead of fixing his own clothes, he just watches you. “What now?” You scowl at him through the mirror. For a millisecond, you think he looks a tiny bit embarrassed that you called him out. But then he opens his mouth… “So that’s still a no on the picture thing?” “Hey, you said no hitting!” He squeaks as you pinch his ear and drag him to the door, throwing him out. “You better fix yourself up quick because if someone finds out about this you’re dead.” •❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• The entire remainder of the concert, Jisung couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off his face . He looked ten times cockier than ever and he threw suggestive looks at you every fucking chance he got. Every time he did something to make the fans scream, he’d turn to you, chest puffed and an arrogant smirk on his face, showing off. You wanted to slap him right there on stage. When the concert ended and you all went backstage, he heads straight to you, wearing a lop-sided grin that is somehow made even more infernal by his squirrel teeth. “What did you think, noona? How was that for a first concert?” “It was great. You guys did so well.” Your tone, despite being cheerful, had an edge to it intended to let Jisung know that you weren’t in the mood for his shit right now. But as always, he completely disregards you. “Who cares about them? I’m asking about me.” Jisung quips, and god help him, you know he doesn’t actually mean that. He cares about his members immensely but the boy was just too dumb to think his words through before saying them. “Did you see me on stage? I think I gave the best performance of my life out there. One fan actually took off her bra and threw it at me.” “That’s great, Han.” You deadpan, willing the conversation to end. You were still so sticky from the ordeal in the bathroom and you couldn’t wait to go home and wash your fuck-up away. But your fuck-up was incredibly tenacious. “Maybe I should bring her backstage.” He prattles on. “Uh-huh.” “But why go through all that trouble when you’re right here, noona?” He steps up to you, placing his hands on your waist and bending down to whisper in your ear, “Plus I owe today’s performance to you. It’s only fair that I return the favor.” You poke a finger at his chest and push him away in disgust. “Yeah, thanks but no thanks.” “Why not?” He pouts, stomping his foot. Rejection always had a way of making him revert to his more juvenile ways. “You’re not my type.” He snorts, “Oh yeah, and what’s that?” “A good boy who knows how to listen.” Jisung throws his head back, laughing, “You mean a boytoy who will let you do whatever you wanted to him. What’s the matter, noona? Scared of a little challenge? Are you worried that you might actually end up under me?” You look around to make sure no one was paying attention to you, then you lean in to whisper, your tone menacing, “No. I’m worried for you. Bad boy who don’t bend, will break.” “You can’t break me.” “Yeah? Maybe try to say it without shivering next time and I just might believe you.” •❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅• A/N: As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

#jisung smut #han jisung smut #han smut #sub!jisung #sub!han #stray kids smut #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids fanfics #skz smut #skz fanfics #skz imagines #skz scenarios #sub!skz #sub!stray kids #dom!reader

3K notes · View notes

fantastic-rambles · 3 years

Text

Fandom: Sk8 the Infinity

Characters: Shindo Ainosuke (Adam), Kikuchi Tadashi (Snake)

Warnings: What are ethics?, Genetically Engineered Humans, Human-Animal Chimeras, Animal Traits, Slavery/Ownership, Implied Abuse/Neglect

Word Count: 1.5k

Summary: Shindo Scientific is at the cutting edge of genetic engineering, and their most popular products are exotic chimeras that the obscenely rich purchase as pets. But when they start to explore the field of human chimeras, the young heir of the corporation finds himself developing a sense of empathy for their latest prototype. [This one is weird to tag, I think. But it's not canon-typical pet play, or sexual pet play in general, but it does involve ownership of "pets," so... yeah.] [TadaAi Week 2021 | Day 6: Sci-fi AU]

Ainosuke stared at the beautiful, white-winged creature in the gilded cage. It seemed to be sleeping, the wings furled around itself to conceal its body. But even though it simply sat there, perched on the couch inside the cage, he couldn't look away.

Of course, he could have asked one of the staff to go in and wake it up, to prod it until it flew around and showed off its plumage that shimmered with an iridescent phosphorescence, but he was content to just watch it like this. There was just something peaceful about the silence, and Ainosuke drew his knees up to his chest as he sat on the cool stone floor, breathing quietly.

Eventually, it began to stir, the gossamer wings stretching open to reveal the humanoid figure inside, looking only a few years older than him. Long, black hair fell down its back in a silky cascade, providing a sharp contrast to the wings while it stood up and stretched pale, delicate limbs. The white robe it wore fell down smoothly from one shoulder, draping in artful folds around its body. And it looked around with bright green eyes, a smile appearing on its face when it spotted the boy sitting outside the bars.

It made some small, unintelligible sounds as it walked over to Ainosuke, its wings folding neatly behind its back. But the noises sounded happy, and Ainosuke smiled back as it crouched down just inside the bars, looking back at him. Nervously, the boy looked around, but the two of them seemed to be alone. So he raised one finger to his lips while he dug around in his pocket, pulling out a chocolate bar. He stretched his arm toward the cage, but in the instant that the treat passed through the bars, a piercing wail made both of them flinch backwards while security ran in, his father in the rear.

"Again, Ainosuke?" Aiichiro snapped, grabbing his arm and roughly pulling him upright. He glanced at the candy bar on the floor before kicking it aside, where it thunked dully against the wall. "What were you thinking? You know that its diet has been precisely developed. If you give it something like that, it might get sick, and then all the investment into its development will go down the drain! And what if it had grabbed you? I thought I raised you to be smarter than this!"

"I'm sorry, Father! I'm sorry!" Ainosuke apologized, cringing. The prototype fluttered just inside the bars, its expression distressed before a wall of men formed between it and Ainosuke. "I just thought it might be lonely. It always just has to stay there--"

"Because it's a creature, Ainosuke! Even if it looks like that, it's not human! It's mindless, heartless, driven only by instinct like a mundane animal. You've seen what it does whenever we need to show it off to investors. You need to get rid of this useless sentimentalism of yours if you're seriously intending to take over this company when you get older. Do you understand?"

Reluctantly, Ainosuke nodded, glancing back toward the cage and catching a flash of soft white feathers past the wall of black. It didn't seem anything at all like his father said, though: even though it couldn't talk, it seemed reasonably intelligent and responded to his words when he talked to it. It wasn't like the other chimeras that Shindo Scientific had developed, but maybe it was just because it was their first successful part-human.

The others were certainly more dangerous pets: the part-lion, part-goat, part-snake chimeras that had become their flagship product had savaged more than one owner who didn't care for them properly. And then there were the pegasi that had provided the breakthrough for this angelic prototype: earlier versions of them had had the unfortunate tendency to buck off their riders when they were in the air before they were able to improve their docility. Of course, all buyers signed lengthy waivers absolving the company of responsibility in case of any such accidents, but there were always more buyers eager to purchase the latest exotic pet to show off to their friends despite the risk.

