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i-cant-sing · 3 years

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An Accident

Yeah... you may have seen this before, earlier this week when I accidentally posted it. Anyways, this is a part 2 of the Todoroki clan being obsessed with reader's hair. So, um enjoy.

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Yandere Todoroki Clan:

Rei is obsessed with reader’s hair.

She’s taken such good care of it, and after years of hard work, your hair now reaches just around your butt. Your hair is healthy, thick, luscious, and cut into a smooth, U shape; of course all trims are done by Rei herself because she doesn't even trust professionals. And even though you’ve asked Rei on multiple occasions to cut it short, at least up to the middle of your back, she just wouldn’t, always saying that you’re being unreasonable. But you’re not; you’ve given her multiple valid reasons.

For example, Rei and Fuyumi do your hair themselves. And initially, they would let you choose whatever hairstyle you wanted, but now they pick one for you, saying they know which one will suit your outfit of the day better. Rei likes to do double buns, or ponytails tied with ribbons or just one high pony with a pretty big bow on the top of your head. Fuyumi on the other hand makes super intricate hairstyles, and while they look pretty, only you know how much pain your scalp is in. Fuyumi does your hair as if you’re her doll, yanking and twisting hard, saying that she needs to be this rough to achieve the distinctive braid patterns. Thankfully, Rei usually does your hair most of the time.

One of the main reasons you've begged Rei to let you cut your hair short is how much time she (and you) would safe. Since your hair is so long, it takes a lot of time for Rei to put in hair masks, serums, oils, etc. It takes even longer to wash and dry them out, and then style them as well. But she smiled oh so kindly, and told you that she doesn't mind. She looks forward to taking care of your hair, forcing you to sit between her legs for hours as she applies some expensive magic growth oil, ignoring how you didn't like this.

And even if your hair is curly naturally, like even 4C curly hair, Rei will have it straight as a stick in no time (don't bother telling her that you like it natural). But don't worry, its still quite voluminous.

Of course, Rei washes your hair herself, telling you that you’re simply not capable enough to manage it. (At least she lets you wash your body yourself.) And due to your hair being so long, it takes time to not only wash it, but also dry it. Rei will detangle using a wide tooth comb, starting from the bottom and working her way up. Then she’ll dry it with her cold breath, and if required, call Enji to dry your hair with his heat. You like it when Enji dries your hair, because he does it quickly and your hair becomes far smoother.

And its not just Rei and Fuyumi that are obsessed with your hair, the boys are just as fond of it as well. Enji likes to card his fingers through your hair while he’s working on some papers or listening to news, his warm hands always putting you to sleep in his lap. Its an adorable sight, gives him a sense of peace.

Shotou also likes to run his hands through your long hair, especially after a stressful day. The feeling of his fingers through your smooth, long locks, it calms him. And if he’s feeling extra stressed, then he might braid your hair loosely as well. He always wears a scrunchie on his wrist for you.

You wouldn't ever admit it, but you enjoy it when Natsuo played with your hair. Its like he can sense when you're having a headache. He'll have you sit on the floor while he takes a seat on your bed, and then his fingers will do their magic. He knows exactly where to put pressure on your scalp, and exactly how much force to use. His massages always relieve your migraines, and he always massages with expertise to ensure their is proper blood flow in your scalp.

While you are more than happy to let Natsuo touch your hair, you hate it when Dabi's around. If you didn't know better, you'd think he wants to rip your scalp off. He knows how much it annoys you, always pulling at your ponytails, tugging at your braids, even yanking it a few times when you ignore him. And you've complained to your family, but all of them say that "oh he's just playing around." Or "no, he just misses you. He's only teasing." And when you ask Dabi to stop it, he'll just smile and say "big brother privileges."

He's insufferable.

Everyone gets to play with your hair, but God forbid if you do. Oh no, apparently you'd "destroy it", as if you're not capable of managing your own hair. You're not allowed to open your ponytails because, quoting Rei, "you're yanking your hair. You're going to rip your follicles- baby, stop. Just let me do it." But you know that she does that because she wants to brush your hair with the soft, bristle brush before you go to bed. And somedays, Rei doesn't tie your hair in a bun or something, letting your hair fall, and it gets in your way, and even then you're still not allowed to put it up because "oh honey, your hair needs to breathe too. If you keep it in a pony, the band will leave a mark in it." Honestly, everyone finds it adorable when you're dressed in your little, fluffy skirt paired with a cozy oversized sweater, all mad and pouting, trying to blow the hair strands blocking your field of vision. Like a little baby.

While Rei looks at your hair and sees years of her hards work and patience, all you see is losing control over your own life. And you are. They decide everything for you, from the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and even things you should like and dislike. They choose when you should go out, what you should watch, when its time for bed. They disregard your opinions and feelings, and if you show that you're frustrated, then its means that you're just throwing a "tantrum", and you need to be put to bed like some cranky child. You've told them that they're too overbearing, but they always say that they just love you.

What kind of love is controlling?

They're so lost in their delusions, that they don't even see the deteriorating effects it has on you mentally.

Actually, one person did see them. Dabi.

He saw how much everything was overwhelming you, how you were near tears when they talked over you, made choices for you.

He felt a bit bad for you, just a tad. Mostly, he felt there was another opportunity to mess with you.

When Dabi came to bother you one night, tugging at your hair again, this time a bit harder than usual, he saw you were ready to cry. You didn't even bother saying anything to him anymore, just kept quiet and did your best not to cry. Of course, now he ridiculed you. Called you a little crybaby and used that annoying patronising tone with you. And just as he was about to leave, he said "if your hair bothers you so much, why don't you just cut it, you big baby?"

As if something had finally snapped in you, you let his words echo. Why don't I cut it? What's stopping me?

Was it because you had learned to just give in?

You didn't even realise you had walked to your bathroom until you were holding a pair of scissors. Which surprised you, because you weren't allowed to use scissors unsupervised. It was almost as if a sign from the universe motivating you to do it, and definitely not Dabi who left them on the sink.

Holding the pair of scissors in one hand and a chunk of your hair in the other, you hesitate for a second and wonder what will Rei do. But before you could stop yourself, you cut.

I'll cross that bridge when it comes.

You start low, maybe 2 inches above your hips. It looks okay, but maybe you could cut a little more. And a little more. And a little more. Before you know it, your hair is around shoulder length, in an uneven, chunky bob. Its not perfect, but somehow you feel much better. Like you’ve finally gotten some control back. Wiping your tears away, you ruffle your hair a bit, the cool air on your neck adding to the feeling of freedom. You feel normal, happier, peaceful. Things you haven't felt in years. And all because you had 3 am meltdown.

After you cleaned up the bathroom, you went back to bed, anxious how everyone will react in the morning. Maybe they won't care. You thought. Its only hair. My hair.

Everyone was waiting for you at breakfast the next morning, and to everyone’s surprise, Dabi had joined them as well. Rei was cooking up some eggs, while the kids chatted. Enji was suspicious of the mischievous glint in Dabi’s eyes, and it was filling him with unease. Just as he was about to question him, you walked in.

Everyone went silent.

Then Fuyumi let out an audible gasp, while Dabi chuckled darkly. Natsuo, Shotou and Enji looked at you with their mouths agape.

“Good morning.”you greeted them.

Rei, who was facing away from you, finally turned towards you. “Good mo-”Rei’s breath hitched, eyes blown wide, as the plate of bacon fell from her hands.

Its funny how everyone in the kitchen, including you, had the same thought at that moment.

What the fuck?

Taking a deep breath, you moved to sit in your usual spot between Fuyumi and Rei, but Shotou suddenly pulled you back and pushed you into the seat beside him. He knows his mother is in a better state mentally, but something tells him not to risk it. Fuyumi snapped next, quickly getting up and cleaning the mess on the floor while Enji pulled Rei, who was still staring at you in disbelief, to sit beside him. You remained indifferent to everyone’s stares, quietly eating your food. As soon as you were done, Shotou got up and quickly pulled you out of the room, Dabi following close behind.

They sat in your room as Shotou looked at your hair with worry. “Looking nice, doll.”Dabi chuckled as he plopped down on your bed beside you. “Thanks.” you mumbled. “Y/n how did- why did you- why did you cut your hair?” Shotou asked, still looking at your choppy hair. “Do you not like it?” you asked. “N-no I do. But what will mom say-” “Shotou, its my hair.” you snapped. “Yeah, Shotou.” Dabi mocked. Fuyumi and Natsuo soon joined you guys, worrisome looks on their faces. “Why did you cut it? Oh my god, do you even know how much trouble you’re in?” Fuyumi was freaking out. “Its my hair.” you rolled your eyes. They ignored you. “Okay, okay. Shotou why don't you stick around with Y/n for a couple of days? Fuyumi and dad will try to keep mom away from her.” Before Fuyumi could nod, you stood up. “No.”

Natsuo looked at you confused. “what do you mean “no”?”

“I mean no. I don't need Shotou to babysit me. I can handle myself.” Fuyumi walked towards you, reaching her hands for you but you backed away, “Y/n, sweetie-” You cut her off ,“Stop treating me like a child.”

Shotou spoke this time, “Its for your protection-” “Protection from who? Our mother? Why?”your words dared them to say the truth. To agree that Rei was unstable. They didn't say anything.

A few days had passed by and things were returning to normal. Almost normal. Rei still had this thousand yard stare when she looked at you, but she never said anything. Cutting your hair was the best decision you had made, because not is it only easy to manage, but it also got the family off your back. Rei doesn't wash your hair anymore(although you think she's just not over the shock), Fuyumi doesn't need to do your hair, they dry faster, and all of your brothers (including Dabi) doesn't mess around with them anymore. Enji was the first to adjust to your new cut, he even complimented you one day.

Did you feel guilty because you know how attached Rei was to your hair? A bit, but then realised that you needed this. You need some control over your life, and if this is how they react to your new cut, then maybe you could start taking back reigns over other aspects of your life as well.

You thought that maybe Rei had finally gotten over it a week later, when you were laying in the bathtub, enjoying the hot bath. When you heard her walk in, you were a bit startled. Why was she here- is she finally over it? "Um- hey." She smiled at you. "Why are you here?" She took the bath stool and sat behind the tub. "You know why." She replied and started rolling her sleeves up. Is she here to wash my hair? "Oh, are you here to wash my hair? I don't need help with that anymore now that they're short." Rei smiled again, this one looking forced, before dipping her hand in the tub. "No, silly." And with that, Rei froze the entire the tub in 2 seconds. The ice trapped your limbs, and reached up to your clavicle. The sudden change from hot to cold had you jolt, but you couldn't move due to the frozen ice. "Mom-!" You heard the buzzing sound of a trimmer and then felt Rei entangle her fingers in your hair to yank your head back. "I'm here to complete your haircut." You tried moving your head but her grip on your scalp was unrelenting. She started trimming the right side of your head, moving it slowly as to get every single hair. "Honestly, you should've come to me. I do agree that it'd be a good idea to start again." Tears fell from your eyes, your teeth chattered and you could feel your heart beat slow down as the cold seeped into your bones. "M-mom, I'm col-d. P-please s-stop..." Rei was done with one half of your head. "You know, I read somewhere that your grows thicker if you cut it. I'm sure that after I've shaved your head, your hair will grow even fuller. I've already gotten some new oils and hair masks! Maybe we could do them together." You couldn't hear anything besides the slowing of your own heart beating. Your breath had started to become shallow, you couldn't think about anything except for how painful ice could be. Your lips were turning blue, eyes were getting clouded with black spots, all sensation from your body was losing. Just before you lost consciousness, you heard the bathroom door open and a panicked yell.

You felt warm.

When you came to, your entire body felt warm and weighted, probably due to the heavy blanket spread on you.

Opening your eyes, you found yourself in a dimly lit room. It was...your parents room. Why am I here? You turned your head to look around but your eyes stopped at the large figure sitting on a chair next to your bed.

"Dad?"

The figure's head snapped towards yours. "You're awake." He paused. "How- how are you feeling?" You moved the blanket off you, your body felt dense and ached. "Warm and...sore. What happened? Why am I in your bedroom?" Enji shifted in his seat. "I think its best if you stay here from now on, so that... your mother and I can look after you." Your eyes widened. "What? Why?" You moved to sit up but then a pain shot through your head. "Ah shit." You hissed in pain as you went to massage your temples but your hands halted at the feeling of your hair... or lack there of. You tried to run a finger through your choppy bob cut, but all you felt was your shaved head. Your eyes met Enji's, looking at him in disbelief as you recalled the events that had led up to this. "Darling-" You jumped off the bed and ran towards the vanity mirror, praying that this is just a nightmare. But as you looked at your reflection, you realised that this was the terrifying reality you were living in.

Tears dripped from your eyes as you took in your appearance. Trimmed- no, shaved pink hair. You couldn't see a single bit of hair above the roots, only a baby pink scalp. She had not only trimmed your hair first but then also proceeded to shave your scalp off. Your head looked like it had peach fuzz.

You couldn't bring yourself to look away, not even when Enji placed a hand on your shoulder. "Y/n-" He didn't even what to say. He was still in shock from what would've happened if Fuyumi hadn't yelled for him when Rei was-

Enji shook his head. Now's not the time. You're here and you're fine. You're fine. Enji pulled you towards him, burying your face in his chest as you cried. "You're fine." He repeated, more to himself than to you. "Why- why would she do this?" Your voice was muffled by his chest but he understood. He understood your pain and it tore him apart that he still wouldn't be able to help you.

Enji honestly didn't know what to tell you. He didn't know what words would bring you comfort. "It... it was an accident." His chest rumbled as he spoke. You pushed yourself away from him as you looked at him perplexed.

"What?" Your eyebrows raised, nostrils flared and blood rushed to your face. You were going to blow up.

"An accident? Is that what you said? Oh okay. Was it an accident when she froze the fucking tub? Did the trimmer accidentally fall from her hands to my head?! Oh and did she accidentally pull the razor over my head?!" Angry tears fell from your eyes but you were far too enraged to care.

Enji opened his mouth to say something but he was cut off by the sound of the bedroom door opening. Turning around you saw her.

Rei was standing there with a tray of food and water. Her face turned to shock before turning to happiness. She set the tray on a nearby table before she rushed towards you, her hands reaching for your face.

"Angel, you're awake-" you pushed her hands away roughly as you backed away from her.

"Dont you dare touch me."

The couple, they had never heard your voice such hostility. It wasn't like you. Rei shook her head as she tried to reach for you again, taking another step in your direction. But you smacked her hands away again. "I said don't touch me!" Your yelling had got your siblings to rush in the room, wanting to see what the commotion was about.

Rei's eyes shifted from you to Enji, looking at him for help, before they returned back to you. She took a deep breath before speaking. "Y/n, darling. What's wrong?" You scoffed at her soft tone that tried to quell the storm of negative emotions bubbling inside you. "What's wrong? What's wrong? I don't know, you tell me, Rei. Why the fuck am I bald?!" Your head was pounding with rage, raw unbridled anger.

When Rei didn't say anything, Fuyumi stepped forward to help her out. "Y/n its-"

"Shut up."

Fuyumi's- everyone's eyes widened. Of everyone, you never even rose your voice at your favourite sibling. But to hear your voice turn so cold towards her, it shocked everyone. "Y-Y/n-" she tried again but you cut her off. "I said shut up. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Rei and she'll answer for herself."

Enji placed a hand on your shoulder, pulling you back slightly. "Have some respect. She's your mother-" You yanked your shoulder away from his grip. "No, she's not!" You inhaled deeply, trying to stabilise your voice. "No, she's not. You're not my dad. I'm not a part of this family. And I'm so sick of playing this game."

Dabi's eyes narrowed. "Stop being an ungrateful brat. You've been given all the luxuries one could only imagine, spoiled to no end-" You laughed. "Did I ask for anything?" "You never had t-" "And all these luxuries that you're talking about, I didn't get them for free. I had to give up a lot. No, wait-" you laughed again, tears blurring your vision. "I didn't give up anything. You all took it. Yeah, all of you snatched everything away from me. My family, my friends, my privacy, my sanity, everything. And you-" you moved towards Rei, pointing a finger at her. "You have been the most greedy one of them all."

Rei's jaw fell open, as she shook her head. "No-" You shook your head.

"Yes! I gave you everything. I let you dress me up in those god awful clothes, feed me whatever you wanted, stick to your side like glue because you don't like it when I was out of your sight for a more than a few minutes. For fucks sake, I didn't even go to college this year because you weren't ready to see me become an adult!" You ran a frustrated hand through your hair. "I played into your sick little fantasy. I let you treat me like a child, talk to me like I'm some helpless baby. I let you touch me even though it disgusted me to no end. I never even complained when you gave me ice burns because I was throwing a tantrum." You looked at the rest of your family, and they were shocked to hear that last bit. You smiled cruelly at them. "Yeah, you didn't know that did you?"

Rei was crying herself by now, as she reached out for you once again but you moved away. "I let you have everything. All I wanted was this little bit of freedom, for my own sanity. But you couldn't stomach that could you?" Your head hung low, your tears hitting the floor.

"Why do you have to be so selfish?"

Your voice held so much pain and defeat. Rei couldn't help but engulf you in her arms, wrapping herself around you tightly before you could even protest. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" She cried out. "I- I promise I'll fix this! Yes. I-I've already gotten you some new hair oils! They say that they'll help you grow 6 inches in a month! Oh and Natsuo also brought some stuff for hair growth! Some vitamins and- Natsuo whats that spray called? Minoxy? Mi-minoxidil! Yes! He said that'll help you grow your hair in no time! Doesn't that sound nice? You'll have long hair like before!" Rei pushed back to look at you. You couldn't believe it.

"Are you- are you really that delusional?" Your voice was so soft, almost like you would break any moment now. "Are you so blind to see what you're doing to me?" Your eyes held so much pain and confusion. "Sweetie, don't worry- mommy will take such good care-" You pushed Rei away from you, your anger rolling back in full speed. "YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER!" You shrieked. "Y/n-" Shotou tried to interject. "I'm not a part of your fucking family."

Enji stepped towards you. "Calm down."

You looked at him. "You said that what happened was an accident. What will you do if another one happens? And you're not around this time to save me? Hmm? What will you do? Continue playing house with my dead body?!"

Rei's sobs shook her body. "Shut up. Think before you say stupid shit like that." Dabi spoke this time, moving to stand between you and his mother. "Or what? You're going to hurt me? More the reason why all of you, but especially you-" you pointed at Rei "deserve to be in that nuthouse-!"

You were on the floor before you could even process what had happened. Had you- had you fallen? But when the searing pain of the burn on your cheek came alive and you looked at his hand that had erupted in blue flames, you realised what had happened.

Dabi slapped you.

"Y/n!"

Your cheek felt like someone had placed a hot iron on it, the sting spreading to your entire cheek, but you were far too shocked to care about the pain.

Dabi slapped me.

Shotou, Natsuo and Fuyumi quickly rushed to your side, picking you up and out of the room, while Dabi stood there in stunned as his own hand throbbed. The image of his handprint branded on your scared face wasn't going to leave his mind anytime soon.

Enji hesitated, looking at his wife and son in disbelief, before leaving the room to look for you.

Rei walked towards Dabi and smacked his arm. "What did you do?!" She yelled at him. He opened his mouth to explain but nothing came out.

"She's your little sister, Touya! W-why would you do that?!" Rei scolded him.

He hurt you. Like Enji hurt Rei.

He hurt you.

Rei sighed before closing her eyes and engulfing Dabi in her arms. "Its okay. Its not your fault." She rubbed his back soothingly. "It was an accident, wasn't it?"

Dabi wrapped his arms around his mother, burying his face in her neck, before nodding.

"Yes. It was an accident."

So... how was it?

