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#and of course he's probably also really worried about losing him again
icedteaandoldlace · 6 months
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K, so as much as the rest of season 1 and the entirety of season 2 would suck with Cisco being dead, now that this thought is in my head, I can't stop thinking about how wild that would be if they literally killed him off for just that period of time, with the intention of bringing him back via Flashpoint and keeping him on for the rest of the show, but making the audience think he was gone for good for a whole entire season. That would've been CRAZY, yo.
#The Flash#Cisco Ramon#Barry Allen#obviously the whole thing with Dante would have to go out the window#because we didn't meet Dante until after Barry time traveled the first time#so there's no significance in killing him off if he hasn't even shown up yet#and because the big thing that Flashpoint changed about Cisco's life is now in fact Cisco being alive#so now instead of Barry returning from Flashpoint and finding Cisco depressed because his brother is dead#he's returning from Flashpoint and finding......Cisco? Alive???#and Cisco's probably his usual bubbly self and like that's a good thing but also#Barry is freaking the fuck out because CISCO'S BEEN DEAD FOR OVER A YEAR AND NOW HE'S BACK LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED#and obviously has no idea he was murdered in another timeline and also!! neither does anyone else!!#Barry has gone overnight from being on a team full of other people grieving for Cisco#to being the ONLY person with memories of learning that he was dead and all the shock that came with that#and the funeral and the supporting each other and the trying to grow around grief#and now it's all just gone but he's still affected by that death even though it's been undone now and NO ONE understands what he's feeling#and of course he's probably also really worried about losing him again#and since Dante's death was one of his big motivations in canon for not altering the timeline again after Flashpoint#(because causing that and irreversibly hurting Cisco was the biggest and worst consequence of altering the timeline)#in THIS version it's kind of the opposite#in canon he vowed not to change the past again because he saw the harm it could do to people in the present#but this time it's because he accidentally made his life in the present better by bringing Cisco back#and now he's terrified that if he changes another detail from the past Cisco will go back to being dead#and he can't risk letting that happen#it was hard enough going through that the first time#and he's just been through having to let Thawne re-kill his mom which led to Zoom re-killing his dad#and maybe getting Cisco back is a fluke in the universe and it wasn't supposed to happen#but if life will let him have this one bit of relief by gosh he's not gonna do anything to mess it up#(then of course Cisco's gonna piece it all together eventually when his powers finally kick in and hooooo boy is THAT gonna be a ride)
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saturnicos · 3 months
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Giving a bracelet to them
With: Adam, Alastor, Angel Dust, Charlie, Lucifer
ps:: reader's gender is not mentioned
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. Charlie
She absolutely adores! Extra points if it have some decoration with rainbow.
She'll use all the time, only take off when goes to bed and when goes to take a bath — she is worried if she ends up breaking or losing the pieces, so try to be as careful as possible.
As she organizes and takes care of hotel paperwork she tends to feel stressed, and unconsciously looks at the bracelet, a smile forming and her spirits slightly picking up again. She's really happy with the gift.
"Wait, this's for me? Really? It's so pretty, thank you so very much!"
. Alastor
He... Definitely have it.
Like, don't get me wrong, he just not knows how really feel about it since he has never received a gift before from anyone, except from his mother.
Deep inside, he actually likes it! The color scheme matching with his clothes, and it isn't so much decorated and colorful; or how he would like to say, simple things are more pretty.
Alastor isn't using the bracelet frequently, most because he not like that type of accessories so much. He'll probably use when is far from you, like a way to remember of you and stuff (this man don't use phone not even if the world frozen), but in the most of the time the bracelet probably will be in the pocket of his coat.
"What do you have there, my dear? Oh, a bracelet, that's very interesting."
. Adam
He... Definitely have it/2.
But it's the opposite.
He's a bitch that will probably mock about it, but will quickly change when you feel upset and try to leave him alone, saying something like "Just joking, Sugartits/Hunk, I actually liked that, give me".
He'll use ALL the time, except when he's going to the extermination.
He will 100% brag about the bracelet to anyone when he gets the chance, saying how you spent your time making gifts for him (he's a complete idiot that loved this thing, but will never admit bc high ego lol).
Lute can't stand him talking about this damn accessory anymore, please, she begs you not to give him anything else.
TOTALLY extra points if it has a guitar pendant.
"Of course you make it for me, after all, you are madly in love with me"
. Angel Dust
Now, I think it's important to point out that Angel would act a lot more like Anthony with his S/O.
Using this as a base, he'll be SO happy receiving a gift from you. Obviously, he'll make some dirty joke about it, but deep down he wonders why he received it if it's not a specific date.
This poor boy is emotionally broken, little acts like this make him feel so moved and loved ☹️
Every time that him have a breakdown and isolates himself, Fat Nuggets comfort him, laying next to him and gently plays with the bracelet (or if he isn't using, Fat Nuggets will pick it up and take it to him, as if knowing it is an object of comfort).
"A gift? For me? You're so kind, baby~."
. Lucifer
Listen to me: this man would probably feel so much like crying — with joy — and nothing convinces me otherwise.
He'd passed the lasts seven years alone, without any love or compassion, having you in his life it's a great gift for him. Now, receive a gift from someone that he considers his greatest gift? God-
He would also be one of the will use all the time. Seriously, this guy probably don't take it off in any occasion, it's a regular reminder that there is someone else besides Charlie who loves him.
He's so grateful to have you.
Later, he'll make matching necklaces with duck pendants for you, he thinks that's a lovely way to say thanks :)
"What is this, sweetie? Oh... I'll use, that's so beautiful, thank you a lot."
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Thank you for read !! I'm so sorry if this is ooc, but I hope it was pleasant anyway :)
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bigfatbimbo · 3 months
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ohmygod i have no idea how you manage to write about those characters so well fehjebhjeb i guess i'm riding the finale wave of excitement about lucifer so i wanted to ask if you're willing to write some nsfw headcanons about him? I absolutely agree he's way more submissive than he lets on and i loved your view on him being really vocal (curse u for opening my mind to the possibilities). How open do you think he would be about being pegged or having a general very praising dom loving his whimpering sounds of pleasure and just wanting to hear even more of them and what would get him to completely lose it
a/n — oh my gosh it’s funny you ask because i’ve actually already done smut headcanons
this request made me heavily consider just doing a fic where the reader pegs him but the people have decided on more nsfw hcs
i’ll still do that pegging fic tho..
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˚ ʚ♡ɞ˚ This has been said before but it doesn’t take much to get him worked up.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ So coaxing those pretty noises out of him would be easy.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Especially if you bring up how noisy he is. He would be all flustered and embarrassed about it but then proof your point more by whining.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ About having a very praising dom— he absolutely loves it. 
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He hasn’t been loved in so long that even if you guys aren’t fucking and you praise him he’d probably get really needy.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ If you degrade him too much I genuinely think he would cry because he literally tries so hard to please you it’s sad.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He will be so pathetic about it too and beg you to be nice again.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Edging would literally end him. Like I said he hasn’t gotten laid in a while so he definitely cums super fast.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ I had an anon once say that he probably would before his clothes were even off and that’s so true because he is desperate.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He would be so embarrassed after that and probably ask you if you wanted to leave because he’s literally so ashamed oh my god.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ But of course you don’t leave and you give him all the love and praise he deserves in bed.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ I don’t know if this is just a me thing but he needs love so bad I feel the need to give him 100% princess treatment in bed.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He really would want to please you and give back to you but maybe you just tie his hands together and tell him tonight was all about his needs.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Fuck him and praise him so that he wouldn’t even have to lift a finger— he would literally die under all the attention.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He whimpers A LOT like that’s probably the main noise he makes. 
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ I think it would take a second for him to say anything but he is really into being pegged by you.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He would like to be on his back with his legs wrapped around your torso so he could see you while you fuck him.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He’s a little guy so it would be so easy to manhandle him. Which is good because that literally turns him on so much.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Like you could probably hoist him up by his thighs and fuck him against the wall as he clings to your neck.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Oh. My. God. He’s done for. He’s so incredibly touch starved that being held like that while being treated by your strap or dick would literally send him reeling.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ After really hard days with his depression I think it would also be really comforting for him to be treated like that.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ But make sure it’s gentle and loving because if it’s too rough he’ll worry you’re mad at him.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ I wonder sometimes if he’d even sit on your lap while you fuck up into him. I mean I hope so because I highkey wanna breed this guy on my plastic dick.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He also loves when you sit on your face. He could literally just die between your legs it’s so crazy.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He could eat you out for literally hours especially if you’re moaning out praises while he does it because he really cares about making you feel good.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ I think he’s the type of guy to moan while he eats you out because just the idea of pleasuring you is enough to make him cum untouched.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He’s a pussy eater, what can I say? You saw that one shot of him in the finale… with the two fingers? Yeah, you know what i’m talking about.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Also he moans like a bitch when you suck his dick. Loves the feeling of your warm, wet mouth on him.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He’ll start praising you while you do it but can literally only speak for like two minutes before he’s completely incoherent.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Mark him up well and noticeably because he loves silently letting people know that he’s lucky enough to get fucked by you.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ He also can be incredibly smug. This guys KNOWS he’s adorable and he uses it.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Maybe you’re telling him off for not taking care of himself one day and he’s just gazing up at you with big innocent ‘fuck me’ eyes.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Oh, but he knows what he’s doing and he knows it gets under your skin.
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ You get fed up with it and end up pushing him down on whatever surface is nearest and fucking the life out of him. 
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Definitely edge him too for being such a fucking tease.
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a/n — The lucifor brainrot is killing me. Anyways expect the pegging fic later today because I need him so bad <3
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januaryembrs · 8 days
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THE KID HITS BACK | Spencer Reid x Prentiss!Reader [4]
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Description: The THREE times things feel weird between Spencer and you because you're just best friends.
Length: 21k (this is HALF of what I wrote for this chapter before I split it into two parts :0)
Warnings: explicit hints of suicidal ideation, as I have said in the last two chapters, Bugsy has really struggled with losing Emily and has been in a bad place. it is mentioned once or twice but please read with caution if you feel topics of mental health, not vividly described but the effects of it, are mentioned. Spencer's addiction is also mentioned. Violence, blood, swearing, usual CM warnings. Also there is a brief mention of SA (bugsy gets spanked by a stranger in a casino), again if this is triggering please be cautious. EXPLOSION. Emily and bug argue + fight. Bug + hatch fight. Bugsy takes no prisoners in this one won't lie. Spencer and bugsy turn each other on accidentally.
authors note: this was supposed to be a lot longer (I've had to split it with the next part released in a few days time) and yet every time I tried to upload to Tumblr, it crashed because it was over 30k words ;-; OTHER HALF IS COMING SOON.
previous chpt | next chapter
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The one where Emily comes back.
She felt the headache as soon as she woke up. She’d experimented with Molly her first week of college, hated every second of it after she had prattled on for two hours to some other random freshman about the breakthrough research in enzyme-replacement therapy like she was catching him up on an episode of the Kardashians. She’d tried the odd few brownies, though they usually turned her stomach the next day and made her paranoid for about a week, before she swore them off entirely for their yummy, sober counterpart. 
She should have known what to expect when she woke up, but then again, if she had been smart enough to pre-empt how awful she’d feel the next day, she probably wouldn’t have taken the little pink pill with a candied love heart on the top at all. 
The duvet was soft against her face, and for a moment she didn’t care about anything except chasing the warmth it provided; just that she was cosy and it smelled nice, smelled familiar. 
Her eyes pinged open when she realised that whatever that familiar smell was, it was very much not her own sheets. And she was very much not in the clothes she left the house in last night. 
Bugsy sat up too fast, that much she knew, because in the time it had taken her to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, reach for the side table where she hoped to find her phone, a home phone, or just any working phone she could call someone off, she felt the room that smelled like a dream spinning around her. 
Her legs turned to jelly, her stomach tossed with a mix of nerves and nausea, and, graceful as ever, she fell face first to the ground with a thud, smacking her temple off the corner of the bedpost on her way down. 
“Fuck,” She whined, raising a hand to her brow that thudded with more than the side affects of last night, and she was quick to hear footsteps approaching as if in a half run. The door to the bedroom dragged on the thick sherpa carpet as it swung open, and she blinked wearily up at the culprit. 
“Alright, up we get,” There were hands slipping under hers before she got a chance to see anything that wasn’t a blurry mess of brown hair and worried eyes, and it wasn’t until she heard his voice she felt herself sigh in relief, “Of course you wake up the second I turn around,”
“Sencer?,” She cleared her throat, hands latching onto his shoulders as he lifted her back onto the bed, “Spencer?” She tried again, her lips chapped, her skin clammy. 
“Good morning, to you too,” His voice was soft, quieter than usual, like he knew just how delicate her head was and changed his tone accordingly, “Did you sleep well?”
“Morgan- where’s Morgan, I thought we…” She murmured, turning her head in confusion to the window where Spence had gone so far as to pull the curtains closed for her, seeing just the smallest crack of daylight filtering over the bed sheets. Her hands ran down his chest, her eyes lost and dazed, like someone had taken her batteries out, and Spencer took it as an opportunity to hand her the glass of water he’d got her and two advil. 
“Morgan’s safe; he went home, he said he had a wonderful night,” Spencer lied, hoping she was just a little out of it that she didn’t catch him in it. She always knew when he was lying. But, as he’d suspected, she barely picked up on it, her lips pouting in confusion when she took note of the medicine he’d given her, “Drink up, Morgan said you did a lot of dancing last night, you’re probably dehydrated.”
“I did…” She echoed him, trailing off when the blur of the nightclub caught up to her, and she remembered exactly the last time someone had handed her a little tablet like those ones. Her heart plummeted, her eyes widening into saucers, and she swore she might have felt the glass crack beneath her palm with how tight her grip became. She looked up at him, and instantly picked apart the pity and the sadness swimming in his honey pooled eyes, “You know,” 
He nodded softly, his hand coming up to stroke her hair away from her face, his gaze falling to where she felt something sore and achy forming on her forehead, bleeding into her brow. 
“Spence-” Her own groan of pain cut her off when he brushed over the bump on her temple, and she understood she had perhaps hit it much harder than she’d initially thought.
“Let’s get you breakfast, and then we’ll talk,” He whispered softly, concern thick in his voice, and for the first time in months, she didn’t fight it. She just listened, and let him love her.
-
“God, I am truly pathetic,” She muttered, sipping her coffee with a scowl in between the maple ladened pancakes going down with a vicious chomp on her fork. Her other hand was occupied holding a bag of frozen peas to her head, where a nice dark bruise was spreading its way over the right side of her face, spider webbing out into a black eye. 
“You’re not pathetic, everyone makes mistakes,” Spencer tried reassuring her, but he couldn’t help but smile as she devoured breakfast with the anger of a raccoon being dragged from a garbage bin, “You’re safe, that’s all that matters,” 
She sighed, and Spencer didn’t actually think she had ever been so grumpy around him before, “Spencer, look at me,” He did, he had been all morning, but he did as he was told anyway, “I’m a federal agent who took molly from a frat boy all because I can’t just grieve like a normal person and cry my pathetic little heart out and be done with it. I crashed your night because I can’t even handle a little ecstasy without needing supervision and I just got into a fight with your bedframe,” She finished with a huff, dipping her next mouthful of pancake in the puddle of maple syrup she’d created on the plate, “And the fucking bedframe won.” 
He smiled despite himself, reaching out to hold her wrist gently, making sure it was her turn to listen to him now, “Bug, I grew up being shoved into lockers and swirlied my whole life. I was the only kid in a classful of seniors that used to wedgie me so hard I had to have the school librarian, Mrs Addler, walk me between classes. Believe me, I’ve seen pathetic and you’re not- why are you crying, Bug, don’t cry,”
He remembered this bit, the mood swings, when he would pendulum between exhaustion and irritation straight into sadness and hopelessness, like there would never be an impasse between them unless he did more of the thing that had made him feel so awful in the first place. Still, he gently took the bag of now slightly soggy peas from her head, wrapping an arm around her back and scooching his chair to sit next to hers as she dropped onto his shoulder with a weepy sniff. 
“I’m crying because I just thought of baby you all alone with Mrs Addler-” She sobbed loudly, and his heart bled out in his chest with warmth. No one had ever cried for him. “How could they be so cruel to you, I swear if we ever see those bastards, I’ll show them how we settled things in Russia-” 
He chuckled, shaking his head, and she snuggled closer to him the way she had last night when the only thing keeping her on earth had been his body heat. 
“It wasn’t all bad, she used to share her butterscotch with me,” He said with a small smile when she raised a wet glance at him. 
“You know, you never have to be alone again, right?” Bugsy murmured, and he swore his heart might have just jumped right up into his mouth then and there, “You’re my best friend in the whole world, and I promise I’ll never leave you again. That was… selfish of me, I’m sorry I was so selfish.” 
Spencer felt his throat tighten as he looked at her, innocent and entirely truthful, like he could ask anything from her right this second and her god’s honest words would be ‘Anything for you, Spencer, I’d do anything for you.’ He had never had anyone look at him like that, nothing even close. 
“You’re my best friend too. And you weren’t selfish, you were grieving,” He choked out, and she tucked herself beneath his chin then, satisfied with the response, but his stomach turned sour when he remembered what he was going to tell her last night, what he should have told her months, years, ago instead of lying to her. Because he knew she would understand, knew she would get him the way no one else had even tried to, because she was just her. “I have to tell you something,”
She sat up straight, sensing the seriousness in his tone, and looked at him with imploring eyes, still sleep-addled and slightly wet around the edges. 
He cleared his throat, “When I told you I was allergic to narcotics since I was born, that wasn’t entirely true, and I’m sorry I lied to you,” Her brows softened, creasing in a way that told him she was worried, or she knew where he was heading but couldn’t find a voice in her to say anything. He ran clammy palms over his pyjama pants, “There was a case, a while back, where we were tracking an UnSub to this farmhouse in the middle of Atlanta. Me and JJ got split up and the UnSub took me hostage in his father’s shed,” 
She stayed quiet, but she quickly took his hand in hers when she saw him fidgeting with it in his lap. He smiled at her weakly, and squeezed her fingers gently, telling her he was okay to talk about it no matter if his chest was rattling and his face felt like fire. 
“He was very sick, the UnSub. Tobias. He took on an alter of his dead father because he couldn't handle life without him. Even though his father was extremely violent and abusive, he still loved him enough to never want to let him go,” His lip pulled between his teeth for a moment, and he couldn’t look at her for what he was about to say, “Tobias tried giving me something to stop the pain of his father’s beatings when he would front and being a drug addict himself, the best thing he had was dilaudid. So, he gave it to me for the three days I was with him before the team found me,” 
“Spence,” She said softly, knowing he would hate to hear an ‘I’m sorry’ because she hated those two words with a passion, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” 
“No, I want to, it’s just a little… fuzzy in parts,” He whispered, and she nodded, gently knocking her head against his jaw to let him know she was there to listen, “After the case wrapped up, everyone got home and just sort of pretended things went back to normal, even though I felt like I was drowning in everything that had happened, and the only thing I could think that had stopped the pain was the dilaudid. So I took more, and more, until I was using every other day, sometimes even at work to cope with the cases,”
“Did anyone know?” She asked, lips pressed tight as she scolded herself for talking, but he stroked her hand with his thumb to show he didn’t care if she asked questions, “Did Emily know?” 
He nodded gingerly, “Everyone knew, but no one could do anything, or say anything, because otherwise Hotch would have to file a report on me, and I’d be forced to leave the team,” 
“So no one helped?” She said, and there was an unexpected trace of anger in her tone that he knew too well. He’d be lying if he said that there were more than a handful of times when he was at his lowest he didn’t curse the team out for not giving a single shit about his condition. But when he’d sobered up, when he’d got clean and back to his usual self, he knew they were trying to do what was best, that they were in uncharted waters as to what would be the correct approach to helping him that wouldn’t diffuse a bomb that could ruin all of their careers. 
“There was nothing they could do, Bug. If they said anything they would be just as liable as me for what I was doing, the same way Morgan and I aren’t going to say a word about what happened last night,” He pointed out, and she seemed bitter as if she knew he was right but hated the point of it anyway. 
She held onto herself for long enough hearing that, and he saw it coming before it came as a shock when she threw her arms around him, hugging him tighter than she ever had before, not crying like she had been, but full to the brim of sadness and grief and mourning, as if she was trying to squeeze it all out of him so she could take it on for herself. 
“You’re never going to be alone again, I swear, Spencer,” 
And he believed her with everything in him. 
Bugsy had been back in the field for five weeks now, looking healthier than ever thanks to Hotch’s insistence she joined Beth for triathlon practice despite the fact she really had started feeling more like herself. 
It had only taken six months, but who was counting, right? 
Sure, walking past Emily’s desk had stopped her in her tracks the first day she got back, and Morgan had quickly jumped in to distract her with a cup of coffee, leading her over to the kitchenette and far away from the empty table her sister’s things had once been on. 
She was still adjusting to this alternate reality version of the BAU where Emily wasn’t there to protect her and watch out for her, and where they didn’t bicker about who got to ride shotgun with Hotch because Bug loved when he would drive fast (he pretended not to notice but would floor it when they hit the freeway), or when they would butt heads over who finished off the biscuits Emily kept in her secret stash (it was almost always Bugsy sharing them with Spencer and Penelope, when the three of them would gossip in Pen’s lair at lunchtime.)
She was adjusting, slowly yes, but there was one thing to keep her going, to keep her holding her head high as she walked past Emily’s picture on the way, full of smiles and dark hair the day she’d been instated in the bureau, her excitement tangible even through a piece of paper and a thin sheet of glass. 
There was one thing keeping her going, and it wasn’t Penelope’s cheerful good mornings she showered her in the minute she entered the building, it wasn’t Beth’s runs that would take everything out of her even though she felt stronger than she ever had, it wasn’t Rossi’s insistence on cooking for her once or twice a week because ‘he had more wine he could ever need alone and she could stir the pasta while he chopped the meat’, and it wasn’t even Spencer sticking to her side like damn velcro since she had been back. Although, they played a pretty big part in it. 
No, the one thing keeping her going was revenge. 
Morgan had let it slip accidentally, the morning she had come back into the headquarters to fill in some forms with Hotch and Strauss before Hotch was reassigned to Pakistan, when she had slinked into his office with an apology ready at her lips for the way she had behaved, to which he was going to say he had no idea what she was talking about because that was how things had to be, only to find file upon file upon caseload on Ian Doyle splayed all over his desk, and she quickly realised Derek was not one to let sleeping dogs lie either. 
And, reluctantly, he had let her help, because he hated the idea of them keeping secrets from her. Especially ones that involved them secretly tracking down the guy who killed her sister, who had threatened to abduct, torture and kill her if Emily hadn’t gone after him first. 
Because Bugsy was always going to be her little sister, no matter how grown and headstrong and stubborn as an ass she was. And Emily had had zero intention of letting Bugsy come even close to danger at the hands of Ian Doyle or any other motherfucker dumb enough to think they’d get away unscathed making threats to her sister. Which was why Emily had been the one to track him down first, no matter who she had to trample on, what lines she had to cross.
And now it was Bug’s turn to reciprocate the favour. 
The one thing that bounced around her head with every step she took across the BAU floor was how Ian Doyle would look when she dragged him to hell and back and everything in between, when she made him burn the way she had burnt. 
Hotch had been away on temporary duty for the month, bar the occasional phone call where he checked in on her directly or through Spencer, and it wasn’t until she walked into Morgan in a blunt exchange with his own cell that she realised he was perhaps closer to coming home than she’d thought.
The man nodded, and bid the mystery caller goodbye before he flicked a look up to where Bugsy had entered his office with a cup of to-go coffee and an expression of intrigue. 
“We got him,” Morgan said, and it was the three words she had been waiting to hear for two hundred and fifteen days. 
They had found Doyle. 
She was in the back of an SUV not even two hours later, strapped to her neck with tactical gear and two loaded pistols holstered at her hips. 
“You’re sure you’re alright to do this?” JJ asked from her place beside her, noting the way the girl’s leg was bouncing, her fingers twitching as the three of them crowded around the screen linked to the surveillance camera set up outside Doyle’s apartment, Spencer and David watching an identical feed in the next block over, outside the safe house his son, Declan, was supposed to be in. 
Only, when they’d arrived, the little blonde haired, blue eyed boy that was the only thing Doyle gave a damn about in the world was gone, two agents and his nanny lying dead on the floor. 
“Put it this way, JJ, I’m going in after that son of a bitch whether you guys cover me or not, and it would be real nice to have back up,” Bugsy said simply, like she was reciting the weather, not ready to rain hellfire on anyone who got in between her and wringing Doyle’s neck. 
The blonde woman exchanged a look with Derek, the two of them cautious about her behaviour, but thought better than to try stop her when she had just as much right as any of them for justice. 
Before any of them could say another word, a car sped around the corner of the cul-de-sac, veering and wavering between parked cars, narrowly missing theirs by an inch, and red-blue blaring lights came racing after it within seconds, the siren full blast and no doubt waking the neighbours. 
Or at least one neighbour in particular, as they spotted the curtains twitching in Doyle’s apartment, and they had their first sign of life in hours. 
“He’s in there, someone’s in there,” Bugsy pointed to where the fabric moved in the dead of the night, unholstering one of her weapons and bursting the back door to the SUV open. 
JJ clicked her radio on, speaking into her shoulder as Morgan was a hair width behind Bugsy, equally armed and ready, “We got movement on Doyle, we’re heading up to search his apartment,” 
“Be careful, keep an eye on the kid,” Rossi ordered, he and Spencer adjusting their positions in their SUV, waiting for forensics to show up and investigate the nanny’s house. Spencer licked his lips nervously, and he could only imagine what was going through Bugsy’s mind at that moment, wishing more than ever she could have just stayed with him and let Morgan and JJ catch Doyle. 
But she would never. She had nearly ripped Rossi’s head off for suggesting it even. 
She’d seen him move up to the roof, had taken the stairs in twos, and she felt like kissing Aaron the second she saw him for all that cardio paying off a treat. She heard Morgan panting behind her, urging her to wait up so she wasn’t going in alone, but she didn’t listen, not when she was this close to getting that rat in her grasp and squeezing the life out of him barehanded. 
She kicked down the door leading to the roof from the stairwell, her pistol drawn high and sharp and Morgan’s steps racing up behind her were the only sound for a moment. 
He was here somewhere, watching them, god only hoped they had caught him unaware before he could call in his own backup. 