It was true that this one lashed out at its handlers during the exhibitions, but Ainosuke was convinced that if they just spoke to it, they wouldn't need to resort to violence to make it show off, unlike the others. He glanced back at the cage to see it soar above the barrier of guards, its emerald eyes fixed on him, but then it jerked and plummeted downward with a tranquilizer dart in its neck, pulling a cry out from Ainosuke's chest. He pulled against his father's grip, wanting to go and make sure that it was okay, that it hadn't broken anything, but Aiichiro firmly pulled him away.

"That's enough of that. Now, come on, or you'll be late for your lessons."

"Are you sure about this, sir? Nobody is allowed inside without protective equipment and a prod, usually. Shall I call in the guards, just in case?"

A technician hovered anxiously around Ainosuke as he unlocked the door of the cage. He was still dressed in a black mourning suit, but his scarlet eyes were dark with determination.

"I don't need any of that."

He stepped into the cage, closing the door behind him. The years had taken their toll on the beautiful creature of his memory: the wings were slightly tattered with many of the feathers askew, the black hair was messy and knotted, and its clothes were torn and stained. But the worst were the eyes: wary, like a cornered animal. Even so, Ainosuke had been impossibly relieved to know that it was still alive. Most pets were only kept for a few years, then put down to make space for the next fad. To have been able to buy it back after this long had been close to an impossibility.

It growled at him as he approached cautiously, his bare hands outstretched. He slowed down but continued to press forward, stopping when it bared its teeth and bated, its wings stretching out to their full length and sending gusts toward him.

"It's okay. It's me, remember?" Ainosuke called out softly, waiting for it to settle down again. He took another step forward, only to be greeted by the same reaction. Slowly, he reached into his pocket, and sharp green eyes followed his movements before he withdrew his hand to show it the chocolate bar.

"Remember?" he asked again, taking one more step forward. It was still clearly wary of him, but it didn't try to intimidate him this time. So Ainosuke continued to advance, freezing again when it bared its teeth at him again when he'd gotten within wing's length. Carefully, he extended the candy toward it, staying very still as it leaned forward, eyes fixed on his face. The silence stretched between them for over a minute before the candy was snatched out of his hand and raised to the creature's mouth. When it bit down on the wrapper, Ainosuke chuckled, stepping forward.

"Wait, you need to--"

An enormous white wing smacked into him, knocking him to the ground while a voice called out, "Ainosuke-sama!"

He raised a hand before slowly getting back to his feet.

"I'm fine. Don't yell. You'll startle it."

It had curled up defensively on its couch, shining eyes staring at him, and Ainosuke smiled gently, spreading his open hands again.

"It's okay. I scared you, right? I'm sorry. But the wrapper won't taste good. Let me show you?"

He took a cautious step forward, bracing himself for another buffet, but nothing came. It still shrank away from him as he moved closer, the wings twitching and sending small bursts of air toward him, but he was eventually close enough to reach out and take the candy bar back, though it flinched when he did.

With deliberate slowness, Ainosuke unwrapped the candy before holding it back out again, and it reached out just as slowly to take it, leaving a smear of melted chocolate on his fingers when it finally pulled it away and tasted it. And it hummed as it chewed, making Ainosuke smile more broadly as he raised his hand to his mouth, licking off the chocolate.

"Can I touch you?" he asked, extending his hand slowly. It watched the hand approach, but it didn't do anything to stop him, so he rested his hand on its head, waiting to see its reaction. Nothing happened, and feeling encouraged, Ainosuke gently stroked its hair, repeating the gesture a few times until it seemed to relax slightly.

Raising his other hand, he brushed it gently against one of the wings. It growled again when he caught against a loose feather, but the noise didn't sound like a threat, so he continued to carefully caress the dull, white feathers. For a while, there was no other sound besides that of chewing, but when it had finished eating, it leaned forward, resting its head on his chest. And Ainosuke sighed, bending down slightly so he could look it in the eye, so close that there would be nothing he could do if it suddenly decided to try to savage him.

"Welcome home."

#sk8 #SK8 the Infinity #skate the infinity #tadaaiweek2021 #fanfic #fan fic #sk8 adam #shindo ainosuke #ainosuke shindo #sk8 snake #kikuchi tadashi #Tadashi Kikuchi #shindo aiichiro #aiichiro shindo #mine

5 notes · View notes

dlwritings · 4 years

Text

Breaking Heaven’s Rules | Castiel

general masterlist found here

pairing - Castiel x reader word count - 1,574 (just a quick one) warnings - language (A/N) - I’ve been in my Cass feels lately which is very odd for me because I’m usually so far up Dean’s ass but here we are

summary - You get hit with a little bit of baby fever and struggle to face reality.

Things had been quiet for a long time on the hunting front, which made you and Castiel think it would be a great time for a date night. You weren’t planning on anything extravagant, just dinner and a movie. No movie was really standing out to either of you, so you settled for the latest Disney film. You were a sucker for the animated kids’ flicks, and Cass was honestly invested in any movie. He approached everything with the innocence of a child anyway, so Onward was perfect for him.

Well, he approached almost everything with the innocence of a child.

He could still kick monster ass and fuck you into a mattress if the situation arose.

When the two of you left the movie, you couldn’t help but smile at a couple and -you presumed- their child. The girl was standing between them, holding each of their hands, and the parents swung her in the air as they walked. The girl kept cheering, “Again, again!” and the parents continued to oblige.

Cass put his hand on your back, and you snapped out of your thoughts and gave him a smile. You both got into the car, and the ride to the bunker was full of your discussion of the movie. “In my experience,” Cass began, “manticores are not that friendly.”

You laughed. “Well Disney’s not exactly trying to terrify their audience.”

“And elves,” Cass continued, “they aren’t blue.”

You let out a playful sigh. “You know you do this after every movie we see, right?” Cass looked at you, and a blush crept on his cheeks.

“I need to remember not to analyze,” he said. “It’s just a story.”

“Exactly,” you said playfully. “You know, like how angels used to just be stories.” Cass rolled his eyes at you with a grin and reached over to hold your hand. He rubbed his thumb across your wedding band before bringing your hand up to kiss your knuckles.

You and Cass had been married for almost three years. You hunted with the Winchesters, so that was how you met him. You thought he was beyond sweet, and his personality was a nice break from Dean’s endless sarcasm and relentless bickering with Sam. You knew marriage between angel and human was frowned upon, but Cass figured he broke so many of heaven’s rules, what was the harm in one more?

You knew you didn’t have to get married. The Winchesters thought it was odd, given their line of work, but you were adamant. You had always dreamed of a fairytale wedding, and goddammit, you were going to get one. Cass didn’t care one way or another. Before he met you, he didn’t understand the concept of a wedding. Frankly, he didn’t understand the concept of love. That all quickly changed. You opened his eyes to a whole new world of emotions an ordinary angel would never have the pleasure of knowing.