#yandere bnha #yandere dabi #yandere endeavor #yandere dabi x reader #yandere mha #yandere todoroki family #yandere todoroki clan #yandere enji todoroki #yandere rei todoroki #yandere natsuo todoroki #yandere fuyumi todoroki #yandere touya todoroki #platonic yandere #yandere platonic #platonic enji todoroki #yandere shoto todoroki

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pxnk-velvet · 3 years

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𝐾𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑜 1𝑠𝑡 𝑌𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝐴𝑠 𝐵𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟𝑠

.・ ✧。.・゜✧・.・✧・゜・.・ ✧。.・゜✧・.

✧ summary :: What I think these boys would be like if they played baseball instead of volleyball

✧ warninga :: sports talk, again let me know if it goes way over your heads and I need to explain a little more 😅

✧ 1st years :: 2nd years :: 3rd years

.・ ✧。.・゜✧・.・✧・゜・.・ ✧。.・゜✧・.

☾ 𝐻𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑎 :: 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝/𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑟

in the beginning his short stop plays were a bit choppy and unclean but after a little while he was able to figure it out and clean it up

he’s not the best at back hand pick ups but his turning throws are ✨beautiful✨

he had originally been interested in player catcher but with daichi and ennoshita.....get in line bestie 😔

however he did prove himself and earned a bit of playing time with coach

just thinking about that lil moment makes my heart burst....imagine how happy he would be when ukai finally lets him in as catcher

his hitting is pretty average but those high pitches do tend to get him a lot (aka: me)

he’s pretty good at in field line drives and always manages to get on base

I also feel like he’d be interested in bunting and work on that throughout the season

☾ 𝐾𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑦𝑎𝑚𝑎 :: 𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑟

honestly.....mans is a pitcher one way or another

there is no other position this mf would play cmon now

anyways, he’s definitely the pitcher that puts way too much pressure on themselves to strike people out

which is something he’s really good at

I feel like his rise balls are killer, as well as his curve balls

his pitches are just really fast in general

but just like suga, kags pitching is just perfect

he’s the one people are scared to bat up against tbh

as for his hitting, I feel like he’s super fast and makes some amazing plays for someone as lean as him

holy grail pop flys to left and center field but by the time the fielder is even able to spot it, he’s already rounded the bases

but he definitely sucks at sliding, he’s just too clumsy for that lmao

☾ 𝑌𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑢𝑐ℎ𝑖 :: 2𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒/𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑

as a 2nd baseman his gloves flips are ✨perfect✨plssss they just are

as well as his back hand pick ups like my mouth is watering

he just makes it look so easy

his back up as right field is also really good and he surprisingly had a really good arm

and his accuracy is on point when it wants to be lmao

he has a couple hiccups here and there but when he’s really in the game his throws are perfect

his hitting is also pretty average but he tends to beat himself up whenever he hits it directly to someone, which you can’t really do anything about

he’s also an average runner but I can also see him as being really good at sliding as well

the perfect guy for getting around the tag

☾ 𝑇𝑠𝑢𝑘𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑚𝑎 :: 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑

was definitely the kid that would play with the grass in the out field and not pay attention because he didn’t want to be there lmao

but his mom wanted him to be part of something and since his brother was playing baseball, she figured she’d just sign him up as well

long story short here we are....one tall ass mf in left field

he’s not very confident in his defensive skills but in reality a good out field makes up a big part of good defense all together

he’s actually really good at tracking the ball, even tho I feel like he doesn’t like running

and don’t expect him to dive for the ball whatsoever unless it’s absolutely necessary

all he has to do half the time is lift his arm and he’s good because of how tall he is

plus it only takes him a couple of steps to get a good distance tbh

hence why he’s also really good at running bases, because he’s at 1st in like 6 steps

I also feel like he hunches over when he’s batting, but makes great line drives that always make it into the out field

.・ ✧。.・゜✧・.・✧・゜・.・ ✧。.・゜✧・

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu baseball brainrot #haikyuu headcanons #hinata shoyo #haikyuu hinata #hinata headcanons #kageyama tobio #haikyuu tobio #tobio headcanons #yamaguchi tadashi #haikyuu yamaguchi #yamaguchi headcanons #tsukishima kei #haikyuu tsukishima #tsukishima headcanons #⚾️ anon

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obeymeluv · 4 years

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Forever and Always

Story-wise, I’m stuck near the beginning of lesson 21 :(. So I’m taking a break from leveling up cards and everything to pop out a few of those ideas! The weekends are really the only time I have to do this, so it slows me down a bit.

Hope you enjoy! This time: some angst.

Lucifer’s part may be a little triggering because the reader’s been semi-sedated. I’ll basically put the warning out that these are all near-death scenarios. I have no idea what could trigger people so I can’t really tell anyone what to look out for.

P.S: I’m totally down for writing Barbatos and Diavolo but I don’t really know anything about their personalities. If any of you have made it farther into the game or have uncovered things and would like to share them, please let me know!

P.S.S: I headcanon that Mammon has a messed up or mostly broken wing. I’m very suspicious that NONE of the bros had any wing damage from when they fell. Yeah, Lucifer ripped off two of his wings but SOMEONE had to end up with broken wings. I picked Mammon.

These got super long (as always) so I’m working on part 2 with the rest of the bros right now.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

It’s rare anyone gets a text from Barbatos (unless it’s on Diavolo’s behalf), and even rarer when it’s just instructions. A date, a time, and a place.

And a warning.

If you’re late, they die.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

Lucifer

He couldn’t believe it when he read it.

Lucifer had been on edge about it. The message was enough to break him, a warm-blooded demon, out in a cold sweat

The text message had woken him up in the wee hours of the very morning you were to die

Judging by the stars outside his window and the silence in the house, he was the first up

The eldest crept along the hallways to check on all of you--starting with Mammon, Beel, and Satan, and ending with you.

His gut twisted guiltily as he confirmed Satan was fast asleep in a nest of books, slowly unwinding from the chair and slipping into the floor. It pained him to think Satan, something of his creation, would be his first guess. The main worry.

If not Satan, than who?

The question haunted Lucifer into the early morning, the exhausted demon mulling the question over a cup of coffee.

He had breakfast delivered to the house, far too concerned to cook.

It wasn’t until you decided to portion off your treat to give some to that blossoming love of yours that it hit him like a Celestial Blade

That DEMON! Lucifer stood so abruptly he nearly snapped the handle off his mug, chair shooting back with a groan.

He could hear little splinters under his feet, brain barely processing that everyone was looking at him with concern. Suspicion.

“I’ve dawdled too long. I must get ready.” he excused himself.

Lucifer disappeared to his room, collecting everything for RAD.

Everything circled back to his D.D.D. He checked his pocket two, three, four times before he was convinced it’d stay with him while he went to the academy

Everything from then on was a countdown to the time in the text message.

The message wasn’t clear if you’d be dead at that time, or if he should arrive at that time. It was the farthest thing from his mind, Lucifer kicking the classroom door open so hard that it snapped off the hinges and tumbled awkwardly into the room

The room was hardly used but had recently been cleaned. With a slice of the gardens in the window, it would have been a darling picnic spot. If it were being used for a picnic, that is.

What he stumbled into was most certainly NOT a picnic. Far from it.

He recognized your lover, the cretin, but not the other three who’d crashed this little picnic. But there they were, studying books and hissing amongst themselves as they plotted out which pieces of you to take for themselves.

Humans were the rarest of delicacies among all the delicacies, after all.

Lucifer hadn’t yet unleashed his demon form and it was the arrogance of young demons that led the four to stand as if to challenge him.

“I am no longer an angel,” Lucifer removed his gloves as he glared at them sternly. His rage, the pride of being your protector, was getting the best of him. His fangs were growing, grinding against his words and making them pointed. “But you will beg for my mercy.”

Then he flew at them with all the rage he thought he’d given to Satan. Three of them had jumped on him; he could feel them trying to bite at him and scratching his skin with their claws.

There were hazy memories of snapping, tearing, biting, and all manner of chaos. The only clear thing he remembered was the perfect stillness in the room, the tang of blood, and scooping your drugged body up as gently as he could.

“Those vile creatures,” his soft, naked hands shook against your head as he fixed your hair and picked gore from your face. You were still awake, and could still look at him. Just enough light in your eyes to process things. To endure the agony of what would have been.

All of this would’ve been avoided if he could’ve just told you first. But his pride was too great. And he was the bearer of his sin.

“You are safe, beloved.” Lucifer walked quietly from the destroyed room, shoes squelching into the hallway as he took you to the infirmary.

Mammon

He treated the text like a prized secret.

Reading it was enough to give him an anxiety attack, honestly

He’d texted Barbatos back but the butler said he could give nothing else. ‘The text must be followed’ was all he would say.

Mammon is suspicious and observant by nature. For a brief moment he considered that Diavolo was playing a prank on him and had simply stolen Barbatos’ D.D.D., maybe even put him up to it

But the prince of the Devildom wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the human transfer. Quite the opposite.

He went to go see Barbatos in person to try and squeeze some extra details out of the attendant, but was met with a stern face and narrowed eyes. Though Barbatos’ face was basically unreadable, Mammon could tell he thought about putting that silver serving platter upside his head (maybe even putting him in the stock pot)

“The text must be followed,” the butler insisted, brushing past him to reach for some spices.

Whatever it was, it was happening at Majolish

Mammon was getting ready for a shoot and his brain was frazzled.

He’d been irritated and jumpy all day.

What was he supposed to look for when he didn’t know what he was looking for?!

How is he supposed to protect you when he doesn’t know what will kill you?

Mammon sets an alarm on his D.D.D for when you’re supposed to meet your fate, and doing so almost makes him sick. He puts on a watch for extra measure.

Mammon’s in the middle of figuring out how to get you to Majolish when he hears Asmo trying to butter you into going shopping. It’s either an ‘I didn’t get picked’ pity trip or he just wants to steal you for himself

It makes Mammon think of something: do you die trying to go see him at Majolish? Do you originally go with Asmo and convince him to watch his shoot?

“Go ask Solomon,” Mammon throws his arm around your shoulder as he stares Asmo down (even though they’re the same height). “They’re busy.”

He tunes out of the usual banter, the standard names, and just gives you a gentle squeeze to start walking in time with him. Mammon ruffles Asmo’s hair for good measure, sure his little brother will spend precious time fixing it. That will give him enough of a lead to get you to Majolish.

Shoots can be laborious, Mammon is well-aware. There’s time in hair, makeup, wardrobe being painstakingly selected, and then it comes down to posing.

There’s re-shoots, different angles, all sorts of things.

He’s starting to wonder what the HELL the danger is or if Barbatos saw the wrong time. Nothing’s happened, you’re fine!

Mammon has trouble relaxing in the shoot because they keep moving you around to avoid shadows. Just keeping you out of the way, off to the side.

His hyper-fixation is starting to burn out. He checks his watch in-between pictures, ignoring all the help as the scuttle around to change lighting and reposition things.

It’s about five minutes until the accident. Mammon clutches his D.D.D. so hard it almost cracks.

He strong-arms the photographer into some couple pictures (’For the human. It’d probably help the issue sell better, anyways!”) when it finally happened.

No one hears it, of that he’s sure. HE didn’t even hear it. Mammon saw it before he heard it, the odd flicker of light. Mammon’s demon form takes over as he surges forward, blowing the photographer onto his back as he shoots overhead.

There was a huge set light plummeting towards your delicate little human head. A demon-made, Devildom brand set light that would surely turn you into a pancake.

He scoops you up and crushes you to his chest, veering around as best he can with his good wing.

The light whizzes past you both, scraping the thin skin of both wings. He stars the choppy descent down as the light crashed to the floor in a blaze of sparks and glittering glass.

“Dammit, human....” Mammon breathes into your hair, petting your head as his feet finally touch the ground again. His arm lingers around your waist a little longer than it should, but he doesn’t care.

The shoot ends there, everyone needing to clean up the mess. And your main man is now busy taking care of you, so he’s done for the day.

Mammon gets a preview issue almost a week later and is stunned to find a shot good enough for an action movie on the cover. It’s him holding you against him, barely in the air, framed by the sparks of that crashed light. A kiss would’ve made that shot worth a million bucks, is all he can think as he rolls himself out of bed to go brag about the cover.

Levi

Levi takes the text with absolute seriousness because Barbatos has never reached out to him. Ever.

Their relationship was a strained one, his and Barbatos’. Upon hearing of his ability to look into the future, Levi tried (and failed) multiple times to nicely/subtly ask for winning numbers on various raffles and ‘take a guess!’ premium giveaways.

He envied the butler for having such a cool power and hated that he was so stingy with it. But he was also afraid of being perceived as an annoying otaku and didn’t want to be whispered about as the ‘weird’ brother, so he took to avoiding him like the plague.

When he gets the text, he immediately hunts down the place where you’re to die.

The Devildom gets traveling acts every now and then. Rarely is there one that makes Levi want to come out of his room. He’s so stoked at the idea of a pop-up aquarium that he forgets he’s supposed to be investigating it and figuring out what could go wrong.

He’s familiar with all manner of sea creatures but these people have collected for centuries and there’s varieties he’s never seen!

Admittedly, he failed the objective of scoping out the place. Levi decided it was cool and would definitely come back to check it out some more.

He goes back a second time to see if he can connect with any of these creatures. There’s a link but it’s all vague. Some have nothing to show, others feel aggression, and some are waiting to be fed, and some have accepted this as their life.

It leaves him with mixed feelings, as does meeting the owners and curators. Levi gets the impression that these people don’t know how to care for these creatures, or have been doing the bare minimum for centuries.

He goes home, wondering how hard Diavolo looked into this traveling show. What if it was actually a ring con-men with stolen animals pretending to be a traveling aquarium?

Levi’s not surprised to hear Lucifer encourage the group to go see the aquarium on the day you’re supposed to die. Levi shyly tags along and intends to stay close by. He’s convinced he knows the best route through the aquarium

He’d prefer to take you on a tour by himself but doesn’t know if he has the guts.

It takes almost an hour to work through the whole aquarium, what with the groups and everything, and Levi is starting to feel socially taxed and mildly people claustrophobic.

Unexpectedly, the owner rushes everyone into a room he’d never seen. It’s a small arena speckled with chairs all facing a floating stage. Levi wants to write it off as a last-minute cash grab but can’t bring himself to say anything.

It’s almost like a weird carnival game. Pay a couple of Grimm, get a handful of feed, and see if the shadow below pops up to feast. You’re swept up into the feeding like--by Asmo? By accident? WHY. HUMAN, WHY?--and Levi knows THIS is where it happens.

He rushes onto the bobbing stage as you start tossing feed like the owner shows you, attempting to grab you around the waist and get you to FLAT, NORMAL, NICE, LAND

The creature bumps the stage and it bumps HARD. To a human it would be a small earthquake. Or like that nature documentary he and Satan watched about the killer whales knocking stuff off of icebergs.

Levi barely finishes going into his demon form when you hit the water. You’re tangled in his tail (that’s on purpose) and Levi’s trying to figure out WHERE THE HELL THE TEETH ARE.

The stage hasn’t settled enough to grab and all he can do is shoot through the water to throw the two of you onto land.

It has tendrils; he can feel them trying to figure out what he is and how to grab him. Levi wants to bite it as a defense mechanism but doesn’t know what drawing blood will do.

Your air is precious and running out. He coils and weaves himself together so you’re near his face. Levi breathes air into your mouth as the water churns and moves the two of you around.

His head breaches the surface and he does something he’s always threatened to do and probably hasn’t done in thousands of years: summons Lotan.

The creature comes when called, plopping down in the arena and generating a colossal wave that heaves the two of you onto dry land.

Everyone is understandably panicked. His brothers are dragging him away into a corner as visitors flee the room.

The owner is missing, the stage is in shambles, and the room is starting to fall apart. Lotan emerges victorious, as Levi knew he would, and eight people sit in the ruins to let the moment pass as everything falls into silence.

You plunk your head gratefully onto his chest, the two of you quite waterlogged, and Levi just pats you with a wet tail as Lotan leans its seven heads down to investigate what’s become of their master.

#obey me!#obey me! x Reader #Lucifer x Reader #Mammon x Reader #Leviathan x Reader #Levi x Reader

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shirtlesssammy · 4 years

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9x08: Rock and a Hard Place

Then:

Jody Mills, putting up with Winchester crap since 2008.

Now:

A young woman locks up a diner at the end of her shift. She drops off some food to a man sleeping on the street. While walking, she grows suspicious and pulls out her taser (is that what it was?). It falls and she has to crawl under a car to get it. While there, a creature that bursts into blue flame lifts the car, grabs her, and drops her down through a manhole.

The brothers are recapping the season’s mytharc in the kitchen when Dean gets a call from Jody. She’s got four missing people and a super strong kidnapper. Dean and Sam hit the road.

It seems that all the missing people were part of the Good Faith church. The brothers interview Slim, the witness to the latest kidnapping. He watched Honor get nabbed.

His story rules out angels, so Jody heads to interview the victims’ families and Sam and Dean head to infiltrate the church.

At the church, they talk to Bonnie and learn that everyone that is missing was part of a chastity group.

The brothers agree to sign a chastity pledge and reset their virgin status (Dean’s been rehymenated again!)

Meanwhile, in the underbelly of the town, Honor wanders the dark passageways of her new home.

Dean and Sam attend their first chastity group. Suzy, the leader, asks the brothers to share their experiences and why they joined the group. Sam “Every woman I've ever had relations with, uh. It .hasn't ended well” Winchester starts the confession time with the understatement of the century. Then Dean spills a little too much and that gets the entire group a little hot and bothered.

After the meeting, Sam talks to Tammy about Honor --and how she’s not that honorable. Dean tries figuring out where he’s seen Suzy before. She swears she’s never seen him before. She also offers to help him with his new found abstinence. He offers to walk back to her place for the support materials she wants to give him.

*SODY ALERT*

Sam heads back to the motel where Jody’s actually getting work done. Sam tells her about Honor and Pastor Fred and Jody tells him about another missing couple overheard in bed together.

Whatever this monster is, it’s not taking virgins, but people breaking their vow. So dragons are out too.

Sam tries calling Dean to tell him about the new discovery, but Dean is in letch mode. Suzy is a mood killer though and starts crying about her friends, and asks Dean to pray with her.

Sam’s having more luck with “research” with Jody.

(I may have one too many Sam ships to juggle.)

While Suzy composes herself in another room, Dean stumbles across some old Casa Erotica DVDs featuring....Suzy! So THAT’S where he’s seen her before. Dean turns into an awkward idiot as Suzy returns to the room. WHAT HE’S FINE NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Dean can’t hold his glee in for long though, and he addresses her as “Carmelita.” She tries to apologize for her past but Dean fanboys out at her, helplessly. Amidst all the nightmares in the world, she is the stuff of “good dreams.” Her gaze goes from worried to intrigued to hungry quickly, and in no time at all Dean’s in the middle of an impossible dream fantasy: hot sex with a porn star.

Down in the depths of the city, Honor discovers the other missing church members - and some of them are still alive! Suddenly blue fire blows into the underground tunnels and when it clears, one of them has disappeared. The pastor’s screams get cut off from outside the dungeon. DUN dun duuuun

A little later, Dean bids Suzy a lingering farewell. (Suzy, may you continue to have all the sex!) Blue fire shoots into the room as soon as Dean tries to leave, knocking them down and out.

In the tunnels, one of the church members is slowly going mad, desperate for something to drink. She goes for her own blood instead. OH boy. Fortunately, something tries to bash its way into the dungeon and the trapped church members stop eating themselves to investigate. It’s Suzy and Dean, freshly deposited!

Sam and Jody investigate Suzy’s apartment, and it doesn’t take long for Sam to deduce what happened. A neighbor saw a blue flash, so they research fire - plus virgins. Jody brings up Vesta, goddess of the hearth. Vesta’s attendants were required to stay celibate; breaking their vows meant a live burial.