Taking a careful step out onto the concrete, willing herself to take a deep breath and calm herself; she checked her nine o’clock, checked her three, before her boots crunched under her and she moved further out onto the roofing. Flicking a look around again, her eyes squinted against the moonlight that did little to no good, searching for even the smallest movements that would give him away. 
“I heard you wanted to see me, Doyle,” She said loudly, hoping he would fit the profile they’d put together and want to tie up his loose ends once he realised who she was, “Truth is, I’ve been wanting to see you too,”
She had barely a second to react as she felt something hard slam across the back of her head, and she realised he had hit her with a rogue, loose pipe, hard enough for her to stumble forward, dropping her pistol when his body soon followed to tackle her completely to the ground in the effort to grab for the gun himself. 
But she felt like body was alive with excitement, like the pain in her skull didn’t ache, didn’t matter, because she had him in her reach. 
It took her barely a second to bring her elbow into his stomach, winding him hard enough he weakened his grip on top of her, then another hit square across his jaw, another to his temple, one to his already crooked nose and she threw a downward thump into his groin for good measure. 
He hissed, cursing her something vile, and it was only then she saw the grey-blue eyes of the man who had killed her sister with no remorse, who had taken the person she loved unconditionally within a blink of an eye. 
“You recognise me?” She said, a manic smile on her face as she raised the other gun from its holster, kicking him hard in the knee she’d seen him limping on, a bullet wound shaped scar giving his weakness away in seconds.
She wasn’t the only enemy he’d made in that business of his, but she sure as hell would be his last one.  
He fell to the floor, his eyes wary as he looked up at the girl he had spent weeks collating photos of, the girl he’d had two of his best men tracking, snapping pictures of her going about her day to day life before he sent them to Emily. Because she would know what that meant no words needed. 
This was her sister. Her little sister she had fought tooth and nail for, that she had given her life for. Her sister, who had the same rock solid loyalty to her family as Lauren had. 
“Do you want to know where you went wrong, Doyle?” She asked, and her voice wasn’t calm like her body was, it was hiding the glee she was taking from his alarmed expression, like they both knew she was the last person he would have expected to be grabbing him in the night, “Your mistake, Doyle, was not killing me first,” 
She raised her finger to the trigger, feeling for a second the same thrill as when she popped that molly just to forget everything that was happening. Because she had tunnel vision, and pulling the plug on Ian Doyle’s pathetic existence was the solution. 
Until Morgan’s hand came over hers, and his voice was closer than she’d expected to her ear. She’d barely heard him creep up on her, she realised with a jolt. 
“Don’t do this, kid,” 
“He deserves it,” She spat, hating the sorrow in his voice when he pointed the gun away from Doyle who wiped his fingers beneath his nostrils and pulled back with a wince and a blob of blood over the back of his hand. 
“I know he does. But we need to find Declan, and we can’t do that without him,” Morgan’s voice was deep and bitter, knowing full well he had to be the one to take the reins as much as he would love to just let her have at him. 
Her nose scrunched in disgust when Doyle laughed at her annoyance, and she quickly holstered her weapon, pulling the cuffs out of her back pocket and helping Morgan yank him off the floor. 
“I got some friends that would love to meet you, honey,” Doyle said through a wheezing breath, despite Morgan’s rough hands shoving him forward towards the stairwell. 
She chuckled however, her face still bitter, her eyes something nasty and wild as she flanked his other side, “Don’t worry, I have some friends for you to play with too, Doyle.” She tightened her grip on his arm just to make it hurt, “I wonder how the Chernuses would feel about you and your men being so close to their turf. You ever fucked with the Russian Mob, Ian?”
His smile wiped clean off his face at that.
-
“How’s it going?” Hotch asked, and she barely had time to comment on the fact he looked rather dashing with a beard and a tan, or that he had lost ten pounds, before he was straight back to business, even after an eighteen hour flight. 
“He won’t talk. He said the only person who could have helped us find Gerace would have been Emily.” She replied, rubbing her hands over her eyes with a huff, “Just another dead end,” She threw the file onto the roundtable, which was slowly piling up with documents relating to anyone Ian Doyle had ever had relations with.
Hotch’s face tightened. He took a single moment to enjoy the calm that overcame the room, took a second to enjoy the fact she was looking normal and healthy compared to when he had all but barged into her apartment to force her on a run. 
Because he knew the normalcy they had found themselves in now was about to be flipped on its head, JJ confirming with a nod from the other side of the room that she was on her way. 
He turned to look where Morgan, Rossi and Reid had walked in, Reid stroking a gentle hand over Bugsy’s hair where she hunched over the table and flicked through some files for anything to keep her mind off of going into that interrogation room and ripping into Doyle. She flicked a small smile up at him as he passed her, leaning over her shoulder to take half her workload off her. 
She looked happier than she had in months, and he was about to take it all away again. Hotch swallowed the self loathing that threatened to choke him alive, and opened his mouth. 
“Everybody have a seat,” The team looked up at him in confusion, but followed orders, JJ moving around the table to stand beside him, the same reluctant look on her face when she saw Bugsy’s frown.
“Why?” Morgan asked, seeing as no one else was going to, “What’s going on? Everything alright?”
“Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team,” Hotch began, his eyes immediately flicking to where the youngest Prentiss faltered, “As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilise her,” 
Bugsy’s ears started ringing just hearing her sister’s name coming from his lips, said so casually and blunt that it felt like he had punched her in the stomach and she thought she was maybe over estimating how well she had overcome the grief. 
And that hadn’t even been the worst part, she quickly realised. The doctors were able to stabilise her. 
“And she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need to know. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security,” Hotch said, avoiding the piercing eyes that were slowly melting between confusion to heartache to one she finally could land on, horror. 
No one breathed for a moment, no one said a thing as the words sunk in, and she felt her entire body wash over with a gut wrenching numbness as it dawned on her what he was saying. 
Emily never died on that table like JJ had said. She had never died at all. 
“What?” Her voice was tiny and childlike when it came out, and she felt like she was stuck in the world’s worst nightmare, like she could claw and scratch and rip at her skin just to wake herself up from this terrifying dream where Hotch had lied and Emily had left her and everyone who was supposed to care about her had kept her in the dark. 
“She’s alive?” Garcia asked, tears in her own green lined eyes, looking at Hotch with utter shock. 
“But we buried her,” Spencer found it in himself to murmur, because none of this made sense and if any of what Hotch was saying was true, then he knew things were about to become really ugly. 
“As I said I take full responsibility for the decision; if anyone has any issues, they should be directed towards me,” And it was only then he looked at Bugsy fully, properly, since he had opened his mouth. 
He could have swore he had never seen such complete and utter betrayal written across someone’s face, let alone directed towards him. Because he knew that’s what it was. He knew he had taken every scrap and shred of trust she had placed in him since that day she ran away from her own wedding and found herself stuck in that very same office, hugging him tightly with her sodden veil and even more soaked white dress, he had taken everything vulnerable she had ever given him and spat it right back at her. 
He felt like crying but before he could think too hard about it, he saw Emily walking down the hall and her own face was just as, if not more, devastated than his own and he knew he had to be the one to stay strong. 
Garcia’s head snapped to the doorway, the sight of it leading Spencer and Rossi to do the same, and Morgan’s face morphed into anguish when he took a look for himself. 
Because there, looking like a glowing beacon of everything they’d been missing in seven months, was Emily Prentiss, alive and well. 
She seemed lost for words, her eyes falling to her sister who seemed to force herself to look up at her from where she was staring in wide eyed terror at the table, as if she was struggling to comprehend any of this, or like the building was falling down around her and she was in complete fight, flight or freeze. 
But she did, she looked up at her after a second, her face unrecognisable to Emily for a moment, and it took all of three moments where she seemed relieved to see her, before it curled into a vitriolic anger Emily had never, never seen from her. 
She looked like she was ready to kill her with her bare hands herself. 
Penelope was first out of her seat, practically flying across the room to grab her close friend in a hug, a complete bubble of sobs and wails, her pigtails shaking with her rattling chest as Emily hugged her tight to her. 
“Oh, my god, it’s real-you’re real- like I can actually touch you and you’re safe and not in that god awful box-” Penelope was a catalyst for the rest of the team standing up to take their turn crying on the woman’s shoulder. 
That is, the rest of the team except Bugsy. 
She remained in her seat, her gaze falling back to the mess of files that all of a sudden felt a complete waste of time, felt irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Who cared who was Doyle’s financial advisor between the years of 2005 and 2007 when Emily was alive and they had known the whole time. 
And the more she thought, the more furious she got. And then the more furious she got, the stiller she became; an atomic bomb ready to detonate at the slightest prod. 
“I am so sorry, I really am,” Emily said as Spencer had wrapped his giant arms around her tentatively, smelling her perfume and feeling his heart ache with how warm and alive and healthy her body felt. “Not a day went by that I didn’t-”
But a sound cut her off, one none of them were expecting in the slightest. 
Bugsy was laughing. 
Not the sweet chirp she normally gave, or the hearty one that came from her gut that they hadn’t heard in months, but something manic. Something frenzied, beserk. Deranged. 
Hotch’s head snapped to her, Emily’s too, though she had already taken note of the fact her sister hadn’t so much as moved from her feet, and stupidly she had hoped it was the shock sinking in. 
But her eyes were cruel, her teeth more of a snarl than a smile and the laugh she gave was that of a person over the edge. 
The straw that broke the camel’s back, she believed it was called. 
“She never made it off the table,” Bugsy imitated woefully, her eyes snapping to JJ, who felt smaller than she ever had under the hatred in them, though the girl’s nasty smile hadn’t let up, “You are good, Jennifer. You really got me there, hey maybe if the agent thing doesn’t work out then acting is alway an option for you,”
“Bug-” Hotch started, only for her to stand up so harshly her chair nearly tipped back, but she didn’t seem to care as she rounded the table towards him in a bitter chuckle. 
“And you! I didn’t know you had it in you. But very good, Hotch, very well played out. For a second I thought you actually gave a fuck about me,” She fist bumped his shoulder, a little harsher than something innocent behind it, before something spiteful settled in her tone, “But then again, you are nothing if not professional, aren’t you? I guess a suicide on your team would look terrible on your report card,”
“I think you need to calm down and let’s talk about this for a second,” Hotch tried to jump in, his brows furrowed enough to make him look annoyed but anyone with two eyes could see the worry that brewed there, that chased her as she retreated to where her jacket was slung over the back of her seat. She laughed again viciously, shaking her head. Grabbing her coat, she headed for the door where Emily stood helplessly, not knowing what to say for the best, and she thought for a minute her little sister was going to address her. 
But she didn’t; didn’t even look her way as she approached, and it wasn’t until Hotch rounded the room after her with a fixed gaze she showed any sign of stopping. Not until he reached for her arm with a tight grip, a call of her name, did she even halt in her step. 
“Stop, let’s just talk,”
“Let go of me,” Bugsy snapped, and it was the first time she actually gave way to the anger she felt, the amusement coming from a place of distraught long gone. She sounded pissed.
“Listen to me, we had no choice here,” Hotch barked, because it was the only way he could communicate when he felt this lost. And that’s what he was; he was losing her. They all were. “And I would have thought you’d be able to stop being so spoiled for one god damn second to see we were protecting-”
Her palm whirled around faster than he could have ever anticipated, slapping clean and sharp against his cheek, hard enough the air was sucked out of the room and his words died in his throat. 
Penelope gasped. Spencer’s eyes widened. Emily took a heavy gulp. 
“Bugsy!” Emily said in horror, and it was then her little sister’s eyes actually set on hers, every bit as cruel and hateful she’d expected.
“I want nothing to do with you, do you hear me? I don’t want to talk to you, or see you, don’t even speak that name, I don’t want it from you anymore,” Bugsy pointed at her with crooked, bitten nails Emily knew all too well, “You left me. You left me.”
With those three choked words, the other’s could only watch hurricane Bugsy whirl and burn and crash her way out of the room.
She sat on the steps to the federal building, perfectly dressed agents filtering around her with the occasional tut in disgust. 
She couldn’t really blame them; her face was wet with tears, she was pretty sure there was snot running out of her nose hastily, and between her free hand, the other of which was pulling at her hair, was a cigarette that swirled its grey smoke around her head with a horribly addictive smell. 
She heard footsteps approaching her from the back, different from the rest, and felt someone stop beside her, sliding to their ass on the step.
“Spencer, if you’re going to tell me this is taking seven minutes off my life then please can it wait for another day-” Bugsy started with a tearful cadence, only to be cut off by a woman’s voice. 
“I was actually going to ask if you had a lighter,” Erin Strauss said, pulling her own menthol cigarette between her lips, and Bugsy dug around her pocket for the cheap ‘I <3 Virginia’ lighter she had snagged on New Years, clicking the flame out long enough for her boss’s boss to light the tip, “I heard you gave Aaron a shock,”
Bugsy stayed silent, taking a drag that burnt her lips and tasted awful, but it was the only thing she could turn to that would calm her even in the slightest, even if it was just the chemicals.
“Bit of an understatement,” She mused, exhaling softly with a frown, “Did you know?” 
“Are you going to slap me too if I said yes?” Erin asked, and Bugsy gave a small, wet chuckle, shaking her head, “Would it matter if I did?”
 “No, I guess not,” She replied, breathing in through her nose, “I want to feel sorry, but all I feel is just … empty. Why did JJ and Hotch know what happened to her but she didn’t think to tell her own sister?”
“Probably because you’re the one she loves the most,” Strauss picked over the hem of her navy blue midi dress that had been pressed neatly just that morning, and now here she was sitting on the steps to her building helping a girl in crisis chainsmoke, “It was how she ended up there in the first place, right? Because she wanted to protect you,” 
 “She left me torturing myself for months that her death was all my fault; believe me protection was not what I needed,” Bugsy said harshly, her final drag reaching the brown stub, and she scowled as she doubted it on the concrete floor below her, tucking her knees up to her face and resting her head on them. 
Erin sighed, patting her on the back gently, not wanting to cross any lines for such a fragile girl, but not wanting to leave her entirely alone either. 
“Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family.” Strauss quoted, taking one more breath of her own cigarette before she squished it under her heel quickly. “Paul Pearsall,”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bug asked quietly, tilting her head onto her cheek to look over at the woman.
“It means you can hate her as much as you can right now, but sooner or later, you’re going to need her, or she’s going to need you, and you’ll wish you never pushed each other away,” 
2. The one where you pretend to be a couple.
Her hair was shorter, Bugsy noted, where she saw the back of her sister’s head from her desk. It looked nice, not that she would tell her that. 
She wouldn’t tell her anything. 
It had been eight weeks, three of which Bugsy had spent taking a leave of absence and been forced to see the designated federal councillor for her behaviour towards Hotch. She had gone to the handful of sessions to keep him off her back, but had stayed quiet for most of them, except the one where she got the psychologist to tell her the dirt on her recent, messy break up so they’d have something to talk about at least.
She had only really been speaking to Spencer the weeks since she had returned to work, had handed the slip of paper that declared her fit to work to Hotch with a smug look on her face, daring him to extend her sick leave as punishment for the tantrum she’d thrown. 
She knew it was dragging, knew most of the team were at least trying to adjust to the shellshock of Emily being back from the dead, but then again, the rest of the team hadn’t been writing their own eulogy so the burden wouldn’t fall onto someone else if they ever found her unresponsive. 
In the time Emily had supposedly been dead, her mind had wandered someone cold and dark and alone. Worse than any of them had ever thought it had been, worse than they gave her credit for. 
Only for it to be fake. As though she was the star of her own Truman show, with a laugh track playing on loop in the back; her own friends, people she’d considered family, watching her kicking and screaming and fighting through every breath for some sort of relief from the pain, a pawn in their little sitcom of horrors. 
Morgan had forgiven her sister with little resistance. She’d always known that, to Morgan, trust was higher than anything in his books. Yet with some soft words and tears shed, Derek had cracked and accepted Emily back warmly like nothing had happened. Rossi and Penelope had just been happy to see her, happy to have her back and very much not dead, so convincing them she was innocent had been no big feat. The only other person who had put up nearly as much fight as her had been Spencer. He had told her about the spat he and JJ had gotten into for being an accomplice to their pain, but even he was beginning to warm back up to her sister, not that she could really blame him. 
Emily was putting in overtime trying to get back into her good books, while she couldn’t even stand to look at her without remembering how hard she’d cried when she realised Nico and Sergio would be in her apartment alone and confused if she had been sad enough to do something rash. 
“Good Morning,” Emily’s voice was nails in a chalkboard, two arms winding over her shoulder to plonk two take out coffees in front of her and Spencer, one with his name written in black ink on the lid and the other with a dozen hearts dotted over the cup, a little doodle of a lady bug and a bumble bee cuddling. What she supposed was meant to be the two of them. 
Spencer watched Bugsy fight the urge to roll her eyes, surprisingly somewhat progress for her since the first two weeks of Emily even being near her resulted in the two of them screaming at one another until they were separated. Emily was growing tired of being punished for trying to keep her sister safe, Bugsy was full of hatred for every lie they had told her. 
But he saw the way she immediately knocked the coffee into the trash without a second thought, ignoring the fact she would need to take out a very heavy and wet bin liner later, if only to drive the point home to her older sister. I don’t want your charity. 
Emily faltered for a second, her eyes snapping to him as if he could do or say anything to help her out, but he could only give her one of his awkward, straight smiles, because he had absolutely no intention of pushing Bugsy to heal any faster than she was doing like everyone else was, nor did he want Emily to feel like he didn’t care she was hurting too.
Emily gave a resigned nod, daring to pat her sister on the shoulder. “Better in the trash than thrown over my face, right?”
She moved away from the woman’s desk, shooting a disheartened look at Reid as she passed him and he murmured ‘thankyou’ for his own coffee, until the sound of JJ calling them into the round table room cut off whatever she was going to say back. 
Spencer thoughtlessly handed Bugsy his own latte, smothered with caramel and cream the way he liked it, and she took an appreciative sip without a word. 
He hadn’t brought up that night, hadn’t spoken about the way she’d pressed her lips to his for a split second the night Morgan had dragged her over to his apartment to sober up. And because she hadn’t brought it up either, he assumed she didn’t want to talk about it anymore than she wanted to talk about what had got her there in the first place. 
He had helped her brush her own teeth more than once in the early days of her grief, hell he had even had her lips against his, so when she handed him the coffee cup back, he didn’t think much of it when he continued drinking the hot caffeinated goodness. 
Bugsy was wired differently in his brain, everything about her was different than how he felt about everyone else. So if she didn’t want to talk about kissing him, if she wanted to forget it ever happened, then he would swallow his feelings and accept she didn’t ever want to do it again. If she wanted to keep the bond they had carefully crafted through days and months and weeks of being each other’s solace, then he wouldn’t fight it. Because he didn’t want to ruin it either. 
He just nudged her gently with his shoulder as they meandered up the stairs to the round table room, looking at her with the puppy dog eyes that usually followed her around when she was in one of her silent moods. 
“You okay?” He asked carefully, noting the way she tugged her files to her chest, smiling up at him nevertheless. Because she could never be mad at him, it was Spencer. 
“You don’t have to do that, you know?” She said, lowering her voice as Morgan trailed behind the two of them his own mug of fresh brewed coffee sloshing in his hand, “Pretend like you don’t forgive her for my sake. I want you to be friends again if that’s what you want,”
She’d noticed his sheepish glances when he met Emily’s gaze, unmoving from her side like he wanted to make it clear he was there for her above everything else. But she saw how he would smile and joke with her sister when he thought she was in the bathroom, or when they would return from a crime scene, working together again like a well oiled machine. 
They were still friends, even if she felt sick every time she saw her sister’s noir black bangs flick her way, even if her heart was aching and her chest heavier than she would have ever let on. 
“But you’re upset with her?” Spencer muttered back, with a frown on his face, “I’m upset you got so hurt by the whole thing. I’m essentially hurt by proxy,” 
She snickered, leaning into his side for a moment, pulling away when they reached Rossi’s office and began walking past the long window she saw everyone settling down behind, “I appreciate that, Spence, I do. But you were her friend first, and she’s my sister. It’s different for you guys. And it’s not like we’re dating, because then I’d be allowed to be upset if you were still friends with her,” She explained lightly, though she felt her chest pick up at the very fact she had let that silly little dating word slip past her lips. 
She had no idea where they were. He was the only thing keeping her together some days, the only one who understood her for all her silly, complex feelings and didn’t make her feel dumb or crazy for feeling the world so deeply. He was special to her in a way no guy had ever even come close. 
She just wished she hadn’t made such an idiot of herself that night with Morgan; wished she remembered anything of what was said or done, because things had felt electrified since then and she had no idea why. All she knew was she was falling harder for him every time he stood so close, or offered her his drink, or every time they had a movie night at his and fell asleep on his couch pressed together like they were meant to be that way forever. 
He sighed, still stuck on the situation, and shot her a frown, “I’ll never understand the rules,” Though he hoped she didn’t see how his cheeks tinged pink at the fact she’d brought up whatever it was between them too. 
Because he wasn’t entirely talking about her and Emily. Sometimes, he really didn’t understand the rules of telling your best friend you were in love with her. 
-
The press was calling him “The Circle of Eight killer,” no matter how much media liaison JJ had tried to do to stop them from giving him notoriety and possibly boosting an already inflated ego. But the team had already managed to profile that the killings were some sort of ritual the UnSub was using to turn his luck on a gambling addiction, or whatever suspicion he had mentally linked from the victims needing to die and being dealt a royal flush. 
“Eighty eight dollars, the UnSub’s getting generous,” She said grimly, her gloved fingers counting the wad of cash tossed over the victim’s body. Where they had usually found eight, single dollar bills and an eight card of any suit, his signature seemed to have changed on the most recent body and he had dumped a much larger sum of money, “There’s more remorse with this kill too; shot from behind so he didn’t have to see the victim when he did it,”
Bugsy slipped the cash into a clear baggie to send to forensics to see if they could pull prints, but then again bills usually gave a million possible UnSubs with how many people touched them. “There’s less rage here, an undoing,” Emily chimed in, her own gloved fingers checking the victim’s pockets for anything off. 
When they were in the field, Bug could hold her eye rolls and sharp tongue and resting bitch face for the sake of helping the victim’s families find closure. Because, despite how much she seethed in private about how Hotch, JJ and her own sister had conspired without her, she knew she could choke it down if it meant she could help someone, if it meant no one else had to grieve as deeply and gut wrenching as she had when Emily ‘died’. 
“There’s no sign of robbery either, wallet is still intact except his ID,” Spencer added, standing back from the body while Bugsy handed the evidence off to CSI and the chief on the case headed their way. 
“Is it even the same guy?” Agent Goslin asked, looking between Hotch and Emily for an explanation, Hotch shaking his head with a stoney look on his already tired face. 
“The ritual’s too similar to discount,” He said, Bugsy frowning and tugging her lip between her teeth in thought. 
“The change in MO makes sense if the UnSub is still refining his system, maybe killing the cashier at the gas station didn’t work so he’s back to the drawing board.” Emily speculated, her little sister nodding along with her in the first sign of agreement she’d seen all day. 
“Two eights instead of one could also be significant; I know in China the number eight symbolises prosperity, the more eights the better. As a matter of fact, in Chengdu, a telephone number consisting of all eights recently sold for over a quarter of a million dollars,” Spencer said, and Bugsy flashed a look up at him, her eyes thoughtful. 
“In ancient Egypt, the number seven represented completion in this life while the number eight represented success through ambition and determination in your reincarnated life,” She replied, peeling the gloves down her hands as they clung to her skin with tight clamminess, “And the eight pointed star is associated with the Babylonian goddess, Ishtar, or the light bringer,”
He nodded with her and he hated to admit that he loved that she managed to fill in the gaps in his own knowledge, like they were two puzzle pieces finding a way to fit together; like they were two halves cleaved from the same brain that hadn’t stopped growing in the entirety of her twenty seven years. 
That, and he’d always found her brain one of the most attractive things about her. One of the long list he could think of. 
“Why would he be doubling up on his luck out here, away from all the casinos?” Emily asked, because she was trying not to stand in awe of her sister’s fat brain that rivalled even their pretty boy. 
“There’s been another killing,” Agent Goslin stated, hanging up the phone with a tense frown on her face, “A guest in his room at the Sapphire Lady,” 
“Same ritual?” Hotch asked without a pause, because they were on body number five now and they were barely closer to understanding him than they were a few hours ago.
“No. His neck was broken. And he was robbed of $50,000.” Goslin replied, shaking her head, “Strange thing is? The killer left another $20,000 behind with the body,” 
“Money isn’t his motive here,” Bugsy input, crossing her arms while Hotch got on the phone to Garcia, “Atleast, not that guy’s money,”
“Garcia, is there a casino in the neighbourhood of Penrose and Morningside Avenue?” He asked, clicking the perky woman onto speakerphone. 
They heard a quick clatter of typing, “Uhhh, No casinos per se, but there’s a private gambling establishment right around the corner.” She replied helpfully, with another bout of her long, delicately painted nails against her keyboard. 
“Is it legal?”
“Yeah, but it’s ultra exclusive. They have a monthly high-stakes poker tournament,” She paused for a second, “Today being the day for the month, coincidentally enough,”
“Or no coincidence at all,” Emily said, as they began putting together exactly where this chain of events had come from.
“What’s the buy in?” Bugsy asked, though she already guessed the answer. 
“Yikies, $50,000,” And with that Bug and Reid exchanged a knowing look, her suspicion confirmed, “But, it’s a million dollar guarantee if you win,”
“What time does it start?” Hotch asked, Bugsy already rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingertip, willing herself not to be right about what they were going to do. 
“Later this evening,” Pen replied and Hotch thanked her, hanging up the phone. A second of silence spread around the crime scene. 
“So, if anyone’s got fifty k lying around, now would be a great time to share with the group,” Busgy humoured herself with a straight face, realising the paperwork that would almost definitely be declined if Strauss had anything to say about it the would enable them to borrow fifty thousand from the government. 
Because if they missed their chance tonight, she had no clue when they would get another. 
“Any luck?” JJ asked, Emily sat to her right, Rossi across from her. Spencer and Bugsy sat on the end of the table, the girl breaking a KitKat in half to share with him, which he accepted happily. 
“No, they don’t want to allocate emergency funds for the buy-in, I’m still working on it,” Hotch said shortly, his phone blowing up with messages, no doubt needing a lot more details if they were really going to get the money they needed. 