When you got back to the bunker, you and Cass retreated to your bedroom. As soon as the door closed, you pushed Cass up against the door and kissed him. He smiled and put his hands on your waist, holding you flush to his body. He lifted your thighs and wrapped them around his waist, then walked with you over to the bed, dropping you on it. You giggled and put your hands on the back of his head, bringing his lips to yours again. He kissed down your neck, leaving little love bites in his wake. “Cass,” you suddenly whispered.

“Hm?” he hummed. He looked up at you and noticed your serious expression. “What’s wrong, angel?”

He had a tendency to call you that, like he couldn’t believe you weren’t one of heaven’s best.

You bit your lower lip and ran your fingers through Cass’ hair. “I want to have a baby,” you whispered. Cass’ expression softened, and he sighed and pressed another kiss to your skin. He kept his face nuzzled against your neck.

“You know what a child we would create could do,” he said. “If I were to conceive a child with you, it would be one of heaven’s greatest sins.”

You sighed. “Don’t you want a little baby? Can’t you imagine it? What it would look like?”

“Well,” Cass said, moving his face and resting his chin on your chest, “I imagine it would look like a combination of you and my current vessel.” You rolled your eyes and flicked his forehead.

“I’m being serious,” you said.

“So am I,” Cass said. “I suppose it would be a beautiful creation.” You ran your fingers through his hair, and Cass sighed, his eyes fluttering closed.

“It’d have the prettiest blue eyes,” you whispered. “Probably black hair.”

“The brightest smile,” Cass added. “Just like you.” You smiled, and stroked his cheekbone.

“See?” you said. “Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

Cass sighed and sat up. “(Y/N), we know how it would end.”

“But-”

“The angels would come for us,” he whispered. “They would kill the baby. Me. You.”

You sighed and put your hands on your stomach. You could feel tears coming to your eyes. Cass noticed too, and he leaned closer to you, putting his hands on your cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“No, no, it’s fine,” you said quickly, mustering up your strongest smile for him. “I get it. You’re right. Of course you’re right.”

“(Y/N)-”

“We don’t have to talk about it anymore,” you said. “It was stupid for me to bring it up.”

Cass furrowed his eyebrows and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you onto his lap. You were trying so hard not to lose it. You didn’t want Cass to feel bad. He was obviously right, and you knew that. You had had the conversation before you got married. He made sure you were plenty warned. So why was it so hard to let it go?

You started crying, and Cass just held you tighter. “I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I’m sorry. I know. You’re right.”

“It’s okay to be upset,” he said. “I understand.”

“Just,” you started softly, “I always wanted one, you know? A little baby who looked like me and, and who I could hold and know that it was mine. That I made it with someone I loved.” Castiel kissed your forehead, letting his lips linger for a moment.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Cass,” you whispered. “Seriously. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“If I could,” Cass said, “I would make a hundred children with you, each one more perfect than the last.” You managed a smile and pecked Cass’ nose.

“I know,” you whispered.

Castiel could break a lot of rules. He could lay with a human, betray angels, work with demons, and so much more, but some rules just couldn’t be broken. He wished they could be. Some rules existed for a reason too logical to fight. He knew the dangers a nephilim could bring to the world, and he couldn’t risk that.

“Come on,” Cass said, standing up from the bed, “let's get you in some pajamas.” You nodded, and Cass went to your drawers to get you out a t-shirt and shorts to wear for bed. You changed, and Cass put on something more comfortable too. Even though angels didn’t need sleep, he had trained himself to be able to do so just so he could lay with you at night without staring at the ceiling for eight hours.

Once you washed your face and you both brushed your teeth, you crawled into bed. Cass wrapped his arms around you, and you snuggled close to his chest. You were both quiet for a moment, until Cass said, “You could always use a sperm donor. I’m sure even Dean or Sam would-”

“No,” you said quickly, shaking your head. “I don’t want it to be mine and Sam’s or mine and Dean’s or mine and someone else’s. I would want it to be mine and yours.” Cass nodded in understanding. You knew adoption was an expensive process, so you didn’t offer it. Plus, no adoption agency in their right mind would approve of your lifestyle for a child. Realistically, what right did you have to bring a baby into your line of work? It didn’t make sense. It wouldn’t be safe.

“What are you thinking?” Cass whispered, his lips tickling your temple. You swallowed back some more tears.

“Just how strange my life is,” you admitted. “A hunter probably shouldn’t have a kid anyway. It’s not safe.” You scoffed. “I think I lost the possibility of having a normal life a long time ago. Long before I married an angel.” Cass smiled sadly and kissed your temple.

“I’m sorry I can’t provide that kind of lifestyle for you,” he said.

“Don’t be,” you said. “Just because I can’t have the life I thought I would doesn’t mean I don’t have the life I want.” Cass looked down at you again, and you brushed your thumb across his cheek.

“You’re sure about that?” Cass asked.

“Castiel,” you said, “there has never been a single day where I’ve regretted you.”

Cass smiled again and leaned down to press a kiss to your lips. You kissed him back, keeping your hand resting gently on his cheek. When you pulled away, you pecked his lips once more. “I love you, Cass.”

“I love you too, angel.”

----- ----- ----- -----

TAGLIST

If you want to be taken off the list (or be put on for only certain people) just message me and let me know!

#castiel #castiel supernatural #castiel x reader #castiel imagine #supernatural #supernatural imagine #castiel fluff #castiel angst

61 notes · View notes

deans-baby-momma · 4 years

Text

AFFLICTED-Part 8

A/N: Here it is....the last part to Afflicted. Enjoy!

The first day of Dean’s ‘vacation’ he busies himself with changing the oil in Baby and replacing the brake pads and fluids in my car, a 2015 Dodge Charger. He had told me they were both overdue on maintenance. So while he is in the garage I do a couple loads of laundry and take care of our daughter.

When I had become pregnant with Mavelin, Dean had insisted we get rid of the car I had been driving, an old hunk of junk Honda Civic hatchback, and get a more dependable vehicle. At the time, the Civic was all I could afford. That was way before I’d even heard of the Winchsters. To say I wouldn’t miss my car was a bold and inaccurate statement. That car held many memories for me but I had to agree with my husband, it wasn’t the safest option.

I am just hanging the last of his never-ending abundance of flannels when he walks into our bedroom, grease covered and dirty. Dean Winchester with grease splatters and stains is a sight that I can’t help but squeeze my thighs together at. The man is always sex on bowed-legs but with specks of oil and grime makes him even sensual.

“Hey baby,” he says as he spots me walking out of the closet. “How about after I take a shower and we have lunch we take Mav over to that park on 9th? Let her watch all the wildlife.”