Down in Live Burial Central, Dean tells the occupants that they’re NOT being punished by God. “Trust me, this is not God’s work.” (I sit back and think about what’s to come and high five the show.) Whoever abducted them took Dean’s phone, but he keeps a spare hidden in a concealed pocket of his jacket. He rips it out and places a call.

Jody and Sam continue to research Vesta when Dean calls.

The call is super choppy, but Sam thinks he heard a train whistle. Time to find maps of the city infrastructure!

In the dungeon, two of the church members argue. The guy proposes offering up Honor since she has a hurt ankle. Dean scolds his cowardly ways. FANS SELF

In the zero hour, Sam and Jody discover both a place to look for Dean AND a way to kill Vesta. They need a virgin’s blood. “A real virgin,” Jody tells Sam exasperatedly. They head off to find Tammy, hissing queen of virgin county.

Tammy thinks their request for her blood sounds like something “pagan.” And honestly, if someone I’d just met asked for my blood I would NOT BE ACCOMMODATING. Nor should you, friendos. Jody punches Tammy in the nose and acquires her blood the canny way, by staunching some from her face for their weapon. Do NOT mess with Jody.

Sam and Jody investigate an old barn. Sam finds the entrance to the tunnels but Vesta gets to him and tosses him across the barn, knocking him out. As one does. Vesta corners Jody, who proceeds to delight me. “Really, this is how a goddess acts?” Jody asks, utterly unimpressed. Vesta decides that beating up Jody is the more interesting activity, revealing in her villain speech that she’s taken up pursuing sacrifices on her own. She ties Jody to an altar, preparing to eat her liver.

Sam tackles Vesta from behind while Jody tries to attack with the blood-tipped stake. It backfires (for Jody, at least). Jody gets stabbed in the chest. Y I K E S

At this point, our three hunters each fight their own battles. Jody pulls the stake out of her chest. Dean painstakingly unscrews the hatch with a pair of scissors. And Sam gets liver-probed by Vesta, who then declares that his liver is TRASHED. (Okay, I totally forgot this was season 9 until commentary on the state of Sam’s health.) “How are you alive?” Vesta demands. While Sam’s staring gormlessly at Vesta, Jody comes up behind her and stabs the heck out of her, killing the goddess. Dean breaks out of the dungeon a moment later. Timing!

Cut to later. Jody hoists her bag on her shoulder to head back home. “I’d tell you boys to stay out of trouble but what’s the point?” WORD. After she heads out, Sam brings up the troubling news from Vesta.

Sam’s worried about his health. Dean tries to come clean, but “Ezekiel” aka Gadreel tells him the Sam’s still too unwell and would likely die if he expelled the angel. When Sam zaps back into his head, Dean deflects and sad music plays us out.

These Quotes are a Construct:

This wackadoo stuff keeps coming. More I know, better armed I'll be

Well, I'll be a squirrel in a skirt

Congratulations, Sam and Dean Winchester. You are both virgins.

Dragons? Those are a thing?

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #spn 9x08 #rock and a hard place #jody mills #supernatural season 9

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nxncydrews · 4 years

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midnight in salem: a review

Your girl finally beat Midnight in Salem last night and...I have thoughts. Feelings. Concerns. But also hope? This review is like a year late but whatever. Overall, I didn’t hate the game nearly as much as I thought I would, and I was fully prepared to loathe it. Spoilers are under the cut for anyone who hasn’t played it yet! (also...it’s long lol)

The general gist of it is this: Midnight in Salem is an okay game. There are some glaring issues that I’ll talk about in more detail, but there is a foundation that I feel is strong for the future. Even with the problems I saw I don’t think MID is the weakest in the series (MED and RAN still claim those spots). Let’s break it down.

Good: the mystery. Although I guessed Teegan’s role in the fire early on, I thought the overall storyline was compelling and that they did a good job of intertwining the characters and motivations in ways that wasn’t super obvious. The one problem I did have with the story is I felt like I couldn’t follow up with characters as much as I wanted to. For example, you can go upstairs in the museum and discover pretty early on that the Parry family changed their name from Parris but you can’t ask Teegan about it until she brings it up much later in the game—and even then it’s not something you prompt, it’s something she just gives up. I also think I found out about things in dialogue before I was supposed to as though branches of the dialogue tree were incorrectly crossed. Despite that, I think the mystery was good...just needed a little more refining to pull it all together. There were also a few threads that didn’t get tied up (do we just assume that Jason mimicked Olivia’s smoke bombs because he watched her in the square?).

Bad: the linearity. The thing that I loved (and hated) about past games was that you could hit moments where it wasn’t always clear where you were supposed to go next. With MID, however, you were led from location to location with little reason to return to other places when you finished the single task you needed to do. You would start at the Parry’s house, go to town square, make one trip out to Hathorne House, go back to the town square and repeat the next with a random trip to Lauren’s shop instead of Hathorne. And with the lack of locations to begin with...it just felt like it was a small game without much to do. That said, some of my favorite games have had a much smaller setting (TRT, for example) and did it well. So perhaps this issue could’ve been fixed with more complexity added to the puzzles and additional side quests.

Good: the voice acting and characters. Look, I loved Lani as Nancy Drew and she will always have a special place in my heart, but the new voice of Nancy has won me over. She’s got the exact type of energy I imagine and had a more modern voice. I do think she was one of the weakest voice actors in the game (random lines seemed to feel out of place emotionally, but that could just as much be on the editing team as the voice actor), but I still liked her overall. The rest of the voice cast was also great, which helped to carry a script that I felt was weak at moments—there were times when the dialogue was just...bad. The characters as a whole felt unique and fun, and I really loved the interactions between Deirdre and the Hardy Boys. I would argue that the strongest part of the game is the characters, even if I do think they could’ve gone further with some of the friendships and relationships that were hinted throughout the game (Judge Danforth and Jason, Mei and Jason, Teegan/Olivia/Lauren, etc). I also liked that the characters felt more alive...moving around, in multiple places, etc. The positioning of characters when they followed you was...unfortunate at times. Deirdre scared me every time I turned around and navigating the tunnels at the end of the game was nearly impossible with how characters constantly blocked your view.

Bad: the graphics. This is obviously something that has been complained about since the beginning, and it’s for good reason: the graphics were lackluster. I have a pretty good laptop so I was able to play on high settings, but even then they weren’t nearly as good as I was expecting for how long they worked on the game. The character models are one of the most glaring issues: choppy and awkward animations, a lack of texture and shadows, and those really freaky eyes. The environments, though slightly better, still felt as though they were built from unity assets that the developers picked up off online stores and threw together. I couldn’t stand looking at the leaf piles on the ground or the street outside the Parry house because they were so incredibly flat. The final puzzle scenes felt better to me, as did Olivia’s shop and even the graveyard, so it’s clear that they can do better, but that level (or even higher level) of detail needs to be present in everything. The lighting is another huge issue—it was extremely flat in most parts of the game and took away a lot of the mood that could’ve been set. That said, I think graphics can be improved....if they put in the money and resources.

Good: the puzzles and interact-able objects. The puzzles that we did have in the game were fun and varying, which I think is important in mystery games. Some of the controls in the puzzles were really frustrating (more on the controls later), but there wasn’t a puzzle that I flat-out couldn’t solve. I also liked the way we could rotate objects and see all sides of them but again, the controls were a little frustrating.

Bad: the number of puzzles. There just wasn’t enough puzzles for me, particularly puzzles that directly affected the storyline. For example, you can find a ripped-up note in the trash can in the Parry house but it’s never referenced again and you don’t actually need to do it to solve the mystery. Same with the piece of the flyer you find in the scarecrow. I think I saw a reddit thread or a post here that suggested things with book sorting or doing stuff with displays in the museum as additional puzzles and I 100% agree that they’d be great (and easy) additions to the storyline. Or maybe even helping Olivia with doing her store inventory (as we see on her list that she clearly doesn’t want to do it).

Good: the mini-games. I loved the pumpkin quest and making johnny cakes (though I wish we could’ve actually made the various recipes and not have done the flipping part 6 times). I also loved making the herb mixtures! I honestly don’t have any complaints here. I think there was a good amount of them and they were fun to come back to.

Bad: the controls. While I appreciate what HER was trying to do with the controls, I really don’t think they worked. The “looking around” in a scene is cool in theory, but the actual act of dragging around an object was tedious and frustrating. The movement through the town square was really annoying, too—it took me forever to get from one side to the other. I think the yellow glow around the cursor when you found something to interact with could be a little more prominent, too. I think if HER wants to continue using this setup then they need to fix the cursor sensitivity to deal with how slow looking around a scene can be when dragging. I think we also could’ve done with a way to read the logs of conversations because I definitely missed a few things when I looked away for a second.

Good: Deirdre. Shannon. I love her. So much. She’s absolutely fantastic. Her snark was great and I really appreciated how they gave her autonomy and actively contribute to the case. I would’ve loved for her to be playable (like maybe we follow her to do research on the town or search for the will), but I can’t complain about the amount we saw her. Her scenes with the Hardy Boys were some of my favorite in game....and I really hope we continue to have her as a phone contact in future games (if not see her in person again!).

Bad: no charm. Despite some high points with characters and the mystery, overall this game just lacked the charm of the past. I know some of this stems from moving to Unity and the subsequent changes to graphics and models, but I really feel like so much of the uniqueness to the games was stripped away as well. There are some easy changes that I think could fix this, starting with the UI and dialogue display and working to improve the lighting and character models. Nancy Drew needs a small amount of grittiness, I think, and a clean, modern look just doesn’t feel right.

Good: throwbacks to old games. I appreciated that there were some throwbacks to old games mixed in as you went and that some of our old familiar easter eggs popped up (Koko Kringle candy, for one!). I like to think that the black cats in Olivia’s shop were throwbacks to Suki from SAW (though that one is unlikely) and there was also a mention of a Waverly Academy, though I think this was either a mistake or unintentional because the letter is for an art school and Waverly was a boarding school. I was hoping for a Kate Drew reference when on the phone with Carson, but alas. Here’s hoping they continue to bring past games into new ones.

Bad: the lack of depth. I felt like overall the game only scratched the surface of what it could’ve in terms of bringing in more history and complexity. The lack of puzzles and overly-linear story made it a pretty quick solve and the characters, though interesting, could’ve done with more interaction with each other. More puzzles, more history, and more side quests could’ve helped with this immensely. (Oh, and get rid of the ridiculous side love triangle and manufactured drama with Ned and Nancy. That’s something worth it’s own post, however.)

tl;dr I wouldn’t go so far to say that MID was a roaring success or met the expectations I had for the game, but I do think there is hope for the future if we get more games. The mystery was solid and there are some good things that came from it, but they’ve got a lot of work to do to bring the next game back to the quality level that we saw in past eras. If anything, this did make me want to play through all the old games in order again, which I haven’t wanted to do in years.

Time to go open photoshop and make all the Mei/Jason and Frank/Deirdre graphics and get back in the edit game!

#mid #midnight in salem #clue crew #nancy drew #midnight in salem review

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mimzy-writing-online · 5 years

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Writing Blind and Visually Impaired Characters: Tropes

Hmm, I decided to work on part three before I got to part two. Forgive me.

This is part three of a multi-step series I’m writing on how to write a good visually impaired or blind character. The master post with links is here: https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185122795699/writing-a-blind-or-visually-impaired-character

The Master Post will include links to all parts. All posts of this multi-step guide and all guides I make in the future about blind characters will be tagged blindcharacter on my blog.

Disclaimer: I am a visually impaired writer and blogger who has written two blind characters thus far. I have been living with vision loss for two years, have had my cane for almost as long, and every day I strive to learn all there is to know about writing and living my life blind.

Part Three: Tropes and Cliches to Avoid, and Other Things You Should Avoid

Blind Character Tropes You Need to Avoid

ALL blind characters wear sunglasses ALL the time. It’s actually not true, especially if that character has some remaining vision and they don’t wish to harder to see by using dark lenses. Sometimes a blind person will wear sunglasses, but you should consider the reason why.

1) People who are painfully light sensitive (like me) will wear glasses when it’s a bright, sunny day.

2) People who are really into fashion and like to accessorize their outfit with sunglasses will totally do that.

3) People who aren’t very light sensitive but want to protect their eyes from the sun will use sunglasses.

Notice that those last three apply to sighted people too, there are lots of sighted people who have a little sensitivity to the sun, or like accessorizing their beachy outfit or like protecting their eyes

Additional reasons for wearing sunglasses: sometimes you feel sighted strangers are not taking your blindness seriously enough when you ask for help, so you pull on your sunglasses and approach them a second time with your cane hoping they will take you seriously this time. (sighted people are dumb sometimes)

Disclaimer: I am the cliche, but that’s because I’m so painfully light sensitive I can’t walk outside without sunglasses. Light gives me massive migraines, including headlights, so yes, I am that person who wears sunglasses day and night. But does your character see like me? Do they need sunglasses the way I do?

Blind Child Prodegy. I see this most with musical instruments, especially piano. I’m sure lots of blind people learned an instrument, but I doubt they all became prodegies specifically because of their vision loss. If they are that good, then you probably need to explain all the hours of studious education and how they learned songs (do they have enough vision to read music?) It’s more that it’s a shallow and boring trope that’s the problem.

Daredevil. Your character might have some weird sensitivity issues, but it won’t make them blind ninjas. Sure, maybe your blind character can sense a specific smell out of all the others (I’m very sensitive to cleaning chemicals, they give me headaches) but it’s probably more of a problem than a gift. They may be more tuned into the sounds around them because they have to be, but they don’t hear a conversation happening a block away. Even with the most attuned senses, I don’t think anyone will ever be Daredevil. (Don’t get me wrong, I love the character, but he’s not who you should be writing. You’re not writing Daredevil. Daredevil already exists. Go write someone new.)

The Blind Psychic/Blind Witch: The most recent example I can think of is the new Sabrina show on Netflix with the blind friend losing her vision and then becoming psychic, as if that somehow makes it all better. If you’re going to have a blind character, they need to be blind. There’s no cheaty-cheat-cheats to make them see more than their blindness allows. If you really want your blind character to be psychic and have visions, then I suggest that the visions they have involve the same amount of sight they have in normal life. If they have tunnel vision in their real life, then their psychic visions appear with their usual tunnel vision.

Your blind characters don’t need a magical ability that negates their blindness. If they have it, then why did you make them blind? What was the point? Really ask yourself why you want to give them this ability. If it’s because they can’t do all the things you want to do without it, then should you really have made them blind in the first place? Could you potentially think of other ways for them to accomplish all these cool things?

Super Powered Seeing Eye Dog. This is something I’ve seen in a handful of fanfiction, where the seeing eye dog is somehow super smart and knows everything about their environment and is just super on point about their whole job. Just, not a normal dog. It’s not a good idea and you shouldn’t do it, even in fantasy genres. Your blind character’s guide dog should be a dog who was thoroughly trained by a guide dog foundation, and they should act like a regular dog when they don’t have their harness and are off-duty. Service dogs are still normal dogs when they’re off duty and still love play time with their humans and walks and naps.

For good guide dog examples, check out Molly Burke’s guide dog Gallop. She’s got a whole video playlist about it and it’s amazing.

The Cloudy, Distorted Eye Look- You’ve probably seen a few blind characters where their eyes are cloudy and weird looking. This trope is actually very inaccurate and a little harmful because it alters the way the general public sees blind people. Most people living with vision loss have fairly normal looking eyes. Some even have beautiful eyes. Unless the way your character went blind and their over all condition calls for their eyes to look messed up (chemical burn, severe cataracts, something like that) they will probably have normal looking eyes.

An exception to this is Nystagmus, which is a condition that causes a person’s eyes to continually shake. It’s pretty common in people with eye conditions and vision loss. To the outside perspective the character’s eyes might be shaking from side to side or shaking in circles. From the perspective of someone with this condition, it might be disorientating. Lights and images they see will shake because their eyes are shaking.

Molly Burke has had it all her life and has done a video or two on it. She likes to refer to it by saying that her eyes are dancing. (Molly Burke also has really pretty eyes) Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBB8nIz9FW0&list=PL_Xm8PicNxr3noS93q_K3-fu9WO5ZSnlW&index=16

That’s one of the few conditions that might change the appearance of eyes without you falling into trope territory because it’s very common for people with vision loss to have it.

Specific Writing Cliches to Avoid

Or, in other words, cliches that will make your readers drop what they’re reading the second they see it (especially the blind ones who are dying for some good blind character representation)

“Sam, will you tell me what color looks like.” I don’t actually know who Sam is, but someone asked someone to describe color. This cliche is just dead. It’s not a super meaningful moment between characters anymore. Maybe it was the first time, but now five thousand different people have done it with virtually the same dialogue, so not it’s just cliche. Think about it like this, you only have so much time in a story to allow your characters to connect to each other, and only so many words in a book to allow your readers to connect to the character. Don’t waste them on something like describing color. Let them have a meaningful moment that’s unique to them..

If you must know how to describe color to someone who’s blind, I did like the video where Molly Burke had Gabby Hanna describe color to her. Gabby Hanna did a very good job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2YBkZCRTGA

Still, it’s not a meaningful moment between characters anymore and doing it in your story will make people sigh heavily and walk away. (trust me, I’ve done it to many fanfictions involving blind characters)

“Can I feel your face?” NO! Please don’t ever do this. It’s so bad. It’s so cringey. It’s not real, blind people don’t do that. Some sighted person made that up in Hollywood and the blind community is permanently mad about it. Blind readers will drop your story the second they read that sentence. Don’t. Do. It.

“What do you look like?” This isn’t an absolute -never do it- but I wouldn’t recommend it. I honestly don’t know how you could use this sentence and not have it sound cringey somehow. There are ways to get around it though, and it depends on why your blind character wants to know. Love interest? Get your blind character’s best friend to tell them what the love interest looks like. Curious what your new friend looks like? Get your other friends or even parents who met them to describe the character.

“When I see Amy I see dark storm clouds over choppy waves, I hear lightning cracking and pouring rain, I feel fire and smell...” “When I think of Adam I think of warm sunlit meadows and the feeling of summer, I think of cloudless skies and quiet nights and...” I’m not sure I could do that any more. No, before you get mad, I’m not saying you can’t use this sort of writing style ever. I’m not telling you to cut out beautiful imagery that your characters associate with their loved ones, that’s not it at all. I’m saying this shouldn’t be the way your blind character describes every character they know. The reason this comes up is because in the ONE book I EVER found in stores involving a blind main character, she described all of her family members with imagery like that. And then brought her house pet to school as a fake seeing eye dog in the second chapter. I never read past that, no matter how hard I tried. It’s been years and I’m still super offended and I just get more and more offended by that book as I grow into my adult life and write my own books.

What you should do instead of that thing is show what kind of people your characters are through their actions and their dialogue. The example above is almost a tell instead of show example anyway, because you’re telling me Amy is like dark storm clouds before I get more than two sentences of dialogue from her and I’m not sure if I believe you about this meadow boy either.

I’m trying to remember other cliches that have bothered me before, but it’s eleven at night and I’ve been working on this guide for three or four hours now.

We’ll move on to-

What to Avoid in General

Or, things I never want to see happen to blind characters

Your blind characters should not be bullied in their high school. While I wasn’t blind in high school, there were two girls who were blind at the school I attended for 7-9 grade. As far as I know, nobody gave them any trouble. My sister was actually friends with one of them when I left that school and went into homeschooling.

The bullying you see in TV high schools is not that accurate anyway. The current generation of students is seeing a decrease in bullying compared to older generations. While the bullying situation is not perfect, teenagers usually know better than to bully the blind child. (they will probably bully other children instead, children who aren’t neuro-typical or pretty or thin or white)

What I’m saying is I don’t want to see your blind character getting the shit kicked out of them for being blind. I want to see your character finding their community and enjoying their time with their friends.