“Well, I can’t imagine why not, we’re only asking for fifty thousand bucks of taxpayer money, so that FBI agents can play Texas Hold ‘em,” Rossi drawled, shaking his head with a cynical humour that was all they had to hold onto while they waited in limbo. 
“Hey, what about you?” Emily asked, something mischievous in her eyes as she watched David freeze in his seat, so like the old Emily that Bugsy felt her stomach turn.
“What about me what?” David said with a frown, pausing in his writing for a moment. 
“You could stake us the buy-in,” She suggested, and the other three members of the team turned their attention back to Rossi’s palling face. 
“You’re a best selling author,” Spencer chimed in, devouring the last of the chocolatey biscuit snack as she pulled another out of her bag. 
“No,” Rossi replied, slightly wide eyed at the suggestion of it, to which Emily jumped in. 
“Why not?” 
“One, it’s against regulations and I’d like to hold onto this job for a little while longer.” David said, his arms out in a defensive stance towards the four people who suddenly felt like his kids asking for the newest IPhone on the market for Christmas. 
“It’s a minor administrative violation,” Bugsy pointed out between bites, offering the second half again to her best friend who took it without delay. 
She could have given the whole thing to him to start with, and had the first one for herself, it would have ended the same, but she liked sharing with him. She liked being the one to split things with him when he cringed in horror at other people touching his food.
“And, two, I prefer to spend my money on actual things, like single malt scotch, a fine cigar, beautiful artwork,”
“Poker chips are things!” Emily tried to reason, but it only ended with David scoffing in her cheeky, hopeful face. 
“Maybe just think of it as a new experience, I mean at your age how often does that happen?” Spencer said innocently, licking the chocolate from the tips of his fingers, noticing how Bugsy tensed up and Rossi slowly turned in his seat to face the BAU’s youngest members. 
“At my what?” He asked in an aghast tone, Bug grabbing onto Spencer’s forearm with a gentle squeeze. 
“Reel it in, reel it in,” She whispered, and he looked at her with a lost expression, willing her to explain to him where he had gone wrong, because he knew she would, “What he meant to say was this may be our only chance to get this guy,”
David chewed his words for a second, as if he was trying not to bite at the kids who looked between one another hopefully, and he wondered if this was what being a father felt like; handing his credit card over to two twenty something year olds and watching his bank deposit plummet in seconds. 
“All right. Fine.” He sighed heavily like he’d seen the fifty thousand burned there and then, “I’m a decent poker player, but I can’t promise that I can stay in the game long enough to…”
“You know what? I bet you’re a great poker player,” Emily started kindly, her gaze drifting over to the hazel hues that watched between them curiously, “But what if we sent in Reid?”
“I am banned from casinos in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Pahrump because of my card counting ability,” Spencer said, and Bugsy rolled her eyes. 
“They can’t ban you for maths, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” She said, nudging his side with her shoulder, “They hate to see an underdog win, it’s Rocky all over again,” 
“Tell me about it,” He murmured back, even though he had never watched any of the Rocky movies, he just liked humouring her. 
“Look I know I’m not a genius like the boy wonder here, but poker is not black jack. It’s about bluffing; reading human nature, head games.” Rossi pointed at Reid, who badgered over Bugsy’s shoulder for the cookies she had packed in her rucksack, “The kid does not have a poker face.”
“Which is why we’re going to send him with someone who does,” JJ chimed in, and it was then that the youngest members of the team looked up from where they had cracked open the packet of chocolate chip delights, near identical looks of innocence painted on their faces, like they really were kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. 
Bugsy looked between JJ and Rossi, who had equal parts hopeful and worried looks on their faces, before she glanced over to Spencer to see if he had any explanation. He looked as lost as she did. 
“Huh?” She asked cluelessly, as Rossi buried his head in his hands. 
At this rate was going to have to remortgage his house for wedding number four, he thought sourly. 
“I swear to god if this dress rides up anymore, it will be me who’s charging fifty thousand per head,” Bugsy growled, her hands frantically tugging the dress down her legs more. She couldn’t deny it was a beautiful dress, bunched around certain areas that made the most of her body, but goodness was it shorter than she would have ever picked out for herself. She was the last person to be a prude when it came to showing off just how alluring she could look when she made an effort, but this was something else. 
It was a striking red, meant to match the ruby of her lipstick and the vermillion of the diamonds and hearts on the cards spread around the tables in the room, flushed in between little plastic chips worth thousands of dollars, handfuls of dice being tossed over the green velvet surfaces, deciding whether the players lost their cars or paid off their kids college fund. 
They queued up to be patted down, as if they were heading through airport security or into a packed nightclub. A handful of bouncers waved metal detectors over patron’s clothing, dipping hands into coat pockets, trousers, even some shoes were ordered off in the name of a fair game. She swore she had never seen so many sets of weighted dice confiscated off one man who swore blind as he was kicked out. 
“Only fifty? You could rinse them for a hundred at least,” Spencer replied, his arm entwined behind her back, if not to hold her up in the clunky heels one of the women on Goslin’s task force had loaned her along with the dress. She smirked at him, pressing herself closer to him when they both saw a dozen eyes shoot towards her as they entered the building, and he tightened his grip just the slightest with a calculating coolness. 
He wished his cheeks didn’t feel so hot feeling her body so close to his, wished she hadn’t made such an effort to look the part of the expensive call girl they knew the UnSub had a history with, not because he didn’t like it, but because she made everything a little more difficult when she looked like that. 
He was having a hard time trying to calm the way his manhood brushed against his pants whenever she showed some of that saccharine affection, even though he knew it wasn’t real. Or atleast, was an extreme version of the love she usually showed him. 
The bouncers called them up next, and he let her go first, because getting her through would be easy. He was the one with the panic alarm disguised as a shot of Halitosis in his pocket. 
Spencer would never admit that his eyes fell straight down to the curves of her butt that seemed to be spotlighted by that damn dress. 
Why did she have to look so irresistible? He supposed that was the point; he was the mysterious young gambler that was going to keep them in the game long enough to spot the UnSub, she was the attractive, woman of the night brought only to boost his ego and as his good luck charm. She certainly wasn’t the only one, she’d already seen a handful of other women, tall as models and so toned it looked as though they hit the gym every morning and didn’t leave until sundown, primped and primed for their player’s delight. 
They were ten times better looking than she was, but to Spencer, she was the only woman in the room who he was envisioning ripping that dress right off. 
She was making it very hard, no pun intended, for him to accept the idea of them as just friends. 
The bouncer patted her down, Bugsy flashing him a cheeky smile just a little too forced for it to be one of her real ones, when the woman patted around her waist and hips for any hidden pockets or stashed bills. 
“You wish this was you, huh, baby?” She teased him with a wicked look in her eyes, and he could only smirk back, hoping his blush didn’t give him away as quick as he reckoned it did. 
He felt his knees weaken, worrying he might just fall to the ground there and then and be forced to crawl towards her if he had any hope of getting into the casino alive, but even that sent a new wave of lewd thoughts through his head, and he was grateful when the other bouncer called him forward to inspection. 
The muscled guy waved a metal detector over his torso, moving down to his trouser legs where he wondered with cynical humour if the rod he now sported in his pants painfully would set off the alarm. It didn’t, and he begged his crotch to let up even the slightest if he had any hope of keeping his head on his shoulders during this game, but the detector sprung to life the minute it waved over the alarm in his pocket. 
He produced the medical looking device, one they’d already planned and checked for faults, showing the fake prescription clearly to the guard, “Halitosis,” 
The guy seemed to frown, took another look over the gangly guy who was with a woman way, way out of his league. A woman who waited for him after her own inspection, a very real diamond necklace that had been a sixteenth birthday present from Steph around her neck, courtesy of her dad’s bank account and ten years worth of emotional distance. Whether he took pity on Spencer because Bugsy looked like the kind of girl who could chew up a guy like him and spit him right back out, or he really didn’t care about his medical condition, he didn’t know, but he waved him through without another thought, and they both took a sigh of relief. 
“You want a drink?” He asked nonchalantly as possible, wrapping his arm around her waist again, and he tried to not let his flustered demeanour show when he found slits cut into the side of the fabric, and he felt the softness of her hips under his fingertips. 
“My treat, to get you started,” Bugsy replied, something unreadable in the teasing of her eyes, and she leaned up to his jaw to steal a quick kiss there like any other girl wanting to be paid the full sum of her night would have done. 
At least that’s what she told herself, pretending as if her brazen action hadn’t caused her heart rate to spike. 
She got him an iced tea, because she knew he wouldn’t want alcohol, and got herself a half shot Moscow Mule, sipping the lime rim appreciatively. 
“See anything yet?” She asked under her breath, one hand trailing over the back of his neck, playing with the curls that sat there with vixen sly eyes that scanned the room. 
He forced himself not to moan at the sensation, and he worried it was too obvious to the other patrons in the gambling room just how easily he melted beneath her fingertips. He felt like a dog drooling after a bone, like she was shaking a lead in his face and asking for walkies, and he was panting beneath her, tail wagging and dopey eyed. 
Not the look of suave, mysterious stranger they were initially going for when they were coming up with identities for their covers. But at least it sold the part of a man desperate to win the jackpot if it meant he could spend the night with the siren woman that clung to him with a giggly sip of her pink straw. 
“No one looking particularly suspicious,” He noted; everyone was almost too good at a poker face, though he supposed that it made sense seeing the value of the prize pool, “You are getting a lot of attention however,” 
And she was. In fact, he was quick to take her hand in his own free one when he saw a group of men dressed to the nines, solid gold rings along their knuckles, diamond encrusted Rolexs staring back at him from their wrists, their faces dead yet starved when they drank in every inch of her skin, their eyes falling to where her dress rode up high, as she had whined about the entire way there. 
She chuckled, and something about it sounded like her own, not the woman she’d had to become for the evening, and she kissed where his jaw clenched in annoyance, “Not from anyone that matters, boy wonder,” 
And he felt his heart rest for a moment, because as long as she was with him he knew he could shift that big brain of his into gear. He loved nothing more than the click he felt when he was with her, like their brains and bodies just seemed to bluetooth to one another and they weren’t Spencer and Bugsy they were just them. A since cell amoeba. 
He smiled at her, and she preened under his attention, so genuinely her that he felt the vignette that had clouded his vision shift into focus, and he knew he could find their UnSub if she was there with him. 
He sat at the nearest table to them that was about to deal in, and within twenty minutes he was racking up a nice, fat pile of poker chips next to his iced tea.
Bugsy knew he was a smart man, knew he was good at magic tricks, but if he had turned to her then and there and pulled a rabbit out her ear hole she wouldn’t have questioned him otherwise. Watching him play was something else. 
It was entirely sordid, the whole hour of his first game was spent trying to keep her focus on any patrons sat at their table and the rest that seemed to be twitching, whilst also trying not to look awed at just how amazing his brain was when he won damn near every time. 
But she did manage to rip her eyes off him when she could, not enough to seem suspicious, just enough to scan the area for someone who could be their UnSub, her eyes quickly jumping to the guy on the table across from them with a large magic 8-ball tattoo across his bicep, unsurprisingly already looking her head to toe as he waited for his hand to be dealt out. He winked at her, a smarmy, cocky grin on his face, almost too confident in his ability to be someone to turn to suspicions and rituals in order to win. 
A serious contender, but nothing that screamed their UnSub. 
She looked around a little more, ignoring the handful of men who tried to grab her attention, who thought they were somewhat validated or interesting for having her look at them for a split second. They were just part of the wallpaper compared to Spencer anyway. 
It wasn’t until she spotted a guy in a baseball cap a few paces away from them fiddling with yet another magic 8-ball, though this time a key chain, giving it a gentle touch every time he picked up his hand as if it really had the power to change the values once they’d been dealt. 
From the quick glance she got of his face, he seemed to be running on an hour’s sleep tops. His eyes were rimmed redder than her lipstick, and his hair was damp with sweat and grease against his temple. 
Unstable if there ever was a man for the word.
She quickly looked back to Spencer’s cards, her hands weaving over his shoulders to rub his muscles gently, the signal that she’d seen something important masked as an affectionate gesture. 
The House called the end of the round, Spencer being awarded a heaped pile of tens, hundreds even a small few thousands thrown in there, to which he collected onto his tray they had handed him at the door. 
Bugsy leaned down with a girlish squeal, giving him another big, cherry lipped kiss to his cheek, to which he felt himself blush under immediately. Quickly dodging to whisper into his ear, it looked to the other patrons as if she was simply promising him an even bigger reward later for his winnings in exchange, “Nine O’Clock at table two, guy in the green jacket has an eight ball keyring he ritually plays with before drawing,” 
Spencer nodded, standing from the table with his winnings, using Bugsy’s as an excuse to angle himself to where she was talking about. He pulled her to him effortlessly, his long arms wrapping over her bare back, his neck craning over her shoulder to serveill the table she had indicated, and she quickly hugged him back with that fake giggle of hers, her body pressing to his desperately like the other ladies of the night he had seen with men three times their age. 
He clocked who she was talking about almost immediately, running a hand down her spine and squeezing her waist gently to let her know he’d seen him. 
They moved in tandem, just like they always had. 
A hostess came over to them, all big smiles and a tight fitted black dress, a log book in her arms of where everyone was sitting in the next round to keep a fair game. Bugsy took a look at him, wiping away the smudged lipstick on his cheek with a loving swipe of her thumb, nodding at him for a small bout of reassurance. 
“I’m going to go get another drink, honey,” She said loud enough for the hostess to hear, as she flashed him a flirty smile, “Don’t forget to wait for your lucky charm,” 
He bristled, a smile twitching at his lips at that, “I wouldn’t dare,” 
Because her message was clear. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m updating the team. 
She swanned through the crowd as if she owned the place, but then again a packed scene had never been an issue for her. She felt through her concealed inseam of the tiny cardigan she draped over her shoulders, until she felt the long bullet shaped object stuffed into a tampon wrapper that Penelope had geniously planted there to look like a feminine product. 
Her own alarm, the one meant to let the team know they had sights on the guy and to be ready. It was Spencer’s that would give them the signal to enter. 
She was fiddling with the damn thing when she felt it, a sharp crack across her ass as she was walking towards the bar, heard the laughter in the second she froze up. 
Turning on her heel with a tight expression, the anger burnt hot in her eyes when she saw the guy with the tattoo who had been trying to get her attention not even a half hour ago, watched him sidling up to her with a conceited smile. 
“So, has that twiglet over there paid for you in advance or are you going home with the highest bidder?” He said, his head flicking to Spencer who now sat at table two, counting his chips out onto the table and paying himself in. 
She smiled at the assailant widely, and it would have been pretty had it not been for the crazy look in her eye that twitched when he made a move to step towards her more. 
“I’m spoken for in advance,” She said lightly, eyes trailing down his outfit like she was trying to commit it to memory, over his defining markers like the slit in his brow and his tattoos that looped over his hands, “But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you real soon, sweetheart,” 
And she flashed him a toothy smile again, yet something was wolfish about it this time, like she was ready to lunge for him there and then. 
The guy wasn’t their UnSub but he had made it to the very top of her hit list in a split second decision. 
She waltzed away, securing herself another Moscow Mule she had no intention of drinking, and headed back to where Spencer was being allotted his hand of cards.  Their round started, Bugsy keeping a close eye on the UnSub who sat directly to Spencer’s right, and she found a little solace in the fact he couldn't have brought in any weapons since they had all been patted down at the door. 
It didn’t shake the feeling of edge the guy with the tattoo had put her into when she watched their guy flick a look over Spencer’s shoulder to look her head to toe, glancing back at Spence who was already glaring at him. 
“Is she part of the winnings?” The other guy to his right chimed in, sliding a stack of hundred dollar chips into the centre, two of the players already bust as they watched the others play on for the house. 
She saw her partner tense in his spine when he heard the man’s drawling voice, and she knew he was struggling to keep a lid on the facade they were putting on for the evening. 
Snickering, she ran a gentle hand through his hair, down the nape of his neck with a sickeningly sweet simper, “Sorry, boys. Only person who’s taking me home tonight is the pretty boy,”
One of the guys who had already busted out scoffed, grumbling under his breath, “Lucky fucker,”
And Spencer knew it too. He felt almost rejuvenated just feeling her near, a damn near cocky smile on his face when he pushed his chips into the centre of the table, barely flicking a glance at his hand when he realised he had almost certainly secured a winning run. 
Maybe she was his lucky charm, he thought cynically. Maybe he couldn’t blame the guy to his right for carrying a silly little trinket around with him in the name of luck if he was no better. 
“I’m calling,” The guy on the far right declared, shuffling two piles of his chips into the middle with the total pooling. 
“I’ll raise,” The UnSub cut in, grabbing some of his black thousand dollar tokens and clinking them one by one next to his opponents, “Eight thousand,”
What a surprise, eight thousand, Bug mused, squeezing onto Spencer’s shoulder again as he was quick to match the bidding and then some with his own checks. 
“$8,000, that’s fifty six months’ wage for the average person in Bangladesh,” Spencer said, doubling the bet with a flick of those long fingers of his. It was heinous how much his brain managed to warm her insides, Bugsy thought, hoping she kept her poker face intact, “Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?”
The two remaining players, UnSub included, looked at him like he’d grown a second head, and Bugsy fought off the urge to laugh in their face, because for a minute he was so Spencer like all she wanted to do was quip something back equally as smart. 
“Look, it’s eight thou’ to you, are you in or are you out?” The first man snapped, perhaps seethin with jealousy that the pretty woman wanted nothing to do with him or perhaps just pissed that the fresh faced teenager of a man was serving their asses up cold. 
“I am in,” He moved some more chips towards them, his eyes falling back to the guy they suspected was their UnSub with a challenge in his eyes, “And I raise,”
“Three raise,” The dealer declared, and the first guy huffed in defeat. 
“That’s too rich for my blood,” He growled, crossing his arms and flipping his dead cards over. 
“Sir, are you in?” The dealer asked the UnSub, and for a minute his eyes snapped to Bugsy’s where she was keeping a calm look on her face despite the fact her insides were stumbling with nerves. But she never doubted Spencer’s maths, she would stake her life on it in fact. 
“I’ll call,” The UnSub replied, flicking his cards over with another small token of a hundred, an okay run of cards but not an entire failure. 
Spencer met it with a couple hundreds of his own, revealing his four and his eight that met the five, six, and seven he already put down. A winning flush. “Straight.” 
Her smile was genuine, dazzling, when the pile of chips were pushed over to him, and she would have laughed with glee had the UnSub’s face not dropped into something devastated, borderline demented, when he saw his ritual had meant nothing. That he had lost despite killing his own friend and four more people as a sacrifice. 
He was unravelling fast, and it was then Bugsy knew they had only moments to confirm he was their guy obsessed with his suspicions and that damn lucky number eight. 
“I guess you won’t be needing this anymore, will you honey?” Bugsy reached over for the charm with a cheeky grin as the other patrons grumbled at their losses, only for the guy’s hand to come slamming down on top of hers with a brutal grip, hard enough she knew it was going to bruise by morning. 
“Don’t,” He hissed at her, and it seemed to click with confirmation in Spencer and Bugsy’s mind there was no doubt this was their guy.
Spencer stood up to defend the woman, only for both of them to be grabbed by security second’s later. 
“You’re going to let a man put his hands on a woman like that- would you relax I can walk,” Spencer snapped, watching the other security guard manhandle Bugsy just as roughly, pinning her arms behind her back, though she complied with a victorious grin, “Real tough there pal, grabbing on a woman half your size,” 
“Relax honey, I got a taser in my pocket if they really want to behave like bad boys,” The bouncers looked at her in alarm, and it was the distraction Spencer needed to reach into his jacket and trigger the signal. She gave the three of them a shit eating grin, and Spencer thought he might just love her even more, “Don’t shit your pants, I’m kidding. I charge extra for the rough stuff,”
Spencer was still laughing when Hotch and Emily barged past them after the UnSub, who was by now leaving out the back door. 
“Spencer, really, we can go back to the hotel and forget about it,” After revealing their cover with the bouncers, courtesy of one David Rossi and his famous face clearing their names, and the UnSub caught and well on the way to the nearest jail cell for questioning, Bugsy was more than tired and ready to strip out of the impossibly tight dress. 
“I want to see this guy brought to justice, think of him as another UnSub,” Spencer said, his arms crossed over his chest as they sat on the bonnet of a squad car out the front of the building, the tournament slowly trickling to an end with its patrons leaving for the night. 
She rolled her eyes, his jacket over her arms the only thing keeping her warm against the evening air. It would have been so much easier if they had been allowed back in, but FBI agents or not, the guards had clear rules against breaching the peace in such a high stakes game. A bad rep for having the feds show up on their busiest day of the year was not welcomed, just as much as they weren’t. 
“Except he’s not murdered anyone,” She replied, eyes darting between the guests leaving with their earnings spilling out of their pockets, “He’s just some dumb asshole who can’t keep his hands to himself and- it’s him,”
The guy with the tattoos, Mike Folio as would later be printed on the police report, had barely a second to grieve his losses of the night before Spencer had him cuffed against the squad car, yelling and spitting about his rights as an American citizen. 
It wasn’t until he saw the gorgeous woman donned in the candy red dress looking down at him with amusement that he felt the colour drain from his face. 
“Hi sweetheart,” She smiled viciously, “I told you I’d see you again. Spence, read him the Mirandas,” 
3. The one with the bank explosion
The tweed trousers irritated her thighs, the head band fluffed her hair away from her face in a way she kept trying to fix, and the brown pumps squeaked every time she walked, but her smile was dazzling nevertheless. 
“Okay, the TV movie is at Hall H at nine, can we go to that?” Penelope asked, reading from the pamphlet as Bugsy and Spencer all but ran to keep up with her. 
“Absolutely!” Spencer chimed in, “Do you think we can make it to the Captains of Enterprise at eleven?”
“Obvs,” Penny replied, fixing the bow tie necklace her and Bugsy had made not even the week before. She looked over at the younger woman, who had a matching K-9 pendant, because apparently FBI salaries did not take into account life sized robot dogs, “Thanks for coming with me,” 
“Ofcourse, I’ve been knitting this scarf for weeks,” Spencer replied, his eyes falling down to where Bugsy donned a Sarah Jane Smith cosplay. 
“Who are you going as?” She’d asked, the minute he’d asked her to go, because there were few things he did these days without her. 
“The Fourth Doctor,” Spencer replied, because he had explained in length to her about the concept of regenerating and had even flicked on some of the newer series for her to watch with him, “Tom Baker’s Doctor, he’s a fan favourite,” 
He showed her a picture of the time lord stood outside the TARDIS, a younger girl stood opposite him in a pink suit, large white peter pan collar hanging wide over her chest. 
“Who’s that?” She asked, pointing the girl with the cute bangs and pleated skirts. 
“That’s Sarah-Jane, or Sarah-Jane Smith. She’s one of the longest starring companions since she was the Third Doctor’s companion first and also was in the spin off show for her dog, K-9,” He explained, warming inside when Bugsy listened with raptured interest. 
“So like, is she his girlfriend or-”
“No, no! The Doctor is often speculated to be asexual when it comes to relations with humans. Sarah Jane was one of his closest friends however, and in the Tenth Doctor’s third season he even comes back to rescue her from a wedding set up by one of his enemies,” He said, and her smile pulled out widely when an idea popped into her head. 
“Well, can I be her? For your convention?” She asked, somewhat shyly, still a little unsure how the show worked in the fine details, “You know, since you saved me from my wedding?” 
He paused, because she’d never really spoken about that day she’d jumped into his arms in the elevator, holding him to her like he was the only thing that made sense. Bugsy was like that alot; giving him everything he ever dreamed in the moment and then acting like it was never a big deal the next. 
“S-sure! Yeah, that would be really nice.” He said, and she immediately started searching up what she should wear for it, “I didn’t really save you though, you know, you saved yourself,”
She snickered, nudging him with her shoulder, “You all saved me, I don’t know what I would have done if Em-” She stopped herself, swallowing thickly, and he saw the glow leave her eyes. 
If Emily hadn’t been there. 
Things were still awkward between them. There were no more catfights, thank goodness, though there also wasn’t any doting between the sisters anymore. It was like a clean break had slit between them. Emily had given up trying to warm to her, given up trying to get her to come around, and had instead taken the high road of waiting for Bugsy to make the first move. 
But Bugsy was nothing if not stubborn. So Emily would be waiting a while longer. 
“Hey, listen, next time I promise I’ll be the first one to object and then you can say I saved you,” Spencer joked, because he knew the subject of Emily stung her, because he knew she needed to stop thinking about it or she’d unravel into self hatred. 
She chuckled aghast, “Next time? I was kind of hoping to keep the next one, Spence, whoever the unlucky guy is,”
He shook his head, a fake look of disapprovement, “Sorry, rules are rules. You wanted to be Sarah-Jane, I have to crash your wedding with the TARDIS I’m afraid,” 
She laughed, resting her head on his shoulder as they flicked through the TV some more together. 
“Well, I mean if those are the rules,” She simpered, snuggling under his chin, “Does this mean I get a sick robo-dog too?”
She looked every bit the part he would have ever expected her to look. Down to the maroon tie, and the white dress shirt, and the matching tweed blazer and pants that made her look embarrassingly hot. 
He was about to tell her just how great she looked because she still seemed unsure, being a casual fan of the show not nearly as religious as some of the surrounding guests were, when Penelope cut them off in a near gutted voice. 
“Oh my god,”
“Penelope?” 
Bugsy and Spencer looked up to see Penelope’s ex beau, Kevin, dressed in a nearly identical outfit to her (though in Bug’s opinion he didn’t have the same pzazz as she did with the glitter and the sparkliness,) a red headed woman beside him donned in a police woman uniform. 
“Kevin, hi, you came,” The blonde woman replied, her face mortified as she took in just how pretty the other woman was, “And you brought a friend, CSU technician Sharp, how are you?”
Hannah Sharp, from two floors below them in the BAU, grinned tightly, as if she could sense just how disastrous the situation had suddenly become, “I’m fine, uh, you?”
Bugsy gripped onto Spence’s arm tightly, hating the turn this was taking, every second of it. 
“I am also fine,” Pen replied, though she looked as though she was ready to float outside of her body any minute now. “Okay, well, see ya,”
“You’re not gonna go in?” Kevin asked, his eyes crestfallen when he saw Penelope also grab onto the boy genius’ arm, and he cursed Spencer Reid for getting so many attractive women. 