“Yea, that sounds good,” I answer with a smile. “Do you need help getting those hard to reach areas?”

“Fuck yea! Is she asleep?”

I nod and follow Dean into the bathroom, where we quickly strip and step into the shower stall. Dean immediately steps under the stream, grabbing the soap and lathering it up to wash his hair.

After a couple of minutes he rinses by running his hands up over his face and hair and turns toward me. As sexy and lustful he is when he is dirty, Dean Winchester wet and naked is downright titillating! He is standing there, the water hitting his head and shoulders and rolling down his body.

“Like what you see?” he asks with a smirk when he catches me watching the water slide down his body.

“Duh.” I answer and he pulls me into his arms, hugging me close to his body and allowing the water to cascade over both of us. I can feel his cock grow against my hip. His head lowers until his lips meet mine and I instantly open for him.

The water runs frigid by the time we exit it and wrap ourselves in towels. Dean used to complain that shower sex was complicated but over time he and I have figured out the logistics of it and have used needing a shower as an excuse to get some quality alone time with one another. Especially when the Bunker was overrun by the people he and Sam had saved from the apocalypse world.

Sam and Mary return three days later, with tales of how the ghost almost got the upperhand by jumping from location to location until they realized that the great-granddaughter of the woman was carrying around a broach that she was linked to.

The next few weeks, it is quiet. No one calling for help with cases, the supernatural seems to be taking Dean’s lead and enjoying a vacation themselves. Life in the Bunker is mundane and normal. It is eerily comforting, not having to worry about where the next threat is going to come from and just being a normal-well as normal as the Winchesters could be-family.

But as with all things, the good times must end too. Dean is into his fifth week of his break when the call comes in. Donna Hanscum, sheriff in Stillwater, Minnesota calls early one morning, profusely apologizing for interrupting but in major urgency for some help. After both Sam and Dean speak to her on the phone, you find Dean in your bedroom packing a duffel.

“So,” I begin as I sit on the edge of the bed. “Guess vacation is over huh?”

“Yea, sounds like Donna has sometthing on her hands,” he explains as he rolls up the dress shirt to his suit and places it in the bag. “Are you okay with this? I know you weren’t feeling the best this morning.”

I look up at him, confused. “I heard you in the bathroom. Sounded like you were hacking up a lung. I can send Mom and Sam if you think I need to stay back and take care of you; if you’re coming down with something.”

“No I’m fine,” I assure him. “It’s probably just something I ate or maybe too many whiskeys. I think you were trying to get me wasted last night so you could take advantage.” I finish, smiling up at him.

“Nah, I don’t need you wasted to do that,” he jokes and he cups my cheek in his palm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Dean, I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. It was just an upset stomach. I am allowed to not feel well all the time you know?” I tell him, laughing at his mother hen tendencies that he denies.

He goes back to packing and within an hour, the three oldest Winchesters pull out of the garage in Baby, headed to Minnesota. Adam stands beside me while we wave them off.

“Why didn’t you go?” I ask as the Impala disappears.

“Dean asked me to stay back and keep an eye on you. Said you weren’t feeling well,” Adam says. “Are you alright?”

“God, that man! Yes, Adam I am fine. Got a little drunk last night and it didn’t settle on my stomach well so I woke up nauseous.”

I stalk back toward the entrance of our home, leaving him standing there.

I am not about to tell my brother-in-law or anyone else that this has been going on for almost a week; waking up nauseated and rushing to the bathroom to puke up whatever is in my system. There could only be one reason for that and I do not want to even consider it.

As I’m going to bed that night, my phone vibrates and lights up on the nightstand. It’s a text from Dean.

D: Hey babe. We made it. Got to catch up with Donna and introduce her to Mom. This case has really taken a toll on her though.

Y/N: Hey. I’m glad you got there in one piece. I had no doubt you would. What does your mom think of our lovely sheriff friend? Her and Donna hit it off? And why do you think that?

D: That’s because I’m an awesome driver. :) Mom is like Sammy and me. Even though she just met the woman, she says Donna is acting strange.

Y/N: Really? Strange how? I mean Donna is kind of strange anyway. So it’s more than usual?

D: Like she was surprised when we walked into the station. I mean she covered it well, but I saw a brief look of shock. I don’t know maybe it’s just been too long and I can’t get a good read on her.

D: So what are you wearing?

The next morning I am met with the same queasiness that has been tormenting all week. Before I could even tend to Mavelin, I was bent over the toilet puking my guts up until I was dry heaving. Knowing that what I have been worried about is more than likely happening, I decide to find out for sure during Mav’s morning nap.

I brush my teeth and rinse my face off before heading toward her room. When I get to the door, I hear Adam talking to her. I push the door open to see my brother-in-law with my daughter on the changing table and he was changing her diaper.

“Who’s a good girl? You’re a good girl. Just like your Mother.”

Mavelin coos and Adam laughs. “Yea your mom likes being called a good girl too.”

I finally make my presence known by walking into the room and standing beside him, pretending not to have heard what he said.

“Good morning, sweet face,” I sing to Mavelin. “Is uncle Adam changing you? Yea, then you’re almost ready for breakfast aren’t you.”

I turn and head toward the rocking chair. Once I am seated I pull the flap of the nursing bra down and reach for Adam to hand her to me.

He turns with her in his arms and stops in his tracks.

“Uh….”

“Oh come on Adam. It’s a boob,” I tell him as I take the baby from him. “It’s not like you haven’t seen them before.”

I help Mavelin latch on and look back up to see that my brother-in-law has left the room. I shrug it off and continue feeding her.

That afternoon while Mavelin is finally down for a nap-she fought her morning siesta- I head to the bathroom where I know the extra pregnancy test is.

The wait for the timer on my phone to go off seems excruciatingly lengthy. When the buzzer finally rings, I take a breath and turn the stick over. Two blue lines. I’m pregnant again! There is a human growing inside me and I am not 100% sure who the father is.

My heart is pounding in my chest as I get rid of the evidence and walk out of the bathroom. So many emotions are running through me; so many thoughts in my head. Mavelin is only 4 months old and is already going to be a big sister. I always knew I wanted more kids, Dean and I had discussed that when I was pregnant with her and he was on board to have one or two more.

But now that it’s actually happening, I can’t be happy; I can’t be excited to be adding another member to our family. Because it might not even be his.

I sit on the end of our bed and contemplate everything. How will I tell him? Do I tell him? Do I just pretend that there is no other possibility that he isn’t the father? That would destroy him, destroy us.

I stand and take a breath before I head out into the hallway and into the kitchen.

Adam is sitting at the table, reading a lore book.

“Adam,” I say to get his attention. “Can we talk?”