Please don’t make your characters suicidal after going blind. Disability is a hard thing to live with. People do go through depression when adjusting to a new disability, and yes, some of them are suicidal because of that disability. But books and stories are a way of escaping, especially for someone who lives with that disability. They want to see someone like them who feels happy and loved, not read someone who’s on the verge of ending their life for half a book or more.

It’s another one of those “why are you making your character blind?” Is it to make them suffer? Don’t do it. Blind people don’t exist to suffer, they exist to live their lives and hopefully be happy. Are they blind to make their life more dramatic? Blindness causes drama, yes, but that shouldn’t be your only source of plot.

Please don’t let your blind character’s family treat them badly because they’re blind. Emphasis on the because. Children do grow up in abusive homes, but your character’s family shouldn’t become abusive because your character is blind. Having a character that grew up in an abusive household because they have shitty parents is fine, and if they just happen to be blind and their parents never change, fine, but to be honest?

You shouldn’t victimize your disabled characters. You shouldn’t mistreat them purely because you can.

Follow this blog for more writing advice (for more than just blind characters)

#writing #writing advice #writeblr #writing tips #blindcharacter #tw suicude #tw bullies #tw bullying #my advice #mine

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jungshookz · 5 years

Note

drabble where jimin is very clingy and friendly and y/n is really quiet and grouchy but warms up to jimin? oof pls or not its all cool ily and ur work sm

→ pairing: park jimin x reader

→ genre: nonidol!au, college!au, jimin is bending over baCKWArds for u, brownies are the solution to every problem

→ wordcount: 3k

→ note: thank u thank u!!!! i whipped this baby out in two hours because i got excited at the thought of grouchy y/n so if it’s a little choppy i apologize and ALSO i’m literally never getting over this gif of jimin

(gif isn’t mine!)

jimin didn’t think it was possible for someone to be moRe quiet and grouchy than yoongi

but here you are

y/n y/l/n

physical proof that it is indeed possible for someone to be more quiet and grouchy than yoongi

it really is no wonder as to why you and yoongi get along so well (he’ll never admit that he’s a lil bit jealous of that fact)

the only difference between u and yoongi is that yoongi actually likes him

and

he’s pretty sure you hate him which isn’t great

because jimin likes to be liked!!!!!!!! in fact he loVEs to be liked!!!!!! in fact HE WOULD KILL TO BE LIKED

teehee!

he’s most definitely a people person

you are not a people person

you don’t give a rat’s ass if someone doesn’t like you

that’s one less person to deal with biTch

you kinda just float around and do your own thing

you’re the complete opposite of jimin and usuaLLY he likes to stay away from people like you (no offence) ((and also yoongi is an exception))

..,.,so he can’t quite seem to figure out why he’s developed a teeny weeny little crush on you

“good morning, friends!” jimin chirps and plops down on the ground next to jungkook

you tilt your head up to roLL your eyes and resist the urge to get up and leave

“already?” yoongi snorts nudges your side with his elbow and you shrug in response before leaning back against your palms and crossing one ankle over the other

it’s not like you don’t like the guy

it’s just that you don’t like the guy

you don’t know what it is about him

maybe he’s too chipper for you

yeah

he talks too much

you fully support the notion that if there is a moment of silence it doesn’t always have to be filled up with bLabbing

silence is good

also he’s a try-hard

he seems to have a thing where he just neeDs evERyone to fall in love with him (which sounds exhausting to u)

evEryone who bumps into jimin immediately falls in love with him and you honestly?? don’t understand it

what’s so great about the guy?????

also his giggling is irritating and he does so much of it

not everything is funny

but to be fair you’re a pretty tough nut to crack

the last time you actually laughed was when jungkook tripped going up the stairs and his smoothie flew like ten feet up into the air and proceeded to splatter all over him ((you told him not to tell anyone this otherwise u would kick his ass but u ended up giving him your smoothie and u helped clean him up))

what else do you not like about jimin

the almost twinkly sound of his giggle

how helpful and kind and caring and thoughtful and generous he is to everyone

his pouty pillowy lips

his obviously dyed head of dirty blonde hair that always happens to be perfectly tousled and always looks so soft and silky and you would love to run your fingers through-

“y/n, you got any plans for the weekend?” jimin smiles brightly at you as he pulls his lunch out

you stare right back at him before raising an eyebrow and cocking your head to the side as if to say ‘do i fuckin look like i wanna tell u all about my weekend plans u nosy leech’

you shrug

jimin waits patiently for a response

and then it hits him that that was your response

taehyung clears his throat

“well if anyone wants to know about my weekend i’m going to go to this super cool flea market-“

“what do you have for lunch today, y/n? i-i have a sandwich! a turkey sandwich. do you like turkey sandwiches?” jimin tries again and taehyung lets out a quiet sigh before looking at the others like hEre we go again

“what’s not to like about a thin piece of meat in between two slices of white bread?” you respond cooly as you pluck at the grass

jimin buRsts into laughter before pointing a finger gun at you “good one! that was a good one!!”

jungkook winces and looks around to make sure no one else is observing this awkward exchange because yiKEs

“.,,.i don’t get the joke.” hoseok mumbles

jin shakes his head disappointedly “was that even a joke?? what was the punchline??”

namjoon presses his lips together before giving both jin and hobi a pat on the shoulder “.,.,.don’t worry bout it”

everyone knows about jimin’s crush on you

it’s not just limited to people in the group of course

everyone with working eyes knows about jimin’s crush on you

taehyung has tried many mAny times to tell jimin to just move on because it’s clear the romantic feelings aren’t being reciprocated and every time jimin opens his mouth to speak your eyes roll to the back of your head

you’re very nice once you warm up to someone and luckily taehyung has experienced that but he’s not sure if jimin is going to get the Nice Y/N package any time soon

he just doesn’t want jimin to get his heart broken that’s all

“i don’t get it. what am i doing wrong??” jimin groans loudly and taehyung huffs because it’s obvious they’re not going to get through this movie tonight

he lowers the volume on the television before turning to glance at the other boy (who is currently screaming into a pillow) ((which is very hard to ignore))

“i’m telling you, bro - just give up. give uP!!!!!” taehyung snatches the pillow from jimin

jimin immediately pushes his bottom lip out in a pout “but-“

“she doesn’t like you. she doesn’t liKE YOU”

“you don’t know that!!!!!!”

“jimin, come on! we’ve had this conversation like a hundred times and each time you say you’re going to get over her and then the next day you pull a ‘heY y/N do u like turkey SandWiches’ stunT and i swear you fall even more in love when she flicks hair over her shoulder and glares at you in response-“

“what the heLL are you two talking about so loudly?” tae and jimin both turn when yoongi makes his way down the stairs

he lets out a yawn before stretching his arms out “i’m taking a nap and it would be greatly appreciated if you’d just-“

“hyung, get over here and help me make jimin realise that y/n doesn’t like him!” taehyung whines

yoongi furrows his brows

“…why would i help you with that?”

tae gawks at him

“wha- why noT-“

“because y/n likes him. a lot.” yoongi states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the entire world

wait

what

jimin squAwks

“SHE WHAT-“

yoongi immediately winces

maybe it was a bad idea to tell him that

“wait wait wAIT how do you know- like, did she tell you that she liked m- should i text her?? call her?????” jimin fumbles around for his phone and taehyung snatches it from him before he can do anything

“calm down, romeo.” yoongi snorts before taking a seat on the sofa chair and grabbing the remote

“oh my god- he’s obviously fucking around with you, you dumbass.” taehyung scowls before glaring at yoongi “thanks a lot-“

“no, i’m serious!” yoongi raises his hands in defence “just don’t talk to her on monday and see what happens.”

“if i don’t talk to her then how will i-” jimin huffs and crosses his arms “whatever, tae’s right, you’re just fucking around with me-“

“no, i’m serious!!!!!” yoongi scoffs “don’t talk to her. see what happens.”

“don’t tell me you’re actually falling for this bullshit.” taehyung deadpans

he can see the gears click-click-clicking away in jimin’s little blonde head

jimin shifts in his spot and clears his throat “.,.it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try”

taehyung resists the urge to beat boTh jimin and yoongi to death with the throw pillow

monday rolls around pretty quickly

jimin is ready to taCKle the new week

but he’s also ready to tackle the new challenge of not talking to you and pretending as if you don’t exist

“good morning, everyone!” jimin greets brightly “how was your weekend…”

tae winces

o god

he’s already failed

“namjoon?”

huh

okay

smooth sailings so far

you look up from your phone immediately

your brows knit together in confusion

it’s not that you care or anything but like

usually you’re the first person he talks to after he sits down

whatever

it’s whatever

it’s not like you would’ve given him a good response anyway

“uh, it was alright! i didn’t do that much… how was your-“

“it was good! tae and i watched the new avengers movie which was super exciting!!” jimin pulls out his lunch and you spoT the familiar turkey sandwich

“oh hey!!! i watched that last week!! did you guys like it????”

you’re not really paying attention to the conversation between the guys

he threw in some lettuce and tomatoes today!

and you see some mustard peeking out

you clear your throat quietly and sit up a little straighter as if expecting jimin to ask whether you like lettuce and tomatoes and spicy mustard in your sandwiches to whiCH you will respond ‘what’s not to like about lettuce and tomatoes and spicy mustard in my sandwiches?’ and he will respond with his usual HAHAHAHA GOOD ONE Y/N

jimin takes a bite of his sandwich and turns to listen to namjoon rambling about the avengers while jin whines and begs him to noT spoil the whole damn thing for him

jimin takes another biG bite and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand

his cheeks resemble that of a chipmunk

it’s cute

wait what

no it’s not

it’s gross

yeaH it’s grOSS

“ooh, you know what else i did over the weekend? i made brownies!” jimin perks up before turning to rummage through his bag

okAY NOW he’s definitely going to talk to you because he knows you like brownies (he’s brought everyone brownies on several occasions and you’ve always accepted them with a grunt and a barely audible ‘thanks’) and you know for a fact he’s going to offer them to you fiRST >:-)

and you can’t wait because ur favourite piece is the middle piece and u and yoongi always fight over it (obviously u always get it because jimin undoubtedly plays favourites)

“yep! fresH, homemade brownies for everyone!” jimin tosses the brownies at everyone around the circle and your toes wiggle in your shoes in anTicipation

you’ve been craving something sweet all day

“ooh, sweEt i got the middle piece.” yoongi mutters under his breath and your head snaps to look at the brownie piece he just caught

wait a sec-

WAIT A SECOND

okay maybe there’s another middle piece for you

you wait patiently and even find yourself offering a meek little smile in jimin’s general direction (which he deFINitely noticed and will shamelessly admit that it made his heart skip a beat)

and then jimin just-

he zips up his backpack

but

where’s your piece???

you look around the circle and frown when you see everyone enjoying their brownies

“good brownie, jimin!” tae haMS it up after taking a bite

jungkook practically shoves the entire thing into his mouth like a maniac

meanwhile yoongi shoots jimin a subtle thumbs up before gesturing over to you

jimin’s eyes flicker over to you and you two lock gazes for a second before you’re flushing and looking down at the ground

you proceed to pluCK at the grass a little more aggressively than usual and jimin nEARLY coos when he notices your little pout

hook

line

and

sinker

but also he feels kind of bad because his intention wasn’t to make u sad

:((((

“see you guys later!”

“uGh i’m going to late for my history lecture - bye guys!!”

“thanks for the brownies, jimin!”

usually you just sliP away quietly when the end of lunch rolls around but uh

you can’t help but feel like there’s a tiny issue here

“see ya later, loserrrr” yoongi gives your arm a little punch and you scowl before swatting at his hand

and then there were two

you turn to glance over your shoulder to see jimin packing his lunch bag up quietly

a part of you wants to just pretend this lunch didn’t even happen and just spRInt off the field as quickly as possible

and the other part of you-

“hey.”

“oh. hey!” jimin smiles politely and swings his backpack over his shoulder before pointing behind you “my next class is in the maple building so i- woAH”

needless to say jimin is very much surprised when you grab his wrist and yank him over so that that the two of you are standing directly under the oak tree

“how come i-“ you clear your throat before diverting your gaze to the ground

hUH

usually jimin is the one diverting his gaze

interESting

“-ʰᵒʷ ᶜᵒᵐᵉ ᶦ ᵈᶦᵈⁿ’ᵗ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵃ ᵇʳᵒʷⁿᶦᵉ ᵗᵒᵈᵃʸ”

“how come you didn’t get a brownie today?” jimin repeats “is that it? you just wanted a brownie?”

“well i- i don’t…“

“look, y/n, i actually have a class to get to, so if the brownie is all you’re wanting, i can just bake a new batch tonight and bring you one tomorrow.”

the apples of your cheeks go bright pink

“it’s not just the brownies…”

“then what is it?”

goD

you hate this

your brows knit together in frustration before you look up at jimin with a little glare

“today, you didn’t… talk to me…. at all, and you didn’t…. ask me about my weekend,” you stumble a little over your words because this is a verY unfamiliar situation and you honestly don’t know what you want out of your soon-to-be ramble is but pOp off i guess “-a-and today you had tomatoes and lettuce and mustard in your sandwich and you didn’t ask me if i liked tomatoes and lettuce and mustard in my sandwiches because i would’ve replied with ‘what’s not to like about tomatoes and lettuce and mustard in my sandwiches?’ and then you would do your usual stupid dorky finger gun thing-“

you can’t seem to stop the straight up word vomit just floWing out of your mouth and you haven’t even noticed that you’ve taken a teeny step closer to jimin and he has done exaCtly the same

“and you always give mE a brownie first when you bring ‘em but i-i didn’t get one and not to mention you gave yoongi the middle piece but you already know that the middle piece is mY favourite- mMpH-!”

your brain immediately shuts down when jimin tugs you in and leans down to plant his lips against yours

and as cheesy as it is

time stands still

it almost feels like your soul floated out of your body

like you’re floating in space

this is.,., nice

his lips are awfully soft

and he smells good too

,.,.wait a second

jimin’s kissing you

you’re kissing jimin

YOU GUYS ARE KISSING

you don’t get a chaNce to react before jimin pulls away

he giggles softly when you chase after his lips but soon enough you snap out of your little daze and stumble backwards a little

whAT FHE TUCK

what is going on

what the heCK is going on

“you- i- we-“ you stammer and blink wiLdly at jimin

“we?” jimin tilts his head and smiles innocently “oh, by the way-“ he takes his backpack off one shoulder and digs through it

he holds out a neatly wrapped square “of course i brought a brownie for you. this batch was extra big so there were two middle pieces.”

you take it from him cautiously before unwrapping it

yep

that’s a middle piece alright

the corner of your mouth twitches in a tiny smile before you let out a huff and whiP around to start trudging down the grassy hill

jimin’s shoulders droop in disappointment

shit

maybe yoongi did set him up

oh god

and he kissed you too

that was wAY too bold of a move

now you’re definitely never going to talk to him again

FRicK

but it wasn’t his fault!!!!!! he thought that-

“oi! you coming?” jimin’s eyes widen when he sees you standing at the bottom of the hill with a hand on your hip “i’m not getting any younger here!!” you turn around and continue the trek off the field

jimin grins widely and pulls his backpack back on

he catches up to you in no time and his heart soArs when you clutch his hand in yours

“does this mean you’ll finally answer me when i ask you how your weekend was?”

“absolutely not.”

help me help you make your wishes come tru (aka send me a request)

drabble tag

1K notes · View notes

aswallowssong · 4 years

Text

Second Child, Restless Child

Chapter 5 - The Devil in Me

@valkyrie-5583

Read on AO3

The second part of a gap fill for 1x13, Poison. TW for illness, hospitals, and drug mentions. Also super minor character death?

After JJ, Reid, and Hotch learn a little more about Kit's family, the nurse-out-of-water feels the effects of the field crash over her. As she and Gideon continue to butt heads, she wonders how this is ever going to work. She's helpful in her own right, but if she can't get the respect and the support of the whole team, how will she ever belong?

The ride to the hotel was comfortable enough. Reid and Kit sat in the back while JJ sat in the passenger seat, and the communications liaison took her chance to pick and pry when Kit couldn’t escape her questions. She’d been trying since the moment Kit had been shuffled onto their team, but Kit had been able to avoid it thus far. She hated ‘get to know you’ questions, as they reminded her of terrible high school teachers and their lack-luster ice breakers.

“So, Kit, do you have siblings?”

Kit nodded, though the woman couldn't see her. She’d play along, of course, and this was an easy question. She loved talking about her siblings.

“Oh, yeah. There’s nine of us.”

Reid made a sound next to her that sounded like choking, but when she looked he wasn’t dying. He was instead, astonished.

“Nine?”

“Yeah,” she said easily, “nine.”

Hotch knew that, he’d read her file, but he asked anyway, “What number are you?”

“Five,” Kit said before smiling, “sort of? There’s Wash, and then Ginny and Seese. Ari, and Monty, and I. Then George, and Alex, and Lina’s the baby.”

“That puts you sixth,” Reid said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Kit was suddenly ten years old.

Didn’t we just have a pseudo heart-to-heart about being treated like a child?

Kit tried not to roll her eyes before she remembered that the only one who knew about Ari and Monty was Morgan. And, probably Hotch, of course.

“Ari and Monty and I are triplets,” she said evenly, “and technically, I was born second of the three of us.”

“Wow,” JJ said, “triplets? I can’t imagine what that would be like.”

“It’s great, actually,” Kit assured, not being able to stop the spreading smile on her face. “We get along really well. Monty and I are actually monozygotic twins, which means-”

“Monozygotic twins, often called identical twins, are the result of one egg fertilized by one sperm that experiences postzygotic division.”

Reid’s voice was rougher than before, telling of the fact that the medicine she’d given him had worn off, as he effectively cut her off. She tried not to take offense at him interrupting her and telling her about her own fetal development. He’d interrupted others in several conversations. Regardless, she felt her lips tug into a frown.

“Exactly. My Gran used to say that Monty and I have twin souls, though my mam and dad have always said that Ari was one half of the soul, and we were the other half, you know, together.”

JJ turned all the way around in her seat, grinning as she listened to Kit speak of her family.

“So, Ari and Monty are nicknames, right?”

Kit nodded again, frown dissipating.

“Right. My parents immigrated from Ireland, and they spoke Irish, or Gaelic, better than English. They wanted to stick out less, or so they say, so they, well,” she thought for a moment before she couldn’t stop the small giggle forcing its way up her throat. “They thought it would be a really good idea to name their kids after the states. Like, literal American states.”

“Like Dakota,” Hotch offered, and Kit wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, like Dakota. My family all call me Kody, but I prefer Kit.”

“And Monty is, what? Montana?” JJ asked, now looking determined. As if it was some kind of game.

Kit nodded again, saying, “Exactly. The thing is that some states, like thankfully Dakota, are names. But some…” She shrugged lightly, “Not so much.”

“Can I guess?”

JJ, not surprising to Kit, was giving off a competitive energy that would rival the one she got off Morgan the few times they’d raced at the track.

“She could just tell us,” Reid offered, but JJ just scoffed.

“No way, Spence. You’re just afraid you’re going to lose.”

Reid narrowed his eyes at her, and though Kit could feel his slight trembling next to her, fever burning once again, she knew he wasn’t going to back down. He even gave her and JJ half a smirk before saying, “You’re on.”

In the end, it was Hotch that came up with a surprising upset. Reid was vehemently denying that ‘Seese’ was a nickname for Tennessee, and JJ was still upset that Reid won the “guess what number I’m thinking of” game and got to go first.

“No way that’s fair,” she’d complained when Reid gave a small, raspy noise of victory and guessed that Wash was short for Washington, obviously.

Hotch had gotten lucky and gone second, securing that George was actually Kit’s younger sister, Georgia, and had gotten that Lina was Carolina, the baby of their very large family.