“Actually, we just went in and it’s super lame,” Bugsy interrupted, flashing a disjointed smile at the two of them, turning to usher her best friend away before he could call her out in her lie. “So we’re leaving,”
“Oh, okay,” Kevin replied, his date all but forgotten as the three of them made a sharp exit, a wince on the youngest Prentiss’ face when they got far enough that the girl could cringe in peace, “Well, great costumes,” 
“Yeah, you too,” Penelope called back, her heels practically leaving tire marks with how fast she had sped away from her ex that was opening fresh wounds as they spoke. At work they were separated by a whole floor, so it wasn’t quite so scathing to see each other around or even hear of one another, but to be brought out in front of what she could only assume was his new woman was horrifying.
Bugsy was at her side immediately, grabbing onto her hand with a squeezing grip. 
“Well, that was awkward,” Spencer noted aloud, and Bugsy lightly slapped his arm for him to shut up, her eyes wide with worry. 
He looked at her in alarm, but her face told him everything he needed to know. Girl rules. 
He hated girl rules. He never understood them. 
“Oh my god, we used to come every year, I can’t believe he brought someone else,” Penelope sighed to the younger girl, who watched her with furrowed brows. 
“Well you brought someone else,” Spencer pointed out, only to have his arm whipped at again in a chiding motion, and he watched Bugsy stroke Pen’s back with a bite in her tone. 
“Girl rules, Spencer, girl rules,” He tutted at her, rolling her eyes as if they were a married couple and she was nagging him to wash the dishes. 
Sometimes it felt easy like that with them. Like she really was just his best friend and not the only girl who held any sort of romantic connection to his heart. 
“Yeah, someone I couldn’t possibly be attracted to,” Penelope stated, “Besides, he always thought the two of you were a thing anyway, oh god what if he thinks I’m your guys third-”
“Woah, woah, what?” Bugsy asked with wide eyes, “He thought me and Spencer were, like, dating?” 
Penelope nodded, and Bugsy couldn’t even look at him without stumbling over her words. 
“Well he knows we’re- like I mean we’re not even each other’s seconds so how could you be our third you know?” She said with a forced laugh, because she could feel her face going hot. 
Spencer watched her tongue tie herself into oblivion, thinking of any and every excuse as to why she didn’t want dating associated to the two of them. Because how could she ever feel the same way? He was just him and she was, well, her. So incredibly, beautifully her. 
It wasn’t until she bumped into an older gentleman waiting for his valet she even shut herself up. 
“And I mean Kevin shouldn’t have just assumed- oh sorry,” She whirled around to apologise the man she presumed was a fan of the early seasons of the show, perhaps even around when they first aired, though the thought died in her throat when he turned around, “Oh, Rossi?” 
David Rossi looked suave as ever in his age, a blazer thrown casually over his shoulder, a neat shirt and dress pants ensemble at his hips as he looked between the three of them, their costumes staring back at him entirely too colourful for a Saturday morning. 
He sighed, hard. 
“Why doesn’t this surprise me?” He asked with a tired voice, as Bugsy bounced back over to Spencer’s side with an incredulous look on her face. 
“Are you here for the convention?” Spencer asked, excitement bubbling in his tone as Bug grabbed his forearm gently, already sensing Rossi hadn’t had nearly enough coffee to put up with them today. 
“Who schedules a cigar aficionado event back to back with this?” Rossi asked, his eyes clamping on the pendant around her neck, “What is that, a robot dog?” 
“K-9,” The three of them replied, and it was as if it tipped him over the edge, his hair growing whiter by the second. 
“Kevin brought another woman, I’m plotting revenge. Do you want to help?” Penelope asked, her face still warm from running into the guy who was almost her fiance. 
“Know where we can get any horse heads?” Bugsy asked, her expression lost in though as Penelope gasped, “What? I’m thinking go big or go home. Also, horse head in the bed means they can't have sex-”
“I’m taking that as my cue to leave,” Rossi cut in, just as his valet arrived, “Now you know I love all three of you, but this is Saturday, and it is my day off, so I’m going to love you from afar,”
He ruffled Bugsy’s hair fondly as he took his leave, throwing his blazer over the passenger seat and bidding them a wave goodbye. 
They watched him go, wondering where it left them for a moment before Bugsy spoke up again, “So are we saying a definitive no to the horse head idea, because I’m sure I know a guy in college-”
“No, Bugsy,” Penelope hissed, her face scrunched in disgust, and Spencer swore she turned green, “Definitive no,” 
They had been half way through breakfast when Spencer got an emergency call from Hotch for a team of serial killers robbing a bank downtown, hostages and guns on scene. 
She had barely had time to whip the tweed blazer off her shoulders, keeping the shirt and pants on as Derek threw her a kevlar vest. 
“It’s definitely them,” Will said in his soft Southern drawl, JJ embracing him tightly to her with a worried expression. It had been him and his partner first on the scene, though unfortunately things had not ended well for her when they had ran into the three UnSubs slipping out the back of the bank and had engaged in a shoot out; Will’s partner getting a bullet to the head almost immediately, and Will narrowly escaping unscathed, but not before he managed to gun down one of the UnSubs in the stomach. 
So there they were, the UnSubs back inside the bank for safety since they were now surrounded by the city police, the FBI, the SWAT team and a handful of ambulances and medics on standby. 
“I only saw the King and the Jack but I figured the Queen’s inside too,” He added, JJ peeling herself from his side as they headed towards the building. 
“The media's calling them the face cards,” Hotch informed his team, all eight of them decked in their thickest vests and weapons loaded in full, “Seven bank robberies in seven months. They’ve killed one person at each robbery,” 
“MO?” Rossi asked, now dressed out of his smart, Saturday wear and something more akin to his usual business attire.
“Single gun shot wound, each of the victims has bled out,” Hotch replied, and it wasn’t until they turned the corner towards the bank did Bugsy realise just how packed the street was with law enforcement. 
Three or four choppers circled overhead with snipers and back up SWAT teams at the ready. 
“Serial killers with a thirty day cooling off period, and we’re only just hearing about this now?” Emily asked in an incredulous tone, her voice raised to accommodate the shouting between other chiefs and their units. 
“Headquarters characterised them as robbers first, killers second,” Hotch said, his hands on his hips as they all assessed the situation from afar. Naturally a few new anchors had pulled up to the scene as well and were setting up their equipment despite the officers trying to corral them away. 
“Oh yeah? How did that turn out for them?” Bugsy grumbled behind her thick, dark sunglasses, biting her lip from saying worse. 
“I disagreed with the original assessment, I was overruled,” Her chief shot back, because things had been just as cold between them since that day as they had with Emily. 
JJ was slowly reaching out the olive branch in her direction, and if it wasn’t for Henry being so darn cute every time he begged ‘Buggy’ to come play with him, she reckoned JJ would have taken even longer to forgive as well. 
“Why are we here now?” Rossi chimed in, eyes locked on Aaron’s frown, that seemed to harden every step they took closer to the bank.
“Because crisis negotiation is overseas.”
“What do we know about them?” JJ jumped in straight away with the problem solving, because even if they were out in the field and not in their pretty little round table room anymore, the UnSubs were still just pictures on a white board needing that red string to connect them all together. 
“They’re organised, they're efficient,” Hotch fired off, mentally running through whether he had loaded the pistol he kept around his calf for emergencies, “Each strike lasts about two minutes,”
Derek’s face scrunched in confusion, “They gotta be scouting out the banks in advance, why haven’t we been able to ID them off of surveillance footage?” 
“They hacked the security feed and turn off the cameras both during the initial canvas and during the robbery, until the masks come back on and then were allowed to watch” Hotch replied, and the eight of them slipped into the base of operation for the day; a wide trailer converted to house the high tech computers Penelope needed to keep an eye on the cameras with those magic skills of hers. 
Bugsy’s eyes landed on the black and white feed of inside the bank, her heart lurching in her throat when she saw well over forty men, women and children lined on their knees execution style, facing the doors to the bank to act as a shield if the snipers did happen to get a shot through the windows. 
The woman took the lead, a mask over her face with a doll-like expression on it, the other men soaked in blood as one fought to hold the injured one up for dear life. 
“Why haven’t they cut the feed now that they’ve been cornered,” Derek said with a shake of his head, his lips pulled into a grimace, “Letting us see inside gives us a tactical advantage, they have to know that,”
“Unless they want the audience,” Bugsy suggested, watching the jack slowly growing weaker and weaker as they discussed tactics, “Although the only one who really strikes me as the attention seeker is her, he seems more prioritised with the other male,”
“The masks add to their narcissism,” Spencer input with a nod, “Their personas are the royalty of poker,”
“JJ, you, Bugsy, Reid and Prentiss, look at past robberies, that’s going to be our victimology,” Hotch ordered, and they did as ordered with little delay, heading to the office they had set up in the opposite trailer. 
This was going to be a long day. 
“I can help,” Bugsy offered herself before the team even had a chance to protest. 
It hadn’t even been an hour into them pulling research from InterPol as to who their UnSubs were before they had made their next dramatic move; they had shot a hostage. 
Which meant they needed medics in there fast, fast enough to save the hostage and the jack if it kept the king from unravelling into a massacre. 
“What do you mean you can help?” Emily said with a scathing tone, “Bug, you can’t just throw yourself in harm’s way if you have no clue what you’re-”
“I did three years of a medicine degree alongside my biochemistry before I got bored of doing both and gave up on it,” Bugsy snapped at her sister, brows contorting into a harsher frown than she’d had in months. She preferred it when they weren’t speaking at all. 
“Because you were bored?” Derek asked, his face incredulous at the gall of the twenty year old they’d plucked from college and sent into the midst of the Russian Mob five years ago, “Did you not have anything better to do like partying or making out with guys- a whole medical degree on the side is your idea of downtime?” 
She shrugged, looking back at Emily with a glare who seemed to bristle at the information. 
“Can I speak to you outside please?” Emily said in the coolest tone she could muster, though even that sounded like a bite. 
Something shifted in the air of the tiny, makeshift office and the other inhabitants tensed up at the sight of the Prentiss women gritting their teeth almost identically, staring daggers at one another for a moment before they stood from their seats and waltzed out of the side of the trailer to where there wasn’t the bustle of squad cars or media to be seen. 
JJ looked to Morgan, who looked to Spencer, who seemed to have paled for a moment, and the three of them were out of their own seats to linger at the doorway in case things really did get ugly between the sisters.  
“Do you honestly think that throwing yourself into the line of danger today is a good idea or are you trying to hurt me to get back at me?” Emily seethed the minute they had stepped foot on the ground, and the scoff that left her little sister’s throat was something nasty. 
“Oh, please, don’t make yourself sound so important.” Bugsy snapped, whirling around on her heel to glare at her sister, “I’m not doing any of this to get back at you, I’m trying to save those hostages in there-” 
“So I just happened to have never heard about this medical side quest you set yourself on until now because, what, it just never came up?” Emily laughed, laughed, in her sister’s face, and Bugsy saw red even more, “I thought you were a better liar than that,”
“Maybe if you’d bothered to even speak to me before you needed something from me that day with the Russians then you would have known anything about me that wasn’t being your dumb little sister you can just walk all over like you’re my mom or something,” Bugsy’s voice was getting louder, and Emily’s smirk wiped right off at the sound of that, because she knew she could have been ten times a better sister had she not wanted to get as far away from her mother as fast as possible. “Same with Hotch, he never wanted much to do with me until his wife died and then who did he come to needing help grieving, none a single one of you, and who gets bitten in the ass and punished when I find out I spent seven months grieving like some idiot to that uptight prick who lied to me-”
“Do not speak about him like that,” Emily was shouting now too because Bugsy was truly holding nothing back on her. 
“Why? Are you going to pick him over me, Em?” The younger woman snarked, her eyes hateful and narrowed, “Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest given your track record-”
Emily shoved her, like, truly shoved her back and it robbed the words out of the girl’s throat. Yet it made JJ gasp where they were watching from the crack in the doorway, wanting to break them apart but knowing they needed to fix it for themselves. 
The three of them hissed when Bugsy’s hand swiped against Emily’s cheek in a territory neither of them had ever wandered into. Emily was always too old to argue with her sister, too big to fight the way most siblings did with slaps and hair pulls and scratches, but Bugsy was a grown woman now; they both were. 
Emily swatted the same back to her own cheekbone, after a second of shock washing over her face, and it was like they were two cats fighting in a back alleyway over a scrap of chicken. 
Bugsy shoved at her around the tits, because she knew it would ache, Emily pulled at her braid with a yank that made Bugsy’s eyes water, the two of them banging against the wall of the trailer, their heads clunking together. 
“Fucking punishing me after months like some insolent child-”
“I would never have left you thinking you were to blame for my death- I would never fucking do this to you-”
This was childish, entirely childish, playground offences and girlish curses in between. The worst part was they knew they could do much worse, they knew they could truly hurt one another if they wanted to. They were both trained to kill, and yet Emily had Bugsy grabbed in a headlock like they were two infants fighting over a sandpit. 
Because they didn’t want to properly hurt one another in any way that would last. Never. 
“Get the fuck off me or I’m punching you in the crotch,” Bugsy barked, trying to wriggle her way out of her sister’s freakishly strong arms with a frown, “EMILY- I SAID-”
“I was trying to protect you- just get your head out of your ass for two seconds and listen to me- I was trying to protect all of you-” But by the time Emily had somewhat gotten her to stop squirming, the girl had grabbed her by the calf where she had been forced to bend at a forty five degree angle, holding her one leg up off the floor while she sweeped at the second one to knock her off balance. 
She had been known to shoot an assailant in the foot from twenty feet away to stop them from getting away, and yet she was resorting to simply pushing her sister over as a way to get one up on her. 
She felt like she was ready to finger paint and take a nap time next; like they were about to be sat in the headmaster’s office and have their wrists slapped with a ruler for not keeping their hands to themselves. 
But it worked, and in seconds the Prentiss girls were on the floor, puffing out of breath, Bugsy’s lip bleeding where Emily’s ring had caught it on the corner, Emily’s cheek red and raised from where her sister had a surprisingly strong right hook. They took a minute to breath, Bugsy glaring at the awfully clear blue sky, much too happy and cheery for the travesty that had been her entire day. And it was only then did she hear the other three members of their team exit the trailer, JJ going to help Emily up while Morgan's face appeared in the middle of the powdered clouds, something sad and sympathetic in his eyes and it was then that he held out his hand to get her up. 
She didn’t want to, had every intention of laying there and staring at the broad daylight until she managed to float far away from there and from where her chest hurt with betrayal and her lip bled with lies. 
He yanked her off the floor, offered her a cold can of coke for where she felt her lip swelling already, and she resigned to sit on the stairs to the trailer with her head in her hands until her temple stopped pounding or at least until she felt herself calm down in the slightest. 
Emily shuffled to sit down next to her, her breathing still uneven but she could tell because she felt a tentative hand on her thigh rubbing gently, in the motherly way Emily had always watched her.
Because Bugsy had always been her baby, whether she wanted to admit it or not. 
“Bugsy?” The younger woman huffed in indignance, pouting as she stared at her lap, because she felt the tears welling up already, “I’m so sorry I left you, you know I never, ever wanted to, you know that right?” 
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice cracked as she finally looked over at her sister’s solemn face, “You told JJ and Hotch but you couldn’t even tell me? Did you just not want to come back for me?”
Emily’s brows pulled up into a sorrowful frown, and she felt her eyes start to burn too. 
“No, that was never a part of it, I swear, there wasn’t a day when I didn’t want to come home to you,” She replied, taking a deep breath in through her nose as not to start bawling her eyes out there and then, “I had to tell Hotch and JJ as a matter of precaution, not because I wanted to tell them and not you. Bug, I missed you every day, I missed Niko and Sergio and those dumb documentaries you made us watch,”  
Bugsy smiled despite herself, wiping a finger under her nose to stop the tears that had already started rolling there, “Well, I don’t know about Niko but Sergio missed you a whole lot,” She sniffled, rolling the Coke over to a cooler side to sooth her lip some more, “But I think he feels like you kind of abandoned him, and like you maybe don’t love him as much because he can be kind of annoying and, like, he’s real torn up about me telling him you died only to find your you’re not, like you can’t just do that to Sergio, Em, he doesn’t deserve that,” 
Bugsy’s lip was quivering by the time she’d finished, but Emily chuckled wetly, wrapping an arm over her shoulder and pressing their pounding heads together. 
“Are we maybe not talking about Sergio anymore, Bug? Are we talking about you-”
“No, we’re definitely talking about Sergio,” She cut in, wiping under her eyes with her sleeve, looking back up where Emily’s face was glistening with tears though it seemed like she had somewhat calmed under her sister’s gaze that wasn’t so full of vitriol hatred anymore. 
Emily nodded, a humoured smile on her lips, “Right, okay, my bad. Definitely Sergio,” She held up her hand, stroking down Bug’s cheek for her where her tears had started pooling, “Well, I want Sergio to know that even if he is annoying sometimes, that there’s nothing that could ever take me away from him again, cause even though I’m not his mom, he’s still always going to be my kid, you know?” 
Bugsy’s face crumpled in pain for a minute, sniffling and meeting Emily’s eyes, dark brown hues watching her sadly, imploring her to know how much her heart called out for her. 
“Really? You promise?” Bugsy whined, and Emily nodded with a sad smile, stroking the back of her braid that looked a little ratted and wispy from where it had been yanked at. She took a shaky breath, looking down to her shoes where they scraped against the steps, “Well, I’m sure he’ll love to hear that, I’ll tell him when we’re home-”
Emily laughed, kissing her sister’s forehead, and pulling her into a side hug. 
“Alright, tough guys. Let’s get back to working on the profile, Sergio can wait for a minute,” Morgan said, though his face fought off the smile that crept on his lips seeing two of his favourite girls finally at peace with one another. 
Bugsy looked five years younger within seconds, and they clicked back into place, hopping up off the steps to get right to work, cursing herself for wasting so much time on silly things like hating her sister, because forgiving her felt cathartic in a way she didn’t understand she needed.
Maybe they had a chance after all.
Bugsy swore she would never have an optimistic thought a day in her life again. 
Because just as they had thought perhaps things could look up; just as they had sent in a different agent medically trained enough to save the jack, their UnSub, that they’d identified as Oliver, had bled out before he could have done anything to save him. Without a second thought, the king, Chris, had shot the agent, and demanded he wanted Will next as retribution for his brother’s death. 
They had of course turned down the offer in a heartbeat but the moment everyone turned their backs, Will, ten times the cop Bugsy could ever hope to be, had walked into the bank with his arms raised in surrender despite JJ screaming for him to stop from where Morgan and Hotch held her back from following him in.
Bugsy and Penelope watched from the CCTV in blood curdling horror when Chris put two bullets in him before he could even declare he was unarmed. 
“Did you see where he was shot?” JJ asked, her tone empty, her eyes bloodshot where she had broken down into a fit of wails as soon as the gunshots had sounded through the street. 
Bugsy opened her mouth to speak, losing all hope as soon as the bluebell gaze fell to her for an explanation. 
“Is he alive or dead, Bug?” JJ snipped, but she knew she didn’t mean it, knew she was just worried out her mind and grasping at straws. 
“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Bugsy replied, Emily’s hand at the small of her back in a comforting gesture because she sounded scared. She wished Spencer was with her, he always knew how to make people feel better, but he and Kevin had gone back to their office uptown to use Penelope’s personal lair for better coverage on the BAU’s resources. 
“He was wearing a vest,” Emily jumped in, because Bug was tense and upset enough as it was, “He might be okay,”
“Might be?” JJ said humourlessly, her face hollow with sadness, “Alright we need to get inside,”
“JJ, it’s too risky,” Morgan tried as the woman stood up, a new found determination, because she refused to accept her partner, the father of her child, was dead until she saw him in a body bag for herself, “We don’t have eyes in there anymore,”
Jennifer’s eyes welled up again, and she turned to their unit chief; he was the only one who could understand just how desperate she felt right now if there was even the smallest chance he could still be alive. “Aaron.” 
Hotch took a breath, nodding to her with complete empathy, “Let’s go in,”
Bugsy leapt for the medical kit they’d kept in the cupboard, because if she could stop the bleeding as soon as possible he might have a chance. She was taken back to when she had gotten to Emily that night with Doyle, when she had nothing but the clothes on her back and a loaded gun to treat her sister with, when she had felt completely helpless. 
She refused to feel like that again, not now she’d been lucky enough to get Emily back. She refused to let JJ and tiny Henry go through what she did. 
Will wouldn’t die if she had anything to do with it. 
-
“Seeing what’s going on outside doesn’t help us inside,” Spencer said, standing behind where Kevin sat in Pen’s office, his hazel eyes falling to the surveillance footage of the bank live streaming from one of the choppers, where the familiar woman he worried for more than he could ever tell her moved behind a SWAT unit towards the front doors, a large med kit strapped to her back, a pistol at her side. 
He looked down at the blueprints of the bank because if he watched her get even ten feet away the bank he thought he might just throw up, even if there were four armed men shielding her.
“Kevin, can you possibly pull up each of the surveillance feeds prior to Will being shot?” He asked, quickly diverting his attention away from where they were at an impasse waiting for something to happen, Emily’s SWAT team moving slowly towards hers. 
“Sure, what are we looking for?” The other man asked, his fingers sprawling over Penelope’s keyboard as he did as requested, playing the older footage on the opposite screen, though even he was getting cold feet watching their team getting ready to breach the perimeter. 
“The female UnSub disappeared once before, if she wasn’t looking for an escape, what was she doing?” 
Spencer paused, because he couldn’t help when his eyes flicked back to the footage of Bugsy shuffling closer to the entrance behind one SWAT agent, and the doors burst open, the entire street pausing for a second to see what the movement was. 
The hostages. The civillians caught in the crossfire at the bank slowly trickled out of the doorway, their arms raised in peace, some crying in relief though there was no sign of Will anywhere. 
This was bad. Though he felt utmost care that the hostages had been released safely, he knew that the UnSubs keeping Will meant one of two things. One, that Will was already dead and useless to them, or two, keeping him bleeding out as a bargaining chip was their final play. Meaning they had no intention of releasing him, otherwise they would be left with nothing. 
If he wasn’t already dead, he would be any minute now. 
Spencer’s chest crashed in devastation for his friend and his godson, though it soon took a turn of terror when it seemed the same thought ran through Bugsy’s mind and she began stepping forward towards where the hostages were shuffling out in floods of tears. 
He saw Morgan and Emily yelling at her to stop, two of the SWAT team trying to follow her because they had no idea what had come over the twenty something year old rookie with a death wish. Spencer tried to ignore the way his chest clawed in horror, his eyes snapping back onto the surveillance of the female UnSub disappearing into the back rooms of the bank, completely ignoring the vault and the very clearly marked exit, meaning she had no intention of using either.
So what was she doing?” 
Spencer felt his head rattling with a horrid thought, hoping his intuition was wrong when he held the blueprints up to the screen, his skin turning to gooseflesh when he realised just exactly where she had been dipping out to with that backpack of hers. 
“Gas mains,” His voice was numb with fear, his body diving for their comm link to Garcia, where she sat in the trailer with Strauss and Rossi, watching the surveillance just as he was, “Garcia, get them out of there now,”
But no sooner had he said anything, Bugsy’s figure disappeared into the building, the SWAT team confirming that the entrance was clear, JJ and Morgan moving after her with their own agents protecting them. 
But she was already inside, his head screamed at him. Even when he heard David’s frantic voice through the radio they had linked to their kevlars, “ABORT, ABORT!” 
Even when he heard Hotch swear hastily, calling to his team to hold back, trying to yell loud enough JJ and her team could hear his orders to take cover. 
Spencer couldn’t truly take any of it in as he watched the large glass windows wobble for a second, a shock wave of what he knew was about to come.
The lines went dead, and he thought for a second his heart stopped. Because he hadn’t figured it out fast enough, hadn’t warned them before she had chance to throw herself head first into danger the way he should have known she would. 
Because Spencer watched the footage with a terror he had never known, not even in his eight years on the team, not even in his own situations as a hostage, not even when he was at his lowest and he thought the dilaudid was going to finish him off, alone and high in his apartment’s little bathroom, a burnt out drug addict who had so much going for him. 
Spencer had never felt the sheer, spine-chilling dread that he did when he watched, useless and heart broken, as the bank went up in a colossal explosion, a plume of flames bursting out of every window, shattering glass and cracking the brickwork, hard enough he watched part of the building start to crumble inwards. 
And Bugsy went down with it. 
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cozage · 7 months
Note
First of all, love the way you write the characters and stories!! They’re so fun to read and always is a huge moodbooster!
May I request Law or the monster trio finding reader after finishing up a huge battle? (Like where the reader is too exhausted to move)
Please remember to take care of yourself so to not end up like overworked reader!! You’re always allowed and deserving of rest 🫶
Characters: gn reader x Law, Luffy, Sanji, Zoro Cw: post-battle exhaustion  Total word count: 800
Post Battle
Law
Law would be pissed that you spent all of your energy to fight a battle. Especially a battle that he started.
He would be more scared than anything, and he would also blame himself for putting you in this situation. He just wants you safe, and it’s not fair that you ended up like this because of him.  
He would probably scold you and warn you not to take things too far again (“your body can’t take much more of this y/n-ya. You know better”)
But he doesn’t want to lose you. That thought is the scariest thing in the world for him. He can’t live without you. 
And the fear of losing you comes out in the form of anger. But his fear will quickly extinguish, and he will quickly become the soft, loving man you know in secret. 
He’ll pick you up and shambles you both away to safety, where you are priority number one. He cares to your wounds and caters to anything you possibly need (even if he does fake-grumble about it, he really does love it)
In the future, he promises himself that he will do better and he will never put you in a position like that again. 
Sanji
Sanji didn’t even want you to fight. He’s angry that you put yourself in harm's way. Someone should’ve been there to protect you. He should’ve been there. 
Not that you can’t handle yourself. He trusts you to get the job done. He’s just mad at himself for leaving you in the first place and putting you in a situation where you had to fight. 
When he whispers your name and coos in your ear, promising you that you’ll be okay.
He calls for Chopper and he wipes your hair out of your face. He doesn’t want to move you in case he ends up hurting you further. He’s trying his best to stay calm. 
He wants to panic, and every bone in his body is screaming in agony seeing you like this, but he doesn’t want you to panic, so he tries his best to act normal (he's not super great at it tbh he is so obviously scared for you)
He keeps saying stupid things like “no no don’t talk, save your strength” or “you look so beautiful everything is going to be okay” and you have to remind him that everything WILL be okay. You’re not dying, you're just tired. 