A/N2: Did you really think this story was going to be over? SIKE! Ha! Watch for an announcement on Tumblr today at 3PM EDT. <wink wink>

@lostinaseaoffictionalbliss @squirrelnotsam @sandlee44 @internationalmusicteacher @kricketc29 @natura1phenomenon @blacktithe7 @spnbaby-67 @travelingriversideblues-x @keymology @tftumblin @markofdean79 @thevelvetseries @deanwanddamons @winchester-fantasies @akshi8278 @michellethetvaddict @larajadeschmidt13 @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @hoboal87 @atc74 @maddiepants

#AFFLICTED #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #adam milligan #castiel angel of the lord #mary winchester #reader insert #accident #paralysis #cheating #smut #smidge of fluff #angst #unplanned pregnancy #oops

36 notes · View notes

pcychedelic · 4 years

Text

As Sweet As Vanilla

For anonymous

Pairing: Park Chanyeol/Reader

Tags: Smut, virgin!Chanyeol, sex work

Rating: Explicit

Words: 2.9k

“Hey,” a voice says from behind you. You turn around and see your boss, Hyesung, holding a frozen margarita. “Someone’s looking for you at table eleven. Asked for you by name,” she says, and then takes a sip from her drink. “Wants to book a night. You know the drill.”

Of course you know the drill. You know it like the back of your hand because it’s what has been paying your bills for the past five years or so.

Hyesung’s strip club doubles as a brothel, but since the latter’s illegal, it’s kept as an open secret and is only available for those who are willing to spend a little more. A night costs nearly a fortune, especially a night with girls like you, who have been working in Hyesung’s underground business since it began.

“Did he say who he was?” you ask, mostly because your patrons usually give you a heads up before they want to book a night with you. Nobody just asks for you by name out of the blue.

Hyesung shakes her head. “I think one of them is one of your regulars,” she says. “I might have seen him before. The other one, though… I’m not so sure.”

“There’s two of them?”

“Yeah,” Hyesung answers like it’s the most normal thing in the world. She takes another sip of her margarita before continuing. “Remind them that threesomes cost double, will you?”

You make your way to table eleven and immediately recognize one of the men sitting on the large, circular sofa. Minseok. Hyesung was right, he is one of your regulars. Beside him is a man you’ve never seen before, but from mere observation, you can tell that strip clubs aren’t really his turf. Might be his first time, you figure.

“Babe!” Minseok calls when he finally sees you — his favorite endearment. Usually, you don’t like being called pet names, but for Minseok, you make an exception. He pays well, and he isn’t a complete asshole compared to other patrons.

You take a seat next to Minseok’s friend. The stranger slightly moves away, and you can immediately tell that he’s uncomfortable with having a woman in just lingerie sit next to him so casually. That, or he’s simply a guy with amazing manners even when he’s literally in a strip club.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” you tell Minseok as you grab his martini without asking permission and take a sip from it. “Hyesung told me to remind you that threesomes cost double.”

Minseok’s friend shifts uncomfortably in his seat. You turn to look at him only to see that he’s blushing intensely; even his ears, which are endearingly huge, are flushed red.

Minseok waves you off, laughing. “Oh, I’m not here for that.” He then throws his arm around his friend and pulls him closer. “This is Chanyeol. I brought him here on a recommendation.”

“Hello,” Chanyeol says with a small voice. He immediately looks away after a split second of eye contact, clearly embarrassed by the whole situation.

He’s cute, maybe more than a little cute, so you’re confused as to why he’s being all shy. You’ve had other patrons who aren’t even in the same league as Chanyeol’s looks and yet have the audacity to be cocky simply because they were paying you for something they couldn’t get out of other girls.

“You referred me to your friend.” You can’t help but crack a smile. “That’s actually so sweet, Minseok.”

“Ah, I can’t trust other girls with Chanyeol,” he says, taking back his martini from you. He downs the rest of it and wipes his mouth with the back of his palm. “You’ll take care of him, right?”

For the right price?

You always do.

“Of course,” you say as you smile as sweetly as you can.

—

The clacking of your high heels is the only sound that can be heard in the suite as you walk around the mini bar and mix your famous Singapore Sling.

Chanyeol hasn’t said a word since you came up here. He’s quietly looking around the room while he’s sitting on the bed, his fingers fidgeting on his lap. He’s still blushing like crazy, and you’re starting to think that he’s either flushed because of that small glass of martini he had earlier or he’s flushed because he’s sick.

When you can’t take the silence any longer, you say, “You seem really nervous there, champ. Don’t worry. I won’t bite.”

“Sorry,” Chanyeol apologizes with a small smile. He still looks pretty nervous, but at least his shoulders seem a bit more relaxed. “It’s my first time in a…”

“Strip club? Or brothel?”

Chanyeol lets out a chuckle. “Both, actually.”

“I can tell,” you admit. When you’re done making the cocktails, you walk over to him on the bed and hand him the drink. A clink echoes through the suite when you touch your glass to his.

Chanyeol drinks the cocktail with no problem, downing nearly half of the glass in one swig.

“Easy, tiger. I don’t want you throwing up on me now.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes again, setting his glass on the bedside table. “I’m just… really nervous right now.”

You take a small sip from your drink and then place it next to Chanyeol’s on the nightstand. “Let me guess,” you begin as you sit next to him on the bed, crossing your legs. At least he doesn’t shy away this time. “First time with a hooker?”

Chanyeol winces at your brutally honest vocabulary. “Uh, no,” he answers. “First time, um, in general.”

You couldn’t stop the laugh from escaping your lips. “You’re bullshitting me, right?” Chanyeol shakes his head. You arch your brow in disbelief. “You’re serious.”

“I am,” he says. “How is that so hard to believe?”

You purse your lips as you try to think of what to say.

There is no way that a guy that looks like him is a virgin. He must probably have girls throwing themselves at him every single day. It’s just mathematically impossible.

And yet, he doesn’t seem like he’s lying, and that says a lot given how you’ve perfected the art of seeing through men’s bullshit thanks to your line of work. His shy, nervous demeanor earlier and even now doesn’t look like a front at all.

“Okay,” you concede. You uncross your legs and take your high heels off, tossing them unceremoniously on the carpeted floor. You stand up in front of Chanyeol and he looks up at you with such innocent eyes that you almost feel bad for being the one to pop his cherry. “You still want to do this, right?” you ask.

It might sound odd that you’re still asking for his consent even if he literally paid you to have sex with him, but you’re not a complete sellout. Consent is important, even if it has a tendency to be forgotten in the context of sex work. As a matter of fact, you feel even more inclined to ask for it now that you know that Chanyeol has no experience at all.

You, of all people, would understand if he didn’t want his first time to be like this.

“Yeah, I do.” Chanyeol blushes again, but this time, he doesn’t look away. “You’re incredibly beautiful, by the way. It’s part of why I’m so nervous.”