“You went after Carolina right away, Hotch,” JJ said, laughing at Reid’s dejected mumbling. That was the second time he’d lost a game that day.

“Familiar territory.”

“Is that so?” Kit asked, raising an eyebrow at the stern man in the driver’s seat. “Did you work in their field office?”

“No, I worked in their Walmart,” he said simply, turning into the parking lot of their hotel. He didn’t add or give any more about it, and they didn’t pry, though Kit had to fight a grin at the idea that their stern unit chief could be secretly southern.

-----

Hotch checked in and passed them their keys, Kit taking hers with slightly wide eyes. She’d only stayed in a hotel a few times, and the idea that she was now left to her own devices in a hotel she’d never been in, in a state she didn’t know, really got her mind racing. She realized quickly that no one else was feeling the anxiety she was. They were all familiar with this, and it seemed to be easy for them to turn off the part of their brain that was working on the case.

Instead, she was running her brain, trying to think of anything she knew that could help them catch the unsub that was hurting these people. She dealt in people. People were her thing. People were the reason she had been assigned to the pilot position she was in. The reason she was in New Jersey when she could just as easily be home, getting ready for bed while she listened to Ari sing around their apartment as he got ready for his shift.

They would give the profile. The team would give the profile and she would watch with JJ. She would try to help however she was asked, and she would keep an eye on Reid while being sensitive to not treat him like a child.

She followed JJ and Reid up to their floor, Hotch having stayed to give the others their keys, and nodded and responded politely when JJ had wished her goodnight. Reid hadn’t done as much, though she had missed his attempt to get her attention before she’d closed her door behind her.

Once inside she drew what could have passed for her first real breath all day. Between Reid’s sniffling, apologizing to Morgan, the jet, the hospital, taking care of Reid without making him feel like a child, and tiptoeing around Gideon- Which didn’t even work! - Kit was stretched too thin. With the door shut, the only emotions she could pick up on were her own. Which, honestly, we’re never just her own.

Ari and Monty called them Big Feelings; them being the swelling and surging of her own emotions that were kept buried to grow as the day went on. She could tend to the needs of others and keep her own feelings in check, but the thing about Kit was that the more she dealt with others, the more the feelings being buried in her chest compounded. Try as she might, she couldn’t really differentiate between what she created herself and what she took from others.

Most days were perfectly fine. It wasn’t like everyone around her was melting down simultaneously, every single day. But some days, when there’d been so much and there were so many people and so many situations, she absolutely crashed.

In retrospect, she held on for longer than she thought she would, the deep, even breaths she was drawing distracting her from the energy that built. Her fingers working to unzip her go bag. She pulled out her pajamas, shedding her jacket and cardigan before making her way to take a shower.

She took out her contacts. Shed the rest of her clothes. Took her shower. Brushed her teeth. Braided her hair.

She kept her breathing even through every motion, changing into her pajamas and settling cross legged on the bed. Her fingers of her right hand tapped lightly on her thigh while the fingers of her left pulled tightly at her braided, sopping wet hair. The right braid was dripping clean shower water onto her shoulder, the left sending a slow cascade of water down her arm. She sat for five minutes that way, breathing evenly, staring at the blurry white wall in front of her and willing herself not to crash. Not to crash. Not to crash.

And then, she crashed.

All at once, everything in her body felt like it was vibrating. Her breaths came in hitches that were shallow and choppy, her chest heaving sharply with each one. Nothing like the pace she’d been trying to keep for that last fifteen minutes. They sputtered and cut each other off, tears running down her cheeks and falling in large drops, adding to where her braids had already left dark wet spots on her pale yellow tee shirt.

It wasn’t loud. It had never been loud, regardless of the way her mind seemed to be screaming. She was way too warm, warmer than she had been in the steaming water of the shower. Her chest ached with a flurry of feelings that flashed and passed so quickly she couldn’t hope to name them. It left her helpless, hands clenching and unclenching, fingers occasionally scratching up and down her arms or thighs. The emotional overload left her with internal mania and, other than her fingers roaming and tears flowing, external shutdown. She didn’t have to bury anymore. The emotional zombies of the last eighteen hours could come to light.

Ari always let her come down on her own time. Sometimes he held her tightly, and sometimes he left her to her own devices. Most of the time he stayed in the same space. On the couch opposite her. Sat at the kitchen table as she sat on the counter. Cross legged at the end of her bed. He didn’t try to have her put the thoughts or emotions into words. He didn’t press her or tell her it would be okay. That she was okay, because really, she wasn’t. He just let it pass.

She knew it could be as short as ten minutes or as long as forty five. One time, an hour, but that was the first time she’d lost a patient. The time didn’t matter as much to her. Ten or sixty, the number of minutes always felt like an eternity. She didn’t know how long it would take this time, sat in a New Jersey hotel room. Especially when on top of everything else, she felt so completely alone.

As far as Kit was aware, it could have been seven minutes or seven hours when the thing that finally grounded her back to the real world was a steady three-wrap knock at her door. Her hands stilled instantly, the deepest breath she’d taken since the wave crashed over her almost making her dizzy.

Her head swiveled towards the door, and it was a moment before her mind could catch up. She was in her hotel room. Someone was knocking on the door.

Get up and open it. Come on, Kody. Stand up and open the door.

She swallowed thickly, wiping a shaking hand down her face. The bed was close to the door, and while she sat staring at the door, the knock came again. Three wraps in rapid succession. Her brain started to catch up, the distraction pulling her out of the waves she was drowning in.

Hotch? Could it be Hotch? Did someone actually get poisoned this late at night? Gideon was right, she shouldn’t have said anything. Now it was going to be her fault and there would be disappointment and anger and annoyance and-

Stop.

It took longer than it should have for her to pull herself off of the mattress, shaking her head quickly as if to expel the internal debate. Everything in her chest told her not to get up, but her head won and allowed her to quickly scramble from her spot and pad across the room.

In hindsight, she should have checked to make sure she didn’t look like a complete disaster. She never had to worry about that at home, so it hadn’t crossed her mind how she might be perceived as she stood there; pajamas on, wet hair, flushed, tear tracks and red eyes against shaky pale skin.

She squinted at the person on the other side of the door once she all but flung it open. Tall. Dark hair. Tee shirt. Skinny. To her untrained and straining eyes, she was unsure who she was looking at.

Before the other person could speak she held up her hand, still trembling, and turned to dig in her backpack. The glasses she pulled out were seldom used, but she had lost a contact on three separate occasions in the last year, and she wasn’t going to fly half-blind into a crisis.

She turned, unceremoniously shoving the thin frames onto her face, and looked at her offender.

Spencer Reid. Pale as ever, clearly fever flushed, and looking at her with glassy-eyed concern.

“Are you crying?” is what he ended up asking before stifling a raspy coughing fit into his elbow.

Kit narrowed her burning eyes at him, but there were no lasers in her stare. Confusion, and exasperation, but not the lasers she’d set on him all those hours before.

“Do you need something? I thought you went to bed.”

He cleared his throat and winced, swallowing as if it was physically painful before he came up with, “I did. I was. Um, I mean, I was try-trying to? I, um.”

His hands came up to wring together at waist height, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. Uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable. Probably from having come into her personal space where she was very obviously having a very private meltdown.

“You were trying to… oh.” It took longer for her to piece together than it should have. Her mind was still foggy, trying to stay above the waves she’d just been so jarringly pulled from. “You were trying to sleep and you couldn’t.”

“Yes,” he supplied quickly, “Because, well,” he sighed, a hand going to run through his hair. He curled his arms over his chest then, clearing his throat again. “Because my head is pounding and I’m freezing and my throat hurts. And the stuff you had earlier helped. And I was… I was wondering if-”

She did cut him off now, having been careful not to up to that point, but she could feel his discomfort growing the longer he tried to explain himself. He was struggling to be vulnerable, and she wasn’t going to make it worse by allowing him to trip over himself longer than necessary.

“If I had more.”

“Yes.”

“Of course I do, sit down,” she supplied, gesturing awkwardly to the bed she’d just been sat on, taking a breath and straightening her shoulders.

She never had to turn back on after she’d let herself shut down. It was always, always in times where she knew she could be either asleep or a zombie for the rest of the night, and she was trying to fight back to functioning as she dug through her backpack once more.

She heard him take a moment before settling down on the bed, sniffling a few times in a way that made Kit want to scream, but instead just caused her to dig more frantically.

Blue pills. Blue pills. Come on, Dakota, where are they? Why is your bag such a mess? Why are you such a mess? Reid probably thinks you can’t handle this, and how he’s going to tell Gideon, and they’re going to tell Hotch, and-

“Are you okay?”

Her hands froze in between a wrist brace and a bottle of ibuprofen.

“Yes,” she said evenly, though her whole body tensed, “Why do you ask?”

“Well,” he said quietly, “You’re breathing picked up, and when you answered the door, you were crying. And the longer you look through your backpack the more agitated you seem.”

It was quiet for a moment. Kit didn’t resume her digging, but instead turned to face Reid at his spot atop her bed.

“What happened to not profiling one another?” She asked after a moment.

His eyebrows pulled together, searching for a moment before his head tilted, tongue flicking over chapped lips before he offered, “It’s okay if this is hard. Gideon always says that-”

“It’s not,” she said, effectively cutting him off for the second time in the five minutes he’d been in her room. She didn’t care at all what Gideon always said.

He looked unconvinced, suspicion flooding off of him, in addition to the sick feeling he’d already been sending her way.

She could feel her hands clenching, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

He has no idea. He has no idea so you can’t be upset with him. He doesn’t know anything about you. He probably thinks you’re just as incompetent as Gideon does. Don’t give him any fuel for the fire.

“It’s not hard,” she said, just a bit softer than before. “I’m perfectly capable, and I’m tired. Here.”

She turned and pulled the blue blister pack out of her backpack, hand suddenly knowing exactly where it was.

Naturally.

“Take these. I’ll give you the other ones in the morning.”

Reid looked down at the pills for a moment before he worried at his lip, eyes nervous as he asked, “You’re really not going to tell Hotch?”

“No, Reid, I’m really not going to tell Hotch. And I won’t tell Gideon either. No one knows. Go to sleep.”

She watched as he took a moment before nodding at her, standing up and heading for the door. He was halfway through before he turned and shifted his weight on his feet.

“Dakota?”

I might kill this one. Just this one.

“Reid?”

“Thank you,” he said softly, “again. I’m sorry that I intruded.”

She watched him for a moment before she shook her head. She realized that the trembling had stopped, and she didn’t feel as foggy anymore. Having a distraction, even if the distraction sniffled and asked probing questions and used her first name, it had helped.

She let herself give him a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“It’s okay, that’s why I’m here. Get some sleep.”

He nodded gently, returning her half smile with one of his own.

“Goodnight.”

She watched as he closed the door, the room becoming isolated again. She settled back on the bed, only allowing herself to be lost for a moment before she shut the light out.

-----

“We believe whoever poisoned these people was motivated by revenge,” Hotch was saying. They’d met early to give the profile, but it was later than they’d wanted when they were finally able to gather all the officers.

They were all pushed to one side of the room, sitting on various surfaces or standing in the middle where they could easily be seen. Kit had sat on top of the desk Reid was sitting in, wordlessly pressing a cup of tea into his slightly trembling hands. They’d found a moment when they weren’t being watched for her to slip the pills into his hand, but she’d only been able to find a drink just before Hotch had begun.

Morgan was continuing what Hotch had started, and Reid took the moment to slip the medication into his mouth, chasing it with a too-large sip of too-hot tea. Kit had to hold her snicker at the face he pulled.

“The randomness of the victimology - average people in an average-sized town... All points to a local resident.”

“We know that people who poison for the purpose of revenge primarily act alone,” Elle continued.

“However,” Hotch added, “he may have manipulated someone close to him to assist him. The unsub usually disposes of these accomplices when they're of no further use to him.”

Kit listened as they bounced around, all taking a part of the profile to deliver. She paid attention as closely as she could, taking in everything that was being said, and wishing that she could be able to see what they all saw.

She focused on Reid saying, ”This individual was savvy enough to use rohypnol to obstruct our investigation, erasing the memories of the victims of how they were poisoned,” and she felt herself nodding along with him, listening closely to his voice and watching to see if anyone had picked up on what she’d been trying to help him mask.

So far her efforts seemed successful, and she let herself feel good about that. She could take care of this team. Hotch’s faith was well placed.

She focused back on the profile again, her heart sinking when the emotions in the room shifted dramatically. Gideon had said that a lot of people could die, and everyone had flooded the room with varying levels of anxiety.

A lot of people could die, and they had limited time to find him.

JJ came up behind them, drawing the attention of the profilers around her. She whispered quietly to Hotch, though it was quiet everywhere now, and her words caused quick movement in every body that filled the small room.

“We have a leak.”

The small television in the station was turned on immediately, grainy and nearly not loud enough for them all to hear.

“That's right, Steve. Neighbors became aware something was wrong when a local Beechwood restaurant closed early. From inside sources, we learned that representatives of the CDC began testing food inside the restaurant.”

Gideon spoke over the woman for a moment, a wave of agitation flying off of him. “If you're gonna report the story, name the restaurant.”

“Unconfirmed, we were told that some of the food had been tainted with hallucinogenic drugs,” the reporter continued, and Kit understood exactly what Gideon meant.

“Name the restaurant,” he said again, and Kit found herself standing from her spot atop the desk. Spencer raised an eyebrow at her, but she gravitated towards the TV wordlessly.

“Until we do confirm all of this, we will not release the name of the restaurant. We'll only say it's a Beechwood area favorite. This is Suzanne Whang reporting live from Beechwood. Back to you, Steve.”

“Damn it,” Kit said forcefully, surprising herself a bit at the venom in her words. She rarely swore in English, and she went a bit pink at the thought that Irish would have probably been a more appropriate choice.

Gideon was glaring daggers at her, not really looking like he cared much what she had said, but that she’d spoken at all.

“They didn't name the restaurant,” JJ said, not paying attention to anyone else. She sounded dejected, but kept her tone more even than Kit had.

“What is it?” Detective Hanover said, looking confused.

“Call the local hospital, make sure they know what's coming. Excuse me,” Gideon said. Kit started to move before she realized he had been talking to JJ.

Heat welled inside of her. He was asking JJ to contact the hospital when she was standing right there. She understood, of course, that JJ’s job was communication, but she was the one that had been running point with the hospital. Especially the day before, when she and Reid had nearly spent the whole day there. The pink of her face flushed to red, and her hands clenched.

“Where do your 911 calls get routed?” Hotch asked Hanover. His calm determination set her straight back into the throws of what was happening. The restaurant. No name given. People were going to freak out, no doubt in her mind.

“There's a county phone bank. They contact first responders, the fire department.”

“Alert them, too. They're going to need additional personnel and any other backup you've got. Auxiliary cops. You're going to have to call them.”

“But, why?”

Though Hotch was stoic and calm, Kit could feel the tense energy he now had. It would be a mess to get everything under control once the storm hit.

“Because we're going to have a heck of a time just calming people down and we really don't need the confusion to interfere with our investigation,” Hotch answered, calm never failing.

“Do you want me to start making those calls?” An officer asked readily, and Kit watched as that set Hanover right off the edge.

He moved to the center of the room and started yelling, hands in the air.

Here we go.

“No, no, no, no. Hey, hey! Everybody please shut up for a minute. Tell me what this is all about.”

There was a moment where everything stopped. JJ stood with the phone at her ear. All eyes were on Hanover, mostly surprise and confusion around them.

Then the phones started. They all rang, loud and overlapping, deafening almost everything else in the air.

There was a moment before Gideon simply said, “Panic.”

It took a moment for there to be any sort of control. People were answering phones left and right, including Kit, who was back at the desk she and Reid had started in.

“We can’t comment at this time, thank you,” she said for at least the fifth time, hanging the phone up and looking at Reid.

“How are you doing?”

“I’ll be far better when this is over,” he said, taking a sip from the tea she knew was probably now lukewarm at best. He got up and they moved to where JJ and Hotch were, following the lead of Elle and Morgan.

“I just got off with the hospital. They're swamped with over 50 potential poisonings from local restaurants, but no hallucinations,” JJ said, hanging up the phone and looking around.

“Another poisoning?” Morgan asked.

“Or maybe more hysteria,” Hotch

“We've looked into any civil or criminal complaints from employees, ex-employees, Suppliers, regulars at the cafe. Not one good lead,” Hanover said.

He was dejected. The inability to control what was happening to his own town was what Kit guessed had him giving off such a feeling of hopelessness.

“There's got to be somebody connected to that cafe who pops as a suspect,” Gideon said, rifling through some papers.

“Morgan, you wanna go back there, see if we can find another angle?” Elle suggested.

“Couldn’t hurt,” he said.

The two of them turned to leave, and Hotch looked at the three still standing there. “JJ, you, Colghain, and Reid go to the hospital. See if any of the poisonings seem legit.”

-----

When they got to the hospital, JJ and Reid both waited for a moment outside the door. Kit stopped in her tracks, following their lead. There was an awkward moment before she said,

“What are we waiting for? Is someone meeting us?”

JJ shook her head, giving Kit a small smile.

“We’re following you. I made contact with the hospital, but I’m not sure exactly who is the best point of contact in an ER overrun like this. I assumed you do.”

Kit couldn’t help but give a small smile at the warmth that flooded her chest at those words. She and JJ hadn’t talked a lot, but between their guessing game in the car the night before, and the even temper and apt social skills she showed, Kit really respected and liked her. She was good to work with, and clearly knew how to read a room.

“I do. Stay out of the way as best you can and stay close, there will definitely be gurneys going in and out.”

They walked in, flashing their badges as they crossed back into the busy ER. There were gurneys as Kit had predicted, and she was almost overwhelmed by the amount of panic flooding the small ER hallway they found themselves in. She could feel JJ and Reid close to her, and she stopped the first nurse she saw.

“Hi, I’m Nurse Colghain with the FBI,” she said quickly, using a different title than she normally would. The nurse was holding a file, she didn’t have the moment Kit needed to assure her competence.

“The FBI has nurses?” The young nurse said, clearly a little skeptical, but antsy as she glanced towards her assumed destination.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kit said, speaking as she would to any of her nurses back at the clinic. “Where can I find your Head?”

“Nurses’ Station. Nurse Leah. Tall, dark hair. Excuse me.” She scampered off, but Kit had all she needed.

She led JJ and Spencer to the Nurses’ Station and spotted a tall, dark haired woman who was exuding calm, though just beneath it was clear uncertainty.

“That’s her,” she said to Reid and JJ without turning around. “Excuse me,” she said louder, “Nurse Leah?”

The woman turned, searching for a moment before she spotted the out-of-place agents.

“Yes? Who are you?”

“I’m Nurse Cloghain with the FBI. This is Agent Jareau and Doctor Reid. Can we have a minute?”

Nurse Leah shook her head quickly, scowling a bit as the three agents bellied up to the Nurse’ Station wall.

“I really can't talk right now. We just got hammered,” she said, starting to walk away.

“Listen,” Kit said, moving to follow her, “most of these food poisonings are probably psychosomatic.”

“What makes you think that?” Nurse Leah said, her attitude changing to one of skepticism and annoyance.

“A news broadcast just reported a local restaurant was poisoned. Now, it would be a huge coincidence if there was another poisoning right after that aired,” JJ said, her voice shifting from the friendliness she’s used outside the hospital door to the political tightness she used with reporters.

“So what do you want me to do?” Nurse Leah said, her eyes darting between them.

“Help us find out which cases, if any, are real,” Reid said, posture straight, not a tremble in sight. He either felt great, or he was masking incredibly well.

“People are coming in with all kinds of complaints,” she said, “But, there's at least one case that isn't psychosomatic. She's barely breathing.”

Reid’s eyebrows pulled together, “Can you take us to the doctor that's treating that patient?”