While you're recovering he makes so. much. food. You have to pawn some off to Luffy when Sanji isn’t looking because there’s no way you can eat so much. 
Luffy
Luffy would be proud. SO so proud. 
Covering you in kisses and cheering and showing you off to the world proud. 
He trusts you to handle whatever battle you’re in. And he knows you’ll hold up your part of the deal. You’ve never let him down before. 
He keeps you close though. He takes a post-battle nap with you, intertwined with your body. 
He feels safe with you next to him like that. He swears your body has magical healing properties, because he always wakes up 200% better after sleeping next to you (you feel better too, though you can’t explain why).
He keeps you next to him through the feast and the party, and he examines your new cuts, bruises, and scars. He only admires them, which helps you feel a little less insecure about them. 
Sometimes you all have matching cuts or bruises, to which Luffy celebrates with another round of booze and another plate of meat. 
Zoro
Zoro is also insanely proud of you. 
He never doubted you, but he knew it would be a hard battle. It was for everyone. But of course you got it finished. You were a person of your word and you would do what you said. 
He tries to be casual about it. He won’t admit that he was a little worried about how you would end up, but he’s so relieved to find you mostly okay. 
He doesn’t admit how his pace quickened when he saw you crumpled on the ground. How just for a moment, he found himself considering a quick prayer to some random god to make sure you were okay. 
But you were just tired. And he knows how to fix that. He gently picks you up and carries you back to safety. 
He lets you sleep while he runs his fingers through your hair and across your skin, so so thankful that all you need is a little nap to be okay. 
And to be honest, he could use a nap too. He’ll blame you for needing a nap, but he always sleeps easier with you around, especially after a battle.
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kisakis-boyfriend · 7 months
Note
May I get head canons of Kaveh, Bennett, and Freminet getting hit with some sorta sex pollen so reader blows their backs out to save their lives? Big Fuck-or-Die Vibes
You sure can! Reader is a dom/top male as usual~
All characters are depicted as 20+ as well~
-
Kaveh
Just my luck, he thinks as a blast of pollen hits him directly in the face. Nothing good ever comes from touching strange plants...
The effects come on quickly, sending tingles throughout his entire body, the feeling is especially noticeable in the area between his legs
Kaveh calls out your name, stumbling towards you and clinging onto your arms for stability. You're understandably worried and reach out to cup his face when he suddenly drops to his knees, humping at your leg desperately
You stare at him wide-eyed, watching him whimper as he clutches your pants tightly, begging for you to fuck him
Kaveh cries until you finally do just that, not even bothering to fully remove either of your articles of clothing. Instead, you simply pull his pants down so that you have access to his hole, and pull your own down far enough to shove your cock into him
His legs tremble as you ram into him relentlessly, overtaken by some unfathomable pleasure coursing through his veins
The only thoughts floating around in that pretty little head are “need cock” and “needtocumneedtocumneedtocum!! ”
You end up fucking him for a while as the effects of the mysterious pollen persist for hours. Just pounding his wet hole over and over, making his pretty back arch so far off of the ground, cumming again and again as he cries and moans loud enough to lose his voice that night
Kaveh is so incredibly embarrassed about it the next day...he doesn't fully understand what came over him and apologizes profusely 😞
Bennett
He doesn't think much of it at first. After all, he's used to things like this happening, well aware of his terrible luck
But he quickly realizes that something is wrong. A little bit of pollen shouldn't cause him to think of being railed by your thick cock out of nowhere...
Bennett tries to hold it together, not wanting to bother you with something so lewd all of a sudden, but he soon gives in and tells you about his thoughts
You're a bit concerned about why this happened and what kind of plant could do such a thing, but you save those thoughts for later, swiftly pinning Bennett to the wall of some ruins and removing his shorts
If you don't want to get caught by some poor adventurer passing by, you'll have to cover Bennett's mouth or create a makeshift gag because he is LOUD
He's wet literally everywhere. Drool running down his chin, cum dripping down his dick from multiple orgasms, his ass is wet and messy because you've been drilling into him for over an hour now, tears are probably running down his pretty cheeks as he's so overstimulated too
But he insists that you don't stop, clawing at the back of your shirt and screaming “yesyesyesyesyes—!! ” as you pound into him harder
Also embarrassed about it when he finally comes back to his senses. Your reassuring smile does ease his mind a little though 🧡
Freminet
You swam away for only a second, taking a picture of some pretty seashells before returning to your diving partner...only to find him swatting away some sort of goo? Spores? You weren't really sure, more concerned with helping Freminet to the surface
Quickly ascending to the surface world, the two of you found a secluded place to sit so that you could assess his condition
By that time though, the substance had already begun to work its magic. Freminet breathed heavily as his dick brushed against the fabric of his pants
You reached out a hand with the intent to feel his forehead, seeing as his cheeks were a deep crimson, but Freminet grabbed your wrist and pulled your hand down to his bulge. Immediately moaning and humping against your hand
Apologies spilled from his lips, simultaneously begging you to fuck him in the same breath. You were concerned, but quickly connected the dots
After finding a soft spot in the grass, you removed his clothing, slipping your pants off and pushing your cock into his ass
Freminet's hands dig into your arms as you force your length deeper inside of him, broken moans falling out of him as tears spill down his cheeks
He begs for you to go faster, fuck him harder, cum in him again, please? Just don't stop or he'll cry harder
His small body bounces with every thrust, surely there will be dark purple bruises covering his waist due to the vice grip you have on him
He'll be incredibly sore for the rest of the day, walking with a limp because of how hard you fucked him, probably still apologizing for asking you to do that so suddenly...
Freminet will also need tons of aftercare and reassurance, just be extra gentle with him for a few days 💙
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Reblogs are extremely appreciated <3
Please check my blog title to verify whether requests are closed or not! Thank you!
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Text
My baby, my baby…
Summary: Leon is a man pushing 40 and you’re a girl in her early 20s. You confessed your feelings but things went south.
Warning: age gap. literally any older version of Leon. reader is young. female reader. haha guess what? it’s sad again.
a/n: I love mitski <3 still mad I didn’t go to her concert. Guys I love writing, I feel like I’m god waiting for shit to happen. TEEHEE.🤭 also, should I make a part two with smut?
(pt.1) (pt.2)
“You're my baby, say it to me” - Mitski, I Bet On Losing Dogs
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You hated him. Well not really. You just hated the way he made you feel when you two were in the same room. Your heart beat faster and you felt your face grow hot. You had butterflies in your stomach every time he did something. And you felt stupid because he’s a man twice your age.
You did what you always think is best, avoid him. To which you failed miserably. You both worked on the same team on the DSO, of course you were bound to be next to him. It was as if the universe was mocking you. You couldn’t help but feel guilty. This man, poor innocent man, probably doesn’t know that he has someone so much younger after him. He must be worried about missions and not dying, while you were here crushing over him.
It didn’t help the way he would talk to you, distant but polite. He didn’t hate you, he just thought you were too young to experience such a miserable life the DSO puts on its agents. He wants you to live life. To be a normal girl in her early 20s. He wanted you to have the life he wished he had. He wished you would live your 21st year way differently than when he was 21.
But those thoughts remained unspoken. Neither of you actually spoke about anything besides work and missions. You tried to find excuses to talk to him but he would just stare at you in silence as you talked. He wasn’t mad, he just stood there. (Like this lol🧍‍♂️)
Professional and polite conversations turned into jokes. One time, during a meeting, you were sitting next to Leon and the poor man looked like he didn’t get an ounce of sleep. Chris was talking about some mission in Antarctica and Leon couldn’t help but grumble a stupid joke about all the penguin shit roaming around. It was such a stupid joke but you laughed. When Leon heard you laugh, he turned his head your direction and stared at you with a raised brow. He smirked to himself and laughed a little bit. It was funny to both of you.
From that moment, he became more warm towards you. When he saw you, he would nod at him. And you being you, a delusional lover, gushed about how much he is in love with you.
You managed to break the ice exterior he had because he would look at you with soft eyes every time you got near him.
-
But things changed when you confessed your feelings to him. The softness in his eyes disappeared and he looked at you with the same distant look he had. “I’m too old for you, y/n…” He spoke with a quiet but firm tone. The two of you were currently alone in some room inside the DSO building. You thought this was the perfect time to let your feelings out.
He took a step towards you and stood in front of you, “You should focus on someone your age, sweetheart,” He mumbled as he brought his hand to your face and brushed some strands of hair behind your ear. He then ran his hand down your cheek with a gentle touch. You couldn’t help but lean into it. His thumb gently grazes against your bottom lip as he ran his fingers around your side of your face.
You were upset, you wanted him despite the age gap. “Please… I only want you,” you whispered and leaned into the palm of his hand.
Leon stared at you and then sighed as he brought his hand down your chin to lift it up more. He wanted to see those beautiful eyes of yours, even if they began to show how sad you were. “It’s wrong for me to have you,” he whispered gently as he examines your face.
You felt your eyes become full of emotion, “It’s not fair…” your voice came out strained and barely audible, it was a miracle Leon still understood you.
"I know." Leon sighed, unable to keep himself from looking you with a soft look. You were his soft spot after all, "Trust me; nothing would please me more than to be with you..."
“Then let me have this one chance…please?” You begged with pleading eyes. "I shouldn't," he breathed, eyes traveling down to your lips before returning to scan your face, "It wouldn't be right for me to take advantage of you..."
“I want you to take advantage of me, to use me… I just want to be yours,” you whispered as your eyes shifted down to his lips and then back to his eyes.
"You're sure about this?" His breathing quickened as his eyelids drew heavy, his gaze locked onto the soft curve of your lips. You nodded, “I wouldn’t be asking you if I wasn’t sure,” you whispered as your hand intertwined with his.
He squeezed your hand, and with a slight shrug of his shoulders, he leaned down until your faces were just mere inches apart.
He breathed slowly, eyes scanning your gaze, "Promise me one thing..."
You stared at his eyes and nodded, “yeah?”
"Promise me..." He breathed out slowly, allowing himself to lean in closer to you until his breathing was near whisper. "...That you will not regret this.”
“I won’t,” you whispered as you closed your eyes and felt Leon's lips finally make contact with yours, kissing for the very first time. It was a gentle, tender caress that made your cheeks flush with color, his broad hands gently resting on your hips while the tips of his fingers grazed the skin of your waist. You brought your hands to his broad shoulders and rested them there. You felt your knees grow weak from the gentleness of the kiss. His lips felt so soft against yours, he tasted the flavor of your chapstick and he couldn’t help but love it even more.
He sighed against your lips as the gentleness of the kiss began to build into something more passionate. His lips pressed against yours firmly, a hand cupping your chin to keep your face closer. His lips parted slowly, urging your lips to part as well. When you felt his lips part and his tongue press on your bottom lip, you gasped and he dived his tongue right into your mouth. His tongue finally danced against your tongue, inviting a response back from you. Your grip on his shoulders increased ever so slightly as you moaned in the kiss, sending the vibrations to his tongue as both your tongues danced passionately.
He moaned softly in response, his hands sliding around to your back once more holding you as close to him as he could. His tongue continued to swirl around your mouth, gently sucking at your bottom lip. His hold on you was strong and firm, a silent command to stay pressed against him. His hold on you only grew stronger as he kept you pressed up against his body. A hand ran through your hair, keeping your head held in place. His tongue and lips continued the dance of teasing and pleasing, your own lips responding in kind. The passion built within his embrace, his breath growing labored and his heart beating rapidly against his chest. It felt so surreal.
You moved your hands down to his chest and gently pulled back to catch your breath. You panted as you tried to breathe and remain focused. Your brain felt mushy from how good the kiss was. You finally got the chance to taste his lips.
His lips parted from yours, and he breathed out slowly, his breathing rapid and throat parched. His hand slid to your lower back as he kept you pressed close to him. He brushed a few stray strands of hair from your face, then gently tucked it back behind your ear. "Are you ok?" He whispered, voice still strained, but his body relaxing slightly.
You nodded and breathed out a small “yes,”
Leon let his grip on you loosen slightly, allowing a small distance to form between the two of you. He brushed the side of your face, and his hand moved to grasp yours.
"Good," He whispered slowly, his gaze falling to your lips, "So very good..." he sighed and let his hand slid back down your back before letting go, "Forgive me if I got a little carried away..." He took in a deep breath, his voice now returning to a normal tone, "I've wanted to do that for a very long time..."
You eyes nestled bulged out of their sockets after he said that, “You did?” You asked softly in disbelief.
He nodded slowly, his gaze flicking between yours, “Yes. Ever since the moment we first met, I was attracted to you, even though I knew it was wrong. I wanted you, wanted to hold you close, kiss you, and make you mine…” his eyes growing distant, "I've wanted you..." He took a deep breath, then gently caressed your chin with a hand, his lips gently grazing your forehead.
You closed your eyes and felt the softness of his lips plant a kiss on your forehead. A gesture so gentle and soft it could bring anyone to their knees.
He breathed out slowly, closing his eyes for a second before opening them to peek at you through his lids. He raised a brow and sighed, adjusting the hold on your chin to gently tip your head up.
"But as I said, I'm too old for you," he brushed his fingers across your jawline, "And I fear that our relationship would be met with judgment and ridicule..." he looked at you with saddened eyes. He wished he could kiss you anytime, to be with you in public and not have to worry about the judgment. In his eyes, you were the most beautiful woman to ever step foot on earth. It was sad, really. How much love he had for you but he hid it for your sake. He loves you so much he didn’t want you to get hurt.
You furrowed your brows together and looked at him with those sad eyes of yours. But his heart ached the most with the strain of your voice, “I don’t care what anyone says…”
"But you should," he replied softly, "You're still young... You should find someone closer to your age,” he caressed your cheek once again as he looked into your eyes "What about your family?" He sighed, "What if your parents disagree with us? They'd say that I'm taking advantage of you and manipulating you because you're young..."
“Leon, please, I’m an adult. I can make my own choices…” you whispered with a sad tone, “I don’t care if you’re 20 years older than me. I want you… dare I say I love you…”
Leon fell silent as your words sank into him. He froze in place, for a few moments, he was speechless, his facial expressions shifting through multiple emotions.
"Love me?" He whispered, leaning down towards you, "Y/n… you don’t love me. You love the idea of me you have in your head.” He whispered softly as he caressed your cheek once again. His voice so soft and tender and full of sadness.
Your throat was caught up into a knot. Did you screw things over already? Or were they already screwed up before this began?
You bit your bottom lip to contain the threatening tears that were about to spill. He saw this and gently brought his thumb over to the corner of your eyes and wiped them for you.
“I love you…” you nodded and felt your eyes get glossy, “I love you, Leon…” you whispered, “This feeling I have… it’s controlling me. I can’t breathe when I’m not with you. I need you…”
“Don’t cry, angel,” he whispered as he kissed your forehead again and gave you a sad smile. “How do you know this is not just infatuation?”
You stared into his blue eyes deeply, “Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone before..”
His eyes were locked onto yours, a million thoughts running through his head. As much as he wanted to be with you, this was never meant to happen. You’re way too young. You needed someone else, someone better than him. He sighed and looked out the window. What was once a sunny day became a rainy one. He looked back down at you.
"Go home, y/n…" he whispered.
He let go of your face and took a step back. You watched him go with sad eyes, you wanted to chase after him so badly but you felt frozen in place. It was bittersweet. You got the kiss you wanted but at the cost of him leaving you.
You sniffled and cried silently as you walked out of the building and to the bus stop. You put on your headphones and began to listen to some music while you watched the raindrops race down the window.
Leon watched you from the second floor window. He felt a pang of guilt in his heart. He knew you’d cry but he couldn’t let you get too attached to someone like him. He was broken, never meant to be fixed again. While you were everything. In another universe, maybe the two of you could’ve been together.
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mysacredmuse · 2 months
Text
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reader: female anatomy, feminine descriptors (lady) + she/her pronouns
cw/tw: nsfw - mdni!, playing poker in stripping and one sexual exchange (he wants to creampie you, but bets in a kiss LOL), a bit of cocky! aventurine, aventurine and reader are "friends", reader is a loser 💔, dirty talk, table sex, rough sex, aventurine edges both of you, creampie
there is lots of dialogue, it's a mixture of bickering/playfulness & flirtiness I suppose
word count: 4.6k
dividers by @/enchanthings :)
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note: tbh, in the part where the reader asks is that the only way he gets ladies naked, I had to hold myself back so hard not to write "not only ladies" LOL, but either way, I hope you enjoy it! :)
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• Aventurine • Poker play •
Aventurine proposed a game of poker to you. At first, you were denying, aware that gambling with him would not be beneficial for you. 
"Come on, I won't go rough on you." he states in a playful tone, taking the cards out of the box. You scoff as you sit down, deciding to humor him for a round or two since there wasn't really anything better to do at an empty casino.
"Easily persuaded..that's what I like to see." he gives you a sly smile as he shuffles the cards. 
"Simply bored, so I will amuse you for a round." you say with a slight boredom in your tone, leaning back into your chair as you wait for him to deal. 
"My friend, no one ever stops at one round." he states in a serious tone as he deals both of you a hand of five cards. You check yours, evidently dissatisfied as you didn't even get a pair. He chuckles but remains silent for a few moments.
"How many do you wish to change?" he finally asks, slightly tilting his head.
"All five." you say seriously, earning another chuckle of his.
"I'm afraid that's not possible, so I will give you four." he says in a playful tone as you choose which cards to exchange. Your situation doesn't get much better, but at least you got a pair of kings.
"You won't be changing any?" you ask curiously as you reposition the cards in your hand to satisfy your taste.
"I told you I won't be rough.." he pauses for a second before he lays out his hand.
"..but it's also quite unnecessary when you have a straight flush." he lets out a soft laugh as he sees your semi-annoyed expression.
"Good job cheater." you roll your eyes as you show your cards, two kings standing weakly against his hand.
"No need for such hostility, we can just try again." he says in a satisfied tone as he takes the cards back, quickly shuffling them in an oddly professional way. 
"I said I will amuse you for one round only." you say in a firmer tone, crossing your arms as you watch him shuffle. Aventurine gives you a cat-like gaze as he puts the cards aside for a moment. He swiftly adds the chips, placing 20 thousand credits on the table afterwards. Your expression grows confused, even a bit shocked as he does it like it's nothing.
"Perhaps if we bet on this, your motivation will go up. What do you say?" he gives you a soft smile as he picks up and continues shuffling the cards.
"I say that you are insane. I don't have that kind of money to throw around!" you state in a louder tone, expression still quite puzzled. Aventurine just laughs at your reactions, clearly enjoying them.
"Ah, friend, let's not worry about such trivial matters here. All that actually matters is the game itself." he speaks calmly as he deals the cards again - five to both.
"It will matter tomorrow when I won't be able to get myself a bottle of water!" you express dramatically, but your words did make sense. 
"Why are you immediately assuming that you will lose?" he tilts his head, semi-amusement adoring his features.
"You know why!" you state loudly, feeling borderline offended that he would even ask as he could probably buy you just by selling the watch on his wrist.
He laughs. 
"I do know why, yes, but I told you already, didn't I? I won't go rough on you. Unless, of course, you want me to." he chuckles, sly gaze fixating on yours.
"We are still talking about poker, right?" you raise your eyebrow at him, slightly leaning forward as you check your cards.
"If that's what you want, then yes." he nods with a soft smile on his face before he checks his own cards.
"What else would I be talking about?" he continues after a moment of silence, making you slightly nervous. You ignore his question as the nervousness gets replaced by annoyance. Your cards suck. Again!
"Give me four cards again, please." you say in an almost defeated tone, sliding the four awful cards you had back to him. He wants to laugh, but he contains himself before he speaks up.
"You need to place a bet first." 
You look at him with a shocked expression.
"Rules of the casino, friend! The dealer never loses." he chuckles, giving you a small wink as he taps the table, urging you to place your money.
"How fitting…" you squint your eyes at him as your lips turn downwards. You take out 5 thousand credits from your bag, placing the tiny stash next to his finger.
"Is this enough?" 
"Sure is. For now, at least." he gives you a soft smile as he puts your money in the middle, the stake now being 25 thousand. He switches your four cards for new ones as he changes only one of his.
"Hey, hey! You said you need to put money first!" you point your finger at him and he gives you a puzzled expression in return for a moment. 
"Does a dealer get no privileges?" he points out and you slightly shrink in your seat, but your face remains pouty.
"Fine, I did say I won't go rough on you after all. I see your five-" he can't help but chuckle which makes your face grow offended.
"-..and raise you fifteen." he adds, slowly pushing the money to the small chunk in the middle. You scoff as he keeps laughing at your reactions. Your hand isn't strong, but it isn't that weak either. Your first full house of the night!
Aventurine just watches you with amusement for a couple of moments.
"So, do you want to raise me as you seem confident or do you prefer to show your cards now?" he tilts his head as he repositions cards in his own hand.
"Uh...I can raise you five more!" you say proudly as you reach for your bag.
"You need to raise me twenty thousand." he states calmly.
"Twenty?!" your eyes widen as your voice grows panicked, quickly returning money back in the bag.
"Nevermind." you quickly follow, simply showing him your cards.
He watches you with an entertained expression as he lays out his, only to show you nothing. He has one strong card.
Your eyes glow with pride as you quickly scoop the money closer to you.
"You could've won much more only if you had more confidence." he clicks his tongue as he takes the cards, shuffling them again.
"How was I supposed to know that?" you question in a semi-disinterested tone, just happy that you won something.
"You couldn't know, but that's the thrill of the game my friend! Loosen up and learn to risk sometimes." he says with a tone that seemed to be almost hiding something as he deals both of you cards again. He casually places 100 thousand credits, in two stacks of 50 thousand. Your eyes widen in disbelief as you swallow nervously.
"Now, you need to place at least 20 thousand." he tells you in a calm manner and you do as told.
Next few rounds go surprisingly well for you and you find yourself more thrilled to play. Aventurine was right. You actually find this quite fun - even more so when you win. However, as if the devil felt your pride and confidence, you begin to lose very soon. Aventurine keeps getting the strongest suits, leaving your side of the table dry of any money. You wish to wipe the cocky smile off of his face every time he wins, growing more irritated. After a while, Aventurine proposes a new deal.
"How about we raise the stakes?" he asks with amusement on his face, slightly leaning back into his chair.
You raise an eyebrow at him, already aware where this is going.
"Is that your only way of getting ladies naked?" you chuckle as you think about his proposition. 
"Not really. Being awfully good looking with an amazing taste in fashion often does the job." he states with a soft cockiness in his tone.
"Humbleness and humility as well, I am sure." you raise your eyebrows at him as your gaze falls on the empty spot where money used to be, right next to you.
"You would be correct, friend." he gives you a small nod, voice playful.
"But do not be so judgemental. After losing all of your money, is there really anything else you could offer me?"
You give him a hesitant gaze, remaining silent.
"Now of course, you could also back out, nothing is stopping you from doing so. Choice is yours." he says in a semi-sensual tone, sly gaze firmly fixated on yours.
"Isn't a bartender still here?" you ask as you play with your fingers a bit to calm down the nerves. It was a fun offer, but you also didn't celebrate the fact that you weren't alone.
"Mm, you really don't like risks, do you?" he asks without expecting you to answer him as he takes a look at his watch.
"He should be leaving fairly soon. I will play slowly, so you don't lose all your clothes before he leaves." he reassures you, oddly enough, so you just nod.
"Who says that I will be the one losing all the clothes?" you reply with a little smile, earning a chuckle from Aventurine.
"Oh? You feel more confident now, I like that." he says in a lower tone as he slowly shuffles the cards, just like he promised. You eagerly wait for him to deal, for unknown reason feeling excited about possibly getting it back to him.
"Although, before we start, may I ruin a little fun moment of mine I just had?"
"Go on."
"You are aware that it wasn't me who proposed this type of game...right?"
You blink a few times, recalling the conversation in your head.
"You were implying it. What else is there to play besides strip poker?" you tilt your head as you cross your arms over your chest.
"You do realize that I work for IPC? There are a lot of games to play and lots of debt to make, if one wishes to." 
"Whatever! Don't flatter yourself thinking that I wanted to see you naked."
"Not what I was aiming at." he chuckles as he finally deals the cards, his presence becoming heavier.
"No switching cards anymore. We both get only one shot each time, so - lay them out whenever you are ready." he says in a cunning tone, eyelids lowering as he waits for you.
You gulp, laying out your trashy hand with only one ace.
"And here I thought we would take it slow. Or are you that eager to lose?" he asks in a low tone, laying out his card one by one, keeping you in suspense.
However, he also only has one strong card - ace of hearts.
"Now what..?" you ask a bit confused as your gaze jumps between your cards and his.
"Nothing. We play until one wins. Should I speed it up this time or do you still want me to go slow?" he tilts his head as he takes the cards, keeping them in his hand.
"Slow." you nod as you notice that the bartender still hasn't left.
Aventurine just smiles as he shuffles the cards slowly, silence filling up the room with a layer of intriguing heaviness between the two of you.
He finally deals the cards and you check yours, finally getting a better hand - three of a kind. Nothing to be secure in, but it's also not the worst scenario.
"Whenever you are ready." he states as he leans back comfortably in his chair. 
Sudden interruption occurs, the bartender's raspy voice breaking the silence.
"I will be closing up soon, so-"
"Put it on my name. I will pay for renting the casino for the rest of the night. We are still playing." Aventurine speaks confidently, not batting an eye at him, gaze fixated on you.
"O-oh..okay. But it seems like you stripped her from everything already." the bartender replies in an empathetic tone as you give him a forced smile.
"Not quite yet. You can also leave early, I won't tell your boss." Aventurine finally looks at the man, winking at him. The bartender just utters a few words of gratitude as he quickly goes back to type Aventurine's bill and pack his things.
"Go on now. I took care of that as well." he smiles at you, tapping the table with his index finger.
You swallow again, slowly laying out your cards. Aventurine throws his almost immediately after you, winning with a full house. You click your tongue, hesitantly looking up at him as the bartender waves goodbye before he leaves. You wave back, slowly turning back to Aventurine who just gives you a knowing gaze.
"You can start with the shirt...or do you need my help with that as well?" he tilts his head, lustful eyes gazing up and down at you. You shake your head as you take a deep breath, slowly unbuttoning your shirt as you silently hope to win the next round. You place your shirt on the chair next to you, turning back to face Aventurine. He keeps eyeing you, eyebrows slightly rising upon seeing your bra.
"Fancy. Are you sure you didn't put it on just for me?" he lets out a mellow chuckle as he takes cards again, shuffling them a bit faster than before.