It’s your turn to blush, but you try to cover it up with a chuckle. “Thank you,” you say. “Shall we?”

Chanyeol nods slowly, still not taking his eyes off of you. You take his hands off his lap and gently place them on your breasts, slowly sliding them down until they reach your hips. You shiver slightly not because of the cold, but because of Chanyeol’s calloused fingertips gliding across your skin. You can see Chanyeol’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his throat as he swallows thickly.

“You play the guitar?”

“Y-yes,” Chanyeol answers in a hoarse voice. He clears his throat, and then repeats: “Yes.”

You hum thoughtfully. “Explains the rough hands.”

“Sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize,” you say as you brush your right thumb over Chanyeol’s lower lip. You can feel him hitching a breath against your fingertip. “I like it.”

You climb on top of him as he sits on the bed, straddling him with your thighs to hold yourself and him in position. Chanyeol’s hands feel warm against the curve of your hips. You can feel the rapid beating of his heart through his chest and you can’t help but chuckle at how cute he is; this reminds you of your first time, how you were as nervous as he is right now.

You lean forward and touch the tip of your nose to his. Chanyeol stares at you, as if asking permission to steal a kiss, and you answer him by connecting your lips together.

Chanyeol’s taken aback, but eases into it eventually. His fingers sink deeper into your skin as you roll your hips back and forth, humping until you can feel him getting hard, the mere friction already tying your stomach into knots.

Chanyeol lets out a small groan. “Jesus…” he says as he pulls away for a moment, trying to catch his breath. You smile at him as he shifts his eyes between you and the growing tent in his pants. “I’m…”

“Shhh,” you whisper to his ear, your lips barely grazing the skin. Chanyeol shudders. “It’s okay. Let me take care of it.”

You grab him by the shoulders and gently push him onto the bed until his back is flat on the mattress. Slowly, you unbuckle his pants and pull it off of him along with his boxers. His cock springs free, thick and hard and needy. Precum is already leaking at its tip.

You take your index finger and let it slide gently along his shaft, his cock twitching every time the pad of your finger touches his skin. Chanyeol’s exhales are getting heavier by the minute.

You can tell he’s holding back, so you grab his girth properly this time, closing your hand around its entirety, and begin to stroke him. Slowly. Surely.

Chanyeol lets out his first proper moan. “Fuck,” he hisses.

A satisfied smirk settles on your lips. “You touch yourself like this?” you ask in your signature sultry voice that you know drives men insane. Chanyeol bites his lower lip, shaking his head. You bring your lips close to his ear once more and whisper, “It’s okay, baby. You can talk dirty to me. I wanna hear you.” As soon as you say that, you gently squeeze his length in your hands, soliciting another moan from him. You repeat your earlier question: “You touch yourself like this, baby?”

“No,” Chanyeol finally answers, his breaths getting more and more labored by the minute. “Not as good as you. You do it better.”

You let out a little laugh. “I know.” You kiss him again, swiping your tongue across his lower lip and earning yourself another moan from Chanyeol. Hearing him whimper in that deep voice of his has drenched your panties in your own slick, even if you’re the one doing all the touching.

Breaking away from the kiss, you lower yourself until you’re face to face with his cock. You bare your tongue and start licking his length from base to tip. Chanyeol trembles even more.

You’re used to getting this kind of reaction from men, but knowing that you’re the first to make Chanyeol squirm in pleasure feels different — refreshing, almost. He hasn’t even gone inside you and yet he seems ready to explode, ripe enough to burst.

You pepper his cock with small kisses before completely taking him in your mouth. The tip of his cock presses against the back of your throat and he goes wild, exhaling every possible profanity there is. You suck until your lips detach from his cock with a pop.

“Felt good, baby?” you ask.

Chanyeol is out of breath when he answers. “Y-yes. Dear god, yes.”

You go down on him again, his cock twitching in your mouth as you suck. You then go on to undo the clasp of your bra, throwing the undergarment away to the side of the bed, not caring where it landed. Just then, Chanyeol runs his fingers through your hair and gently tugs at it to tell you to stop.

Chanyeol can’t even look you in the eye from embarrassment, but that’s part of his charm. “I’m gonna… cum… if you keep going…” he stumbles with his words, but you immediately understand what he’s trying to say.

You give his cock one last kiss before hovering over him again. “How do you want to have me?” you ask. You start throwing suggestions at him: from behind, on top, against the wall…

But he answers with, “On your back.”

“Very vanilla,” you chuckle. Chanyeol blushes and looks away. It’s very cute how he’s embarrassed by the smallest of things. “I like vanilla. It’s sweet.”

You kiss Chanyeol to make up for teasing him and he happily accepts your apology. He flips you over so that he’s now the one hovering over you. Without pulling away from the kiss, he spreads your legs wider, running his long fingers up and down your slit.

An airy moan escapes your lips.

“You’re so wet…”

You hum as Chanyeol continues to tease you, coating his fingers with your slickness. He dips the tip of his middle finger into you and your walls immediately tighten around it.

“More,” you demand, the word coming out as a whimper.

Chanyeol complies and buries his entire finger with no sweat, your wetness sucking him right up. He works you open, eventually adding two, three more fingers, until you’re nothing but a moaning, shuddering mess and he can barely move his fingers from how tight you’ve become.

“Baby…” you whine, squeezing your breast for maximum effect. “I need you. Please…”

Chanyeol nearly crumbles on top of you from your sensual tone. He plants one last kiss on your lips before lining himself up at your entrance.

“I’m going in, okay?” he says, leaving a trail of wet kisses on your neck and shoulder, and then you feel it — his girth slowly ripping through you, your walls expanding to let him in.

You let out a loud gasp as Chanyeol sheaths himself inside you. His moans complement yours until he’s completely inside, balls deep in you.

Chanyeol stays like that for a moment. You can feel his cock quivering inside you, and you have never felt so full. You begin to wonder how you managed to put all of him in your mouth just a while ago when he’s packing this much length, enough to shut you up.

“Chanyeol…” you sigh, trying to roll your hips forward. “I need you to move. Please.”

Chanyeol nods. He pulls out and then dives back in, again and again, until he’s settled into this nice, steady rhythm.

It feels good — fuck, how it feels so good. But it’s not enough, not for you, so you wrap your legs around Chanyeol’s hips and pull him towards you.

“Harder, baby,” you plead. “Harder.”

Chanyeol lets out a low groan. “I… don’t want to hurt you.”

You can’t help but smile at how sweet he is. You kiss him fully on the lips, biting at his lower lip. “You can never hurt me,” you reassure him. “Please. Fuck me harder.”

That flips a switch in Chanyeol’s brain, and suddenly he’s thrusting into you exactly how you want him to. Both of your moans and the loud sound of skin slapping against skin bounce off the walls of the suite.