Nurse Leah nodded, moving to take them with her. Reid and Kit moved to follow, but JJ started to walk away.

“I'll call Hotch,” she assured, and the two others nodded, letting her disappear down the hallway.

The doctor they were passed off to took them down the hallway and towards the patient’s room, talking all the while.

“When the patient got here, she didn't remember anything about her day. And her speech was so slurred, I could barely understand her.” He said. His body language was favored toward Reid once he’d been introduced as “Doctor,” but they hadn’t gotten to clarify that he was not that kind of doctor. Still, Kit hoped his genius brain could make connections faster than her medically inclined one could.

“It sounds like rohypnol,” Reid said, “Did you test her?”

They walked into the patient's room and Kit’s eyes went wide. She was coughing desperately, the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth doing little to prevent it.

“She was positive for rohypnol, negative for LSD. But, we're running more tests because rohypnol alone doesn't explain her symptoms. She presented with nausea, difficulty swallowing, labored breathing. She was also having trouble moving her legs.”

“How long had she been sick?” JJ asked.

“She didn't know. I could barely understand her when she first got her. Now, she can't speak at all.”

“And she’d been coughing like that the whole time?” Kit asked, glancing to the bed. Her heart ached at the panic she felt coming from the ill woman.

“Yes, consistently.”

“Do you know any biological agents that have similar symptoms: Ricin, Sarin gas?” Reid asked quietly, his back turned to the bed.

“You think this is a biological attack?” The doctor said, keeping his expression even.

“We can't rule anything out,” Reid said, eyebrows raised and arms crossed firmly over his middle.

The doctor took a moment before he said, “I'll order a few more tests.”

Hotch arrived not very long after, meeting Kit, Reid, and JJ outside of the patient, Lynn Dempsey’s room. They bounced around ideas, but nothing seemed to stick. At one point Kit used “finding the restroom” as an excuse to dig out more pills for Reid, and the two of them did a seamless pass off in front of the decrepit coffee machine.

It wasn’t twenty minutes before there was a call for Hotch, the unit chief pulling the phone to his ear.

“Morgan, it's Hotch. What's up?”

JJ’s voice came out sharp, having been looking into Ms. Dempsey’s room. “Guys, I think she's trying to say something.”

The three of them flooded into her room, getting close to the bed as she leaned towards them.

“The en,” she said. Her voice carried almost no weight, though the urgency was obvious.

“The end?” JJ asked, looking at Reid and Kit. Kit shook her head, and Reid leaned forward.

“She may be incoherent from the lack of oxygen,” he said, eyes scanning. Kit moved closer to the bed, leaning in just a bit.

“Can you say it again, Ms. Dempsey?” She said gently. The tone and pacing she used with patients came second-nature to her, and it didn’t take any effort to shift from self conscious BAU draft to Head Nurse.

“It’s the en-” Ms. Dempsey tried again before being cut off by coughs that sounded as if they were already choking her.

“Doctor!” JJ called quickly, panic flooding from her, and Kit turned towards the other two agents.

“Give her some space,” she said, not allowing wiggle room in her tone. She started moving back herself, drawing the other two with her. “Here, let’s give some room.”

The doctor came in, setting down the new tox screen and working quickly over Ms. Dempsey. It was a few minutes before things calmed enough for Kit to ask calmly,

“Doctor, do you mind if I look at that?”

She gestured to the tox screen, to which he nodded quickly. Kit picked it up and started rifling through it, listening as JJ asked, “So, what are the chances that she's not poisoned, that maybe she just got some bad food?”

“Highly improbable. Chances are basically nil,” he said.

Hotch came to stand beside Reid.

“What is the rate of survival?” Reid asked.

“This dose,” the doctor said, “without anti-toxin... Zero.”

“What is it?” Hotch asked.

Kit’s voice came quickly and quietly, eyes darting up from the tox screen. “Botulism.”

There was a moment of quiet before a Nurse said with seriousness, “Doctor, her BP is dropping rapidly.”

“It's sepsis. Give another amp of epi,” he said.

“She's going into defib.”

“She's crashing! Get the paddles.”

Kit watched as the nurses and doctor worked over Ms. Dempsey. She’d been on her share of crash teams, but she’d never just watched and done nothing as a patient started to code right in front of her. They were paging a code blue, starting CPR, and everything in her screamed that she should be helping. She should be doing something. She should be moving, or speaking, or reading charts and screens and percentages. Something. Anything.

The problem was, she didn’t know if she was allowed. She had no idea what the rules were about jumping on a code in a hospital that wasn’t yours. She’d never had to. She’d never talked to Hotch about anything like that. Her job was with the BAU, only assisting on cases that were medical.

This case was medical, but where was the line?

“The test run is over,” Reid said, swallowing hard and heading out of the room.

He jarred her from her thoughts, and her eyes went to follow him as he walked out.

JJ followed immediately, but Kit stood there for a few extra moments before she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She turned away from Reid’s receding frame, looking up to see Hotch. His eyes held the same soft kindness they always did, and he gestured over his shoulder wordlessly.

Kit took one last look at Lynn Dempsey, the doctor and nurses performing CPR on her lifeless body, before turning and following Hotch out of the hospital room.

Kit tried not to think of Lynn Dempsey as a patient dying in a hospital. She tried to think of Lynn Dempsey as a person outside of oxygen masks and heart monitors and charge paddles.

It wasn’t helping that they went back to the police station, where the profilers sifted through her life in an attempt to see if she was a murderer.

“Lynn Dempsey was an executive assistant. She has no expertise with chemicals. She doesn't fit the profile of the unsub,” Gideon said, leafing through some of Dempsey’s information.

Morgan didn’t quite agree. “But the CDC found both LSD and rohypnol in the candy she was replacing at the bank.”

“She must have been an accomplice,” Hotch said, “and when the unsub finished using her to further his attack, he killed her with botulism.”

“So, what does that tell us about the unsub?” Gideon said, finally looking up and around at the team.

Reid leaned forward on the desk, furthest away from them all. “He's far more sophisticated than we realized,” he offered.

Elle was getting frustrated, and she looked at Reid as if she was lost.

“Why is that?”

Reid looked as if he was going to respond, but suddenly cleared his throat in a way that made Kit’s eyebrows pull together. It sounded to her like he was trying not to cough, a small bit of anxiety rolling off of him as she connected the dots.

“The botulism toxin is the deadliest substance known to man,” she said, biding time and giving every bit of information she knew about what exactly the toxin was. Maybe it would help somehow. If anything, it would buy Reid some time. “It blocks acetylcholine receptors, paralyzing the body until it’s essentially choked death.” She looked around, watching as all eyes were on her. Reid had gotten himself back under control, and she gave a small shrug before she ended her spiel. “Without an antitoxin, a lethal dose will kill you in thirty six hours.”

The quiet that followed her information was nearly choking to Kit herself, and she could feel the variety of reactions to her speaking up. Morgan was surprised, but that was all. There was nothing hostile there. Hotch and Elle were processing and spinning again, trying to connect it all together. Gideon was either annoyed or unimpressed, neither of which made her feel any better.

But Reid was grateful, which helped.

“How many people have access to this stuff?” Elle asked seriously, looking at Kit with anticipation.

“I don't know,” Kit said, and she turned her eyes to Reid.

“In New Jersey, quite a few,” he said, “It's the pharmaceutical and chemical capital of the U.S., so that the toxin can be ordered in the form of botox through any chemical or biological lab or botox clinic. It has to be purified, but any chemist or lab assistant has that capability.”

“So, we're looking for chemists and sophisticated lab assistants?” Elle asked.

Reid nodded. “Basically.”

Morgan spoke up from the side of their group. He was the closest to Kit, and she was thankful that he had taken station there. While she tried to stay one step away and isolate, taking as infrequently as she could, it was reassuring that Morgan would choose that spot and keep her in the loop.

“Okay, wait a minute. If the unsub is a chemist with access to the toxin, what'd he need Dempsey for?”

“Well, we don't know yet,” Gideon said, “But, she worked for a, she worked for a company, called, uh,” he started rifling through the papers, “Hitchcock Pharmaceuticals. I think there's a good chance the unsub worked there, too.”

Hotch nodded. “Well, let's start with people who fit the profile who've had a recent stressor.”

Morgan called Garcia, and she found them some names to work with. Kit tried to pay attention, but Reid had settled himself down in one of the desks again, fingers trembling slightly, but nothing else giving him away.

While the team spoke she found herself walking to make another cup of tea, eyes darting to her backpack as she steeped the bag. She retrieved what she was looking for quickly, the honey stick having been tucked in there by Monty as a “just in case” item. Kit had laughed at her then, but she was glad for it now.

When she came back and set the tea down next to Reid, making sure the rest of the team was distracted by the case, Elle was saying, “All those innocent people at the bank.”

Gideon didn’t seem concerned, and that bothered Kit to no end.

“They meant nothing to him. He'll take out anybody to forward his cause.”

There was a moment that Kit wasn’t in the precinct anymore. She was at the hospital, watching Lynn Dempsey die before her very eyes. Her chest constricted, like she was being squeezed in the grasp of a snake. Grieving a woman she had never known.

“Like Dempsey,” she said.

Gideon didn’t seem to feel the weight of her comment the way she did, continuing on as if she’d barely spoken.

“Like Dempsey, and eventually, even himself. Until he finishes taking out his primary targets.”

“We have no idea where he's going to strike next,” Morgan said, expressing the frustration we all had, “For all we know, he could poison the local reservoir.”

“Elle, the local cops haven't gotten any leads out of Dempsey. Why don't you go to Hitchcock and see if you have any luck,” Hotch said, causing Elle to perk up a bit.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding and moving out of her seat.

-----

“This is my job!”

Kit was not yelling. She was speaking to Hotchner with a whole lot of heat, hands clenched by her sides so they wouldn’t tap. Wouldn’t tug. Wouldn’t give away how frustrated she was.

“Colghain, this is going to end in arrest, or suicide. You aren’t needed on this takedown, the profile doesn’t state that he will do anything to hurt anyone but himself.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” she said, “What if the profile is wrong and something happens.”

“The profile isn’t wrong,” came a voice over her shoulder.

Kit closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Gideon was not going to make her lose her cool. Not like in Delaware. She was having a conversation with Hotch, and Gideon could think anything he wanted, but she would ignore him if it meant keeping her words and tone relatively professional.

“I would never forgive myself if something happened to any of you.”

She meant it, and Hotch knew that. She knew he could see it in her. He was the best profiler of them all.

“Nothing is going to happen. I appreciate your dedication to your position, but this is my decision. We’ll have local SWAT with us, and we’re going in last. This will end in an arrest or a suicide.”

Hotch spoke as if to say “and that’s final” once he was done. His tone wasn’t demanding or forceful, but she knew he wasn’t going to give in.

Her shoulders finally relaxed, one hand coming up to rub at her opposite bicep.

“Please be careful,” she said finally, to which Hotch nodded.

“We will. I’d like you to check in with Reid. He’s looking… off.”

“I already did,” she said simply, full intention to keep her promise. “He’s okay. Said he hasn’t been sleeping well.”

Hotch didn’t look convinced, but let that be her answer without more pushing.

“Alright, well, maybe check again. He won’t ask for help.”

“Don’t you have an unsub to go face without me?” She said, and though she was still frustrated, she allowed herself to push it down with the other emotions, giving him a small smile.

He nodded, turning on his heel and setting off down the hall.

Kit took a moment to breathe before she turned back to the precinct. Gideon wasn’t standing behind her. She had no idea where he’d gone, actually.

Wonderful. He wants to be confrontational and Hotch isn’t here anymore. He didn’t let you go on the takedown. Did Gideon get to him? Does he not think I’m capable?

“What are you thinking about?”

“Cac!” Kit jumped, turning towards the slightly flushed assailant behind her. “Reid! That’s the third time you’ve done that.”

“What does that mean?” He asked, voice nasal.

She tilted her head, pulling her eyebrows together as she thought about his question. It felt vaguely familiar.

“What?”

“What does that mean? You spoke Gaelic.”

“Oh,” she said, smoothing out her pants that were not wrinkled, and ignoring the fact that her tongue itched to correct him. Her parents called it Irish, and most people called it Gaelic, but she wasn’t going to get into linguistical nuances with Reid. “I don’t know what I said. You scared me, I reacted.”

“Cac.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, jaw dropping slightly. “What?”

“Cac, that’s what you said. You said ca-”

“Stop!” She all but yelled, her hands coming up in front of her as if to physically stop him from talking. “Okay, yes. I got it. That’s what I said. Please stop saying it.”

He looked confused by her outburst, sheepish even. “Tell me what it means.”

“It’s…” She trailed off, feeling the embarrassment creep across her face. “It’s rude. It’s a rude word.”

“Like a swear word?”

“No, a rude word. Like, that a child would say.”

“Are you trying to tell me that it’s a… bathroom word?”

Kit watched as Reid’s face morphed into a smirk. Was he teasing her? Reid could tease? She hadn’t been involved in any kind of situation that would warrant Reid teasing her. Was he being friendly?

Don’t think too hard about it. He’s Gideon’s protégé, and Gideon doesn’t like you.

“No more questions!” She snapped quickly, turning back into the precinct and stalking as far away as she could. Maybe she could find JJ and be of use somewhere with no Reid and no Gideon until the others got back.

-----

“He let us take him,” Hotch said. “He didn't kill himself. Doesn't fit the profile of a workplace killer.”

He, Gideon, Reid, and Kit were standing in the viewing portion of the interrogation room, the four of them staring through the glass at Hill. Kit hadn’t gotten a chance to ask Hotch why exactly she was needed. She figured Elle or Morgan would have been a much more appropriate choice.

“Sometimes you miss the mark,” Gideon said, hands pressed firmly on the top of the room’s table. “Let's be glad we did. He's our best chance at stopping the next attack.”

“Well, his lab had traces of botulinum toxin, but no clues as to what he's up to next,” Hanover said, walking in the room to stand near Gideon. He sounded listless, and Kit could feel the shift in the room when he entered. He was in over his head and he knew it.

Hotch didn’t look towards him, instead staying trained on Hill. “Our only chance is to make him tell us.”

Hanover didn’t seem convinced. “You think he will?”

“Once caught, these types usually do. They want the whole world to know about their brilliant plan to destroy their enemies,” Reid offered him, not sounding very impressed by Hill’s archetype.

“In case he doesn't give it up, let's play every angle,” Gideon said, angling his body away from where Kit stood at the wall. He wasn’t talking to her, that much was very clear. “We need to re-examine everything we know about this guy.”

Reid shifted on his feet, pressing his hands into his pockets. “I'll check witness reports, forensic evidence, anything that might be a clue to this guy's plan.”

Gideon nodded as Reid turned to him for approval. “A lot of lives could be at stake,” he said softly.

“I can help you,” Kit offered, keeping her voice level. She wanted to check her notebook for Reid’s medicinal distribution times more than she thought she would be helpful with his paperwork search, but she didn’t want to be in the room with Gideon anymore, and she wasn’t really doing anything just standing around.

“No,” Hotch said, now looking away from Hill and towards her isolated spot. “Colghain, I want you here while Gideon and I speak with Hill. Watch from this side of the glass. I’ll need your input when we’re done.”

“Hotch-”

“Sir-”

Gideon and Kit went to speak at the same time, causing Reid’s eyes to widen. He took his leave from the room quickly, and Hotch raised a hand to stop both Kit and Gideon before they could continue their grievance.

“Colghain will stay here and listen in while we interview Hill. Watch him closely.”

Kit hadn’t even been able to look at Hill during their short time on their side of the glass. He was a killer, and to her knowledge, she’d never been in the presence of one before. How one person could feel they were above so many others, that their feelings and their lives were more important, was lost to her, and she had no desire to look at him at all. Let alone watch him for the duration of his interview.

The room suddenly felt very cramped, though they had lost both Reid and Hanover in the moments of situational discomfort. Hotch’s eyes darted between Kit and Gideon, narrowing slightly as the physical tension in the far-too-small space between the two.

“Colghain,” Hotch said again, now gaining her attention more fully. “I want you at the window. Feel him out.”

She took a breath that seemed to catch in her chest, not able to get deep enough to make the feelings of discomfort go away. Her head nodded of its own accord, and her feet seemed to follow suit, moving towards the window and finally looking at the man sat there.

He wasn’t much. Not remarkable. He looked like a dad she would have seen at afternoon pick-up in grade school.

But he isn’t a dad at school, Kody. This man hurt people. Killed two of them, and was trying to kill others. He was using drugs and toxins to harm people. What sort of sick person could do that? Not much of a person at all.

The hatred sat like a weight in her gut, and while it was obvious Hotch and Gideon had no benevolent feelings for Hill, it didn’t belong to either of them. It was all her own.

Her eyes narrowed through the glass, and she took a breath.

“Okay. Yes, sir,” she said. She heard even footsteps pad out the doorway. Her eyes didn’t move from Hill as she continued mumbling, now directly to Hill though the glass, even though he couldn’t hear her. “Go dtachtfadh an diabhal thú.”

“What did you say to him?”

Gideon.

“Sorry?” Kit said, eyes never moving from the window. She’d thought Gideon had left as well and was following Hotch, not staying behind to watch her.

“What did you say? To Hill.”

She took a breath and turned, eyes narrowing at the older man in front of her. He didn’t want her there anyway, she might as well tell him.

“Go dtachtfadh an diabhal thú,” she said, now louder. Each word was enunciated clearly, eyes not moving from Gideon’s. If he wanted to know, she’d tell him. “It’s something my Gran used to say to people with tattoos after she came to America.”

“And what does it mean?” He asked, mouth in a hard line, eyes searching her for an answer.

“May the devil choke you,” she said simply, voice never wavering.

There was a moment of silence between them. Kit didn’t shift. She didn’t fidget or rock her weight. She didn’t move her eyes from his.

“Where’s yours?” He finally asked.

She raised an eyebrow at him, eyes never becoming less severe as she tried to gauge his question.

“My what?”

“Your tattoo? Where is it?”

She let out a breath, shaking her head. She hated the way Gideon felt so smug. How it seemed to circle in the air and choke her.

“There it is,” he said, not waiting any longer for her answer.

“There what is?” she responded, not able to keep the bite from her tone.

“Trouble,” he said simply. His eyes never left hers.

For a moment she considered pushing. Considered defending herself, and telling him that she wasn’t trouble. That she was doing her job, and that he should just let her be.

She didn’t get the chance, though, as he turned on his heel and followed where Hotch had left the room.

Kit stood, staring at the spot Gideon had just been for a long while before she heard Hotch’s voice through the speaker.

She turned back to the glass, watching now as Hotch and Gideon spoke to Hill. She took in his facial expressions. His body language. The feel of his emotions, though it wasn’t easy through the glass.

She did her job.

When they finished and reentered the room Kit was in, Hotch stood next to her, looking in at Hill.

“I called JJ. She, Morgan, and Elle are headed to the party now.”

Kit nodded once, eyes still searching Hill as he sat across the glass.

“What did you notice?”

She took a breath, calmer now that Hotch was there, and that she’d had something productive to focus on. “He’s really… sweaty. That probably sounds stupid, but it’s strange to me. He didn’t give me a feeling of regret. He seemed sure of his decision, I guess, until you started to talk about taking his case. Then less sure, but he was sweating before that.” She waited for him to stop her, but he didn’t, so she continued. “He started fidgeting a lot there at the end. I don’t think it was guilt though. More like… discomfort. Like there was something else bothering him other than the two of you doing your interrogation.”

Hotch nodded, turning to look at her now. “He was sweating before we started?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m sure of it. That’s one of the things I look for when I’m watching for patients in distress.”

The three agents watched Hill for another minute before Hotch spoke to Gideon, saying, “What is it?”

“You're right,” Gideon said, “It doesn't make sense. Why didn't Hill take his own life when we had him surrounded?”