"You wish." you roll your eyes at him, slightly readjusting yourself in the chair.
"Perhaps I do." he confirms nonchalantly as he deals the cards, letting the meaning of his words flow between the two of you. You don't reply, but a dim wave of warmth forms beneath the skin of your cheeks.
You check your cards, still not satisfied as you get three of a kind once again. You want to attack him with a statement that he didn't shuffle the cards properly, but that would be a lie as you watched him do it.
He doesn't say anything this time, just shows you his cards - royal flush. You bite down on your bottom lip as you shamefully show your weaker hand. With a heavy gaze of his, you stand up, quickly losing your pants without uttering the word.
Another round plays out and you lose again. Time to pick between your bra and your panties.
"You can still back out if you want to." he says with an inviting tone, slowly leaning over the table.
"I don't want to."
There is something eager, impatient and borderline lustful as he gazes into you. For some, yet many reasons that makes your tummy curl on the inside, sending hot waves through your body. You swiftly unclip your bra, letting it slide down your shoulders as you expose yourself to him.
His gaze follows the bra that falls down, swiftly turning back up as he admires your tits. You put your bra next to your shirt, slightly squirming in your seat as a soft wave of shyness washes over you. 
"This is quite a show from you." he says in a mixed tone of teasing and softer neediness as he swiftly begins shuffling the cards again.
"Do you still wish to continue?" he challenges, but also makes sure at the same time. You nod, a soft sound of confirmation vibrating out of your throat. Your gaze falls on the window of his shirt that exposes a tiny portion of his chest, something inside of you desiring for him to take it off. Thoughts bubble up in your head as he deals the cards, giving you a much better hand this time. It's not the best, but it is a straight flush. So almost the best! You quickly lay them out, excited for the win at hand.
"Almost." Aventurine says bluntly as he quickly slides his cards over yours. To your misfortune, he had another royal flush. You let out a dissatisfied sigh, eyebrows twitching as you remain still for a moment. Aventurine keeps silent, waiting for your next choice. You slowly stand up, barely looking at his direction as you hook your thumbs between your hips and panties.
"Down." he orders you in a slightly quieter tone for the first time during this night. You finally gaze at his face, his eyes intense as he waits for you. You give him a soft smile as you slide your thumbs out of your panties, covering your boobs as you cross your arms over your chest, slightly hugging yourself.
"Do it yourself, Mr winner. This is the prize you were hoping for, no?" you reply in a semi-teasing tone, earning a moment of stillness from Aventurine. He slowly stands up, walking towards you just as slowly. You feel your lower tummy burn in desire as he finally reaches you, body close to yours. You slowly move back until you hit the edge of the table and Aventurine's body follows, inch away from yours. He slowly kneels down in front of you, head looking up as his gaze fixates on yours.
He sneaks his index fingers between your panties and hips, slowly rolling them down as his face remains close, awfully close, to your pussy, tip of his nose not even an inch away. He gently brushes his hands over your thighs, knees, calves and then finally ankles as his gaze still remains firmly on yours. You step out of your panties, kicking them to the side as you rest your palms on the table behind you, exposing your boobs to him again.
He slowly straightness himself, soft palms sliding over the sides of your body in the process, lastly resting on your hips.
"Is this what you were hoping for?" you ask through a mellow whisper, tilting your head at him.
"I could ask you the same question." he answers in a low tone, leaning his face closer to yours.
"Perhaps I did." you smile, gently hooking your index finger underneath the small belt that was holding his collar. Your lips ghost over his, legs slightly spreading. He slowly moves his hands down, sneaking them on the backside of your thighs and swiftly lifting you up on the table.
You spread your legs around his hips as your faces remain close to each other. You slowly move your hands down, undoing his zipper and the button of his pants, giving him a sly look. He doesn't stop you as you slowly slide them down his hips, enjoying the outline of his hard cock on his boxers. As you start sliding his boxers down, he speaks up.
"One last bet. If you kiss me first, I get to cum inside of you tonight."
"And if you lose?"
"Then I will become your fucktoy for as long as you want me to, anytime you want me to."
"One night versus forever..you're quite generous with your offer."
He slowly aligns his cock with your leaking entrance, sliding it up and down over your clit and inner lips, earning a shaky whimper of yours.
"It's a win for me either way."
"And if I never use you?"
"I still get to cum inside of you this one time."
"Ah, so that's your idea of never being on the losing end?" 
"Indeed." he confirms as he swiftly slides his cock inside of you, earning a sharp moan of yours and a shaky moan of his. Your hands fall behind you, keeping you up as Aventurine leans his face close to yours, parted lips ghosting over yours. He starts thrusting his hips slowly, letting the tip of his cock remain inside of you for a moment before he slowly slides his full length back inside.
You let out a chain of soft moans, legs squeezing his hips as your gazes fixate on one another, mellow filthy sounds filling up the small space between both of your lips. His hands fall on your hips, pulling you a bit closer to him as he narrows his hips, long and slow thrusts reaching deeper inside of you. You let out a sharper moan as his cock stimulates your sweet spots so agonizingly, shivers going throughout your body.
Aventurine lets out shaky moans, trying to contain them without much success. You let your tongue slide over his bottom lip as it didn't really count as kissing, teasing him further as his hot breath warms up your lips. He clicks his tongue, a choked and shaky moan following as he speaks.
"I did say I won't be rough with you, but that was only while we were playing." he states rather quickly and immediately speeds up his hips, thrusting into you at a much quicker pace, making your eyes roll back from suddenness. You let out a few guttural whines; his balls slapping the underside of your pussy in a sharp manner, making it feel like a pleasurable bruising.
He keeps the angle of his hips, reaching deepest spots of you as your head falls back, lips parting away from his. He leans into your exposed neck, licking a quick stripe over your pulse area, trembling moans spreading hot air over your skin. He messily starts kissing your neck making you clench around his length, but almost forcefully unclenching as his cock slides over your sensitive spots at a brutal pace.
His pelvic area slightly stimulates your clit each time it kisses yours, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. Aventurine reaches behind your ear, trailing to it in soft kisses and licks, leaving lustful and whorish sounds to ring in your ear right after.
You barely clench around him a few more times as his cock keeps sliding in and out of you at a vigorous pace. He moves his hand away from your hip and slides it on the back of your head, moving it close to him as he leans away from your ear, straightening it for you as he keeps slamming his hips into yours. You let out a messy moan, lips almost falling onto his as your mind grows hazy and needier. You quickly catch yourself this time, but Aventurine notices, cock twitching slightly inside of you.
"Fuck, you are so eager I might start thinking you were losing on purpose." he lets his words out in a mixture of steadiness and soft whimpers as his cock keeps slidinh in and out of your overly leaking cunt even faster now. Your eyes roll down as one of your hands grip his shoulder, unsteady vision focusing on the way his cock moves in and out of you.
Aventurine follows your motion, foreheads resting against one another as the two of you watch his cock getting out to the tip and then buried deep inside your cunt. Your pussy convulses at the sight in front of you as his cock twitches in response, desperate moans slipping past your lips.
Your grip on his shoulder becomes tight as his hand pulls your head back by your hair at its previous place, the other hand sliding between your bodies to reach your clit. As soon as you feel his fingers resting on your thigh while only his thumb circles over your clit, a pathetic whine escapes your throat. Aventurine leans his face closer, lips practically on yours, but he doesn't kiss you.
You claw at the table behind you as your hand falls off his shoulder to his chest, fingernails desperately digging into the tiny portion of skin accessible. He lets out shakier moans than before, swallowing half of them which results in a few whines as his pace doesn't slow down, cock relentlessly stimulating all of your sensitive spots while his thumb draws gentler circles over your clit.
Your body begins to twitch, waves of heat overwhelming you as your orgasm slowly builds up. You tighten your legs around his hips, narrowing your own his to meet his thrusts deeper inside. Your gaze is low and needy just like his, pretty eyes not leaving yours once.
"Please don't-" you choke out as a sharp moan interrupts you, legs shaking and losing their grip on his hips. You press your lips into his, but do not kiss him. He speeds up the pace of his thumb on your clit, squeezing louder moans out of you as your back slightly arch. His grip on your hair tightens as his balls keep bruising the underside of your leaking cunt.
"Kiss me if you want to cum." he whispers breathlessly, his own release edging closer as he feels your warm pussy cream and tighten around him.
"Nuh-uh.." you barely shake your head, tensing your lower tummy in order to reach orgasm faster. Aventurine feels the motion of your muscles as it makes your cunt tighten around him even more, giving you one last sharp and heavy thrusts, forcing a sharp whine out of your throat before he slows his hips down a lot. You groan in displeasure, eagerly trying to move your own hips in order to gain more friction. Your breaths mix up together and you brush your lips over his, fingernails digging harder into his chest.
He speeds up the movement of his thumb as his hips move at agonizingly slow pace, quickly building up your orgasm once more. His lips wrap around your bottom one, still not fully kissing you as a soft moan escapes his throat. His cock twitches inside of your cunt as a sharp moan escapes your lungs, first waves of orgasm washing over you.
He quickly moves his thumb away from your clit, all the build up in your lower tummy subsiding as he edges the both of you. He barely thrusts his cock out of you, making your mind hazy as you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to you. You let your lips wrap around his upper lip, tongue finally hesitantly sliding over it.
"Just let me cum, please." you whimper out, mindlessly greedy for release, pride disappearing as you let yourself lose the bet once more.
On cue, Aventurine immediately speeds up the pace of his hips, vigorously pounding into you as his thumb returns to draw slow circles over your clit. He chuckles into the kiss as you press your lips harder into his, his grip on your hair tightening. Your tongues swiftly find each other, eagerly sliding over one another, sending trembles down your body as you keep moaning into the kiss.
Overwhelming heat washes over you, heavily convulsing in your lower tummy as your orgasm quickly builds up again, breaking through in small waves at first. Aventurine lets out a sharp moan into your mouth as his cock twitches more, pressing deeper into your g-spot and sending you over the edge.
His release immediately follows, a thick whip of cum sending tingles up your spine as it melts inside of your needy cunt at the peak of your release. Your kiss becomes heavy and lustful, breathless as it's filled with whorish moans, both of you ride out your orgasms. Aventurine doesn't slow down for quite some time, hips and his thumb both working at a fast pace to prolong your orgasm and this very moment for as long as possible. 
Next morning, a sudden sound of two messages makes your phone light up, a small buzz startling you.
2 messages.
Click.
Aventurine transferred 2 million credits to your account. Click to open.
Aventurine [08:08 am]: My other offer still remains on the table. Do with that information what you wish.
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sourbinnie · 10 months
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☆ regrets & replacements ☆ (2)
♡ genre ¿? ♡ -> angst with a hopeful ending ♡ pair ¿? ♡ -> hyung line!skz x gn!reader ♡ plot ¿? ♡ -> it's not about making up, it's about owning up to your mistakes. ♡ warnings ¿? ♡ -> swearing ♡ request ¿? ♡ -> yes!
a/n -> BEFORE YOU READ ; if you're expecting an angsty ending, this is not gonna please you but if you expected everything to be happy and good in the end, this isn't for you either. i really did try to write a part where they fully make up and i couldn't do it. i don't even if it's my angsty side kicking in or if it's just instinct where i just don't find it possible for that to happen. i also didn't feel like giving in and making it sad as hell because i got requested to do something happy and i'm sorry if i disappointed that person. i literally couldn't do it:( and i'm really sad with myself about this one, i would say this is a neutral ending and i'm gonna leave it at that.
first part -> hyung line
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chan ✉
waking up with no chan next to you was rare. your birthday was gone now but not your feelings and that sucked because that meant you would have to talk to chan about what happened. you didn't feel bad about not explaining it to him, you kinda hoped he already realized his mistake but even if he did it wouldn't change the course of things right now.
as you got up and walked to your living room, you saw the never ending pile of gifts. the flowers, the cake, the different things the boys got you and of course your boyfriend chan. he looked tired as hell, bags under his eyes and just overall the energy he usually had wasn't there. he looked at you and sighed when he saw the the reddish eyes from crying but he still had hope in him.
"you know getting me stuff won't make me forgive you that easily channie." you said and chan nodded as he heard your words. he wasn't doing this to earn your forgiveness, he knew he didn't deserve that in the end. but he still wanted you to have a birthday, even if the day had gone by, you deserved a celebration and he would leave if you asked him to because he just respected you that much.
"this isn't for you to forgive me even if i am so fucking sorry. this is because you deserved a good day yesterday and because your boyfriend's an idiot, he ruined that." he muttered and it was your time to nod as you listened to him. there was no easy way to forgive him really because what he did hurt you so deeply and this was beyond just forgetting.
"why did you do that chan? i mean i don't really expect you to always remember my birthday but i wasn't expecting to find out that you spend it with someone who deeply hates me." you explained and felt like you were going to cry again thinking about it. it wasn't fair to you and chan knew better than that, he didn't want to push it but he did want to fix things. losing you was not in his mind right now, he needed to make things right.
"when soohee called me yesterday i left without a comment because i truly was worried that something happened to her. it turned out she broke up with her boyfriend and whatever, begged me to stay with her and everything just went by so fucking fast. i didn't notice anything and i just-." he had to cut himself off because he knew he was rambling and he was desperate to make things okay but he was feeling so broken. thinking about you being all alone and waiting for him to come back was probably gonna haunt him and that made the tears build up in his eyes. "i know i don't deserve it (y/n) but please let me make it right."
you looked at him as you took in everything. you wanted to believe him because you knew chan and you knew how kind hearted he was when it came to his friends. you saw how he realized that soohee wasn't who he thought she was and it's hard losing a friend, you hated that this was all happening and felt absolutely betrayed but you were not heartless and chan crying always made you feel the worst way.
"channie, i don't know if i'm gonna be able to forgive you right now. but i would really like to spend the day with you because i missed you so much yesterday." you said and he could feel himself crying more but understanding. he was so scared that this was gonna be the end but he was given another chance. you got close to him and as soon as you were next to him, he wrapped his arms around you.
"i'll make it right, i promise." he mumbled through tears and you really hoped he would. drying the tears from his face with your thumb as you gave him a little kiss on the lips and he smiled again. it wasn't quite alright yet but the wound would heal eventually.
minho ✉
you knew it wasn't gonna be easy to go through the night all by yourself. of course you had your friends there but usually having minho by your side made things easier. jisung stayed by your side, disappointed in his friend and sad to witness the falling out but he was rooting for him to show up and make things right. the night was still young and he had been texting minho to come over even if you told him not to. jisung knew better though, he could read you and your eyes were always at the door.
when minho arrived at the place, he sighed deeply and prayed that he could fix this. the boys greeted him but jisung had a look on his face of "make this right" and it was scary. he wasn't the type to be afraid but if he did lose you today, that would be his biggest fear coming true and he didn't know what he would do without you.
he saw you looking as beautiful as ever out on the balcony. he had you all alone, he needed to talk and he needed to choose his words carefully before thinking of the worst.
"minho? i told you not to show up." you said but you didn't sound confident in your words. he could tell there was a mix of anger and sadness in your tone and it was all because of him, this wasn't going to be easy.
"i could not miss my partner's birthday even if i screwed up everything." he said and looked at you. you weren't even looking in his direction but he was captured by your beauty every time he glanced at you and it was beyond your outfit and how you did your hair. he got so lucky with you and knowing that this could be the last night he saw you would kill him slowly. "i can't lose you (y/n) and i know everything's beyond wrong right now but i just need you."
"i didn't feel bad that you forgot or even that you were with her of all people. but you lied to me and we've never had an instance where i felt like things were beyond repair but right now i just don't know what to say minho." you said and you didn't want to cry right now but it was all too much. he felt like crying himself as he saw those spill from your eyes because like you said, there wasn't a situation that you lived before where you guys wouldn't make up and he felt you slipping away from him.
"don't say that, i don't deserve you and i should've remembered in the first place. i choose someone who doesn't understand that i met the love of my life already and that i'm not gonna give up on them. i won't put you second ever again (y/n) and i know you probably won't believe me right now but i truly do mean it." he said confidently and you looked at him, meeting his honest eyes. "i lied i know and i thought i was making things better by keeping soohee away from everyone. i cut her off and i know i should've done it sooner."
you took his hand in yours as you looked down. he knew you did this when you were nervous, when you needed to hold or do something to distract you so he just let you. 
"i can't forgive you even if i want to because all i wanted was for you to show up and explain yourself." you said and it warmed his heart. even if he let you down, you always believed in him and will always wait for him. "minho i love you, would you give me time?"
"all the time you need, i'll be here waiting for you as long as it takes." he responded and even if it hurt that things went so wrong, there was a glimpse of hope in the end. "i love you more (y/n)." he then said and you kissed his cheek as you headed inside. 
changbin ✉
waking up to someone yelling over the phone wasn't really what you had in mind. you went to the living room where all the noise was coming from and you saw changbin looking as tired as he could be. you really didn't expect for him to stay in your apartment and for him to be mad was rare. 
"changbin what's going on?" you asked genuinely concerned because even if all the events from yesterday were on your mind, you cared too much about him to not be there if he needed you. on the other hand, changbin couldn't take that you still were looking at him with caring eyes, he deserved to be yelled at and deserved to be kicked out.
"i'm cutting someone out of my life and they didn't make it easy. as soon as they started insulting you, i had to say some things that were not quite nice but i don't regret it." he responded and you could imagine who he was talking about. it still surprised you that he did that because even if you hated her, you knew that changbin in the end cared about her but from how angry he was you could see there was no going back.
"you didn't have to do that changbin." you muttered and he was so sad to hear that, not because of soohee and cutting off their "friendship" but because you genuinely thought he shouldn't have defended you. "i mean it's not like you didn't go there yesterday and spent all day with her when she needed you."
"stop that right now. first of all, i know what i did and i'm always gonna be fucking sorry about not being here with you, celebrating your day and choosing someone who clearly wanted this to happen all along." changbin said and you were glad he was now finally realizing but you also felt like it was too late. "but i'm not gonna hear you say that you don't want me to defend you because i'm always gonna be choosing you even if you want me to go right now, you will always be the one for me. i'm genuinely serious (y/n), i don't want soohee and i'm never gonna want her because i am in love with you."
"and i'm always gonna be in love with you but it doesn't change the fact that you hurt me." you said and he nodded now getting what you meant and how you felt. there might no be going back from this one and he just wanted to disappear right then and there. 
"tell me what i can do to fix this. i'll do anything you want me to because i swear i can't live without you." he begged basically and you could hear his voice getting higher pitched. it wasn't common for him to cry and if you saw him cry, you would end up crying as well.
"binnie i don't know. this is not the end and i don't want you to leave, can we pretend for a while that yesterday didn't happen?" you said and he looks at you. his eyes filled with tears but he still finds the strength to hold on to you and give you a hug. you felt like you needed to be in his arms, maybe even more so yesterday than today but right now is all you have and your birthday is long gone.
"i will make it up to you, i swear i will." he whispered as he kissed your forehead. you let the tears go, staining his shirt but he didn't care as long as he had you in his arms where you belonged. 
hyunjin ✉
to your dismay and your surprise at the same time, he was knocking at your door an hour later. you knew it was him, he had been spamming your phone ever since you left the building but you couldn't even respond from how disappointed you were. even now you were doubting if you should open the door or leave him knocking all night but you couldn't do that without a neighbor complaining so you decided to head to the entrance and open the door.
"i told you not to come. go back to soohee or whatever you had in mind for today." you said and you wanted to close the door again but he stopped you before you could do it. you looked as he walked into your apartment and took in his appearance. he looked like he almost ripped his hair out and like he had been crying, so pretty much like you did right now.
"i don't even know where to start." he said pacing back and forth and as much as you wanted to hate him, you grabbed his hand and sat down with him before he kept spinning around your apartment. that action alone was enough to calm him down but the glare you were giving him was making him doubt himself all over again. "the only thing i have in mind right now is the fact that i don't want to lose you because i was so fucking stupid."
"you were and i truly don't know how you're gonna get out of this one jinnie. this is beyond it being my birthday just why? why didn't you pick up? why did you show up with her? why didn't you defend me? i feel so stupid." you expressed and the tears were rolling again but so were hyunjin's because he could not stand seeing you cry. you didn't have to feel stupid, he was the stupid one and the one that messed everything up on a special day.
"i didn't pick up because she kept telling me that it was an unknown number calling and hanged it up for me. i showed up with her because she told me she would help me pick up your present at the end of practice and i didn't defend you because i truly wasn't expecting her to say that. i thought she was my friend and i thought she cared about me but i had to kick her out as soon as i saw it all go down." he said in between tears and rambles. you didn't want him to justify himself or his actions but it was nice hearing his side even if you were still very much hurt by everything that happened. 
"hyunjin i always told you how i don't want to interfere in your friendships but she has always hated me and you put her first." you said and he nodded, he was already accepting defeat because he truly did fuck it up this time. you pushed the tears away because you didn't feel like crying anymore and yet they wouldn't stop. 
"i'll leave, you don't deserve to spend the rest of your birthday with someone who did you wrong." he said and even in all this pain, it still hurt when hyunjin didn't fight it anymore. there was a point in all the fights that you've had where he gave up because he could not take in your anger or your sadness, he just wanted to see you smile again. right now he felt like he was holding back what could be a good day for you because it was still your birthday after all and he didn't want to ruin it anymore.
"hyunjin, stay. i can't say that i'm past it yet but i just wanna be with you right now even after all that happened, i just don't see myself going out celebrating if it's not with you by my side." you said, giving him a little smile through all the tears. he got closer to you as he placed a kiss on your lips which you responded to, the most hurtful one you shared yet.
"i'll stay for as long as you want me to and i'll leave if you need me to." he whispered and you nodded because everything was hurting but his words would always find a way to your heart. his hand on your cheek as he caressed it slowly and you met for another kiss.
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starlightvld · 3 months
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Up in Smoke
(Also on AO3)
The first time Ghost rips the cigarette from Soap's mouth, drops it on the ground, and stomps on it as he passes by, Soap is too stunned to say anything for a full ten seconds. They've only been working together consistently for a couple of missions, and even as his superior officer, the audacity of the action floors him.
By the time his brain restarts, Ghost is long gone.
--
The second time Ghost steals Soap's cigarette, he bursts out in a string of Scottish curses and tackles Ghost from behind before the wanker can drop it on the ground. An impromptu sparring match ensues, fists and curses flying. 
Afterward, he doesn't feel much like a cigarette anymore — not with the split lip, anyway. Besides, the buzzing under his skin that usually drives him to smoke is just... gone.
Price catches wind of the incident, of course, and calls them into his office a few hours later. By that time Soap has calmed down enough to be... maybe not okay with it, but at least able to see the humor. 
"What's this about you muppets scuffling by the smoking area?"
"Just a little sparring to blow off steam," Soap says.
"Ghost?"
"Nothin' to worry about, Captain."
"No? I've got one soldier who looks like he just got back from a bar fight, and the other..." He squints at Ghost. "He get a hit in on you, too?"
"Yeah," Ghost replies in that deadpan tone of his. "Coupla black eyes."
It's a joke. 
Ghost is telling a joke. And it's objectively not funny. It's not. But Soap bursts into hysterical laughter all the same. 
The corners of Ghost's blacked-out eyes crinkle. 
Price rubs his temples before dropping his hand on his desk. Soap presses his lips together to contain his laughter.
"Sparring happens in the gym. I'm sure you know the place. It's where we have things like mats and gloves. I catch you two bare-knuckle fighting again, and you will regret it."
And it's enough to sober Soap up. He avoids Ghost as he ducks away to catch dinner.
--
The third time... well, no. He supposes that's really the fourth time. 
Because the actual third time, Soap had come back from a shit mission where everything went wrong. Intel was faulty, exfil was delayed, and people under his command died. It didn't happen as often in SAS as it had in the regulars — the soldiers here were well-trained and hard to kill — but that made it all the worse. 
When Ghost tried to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, Soap growled. 
"Back the fuck up, Lt. Or Price is gonna be disappointed in both of us."
Ghost paused, and their eyes met. Slowly, Ghost lowered his hand. 
"Wanna talk about it?"
"Fuck no."
"Thank God."
Soap didn't have it in him to even huff a laugh. He took a long drag and blew the smoke away from Ghost as a peace offering.
To his surprise, Ghost didn't leave. He spun around and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. They stood there together, utterly silent, as Soap let the heat and sting in his lungs soothe the beast inside that wanted to rip the world apart.
When he was done, though, he was surprised to find he didn't want another. Usually after shit missions, he'd stand there and smoke half a pack before his hands would stop shaking.
He finally met Ghost's eyes. The man quirked a barely visible brow.
"S'pose we should take it to the mats this time?"
Ghost pushed off the building and started walking. Soap followed like a lost child looking for a way home. 
--
The fourth time is in Chicago. His hands are shaking not from losing soldiers but from almost losing his own life. The cigarette trembles in his grip as he stands outside the bar, the biting wind turning his fingers and probably his lips blue. He lifts it to his mouth, inhaling deep—
And then it's gone.
The whine that bubbles up from his gut and bursts from his throat is nothing short of humiliating. But God. God. He needs it.
"Not now. Please, Ghost."
"Why?"
Ghost hasn't thrown the cigarette down. Yet. He cocks his head to the side and gives Soap a long look. Soap can only tremble from the cold and a need that goes deeper than a simple hit of nicotine.
"I just... I need it."
The cigarette drops to the ground, but Soap doesn't have time to lament the loss before that same hand is curling around Soap's neck and pulling him into a fucking massive chest. The other arm comes around Soap's shoulders and...
Ghost just stands there, holding him. And Soap can't help melting into the warmth and solidity of the man who saved his life just hours ago. He dares to curl in deeper. To raise his hands and clutch at Ghost's jacket. To let a few, silent tears escape his tight control.
Finally, his muscles relax. Ghost must feel it, because he turns and leads Soap back toward the bar.
"Why do ye even care?" Soap mumbles from his spot tucked into Ghost's side.
"Because those things'll kill ya."
Soap supposes the "I like you alive" is implied at this point.
--
Soap loses count after Chicago. He gets stretches of days when Ghost is on a solo op or out with one of the other operators when he can smoke in peace. So he does.
At first.
He's been hooked since he was a rebellious teen trying to make his mark on the world. He's tried to quit multiple times, but it never seems to stick. The first bad mission or adrenaline-filled near miss and he's back at whatever smoking spot he can find, puffing away.
He finds himself trying to cut back, though, even when Ghost is away.