And then…

“There!” you scream, raking your fingernails across Chanyeol’s back as he hits your favorite spot. “There, baby. Just like that. Fuck me just like that.”

Chanyeol does as he’s told, ramming into that particular spot until you can’t think straight and your entire body is shivering from pleasure. Even the slightest kiss on your neck sends you tingling from head to foot.

“Fuck,” Chanyeol curses for what seems to be the hundredth time tonight. “You feel so good. So good…”

And then you just explode.

Chanyeol holds you by the waist to keep you from thrashing around, but even then, he doesn’t stop his relentless thrusts. Eventually, he begins to become sloppy, too.

You know all too well what that means.

You run your fingers through his hair and tug at it gently. “You want to cum now, don’t you, baby?”

“Y-yes…”

“Inside,” you tell him. “I want you to fill me up.”

And that’s what makes Chanyeol fall apart. He lets out the loudest groan he’s let out all night. His arms give up from pleasure but you’re there to catch him, hugging him as he crumbles on top of you and warm spurts shoot into your center. You plant soft kisses on his neck while he rides out his high and finally pulls out.

You can feel his cum dripping from you and mixing with yours, and while you feel so sticky, you also feel good. So so so good.

You both lay there for a while, trying to catch your breath, until Chanyeol stands up and grabs a box of tissues from one of the tables inside the suite. He then returns to bed and starts wiping you off.

“I think you’re the sweetest patron I’ve had, Chanyeol,” you say with a fond smile. You mean it.

“Chanyeol? What happened to ‘baby’?”

You can’t help but laugh. “Now you’re just pushing your luck,” you deflect. But deep down, it did feel nice to call him that.

That makes Chanyeol laugh, at least. When he’s finished wiping you clean, he gives you a soft kiss on the lips and asks, “Are you free tomorrow?”

You smile. “Maybe.”

a/n: i really enjoyed writing this one and i was internally screaming the whole time i was typing out the smut because i’m weak for sweet sub!yeol

#exowritersnet #chanyeol x reader #oneshot #chanyeol smut #chanyeol fic #chanyeol fanfic #chanyeol fanfiction #requests #exo x reader #exo smut #exo fic #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exo oneshot #chanyeol imagine #chanyeol scenario #exo imagine #exo scenario

66 notes · View notes

honestdreams · 5 years

Text

Chemisty | Peter Kavinsky

A/N: Guess whose back from the dead, it’s your girl, hope you guys missed me! This ones a LONG one, I got this request form @ruwaidahmulla which I got over a year ago but I’ve been in mia since tumblr deleted my blog but I’m back baby! Hope yall enjoy this, I’ve missed writing so request more things please ♡

words: 2450

warning(s): smut

masterlist

“Girl, how did Peter Kavinsky ace chemistry?! I mean he beat LJ, that’s like crazy!” Chris exclaimed, emphasising her blown mind with her hands and a sound effect.

I chuckled and ran my fingers through my tousled hair, “I know right, I’m proud of him?”

“What did you do? Put a spell on him?” Lara Jean joked.

Making me laugh and shrug casually, “You could say that.”

“Y/N please, please, you have to tutor me, I’m failing chemistry and you’re amazing at it!” Peter followed me through the halls begging.

“How many time do I have to tell you, this isn’t going to work. No matter how good I am at chemistry, you have a tendency to get distracted around me, and you know it! Coach even makes me sit on the highest bleachers when I’m watching you practise or you’ll keep stopping to talk to me if I didn’t.”

Peter groaned knowing I was right. “Please honey please…unless you want me to get some other girl to tutor me.” He started.

My eyes narrowed as I imagined another girl taking advantage of Peter’s need for help for their own personal gain, to flirt with him, even though I know he was all about me, I found it hard to trust other girls, especially after meeting girls like Gen, and the fact that more than half of the girls in our school drooled over Peter.

“Fine, but you owe me dinner then yeah?”

“I promise, Friday night is at your favourite dinner, thank you honey.” He kissed my forehead quickly making me smile and blush.

“Okay Peter these are the notes you have to remember the most because this is what the test is mainly about.” I went over the sheet of paper I had made for myself to study on for our next upcoming test, everything was simplified and focused on the information that needed to be remembered, unlike how our text books were set out. I guessed if these helped me a lot, hopefully they would also be a big help to Peter too.

“I like the colours.” He finally spoke and I sighed,

“Thanks Pete, but I need you to focus on the dot points.” I gently ran my fingers through his hair, “This will help you.”

“I know, but you running your fingers through your hair doesn’t help me concentrate honey.” He mumbled, pulling my hand from his hair to hold it instead.

I blushed and squeezed his hand gently. “Sorry bub.”

He smiled and kissed my cheek before reading over the sheet, occasionally asking questions but he got the basics then I felt his hand on my leg, without a word he moved my leg over his lap, and I instantly moved my other to be the more comfortable.

He settled his hand on my thigh and rubbed his thumb subconsciously. I continued to explain things to him, but his hand began to wander higher until I felt his fingers against the lace of my panties.

“Peter.” I groaned and tried to move his hand away, but he brushed me away and smirked still looking down at the paper.

“Yes honey? I’m trying to read.”

“No you’re not you’re trying to get in my pants.”

“Um wrong, since I’ve already been in your pants so I don’t have try to get in them again.”

“You’re supposed to be studying.”

“Well this is a little boring and I think I’ve just found something better to do.”

I sighed in defeat as Peter reached over and pushed my hair back behind my ear, teasingly brushing his lips over mine and I couldn’t help but push my lips against his and his hand settled on my cheek, while his other pulled my body closer to him. Making me sit on his lap as our lips became familiar with each other, I ran my fingers through his hair and moved my body against his, feeling my wetness quickly ruin my lace.

“Told you this tutoring thing wouldn’t work.” I mumbled against his lips.

“Thank you for trying honey, but right now I wanna focus on this right here.”

I sat in front of LJ’s TV as Billy Madison played, entertaining our need for a comedy on movie night.

“Adam Sandler is such a good actor.” I commented before eating some more popcorn.

“I know right; he can do just about anything. I mean we should watch Mr Deeds next because it has a good romance too.” LJ replied and I nodded in agreement.

We talked minimally as the scene where Billy’s girlfriend had come up with an inventive way to help Billy study better and a light bulb went off in my head. I questioned to myself if that would work for Peter and knew I might need to adapt it.

He was doing a bit better after our study session but I wanted to help him more, and I know I couldn’t do that if I was a distraction for him, but perhaps I could use the thing that was distracting him as a motivator to make him to better.

“Okay Peter I got an idea of how to help you study.”

“It isn’t flash cards is it because we tried that in 10th grade and I will remind you that it didn’t work.”