“Guys, I think we have a problem.”

Reid walked into the room as he spoke at a brisk pace, all sense that there was something wrong with his health pushed aside by his serious demeanor. “I've been looking over the victim reports. One of the victims that was originally dosed was severely diabetic.”

Kit’s eyes went wide, though Hotch didn’t seem to see the issue.

“And?” He asked.

“He wouldn't have taken any candy from the bowl at the bank,” Kit said, eyes flicking to her, and then back to Reid.

He nodded at her and said, “All of the victims were there. We know that, but how were they poisoned? I started looking at the security footage.”

He turned the laptop he was holding. On the screen was the film from the bank, in which Lynn Dempsey was meddling with the candy bowl.

“We know Lynn Dempsey replaced some candy from the bowl. Look how close that jar is to the deposit envelopes. Now, watch this.” He clicked a button, and the film zoomed in to show Lynn Dempsey’s hand on top of the stack of envelopes, right next to the candy bowl. “See that? Her hand is directly in the stack of envelopes.”

“So, you think the envelopes were poisoned as well as the candy?” Hotch asked. Kit took a step closer, eyes looking carefully at the picture.

Reid continued. “As Lynn Dempsey was dying, she kept saying something like "the end, the end." I think that what she was saying was "the envelopes." I mean, what was Hill actually testing? The rohypnol? The LSD?”

Gideon took a moment before saying, “The delivery system.”

“Exactly,” Reid said, “Botulinum toxin and LSD are the only two substances in the world toxic enough to be effective in doses as small as thousandths of a gram. Small enough to fit on the glue strip of an envelope.”

Kit found herself nodding, though no one was looking at her. She might have added more to Spencer’s finding, but Gideon’s words from earlier stopped her.

Trouble.

She wouldn’t prove him right.

“But, the CDC didn't find any evidence of poison on the envelopes,” Hotch said, face slightly scrunched in confusion. Grasping at straws, just like they all were.

“They wouldn't have. The envelopes were destroyed after the checks were deposited and processed,” Spencer explained. He started to sound a bit hoarse now, and Kit shifted her weight in sympathy of his discomfort.

“So,” Hotch said, clearly needing to process out loud at the speed he took his words. “like the rohypnol, Hill was using the candy to throw us off. To cover his tracks. To distract us from the fact that he was testing the envelopes.”

Reid was still working it over as well. “What I can't figure out is why would he poison the envelopes to test the punch?”

“Because the punch is a decoy just like the candy,” Hotch offered.

Kit turned to look at Hill. There was something they were missing. Something right there, but they just couldn't see it.

What could he still be hiding?

She watched for a moment as he started to go a bit red, Hill’s breathing seeming strained. She heard Gideon speak behind her.

“He's not finished.”

She felt her jaw go slack as she realized what was happening. Hill was choking. He’d dosed himself with the botulism toxin before he could be captured. That was why he didn’t kill himself. He’d already done it. He was dying.

He’s dying.

“Hotch!” She yelled, moving quickly out the door of the room and around the side. She was pretty sure she didn’t have the clearance to be doing whatever she was about to do, but she didn’t really care.

She heard Hotch call, “Gideon!” behind her, but she didn’t stop.

She threw the door open, pulling desperately at the chair Hill was sitting in. The chair was heavy, and with Hill sitting on it she struggled.

Hotch came up behind her, helping pull the chair out.

“Get him down on the floor!” She called. She could feel Gideon behind her, trying to move into her space and take control.

“Get his head back!”

“Shut up!” She yelled, pulling at Hill’s arms to release the hold he had on himself as the toxin paralyzed his diaphragm.

It only took a few seconds before Hill stopped breathing, tongue going slack inside his mouth as his life ended before their eyes.

“He's dead,” Hotch said simply.

Gideon was quick to respond. “He killed himself before we even got to him.”

Kit stood to her feet, slamming her hand onto the table, “Damn it!” She yelled, rounding on Gideon. “What the hell is wrong with you?! What the hell-” she slammed her hand on the table again, “-do you think I’m doing here?!”

“Colghain-” Hotch started, but Kit was already making her way out the door.

“I’m calling EMS!” She yelled angrily over her shoulder, pushing past a dumbfounded Reid standing in the hallway, and leaving all three agents in her wake.

Kit was pacing in the hallway once she finished the call. She expected Hotch to reprimand her, or Gideon to be angry with her. Reid hadn’t even said anything, though by the look of him after his revelation about Lynn Dempsey, he was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to try to unpack what had happened.

She considered trying to help him some more. Pump him full of cold medicine and send him to bed. She didn’t. She just continued to pace, infuriated by the way Gideon had tried to take over. He had no respect for her, that much was clear.

Why am I even here? Why am I here with these people who think I’m a joke? Who have no respect for my job or for me? They don’t care about what I’m doing or who I am. They’re stiffs. They’re all stiffs.

“Colghain, come on.”

She looked up to see Gideon and Reid already setting off down the hallway, Hotch in their wake. Gideon’s body language suggested he was frustrated, but Kit genuinely couldn’t have cared less.

“The victims need to ingest the anti-toxin within four hours of the time they were poisoned,” Reid was saying.

Kit caught up to Hotch, right at his heels. They were moving in a way that suggested action, and she couldn’t pace and fume in the hallway anymore.

“You found the real targets?”

“They’re in the woods.”

“Do we know where in the woods?”

The SUV flew down the highway, and when they got there they were out of their seats in seconds. The four of them vaulted the wall between the car and the campsite, and Kit only slowed when she saw Reid nearly topple over. Was he dizzy? She’d have to check later.

They got to the officers waiting there out of breath, but entirely focused. Nothing but the victims mattered.

“These guys are in bad shape and getting worse by the minute,” the officer that greeted them said.

Hotch almost didn’t let the officer finish before he was asking, “Who's the sickest?”

“That one over there,” the man said.

Gideon didn’t let the officer finish before he was already yelling. “Medic!”

“He’s having trouble breathing. Hyperventilating, I think,” the officer continued, and they moved quickly.

“What time did he lick the envelopes?” Reid asked, just behind where Kit was walking. Gideon and Hotch were already near the man that was sweating heavily, his breaths wheezing with exertion.

“They said around 12:30,” the officer assured.

Kit let out a breath. They had time. They would be okay.

She came upon them as Gideon was starting to speak to the man. His tone was gentle and understanding. Not at all anything like he’d ever used towards her.

The tone she associated with him was scathing. Questioning. When he spoke to the victim, she could have confused him with one of her clinic nurses.

“I’m a federal agent. You're going to be fine. This is gonna make you feel a hundred percent. Relax and breathe. You're gonna be fine.”

“Thank you,” the man said, his voice weak, but the panic flooding off of him reduced to worry.

Kit moved to another one of the executives, speaking softly and assuringly as they were administered the antitoxin. She wished she could be of more help, but the EMS workers had it covered. That was their job. At that moment, she was a federal agent. Just like Gideon.

She settled in the seat across from Morgan on the jet. He put on his headphones and crashed almost immediately, and Kit envied his ability to sleep so easily.

Her mind kept drifting to Hill. To the way he died on the floor of the interrogation room. To Gideon trying to get in her way, or take her job as she attempted to help the dying man. To the way she’d yelled at him.

Ari and Monty would never believe it if she told them she’d lost her temper that way. Monty was their spitfire, at least at work. In the clinic there wasn’t a cooler head than Kit’s. But something about the way Gideon treated not only her, but those all around him, bothered her deep in her gut. She watched as he was gentle with Reid, and people he didn’t know, but never with other members of the team.

Now, she figured he probably didn’t tell everyone else they were trouble. She was trouble. Just her.

Her hands moved to help tuck her legs under her, brushing gently on the tattoo just higher than her ankle. A sprig of holly. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right.

She waited a moment before pulling her backpack onto the seat with her. She grabbed the blue pills from where she’d purposefully stashed them that morning, and then sat up taller, leaning over the back of her seat to where Reid had all but thrown himself.

Gideon was sleeping across from him, but she could see that their youngest wasn’t asleep at all.

“Reid,” she said quietly.

He opened his eyes and blinked up at her. “Um, yes?” His voice was rough again, sounding almost congested.

“Here. Before Hotch finishes making his coffee.” She passed over the pills and a bottle of water she’d snagged from the nurses station at the hospital the day before. She’d saved it for this exact purpose.

Reid looked surprised for a moment before sitting up, sniffling before accepting the offering. “Thanks.”

“Mhm,” she hummed, turning back to sit in her seat correctly without another word.

She wasn’t mad at Reid. She was mad at Gideon. He made her feel small, and unimportant, and stupid. That wasn’t Reid’s fault.

But Gideon was Reid’s mentor, and she had no room in her emotional baggage to be friends with the pseudo son of her antagonizer.

She scratched down the medication in her notebook before shoving it back into place in her bag. A moment passed before she heaved a sigh, glancing to Morgan and pulling out her own iPod. It wasn’t a long flight. Soon she would be back in her apartment, maybe even before Ari left for the day, and she could process about Gideon. She could process about Reid. She could process about Lynn Dempsey, coding in her hospital bed. She could process about Hill dying on the floor, right in front of her.

-----

Kit got to the metro station in record time. The redline had only three minutes until it was supposed to pick up for the night, and Kit pulled her coat tighter around herself. She’d left quickly, only going up to the sixth floor to grab her thermos from two mornings before. She’d wash it before she was due to be in the BAU the next morning, and Hotch had even told them they could have a soft start, since they got in so late.

She was wondering if she should have given Reid the nighttime version of the medication she offered. She didn’t really think about him having to drive home, and drowsy was probably not the best choice for driving across DC on a Tuesday night.

“Do you have any more water?”

“Cac!”

Kit spun around, hands at the ready, only to find Reid standing two feet behind her. His eyes were wide, nose bright red, and fever flush covering his cheeks.

“Reid! What the hell!”

“I thought you said that was a rude word,” he rasped. No one had really spoken after they got off the jet, and Reid definitely sounded worse for wear.

“What?” She said, eyes narrowing. “It is. What are you doing here?”

A wave of confusion came off of him at that. “Um, what do you mean?”

She raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the metro tracks. “What are you doing here at my metro stop?” She scoffed quietly, not letting him have the chance to lie to her. “You can tell Gideon that I take the metro just like any other person. Monty and Ari and I share a car, and normally I’m leaving the office before eleven. You don’t have to, like, spy on me.”

She watched as his eyebrows hit his hairline. He was confused, but she didn’t care. She was tired and her emotions were starting to creep back up on her. She wasn’t going to meltdown on the metro, and she was not going to meltdown in front of Reid.

Not after what he’d already seen.

“You… what?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you’re doing,” she continued. Thankfully, the metro pulled up at that moment. She stepped onto the train and turned to face him again, gesturing to his general being. “Also, you look terrible. Don’t come in to work tomorrow.”

“Wait, no, Dakota-”

“Stop.” She said, putting every bit of force into her words, but making sure she didn’t sound aggravated enough for someone around them to try and jump in. The last thing she needed was a good samaritan to misunderstand their situation. “Just stop. Goodnight, Reid.”

He didn’t get a chance to reply before Kit moved away from the door and took a seat. She put her face in her hands and took a deep breath.

She didn’t notice him step through a door farther down, sinking into his own train seat, fevered forehead pressed against the cold redline glass as the train pulled away from the now empty stop.

#Brenna writes things #or at least she tries #Second Child Restless Child #SCRC #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #gaelic/irish #OC #female OC #Can anyone tell I hate Jason Gideon?#1x13 Poison #gap fill #TW illness #TW hospitals #tw minor character death #it's that one lady

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m00nslippers · 5 years

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Titans S2E2: Rose, a review, I guess.

Here, have another bullet-pointed, kinda-review. Spoilers ahead!

This episode has awesome stuff, but it’s kind of choppy. We flash pretty quickly from scene to scene between pretty much all the Titans. We get Dick with the kiddos at the tower, Kori and Donna going after Shimmer, Hank and Dawn at their ranch in Wyoming. And then there’s the occasional jump to Rose or Dr. Light. It didn’t jump so much that it was confusing but it gave me the feeling that as soon as I was really into what was happening the scene moved on to something else and that left me disappointed. Luckily everyone seems to be coming together by the end of the episode so hopefully this won’t be an issue going forward.

Dick is getting super into the Big-Bro/Dad/Mentor thing and it’s kind of hilarious. After spending all last season trying to get rid of as much responsibility as possible he’s gone all-in on the mentorship thing to the point that it’s funny to me. He’s over here being super serious with his “Even your eyes can be taken from you!” sensei-thing, and having them read Sun Tzu, and making them food that is apparently terrible. No wonder he goes to that coffee shop all the time, his food is inedible I guess. Like, he’s trying so hard it’s a little manic, but endearing.

Dick is actually pretty great with Jason. Sending Jason with Dick was probably the best thing Bruce could have done because it’s clear that Dick is starting to get Jason where Bruce seemingly didn’t. Jason is complaining about being stuck in Cali and wants to go home to Gotham and Dick’s like, “Me and Bruce don’t think you’re ready, you were joyriding in the batmobile and the thing with the motorcycle and using the batcomputer inappropriately (seems like a porn reference), yada yada,” And Jason seems a bit dejected and upset. And you can see Dick looking at him, seeing how disheartened he is and he seems to get an idea and is like, “and besides, I could really use your help around here, you’re more skilled than the others, they don’t have your experience, everyone looks up to you, etc.” And like, yeah the first part is true, but it’s clear by the others reaction that they really don’t like Jason much or look up to him, Dick is just trying to cheer him up. Jason wants praise and recognition so bad. Even when he’s obviously being manipulated he just wants to believe it so much. That leads me to think this Bruce has been doing typical Bruce-things and maybe not giving Jason much positive reinforcement, which is probably contributing to Jason acting out.

I like Jason but it’s clear the Titans don’t. Last episode we saw bits of Donna and Hank and Dawn not exactly giving Jason a warm reception even though he really didn’t do anything to deserve it. And now in this one Gar and Rachel are icing him out a bit (referring to how he basically adopted Gar and Rachel, Dick says, “but I didn’t help Jason,” and Rachel rolls her eyes and says, “can anyone help Jason?”). Dick said they look up to Jay but that doesn’t seem like the case, I felt like he was just handling Jason. Do they defer to him when it comes to vigilante things, well yeah, maybe, but that’s not quite the same thing. I’m really hoping this isn’t the comics all over again, where everyone was said to pretty much universally dislike him outside of Donna and Eddie (after Jason’s character was rebooted). I know I’m a Jay-fan so I might be biased but aside from being a little cocky and mischievous there’s nothing we’ve seen him do to anyone that really warrants this kind of dislike, IMO. I’m hoping over the course of the season he proves himself to Gar and Rachel at least and they get along better. I want everyone to like Jason but even if they didn’t I would be fine with it if they at least disliked him for good reasons, and right now I haven’t seen anything to suggest their reasons are anything but shallow.

Kori and Donna interacting are a treasure. Kori and Donna clearly bonded over being badass chick who like to beat people up and have the same sassy sense of humor. They are constantly bickering but you get the impression they are loving every second of their verbal repartee. They are so hilarious. It’s interesting to see Kori interact with someone who is an ‘adult’ and isn’t Dick. I feel like with Donna more of that zest that Kori has in the comics but didn’t really last season, comes out. Before she was so focused on her mission she didn’t have time for herself and now she does and it’s great seeing her do Earth-things and finding them fun or interesting and enjoying herself. Kori loving Disco and Donna liking Madonna is so damn appropriate.

Roy foreshadowing!!! Donna’s contact that sent her after Shimmer is shown to be Roy Harper from her phone call. I have to wonder what version of Roy we are getting here. OG Roy-fans and Titans purists are probably going to hate me for this but hear me out...I want it to be the new version of Roy, in terms of personality and looks. Goofy genius-dumbass hillbilly with a heart of gold Roy. Look, I just feel like the other version of his character overlaps way too much with characters we already have, especially Donna. Say what you will about New 52 Roy, but he’s got character and personality, he stands out in a way I feel the other Roy didn’t, especially alongside Wally and Dick, who had very similar personalities, I feel. I’ll be happy with either version because it’s Roy but I think it would be interesting to see the New 52 alongside these characters, with his trucker hat and gadgets. Or maybe they could do a fusion, at least have his aesthetic. Everyone in this show kind of has a sameness that could be shaken up. We could use some comic relief, honestly. I hope we actually do see him this season though and it isn’t just foreshadowing something for next season.

The stuff with Hawk and Dawn was...fine. Basically after getting that ranch, Hank getting clean and presumably getting his surgery and retiring from heroing like they always dreamed/planned it all went up in smoke. I guess it was probably inevitable, to be honest. But there was this whole thing where Hank caught Dawn going out as Dove behind his back after they’d decided to stop and they were having a big important fight about it--and then it’s all rendered moot when Dr. Light destroys their whole life and they have to go to Cali and meet up with Dick. It just kind of seems like too easy of a way for the writers to resolve the situation. I hope this isn’t the end of Hank and Dawn’s argument because it was a really big deal. Hank was giving Dawn a break-up ultimatum if it’s never brought up again I’m going to be annoyed.

Rose has potential. I felt like the actress’s acting was a little stiff but that might have just been the choppiness of the scenes she was in, the sections were too small to get a real feel for her. I like her looks, she’s awesome in the action scenes and she has her powers/healing factor and all her comic abilities which is great. I feel like her writing is good though, and I’m interested to see is she’s actually on her own like she seems or if she’s a mole for her dad (I kind of feel like she’s a mole...). I hope we see JayRose though. I think him being interested in her is just a given, he called her a badass from seeing her fight. Whether she will have any interest in him back is more of a question, but I’m hopeful.

I wanted more Deathstroke. Not gonna lie, I wanted more Deathstroke. We saw a scene at the end where Jason found the connection between Rose and Slade, but that’s it. I have a feeling he’ll be in the next episode though.

Seriously, Ian Glenn is an awesome Batman. We got another great conversation between Bruce and Dick and I loved it so much, you guys. Give Ian Glenn a chance, people. I’m telling you the writing for Bruce is on point and the acting is great. He feels a lot like the DCAU-version to me, the one voiced by Kevin Conroy. I actually really like his voice in particular because it’s sort of deep like Conroy’s is, and he manages to put a lot of buried emotion into more or less flatly spoken words. The writing and the acting absolutely has that Bruce-thing where gives you answers in the most concise but cryptic way possible, acts all dramatic and he’ll seem unhelpful and kind of like a jerk and then he’ll say something profound and meaningful to let Dick know he actually does care about him a lot and it’s like...yeah, that’s the Bruce I’ve wanted, guys. he’s an asshole without really meaning to be but his intentions are good. It’s just so nice to have Titans!Bruce when comics!Bruce is such a nightmare right now...I really hope people who don’t like or doubt him will give Ian Glenn’s Bruce another chance, because I love him so much already. Yeah, his looks aren’t quite right but I’m getting used to it. The core of Bruce is there and that’s what’s really important.

And those were my main thoughts watching this episode. I loved it and it left me wanting more. It had some issues but nothing deal-breaking.

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dylanobrienisbatman · 4 years

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The 100 Aesthetic/Preferences Tag

Tagged by: @blodreina-noumou my babe <3 This was super fun! Thanks!

This is a tag game about AESTHETICS, not content, plot, characterization, etc. Just keep that in mind.

Rank the seasons from favorite to least favorite: 2>3>4>1>5 6

2 - we got grounder aesthetics, we got ark aesthetics, we got moutain men aesthetics, and it was all melded together so well, the world felt cohesive and awesome! Plus the murphy through the desert situation? peak t100.

3- C’s terrible look in the beginning aside, this season had some of the best outfits, the coolest sets (polis storyline? lame. polis as a set? awesome). Also, you cant deny, lexa knew what was up when it came to aesthetics.