Any time Ghost is on base, all bets are off. In addition to darting by and making a grab for it or sneaking up behind him and flicking it out of his hands, Ghost has gotten more creative. Sometimes Soap will pull out a cigarette only to find he's "lost" his lighter. Sometimes the cigarettes themselves go missing — he clutches his chest and mourns all that wasted money whenever a whole pack disappears. 
He supposes it's all just going up in smoke anyway, though.
He should be angry. But in truth, it's almost a relief to hand over the reins to Ghost. To let the man help him by annoying the shit out of him until he wants to give up on it entirely.
Which is definitely the point. Ghost has made that perfectly clear.
So, whenever he gets the urge to calm his racing thoughts or overactive mind with a cigarette, he finds Ghost and annoys him instead. They talk, or spar, or simply sit in silence together, doing their own thing. Ghost doesn't often touch him — their moment in Chicago is still the closest Soap's ever gotten to the elusive Ghost — but he also doesn't push Soap away when he slumps into Ghost's side after a hard day or leans over his back when he's sitting at the table in the 141's common area on base.
The urge doesn't go away, of course. And sometimes, when things get really bad, Ghost will just sit or stand with him like he did the third time. Still, he finds himself smoking less and hanging out with Ghost more.
--
The last time Ghost steals a cigarette from Soap, he simply stands beside Soap and holds out his hand. Soap immediately knows something has gone terribly wrong. Still, he's too invested in the game now to not hand the cigarette over.
He nearly keels over when Ghost pulls up his mask and takes a long, hard drag. Soap watches in fascination as his cheeks hollow, his neck muscles strain, his lips curve around the paper. It's erotic in a way he really shouldn't be thinking about in regards to his emotionally unavailable superior officer, but the knowledge hasn't stopped him yet. Since that day in Chicago — probably before if he's honest — he's only ever wanted to be closer.
Ghost coughs a little and hands the cigarette back.
"Fuck. Just as disgusting as I remember."
"Ye used to smoke, then?"
"Before I joined up, yeah. Hated it, though."
"The smell? Or—"
"Everything. The taste, the smell, the heat..." Ghost trails off, his hand rubbing over his bicep in a strangely specific way. He shakes his head and looks back at Soap. "Not your problem, Johnny. Forget about it."
Soap's hand is darting out, fingers curling into Ghost's jacket, before he's properly thought through the action. Ghost pauses before turning back. They stare in silence for a moment until—
Soap stubs out the half-burned cigarette and drops the butt in the trash. He licks his lips. Glances up at Ghost. The mask is still sitting on his nose, and Soap stares at his lips for longer than he should before pulling the pack out of his pocket and throwing it in the trash, too.
"Cannae have ye thinking I stink, can I?"
"Too late."
But Ghost's throat bobs with a hard swallow. Soap wets his lips, takes a step closer, and uncurls his fingers to slide his hand up Ghost's chest until his fingertips are resting on Ghost's shirt collar.
"I dinnae think it is."
Ghost turns and walks away. Soap closes his eyes and drops his hand, internally cursing his impulsive behavior. The scuffing of boots walking away from him is like nails on a chalk board.
Until they stop, and a gruff voice calls out, "You comin'?"
A slow smile slides across Soap's mouth. "No' yet."
A huff — exasperation? laughter? a bit of both? — before, "Better get movin' then."
And Soap has never been more glad to follow an order.
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libraryofgage · 7 months
Text
Mermaid/Pirate Steddie Two
Part One
Have I already posted something today? Yes, yes I have but also I finally got through my block on this one hfjdks
I'll be working on Addams Family Steddie next but idk when that part might be coming out lol
anyway, as always, if you see any typos no you didn't ;)
---
Steve has taken over Eddie's large porcelain bathtub after it was moved to the main room of the captain's cabin. Steve is lounging in it now, a week into being on Eddie's ship, with his tail draped over the edge so he can submerge his head and breathe through his gills. It's infinitely more comfortable, even with the seaweed still wrapped along the length of his tail and reminding him of its presence with every twitch.
He sighs, bubbles rising from his gills in the "I'm beyond bored" pattern that Robin would light up at seeing. But she's not here, so Steve is left to once again turn Eddie's bat ring over in his hands, fingers brushing along the wings.
Eddie had shown him a drawing of an actual bat, and Steve still thinks they're freaks of nature. But he finds the ring itself a little endearing if only because it was Eddie's ring willingly given.
He smiles softly, the gesture only dampened by the sharp jab of worry over his guppies and Robin. They're probably losing their scales with worry themselves, scouring the sea and putting themselves at risk of being seen in their hunt for him. Steve can't even fault them, either; he would do the exact same thing if Robin or any of his guppies had been captured like that. He has done the exact same thing.
Steve sighs again, this time the bubble pattern expressing exhaustion and "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" He kind of misses having someone who actually understands what his bubble patterns mean, but he knows it wouldn't be fair to get frustrated with anyone for their inability to gain meaning from bubbles floating toward the surface.
He thinks, maybe, the worst part is being confined to the tub. Sure, it's infinitely better than the fucking bucket from the other ship, but Steve is still getting restless. He's like a guppy that's watching its siblings swim but still doesn't have the tail strength to swim itself. He feels trapped and has way too much energy with nowhere to spend it.
Steve hasn't mentioned this to Eddie, though. He'd been planning to, of course. In fact, he intended to tell Eddie that morning, but then they'd docked at some port city and Eddie had run off with the promise of being back soon. Steve had tried not to feel a little abandoned, left by himself with fucking nothing to do while Eddie prances around on land.
Before he can get too far into this line of thought (he's about three minutes from convincing himself that, really, Eddie shouldn't have left and could probably be taught the basics of bubble patterns as punishment), Eddie practically barrels into the room, vibrating with something Steve only recognizes as excitement when he sees Eddie's grin.
Steve surfaces, pushing his hair out of his eyes and leaning on the edge of the tub, twitching his tail slightly and exercising incredible control to keep from preening when Eddie's gaze lingers on it. "What happened?" he asks, slipping the bat ring onto his thumb, the only finger it fits.
Eddie drops to his knees, scooting closer to the tub until their noses are almost brushing. "I've got a surprise for you, sweetheart," he says, voice light and eager.
"Where is it?" Steve asks, returning Eddie's smile.
"It's on the deck! Do you trust me?"
For a brief moment, Steve thinks Eddie is about to throw him back into the ocean. Which, like, wouldn't be a bad thing, but Steve would be incredibly offended by the suddenness and wonder if he'd been imagining the draw between them.
But he's sure Eddie wouldn't do something like that without asking first, so he tucks it away as something only slightly possible. Steve nods and pulls back, bracing his hands on the edge of the tub before pushing himself up. He perches on the edge, his balance a little unsteady as he looks at Eddie.
Thankfully, Eddie catches on quickly. He scrambles to his feet and scoops Steve off the edge of the tub, one arm under his tail and the other wrapped around Steve's back. Steve holds onto Eddie's neck, still a little paranoid about being dropped despite Eddie's prior insistence that he wouldn't let anything happen to Steve.
"I think you're gonna love it," Eddie says, his voice soft and his breath warm against Steve's cheek.
Steve gets the urge to ask again, but he holds back as Eddie carries him up to the deck. The sky is covered in clouds, keeping the sun from blinding him when they emerge from the stairs. The deck is concerningly large for such a small crew, and Gareth is currently lounging against the mast, a hat pulled low over his eyes as he sleeps.
He's not very attention-grabbing, though. Not when there's a large...contraption in the middle of the deck. It has four wheels and is shaped like a boat, big enough for Steve to sit comfortably without his tail draping over the edge. There are cranks of some kind on the inside of the boat, and Steve realizes it's filled with water as Eddie carries him closer.
"What is this?" Steve asks, trying not to grimace at the discomfort of his scales beginning to dry out. They're starting to feel tight and itchy, a sensation he really hates, like they're going to split apart at any second.
Eddie grins wider and carefully sets Steve into the water, making sure he doesn't bump the tail or the seaweed wraps. He points at the crank to Steve's left and says, "That will make the back wheels turn. If you crank forward, you'll go forward, and back will make you go backward." He then points to the other crank by Steve's right. "This one controls the front wheels. Forward will make them turn left, and backward will make them turn right. You should be able to move around the deck with this."
Steve stares at the cranks for a moment before glancing up at Eddie. When he receives an encouraging nod in response, he slowly turns the left crank forward, lighting up when the boat does, in fact, move forward a few inches.
He's so overwhelmed with joy that he can't help the notes bubbling in his throat, rising and rising until he can't hold them back anymore. Steve doesn't even think before singing, a wordless tune that conveys just how truly happy he is, one that would leave Robin flabbergasted because she's never heard this tune before.
Because this tune is for courting gifts. Like, really fucking fantastic courting gifts. The kind of gifts that blow everything else clear out of the water and leave a merperson dazed and bubbly and floating without any direction from sheer happiness, bubbles bursting through their gills in joyous patterns.
Steve has never sung this tune before, but he's not at all surprised that Eddie is the person who managed to coax it out of him.
-----
Eddie knew the boat would be a good idea, but now he's thinking it was the best idea he's ever had and ever will. Even after hours have passed, after Steve has watched the sun drop below the water and asked Eddie to carry him back to the cabin, complaining about his arms being sore from turning cranks, Eddie is still reeling.
He's never heard a more beautiful sound. Eddie keeps replaying the tune Steve sang in his head, frustrated with his inability to recreate it just right and too flustered to ask Steve to sing it again. Because he gets the feeling it was special, something that Steve can't just do at the drop of a hat, but something he did because of Eddie.
Eddie twists his fingers in the sheet covering him, turning his head to glance at the tub where Steve is leaning against the edge. His eyes are closed, but Eddie knows he isn't sleeping yet. Steve submerges his head when he sleeps.
"Hey, Stevie," Eddie whispers, almost like he doesn't want Steve to hear so the comfortable silence continues.
Steve hears him anyway, of course, the flare of fin along the edge of his ear twitching slightly. He tilts his head a bit more, squishing his cheek against his arm, and somewhat lazily says, "Yeah, Eddie?"
Eddie turns onto his side, meeting Steve's gaze. "How'd you become a caretaker?" he asks. It's not the question he actually wants to ask; he wants to ask Steve to sing again, to let him drift to sleep to beautiful notes and lingering melodies.
He watches as Steve tenses slightly before forcing himself to relax. He takes a deep breath, his gills fluttering slightly before slowly exhaling. "A while ago, my pod had an...altercation with a pod from the southern seas. They kidnapped one of the guppies, Will, and the other guppies decided to rescue him. They snuck off one night and I followed them when I discovered what happened and..."
Steve trails off, frowning as he tilts his head to look at the small window, staring at the moon through the glass. "Well, long story short, there were lots of fights, our pod lost its previous caretaker, and we gained a new guppy the southern pod had captured. After everything, I couldn't let the guppies out of my sight, and they kept coming to me and Robin whenever they had problems. So, eventually, I just convinced Robin to be my partner and raise the guppies."
There's a lot going unsaid in that explanation, but Eddie knows better than to pry right now. Steve will tell him when he wants, and if he never wants to, that's fine, too. Eddie won't fault him for that. "Did you have a job before that?" he asks.
Steve hums softly, still beautiful and soft, but not at all the melody Eddie really wants to hear. "I used to scout for the pod," he says, "I would swim ahead and make sure an area was safe or find spots to rest when the pod traveled. When we stopped for long periods, I'd help gather food for the pod."
"You like caring for the guppies more," Eddie says, and it's not at all a question.
"Yeah," Steve replies, a soft smile tugging at his lips. "The guppies are great."
"Tell me about them."
"Well, first is Dustin. He's a little sea urchin, always talking back and getting into trouble, but he's sweet. Will is usually pretty quiet, but he's got a great imagination. Mike always hangs around Will, and he's kind of a squid, but he's going through an awkward growth phase. Lucas is the most active of them, and he likes to shadow the scouters when he can. Erica is his little sister, and she doesn't let the others get away with anything. Max is daring and brash, she tends to dive head-first into stuff, but she's also really protective. El is quiet like Will, but she's really smart and really caring. They're such a handful. Robin and I never have a dull day."
His voice is trailing off toward the end, and Eddie knows he's just moments from falling asleep. "I'd like to meet them someday," Eddie says, his voice softer than before, the words spoken more to himself than Steve.
Of course, that doesn't stop Steve from hearing him anyway. He hums again, this one quieter, and groggily mumbles, "Of course you will, Eddie. That's part of the courting."
And then, like he hasn't essentially rocked Eddie's entire world, Steve slips down in the tub. He submerges his head in the water, and Eddie can hear the quiet murmur of bubbles rising to the surface and popping as Steve breathes.
Eddie stays frozen for a few minutes, staring at the tub, and suddenly wondering if, maybe, somebody somewhere happened to write a merperson courtship manual.
Tag List (there's still room, so let me know if you'd like to be added!)
@mugloversonly, @raisedbylibrarians, @thegirlwiththelibrarybag, @savory-babby, @vankaar, @beckkthewreck, @itcanbepalped, @imfinereallyy, @finntheehumaneater, @mightbeasleep, @weekend-dreamer7
@whenindoubtb72, @troublemaker2azz, @just-a-tiny-void, @upallnightogetloki, @mxmakessense
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tommykinard6 · 11 days
Text
Should I be eating and resting? Yes. Am I? No, so come join me for a dissertation on Tommy Kinard being lonely.
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Edit to add a note since I saw a reblog about it: Tommy has no canonical age right now and Lou is 39, 40 later this year, so that is my basis for saying he’s 39.
Now when I say lonely, I don’t mean that he has no one whatsoever. I can picture him going for drinks with his team or having some Muay Thai buddies that he could call up if he really was inclined. Maybe an old army buddy or two.
But there’s something about Tommy that’s just achingly lonely, both when he was at the 118 and now at Harbor.
Tommy had a broken home, or some other kind of unstable childhood. Maybe his parents split, maybe he was mistreated, maybe he was in the system or was passed around family members. Maybe he was isolated as a child because he was a little overweight (I think Lou said something along those lines) and was bullied. I think Tommy didn’t really have any friends until high school, when puberty hit and maybe he started working out and probably joined the football team. I don’t know if anyone remembers what teenage boys are like, but I can imagine they were the same as they are today back in the 90s/early 00’s. Because around this time, Tommy might’ve started to realize that something was very different about him.
Now this isn’t a meta about how I think Tommy dealt with his sexuality (maybe I’ll do one of those later) but I think he never would’ve risked his football friends knowing even if he himself could acknowledge it, which I doubt. So he messed around, got in trouble with these guys, hung out with the bros, and pretended to be interested in girl talk.
Of course, eventually, his buddies all got girlfriends and he was always the odd one out again.
He didn’t do college. The army was his next step. And I feel like this might have been the first time in his life he wasn’t lonely. He’d learned to blend in by this point and he worked with some great people. But as he started making real friends for the first time, he also started losing them as the war tore them away.
Tommy left the army and joined the fire department. There was an aching hole where the camaraderie of the army had filled previously and with no education beyond a high school diploma, Tommy thought the fire department would replicate that. Not the police though. He’d had enough of guns.
(And ohhhh now so many ideas on his thoughts during the sniper)
But he ended up at the 118 and quickly realized that his team had maybe more of a DADT stance than the army. He realized that he had to put on an elaborate act to fool his fellow firefighters, who had more time on their hands and more prejudice they were willing to wield to pick apart his life. Tommy, who maybe had only just started to acknowledge he felt differently about guys with less panic than before, had no choice but to backslide. He acted and acted and crafted a person he wasn’t until the day that maybe he was. Sal was his closest buddy at the 118 and Tommy had no doubt that Sal would be one of the first to make his life hell. Gerrard seemed to look at Tommy as some sort of mentee. Boxed in by two notorious bigots, Tommy had never felt more claustrophobically alone.
Chim was the first one to reach out a hand of friendship, or at least the first one that didn’t come with caution tape, but he was also an “other” and Tommy, who was confused and afraid and had just had his captain call his bluff on his fake girlfriend, lashed out. Then he allowed Chim in and Chim wasn’t interested in being besties but he was a great drinking buddy and movie buddy and Tommy felt safest around him.
Then Hen came and Tommy watched her get the same treatment he was afraid of. Not that he had to worry about the racism, and he was aware of the privilege, but Hen didn’t exactly hide herself and he watched them bully his lesbian coworker. He let himself get pulled into it all and hated himself for it, but was too cowardly to break away from it. He wasn’t sure why Hen had forgiven him, but she became the only other person on shift he felt even a little safe around other than Howie. But then Chimney and Hen became best friends and Tommy fell to the wayside. They still included him, sure, but they were always a pair and there was something there that Tommy didn’t know but longed for. A closeness he’d never felt.
A best friend. A juvenile idea to him, but one he’d never truly had.
Then Gerrard was gone and Sal got transferred and the 118 moved forward under Captain Nash, but Tommy felt left behind, even in what was the most united A shift team yet. Because he was over 30 and was starting to be unable to ignore everything that he’d had to hide under Gerrard, as he no longer had a distraction from it.
He’d been a pilot in the army, so he transferred to Harbor. And Harbor was great. He wasn’t best buds with anyone (he was starting to think that was never in the cards for him) but his team didn’t carry the same baggage that the 118 had.
So Tommy started to come to terms with himself. He started to date for the first time and came out to his team. And he had several boyfriends, but most couldn’t handle the job or his baggage or the desperate need he had to be wanted. His most long term partner cheated and the one he fell hardest for couldn’t deal when Tommy was injured on the job. Even within his own relationships, he felt like he was destined to stand alone.
Tommy was 39 years old and alone, as always, when Chimney walked back into his life, dragging an adorable and also extremely hot blonde and a stoic brunette that radiated ex military in a way only ex military could know. And then Hen was there and they were trying to rescue their captain and his wife and they clearly loved each other fiercely and like family.
And as Tommy listened, flying through the remnants of a cat 5 hurricane, he thought to himself that he should’ve never left. Simply just never found himself if only that meant being part of the family the 118 was now. However, he knew deep down that he still would’ve been alone and on the outside.
And they rescued the survivors and Tommy thought that was it but then Eddie wanted to hang out. And they liked the same things and had similar experiences and Tommy couldn’t help the hope. Because the loneliness had grown stifling and now he could breathe a little. And then Evan, the cute blonde, wanted a tour of the hanger and he thought that maybe he was being hit on.
And then at the end of it all, Tommy was left realizing that he’d wedged himself between two best friends and that was what happened when he allowed himself to hope. So he went to Evan to apologize. He would get Evan and Eddie to talk to each other and then would fade into the background.
But then Evan was sweet and apologetic and told him that he was part of the 118 family simply by helping them. Tommy couldn’t help it. Here he was, at 39, with a little boy still waiting inside of him to be soothed. And Evan was hot and sweet and Tommy couldn’t help himself.
And he really liked Evan. Evan was adorable. But their first date didn’t go as planned and Tommy knew he was already whipped. So he removed himself before someone could get hurt. Evan deserved better and so did he, even if the loneliness was stifling again.
But then Evan texted him and looked at him with sparkling blue eyes over too sweet coffee and wanted him. Him. He wanted Tommy and to have something with Tommy and he wanted him to come to his sister’s wedding with him.
And Tommy looked at him and saw someone who could finally fill the ache he’d felt his whole life. He saw a man who he knew he wanted to take a chance with. All he had to do was jump.
And he did.
And it wasn’t solved, not immediately and never fully. Too many wounds were left gaping for too long to ever heal. But for the first time in his life, at 39, with the 118 surrounding him and Buck as the sunshine at his side, Tommy finally felt at peace.
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eustasskidagenda · 7 months
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Hello and I hope you’re doing great. Can you do some headcanons for Kidd, Doflamingo, Law, Sanji and Zoro having their nails painted by their s/o ? Like if they would accept or not and how they would act. I hope my request is okay and comprehensible, English isn’t my first language :) Thx!!
☆Kid, Doflamingo, Law, Sanji & Zoro having their nails painted by their s/o 
Hello anon! Don't worry, it was perfectly understandable and English isn't my first language as well, so everything is fine ♡ Tysm for your request, it was a fun one! Hope it will match your expectations ☆
CW : g/n reader, funny, fluff, kid is an idiot but I love him, really but really slight n/sfw for Doflamingo, a bit of n/sfw at the end for Kid, word "blood" used for Kid, cursing on Kid and Zoro part, French used on Sanji part because I love when Sanji talks in French ugh. 
WC : around 1,890
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Kid
Have you seen him? Always with a manicure on top.  
Kid is a punk, of course he likes having his nails all done, especially in a beautiful red color, like the blood of his enemies. But he is no longer capable of doing his own nails after losing his arm. He frequently asks Killer, but this time you must handle this daunting task. So good luck.
Beware, Kid is a freak with his nails. He has all the necessary tools for a flawless manicure. So first thing first, you have to use a cuticle pusher. Go ahead, he's closely watching. Do not dare mess with his nails, being a punk is a whole lifestyle and his nails and make-up have to be perfect, otherwise he's pissed off for the entire day. 
You must also use the nail file. He will be furious if some nails are not cut well or are not the same length. His hand needs to be perfect for doing some angry punk stuff.
"Oh, Y/N, what the fuck are you doing? Don't put the color first; use the base. Don't you know nothing about nail art?"
Heavy sighs. His feet stomped. Sigh again. He just can't stay still for more than 5 minutes straight. 
He would probably snarl at you and closely watch what you're doing with his hand. Don't dare put polish on his fingers, or you'll have to clean it. 
Fidgeting the whole damn time, he's becoming increasingly annoyed. He's so impatient. Would  end up laying on the table, head against the wood, with his hand on yours, sighing and growling stuff like "you're really shit at this" and "hmpf, y/n, don't use multiple layers, it makes some ugly relief, do I really have to teach you everything?". 
Yes, he's a beauty influencer with his nails and makeup. 
"I could do better, even with my prosthesis hand."
He stares at you impatiently all the time.
He's feeling low-key annoyed because he used to do his nails himself, but now he has to depend on Killer or you. 
"Ugh, y/n, use the top coat. Don't you know nothing about nail art?"
The angry red tulip would probably say, 'ugh, you and Killer are so slow' and 'don't let the bottle open, nail polish is expensive'. 
He is cheeky because he stole all of his make-up and manicure supplies. 
Once everything is done, he would take a close look at your work and eventually growl, 'Yeah, I guess it will work'. 
In fact, he's thanking you. In return, he offers a flawless manicure for you, and he excels at it even with just one hand. He deserves praise because his work is mesmerizing, right? Right? RIGHT?
NSFW bonus: And later in the bedroom, I guess Kid would be the kind of guy to wrap his manicured hand around your neck, like "what a beautiful collar you got there" while he slides his cock in and out of you.
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Doflamingo
As soon as he heard your request, he gave an evil smile. You want to paint his nails? Fine, go ahead. But, do you really believe that someone as manipulative as him would say yes without having an idea in mind? You fool.
He would act all innocent, just nodding and letting you grab all your stuff. 
Either paint his nails pink or leave them alone. 
Watching your small hand in his would be a delight for him. He thinks it makes you adorable. 
You're feeling nervous because he's closely watching you through his glasses. Even more when his grin pops out again. "So, if you overflow, you know I'll have to punish you?" He smirks, staying still as you frown. Oh, you're not really afraid. Doflamingo punishments are... something, to be honest. But you want to do his nails perfectly, so now you're even more focused.
Doflamingo would take note of how often you frown and concentrate on his nails. Your work is truly perfect. The pink matches his coat perfectly. But he's a bit angry because he intends to have fun with you. 
He would use his devil fruit in a sneaky way to make you fail. Something really small, but enough to make your finger slip and miss the spot. 
"Y/N, you were so close, it's a shame. My nails are now completely ruined. Do you want me to look foolish in front of others? I have to teach you some manners... you little brat..."
Let's assume that you are okay with being punished more frequently.
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Law
"Y/N-ya, one day, I'll study your brain" 
A lot of mumbles. Why do you feel the need to paint his nails? He is too busy and stressed to dedicate time to this. He is always planning mischief or taking care of his patients. Why would he sit and stay still while you're painting his poor nails? Leave him alone.
Wet puppy eyes would make him sigh heavily. "Fine."
Of course, black polish. 
He may be annoyed, but he's also a teaser, so he might try to cause you trouble just to see you shake and miss your mark. 
He would secretly enjoy this intimate moment with you. The warmth of your hand, your satisfied smile, and how focused you are on your task. You’re just so beautiful and attractive.
"What's top coat? You forgot it in the bedroom? Room, shambles. Here's the topcoat."
He would try to make the moment last longer, like slightly moving so you have to stop from time to time and wait for him to stay still again.
After it's finished, he would pay close attention. "Nice job." 
Fortunately, he's intelligent enough to wait until the polish is completely dry before touching it. To be honest, he is pleased with the outcome. The black color matches his tattoo, and it's a small present from you. When he's alone and working late, he would look lovingly at his nails, thinking about you. He has a soft spot, but he hates showing it in front of you. He hates showing his weakness. Even if he trusts you, a part of him is traumatized and doesn't want to show that he's just a normal human with failures and weaknesses. 
Low-key trying to keep his manicure as long as possible, trying to use his hands less often than usual, refusing to cook, etc., and he's kind of sad when it starts to flake.
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Zoro 
Poor marimo is totally confused. Like… painting his nails? What does it mean? His nails are too narrow to be painted on. Does his body resemble a canvas? Are you actually talking about a manicure? Oh. Anyway… Why him? Come on, he's really annoyed.
He's a serious guy, so why does he have his nails painted? "Do you really hate me so much to ask such a stupid thing?"
"Lemme sleep, y/n, I don't have time for your shit. Luffy would love this shitty idea, just ask him."
A lot of mumbles. He finds it absurd. Do swordsmen use painted nails to fight? Of course not. And Sanji would laugh at him. Ugh, no way. But well, you know Zoro, he would end up accepting because he wants to make you happy. 
Totally dead serious and annoyed as you're locked in your room. 
"What, you want to paint a cactus? Ugh, go ahead, I'm already way too involved in this mess."
As you begin to paint his nails, there will be a lot of mumbling. 
But at least he's totally still and just watching with a neutral face, except when there's a slight blush on his cheeks. He can't handle how adorable you are when you're focused. But he can't handle how stupid he looks with some random cactus on his nails? As a swordsman, he's not as sophisticated as the cook with twirly eyebrows. 
"Have you done?" All the cinq minutes with an annoyed tone. 