“No. No, I got this idea from a movie and I want to see if it’ll work for you. I’m am going to ask you a question and every time you get an answer right I am going to kiss you.”

After hearing the word kiss Peter instantly perked up. “Now you’re interested huh bubba.” I mumbled before pecking his lips.

“Yeah, yeah I’m listening.”

I smiled and asked him a simple question that I knew he knew the answer to, I quickly kissed him as a reward and asked another. Following the process over and over again. Taking mental notes as he surprisingly answered some difficult questions, and struggled to answer some others before going over my helpful papers to review what the answer should be.

I pushed his hair back as he read over a paragraph a couple of times to embed it into his memory. “Wow bubba, I’ve never seen you so concentrated besides when you’re practising, it’s hot.” I grinned, teasing him but also telling him the truth.

“Yeah?” He smiled back cheekily.

“Yes, I’ll tell you what, if you get over 90% on our next test, I’ll let you do absolutely anything to me after our date on Friday.”

“Anything huh? You dirty girl.” He took a moment to poke my side before I pushed his hand away and he intertwined our fingers. “Alright I’ll take you up on that. And if I don’t?”

“You have to help me make cupcakes for my monthly sleepover night with the girls.” I offered my hand out to him to shake and he instantly shook it.

“Alright, you got a little deal you devil, but that means we’re having study sessions every day before the test.” He smiled and pulled me in by our handshake to kiss me.

My leg bounced up and down anxiously as I watched the teacher walk around with our test papers, I was excited for Peter, but I always got anxious when we were getting our results back because I hope to get a mark I would be proud of, especially after all the hard work I put into it.

I bit mu lip and dug my nails a little harder into my palm as the teacher got closer to us. Finally, he slipped my paper down in front of me and I immediately let out a breath of relief as I read a clear 88% was written in red pen on the top right hand corner of my paper.

Free from worry I glanced behind me at Peter and proudly showed him my mark, he gave me a big thumbs up and I laughed softly before turning silent as our teacher dropped Peter’s test paper in front of him.

I watched as Peter took a deep breath, obviously being nervous. I bit my lip and subconsciously interlocked my middle finger around my pointer finger, hoping Peter gets a mark that makes him happy. Suddenly his face lit up and I knew.

He flipped his paper around for me to see and I gaped at his mark of 97%.

“No fucking way!” I whispered in surprise then quickly got up to kiss Peter, “I’m so so proud of you bubba, I mean I would have been proud no matter what you got, but I’ve even more ecstatic that you got an A+. It’s well deserved, you worked very hard for this. Good job baby.”

“Thank you honey, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.” He smiled and kissed my forehead.

“Obviously.” I joked and messed up his hair before walking back to me seat, admiring his award winning smile before I turned back around to face the teacher that had just sat down at his desk.

“I’m serious Peter, you shouldn’t have yelled at that guy just because his friend caused him to knock his drink on me.”

“Honey you’re too nice, he didn’t even apologise, of course I was going to make him so do, I know how much it annoys you when people don’t use common decency, you’re just like me.” He chuckled and wrapped his arm around me.

I rolled my eyes but moved closer into him knowing he was right.

“So back to my place honey?” He whispered in my ear and I shivered in anticipation, nodding quickly.

Peter laid me down on my bed and brushed my hair back.

“I will never get over how lucky I feel when I get to see you like this.”

I immediately pulled him in for a kiss and wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him closer in, consumed in how much I loved this boy and knowing he loved me just as much as I loved him. Our hands roamed the other’s body, becoming familiar and finding where our hands belong, mine in his hair and his on my hips, pulling me in as he grinded against me.

I blushed feeling his hard on grow, making my body react and my wetness grew. Suddenly I was on top of Peter, a position I wasn’t used to, but as I looked down at Peter I realised what he meant when he said he got to see me ‘like this’. I normally saw Peter from below, him being so much taller than me and all, but now from above, he was vulnerable, his hair messy, his whole face to admire and nothing to hide behind.

“I’m the luckiest girl in the world.” I admitted, tearing up a little.

“Honey,” He chuckled and cupped my cheeks, “if I knew you were going to get this emotional, I would not have put you on top.” He laughed and quickly pecked my lips before laying back down.

I followed him and leaned down, our lips barely touching but getting lost in each other’s eyes, “I love you Peter Grant Kavinsky.”

“And I love you (your full name).”

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against him, just for a moment, though it truly felt like a lifetime, then pressed my lips against him and let my head get dizzy with lust. Our hands travelled one another’s body again but this time taking off clothing. I pulled away breathless as Peter pulled my shirt over my head, and I made sure his followed suit.

I kissed him again before my hands found his belt and unbuckled it, undoing his zipper than hastily pulling his pants down before Peter did it himself, and soon enough my pants were off too. I watched as Peter carefully ran his fingertips over my bare skin, feeling the material of my underwear before pulling them off too.

“I want you to ride me honey. That’s all I’ve wanted for ages but have been too shy to ask, and after this test business, I wanted my well-earned reward.” He kissed my neck running his hands up and down my sides.

My cheeks turned pink at the thought of riding my boyfriend, he was also in control and I liked it like that but at times I was curious how it would be if I was on top and it seemed the both of us were getting what we wanted.

I gently took his cock in my hand and stroked it silently, my other hand drifting between my own legs to see if I was ready for him, I bit my lip feeling how wet I was. Peter smiled and kissed my cheek, letting me go at my own pace as he rubbed my skin. I took a second to position myself over him then slowly sank down onto his cock.

I moaned quietly and dug my nails into Peter’s chest, feeling myself getting used to his size over time then slowly rocked my hips, making Peter moan as well which was music to my ears. I leaned down to kiss him as I moved my hips faster.

I whimpered his name against his lips and he gripped my hips, pushing up against me making me moan louder, his lips found their way to my neck again and I knew he was leaving marks but my mind was too clouded with pleasure to tell him off. I felt my orgasm grow and I pulled away from Peter to better take in how he felt inside me.

“I’m close honey, you look so sexy like this.”

“Peter.” I whined not able to say anything else.

He quickly grabbed me and sat up, thrusting into me as I became lightheaded. My body shook in his hold and I screamed out his name, climaxing on his cock and Peter followed quickly, finishing inside me as we both breathed heavily, taking in everything that happened so quickly.

Y/N comfortingly brushed her fingers through Peter’s hair before he rolled them over so she was on her back, resting his head on her chest, listening to her rapid heartbeat, smiling as their hearts were beating as one.

“That’s why you’re wearing a turtleneck?!” Chris questioned laughing.

“I couldn’t find my makeup to cover it up.” I blushed.

“That’s why Peter asked me where you keep your makeup.” LJ started to laugh too.

“Well it’s good to know Peter and Y/N have a lot of chemistry, huh LJ?” Chris continued to tease and I rolled my eyes at my goofy friends.

masterlist