4 -the slow descent from the lush green to the yellowing radiation soaked death trap was so well done, plus i loved the aesthetics of the lab and the island.

1 - Murphy’s spiked jacket, bellamy’s pilot look (i will fight you all he looked great in the pilot), raven just... in general, the ark + the grounder, all the grounder looks, ANYA, just over all this season had a lot of great looks and aesthetic moments, but it didn’t feel as cohesive as the later seasons

5 - honestly it had a lot of great Moments™ but the over all aesthetic was very dull. besides eden we spent the season in a grey bunker or a tan desert, or in a metal ship, very little warmth or colour, it was lacking that sort of ‘untamed forest of the irradiated world’ vibe that i loved in s1-s4

6 - i didnt watch, but clarke’s dresses looked tacky and cheap, i hated the overly made up hairstyles + makeup that emori, echo, and raven had (and also kind of octavia?), the anamoly looked relaly cool from what i saw but in general its like they decided that ‘civilisation’ meant they had to make everyone feel ooc and it was weird.

Rank Clarke’s hair each season from best to worst: 1>2>4>3>6>5

1 - soft waves, half up (function + fashion) she seemed young and innocent. A+

2 - a continuation of that soft look from s1, but a little more wild. it wasn’t up anymore, she let it loose, which felt symobolic to her character arc. very nice.

4 - again, i liked her hair soft, long, and just natural. she looked like a young girl with too much weight on her shoulders.

3 - the dreads were... ugly and bad. but later in the season, her long hair done up slightly in like braids and stuff, very nice.

6 - I hate the bob, but in s6 it felt a little less.. choppy and weird?

5 - i legitimtely hated her hair all season.

Rank Bellamy’s hair/beard each season from best to worst: 2 > 1 > 5 > 3 > 4 > 6

i loved the beard, but i also loved the clean shaven s1 look a whole lot. in s2 and s3 he looked older and more mature, and a little wild, which was awesome. i think he looked his best in s3 but this is about hair/beard specifically.

The real debate: Bellamy in the blue shirt or the tan?

BLUE.

Clarke’s blue dress or pink dress?

I thought they both looked cheap and bad, but the blue was less bad.

Favorite Raven season: Raven has always looked awesome, but i really enjoyed her s3 situation.

Raven’s ark vest or red bomber jacket?

BOMBER. JACKET.

Raven’s ponytail or her s6 look?

- Ponytail, hands down. that beachy, loosely curled and shaken out shiny situation looked so overdone for what this show is, it was cringy.

Favorite Octavia season: S4 she had a lot of excellent looks.

Octavia’s hair in s2 (the braids) or s4 (the ponytail)?

- I loved the ponytail!

Blodreina or Skairipa?

Skairipa for sure

Favorite Murphy season: s2 in the desert was excellent, s1 murphy with that spiked jacket and general greasy boy look was awesome, but s5 murphy, cleaned up and with his hair cut? perfection.

Murphy with long hair or short hair?

Short hair absolutely!

Favorite Monty season: I liked his short hair in s5, he finally got a chance to look grown up.

Favorite overall episode: I loved the episode in s5 where Murphy, Raven, Emori, and Echo went on their little mission. the outfits were awesome, the snowy scenery was dope, the lighting was so good, all in all loved that. Also the ep in s1 where Raven blew up the bridge, when they were all sick? the whole aesthetic of the forest was amazing, and i love a well done plague/illness which they crushed, especially the way we got to see how Raven was seeing things,the world sort of spinning and blurry, etc. plus that bridge was always a dope setting, so old and dilapidated, covered in overgrown plant life? i always loved the signs that mother nature had totally overtaken mankind’s creations.

Favorite scene of all time: Echo saving them in s4. The whole look she had on (the CAPE?!?! COME ON!), the bloody horse, the snow, the yellow colour, the fighting, the splattering of blood across the white ground... excellence.

Biggest wish for s7: ... it needs to look less like what a child imagines a fairy tale castle would look like. stop with the overdone makeup, the dresses for no real reason (or if youre gonna do dresses, make them actually... idk... nice? like you nailed it with Emori, why did clarke look like you bought her dresses at forever 21?).

Tagging: @nightbleeder @teeandsnowflakes @thelittlefanpire @the-most-beautiful-broom @raven-reyes-of-sunshine and anyone else who wants to!!

#the 100 #tag games

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chevanoir · 5 years

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I need to sleep but have a few, headcanons before I do

🍷 : This entire vibe. Unfamiliar with most regular foods. An uglier Tamaki Suoh.

✨ : This is sort of actual canon but Lorenz is EXTREMELY NEAT to the point where messy spaces bother him. As a result, he excels and tidying and hygiene but lacks experience with actual cleaning due to his upbringing. I also hc that this is why his hair preskip is so choppy—he gets it done like once a week like that one news reported because he can’t stand when it’s imperfect.

🤽 : Water polo. And any other pretentious sport for that matter but especially this one. This dude looks like a swimmer and for that reason, he’s probably done synchro too.

📓 : Poetry, obviously. I’m glad this isn’t a modern verse because he would absolutely have a welcome to my twisted mind blog where he posts his poetry. I write him as SUPER secretive about it and probably one of the things he’s most self conscious about. Poetry is truly personal for him beyond his desire to boast, talk about himself, or generally be obnoxious.

🧘 : This dude does yoga. Does it exist? Maybe. But he does it in the obnoxious kind of way where he does it in public at sunrise not to show off but because it’s chill as hell. But it sure looks show offey. I make this caveat because I do think that Lorenz has an important distinction being pretentious (which he is) and being fake (which imo he’s not).Within my hc, he wouldn’t do anything just “for show” but does everything he does out of his sense of duty (stay in shape, be mentally sound, know about the world, monitor claude etc) or because he genuinely enjoys it (drinking tea, pestering claude, writing dramatic poems).

🙅‍♂️ : Literally incapable of lying. This goes against the whole noble duty thing this dude is all about. For better or for worse he will always speak honestly (and usually bluntly) regardless of it if gets him into shit.

#ooc.#headcanons.

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notveryglittery · 6 years

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Flirting with Danger, Ch4

summary: In which three-quarters of our cast are useless gays. words: 2,700 / ships: romantic royality, platonic moxiety warnings: mentions of the events from chapter 1 (armed robbery, character held at gunpoint). notes: thanks for your patience everybody!! this one gave us some trouble but next chapter should come pretty easily! @do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them and i are very excited about it!! hope you enjoy!! @fandersfic-royality @fandersfic-moxiety

read on ao3 | Ch1: the first time | Ch2: *mcelroy voice* hotboy! Ch3: sky soliloquy | Ch4: the interview™ Ch5: you have my heart | Ch6: the second time Ch7: is this allowed??

“Good evening. I’m Logan Roberts and I’m here today with our local superhero, commonly referred to as the Prince, for an interview regarding yesterday’s attempted robbery at a 7-Eleven on the corner of Garden Lane and Vine Row.” Logan turned his attention to Roman. “Thank you for your time.”

Roman winked at the camera before facing Logan. “It’s always an absolute pleasure!”

Used to his dramatics by this point, Logan ignored him and shouldered on. “There were three armed suspects, correct? Two male and one female?” Logan made a note here to edit their mugshots in afterwards.

“Yes. Taken care of in no time at all! It was quite easy, really—”

“Your timing was impressive, I will admit.” He didn’t sound impressed; the twitch of a frown on Roman’s lips was so miniscule, it went largely unnoticed. “It was brought to my attention, however, that a victim was held at gunpoint?”

There was really no helping the way Roman melted. He propped an elbow onto the table and then his chin into his hand. “Yeah,” he said dreamily, staring off into the distance.

Logan leveled a flat stare towards the camera, as if to say “do you see what I’m dealing with here?” He cleared his throat and poked Roman’s arm with his pen. “The less cutting I have do in edits, the better.”

Roman snapped out of it and allowed his gaze to flicker back and forth between Logan and the camera. “Sorry, Logan,” he mumbled, drawing forward a bit of his cape, and twisting it between his hands. He shook off the distraction and slipped right back into interview mode. “Yes, there was. It was bad timing, is all. He’s quite alright, though!”

Logan leaned forward, curiosity shining bright in his brown eyes. “From what I understand, the gun went off. Just how does that add up, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Roman let go of his cape and raised one of his hands from beneath the table. He clicked his fingers and allowed the flame it created to linger there for a moment as he spoke. “Well, we all know how undeniably hot I am—” he paused to wink at the lens and Logan resisted the urge to smack him, “— it’s just a pyrokinetic perk. I can stop the gunpowder from being ignited.” The fire at the end of his finger went out with a flick of his wrist.

Logan put it down in his notes before continuing. “That’s fascinating.” Roman positively basked in the compliment. “You said that the victim is quite alright. How can you be so sure? He didn’t stay behind to talk with the police.”

Again, Roman’s gaze went a little distant, but it would really only be noticed by anyone watching with eyes of a hawk. “His friend arrived on the scene before the officers did and insisted they get home as quickly as possible. Seeing as there were others to give a statement, it didn’t seem like much of a problem.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Logan followed without hesitation. “How would you know how he is faring? No one knows who he is, so it isn’t like you could have sought him… out… afterwards…”

Roman’s eyes went wide. Logan looked like the cat that caught the canary. For a few seconds, it was silent. Roman waited for Logan to ask another question or maybe to redirect the interview into a safer direction. Logan waited for Roman to elaborate. Roman caved.

“Alright, fine! So maybe I found his phone on the floor of the convenience store! It would have been rude to not return it to him! You know how we’re all about our phones in this day and age, and besides, who knows how many pictures he had on there that would have just been lost?!” Roman ranted, hands flailing as he did so. “His address was on the lock screen so I… took it to him. The next day. This morning. And he was fine! And when I say fine, wow do I mean fine.”

Logan coughed into his hand. Roman scrambled to backtrack. “Like, super okay! He wasn’t hurt at all! I only said fine like that because he was so fine! Great!” His voice was pitching higher the harder he tried to fix it. “And his roommate’s okay, too! In case you were wondering or if you think that might be important to… add. Include? Everybody’s great!!”

This was… getting out of hand. Logan sighed. “You’re very lucky we aren’t live right now.”

“I know,” Roman squeaked. He dropped his face into his hands and when he spoke next, it was muffled. Logan could only assume that Roman was assuming he’d edit this. “I’m making such a fool of myself. What if he watches this? I’d die of embarrassment.”

“I had intended to make cuts. You are making it quite difficult, however.” At this rate, the interview would look choppy. Logan considered just starting over but their time was limited. Perhaps he could leave it as it was… It wouldn’t hurt if the hero took a blow to his ego.

“I’m sorry,” Roman muttered, sounding genuinely contrite. “I can do better.”

“I’m sure that you can.” Logan glanced towards the camera, the recording light still strong. “Let’s get back to the interview and I’ll see what I can do in post.”

Roman sat up straighter in his chair and tried to banish all thoughts of Patton from his mind. There were more important things to address. He just had to hope that Logan would be able to do enough cleaning up that it would all look alright in the end.

“Regarding your entrance,” Logan began, glancing down at his notes. “You broke in through the window, despite the door having been readily available for use. The cost of damages ended up being equal to what would have been stolen from the register. There’s also the matter of the destroyed displays; there were three of them, two of which were your doing.”

Roman looked downright offended. “I am a superhero, Logan! Dramatic entrances are just part of the job description!” He huffed and brushed a strand of hair out of his face. It was starting to get a little unruly with all of his gesturing. “I could fix the displays in no time, if necessary! I can pay for the window, too! I haven’t had a chance yet to speak with the owners. I gave the police their statement before there was a minor misdemeanor I had to attend to.”

“Oh?” Logan asked and Roman internally cursed. He had to go and run his mouth, didn’t he? Logan could sense a story from miles away and here Roman was, handing it to him on a silver platter. “What happened there?”

“Nothing important!” Honestly, it really wasn’t. A text had come from Roman’s neighbor, saying they’d lost their cat and Roman wasn’t about to let Talyn worry a single minute more than they needed to. He turned to face the camera. “If the proprietors of the 7-Eleven on Garden Lane and Vine Row would please get in contact with me, so that we can work this out, that would be delightful.” See, Roman could be responsible!

“Alright…” Logan agreed hesitantly, clearly itching still to know just what Roman had to leave in such a hurry for. Perhaps he’d get the answer once they were finished.

Patton, precariously balancing a bowl of popcorn and two glasses of soda, came rushing into the living room from the kitchen, looking very much like an excited puppy. After the Prince had returned his cell phone, he’d transferred all of his photos over onto his laptop, and was pleased as punch knowing now that he’d never lose those memories. On top of that, he and Virgil had made snickerdoodles, and then Patton had gone through their apartment complex, offering said cookies to their neighbors, because it was such a fun word to say, and they had all been really happy about it, which made Patton really happy about it, and gosh!! He was just having such a good day!!

Now, to make things even better, one of the city’s most well renowned reporters had interviewed the Prince regarding yesterday’s (almost) robbery. That meant Patton was going to get to see his favorite superhero on screen and he could gush to Virgil all over again about how amazing and fearless he had been.

“Did it start yet?!” He asked eagerly but before he could get an answer, his foot caught the edge of the coffee table. It should have been an absolute disaster; they should have missed the interview in favor of scrubbing soda out of the carpet. However, Patton felt the familiar gentle weight of shadows curling up around his legs, and pushing against his stomach, keeping him upright just long enough for Virgil to spring off of the sofa. He caught Patton by the shoulders and while the drinks did slosh a bit over the edges of the cups, it mostly did so onto their nightwear, and not the floor itself.

“Are you okay?” Virgil asked, taking the bowl of popcorn from Patton, and setting it down on the arm of the couch. The darkness faded from his eyes, lightening back to hazel, as the shadows slipped away to their corners. Patton, as he always did any time Virgil used his powers to keep him safe, smiled after them as they went.

“I’m okay!” He said, putting the cups down on the table. “I’m gonna go get some paper—”

“Nope,” Virgil interrupted. “You sit down, I’ll go get the paper towels.”

Before Patton could protest, Virgil was carefully pushing him down on the couch, and leaving for the kitchen. He sat still for about five seconds before getting cozy and crossing his legs; he grabbed the popcorn and held it in his lap. Commercials were playing on the television screen but the audio was muted for the time being. When Virgil returned, he was carrying not only a handful of paper towels, but the bottle of root beer itself.

“For when you inevitably spill more,” he teased, when Patton gave him a questioning look.

A few minutes later, they were situated comfortably on the sofa; Virgil had his legs stretched out and his feet, clad in fuzzy socks, resting on the table. A blanket was wrapped around their shoulders and Patton was nestled against Virgil, content and warm.

“Alright, I guess I’m ready for you to squeal over Prince Not-So-Charming’s interview, but can you keep it down just enough for us to actually hear it?”

“Virge,” Patton whined, elbowing him in the side. “Let me live!!”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at Patton and turned the volume on. Some generic opening music played before Logan Roberts appeared on screen; he looked proper as ever. Beside him was the Prince and Patton was immediately wiggling on the spot. When he winked at the camera, Patton flapped his arms, hitting Virgil in the face with his sweater paws, before covering his mouth, and squealing into the fabric. When Logan cut the superhero off, Patton frowned; Virgil, however, snickered.

“... a victim was held at gunpoint?”

Patton screamed and threw his handful of popcorn at the television. With his hands now empty, Patton grabbed Virgil’s arm and started shaking him. “Virgil!!!! That’s me!!!! They’re talking about me!!!”

Virgil laughed, taking the bowl out of Patton’s lap. By now, Patton was all but sitting on the edge of the couch. The pair went on to talk about how the superhero’s pyrokinesis worked and Virgil was relieved, finally understanding that Patton’s life hadn’t really been in as much danger as previously thought. Meanwhile, Patton was squeaking over the the Prince, once again, winking at the camera.

Virgil, with the eyes of a hawk, noticed immediately the dreamy look in the hero’s eyes as Logan asked about Patton’s well-being. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

“Oh!! Virgil, that’s you!! You’re the friend!!” Patton exclaimed, patting Virgil on the knee.

He nodded and made a face of agreement, even though Patton’s eyes were still locked on the screen. The reporter wasted no time in calling his interviewee out and Virgil was endlessly amused by it. Silence fell between the two and Virgil could see the realization dawning on Logan’s face. Logan Roberts didn’t smile much during his interviews and so when his lips curved slowly into a very smug sort of grin, Virgil wasn’t quite prepared.

“Oh no,” Virgil muttered, partially because oh no, he was hot and partially because oh no, the cat was out of the bag.

Sure enough, the Prince was suddenly yammering on about how he’d found Patton’s phone and returned it to him this morning. Virgil wished he could reach through the screen and strangle him. Did he not understand the meaning of privacy?!

Patton screamed and fell off of the couch. Without even thinking about it, Virgil twirled his finger in the air, pulling the shadows back to the middle of the room. They didn’t necessarily catch Patton, but they did pool beneath him to soften his fall.

“Thanks,” Patton muttered, distractedly, craning his neck to try and see passed the table so he could still watch the interview.

It cut, slightly awkwardly. Virgil narrowed his eyes. He offered his hand to Patton, who took it, and situated himself back on the couch. They moved on, discussing the broken window and displays. Patton was looking progressively more distressed at the way Logan was grilling the superhero. Virgil thought it was what he deserved but, more than anything, he was beginning to grow nervous over the fact that people knew now that they’d been visited by the Prince. It wasn’t like anyone knew who they were, or like he’d given away important information, but there had been other witnesses at the 7-Eleven, and what if they ended up recognizing Patton, and—

“Kiddo?” Patton was poking him in the face. “Are you okay?”

Virgil startled, pulled so suddenly from his spiraling. “Eehhh.”

“Okay,” Patton said agreeably.

Virgil exhaled harshly. “Just— What if someone finds out who you are from all this and… I mean, there’s probably some people that might- I just don’t want us publicly associated with a superhero, that’s just asking for trouble, y’know?” He avoided Patton’s eyes and glared at the TV.

The interview was wrapping up, but Patton had stopped paying attention to it. He turned to face Virgil fully, frowning. “He didn’t say our names, though! I guess he could’ve been a little more subtle… But still, I don’t think anyone could find us just from that. Although if we did get in trouble, that would mean he’d come save us again…” Patton looked off into space with a little sigh, and it was obvious he was daydreaming.

Virgil blinked at him incredulously. “…Jeez. Okay, we really need to talk about your priorities. Again.”

Patton snapped out of it, glancing back and forth between Virgil and the television. Logan was thanking the Prince for his time. “We still need milk!” he said suddenly, leaping off the couch. He hurried out of the room and Virgil pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned the TV off and gathered what was left of their snacks and drinks, which, given how distracted they’d ended up, was most of what they had started with.

He was in the middle of putting the dishes away when there was a clatter by the front door. He jumped and spun around to find Patton, quietly apologizing to the dining room chair he’d bumped into. Virgil put his hands on his hips and gave Patton his best Mom Look.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

Patton had the gall to look sheepish. “... Milk?”

Virgil’s eyebrows rose slowly. “Without an umbrella?” And by himself when it was getting dark, but one problem at a time.

Patton shot him a pair of nervous finger guns before darting back to his room. Virgil did the same, retrieving his own umbrella from his closet, and met Patton at the front door. Again, Patton looked surprised.

“You thought I was going to let you go alone?” Virgil asked. “You were held at gunpoint last time.”

“You accidentally get caught up in a convenience store robbery one time!” Patton complained teasingly. He looked thrilled, though, that Virgil was joining him.

Virgil checked to make sure they had their wallets, keys, and phones before they headed out. Hopefully nothing too exciting would happen this time.

#sanders sides fan fiction #royality #moxiety #flirting with danger #dani writes #nick's stuff

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