It’s obvious that he would end up sleeping. He's tired and it's taking a lot of time. After finishing his nails, you have to wake him up. After a lot of yawns, he would look at his nails, sigh, and then shrug. "Happy now?" 
And as you nod with a cute smile on his face, he gets all embarrassed again. 
You'll have to make it later since he has given you a big favor and now you have to return it. 
He would be very serious in front of the crew. But mad if the goddamn cook starts to make fun of him. "At least, I'm not a single" 
Poor Sanji.
Zoro values hard work and practice. He would notice that you took a lot of time to draw all the cactuses. Until the drawing fades, he will keep the nails.
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Sanji 
Sanji is a lover of love. If he can do anything for his s/o, then he's the happiest man in the whole universe. But when it comes to his hands, he's always a bit nervous. He takes great care of his hands, always doing self-care to keep them smooth and perfect. His nails are always properly cut and finished. 
"Mon amour, je ne sais pas si c'est une bonne idée" (my love, I don't know if it's a good idea) 
He really wants to please you, but he's concerned about hurting his hands or possibly contaminating the food while cooking. Reassure him and he'll accept. He's a kind and gentle lover who wants to make you smile no matter what. 
Sanji has a sense of style, so he'll request something that matches his attire. Or maybe the color of your eyes, as a small reminder of your mesmerizing beauty? You have the option to choose between two ideas, and he trusts you with the outcome. 
He would gaze at you with eyes full of admiration and love, always giving you praise. "Y/N, it's beautiful, je suis si fier de toi" (I'm so proud of you)" 
Honestly the best: he stays still, doesn't move his hands or touch the polish while it's drying. Really patient. Heart pounding really fast every time he crosses your gaze. Damn, he loves  spending time with you so much.
Once it's all done, he's a bit sad because he wishes it could be last for a whole eternity. He would cherish his manicure and show it proudly to all the crew. And, as a reward and a thank you for the beautiful job, of course, he'll thank you with a good meal, a great drink, a lot of hugs and a sweet kiss. 
"Merci, mon amour" (Thank you my love)
While he's cooking, he absolutely loves watching his nails, always laughing quietly with the memory of his lovely moment rooted in his soul. 
When the manicure disappears, he would take it off while sobbing the entire time, because he's sad. 
Can you re-paint my nails, Y/N? 
The sweetest ♡
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A james potter x fem!reader request <3
James is in love with Lily. He always has been, right? Ever since the first year of attending Hogwarts he has been chasing after her affection. It’s all anyone thinks of when they think of him. “The boy who chases the unattainable.” Through all of his failed attempts, Reader has stood next to him, supporting him through everything despite the raging love she feels for him.
James does something bad while trying to attain the affection of Lily… again. While his attempts work and he gets the girl, he ends up losing his best friend in the process.
Please have it end with a happy ending where they end up togetherrrr!! Thank youu!!
(If you want to of course, if you don’t mo worries. You can also add smut if you want 👀)
Lacy
smart, sexy lacy, i’m losing it lately
pairing: james porter x reader
warnings: cursing, jealously, james being stupid, insecurity, confessions, lowkey toxic!james, rosekiller and dorlene my babies, hurt/comfort, ANGST, twin evan and pandora 💘, james being shit on for being a douche, happy ending
wc: 2.5k
a/n: ok i absolutely love this idea but i’m not sure if i executed it very well, however i did have so much fun doing it :)))
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It was no secret that James Potter was in love with Lily Evans. He always has been, it was just a part of Hogwarts life now - a wild shenanigan to gain the affection of the woman he wanted.
It was also no secret that you stood by his side and picked up the pieces for 6 years every time his schemes got shut down by Lily.
You and James had grown up together, your families running in the same social circle. So you were well aware of his antics and escapades. But in these 17 years of being by James’s side as a friend, you wanted more.
You have wanted more since the two of you escaped from one of your family’s parties when you were 12. He led you out to the garden where the two of you stargazed for the remainder of the boring, high-class party.
But you could never let James know the love you had for him. You were his highest confidante and his best friend, you didn’t want that to be ruined. You’d rather keep James as friend than not have him at all.
You love James, however, you hate Lily Evans. You hate everything about her. Her stupid beautiful smile, her perfectly kept hair, her sweet personality, her Outstanding test scores, and of course the undeniable love and admiration from James Potter. She is just perfect, and you hate her for it. Except you can’t really hate her. You hate the envy you’ve curated towards her. She is so admirable it’s annoying as hell.
You sat in the Marauders’ room, helping James plan out his next gesture for Lily. The rest of the Marauders were spread around the room doing various things, reading, drumming, smoking.
You were getting annoyed at him now, you just wanted him to notice you. Of course you were there but you wanted him to see you, not see through you. Tension had been thick between the two of you for weeks.
“Alright so pink flowers or blue flowers? Or both?”
“Is this a baby shower?”
James frowned at your harsh tone, “Okay…”
You held your hand at the bridge of your nose and closed your eyes, “Just get her Calla Lillies or something. Simple flower and her name is Lily,”
“Oh that’s an amazing idea! You’re a genius, what would I do without you?”
You rolled your eyes, probably get yourself killed, you thought.
James noticed your slumped demeanor, and so did Remus as he perked up from behind his book to listen in on your conversation.
“What is wrong with you?”
“I beg your pardon?” you snapped at him.
“What. Is. Wrong. With. You.?” he annunciated every word archly, like you were a small child.
Remus stepped in like a parent, “James don’t talk to her like that,”
“No, I want to know what’s wrong with her attitude,”
“There’s nothing wrong,”
“You know what, fuck you, I don’t even care,” he turned around to put his parchment down.
“Yeah, you never do,” you got up to leave when James grabbed your wrist.
“You’re just fucking mad that no one cares about you like I care about Lily,” this brought the rest of the people in the room to the conversation.
“James!” Peter and Remus shouted at him simultaneously. Peter was always on your side, he had grown up with you, Marlene, and James as kids. And he knows about your crush on James.
“James, what the hell?” Even Sirius was shocked he could say such a thing to you.
Your expression hardened as you tried to hold in tears, you pulled your hand away from him and mustered up as much strength as you could to speak back to him, you looked at him with glassed over eyes, “Fuck you, James, I never want to see you again.”
You ran out of their dorm, Remus and Peter in tow, and into your dorm, slamming the door in their faces.
Falling flat on the bed, face first, screaming into your pillow, you wanted to die. Actually. This was actually the end of your life because there was no coming back from this.
Soft knocks on the door pulled you from your trance. You stood up and opened the door meeting Lily’s soft face, “Are you alright, I could hear you screaming from outside?”
You wanted to throat punch her.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just stressed,”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, 100%,”
“Okay. Well Mary, Marlene, and I are going down to the greenhouse if you’d like to join?”
“I think I’m going to stay… and study,”
“Alright, well we’ll see you later then,” Lily left the dorm doorway with a smile and you went back to you bed and flopped down. Does she have to be so perfect?
You were never getting over this.
Back in the Marauders dorm, James was being berated by his friends.
“How could you say that to her?”
“James, you’re so fucking dense,”
“Do you ever think before you speak?”
“You’re an actual idiot, genuinely,”
“You clearly need time to think, so we’ll give you some time alone to reflect on your relationship with her,” Remus and Sirius stormed out, Peter following.
At the doorway he hesitated and turned to James sitting slumped on his bed, “James, have you ever thought you’re not in love with Lily and she’s just a distraction for you?”
A distraction? What? From what? From who?
Peter left shortly after sticking James with the question of a life time. Was he talking about you?
It didn’t matter. He loves Lily. Right?
The next day he expected everything to go back to normal, you would be back by his side and his friends would be alright. Except this wasn’t the case. His friends were still wary of him and you were no where to be found.
At breakfast his friends only talked about school work and he noticed you weren’t at the table with them. He had also noticed that Marlene gave him an upturned look every time he looked in her direction. You must’ve told her what happened.
At lunch he noticed you still weren’t in the Great Hall. He hoped you were eating something, he knew how easy it was for you to accidentally skip meals. He left lunch early to look for you after his friends wouldn’t talk to him and he kept getting dirty looks from the rest of the girls at the Gryffindor table.
He took a couple laps around the school until he remembered that you loved the library and you had to be there! When he got there he beelined for the spot you and him always shared and as he approached he heard hushed voices and giggles.
He peeked around the corner of a bookshelf and saw you sitting way too close to Evan Rosier.
What the fuck were you doing with Rosier? How do you even know Rosier? Why are you talking to him? Since when did you even become friends?
Evan was one of your closest friend’s twin brother, you’d grown up next to Pandora and Evan just as you had with James, Peter, and Marlene.
You were quite well-known in the wizarding world because of your parents' social lives; always throwing lavish parties and social events.
Evan had been a confidante of yours for a couple of years now, especially since the two of you exchanged advice and stories about the guys you’ve been pining over for years.
But what were you doing with him, of course? Debriefing.
James suddenly felt like he was going to throw up everywhere. How dare you fucking bring Evan fucking Rosier to your spot.
He stormed out of the library and into his next class. He couldn’t even focus on transfiguration. Everything he touched just blew up, which was quite the parallel to his social life.
At dinner he noticed that you still weren’t at the table. There was no way you were going to skip all three meals just because you were avoiding him. That’s when he saw you across the Great Hall sitting at the Slytherin table, in between Rosier and Crouch, laughing at something that probably wasn’t even that funny.
His appetite was suddenly gone. Not to mention he was getting looks from almost everyone at the Gryffindor table. Alice Fortescue, Marlene, Mary, and even Lily were all avoiding his pleading gazes.
Emmeline Vance, Dorcas Meadows, and Emma Vanity would occasionally catch his attention with their hard and disgusted stares.
Fuck. How many people had you told about what happened?
Tomorrow will be better. Everyone is just tense today.
Tomorrow was not in fact better. It was quite possible that it was almost worse than before.
James felt alone. If you were still here with him, he would wrap himself in your arms and cry into your shoulder. But you weren’t here because he pushed you away, quite harshly he may add.
In the morning you sat with the Slytherins, at lunch you sat with the Slytherins, and at dinner you sat with the Slytherins. You may as well be one by now.
The next day came and everything was the same, except for the fact that his friends were a little more talkative. But he didn’t have you.
You were gone, Lily wouldn’t even look at him, which at this point he didn’t even care. He just wants you back.
On the third day of losing you, you still weren’t around and it was really affecting James. You’ve never gone this long without something as simple as a check-in.
He thinks by now all of Hogwarts has known what he had said to you and for the past two nights he’s laid awake thinking about it, wishing he could take it back.
You hadn’t really told anyone except Dorcas, Pandora, and Evan. Dorcas told Marlene, Marlene told Mary, Lily, and Alice. Pandora told Barty who told Regulus and Mulciber. Regulus told Emmaline and Emma. And from there it spread like wildfire.
A week passed and you got closer to the Slytherins and he increasingly got worse. He lost the quidditch game to Ravenclaw. He failed his Defense Against the Dark Arts paper. And most of all, he was losing it, snapping at everyone and constantly drunk or high.
His friends cornered him in his dorm one afternoon, “Have you thought maybe you’re like this because you love her?”
“Of course I bloody love her! I fucking messed up,”
Merlin. He’s had so much time to think about you and he realized that Peter was right. Lily was just a distraction from you.
He hated how long it took him to figure out his feelings for you. You were just perfect in his eyes — your hair, your teeth, your eyes, your smile, your kindness, your humor, he wanted every single part of you and he irrevocably fucked it up.
“Talk to her, that’s the best you can do.”
He found you in the library, alone this time. Calling your name hesitantly, you looked up from your book with an arched brow.
“Can we talk?”
”No,” you said archly. James was taken aback, not expecting you to say that. You packed your things and James watched as you left the library. What the fuck just happened?
He stormed back into his dorm where the group had added Marlene to the mix. James came in and slammed the door.
“I take it the talk went well,” Marlene added sarcastically.
“Fuck off, Mckinnon,” Marlene hated that. Standing from her place next to Sirius’s bed she walked towards James aggressively.
“No, fuck you, Potter. Dorcas told me what you said. Dorcas! Not even my own best friend told me what happened, I had to hear it from my girlfriend!”
“Ok,”
“You’re so fucking dense it’s actually painful,”
“Please can you just help me talk to her,”
“Go to our dorm, she’s in there, I’ll stand at the door to keep her in,”
“Thank you, Marlene, I’m so serious, I owe you big for this one,”
“Yeah, okay, just go fix it, you’re getting really horrible to be around.”
James raced to your dorm and knocked on the door, which was the mistake. He knew you weren’t going to answer. He opened the door, seeing you laying on your bed with a book.
“We’re talking. Right now,” you looked up at him and rolled your eyes.
“Please, please hear me out,”
“James-“
“No, please,” you let out a breath and nodded your head at him, curtly, egging him to go on.
“I cannot even express how horrible I feel for shouting at you and saying some horrid things. I want you back more than ever, I love you so much and I am so fucking daft for not seeing it sooner,” your gaze softened but you were still skeptical.
“Listen, what you said isn’t what totally bothered me, it was the way you said it. James, I have stood by your side for years while you pinned over Lily, and when you said that I wished I had someone to love me like that, I was hoping it would be you,”
“And it is me, I love you, so much, and I can’t even comprehend my love for you because it’s absolutely wild,”
“How can I even trust what you’re saying right now? How can I know everything isn’t going to revert back to the way it was?”
He moved closer to your bed, his knees against the mattress, standing above you.
"Because I promise to give you everything in my entire being. I want to give you my all - my heart, my mind, my soul,” he sat beside you, taking your face in his hand, brushing away stray hair with his other hand.
“I want you James, but I can’t trust you anymore,”
“We can build on it,” you want him so bad. You need him so bad.
“Do you promise?”
“I swear on my life.”
You lean in and softly press your lips to his. Your lips move rhythmically against his, as if they were meant to be together.
The kiss was more than electric, it was as if everything in the world went silent and the stars had aligned in your favor. The short time you were together you felt a need and an urgency to be with him.
There was nothing you loved more in the world than James Potter.
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sleepysnk · 1 year
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a/n: i was feeling under the weather the past few days and i actually was able to get some inspo for some headcanons! i hope you all enjoy! 🫶🏻 also don’t ever get sick </3 it’s annoying as hell.
characters: manjiro (mikey) sano, ken (draken) ryuguji, baji keisuke, hanma shuji
warnings: fluff, reader is sick, sickness (nothing too bad just a cold), mentions of vomit, mentions of food, use of pet names (baby, my girl, princess, babydoll, doll, babe), very very fluffy content.
TAKING CARE OF YOU WHEN YOU’RE SICK.
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manjiro (mikey) sano:
- oh boy, expect something a little odd from mikey of all people. he doesn’t really know how to take care of someone when they’re sick.
- you had woken up in the middle of the night shivering your ass off. it took you forever to fall back asleep, but when you woke up the next morning, you felt awful. you kept breaking out in cold sweats and your body just get terribly achy the whole time. you assumed you had caught something from someone at work, because many of your coworkers called out a few days prior because of illness.
- mikey decided to swing by when you didn’t show up at your usual meeting spot earlier in the day. he grew curious on your whereabouts, so he made his way to your place and found you swaddled in blankets and the most comfiest clothes you could find.
- completely dumbfounded. he honestly thought you were planning some kind of sleepover or something.
- “babe, why are you doing that? did you plan something without me?! your own boyfriend!”
- then when he noticed how uncomfortable you looked, he picked up on the fact that you were clearly unwell. there were tissues scattered along your bedside table and your skin looked a bit lighter than it usually would. you also seemed fairly exhausted and it made your boyfriend worried.
- you tried telling him to leave because you didn’t want him to catch whatever you had, but he refused. he told you time and time again that you were his girlfriend and it was his job to take care of you.
- mikey decided to go out and find you whatever you needed (with the help of draken of course). he found whatever he could to possibly make a person feel better. soup, medicine, gatorade for the electrolytes, etc! he also had to buy himself a dorayaki on the way, but otherwise he managed to find some pretty nice things for you to feel at ease.
- he actually makes a nice bowl of soup for you to enjoy. mikey also makes sure to lend you one of his sweaters so you don’t get cold at night. it’s super adorable and he honestly gets so worried 😭. he makes you call him every night before bed so he can make sure you haven’t somehow passed away or something.
- you guys can’t kiss, but he makes sure to give you a nice forehead smooch every time he swings by your place.
- he is so salty he can’t makeout with you :/.
- when you start to feel somewhat better, he comes over and watches movies with you. you find that his presence helps you sleep a little better. he probably rubs your head and let’s you lay on him so you can get a nice rest. it’s so cute and he sometimes whispers nice things in your ear so you can feel more relaxed. he’s such a sweet boy <3.
- he’s a sweetheart, don’t ever lose this man.
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draken (ken) ryuguji:
- he’s such a good boyfriend. i can’t help but say this every time i talk about this goddamn man. i think you can expect the best from draken of all people.
- you had gotten home from work and you were honestly exhausted. you thought you needed a nap or something, but that wasn’t the case. you woke up the next morning with the worst headache ever, and your throat felt like it was sandpaper every time you swallowed. draken noticed your change in behavior immediately, and was very concerned by it.
- draken instantly went into protective boyfriend mode. he made sure that you were keeping yourself hydrated and getting lots of rest, because he didn’t want something bad happening to you. you were his baby. he worried for you more than anything else.
- i hc this man knows how to cook a good meal for you. he definitely went to the grocery store and picked up some stuff for you. he’d make a really nice soup that’d make you feel all warm and fuzzy. it’s all you really feel like eating during the time you’re unwell, so expect lots of soups and other things of the sort. other foods taste horrendous and you can hardly stand them.
- he’s like a total caregiver. he checks on you every chance he gets and always makes sure you’re doing okay. draken constantly reminds you to take your medicine and eat and drink properly. even if you hate it, he’s always making sure you’re okay. he could never lose you.
- “hey baby, how’s my girl doing today? you take your medicine? make sure you finish up your soup. i’ll bring you extra water too.”
- he LOVES to take showers with you. he knows you two shouldn’t be that close, but he also wants you soothe your worries. i feel like he’d be the type to give you massages and help clean your body. he wishes he could kiss you, but he knows that he’ll fall ill. he doesn’t want to burden you with that, so he makes sure to hug you from behind or kiss the top of your head.
- hoodies. hoodies. hoodies. he will give you all of them so you feel warm at night. don’t worry, he’ll also make sure to cuddle you if you have a chill from a fever. he knows how hard it can be to deal with one, so he’ll be by your side for all of it!!
- he so puts the blankets in the dryer so they’re nice and warm for you!
- HE SO WANTS A KISS.
- “no, no kisses.” “aw! come on :(“
- when you start feeling better, he is so relieved to see you back on your feet. you can finally eat regular foods and he’s honestly so glad that you’re back to your usual self. he’d honestly probably cook you something, like a favorite dish. you’d thank this man for everything because he was truly a savior while you were sick in bed.
- however.. he does feel a scratch in his throat later on.
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baji keisuke:
- say what you want, but this man is kind of dense. i’m not saying he’s dumb or anything like that all the time, but he can be clueless.
- you woke up the previous night feeling horribly nauseated. your stomach was in knots and you actually ended up catching some kind of stomach bug. you also threw up in the bathroom and it was horrible. you weren’t sure how you had gotten sick, or where you could have gotten the bug, but it was hell. you could hardly fall asleep that night from the stomach pains you felt.
- baji knew something was off the next day when you didn’t come swing by his house like you usually did. he grew really worried so he took a trip and found you in your bed, curled up in a ball looking not so great.
- he honestly thought you were pranking him or something. you had done it before.
- “hey, get up. i know you’re messing around with me right now.”
- after sort of yelling at him, he quickly realized you weren’t joking. he could see how sick you looked and he felt guilty for not believing you. you explained that you hadn’t felt great and you were throwing up your guts the entire night. he wondered if it was because you had eaten at a new restaurant just a few days prior. however, that shouldn’t have been the main focus. he wanted to be a good guy and take care of you because he felt horrible seeing you that way.
- he went to the store and bought you things that could soothe your stomach. his mom had informed him that it’s best to eat soft foods when suffering with a stomach virus, so he bought you some soup and make sure to give you extra water.
- he’s the type to rub your tummy if it feels upset or tight. he knows how bad those stomach aches can be, so he’d make sure to massage you nice and well. also, if you do end up throwing up again, he will hold your hair back and clean up any messes you might make. he’s gonna deal with it all, and he doesn’t care about anything but your well being.
- “baby, drink your water. don’t forget to! i don’t want you feeling worse!”
- total worrywart. he hates to admit it but seeing you in such a state makes him feel so bad 😭. he knows he shouldn’t feel bad, but he just can’t help it. you’re his girlfriend and you mean the world to him. he wouldn’t want something bad to happen to you because he wasn’t there to properly take care of you. that’s why he’s sticking by your side as much as possible.
- he probably would lay with you in bed while you tried to take a nap. he’d be running his fingers along your skin and trying his best to soothe any pain you might have. it’s super cute and he sweet talks you the entire time to make sure you feel relaxed.
- eventually, the bug passes and you feel a lot better within the coming days. poor guy was so fucking worried but you managed to pull through it without any issues. baji probably reminds himself to never let you eat at that restaurant again 😭 and he also makes a note to never go there either.
- better thank him, because you’ll get lots of cuddles and kisses in return ;).
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hanma shuji:
- hanma is a very busy man. he has shit to do and things to take care of, like you, but he was completely blindsided when you started to feel sick.
- you were a shivering mess the previous night when you were trying to fall asleep. you just couldn’t get warm and hanma woke up to you shaking like a leaf next to him. he assumed that maybe the heater had turned off or something, but when he awoke the next morning and heard you coughing up a lung, he knew something wasn’t okay with you. it was really worrying for the man.
- “hey, i’m taking you to the doctor, doll. put on something warm.”
- the doctor eventually revealed that you had the flu. your temperature was fairly high and he prescribed some medications for you. hanma was relieved to know that it wasn’t anything too bad, but he wanted to be a good boyfriend and care for you. he hated seeing his princess all sick and exhausted in bed, so he figured he’d help you with it all.
- such. a. fucking. king. he’d take a few days off of work and tell anyone who protests to go fuck themselves.
- hanma would definitely make sure you’re comfortable at home. he buys you plenty of tissues, ibuprofen, etc! he also lets you wear his clothes because he knows you’ll be more comfortable that way. he cooks you some nice food as well, and he even serves you tea for your sore throat. it’s all really sweet, so expect the real princess treatment if you’re not feeling good.
- he also doesn’t care if you get him sick. he’ll cuddle with you, kiss your head, hold you, everything. he’s like a damn furnace and his body heat honestly helps with the chill that comes with a fever.
- “just come here, babydoll. it’s just a little cold or whatever.. could care less about myself.”
- he makes sure you nap often. sleep is honestly some of the best medicine a human being could have, so he lets you fall asleep in his arms a lot. it usually happens after you’ve eaten some soup or watched a movie with him after a really long day. hanma will always make sure you’re well rested and taking care of yourself. it doesn’t matter how far he may be or what the risks might be.
- has probably teased you a few times for being sick 😭. he’d poke fun at you by cleaning up your tissues and making a gross face whenever he sees the snots all over them. you know he’s joking but you can’t help but throw a damn pillow at his head.
- when he does go back to work, he makes sure to call you and check in as many times as he can. he reminds you to take your medicine and that he’ll be home as soon as possible to take care of you. it doesn’t matter how much you reassure him, he will blow up your damn phone to make sure you’re not dead or anything. it’s super cute though. he always knows what to say to make you feel much better.
- once you do get better, he’s very relieved. your fever broke and you were feeling much happier within the coming days. hanma gave you all the kisses and lovings he could possibly give out. it’s super cute.
- he’s such a sweetheart ugh 🥲.
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xiao-come-home · 13 days
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stone faced anon (💫 anon if it's free) here; as someone who has a hyperfixation in IT and coding I also think it would be very funny if Boothill had an s/o who wasn't necessarily a mechanic but like a software engineer or just a real big nerd about coding or something. He'll be experiencing a malfunction or a memory leak and go "oh yeah this happens sometimes don't worry about it" and then 10 minutes later he's sitting down plugged into a laptop listening to his s/o rant about how terrible his code is (crack hc: boothill's code was written in javascript) and how it's a wonder he hasn't bricked* yet
Would also be mad funny if Boothill ever got hacked and his s/o basically says "no you're not" and uses a previously made system restore point or something because of course they would both use and design every feature imaginable to keep Boothill in control of his own body, can you imagine the stress that losing control would cause him?? Even better if whoever designed him originally intentionally left a backdoor incase he ever went against their orders and when they try to use it his s/o just goes "oh yeah I quarantined and encrypted all the old files related to that backdoor and whatever else you were planning on a partition as bait and personally rewrote every file and function involved since your code is *an actual crime against technology*. by the way i'm going to go ahead and format that partition i mentioned, boothill- we won't be needing anything on it now that we can trace whoever made it. trust me, this won't be happening ever again."
*(bricking is a term mostly used to refer to hardware that's been rendered basically completely nonfunctional and beyond saving by using it wrong, mostly by messing with system files. Kinda like how windows can't even repair itself if you delete the system32 folder. Though i guess you could still install it with a usb stick if you formatted your pc- i digress you get what I mean. also since this almost happened to me recently: if you manage to fill up a hard drive to the brim, with literally 0 bytes of space left, that bricks it. reminder to check your storage thoroughly and often!)
Honestly wow I read it all and I'm a little bit speechless 🥹 thank you 💫 anon, it was great 🙏
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Boothill would DEFINITELY appreciate a s/o who's a tech savvy in general! I think at some point, he'd be pretty shocked you're so knowledgeable and just sit there, listening to you rant.. and just letting you do your thing.
Don't get me wrong, he definitely knows a lot about his body, his system and the way he works, but once you start to get in the zone and explain stuff to him, berate his code even, he just sits next to you, plugged in to your laptop, leaning his cheek against his hand listening to you like he obviously understands everything you say.
His other hand begins to gently play with a stand of your hair, humming deeply when the soft clicking sounds of your keyboard reach his ears; he twirls your hair with his fingers and chuckles, "mmm, really now?" Boothill raises an eyebrow, "encryptin' this, encryptin' that... How about we do somethin' more fun instead?" And then you shut him down from your laptop (😭).
Jokes aside, he'd feel very secure with you especially when he first got his new body, just knowing you'll probably fix a lot of things that could possibly blow up his face in no time, maybe even improve his life even more.
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